My sister grinned and elbowed me.
“Indeed,” Vik said. “These cups are quite satisfying, giving us something to bite into other than flesh. I would think the fact makes you more comfortable around us.” Vik smiled, snapped his fangs out and bit down on the cup again.
I watched him suction blood out of the cup for a moment and then took my last bite of chimichanga. “Indeed,” I muttered.
Sam went back to the fridge for a refill. Every shelf was piled with blood bags.
“Is Devon still working at the blood bank?” I said.
Vik nodded. “I need to introduce you two.”
“How long has she been in the Pit now?”
“Almost two months in fact. She’s been at the blood bank for a month. The employee discount is a nice benefit too. Vasili’s connections to the other Pits have paid off well.”
“I haven’t met him either,” I said.
Vik eyed me. “No disrespect to our illustrious leader, but would you really want to meet Vasili? Devon is at least attractive and less likely to kill you.”
“Are you still courting her?” Zola said before I could decide if Vik was joking or not.
Vik’s lips turned up into a smile. “Yes, she is my girlfriend, as the young ones say.”
I glanced at Sam; her Vampire Push Pop was almost empty again and currently twirling beneath her index finger on the table.
“Thanks for the chimichangas,” I said. “I need to check in on the shop. I didn’t lock up before the fight.”
“Of course,” Vik said. “Leave your plate. Sam will clean up.”
Sam shot daggers at Vik, a look I knew all too well, and then sighed. “I guess it is my week.”
“Thanks again for the food Vik, and the healthcare.”
He nodded once as I took my leave.
***
It was a short, quiet drive back to Saint Charles. Sure, Foster and Aideen would be looking after things, keeping the home front secure, but I always like to see it with my own eyes. The front door was locked when I pushed on the gold brass handle in the center of the double doors. The shiny brass was out of place in the worn green doors, flanked by ancient glass windows on either side. I slid my key in, opened the deadbolt, and swatted the bells as I walked inside. Foster glided in from the back room a moment later, fully armored.
“Damian, thank the lords you’re alright.”
I puffed out a breath of air. “And thank the Foster for saving my ass.”
He landed on a dark wood shelf behind the counter to the whisper of tiny chainmail links and scratched his head. “How’s Sam doing? She was pretty torn up when she saw you the first time.”
“Yeah, and she was already torn up over Alexi.” I slapped my forehead. “I didn’t even tell her sorry about Alexi. He was a good friend of hers.” I sat down on the stool behind the counter.
“She knows Damian. She’s family.”
“Then I went and got my ass handed to me on a silver platter.”
Foster stifled a laugh and I couldn’t help but smile. “You sure did.”
“Tell Colin thanks next time you see him.”
“I will.”
My neck cracked as I rolled it in a circle. “Can you clear something up for me?”
The fairy leapt off the shelf and landed beside the register on top of my latest eBay purchase. The seller titled it “Long Pretty Magnetite Rock with Crystals!!!!,” but the crystalized gray rock was actually a sizable chunk of Magrasnetto, a potent magic amplifier in ley line arts. I had enough to make some talismans and, if I could get my ass motivated, enough to make a wand.
Foster nodded at me from his rocky perch.
“The vamp we fought last night was screaming about Sidhe this and Sidhe that. I guess he figured out I had some help, or at least some friends.”
Foster’s chest puffed out a little and his teeth were shining. “He could see us, no doubt.”
My left hand waved aimlessly at the front door. “But when I’m talking with my sister’s group …”
“Pit,” Foster said.
I went on like I hadn’t heard him, “… they always say Fae.”
He crossed his legs beneath him. “We are all Fae and all Sidhe. Like you, like humans, some are good by some measure and some are less so. The best of us are blessed with the distinction of the Seelie Court. Those who fall, and those who are made to it, are of the Unseelie Court.” Foster looked ready to spit and his wings beat faster as he spoke of the Unseelie Court. “They are powerful. To underestimate them is death.”
“Sounds like they can dish out some serious power.”
Foster nodded.
“Must make you Unseelie, right?” I cocked an eyebrow to emphasize my sarcasm. Sometimes sarcasm is not the best option.
Foster screamed, unsheathed his sword, and lunged at my eyeball as fast as I could blink. He veered away at the last second shouting, “Stupid moron, born from a goat’s loins!”
