Dirty Little Misery (Miss Misery) Read online

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 yo
u 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.

  Chapter Twenty

  I ate my chocolate croissant alone the next morning while Lucen slept. Never had I been so glad for an impulsive purchase. I was sore and anxious from last night’s conversation, had slept badly because of it, and therefore needed chocolate with my coffee.

  Since I didn’t have to go in to work, I caught up on chores, doing my best to stay busy so I had less time to dwell on my negativity. I got home from food shopping around three to find Lucen in the kitchen eating the other croissant. The Lair was closed today, so I didn’t know what his plans were. Torturing me with another conversation seemed likely.

  “Can I?” I pointed to the coffeepot, which had another mug’s worth left in it.

  He nodded and set down his phone. “Dezzi stopped by last night after I returned to work.”

  Yup, here came the metaphorical hot pokers. She probably told him to kick me out of his apartment, among other things. “And?”

  “She likes your new theory about the murder victims.” Lucen waited for me to acknowledge his comment as I poured the coffee. I did, after my surprise wore off. “Devon mentioned it to her,” he explained.

  “Ah. Of course she likes it.”

  Lucen broke up the last of his croissant. “It’s more complicated than what you’re thinking. But the good news for you is that Dezzi is willing to believe someone might have it in for the F maker. Your theory, if correct, could indicate that.”

  “I suppose it could. Why would someone have it in for this person though?”

  “Long story. I’ll have to fill you in on some of the details before you meet with her, but Dezzi is going to allow it.”

  I set my mug down sharply, and it made an unpleasant racket against the granite counter. “I get to meet this mysterious person at long last?”

  “With precautions taken, yes.”

  “Precautions meaning?”

  Lucen put his empty mug in the dishwasher and gave me a sideways glance. “Dezzi’s going to want to put a compulsion on you so you can’t share what goes on.”

  “Great, so if I learn anything useful, it’s actually still useless.”

  “Not necessarily. Dezzi can create some pretty clever spells. It is why she’s Dom. On the other hand…” He appraised me. “You’re apparently capable of breaking some strong compulsions. But if Dezzi’s willing to risk it, that’s her decision.”

  I sipped my coffee, watching him head into the living room. “Talking to Devon again, were you?”

  He glanced at me over his shoulder, his eyes twinkling. Considering our conversation last night, he was in a surprisingly good mood. “Your ability to get by his wards was impressive. Not to mention completely unheard of. I thought they must have gotten weak for you to slip past at Purgatory that time, but he just reworked them with Lucrezia and he said no. Devon is no slacker himself when it comes to creating wards and compulsions. His skills are good enough he could be a Dom. Probably should be by now.”

  Cradling my coffee mug, I followed Lucen into the living room. “Really? So why isn’t he? Who decides these things anyway?” I was curious, but more than that—I wanted to change the topic.

  “The Upper Council.” Lucen took Sweetpea’s harness down. “They’re the ones who decide how many new people we’re allowed to turn, and when or if to set up a new domus in an area.”

  I leaned against the fireplace, digesting this. “So if this council decided they wanted to establish a satyr domus in, I don’t know, my hometown back in New Hampshire, they’d pick a Dom from a high-ranking satyr in an established group?”

  “Basically.”

  “So if Devon’s overdue, why hasn’t he gotten asked yet?”

  Lucen adjusted his gloves and opened Sweetpea’s cage. The dragon made a mad dash to get by, but he was no match. Lucen stayed silent a minute, wrestling his scaly pet into its harness. “There’s not a lot of new groups forming these days. We need to be near humans, remember? And while the human population is increasing, the Upper Council is picky about locations.”

  “So that must be frustrating for Devon, right? To have all that power but be stuck?”

  “You’ll have to ask Devon yourself.”

  “Yeah, I think I’ll take a pass on that.”

  I stayed behind while Lucen took Sweetpea for his walk. Pleased as I was that our first conversation of the day hadn’t resumed last night’s discussion, I saw no need to risk it. Besides, Lucen had given me a few things to consider. I should be prepared to talk to the F maker today.

  They were coming by around seven—Dezzi and the mystery woman. As usual, The Lair was serving as the satyrs’ unofficial meeting space.

  “Things you need to know about Dezzi and Angelia,” Lucen said. We were back in his kitchen, waiting for the call that would tell us they’d arrived. I wouldn’t be permitted in the bar until Dezzi had worked her mojo on me.

