Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond(61)
Author: Kim Harrison

Fingers slow and clumsy, Mia felt the back of her dress to be sure the buttons were done up properly. The coffeepot was steaming, and she carefully put her empty cup away in the cupboard before unplugging the pot and setting his filled cup on the coffee table beside him. She turned the music down, and guilt prompted her to drape an afghan over him as if he was sleeping. His clothes went into the hamper.

Silent, she stood above him in her coat. "Goodbye, Tom," she whispered before gathering her groceries and quietly leaving.

Fatigue hit her anew when she found the sidewalk. The rain had stopped, and the sun was peeking past the heavy clouds. Fumbling, Mia put her sunglasses on. Traffic hissed wetly, and she breathed deep when a couple passed her, hotly discussing the amount of the tip one of them had left. It was a sour taste after Tom’s love, and she let it eddy behind her unsipped.

She glanced at her watch and picked up the pace. Digging in a pocket, she found her wedding ring and put it back on. With a shamed slowness, her fingers slipped back into the pocket, running through Tom’s life force, pooled and condensed.

Delicate features pulling into a grimace, Mia took out a handful of tears, slipping the lightest one between her lips and sucking guiltily on it. His strength poured into her, and her pace quickened, heels clicking smartly against the concrete shining with the new sun.

Stupid man, she thought as she waved and jogged to catch the bus. The wish did work. Well, perhaps it would be more fair to say it had worked. It had worked very well when she met Remus-savage, angry Remus whose psychotic rage had been strong enough to bring Holly into existence. The love had come later, until now, she, Holly, and Remus were a real family. Like any family on the street, and Mia was proud of it.

Holly was the first banshee child to know her father, plying him with innocent love and devotion. It had been watching father and daughter that Mia learned it was possible to force emotion back into a person, lulling them into thinking they were safe while making themselves more vulnerable. The child had, in her innocence, returned to her species all the cunning and power human laws had taken from them, and for that alone Holly was going to be revered among her own. Once she learned how to walk and talk, that is.

Breathless, Mia smiled at the bus driver as she just made it to the door, fumbling for her bus pass. Tom, dead in his apartment, was hardly a glimmer of memory as she settled beside a young man smelling of cologne and shedding lust Mia knew to be from a new girlfriend. Easing back, she soaked it in, sated.

Her lids fluttered as they rumbled over the railroad tracks, and she looked at her watch, mildly concerned. Remus would likely throw a bloody-hell tantrum that she was running late, being unable to go to work until she got home to watch Holly. But they would both enjoy her kissing him into a calm state, and he’d get over it.

Besides, little Holly was hungry, and it wasn’t as if he could do the shopping.

The Bridges of Eden Park

The death of Kisten was not just a shock to the readers, it was also one to me. He didn’t actually find his end until the editorial rewrite of For a Few Demons More, when I realized that Kisten’s role was destined to become a dead end. I couldn’t stand to see his character wither and die, so I made a clean end of it. "The Bridges of Eden Park" was my way to say good-bye, and was added to the mass market edition.

I still miss Kisten.

You have duck sauce on your face," Kisten said, smiling as he leaned into me to kiss it away.

"Kisten!" Flustered, I drew back. I wasn’t a prude, but we were standing atop the footbridge at Eden park, and there was an old couple sitting across the shallow lake watching, as if we were on display.

"What . . ." he complained, contenting himself with wiping it away with his finger and making me roll my eyes when he suggestively licked it off.

A quiver rose through me, halfheartedly suppressed. Squinting from the sun, I tossed my head to the ancient-looking pair. "I’m not going to end up with my picture in the Cincinnati Gazette again. My mom gets that, you know."

Kisten turned to look, leaning against the bridge’s cement railing with his blond eyebrows high in speculation. The wind coming up from the distant river ruffled his blond-dyed hair, and when he smiled with half his face, he looked heart-stopping. God, what was it with vampires? When they were dead, they were attractive, but when there was a soul still attached . . . Damn!

"They don’t look like the paparazzi," Kisten said as he turned back, giving me a slip of fang to think about. "I say we give them something to watch."

I was tempted, man was I tempted, but the memory of my picture under the what-not-to-wear-to-a-stakeout headline made me a wiser woman. I still didn’t know who had taken it, and when I found out, I was going to put slugs in his or her glove box. Making a huff of negation, I angled too close for him to do anything, shifting my body into his and sending my arm about his waist. I rolled the bag of takeout down and handed it to him as a substitute for nibbling on my earlobe. He sighed at the mild rebuke, knowing it was a temporary stalemate. I’d pay him back after work.

Breakfast with Kisten could mean anything from fast food in his car to a three-course meal at the Carew Tower restaurant. Today it was Chinese at Eden park at noon. I didn’t mind. With him managing the affairs of his imprisoned master vampire and me trying to maintain my independent runner firm, our time together was often taken in snatches. It had been my suggestion to eat here, seeing as I wanted to go to the nearby conservatory to pilfer some of the orchid pollen for a charm, and if Kisten was with me, no one would say boo if I was caught.

Orchid pollen, I thought, snuggling into the security of Kisten’s arm over my shoulders as we leaned over the railing to look eight feet down into the fast moving water. I didn’t think orchids even had pollen. But it was either I take my tiny makeup brush to the nearby conservatory or one of the local home improvement stores.

The water bubbling under the bridge into the large catch pond was soothing, and feeling Kisten relax against me, I sighed happily and breathed in the vampire incense he was unconsciously giving off. The rich, almost subliminal scent mixed with the sunshine and wind to give a sensation of quiet intensity. I trusted Kisten implicitly to not push his advantage as a vampire, but the potential was heady. Playing with fire, but it felt so good. Besides, as a witch, I wasn’t without my own "evolutionary adaptations."

A faint smile quirked my lips. It was full summer, the sun was high, the wind was cool, and because I didn’t have a job today, all I had to do was find orchid pollen. Nothing could possibly ruin my mood of contentment.