“Foster, wait, I was just kidding!” I knocked the stool over and cursed as I jumped up to follow him toward the back room.
He flared back into the front and hovered a few feet from me. “Next time I’ll cut out your eyeball. Don’t worry; I’ll be sure to let you know I was just kidding.” He leveled his sword at my face. “There are some things you do not say, even in jest. Leave, necromancer.” Foster slammed his sword back in its sheath and disappeared into the back room.
Necromancer. He never called me that. Never used in such a derogatory way. It stung more than I thought it ever could. I stared at the doorway for almost a full minute before I lost interest in the whorls of cheap veneer on our saloon-style doors. I walked out the front and locked the door again. I headed straight for what was about to become my last source of encyclopedic fairy knowledge that was still talking to me. In about ten seconds, I was pretty sure Cara and Aideen wouldn’t be talking to me either.
Crap.
CHAPTER NINE
I ran my hand through my hair and clenched my teeth as I met the abyss of my sister’s gaze. “Sam, all I said, jokingly of course, was he must be Unseelie.”
My sister stepped backwards, put her hand over her mouth, and looked at me in horror as she flopped onto her bed.
“What did I do now?”
“He saved you and you … you just … insulted
everything
he stands for Damian. Everything he works for. Everything his family has done for generations to earn the respect of the Seelie court.” She held her hands out to me like she was begging and shook her head. “How could you
do
that?”
“Oh. Well, that helps put things in perspective.” I echoed my sister’s flop onto the chair in the corner and cracked my head against the wall. “Ow.” I glanced around her cheery jonquil colored lounge. A smile started to creep over my lips as I considered all of the sunshine and cheer in the middle of a vampire lair.
My eyes widened as Sam was suddenly in front of me and grabbing my collar. It felt like she was about to throw me across the room as she jerked me to her with super vampy strength. “You have to apologize to him,” she hissed.
“I
did
apologize!”
She let go of my collar and patted my shoulder with the gentleness of an ogre, slamming me back into the chair. “Sure, what’d you say, ‘I was just kidding’?” She cocked an eyebrow and non-verbally pummeled me into submission.
I mumbled a bit.
“What?” she said as she raised both eyebrows.
“I
said -
that’s almost exactly what I said.”
She smiled, and then burst into laughter, leaning against one of the huge wooden posts of her bed. “Get him a nice present, not just fudge. You get them fudge too much for it to be a real apology.” She paused and wrinkled her nose. “Better get something for his mom too. You might wish Foster’d killed you if Cara gets a hold of you first.”
I nodded quickly and repeatedly as I ran for the door, up the stairs, back to my slightly sliced up rental car, and shot down the block to the wine and cheese shop.
On the way, my thoughts flickered back to the first time I met Foster. I remembered Sam telling me she had a friend that would be a perfect fit for my ancient grandfather clock. My first thought was, does she really expect me to sell Zola’s old clock? I didn’t think too hard on it, thoroughly distracted by a mind boggling pizza from the Blackthorne Pub.
By the time we got back from dinner and stopped at the Double D, there was a trio of fairies circled around a tea light on the counter. I was a little surprised to see them, as fairies don’t like necromancers too much.
“Hi, Foster,” Sam said. I twitched a little and eyeballed my sister as one of the fairies waved at her.
“Fairies don’t like necromancers,” I said as quietly as I could while elbowing Sam in the gut. I aimed to land a harder elbow when she was suddenly standing on the other side of the counter, grinning.
“This is my brother, Damian.”
I lowered my elbow and produced a weak, steady wave with my right hand. A half grin was plastered to my face.
Foster bowed to her and then to me. He had a dagger sheathed on either thigh and crossed swords mounted on his back. His armor looked like a deep brown leather, partially hidden beneath the platinum blond hair resting on his shoulders. “Lord Vesik, I would humbly request the use of your esteemed abode.”
My grin filled out. “My clock?”
The older fairy beside him burst into laughter. She was dressed in an elegant gown, green with silver metal trim beneath a harness supporting two crossed swords of her own. The gown matched the intense green of her eyes. “Young one, your clock is a place of power, a nexus. A concentration of Fae magic is pulled through your …
clock.”
