by Holley Trent
Tamatsu hoped he was right.
Nodding, he made his way silently down the stairs. He lingered in the kitchen long enough to make a sandwich of odds and ends. Lola kept a container in the refrigerator for exactly that purpose, and he didn’t feel like such a parasite when he limited his scavenging to it. He carried his food out the front door.
By the time he was through the gate, he’d gained a tail.
He sighed, but of course, the expulsion of air had no sound.
“You know, I was still in Ireland when Noelle was in her exploration phase,” Jenny said. She was in pajamas and pink sneakers that were probably in a little girl size. He’d met very few elf women who were over five feet tall, but they looked grown enough. They had curves in all the places they should have. “So I wasn’t around when whatever happened to you two happened.”
Tamatsu took a big bite of sandwich and rounded the corner.
“I imagine you can’t tell me your side of things, huh?”
He gave her a look.
She put up her hands. “Okay. Okay. I understand. I guess I didn’t think that one through before I asked. But listen, I know how she is … at least, as much as anyone can know her.” Jenny cringed. “She misreads situations sometimes because she can’t always remember things.”
Tamatsu bit down on a juicy chunk of chicken and closed his eyes as the savory flavors of Mexican spices burst over his tongue. Lola didn’t cook often. She far preferred to be the guest of other cooks, but when she did cook, she demonstrated a deftness of seasoning few others possessed.
“She holds onto grudges all the time, but—”
Before she could finish her sentence, a flaming creature with the head of a fish and little else for a body darted down from the eaves of a house on the corner.
Tamatsu drew his katana and smote the creature without losing the rhythm of his chewing.
Fucking things.
The nameless demons were no smarter than lemmings. They didn’t think—they just attacked, and because of a curse he’d inherited, he was their favorite target.
Frozen in place like a deer trapped by headlights, Jenny stared at him.
He shrugged, and started moving again as he sheathed his katana. In his line of work, the occasional demonic attack was expected the same way mosquitoes were expected during a picnic in a swamp. Sometimes, he became a magnet of sorts to certain kinds of disturbances. He’d picked up that particular one during an assassination attempt gone wrong. He’d vanquished his target, sure, but he’d picked up the shogun’s curse upon doing so. He hadn’t been sufficiently motivated to nip the problem in the bud. He’d need to go between realms, and without the use of his voice to open portals, he’d have to expend an exorbitant amount of energy. His bloodlust would be sated, but he’d be exhausted for days upon return. He never wanted to be bottomed out in his energy because he didn’t have the gift of premonition and couldn’t guess when he’d need to quickly intervene on some other disaster.
Jenny caught up to him once more. “Uh. Does that … You know. Happen often?”
He nodded.
“Okay, then.” Jenny scratched her head. “Jeez. Uh. I can’t even remember what I was going to say.” She snapped her fingers. “Oh! So, uh … about you and Noelle.”
Tamatsu gave another silent sigh and pushed the end of his sandwich into his mouth. He slipped his hands into his leather gloves and gestured across the street to the park he often sat in while the locals slept. He tried not to be seen during the day, not because he was so certain that people could figure out what he was, but because the things that liked to attack him didn’t care if there were human witnesses around. He settled onto a stone bench and indicated the other end.
“I want to know,” Jenny said, sitting daintily on the edge, “if you hurt her on purpose.”
Should have expected that.
Tamatsu rolled his eyes.
“Is that yes or no?” She tapped her chin contemplatively. “You know, I don’t think I’ve actually met anyone Noelle’s yanked a voice from who she didn’t give it back to.”
Lucky me.
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
“So, you didn’t hurt her on purpose?”
He scratched his itchy palm. He wasn’t answering that shit. Jenny may have been a nice enough person, but he couldn’t dignify the query with a response. He was as decent as a creature like him could be, and Noelle damn well knew that.
“She’s not so bad, you know?”
