Mixed Feelings (Empathy in the PPNW Book 1) (29 page)

I was halfway there when the sudden appearance of
Laurel and Hardy shocked me into a yelp and a stumble. Hardy remained a blank
slate, his expression betraying no opinion on my embarrassing outburst. Laurel,
however, was immediately irritated with me, squinting and turning his head as
if he couldn’t bear to look directly at me. Hand to my heart, I sighed out a
breath, then turned to fully face them.

“What are you two doing here? I thought we were done
with you.”

“We have come to give thanks for your assistance.”
Hardy came over slowly, his head bowed slightly in respect. Laurel stayed back
by the door, stiff and disapproving. I decided to ignore him, at least as well
as I could with the cacophony of his emotions pounding at me. Mel stepped out
into the waiting room, looked the two fairies over with the barest hint of
interest. His presence seemed to outrage Laurel even more and I sighed,
pointing at him.

“Hey, Skinny. You’re kind of a pain in the ass to be
near, you know that?”

He balked, gaping at me, horrified by my words. Hardy
turned to him before he could speak, though, and whatever look they shared shut
him up. When Hardy turned back to me, he bowed his head deeply.

“Our apologies, Gavel.” His tone made the word seem
like a formal title, though I had no idea why.

“Gav—”

Mel cut me off immediately, clearing his throat
sharply. I flicked my gaze to him, but he wasn’t watching me. In fact, he
looked bored by the whole situation, his eyes roaming along the ceiling. Hardy
continued as if I hadn’t spoken.

“Please accept this payment. Your help exceeded our
best expectations and we are humbled to be in your presence.”

I blinked, flinching slightly when Hardy swung his
arm around, held up his hand, and uncurled his massive fingers to reveal a tiny
blue box in the center of his palm. I glanced to Mel for guidance and he nodded
slightly. I took the box. It weighed nothing and didn’t look all that dangerous
with the little dark blue bow tied around it.

It made me nervous.

“Thank you,” I said, scared of moving in case the box
decided to open up and release a noxious gas or explode outward into a deadly
shower of nails. “And this is—” Before I could finish my question, Mel
cleared his throat again, catching my eye and twitching his brows over wide
eyes in a way that clearly asked, “Are you nuts?” I shut up about the box.

When Hardy didn’t move or say anything further, I
squinted at him, at a loss for how to proceed. Since the payment was apparently
a topic that was off limits, I moved on to another.

“You said my mistress sent you?”

Hardy’s shoulders tensed slightly and Laurel sucked
in a quick breath. I glanced at him, but he looked just as unpleasant as ever
and I knew he wasn’t going to be of any help.

“We still have not had the pleasure of speaking to
her. We understand we are not worthy. Please tell her we meant no disrespect in
asking for your help in such a trivial matter. If she should choose to punish
us for wasting your time, she need only summon us.”

“Hunh.” I considered the fear in Hardy’s voice and
decided I was more than happy I wasn't who they thought I was. This mistress
broad sounded like kind of an asshole. Before I could ask any more questions,
Mel shifted, drawing my attention. He made an unsubtle gesture to indicate I
should get rid of the fairies and I rolled my eyes. I don’t know if Hardy saw
Mel or just decided he was done with me, but he spoke, still bowing low.

“May we take our leave?”

Without hesitation, I nodded. “Please.”

They were gone in an instant, leaving me standing as
still as I could manage, staring at the box in my hand. Cautiously, I set it on
the table.

“What do you think it is?”

“Payment,” Mel said simply.

“Cash?”

“Doubtful,” he replied. We both took a step back,
still staring at the box. After a moment, I let out a nervous laugh.

“You think I should… I mean, will I be okay if I open
it?”

“I have no idea. I don’t have much experience with
this. For all I know, their usual form of payment is a pet tarantula that likes
the taste of empaths.”

“Shut up,” I said, glaring over at him. Mel was
smiling but his gaze was on the box. Turning back to it myself, I let out a
grunt of unhappiness. “I’d like to get out of here.”

“Back to my place, then?” Mel asked.

I pretended he hadn’t spoken. “Is Chloe coming back
to meet us?” I didn’t want to just leave the potentially deadly blue box for
her to stumble on later.