She stifled her laughter and curtsied to me. “I am Cara, Foster’s mother, and this,” she gestured to the younger fairy in a brilliant blue dress, “is Aideen, Foster’s wife.”
Aideen smiled and nodded slowly. Golden plates of armor and chains tinkled as she moved her head. It reminded me of the charms and metal Zola wore.
Foster met my eyes; his own a surreal and brilliant blue. “What price do you require?”
“Nothing,” Sam hissed in my ear. By the time I turned to look at her, she was smiling again.
I shook my head and I gestured at Sam with my right hand. “Any friend of my sister’s okay by me. You can shack up here as long as you need too.”
It was about that time a hideous beast of legend locked its jaws around my ankle and dragged me screaming into the back room. A few moments of sheer terror later, I learned it was a pregnant, and very grumpy, pet cu sith. Everyone else thought it was hilarious. Me? Not so much.
Ah, the good old days.
The cloud of memories vanished as the clerk slid my purchase across the butcher block counter. My eyes widened. No one had ever told me how big a twenty-five pound wheel of fabulous Irish cheddar cheese was. It was impressive. How could someone less than a foot tall not be blown away? The clerk rambled off my total.
My checking account was certainly blown away.
After a circus-worthy balancing act with said cheese to get out of the store, into the car, and up to my shop’s front door, I stumbled to the back room with make-up gifts in tow. The thud the cheese wheel made as I dropped it on the table was enough to raise the dead. A pair of fairies appeared in front of me, hovering with slow wing movements and swords drawn.
“Hey Foster, I have a peace offering.” I waved at the massive wheel.
He scowled at me, glanced at the cheese, and then back to me. His eyes went wide and he turned back to the wheel, gliding onto the label. “Cheese … it’s all cheese?” He looked astonished.
I started to smile when a small voice cleared its throat. I turned my head slightly to find Cara about an inch from my eyeball with a gleaming metal shard.
“Ah, hi Mom.”
I doubt the devil could match her grin. She didn’t lower her sword.
“Check this out.” I leaned backwards just a hair and crinkled the brown paper bag without moving the rest of my body to reveal a Bushmills Irish Whiskey label.
“Oh, you dear boy.” She smiled and patted my cheek. Her sword was gone and I was suddenly crinkling an empty brown bag. I have no clue where the whiskey went.
Foster laughed and hacked off a chunk of cheese the size of his head. With a full mouth he said, “Apology accepted. We don’t have to maim you now.” He vanished into the ancient grandfather clock, an armload of cheese in tow.
“Ha, yeah, that’s good.” I smiled, and shivered, and solemnly left the shop.
***
I had my hand on my rental car, ready to open it and hit the liquor store for some ale when the doggy door squeaked behind me and a small voice said, “Damian, wait!”
I paused and was surprised when Aideen landed on the roof of the car.
“What’s up?” I said.
“I wanted to thank you.” She bowed her head. “And apologize. I know you did not mean what you said to Foster. He never should have reacted like that. It’s Cara,” her eyes flicked to the shop and back, “she overreacts sometimes and I’m afraid he’s much the same on occasion.”
I’d never heard Aideen talk that much. I smiled and said, “It’s not a problem, I think we’re all happy now.”
“Yes, yes we are. Thank you, the cheese is fantastic.” She smiled and took off with one flap of her wings, turning back in midair. “Damian, please take care of Foster for me? I sometimes fear he doesn’t know his limits.”
“I promise Aideen, I’ll keep an eye on him.”
She smiled and vanished through the doggy door. It reminded me of the fact I hadn’t seen the cu siths around since my last impromptu piercing. Maybe Foster finally gave them up. I’d have to ask him.
I was in the liquor store moping about their lack of ale and picking up a six-pack of Sam Adams, when I remembered Robert. “Shit,” I muttered and glanced at the clock on the wall. Robert was my gemstone supplier and he was supposed to be at the shop in an hour. I grabbed two extra six packs and checked out.
I pulled out my cell and dialed. “Frank, hey, can you come down to the shop?”
“Sure, what’d you need? You’re not at Vamps ‘R Us?”
I let out a short laugh. “Robert’s coming by in an hour. I’ll get some pizza and whatnot for an early dinner.”