Faeling

Merritt hadn’t been lying about the meeting. He was, in fact, uncharacteristically late by the time he swept into the conference room, wearing his confident air like a suit of armor. He wasn’t late by most standards, but as a businessman, Merritt knew that ‘on time’ was actually five minutes late. Often, people who believed themselves to be important would ignore this rule and force others to wait for them, but Merritt never did. Merritt didn’t have to make others uncomfortable to feel powerful—he simply was powerful. He had the poise, quick wit, money and name to make anything he wanted to happen come to be. People who were actually important rarely acted like those who simply wanted to be. Merritt took business very seriously. That was the secret to his success: hard goddamn work.

Merritt caught Theo’s quietly concerned glance as he sat down at the round table and the man he was meeting—a Mr. James Orland—stood up to give his presentation. He gave a small shake of his head, knowing that Theo would understand that they would discuss it later. For the first time he could remember, Merritt had trouble concentrating on the task at hand, though perhaps it was because there was a larger task at hand—winning over Oz. Still, even with only half his mind on the presentation, Merritt was more than capable. He and Theo threw out some ideas, bouncing them off of the other people present. Theo was a quiet and gentle person, but he was still wickedly smart and rivaled Merritt in business prowess. Merritt wouldn’t take anyone less than brilliant for a business partner, even if they were childhood friends. The discussion went on for about half an hour before they came to a conclusion. By the time the others were filing out the door, Theo was staring intently at Merritt. Despite the fine decision those in the meeting had come to, Theo could tell something was wrong.

Theo stood up and moved to the seat next to Merritt. He didn’t say anything. Theo couldn’t push emotions the way that Merritt could, but he could read them well. Frankly, Merritt hadn’t met a single faeling who was a better emotional reader than Theo—and as an aspiring Council member, Merritt knew a good chunk of the powerful fae in the country. Theo simply sat there, watching Merritt’s face, waiting for Merritt to tell him what was going on—why his usually tightly controlled emotions were going haywire.

Finally, Merritt caved. He took a deep breath.

“I found an artist I would like to exhibit at Daedalus.” Theo’s kind brown eyes searched Merritt’s face. Finally Merritt’s green eyes met the other man’s. “I found her,” Merritt whispered, voice cracking.

Theo’s eyes widened. “Her?” Merritt nodded solemnly, inexplicable fear settling in his stomach. This wasn’t some girl he could charm and bring out on a few dates and not care a whit about. Everything pivoted on this point—his entire life depended on winning this girl, and he was afraid. What would his fate be if he failed? “You’re certain it’s her?” Theo asked softly, running a hand through dark blonde hair. Merritt looked at the floor in abnormal discomfiture. Theo was worried, he’d never seen his friend act this way. Merritt was all vanity, proud confidence, superior smiles and silver tongue. Seeing an uncomfortable, uncertain child in that man’s place was disquieting, to say the least. “And what does this have to do with Daedalus?” Theo sensed that turning the conversation back towards their gallery—the safe subject of business—might go a long way in soothing Merritt.

With a bit more of his usual self-assuredness, Merritt replied, “She’s an artist. I was in Damn Fine and I saw her sketchbook—which was really quite good...” he paused, as if unsure how to go on, “and on one page, there it was.”

“Your symbol?” Theo asked incredulously.

Merritt nodded. “It was right there on the page. It was exactly the same, Theo.” He placed a hand on his chest almost absentmindedly—on the place where Theo knew his skin was marked with a small black Celtic knot surrounding an eye.

“That easy, huh?” Merritt looked sharply at Theo before realizing it was meant to be a joke and letting out a harsh bark of laughter.

“Yeah, that easy.” He furrowed his brow. “I don’t think the rest of it will be so easy though...” He looked at Theo seriously and said, “I couldn’t push her. At all.”

Theo opened his mouth to emit a ‘what?’ before closing it again with a snap. He prided himself on never letting anything pass his lips without thinking it through. Finally, he spoke. “Tell me about her.”

-----

Merritt walked down the city street, trying to decide how to approach the next piece of this puzzle. Theo had listened to every minuscule detail that Merritt had been able to glean from his encounter with ‘the girl’, and together they had formed a game plan of sorts. The first step was to talk to Janna Mason.

