"My therapist says that I got messed up because I got to watch elf p**n when I was twelve. He says that's why I'm elfstruck, and why all my interests are the sidhe, because I watched them glow on screen when my sexuality was just forming." He turned from Frost to me, and his eyes were tormented. "Once you've seen a pair of you light up a room, how can any human compare?"
I blinked at him. "I'm sorry. I didn't know any sidhe had made p**n ."
Rhys answered, "There are a few who came out when Maeve Reed did, but they didn't have her acting ability."
I looked back at him. "Are you saying that there are currently sidhe who are acting in p**n ?"
He nodded. "Hell, there's even Glimmer p**n ."
"Royal mentioned it last night," I said.
"I'll just bet he did," Rhys said.
I gave him an unfriendly look.
"Sorry," he said.
I held Donal's hand and felt his happiness at such a small touch. To be elfstruck for a human was truly terrible. It meant that nothing and no one satisfied the need. Humans had wasted away for lack of our touch, but it was usually a human whom we'd captured and taken to faerie and then released, or someone who'd escaped but found that you never really escaped faerie. That was in the old days, long before I was born, but the human was ruined for regular life. They longed for things that humans couldn't give them.
Then I thought of something. "Rhys, how did you find out about Glimmer p**n ?"
"When we watched Constantine's movies there were a few extra films with fey."
"That's why she wanted to be big," Donal said, "so they could have sex for real. She was a camera girl for a while."
"What does a camera girl do?"
"They have an online site where you can watch demi-fey do things to themselves and with each other, and sometimes with humans. You subscribe like to any p**n site."
"And that's what his girlfriend did for a living?" I asked.
"They met through the site. She broke the rules by dating a client and they fired her."
"So a camera girl is a demi-fey."
"Not just demi-fey, humans, too. They're just girls you can pay and they'll act out your fetish," Rhys said.
Donal nodded.
"And how do you know all this, Rhys?" I asked.
"I have a house outside faerie, Merry, remember? When you're not allowed to touch anyone else, p**n is a wonderful thing."
I glanced at Doyle. "I thought the queen didn't even let the guards pleasure themselves."
"She made that rule for only her most trusted men. With time and distance, I think only the men she thought she might want again someday."
"Should I be insulted?" Rhys asked.
"No, happy. At least you had a release."
Rhys nodded. "Fair enough."
"Did you see them kill anyone?" I asked.
"No, I swear I would have gone to the police."
"So why are you sure that they did it?"
"It was when I found out who some of the demi-fey were who died. She hated the ones who could hide and play human, and she hated the ones who were more powerful than she was, but only sometimes. Sometimes she was their friend, but other times she seemed to hate them. She really earned her name."
"What name?" I asked.
"Bittersweet. Sometimes she'd call herself Sweet and she would be, but other times she called herself Bitter, and she was crazy mean."
I had one of those moments when things fall into place. She hadn't been our witness, she'd been one of our killers, but why had she hung around? Why not stay away?
"She pretended to be a witness to the first murders," I said.
"She might not have been pretending," Donal said.
"What do you mean?"
"If she was Bitter and did bad things, when she came back as Sweet she'd be puzzled. I would never do such horrible things, she'd say. I thought it was an act at first, but at the end I realized that she honestly didn't remember."
"Can demi-fey go bogart?" Rhys asked.
"I thought only brownies did the Jekyll-and-Hyde thing," I said.
"She was half brownie," Donal said. "She said she was like Thumbelina, born to a full-sized mom, but the size of her thumb. Her sister is normal sized, but looks like a brownie."
I remembered Jordan's message as he came out of his drug-induced sleep. "Thumbelina wants to be big." "What about her dad?" I asked.
"A demi-fey who can be human sized. She's got a brother like that, too."
"What's her sister's name?" I asked.
He gave it, but it wasn't our victim. I had another thought. "Did her mother and sister have the surgery to build up their face?"
"They look human, noses, mouths, the whole thing. And the fey heal much better than humans, so their surgery actually looks good."
"So her mother and sister, though brownies, can pass for human?"
He nodded. "If her father and brother could hide their wings, so could they."
"She's the only one who can't shape change?" I asked.
He nodded. He began to rub his thumb across my knuckles. I fought not to pull away from him, but if he was elfstruck and had become so through just seeing movies, then his whole life had been ruined by some of our people.
I looked at Rhys. "Have you seen the sidhe p**n ?"
"Some," he said.
"Could that be enough to make a human elfstruck?"
"If they were susceptible, being a child would make it worse." He looked at the man in our client chair and he just nodded. He believed it, too.