Siren Queen(54)

Harry already had a family. There was Teo, of course, but there were others too. There was a sister and a mother still in Venezuela, and some changing number of nieces and nephews making their way through California. He sent money and kisses and loved them all from a stellar distance.

He came by Emmaline’s fire sometimes to play indulgent uncle, but when he wasn’t at home, he ventured deep into the night, taking a place at the still-roaring fire of the silvered Valetti, the silent king whose black death train was followed by no less than fifty thousand mourners as it ran from Los Angeles to New York, where his human part was finally buried. Valetti was as immortal as it was possible to be, and he cared nothing anymore for Wolfe or the moralities that would keep beautiful young men from sitting at his feet. Harry, who could have had a proper fire and a court all his own, said he felt more comfortable there, shadowed by the great.

I toyed with the last bit of my eggs, watching him. He felt thin. Somehow, he had lost a certain dimension, and I couldn’t say when the light started to shine through him as if he were rice paper.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Oh, did you happen to see that dull little pastoral that came through earlier this year? Something Her Eyes?”

“Her Bright Eyes?” I blinked. “You’re marrying Lana Brooks?”

Lana Brooks was a studio changeling who had earned her name through her portrayal of urchin-ish scamps in comedic pieces, but Her Bright Eyes showed another side of her. She got the part through a neat piece of double-crossing that wiped another changeling from the studio entirely, name and record and all, and as the heroine with the bright eyes on the edge of the frontier, she was poised to launch.

“I am. We had dinner yesterday at the Knickerbocker.”

“And how did it go?” He needed prodding, but he spoke readily enough.

“Oh, my girl, it was a nightmare. She nattered on about this and that, a house in La Jolla, vacations in Europe, with more than a few choice words about dirty Mexicans while letting on she thinks of the entire continent of South America as Mexico. Charming, I’m sure, if I lacked a brain and a soul.”

I winced. I wore my difference, one of them, at least, on my face, and the strangeness was enough to excuse me from some things. At some point, Oberlin Wolfe might decide I needed a torrid love affair or a marriage, but it hadn’t happened yet. Until then, at least people like Lana Brooks didn’t think I was just like them.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and he glanced at me, amused.

“You already think I’m going to go through with it.”

“Aren’t you?

Harry started in the silent pictures, but somehow he survived when that old magic died. His voice was deep and dark and smooth with a ringing tone that can still make me shiver when I remember it. He had been acting before I knew what a movie was, and the idea of him leaving it all behind was world-turning.

He sighed.

“It would be prudent, wouldn’t it? Marry the girl, separate bedrooms after I do my duty for king and country, maybe even see a few little ones out of it. God, at least they’d be attractive.”

“Marriage isn’t forever,” I said, as I knew Harvey Rose said so often to stars in Harry’s position.

“What else are we doing here but looking for our little bit of forever? Otherwise, what’s the point?”

On the final word, he slammed his hand onto the table, making me jump. He had always had flashes of temper and passion, but instead of apologizing, he stared at me.

“What about you?” he demanded. “What happens when the great and good Wolfe decides that his siren needs a mate? Or when he realizes that Emmaline is done playing the ingenue and needs a wedding ring before she can take on a more womanly role?”

I shifted a little, not meeting his eyes.

“Emmaline and I don’t pass time much anymore,” I muttered.

“They’ll do it to her first, I imagine,” Harry said, his voice cruel. “Maybe that boy who does all the damn Westerns, or Cortland Marsh. Cort comes to Valetti’s fires too, and that wouldn’t be so bad. Not that Wolfe cares—it might be someone who wants more than a sham, and…”

“Stop!” I snapped, coming to my feet. “Stop being horrible. Don’t you know what you’re talking about? Can’t you see what that all means?”

Harry gave me a cold look.

“Of course I do, and he could do worse. If I were even a little less famous, a little less possessed of whatever glimmer of genius I have, I imagine he might have scraped me out and left a nodding shell in my place. Instead I grew up, got wise, became a king of all of this.”

He opened his arms to encompass the empty house, the valley, perhaps his entire career and the length of his very life.

“None, none of this was enough to stop Wolfe from ordering Miss Brooks and me into bed together and having every expectation that we would breed him a family for the tabloids. None of it.”

He sat back down as if all the force had gone out of him. He was pale and as fragile as crumpled newspaper. This time I did reach for him, stroking his fingers with my fingertips. He closed his hand over mine and held on tightly for a moment before letting go.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “That was cruel of me.”

“It was true,” I said. “I knew it all before.”