The Saint (15 page)

“What an expression!” Kris's tone was teasing, but his eyes were serious. “I'm not suggesting that you drop peyote and then go to a bullfight—just tell me a little about yourself.”

“I'd probably like peyote and bullfights better,” Adora replied. “That might be more fun too. This isn't . . . It isn't a nice story.”

“I want to hear it anyway. Please.”

“It happened about three years ago,” she answered at last. “It was a horrible summer. Everything was so dry. The drought went on and on out west. Mom and I were sick too—but not like Dad.”

“Are you getting worse?” Kris asked. There was no overt sympathy in his voice, but his eyes were warm and compassionate. Again, though she had never willingly discussed the matter with anyone, Adora felt compelled to tell him the truth.

“No. I seem to have plateaued. As long as I stay out of the noon sun, I'm fine. I live at the coast now, and we have a lot of fog in the summer. It's just that I'm not getting any better, either.”

“And your mother? Is she still alive?”

Adora looked away. This was tougher. She had been lonely before, but her mother's death had made that aloneness so final. There was no hope now of ever winning the woman's love, and nearly everyone who recalled her childhood was dead. If Adora died tomorrow, other than a few scholars who had read her work, no one would know she had ever existed. It made her feel very small and lonely. And that was pathetic: not the way she wanted Kris to see her.

Adora made an effort to pull herself together. “No, Mom is . . . Mom was a pilot—usually a careful one. But after Dad was gone, she . . .” She swallowed and blinked hard, upset to find she had tears in her eyes. “She was broken inside. I've often thought that their relationship wasn't so much a love affair as a love addiction. She hung on for a couple of years, waiting for me to finish graduate school and get settled in a career, but it was like watching a ghost haunt the house.” Adora took a drink of her coffee. It was hot enough to burn her tongue, but she welcomed the distraction of physical pain. “Officially, the crash was listed as an accident, but those who saw her said that the engine was fine and that she just dove that Piper Cub into the ground.”

Kris made a noise of sympathy. Adora flinched, but once started, the horrible words continued to bubble out.

“I dropped her off at the airport that day, and went into town to choose a dress to wear to a friend's wedding. I was going to Hawaii at the end of the week and was feeling as carefree as a little lamb going off to nibble spring pastures. Hawaii in the spring—what could be better? I think of it now and cringe at how stupid I was. I should have had some premonition; she was too quiet. . . . But I didn't. Not one little bit of worry clouded my horizon. Lambs aren't real bright, you know. They can gambol right by the slaughterhouse and not even notice.” Her voice was full of self-contempt.

“I'm sorry.” Kris's hand covered hers fleetingly. Too fleetingly, she thought. “You've had more than your fair share of losses. I do hope you know that neither of your parents' deaths were your fault.”

The hand had been nice—so warm—but his eyes! She wanted to crawl into his eyes and roll around in the kindness she saw there. The thought disturbed her. She had made the mistake—far too often of late—of seeking relief from her grief in relationships with men. They always ended disastrously.

And she didn't really want Kris's pity.

Adora let out a long breath and tried to smile reassuringly. “Yes, I know. And there's no need to worry about me, okay? I've never been that in love, and I don't suffer from suicidal tendencies. You'll never find me wearing a rope cravat, or doing home surgery on my wrists in the bathtub.”

“I know. I can sense that isn't your way.” Kris
nodded slowly, then said abruptly, “I have a friend who specializes in . . . immune disorders. I think he can help you. Would you consider seeing him?”

Adora thought about it.

“He isn't the Tooth Fairy, is he?” she asked with a half smile, attempting a joke to see how he reacted. “ 'Cause I think I've reached my weird quotient for the week.”

Kris smiled. “No, just one of my many helper elves. His name is Zayn, and he lives in a place called Cadalach.”

Mugshottz twitched once, but then went back to doing a fine impersonation of a statue.

“Ka du lac?” she asked. The name sounded vaguely familiar.

