Chapter Thirty-Five
Nik drove us to my apartment building and managed to get a parking spot on Capitol Way, in front of the neighboring inn. We jogged from the car to the door of my apartment, making sure to keep our speed within human ability. I passed them into my tiny apartment and began looking for Muffler. There weren't many places for him to hide and I quickly found him sleeping on my bed, tucked between two pillows. He stretched at his leisure, which meant it took a few minutes before he was willing to talk.
“So now you decide to grace me with your presence,” he said in between yawns.
Josh stopped in the doorway, his eyes the size of grapefruits. He took two steps back onto the landing before realizing what he was doing. He froze and tried to put on a brave face—or at least a less shocked face. Nik smiled at him as he crossed to the bed, sat down, and began petting the talking cat.
“Uh… yeah, so… my cat talks… ” I stuttered awkwardly.
Josh glanced at Nik, still not willing to reenter my apartment. I couldn't really blame him. Nik ignored him, continuing to scratch Muffler behind the ears, who purred violently.
“Sorry. I didn't realize you'd brought a new friend. It happens so rarely,” he added as he shifted position to get Nik to scratch a better spot.
I rolled my eyes and checked on his food and water. “We're researching Ashley's past,” Nik said to the cat as he dug into Muffler's thick, gray fur.
“To figure out why they're trying to sacrifice her?” he asked. All three of us turned our gaze on the animal. “What? I get around.” His feline eyes flickered to the window I typically kept cracked open. I never realized he could get down to the ground from it, or back up for that matter. It was a wonder he hadn't been hit by a car yet.
“Yes,” said Nik, recovering his senses first. “Do you have any ideas? Have you heard anything?”
Muffler looked up at him before ramming his head into Nik's motionless fingers. Nik returned to scratching the cat's head.
“Well, I've heard the Internet is mighty handy. But if you want something a little more old school,” Muffler purred, trying to sound like a modern youth, and failing, “you could go see Faunus.”
“The fae? We're trying to avoid the fae. Both summer and winter are trying to capture her,” said Nik.
“Well, I'm sure you've heard the old adage that with great risk come great rewards… or some such nonsense. Faunus can look into anyone's past, seeing things long forgotten. Besides, Faunus has been known to deal with her enemies if the price is right. She loves favors.”
“I'm not stupid enough to give a favor to a fae,” Nik stated, unceremoniously dumping Muffler on the floor.
“How much do you want this information?” the cat asked as he jumped back on the bed, pointedly skirting around Nik to resettle near my pillows. It was funny to watch an ancient fae try to give offense in response to being kicked off a lap—very cat-like. I wondered how much he retained of his original identity and how much the years had transformed into the personality of a cat.
Nik let out a deep breath and looked at Josh then me. “What say you?”
“What sorta favor would she ask for?” I asked.
Nik shrugged. “Could be anything from an ice-cream cone to killing her fairy queen.”
“I hate to be the Negative Nancy,” Josh began. “But this won't exactly be safe for Ashley.”
“Faunus has to be able to touch her for her magic to work,” Nik said. Josh shrugged, glancing back at the door with the broken lock. My apartment wasn't exactly safe either. “We'll take her along, but keep her identity to ourselves. I doubt they've passed around her mug shot. Let's go. We'll offer Faunus one favor but under a few caveats.”
I patted Muffler once and headed for the door. For a moment, I considered checking my phone messages, but I had a feeling I didn't want to hear what Jordan and Chloe had to say. I knew Jordan wouldn't have mentioned his encounter with us to Chloe, so she likely was worried about me. Oh well, whatever I did about them would have to wait until I dealt with the whole human sacrifice thing; I mean vampire sacrifice. Either way, it ended up with me dead. I shuddered and ran down the steps.
Nik drove us to the other side of I-5 and parked at the entrance to the watershed off of 22nd Ave. We tromped down the steep hill into the small valley where the city had kept some of Washington's natural forest, in that totally unnatural way humans do. Originally, it had been part of the city’s waterworks, but in the 1950s they'd turned it into a park.
In the daylight, and without a drenching downpour, it was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen; it surrounded you with enormous trees that grew at the very edge of the designated path where moss hung from the branches. The surroundings were eerie and mystical even before I knew mystical creatures existed.
I wasn't surprised that a fae would take up residence in the small forest, even if all of the fae I'd met had yet to live up to my expectations. I imagined fae to look like Tinkerbell. That tree thing I fought had not resembled any fairy my imagination could drum up.
My feet squished into the mud and the water soaked through my tennis shoes. We trekked through the forest for about ten minutes before Nik called us to a halt. By this time, I was soaked to the bone in any place his leather jacket didn't protect, though the water was beginning to drip past the jacket's collar and down my back. I had a feeling even the leather was not going to be enough if we stayed out much longer.
Just when I was about to make some sort of snarky comment—one which I had yet to think up—he took us off the path and into the brush. Normally in Olympia, these patches of forest are covered in a bed of blackberry bushes, but there were a few places in Watershed Park where hard work had kept them at bay, allowing for the more natural underbrush to thrive.
Nik brought us to a stop near an old shack that had probably once been a part of the waterworks. I thought about pointing out that there were many signs declaring this location to be off limits to pedestrians, but for once my better judgment set in; I kept my mouth shut. Nik didn't get too close to it. Instead, he stopped by a fallen tree that was well blanketed in moss before he called for the fae.
“Faunus?”