“No, she said she’d probably be out for awhile, not
to wait up.”

“What the hell is she doing?”

“She wouldn’t tell me.”

“Well. All right. You can take me home, then.” I
pointed at him threateningly when he aimed twin finger-guns my way. “Where I
will spend the night alone, without you. It’s already going to take me ages to
get the smell of your cheap cologne out of my guest sheets.”

Mel paused on the way to the office door, turning to
scoff at me. “My cologne is anything but cheap.”

“Well, then you overpaid because it makes you smell
like an old lady.” I flipped the lights off, waited until he’d shut the door,
and then leaned in to lock up. When I turned to Mel, he didn’t look happy with
me. Of course, I couldn’t help but smile.

“Before your place, though, I’m supposed to show you
something,” he said as we approached the elevators.

“If you’re planning on taking your pants off, I’ll
run screaming for the nearest cab.”

Mel sniffed, looking offended. “With your attitude, I
wouldn’t show you that, anyway.”

“Then I’m doing something better than every other
woman in Seattle.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

I was able to keep quiet for maybe five minutes
before my curiosity reared its ugly head.

“Hey, so you said you don’t have experience with
this. How does that work?”

“Oh, I have plenty of experience with driving. I’m
quite good at it, actually.”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“What’s that about my dick?”

“Probably syphilis. Answer the question.”

Mel snorted, but didn’t force me to keep up the
banter. “I’m a werewolf, but that doesn’t mean I spend time with fairies. We’re
close relatives of theirs—descendants, technically—and better
regarded than humans like you, but still not terribly popular. As a general
rule, we’re ignored. I’ve come across the more powerful fairies here and there,
even enjoyed the intimate company of a few, but mostly I prefer to pretend they
don’t exist.”

“Because they give out boxes filled with
empath-eating spiders?”

“Because they’re a pain in the ass. And honestly,
because I don’t actually
have
to deal with them. With a few exceptions
like Evadne, they don’t live here, really.”

“In Seattle.”

“On this… planet.” He paused to think. “I guess. I
just know they can travel between here and their realm, but they usually don’t
bother.”

“And their world is, what? Narnia?”

“You’d call it Fairy. It’s not a really original
name, but it’s not the official name, either. Only they can even pronounce the
actual name. I saw someone try once and it literally tied his tongue into knots.”
Instead of letting me stew on that unpleasant image, Mel gestured vaguely and
continued. “If they can pass as human, some fairies or creatures of Fairy will
hang around our realm, but generally they think people like you and werewolves
like me aren’t worth talking to.”

“Well, joke’s on them because I’m a delight.”

Mel shot me a look I couldn’t quite decipher but
didn’t like. I stuck my tongue out at him and continued with the interrogation.

“If you don't deal with them, how'd you know how to
handle them back there?”

“Handle them?”

“Well, like, I was gonna ask about the blue box but
your eyebrows told me to plead the Fifth.”

“My eyebrows did what?” His tone threw me and could
have meant confusion over my phrasing or self-consciousness over his brows.

I shook my head. “You did a wiggle thing with your
face and I figured it meant I should shut up.”

“It wouldn't be the first time you should have shut
up,” Mel said, and I couldn't argue. I do tend to run my mouth more often than
is smart, but it had never bothered Mel before. In fact, half the reason I
disliked him is that he’d occasionally make suggestions about what I could be
doing with my mouth other than talking. “But the long and short of it is that
it's never a good idea to appear ignorant in front of something that much more
powerful than you are.”

“Well, then, thanks for the wiggle.”

“I’ll give you a—”

“No.”

Mel laughed at my instant refusal but didn’t try
again to seduce me. He was quiet for awhile as I went over the information he’d
given me, wondering why, if I wasn’t worth talking to, a pair of fairy scouts
had shown up in my office thinking I worked for someone way above their pay
grade. Come to think of it, why had Evadne been willing to help Chloe when she
wouldn’t help me?

“Hey!” I exclaimed as another realization shot like
lightning through my mind. “You weren’t freaked out by Chloe at all!”

“Should I be?” Mel asked, turning to lift a brow at
me and check his blind spot before switching lanes.

