Part I Part 104 (1/2)
I snorted. ”Suppose I don't want to listen.”
Something in her eyes suddenly made her face cold and unpleasant. ”I think it might be wise for you to indulge me. I simply go mad when someone ruins a good party mood.”
”Harry,” Billy muttered, ”these people are giving me the creeps. If she's playing games with you, maybe we should go.”
I grimaced. ”Yeah, that would be the smart thing. But it wouldn't get me any answers. Come on.”
I stepped forward and started climbing up to the table Maeve had indicated. Billy followed closely. Maeve watched me the whole time, her eyes sparkling.
”There,” she said, once I'd been seated. ”Not so untamable as he claimed.”
I felt my jaw get a little tighter as Billy took a seat beside me. A trio of brightly colored lights zipped in, bearing a silver tray holding a crystalline ewer of water and two gla.s.ses. ”As who said?”
Maeve waved a hand airily. ”No matter.”
I glared at her, but she didn't seem bothered. ”All right, Lady,” I said. ”Talk.”
Maeve idly stretched out a hand. A goblet of some golden liquid appeared in her fingers and rimed over with frost as I watched. She took a sip of the drink, whatever it was, and then said, ”First, I will name my price.”
”There'd better be a blue light special. I don't have much to trade, all things considered.”
”True. I cannot ask for a claim over you, because Queen Mab has that already. But let me see.” She tapped a fingernail to her lips again and then said, ”Your issue.”
”Eh?” I said, glibly.
”Your issue, wizard,” she said, toying with a violet dreadlock. ”Your offspring. Your firstborn. And in exchange I will give you the knowledge you seek.”
”News flash, Coldilocks. I don't have any children.”
Maeve laughed. ”Naturally not. But the details could be arranged.”
Evidently that was a cue. The dark pool of maybe-water stirred, drawing my eye. Ripples whispered as they lapped at the edges of the pool.
”What's that?” Billy whispered to me.
The waters parted, and a Sidhe girl rose out of the pool. She was tall, slender, water sliding down over pale, naked, supple curves. Her hair was a deep shade of emerald green, and as she kept on coming up out of the water, walking up what were apparently submerged stairs, I could tell that it wasn't dyed. Her face was sweetly angelic, sort of girl-next-door pretty. Her hair clung to her head, her throat, her shoulders, as did beads of water that glistened and threw back the fae-lights in dozens of colors. She extended her arms, and immediately half a dozen little lights, pixies, zipped out of nowhere, bearing a swath of emerald silk. They draped it over her extended arms, but the cloth served to emphasize, rather than conceal, her nakedness. She looked up at the tables with her feline fae-eyes and inclined her head to Maeve. Then she focused upon me.
There was an abrupt pulling sensation, something as simple and as difficult to resist as gravity. I felt a sudden urge to get up and go down to her, to remove the silk cloth and to carry her into the water. I wanted to see her hair fan out beneath the surface, feel her naked limbs sliding around me. I wanted to feel that slender waist beneath my hands, twist and writhe with her in the warm, weightless darkness of the pool.
Beside me, Billy gulped. ”Is it just me, or is it getting a little warm in here?”
”She's pus.h.i.+ng it on you,” I said quietly. My lips felt a little numb. ”It's glamour. It isn't real.”
”Okay,” Billy said without conviction. ”It isn't real.”
He reached for a gla.s.s and the ewer of water, but I grabbed his hand. ”No. No food. No drink. It's dangerous.”
Billy cleared his throat and settled back in his seat. ”Oh. Right. Sorry.”
The girl glided up the tiers of tables, glittering pixies in darting attendance around her, gathering her hair back with ornate combs, fastening gleaming jewels to her ears, lacing more about her throat, wrist, ankle. I couldn't help but follow the motion of the lights, which took my eyes on a thorough tour of her body. The urge to go to her became even stronger as she neared, as I smelled her perfume, a scent like that of the mist hovering over a still lake beneath a harvest moon.
The green-haired woman smiled, lips closed, then drew up in a deep curtsey to Maeve, and murmured, ”My Lady.”
Maeve reached out and took her hand, warmly. ”Jen,” she murmured. ”Are you acquainted with the infamous Harry Dresden?”
Jen smiled, and her teeth gleamed between her lips. They were as green as seaweed, spinach, and fresh-steamed broccoli. ”Only by reputation.” She turned to me and extended her hand, arching one verdant brow.