“That's close enough. It's named after a . . . a town in Ireland. We may be going there later. Not to Ireland—my Cadalach isn't too far from Palm Springs. I have family there.”

Adora tried not to gape.

“You have family?”

What? You thought he grew on a tree or was cloned in a lab?
Joy asked, but Adora could tell she was surprised too.

“Yes. I didn't mention my nephew? He's the one who restores the wonderful cars I use. He's a bit of a car buff.”

“I'm speechless,” Adora said, wondering if her prayers to the gods of research had been answered. Surely Kris's family could tell her more about him. “I don't know why—”

Yes, you do,
Joy inserted.

“—but I somehow pictured you as coming into the world like Athena, sprung whole from the brow of Zeus.”

“Wrong legend again,” Kris said. “Jack is the son of my younger brother, Phaneos. He's a lot younger than I am.”

“Isn't everyone?” Adora asked. Kris just nodded.

At the next table, Adora heard the click of a camera shutter, and even without Mugshottz's hard glance, she knew who was being photographed: Though he had done nothing but sip his coffee, Kris had still managed to attract the attention of every female in a three-table radius. Even in the land of beautifully engineered people, he attracted attention.

It's probably super-pheromones.

“Eat your breakfast,” Kris cajoled. “You don't want to miss the street musicians—the lutin mariachis are fabulous. You won't believe what they can do with a twelve-string guitar. They close up shop before the sun gets too warm, though. Goblins don't do well in bright sunlight. They dehydrate. The condition is called hydrophilia.”

“Why do they go out in it then?” Adora asked.

“You don't know much about goblin hives, do you?” Kris said. The question might have been condescending but wasn't.

“Nothing,” she admitted. “I feel very ignorant and am afraid I'll say something foolish before I finish doing my research and offend someone. It would be easier if goblins looked like goblins,” she added.

“No, we couldn't have that,” Kris said mildly, though he looked a bit serious. Then he went on to explain, “The situation is complicated, and every hive is different. Molybdenum is the new leader— king—of the L.A. hive. He's only been in power a few months. Being fey, I would normally be considered an enemy of the state, but we've reached a sort of agreement about my staying here in town. I have dispensation because of an old debt. This is . . . restitution from this hive for an ancient wrong they did me.”

“I see. What happened to the last king?” Adora asked.

“
Queen.
Sharyantha. The story is that she tragically cut her throat while shaving.”

“Goblins shave?” Adora said. She wasn't certain if Kris was kidding.

“The females do.”

“You'd think she'd prefer facial wax. Much safer,” Adora remarked.

“Indeed. Especially since such shaving accidents kill off a lot of goblin kings and queens. Coup d'e-tats are very common in lutin hives. In fact, I don't think any goblin ruler ever has died of old age. Don't get the wrong idea: The average lutin is quiet and law-abiding, but the leaders—many of them— are monsters. And monsters don't have many friends, and way too many relatives who want their job. It compounds their already raging paranoia, and they tend to be tyrannical. Molybdenum is better than most, but still . . .”

“Kings everywhere have this problem,” Adora pointed out. “
‘Uneasy lies the head'
and all that. It has to be a hard life. Still, there's an up side to assassination—for the general populace at least,” she suggested.

“Yes?” Kris cocked his head, waiting for her to go on. A slight smile hovered about his mouth.

“Well, at least with a revolution you don't have to go through two primaries and a general election. Our last presidential election almost put me in a psychiatric hospital.”

Joy didn't speak up, though Adora half-expected her to.

Kris shook his head. “How very cynical you are. I take it that you don't approve of politics. I was going to introduce you to someone today, but perhaps it would be best if you didn't spend time with him. You and my political adviser might not get along.”

Nodding, Adora bit into her cinnamon roll—and almost moaned aloud at the pleasure. Nothing was as good as cinnamon and too much butter.

“It's that good?” Kris asked, taking a smaller bite of his own. He closed his eyes for a moment. “I am so glad that cholesterol isn't a problem in my life,” he remarked.

