by Megan Derr
Johnnie swore. "You better not have been ordered—"
"To watch you?" Bergrin interrupted. "Yes, I'm afraid. You showed up the first time, I had to report it. You showed up the second time, I was put on bodyguard detail."
Swearing again, Johnnie yanked out his phone and hit the speed dial for his father.
"John?"
"I do not need a goddamn bodyguard," Johnnie snarled.
Ontoniel laughed. "So my Enforcer played his hand. That means you were in danger."
Johnnie snapped, "I was fine."
"You have always been capable of defending yourself, Johnnie, but I am not bending on this matter. The dangers you have encountered are piddling things, and I am not going to leave you to face even worse alone. Whatever you might think, you do not have the experience. You will tolerate the Enforcer, or you will be dragged home and locked in your room. Am I clear?"
Johnnie snapped his phone shut and shoved it in his pocket. He shoved Bergrin—G-man, whatever his name was now—out of the way. "I do not require a babysitter." Not waiting for a reply, he stalked through the bar and up the stairs to his new accommodations. He would sleep, and tomorrow he would begin to pack his things, and he would be damned if he tolerated a babysitter.
Case 004: The Fishwife
Johnnie laid his cards down on the scuffed tabletop and tossed back the last of his vodka, then said, "Fold." Over at the bar, Peyton looked at the empty glass in query. Johnnie nodded yes, as Walsh claimed his winnings and Micah gathered up the cards to shuffle them.
Across the table, Nelson pulled out a small cedar box, extracted a cigar, and passed the box around the table. Johnnie took one, amused. The same cigars were in his father's study; he knew exactly what they cost. He doubted Nelson had paid that price. Once his own was properly lit and sampled, Johnnie asked, "So did you pay full price for these?"
Nelson snorted his own amusement. "I paid for them, but that's about all I'll say."
"I see," Johnnie said, smirking. He thanked Peyton, who had arrived with his drink. "Deal the cards, Micah."
"As you command," Micah said cheerfully, but his hand froze in the process of tossing Johnnie his third card, eyes on the door, where everyone else's had gone.
Johnnie did not bother to turn around—he would know the scent and feel of that magic anywhere. It was like sunflowers and snow, a contradiction in scents that suited their owner perfectly. Footsteps drew closer to him, but Johnnie ignored them. He set his cigar aside, took a sip of vodka, then finally dragged his eyes slowly up to meet the familiar blue eyes quietly watching and waiting. "Rostislav."
"Johnnie."
"What do you want?"
"To talk."
Tossing back the rest of his vodka, Johnnie stood and said, "Upstairs." He led the way to the back of the bar, scowling at Bergrin, slumped his corner like the harmless, lazy bar bum he pretended to be and not the odious, obedient to the Dracula only, aggravating babysitter that he was.
Leading the way up the stairs, he opened the door, motioned Rostislav inside, then closed it again behind them and locked it. "So talk."
Rostislav did not immediately reply, but strolled around the living area, filled now with all the furniture from Johnnie's sitting room. He glanced into the open doors of the scaled-down library and the bedroom, then turned slowly around to face Johnnie again. "So it's true—you left Ontoniel's house. Why in the world are you living here?"
Johnnie was really getting sick of that question, even if he could see Rostislav was merely amused. "What do you care?" he asked coolly. "How is life with Prince Charming?"
"Fine," Rostislav said with a sigh. "It's not the same without you. I swear, Johnnie, I never meant to sacrifice you. It never occurred to me."
"I would say actions speak louder than words," Johnnie replied. "You left me out; you lied to me for years about your relationship with Jesse. You made it painfully clear that you do not trust me. Then you used me like a pawn, knowing full well that at the end of it all, I would be forbidden to see you and that there was no easy way to defy my father. The very least you could have done was tell me the truth. You did not. I feel that is all that needs to be said."
Rostislav looked miserable. "I'm sorry, Johnnie. I never saw it that way—I never imagined you would take it that way. I swear to god, I was trying to protect you. We never told you because it wasn't years. It's only just now been a full year since we figured everything out. We were both worried sick about who might get hurt by knowing about us. Your father is still furious, and everyone else who ever called us friend no longer has anything to do with us. It's lonely, Johnnie, especially for Jesse. He loves his parties, his dinners, and his casino gets by only because the normals continue to pour in. But it's nothing like it used to be, and it's heartbreaking to him.
"It never once occurred to me you would actually walk away. My only mistake was in being so selfish and presumptuous that it never occurred to me you would obey your father's edict. I took it for granted that you would defy him, even knowing how much you look up to him. I just assumed you'd always be there, so I thought I would protect you as much as I could for as long as I could."
Johnnie started to protest the idiotic idea that he looked up to his father, then decided that was an argument for another day and stifled the protest. Rostislav, however, never missed a trick. "You do look up to him, Johnnie. No matter what he said, what you say, what either of you does—you look up to him."
