The Silver Stag

  The bakery was fair size, with four tables, each seating three people. The counter display case was filled with cookies and breads, and I suddenly felt weak-kneed. I needed food and I needed it now. As if he had read my mind, Ray returned with a tray filled with warm croissants and a small wheel of cheese. The flesh was a creamy yellow, and my guess was that he had bought it off one of the local farmers who sold homemade cheese at the farmers market.

  I glanced around. The bakery seemed unusually empty.

  “I don’t see any of your regulars in here,” I said, slicing a thick wedge of cheese off the wheel. I placed it on the plate, and then broke open one of the croissants, inhaling deeply as the warm rush of yeast filled my lungs.

  “The regular city crew that normally comes in every morning is apparently filling potholes on the other side of town. I don’t see them until afternoon now. Otherwise, yeah, it’s been a quiet morning. Then again, the rush usually doesn’t start until around seven-thirty or eight.”

  Sure enough, even as he spoke, the bells jingled as the door opened and two women entered the shop. I gauged them as both human. Ray excused himself to wait on them, and I busied myself with my croissants and cheese.

  I mulled over my schedule, pulling out my day planner to check what was on the agenda for the day. I was scheduled to make a run over to Wesley’s Blades to have him sharpen my dagger. I needed to go grocery shopping unless I wanted to eat cardboard for dinner.

  Ray returned to the table, pulling out the chair next to me. Flipping it around, he straddled it and leaned his elbows on the back. He was a tall man, with soft black hair that waved down to his neck. He was also as human as they came. He handed me a hundred and fifty dollars.

  “Will this cover the bill for looking over my storeroom?”

  I pocketed fifty and handed him back the rest. “You get the friends and family discount.” I suddenly felt awkward. Ray and I hadn’t talked much since we broke up, at least no more than polite formalities. I shifted in my seat.

  He seemed to feel it too. “So, are you seeing anybody?”

  At least that was an easy answer. I shook my head.

  “No. I think I’m better off on my own.” I met his gaze, searching for any signs that he was still angry. “I wish I could tell you why I broke up with you, but Ray, it wasn’t you. At least, not in the way you think.”

  He gave me a rueful smile. “After you dumped me, I was really angry. I never wanted to see you again. Then Angel told me about Robert, and about Leland. Anyway, I understand. Thank you, for looking after me.” He lingered over the words, then shrugged. “I’m still game, if you are. I’ll take my chances.”

  I gave him a long look. “Ray, don’t do this.”

  “But we were—”

  “Look, it’s done. Over. Angel told you about Robert and Leland because she’s my best friend and she knew it hurt me to push you away. Please, don’t make it harder than it already has been.”

  He let out what sounded like a cross between a sigh and a huff. “Okay. But don’t be mad at Angel for telling me.”

  “I’m not. I’m glad she told you about them. I don’t want you to hate me.” With a sigh, I pushed back my chair. The last thing I wanted to do was get into a discussion of my tangled mess of a love life and I wasn’t about to open the door to Ray again. “Okay, let me look at your storeroom.”

  Ray frowned, looking like he was going to argue, but then he shrugged and led me into the back. After he unlocked the door, I saw that the entire room had been trashed. Flour bags were ripped to pieces, honey jars had been tipped over and smashed and two of the bigger buckets of honey had been slashed. Nothing had been spared.

  “Holy crap. Who did you piss off?”

  “I have no idea. All I know is that no animal did this. The cops told me it was probably a raccoon. But what raccoon can do this much damage in a short amount of time? And the windows weren’t open. How did it get in?” He scuffed his shoe on the floor. “I thought maybe you could pick up on whatever came through here.”

  I nodded, taking care not to enter the room, at least not yet. The cops were wrong. This hadn’t been the work of an animal. Nor did the damage feel human in origin. For one thing, Ray was right. The window was intact, so either the vandal had a key or could spell the door open.

  I knelt, touching my hands to the floor just inside the door. Sometimes I could feel when strong emotions had passed through an area. They imprinted in space, or in the walls of buildings, or rooted into the very ground itself. Here, the residual feeling of anger hung heavy in the air, anger and…revenge.

