Micah Slate wasn’t a happy Golem. “Ladies. I’m certain we can bring this matter to an acceptable conclusion if we can discuss things rationally.”

Teresa Gelt’s insufferably superior voice held pride of place as the main cause of his unhappiness. “I beg to differ, you officious peon. There are three hooligans running free in your museum. As far as you’re aware, they’ve already defaced the works from my private collection!”

Righteous indignation colored Miss Sullivan’ voice. “Miss Gelt! I’ll thank you not to speak of my students like that!”

“I wasn’t speaking to you, harridan. I wouldn’t be speaking to the land mass here either, were he not barring our way into the museum. A museum I have every right to enter, as you know, Mr. Slate.”

Micah barely registered Miss Sullivan’s retort. The Words in his head shifted from a quiet whisper to a low hum, and his temples ached in response. He needed to be out of here, to return to his proper duties.

When Micah spoke, he let his voice drop an octave and rise several decibels. “Ladies! I assure you; my men and mechanical devices are the most effective available. A moment.”

To buy time for his temper to cool, he drew a device from his coat pocket. With the flip of a few switches, the device printed a list of the locations and status of his men. All of them were at their stations, which meant that they had eyes on all the valuable displays. A few more adjustments and a new list scrolled across the face of the device on a fresh strip of paper. After a glance to confirm the content, he turned the face of the device to the two women, who peered curiously at it.

“As you can see, Miss Sullivan, the only motion in the museum is in the men’s facilities.”

“Where are your vaunted guards? There are no guards! You told me there would be guards!” Gelt grabbed at the device, intending to shake it. Her fury peaked when his arm did not yield a whit.

“Calmly, Miss Gelt! My guards are not listed there. The device shows them on a separate list. You were informed of all this when we gave you a device duplicate to this one.”

If you had paid any attention at all to the documents I gave you, you would know that, you insufferable blonde bitch.

“Like I can be bothered to read your scribble or tote about that great hulking metal toy.”

The device chattered quietly, the list updating itself as new information became available.

“Look! Look! The restoration room! My artwork!”

Micah pulled the device around, dislodging Gelt from his arm as he did so. He scanned the newly printed list. The restoration room was indeed listed. He simply didn’t have time for this tonight. Micah drew himself up to his full height and stilled Gelt’s shrill shrieking with a peremptory wave of his hand.

“Ladies, as I’ve said several times before, if you will be so kind as to wait patiently, I will retrieve the missing students.”

Micah nodded politely to the tweed clad form of the schoolteacher, who fell more than sat onto the bench next to the museum exit.

“With the young men gone from the museum, your mind should be set at ease, Miss Gelt.”

Micah’s icy gaze failed to have a quelling effect on Miss Gelt. Instead, a calculating look darted across her face, followed instantly by her habitual look of angry disdain. Micah was very tired of that look.

“See here, you cheaply attired thug. The only reason the police have not been informed of this is the enormous insurance policy on my artwork. If I am forced to collect on that policy, I shall spend it purchasing your petty little museum, after which I will sue you personally into penury and have you imprisoned for fraud.”

Micah turned abruptly and strode off. Gelt’s shouts of protest at his departure got louder when two of his men refused to allow her through the entryway of the museum. Technically she had a right to enter as part of the agreement that loaned her collection to the museum, but right now Micah had more important things to worry about than a spoilt heiress’ ostentation. As Micah raced through the halls, the Words in his head changed from a hum to a repetitious whine.

Protect the Art, Protect the Art, Protect the Art, Protect the Art, Protect the Art!

The throbbing in his temples led him unerringly down to the lowest public level of the museum. The curator had plans to turn this level into a cafeteria, but for now it housed a display of old armor and weapons. In silence broken only by his own footfalls, Micah heard the door to the men’s bathroom click shut. Micah hit the door with a crash, and three of the four young men inside went sprawling as the door knocked them backward. Small pocketknives skittered across the floor as the trio slipped on the slick tile.

The fourth boy was subtly different from the other three. Scruffier. Dirtier. Feral, with hints of unboylike facial hair and the look of fangs about his eyeteeth. Beyond all that, where the other boys wore the uniform of the Philadelphia School for Orphaned Boys, the fourth wore older clothes, badly mistreated and worn near to rags. The fourth boy jumped at Micah, his face contorted with rage. Micah’s hand shot out, clamping the youth’s throat in a vise-like grip. As the Vandal came to a sudden stop, his eyes bugged out.

“Who the sod ‘r you?”

“I am head of security for this museum. You and your kind will not harm the Art in this building. Understood?”

