Just about everyone I knew was at the wedding. The outfit represented, with Terrence, Chavez, Adan, Ismail Akeem and Amy Chen all attending. Shanar Rashan even returned from sabbatical in time to make the event, though I wasn’t sure how he’d heard about it. Oberon, Titania and representatives of the sidhe nobility attended. The king’s face was healed but he was wearing an eye patch. If anything, it made him look more charming and roguish than ever. Lowell and Granato were there. They were too busy worrying about what a fairy wedding celebration might do to government property to really have a good time. My mother attended, radiant in her simple yellow dress and white hat. Other than me, she was Honey’s closest friend in the mortal world and she wouldn’t have missed the wedding even if the zombie apocalypse had still been in full swing. Detective Meadows even showed up for the affair. She’d seen enough of the dark side of the underworld, and she deserved to see the wondrous and beautiful side for a change.
The wedding was strange in some ways and familiar in others. We all gathered in a large circle with the bride and groom at the center. Titania presided over the ceremony; she spoke in the language of the sidhe, so I didn’t know what words were said. I understood it, just the same. When it was over, Titania bound the piskies’ clasped hands together with a white and gold ribbon, and Jack and Honey kissed for the first time as husband and wife. Honey was so happy and Jack looked so proud, it made my heart swell, and I had to flow a little juice to keep the tears out of my eyes. That’s me-a hard case to the bitter end.
After the ceremony, there was food and drink and dancing. I danced with Adan for what seemed like hours, and we clung to each other without speaking. Later, I took a glass of champagne and walked alone through the grounds. I found Honey sitting on the branch of a tree with her back pressed against the trunk. She was crying.
I dropped the glass and rushed over to her. “Honey, what’s wrong? Did you and Jack have a fight?”
The piskie laughed and wiped at her eyes. She shook her head and smiled. “No, everything is wonderful. I’m just sad because Jack will leave tomorrow.”
“What do you mean he’ll leave? You just got married.”
“We’ll make love tonight, Domino, and we’ll make a baby. And Jack will leave when the sun rises.”
“He’s going to knock you up and then split?” It really was like the barrio.
“Well, yeah,” Honey said, frowning at me. “After he gives me a baby, what else is he supposed to do?”
“He’s supposed to stick around and be a husband and father!”
“That’s what human women want. I’m a piskie,” she said, as if I might have forgotten.
“You don’t want your husband to stay with you?”
“I do, more than anything, but that’s why he has to go.”
“You’re not making any sense, Honey.”
“What I feel right now, today, that’s what I want to hold on to. And I couldn’t very well do that with Jack around all the time.”
“Why not? You just have to keep love alive, keep the home fires burning, all that shit.”
Honey laughed and shook her head. “Men are better in the wild, Domino. You can tame them if you work at it hard enough, but it takes away everything that made them interesting in the first place. Then you’re stuck with a best friend and roommate who won’t clean house and hates to go shopping. What’s the point?”
“He could help you raise your child.”
“What the hell does a man know about raising a child? And why would a mother want to let him try? My family will help me raise the baby, Domino. If it’s a boy, Jack will return for him when he’s old enough. The boy will go a-wandering with his father and learn to become a man. If the child is a girl, Jack will visit and spoil her with gifts and affection, but he won’t stay long enough to do any permanent damage. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
“So you only get one night with your husband, and then he leaves.”
Honey smiled a wicked smile. “Yeah, for now, but Jack and I both know what the morrow brings. And oh, gods, Domino, what a night it will be! It’ll be enough to keep my home fires burning until the next time Jack comes home.”
Adan rode back to the city with me after the wedding festivities wound down. I drove straight to my condo and parked the Lincoln. He followed me up without asking why I wasn’t taking him home. When we got inside the house, I threw my jacket on the couch, grabbed his hand and pulled him into my bedroom.
“Mrs. Dawson is in there,” he said.
“She can watch or she can leave.”
“But Domino, tomorrow…”
“Shut up, Adan,” I said. “I don’t care about tomorrow.” I turned him around, pushed him down on the bed and pounced before his protests could escalate. Maybe it was a week of fighting zombies and demons, or maybe it was the fairy wedding. Maybe I’d been working up to it for a while. Whatever it was, I didn’t care. I wanted it. I needed it. Sometimes it really is as simple as that.
L.A. had survived the zombie apocalypse, but Adan and I made love like it was the end of the world.
Later that night, I awoke to find my bed empty. I got dressed and drove out to Venice Beach, and I found Anton on the boardwalk. He sat on the grass under a palm tree, wearing sunglasses with a cap pulled down low on his face.
He leaned against the tree and stared across the sand at the moonlit surf rolling in. I sat down beside him and we watched the sea for a while.
“When I came to this country, this was first place for me,” he said finally. His voice was so dry and harsh it was hard to understand the words. “I got the taxi at LAX and I told him to bring me here. He dropped me off and I paid him and then I stood in this spot with my suitcase and looked at ocean. It was old, pink suitcase from Soviet times. Babushka gave it to me when I left. I could afford to buy the new one, but I took it so I would remember her. I bet I looked funny standing here with pink suitcase.”
“There are stranger sights in Venice than a Russian gangster with a pink suitcase.”
Anton tried to laugh and it sounded like a smoker’s hacking cough. “I remember I’m thinking, this is the place where any man can be a chief. Any man can be a boss.”
“I’m sorry, Anton. I guess it never worked out that way.”
He looked at me and smiled, the leathery lips stretching away from yellow teeth. “You make joke with me, Domino,” he said. “It was everything I dream about that day. I had good life here. Babushka would be proud of me.”
“I’m sure she is,” I said, my throat tightening on the words. “Maybe it’s time to go see her, now.”
“Da,” he said, nodding. “Now it is time.” He struggled to his feet and turned to face me. He took off the sunglasses and dropped them in the grass, and he looked at me with those dead, gray eyes. “Will it hurt, Domino?”
“No, Anton,” I said, and my voice broke. “It won’t hurt at all.”
Noe stepped up beside me and sniffed at the leg of Anton’s track suit. The dog turned its head up to look at me, and whined.
“Goodbye, my friend,” I said, and I nodded to the Xolo. Then I turned and walked away. I’d have some guys claim his body from the morgue. I owed Anton a nice funeral, with pretty flowers and a good coffin with small pillows inside.
The next morning, I awoke to a deep rumble from the street that rattled the windows. I went to the French doors and drew the sheer curtains aside. Adan was parking a canary yellow Harley-Davidson Panhead at the curb on the other side of the street. The saddlebags bulged and there was a large pack tethered behind the seat. Jack stood on the oversize chrome headlight casing looking up in my direction. His eyes found mine and he touched his hand to his heart. I flipped him off and dropped the curtain over the window. I went back and sat down on the sofa and waited.
Adan buzzed from the front door of the building and I ignored it. A few minutes later, he rang my doorbell, and then knocked a few times when I ignored that, too. He killed my wards, juiced the lock and came in. He was wearing a scuffed, black leather jacket with a lot of zippers and buckles, faded jeans and black engineer boots. He took off his aviators and stood in the hallway, watching me.
“You’re leaving,” I said, “with Jack.”
“I tried to tell you last night, but you didn’t let me. I wanted to explain.”
I shrugged. “What’s to explain? You’re running away.”
