“McCormack’s a good guy,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard me. “I mean, he’s a really good guy. He’s got nothing to hide, nothing to answer for, nothing to suggest he’s not the stand-up guy he claims to be.”
He removed his glasses, slid a handkerchief out of his breast pocket, shook it out and rubbed at the lenses, squinting as he did so. His show of being cool and casual was kind of funny, considering his king-geek appearance. “It’s interesting,” he said, “and I wouldn’t have thought it possible. Because see, it’s the ones like McCormack who have the trouble, the ones who appear earnest in public but are sneaking around in private.”
He put slight but obvious emphasis on the word “sneaking.”
“What’s your point?” I asked curtly, shifting my weight from one foot to the other and nearly rolling my ankle in on my stupid pumps.
“Just observing. It’s my job to observe.”
“Then you won’t mind observing my back as I leave.”
“Campaign’s a success, so far,” he said, replacing his glasses on his face and pushing them up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger. “Only thing that could bring him down now is something, or someone, he has no control over.”
He grinned. “Sure wouldn’t want to be the one trying to control you.”
My yellow alert of fear quickly smoldered into bright red anger. Earlier today, I’d faced down a living, breathing, evil threat to everything good and innocent, on his own turf. This little peon was barely a blip on my radar. He certainly didn’t look or act like a campaign contributor, so I was willing to bet he was one of the many journalists that showed up tonight. “Observe”, my ass.
I quickly closed the distance between us and breathed right into his face. I had about two inches on him, a flared-up temper, and a strong urge to slap his stupid grin right off his face. “What’s your name?”
He didn’t blink, but when I cracked two knuckles on my right hand with my thumb, he did swallow. “Greg Mahoney.”
“Mahoney, you’re pissing me off. If you’ve got something of any real importance to say, I suggest you say it now.”
He looked me right in the eye. “Intimidation. I know you’re a boxer, but is that how you do things outside the ring? Knock people’s teeth out and carry them around as souvenirs?”
My eye twitched.
“That’s right,” he said. “That was a tooth you dropped that night.”
A wave built and crashed in my brain, drowning my thought process. My ears clogged with it, and my hearing narrowed down to a little tunnel. I wanted to speak, to ask him what he was talking about, but I couldn’t. We both knew what he was talking about. I glanced toward the dining room, hoping and not hoping that Avery might emerge and interrupt.
“Gemma,” Mahoney said, lowering his voice as two women passed us in a swish of skirts to enter the ladies’ room. “I went to Watergate to have a smoke and do some thinking. I do my best thinking outside in the middle of the night. Scandal happens at night.” His words spilled out faster. “Then I saw you.”
I blinked, not breathing.
“I write the political stuff for fun,” he said. “Dirt’s not hard to come by in this town. Do I want to write bigger, more important, life-changing things? Sure. But when it comes right down to it, I’m a hack. For now. And when a hack like me sees the nice girlfriend of the perfect candidate skulking around in the dead of night where she’s got no friends or family that I can determine, I sense chum in the water.”
My shoulder twitched and realizing I’d regained the power of movement, I backed up a step, but Mahoney reached over and clasped his fingers around my wrist. They were warm, and that surprised me.
“If you’ve got anything else to feed a hungry shark,” he said, “you might want to toss it in. Otherwise, you’d better throw a life preserver to your boy McCormack and tell him to start swimming.” He let go of me and straightened his tie. “I’ll find something to nail him eventually. But there’s a bigger story out there, one I’d rather have, and I have a feeling you know which one I’m referring to. If you want to chat, you’ll know where to find me.”
He headed toward the dining room but stopped and turned back. “Might I say, you look radiant tonight, Gemma.”
