Tooth and Nail (28 page)

“What?” he said, and it was clear in his voice that he knew he wouldn’t like what came next.

“Tomorrow,” I said, opening the door. “I’m inviting you to a powwow. Someone’s holding out on me.”

I paused and watched Svein tug on his sneakers. “If no tooth collector in recent history has given us away,” I asked, “how come you sent me to Watergate? Teaching me a lesson couldn’t be worth the risk.”

“I followed you.”

My mouth hung open. “I hate you,” I finally said, letting the door slam in his face. I heard him laughing as I headed back down the hall.

CHAPTER 17

W
hen I got home, I was a half dozen different emotions by then: confused, defeated, jumpy. Angry at Riley Clayton. Strangely sympathetic to Greg Mahoney.

Surprised to see Avery at the kitchen table, cell phone at his ear, yellow legal pad in front of him.

Not that I should have been surprised. It wasn’t like I didn’t live there. But I was afraid that all the happenings of the day were on open display on my face, and I didn’t have the energy to create a careful mask. And I didn’t want to add guilt to my simmering emotion pot—the low, quiet, slow guilt that comes with lying by omission.

He nodded at me to acknowledge my presence but he didn’t lift his eyes from his notepad. I moved around him and opened the cabinet over the sink. I filled a mug with hot water and put it in the microwave. Then I tuned in to Avery’s half of the conversation.

I wished I didn’t. I heard, “kids,” “arson,” “shooting,” “underage,” “violence.”

I didn’t know if it was the scorching pain in my gut from the beating I took or the bruised tailbone I got from falling through a brick wall, but whatever it was that was preoccupying my mind was keeping it from processing full sentences. The isolated words in Avery’s calm, assuring voice twisted in an out-of-control cyclone in my head.

The microwave beeped several annoyed times and I didn’t make a move to get my mug. I was grounding a chai teabag in my fist into sweet-smelling shreds. Avery clicked off, placed his phone next to him on the table, and wrote down some notes.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“The office.”

“Not the campaign office.”

“No, my office.”

“Why?”

Avery still didn’t look up, and his pen kept on moving. “Consulting on a few cases.”

“Why?” I asked. “You’re on leave. You’re kind of busy. What, they can’t do their jobs without you?”

Avery quirked a brow. “There are a few cases right now that are delicate. They wanted my opinion on how to proceed.”

“Well, tell them you don’t have time.”

He finally looked at me. “Why would I do that?”

I backtracked, because I really didn’t have a reason that I could tell him. “You’ve got a lot going on. You don’t need this too.”

“This has nothing to do with what I need,” he said. “But I appreciate what sounds like concern. So let me tell you what’s going on.”

Please don’t
, I thought.

“Have you noticed an increase in violence in this area that’s perpetrated by kids?”

Yes. “No.”

“It’s all over the news,” he said. “That school shooting. Some kid just set a vacant building on fire. A girl tried to kill her brother. These are little kids, Gemma. Only in the last couple of weeks.”

Brian’s dead eyes drifted in front of my own. “So…”

“So, these cases are landing on the desks of my associates. These should be isolated, unusual cases that we could put senior people on. But they’re piling up, and the less experienced attorneys are having to handle these scenarios. What caused the violence? Should they be tried as adults?”

“Should they?” I asked, not knowing myself.

“It’s a case-by-case decision.”

“And so everyone needs your help?”

“I’m senior,” Avery said. “I’ve had a few instances in my career when I’ve had to prosecute underage felons. So they’re looking for my advice.”

“I thought you said you were leaving this behind to campaign,” I said. “That’s what you said you were doing.”

I heard desperation in my voice. But it was too late, because he’d heard it too. His expression hardened into a stone wall of determination. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked. “There’s a problem in this city. I don’t know where it’s coming from, or even if it’s coming from the same place for every one of these messed-up kids, but this is my job. You want me to walk away from that?”

“You already did,” I pointed out. I stepped on the trash can pedal. The lid flipped up, hit the wall behind it, and slapped down. My tossed teabag bounced off onto the floor. “Let your office handle it. They’re capable, and you have enough right now. You have more than enough. You’re exhausted. Why are you adding more grief?”