Tamatsu opened his eyes and pushed up an eyebrow.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong. She doesn’t need me defending her, but I can’t help myself. She’s taken care of me for ages. If it weren’t for her, I’d probably be in a gutter somewhere.”
Odd.
He’d never heard of an elf who’d confess such weakness. Jenny must have read his curiosity on his face because she let out a breath and put her hands up.
“Look, I’m not very ambitious. I’m the sort of elf who likes to be told what she needs to do, and I go off and do it. That makes me happy—having a routine and knowing what all my tasks are going to be. Noelle keeps me straight and she doesn’t let anyone bother me.”
Satan played favorites, too. Tamatsu wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be appeased.
“She’s a good friend,” Jenny said. “Do you care?”
Yes? No?
He didn’t know if it mattered. She hadn’t been good to him and he’d been more than a friend. He’d doted on the wretch, and angels didn’t generally do “twee.”
“I know you’re probably mad at her. Maybe I would be, too. I also know that she’s all torn up over whatever happened between the two of you, and nowadays, she doesn’t really let anything trigger her like that. She gets angry sometimes, of course, because that’s how she is, but I’ve never seen her so …” She pulled in another long breath and made a noncommittal hand gesture. “Discombobulated? I mean, I don’t know why I’m trying to be her champion. She can take care of herself. I just don’t like thinking that there’s anyone upset with her, because I know that deep down, she’s a good person.”
Tamatsu stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles.
If he’d had a voice, he might have told Jenny that good or bad didn’t matter to him. Even if Noelle had been “mostly evil” at the time of their encounters, he probably still would have slept with her. Angels weren’t always as discriminating as people made out, and especially Fallen ones. They had needs and did what they had to for satiation.
“I feel silly yammering away when you don’t talk back,” Jenny whispered to the ground. There was a note of humiliation in her voice that made Tamatsu sit up a bit straighter and turn to her. He didn’t like hurting people.
He gave her arm a gentle nudge.
Go on, elf.
“How … do you usually respond? Pen and paper? Text message?”
He shook his head.
“You don’t respond.”
He nodded.
“How’s that supposed to work? People have to guess?”
He canted his head. She was smart. She’d get it.
She grimaced. “Oh. That’s I’m doing right now, idnit? I could see where that would work, especially if you’ve got Tarik around all the time doing translation for you.”
Tarik was his mouthpiece. Tarik didn’t find the title amusing, but Tamatsu certainly did. Tarik hadn’t volunteered for the chore. Tamatsu stayed in and around Maria because the place was quiet, and Tarik was always nearby because of Lola. The two of them put off enough power that other high-energy beings chose to stay away from the area. Tarik had a tendre for Lola. He appreciated her having fewer frustrations in her stomping grounds, even if she wouldn’t let him do anything proactive about them.
“So how is she?” Jenny asked.
Not understanding the subject of her query, Tamatsu raised a brow.
“Cinnia.”
Ah.
“You really found he
r?”
He hated to take credit because the discovery was accidental. A little over a year ago, he and Tarik had been called on by Gulielmus’s son to help his friends in Maria close a hellmouth. There were few angels with the ability to do so, Gulielmus being one of them. Unfortunately, Gulielmus had been in a coma at the time. They’d gone to see what they could do to help, and there he was—being watched over by Clarissa.
The elf queen was slumming it on a little farm in eastern North Carolina.
He couldn’t say all that yet, so he just nodded. Jenny could get the story elsewhere.
“She’s okay? I mean …” Jenny shuddered and shook out her hands. “Haven’t seen her in so bloody long, you know? I’m sure all of us who worked closely with her worried about her. She didn’t want any of us near. She told us not to clump too much so we didn’t get found. I need to know that she’s okay so I won’t be nervous when we get there.”
He flicked his hand as if he were plucking away some annoying crumb.
