Reg hadn’t even thought about how challenging it might be to eat barbecue in their fancy clothes. She was glad that she hadn’t dressed any more formally. She felt like she fit in pretty well at Uncle Mike’s, but Corvin, even though he had been there before, seemed overdressed. Patrons’ clothing ranged from t-shirts and blue jeans, sometimes with bare feet shoved into dusty sandals, to smart button-up shirts, pantsuits, or skirts. But she didn’t see anyone else in a formal suit like Corvin’s. Did that mean that he had hoped to get a reservation somewhere else, but had been forced to settle for Uncle Mike’s? Or did he have something planned for later in the evening that would require more formal dress?
Or did he just like to attract attention and show off how handsome he was? The carefully-trimmed beard and wavy hair moussed to perfection and deep dark eyes would have attracted the attention of nearly every woman in the place without the extra flamboyance of his tailored dark suit.
When they sat down, Reg saw that they had been supplied with bibs as well as menus. She glanced around at the other restaurant-goers and saw that just about all of them were wearing their bibs to protect their clothing, and some of them were very well-decorated with barbecue sauce.
Corvin looked around, smiling. “It’s that good,” he confirmed.
Reg shook her head. After all of the build-up, the barbecue had better be the best she’d ever tasted. And she’d lived for a time in Kansas City, the self-proclaimed barbecue Capital of the World.
She opened her menu and looked over the pictures.
“Shall I order us a bottle of wine?” Corvin suggested.
“Wine? I thought barbecue went with beer.”
He raised his brows. “Well, beer it is, then. Is there a particular variety that should be paired with barbecue?”
Reg rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t think it matters.”
Corvin perused the ‘wine and spirits’ folder on the table seriously for a few minutes before waving to their waiter and placing their drink orders. The waiter, a chirpy guy that made Reg think of Jiminy Cricket took the order and disappeared into the kitchen.
“So what’s the specialty?” Reg asked, looking up from the pictures on her menu. “Is it the ribs? Or should I get chicken or jumbo shrimp.”
“Definitely the ribs. It would be sacrilege to order anything else. Of course, you’re welcome to order whatever you like, but we could go for a variety platter and share it…”
She’d objected to him ordering for her before, and she was glad to see that he remembered the lesson.
“Sure, that sounds good. It’s not too spicy, is it? I like some spice, but not the kind that makes you cry.”
Corvin chuckled. “No. It won’t make you cry. Unless they’re tears of joy.”
More eye-rolling. Reg closed her menu and set it to the side on the table. Corvin looked through his for another minute or two, even though she had agreed with his suggestion. Then he set his menu on top of hers. “This is nice.”
Reg looked around. “It is. I like the ambiance. It’s friendly.”
“I meant it’s nice to be here, alone with you.”
He was right about it being full. It was a good thing he had called ahead to reserve a table. There were a lot of people milling about the front entrance and outside, having a drink or two while they waited for a table to open up. But Corvin and Reg had been ushered directly in.
She turned back to Corvin and found him watching her intently. She felt herself flush under his gaze. Corvin smiled and looked away when Jiminy Cricket returned with their drinks. The beers were tall and frothy. Corvin picked his up and had a taste. He nodded to the waiter and placed their order for the variety platter.
“How have you been lately?” he asked Reg when the waiter was gone once more. “Any interesting cases? And you are, I assume, fully recovered from your last one?”
Reg had only been in hospital for a couple of days, but it was an experience that she hoped never to have to repeat.
“Yes, I’m good. Everything is working. I’m supposed to do some follow-up appointments to monitor my kidneys, but… I don’t know if I’ll bother. I feel fine.”
“Not something you want to neglect.”
“But I’m fine, really. They just want more money for follow-up appointments. They keep you on the string for as long as they can.”
“You only have one life. Or at least, only one life here as a mortal human being. I can’t speak to reincarnation or the afterlife.”
Or immortality. Reg wondered what traits she had inherited from her mother, a part siren, and what she might have inherited from Weston. Francesca referred to Weston and his kind as immortals, but were they really? Or were they just long-lived? Did their children inherit long life?