I gave Billy a self-conscious glance and rose to take the Sidhe-lady's hand. I nudged Billy's foot with mine, and he stood up too.
I bowed politely over Jen's hand. Her fingers were cool, damp. I got the impression that her flawless skin should have been prune-wrinkled, but it wasn't. I had to fight an urge to kiss the back of her hand, to taste her cool flesh. I managed to keep a neutral tone to my voice and said, ”Good evening.”
The Sidhe-lady smiled at me, showing her green teeth again, and said, ”Something of a gentleman. I wouldn't have expected it.” She withdrew her hand and said, ”And tall.” Her eyes roamed over me in idle speculation. ”I like tall men.”
I felt my cheeks flush and grow warmer. Other parts suffered from similar inflammation.
Maeve asked, ”Is she lovely enough to suit you, wizard? You've no idea how many mortal men have longed for her. And how few have known her embrace.”
Jen let out a quiet laugh. ”For more than about three minutes, at any rate.”
Maeve drew Jen down until the nearly nude Sidhe lady knelt beside the throne. Maeve toyed with a strand of her curling, leaf-green hair with one hand. ”Why not agree to my offer, wizard? Spend a night in the company of my maiden. Is it not a pleasant price?”
My voice came out more quietly than I'd intended. ”You want me to get a child on her. A child you would keep.”
Maeve's eyes glittered. She leaned toward me and said, very quietly, ”Do not let that concern you. I can feel your hunger, mortal man. The needs in you. Hot as a fever. Let go for a time. No mortal could sate you as she will.”
I felt my eyes drawn to the Sidhe woman, trailing down the length of pale flesh left bared between the idle drapes of emerald silk, following the length of her legs. That hunger rose again in me, a raw and unthinking need. Scent flooded over me-a perfume of wind and mist, of heated flesh. Scent evoked more phantom sensations of the silken caress of delicate fae-hands, sweetly hot rake of nails, winding strength of limbs tangled with mine.
Maeve's eyes brightened. ”Perhaps she is not enough for you? Perhaps you would wish another. Even myself.” As I watched, Jen leaned her cheek against Maeve's thigh and placed a soft kiss upon the tight leather. Maeve s.h.i.+fted, a slow, sensual motion of her hips and back, and murmured, ”Mmmm. Or more, if your thirst runs deep enough. Drive a hard bargain, wizard. All of us would enjoy that.”
The longing, an aching force of naked need, redoubled. The two faeries were lovely. More than lovely. Sensuous. Willing. Perfectly unrestrained, perfectly pa.s.sionate. I could feel that in them, radiating from them. If I made the bargain, theywould make the evening one of nothing but indulgence, sensation, satiation, delight. Maeve and her handmaiden would do things to me that you only read about in magazines. make the evening one of nothing but indulgence, sensation, satiation, delight. Maeve and her handmaiden would do things to me that you only read about in magazines.
”DearPenthouse ,” I muttered, ”I never thought something like this would happen to me...” ,” I muttered, ”I never thought something like this would happen to me...”
”Wizard,” Maeve murmured, ”I see you weighing the consequences in your eyes. You think too much. It weakens you. Stop thinking. Come down into the earth with us.”
Some mathematical and uncaring part of my brain way the h.e.l.l in the back of my head reminded me that Idid need that information. A simple statement from Maeve would tell me if she was the killer or not. need that information. A simple statement from Maeve would tell me if she was the killer or not.Go ahead , it told me. , it told me.It isn't as though it's going to be painful for you to pay her price. Don't you deserve to have something pleasant happen to you for a change? Make the bargain. Get the information. Get wasted on kisses and pleasure and soft skin. Live a little-before that borrowed time you're on runs out.
I reached out with a shaking hand to the crystal ewer on the table. I clenched it. It clinked and rattled against the gla.s.s as I poured cool, sparkling water into it.
Maeve's smile grew sharper.
”Harry,” Billy said, his voice uncertain. ”Didn't you just say something bad about-you know, taking food or drink from fa-uh, from these people?”
I put the pitcher down and picked up the gla.s.s of water.
Jen rubbed her cheek against Maeve's thigh and murmured, ”They never really change, do they?”
”No,” Maeve said. ”The males all fall to the same thing. Isn't it delicious?”
I unb.u.t.toned the fly in my jeans, undid the zipper a little, and dumped the cold water directly down my pants.