Gary looked sheepish. And guilty, though Al didn’t seem to notice that part.
“I value my hide, Al. Sorry, but she was real . . . persuasive. I wanted to at least leave word, but she said she’d kill me.” His accent was more upper-crust than you’d expect in this crappy neighborhood, and I could understand him much better than Yellow Undershirt Guy. I had the immediate suspicion that it was an affectation, maybe one he’d used to hide his background from Al.
My bullshit meter maxed out. He was just parroting back the explanation Al had already handed him, the one she wanted to hear. If he’d held up a sign saying
“I’m a sleazeball,” he couldn’t have been more obvious. Maybe he was afraid of what Al might do if she found out he’d dumped her and didn’t care enough to even answer the phone when she called.
“How . . . how can you be here?” he asked, shaking his head. “You’re Fae.”
“And the award for Best Statement of the Obvious goes to . . .” I muttered under my breath.
Al dabbed at her eyes and beckoned to me without turning. It was like she was afraid Gary would disappear if she let him out of her sight. Having no desire to get a closer look at Gary, whose bathrobe was starting to gape and reveal way more than I wanted to see, I stayed where I was.
“This is my friend Dana,” Al said, apparently unperturbed by my refusal to come closer. “She’s a Faeriewalker.”
Gary blinked. “What’s a Faeriewalker?”
Al gave him an abbreviated explanation, stressing the absolute necessity of keeping me close. I wondered if she was also trying to remind me why I couldn’t just turn around and walk away. I suspect the expression on my face was forbidding enough to make her worry I might forget—if she’d even bothered to look at me.
“So,” Al said, “are you going to invite us in, or are you going to keep us standing on the doorstep?”
Gary didn’t look thrilled about the prospect of letting us in, but he stepped aside and opened the door wider. I guess that was an invitation of sorts, though it surely wasn’t the level of enthusiasm Al had been hoping for. Personally, I didn’t want to set foot in the house. Gary had tripped my Creep-O-Meter the moment I’d laid eyes on him, and I didn’t think getting behind closed doors with him was all that safe.
If only I thought there was a chance in hell I could get Al to walk away. She accepted Gary’s invitation without even glancing at me to see if I was coming. I had to hurry to catch up. I thought we’d be okay with about fifteen yards between us, but I didn’t want to take any chances and planned to stay as close to her as possible. Which was going to make this touching reunion even more fun.
The inside of the townhouse was even more disreputable-looking than the outside. It looked like Gary furnished the place by Dumpster-diving. The carpet was a stained, puke-green shag, and the couch was some nubby, burnt-orange fabric with a big strip of duct-tape across one cushion—his idea of patching a rip, I guess—and three or four little round black patches that I took for cigarette burns.
Fast food wrappers and dirty dishes hid the coffee table from view, and the only decoration on the wall was a spiral-bound calendar featuring a topless babe and a red Corvette. Add to that the eye-watering stench of stale smoke and spilled beer, and I figured Gary’s house was now officially the grossest place I’d ever set foot in.
Even Al, looking around and frowning, wasn’t completely oblivious to the squalor. The frown turned to a narrow-eyed scowl when she caught sight of the girlie calendar. Gary blushed and hurried over to block her view and take it down.
“That’s not mine,” he said. “It’s Tom’s. My house-mate.”
“Oh,” Al said in a small voice, and for the first time, I thought she might be starting to rethink this whole adventure.
“Have a seat,” he said, waving at the couch. “I’ll get us something to drink.”
He didn’t wait for us to agree, hurrying out of the room like a cockroach scurrying away from the light. Al was regarding the disgusting couch doubtfully, and I sidled over to her.
“Let’s get out of here, please,” I said. “You got what you came for. You know he’s okay. We obviously—”
Al abruptly forgot her distaste for the couch, sitting down and crossing her arms over her chest. “This may be the last time I ever get to see him. I want a proper visit.”
I wanted to point out that you couldn’t have a “proper” visit in a stinking hovel, especially not when the guy you were visiting was a loser who’d probably been in bed when we came by because he was sleeping off a bender. I’d been around my mother in that state often enough to know it when I saw it. But Gary came back into the room, carrying two open cans of beer. He handed one to Al, who accepted with enthusiasm, then offered the other to me.
“No thanks,” I said, wrinkling my nose. My mom’s drinking had given me something of a complex about alcohol, but even aside from that, I thought beer was disgusting. How anyone could develop a taste for something that smelled and tasted so foul I’d never know.
“Aw, c’mon, luv,” Gary wheedled, his accent growing a little heavier. “’Ave a drink to celebrate our reunion.” He thrust the beer at me again.
“No. Thanks.”
To tell you the truth, this guy creeped me out enough that I wasn’t sure I’d even have accepted a soft drink from his hand. Not if it was already open, anyway.
Al had no such qualms, gulping her beer like she was parched. I think she was more unnerved by the squalor of Gary’s living conditions than she’d have liked to admit. Maybe she thought a little alcohol would make the place look better. I didn’t think anything short of a wrecking ball would do the trick.
Gary gave me a sour look, really insulted that I’d refused his beer. He plopped down next to Al on the sofa and put his arm around her, letting her cuddle into him. He shoved aside some of the trash on the coffee table, putting the other can of beer down before reaching over and putting his hand on Al’s thigh in an uncomfortably intimate gesture.
I was still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, unable to bear the idea of sitting down. I sure as hell wasn’t sitting next to Gary on the sofa, and if I wanted to sit on the other chair in the room, I’d have to move the porno magazine first. Maybe if I stood there looking impatient, it would hurry things along.
I looked over at Al, cuddled contentedly against Gary’s side, and then again at the can of beer he’d put down on the coffee table.
“Why aren’t you drinking the beer?” I asked him suddenly, not caring that my tone was decidedly abrupt. I’d only met him like ten minutes ago, but I already knew he wasn’t the type to waste a can of beer he’d already opened. Unless there was a good reason to, that is.
“Al, don’t!” I cried as she raised her beer to her lips and took another swallow. I darted forward and knocked the can out of her hand, spilling beer all over her and all over the couch.
“What the hell?” she said indignantly, surging to her feet and glaring at me.
For half a second, I felt foolish. I was being paranoid, too on edge about this dangerous adventure to take things at face value. Until I saw the little smirk on Gary’s face that is.
“He put something in the beer,” I told Al, grabbing her arm and dragging her away from the couch. “We have to get out of here.”
But I hadn’t figured it out fast enough, and Al had already guzzled too much of the beer. She staggered, and the constant buzz of her magic sputtered strangely.
One moment, she was the Goth girl with black and purple hair and piercings; the next, she was a typical blond-haired Fae girl and the only piercings were the two in the lobes of her ears. She gasped, and the glamour flared back to life for a moment. She staggered more heavily, and only my hold on her arm kept her upright.
“Fight it!” I commanded her, slinging her arm over my shoulders.
Al mumbled something I couldn’t understand, and her magic flickered out once more. And this time, it didn’t come back.