"You see Gilda as a fellow monarch?" I asked.
"She sees herself as such," Doyle said. "It is always better to let petty kings keep their crowns until we want the crown and the head it sits upon."
"This is the twenty-first century, Doyle. You can't run our life like it's the tenth century."
"I have been watching your news programs and reading books on governments that are present-day, Merry. Things have not changed so very much. It is just more secret now."
I wanted to ask him how he knew that. I wanted to ask him if he knew government secrets that would make me doubt my government, and my country. But in the end, I didn't ask. For one thing, I wasn't certain he'd tell me the truth if he thought it would upset me. And for another, one mass murder seemed like enough for one day. I had Frost call home and warn our own demi-fey to stay close to the house and to be wary of strangers, because the only thing I was sure of was that it wasn't one of us. Beyond that I had no ideas. I'd worry about spies and governments on another day, when the image of the winged dead weren't still dancing behind my eyes.
Chapter Three
I drove to the Fael tea shop, and Doyle was right. It wasn't close to the beach, where everyone would be waiting. It was blocks away in a part of town that had once been a bad area but had been gentrified, which used to simply mean claimed by the yuppies, but had come to mean a place that the faeries had moved into and made more magical. It would then become a tourist stronghold, and a place for teens and college students to hang out. The young have always been drawn to the fey. It's why for centuries you put charms on your children to keep us from taking the best and brightest and the most creative. We like artists.
Doyle had his usual death grip on the door and the dashboard. He always rode that way in the front seat. Frost was less afraid of the car and L.A. traffic, but Doyle insisted that as captain he should be beside me. The fact that it was an act of bravery to him just made it cute, though I kept the cute comment to myself. I wasn't certain how he would take it.
He managed to say, "I do like this car better than the other one you drive. It's higher from the ground."
"It's an SUV," I said, "more a truck than a car." I was looking for a parking spot, and not having much luck. This was a section of town where people came to stroll on a lovely Saturday, and there were lots of people, which meant lots of cars. It was L.A. Everyone drove everywhere.
The SUV actually belonged to Maeve Reed, like so much of our stuff. Her chauffeur had offered to drive us around, but the moment the police called, the limo stayed at home. I had enough problems with the police not taking me seriously without showing up in a limo. I'd never live that down, and Lucy wouldn't live it down either, and that mattered more. It was her job. In a sense, the other police were right; I was just sightseeing.
I knew that part of the problem was the car itself, all that technology and metal. Except that I knew several lesser fey who owned cars and drove. Most of the sidhe had no trouble in the big modern skyscrapers, and they had plenty of metal and technology. Doyle was also afraid of airplanes. It was one of his few weaknesses.
Frost called out, "Parking spot." He pointed and I maneuvered the huge SUV toward it. I had to speed up and almost hit a smaller car that was trying to outmuscle me for the spot. It made Doyle swallow hard and let out a shaky breath. I wanted to ask him why riding in the back of the limo didn't bother him to this degree, but refrained. I wasn't sure if pointing out that he was only this afraid in the front seat of a car would make him more afraid in the limo. That we did not need.
I got the parking spot, though parallel parking the Escalade wasn't my favorite thing to do. Parking the Escalade was never easy, and parallel parking was like getting a master's degree in parking. Would that make parking a semi the doctoral test? I really never wanted to drive anything bulkier than this SUV, so I'd probably never find out.
I could see Fael's sign from the car, just a few storefronts down. We hadn't even had to go around the block once; perfect.
I waited for Doyle to make his shaky way out of the car, and for Frost to unbuckle and come around to my door. I knew better than to simply get out without one of them beside me. They had all made very certain that I understood that part of being a good bodyguard was to train your guardee how to be guarded. Their tall bodies blocked me at almost every turn when we were on the street. If there had been a credible threat I'd have had more guards. Two was minimum and precautionary. I liked precautionary - it meant no one was trying to kill me. The fact that it was a novelty that no one was trying said a lot about the last few years of my life. Maybe it wasn't the happily ever after the tabloids were painting, but it was definitely happier.
Frost helped me down from the SUV, which I needed. I always had a moment of feeling childlike when I had to climb in or out of the Escalade. It was like sitting in a chair where your feet swing. It made me feel like I was six again, but Frost's arm under mine, the height and solidness of him, reminded me that I was no longer a child, and decades from six.
Doyle's voice came. "Fear Dearg, what are you doing here?"
Frost stopped in mid-motion and put his body more solidly in front of me, shielding me, because Fear Dearg was not a name. The Fear Dearg were very old, the remnants of a faerie kingdom that had predated the Seelie and the Unseelie courts. That made the Fear Dearg more than three thousand years old, at minimum. Since they did not breed, for they had no females, they were all simply that old. They were somewhere between a brownie, a hobgoblin, and a nightmare - a nightmare that could make a man think that a stone was his wife, or that a cliff into the sea a path of safety. And some delighted in the kind of torture that would have pleased my aunt. I'd once seen her skin a sidhe noble until he was unrecognizable and then she made him follow her on a leash like a dog.