  “Whatever or whoever did this, I think they have a grudge against you. I can’t pick up more than that, but yeah, it wasn’t human or animal. I suggest you hire someone to ward your place. There’s a very talented witch who has a shop called Magical Endeavors. Her name is Lena. I suggest you talk to her, and while you’re at it, figure out who you’ve pissed off lately. My guess—somebody hired one of the sub-Fae to come in and tear up the joint.”

  The sub-Fae were the dregs of Fae society, usually nasty tempered and often hiring themselves out as mercenaries to anybody at the right price. Like goblins, they weren’t welcome in the city, but all you had to do was hang out at one of the SubCult dives around town and you would run into at least one of them.

  “Thanks, Ember. I appreciate it. You wouldn’t be interested in taking on the case and helping me out by hiring Lena…and so on?” He was standing too close for comfort.

  I backed away a step. “Sorry,” I lied. “My schedule is booked up.” I yawned, pushing past him to return to the front of the shop. “I’d better get going. I have errands to run before I go home and crash.” I glanced over at the counter. “Wrap me up a loaf of French bread and a dozen white chocolate raspberry cookies, if you would.”

  Ray crossed to behind the counter and fixed my order. As he handed it to me, our fingers touched. A familiar spark raced through me, but I ignored it. I didn’t dare go down that road again, not if I wanted him to be safe. Besides, I didn’t do clingy well, and Ray had shown definite signs of wanting more from me than I could give.

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “On the house. And it always will be.”

  And with that, I headed back to my car as the morning rush began to trickle in. Overall, Ray was a good guy, and he was alive. I wanted him to stay alive.

  MY CONDO WAS over in Seattle, in Spring Beach. At one time, the neighborhood had been suburban—the home of the rich. But now, it was row upon row of high rises and commercial buildings. Shiny chrome-and-glass blended in with older brick, making a hodgepodge of urban dwellings. Parks dotted the neighborhood, replacing the vast swaths of foliage that had surrounded once-massive estates. My building—the Miriam G Building—overlooked Puget Sound, and the rich colors of cloud and sky and ocean greeted me every morning when I got up.

  I lived on the fifteenth floor, in unit 1515. Every now and then I worried about what might happen should we see another large earthquake like we had some years back, but the buildings in the area had been retrofitted—the ones that hadn’t crashed to the ground—and the newer ones were built to a strict code.

  As I parked in the parking garage, it occurred to me that I might want to think about selling the place and buying a house on the outskirts of the city at some point. The condo was small, around eight hundred square feet, and while I had two bedrooms, my guest room also housed my arsenal of weapons.

  I glanced around the dark garage. Even during the day it was spooky. The building had been built about thirty years ago, and the developer had gone bankrupt. The bank had repossessed the apartments and sold the Miriam G to another buyer, who had decided to sell them as condos. Eventually, when I was looking for a place, a unit came up for sale and I bought it. I’d been living here since I was twenty-five. It wasn’t fancy, but the view was worth the money, although the area I lived in wasn’t exactly a safe haven.

  I slipped ou
t of the car and quickly made my way to the elevator. Luckily, there was nobody else waiting—I didn’t trust all of my neighbors—and within a few moments I was at my apartment door.

  MR. RUMBLEBUTT WAS waiting for me. He was a Norwegian forest cat, sixteen pounds with fur that made him look like a giant tribble on legs. He was sitting on the back of the sofa, staring at the front door. When I entered, he let out a disgruntled purp, jumped down, and headed toward the kitchen.

  “All right, I know breakfast is overdue.” As I opened the can and put his chunky chicken on the floor, I started to yawn, so tired I could barely think. I crossed over to the floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the Puget Sound and pulled open the curtains. A wash of daylight broke through the gloom and I leaned against the armchair that looked directly out onto the balcony. The thought of falling asleep staring at the water sounded good to me, but I knew my back wouldn’t thank me when I woke up. So I trudged into the bathroom, stripped and, leaving my clothes on the floor, stepped into a hot shower.

