Woman King (38 page)

And yet, everything that transpired from that
moment on had been his choice. He chose to align himself with the
darkest of paths, but had no better angel to come to his aide. Now,
he was left with nothing but his own reproach, a reprobate saddled
with a growing paranoia that all women were out to humiliate him.
Even if he won his next campaign, or the next, I doubted he’d ever
find happiness again. Halbert seemed either incapable or unwilling
to move, so we left him standing alone on the sidewalk, backlit by
the halogen glow of a streetlight.

“I doubt you’ll ever see him again,” William
said, as he unlocked my car door.

“You never know,” I said earnestly. “Fate is
a funny thing, and the world of political consultants is so
small.”

****

William heard the front door open and
listened as Josef climbed the stairs to the second floor. It was
early evening and they were both expected at the post-election
dinner at The Moss Room in one hour. Gabriel had arranged for a
celebration, a private meal for the Council and associates. He’d
extended an invitation to Josef as a courtesy for his work with
Olivia. But William would have recognized his brother’s presence on
the stairs regardless of the time, or a pending social obligation.
Thanks to their father, whose blood coursed through their veins, he
could feel Josef’s proximity deep in his bones.

“You built her a bed?” Josef asked, as he
strolled into the room. “By God, you are besotted. Are you sure
it’s worth it? She is human, after all.”

William stayed seated in his chair, a guitar
in his hands, his fingers slowly picking a tune as he regarded his
brother.

“Don’t be so provocative. You had a human
lover for years, Josef,” he remarked. “Why so dismissive now?
Unless of course, you would like Olivia for yourself?”

Josef laughed, picking up another guitar from
a stand nearby. “I prefer fairies, it turns out,” he said. “They’re
delicious. By the way, your work is flawless. This guitar is
magnificent.”

“Thank you,” William said. “Can we get back
to Olivia?”

“You know, for a vampire, you worry too
much,” Josef said, pulling the soundtrack to the movie
Cabaret
, off the shelf. “Mind if I put this on?” Josef
asked. “I’m in the mood.”

William nodded as Josef set the vinyl album
on the turntable.

“I’ll admit she has a certain allure,” Josef
continued, “but I have not laid a finger on her, except to train.
For a woman, she has incredible endurance, far more than I would
expect from a human. I will admit there is something about that,
that is alluring.”

William set his guitar down against the chair
and stood up to face his brother. “You don’t have to tell me,” he
said. “I remember the first moment I sensed her. She is captivating
in a way that escapes her notice. But I brought her to you because
I wanted someone to teach her to fight for her life, if it comes
down to it. Can I trust you?”

Josef bared his teeth and hissed. “You must
truly be in love if you would question my loyalty after all that we
have been through.”

“I intend to make her my wife, Josef. I’m
counting on you to help me protect her.”

Josef carefully positioned the tone arm of
the turntable onto the record and “Mein Herr” began to play. “Why
are you so certain she is in danger? I mean no disrespect, but
she’s a human female, after all, why would an ancient vampire like
Nikola care about her?”

William walked over to a small side table
where a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and two tumblers rested on a tray.
He grabbed the bottle, poured two fingers’ worth in the glasses and
handed one to his brother.

“Several reasons,” he said. “One, she is an
agent of the Council aligned with Gabriel Laurent. That alone makes
her vulnerable, since Nikola has little love for the Westerners and
their zeal to help humans. He could harm her just to strike at
Gabriel. Laurent’s term is ending. Nikola is deputy to Zoran Mikić,
a Croatian central banker who is too much of a bureaucrat to really
sense what is going on around him. Aidan told me the two of them
are to be installed as directors next year.

“Reason No. 2, and more importantly, I don’t
think she is human, or at least I don’t think she is one hundred
percent human.”

Josef raised his eyebrows as he took a sip of
the whisky.

“Come on, I know you sense it too,” William
said. “She’s mildly telepathic, a skill few humans possess. And she
can read vampires, something a normal empath woman shouldn’t be
able to do.”

