“He’s one of them damned wolf shifters.” Barnaby spat out the words shifters like he might have spat out the word shit. I had the feeling that the clurichaun didn’t care very much for the shifter community.
“Ah. And what is your neighbor’s name?”
“Trent. Elson Trent. He’s got a little farm next to my vineyard. I wouldn’t complain if he would come over and ask for a bottle now and then, but I’m running a business and I don’t cotton to thieves much.” Barnaby seemed to be spare on his words, but the emotion behind them was very real. He was a growly, gruff curmudgeon and I expected that he wasn’t an easy neighbor to have. But he was right, stealing was not exactly the most neighborly thing to do.
“All right. What do you want me to do? What do you expect to gain from hiring me? I need to ask that, so that there aren’t any feelings that I haven’t done my job if you decide to engage my services.”
I had to hand it to Herne. He was covering all bases.
Barnaby squinted, thinking. A moment later he said, “I’d like you to prove whether Elson is actually pilfering my vino. If he is, then I need proof to take him to court.” He frowned. “You realize, I don’t actually like taking people to court. I just want him to stop stealing from me.”
Herne nodded, glancing over at the form Barnaby had filled out. “Well, I can look into this next week. I’m on a case right now that has priority, but next week, I can do some snooping around. See what I can find out on Elson. Will that work for you?”
The clurichaun thought it over, then nodded. “That’s fine. I changed the lock three times on my storeroom. Somehow he keeps getting in. How much of a retainer do you want?”
“Why don’t we start off with two hundred? I’ll write out a slip and you can pay Angel at the front desk. It will be applied to the work I do as soon as I start. It’s a nonrefundable deposit, providing I’m able to take on the job once I look into it. If I find that I can’t take on the job, the fee will be returned to you.”
“All right. Why don’t you write me out what I’ll need.” Barnaby slid off of his chair, and waited by the desk as Herne wrote out a retainer invoice. He handed the paper to the clurichaun and walked him out to the front desk. When he returned, shutting the door behind him, I burst out into a soft laughter.
“Of all the cases that I would expect to come through your door, that wasn’t one,” I said, keeping my voice low. “You’re seriously going to snoop around to see if Barnaby’s neighbor is swiping his booze?”
Herne snorted. “You have no idea how seriously clurichauns take their alcohol, do you? If he’s like the rest of his kind, he’d have an easier time if his wife were cheating on him than with somebody stealing his wine.”
I wiped my eyes, shaking my head. “You know, I realize how little I know about my own people. I’ve had little to do with them, and my parents didn’t talk much about them. They chose to live like humans because of the way they were treated. I was brought up that way. My mother taught me to respect and honor Morgana, and she taught me magic of a sort, but whenever I’d ask about my parentage—you know, grandparents, the like—I ran up against a stone wall.
“It’s almost as though I have no family at all, other than Angel. Sometimes, I actually feel quite alone in the universe.” I may have started laughing, but I ended on a serious note, realizing that what I had just said resonated true to the bone. I truly did feel alone in the world, belonging to no one, with no culture, no heritage.
Herne was sitting beside me, silently listening. After a moment, he let out a soft sigh and opened the bottom drawer to his desk. He pulled out a bottle of spiced rum and two shot glasses. He filled the glasses and pushed one over to me. We slammed back the drinks, and he refilled them, then put the bottle away.
“Everybody has a right to know their background. While I understand why your parents did what they did, they left you at a distinct disadvantage. Maybe we can fill in the blanks, somehow.” He lifted his glass and I touched my own to his, not sure what we were toasting.
“I’m not sure if I want to. Part of me does, but I think I’m afraid of what I might find. It’s hard when you know the people you come from don’t want anything to do with you. Even harder to know that they killed your parents. My parents really did love each other. I could see it on their faces every day. I could hear it in their voices with every word they said. If I could ever find a love even half that strong, I think I’d be blessed. I don’t know if I would have had the courage to do what they did—to defy tradition to the point of putting my life on the line for it.”
Herne said nothing, just let me ramble on. When I finished, I looked over at him, suddenly realizing just how much I was revealing. I blushed, feeling like I had said too much.
“I do understand, even though I’m not in the same position. We’ll pick up this conversation later, but right now we need to touch base with Yutani and Talia.” He stood up, escorting me to the door.
As we headed for the break room, I felt slightly giddy from the booze, but also from the sudden realization that I felt better after talking to Herne. He had a way of making me feel comfortable in my own skin. Until now, Angel was the only one in the world who had ever given me the space to be truly who I was.
Chapter 12
YUTANI AND TALIA were waiting for us in the break room. Viktor and Angel came right in after us as we took our places at the table. I glanced up at the clock, startled to realize it was almost seven. The day had passed so fast that I hadn’t realized it.
Talia went first. “While Yutani analyzed the video, I did some digging. I have some information on this Kuveo creature. He’s not actually a demon, but he is a monster of sorts. And he can be summoned with the promise of blood and life force.”
“Okay,” Herne said. “What is he and why would someone summon him?”