  I was too tired to wash my hair, so after I finished up, I dragged a brush through it and padded to my bed. I debated on opening the curtain so I could look out on the water as I slept but decided the light would probably keep me awake. So I slid under the covers, closed my eyes, and within minutes was dead to the world.

  MY PHONE WOKE me up. I cracked one eye, rolling over to stare at the clock. It was 2:30 p.m. and I had managed about six hours of sleep. Yawning, I scooted back against the headboard as I grabbed my phone off the nightstand. The Caller ID read Angel, and I quickly punched the talk button.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I yawned again.

  Angel was my best friend, and I was surprised to see the call was from her. She seldom called during the day. Texted? Definitely. But phone calls from her job? So not approved by her boss. After work, she would go home to take care of her little half-brother. She had taken in DJ when their mother died, and she was doing her best to make sure he didn’t end up on the streets.

  “I’m worried about DJ. I’m afraid something’s happened to him.” She sounded frantic. Angel hardly ever let her nerves get the better of her. If she was worried, something was wrong.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, pushing back the covers. Angel and I had each other’s backs, we’d been best friends for years, and if one of us was in trouble, the other one was always willing to come to the rescue.

  “Last night he stayed over with a friend. He was supposed to come home this morning, but when I called home from work half an hour ago, he didn’t answer. I called Sarah—the mother of the boy he was staying with. She said he left at seven-thirty this morning. He should have been home by nine, shortly after I left for work. So I came home and I don’t see any sign that he’s been here. This isn’t like DJ. You know him. He’s a good kid, and he always lets me know where he is. I checked my texts, I checked voice messages. Not a word from him.”

  “He didn’t have school today?”

  “No, today’s a teacher’s day. That’s why I let him stay over last night with Jason.”

  I could hear the tears in her throat. DJ was ten years old, and as she said, he was a good kid. He had been a change-of-life child, and Mama Jackson had conceived him when she was forty-eight. Mama J. had died a year ago, the victim of a car crash. Her death had left a hole not only in Angel and DJ’s life, but in mine. Mama J. had filled the void when my parents were killed.

  When Mama J. died, Angel took DJ in and the arrangement had worked out fairly well, although it hadn’t been easy for her. For one thing, DJ was Wulfine—a wolf shifter. Angel was human, and she had no clue how to help him transition through the changes as he grew up.

  “I’m on my way over. Meanwhile, call all his friends if you haven’t done so already. Maybe he stopped off somewhere and got busy playing and just forgot.”

  Even as I suggested it, I knew it wasn’t true. DJ wasn’t the type to space out on his responsibilities. Even when Mama J. was alive, DJ had been a somber child, focused on helping his family. Angel often told me that he seemed to feel old before his time, although neither of us could figure out what had brought that on. It just seemed to be his nature.

  “Thank you.” Angel paused, her voice hushed. “Ember, I have a horrible feeling that he’s in real trouble. You know that most of my premonitions are spot-on. I’m afraid.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” There was nothing else I could say. As she hung up, I was already sliding into a pair of leather pants. I fastened my bra and then pulled on a black ribbed tank top. I jammed my arms in the sleeves of my leather jacket, and then slipped on my ankle boots, zipping them up the side. I dragged a brush through my hair and then pulled it back into a ponytail. After kissing Mr. Rumblebutt on the head and filling his dry food dish, I grabbed a chocolate chip breakfast bar and headed back to my car.

  Chapter 2

  ANGEL LIVED ON the Eastside, in the UnderLake District. Once a thriving suburb, it had fallen into decay, with weathered houses lining roads riddled with potholes. It wasn’t Angel’s first choice, but when she took over DJ’s care, her limited salary had to stretch and so she had moved to an inexpensive area that still had decent schools. Mama J. had left a lot of debts and the sale of her restaurant barely covered them. Angel had traded apartment living for renting a small house, with room for DJ to play out back.

