Dirty Little Misery (Miss Misery) (19 page)

I folded my drawing and stuck it in my pocket. “Wards?”

Lucrezia walked away, making a show of ignoring me.

“Yeah.” Devon drew the word out. “The most restricted areas of the club are secured through wards rather than a typical security system. I have it on good authority that someone breached one of those wards in the basement recently. So we’re going to check and strengthen them all.”

“It’s a waste of time,” Lucrezia said without glancing back. “I told you. It’s not possible. There was no way anyone who wasn’t a satyr got through there.”

Devon slipped his arm around my shoulders again and lowered his head to mine. “So she keeps saying.”

I kept my face carefully neutral, but inside, my heartbeat stuttered, and it wasn’t from lust. Busting through the club’s wards like I’d done had obviously been weird, but the full implication of how weird hadn’t dawned on me before. Judging by Devon’s current behavior, though, weird was an understatement. And he wasn’t over it. No wonder he was talking to Lucen about me.

Also, just as interestingly, he must not have told Lucrezia about the incident. Who else hadn’t he told? And what, if anything, did he suspect?

“One of you must be wrong then,” I said when my breath returned.

“Possible.” He let go of me, and my shoulders sagged. Lucrezia had disappeared into the bowels of the club, and Devon walked me to the door. “Or possibly the human who managed this incredible act is more fascinating than I’d originally given her credit for. What do you think?”

A sense of relief washed over me as I crossed the threshold into the late-afternoon air. “I think I’m out of my depth. Have fun.”

Then I took a lesson from Lucrezia and scurried away without a backward glance.

Chapter Nineteen

“Rik left a message for you.” Lucen slid the words across The Lair’s bar like the shot of Jameson’s he’d poured me. I’d planned to ask for coffee, but since he’d poured without asking, what the hell. Liquid courage wasn’t a bad idea. “He said if you stop by around eleven, he’ll be available to trade.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding for the past week. “Awesome. Thank you, Eyff, for not being a total birdbrain.”

Lucen held on to my hand as I reached for my drink. “You look nice.”

He sounded more curious than complimentary, but hey, someone noticed. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, just as I wasn’t sure whether this evening counted as a date with Andre or not. Just in case, however, I’d figured ditching my usual jeans and a T-shirt for something less casual was prudent.

I gave his fingers a squeeze. “Thanks. I’m doing something I don’t usually do—being sociable.”

“I find you very sociable, little siren.” He released my hand, and I swished the ice around the glass. “And you socialize with Steph. Is that what you’re up to?”

“True, but no. I’m meeting up with a coworker.”

“A coworker? A Gryphon?”

I sipped my drink, wondering if it was normal to feel nervous about hanging out with a coworker. Or slightly guilty. “Yeah. I thought it might be a good idea to socialize with humans other than Steph for a change. It’s been a while.”

“Sounds very…normal. Are you feeling well?” He put his hand to my forehead.

I playfully smacked him away. “Normal is the idea. We’ll see if I can pull it off.”

“I’m sure of it. Is it this Bridget person you’ve mentioned before?”

“No, I’m not sure Bridget socializes any more than I do.” I finished my drink and spun the glass around on its pool of condensation. “His name’s Andre. He’s my partner on the case.”

“Ah…
he
is. The dressing up makes more sense.” Lucen swept my glass away before I could drain the melted ice.

Yeah, and…
But Lucen didn’t give me the chance to retort. He was suddenly busy at the other end of the bar, and it was Paulius who asked if I wanted another.

I told him no thanks and left, wondering what that was about or if I’d imagined something. There’d been less mischievous teasing in Lucen’s comment than there’d been crankiness. Very unlike him.

That made two of us not acting like ourselves tonight.

I met up with Andre, and then we met up with two couples at a pub called Molly’s Tavern in Cambridge. The pub boasted authentic Irish cooking, and on Saturday’s, Irish music too. I was down with the live music, but I hoped the menu didn’t include things like corned beef and cabbage. I’d been forced to choke down enough of my mother’s authentic cooking for too much of my childhood, and I infinitely preferred Irish drinks to Irish food.

Andre introduced me to the other Gryphons, both of whom were there with their non-Gryphon partners—one who worked for the Boston PD, the other who was finishing up a Ph.D. at Tufts.

Kendra and Sara, the unmarried couple, were talking about neighborhoods since they were looking to move in together. “Jess, where do you live and do you recommend it?” Kendra asked.

