War for the Oaks (17 page)

"Who's your new friend?" he asked, with a drawing of the lips that ought to have been a smile.

"No one you know."

She felt Willy move out from behind her. "We'll introduce ourselves," Willy said, and there was a warning in his voice. "I'm Willy Silver. And you're . . ."

"Stuart Kline." Again the stretching of the lips. "Are you Eddi's latest screw?"

The phouka would have snarled at that. "You're a slow learner, Stu," Eddi said as softly as she could and still be heard.

His jaw clenched visibly. "So, is he more fun than the swish black guy?"

"Go away, Stuart." She kept her voice low, hoping Stuart would, too. But he was too drunk to care. The sharp edge of his words made heads turn their way.

"How 'bout you?" he said to Willy. "You like dicking an out of work second-rate chick vocalist?"

Willy said, his voice very even, "Actually, I'm the guitar player for her new band."

Stuart turned white and took three steps forward. Willy met him on the last step and blocked Eddi's view. Someone at the front of the crowd shouted and pressed backward. She saw Willy's shoulders twist. Stuart dropped something, and Willy kicked it away before she could tell what it was. People began to scramble out of range. Stuart threw
a punch at Willy's jaw; Willy ducked neatly under it and hooked one foot around Stuart's ankle with the same motion. Stuart hit the floor on his back, hard.

Willy returned to her side, and she saw a smile flickering at the corner of his mouth. His face was alive in a way she'd never seen.

"You'd think you were having fun," Eddi said, shaken. She realized suddenly how fast it had all been.

His expression softened only slightly. "I had to do something."

Stuart got slowly to his feet. The look in his eyes could have melted the wall behind her. "You'll be sorry," he hissed at Eddi. "You'll be goddamn sorry." And he turned and dived through the crowd gathered around them.

"What a sweetheart," Willy said.

Eddi wrapped her hands around the balcony railing, squeezed it until her bones ached and the knot in her windpipe went away. "He used to be," she managed to say at last.

Willy leaned forward and looked at her curiously. "I hope so. Or I'd worry about your taste in men, and that would hit a little close to home."

"Oh, we couldn't have that, could we?"

"Just a joke."

Eddi shook her head. "I guess I don't feel much like joking."

His right arm went around her, hard-muscled and warm. "Want to make an early night of it?"

She leaned against him, suddenly very tired. "Yeah."

"Come on, then." They went downstairs with their arms around each other, though there wasn't really room for it in the crowd, and claimed their jackets.

They walked back on LaSalle, and the street was nearly deserted. The streetlights took the color out of Willy's pale skin and sharpened the contrast between the black and the white in his hair, until the only color about him seemed to be his eyes. The chill glitter she'd seen in them was not entirely gone, and his beautiful face was grim and distracted.

When they reached Eddi's front steps, she realized they hadn't spoken since they'd left First Avenue. Willy put his hands on her shoulders and broke the silence.

"I'd ask if I can come up, but you might say no. And I think I should."

Eddi almost told him no anyway. But she was only vaguely, wearily annoyed at his taking charge. She turned away from him, fumbled for her keys, and unlocked the door. They went upstairs without touching.

She half expected to find the phouka in the apartment, and was surprised to find herself disappointed when she didn't. She sat down on the couch and let Willy close and lock the door behind himself. He slipped his right arm out of his jacket, then, gingerly and with a little indrawn breath, his left.

"What's the matter?" Eddi asked.

"Nothing."

His left shirtsleeve seemed fuller, seemed to flutter a little. She got up and caught his left hand. He tried to pull away; then his hand was still in hers.

There was a long tear, a slash, in the cloth over Willy's forearm. It matched the long wound on the skin beneath, shallow, but swollen and angry red.

"He had a knife?" Eddi said finally, not believing what she saw. Stuart had dropped something, and Willy had kicked it away. But Stuart had never been the sort to carry a weapon . . .

"I'm sorry," Willy said very softly, and she looked up.

"For what?"

"I wasn't going to tell you. I thought at first he'd missed, you see."

Eddi shook her head. "It ought to be cleaned."