“Because when I see a problem,” he said, his voice tight, “and especially when I see a tragedy, I do what I can to stop it. I do everything. I have to. That’s my mentality, and that’s what it has been my whole life. What I’m always thinking is, if I don’t do it, who will?”

I will
, I thought.

But then I thought, I wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t been talked into it. Frederica, Reese, Svein. They’d had to explain, demonstrate, even guilt me into accepting my destiny of birth.

Avery had no destiny, no responsibility other than to himself. He was free to make his own choices, and faced with a choice, he always went with—without advice or compulsion or even a second thought—what he thought was the right way.

I was a promise to the fae to protect them. But Avery was a protector of humanity, and that included me.

“You’re not the only fighter in this house, Gemma,” Avery said. “Unfortunately, the opponent isn’t limited to rules of a game. This is reality and it’s dark and disgusting and I’m not going to watch it float by me like a parade. It’s my responsibility.”

Suddenly, I wished it was him and not me. If my battle was his to fight, he’d win. He wouldn’t have the conflicts I had, or mess up the way I did. He’d have a better plan than me. He’d more clearly see the victory in front of him. He was what I needed to be. And I wished I could ask him how.

His jaw was set stiff, and his shoulders were squared back, and I felt bad for the fae, who didn’t have Avery on their side.

Avery abruptly rose, shoved the chair back so hard that it momentarily teetered on one leg, crossed the room to where I was standing, grasped my shoulders and kissed me.

Hard. Edging on rough.

I could do rough. I smiled beneath his lips. He didn’t have anything to prove to me, didn’t need to show me he was any kind of hero.

But
, I thought as he tugged my shirt over my head and tossed it over my shoulder, that didn’t mean I couldn’t let him show me. Over and over again.

>=<

“Thank you for meeting me today.”

I was holding very small court in a back booth at a little bistro at 10
^th
and Constitution. I got there twenty minutes before any of them so I could watch them as they arrived. My mother arrived with a perfumed kiss, a tote bag, and a puzzled expression when I informed her that two others would be joining us. Frederica had swept in wearing a pale green floaty top, lightweight beige gauchos and brown ballerina flats, serene and content to wait for the last of the guests. Svein had strode in, frowned at the crowded table, and slid in beside Frederica and across from me, the bench creaking under him.

I’d introduced both Frederica and Svein to my mother, and by their mutual nods, they all silently acknowledged each other as fae. Then I’d taken orders, got our sandwiches, but when I returned to the table, there’d been no indication they’d said one word to one another in my absence.

Frederica smiled. My mother raised her brows. Svein leaned back, his foot in its engineer boot protruding into the aisle.

“Riley Clayton,” I said.

“I knew Riley Clayton,” my mother said.

“Okay,” I said. “Good start,” even though it wasn’t good at all. I had been hoping, despite her reaction on the phone, that my mother couldn’t confirm a connection to Clayton, but at the same time, I was hoping that with a little cooperation, I could glue together the broken pieces of Clayton’s story.

“I don’t understand,” my mother said. “Do you know him?”

“Yes,” I answered. “He’s my new dentist. And he’s a fae threat.”

My mother put a hand to her forehead. “A threat.” She took a deep breath. “I knew they hadn’t just recruited you to collect. I
knew
this would happen.”

“With Clayton?” I asked.

“Yes, I worried about Clayton for a while,” she said. “But to me, it didn’t matter who a threat would be and what form it would take. All I know is that you’re in danger now, and I abandoned my family and my heritage thirty years ago to make sure this wouldn’t happen. So that you,” she said, pointing a finger at Frederica, “wouldn’t get her and put her on the front line as our race’s only weapon.” My mother’s shaking voice rose in pitch, but dropped in volume, mindful of fellow diners. “I respect what we are and I respect the dream but I will
not
let my daughter die for you.”

“Bethany,” Frederica said, and stopped, letting my mother’s name float there in the air, as if its magical vibrations could soothe my mother’s soul. After a few moments, when my mother’s tremors had subsided a bit, she continued. “Gemma is a smart, brave, wily human, and a cunning and strong fae. She is not the warrior of an earlier time. We’re not tossing her in the middle of an uncivilized and violent fray. We have faith in her to neutralize the threat without bloodshed on either side.”

