Changeling on the Job: A Changeling Wars Novella (6 page)

Chris’s brow furrowed. “I told you everything I know.”

“Did the man say anything else?” He didn’t resist at all when I took each of his hands and rubbed the water into his fingers. “Just ‘take him’ and that was all?”

His eyes grew fuzzy, distant. “Actually, I think he might have said something else, but I was passing out from that powder at the time. I think he said, ‘She will be pleased.’” Chris shook his head. “I can’t be sure, though. I mean, I
was
being knocked unconscious.”

I reached for the opening of his robe.

“Whoa, whoa,” he said, coming to life. “I’m married to a woman I love very much. I’m not interested.”

“I’m not trying to—”

He slapped my hands away. “That’s quite enough, thank you.”

A step creaked behind me. “And I thought we had something special,” Kailen said from behind me. His tone was light, but I think the words held more meaning than he’d first intended. He’d told me once that I was special, that he hadn’t felt this way about someone since his wife had passed away.

I thrust the vial at him. “You do it, then.”

“Sir,” Kailen said, his voice cool and professional, “I’m just going to open your robe a little and put some of this water over your heart. This is the last step and this will all be over for you. Can I do that?”

I stalked from the porch, my hand going to the stone in my pocket. It was warm to the touch, from more than just my body heat. Anwynn leapt gracefully over the steps, her lanky form a comforting presence at my side, much as I hated to admit it.

I’d saved Chris from a horrible death, and I had one of the cloaked man’s ingredients, but I wasn’t any closer to figuring out his identity, or why exactly he wanted to enact a daemon geas in the first place. Yes, he could potentially gain more power—but what did he want to
do
with that power?

“So what’s stopping our cloaked friend from grabbing another mortal off the streets?” Anwynn said. Behind us, the bushes rustled as Kailen set his ward.

“That’s easy,” I said, assuming a confident tone I didn’t exactly feel. “You. And me.”

“The dynamic duo?” Anwynn raised one doggy eyebrow at me.

I lifted a hand and chopped it through the air, adopting a singsong tone. “I’m faster than lightning. You’re very, very frightening. Together, we will, I don’t know, something that rhymes with lightning.” I ventured another glance at my hound and found her regarding me with the sort of uncertainty she usually reserved for salads. I sighed. “Don’t tell me you don’t watch Saturday morning cartoons. I can hear them from my room, you know. It comes right through the vents. Something about ponies?”

Anwynn looked away. “They look tasty, is all.” She cleared her throat. “So what’s next? Back to the house where I most assuredly do not have my own television?”

I pulled my cellphone from my back pocket. “No. It’s time to use one of my lifelines. It’s time to call a friend.”

CHAPTER FIVE

MAYBE “FRIEND” WAS A BIT GENEROUS.
Officer Gomez didn’t sound pleased to hear from me. “You again,” she said. “What?”

I supposed I couldn’t blame her. The last time we’d had contact was back when Grian had decided to lay siege to the jail. “Listen, I just need a little information. Don’t get annoyed—I need to know if anyone’s called in any reports of small flying…um…people, lately?”

“Goddammit, Nicole!” Gomez shouted into the phone. I held it a little ways out from my ear. “I thought you were supposed to keep a lid on all that stuff?”

“Think about it. Most of the doorways are in Portland, and that’s a hundred forty-five square miles. Your bureau employs about a thousand police officers. A thousand police officers for a hundred forty-five square miles, and one little, itty-bitty me for the Fae side of things.”

The phone was silent for a moment. “You memorized how many square miles Portland is?”

“Well, how else am I supposed to keep track of what’s where, how much land I need to patrol, and how many days that takes?” I said, exasperated.

“Fine,” Gomez said. “I’ll check.”

For a moment, all I heard was the crackle of her breath, rustling papers, and the tapping of keys. “Yeah, there’s been something recent. Past hour—someone called in a sighting up in Kenton.”

“Thanks,” I said, and hung up.

“That’s sort of a large area,” Anwynn so helpfully pointed out.

“And I didn’t
almost
become lead sales representative at Frank Gibbons Inc. by being stupid or disorganized.” I strode to my car, opened the door, and popped open the glove box. I didn’t need to look to know that Anwynn was rolling her eyes. That starts to happen once you live with someone for a little while.

