Divine Misdemeanors (28 page)

“Something flew because she was envious. She always wished she
could fly. I got that very clearly, as if it had been a wish since childhood, and beauty. She thought whatever was flying was beautiful.”

“And the man?” Rhys asked.

“He’s just fear, all fear, but fear for his wife more than himself. He loved her.” Jordan said it like “loved” should have been in all capital letters.

“Did the woman know what magic they used against her?”

Jordan frowned, and had that distant look that I’d seen on his face before, as if he were looking at things I’d never see. “She thought beautiful and wings, and wished she could fly, and then her husband came in and there was love and there was fear. Such fear, but she died too quickly to fear for her husband much. They killed her first. There was confusion about the man. Two killers, two, one female, one male. They’re a couple. Sex, lust, killing made them feel both, and love. They love each other, too. They don’t know that what they’re feeling isn’t right. It’s love for them, and out of that love they do horrible things, terrible things.” He gave frightened eyes to both of us, looking from one to the other. “This wasn’t the first time. They’d had this feeling together before, the power rush of the kill together before … they’ve killed … before.”

His voice was trailing off, his eyes losing their franticness. His fist began to open, and he fought to hold onto Rhys’s jacket. “Man, woman, couple … killing. Power … they want power … magic. Enough to do something.”

“To do what?” I asked.

His hand slid away from Rhys to flop boneless on top of the blanket. “To do …” And he passed out.

Rhys called out, “Marshal, did you put something besides fluids in the IV?”

Marshal appeared at the doors of the ambulance, giving a longer-than-necessary look at Cathbodua all black and Goth and scary by the doors. Sholto looked much less scary, though I know he wasn’t. He nodded. “I put something to calm him down. It’s standard for psychic
shock. They calm down, and the shock goes away. He’ll be fine when he wakes up.”

“He’ll also have no memory of what he picked up from the murder upstairs,” Rhys said.

“I had one psychic stroke out from severe shock. I know you lost some information, but it’s my job to keep him alive and well, and I did my job.”

Rhys was angry enough that he just got out of the back of the ambulance without another word. I think he didn’t trust himself to talk to Marshal anymore.

“Could he really have hurt himself if this had continued?” I asked.

Marshal nodded. “The odds are against it, but I took that chance with one psychic and he’s still in rehab learning how to tie his own shoes. I’m not going to let that happen to another person, not if I can help it. It’s my job to keep everyone healthy, not to solve crime. I’m sorry if it made it harder on you guys.”

I touched Jordan’s face. The sweat was already drying on his skin. He was warmer, and his breathing had evened out into something like normal sleep. “Thank you for helping him.”

“Just doing my job.”

I smiled at him. “Will you transport him to the hospital?”

“I will if the crowd ever thins enough, and I’m told that that won’t happen until you leave, Princess.”

I nodded. “Maybe not, but he needs someone to ride with him to the hospital. His brother is upstairs. I’ll call him, and I need your word that you won’t transport Jordan until his brother is with him.”

“Fine, I give you my word.”

I shook a finger at him. “I’m a princess of faerie. We take the giving of our word very seriously. You seem like a nice guy, Marshal the EMT. Don’t give me your word unless you really mean it.”

“Are you threatening me?” he asked.

“No, but magic works around me sometimes, even here in L.A., and that magic takes your word of honor very seriously sometimes.”

“You’re saying that magic works around you whether you want it to or not?”

I wanted to take it back, because I didn’t want the press to get hold of that fact, but Marshal had helped my friend, and he seemed like a nice guy. It would be a shame to have him hurt just because he didn’t understand what his word was supposed to mean to the power of faerie.

“Talk to the reporters and I’ll say you made it up, but yes, sometimes. You seem like a nice guy. I’d hate for you to have a problem with some stray bit of magic. So you have to stay here until Julian, his brother, gets here.”

“Or something bad could happen to me?” He made it a question.

I nodded.

He frowned as if he didn’t believe me, but finally nodded. “Okay, call the brother. I think the crowd won’t thin out too fast.”