The three boys on the floor stared as if they’d only just noticed the fourth in their midst. As one, they babbled about how the escapade hadn’t been their idea, that the boy in Micah’s grip had planned the whole thing. Micah stared them into silence, ignoring the thrashing Vandal as it tried to claw its way free of his hand. With his free hand, he pulled out the device he had used earlier and pressed a red button. A few moments later a woman’s voice sounded from within the device.

“Frederica will be with you shortly, Micah.”

Micah watched fear dissipate into comfort at the idea of a maternal figure soon to arrive.

“Have any of you three heard of the Zulu nation?” When the boys nodded, he continued. “I thought you might. Frederica’s father was a noble there. He chose to exile himself when his wife bore no sons and only a single daughter. He thought that here, in the West, she would learn to be the son he never had.”

The door to the men’s room crashed open once more, this time silhouetting a figure from an ebony nightmare. Freddie would never win a beauty contest, but no man alive would dare take her lightly. Hands tucked in her trouser pockets, she stared down at the boys from her near seven-foot height, watching their eyes go wide.

She broke the silence in a surprisingly quiet voice, heavily accented with the precise sounds of one taught the King’s English. “What do you want done with them, Mr. Slate?”

“Oh, just guide them to the exit, Miss Nbele. Let Miss Sullivan know that they became entranced by our medieval arms collection and lost track of time. I’m sure they won’t be any further problem.”

“As you say, Sir. Come along, boys.”

After Freddie led the three students away, Micah turned back to the Vandal, who had long since faded to misty invisibility. Even in its incorporeal state, its futile thrashing could not break Micah’s hold. Micah smiled grimly, and let his words come out with more menace than he had ever allowed any mortal to hear.

“You cannot escape me, Vandal.”

The thrashing became more pronounced, only the eyes and the section of neck beneath Micah’s grip remaining solid. After a few minutes of thrashing about, the misty form stopped suddenly.

A voice of shattering glass sounded from where its mouth had been. “Unliving thing! Release me!”

"I cannot, Muse of Destruction. You know that. As long as you are a danger to the Art under my care, I have the power to bind you."

The eyes narrowed, grew crafty. The misty form gave a sudden lurch, and a scream of glass on glass echoed through the lavatory.

"Choosing to leave now and come back later won't work, Vandal. And you are giving me an enormous headache. Will you give up any intent to harm the Art in these halls, or are we going to pay a visit to the religious artifact exhibit up on the fifth floor?"

The Vandal let out a piercing shriek like tearing metal, and the throbbing between Micah's temples spiked, his Words became a scream. His grip tightened, and he moved toward the stairs. As he neared the first step, the scream cut off like a switch, and his fist clenched empty air. The Words in his head went silent.

The Words were silent. The danger was gone. Now he just had to get to the restoration room before Ophilia finished for the evening.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

He walked through the halls quickly, checking in with his guards as he did so. At each one, he ensured they were awake, aware, and moving. Eventually he reached the fourth floor. Micah slipped quietly through the doors onto the restoration room balcony. A small desk had been set up there, a shaded lamp providing dim illumination to the stacks of paperwork upon it.

The contents of the paperwork were inconsequential, a pretense at work and a reason for being at his desk. They were window dressing, just like the guards and even the devices. The Words in his head would tell him if the Art was in danger. Without conscious volition, his gaze wandered down to the floor of the restoration room, finding and fixing on the living work of Art that moved across the face of the huge triptych undergoing restoration.

Ophilia worked with the grace of a dancer, hands sure and certain as they glided over the surface of the ancient wooden tablets. Rings encircled each of her fingers, linked together with slim silver chains that bound them to the thick silver bracelets on her wrists. Just above each bracelet her body art began, continuing across every portion of her exposed skin except her face.

Ophilia’s state of dishabille while she worked shocked him at first. Like some heathen savage, she hid only the barest essentials of herself. A swath of leather supported small, firm breasts. Another apron-like swath protected her from belly to mid-thigh. Beyond that and her jewelry, she routinely removed all her other garments before beginning work.

He was surprised, but soon saw the sense of it. The chemicals she worked with were unkind to brushes and pots. Micah could only imagine what continued exposure would do to clothing. As head of security, Micah was well aware of what each employee was paid, even the artists like Ophilia hired for occasional work. She could afford only a modest wardrobe; replacing it every evening she worked would have been beyond her means.

