Tooth and Nail (18 page)

“It’s a rush,” Svein said, moving to stand in front of me.

“It’s more than a rush. It’s alive in me.”

Even standing inches apart, it seemed we were locked in an embrace stronger and warmer than if we’d used our arms. The city I’d always thought silent fell away, and I realized I didn’t know what silence was until I truly heard it—actually heard
nothing
. My gaze locked with Svein’s and I saw it in him, and I knew he saw it in me, an eternity of peace and love. He blinked slowly and deliberately, his lashes sweeping the tender skin below his silvery eyes.

He reached out and stroked my hair, his fingers coming to rest on my chin.

A dog’s snappy bark snapped me into reality—into human reality. As the little dachshund and his harried-looking female walker dashed past, I blinked myself back into the Mt. Vernon neighborhood, its grittier townhouses and Section Eight housing a world away from where I’d just been in my mind. I stepped back. Afraid that if I looked at his face again I’d be pulled back into the daze, and afraid that I wanted to, I began to walk again, and he fell into quiet step beside me.

We turned onto K Street and the moment was, thankfully, gone.

“The Olde Way,” he said, softly, “is the reason we all do it. So –“

I finished his question. “Why wouldn’t Dr. Clayton?”

“That, my Gemma,” he said, “was the million-dollar question.”

“Was?”

“I found out he renounced his identity and upbringing. He’s got nothing to do with fae any longer.”

I thought for a minute. “Did he bind his abilities to masquerade as a full human?”

“There’s no record at any of our headquarters, here or abroad, of a transformation.”

“Well, then,” I said, a candy bar wrapper crackling under my sneaker, “all you know is that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with us. Doesn’t mean he’s actively working against us.”

“Some months ago,” Svein said, “it was discovered at The Root that we had an inordinate number of collected teeth that were depleted.”

“Depleted?”

“Depleted of essence. They’re dead teeth, useless to us. When collections realized they were getting only the shells, I began an investigation.”

We turned again, and I headed toward Metro Center, but Svein steered me away from the station and further down the street. I didn’t bother to interrupt his story with a protest.

“Using school health reports and other records we happen to have access to, I found the common denominator. Every single D.C.-area child who yielded one or more dead teeth is a patient of Dr. Riley Clayton.”

I wrinkled my brow and twisted my mouth. “He’s killing their teeth?”

“In a manner of speaking. He’s draining them of essence somehow. He’s renounced his fae heritage. So something tells me he’s got a big grudge against us, so big that he’s draining the teeth deliberately to thwart the goal we all work toward.”

“But how could he physically do that?” I asked. “I thought fae had no capability for violence, and I would say that killing the essence in baby teeth is an act of violence. It puts him on the offensive, and fae can’t do that.”

“Unless he’s a fallen fae.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning he aligned with midnight fae to turn him into a demon, a being with some fae abilities—and the capacity to indulge in violence.”

“So midnight fae
are
evil.”

“The midnight fae depend on our existence, as we do on theirs,” Svein said. “Without us, they don’t survive. For our light, we need their darkness. Both sides recognize the necessary symbiosis. But our side has warriors, and some dark fae in power see this as an imbalance that they need to set right. So they strike where we are the strongest, and the most vulnerable: the Olde Way collection.”

“Any chance Clayton is acting alone?”

“I don’t see why he would, though I would prefer that to be the case. We’re hoping to not cross the midnight fae,” Svein said, his mouth tightening into a thin line. “We can’t afford to stir up suspicion in the underworld since we can’t fight whomever might take umbrage. I’m not saying this to insult you, but you’re not enough to do that for us.”

“So instead, you brought me in to deal with Doc Clayton alone. What’s the assurance that he won’t figure me out and call on the midnight fae to annihilate my ass?”

“There is none. But look at the bright side. Fighting a demon—that changes things, doesn’t it? You might be in it as deep as your ancestors were after all.”

My mother’s deepest fear, the reason she had hidden me from my destiny, was because my destiny might just include a fight I couldn’t win.

Now that it was reality, it was
my
deepest fear. It sparked inside my gut and shook me to my core. Breathe and accept just wasn’t going to do it.

