Garden of Dreams and Desires - Kristen Painter Page 0,131
chantment—without it warping him further. Shuffling out an existence cringing from both mortal and sidhe, and you couldn’t keep a mortal job if you had feathers instead of hair, or half your face made of wood, or no glamour to hide the oddities sidhe blood could bring to the surface.
Daisy would have been clutching at his arm, her fear lending a smoky tang to her salt-sweet mortal scent. She hated heights.
The thought of his dead wife sent a sharp, familiar bolt of pain through his chest. Her hair would have caught fire today; it was cold but bright, thin almost-spring sunshine making every shadow a knife edge. He leaned forward a little more, his arms spreading slightly, the wind a hungry lover’s hand. A cold edge of caress. Just a little closer. Just a little further.
It might hurt enough to make you forget.
“Gallow, what the hell?” Clyde bellowed.
Jeremiah stepped back, half turned on one rubber-padded heel. The boots were thick-soled, caked with the detritus of a hundred build sites. Probably dust on there from places both mortal and not-so-mortal, he’d worn them since before his marriage. Short black hair and pale green eyes, a face that could be any anonymous construction worker’s. Not young, not old, not distinctive at all, what little skill he had with glamour pressed into service to make him look like just every other mortal guy with a physical job and a liking for beer every now and again.
His arms tingled; he knew the markings were moving on his skin, under the long sleeves. “Thought I saw something.” A way out. But only if he was sure it would be an escape, not a fresh snare.
Being Half just made you too damn durable.
“Like what, a pigeon? Millions of those around.” The bullet-headed foreman folded his beefy arms. He was already red and perspiring, though the temperature hadn’t settled above forty degrees all week.
Last summer had been mild-chill, fall icy, winter hard, and spring was late this year. Maybe the Queen hadn’t opened the Gates yet.
Summer. The shiver—half loathing, half something else—that went through Jeremiah must have shown. Clyde took a half-step sideways, reaching up to push his hard hat further back on his sweat-shaven pate. He had a magnificent broad white mustache, and the mouth under it turned into a thin line as he dropped his hands loosely to his sides.
Easy, there. Jeremiah might have laughed. Still, you could never tell who on a jobsite might have a temper. Best to be safe around heavy machinery, crowbars, nail guns, and the like.
“A seagull.” Gallow deliberately hunched his shoulders, pulled the rage and pain back inside his skin. “Maybe a hawk. Or something. You want my apple pie?” If Clyde had a weakness, it was sugar-drenched, overprocessed pastry. Just like a brughnie, actually.
Another shiver roiled through him, but he kept it inside. Don’t think on the sidhe. You know it puts you in a mood.
Clyde perked up a little. “If you don’t want it. How come you bring ’em if you don’t want ’em?”
Insurance. Always bring something to barter with. Jeremiah dug in his lunchbag. He’d almost forgotten he’d crumpled most of the brown paper in his fist. Daisy always sent him to work with a carefully packed lunch, but the collection of retro metal boxes she’d found at Goodwill and Salvation Army were all gone now. If he hadn’t thrown them away he had stamped on them, crushing each piece with the same boots he was wearing now. “Habit. Put ’em in the bag each time.”
She’d done sandwiches too, varying to keep them interesting. Turkey. Chicken. Good old PBJ, two of them to keep him fueled. Hard-boiled eggs with a twist of salt in waxed paper, carefully quartered apples bathed in lemon juice to keep them from browning, home-baked goodies. Banana bread, muffins, she’d even gone through a sushi phase once until he’d let it slip that he didn’t prefer raw fish.
I just thought, you’re so smart and all. Ain’t sushi what smart people eat? And her laugh at his baffled look. She often made little comments like that, as if… well, she never knew of the sidhe, but she considered him a creature from a different planet just the same.
“Oh.” Clyde took the Hostess apple pie, his entire face brightening. “Just don’t stand too near that edge, Gallow. You fall off and I’ll have L&I all over me.”
“Not gonna.” It was hard taking the next few steps away from the edge. His heels landed solidly, and the wind stopped keening across rebar and concrete. Or at least, the sound retreated. “Haven’t yet.”
“Always a first time. Hey, me and Panko are going out for beers after. You wanna?” The waxed wrapper tore open, and Clyde took a huge mouthful of sugar that only faintly resembled the original apple.
“Sure.” It was Friday, the start of a long weekend. If he went home he was only going to eat another TV dinner, or nothing at all, and sit staring at the fist-sized hole in the television screen, in his messy living room.
Ridiculous. Why did they call it that? Nobody did any living in there.
“Okay.” Clyde gave him another odd look, and Jeremiah had a sudden vision of smashing his fist into the old man’s face. The crunch of bone, the gush of blood, the satisfaction of a short sharp action. The foreman wasn’t even a sidhe, to require an exchange of names beforehand.
I’m mortal now. Best to remember it. Besides, the foreman wasn’t to blame for anything. Guiltless as only a mortal could be.
“Better get back to work,” Jeremiah said instead, and tossed his crumpled lunchbag into the cut-down trash barrel hulking near the lift. “Gotta earn those beers.”
Clyde had his mouth full, and Jeremiah was glad. If the man said another word, he wasn’t sure he could restrain himself. There was no good reason for the rage, except the fact that he’d been brought back from the brink, and reminded he was only a simulacrum of a mortal man.