Twice passersby collided with me when I didn’t sidestep fast enough, and both times I nearly lost my parasol and took a brief but thorough drenching. This being invisible is tricky stuff. It may take me a while to get the hang of it. I make a mental note that once I reach my destination, I’m going to have to dry off so I don’t leak a trail of water everywhere I go.
I’m halfway to Chester’s when I turn the corner and run smack into the Dreamy-Eyed Guy who’s standing outside an old brownstone converted to condos, looking up.
I flail for balance, taking a third soaking which I hardly even notice.
My savior is here, standing before me in the flesh! He’ll take back his Book and I’ll be visible again and go saunter around in front of Green Camo girl and prove I’m no longer a threat!
“There you are,” I exclaim excitedly.
“Not quite,” the Dreamy-Eyed Guy says. “But then you aren’t quite either. Quite the couple we make. You’ve chocolate on your face.”
Freaking figures. I scrub irritably at my chin, my cheek. “We need to talk.” I snatch the human form of the Unseelie King by his arm before he vanishes on me again. Like other large objects I touch, he remains visible.
He locks surreally beautiful eyes with mine, staring right through my invisibility cloak, but why wouldn’t he? It’s an illusion perpetrated by a part of him.
“What have you done now, Beautiful Girl?”
“Not me. You. It’s your fault.”
“Fault schmault. Lies in the stars.”
Not about to get sucked into an existential debate, I get to the point. “Get your Book out of me.”
“Talking to it?”
“No,” I deny instantly. “It talks to me. I almost never answer.”
“Cold fire. Jumbo shrimp.”
“Huh?” I don’t want the half-mad king. I want the sane one.
“Almost never: oxymoron. Risky couplings. Gray lies.” He removes my hand from his arm. “Not my book.”
“Bullshit. You made it.” I latch onto his arm again. No way he’s leaving without fixing me this time.
“So you say.”
“It’s a fact.”
“Nasty little buggers. Sport Halloween masks. Trust none of them.”
“Get. It. Out. Of. Me,” I grit.
“How many times must your king say it? Can’t eviscerate essential self.”
“Oh! I knew you were going to say that! It’s not my self. It’s yours. And you’re not my flipping king.”
“Didn’t say I was. Certainly not flipping. Although occasionally I do a cartwheel.”
He’s making little sense. But he rarely does. I suspect it’s even more difficult for the virtually omnipotent being to communicate when he’s functioning than it is for one of his multiple human parts. The only way the Unseelie King can walk among humans is by parceling out his vast sentience and power among a dozen or so human bodies. “I can’t live with your monster inside me. I shouldn’t have to.”
“Ah,” he clucks with mock sympathy, “because it’s not fair. And life always is. There is that whole ‘sins of the father’ thing.”
“You’re not my father. And no, it’s not fair.”
“In a manner of speaking, you are unequivocally the king’s and always will be. Caveat: what you fear most will destroy you.”
“Exactly. So, get it out of me.”
“Stop fearing it.”
“You dumped it. Why shouldn’t I?”
“And we’re back to square one. BG wake the fuck up, can’t eviscerate essential self.”
I stare at him. “What are you saying? You never got rid of it? Are you trying to tell me you dumped all your evil into a book and it infected me and made me evil—and it didn’t even work for you?”
“Try to behave with it.”
Then the Dreamy-Eyed Guy was gone, just gone, leaving a final cryptic comment floating on air.
“ ’Ware the Sweeper, BG. Don’t talk to its minions either. It’s not about eating the candy. It’s about giving away words.” Soft, enormous laughter rolls through the rainy streets like thunder. “Even that broody ass poet’s.”
Try to behave with it? That was his useless advice? Sweeper? Minions? Candy? What the hell is he talking about?
I stomp my foot on the sidewalk, slip and fall on my ass into the overflowing gutter. “Fucking fairies,” I yell, shoving wet hair from my face. “I hate you. All of you. Fuck you, Dreamy-Eyed Guy!”
A sudden breeze snatches the umbrella from my hand, turning it visible again and sends it whirling down the street, chute over handle, before smashing it into a brick wall. Metal spokes snap and it collapses on itself. Lightning crashes and thunder rolls.
I’m not sure but I think the Unseelie King just said “Fuck you, tiny insignificant very wet human” back.
After a moment I drag myself up, collect my battered umbrella, and begin slogging through the rain toward Chester’s.
After drying myself off thoroughly in one of the restrooms, I make every effort to stride purposefully across the crowded dance floors of Chester’s, but were I visible, someone watching would see an erratic zig followed by a stumbling zag that vaguely resembles a drunken bumblebee. It’s impossible to avoid people who have no idea I’m there.
I take two pops to my rib cage from flailing elbows, a backhand to my jaw (they call this dancing?), and a fist to my thigh (really, who gyrates like that?) before I even clear the first subclub.