A hop, skip, and dimension away, OW is populated by the Sidhe, along with a variety of dwarves, elves, Faeries, unicorns, Weres, lesser vampires, dryads, nymphs and satyrs, gargoyles, dragons, imps, and other marvelous beasties so strange most humans have never heard of them. Growing up in OW was like living in a storybook, though sometimes our world seems founded on Grimm's nightmares rather than Mother Goose's rhymes. But we love it, monsters and all.
Until the past few years, we seldom crossed through the portals in any great number. So anybody who happened to meet one of us Earthside either kept their mouth shut, or ended up being labeled nutty as a fruitcake. Or worse. Now, of course, we're tourist attractions. People come to my shop to gawk and take pictures. It's good for business. Most everybody buys at least one book to take home with them, so I give them a cheesecake pose and wink at the camera.
Once in a while a rare soul takes it into his head to go trophy hunting because he's decided we're the spawn of Satan, but luckily for us, that doesn't happen very often. No, for the most part, our kith and kin are sought after as party guests, bedmates, and status enhancers. The attention can get a little wiggy, but in the name of Earthside-Otherworld relations, it's all good.
Together with my sisters Menolly and Delilah, I grew up in the outer courts of the Queen's palace. Our mother, Maria, was mortal, and it's her last name we bear here on Earth: D'Artigo. Our father is of Sidhe blood.
I say she was mortal, but it would be more accurate to say she was human, because most of the inhabitants in OW are mortal. Long-lived, yes, but mortal and all too capable of dying. The only true immortals are the Elementals, who have as little to do with fiesh-and-blood beings as possible. Oh—and we can't forget the gods. But the gods aren't talking much as of late, and they tend to stay in their own little worlds.
I hear rumors that Demeter's wandering the Earth again. Sometimes she gets a little foggy and forgets that Persephone is a grown woman and quite happy as Queen of the Underworld. During her forgetful periods, she'll go looking for her lost child until her brother Zeus finds her and gently guides her back to Olympus. However, the majority of gods turned their backs on humans when humans turned their backs on them. The lack of worship bruised a few egos.
Anyway, our mother was from Seattle. An orphan, in her third year of college she moved to Spain to work on her art degree and track down what remaining family she might be able to find. World War II erupted, and she dropped out of school to work in a factory until the day she met my father on the outskirts of Madrid, where he'd recently been posted to an assignment.
It was love at first sight, and he broke down and told her the truth. Mother packed a bag and returned to Otherworld with him, where they married under the disapproving eyes of the Queen. In the years following, the three of us were born. When Mother was in her fifties, she was thrown from a horse on a hunting trip and died, and Father took over raising us.
Growing up as a half-human in Otherworld was rough. For one thing, we were teased incessantly because we were half-human. But bigotry was the least of our problems. It didn't take our parents long to discover that the gifts we inherited from Father's line had gone drastically awry because of our mother's human blood.
As I said, I'm a witch, but my spells and charms have a nasty tendency to backfire. Sometimes they're spot-on, but other times… not so much. Like last month when I tried to turn invisible to avoid being seen by an annoying customer. Things went haywire, and I ended up nekkid. Not just naked, but leave-nothing-to-the-imagination nekkid.
To make matters worse, for the first few hours I could still see my clothes. Just nobody else could. My 38 DD boobs gave the world a real show, along with my hourglass figure, long raven hair (it's blue black on all areas of my body, as everybody now knows), and JLO-esque butt. My regular customers were more than happy to line up and chat with me until I figured out what had happened. The spell lasted for a week, during which time I had to leave Iris, my assistant—a Finnish house sprite—in charge. The winks and nudges still haven't worn off, but I'm a good sport about it.
Delilah and Menolly have their own problems. Although our handicaps keep us from being ideal agents, we try. So we were sent Earthside where the higher-ups figured we'd keep out of trouble. Boy, were they wrong.