I slid out of the ambulance. Cathbodua fell in at my side in that practiced bodyguard move that I’d begun to take for granted. Sholto mirrored her on the other side. I used my cell phone to call Julian. He’d want to know that his brother was doing this poorly anyway; of course, I’d forgotten that both brothers were powerful psychics.

He picked up his phone about the time I saw him through the crowd of cops. He was already on his way to his brother’s side. I flipped the phone closed and waved at him. He waved back, pocketing the phone he’d been about to answer. They were psychics. They didn’t need telephones.

UTHER JOINED US AT THE BARRIERS ALONG WITH OUR UNIFORMED
escorts. This pair of policemen was male, one young and African American and the other on the far side of fifty and Caucasian. In fact, he looked like he’d been dropped on the scene by a casting agent who’d filled the order for an older white cop, a little overweight, a little jaded, and very world-weary. His eyes said he’d seen everything and been impressed by none of it.

His partner was a rookie, and seemed bright and shiny in comparison. The young officer was Pendleton; the older one was Brust.

Pendleton stared up at the nearly giant-sized fey. Brust gave Uther the same dull look he’d given everything else, and said, “You coming with the princess?”

“Yes,” Uther said in a deep, rumble of a voice that sounded perfect for his size. He’d taken voice lessons to get rid of the speech impediment that the tusks had given him so that he could sound like he was speaking the queen’s English when he wanted to. He did it mostly because it hurt people’s heads to hear someone who looked like him speaking like a college English professor. It amused him, and most of the rest of us.

“I think with four guards and us we’ve got this,” Brust said.

I moved in smiling. “I’m sure you do, Officer Brust, but Uther is also a coworker and we need to discuss the case with him.”

Both officers looked the big guy up and down. I’d seen the looks before, and so had Uther. He said, “Would you prefer that I quote Keats, Milton, or the football scores? What works for you so you don’t think I’m as stupid as I look?”

Pendleton said, “We don’t … I mean, I don’t … We didn’t say anything like that.”

“Save it, Penny,” Brust said, and looked up at Uther. He said in a voice as dry and serious as any I’d heard, “So you’re saying you’re not just another pretty face?”

“Brust,” Pendleton said, and sounded offended on Uther’s behalf. It made me shave years off Pendleton’s age, or he’d joined the force later than he looked. His offense was civilian businessman offense, not cop offense.

Uther laughed his rumbling chuckle. “No, I’m not just another pretty face.”

Brust actually gave a little smile. “Then by all means help us move these fine citizens back.”

Pendleton looked from one man to the other, puzzled that they’d somehow bonded. I understood it. Uther knew what he looked like, and he hated it when people pretended that he didn’t. He liked people who honestly weren’t bothered by his appearance, but the ones who were bothered but pretended they weren’t always made his hackles rise.

“Come on, big guy,” Rhys said, “let’s see if we can clear out some of this crowd for the nice policeman.”

Uther smiled down at him. “I don’t think you’re going to be much help, little man.”

Rhys grinned up at him. “One of these days I’ve got to take you into a mosh pit.”

Galen made a happy sound. “Only if I get to go,” he said.

“What is a mosh pit?” Saraid asked.

Cathbodua surprised us all by answering. “It’s an area at a music
concert where people dance oddly and often get hurt.” She gave a small smile of her own. “I think Uther in one of them would be worth seeing.”

“I didn’t know you liked modern music,” I said.

“I doubt you know much of anything that I like, Princess Meredith.”

I could only agree. Uther moved out in front of us and the reporters did back up, because he was simply that physically intimidating, but some of the reporters started asking him questions. Again, they seemed to believe he was this Constantine person.

Rhys and Galen stayed wedged on either side of me, with Brust in front, Pendleton in back, and Saraid and Cathbodua to the sides and back of all of us. Sholto stayed at my side as Julian did on the way up, but there was still no hand holding, not until we were clear of the crime scene.

Uther finally came to a stop, because the press was so thick that it was either stop or start stepping on people. Brust used his shoulder mic, probably calling for more help to clear the crowd. I was going to be persona non grata at crime scenes after this, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Uther tried to make things better. “I am Uther Boarshead. I work for the Grey and Hart Detective Agency. I do not make films.”

