Wright and O'Brian had their hands on their guns, looking around apprehensively. I spilled my shields outward to them, the way I'd done the glamour over Doyle and Frost earlier. Wright's shoulders dropped as if a weight had gone from him. O'Brian said, "What was that?"
"Is that," Doyle said.
"What?" she asked.
The reporters parted like a curtain. They simply didn't want to be near whatever was walking between them. The Fear Dearg walked toward us grinning his snaggletoothed grin. I'd been right; it was an evil grin. His enjoyment of the reporters' fear showed in his face and the jaunty roll of his walk.
He came to stand in front of us, and then went down on one knee before us. "My queen," he said.
A camera flashed, freezing the image for tomorrow's news, or tonight's. The Fear Dearg looked in the direction of the flash and there was a yell, then a man went running down the sidewalk. His many cameras jangled as he raced away screaming, as if all the devil's Dandy Dogs were chasing him.
The other reporters took a collective step back. The Fear Dearg gave an evil chuckle, and just the sound of it was enough to make me break out in goose bumps. If I'd been alone on some dark road it would have been terrifying.
"You must practice that laugh," I said. "It's positively evil."
He grinned up at me. "A fey likes to know his work is appreciated, my queen."
A reporter called out in a shaking voice, "He called you his queen. Does that mean you did keep the throne?"
The Fear Dearg got to his feet and bounced at them, hands up, and said, "Boo!" The reporters fled on that side. He made a move toward the other group, but most of them backed away, hands held out, as if to show that they meant no harm.
One woman asked in a breathless voice, "Meredith, are you queen of the Unseelie Court?"
"No," I answered.
The Fear Dearg looked at me. "Shall I tell her the crown that sat upon your head first?"
"Not here," Doyle said.
The Fear Dearg glared up at him. "I did not ask you, Darkness. If we were kin, then it would be different, but I owe you nothing, only her."
I realized that Doyle refusing to acknowledge that his ancestry was similar to the Fear Dearg's had insulted the fey.
Doyle seemed to figure it out then too, because he said, "I do not hide my mixed heritage, Fear Dearg. I only meant that I had none of your blood in my veins, which is only truth."
"Ay, but you've had our blood on your sword, haven't you? Before you were the Queen's Darkness, before you were Nudons and healed at your magic spring, you were other things, other names." The Fear Dearg lowered his voice with each word, until the remaining reporters began to come closer trying to hear. I had known that Doyle had been something before he was worshipped as a god, and that he had not sprung full grown at the side of Queen Andais, but I had never asked. The older of the sidhe did not like to talk about the time before, when our people were greater.
The Fear Dearg whirled and jumped at the reporters with a loud "Hah!" They ran, some falling down and others trampling them underfoot in a mad panic to be away from him. The ones on the ground got up and raced after the others.
O'Brian said, "It's not strictly legal to use magic on the press."
The Fear Dearg cocked his head to one side like a bird that has spied a worm. The look made O'Brian swallow a little harder, but with my shields around her she held her ground. "And how would you have moved them, girlie?"
"Officer O'Brian," she said.
He grinned at her, and I felt her flinch, but she didn't move back. It earned her a point for bravery, but I wasn't certain that taunting him after he'd shown such obvious sexual interest in her during Bittersweet's questioning was a good idea. Sometimes a little fear is a wise thing.
He started to invade her personal space, and I stepped between them. "What do you want, Fear Dearg? I appreciate the help, I do, but you did not do it out of the goodness of your heart."
He leered at O'Brian, then turned the leer to me. It didn't bother me. "I have no goodness in my heart, my queen, only evil."
"No one is only evil," I said.
The leer grew until his face was a mask of evil intent, but it was the kind of evil they put on Halloween masks. "You're too young to understand what I am."
"I know what evil is," I said, "and it does not come with a cartoon mask and a leer. Evil comes in the face of those who are supposed to love and care for you, but they don't. Evil comes with a slap, or a hand holding you underwater until you can't breathe, and all the time her face is serene, not angry, not mad, because she believes that she has the right."
His evil face began to fold down into something more serious. He gazed up at me, and said, "Rumors say you endured much abuse at the hands of your sidhe relatives."
Doyle turned to the police officers. "Give us some privacy, please?"
Wright and O'Brian exchanged glances, then Wright shrugged. "We were just told to get you safely into your car, so fine, we'll wait over here."
O'Brian tried to protest, but her partner insisted. They argued quietly as they gave us our privacy.
Doyle's hand on my arm tightened, and Frost moved closer. They were telling me silently not to share stories out of court, but the queen had never cared that I talked about some things. "And their friends, never forget their friends, I never could," I said.
He looked from Frost to Doyle, and asked, "Did they torment you before they became your lovers?"
I shook my head. "No, I have taken no lover who ever raised a hand to me."