“Your political adviser. Alistair Hyatt?” Adora said a minute later in a somewhat sticky voice. “We've already met. He went hurrying by this morning with a file even bigger than mine. He seems surprisingly nice—too nice for his job. I'll just have to see about getting him some vocational counseling. It's never too late to change careers,” she joked.

“Bite your tongue. I need him,” Kris replied. “I share your distaste for politics, but I have learned— at huge cost—that you cannot completely ignore that realm and the people who dabble in it.”

“No? I certainly try. I have no use for politicians— scoundrels and liars, one and all.”

Kris shook his head, looking surprisingly serious. “True. But you're in a goblin town now. Ignore politics at your peril.”

“Explain,” Adora demanded. As she took another bite of her roll, she noticed Mugshottz look Kris's way. He did that fairly frequently, and it was hard to read his expression, but now it seemed more curious than nervous. That was probably a sign that she should take notes. Adora wiped her hands on her napkin and reached for her notebook.

“It's complicated,” Kris said.

“I have all day.”

“Very well. In the human world, consider how politics influence fashion and art, from deciding what clothes we wear to what musicians and artists will be favored in our society,” he proposed. “There are unholy alliances built by greed, all around us, influencing us daily. And this is in the
human
world, where there are some checks and balances, and a supposedly free media to inform the masses of abuses of power. Now, there is no United Nations or free press for lutin hives.”

Kris got up from the table and began to pace. Mugshottz watched him worriedly. Adora had the feeling that the troll-cross would start pacing also if his boss got more than a shadow's length away.

Kris went on: “And politics do much more than influence the aesthetics of our lives. Humans think that because there is no body count on the nightly news that there is no war between the goblins and the humans—but they couldn't be more wrong.” He shook his head, and Adora knew that he was searching for a way to explain how large the problem was, and how it was growing into something nearly impossible to control. He finally said, “The odds of confrontation have grown astronomically. I have watched through the ages as human political agendas have left thrones and oval offices and climbed into pulpits, both in the old churches and now in the secular church of the media. There it puts words into the mouths of priests and newsmen. Thus are rich men's political ambitions implanted in the hearts of society. The resulting abuses are often small, petty bigotries, and go unnoticed. The more spectacular ones make headlines. Often there is an element of evil. Think of all those zealous reformers who kill to
save lives.
”

Adora nodded, recalling all the hypocrisy she'd witnessed. There were the many forms of religious terrorism that plagued the world. There were always people killing for Christ, or for Muhammad, or for someone. . . .

“The goblins have watched and learned,” Kris continued. “And the effect is more than double in the lutin world, where goblin masses have never been allowed to think for themselves and where no dissenting view is offered. You don't see it, but lutin leaders—especially in the United States, though there are new movements in Japan and Europe too—are taking advantage of the common lutin anger over at what has happened to them. They have been ghettoized and believe they have never been offered a seat at the American political table. If goblins have shared in the capitalist bounty, it is because they have taken their prosperity by trickery or force. None was offered willingly. And like their greediest human counterparts, the goblin leaders believe completely that the end justifies the means, and they will lie and lie and lie—and worse—if that's what it takes to get what they deserve. They will no longer tolerate being second-class—” Kris stopped abruptly. “I was going to say second-class citizens. But they aren't citizens. Lutins have been born in this country for hundreds of years, yet none has the right to vote. And humans are stone blind to this injustice and the anger it has caused.” Kris's gaze was hot. “Think about it, Adora: The goblins are here in the hundreds of thousands, yet they are nearly invisible in daily human life. Even you, an educated woman, never saw a goblin until two days ago.”

There was a scattering of applause from nearby tables, causing Kris to blink and then sit down abruptly. The applauders all looked human, Adora thought, but they might not be. They could be species-reassigned goblins. The thought made her squirm.

Yet, Kris had a point. She had always shied away from stories about faeries and goblins. It had been easy, because there was no mention of the fey in the news and hardly ever anything about goblins.