"Shut up," Johnnie said sourly. "I do not, and that is the end of the matter."
Laughing, Rostislav said, "If you say so, Johnnie."
Making a face, Johnnie strode to his brown leather sofa and sat down, hands shoved in the pockets of his slacks, dark brown with cream pinstripes. "How did you find me here, anyway?"
"Elam told me," Rostislav replied. "He comes to check on us every couple of weeks. Jesse has been trying to get him to thaw, but to no avail." He shrugged, and for a moment looked sad and tired.
Johnnie just could not stay angry. Hell, he had probably started thawing the moment he realized Rostislav was in the room. "Throwing Elam into a volcano would not get him to thaw. Ellie cannot stand anything which breaks the status quo because it interferes with his piano time and we cannot have that."
Rostislav laughed, and Johnnie smiled slightly, and that was that. Sitting down next to him, Rostiya asked slyly, "So I noticed you lost that last hand of poker. Losing your touch, Johnnie?"
"It is only natural, given how seldom I play these days," Johnnie said.
"I just bet," Rostislav replied. "Next you'll try to convince me you suck at chess now, too."
Johnnie shrugged. "No doubt I am rusty. I have not played since I defeated you a few months ago."
Rostislav hesitated, then said, "You could come over, sometime. To the Last Star, I mean. We could play chess, and—Jesse would love some non-frozen company. He does genuinely like you, you know. He was almost as upset as I when you walked out." He paused, then added, "Unless it really will cause you too much trouble—"
"Oh, shut up," Johnnie snapped. "I would have come all along if I thought I would be welcome. You are the one who has been holed up in that casino for months, with not so much as a letter."
Rostislav frowned. "If I had thought you would see me, I would have come sooner. I wanted to see you and apologize every goddamn day, Johnnie. You're my best friend. It was knowing you would have my back that helped give me the strength to throw everything away for Jesse—but I never meant or wanted to lose you."
Johnnie nodded, and said gruffly, "We die as often as we lose a friend."
Smiling faintly, Rostislav said, "I actually thought reconciling would be more difficult. I don't think I'll even have to use the peace offerings I brought along."
"Peace offerings?" Johnnie asked, and reached out to pick up his cane from where he had left it on the coffee table.
"That's a handsome piece," Rostislav said. "When did you start affecting a cane?"
Johnnie smirke
d and said, "Since it did this." Springing the release, he drew the sword and held the edge close to Rostislav's throat. "What peace offerings?"
Rostislav laughed. "Impressive. Who was dumb enough to give you a sword stick?"
"Micah, he is the alchemist you probably noted downstairs. It was my payment for saving his wife and scaring off the imp who had turned her into a rosebush."
"Why did the imp do that?"
"For the cane sword," Johnnie said. "It can cross the planes."
Rostislav's eyes snapped open wide. "Shit."
Johnnie frowned. "What?"
"It's a whisper I've been hearing—well, was hearing before I was grounded indefinitely. Someone's been hunting plane-crossing objects and creatures. No one knows who or why, though I'm sure it's the usual motives."
"No doubt," Johnnie said with a grimace. The ability to cross the planes at will was the abnormal equivalent of finding the Holy Grail or discovering Atlantis. Being able to traverse all the planes, to know once and for all how many existed, would grant the abnormal who did it unprecedented knowledge and power.
It was all balderdash, a fool's quest. There were better odds on finding the Ring of Solomon. "I would keep that thing close, or put it somewhere extremely safe," Rostislav said. "If even half the rumors are true, you and your friend downstairs could have been killed."
"I am not so easy to kill as that," Johnnie said dismissively, not adding that anyway, he had a damned babysitter downstairs. "No one would dare infuriate my father by killing me." Ontoniel would consider any assault his family an insult to his authority and power.
Rostislav smiled faintly. "This is true. Ontoniel would be heartbroken, and I bet he would burn his own territory down if that's what it took to find your killer."
The idea of Ontoniel heartbroken over anything, least of all Johnnie, was too ridiculous to take seriously. "So are you going to give me my peace offerings or not?"
Smirking, but wisely saying nothing further on the matter, Rostislav snapped his fingers and caught the box that fell into his hands. Dark-stained wood, smooth and glossy, embossed with a symbol Johnnie knew well. "This is the first one."
Accepting the box, Johnnie opened it and admired the pen and inks inside; they were his favorite, and he did not have any of the colors nestled inside their velvet cubbies. "Thank you."
"The second offering was a mystery to solve, unless of course you've got too many other cases to manage right now, Detective Johnnie Goodnight."
"Please do not say there are rumors circulating," Johnnie said. His father would kill him.
"I have no idea," Rostislav replied, looking briefly sad again. "Your brother told me everything; I'm not honestly certain why. He certainly is the same as ever, otherwise. You're not though." He frowned thoughtfully at Johnnie. "You seem … looser. Perhaps living here is good for you." He grinned, and teased, "Or maybe you're keeping a boyfriend secret from me, now."
