True Natures Revealed - Part Ten

Previously On - Laurent spends a little time alone in the interview room. He practices making himself look like Detective Sparrow. Then he tells Helen that the danger their in is his common interest, not so much solving the “mystery” of who killed Willy.

She took a moment to sip from her own cup. "I know Willy thought I was in danger and he was too. Danger is in my job description, and it's in his lifestyle. So that's no surprise."

"May I call you Helen?" I proceeded without waiting for an answer. "Look, Helen, I can assure you your brother was rightly concerned for you both, and he wasn't worried about petty criminals or being shot in a deal gone bad. I asked you earlier if you knew what I was. I will now ask you if you know what you are. Do you?"

Anger clouded her features and her fingernails, short but clearly sharp, dug into styrofoam softened by the coffee's heat. "What do you mean by that?"

"What do you know of your parentage?" I asked the question as sensitively as I knew how. For a moment I feared that I had failed. The contents of her cup began to leak slowly from a puncture. Then her features relaxed.

"What did Willy tell you?"

I shrugged. "Not much. Most of it is conjecture on my part. I'm a bit of an amateur detective. I suspect that you were both adopted by the Evans family. Your birth name is St. Germaine, an old and powerful name in this part of the country. Willy believed that your true bloodline was something fantastic, did he not?"

She nodded. "That's all true. He did some digging into our history and could find records of our birth mother, but none of our birth father. Some people thought she was a witch. She died in childbirth so we never met her." She shook her head, like someone trying to keep from falling into a trance.

My arms prickled with electricity. "Which one of you is older?"

"We're twins, but I came out about five minutes before him if what he dug up is to be believed." The shock on my face must have been plain. "Are you alright Laurence?"

Twins. It was rare enough for a Changeling to be born at all. My people didn't like to leave evidence of their trysts with mortals. Then there was the fact that most mothers wouldn't be able to carry one of them to term. It took a strong womb to contain the maelstrom of one Changeling baby, let alone two. "Yes, yes. So your mother was probably a witch, though I don't care for the term, and a potent one at that. There's something you need to know, and you won't believe it."

A wry smile turned her lips into a lovely configuration. "Try me."

"Your mother was a powerful sorceress and your father was a fairy."

The smile turned to a frown. "He was gay?"

I growled. The human language was so stupid and clumsy. "No, I don't mean that he lay with men, but that he was a creature of magic and not a human one at that."

"Alright, we're done here." She stood as if to go.

"What's wrong?"

"You're wasting my time. I don't believe in magic. My brother did and that and the drugs sucked away what little sanity and money he had. I have no time for it."

"I need to prove to you that you're wrong then." I held out a hand, palm up and focused. Motes of light danced just a quarter of an inch above my palm. They changed colors.

Her frown intensified. "Pretty trick, but I've seen more impressive on the streets."

My focus deepened and I spoke a word of power. The flecks of light began to coalesce into a flower. The room filled with the scent of it, like the sweetest rose that ever bloomed. Light caught in its folds, causing it to shimmer. It was a flower from my homeland and was to flowers here as fae were to humans. The beauty of the actual flower was enough to break a heart if one saw it unprepared. This was only an illusion but as I looked into her face I could see the power of the vision's effect on her.

She held out a hand and the touch shattered the illusion. She looked at her fingertips. I knew that she felt something of the flower's texture on her skin. Or at least my memory of that texture. From there she looked to me. "What are you?"

I bowed. "I am what your father was, a creature from a far away land."

"Not California, then." She managed to choke out.