But her wings seemed to lack some of their zip as she headed toward my glass for another refill, hiccup-bubbles trailing behind her.
Sunny and I exchanged glances. She took a deep breath and gave me a smile that I knew was intended to bolster my confidence.
Jasper leant his support by choosing that moment to leap into my lap. I grunted at the sudden impact of his weight and helped him to curl into a position that was comfortable for both of us.
“So, what’s with the hiccupping bubbles, anyway?” Sunny asked Lorien. I was grateful for the change of subject, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the danger I was in.
“It only happens when I drink champagne,” Lorien explained, looking embarrassed.
“What about absinthe? They call it the ‘Green Fairy’—any connection to real faeries?” Sunny asked.
“Actually, humans gave it that nickname because it allowed them to suspend their disbelief long enough to get a peek into the faerie realm,” Lorien answered. “But even when they do glimpse one of us, most humans just chalk it up to hallucinating when they come down from the stuff.”
“Really?” Sunny queried, her gaze sharpening on Lorien with genuine interest. “That’s fascinating! I smoked some laced pot once in college and I could have sworn I saw a leprechaun eating a sandwich under the oak tree in our back yard…”
I sat quietly sipping the golden liquid remaining in my glass and absently stroking Jasper’s silky fur, as Sunny quizzed Lorien on the effectiveness of various mind-altering substances at heightening human sensitivity to the faerie realm. It was a discussion that would have normally intrigued me, but I was beginning to feel distinctly discouraged about the likelihood of figuring out how to hold onto my soul.
I couldn’t rely on Lorien alone to get me out of this mess, I realized. I needed to have my own plan. The problem was, I knew nothing about death djinns and somehow I didn’t think a few hours at the library or surfing the web was going to help.
The one thing I did know was that if I ever saw Balthus again I was going to keep my mouth shut and let my feet do the talking—right from my shoe to his crotch. Maybe if I kicked him hard enough he’d wish he never met me and it would solve both our problems.
Chapter 6 – Infatuations
“Mmm…peppermint mocha,” I sighed, inhaling the minty, chocolaty, caffeine-packed wonder. I wasn’t usually one to jump on the corporate bandwagon, but Starbucks made a damn good coffee drink.
Sunny grinned at me from the passenger seat of my station wagon. She was on her third dose of the black jet fuel she drank, the first two cups at my penthouse having barely brought her out of her morning coma. Now we were both riding the high from the caffeine, and the sugar rush from cinnamon rolls drenched in gooey cream-cheese icing.
“I’m not sure how long this visit’s going to last—Rachel sounded exhausted on the phone,” Sunny commented between sips.
“Well, she did just pass a ten pound human being through her body. I’d be exhausted too.”
“I’m never having kids,” Sunny stated with an adamant head shake.
I chuckled, ignoring the twinge of sadness I felt. Jeremy and I hadn’t been sure if we were ready for kids either, but we’d been thinking about it.
Best to put that out of my mind—along with the message from him I’d retrieved earlier that morning, quietly asking for me to come home, or at least meet with him to talk.
I’d been returning his calls so he wouldn’t worry, but only when I knew he was at work. The cheerful “Hi! You’ve reached Sydney and Jeremy!” on the voicemail was a real kick in the ass, but it was better than the inevitable sob-fest that I knew talking to him would bring.
Maybe it was juvenile, but as far as I was concerned, there was no excuse for what he’d done, and nothing left to say.
I turned into the parking lot for the hospital, commencing a slow drive through one of the parking rows near the entrance.
“Looks pretty full,” Sunny observed.
“Yeah, but if I can find a space here we won’t have to hoof it from B.F.E. in this ninety degree heat. One more pass-through—maybe someone will be leaving.”
“You realize no one says ‘B.F.E.’ anymore,” Sunny informed me in a dry tone. “Oh wait—there’s a guy!” She pointed to a man getting into a white pick-up truck.
I sped up and made the U-Turn into his row, putting on my blinker to signal my intention to park there. A split second later, a surly looking woman in a dark blue sedan pulled up facing me and put her blinker on for the same spot.
“Beeyatch,” Sunny exhaled in annoyance.
The man in the truck began pulling out with his rear bumper angled toward me, giving surly-blue-car-woman the first shot at my space. I resigned myself to giving up gracefully, but just as she moved forward, her engine sputtered and her car shuddered to a halt.
Sunny let out a burst of surprised laughter as I whipped my wagon into the parking space. I spared a ‘you win some, you lose some’ sort of shrug for blue-car-woman as we got out and walked toward the hospital entrance. She glared at me over the painful noise of her starter grinding.
“Poor thing,” Sunny said with mock sympathy.
The faint tinkle of faerie laughter rang in my ears.
“I guess they just don’t make enough good parking spaces for everyone to have a faerie guardian,” I smirked.
We stopped at the front desk to sign the log and get our ‘Visitor’ stickers, and then headed up in the elevator to the maternity wing. I wrinkled my nose at the antiseptic odor in the hallways as we followed the room number signs that mapped our way to Rachel.
When we found the right number, we peeked our heads through the doorway of a small, private room with a hospital bed for Mom and a corner fold-away cot for Dad. An infant’s Plexiglas crib on wheels rested in a pool of sunshine beneath the window, but the baby was in Rachel’s arms.
“Rachel!” Sunny whispered excitedly as she moved forward and made room for her greeting card and gift on the bedside table. Rachel didn’t seem to notice any of it as she gazed down at her daughter.
“Meet Molly,” she said with a radiant smile, tucking down a soft white blanket to give us an unobstructed view.
Rachel’s husband, Brian, greeted us with a, “Hi guys, thanks for coming.” He looked dazed but happy.
Lorien appeared just above my shoulder and I jerked my head in surprise. “Ooh, she’s so cute…I love babies! How could anyone resist that pinched, purple wittle face?” she cooed in a sugary falsetto.
I did an admirable job of schooling my expression, but Sunny made a choking sound that almost ruined my efforts. Rachel and her husband beamed at Sunny, and she recovered quickly with a heartfelt, “She’s precious!”
“She’s beautiful,” I agreed.
We fussed over Molly for a while, Sunny and I doing our best to ignore Lorien as she flitted around making fawning noises. I could have sworn that the baby was cooing back at her. But when Sunny and Rachel started in on the family gossip, I decided to give them some time alone to catch up.
“I think I’ll go for a walk and maybe browse around the gift shop. Can I get anybody anything?” I offered as I stood.
They all declined and I stepped out into the hall with Lorien alighting on my shoulder