“Oh, good.” Her exhalation came out in a singsong moan. “I feel much better. I wonder if she’ll even recognize me. I mean, there were so many more of us than her. She was so patient when we swarmed her for attention all the time. Not everyone who’d been in her position before was. She hated that sodding job.” Jenny turned her wrist over and peered down at her watch. “I best go get dressed. Can’t very well go see the former queen of elves wearing my pajamas.”
She patted his shoulder, slid off the seat, and shuffled back toward the house.
He followed, and something she’d said stood out in his mind.
Noelle had insinuated a similar thing about Cinnia—Clarissa, as he knew her—long ago. Unfortunately, at the time, Tamatsu had been too addled to give the matter much thought. She’d said that while Clarissa had been an extraordinary match to the king, she hadn’t wanted the job. Tamatsu wasn’t entirely sure she’d even wanted the king. Knowing what he did about the woman, she didn’t seem to be the sort who’d appreciate the notoriety.
He fondled the hilt of the dagger he kept at his waist and followed the chatty elf.
He hoped that fulfilling his end of the bargain with Noelle wouldn’t create problems for Clarissa. There were often unpredictable consequences to bargains. Most of the time, they were minor, but every now and then, a whisper of trouble could cause a tornado of confusion.
Moving ahead of Jenny, he opened the gate for her and let out a breath.
He’d had to take the risk. He was tired of being a ghost. He was done with not being able to intercede in critical matters in the ways that angels could and should. There was power in his voice—so much power that a whisper could have killed if that was what he wanted. For eight hundred years, he’d been at half capacity. Without his voice, he’d never be whole again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Oh, quit fussing.” Noelle grabbed Jenny’s hands away from her ears and planted them at her sides. “Everything’s fine.”
“Sorry,” Jenny whispered, and cringed. “I’m nervous. Can you blame me?”
Being too nervous to eat, they’d refused breakfast and were standing in front of Lola’s cold hearth waiting for the angelic duo to get their acts together. Apparently, the quiet one needed a meal and his mouthpiece needed to check on some local disturbance before they left.
“All things considered, I think we look pretty good.” Noelle knocked a few strands of her shedding hair off her purple peplum skirt. “I slept awfully.”
“Me, too.”
“Oh? Were you having violent dreams about bludgeoning celestial beings?”
“For goodness’ sake, no. You’re having those again?”
“I can’t get away from them completely unless I get rid of Tamatsu, one way or another. They’re a side effect of the tethering.”
“Have you considered taking something for deeper sleep?”
Noelle sighed and shifted her purse’s strap to her other shoulder. “Why bother? Winter is coming and I’ll be sleeping deeply enough on those nights.”
“Are you going to put me up again this year?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t leave you on your own when not even an explosion could rouse you.”
Noelle had a deal with the witch who lived in the townhouse beside hers. During winter, if there were any threats to the area or any other reason Noelle needed to be up at night, her neighbor had a key to let herself in with. She hadn’t had to use it yet, but she knew the deal. A semi-hibernating elf could very well be a quickly dead elf should the right sort of disaster strike.
As Tarik strode into the room, Jenny fidgeted with the buttons on her violet cardigan. “I’ll have to get someone to check on Mum. I don’t think she made arrangements last year. She’s far too cavalier about that.”
“Most elves are, unfortunately, but I can’t worry about everyone if they don’t want to help themselves.”
“We’ll leave shortly,” Tarik said, looking from Jenny to Noelle.
“Can you at least tell me where she is?” Noelle asked. “I’m dead curious and wondering if she’s somewhere I’ve already looked.”
“North Carolina.”
She crinkled her nose. “I beg your pardon?”
“I believe she’s been in the area, or has at least continued to return there, for several hundred years under one identity or other.”
“Blimey, you didn’t look there,” Jenny said to her.
Noelle hadn’t. She’d looked nearly everywhere but there. “Huh. It’s almost as if the place didn’t exist on maps for me.”
“Some magic of Cinnia’s, you think?”
