Maricruz reappears with a bag. It clinks ominously. “Guess who remembered the legal drinking age in this country is lower?” She pulls out a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of absinthe.
“Absinthe?” I ask.
“No way!” Jade takes the bottle and holds it out, gazing at it. “It was my coven’s favorite.” She spent several months undercover in a coven that subcontracted for Buffy back when Buffy was leading an army of Slayers all across the globe. It disbanded when magic died. “Absinthe is awful, but I kind of miss it. And them. It was nice, you know? Having a purpose.”
“Spying on Buffy?” I ask.
“You spied on Buffy?” Maricruz seems less alarmed than curious.
Jade pushes her hair out of her face, then pulls three glasses from under the counter. “Yes, but I was also part of the coven. We did all sorts of stuff. I really liked it. Like having sisters.”
“Sisters are overrated.” I scowl at my glass as Jade fills it with just a bit of whiskey and then pours in Coke to dilute it.
“Amen,” Maricruz mutters.
“To rubbish families, dead fathers, absent mothers, and lost sisters,” Cillian says, holding up his glass.
We all cheers to that. The whiskey burns, and not even this much Coke can cut through it. But I drink it anyway. An hour later, we’re lying on the floor in a square, heads on one another’s stomachs. I have the phone balanced on my forehead, willing it to ring.
“Bollocks,” Cillian says. “Joan of Arc was not a Slayer.”
“She was so!” I gesture aggressively, spilling half my drink down my arm. The phone slips off and clatters to the floor. “The Siege of Orléans was actually a vampire siege. It was one of the only known organized vampire armies in history. Generally vampires are solitary, but they had a very charismatic leader who saw the upheaval as an opportunity to place kings and rulers who were sympathetic to them and would turn a blind eye to their activities. Orléans contained a Watcher outpost, and they wanted to burn it down. One of the Watchers was an advisor to the French regent, who the vampires were hoping to sire. But they knew they had to get rid of the local Watchers first.”
“You’re lying.”
“She’s not.” Jade has both her hands in the air, admiring her manicure. “We have a whole series of books on it. The Watchers were heavily involved in the Hundred Years’ War and the War of the Roses. Richard the Third was half demon.”
“No!”
“Yes. That’s why his skeletal structure was so odd.”
“You’re all such nerds,” Maricruz says in a dreamy, affectionate tone.
“Anyway,” I say, “Joan was a Slayer. I’ve never run into her in my dreams, though. I’ll have to look for her. Except my dreams seem broken lately.”
“To broken dreams!” Jade picks up her glass and lifts it in the air.
“Are your Slayer dreams working?” I ask Maricruz.
“I don’t like dreaming.”
Cillian interrupts. “So did the queen ever have her own Watcher to advise her on supernatural threats?”
Jade turns her head where it rests on my stomach and makes eye contact with me, slowly winking one eye. “Oh yes.”
I pick it up. “For centuries. Queen Elizabeth had an affair with hers. It was very scandalous.”
“No!”
“Mm-hmm.” Jade pauses. “Though obviously it didn’t produce Charles. He’s all Philip’s. Which means my crush on Prince Harry is not at all incestuous.”
I nod. “An important point.”
Maricruz narrows her eyes. “Wait, was it your—”
“A great-great-uncle or something.” Jade shrugs casually.
I keep going. “So her great-great-uncle was out, but they put another Watcher in after. It was a very prestigious position. The queen’s Watcher had a number assigned so the queen’s forces could talk about him without giving away his role. Some numbers have magical significance. This one was an infinity symbol followed by a seven.”
Jade manages to keep her voice even. “They called him Double O Seven to simplify, though.”
Cillian sits straight up, dislodging my head from his abdomen. “No fecking way. Watchers were 007? Watchers? It was real?”
I lean back on my elbows. “Well, yeah. Most things are real. Normal people catch rumors and make them into stories. Myths. Spy novels.”
Maricruz’s lips are pursed, and her cheeks are getting steadily darker from holding back a laugh. I flash my eyes at her, and she gives a minute nod. She’s onto us, but she’s not spoiling it.
“But Ian Fleming got it mostly wrong.” Jade sits up too, pouring herself a new drink. “Double O Seven wasn’t dealing with Russians and spies, he was protecting the queen from an order of vampires who planned to use her in a sacrifice to end the sun and bring about eternal darkness so they could ravage the land at their leisure.”
Cillian’s dark eyes are almost circles, they’re open so wide. He shakes his head. “I can’t believe this.”
“You shouldn’t,” I snort, finally breaking.
Jade cackles. “None of it was true.” Maricruz throws her head back as she laughs, though I don’t know how she knew we were lying.
“You absolute cows!” Cillian grabs a handful of crisps from a bowl and throws them at us.
“But the Joan of Arc thing was true!” I say.
“Like I’ll believe anything out of your mouth now.”
“Double O Seven!” Jade laughs until she falls over. I can’t stop either.
Cillian finally joins us. “You Only Live Twice was obviously about vampires.”
Maricruz claps her hands. “On Her Majesty’s Supernatural Service.”
“The Watcher Who Loved Me.” I laugh until my stomach hurts, until tears stream from my eyes.
Jade does too, until I realize her laughter has shifted from laugh-crying to actual crying. I turn on my side to look at her. “What’s wrong?”
She takes a few breaths to calm herself down until she can talk. “I think I really do like Doug. Not just because of the happy stuff. He’s so funny and kind. And he has the prettiest eyes. But I blew it, and I wish I could go back, and I used to know a spell for that, but it won’t work now, so it’s broken and it’s my fault and there’s nothing I can do.”
“We can never go back.” Maricruz looks haunted.
“Are you and what’s-her-face a thing?” Jade asks, sniffling.
“Taylor? No. She’s my friend. She’s the reason I was hiding outside. I love her. I’d do anything for her. Have done anything for her. But sometimes it gets too heavy, you know? I keep waiting for her to get better, and she doesn’t. And I’ll always love her and be there for her. But I’m tired. And I can’t let her know I’m tired, or it’ll hurt her, and I won’t ever be the one to hurt her.”
Cillian squeezes her hand. “You’re a good friend. How did you end up in Buffy’s army? Why did you leave New York?” Cillian asks.
She shakes her head. “There are lots of kinds of monsters. I don’t want to talk about it. I wouldn’t go back, even if I could.”