My bruised gut hurt with my every inhalation.

“You think modern day is more civilized?” my mother asked Frederica. “You’re delusional. This world is more unpredictable and more perilous than ever. You know that as well as I do. Earth is on a well-worn path to self-destruction, and you know that means the Olde Way, more than ever, is the savior. My daughter, as bright and strong as she is, can’t be alone out there. No one can.”

I’d never heard my mother talk this way, and I suddenly realized my fighter’s instinct hadn’t just come from my father. “It’s done, Mom,” I said quietly, leaning into her. “I’m doing this now. I have to do this. No one is making me. The fae gave me a choice, and I accepted. I’m on this. I’ll be okay. I love you,” I said. “I’ll be okay. But I need to hear about Clayton. I need to learn how to stop him.”

My mother put her arm around me and hugged me, glaring at Frederica, then at Svein. “What do you need to know?” she asked, kissing me on the cheek like I was a child. After the batterings of the last few days, it felt good. When Avery had hugged me last night upon his return home, the pain in my bruised abs had made me squeak. I’d told him I had a stomachache, and he’d put me to bed with chicken soup and crackers.

“Anything and everything,” I said. “He said some things yesterday that …”

“Stop right there,” Svein said, leaning across the table. “Yesterday? You went there yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Before you came to see me?”

“Yes.”

“How come I didn’t know about this?”

“It didn’t come up, specifically.”

He glared.

“It was an emergency,” I said. “I chipped my front tooth in the ring.”

“Well,” he drawled, leaning back. His foot hit mine under the table before snaking out into the aisle again. “That was rather convenient.”

“Wasn’t it,” I replied, matching his sarcasm.

“I dated Riley,” my mother said, and my sarcasm melted away in a hurry as I stared at her. “It wasn’t serious,” she clarified, after taking in my expression. “It was just casual dating. To me, anyway.”

“Mom.” I took a deep breath. “This isn’t going to be a ‘Luke, I am your father’ moment, is it? I’m not—“ I swallowed—“his daughter?”

“No!” She actually laughed, and I was glad for it, because if she thought it was that funny even in this charged conversation, there really was no chance. But then she stopped laughing and searched my face. “You,” she said, “whether you want to hear it or not, are your father’s daughter, inside and out. I would know. As far as Riley is concerned, our relationship never got that far. We had a few dates, and that was it.”

“Are you sure?”

She eyed the others at the table. “Sweetie, I do remember who I have and have not been intimate with.”

“Sorry, I just meant …“

She waved off my apology. “It’s all right. I understand why you would ask. But how is he a threat now?”

“He’s a dentist,” I told her, “and he’s making toothpaste for kids that’s draining the essence from their teeth, so the teeth are useless and the kids are suddenly little jaded zombie adults.”

Mom looked shocked. Then she shook her head slowly. “Why?”

“We don’t know why,” Svein said, though I knew he was thinking of midnight fae.

“Honestly,” my mother insisted, “it was just a handful of dates. I would have broken it off anyway, even if I hadn’t met your father.”

In the sudden silence, I could almost hear the others mentally processing what she’d just said. I had a feeling that Svein and Frederica were hoping I would take the lead. “You broke up with Clayton for Dad?” I finally asked.

“That’s right,” she said. “I fell away from the fae community, married your father. I think you can fill in the rest.”

“Was he upset?” I asked. “When you broke up with him?”

“I wouldn’t even say we broke up, because it wasn’t involved enough for that. I just told him I didn’t want to keep seeing him.” She took a deep breath. “But yes, he
was
upset. I remember thinking it was odd, because I’d done nothing to make him believe our relationship was serious. He told me I was making a big mistake, that he knew I was the one for him, all the kinds of things you say when you’re being dumped, I suppose. He said he loved me, which was close to preposterous, considering our short relationship. But I told him if I was making a mistake, it was mine to make. Because the moment I met your father, I realized he would become the biggest part of my life.”

She grew quiet, and I couldn’t pretend to know what she was thinking, but I knew if I were her, I would be wondering at the surety with which I’d made that long-ago decision.