Josef downed what was left in his glass and
poured another.

“She told me,” he said. “She told me she
could read my thoughts.”

“I see,” William said grimly. “And what did
you say in reply?”

“I told her to never let another vampire know
she could do such a thing.”

“You must see what I mean. She possesses
skills that don’t belong to a human and that is bound to attract
the wrong sort of attention,” William said. “Olivia is curious,
outspoken and above all, determined. It’s inevitable that she will
run into trouble.”

Josef snorted into his glass. “I can
understand why you had to have her,” he said. “Must be a delightful
change of pace from your monkish existence these last few years.
Still, I am surprised you would choose to step back into the
Council’s affairs. You were determined to leave humans to their own
devices.”

“Yes, I was. And like all men, I was drawn
back in because of a woman.”

“Understood,” Josef said, refilling their
glasses. “But there is one thing I don’t understand. Just what do
you suspect she is, if she isn’t altogether human? Witch?
Fairy?”

“Possibly,” William said thoughtfully. “I
expect we’ll learn the truth very soon.”

****

I woke up early the day after the election
and decided to do nothing for the first few hours. I didn’t meet
Josef at the studio. I didn’t read my email, or make any telephone
calls. Instead I went downstairs in search of William, who had
spent the night. I managed to lure him away from a copy of E.E.
Cumming’s poetry and into the shower, then back to my bed for
several hours of lovemaking. Afterwards he left me lying in bed,
returning a few minutes later with a cappuccino. The morning left
me deeply satisfied. My body felt spent, worn out by my lover. My
house felt like a home, the aroma of warm espresso and sex filling
the air.

Of course, given my habit of worrying, I
immediately began to wonder what would happen after we married. I
didn’t want to leave my little house, but I was inclined to let my
vampire husband stay in his home, which was better designed for his
survival. Perhaps we would rent mine and keep it in the family
until we could find a use for it. I had no idea where Josef slept;
I suspected it might be inside his school. Perhaps he would enjoy
living here. There would be no children to inherit my home—not
unless a miracle of science occurred.

It seemed best not to dwell on those kinds of
details. There was no assurance I would have either longevity or a
child with a human man, so I counted my blessings for having found
someone to love, someone who returned my feelings, for that, too,
was not something anyone could be assured of in this world.

I said goodbye to William around noon and
went directly upstairs to throw on my workout gear and take a
leisurely run to Ocean Beach. At the shoreline, I lingered briefly
despite the cold to stretch under a clear, blue sky.

When I returned home, I returned the phone
calls and emails that had been pilling up all day. I spoke with
Levi several times, helping tie up loose ends and organize next
steps. Patrick and Maggie were his staff members now, and I was
eager to give them some responsibility to help arrange his move to
Congress.

Fortunately, Levi had been a member of the
House of Representatives once already, so his transition was not as
disorganized as it might have been for a genuine freshman. When I
hung up the phone for the last time early that evening, I felt
confident that things would go smoothly.

My work concluded, I drew a bath and gave
myself a facial, listening to a new playlist I’d made on my iPod.
Without the pressures of a campaign, I was free to indulge in the
little rituals that women enjoy, scrubbing and buffing until the
skin on my body felt smooth and taut. Slowly, I began to feel human
again. I dressed, pulling on a pair of wool capris along with a
sequined tank top and leopard-print ballet flats. To stay warm, I
planned to wear a wool pea coat over my clothing for the walk to
The Moss Room, where Gabriel had arranged for our celebration.

Lily showed up at my house at 6 pm, about an
hour before we had to leave for the victory party. She walked
through the door wearing a similar outfit, but her pants were
wide-legged and silk, a fitting style for a woman of her height.
She sailed into my living room all smiles and it didn’t take much
for me to guess why she felt elated.

“Watch out, I think he bites,” I said,
needing no further explanation.