Despite being part of a tight-knit community, he and Janna didn’t know each other well—and even worse, on the few occasions that they had met, they didn’t exactly get along. Of course they were both civil—they both depended too much on public image to act otherwise, but there was a definite iciness to the light conversation, each question or comment becoming a challenge or a barb to stick in the other. For whatever reason, they simply rubbed each other the wrong way.

And now Merritt had to call her up and ask her how to get her best friend into bed.

This should go well.

Sighing, he took out his Blackberry and found her in the contacts list. Janna Mason.

She picked up on the second ring. “Janna Mason speaking.”

“Hello, this is Merritt Peters.” He kept his voice clipped and professional, refusing to give anything away. There was a long pause.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Peters?”

“I have something to discuss with you.”

“Do you, now?” He could hear the almost mocking tone in her voice. He could also feel her searching for lies, trying to get a read on him. He ignored her attitude as well as her skill—he needed her to meet with him.

“Would you be able to clear your schedule for lunch this week?” There was a long silence on the other end as if she was surprised—as if she was trying to puzzle him out.

“Tomorrow at 2. Benedict’s on Longwood.” She hung up without waiting for a reply.

“Tomorrow it is,” Merritt said to himself.

-----

Ten-thirty the morning of the next day found Merritt and Theo sitting on a park bench, sipping coffee quietly, watching Oz walk her first set of dogs. It was the same park that Oz had walked through yesterday with Merritt in tow. Theo scratched his short beard thoughtfully as they stared at her in silence. He wouldn’t realize it, but he was gazing at her the same way he would look at a particularly difficult set of finance records or a complicated math equation. The same furrowed brow, the same slightly pursed lips—to him, Oz was a problem to be solved.

Merritt saw it a little differently, he knew. She wasn’t a problem to be solved—she was a prize to secure. She was a game to win.

Oz walked around the small park, softly talking to the dogs as she went. Merritt smiled into his coffee as she came closer, amused by the mutterings of, ‘yes, Vincent, that’s a lovely stick, but let’s keep going’ and ‘no, no, Salvador, we aren’t going that way today’. As she came past the bench where the two men were seated, Merritt let the smile fall from his face and tried his best to adopt a cantankerous expression to fit with the face he was wearing. The bald head and bushy grey beard and eyebrows of the glamour simply seemed wrong when paired with Merritt’s smile—or so he’d decided when he had looked at himself in the mirror that morning, checking his disguise. The old man was a particular favorite of Merritt’s. He liked being able to glare at people out of the elderly face instead of trying to win everyone over. Theo’s sham didn’t make him quite as old as his friend—his appearance made him maybe young enough to be Merritt’s son. Merritt nearly laughed at the thought (which would have ruined his bad-tempered act) as he flicked his eyes over to consider what his friend would look like in thirty or so years. True, Merritt (as well as anyone else of fae) could see the edges of the glam, and Theo’s true appearance beneath it, but that didn’t ruin the effect.

Being able to put up a glamour was a common faeling skill, though most could only manipulate their age, as Theo was now. Merritt was one of the lucky few who could change any aspect of his appearance. He wished, once again, that he could take on the form of another person—it would make so many things easier—but it was one of the accepted rules of the skill that it was impossible to take another person’s face entirely. You could get very, very close, yes—but it would never be perfect. Some piece of him reveled in the knowledge that no person on earth looked like he did at this very moment, but most of him knew that it was a limitation.

Merritt glared at Oz and Theo smiled kindly as she walked the dogs past the bench where they sat. For half a second, Merritt could swear that Oz recognized him—or almost did. She looked at them for just a moment longer than one would stare at a stranger. To her credit, she didn’t stop. She just twitched the corners of her lips in reluctant smile that would have been missed if they’d blinked at the wrong moment and, over her shoulder, shot them what might have in another circumstance been an accusatory glance, but was probably closer to confusion.

As soon as she had walked out of view, Theo and Merritt shared a very similar look of complete confusion, though theirs were colored with horror.