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5

Gentry

“Are you coming, or what?”Dominic was waiting for me outside.

He couldn’t stand the thought of being pressed in with all those humans. They were vermin. Rats in a rat trap. He tapped on the glass again, then pointed to his pocket watch.

I was holding him up.

But she was there. It was her. The girl from my dreams.

Yes, and that will earn a lot of sympathy from him.

As if he would want to hear about a dream I kept having. Every night for a week, ever since that last morning on the road. It never changed. Always the same girl in the same place, and I always woke up just before I could ask her anything. Even her name, or who she was, or how she got there.

But it was her.

Even though she was clean and dressed up and wearing makeup, I knew it was her. I couldn’t have explained it if somebody put a gun to my head and demanded I do.

Still, I knew.

“What took you so long in there?” My brother was already striding down the sidewalk like he owned it by the time I stepped outside into the crisp air.

“You saw how crowded it was.”

“I don’t understand why you insist on adopting the habits of those people,” he spat.

“No. You never could understand.”

“Oh, as if your heart has bled for them all this time,” he sneered, sidestepping a woman as she hurried past. Like touching her, even briefly, would infect him.

“For someone who hates them as you do, why do you still live here?” I asked.

It seemed like a fair question. The city was fairly clogged with humanity, much more so than the last time I’d been there. Decades had passed since then, when I’d decided to move to Los Angeles at the advent of its explosion into the public eye. Manhattan wasn’t big enough for both Dominic and me back then. It was better to put a country between us.

“It’s the only city in the world, or it might as well be,” he announced with a grin.

“Not even Paris? Rome? London?”

“All have their benefits, but this is home. I’m still bewildered at the way you adapted to the West coast.”

“I’ve always been better at adapting than you.” And I would adapt to being human, too, as best I could.

If only to show him it was possible. The thought still made my skin crawl, and I had to convince myself at least twice a day not to jump out a window, but I had to at least try to make a go of it.

Especially after seeing her.

She was real.

“Are you even listening to me?” Dominic demanded, throwing an elbow my way. He hit my arm and made me spill my coffee, splashing my jeans.

“Wonderful. Thanks for that.” I stopped, bent and tried to brush some of it away.

Before I could get to them, the stains disappeared like they had never been there.

I shot him a look as I stood. “Careful, now. What if one of them saw you?”

“So what if they did? You mean to tell me you never performed even a simple little spell like that while in public?”