Cherry Bomb_ A Siobhan Quinn Novel - Caitlin R. Kiernan Page 0,20
they come my way,” she answered, “which isn’t very often”
Right then’s when it occurred to me the ruby was staring into me, same as I was staring into it. You know, Nietzsche and gazing into the abyss and all. Well, the ruby wasn’t some philosophical, metaphysical abyss. It was the real fucking deal. Might sound trite, but it felt as if I actually had to pry my eyes away from the ruby. My head had begun to throb, and I could taste iron.
“You have such a keen head for business,” the Faerie told her. “Quite the acumen, for only a mortal girl.”
I think the appropriate phrase is, I was aghast.
“Selwyn, do you even know how fucking stupid that is?”
The Faerie raised an eyebrow and leaned towards us. The honey smell was coming from her, too.
“Selwyn? Annie Smithfield, why did that dead one name you Selwyn?”
Selwyn turned sort of green. She looked like she wanted to punch me in the head.
“It’s my middle name,” she replied, doing her best not to sound as pissed off as she was at having her nom de guerre blown like that. “Annie Selwyn Smithfield. Annabelle, to be precise.”
I thought it was a decent enough save, though it was unclear whether the Faerie was buying it. Aster’s left eyebrow was still cocked in a very skeptical fashion.
“I shouldn’t like to ever learn that you’ve been less than truthful with me, Ms. Smithfield,” Aster said, her voice just as skeptical as her eyebrow.
“I’m not lying.” Selwyn turned away from me, back towards the Faerie camped there on her tattered red recamier. “You want to see my driver’s license? My passport? My—”
“That won’t be necessary,” Aster said, leaning back again. “You’ve brought me such a precious thing, so I shall take your word.”
“Thank you,” said Selwyn, all obsequious and shit. I wondered if the Faerie could hear as much relief in her voice as I did.
“It is understandable, dear, that such a formality as trusting me with your middle name might slip your merely human mind.”
Jesus God, have I said how much I fucking hate fucking Faeries. Yeah, well. I haven’t said it enough.
I hate Faeries.
Except for Aloysius.
He’s my one and only exception.
“May I please hold it now, my sweet dear?” asked Aster the fucking pompous, condescending Fae bitch.
Selwyn started to hand over the necklace, but I grabbed her arm.
“Payment up front,” I said.
Selwyn? Mortified.
The Faerie? If, as they say, looks could kill. A bee appeared from her right nostril, buzzed loudly, then flew away towards a clump of the hive people.
Selwyn forced half a strained smile, and she said, “She loves to joke. You know vampires.”
The Faerie shut her gray eyes a moment. When she opened them, the irises were an oily black. I guessed that meant she was seriously bent out of shape, that I’d just gone and dumped sand in her vagina.
“I have made a habit of not making the acquaintance of corpses,” Aster sneered.
“Your loss,” I said. Often, thoughtlessly shooting off my piehole is how I deal with my fight-or-flight response when doing either isn’t an option.
Selwyn quickly intervened by placing the necklace in bee lady’s hand and then closing the hand around it. Which instantly seemed to placate the Faerie. Her eyes faded to gray again. Just give us monsters our play pretties, yeah, and all is forgiven. No, that’s obviously not exactly true, not across the board, I mean, but it certainly seemed the case with Aster the fucking Faerie.
“At first I was afraid it was still in the vaults at Thok,” Selwyn said, talking a little too fast, “and no one was ever gonna see it again, like you said. But—”
The Faerie whispered, “The Ghul have always been careless with the fruits of their thievery. And the Tear of Dis burns. The flame held within its facets betrays its origins, if only one has the sight to know hellfire.”
Blah, blah, fuckity blah.
I was beginning to think maybe Selwyn wasn’t getting paid for this transaction, that she might be somehow in debt to Aster—happens all the time with humans—and this was a way of buying her freedom. Also, surely Selwyn had to know about Faerie gold. They pass you a bag full of Spanish doubloons, only later you discover that bag’s full of acorns or pebbles or rabbit droppings. Selling shit to Faeries is, in short, almost as stupid as selling hellgoods. And here was Selwyn Throckmorton doing both