And for that matter, how long did sirens live? When they weren’t killing each other off, of course. Reg had never thought much about the short lifespan of a human being before, but repeated barbs from the fairies and pixies about the shortness of the human lifespan and her recent stay at the hospital had gotten her thinking about it.
That and Vivian’s close encounter with death.
“You’ve lived a long time,” she said to Corvin.
He gave a slight smile and nodded. She wasn’t sure how old he really was. He didn’t look over forty, but she had been assured that he was much older than that, kept young by his practice of the magic arts.
“How long do you think you’ll live?”
“That’s hard to say. It won’t compare to the lifespan of a species like the fairies. But… I do intend to stay around for a while, yet.”
“Even though you miss people who have already died? Your wife? Grace?”
He looked down. “You remembered. Yes. It’s hard to deal with the knowledge that your loved ones will age and die and not be with you for long, comparatively speaking. The transience of human relationships…”
Reg took a swallow of her beer, nodding. She could relate on some levels. She had made and broken a lot of relationships, but she had never stayed in one place long enough for what she could call a long-term relationship. But those people were still alive, out there somewhere on dates with other people, going to their jobs, and living a life without Reg. She hadn’t lost them, exactly. Not like Corvin had.
“And do you have children?”
“No, no children.” He paused a moment, hesitating. “I would not want to pass my curse on to a child.”
Corvin rarely spoke of his nature. She had heard him refer to it as a condition or a hunger, but never a curse.
She had felt his hunger. It had been painful and all-consuming. But when she thought of him, it was usually in terms of how attractive or how predatory he was, not about how he felt about himself and his power. He seemed full and contented when he had fed, so she had always thought of it as being satisfying and fulfilling for him to consume others’ powers. She hadn’t thought he ever saw it in a negative light.
“Does it always get passed down?”
“No. It’s very rare. We know that it is inherited, but not the mathematical chances. I was the only one of my siblings who inherited it.”
“So if you did have a child, they wouldn’t necessarily have it.”
“No. But there’s no way for me to predict it or prevent it. And while my kind were hunted down by the pitchfork crowd in ages past, it is no longer considered morally right to kill a child when they first begin to manifest signs of… this hunger.”
Reg blinked at him, wide-eyed. “But you wouldn’t do that. Kill your own child?”
“Breeders cull offspring that don’t manifest true. It’s the only way to eliminate negative traits. Whether I could or not… I don’t know. It would be a mercy to prevent a child from going through what I have. But I don’t know if I could.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Would you want to raise a child like me? As a mother, would you want to live in fear of the day that your child would consume your powers? Can you imagine trying to push him away, to keep yourself from bonding with him, from looking him in the eyes or smelling his sweet baby scent?”
Reg shook her head. “No.”
“You would have to in order to protect yourself.”
“But you wouldn’t. Because you would be able to take your powers back again.”
“Would you starve your child to feed yourself? Like my father did? Could you listen to him cry for hunger? Or take food from his hands?”
Reg stared down at the table. Other practitioners spoke of Corvin like he was a monster, like he chose to be what he was. But he hadn’t chosen that path any more than Reg had chosen to be who she was or to inherit the gifts that she had.
“So, I choose not to have children,” Corvin said lightly. “It’s best for me and the rest of the world if my kind dies out. And they nearly have.”
But he also chose to live a long life. That was something he had control over, as he had said that he intended to continue to extend his life. He could, Reg assumed, end it whenever he chose. Letticia had said that Sarah had lived a long and full life and could give up her life-extending emerald when she chose, and ought to do so. But Sarah was full of life and vigor and wasn’t ready to leave the mortal world yet.
And Corvin chose to live and continue to prey on others like Reg.
Reg couldn’t think of anything else to say. She watched the other restaurant patrons, and occasionally the TV’s over the bar and in the corners of the room. Jiminy Cricket brought their platter, and Reg looked over the bounty with wide eyes. There was enough there for half a dozen people. Ribs with all kinds of sauces and rubs and dipping bowls. She unfolded her bib and tied it behind her neck, feeling self-conscious. But pretty much everyone else in the place was wearing the bibs; she would have looked more out of place if she had chosen not to put one on. Everybody would be watching her covertly, just waiting for her to drip barbecue sauce on her new dress.
Corvin also tied on his own bib without comment, his eyes sparkling.