The local branch of the Faerie Watchers Club was due any minute. I gave the store a once-over, but it was as tidy as it was going to get. Iris had done a wonderful job on the dusting and cleaning, and I made a note to treat her to an afternoon shopping at the fabric store. House sprites had come a long way in the past hundred years, including a clause in their contracts that they would now accept money for their services, but Iris still loved a good length of silk.
As the doors swung open precisely at noon and the Faerie Watchers filed in, I grabbed a quick look in the mirror to make sure my lipstick wasn't smeared and lowered my glamour, allowing the shifting silver flecks to peek through the violet of my eyes. With a smile, I went to welcome my visitors.
Erin Mathews, the president of the local order, sidled over to me. As humans went, she was a good sort, and I enjoyed her company. She ran a lingerie store a few blocks from the Indigo Crescent, and we'd met when I went shopping for bustiers. After that, we occasionally got together for coffee and to chitchat. I thought her friends were a little balmy, but when I thought about it, most of my friends back home had issues, so who was I to judge? Baggage was baggage, no matter which side of the portal you lived on.
"Camille, we were wondering if you'd do us the honor of joining us for a group picture?" She flashed me a hopeful smile that said she knew how many requests of this nature I received.
"Of course. You don't even need to ask," I said, suddenly humble in the face of their enthusiasm. Humans were more generous with friendship than my father's people.
They lined up in three rows, splitting on either side so I could stand in the center, and Iris took the picture before popping back on her stepstool that allowed her to see over the counter. A junior member of the OIA, Iris was technically a Talon-haltija. She guarded the store at night, worked the counter when I needed her, and tidied up. Short and squat, she had a fresh, appealing face and a personality to match. She was also a real draw with our customers, enchanting them with her cups of tea and freshly baked stollen that always graced the store.
The group of fifteen women—and one man—gathered around me. Erin took a deep breath and then held up the book—a copy of Katharine Briggs's book, An Encyclopedia of Fairies.
"So tell us," she said, "What's true and what isn't?"
With a silent groan, I took the book. This was the part I hated: being the teacher who had to explain just where the line fell between legend and fact.
By the time Delilah returned, the club had vacated the premises and the only customer left in the shop was Henry Jeffries, one of my regulars. Delilah gave us both a quick wave and jogged up the stairs to the seedy little rooms she used for an office. The OIA owned the entire building, and they'd given Delilah the upstairs suite in which to set up her PI business.
The offer might sound generous, but the rooms were dark and grimy, and it was implied that she was expected to keep the rat population down as part of the deal. She complied but stopped short at eating them. Every day or so she'd open one of the windows in her office that overlooked the Dumpster in the alley and toss out a dead rat or two. As she put it, "Who knows where those things have been? Eat a city rat? You've got to be kidding!""Your sister sure looks different than you," Henry said as he wrote out his check. He was a sweetheart, reminding me of one of my uncles, except Henry couldn't talk to trees, and he was younger than I was, even though he looked a good deal older. He also treated us with a courtly respect that I found sorely lacking Earthside.
I finished bagging his books—Henry was an avid SF and fantasy reader and zoomed through at least a half dozen a week—and handed him the sack. "I resemble our father. She takes after our mother, who was human."
True, although far more than in just appearance. Delilah, the golden child, would always be closer to human than I. She had a soft heart and believed in the innate goodness of people. I worried about her sometimes. As for our sister Menolly, nobody knew where to trace her looks back to. The red hair was a recessive trait in both of our parents' lineages, but we hadn't ever figured out just which side held sway. The fact that she'd been turned into a vampire just complicated matters.
I escorted Henry out, flipped the sign from Open to Closed, and leaned against the doorframe. The rain was letting up, although the last of the drizzle still spattered against the pavement. I ducked out from under the awning and caught a drop on my tongue, then grimaced at the acidic taste. Otherworld's rain ran pristine and mineral thick, like glacier water. Yet another thing I missed from home.
Sighing, I closed the door and returned to the counter. Almost dark. Night, with its cloud cover, came early in the Pacific Northwest—one of the advantages to living in the area. By the time we reached the house, it would be safe to wake Menolly.