Svein sensed it and pushed me down a narrow alley. He pinned both my shoulders to the side of a building. “Breathe,” he ordered.

“Can’t.”

“Accept.”

“No.”

He kissed me.

It was hot and hard and insistent, and I surrendered to it almost immediately, sliding my hands inside his jacket to grab two fistfuls of his T-shirt. My shoulders relaxed, my back muscles released, and then I had to pull away but couldn’t, so I pushed him with all my force.

He stumbled back but caught himself quickly. His breathing was shallow, and I realized it was the first time I’d seen him rattled. Which was some kind of victory, I supposed.

I bent over, propping my hands on my knees. “That can’t happen,” I said to the sidewalk. “That—
can’t
happen.”

He didn’t respond, but his breathing quieted. After a few minutes, he said, “Fight or flight.”

“Excuse me?”

“Seems that as a warrior, those are your two options. When you sense danger, you can literally go into fight or flight mode. Human or fae.”

“I don’t want to fly.”

“You do have wings.”

“I’m keeping them decorative,” I said, staying bent over but lifting my head.

“You can fly right now, if you feel like you need to.”

At first, I thought he meant I could fly away from this coiled and heated-up tension between us, but then I realized he meant the threat. My new enemy. Riley Clayton, fallen fae. Demon.

Svein was giving me permission to back out.

I didn’t want to get hurt, or die. If I backed out now, I’d get my life back. I could take a visit to the Butterfly Room and shed my wings for good, go home and live happily ever after with hopefully-soon-to-be U.S. Rep. Avery McCormack.

And Dr. Clayton would continue to poison the D.C. collection, and for all I knew, he had other people helping him, or a grander plan. He endangered the Olde Way’s return, and the morning fae, after generations and generations of labor, would be set back again.

“You’re human, Gemma,” my dad said, as I slammed a tiny fist into a pad, into the center of his palm. “You’re human.”

He couldn’t take it. He couldn’t deal with the fae life, and he had left.

That was why I would
not
back out.

“Where are we going, anyway?” I asked Svein, straightening up and stretching my spine. He’d sat on the curb while I was in thinking mode, and he squinted up at me.

“Knew you hadn’t lost your fight.”

“I panicked,” I said, “but that isn’t the same as quitting. And next time I panic, try to find some other way of chilling me out. This was—was—inappropriate.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, standing.

“Stop laughing at me.”

“Believe me, I’m not laughing.”

It was true, he wasn’t, but I needed to beat this into the ground for the last time. Svein couldn’t think we could just manhandle one another and it would be okay. It was
un
-okay. Avery and I were okay, and I intended for it to stay okay.

Despite all my recent lying and sneaking around.

We headed around the corner and Svein said, “Stop.”

“What?” I asked.

He casually leaned against the lamppost and surveyed the landscape, which consisted of dense late-day traffic. I thought about how the first time I’d seen him, he was leaning against a lamppost.

Wait.
This
lamppost.

I looked across Franklin Square, its new greenery a urban oasis. Yup, that’s where I had been standing. Just after my tooth cleaning. I pointed at the medical building.

“That’s where my dentist’s office is.”

“That’s why I was here, doing a little surveillance.”

“On me?”

“No, but you were quite the distraction.” He smirked and I wanted to slap it off his face. “I was trying to get a glimpse of Clayton.”

“And you thought he’d be here?”

“Dr. Gold just retired, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, and –“ Light dawned. “Dr. Clayton’s the one taking over?”

“His practice was across town but he wanted something bigger for more patients or more whatever the hell he’s doing. Coincidentally, you’re now his patient.”

“Coincidentally? No way. There are a lot of dentists’ offices in a city this size. He must have known…”

He cut me off. “I agree, but we can’t afford to waste time looking for the connection. You need to get in there.”

“Too bad we didn’t have this conversation last week. My next cleaning’s not for six months.”

“Funny. Make an appointment, get in there and see what’s going on.”

“
You
make an appointment,” I said. “One of your front teeth is a little crooked anyway. Might as well kill two birds.”

“Fae know fae,” he said. “If I get within twenty feet of him, he’ll know I’m fae, and he’ll know I became a new patient to scope him out.”