Micah couldn’t bring himself to complain. Her shameless lack of attire let him see more of her Artwork. On her stomach, Venus rose from the waves. Half covered by the slick leather of her halter; an Asian poet rested on her right shoulder. Bonaparte rode a mule on her left. Each work inked into her skin was ‘pinned’ at the corners by small silvery studs, making her seem clothed in the works of ages. Even her temples were tattooed, an image of Rodin’s Thinker on the right, paired hands drawing each other on the left. Her hair, mostly pulled back into a pragmatic bun, was the color of a raven’s wing, with broad green streaks highlighting the luster of it, purple ribbons woven throughout. Tiny bells, attached to each other by gossamer-thin silver chains, danced up and down the shells of her ears, making music as she moved. A final stud pierced the bridge of her nose, suspending three tiny ruby teardrops. Her huge sea-green eyes waxed even more dramatic by the dark eye makeup she favored. She pursed her full, cherry-red lips as she studied a new portion of the triptych.

Shrouded in darkness he watched, entranced. His thoughts filled with the imagined taste of her lips, the phantom softness of her hair. In covering herself with art, she had become a work of art herself. Every night as he watched her, he told himself he would talk to her when the time came to let her out of the building and lock up. Every night as he walked her down to the door, he reminded himself what this fey mortal, this living work of art, would see when she looked at him.

A plain, bland, unremarkable man in a plain, bland, unremarkable suit.

Damnation.

It was unlikely, at best, that she would give him more than a cursory glance. Still, the triptych would take at least a few more nights to complete, and there was every reason to believe that she would be brought back the next time the museum needed a restoration. She was as much an artist as she was a work of art.

And, whether she knew it or not, she was his to Protect.

***

Ophilia leaned back and stared up at the triptych she worked on. She’d cleaned it, retouched it, and was about to begin the slow, repetitive process of putting on the coats of varnish that would protect the art from the elements. The fungus that had infested the wood and damaged the pictures was completely gone, eradicated by good old-fashioned anti-fungal cleansers enhanced by just a touch of elf magic.

Phil loved her jobs. Each was fascinating and inspiring in its own way. By day she worked at the tattoo parlor she had established; a small studio on South Street called Magick Ink. To supplement her income, she worked a few hours every night at her first love—art restoration.

Her friends commented frequently on the apparent contradiction in her jobs. Restoration was a painstaking process, taking anywhere from a week to months to clean and preserve a work of art to ensure it would survive for future generations. Tattooing was all about an individual’s personal history and beliefs about beauty and self. Some were simplistic designs completed in a few hours, others took years to complete, but the pride and satisfaction in the eyes of her customers made each worthwhile.

Both required her to dedicate herself to someone else’s idea of the beautiful and sacred. Both gave her insight into the mortal condition. One was truth preserved for eternity in paint and canvas, the other was identity preserved for a brief mortal lifetime in ink and skin. Living in the now was just as important as preserving the past, each individual’s truth as important as the universal truths. As an elf, the combination of the two made perfect sense. In each she got to preserve the past and present while looking forward to the future.

Phil stepped back a few paces to look at the triptych as a whole. For now, she was finished. The varnishing would have to be done across the whole piece, and she didn’t have time for that tonight. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the soft glow of Micah Slate’s desk lamp and stifled a sigh.

She’d gotten used to the man’s presence of a night. He would come in while she worked, wait for her to finish, and escort her out of the building. He never smiled, rarely spoke, and watched her like a hawk.

Perhaps her state of dress bothered him. Perhaps her tattoos; they’d been common enough when she was born but had gone out of fashion in Europe and the Americas lately. Perhaps it was her jewelry, the piercings that glittered like pins of fire across her body. Perhaps it was her hair; she’d tried for jet, but deep unnatural green was a difficult color to dye. She’d wound up with stripes of each. Perhaps…

Damnation and hellfire, perhaps he just didn’t like her. She had become numb to the wary looks from people in the street. The wariness was useful to her, in a way. Her Sidhe nature made her vulnerable to cold iron, and so many mortals carried it. That distance coming from him hurt. She wouldn’t let herself think of why it hurt, but it did, nonetheless.

Micah, on the other hand, was a veritable pillar of conventional masculinity. His cropped dark hair so short it stood on end; she was curious if it felt spiky, or soft, or both. Sable eyes full of a quiet vigilance that was neither stupid nor accusing. Knowing eyes, her mother would have called them. Tall, with broad shoulders that showed even through the inexpensive suits he wore. Muscles rippled beneath the thin fabric of his shirts. Every time she looked at him, her head filled with fantasies of those muscles covered in sweat rather than fabric.

She would do anything, absolutely anything, to get her hands on him. He was a living, breathing work of art made by the universe itself. The only thing she would add was some ink and herself, perhaps even in that order.

