Panther Prowling

  Her mother-in-law, who was of leprechaun nobility, had taken on the job of nosy MIL, but she had also been a huge help after the babies were born. She had left for home a couple weeks ago, back to Ireland, and Iris was finding out just how tiring life was taking care of three babies—her own twins, and Chase’s daughter. Bruce pitched in willingly, but it didn’t take a lot of stress away.

  “So he’ll be gone for two entire months?” Camille frowned. “That’s a long time.”

  “I know, but the university wants him to lead this program and he really has no choice. I told him it was okay, even though—to be honest—I’m not very happy about it.” Iris’s expression shifted and she cast her gaze on the floor.

  Two months without Bruce meant all the weight would shift to Iris’s shoulders. She didn’t have to worry about money, but all the decisions would be hers. It was a good thing Chase was living there now, I thought. He was more than willing to dive in and help whenever he could.

  As if reading my mind, Iris said, “Thank heavens for our detective. He’s been a goddess-send, and I think it’s mutual. Anyway, Bruce’s tour starts in late June and runs through late August. He’ll be back before September eighth, in time to get ready for the new semester.”

  There didn’t seem much to say, other than to comfort her and promise to help her out, so I pointed to the chair next to me. “Sit down. We’ll tell you about our day.”

  As we finished catching everybody up, we ate, while Menolly sipped a goblet of blood.

  I buttered another roll. “So what do we do to find Aslo?”

  “Hell if I know.” Camille gave me a grumpy look. “I’m so tired of having to deal with every penny-ante psycho in the area.” At that moment, the doorbell rang. Iris told us to stay seated and answered it. A moment later, she was back, with Aeval behind her. Camille immediately stood, curtseying.

  “I bring you news about your cousin. Her son Mordred? His body has been found in the realm of Elder Fae. He and his father will rest there together, in the crypt the Merlin was imprisoned in.” The Queen of Shadow and Night was a pale beauty, tall and thin, with dark hair and piercing eyes.

  Aeval had been old when our father was born, and originally had ruled over the winter months when Titania ruled over summer. With the advent of the new sovereign nation for the Earthside Fae, and the reemergence of Aeval and Titania to their former glory, Morgaine had been brought in as a third Fae Queen, and the winter and summer courts had shifted over to the courts of the hours.

  I closed my eyes. The death of Arthur—Arturo as we had known him—had been a total FUBAR situation, and now this was the result.

  “How did he die?” Camille had detested Mordred, but near the end, she told me she’d begun to understand him a little.

  “We’re not sure what got to him. There wasn’t much left, but enough to identify.” If she felt anything, Aeval didn’t reveal it.

  “How’s Morgaine?” As much as I hadn’t liked Morgaine, I still felt sorry for our distant cousin. Morgaine had witnessed Mordred—her own son—killing the man she’d loved for centuries. She’d slipped into a fugue. It had been over three weeks since we had returned from our trip with the Merlin. In all that time, Morgaine had remained in her solitude.

  “Lost somewhere in her mind.” Aeval’s voice was soft, but I had the feeling she was as pragmatic about Morgaine as she was about most everything else. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a look at the portal on your land?”

  “I’ll escort you.” Vanzir pushed himself away from the table. “The rest of you keep working on our current problem.”

  Before we could say a word, Aeval had accepted his offer and was following him out the back door.

  “I wonder if Morgaine will ever snap out of it.” Camille looked like she wanted to cry. “Everything went so wrong.”

  “Not everything.” Smoky reached out to stroke her shoulder. “The Merlin returned. We defeated Yvarr. And perhaps your cousin will return to her conscious mind at some point. It’s hard to say, but don’t give up hope.”

  “All right . . . what do we do about Aslo?” With a sigh, Camille carried her dish to the counter and handed it to Hanna. Trillian and Roz began to help clear the table.

  “Well, would he have any reason to return to ANT now that his brother is dead?” I pushed away my dish and opened my laptop, booting up the computer. “Do we have any clue as to why he and his brother would be involved in the theft of the sword?”