I took a long draw from my Guinness. “I’m kind of not living anywhere right now. My roommates got spooked by my involvement in the Victor Aubrey thing, so I’m staying with a friend.”

“That’s not fair.” Kendra was the Gryphon, and I had vague memories of her being one of the ones who’d tried to arrest me not long ago. That meant she’d probably seen me hit one of her colleagues with a chair.

Truly, it was amazing any of these people were willing to talk to me.

“So you’re apartment-hunting too?” Sara asked.

“Yeah, although I think I found a place this afternoon, or so I’m hoping.” Given the weirdness of my relationship with Lucen,
hoping
was an understatement. The apartment was small, but I didn’t need a lot of space, and the rent couldn’t be beat. I only needed the landlord—one of Dezzi’s satyrs—to be willing to give it to me. At the moment, I considered that no sure thing.

“Where is it?” Sara asked.

I wished the band would hurry up and start so I didn’t have to answer, but they were still setting up. “Shadowtown,” I said at last.

Kendra’s brown eyes bugged out over her beer. “You think it’s a good idea for a Gryphon to live in Shadowtown?”

“Is it a good idea for anyone to live in Shadowtown?” Sara asked.

So much for normal. I’d ruined any chance of pretending. “Technically, I’m not a Gryphon.”

“You are to them.”

Kendra had a point, but I shrugged it off. “I can afford it, and I can handle myself around them. Beats nervous roommates.”

Andre laughed. “You’re crazy, Jess. That’s why I like you.”

I supposed if I couldn’t fake normal, then finding a normal guy who liked crazy was the next best thing. The only question was—how much did I want Andre to like my style of crazy?

The question occupied my thoughts over the next hour as the band started to play and we all moved on to our second or third beers. If only all the secrets I hid didn’t make this so awkward, I could have had fun. But even with the beer fuzzing my brain, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t fit in with these people and we all knew it.

To drive home the point, my phone buzzed with the alarm I’d set to remind myself when ten o’clock rolled around. The others at our table bopped to a particularly raucous jig as I leaned over to Andre. “I need to sneak out. I’m so sorry.”

He lowered his head to mine, the table’s candlelight reflecting in his warm eyes. It was almost enough to distract me from the disappointment he was feeling. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, before I left I got word that a contact in Shadowtown was willing to talk if I stopped by around eleven.” He’d assume this was work on our case, and though I felt bad letting him believe it, it really was work of a sort.

Andre nodded. “You getting somewhere then? Good.”

“We’ll see.”

“Good luck. I’ll see you on Monday.”

I slipped away from the table, trying to ignore the confusing mix of emotions he stirred up. Although he hadn’t tried to kiss me good night, I could sense he’d thought about it. If I hadn’t needed to leave early, who knew what might have happened. As awkward as this evening had been, maybe I’d spared myself more awkwardness by leaving early.

Then again, maybe I’d have had more fun if it were just the two of us. It didn’t matter because I wasn’t finding out.

Before I left, I hit up the restroom because, you know, beer. As I passed the main bar on my way, the back of a blond head caught my attention. A familiar, unwelcome, blond head.

Tom was here? Could this be a coincidence?

He was deep in conversation with a man I didn’t recognize, so I took the farthest path I could manage to bypass him, but it was too late. Tom must have seen me in the mirror behind the bar. I was ten feet from the restroom alcove when he called my name.

I wiped the wince off my face as I turned around. Tom had left his friend at the bar, but not his beer, which he looked too young to be drinking.

“I see you’re here with a couple other Gryphons.” He smiled in that annoyingly smug way, made all the more so by the stupid banality of his statement.

“Yeah. Sorry we didn’t know you were here.”

Tom checked over his shoulder at his friend. “I’m glad to see you’re making an effort to fit in. I have to say, with your abilities I wasn’t surprised to discover you spend a lot of time in Shadowtown.”

How did he know that?

I bit my lip. “I wouldn’t say I spend a lot of time there. I used to do business there, as you know. That’s all.”

“Yes, but I have to assume you made some friendly business associates, like you’re making here.”

Once again I felt like I was being probed, ever so gently, for damning information. “Preds aren’t exactly friendly.”

“Not to us, but I imagine some satyrs probably treat you that way because of your gift.”

I said nothing. Merely stared blankly at him.

“You’re wise not to assume they’d mean it,” he continued, unflustered by my lack of response. “As your current case shows, they aren’t friends to humanity, regardless of what face they put on. It’s a good thing to keep in mind since I can see how it might be tempting to identify with them.”

Was that some kind of warning? Like I might identify with a pred?

