Tooth and Nail (16 page)

A little ways down, I came to a windowed door and I peeked in. Children, lots of them. Fae children listening to a teacher, watching maps slide across a holographic screen like the ones in The Root. They scribbled in notebooks and, I was amused to notice, surreptitiously passed notes and chewed gum. Fae or human, kids were kids.

A little boy in the front row glanced up at me and I was reluctant to wave and disrupt the lesson, but there was no need. His eyes widened in recognition, but then he dropped his gaze, only to peek back at me with a sly smile. I returned it. I’d be his secret today.

I backed away from the door and moved on.

Near the end of the hallway, I found a black door which I might have ignored, but I was intrigued by the white flickering light that slid out the gaps under and around the door. I pushed it open and stumbled into blackness.

Blackness for just a moment before bright light burst to life—below me.

I was in a projection room, with a man beside me manipulating a control board. “Hi, Gemma,” he said, and again I had that strange sensation of unwanted celebrity, but I was grateful his greeting wasn’t accompanied by an amazed stare. He was too busy.

I went to the glassed-in window and looked down at one woman seated cross-legged on the floor in a planetarium-like room. All around her and above her was a rainforest—large, wet, green leaves close enough to brush from her face; gentle raindrops soft enough to cover her shoulders in a mist; airy cries of exotic birds behind the music of a breathy flute. I saw her seeing it—and hearing it and breathing it like it was real. The lush splendor would have been real to me too, I knew, if I were in her place and not where I was, looking down at her like God.

Slowly, so slowly, the image faded and changed. The blue-green wet sky dried out to a sandy red, and the fresh trees dissolved into heated dirt. I resisted the urge to wipe grit from my eyes before I turned and asked the projectionist, “What
is
this?”

“The Morning Shrines,” he said, then clarified, “our sacred places.”

“Sacred places?”

“Where our artifacts are stored,” he said reverently. “Our remains of history. And our storing place.”

He didn’t have to clarify that. The storing place for all those teeth, all that innocence.

“The old holds onto the new,” he added.

“Where?” I asked. “Where are these places?”

“One on each continent.”

I raised a brow. “The one on this continent…?”

“Sedona. Would you like to go?”

“Yes. But I can’t. Serious business here.”

“You don’t need to fly there. You can visit it here.” He gestured to the room.

I was tempted. “No,” I finally said.

“Soon, then?”

I nodded and he opened the door for me. I stepped back into the hallway, back onto solid, real ground.

Following the hallway down two steps and another hundred feet, I came to the Archives office. Despite the happy children and despite the sweet perfection of the Morning Shrines, I narrowed my eyes, remembering why I’d come.

Svein and I were going to have words.

I kicked the door open without knocking, but he wasn’t there to appreciate or fear my theatrical entrance. The one desk in the room was piled so high with folders and papers that I did worry for a moment that the occupant might be buried under a recent landslide, but, hearing no moaning of desperation or pain, I left it alone.

I was in no hurry. I would wait.

Like the office in the Butterfly Room, this décor eschewed high-tech for comfort. Bookshelves were crammed with folders filed with colored alphabetical tabs sticking out. Happy that the records here were preserved in old-fashioned hard copy, I stuck my fingers into the tight squeeze under “C” to see if I could find a file on myself. A file that would probably list my name, address, age, and temperament: volatile when heated.

Nothing, so I checked under “G”—and “W” for warrior—to be sure. Maybe I was somewhere in the mess on Svein’s desk but I wasn’t willing to go spelunking through there.

Across from the bookshelves was a long file cabinet, with binders lined up on top. I recognized the binder for collection training, which I had yet to finish studying. Not that I’d had much time between last night’s Watergate adventure and this morning. Next to it was a set of about a dozen binders in volumes with one common label of
Lineages
, and despite my curiosity about my fellow fae and their role in the Olde Way’s recreation, I was more intrigued by the set of binders beside it:
History
.

