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The power of great magic coupled with the immeasurable strength of great anger gathered around Kelerison like a thun- derhead. His silver armor tarnished black from the force of his wrath. "You moth, are you blind to who and what I am? I am Kelerison, Lord King of Elfhame Ultramar! Are you arrogant 140 Esther M. Priesner enough to believe that this has any meaning for me?" He crum- pled the subpoena in his hands. Brian calmly brushed the top of his black-and-orange Mohawk. "Got me. That's not my department. Like Ms. Ho- rowitz said, no harm in trying, okay? If it doesn't work, we tried; if it does . . . Hey, I really like that heavy metal stuff you're wearing, y'know? Outtahere." The subpoena slowly came down at Kelerison'.s side. He closed the door after Brian without moving from the bed. Rum- pelstiltskin crept closer to his lord. "Your Majesty, I'm real sorry, I swear that I " "Six o'clock," Kelerison said grimly. "She herself has summoned me. Let her doom come to her out of her own fool- ishness. Six o'clock tonight. I will be there." Chapter Fourteen: The Case of the Aagry Elven tf^'Dass me Black's, Cass," Sandy said, not looking IT up from the shuffle of yellow legal pads and Da- vina's crisply typed research notes. The room so long con- secrated to be Sandy's in-home office, and so long unused, now looked as jumbled and lived-in as the most ambitious proto-lawyer could desire. It was crowded with books and papers and people only three people, but what with the books and papers taking up so much space, those three had to hustle if they didn't want to do their assigned tasks sitting on the floor. "What's Black's?" the elfin prince asked. He had laid aside his mortal looks from the day his father's vengeance had begun. Now he sat at Sandy's feet, long legs folded elegantly under him as he occupied a cricket stool. There was something magical, or at least gravity defying, about the way he managed to keep his balance on so precarious a perch. "You know what Black's is." Sandy sounded irritated. She did not look away from her scribblings. "You've passed it to me enough times." She would not look at him. ELF DEFENSE 141 "That was Davina." First playing dumb, now outright lies. She knew it for a lie, and she knew why he was lying too. He wanted her to look at him. Just as strongly, she did not want to do that; perhaps even more strongly. "I think he's right, Mrs. Wal Sandy." Davina still didn't sound comfortable addressing her employer so famil- iarly. She was cozily tucked into the room's one armchair, a law book on her lap. "I'm sure it was I always retched it for you, and not Cass." The close air stank with conspiracy. No matter what Cass said you could depend on Davina to back him up to the death. There was little need to ponder why. It just wanted one look at the elfin prince, and Sandy's head seized on the excuse, turning to do so without a by-your-leave from her brain. It was distracting and disconcerting to tear her eyes from the paperwork and meet Cass's gaze, for all that it was sen- sually rewarding. In the most brightly lit room, his beauty added an extra glow to the air. In a snug place like this, the only light coming from a green-shaded cashier's lamp over the desk, an upright lamp beside the armchair, and a pair of elec- tric wall scones, the prince was a cool flame meant to draw the fascinated attention of those mortals his father so aptly called "moths." Cass had also been watching MTV and had practiced a come-hither pout that Mick Jagger and Billy Idol should have protected by patent. He was using everything he had on her, and Sandy didn't like it. She didn't like it at all, for three distinct reasons: For one, now that she had real work to occupy her time, she had ceased to dream of Rimmon. She still thought of him, she would always remember him with the tenderness and rose- tinged regret proper to the most memorable love affair of one's life, but he was out of her dreams. She only saw his face when she summoned it. She didn't need or want to be reminded of him by another of his kind. For another, she was a respectable married lady, and a mother. It sounded stodgy, but prudes led very safe lives, and Sandy felt she had all the perils she could handle just then. And prosaic as it sounded, she did love Lionel: a cozy, placid, domestic love that she might have wished were a shade more 142 Esther M. Priesner . . . piquant? No, no, that was the way back to impossible dreams of alien pleasures, and all the lost passion she had felt in Rimmon's arms. No more! Sandy gave herself a sharp reprimand. It was safe for me to fantasize an elfin lover when there wasn 't a chipmunk's chance I'd see another elf this side of those Christ- mastime abominations. Now . . . She studdied Cass's upturned face. There was nothing or, earth to touch him. His father was handsome, tempting, with the added appeal of his, uncounted years of life to whisper in a mortal woman's ear, Oh, the ancient delights I might share with you, my love! But Cass was young, for what he was, and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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