An Artificial Night

“It’s not like we’d be doing anything wrong,” he said, a note of pleading in his tone. “It’s just breakfast and we’ve been friends since before Raysel was born.”

“Skipping the part where you haven’t exactly been subtle about liking me, that woman thinks I’ve done something wrong when I breathe.” Raysel has hated me since I came back. The fact that there was a time when I’d have happily hopped into bed with her husband might have something to do with it, but it seems to go deeper than that. She acts like I’m her worst enemy, and I have no idea why.

“Please.” Now the pleading was much harder to ignore.

I hesitated. “What’s the deal?”

“What’s the deal?” He laughed. The sound was brittle.

“I’m standing at a pay phone on Fisherman’s Wharf because I spent last night sleeping on the beach. My wife is nuts, but it’s a diplomatic marriage, so I can’t leave her, and most of my friends from Roan Rathad are afraid to come near me because they’re so sure she’s going to kill them—and me—one day. I’m lonely. I spend all day, every day, watching my own back, and I’m lonely.” More quietly, he said, “I’m sorry about the kiss. It won’t happen again. But I need a friend, Toby. I need a friend so badly you wouldn’t believe it.”

He sounded desperate. More, he sounded sincere. Connor’s always been good at covering misery with apparent cheer, and I was starting to suspect that he’d been getting even better since he married Rayseline. Shoving my hair out of my eyes, I sighed. “All right, you win. We’ll do breakfast. Where do you want to meet?”

“Mel’s okay?” The change in his tone was immediate enough to make me feel bad for wanting to avoid him. Raysel wasn’t that big a deal. I mean, if I can hang around with the Luidaeg, I can handle Rayseline Torquill.

“Mel’s is fine.” Mel’s Diner in downtown San Francisco is a purveyor of classic Americana, from the ever popular fried egg sandwich to the fat-saturated roast beef platter. There are no surprises at Mel’s. I like it that way.

“Meet you in an hour?”

“Better make it two.” I stood, grabbing my robe off the floor. “I need a shower, and the sun isn’t up yet. I can’t go outside safely until it is.”

“Oh, right. You’re a wimp.”

“And you’re a skinshifting bastard.”

“I love you, too. See you at Mel’s!” The line went dead. Connor and I have been competing for the last word for a long time, and he’s finally starting to catch up. I need to work on my phone-slamming skills.

I tied my robe and started for the hall, rubbing at my eyes. There was no way I was getting back to sleep. Spike and the cats followed me to the kitchen, where the astronomical calendar on the fridge informed me that dawn was scheduled for 6:13 A.M. I’d had to go to the Science Museum bookstore to find a calendar that listed times for sunrise and sunset, and it was worth the effort. Knowing exactly when the sun would rise meant I could have a cup of coffee without worrying about timing things wrong and scalding myself. I’d get through sunrise, take a shower, and meet Connor for a plate of something bad for me. It was starting to look like it might be a decent morning.

There was a knock at the door.

I turned, frowning. No one knocks on my door before dawn. Most of my clients are fae and wouldn’t risk being caught out so close to sunrise, and I don’t take human clients who seem likely to show up after midnight. “The hell?”

I started for the door, stopping as I caught a flicker of motion out of the corner of my eye. The cats were huddled under the coffee table, tails bushed out and ears slicked flat. Spike had vanished completely. “Okay. That’s weird.”

There are certain basic rules of survival in my world. One of them is that you don’t live to a ripe old age by ignoring the warnings you get from your pets. Cats who live with the fae tend to get a little touched by strangeness, and the things that get that kind of reaction from them are usually looking for worse reactions from me. Reactions such as screaming, running, or going for a weapon. Whoever or whatever was out there probably didn’t intend anything good.

Feeling increasingly paranoid, I looked back toward the door as my visitor knocked again. I didn’t want to deal with a potential threat before my morning coffee, but whatever it was wasn’t going away. Just swell. I reached into the umbrella stand and pulled out my baseball bat as I approached the door. A girl can’t be too careful if she’s addicted to breathing, and I’ve found that being hit in the head with a stick of aluminum is enough to daunt most monsters, at least for a moment.

“Who is it?” I called. My mother’s blood taught me about monsters, but both sides of the family taught me that I’d get smacked if I forgot my manners.

“Candygram.”

I eyed the door. Whoever it was didn’t just scare my cats, they also quoted bad comedy routines: truly the stuff of terror. Something about the voice made the back of my neck itch. I ran through a quick catalog of options in my head but couldn’t connect it to anyone I knew. Shifting the bat behind my back in case it was one of my neighbors, I opened the door. And froze.

Considering some of the things—and people—I’ve found on my doorstep in the past, I didn’t think I could be surprised anymore. I was wrong.

She stood about five foot eight, with long, almost gangly limbs and the sort of curves that get lost in anything shapeless. Her stick-straight brown hair fell to her shoulders, failing to conceal her dully pointed ears. She had the sort of pointed face that doesn’t get called pretty, even on a kid. Striking maybe, or dramatic, but never pretty. Her eyes were beautiful, though, large and bright, with gray irises so pale they seemed to echo the colors around them. I knew those features pretty well. After all, I saw them in the mirror every morning. It was like looking at a photograph, only this photograph was answering my openmouthed shock with a smirk and a tip of an imaginary hat.

The only major difference between us was the clothes. She was wearing a long green skirt and a cream- colored sweatshirt that proclaimed, “Shakespeare in the Park: What Fools These Mortals Be” in faux-Gothic lettering. I was underdressed in bare feet and bathrobe.

“What the—”

“The name’s May Daye,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”

Not even shock can dim my eternally inappropriate sense of humor. “How cute,” I said. Then I froze again, wondering what I’d just insulted. I’m normally pretty good at spotting the bloodlines of anyone—or anything—I deal with, but painful past experience has taught me that I’m not always accurate. Especially when I’m dealing with shapeshifters.

“Really? I thought it was sort of trite myself, but what can you do? Post a complaint against the universe? Anyway.” She brushed past me and took a slow look around the living room. “I like what you’ve done with the place. Hey, it’s the cats!” She held out a hand toward Cagney and Lacey, who were still doing their best to disappear under the coffee table. “Here Cagney, here Lacey—” The cats bolted, vanishing down the hall.

May shook her head and dropped onto the couch in an easy sprawl. “Silly cats. Anyway, you’d better put that bat down before you hurt someone, like me. I’m allergic to physical pain. I’m pretty sure it gives me hives.”

I closed the door without letting go of the bat, unwilling to take my eyes off her. She looked like me, she sounded like me; she could have fooled an uninformed observer. If she’d been willing to hold still and keep her mouth shut, she could have fooled my best friends. Even Devin’s hired Doppelganger hadn’t done its job that well.

May shook her head again. “Close your mouth. You look like a goldfish.” The barb hit home. Anyone who knew me well enough to steal my face should have known better than to make cracks about the time I spent as a fish.

My notoriously short-lived patience was running out. I glared, demanding, “What the hell are you?”

“A Fetch. Your Fetch, to be exact,” she said. “You know, the spirits that wear your face when they come to escort you to the lands of—”

“—the dead,” I finished. “Little problem: I’m not dead.” A Fetch is a duplicate of a living person created when it’s time for them to die. They’re incredibly rare, and most people don’t get one. I certainly never requested the honor.

May shrugged. “Mortality’s a constant. I have time; I can wait.”

“You can’t be my Fetch! I’m not going to die!”