“He’s a fox shifter. Kuveo is a carnivorous creature who feeds off of life energy and fear and pain. He’s also known as an interdimensional assassin and he delights in torture. Which means our victims were probably alive when he ripped them to shreds. He may eat chunks of his victims, a bite here and there, but mostly he’s looking for their fear and pain while he’s attacking them.”
Angel grimaced. “Does he normally belong in our world?”
“Good question,” Talia said. “No, but he’s not from the physical realm. At least not our physical realm. He lives out in the Dreamtime, but he can be summoned here to perform an assassination of some great magnitude. He won’t go after just anybody, though. And he requires a total of thirteen sacrifices before he will turn on the target. So, if you want to summon him to destroy somebody, you must provide him with thirteen victims first.”
“And Kevin was our thirteenth. Crap, that means that Kuveo is ready to go after the actual target.” Herne stiffened in his chair. “Is there anything that you came across that says how long it takes after the sacrifices before he’ll attack the actual target?”
Talia shook her head. “I looked, sugar. But I didn’t find anything. However, when Kuveo goes after the actual victim, he’ll track them until they are dead. You get your money’s worth with him.”
“So the Dark Fae summoned him to perform an assassination. The victims were simply payment?”
“It looks that way,” Yutani said. “I did a close inspection of the video Kevin took of the summoning. And I swear that it had to be held in UnderLake. While Castle Hall is abandoned and falling apart, there’s enough of it left to house a number of ghosts. When I examined the frames one by one, it looked as though the summoning spell was done in an underground chamber. Since all of the victims were connected with UnderLake in one way or another, my guess is that they were killed there, and then dumped in other places.”
“What about Kuveo? Once he performs his task, i.e., the assassination, what happens to him?” Herne leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands.
Talia shook her head. “Then he’s free to go do what he wants. And he
’s in this realm. That’s another thing I found out. Kuveo can’t enter this realm without being summoned. Once he’s here, he’s free to wreak havoc after he’s fulfilled his part of the deal.”
“That means more victims after he’s assassinated his target. Which means we have to take him out as soon as possible,” Viktor said. “Did you find anything about his weaknesses? Does he have any vulnerabilities that you could discover?”
Talia consulted her notes. “Yes, I did. He’s hard to kill. However, if someone can manage to cut off four of his nine tails, he’ll be sent back to his own realm. He’ll regrow them, but he won’t be over here. And he doesn’t have a heart like we do—literally speaking. He lives on energy. He only takes bites out of each of his victims as a ceremonial rite.” She rolled her eyes, looking disgusted.
“Is there a way to kill him?” Somehow, the idea of fighting a creature that couldn’t be killed didn’t appeal to me.
The harpy nodded, her eyes beady. Talia had a harshness about her that both scared me and yet made me appreciate her. “Cut off all of his tails while he’s in this realm. That will do it. Nobody has ever managed to do so, though.”
Herne was playing with a paper clip. He tossed it on the table. “Wonderful. So have we figured out who his main target is? Was that in Kevin’s files?”
“Yes,” Yutani said, “The answer isn’t good.”
“Lay it on us,” Herne said.
“The Dark Fae conjured him up to assassinate Névé. Apparently, Light took a potshot at Saílle recently, and this is retaliation. Kevin had his nose in everything and he made copious notes just in case something happened. Which, unfortunately, it did.”
Herne groaned and rubbed his head. “We missed a previous assassination plot? Thank heavens that wasn’t realized, but that means that we have to take care of this and pronto.”
“So the Dark Fae are striking back.” I sat back, thinking for a moment. “Is there a way we can just tell the Dark Fae to back off? I mean, if Cernunnos and Morgana have set us on this case, can we just tell them to knock it off?”
“No. We can only intercede and stop things. They can’t argue our actions, but we can’t stop them from trying. It’s a complicated matter and this has been going on for thousands of years. But things weren’t nearly so dicey until the last couple hundred years, when the cities grew and technology became so rampant. Now there’s so much chance for collateral damage that we have to intervene. However, at least we know who we’re fighting and how to stop him.”
Talia cleared her throat. “You have to kill him, completely. You can’t just send him back to his realm. Once Kuveo has been set on track and the sacrifices have been made, there’s no pulling him back. Not even the Dark Fae could stop him, not even if they begged, although they were the ones who started this matter in the first place. It’s like setting off a bomb that you can’t disarm.”
“Lovely,” Herne said. “All right, the question is, how do we find him?”
“Should we warn Névé about the attack?” I still didn’t fully understand how these matters worked.
“We can’t. That would be intervening directly. We can stop the attack, but we can’t bring it to light. The Fae courts have been warring since time began. But it’s an underground war. It’s understood on both sides that attacks will be made, but if we were to overtly warn Névé that her life is in danger, then she would have no choice but to declare open war on the Dark Court. That would start a catastrophic cycle of destruction.”
“How so?”
“If the Fae were to openly declare war, they’d involve the entire world instead of just a few sacrifices. There would be no hiding from the destruction.”
I groaned. “The politics are more complicated than just about any nation on earth.”
“Actually, I’ve seen worse,” Talia said, slipping a piece of gum in her mouth.
“Then what do we do next?”
“Did you find out anything else?” Herne asked.