As Mahoney left the room I stood there, shaking with anger and fear, the two emotions which, left unchecked, would draw out my wings and send me running for the nearest balcony. I turned my head this way and that way, desperately searching for an alternative exit or a place to hide. I dashed to the restroom but it was crowded with women with rustling dresses, so I rushed past the coatroom and found a small open room on the end. I leaped in and tried to slam the door shut, but the door was in two halves and only the top half slammed. I pushed the bottom half tight and backed up against the rack of hangers in this secondary coatroom.
My Fae Phone was in my tiny, useless beaded bag and I clawed at it, tearing loose black and silver beads with my fingernails. They hit the floor, rolling and scattering, as I grabbed the phone and punched the number I still had on speed dial.
“Yeah.”
“Svein,” I said. My muscles wanted to release with relief, but my brain was still acting as if under attack. “Svein, listen to me. I’m at Under the Maple on Pennsylvania Ave. I’m at a fundraiser with Avery. I need help.”
“Is it Clayton?”
I’d never even thought about Dr. Clayton being out in the real world with the rest of us. I guess I’d figured once I escaped his lair, the only way I’d see him again was if I went back. I never gave much thought to where he lived, what he ate. Who he voted for.
“No,” I said, as much to push my own horrible thought away as to clarify to Svein what I meant. “No. It’s this reporter named something Mahoney. Greg Mahoney. I saw him the night I collected at Watergate. He’s here, he recognized me, he saw me with the tooth …”
Rage and fear twisted up again from my core, and my breath grew shallower. I crawled over to the door and pushed a hand against it so I could feel if anyone tried to enter. “Svein, he knows.”
“What,” Svein asked, “does he know, exactly?”
“He knows something,” I said. “He’s out to ruin Avery. He says if I don’t give him something, he’ll—he’ll…“
“Easy,” Svein said. “Relax.”
See, the thing about me was that whenever I was agitated and my mother or Avery or someone told me to relax, somehow that made the situation worse. So right after Svein advised me to relax, I dropped the phone and reached a hand behind me to unzip my strapless dress, tugging it to the bottom. The material fell away from my breasts just as my wings burst out. I cried out in momentary pain, then sank to the floor and banged my fist on the ground in frustration. My wingtips brushed against the wire hangers, which cling-clanged together like wind chimes.
I snatched up the phone and pressed it to my face. “You have to get here,” I whispered with clenched teeth. “I’m with Avery. I can’t just leave. Well, at the moment I can’t leave this coatroom until I look human, but when I do, I can’t just leave without Avery. I have to get out there and behave like a normal person.” My last few words were a hiss. “You’ve got to get here so you can follow him. Follow him home and see where he lives, or follow him back to whatever paper or TV station he works for. He’s a threat.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a threat,” Svein said. “He saw you with a tooth. Could have been yours. Could have been a shiny pebble.”
“He knew there was a bigger story. He said I knew what he was talking about.”
“Journalist horseshit. I’ll look him up and we’ll keep an eye on him, but it’s not worth tailing him tonight.”
“You didn’t talk to him,” I said. “I did. He knows something. He’s danger.”
“To McCormack, maybe,” Svein said. “Not to us.”
I pressed the material against my front, and the satin slipped against my sweaty skin. “If I hadn’t been on assignment that night,” I said slowly, “he wouldn’t
have seen me. And I was on assignment that night because of you. Maybe Mahoney’s not a threat to the fae at large. Maybe he’s only a threat to Avery’s career, and to my love life. But I’m fae. Doesn’t that merit a little friendly concern? I need help.” I drew in a long, shuddering breath. “And I need to get out of this freaking coatroom and back to where I’m supposed to be.”
“Open the door.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now.”
“Bad idea. I’m winged and indecent. I need to calm down and get normal again. Are you coming or not?”
“I’m there.”
“What?”
We lost our connection, and I dropped the phone into my lap and swore. But then, again, I heard, “Gemma, open the door.”
His voice was soft and floated through the crack between the door and the wall. “Svein?”
“Open.”
I turned the knob, pulled the door open a centimeter and peered out into Svein’s black eyes.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “Did you fly here?”
