Vanessa and Green both jumped and turned around at the voice.
A short man with grey hair and a monocle over one eye had walked over to them.
"The shadow dimensions?" Green asked.
"Yes," the man said, moving closer. "People on this plane usually refer to them as Hell. As if there was only one of them," he added with a laughter that sounded more like braying.
"Are you... are you Mr. Terin?" Vanessa asked.
She couldn't see either horns or goat legs and she didn't want to be too obvious about looking for them. He had a goatee, but apart from the monocle he looked like a slightly pouchy middle aged man in a grey suit. If she were to guess his occupation based on his looks she would have gone for undertaker.
"The one and only," the man replied with a sweeping bow. "So what brings two werewolves to my humble store?"
"I'm here to pick up something for my friend Maria," Vanessa said.
The eye behind the monocle blinked. "A werewolf who makes friends with witches. Curiouser and curiouser."
Vanessa took an involuntary step back and collided with Green who put an arm around her to steady her.
"And you brought your mate with you... I've seen you before," he said, taking in Green.
"Yes, sir," Green said. "I came in a couple of years ago with..."
"Your sister, yes I remember," Terin said, moving closer to them. "How is Alyssa?"
"She's doing well, thank you."
"And her... purchase?"
"She looks after it as if it was her newborn baby," Green said with a sardonic smile.
That seemed to please the faun.
"I knew she would be the perfect caretaker for it," he said. "I never sell an object of such importance to someone unless they absolutely love it. All things deserve to be cared for, but when an object has been in one's possession for nearly two millennia, one grows especially fond of it."
Vanessa stared at him. Nearly two millennia? Just how old was this guy? She knew there were species out there who could live for a very long time. Jerome was three hundred years old and some of his friends had been around since the middle-ages, but millennia?
Terin didn't have any of the power or... gravitas, she supposed on might call it, that the vampires had which made it impossible for anyone to confuse them with humans. The faun had nothing of that. He looked a little pompous in the suit and monocle, but in no way would he scare you if you met him at a dark alley in the middle of the night. Well, his laughter might, Vanessa amended as Terin let roar his highly distinctive guffaw at something Green said.
"That's good to hear," he said, pulling off the monocle to dry his eyes. "She is welcome back anytime she wants."
"She'll probably visit sometime after the baby arrives," Green said. "She's as big as a house now. I have no idea how she manages to even walk around."
"Ah, the miracle of birth. Not something us fauns ever get to experience," Terin said.
"Aren't you born?" Vanessa asked. "You're not made like vampires, are you?"
Both guys looked at her. Then Terin set off laughing again.
"I haven't laughed like this in an age," he said when he was done. "I should do more trading with werewolves, it's surprisingly refreshing."
Vanessa didn't understand what was so funny about her question, but she didn't dare ask. All she knew about the faun lifestyle was that they liked to party. She didn't know what powers they possessed and what might happen to her if she pissed one off.
"Now, are you two here purely for the parasol or do you wish to purchase something for yourselves? An engagement gift, perhaps? Rings for the upcoming nuptials?"
"I think Letitia and Maria will be taking care of the rings by themselves," Vanessa said.
"Of course, I was talking about the two of you."
"What would we need rings for?" Vanessa asked.
Terin blinked. "You're mated, aren't you?" he said and sniffed the air. "I can smell the Moon Goddess on you. Something else here too... witch magic that..."
"You can smell a goddess?" Vanessa asked before he could properly scent her silver necklace. She'd thought about leaving it at the hotel, but she'd been too scared to lose it so she'd put it in the breast pocket of her shirt. She wanted it close to her heart.
In her mind she tried to convince herself that it could still work through a layer of clothing. It wasn't true, she knew she needed skin contact, Letitia had told her so repeatedly. More importantly she felt whole and complete in a way she never did when she wore the necklace and Green had never smelled or looked better.