  “I’d say no to the former.” Morio leaned over my shoulder. He had a musky smell but it was lighter than Shade, almost tinged with sunlight and fresh grass. “If he got kicked out, given their history, I doubt they’re feeling too friendly with him.”

  “I wonder why . . . Hold on . . .” I opened six different tabs on a browser and went to the newest search engine that had just come out—Werewyx. It had become popular among Supes because it was the first search engine created and owned by an IT mogul who was, himself, a Supe. It was also extremely accurate and it didn’t violate the hell out of our privacy. At least not so far. Who knew what would happen in the future?

  I began typing in different search terms in every tab, casting nets out, so to speak, to see if I could reel in any fish.

  Camille headed toward the kitchen door. “I need to ask Aeval something—”

  “Camille, can you come here?” Iris peeked her head out from the hallway leading to Hanna’s room. “I’d like your help with Maggie. She’s calling for you.”

  With a sigh, my sister turned to me. “Would you run out to the portal for me and ask Aeval to come back here before she returns to Talamh Lonrach Oll? I need to talk to her about something.”

  I stood, stretching and yawning. “Sure. The walk outside will do me good. I was already tired and the meal is starting to take its toll on me.”

  “Thanks!” As she disappeared down the hall, I slid my jacket on and crossed to the kitchen door. “I’ll be right back. Nobody turn off my computer.”

  It was a quick jaunt through the porch and into the backyard. I was quiet—Weres tended to make less noise than a lot of other Supes, with the exception of vampires. The rain was still beating down and I realized that, even though I’d dried off, I had never fully warmed up. Once I got back inside, I was ready to crawl in a pair of warm sweats and snuggle up with a blanket.

  The rogue portal that had appeared on our land sometime back was hidden behind a bunch of out-of-control Scotch broom. We’d cleared a lot of the foliage away from around it, but the damned gorse grew like it owned the place, and no matter how much we cut it back, it returned with a vengeance.

  But as I rounded a particularly thick patch, I stopped short. There was the portal. And there was Aeval. And there was Vanzir. And the two of them were in a liplock that would have burned up the screen. Vanzir’s hands were on the Fae Queen’s ass. One of her arms was around his waist, the other was cupping his junk . . . well, the fly of his jeans behind which his junk resided. The pair looked so hot and bothered, they hadn’t noticed me. Yet.

  Which begged the question: What was the proper decorum when you unexpectedly interrupt the lusty tryst of a Fae Queen? It wasn’t like I could tease her like I did Camille. This woman had power and she wasn’t afraid to use it. And she didn’t have the best sense of humor.

  Taking the coward’s way out—or as I liked to think of it, the survivor’s way out—I beat a hasty retreat. But as I neared the porch again, I remembered that Camille really wanted to talk to Aeval. I couldn’t just go back to the house without saying a word. Neither did it seem wise to interrupt the darkest of the Triple Threat when she was sucking face with our dream-chaser demon.

  After a moment, I decided that my best bet was to make enough noise so they’d hear me and give them time to break up the make-out session. I turned around and, singing off-key at the top of my lungs, headed back toward the portal, making as mu
ch noise as I could.

  Before I rounded the patch of broom again, I called out, “Aeval? Aeval? Are you still here?” A few seconds later, when they came into my sight again, they were standing at a decorous distance, both looking cool as cucumbers. I wanted to snicker and tell them the jig was up, but I settled for waving.

  “Hey, Camille asked me to come let you know that she needs to talk to you before you return to Talamh Lonrach Oll.” The Fae sovereign nation roughly translated to the Land of Shining Apples, or some such name.

  Aeval searched my face, and I knew she was trying to figure out if I’d seen her and Vanzir. I kept my cat-stoic expression in place.

  “I’ll be in soon. Vanzir, you will stay here to walk me back to the house?”

  He nodded, and he, too, flickered a glance at me, but I pretended not to notice it.

  Instead, I gave them a wave.

  “Thanks, I’m getting out of this rain.” And with that, I hustled my ass back up to the house. As soon as I came through the door, I looked around for Camille. “Where is she?”

  Morio glanced up at me, and he cocked his head. “You look kind of funny. Everything all right?”