As I tallied up the receipts, Delilah scampered down the stairs. "Chase here yet?" she asked, hopping up to perch on the counter while I tucked away the receipts and locked the cash register. She wrapped her arms around her knees and cocked her head to the side, watching me. I could swear her ears twitched.
I glanced at the door. "No, but you can bet he's on his way. Chase is never late unless an emergency crops up. So, how was your stakeout? Catch her in the act?"
Delilah grinned. "Nope. Turns out the woman has been spending her lunch hour volunteering at the Wilson Street Orphanage. I did a little prying and found out that she wants children, but her husband is sterile. I think she's looking to adopt but doesn't want to spring it on him yet."
"What did you tell him?"
"That she wasn't cheating. That her meeting was off campus. To quit worrying and appreciate his wife more." She snickered. "He didn't like that very much. I think he was hoping for an affair so he'd score one up on her. You know, sometimes I don't understand the culture. If she loves him, why should he be insecure if she mates with someone else?"
I laughed. "I don't think we'll ever figure everything out. Not entirely. I have no idea how our mother managed to fit into this world. Of course, she was one hundred percent human, when it came down to questions of fidelity," I said, thinking about the sharp-edged tongue that she'd unleashed on Father every now and again. "You know very well that she would have raised a riot if Father slept with another woman."
"That wouldn't have happened. Father never even looked at another female. I can't remember a single time, not in all the years we were growing up, that he commented on another woman's looks." Delilah sniffed. "I wish he was here. I'd feel safer with him around."
I grinned. "You're a trained OIA agent and yet you want your daddy here to protect you?" She blushed, but I waved away her embarrassment. "To tell the truth, I wish he was here too."
Delilah's eyes twinkled. "I miss Mama. I wish she hadn't died so soon. I wouldn't mind knowing more about our human side, and she could have taught us so much more than she did."
"That she could have." I gently pushed Delilah's bangs out of her eyes. "Maybe while we're here, we can find out more about her family—our family."
All my instincts warned me that would be a mistake, but right now Delilah needed reassurance. Of the three of us, she missed our mother most. I was the oldest; I'd taken over when Mother died. Menolly was born independent. But Delilah… Delilah had clung to Mother's skirts for a long time before cautiously making her way into the world.
She wrinkled her nose. "I think humans must have bravery in their blood, don't you? After all, Mother followed Father home to a world she'd never known existed until he told her about it. That took courage."
"Don't forget how she managed to make herself welcome in OW, not an easy task for a full-blood human." In fact, it was damned amazing. Very few FBHs had ever made an impact on the Court. I shrugged into my coat. Like most of my clothes, I preferred the dramatic and had found a gorgeous vintage black opera coat in a consignment shop on Pike Street. It had been a steal at thirty dollars. "You're a romantic, Delilah. You always have been. All fluff and kittens and hearts."
"Hey! I can be a real tiger when I want to." She handed me my handbag, a beaded affair that matched the opera coat, and sniffed. "I just prefer to sheath my claws unless necessary."
I laughed. "Oh sweetie, don't fret. You're just as brave as our mother was. We all are. We left our home for a new world, just like she did. And our work is helping OW in the process."
"We're explorers," she said with a grin, which showed off the tips of her fangs. Unlike vampires' fangs, Delilah's weren't retractable. She received a lot of attention from men who liked dangerous women.
"Adventurers!" I countered, returning her smile.
"Lackeys in a two-bit government agency that thinks we're deadwood!" She thrust her arms in the air in a victory salute.
I sobered. "Too close to the truth for comfort. The OIA's as slow as a lumbering sloth, and one of these days, that will be its downfall. While we're on the subject, don't forget to add that we're crazy out of our minds for accepting this post." A movement outside the window caught my attention. "Here comes Chase. He looks worried."
The buzzer sounded as Chase hurried in. "Sorry I'm late," he said, his voice brusque and not inviting conversation. "I contacted HQ again, but save your questions till we're all together and in a secure place."