Scherzo (Book Two of the Muse Series)

3. Suspension of Disbelief

What do you do when your best friend stares at you with a gut-searing combination of confusion and hurt? How do you respond when she bores into you with eyes that are ringed with tears? Where do you begin to explain the fact that nothing is as it seemed to be at all?

Mills needed answers. After the initial and overwhelming relief that I was indeed safe had crested over her, the old Mills began to creep back into the emotional, frayed shell sitting before me, and it got serious fast.

"Where the fuck were you? Do you have any fucking idea how much you scared me?" She didn't even blink, but fixed her brow-knitted grimace directly onto my face.

I didn't respond at first. En route here, the Wonder Twins and I had agreed that we would tell Mills everything, that even if it put her in danger, not being aware would make her an even bigger target. Even so, I had no idea where to begin. But as it turned out, I didn't have to say anything to get the ball rolling.
"And who the hell is she?" Mills jerked her head in the general direction of Tristan, who was now standing back against the wall with her hands in her pockets like a third-grader in detention.

"That's Doctor Hendry," I offered while I massaged my temples in an effort to rub away a rapidly approaching migraine.

"The flaky linguist asshole from the concert? What the fuck is she doing here?"

"Egad, my dear woman, your skill in the art of vulgarity is truly humbling." Leave it to Theo Upping to choose the absolute worst moment to bust Mills' balls. Sheep shit. An arrow with a nuclear engine strapped to it would not have hit his face as fast as Mills' wide-eyed, arched-eyebrowed glare did. And again she didn't speak. This wasn't good. Really. Not. Good. It was now or never, so I just went for it.

"Mills, I need you to shut up and listen to me for two minutes, can you do that? Just stop and hear me out for that little bit of time, OK? Please? Sit down."

"No."

"OK." I took a deep breath and let it out along with a cavalcade of bizarreness. "This will sound nuts, but it's true. Esteban kidnapped me, and these two saved my life. It's a very long story, but the upshot is that there's a whole layer of things that are true and real that I had no idea could possibly be until now."

Silence. So I kept going. "He had me chained up at that old house on Warlow, the one with the dark red brick and the boarded windows. Tristan--Dr. Hendry--tried to protect me, but I thought she was a maniac and so I ran, and Esteban found me and was never going to let me go."

More silence--the kind that could easily be punctuated by the ticking of an old-fashioned grandfather clock if there were one around. After what seemed like a year and a half, Mills interrupted the heaviness. "Why would Esteban do that?" Though she had asked the question, the expression on her face clearly told me that she was just as much assessing me to determine how far off the reservation I had wandered as she was exploring the topic at hand.

"He ... changed," I said with a sigh, struggling to explain things in a way that sounded at least partially logical. "He became a monster. Shit, how the hell do I even..."

"And why in fuck is Mike talking like a fucking Beefeater?" she interrupted with demand in her voice.

I just put my head in my hands. How do you possibly tell anyone all the facts I had to lay out right now to my best friend? She knew me inside and out. How was I going to tell her all these fantastic, surreal things and ask her to believe them?

But that was just it. Mills knew me. She could look into my eyes and know I was telling the truth. Tristan was prepared to show her that everything I said was bona fide, but I wanted her to step off the springboard with me first. And when she looked at me, really looked into me, she would know I was being honest with her. So I took a deep breath and dove.

"Supernatural creatures exist. Esteban is one, Tristan is one..., " here I took a giant breath, "... and so am I. I just found out. Mike is not, but what he is is a scientist from England who somehow figured out how not to age. His name is Theo. Really, Mills, it's the truth."

I reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. I could see that there were several simultaneous battles going on in her head--the physician grappling to accept that which evades scientific understanding, the psychologist grappling with the question of my insanity and/or sobriety, and the friend grappling with the fact that her friend believed this lunacy to be completely true.

I could see the friend beginning to win out, and Mills reached for my hand with eyes full of confounded tears to whisper to me. "But Ells, how could that possibly..."

Her voice trailed off, and she just looked at me, lost. This was Tristan's cue, and she perceived it. Slowly and gently she walked toward us and sat in the armchair opposite Mills.

"Millicent--"

"Mills," we chimed at her in unison.

"My apologies--Mills," she continued quietly. "Could you please look at me for a moment? I shall not harm you, you have my pledge." Mills lowered her eyes to her, and Tristan pointed to her mouth, opening it at the same time to pull back her lips slightly and expose her upper teeth. As we watched, her fangs descended slowly and in perfect synchrony until they rested their saber tips below her lower lip. I was breathless with awe, but beside me my friend was now breathing rapidly with a completely different emotion--shock.

"Mills, stop, please, settle down," I pleaded. These realizations had all come to me gradually, first in words and then, at length, in living, breathing evidence, but poor Mills was trying to process all of this mind-bending information in the space of five minutes. Anyone would hyperventilate a little.

She wanted to talk, but couldn't. She wanted to reason it all out, but couldn't get command of her faculties. I hurried out to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the fridge after helping her to sit down.

I got back just in time to see Tristan put her hands on Mills head, pull her toward her, and kiss her full on the mouth. And I mean full. What the hell? Amazingly (literally amazingly--this is Mills we're talking about, after all), she didn't pull away and deck her, but instead just sort of softened all over, hands lowering to rest at her sides. When she pulled away, Mills was breathing normally but I was snorting hot air like a prized bull in Pamplona. Elegant.

The moment she ended the lip lock, Tristan looked directly at me. "Scavenger saliva has calming effects, Elma, like a sedative. That is all." And she smiled to me. Just me.

With that, Tristan and I had successfully gotten Mills over the cliff. Now the scientist was back; she was touching one of Tristan's fangs with the tip of her index finger, marveling at the shape and angle of it.

"Do they hurt?"

"A bit," she responded patiently and good-naturedly. "Primarily when they reascend into my skull ... here." And she hooked a finger to her cheek to offer Mills better visual access to the area.

"Amazing," she whispered.

"An incredible specimen, are they not?" piped Mike from behind her, causing Mills to load up her quiver before spinning her head around to launch a few arrows at him.

"Bite me, Doolittle. That vulgarian comment was out of line. You try swallowing all this crazy shit in one sitting."

Mike should have retreated, immediately and demurely, but he didn't. And that single decision changed things between them for the long haul.

"Oh darling," he cooed, "what indeed is a little preternatural education for a woman of science such as yourself? I can only surmise that, as a physician, you've witnessed oddities far more worthy of cocktail conversation than dear Roan's canines. Unless, of course, you've been sufficiently isolated in terms of practical experience."

I watched it happen in slow motion. Mills rose from where she sat next to Tristan, walked serenely over to Mike, smiled at him, and kneed him royally in the groin. Game on.