  “Yeah, but I need to talk to Camille. Now.” I was working on getting subtle down, but still didn’t manage it very well, and I knew I had to tell her what I’d seen or I might just bust out with it when Aeval returned to the house.

  “She’s still in Hanna’s room.” Smoky jabbed his thumb toward the hall.

  I hurried down the hallway into Hanna’s room. It was small, but cozy. A double bed stood to one side, with a hand-stitched quilt on it, and Maggie’s playpen was beneath the window, near the chest of drawers. The walls were a deep blue, and the trim, white. Everything in the room looked crisp and clean.

  Camille stood up from where she’d been playing with Maggie. “Were you able to catch her before she left?”

  “Catch is the word for it, all right. As in catch in the act.” I closed the door behind me. “Listen, I have to tell you something but you have to promise me you won’t say a word. Or if you do, you can’t say that I’m the one who told you.”

  She pursed her lips in the Kermit grin—the one Kermit always made when he was trying to figure out what the hell was going on—as she lifted Maggie back into the playpen.

  “Okay, but what could be so important?”

  I motioned her closer and lowered my voice to a whisper. “I know why Vanzir has been going out to Talamh Lonrach Oll so much.”

  With a frown, she tilted her head. “I don’t think it’s our business—if Aeval is training him in some form of magic, then—”

  “Oh, she’s training him, all right, but I think the only magic they’re making is between the sheets.”

  Camille stared at me like I’d lost my mind. Then, she sat down in the rocking chair. “Say what?”

  I knelt beside her. “When I went out to talk to her? I caught her and Vanzir in a liplock so tight you couldn’t have gotten a paper between them. He was grabbing her ass and she was cupping his crotch.” I had the sudden realization that gossip could actually be fun. Maybe that’s why I liked Jerry and his show so much? But no . . . I thought. Jerry Springer was just hot to me, very hot. Young or old, didn’t matter, something about the man tripped me off.

  Camille rubbed her forehead. “Okay then, that just triggered off a major headache. What the hell? Are you sure—never mind. Of course you’re sure. You can’t exactly mistake something like that.”

  “Does it bother you?” I suddenly realized that the news might not sit so well with her. After all, she and Vanzir had gotten it on once, and I had the feeling that if Camille wasn’t already married to three men, she might have happily added Vanzir to her entourage. With Aeval basically being her mentor and pledged teacher, this could make for a sticky wicket.

  She frowned. “I don’t know. It’s just . . . weird. I thought she was helping him with his reemerging powers but now . . . is she just fucking him? Using him? Are they in love? How could they even be in love, considering their natures?”

  “I thought you should know.” Now wondering if I’d done the right thing, there was no way I could really backtrack.

  “No, I needed to know. But damn, this is odd. Okay, I’m not saying a word, not till I’ve thought this thing through. Meanwhile, you don’t tell anybody else. Nobody. I mean it, Kitten.” The stern older sister look came out and I knew that I’d better be good and obey. When Camille pulled out that paddle, it was enough to make everybody sit up straight and behave.

  “Okay. I promise. You’d better get out there. They’re probably back in the kitchen now.” I leaned over and tickled Maggie under the chin.

  She stopped at the door and glanced back at me. “Great gods, how the fuck am I going to pretend like everything’s normal?”

  “I say, don’t even bother. We don’t live normal and you know it. Life’s never normal for us. Meanwhile, I’m going to plug away on those searches and then take a nap. There’s not much else we can do.”

  “Wrong on that one. I made a decision. After I ask Aeval the question I have for her, I’m going to call Leif and make an appointment for us to go talk to him. We’re going to confront him, ask him if he knows who might have hired Aslo, and find out what he knows about the sword and Daniel.” She opened the door and, giving Maggie one last kiss, headed back to the kitchen.

  All thoughts of Aeval and Vanzir sailed out the window. “What? You mean we’re actually going to tell him Daniel stole the sword?”

  She glanced over her shoulder with a smirk. “No, we are not going to rat out our cousin. I’ll think of something. But we have to find out what he knows and that means actually talking to the man. While I’m talking to Aeval, you search for Leif’s phone number. I’ll call him when I’m done and try to make the appointment for tomorrow, unless he’s willing to see us this evening.”

