Chapter Twenty-Two
After I got dressed, Nik drove us to the northern end of the docks, near Budd Bay Cafe. Yep, Olympia has docks. They're not that impressive, but plenty of rich folks need someplace to store their ocean-going treasures. Josh met us at one of the tall chain link gates that barred the way onto the narrow docks. Nik reached out to the padlock, gave it a squeeze, and tore it from the gate.
We trudged down the metal steps onto the wooden dock, which swayed slightly with the incoming tide. Though Olympia rests on the very tip of Budd Inlet, a branch of Puget Sound, it never smelled of sea water. No, Olympia just smelled like rotting mud. When the tide goes out, it doesn't leave behind spotless beaches but rather rolling piles of brown goo. It was such a well-known aspect of the Olympia culture that some organizations had sponsored races across the mudflats that produced nothing but a bit of money and a lot of dirty athletes. I never involved myself in these antics. I didn't like running—unless I was being chased.
Nik led us to the far end of the dock, where there were fewer boats. He glanced at Josh, who pulled out a battery-powered bug zapper, inserted the D batteries, and flipped it on. I watched as a few of the bugs flitting around the inlet zoomed for the pulsing purple device. They were instantly fried, sending off tiny wisps of smoke.
“Now what?” I asked as Josh set the bug zapper on the dock. Josh sat down, crossing his legs as if he were in kindergarten. Nik was already leaning against one of the concrete pillars that held the long wooden structure in place.
“We wait… quietly,” he added for my benefit.
“What are waiting for?” I asked in a whisper.
“Fae. Now shut up.”
I glowered at him as I pointedly took a seat next to Josh. I was still upset with Nik for his earlier statement concerning my involvement with his people’s death and the whole punching me in the face thing. His snide remarks weren't helping. Nik seemed to be in an equally bad mood.
It wasn't a long wait. Just about the time I grew bored with watching bugs fly to their death, three little sparks of bluish-green light zipped into the pulsing purple device. The tiny glowing mote fell to the wooden dock, flickering as they responded to the assault of the bug zapper.
Nik and Josh pounced while I sat in awe of the wavering little lights. They slammed glass jars over the new arrivals—Nik capturing one, Josh the other two. With his hand still on the jar, Nik bent over it and peered inside. The light flashed brightly. I could almost read the cursing in the flashing light. Nik smiled, much like he did when I cursed at him.
“Will you stay and answer all my questions if I let you out?” he asked the captured lights. They flickered twice. Josh repeated the question ceremoniously and received the same response. Slowly, they both removed the glass jars. The tiny specks of light shimmered and grew until they were about the size of a rabbit. Suddenly I could see detail within the lights.
They were three little men with translucent wings. Tinkerbell's boyfriends! The first one wore a seashell on his arm like a shield while carrying a rusted pole with a tiny shark’s tooth attached to the tip. His companions carried similar weapons. Their clothing was made of seaweed, with seashell armor over the top. Their skin held a strange bluish tint, fainter than the light around them.
“Thalassa,” Nik said by way of a greeting.
The tiny man gave an epic bow in acknowledgment that nearly brought his forehead to his shins.
“We are looking for a collection of antiques that once belonged to Charles V. He was a human emperor.” Boy, Nik was not one for pleasantries. “It included this breastplate made by Drake.” He held up a picture of the Holy Roman Emperor in his Sunday-best.
“Ha!” squeaked the tiny man. “We was there!”
The other two fae echoed their leader's statement in shrill little voices, raising their tiny weapons with the chant. Thalassa's followers danced around in a little jig, their seashell armor clanking softly over the sound of the nearby boats bobbing in the water. They raised and lowered their weapons in time with their prancing feet while they quivered with excitement and chanted: “We was there!”
“You were where?” Nik demanded, cutting into their display of excitement.
“When the things is taken… when they is taken!”
“When was that?” I asked.
“Don't bother, they don't keep track of time the way we do,” Nik said in an aside. “Who took it?”
“The man!” Thalassa's followers announced.
“A man? A human?”
“No, no! The queen's man!”
I frowned. I was totally lost. Josh didn't look any more knowledgeable.
“Which queen?”
