Cherry Bomb_ A Siobhan Quinn Novel - Caitlin R. Kiernan Page 0,21
at the same time.
“It is beautiful,” she said, “though I know I can’t appreciate it as you do.”
The Faerie nodded, and the necklace vanished from her hand, only to reappear around her throat.
“You’re honorable, Annie Smithfield. You will find that the Host never again troubles you.”
So, okay, this wasn’t about money, but some sort of exchange of services. Not that the Fae are known for keeping promises. I almost asked what Selwyn had done to get the Unseelie Host on her—that vicious assortment of bogles, goblins, hobs, and flying fucking monkeys.
Selwyn thanked Aster again, bowed, and the Faerie dismissed us with a wave of the hand. Well, dismissed Selwyn. I suspect the Faerie considered reanimated corpses and cadavers and whatnot so disgraceful that we’re not worth the trouble.
I hate Faeries.
Once we were out of there and down on the sidewalk again, I tried to conceal how glad I was to not be in the presence of Aster and her hive people. I’ll take a hundred Skunk Apes and their BO any day of the week.
The taxi hadn’t waited. This came as no surprise, though it did piss off Selwyn. Well, pissed her off even more. She was already so angry at me, she was seething.
“Two hundred damn dollars,” she said and kicked a trash can lying in the gutter. It ripped wide-open, spilling soda cans, Chinese leftovers, and a couple of used prophylactics.
“Whatever,” I said. “I need a drink anyway.”
She pushed me hard enough that I almost lost my balance and ended up in the gutter with all that liberated garbage.
“Are you a total fucking idiot? Do you even know what could have happened back there?” She was shouting loud enough that several people were staring.
“You’re making a scene,” I said.
She shoved me again, but this time I was ready for it.
Seemed like a good time for an understatement. I said, “I didn’t like her.” I said it as matter-of-factly as I could, given I was still seriously creeped out over the hive people. “Besides, no one who deals hellgoods to the Unseelie has any business calling anyone an idiot.”
“Quinn, if she’d wanted, she could have—”
“Also, you push me again and I push back. Three strikes you’re out. Now, I’m going to get a beer. You’re welcome to join me, unless, I don’t know, you’re late for a meeting with a succubus or something.”
“You ass,” she hissed.
“I have my moments,” I said, and then I crossed the street. No way I was going into that Irish place below the Faerie’s human apiary. Fortunately, there was another bar hardly a stone’s throw away.
“You think I’m just gonna put up with this sort of crap?” she shouted.
“Your call,” I shouted back. “You’re a big girl.”
“Oh my god,” I heard her mutter just before I walked through the door to the bar. By the way, that door was also painted red, and if I hadn’t still been so shaky I might have taken that for an ill enough omen I’d have gone in search of another watering hole. But fuck it.
I went inside and ordered a Pabst and a shot of Jack.
Sure, it sounds arrogant as shit, but I was not the least itty-bit surprised, ten or fifteen minutes later, when Selwyn showed up. I had something she wanted as bad as I’d wanted heroin, back when I was still a breather, as much as I need blood now. And she knew the odds were against her finding another willing donor anytime soon. Or ever.
Could say I held all the cards.
She sat down on the stool next to me and ordered an old-fashioned. I watched while the bartender mixed whiskey and bitters and added a lump of sugar and a maraschino cherry. To each her own poison, but that shit’s way too sweet for my liking. I drink bourbon, I want to taste bourbon.
“You told her my real name,” she said.
I glanced at her, then back to my beer. “Doesn’t work that way. You ought to know that. Faeries and demons, they’re the ones have to worry about their names. You really ought to know that, Selwyn.”
“There wasn’t any point to you getting her so torqued.”
“Her? You really think—”
“Don’t change the subject. You didn’t have to do that, Quinn.” She sounded tired.
“I hate Faeries,” I told her, though she’d possibly already deduced that much.
Her drink came. She pulled out the toothpick with the cherry on it and lay it on the paper napkin.