"Mmm." Willy looked around the dim-lit room, then went to the table and picked up the salt shaker. He took it with him into the bedroom, where he took off his vest and shirt. He could have been alone; he showed no constraint at undressing in front of her, in her apartment. Suddenly she remembered the shy clasp of the phouka's arms around her waist, on the motorcycle. It embarrassed her, and she looked down at her feet.

Willy went into the bathroom, and she heard the sink filling up with water. She followed slowly after him, and found him with his forearm half-submerged in the sink bowl. With his other hand he splashed water over the uncovered part of the wound. The salt shaker stood uncapped on the ledge above the sink.

"Do you wear a hair shirt when you're at home?" Eddi asked him.

Willy looked up at her in the mirror, his face blank and cool. "The salt cleans it out." Then he added ruefully, "But it's true, I wouldn't mind using something that stung less. Except you don't have any of them." He shot her one of his brilliant smiles.

The sight of him, bending shirtless over her bathroom sink, made her feel quite fuzzy-headed. She sat on the end of the bed, staring out into the living room. After a minute she heard Willy drain the sink; a little after that she felt him kiss the top of her head.

"He wouldn't have used it on you," he said.

"I didn't think he would use one on
anybody"
She folded her hands, and refolded them. "Is this my fault? Because I left him?"

"I don't know enough about him."

Eddi looked up at him. "He wasn't like this," she whispered. "He was a good person. He just . . . wasn't strong."

He worked his left hand, wincing when his forearm muscles flexed. "I'm a little biased right now."

Eddi nodded.

Willy dropped another kiss on her hair and said, "Get into bed, and I'll sing you to sleep." The words were paired with a little teasing smile, and she had to smile back.

Eddi found she couldn't match his nonchalance in undressing—she did it in the bathroom. When she came out in her kimono he was sitting on the bed wrapped around her acoustic guitar, playing scales with a quick, light touch. She dropped her robe and slid quickly under the covers.

"Nice axe," he said.

"Charlie Hoffman made it." She felt silly, lying naked in bed and talking to Willy about guitars.

But Willy just smiled a little and said, "I know his work."

"Doesn't that bother your arm?" she asked, meaning the guitar playing.

"Only the barre chords."

He startled her when he slipped into a soft-voiced rendition of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You"; she hadn't been expecting references to love lost from him. Even leashed as it was, his voice was rich and subtle and full of meaning. The guitar notes hung in the dark room like spray from a fountain.

She could feel relaxation filling her up. Willy's voice went on, so softly that he might have been singing only to himself:

True Thomas sat on Huntleigh bank
And he beheld a lady gay,
A lady that was brisk and bold
Come riding o'er the ferny brae
.

True Thomas he pulled off his cap
And bowed him low down to his knee
"All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven,
Your like on earth I ne'er did see
."

"Oh no, oh no, True Thomas," she said,
"That name does not belong to me.
For I am the queen of fair Elfland,
Where you must go along with me
."

Eddi came to the sleepy realization that she did know a few fairy tales after all, in English ballads. Was there one with a phouka in it?

She didn't realize Willy had stopped until she felt his lips brush hers. "Do you know 'Jack O'Rion?' " she asked him.

"Yeah, but I'm not gonna do it," he replied, a quiver of laughter in his voice. "Too close to home. Do you want to go to sleep?"

Eddi opened her eyes and saw him, naked to the waist, perfect, his eyes full of banked fire. She shook her head.

"I'm glad of that," he murmured with self-mockery that she didn't understand. He set the guitar down gently, and just as gently began to kiss his way down her body.

She did not fall asleep after Willy left, though she tried. It was the fault of too much thinking—about Willy, about Stuart, about the phouka and his fairy war. . . .

From the darkened living room, she heard a clink, like glass against glass. She slipped silently out of bed, wrapped her kimono around her, and tiptoed to the open bedroom door.

He had the blinds wide open, and was sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, his feet propped on the windowsill, looking out at the night. She knew him by the silhouette of the loose curls over his forehead, the stubborn chin, the ridiculous froth of lace that spilled over the hand that held one of her wineglasses.