A paper map of Portland sat nestled inside the glove box. I pulled it out and unfolded it on the car hood. I had a bigger, brighter, more color-coded one at home. This was my travel size.

People had been reporting the souring milk debacles on neighborhood message boards, on consumer complaint websites, and even just on various blogs. Anywhere I could get a location or even a vague one, I’d marked it on my map.

I checked Kenton. There were several hits there, all concentrated on the same block. “Reconnaissance,” I said, pointing out the spots to Anwynn. “If Mr. Cloaky is looking for another victim, he’s going to nab him or her from this spot.”

Anwynn only yawned. “Are we leaving, then, or what?”

“Nicole.” Kailen emerged from the bushes next to Chris’s house. Normally, that should have made anyone look creepy, but Kailen looked like he’d stepped from a cologne advertisement. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

I should have told him I was in a rush, or that we could talk later, or both. Instead, I crossed the street to meet him. I couldn’t keep ignoring him just because I didn’t know how to describe the state of our relationship. If we were friends, avoiding him was sort of a dick move. “Yes?”

He looked at me for a long moment. “You’re tapping your foot.”

I stilled my foot. So I was. “And?”

“You’re eager to leave.”

Somewhere, in
my
city, that cloaked man was stalking another victim for his blood rite, and I was fresh out of unicorn juice. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve got a lead, and I’ve got to catch this guy before he does any more damage.”

“You always rush into things,” Kailen said.

I was tapping my foot again. With a supreme effort of will, I stopped. “That’s how I get things done, okay?”

“That’s how you get yourself killed
.
This isn’t your job. Well, it is, but you know what I mean. This isn’t your
mortal
job. What do you know about who you’re chasing?”

I shoved my hands into my pockets, one hand curling around the butter knife, the other curving around the petrified kelpie heart. “I saw him at the market.”

“Tell me about it,” Kailen said.

I gestured to the dark and empty street. It must have been getting into early morning. “What, here? Now?”

“I’ve lived a lot of years,” he said, his voice low and soothing. I felt like a horse he was trying to tame. “Sometimes telling someone else what you saw can help unveil clues you missed the first time.”

I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He was right. I was itching to go, to act, but I didn’t know anything about this cloaked guy except that he was one of the Sidhe and was Talented in swordplay. I had my Talents too, but I was going to run into this blind, with no idea of who was on this guy’s side or even how many sprites he had with him at any given time. “Okay. I’ll try.”

I told Kailen about spotting the man in the marketplace, about the chase, the way the man ran up the side of the cliff and evaded us, the underhill passage.

Kailen absorbed these details, his expression intent. “A daemon geas, are you sure?”

“Yes. It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“The user of a daemon geas is essentially inviting a daemon into his body. Some Sidhe can control it, but most can’t. It can give you great destructive power—think dissolving things into rot and smoke by mere touch—but it eventually drives the bearer mad.”

“Lovely,” I said. “It sounds like a regular barrel of fun.”

“What did the man look like? Did you catch a glimpse of his face?”

I shook my head. “No, he—” I stopped. He’d had his face covered with a scarf.

I hadn’t stopped to think about why. For some reason I’d just assumed he had his face covered so he could hide from me. But he hadn’t known I’d followed him to the marketplace, and the sprites wouldn’t have had the chance to report back to him by then.

He’d covered his face for other reasons.

“Kailen, are there any Sidhe who have facial disfigurements? Any Sidhe men?”

He thought for a moment. “Well, there’s Maarten of the Daelus family, Iothe of the Muirgheal family, and Panolo of the Rustannars.”

I blinked. That many had facial disfigurements? That was…two more than I’d expected. “Okaaay, well, which of those families have sprites beholden to them?”

“All of them,” Kailen said. He paused. “But from what you’ve said, I think you’re after air sprites, not water or fire. In that case, of the three, only the Daelus family has air sprites beholden to them.”

“Maarten of the Daelus family,” I said. “That’s it. I’ve got my man.” I turned to go.

Kailen grabbed my elbow. “And what do you actually know about Maarten?” he said softly.