Micah moved with a masculine grace that screamed of confidence and competence. His job was always completed quickly, quietly, and with a minimum of fuss. When she’d heard the museum curator praising him to the skies, her heart had nearly burst with pride. It was a pride she had no business feeling, as she had no claim over him and never would. He was the essence of a modern conservative gentleman, and her Seeming was the essence of a modern bohemian trollop. People on the street would naturally look to him for leadership, would look to him to protect them from her, probably by putting her on a stake and burning her shop.

Beside all that, pairings between Elf and human never worked out in the end. Certainly True Love was said to conquer all, but only Death had confirmation of that record. And mortals lived for such a smaller span of time than Elves.

A slight noise from the hallway made her ears twitch. Damn Elf hearing. There were times she wished she could return to the silence of Underhill, but by her own choice, that path was forever blocked to her. Instead, she lived for now and always in the mortal world, the world of neighbors behind paper thin walls, the world of cold iron gracing every street and building, the world of Miss Teresa Gelt’s boot heels clacking purposefully down the hallway.

Damn it all to mother’s deepest pits. The insufferable bitch caught me.

Phil usually made it a point to be out of the building before Gelt came to inspect her work. The few times Gelt had interrupted her she had been tempted to put her fist through the Seleigh’s face. Preferably while wearing a set of iron knuckles. “Condescending officious bitch” didn’t begin to describe the woman. She was as cuddly as a belt sander and as warm as an icebox. Phil heard movement above her as Micah left the balcony. She sighed, cursing her inattention.

So much for my daydreaming. What a way to bollocks up a perfectly good day.

She turned with a snarl to the double doors as they whooshed open. They stopped barely an inch before the art-covered walls as Gelt sashayed into the room like a Queen into a particularly unsavory dungeon.

“Aren’t you done yet? Or have you finally decided to switch to a profession more suited to your attire? Prostitute, perhaps?”

“Aren’t you dead yet? Or have you finally decided to take the plunge and become a lich rather than acting like one?”

“No? Pity.”

“No? Pity,” Phil parroted with a sneer.

Gelt’s frosty smile faltered for a moment as her eyes narrowed. “If I find one single mistake, I will peel your skin off and hang it on my wall.”

“If you touch one hair on my head, I’ll feed you a crowbar. An iron crowbar.”

Gelt snorted. “You don’t scare me.”

Knowing they were alone, Phil decided to show off a little. She let her control slip, felt the studs pinned across her body heat in reaction. She felt Power flash in her eyes. “Then you’re even stupider than I thought.”

Gelt looked around the room, obviously unimpressed.

Stupid twit.

“Where’s Slate? I have a function to attend.”

Something must have shown on Phil’s face, because Gelt’s expression turned sly. The bitch ran one pale pink nail across her chin. “He’s so handsome and strong, don’t you think?” Gelt shivered delicately as Phil gnashed her teeth. “Just the kind of man you want keeping you warm at night. Too bad humans don’t live very long.”

“Satan himself couldn’t warm your icy ass up.” Phil smirked as her barb went home. She dropped one hand to her hip as she dropped her brush into the cleaning basket with the other.

“Slut.”

“Bitch.”

They stared at one another with raw hatred. A glow of leaking power began to suffuse the room.

“Do you really think a man like Micah Slate would have anything to do with a trollop like you?”

Phil glared at the icy blonde in her pale pink chiffon and growled. “He deserves a lot better than you.”

Gelt’s arrogant laughter rang through the room. “And you think that better woman is you?”

As Phil studied Gelt’s sneer, her stomach sank. Suddenly tired of the game, she sighed. Sadly, she replied, “No. He deserves a hell of a lot better than me, too.”

The surprise on the other woman’s face was nearly Phil’s undoing. Phil reached for a damp rag and ran it over her body, ensuring no errant chemicals remained on her skin. Moving as quickly as her Elven reflexes allowed, she shrugged into her bodice, stepped into her petticoats, and pulled her dress over her head. A cheap but serviceable thing from the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog, it kept the stares to a tolerable level while she walked home. She grabbed her purse and started for the doors.

“I’m leaving. I have a party to attend at Samuel’s tonight.” She grabbed Gelt by the arm and yanked her out the doors. “You’re leaving. You have small fluffy animals to torture or something.” She nodded to Micah, who appeared as they passed through the double doors. He closed them behind the two women, a smile flirting around the corners of his mouth.

Clack, clack, clack went the bitch’s boot heels. “God’s Blood, I hate you.”

Phil grinned. “Mutual, dumpling.”