“I mean, she had that funky stud-finder rock and she told
you to get me wet, and then there was the phone call to Evadne, and she was
pretty ballsy with the suit and you seem cool with it all.”

Mel was quiet for a moment, making me think he might
actually be considering my question. Instead, he smiled, his eyes still on the
road. “Chloe told me to get you wet?”

“Oh jeez,” I grumbled, crossing my arms petulantly
over my chest. Then, reconsidering, I shot my hand out and whacked his elbow.
Mel laughed, ignoring the assault. We drove in silence for another minute while
I stared out the side window and tried not to give Mel any more openings. When
I realized the double entendre in even that, I hit him again.

Mel snorted and I wondered if he'd been reading my
mind, or if he just found it funny any time I got mad at him, whether he knew
the reason or not.

Before I could settle on an answer, we pulled up in
front of a Craftsman-style home in Queen Anne. The yard was free of foliage,
sporting a no-maintenance rock garden instead. The windows looked odd but I
couldn’t place why until we got closer: they had been boarded up inside with
dark wood. There was no car in the driveway and the door sat back on a small
porch.

“Did Chloe buy me a house?” I asked as Mel turned off
the ignition.

“On the meager salary you pay her? Please.”

“How do you know what I pay Chloe?”

Mel shrugged, turning to climb out of the car instead
of answering. I grunted in annoyance and followed him out, hustling to catch up
when he strode straight up the walk. I was halfway to the small porch when I slowed,
trying to figure out what I was feeling.

“What is this?” I asked, stopping as my empathy
registered a soft tingling along my skin. Even my arms started to prickle with
goosebumps, despite my warm jacket. “What are you showing me?”

“Why?”

“What’s here?” I demanded, spinning to face the
streak of light that swished through my peripheral vision.

“Relax, you’re safe. You probably just feel the
sprites.” Mel grabbed my wrist and yanked me toward the door. “They’re
harmless. Nature fairies.”

“You swear? I’ve been attacked enough for one week.
If I get smacked around again, I’m blaming you.”

“Come on.” Mel pulled me up onto the porch, parked me
next to him, and then reached out to knock on the door. His knuckles made a
sound like they’d hit solid steel and I raised my eyebrows. We stood in silence
for over a minute but Mel didn’t look bothered. I jolted when a voice finally
rasped out of a nearby speaker.

“Come to gloat?”

“Let us in,” Mel ordered. The voice didn’t respond
immediately and I wondered if Mel had dragged me to some secret underground
gambling club. Was I about to enter a smoke-filled room where men sucked on
cigars and women sashayed around in breast-boosting corsets, breakneck heels,
and kitty ears?

“The fish flies at midnight,” I mumbled, leaning
close to the door as if it and I were in cahoots. Mel turned to me, his brows
knit. “That not the password?”

He didn’t answer, just turned forward as the heavy
sound of a lock unlatching boomed. The door slid open slowly, as if auditioning
for an old horror movie.

The inside of the house was blindingly bright. I
squinted and let Mel go first, using his broad body to partially shield myself
from what might have been halogen lights. Once inside, Mel stepped wide from
the door and I did the same. The steel beast closed on its own, just as
slothfully as it had opened.

My expectations about what the inside would look like
could not have been further from reality. The house had been gutted, turning
what once might have been a kitchen, living room, and dining room into one
massive space. Other than support beams and the staircase, there was nothing
but open, dark wood floors and plain white walls occasionally interrupted by
the dark wood covering the windows. The upstairs was as bright as the
downstairs and looked to be just as empty.

To the right was the only actual room I could see
from my vantage point, left vulnerable through a doorway lacking a door. What
once might have been the living room to my left held a metal bench and two
metal folding chairs. At the back, from what I could see behind the staircase,
sat an industrial kitchen dominated by a massive, shiny refrigerator making a
low humming sound. I stepped further in, peering through the open doorway into
what might have been a bedroom.

Not a single prancing waitress or fat mobster. What a
disappointment.