“Then he’ll sniff me out too, won’t he?”

“Probably not,” he said. “You’re half-human, and your scent is different. You should fly right under the radar, so to speak.”

I started to ask him why, if the dentist wouldn’t recognize me for what I was, the fae at the group meeting did, but I mentally answered my own question. I’d arrived with Frederica, and humans didn’t attend those meetings, and if I smelled like something other than a true fae, then they instantly knew what I was.

“You might not even need to see him,” Svein added. “You could see one of his assistants. Just get in there and get a good look around, and see if you can figure out what he’s up to. It’s a longshot that it would be obvious, but I’m hoping you can get a few clues, at least.”

“Here’s one clue,” I said. “Denise told me the new guy was renovating big-time.”

“Denise?”

“The hygienist. She’s worked for Dr. Gold for years. She’s got nothing to do with Doc Clayton.”

“You wanted to know about the threat, Gemma. This is it. Get in there as soon as you can. I’ve been watching him from way over here almost every single day. I’ve followed him home. But I can’t confront him. I can’t go near him. I know he’s messing with teeth, messing with us, but I can’t –“ He cut himself off and tightened his jaw, looking across the street again.

I thought, not for the first time, how incapable he must feel, how frustrated to not be able to finish the job he started.

“Wouldn’t you know,” I said, poking my tongue around my mouth and talking around it, “I think I’m getting a toothache.” I prodded a back bottom molar with the tip of my tongue. “Ow. Yup, no doubt about it.”

The corners of Svein’s lips quirked up.

“I’m going to have to make an appointment,” I said, “and get this thing examined. Yup, this cavity’s getting deeper by the second. It feels like the Grand Canyon in there. Hey,” I said, leaning into him. “Yell into my mouth, see if you hear an echo.” I opened wide.

He chuckled and shoved me gently away. “All right, already.”

“I’ll let you know when my appointment is,” I said. “I want you as backup out here.”

He nodded and looked at the building again. The door opened and a woman stepped out, holding the hand of a little girl. The child skipped as they walked down the street, swinging a plastic goody bag.

“You got it,” Svein said. His jaw relaxed.

So, I was going to face an evil dentist with power drills, scalpels and possibly a hell minion.

But, I realized, the kiss still hot in my memory and on my lips, I also was in another kind of danger, the kind that was right in front of me, leaning on a lamppost.

CHAPTER 12

"G
emma Cross,” I told the receptionist. “I have an appointment with”—gulp—“Dr. Clayton.”

“Are you a patient of Dr. Clayton’s?” she asked. She was new. I wasn’t sure where Brenda, Dr. Gold’s longtime receptionist, was. Probably retired when he did. Brenda always had a sugar-free candy at the ready and a piece of celebrity gossip she was willing to dissect with anyone interested. I always pretended I was, because she made me laugh and I would have hated to disappoint her by telling her I had no idea who she was talking about.

“I was Dr. Gold’s patient,” I told the new woman behind the desk. “I called yesterday, about a toothache?”

“That’s right,” she said, but her tone indicated she didn’t remember at all, and she flipped through pages. Pages, I noticed, that were crammed full of appointments. Clayton certainly wasn’t hurting for business, having likely brought all his patients across town with him and gaining Dr. Gold’s as well.

“You can have a seat,” the receptionist told me. “The doctor will be with you in a moment.”

I sat, and realized I was shaking a little bit. The air conditioner was humming, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t affecting me nearly as much as the prospect of getting into the chair and opening my vulnerable mouth for the supposedly evil Dr. Clayton to peer into, or wrench all my teeth from. At least with my mouth open, I wouldn’t say anything stupid to give myself away.

Svein was only across the street, sitting in the picture window of a coffee shop. I’d suggested the more low-key surveillance, surprised that no one had noticed him before this. Life in the big city, I supposed, but I still insisted we be more subtle. I touched my zippered jacket pocket where I’d stuffed my Fae Phone, knowing I could summon him in an emergency one-button speed dial. I reminded myself I was going to be okay, for the time being anyway. The office was full of people. Even Dr. Clayton would probably agree that opening up a hellmouth at high noon wouldn’t be a smart way to do business.