I pulled the first one out and flipped through it. Yup, a history book, made mostly of handwritten and typed notes. Some looked very old; some could have been done yesterday. Mom had told me that the fae before humans hadn’t kept records, so this must have been what was been discovered or found since, a compendium created partly by Svein, and partly by many fae before him.

It could take days to read everything carefully and fill in all the historical gaps, but I skimmed what I could, trying to get a basic feel for what came before them. Before
me
.

I already knew the fae had existed in their idyllic world—now called the Olde Way—before humans came and took over the Earth when the fae couldn’t put up a fight. For years, the fae desperately searched for a way to obtain innocence, which would bring their world back. The only pure human innocence came from young children and some fae somewhere figured out that children’s first sets of teeth must hold some key. But he or she didn’t know what it was.

So they began to collect the teeth as relics, keeping them in safe underground reliquaries. They were certain the teeth might have the answer but they had yet to unlock it.

Meanwhile, the fae evolved to co-exist with humans—uneasily—out in the open.

I flipped some more pages.

In the eighteenth century, the Industrial Revolution took hold. No longer living off the land, hunting and gathering, humans very quickly mechanized the world, their population boomed, and they unwittingly set the Earth on a path to destruction. Not only was the Olde Way gone, but now the physical planet was in peril, the fae realized.

So much for the modern movement toward green and recycling, I thought. Fae understood it right from the start. I skipped ahead in the binder.

Around the same time, dentistry began to emerge as a serious discipline, and several curious fae entered the field. They discovered the innocence essence in milk teeth and devised a way to extract it, and suddenly the fae had a plan.

A really, really, really slow plan, but a plan nonetheless. When that plan was threatened, a warrior was called to duty.

There was a tabbed section a couple of inches thick that appeared to contain case studies on warriors past. I was tempted to read them, but I had seen enough, experienced enough, at the moon gathering. I’d felt victory and tasted death. I didn’t need to know more than that, nor did I want to.

“There’ll be a test on that later.”

I gasped and looked over my shoulder at Svein. I jumped up and brushed floor dust off my jeans, then slammed the binder shut and shoved it crookedly back into its spot on the file cabinet. “Doing a little light reading,” I said.

“Ah.”

“Is this what those kids down the hall are learning?”

He nodded. “They attend regular schools but a few days a week they also come here. They’re not going to experience their fae history in a public—human—school.”

I glanced at Svein and realized he was feeling sorry too—sorry for me and what I missed, although as a child, I hadn’t known it to miss. Back then, I was already missing enough.

We stood there, looking at one another. Electricity cut the air between us, but I wouldn’t be the one to acknowledge it. Finally he said, “Here for a lesson?”

Remembering that I was there to rip him a new one, and mindfully trying to keep my wings under control despite my frustration and anger, I said, “Well, I had a memorable first lesson.”

He smirked.

“Watergate?” I asked. “Really?”

“The daughter of the House Speaker also lost a tooth that night. I’d say I let you off easy.”

I opened my mouth to tell him what he could do with himself in seventeen different ways when he pre-empted me. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Gemma. You came through. For all your bluster, I honestly didn’t think you had it in you. You’re not what I thought you were.”

Thrown, I hesitated before I said, “You didn’t know me.”

“You’re not,” he amended, “what I thought you’d be.”

“You tried to sabotage me.”

“Because you didn’t hold up your end of the bargain. You were supposed to call me and schedule your lessons.”

“I was busy all weekend,” I said, and I added for good measure, “having sex. A lot of it.”

“So was I,” he said, “but I still have a job to do. And like it or not, as your mentor, you’re my job at the moment.”

I refused to look at his face, and found myself looking at his chest instead, so I tried some middle ground around his shoulders. He smelled good. He was pissing me off. I wondered for a moment who he’d been having sex with, then I wondered why I was wondering.

Then for an instant—short, really short, but definite—I forgot who
I’d
been having sex with.

Damn this guy.

“Well, as a mentor,” I said, “you’re doing a crappy job. Throwing someone into the deep end who can’t swim usually doesn’t end well.”

“Your hubris last time I saw you encouraged me to give it a shot.”

“You got lucky.”