“Nothing I can’t manage,” Lily said
confidently.

I opened a delicious bottle of white Bordeaux
I’d picked up at a wine store nearby and poured us each a glass,
hoping to talk to Lily about something that had been on my
mind.

“What is it?” she asked, noticing I’d grown
quiet.

“We spend so much time talking about the
Council and William, but we never really talk about you.”

“Me? You did ask about me the night I met
Elsa,” she said.

“I didn’t really ask,” I said. “I made some
flip remarks.”

Lily smiled. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.
You were given quite a shock that night.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding in agreement. “At that
moment, all I could think was that everything I thought I knew was
false. That maybe you’d never been my friend, not in the way I’d
imagined.”

“And now?”

“I guess I’m just curious about your life.
Are you my age or older? Do you like being a fairy? Are you
happy?”

Lily grabbed my hand and held it. “Things get
confusing when you live in the world of Others,” she said. “Let me
put your mind at ease.”

“No, don’t you see? That is what I want to
do. I want to put
your
mind at ease. Let me make you happy.
Let me do you a favor, or find you a book that you would like to
read.”

Lily’s eyes grew wide. “Are you worried that
I’m unhappy?”

“I’m worried I don’t really know anything
about your feelings. I have been too preoccupied with my own saga
to ask, and you never seem to offer up a single complaint or regret
that would distract me from my own woes.”

“Fairies don’t complain,” she said. “We do
not live our lives in a state of expectation. We don’t experience
disappointment, at least not the way humans do. But since you
asked, let me try to answer your questions.”

“I am aging at roughly the same pace as you,”
she continued. “If I’m lucky, I will live to be about one hundred
and fifty years old, which means I will start to show signs of
aging a little later that most human females. In my heart, I feel
like I am living the same life as you, that of a thirty-something
woman. Fairies can have babies, just like humans. We carry them for
about ten months, give or take.”

“As for happiness, that’s more difficult to
answer. Fairies are born to a purpose: service to others. We don’t
wonder what to do when we grow up. We don’t rebel against our
parents and ask for a different occupation. It’s just not in our
DNA. We were born to help move the world forward. Some fairies help
the salmon move upstream, others remind bears when to hibernate.
Others are police officers or librarians. We are a part of the
fabric of nature, a critical piece of the framework of
humanity.”

“Fairies remind bears to hibernate,” I
repeated, inexplicably fixated on that detail.

“They are very absent-minded creatures,” she
said.

“Are there fairies on the Council?” I
asked.

“There might have been a few over the years,
but it’s probably a rare occurrence. We help people regardless. Our
work comes with no political purpose or ideology attached.”

“Is our friendship out of duty or …” I wanted
to say love, but I was too nervous to give what I felt a name.

“Maybe it’s out of character for a fairy to
be friends with a human, but what we have is real,” Lily said.
“You’re not a project, you’re my friend. My best friend.”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was
holding. Feeling confident, I decided to broach my engagement.

“I’m hoping to leave for Paris in a few
days,” I said casually. “My mother is having a show and invited me
to come and visit. I’m bringing William to meet her.”

Lily smiled wistfully. “I would love to come
to Paris in the winter; it’s so romantic,” she said. “Maybe I
should take some vacation days and join you.”

“I wish you would,” I said. “It will make it
easier for you to be my maid of honor at my wedding.”

“Oh, my,” Lily said. “Married. Olivia, that
is a big commitment.”

It wasn’t the kind of ringing endorsement you
normally get from your best friend hearing such news, but I wasn’t
surprised. I hadn’t said I was marrying a pediatrician I’d been
dating for three years. This was William, a vampire, a man I’d
known for only a few months.

“I can sense you’re worried, maybe even a
little surprised.”

“Both,” she confirmed. “I’m happy for you.
Your life was bound to be unconventional once you started work for
the Council. But I’m concerned about what happens if you want out
of this relationship.”

“Are you saying vampires don’t grant
divorces?”