“Orithyia,” said Thalassa, waving his soldiers to be quiet. They did but continued to prance about in their strange, rhythmic dance. To my surprise, despite their gyrations, their tiny seashell armor ceased to clank. It looked as though someone had clicked mute on the remote.
“Orithyia's man stole from the Louvre Museum?” asked Nik, clearly putting the pieces together. Now that he had spelled it out, it made perfect sense.
“Orithyia?” I asked.
“Queen of the Winter Court,” explained Josh.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” the three tiny fae chanted together, their armor still bouncing silently with each prance.
“Would he still have the stuff?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”
“Who was the man?” Nikolai asked.
“The man! The man! The man!” They chanted with more stomping, each one taking turns jumping in the air while maintaining the beat of their dance.
“We're not getting anything more coherent out of them,” Josh said.
“We hardly have enough to go by,” Nik added. The small fae shrunk to the size of fireflies and flitted away. “What do we do next?”
“Why not go try the Internet?” I suggested.
“Why don't you leave the investigating to the adults,” said Nik with a sneer.
Without giving it a second thought, I punched him in the face. Nik was in a squatting position and completely unprepared for my strike. My vamp-powered punch sent him flying off the dock and into the bay. He bobbed to the surface, a glare already in place.
“Here endeth the lesson!” I spat, not even trying a Sean Connery imitation. I sprinted down the dock and up the metal stairs, all the hurt and anger that had been slowly building since Nik first suggested I had been the cause of his people's death reaching its limit. And now, after a few days in his company, he had even more reason to want me dead.
“Go get her,” I heard Nik say from the water. Josh caught up with me at the car.
“Don't mess with me, Josh,” I demanded.
“Just want to make sure you weren't running again.”
“I know better than that.”
“I heard what Nik said to you yesterday… before the attack.”
I grimaced.
“It's not true, you know,” Josh added.
“Don't pander to me… ” I trailed off. There was so much more I wanted to say but saying it wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't bring those people back; it wouldn't take away everything that had happened this week. I think I would have spilled my guts to Josh, but before I could figure out what to say, Nik appeared, dripping wet.
To say he looked angry would be like saying a nuke goes boom.
“Get in the car,” Nik snapped, his Russian accent peeking through his careful façade and garbling his words. I was beginning to recognize it as a sign. The only time he failed to hide the language of his origin was when he was fuming mad. Nik jerked the driver side door open and squeaked his way onto the leather seat. I silently obeyed, knowing there was no point in being obstinate with a three-hundred-plus-year-old vamp who could wipe the floor with me. I heard Josh take his place in the back seat.
“I think…” began Josh in a pensive voice. “Ashley might be on to something.”
“What?” snapped Nik, slamming his foot down on the acceler
ator with his question.
“If you were actually in sync with this generation, you'd know the Internet is full of information,” I taunted.
“What can the Internet tell us that we don't already know? The loot was at the Louvre then it got stolen.”
“We won't know until we look,” Josh, the only calm person in the car, pointed out.
Nikolai glared at me for a moment, the car continuing to screech away from the docks.
“Fine.”
We continued at his usual, crazy speed out of town. I eventually realized where he was taking us—his mansion. The memory of what I had done there, and what had happened despite my efforts, came rushing back. Though we had been attacked many times since the initial werewolf invasion, it was the event that had started all our troubles. It was then that my involvement in people's lives started causing them pain, death even. I tried not to imagine what I honestly expected to see—blood and rotting bodies. The worst part of all my imaginings was that I suddenly felt very thirsty. Gore didn't used to give me a craving; usually, a commercial for Taco Bell was enough.
Nik parked the car in such a sudden stop that I was thrown against the seat belt. Had I been human, I would have endured whiplash. Before the engine could begin ticking, he was out of the car and opening the front door of his mansion. Josh and I followed a bit more slowly. We found Nik in his enormous living room, drinking straight from a large bottle of brown liquor. To my astonishment, the large room that was most of the main floor had been cleaned. There wasn't a trace of the bloody skirmish. The carpets were clean, the smashed furniture either repaired or replaced, and the window had new glass installed. Evidently, the seethe had fast-working repairmen on standby.
“Get her started on this fool’s errand. I'm going to change,” he added, setting the bottle on the small table and sweeping out of the room, his wet shoes making a sloshing noise that ruined the effect of his dramatic exit.