He pushed both halves of the door open enough to squeeze through and closed it behind him, crouching beside me. I pressed my open dress tighter against my front. “I didn’t fly here,” he said. “I was already here.”
He was dressed in a charcoal suit and a crisp white shirt and dark crimson tie. He looked good. I mean, he really looked good. “What do you mean you were already here?”
“It may surprise you,” he said with a half-smile, “but I happen to be registered to vote, and I’ve been known to donate to a candidate if I deem him or her worthy of that vote.”
Sifting through my jumbled emotions for a proper response, all I came up with was a wry laugh. “I’m glad you think Avery’s worthy.”
“Only of my vote,” he said. He reached out and trailed a finger down my cheek, tracing my jawline to my bottom lip. I felt a rush of blood to my face, and a swirling moist heat inside my panties before I jerked away.
We stared at each other across the charged space until my wings retracted and folded into my back. My skin sealed over and I hurriedly zippered myself into my dress.
“You loved those wings,” Svein said.
“What?” I asked, smoothing my hair back.
“When you first got them. You were ecstatic. You loved them.”
I reached around my waist to touch the middle of my spine. “They’re beautiful,” I said. “They’re like something out of a storybook. But I can’t use them. I can’t fly.”
“You mean you won’t fly.”
“Why should I? When do you fly? This city has an effective public transportation system, and you have two good feet.”
“You need to be able to master every ability, Gemma. They’re given to you for a reason. If you have to fight, you’ll need everything you’ve got.”
“No,” I said, and held up my hand when he opened his mouth again. “No. I want to stay myself. At least with the walking-through-walls thing, and sniffing essence, and glamour, I can still be me. The wings,” I gestured behind me, “make me feel like a different creature. I know I’m not fully human anymore but I have to keep what I can. I don’t want to be a freak, a flying Mothra freak. I’ve got plenty of frequent flier miles, should I need them.”
He wanted to smile. I thought so, anyway. “Meantime,” I added, “I am trying to master my wings as far as keeping them inside my body. As you can see, I still have some work to do. So just lay off the flying thing. Please.”
What I didn’t tell him was that I remembered my journey back in time, my occupation of the night watchman’s body, and how his wings had come out, and how they hadn’t saved him in time. They were useless to him then, and I had no use for them now.
Svein caught my gaze again, and I had a harder time pulling away this time. “I have to get back,” I said, fumbling to stand. He put out his hand to help me but I didn’t take it, propping my hand instead against the wall to propel myself to my feet, one of which was asleep and tingling. “Avery’s going to think I took off.”
“He’s busy talking up the crowd,” Svein assured me. “You’re all right.”
“No, I’m not,” I said, and it was the truth. Between Mahoney and Svein, I was incapable of rational thought.
“Go out there and do your thing,” he said. “I’ll track this guy Mahoney.”
“But you don’t know who he is. I’ll point him out for you, and …”
“No, you have a job to do. I’ll take care of it.”
My shoulders relaxed, dropping down and away from my ears. “He’s wearing glasses,” I said, “and a really stupid-looking tie.” I rubbed my face with both hands, and took a deep breath. “Thank you.”
“Don’t,” he said. “Just walk out this door like it made sense for you to be in here.”
I pushed on the door and both halves swung open. I stepped into the carpeted hallway with faked dignity and poise, but no one was there to notice. I felt Svein’s hand on my elbow, and he fell into step beside me.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“Escorting you back to the main room.”
“Bad idea.”
“I think not.”
Avery picked that moment to emerge from the dining room back to the hallway, and he smiled at me. I smiled back. “Go away,” I said through my clenched teeth, but Svein didn’t, and I approached the love of my life on the arm of a man I wasn’t even sure I liked but had made out with in broad daylight against a brick building.
No idea how to start this conversation.
But apparently, Svein did. He released my elbow and put out his hand. “Avery McCormack,” he said. “You have my vote.”