"No," Johnnie said, though that was not exactly true—neither was it exactly false. It was complicated, that was what it was, he thought irritably. He did not know what Eros was, beyond the hot, hard shadow that had appeared in his room every night since Johnnie had moved in two weeks ago. Every night, when the bar was closed and only Johnnie was around, Eros came to him. He drove Johnnie mad, touching and teasing, fucking him senseless—then left him exhausted and enthralled, frustrated and lonely, and more determined than ever to solve the mystery of Eros. Yet he continued to drag his feet on the matter. Perhaps the risk of dripping candle wax gave him pause, after all.
"Johnnie?"
"Hmm?" Johnnie asked, shaking off his thoughts of Eros.
"I think you do have a secret boyfriend," Rostislav said, teasing again.
Johnnie frowned.
Rostislav's eyebrows lifted sharply. "Johnnie—"
"I do not know what I have, besides a mystery," Johnnie said tersely. "When I understand the matter better myself, I will discuss it further with others."
"That isn't like you, Johnnie. What about Elam? I thought—"
"I do love Ellie," Johnnie said. "I do not know what is going on, and that is all I intend to say on the matter for now."
Rostislav nodded reluctantly. "Let me know if I can help."
"So what is this mystery you mentioned?"
"An innocuous case of a runaway husband," Rostislav said, and pulled a folded section of newspaper from his jacket. Unfolding it, he tapped on the front page story. "A local paper, from the next city over going east."
Taking the paper, Johnnie read quickly through the story. It was about a woman who claimed that her husband of twenty years left her because she lost the necklace he had given her when they first met. The necklace, she said, had been around her throat since the day they met. It was lost when she was mugged one night on her way home from work. She went on to say that her husband had comforted her, helped her when the police came, but seemed more upset about the necklace than anything else. The next morning, he was gone. The events had happened three weeks prior to the article's printing. The woman was begging her husband to come home, for the mugger to return the necklace even if she had to pay for it—she just wanted her husband back.
There were two pictures printed with the article—one of the couple on their wedding day, and a more recent one showing them at the beach. Johnnie stared thoughtfully for a moment, then said, "Innocuous? Not in the slightest. Her husband is a selkie; that necklace is his skin." He looked up at Rostislav and added, "But you already knew that."
"Only the same way you did—by reading the article and looking at the pictures. I wanted to see if you came to the same conclusion, confirming my suspicions." Johnnie nodded at his words, and glanced at the necklace again—a simple trinket really, except it was made of pure gold and far more than a simple, silly golden fish charm.
Normals had legends aplenty involving selkies; the way they laid their skins out, and how greedy humans snatched them up and forced the selkies into slavery, matrimony, and so on. The reality was that selkies were not that foolish or careless. They could not live far from their skins, and so always turned them into something that could be kept very close, without attracting notice. More often than not, that meant a piece of jewelry.
"She is normal," Johnnie said.
"I believe so, yes. The city has a small abnormal community, but they lived several blocks from it. No doubt he worked there, but my impression is that she has no idea what her husband really is."
"If she did, she would not have agreed to the article," Johnnie said. "That means she definitely did not steal the necklace and ward it so that he could not remove it. The only real question, then, is whether the mugger wanted the selkie, or simply a bit of jewelry and her purse."
"Selkies fetch a handsome price on the black market," Rostiya replied. "They're not as impressive and versatile as imps, but slave labor is slave labor, and it's easier to hide a skin than to spell an imp."
Johnnie nodded and threw the paper on the coffee table. "I am surprised you did not simply solve the matter yourself."
"I'm not supposed to be leaving the Last Star," Rostislav said. "I'll be lucky if I don't catch it for not only leaving, but coming to see the Dracula's little boy."
Johnnie hit him on the leg with his cane. "Shut up. You are definitely out of luck. Did you see the man asleep in the corner downstairs?"
"Yes …"
"He is not asleep. He is the Enforcer dog my father has set upon me."
Rostislav rolled his eyes. "I should have realized you would have one of those skulking about. No way would daddy dear really let you out of his sight."
Johnnie grimaced in agreement. "The men downstairs do not know, other than the bartender, Peyton. They call him G-man. He called himself Bergrin."
"Huh," Rostislav said. "Guess that means I'm in big trouble. I really should have thought of that, but I was more concerned that you would refuse to have anything to do with me."
"Shut up," Johnnie repeated. "Let us go back d
ownstairs." Keeping hold of his cane, he led the way back down to the bar. He paused at Bergrin's table, striking one leg of it with his cane.
Bergrin slowly looked up. "Yes, Prince?"
Ignoring that, Johnnie asked, "So have you already ratted out Rostislav?"
Something like annoyance flickered across Bergrin's face, gone as quickly as it had come. "I'm not your enemy."
"Babysitter," Johnnie replied. "Same thing."
"I have not spoken to your father today, Highness. I had no plans to. No one in this bar is on the list of people not permitted near you."