Noelle growled, thinking that was exactly what had blocked her. The obviousness of the ploy infuriated her, and she’d known Cinnia could muddle minds in that way. At no point had Noelle stopped and considered getting a map and making a list of all the regions she hadn’t felt compelled to journey to. “I swear, that crafty woman …” She reached up and gave Tarik’s shoulder a poke. “Never play chess with Cinnia. You’ll never win.”
“I believe at this juncture, she prefers card games,” he said loftily, or as loftily as anyone with such a low octave voice could manage. Often when he talked, her eardrums itched from the rumbling frequency of the vibration.
“Wait. You know her more than just in passing?”
He averted his gaze in the way of people who were very poor at obfuscating. Before Noelle could press him on the matter, Lola stepped into the room carrying a bottle of wine and, then that other angel crowded the doorway behind her.
Noelle quickly turned away. If she was going to look at him, she’d do so only because he’d forced her to, and she didn’t think he was egocentric enough to waste energy compelling her again.
She’d been wrong about him before, though.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and cringed.
Lola handed the bottle to Jenny. “Will you give that to Clarissa, please?”
“Clarissa, ma’am?”
“Cinnia,” Tarik gently corrected.
“Clarissa,” Noelle whispered, furrowing her brow. Of course the queen would have had a new name, too. Noelle didn’t like it. It somehow didn’t fit her, but she’d have to get used to it, just like she got used to Jenny’s new names, whenever she took them.
“Cinnia, then,” Lola continued. “As I was saying, my brother fancies himself a vintner now. He has a vineyard he’s quite proud of. I’m curious to hear what she thinks.”
“Oh, yes, of course I will.”
Lola gave the slightest bow. “Apologies for not seeing you off. I spend time with Cruz before she gets on the bus.”
“No need to apologize,” Noelle said. “Thanks for letting us use your house as a launch pad.”
“You are very welcome.”
No one moved for the longest time, or at least, the awkward stillness seemed that way to Noelle. Seconds had probably elapsed, but she was so eager that a moment felt like an eternity.
“Have you been teleported before?” T
arik asked.
“Not for a long time.” Noelle didn’t look at the perpetrator who’d managed the feat with her. They’d done so much traveling together. In the blink of an eye, he’d taken her to places that took boats months to travel to or years to walk across. She’d walked so much in the years of the elf diaspora that her soles had all but lost sensation.
“Never,” Jenny said.
“You may find the mode somewhat disorienting.” Tarik reached for her arm, but Tamatsu grabbed his wrist and shook his head brusquely.
“Of course. My apologies.” Tarik moved to Noelle’s side and took her arm instead.
The move seemed inordinately petty, and apparently that was the game they were playing.
Tarik yanked her into the slipstream that was a time portal or whatever angels called the place between here and there, and her body ceased to function for that few seconds. Had it not been for his arm bracing her, she would have fallen flat on her face upon landing.
Birds chirped, the smell of rich, wet soil hit her nose, and the sun warmed her skin. The air was moist and heavy.
Southern air.
She tried to uncross her eyes, but seemed to be having a hard time shaking the cobwebs out of her head. Tamatsu’s teleporting had always been somewhat more elegant.
A door slammed from somewhere nearby, and slightly above Noelle’s shoulder level.
“Dear lord,” came a silky-smooth, feminine voice that registered slowly as familiar, even if the language it spoke was different. Noelle wanted so badly to see her. She’d waited so long to see her, and all that stood between her and her queen was an angel who teleported like a sadist. Tarik’s body blocked her from view in the same way Tamatsu blocked Jenny.
Hurry. Please.
“What are y’all doing here this time of morning? Bill’s out in the fields on the tractor harvesting corn if you’ve got some kind of angel issue.”
“We didn’t come to see Gulielmus,” Tarik said, “though I’m gratified to learn you’re keeping him engaged.”
“I actually think he’s developing OCD. Is that normal for angels? Because he’s starting to drive me up a wall. Farming requires a bit of meticulousness, but not to his level. I don’t think there’ll be a single ear of corn left out there for the birds by the time he’s done.”