  Both bridges spanning Lake Washington were toll bridges, so I opted to drive around the north side of the lake. It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford the tolls, but at this time of day they were slammed. Actually, gridlock was a common problem here except during the dark of the night. I’d actually get to Angel’s house quicker by taking a roundabout way.

  Heading east on 145th Street, I then swung a left on Highway 522 and followed it around the northern tip of Lake Washington. When I reached Kenmore, another small suburb, I turned right on 68th Avenue, which took me directly into the UnderLake District.

  UnderLake had once been a thriving suburban area, but now there was an abandoned feeling permeating the air, like a party at three a.m., when most of the guests had packed up and gone home, with only a scattered few remaining, trying to finish the scattered remains of a buffet. The houses were weathered here, with paint peeling off their sides, and the roads were riddled with potholes and cracks. The entire neighborhood felt ignored. The schools were decent, if underfunded, but there was a growing darkness to the UnderLake District and it cast a pall over the entire suburb.

  Up north, near Bothell, the Shifter Alliance had taken over, as they had down south in the Renton, Kent, and Federal Way areas. When you went further east to Woodinville, Snohomish, and Monroe, the Fae had moved in, creating two large districts, Navane and TirNaNog.

  Navane was run by Névé, the local Queen of the Light Fae, and TirNaNog was run by Saílle, Queen of the Dark. I avoided both like the plague, considering my background. My heritage guaranteed me a swift kick to the ass when I tried to interact with the Fae. I was a half-breed, unwelcome at either court. Half Dark Fae, half Light Fae, my blood ensured that neither side wanted to claim me.

  As I eased my car through the streets, it struck me that the only humans still living in this area were either poor, or they had been here a long time and didn’t want to move. The fact that spring was a little late this year and the trees were still bare of leaves—although the buds had started blossoming—made the area seem even more desolate. The sidewalks were uneven, and grass grew through the cracks along the way. A number of the houses looked abandoned. For-sale signs were plastered on a number of the sagging fences.

  I eased into the driveway of one of the few houses that looked neat and tidy. While the rental would require a lot of work to bring it back to its former glory, Angel had done a remarkable job on tidying up both the cottage and the yard. She given it a new coat of paint, and the crisp white walls stood out in a sea of weathered gray. The yard was neatly trimmed, and daffodils and crocus flourished at the base of the tree
trunks that surrounded the cottage. Her landlord hadn’t objected to her working on the place, and even gone so far as to supply the paint.

  I hurried up to the porch, hoping that in the time it’d taken me to get there, DJ had come home. But when Angel answered the doorbell, my hopes were dashed. Her expression said it all.

  “He’s not home yet?” I didn’t bother with small talk. She wouldn’t be up for it, and I wasn’t much good at it.

  She shook her head. “I’ve called every place where he could possibly be, and nobody has seen him today. Sarah and her son Jason walked the route from their house to here, but there was no sign of him. I’m really worried.”

  She was trembling. Angel could have been a model, she was so tall and lithe, with rich black skin and a halo of black hair that curled down her back. She was human, although her half-brother was a wolf shifter. His father had vanished before he was even out of the womb. Angel was psychic, and her precognitive flashes were usually right on the money. And that had me worried for DJ.

  “How far is it from here to their house? What’s the route?” Given that DJ was almost always good to his word, I doubted that he had stopped off anywhere along the way home.

  “Sarah lives over on 151st Street. Sometimes DJ takes a shortcut to get home through UnderLake Park, but he knows I don’t like it when he does. He usually avoids it, but now and then when he’s in a hurry, he’ll cut through there. Sarah doesn’t know which way he decided to go. She was busy in the kitchen when he left.”

  I could hear the fear in her voice. The UnderLake District was bad. But UnderLake Park? It was a whole different level of dangerous. Heavily wooded, it had once been the home of an order of monks that had long since left, leaving the monastery still there, crumbling and haunted. Over the years the park had been renamed, but no amount of changing the name could alter the fact that there had been a lot of violence and disappearances there. Anybody who lived in the Seattle area had heard of it.