  “Tomorrow, please.” Fatigue was catching up with me. “I’m tired and I plan on going to bed early.” Suddenly too tired to think about Aeval or Leif or anything, I returned to my laptop as Aeval and Vanzir burst into the kitchen. They were both soaked, but neither looked like they cared.

  Camille managed to keep her cool, asking Aeval if she could talk to her privately. As they left the room, Vanzir swung a chair around and straddled it. He was eyeing me closely and I glanced up to see the edge of his lip curling into a smirk. He waited but I knew better. I knew that it was too easy to go into a tailspin when you were trying to avoid a subject.

  Instead I returned my focus to the laptop, but too tired to think, I limited myself to finding Leif’s phone number. Camille returned at that moment.

  “That was short.” I glanced up at her. “Here, Leif’s number.” I wrote it down on a Post-it and handed it to her.

  “Thanks. I guess I’d better give him a call now.” She settled in the chair next to me as I shut the lid of my laptop. It might only be 8:00 P.M., but I was ready for bed.

  By the time I headed upstairs, Camille had made an appointment with Leif for 11:00 A.M. the next day. She and her men followed close behind us. We were all beat.

  As Shade and I wearily crept under the covers, my mind flickered back to the scene I’d witnessed between Vanzir and Aeval and I shuddered. I wanted to tell Shade, but I figured it was best to leave it for now, if only for Camille’s sake. I just wanted to sleep.

  Chapter 10

  My head hit the pillow and I was out like a light. That is, I was out like a light until 3:00 A.M., when a shriek echoed up the stairs all the way into our room. I shot up in bed, confused, turning on the light.

  Next to me, Shade jerked awake, then hit the floor, already sliding into his jeans. I was in my Hello Kitty PJs and I didn’t bother changing. I threw back the covers as a black, viscous smoke began to seep through the ceiling, forming a cloud over the corner of the room.

  Shade pointed t
o it. “Fucking hell. Get out of here, Delilah. Whatever that is, it’s not friendly.”

  I had thought at first a fire had broken out, but at Shade’s command, I realized that whatever the smoke was, it wasn’t some ordinary chimney fire. I hit the deck and raced to the door as laughter ricocheted through the room. The voice was deep and resonate, and the hair on my arms stood up on end.

  As I yanked open the door, something stronger than me slammed it shut again, almost breaking my fingers as the knob slipped from my grip. Startled, I let out a scream and turned to see Shade focusing on the cloud. He was changing. Not into his dragon form—he’d wreck the house if he did that—but instead, he was taking on a shadowy nature himself, stretching out, both insubstantial and yet thick, like fog soup. As he rose up, the black cloud rolled back in a wave, then slammed forward, rushing over Shade like waves over the shore.

  I half expected to see the cloud and Shade’s smoky form blend—but instead, the intruder knocked him back, and Shade very quickly transitioned back to his regular form, landing hard on the ground.

  “What the hell—” He looked dazed, shaking his head. Above us, the cloud intensified, and now it sounded like the swarming of a thousand insects. The energy roiling off it was enough to scare the crap out of me—it was bad, big bad, nasty bad. I tried to focus, hurrying over to Shade. Kneeling, I tried to help him sit up.

  “Shade! Can you get up?” I realized I was shouting—the sound of the cloud was intensifying and I could barely hear myself think.

  “I don’t know . . . Where . . . What happened?”

  One look at Shade’s face and I knew we needed help. He wasn’t standing up. He was just lying there, shaking his head like he was trying to clear his thoughts. I scrambled up again, running back to the door, where I tried to yank it open. I managed to get a grip on the knob and, once more, pulled—this time, putting all my strength into it. One inch . . . two inches . . . three . . . I was going to make it this time!

  Then, with a giant clap like thunder, the door once again shot out of my hands and slammed shut. I leaned against it, beating on it as I screamed for help. Somebody had to hear me. We might be on the third floor but I had lungs like a banshee when necessary.