responsibilities without discussing it with me.”
“There wasn’t anything to discuss. If we can help Terrence get right, we’re going to do it. That’s the way we treat our allies around here. Maybe it’s different where you come from.”
Adan flinched, and I had to admit it was a low blow. Adan may have been the crown prince and maybe he’d made his triumphant return, but he was still an outsider to most of the guys in the outfit. A few even suspected King Oberon of running a long con on us. They figured Adan would turn out to be some kind of Manchurian Candidate even more dangerous to our outfit than the changeling had been. Adan had inherited a certain amount of power-enough to make life difficult for me-but he was isolated. In the underworld, that’s an uncomfortable place to be.
In my experience, men weren’t usually very complicated, and Adan was no exception. In the last couple months, he’d made it pretty clear he wanted to be friends. Problem was, I needed an associate I could count on a hell of a lot more than I needed a friend, even if he was nice to look at.
“We’re on the same side,” Adan said, as if he knew what I was thinking. “I’m just trying to protect my father’s interests, the same as you. We don’t have to be rivals, Domino.”
I wasn’t sure how we could avoid being rivals if he challenged all my decisions. Maybe he thought we could avoid it if he were the one making all the decisions. If that’s what he had in mind, he was going to be really disappointed.
“There’s something else,” I said. “Terrence had to bury two of his nephews yesterday. I was at the cemetery.”
“That’s rough, but from everything you’ve said about Mobley, that’s the way the Jamaicans play the game.”
“That’s not what I’m getting at. After the service, the kids got back up and tried to eat us.” I told Adan about the zombies and about my visit to the Between.
“And you’re sure it wasn’t something Mobley did?” I shook my head. “There was no magic on the kids. I’ve been down that road before so I don’t want to make too much of it. But it wasn’t sorcery and it wasn’t glamour.”
“So what does that leave?”
“I was hoping you might have an idea.” Avalon, where Adan had grown up, was in the Beyond. He’d had more experience with this kind of thing than I had.
“It could be a plague, like in the movies.”
“Jesus, Adan, I was hoping you’d have something a little more solid than fucking Hollywood. Anyway, I got bit by one of them and I haven’t been feeling any cannibalistic urges or anything.”
“Sorry, Domino, I really don’t know. We didn’t get much in the way of zombies. I guess it could be an Unseelie thing. They were hooked up a little more closely with the realms of the mortal dead than we were.”
“The Unseelie?”
“Yeah. There are twin kingdoms in Faerie, one light and one dark. The dark one is called the Unseelie Court.”
“So the Seelie are supposed to be the good fairies? They swapped you out for a changeling, killed a lot of my guys, tried to kill me and planned to take down your father.”
Adan grinned. “Light and dark, not necessarily good and evil. The distinction is more about personality than morals. The Seelie fey are usually in a better mood.”
I didn’t know the Seelie king well, but I had to admit even when he was conspiring to kill me he’d been pretty cheerful about it. “So you think the Unseelie fey might be raising zombies?”
“I don’t really know, Domino. I was raised by the fey but I was never one of them. Everyone knew who I was, what I was and why I was there. I wasn’t trusted. If I had to guess, I’d say no. The Unseelie are still fey. If there were Unseelie glamour on the zombies you’d have seen it.”
“Should we be expecting the Unseelie to move on us, just like the Seelie did?”
“Another thing I don’t know. There wasn’t much contact between the courts, except for the occasional war. I do know King Oberon has an army of spies whose only job is to keep tabs on them. You could ask him.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll stay in touch.” I stood up and left. Adan might have called after me but I was already out the office door and heading down the stairs to the club.
I’d like to say I was thinking about Terrence, about the Jamaicans, about zombies and the possible involvement of the Unseelie Court. But I wasn’t. I was thinking about Adan. I was thinking about how badly I’d wanted him-or at least, the creature that had taken his place-just a few short months ago. At least I’d thought I wanted him. Looking back, it was hard to remember why. But then Adan would smile and those fucking dimples would soften his chiseled face, or he’d tilt his head to the side as he listened to what I was saying. Just like the changeling. I’d catch the scent of apples and cinnamon and I’d feel that familiar pull. It was just like waking from a pleasant dream and wishing for a moment you could go back to sleep.
This Adan wasn’t a changeling. He wasn’t a monster. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.
I’d averted a war with the Seelie Court by giving them Hollywood. King Oberon had taken over a club on Sunset Boulevard that had belonged to one of the conspirators, a vampire I’d gotten to kill. It had been called the Cannibal Club under the vampire’s management, but Oberon had since changed the name to the Carnival Club. He’d done some remodeling and redecorating, too. The Mardi Gras theme was a lot less played out than the Goth thing, and I had to admit the purple, gold and green decor was a lot more festive-gaudier, too, but what do you want from fairies? All in all, Oberon could have done worse. It wasn’t like the world needed another Irish pub or anything.
I spun my parking spell and left my Lincoln out front, then went inside the club. I found Oberon behind the main bar polishing glasses with a white cloth. He was wearing a plain white T-shirt and faded jeans and looked more like the drummer in a garage band than a fairy king. The Carnival Club wouldn’t open for hours but a few sidhe were hanging around, lounging at the tables and booths or drinking at the bar. The fairy queen, Titania, was there, and she didn’t look old enough to be in the club.
“Domino, welcome,” Oberon said. “Tequila? I’ll join you.”
“Too early for me, King. How about some of that apple cider you make?”
Oberon reached below the bar and brought out a carafe of the amber liquid. The cider wasn’t too sweet, a little spicy, and I was pretty sure it had some narcotic qualities. I didn’t care-it was one of the best things I’d ever tasted and it reminded me of better times.
“With ice,” I said as he filled a glass.
“You’re a barbarian, Domino,” the king said, but he dropped a few cubes in my glass. He pushed it across the bar to me as I sat down. “What brings you in?”
“The Unseelie Court.”
Oberon frowned. “What about it?”
“I maybe got a problem with zombies. Adan thought the Unseelie fey might be involved. He said they were more closely aligned with the realms of the dead, and all that.”
“Queen Mab has, at times, made the mortal dead a part of her court. Mostly to torment them, from what I’ve seen.”
“Queen Mab? Is she your sister or something?”
“They were lovers,” said Titania.
Oberon glanced over at her. He looked worried. “That was a long time ago, my dear. We’ve been enemies far longer than we were lovers.”
“She doesn’t do zombies, though,” Titania continued. “Very few mortals can cross physically into Avalon, so you’re not likely to find any animated corpses there.”
“Many of the Unseelie sidhe can raise the dead, though,” Oberon said. “When they cross into Arcadia.”
“She hasn’t crossed, husband. None of them have. I’d know.”
“She will.”
“But not yet. And Domino doesn’t care about that. She’s asking about zombies.”
“Yeah,” I said. “One thing at a time.” Arcadia was the sidhe name for the mortal world. The idea that a grouchier sidhe nation would eventually cross over-that was a problem for another day.
“Tell me about your zombies,” Oberon said. I gave him the whole story, and I have to say, neither he nor his queen seemed all that interested.
Oberon kept polishing his glasses. “I know of the kephn. Human souls are its food of choice, but it’s been