I paused. I was doing it again. I didn’t know anything about the Daelus family, or how Maarten had come to be disfigured, or even why he wanted to enact a daemon geas in the first place.

I turned back around. Kailen hadn’t let go of my arm. I was struck, suddenly, by the soft concern on his face, the way his brow furrowed just so, the intensity of his gaze.

He cleared his throat and let go. “The Daelus family is ruled by both a king and a queen. The last I heard, they worked together as one, but that was years ago, and relationships are constantly altering.”

“Another mad queen,” I muttered. “Great.” I dipped my hand into my pocket again, gripping the kelpie heart between my fingertips. “I’ll wait for him at home. All the Sidhe know where the only legal Changeling lives, and he’ll need the heart to complete the blood rite. He might take another mortal, but I’ll just have to somehow find another vial of unicorn-purified water. If I ask around more or just talk to the Oranthil family—”

Kailen coughed, interrupting me. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled forth a dimly glowing vial.

“Kailen,” I choked out, “you didn’t.” My gaze went to his face, raking over it for any signs. There didn’t seem to be any new streaks of gray in his hair, any new or deeper wrinkles. “Your exile—did you…?”

“I didn’t go back to the Fae world,” he said. “I didn’t spend any more of my life. You forget that, despite my exile, I still have connections with the Fae world, mostly unsavory, but connections nonetheless. And, as you may have discovered, many of the Fae still jaunt over to the mortal world once in a while, for one reason or another.”

I took the vial, a little uncertain, a little suspicious. “What did you have to do for this?” I’d had to implicate myself in a heist and the subsequent transformation of a priceless heirloom, potentially setting myself up with more enemies. As if I needed any more. What was it
he
had to do?

“I traded something for it.” He hesitated. “A Le Fay heirloom. A crown.”

I forgot sometimes that, with the imprisonment of Grian, Kailen was next in line for his family’s rule. And he’d traded the symbol of his rule for this little vial of unicorn-purified water. I clutched the vial to my chest, suddenly afraid I might drop it.

“I’ve killed a lot of people,” he said. “Lesser Fae, Sidhe—it didn’t matter to me, not when I was seeking my mother’s favor. I may think you’re stubborn and a bit ridiculous for it, but I admire your reluctance to take lives. You might not be able to refrain from killing forever, but I want to help you for as long as you’re able.”

I closed my eyes, and for a moment, all I could smell was his scent—sweet and faintly spicy. “This doesn’t change anything between us.”

“I know,” he said quickly.

I opened my eyes and backed away, putting some distance between us. “I’ve got to go. If I get back to my place before Mr. Cloaky decides to come for the kelpie heart, then I’ll have time to set up traps and figure out the most defensible position.”

“I can help,” Kailen said, taking a step to follow.

“No,” I said. “You’ve done enough.” He’d done more than enough. I could feel the balance shifting between us, into a relationship where I expected things of him, and he kept giving, saying he wanted nothing in return, but hoping for it. I didn’t want that from him. I wasn’t sure
what
I wanted from him, but this wasn’t helping.

“But I—”

I held up a hand to forestall him. “If you respect me at all, you’ll let me do this on my own.” I rejoined Anwynn by my car.

“Well, that was very lone-wolf, spaghetti Western of you,” she said.

“You were listening?”

She nodded. “You were right over there. I have plenty good hearing. What did you want me to do? Start singing to myself to drown you out?”

I couldn’t imagine what Anwynn’s singing would sound like—probably an avalanche of boulders down a rocky slope. “Well, I can’t keep expecting Kailen to step in and save me. He can’t travel between the Fae and mortal worlds freely. I can. He isn’t a Changeling. I am. I’ll never reach my potential and I’ll never grow strong if I don’t push myself.”

“Or you could die,” my hound said as I folded up the map.

“Come on.” I opened the door and she jumped inside. “We’re heading back to the house.”

Her tail began to thump against the seat cushions. “Where you will promptly order me a television.”

“No,” I said slowly. “Where we are going to set traps, hunker down, and wait for Maarten Daelus to come after us.”

Her tail stilled. “My ideas tend to be better than yours,” she said.

I ducked inside and shut the door behind me. The windows began to fog immediately. “If by ‘better’ you mean ‘leading to my quick and painful death,’ then yes.”