“Did I? Or did you step up to the challenge?”

I said nothing. How had this conversation veered so far off my intention?

“I admit,” he said then, “that I wasn’t willing to give you an inch when I first heard they’d found you and were bringing you in to work. But you’ve actually managed to earn a modicum of my respect.”

I set my jaw. “I didn’t do it for your respect. I don’t
need
your respect.”

“Then why are you here?”

I said nothing for a long moment.

“You’re a jerk,” I finally said, because I had nothing else.

He chuckled.

“Schedule me in for tomorrow at noon,” I said. “How long do these lessons take?”

“We can work for about an hour at a time. More than that will tire you out. We’re working on your new physical abilities and your emotional control over them, and it’s not easy.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll see you then. In the meantime, piss off.”

I stalked out of his office, slammed the door behind me, and leaned against the wall to breathe, breathe, and calm down. Then I headed to the stairwell, pushed open the door, and instead of going down, I sat on the top step.

Jerk, I thought. Then I thought some worse words I should have used.

I didn’t need Svein’s respect. Who did he think he was? Who did he think
I
thought he was?

I pulled out my non-Fae cell phone and hit a speed dial.

“Gemma,” Avery said. “What’s up? I’m about to go into a meeting.”

“Do you respect me?” I asked.

“I love you more than anything,” he said.

“But do you respect me?”

“I couldn’t love anyone I didn’t respect. Gemma, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said. I hoped.

“Listen,” he said, lowering his voice, and I pictured him slipping behind the others heading into some meeting room. “Is this because you miss your job?”

“No,” I said. “Certainly not.”

“Because I can imagine what it must feel like for you to take a back seat to all of this.”

“No, it’s not you,” I said weakly.

“I’m going to clear my calendar tonight and take you out for a nice dinner. You pick the place.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

“I do,” he said. “I don’t want my girl feeling bad. Or disrespected.”

“’My girl,’ huh?”

“Yeah,” he said, “and I don’t care who hears me say it. I’ll pick you up at home around six. Gemma?”

“Hm?”

“If you’re feeling disrespected, go over to Smiley’s. It’ll only take thirty seconds in the ring for you to get your respect.”

“True.”

We hung up and I dangled the phone between my knees.

I didn’t know why I’d called him. I sounded needy, silly: two adjectives that were not me. Avery’s respect for me was a sure thing. I didn’t have to fight for it.

But Gemma Fae Cross was always up for a good fight. And Svein already knew it.

I ran down the stairs.

CHAPTER 11

G
love connected with chin.

I shook my head once to clear it, and a lock of sweaty hair fell into my eye. I stuck out my upper lip and tried to blow the strand away, my gaze locked with Not-Rocky’s.

I saw the next one coming, and ducked it, countering with a one-two punch.

Avery didn’t like to dance, and my height had intimidated all the boys looking for partners at my high school mixers. The only guys I danced with were the ones in here. Not-Rocky was my most frequent partner, but he didn’t always lead. I stepped into his space for an uppercut. He pushed into my space with a left hook.

I was slow today. Maybe not to a casual observer, but I felt it, and Not-Rocky sensed it. He was holding back, and I hated that. My self-frustration sent my right cross a little harder than I would have allowed in a quick afternoon workout, and he met the challenge. He feinted with a jab, I fell for it, and I took a body blow that sent me staggering back. My opponent switched from him to myself as I fought not to fall to my knees.

Not-Rocky dropped his gloves. “Geez, Bricks.”

His sincere concern—lisped through his mouth guard—wasn’t intended as an insult, but I interpreted it as such. All the guys in here knew that on my best day, I could take on all comers in my weight class. But this wasn’t my best day. I was exhausted, and the corners of my eyes ached. My neck felt weak, and my limbs were molasses. I collapsed into a wooden stool in the corner of the ring, trying to breathe into the pain.

Not-Rocky spit out his guard into the opposite corner and came over to me. “Sorry.”

“Only thing you should be sorry about,” I told him, “is that you couldn’t drop me with that lame hit.”