"What, my primrose," he said without turning, "not asleep yet? Or is it awake again?"

"How long have you been here?" She padded into the room and sat in the other chair.

"Long enough. Or perhaps," he said, scowling at the level of liquid in the glass he held, "not long enough, after all. Pity."

Eddi finally noticed the amber color of the stuff in the glass, and smelled the brandy fumes. "That's for medicinal purposes."

"I'm not surprised. I have been consuming it steadily for the last hour, and I can assure you, it was not made for the sake of pleasurable drinking." He spoke more slowly than usual, but just as clearly.

"Then why," Eddi asked carefully, "have you been drinking it?"

"Perhaps because I needed physicking, my heart. Or perhaps not. Tell me, what do you keep it on hand to cure?"

"Head colds."

"Ah, that's the problem, then. I haven't got one."

She sighed. "Who writes your dialogue, Lewis Carroll?"

He frowned over that for a moment, shook his head, and drained the glass.

"Are you trying to get drunk?" she asked him.

"No. I am succeeding, at least in some measure, in getting drunk."

"I didn't know you could."

"Silly child. That's your problem—you know nothing of history. You are"—he thought about it, and let the word roll graciously off his tongue—"ignorant."

He was trying to annoy her. It made her smile. "Does it help?"

"Does what help?"

"Being drunk."

"Not a bit." He poured the glass half-full, sniffed it, made a face, and tossed it off. "I took care of the money."

"What money?"

"Listen to her," he grumbled. "I go to almost endless trouble, endure a not inconsiderable quantity of embarrassment, and all for some obscure moral position, all for her. And she's forgotten it. For your wretched motorcycle, of course."

"Oh!" Eddi leaned forward eagerly. "You mean it won't change back? It'll stay money? Oh, thank you!"

He sank his face into his hand. "I believe I warned you about saying that."

"Shit. I'm sorry. But I . . . that makes me very happy."

He looked up at her, and smiled slowly. "Now
that
I can listen to with no discomfort at all." He held up the brandy bottle. "Would you like some?"

"God, no. I hate the stuff."

"So do I," he said wisely, pouring himself another glass.

Eddi folded her arms on the table and rested her chin on them. "Then why are you drinking it?"

The phouka pursed his lips, and studied the streetlights through his brandy. "There is a children's rhyme, I believe, that tells one how many days there are in each month."

She frowned at him.

"Recite it for me, please."

"What?"

"I did say please."

Eddi sighed and began, "Thirty days hath September, April, June—"

"Thirty days hath April," he repeated, letting the words roll slowly out. "If you check the clock and calendar, you'll find, I think, that we are an hour into April's thirtieth and last day. And what does that make this coming night?"

Eddie felt as if, had the fate of the civilized world rested on it, she could not have opened her mouth, or moved, or blinked.

The phouka shook his head sorrowfully and took another swallow of brandy. "You are a slow pupil, dear heart. Well, I'll give you this one, if I must, but only this one. The night to come is May Eve, my primrose. And we shall know the joy of battle." He turned his face away from the window, turned it toward her, and nothing in it matched the lightness of his voice.

After a long time, she cleared her throat and said, "So you're getting drunk."

"Don't be silly. There's no connection at all."

"You said there was."

"I said no such thing. You misunderstood."

Eddi sighed, and stood up. "Well, now I
know
I won't be able to sleep." She started back toward the bedroom.

The discordant chime of breaking glass stopped her. She turned to
find the phouka staring down at the glittering fragments of the wineglass between his feet. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice unnaturally casual.

"It's all right," she replied, and continued on to the bedroom.

She didn't think he'd meant her to hear him, when he whispered, "Would that it were."

Eddi swung the bike into the parking lot of the building on Washington Avenue. The early afternoon sun warmed her shoulders through her jacket. She wished it would rain; she was in no mood for cheerful weather. The phouka slid off the seat, and frowned when she didn't.

She pulled off her helmet and rested it on the gas tank. "I don't know if I can face practicing right now," she said at last.

"What a pity. Why couldn't you have decided that on the other side of town and spared me a ride on that infernal contraption?"