Deadlocked

turned the key in the ignition, but I didn’t put the car in reverse.

I knew I was a lucky woman in many respects. But there was life being created al around me, and I wasn’t …

I shut down that line of thought with a sharp command to myself. I would not start down the self-pity path. Just because I wasn’t pregnant and wasn’t married to someone who could make me that way, that was no reason to feel like an island in the stream. I shook myself briskly and set off to complete the rest of my errands. When I caught a glimpse of Faye de Leon coming out of Grabbit Kwik, my attitude adjusted. Faye had been pregnant six times, and she was around my age. She’d told Maxine Fortenberry that she hadn’t wanted the last three. But her husband loved to see her pregnant, and he loved kids, and Faye al owed herself to be used “like a puppy mil ,” as Maxine put it.

Yes, attitude adjustment, indeed.

I had my evening meal and watched television and read one of my new library books that night, and I felt just fine, al by myself, every time I thought about Faye.

Chapter 3

There were no great revelations at work the next day, and not a single outstanding incident. I actual y enjoyed that. I just took orders and delivered drinks and food, pocketing my tips. Kennedy Keyes was at the bar. I worried that she and Danny were stil quarreling, though he might be at his other job at the home builders’ supply place. Kennedy was subdued and dul , and I was sorry; but I didn’t want to find out any more about her relationship problems— anybody’s relationship problems. I had enough of my own.

It’s a conscious effort to block out the thoughts of other people. Though I’ve gotten better at it, it’s stil work. I don’t have to try as hard with the two-natured, because their thoughts are not as clear as human thoughts; I catch only a sentence or emotion, here and there. Even among humans, some are clearer broadcasters than others. But before I learned how to shield my brain, it was like listening to ten radio stations at a time. Hard to act normal when al that’s going on in your brain and you’re stil trying to listen to what people actual y say with their mouths.

So during that little period of normality, I achieved a measure of peace. I convinced myself that the meeting with Felipe would go wel , that he would believe either that we hadn’t kil ed Victor or that Victor’s death was justifiable. I was in no hurry to face him to find out.

I stayed gossiping at the bar for a few minutes, and on the way home I fil ed up the car with gas. I got a chicken sandwich from the Sonic and drove home slowly.

Sunset was so late in the summer that the vamps wouldn’t be up for a couple of hours yet. I hadn’t heard a word from anyone at Fangtasia. I didn’t even know when I was supposed to get there. I just knew I had to look nice, because Eric would expect it in front of visitors.

Dermot wasn’t in the house. I’d hoped Claude might have returned from his mysterious trip to Faery, but if he had, there was no sign. I couldn’t spare any more concern for the fae tonight. I had vampire problems on my mind.

I was too anxious to eat more than half my sandwich. I sorted through the mail I’d picked up at the end of the driveway, throwing most of it into the trash can. I had to fish my electric bil out after I tossed it along with a furniture-sale flyer. I opened it to check the amount. Claude had better return from Faery; he was a reckless energy user, and my bil was almost double its normal size. I wanted Claude to pay his share. My water heater was gas, and that bil was way up, too. I put the Shreveport newspaper on the kitchen table to read later. It was sure to be ful of bad news.

I showered and redid my hair and makeup. It was so hot that I didn’t want to wear slacks, and shorts would not suit Eric’s sense of formality. I sighed, resigned to the inevitable. I began looking through my summer dresses. Luckily, I’d taken the time to shave my legs, a habit Eric found both fascinating and bizarre. My skin was nice and brown this far into the tanning season, and my hair was a few shades lighter and stil looked good from the remedial trim the hairdresser Immanuel had given it a few weeks previously. I put on a white skirt, a bright blue sleeveless blouse, and a real broad black leather belt that had gotten too tight for Tara. My good black sandals were stil in pretty fair shape. My hand paused over the drawer of my dressing table. Within it, camouflaged with a light dusting of face powder, lay a powerful fairy magical object cal ed a cluviel dor.

I’d never thought of carrying it around on my person. Part of me was afraid of wasting the power of the cluviel dor. If I used it recklessly, it would amount to using a nuclear device to kil a fly.

The cluviel dor was a rare and ancient fairy love gift. I guess it was the fae equivalent of a Faberge Easter egg, but magical. My grandfather—not my human one, but my half-human, half-fairy grandfather, Fintan, Dermot’s twin —had given it to my grandmother Adele, who had hidden it away.

She had never told me she had it, and I had only just discovered it during the attic clean-out. It had taken me longer to identify it and to learn more about its properties. Only the part-demon lawyer Desmond Cataliades knew I had it … though perhaps my friend Amelia suspected, since I’d asked her to teach me about what it could do.

Up until now, I’d hidden it just like my grandmother had. You can’t go through life carrying a gun in your hand just in case someone wants to attack you, right? Though the cluviel dor was a love gift, not a weapon, its use might have results just as dramatic. Possession of the cluviel dor granted the possessor a wish. That wish had to be a personal one, to benefit the possessor or someone the possessor loved. But there were some awful scenarios I’d imagined: What if I wished an oncoming car wouldn’t hit me, and instead it hit another car and kil ed a whole family? What if I wished that my gran were alive again, and instead of my living grandmother, her corpse appeared?

So I understood why Gran had hidden it away from casual discovery. I understood that it had frightened her with its potential, and maybe she hadn’t believed that a Christian should use magic to change her own history.

On the other hand, the cluviel dor could have saved Gran’s life if she’d had it at the moment she was attacked; but it had been in a secret drawer in an old desk up in the attic, and she had died. It was like paying for a Life Alert and then leaving it up in the kitchen cabinet out of reach. No one could take it, and it couldn’t be used for il ; but then again, it couldn’t be used for good, either.

If making one’s wish might lead to catastrophic results, it was almost as perilous to simply possess the cluviel dor. If anyone—any supernatural—

learned I had this amazing object, I would be in even more danger than my normal al otment.

I opened the drawer and looked at my grandmother’s love gift. The cluviel dor was a creamy green and looked not unlike a slightly thick powder compact, which was why I kept it in my makeup drawer. The lid was circled with a band of gold. It would not open; it had never opened. I didn’t know how to trigger it. In my hand, the cluviel dor