“Thanks for the tip, but I’m well aware of what preds are and what they can do. A bunch nearly got me killed if you’ll recall.” I motioned toward the bathrooms. “Excuse me.”

I didn’t see Tom when I left the pub five minutes later, but I didn’t spend any time looking. His being there, I told myself again and again, was only a coincidence. But that conversation was weird. I ran it through my head on the train back to Shadowtown, but couldn’t figure out Tom’s motivations. Not unless being a condescending prick was one of them.

Fortunately, my meeting with Rik went smoothly, and I was able to put aside my confused musings. I handed over the blood I’d obtained, and he destroyed Bee’s with only minimal admonishments about my choice of new occupations and dire warnings from Eyff about not allowing any further trades if I kept this up. I even bought two chocolate croissants from him to have as a Sunday breakfast treat with Lucen. The whole exchange felt normal, and that bugged me because there was nothing normal about it.

I left the croissants on the counter when I got to Lucen’s and kicked off my shoes. My satyr was obviously still at work, Saturday being The Lair’s busiest night. I collapsed on the sofa and turned on the TV, thinking to take advantage of Lucen’s Netflix subscription. I needed a break from reality. Preferably one with explosions.

I didn’t get the break, although I might have gotten the explosions. Lucen entered the living room soon after, and the tightness in his jaw didn’t bode well.

I turned down the volume. “Shouldn’t you be working?”

“We’ve been over this. I take breaks.” He crossed the room and sat next to me, but didn’t touch me. “How was your date?”

“I’m not sure it qualified as a date.”

“Good. It better not.”

Did I hear that correctly? “Sorry? Why do you have an opinion?”

“Because…I don’t know. I thought we had a thing?” He tilted his head to the side, regarding me like a child. “Or was I wrong about that? I guess we never actually discussed it, so I could be.”

Okay, TV off. I was not awake enough for this conversation as it was. “Yeah, it would seem we have a thing, but I don’t know what that thing is. And whatever it is, it’s not an exclusive thing.”

“It’s not?”

“How could it be?” I got off the sofa, too irritated to continue sitting. “It can’t be an exclusive thing as you like to make clear all the time. At the very least you have to have your addicts. If you can do that, I don’t see why I can’t go out on a date if I want.”

He looked at me like I was crazy, and unlike Andre’s look, it wasn’t endearing. “It’s not the same thing. At all.”

“No? I’m failing to understand here. You can screw whoever you like, and that’s okay. But I can’t even go out for drinks with someone without you suddenly acting like a harpy’s addict?”

“Sex is different.” He rested his head in his hands, then sighed a sigh that suggested he thought I was being an idiot on purpose. “Look, Jess, I don’t care if you want to get naked with your coworker. Hell, I don’t care if you fuck every guy on the Red Sox. What I care about, despite my better sense and Dezzi’s lectures, is you. Going on dates suggests you’re willing to get emotionally, romantically, attached to other people. That’s what I don’t want.”

“Emotional attachment.” I guessed now was not the time to bring up wanting a normal relationship. Not unless I really was in the mood to deal with explosions. Which I wasn’t. “So I have to put up with you and your addicts, which bothers me but is normal for you, but I’m not allowed to do anything that’s normal for me.”

Lucen closed his eyes. “Why is it so wrong to not want you forming emotional attachments to people who would not be okay with our relationship and who will try to take you away from me?”

“Because I feel like there’s a double standard here.”

“It’s not. That’s what you need to get over. The only one acting like a harpy’s addict is you. I’m a satyr. I feed on sex to live, and it can’t just be with you even if you were my addict. You need to stop seeing my addicts as some kind of betrayal.”

“The mere fact that you
have
addicts is a betrayal. Not to me, but to my race. Just thinking about what you and your people do to humans makes me ill. So I try very hard not to.” I fell back onto the sofa, helpless tears stinging my eyes as I held them in. I’d known this couldn’t work for long, hadn’t I? But it seemed like it was falling apart faster and faster these days. “I’m not like you, and sometimes I want to be normal. To have normal things.”

Lucen put a hand on my knee. “You need to stop trying to be normal for a human, little siren. Because you aren’t.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

Lucen stood, his face haggard. Funny, because all the misery this conversation had induced left me wired. More proof, as he said, that I wasn’t normal. “We can talk more later.”

I nodded and he left. Later was only putting off the inevitable—the collapse of whatever thing I had with Lucen. The ruin of any façade of normal I put on in front of Andre and the Gryphons.

The end of hoping I could ever be anything but a freak.