"Of course! Fauns are highly gifted in the olfactory department. Most successful perfumiers are in fact fauns. Haven't you wondered why so many working in that industry are men?"
Vanessa, who didn't wear perfume on account of it giving her a headache even with her sense of smell muted, hadn't. But if she had she would probably have put it down to inherent gender discrimination or the fact that women might have more interesting things to do than sit around and smell tiny bottles of scents all day, every day. Still, something about...
"Are you saying that all fauns are male?" she asked, surprised. That seemed like a rather obvious evolutionary problem.
"Naturally," Terin said, peering closer at her as if she might not be completely right in the head. "Why do you think we're always chasing after dyads?"
Another thing Vanessa could honestly say that she'd never thought about. She opened her mouth to ask more about the surprisingly complex mating process of fauns when Green cleared his throat and Terin switched his attention over to him.
"Er... what's a parasol?"
"You don't know what a parasol is?" the faun asked, aghast. "The youth of today, I tell you. No knowledge of history although I suppose it makes sense in a place like this where everyone is trying to get as much sun on their skin as possible that they would forget about a tool used to keep the skin pale."
"Like bleaching cream of some kind?" Green asked.
Terin's nostrils flared. "Absolutely not like bleaching creams," he said, pronouncing the words as if they had offended him. "I don't understand why anyone would put that poison on their skin, although I suppose the old lead and arsenic powders were similar constructs. Humans do come up with the strangest things to feel pretty."
"I know what a parasol is," Vanessa said before the faun could disparage humans further. "It's like an umbrella, but used to protect you from the sun, not the rain."
"Excellent," Terin said, motioning for them to follow him to the back room. "At least someone knows their accessories."
Green rolled his eyes at Vanessa behind Terin's back and she decided that now wasn't the time to reveal that the only reason she knew what parasols were was that she'd binge read the Parasol Protectorate-series by Gail Carriger a few years back.
"Your friend wanted to get her fiancée a magical umbrella?" Green whispered to me as we made our way past the piles of supposedly magical objects into what looked like a small storeroom and workshop.
"They have an eclectic sense of style," Vanessa whispered back.
She'd never seen Letitia use a parasol, but she had no doubt her friend could pull it off.
"Here we are," Terin said, pulling out a parasol of white lace from a drawer in the back. "An enhancer, as promised."
"Great," Vanessa said and moved over to the parasol as she pulled out her phone. "Let me just text her and have her wire the money."
Terin held out the parasol in his arms for Vanessa to photograph and send to Maria. It was truly an artwork, she noticed as she came close to it.
"Did you make this?" she asked the faun.
"Good heavens, no. I merely restored it. I don't dabble in spell-casting, but carpentry and sewing I quite enjoy," he said, caressing the old-fashioned lace.
Vanessa didn't correct his assumption that she had been talking about the parasol, not whatever magic it could do.
"It's beautiful," she said instead.
"Isn't it? It was made by a Belgian witch named Brugia early in the eighteenth century. I found it in a flea market in Paris fifty years after her death. Instantly recognized her work, of course. The magic signature is quite unique, I'm sure you'll find. Either way, the years had not been kind to it, but with a bit of tender love and care I got it back to its original state."
"You're very skilled," Vanessa said and Terin visibly preened at the praise.
She reached out and touched the parasol with her fingertip. It sent a shiver through her entire body. Brugia, whoever she was, must have been powerful to leave such a long-lasting spell in place.
Her phone beeped with a text from Maria thanking her and informing her that she had wired the money. She showed Terin a picture of the receipt.
"Excellent," he said and led them back into the store and over to the register to wrap it for them.
Vanessa was so busy trying to keep up with him that she stopped watching where she put her feet and stumbled over a rococo chair with a purple velvet cushion and fell to the floor. Her necklace flew out of her pocket and landed at the feet of a surprised looking Terin. He bent and picked it up before she could tell him not to. Then he froze and looked at her as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
"Why on earth would you let someone do this to you?" he exclaimed.