FORTY-TWO
“The timing just seemed to come together,” Fred finished. “And the consequences are fascinating, to say the least.”
“You said consequences,” I commented, “but this was a good thing.” A very good thing. Or a very bad thing: the day was young. Either way, me, Michael, and Fred versus humanity was going to be interesting.
“Consequence doesn’t denote bad,” she explained. “It’s simply something that happens because of something else.”
“Like a spring shoe sale in the spring?”
She snorted. “If that helps you.”
My shoes. Ah, best not to think of them now. Hopefully I could salvage most of them. The third floor had been the least damaged, and our room the farthest from the device and resulting smoke. Better to focus on the positives: the triad, vampires accepting being out in the open, and we’d only lost Will. And then only for twenty minutes or so.
Fred was chucking her empty Starbucks cup and preparing to leave, thank God. One thing we had in common: we could tolerate each other only in small doses. By the wry smile on her face, I guessed she was thinking the same thing.
“I know you don’t think much of all the ‘Elizabeth the One’ rhetoric—”
I made a face. “It sounds like a Matrix parody.”
“—but have you considered that this is, for want of a less hokey term, your destiny? Your rule was foretold—that’s what Tina tells me—”
“Keep me out of it,” Tina replied, eyes on her screen.
She smiled and shrugged into her sooty hoodie, which clashed with her stretch pants and faded T-shirt, because she dressed like a young bag lady. “And here you are, bringing the vampire nation into the light. And here you are, allies with werewolves while in a cordial relationship with the face of the Undersea Folk . . . You did that long before I came to town and talked about the triad. And that would have been impossible a hundred years ago. Perhaps ten years ago.”
Have I mentioned I like Fred? She had a nice way of taking all my blunders and putting them in the “I did that on purpose” pile.
There was a short silence, broken by Tina’s, “Majesty, you’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Saying things out loud, instead of just thinking them.”
“It was a test,” I decided on the spot, “and Fred passed.”
“Sure it was,” Fred said, and shocked the shit out of me by hugging me good-bye.