“That was easy,” Avery said, somewhat taken aback, but he recovered quickly, shaking Svein’s hand.
I looked at their clasped hands and realized both my worlds had collided.
“I’m sorry, have we met?” Avery asked.
“Svein Nilsen.” That was surprising. I’d thought for a moment he was going to go with an alias. “You and I haven’t met,” Svein continued smoothly, “but I met Gemma at Smiley’s Gym recently. I’m thinking of joining and went there to have a look around, and I watched Gemma spar before talking to her for a while about the gym. I just ran into her by the restrooms and realized it was her. She’s hard to forget.”
“She is,” Avery said, pulling me close to his side. I liked how he did it. Avery wasn’t a jealous thug. In fact, he loved it anytime we were out together and a random man gave me the once-over.
Of course, now I felt like a worm.
“So you’re a boxer?” Avery asked.
“Martial arts, at the moment,” Svein said, and the two of them chatted as I gritted my teeth and willed Svein away. To be sure, he’d done quite a good job covering for me—fae couldn’t be violent, but apparently they were fine with a few fibs here and there—but I was having a hard time standing there listening to their small talk.
Avery and Svein weren’t supposed to be in the same place, ever. They needed to be in separate places. Even if I was growing more and more unsure every day about which man belonged in which place.
Avery asked Svein about his business and Svein gave him some story about financing and investigations or something, and I kept smiling and nodding, mentally vowing to kill Svein if this conversation ended with a golf date.
“It’s been a pleasure to meet you, but I’m going to let you get back to winning people over,” Svein said. Speaking of winning people over. “I apologize for monopolizing Gemma earlier.”
“I’m sure you’ll be seeing her soon,” Avery said. “Though for your sake, I hope it’s not on the unfortunate end of her right hook.”
I smiled.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Svein said. “I see someone I need to catch up with.” He cut me a look, and I knew which someone he was referring to.
“Thank you,” I said. “For, uh, for your support.”
Svein nodded at both of us and I watched him disap
pear into the dining room crowd. When he was out of sight, I kept my eyes on the spot.
He’d help me. Despite his balking, I knew he would.
“I was getting worried about you,” Avery said, breaking into my reverie. “I thought you fell in.”
“There was a line in the ladies’ room,” I said, “and then I ran into him.”
“Nice guy,” Avery commented. “And I’m secure enough in my manhood to say that he’s a really good-looking guy.”
I wondered how glamour worked between heterosexual members of the same gender. Probably just worked to charm them. “Maybe,” I said. “But after a few days at Smiley’s, he’ll have the same facial imperfections as the rest of us.”
“You are perfect,” he said.
“In here,” I said, “where the light’s dim, I look pretty good. In daylight, anyone can tell my nose has been broken. But the other guy was worse off that day.”
“I never doubted it.”
He put his arms around me and I leaned into him for a moment. I rested my cheek on his navy blue tie and breathed him in. I held him, and thought about all the things I loved about him, then realized there were many things I hadn’t seen in a while. “Are you tired of this yet?” I asked. “You’ve been working this thing day and night. You haven’t taken your bike out in weeks. You haven’t played your guitar, you haven’t seen much of your real friends, and you used to spend so much time with your camera. Maybe that’s what you should do. The cherry blossoms are almost gone. Take some pictures before they go.”
“The cherry blossoms come out every year,” Avery said into my hair. “An election is every two.”
“I understand it’s your priority, but it shouldn’t be all you do. Avery McCormack is more than that.”
“Just hang on,” he said. “Just hang on, babe. It will be over in a few months, and I’ll win or lose, and I’ll get back to being me.”
“I’m not saying it for me,” I said. “I’m saying it for you. I love you, and I don’t want you to get lost.” I don’t want to get lost, I thought. When it was Gemma and Avery, it was fantastic. Now that it was Avery the political candidate and Gemma the top-secret tooth faerie—fae—it was confusing and scary. We were working this relationship part time.
Tooth and Nail Page 17
