probably missed the point of everything anyone else had said in the last few minutes: everything except, evidently, the rat.
Several of his buddies laughed and gave him a hard time.
Anna smiled; she couldn’t help it – he sounded about six years old. ‘I can smell him.’ And that started another round of questions.
It wasn’t exactly a fun evening – Anna felt like she’d spent most of her time walking a tightrope. But it was better than being stuck in the condo while Charles buried himself in electronics. And it wasn’t all bad. She enjoyed meeting Leslie’s husband, who was funny and smart – and offered to stuff Chuck in a waste basket. The fish and chips were superb and so was the stew.
Eventually the fascination with werewolves seemed to wear off and Anna found a quiet table in a corner where she could relax and watch everyone.
The crude Chuck’s friend saw her and came over to apologize again. ‘He knows he’s stupid when he drinks, so he usually doesn’t. It was just a bad day today, you know? The last call we took before coming here was a domestic abuse call – some lady’s boyfriend beat her up and then started in on her toddler. Chuck has a little boy he hasn’t seen since his ex-wife moved to California, and he took it pretty hard.’
‘I have bad days, too,’ Anna told him. ‘I understand. Don’t worry about it.’
Chuck’s friend nodded and wandered off.
She closed her eyes for a minute. She was a little short on sleep thanks to Charles, and it made her eyes dry.
Someone came over and sat on the chair opposite her. Anna opened her eyes to see Beauclaire pouring himself a glass of beer.
‘Isaac said he invited you,’ she told him. ‘But we were pretty sure you weren’t coming.’
‘Lizzie’s out of the operating room,’ he told her, sipping his beer as if it were fine wine. ‘Her mother and stepfather are there – and Lizzie will be drugged and sleeping until tomorrow.’ He took a bigger sip. ‘Her mother thinks it is my fault that she was taken. As I agree with her, it was difficult to defend myself, and so I retreated here.’
Anna shook her head. ‘Never accept the blame for what evil people do. We are all responsible for our own actions.’ She was lecturing him, so she stopped. ‘Sorry. Hang around with Bran too long, and see if you don’t start passing around the Marrok’s advice as if he were Confucius. How is Lizzie doing?’
‘Her knee was crushed.’ He looked at the wall behind Anna where there was a very nice print of an Irish castle. ‘They might repair it enough so she can walk, but dancing is definitely out.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Anna said.
‘She’s alive, right?’ Beauclaire said, and took a long, slow drink. ‘The things they carved in her skin … In time, the surgeons might be able to get rid of them, they think. Until then, every time she looks in a mirror she’ll have the reminder of what she went through.’ He paused. ‘She knows she’ll never dance again. It broke her.’
‘Maybe not,’ said Leslie. She sat down beside Anna on the dark brown bench seat and put her purse on the table. ‘Someone gave something to me, a long time ago – and I’ve never used it. I think mostly because I was afraid. What if I’d tried to use it and it failed?’
She opened her purse, dug down until she found her wallet, and slipped a plain white card out, handing it to Beauclaire. It looked like a business card to Anna, but instead of a name, the word gift was typed in the center of the card.
Beauclaire took it and rubbed his fingers across it, and a faint smile crossed his face. ‘And how did you get this?’
Leslie looked uncomfortable – almost embarrassed. ‘It’s real, right?’
He nodded, still playing with the card. ‘It’s real, all right.’
She took a deep breath. ‘It happened like this,’ she said, and spun a tale of monsters who ate children and childhood dreams – including Leslie’s puppy – and a fierce old woman who knew a little of the fae, and about a debt owed and a bargain made.
‘You can use it to fix your daughter’s knee?’ Leslie asked.
Beauclaire shook his head and handed the card back to Leslie. ‘No. But I’ll remember you offered – and I’ll give you some advice, if you don’t mind. The fae who gave that to you did it with the best of intentions. For all that we do not reproduce, we tend to be a very long-lived people. Treasach was very old, and powerful, too. But death comes for us all, eventually, and it came to him.’
Leslie tucked the card away and rubbed her eyes with the edge of her finger so her makeup wouldn’t run. ‘I don’t know why I’m feeling this way. It’s stupid. I met him once, for less than ten minutes … and … I won’t forget him.’
‘No,’ agreed Beauclaire gravely. ‘Treasach was a marvel. Poet, fighter, joyful companion, and there are no more of his like to be found. None of us will forget him. Fae magic, though, sometimes has a mind of its own. That was given to you to resolve a debt. He intended it to be a gift and a blessing, but his death means that his will no longer binds that bit of magic. Use it or not, as you wish – but use it for a small thing, or for something that equals the grief of a good man who could not spare a child the pain of her puppy’s fate. If you remember his exact words, use it for that – by his words and by the debt this magic is tamed. Go beyond those things with your wish, and it will cause havoc of an unpleasant kind.’
‘Do you have healers?’ Anna asked.
‘Healing is among the great magics and we have very few healers left among us – and most of them are even less trustworthy than Treasach’s gift would be.’ He took a drink of his beer and nodded to Leslie. ‘My daughter will walk again, but she will not dance. It is the way of mortals. They fling themselves at life and emerge broken.’
‘She survived,’ said Anna. ‘She’s tough. She fought them every step of the way. She’ll make it.’
Beauclaire nodded politely. ‘Some mortals do. Some of them make it just fine when horrible things happen to them. Some of them …’ He shook his head and took another sip of his beer and then said with quiet savagery, ‘Sometimes broken people stay broken.’ He looked at her. ‘Why am I telling you all of this?’
Anna shrugged. ‘People talk to me.’ She didn’t know what else to say, so she followed her impulse. ‘I’ve been where Lizzie is, brutalized and terrified. Someone rescued me before my captors were able to kill me. Next to that … losing something she loves is tragic. But she doesn’t seem to be the kind who will think that she would be better off dead – not in the long run.’
Beauclaire looked at his glass. ‘I’m sorry to hear that you had to be rescued.’
She shrugged again. ‘That which does not destroy us makes us stronger, right?’ It came out sounding flippant, so she added, ‘I knew a woman when I was in school. She was smart, a talented musician, and hardworking. She came to college and found out that those weren’t enough to make her a first violin, or even a second – and she tried to kill herself because she had to sit with the third violins. It was the first real disappointment she’d ever had in her life and she didn’t know how to deal with it. Those of us who live in the real world and survive horrible things, we emerge stronger and ready to face tomorrow. Lizzie will be okay.’
Beauclaire frowned at her. He looked away and then said, ‘You might visit her and tell her that.’
She didn’t want to. She wasn’t a counselor and she didn’t like talking about what had happened to her to strangers – though it hadn’t stopped her tonight, had it? Anna was okay because Charles found her and taught her to be strong. Lizzie would have to find her own strength, and Anna didn’t know how to tell her where to find it.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she promised reluctantly. She was exhausted from being on display, and from thinking about things she’d tried to put behind her. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go visit the ladies’ room.’
She left Leslie talking to the fae and let herself out of the banquet room. Away from the noise and the room full of mostly strangers, Anna felt better. She’d use the restroom, eat the food she’d ordered, and go home.
When she came out of the restroom, she wasn’t pleased to see that Agent Heuter was leaning against the wall next to the door. There was no one left in the restaurant proper – it must have closed at ten. So she and Heuter were alone in the hallway next to the entrance for the room where the party was still going strong.
‘So you are the heroine of the day,’ he said.
Something in his voice didn’t track and she frowned at him. ‘Not really, no. If you’ll excuse me?’
But he stepped in front of her. ‘No. I don’t think so. Not today.’
And someone who wasn’t there grabbed her from behind and sent her to sleep.