One female reporter shoved a recorder at him, and said, “Your tusks are bigger than his, more curved. Does that mean that other things are bigger, too?”

I asked Rhys in a low voice, “What kind of movies does the other guy make?”

“Porn,” he answered.

I stared at him.

Rhys grinned, and nodded. “Yep.”

“Recent films?” I asked.

“Apparently the films are popular. The big guy has been getting asked for autographs and propositioned when he’s in public.”

I stared at him in horror, because Uther was a very private person.
I couldn’t think of many things that would bother him more. I also couldn’t think of a way for it to stop. Most people would just see the outer packaging, and this Constantine was probably the only other Jack-in-Irons in L.A. It was like being the body double for Brad Pitt. People wanted it to be him, and so they didn’t believe you when you said that it wasn’t.

“I take it his costar is fey, not human,” I said, moving in close to Rhys so the reporters just feet away wouldn’t hear.

“His main leading ladies, yes, but he’s done some with humans.”

I looked at Rhys, and his one eye sparkled with appreciation of my surprise. I said, “Rhys, I couldn’t be with Uther and not be hurt, and I’m only part human.”

“My understanding is that the humans are more fluffers and foreplay.”

Galen leaned in and said, “I don’t know, I thought the fey-on-fey films were more shocking. Watching all that go on in such a small place …” He made a face. The sidhe are not easily squicked, so the fact that he made that face said a lot about the squick factor of the film.

“You watched them?” I said.

“Uther wanted to see them, and he didn’t want to watch alone. He invited the men at the agency over to sort of hold his hand.”

I wanted to call and tell Lucy what we’d learned from Jordan but I didn’t dare do so this close to running recorders and sharp-eared reporters.

Sholto drew me in against his body abruptly. Saraid’s hand just appeared and was holding the arm of a man with a tape recorder in his hand. “Please, do not touch the princess,” she said, in a voice that did not match her brilliant smile.

“Sure, sorry,” he mumbled.

She let go of his arm, but he stayed so close to Galen that if we did get to move forward he’d have to move so Galen could step forward at all. The reporter said, “Princess Meredith, what do you think of the reporters going through the window of your cousin’s deli?”

“I hope no one was hurt.”

A woman screamed from just in back of him, “Meredith, did you ever sleep with Uther?”

I just shook my head.

A wave of policemen moved in and began pushing them back, helping us move forward. Sholto kept me pressed against him. Shielding me from as much of the cameras as he could. I was happy to be moving, and happier not to be trapped with the questions. I was used to sex questions about me and the men in my life, but Uther and the other detectives at the agency, except for Roane, whom I’d actually dated, were off that list. I liked it better that way.

UTHER RODE IN THE FAR BACK OF THE SUV WITH HIS KNEES TUCKED
to his chin and his upper body bent until his head was almost between his shins. He looked squished and totally uncomfortable. Jeremy had driven him to the scene in the van, where he fit in the back, but the boss man had to stay behind and continue to try to help the police. I sat in the middle seats with Galen on one side and Sholto on the other. Saraid rode in the small jump seat that was the last seat in the back, which was one of the reasons Uther was wedged so close. Cathbodua rode in front with Rhys. I turned as far as the seat belt would let me so I could see Uther.

He looked like what he was, someone impossibly tall shoved into a normal-size space. But the unhappiness on his face wasn’t about the fit; he was used to trying to fit into a world made for smaller folk.

“How did I miss this whole Constantine problem?” I asked.

He made an
umph
sound. “You and I once discussed you helping me lift my long fast. You said no, and I respect that. If I started talking to you about pornographic movies featuring another Jack-in-Irons, I feared you might misconstrue my motives.”

“You thought I’d take it as flirting?” I asked.

He nodded, settling his lips around the curve of his curling tusks
the way another man might settle a toothpick. It was a thinking gesture for him.

“Bragging perhaps, or even seduction. I’ve had more human women proposition me since Constantine’s movies than ever in my life.” He crossed his big arms over his chest.

Galen turned beside me so he could see the big man, too. “And why is that a problem?” he asked.