Yutani shook his head. “If you could give me a couple hours, I can probably pinpoint the area in which we need to look. I was getting close but not quite there yet.”
Herne slapped the table. “Then we’re all on the clock tonight. We’ll meet back here at 9 p.m. Angel, you don’t have to come in if you don’t want to. You won’t be going out in the field.”
She gave me a long look, then turned back to Herne. “No, I’ll stay here. There’s still enough here to do that I’ll just stay and organize more files.” She motioned to Viktor, Talia, and Yutani. “Anybody want pizza?”
While they decided on what toppings they wanted, Herne and I walked out to the main waiting room.
“I suggest we put off our cheeseburgers till later,” I said. “Pizza sounds fine to me.”
Herne glanced back at the break room door, which was closed. He smiled, then drew me toward him and leaned down to press his lips against mine.
It took everything I had to not pull away, even as the fear of what might happen was ricocheting through my body. But so was his kiss, and I leaned into it, the warmth of his lips warming mine, the warmth of his body flaming my own desires as he pressed himself to me. He was gentle, yet his arms held me firmly. I felt like I was swimming in a woodland pond, under a lazy, sunlit afternoon. The room was sparkling, and so were his eyes, as I gazed into his face.
“I need to tell you what you’re getting into,” I said.
He shook his head. “Shhh. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, and I won’t again if you don’t want me to. But I had to kiss you, Ember. I couldn’t not kiss you. Was it so wrong of me?”
As the break room door opened, I quickly pulled away. But I glanced at him with a shy smile.
“No. No, it wasn’t wrong at all. My heart’s racing.” I paused. “Ever since we met, there’s been something…” I paused as the others emerged from the break room. “We’ll talk later.”
As we chimed in with our suggestions for pizza, my body was still resonating from the strength of his kiss. But all I did was ask for sausage, extra cheese, and mushrooms, when what I wanted to do was to drag him into his office and rip off his clothes.
WHILE WE WERE waiting for Yutani to finish his analysis of the video, Viktor and Herne went over their weapons, making sure everything was ready. They were in the armory, polishing blades and making sure that arrow tips were sharp. Talia was helping Yutani, and I returned to the waiting room with Angel to help her sort out some of the file folders.
“I’m sorry you can’t go on your date,” she said, eyeing me closely.
The kiss had disconcerted me as much as it had aroused me, but right now I wanted to focus on the matter at hand.
“Well, I’m sorry you can’t go car shopping tonight.”
“Touché.” She handed me a stack of file folders. “Here, can you put one of these colored dots on each of these files? If you put it on the top right of the folder. There,” she said, pointing to where she wanted it. “I’m color coding things to make them easier to find. Blue for closed cases, green for open, red for problem cases, and yellow for cold cases.”
“What color are you using for cases like the one we’re on now, for the ones that Cernunnos and Morgana send us on?” I started sticking the brightly colored dots on the file folders.
“Those get orange. My least favorite color.” She grinned at me. “If someone had told me a week ago that I would end up the secretary for a divine PI, I would have laughed in their face. But you know, I may have a knack for this. I worked an office at my last job, but they really didn’t respect me at all and I felt underutilized. Here, I feel like I can actually participate in what’s happening instead of just be directed around. Although,” she looked up at me soberly, “I really wish it hadn’t come down to having DJ sent away. But Herne talked to me today, and he said he’ll set up a video conference with DJ this weekend. So I get to talk to him for an hour then.” The smile on her face told me all that I needed to know.
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“He’s a good sort, Herne is. They all are, actually.” I realize that I really did like Viktor and Yutani, and even Talia, even though she still made me uncomfortable.
“Yeah, that I can agree with.” She paused, then handed me another stack of files. “These all get blue dots. You know, I was having a talk with Talia earlier today while you were out with Viktor and Herne. She’s had a rough life. She told me that Herne took her in when nobody else would touch her. Apparently she is not popular among her own sort anymore, especially since she lost her powers. She said it was okay to tell you.”
“I guess we’re all just a bunch of misfits, aren’t we?” I snickered as I stuck more dots on more file folders. “Well, at least we get to hang out more together now. Speaking of which, this weekend let’s go house hunting.”
She nodded. “If you’re sure about it? I could find my own place, but honestly, I’d rather live with you.” She rolled her eyes. “Gas leak, my ass.”
“As you and I always suspected, the cops are on the take. I just didn’t realize it would be from the Fae. If anybody was paying them off I would have expected it to be the vampires.”
“Really? The vampires don’t have to pay off anybody, do they? They’re so damned powerful. In fact, I’m surprised they aren’t vying with the Fae for control.”
I laughed and handed her back the stack of file folders, accepting another in its place.
“Think about it. The vampires are more interested in monetary power and financial empires. I have a feeling that they are buying their way into power in a different way. The Fae are probably too disorganized to see it. I doubt anything good can come from it, either way, but I have a feeling that by the time the Fae realize just how much control the vampires have, it’s going to be too late.”
Angel frowned, thinking for a moment before she said, “Maybe, but if the Fae are as chaotic as Herne says, will they really care? Though I still see the potential for an interspecies war looming large.”