Dead Reckoning

fairy anymore. I feel . . .”
    “Like a stranger in a strange land,” I said.
    He shrugged. “Maybe so.”
    “You still want to work up in the attic?”
    He exhaled a long slow breath. He looked at me sideways. “Yes, very much. Can I . . . just do that?”
    I went into the house and got my car keys and my secret stash of money. Gran had been a great believer in keeping a secret stash. Mine had been hidden in the inner zip pocket of my weatherproof winter jacket at the back of my closet. “You can take my car to Home Depot in Clarice,” I said. “Here. You can drive, can’t you?”
    “Oh, yes,” he said, looking from the money to the keys eagerly. “Yes, I even have a driver’s license.”
    “How’d you get that?” I asked, absolutely taken aback.
    “I went to the government office one day while Claude was busy,” he said. “I was able to make them think they were seeing the right papers. I had enough magic for that. Answering the questions on the test was easy. I’d watched Claude, so taking the officer for a drive wasn’t too difficult, either.”
    I wondered if a lot of drivers on the road had done the same thing. It would explain a lot. “Okay. Please be careful, Dermot. Ah, you know about money?”
    “Yes, Claude’s secretary taught me. I can count it. I know what the coins are, too.”
    Aren’t you the big boy, I thought, but it would have been unkind to say. He really had adapted amazingly well for a driven-insane-by-magic fairy. “Okay,” I said. “Have a good time, don’t spend all my money, and be back in an hour, ’cause I got to go to work. Sam said I could come in late today, but I don’t want to push it.”
    Dermot said, “You won’t regret this, Niece.” He opened the kitchen door to toss his gym bag into the house, leaped down the steps, and got in my car, looking at the dashboard carefully.
    “I hope not,” I said to myself as he buckled up and drove away (slowly, thank God). “I sincerely hope not.”
    My departed guests had not felt obliged to do the dishes. I couldn’t say I was that surprised. I set to work and wiped down the counters afterward. The spotless kitchen made me feel I was making progress.
    As I folded the sheets, warm from the dryer, I told myself I was doing okay. I wish I could say I didn’t think about Amelia, feel sorry all over again, decide all over again that I’d done the right thing.
    Dermot returned within an hour. He was as happy and animated as I’d ever seen him. I hadn’t realized how depressed Dermot had been until I saw him actually lit up with purpose. He’d rented a sander and bought paint and plastic sheeting, blue tape and scrapers, brushes and rollers and a paint tray. I had to remind him he needed to eat something before he started work, and I also had to remind him that I needed to leave for work in the not-too-distant future.
    Also, there was the summit meeting here at the house. “Dermot, is there any friend you can hang around with tonight?” I asked cautiously. “Eric, Pam, and two humans are coming over after I get off work. We’re kind of a planning committee, and we have some work to do. You know how it is with you and vampires.”
    “I don’t have to go anywhere with other people,” Dermot said, surprised. “I can be in the woods. That’s a happy place for me. The night sky is as good as the day sky, as far as I’m concerned.”
    I thought about Bubba. “It’s possible Eric may have stationed a vampire in the woods to watch the house at night,” I explained. “So could you be in some other woods kind of away from here?” I felt awful about putting so many strictures on him, but he was the one who’d wanted to stay.
    “I suppose so,” he said, in the voice of one trying hard to be tolerant and helpful. “I love this house,” he added. “There’s something amazingly homelike about it.”
    And seeing him smile as he looked around the old place, I was more than ever sure that the unseen presence of the cluviel dor was the reason my two fairy kinsmen had come to stay with me, rather than my own little dash of fairy blood. I was willing to concede that Claude believed that my fairy blood was the attraction. Though I knew he had a mellower side, I was also sure that if he realized I held a valuable fairy artifact, one that could grant his most ardent wish—to be allowed passage into Faery—he’d tear the house apart looking for it. I felt instinctively that I would not like to stand between