'No, I'm just kidding,' she said and laughed. 'It's just what we call fairy magic. It's as real as yours, just different.' I relaxed my eyes, unfocused my vision and looked at my shoulder.
'I can't see it,' I said. 'I can't see the magic.' I looked at the walls Honey had painted, and I couldn't see any magic in them, either.
'It's not the kind of magic you can see. You can't see it any more than a normal human can see yours.'
The pieces finally clicked together in my mind. 'Honey, that's why I couldn't see the magic the spirit used to squeeze my guys! The killer didn't clean it up, I just couldn't see it.'
'Of course you couldn't,' Honey said. 'The spirit would be channeling magic from the Beyond, not from Arcadia.'
'Huh,' I said. 'Well, I can see what you did with it, and I can feel it, and it rocks. Thanks, Honey.' I tried a smile.
'No problem.'
A thought occurred to me, and I frowned. 'Any, uh, charge for that?'
'Yeah, you have to take a shower with me.'
'Honey-'
She laughed. 'I'm joking. That was on the house, just because we're friends.'
'Yeah, okay. Well, thanks.' I looked around. 'How are you doing, settling in, I mean? You got everything you need?'
'Yeah, it's great! Did you see my place?'
'What place?'
'In the kitchen. You know, my nest.' I hadn't even noticed it when I got my beer. I shook my head.
'Come on, I'll show you!' Honey flitted into the kitchen and I followed.
The nest looked like Barbie's Fantasy Island, if there'd been such a thing. The entire kitchen table was covered with what looked like a miniature forest. There was a sparkling pool in the middle, and a rocky hillside climbed away from it and into the kitchen wall. A shimmering waterfall tumbled down from it and splashed into the pool.
'Jesus Christ, Honey. This is amazing.' The trees and foliage looked like they were alive. Everything was perfect, right down to the moss and lichen growing on the rocks.
'Thanks, I really like it. I wanted to make a cave behind the waterfall, but I'd have to cut a hole in your wall.'
'Screw it,' I said. 'Go ahead. This is incredible.' I didn't ask where the waterfall was coming from, or why the pool didn't fill up and overflow its banks.
'Okay, thanks. And I'm sorry about your table. It kind of got out of hand.'
I shrugged. 'I never use it anyway. Mrs. Dawson is probably freaking out, though.'
'She probably can't even see it. I think maybe she sees this place like it was when she lived here.'
'She tries to, anyway. She doesn't like the condos much.'
I went back out to the living room and Honey followed. She sat on the arm of the couch, her legs tucked under her, and watched me brood for a while.
'So tell me,' she said finally. 'Maybe I can help.'
'I tracked down the vampire. He's being protected by another outfit. It got ugly.'
'How ugly?'
'I have a lot more guys to search on FriendTrace, and I don't even know their names.'
'FriendTrace?'
'Yeah, what I use to contact the dead.'
'Oh. Well, I'm just glad you weren't hurt worse.'
'The thing is, I think I screwed up. I'm not sure where exactly. When this thing came down, I had good reasons not to disclose all the details to my boss. I thought I did, anyway. But I think I should have, sometime between then and now. Probably when I caught on to the possession thing. At the time, it seemed like it had an easy solution. Go to the Between, deal with the spirit, problem solved.'
'But now?'
I sighed. 'Now, it's getting out of control-like your nest.' I smiled weakly. 'I feel like a degenerate gambler who's dug herself a hole and just keeps laying bets to try to get flush.'
'So get out of the hole. Go to your boss.'
'Now I don't think I can go to my boss. I withheld crucial information from him-namely that his own son is involved. I've been…socializing with him, and what's worse, I've been lying to him. I broke into his house and scared him half to death. I've been doing all this while the outfit is more or less at war.'
'It's gotten pretty complicated,' Honey said.
I laughed. 'Yeah, but that's not the bad part. The bad part is that I'm no closer to solving the problem than I was when I started.'
'And that's why you don't want to go to your boss.'
I nodded. 'At this point, I can't undo anything. I think I just have to try to make it right. He's still not going to be happy when he finds out what I've been up to, but if I can solve the problem…at least that's something. Like I said, I have to keep laying bets to try to get flush.'
'So what are you going to do?'
'I have no idea,' I said, and laughed. 'The vampire's protection isn't going to last forever. The problem is, I don't have that kind of time. I'm still convinced I'm not going to be able to get at the spirit in the Between without first getting through Fred.'
'So you'll have to deal with him in the Between. He won't have protection there.'
'Yeah. But I already know he can kick my ass in the Between. The spirit probably can, too. Which means I need you to train me, pronto.'
'So let's get started.'
I nodded. 'I'm worried about what's going to happen in the meantime. I'm worried that by the time I'm ready to deal with the vampire and the spirit, it's going to be too late. When I broke into Adan's apartment, the spirit possessed him again. I put a guy on him yesterday, for a while, but Anton would be fucking useless if it came to that.'
'You need to buy some time,' Honey said.
'Yeah. I need a way to slow the spirit down, make it harder to possess Adan. I'll talk to Mr. Clean about it, but he seemed to think the only way I could protect Adan was by destroying the spirit. That's why I went into the Between in the first place.'
'He's right. You don't have any magic that can stop the spirit from possessing Adan.'
'That's what I was afraid of. If the spirit was powerful enough to defeat all the wards his father has on him, there's nothing I can do about it-short of abducting Adan and locking him up inside a protective circle somewhere. That seems like it might be digging the hole a little deeper than I want to.'
'You don't have the magic to do it, but I do,' Honey said.
'You do?'
'Yeah, and frankly, Mr. Clean might have mentioned it to you in the first place. How well do you know him, Domino?'
I shrugged. 'He's a jinn. He's my familiar. He can be an asshole sometimes. That's about it, I guess.'
'He's dangerous, Domino. He's not evil, exactly, not like your spirit from the Beyond. But there's nothing human in him, either-nothing at all. He's been here since the world was made and he'll be here still when the stars wink out and the skies go dark. He's your familiar, yes, but he hates it.'
'Well, I knew he wasn't very happy about it.'
Honey shook her head. 'You've made him a slave, Domino. It's not the same as making a person your slave-he doesn't suffer from it. He can't suffer. But he hates it all the same. It's ego. Really, that's all he is-an ego so strong, and powerful, and willful that it will endure until the end of time.'
'So you're saying he doesn't necessarily have my best interests at heart.'
'He wants you to die, Domino. More than that-he wants to be the one who tricks you into getting yourself killed. That's the game, to him, and it's the only thing that makes his servitude bearable.'
I frowned. 'I don't know about that. I owe him a lot of favors. I'm pretty sure he intends to cash in someday.'