A man stepped out from behind the staircase, moving
toward us at a glacier’s pace. He was above average height and probably would
have been attractive had he not been so close to death. He was completely hairless,
with sunken eyes and thin lips. He kind of reminded me of Mr. Burns but without
the beak-like nose. In fact, he actually looked
less
healthy than his
cartoon counterpart. He stared at me with intense brown eyes, scanning me
slowly from head to foot. When his gaze got to my shoes, his eyes went a shade
crazier and he pulled a travel-sized bottle out of the pocket of his green
scrubs pants and tossed it to me. It was hand sanitizer.

“The least you can do is clean yourself,” he rasped.
I fumbled with the tiny bottle, squirting some into my hands. Tucking the
bottle under my arm as I rubbed the alcoholic mixture into my skin, I glanced
at Mel. He was hanging back, as close to the door as he could get, silent as a
dead hooker. There was a small smile on his face and I had yet to figure out
why.

Giving up on getting answers from him, I turned and
held the bottle of sanitizer out toward the other man. He shied away, pointing
spastically behind me. I found that I had failed to notice a metal trash bin
tucked just to the right of the front door, full of barely used bottles just
like the one in my hands. I rolled my gaze toward our host cynically and then
dropped the bottle in with the others. He must have spent a fortune on the
stuff and I wondered why he let anyone in at all.

“Why are you here?” he demanded. “What do you want?”

I shook my head, jerking a ninety-nine percent
germ-free thumb at Mel. “This one dragged me here. I didn’t even know where we
were going.”

“Liar.” As the man whispered his denial at me, I
found myself looking around the room again. He stood toward the middle of the
cavernous bottom floor, glaring at me like I had invited a toddler into his
china shop. Finally, I turned back to Mel.

“Would you please tell me what we’re doing here? Why
you brought me here to see this…” I glanced back to the man, trying to figure
out what he was. I could feel from the slow, syrupy glide of his emotions that
he wasn’t human, but that was as far as I could get. “Person.”

“Look at him,” Mel said. The other man breathed out,
the sound a dry, angry wheeze. I really didn’t want to do as Mel said, but I
figured he probably wouldn’t drive me home if I refused. Turning back, I did my
best to really look at him, ignoring the fact that his emotions felt kind of
like being felt up by Slimer in a dingy janitor’s closet. I met his eyes and
felt myself go still. Something in them was familiar, slithering down my throat
and grabbing hold of my heart with a mouth full of sharp fangs. I took a step
back, my eyes gone wide.

“You,” I whispered. I was too distracted by the feel
of his emotions to realize that he was advancing on me, that my step back had
somehow resulted in him taking three steps forward. Whatever he was feeling
oozed over my skin like a snail trying as viciously as it is able to mate with
a rock; I couldn’t name it but when it filled my chest, I felt sick with worry.
I found that I was shaking my head, my eyes drawn to the fangs I hadn’t
previously noticed peeking out from under his lip.

“Dirk,” Mel said, his voice a low warning. Dirk’s
gaze left me and moved to Mel. They squared off for a moment before Dirk peeled
back his lips to reveal pale gums and gleaming fangs. I yelped, wasting no time
in darting around behind Mel and using him to shield me.

“Get out,” Dirk growled, his skeletal hands curled
into claws.

I tugged on Mel’s shirt. “Let’s. Please.”

“We’ll go,” Mel said, moving forward. I tried to hold
him back, irrationally scared for his safety, but I might as well have been a
leaf snagged on his sweater. He dragged me forward a step. “But if I hear
you’re cavorting with any more demons, I’ll be back. And don’t bother calling
me for blood anymore.”

Dirk hissed, turning as fast as his spent body would
allow and moving back toward the staircase. His pace was slow, but he took the
time to throw us three fang-filled growls as he went. Now, however, I found
them as threatening as a sleeping puppy.

Mel looped his arm over my head and around the back
of my shoulders, moving toward the door. It opened as slowly as it had before
and Mel ducked us through as soon as the opening was big enough. We were at the
end of the walkway when I stopped, moving away.

“What the hell?”

“Chloe suggested it.”

“Harassing the angry vampire?”

“He can’t really hurt you. That was the point.”

I blinked at him, shaking my head. “What?” I
demanded.

“She thought you might want to know that, without a
demon in his pocket, he’s harmless as a mosquito.”

“Mosquitoes spread disease, kill entire villages!”