Dusk

Chapter Three: Curiouser and Curiouser

Saoirse stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the apartment. Her emerald eyes were unmoving as they peered out into the distance over the Chesapeake Bay. She was perfectly still in a way that, in Rachel's experience, only pissed off elder vampires could truly manage. As if their centuries of life, all of the anger and the promise of violence, had been captured in crystal.

It might have been lovely if Rachel wasn't in the crossfire. Saoirse still wore the crimson silk dress she had chosen for their dinner. The dress had a low-cut back that showed off her alabaster skin. Deep red hair fell in ringlets down to her lower back, darkened to a near ebony by centuries out of the sun's warmth. Her manicured nails caught the light of the living room as she folded her hands at the small of her back.

Rachel sat on one of the black leather couches in the center of their living room, watching the back and forth between Saoirse and Micah as the latter told his story. Micah had decided to remain standing behind the matching chaise. He had settled the still cowed Alme on the chair. He had adopted a protective stance.

There was a long silence as Micah finished. Rachel recognized it for what it was, her wife was thinking long and hard about what she had heard. In court the silence was usually an indicator that whatever matter had been brought before her was about to be loudly, and possibly violently, settled.

That wouldn't be the case here, but damned if it didn't feel like it to Rachel.

"Dian Cecht," Saoirse said after five minutes had passed. She rolled the name off her tongue and Rachel could hear the Gaelic accent building in Saoirse's voice. "To think that you have sat at my table as a guest, partaken of my food and drink, and I was none the wiser. You fooled me completely with this mortal guise. Lugh would be proud."

One side of her mouth twisted upward in a lopsided smile in the window's reflection. "I could speak on how this deception was a violation of guest rights. A betrayal of your friendship with Rachel and I. Particularly since you know of my relationship with your queen. Brigid will have a merry laugh at my expense when she learns of this." Saoirse turned slowly to look at Micah. "No grievance that I could raise and no punishment that I could demand were I to drag you back to the Shining Court could possibly match what Kathy is going to do to you when she learns of this. And she will. That much of an oath I will wrest from you before the sun rises."

Micah looked away. The doctor seemed abashed, the appearance of his past having shaken his bravado, and his confidence. "I'll tell her. Though honestly, I taught my grandson. Is it any wonder I can pull what I have? I meant you and yours no harm. I...I simply fell in love, and chose to live with her. In her world. I found what I thought I needed when I helped to bind Alme to this, uh, world. Kathy is my equal in every way, and I am humbled by her everyday that I wake up beside her." He sighed wistfully, knowing that revealing his nature to his love could push her away from him. Forever.

The blonde studied him, having listened to everything. She was curled up inside one of the thick blankets that Eliza threw on the back of the couches. For warmth, she had said. "You really aren't the man that helped those monsters," she said slowly, tugging at one slender ear. They were a true faun's ear, almost ewe-like in nature. "They think you went soft, and that's why you abandoned us--them."

"Oh he certainly went soft," Saoirse said softly. She glided across the oak floors on bare feet and sat beside Rachel, folding the skirt of her dress beneath her. "The Dian Cecht I knew had no qualms with killing. He was quite bloodthirsty for such an accomplished healer."

"If I'm honest, the bloodthirsty nature wasn't wholly mine. But hers." He started to put a hand on Alme's shoulder, and paused as she snarled at him. He retreated, hands behind his back. Alme turned forest green eyes on the vampire before her. Her english was staggered, and thick with an unfamiliar accent.