  “That’s her name—Angelia?” Seemed ironic for a creature once considered a demon by most people.

  “Yes.” Lucen sounded utterly serious and oblivious to the irony, so I forced the smirk off my face. “She and Dezzi go way back, and Dezzi is very protective of her.”

  I checked the clock. “Dezzi seems very protective of all of you.”

  “She’s supposed to be, but Angelia more so. Like I said, they go way back. And Angelia, well, you’ll see.” He tapped his phone on the table, seemingly twitchy. “Angelia’s blind. That’s why.”

  I had to take a few seconds to think about this. “I’ve never seen a satyr with any kind of disability before.” Nor, when I considered it, any pred.

  The sorts of physical or cognitive ailments that humans had to contend with were, as far as I knew, unheard of in preds. Sure, I’d seen some goblins and certainly some furies sporting pretty bad battle scars, but this was altogether different. Their own magic protected them from most injuries, meaning it took a nasty curse—or a salamander fire-forged blade—to truly hurt or disfigure them permanently.

  Lucen shifted uneasily in his chair. “She wasn’t born that way, and if she’d lost her sight while human, she’d never have been turned. All I know of the story is that Angelia was attacked by a bunch of humans many years ago. She’s a very gentle person. She probably wasn’t armed, and there were too many for her to subdue with her magic. The humans had a knife like yours. They used it on her. They took her eyes.”

  I put my hand over my mouth. “Oh, God. That’s awful.” Pred or not, no one deserved that.

  “Yeah.” Lucen seemed to realize he was playing with his phone and stopped. “Her domus healed her before she died of her wounds, but her vision couldn’t be restored obviously. And since that made her defective, once she’d healed as best she could, her Dom let her go.”

  My fingers curled into a ball. “Wait? Defective? Let her go?”

  “There’s a strong bias among satyrs and sylphs for physical perfection.” Lucen made an apologetic face. “It’s not always nice. Without her sight, and with her empty eye sockets, Angelia didn’t fit what a satyr was supposed to be. Her Dom was within his rights to kick her out. It happens, and as a result Angelia became a lone satyr, or she did until Dezzi found out what happened and took her in.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  “With Dezzi taking her in or with her old Dom kicking her out?”

  “Either. You’re way too ‘whatever’ about
all of this. Like it’s no big deal that she got kicked out of her home for something beyond her control.”

  “I like Angelia. I’m glad she’s here.”

  Which didn’t exactly answer my question, so I continued to stare at him.

  Lucen got up. “Things change for you when you change, Jess. On the inside and the outside. And no one tells you most of the risks. I accept certain things as normal.”

  I started to ask why no one explained how screwed up pred society must be and what he meant by “change”, but his phone finally buzzed. “They’re here. Be right back.”

  Convenient. One day I would have to ask Lucen how he became a satyr and why, and the hundred other uncomfortable questions that I didn’t even know enough about to form yet. But not while things were so shaky between us.

  And while I had more pressing issues to ponder.

  I drummed my nails against the table. So Dezzi had taken in a physically “defective” satyr, which was apparently some sort of satyr taboo. My first thought was this made me like satyrs less than I already did, which was sad because I still disliked them the least of all the pred races. But on the other hand, I respected Dezzi more.

  My second thought was I now understood why Dezzi figured it was possible for someone to have it in for Angelia. One of the Boston satyrs didn’t care to have an imperfect satyr in their domus and was trying to frame her for murder. Perhaps it was a touch farfetched, but I’d been framed for murder for a far more batshit-crazy idea.

  I tucked these musings away as the sound of footsteps coming up the back stairs grew louder. Lucen opened the door, Dezzi behind him.

  The satyr’s Dom took a deep breath when she saw me. I hadn’t spoken yet and she was weary. Peachy. “My number three has explained my generosity in allowing this conversation?”

  Number three meant Lucen. Generosity meant what—her self-interest?

  Still, there was only one answer if I wanted to talk to Angelia. “Yes. But if I learn anything useful from Angelia, I need to be able to follow up on it.”

  Dezzi closed her eyes briefly, giving me a good view of her long, thick lashes. “You will follow up with me. Together, we will decide what you can share with the Gryphons. Fair?”