Daughter of Anat (6 page)

Great!  A three hundred pound Irish Elf girl with bad grammar.

Quiet for too long now, Szar made his presence known.

“Even for three bags?”

Bags of what?
  I tossed my hair to the side of my neck smelling the smoke in it and wanting to barf.  Szar was holding up something.

A little baggie of leaves.
  Oh god.  My brother had drugs. 
              Surprised by the innate turn of events, I just watched as the large elephant sized lady licked her lips in anticipation and reached for the little bags.

“Nuh! Uh!  You tell my girl here what she wants to know.”

She made her puffy face all evil and drawn up like I’d seen the Elves do.  My ability most definitely didn’t work on the female population even if that female was far from
female
looking.  “There is a house.  Shack really.  Borgon takes them all there except when he took you.  Still not sure how you got out of that one buddy of mine.”

The endearment didn
’t strike me as anything appreciative.  Szar got the coordinates and only then did he give up the bags.

Boy, did I have some questions for him.

I asked him on the way to our next destination.  He said it was the only way he’d ever gotten information for the bar patrons in the past.

I asked him forgetting my own
quick tempered ineptness, “So you only ever went there for information?”

His notoriously
well-known to me shy smile told more.  “No, my friends and I play poker there a lot.”

Yeah.  Secrets. 
And probably a few more too.  I’d let it rest for now.

Outside the house we
’d been led to, two newly Elf-made Vampires stood ogling our necks like we were steak dinners.  I asked them about Cas and left just as quickly with no headway.  This couldn’t be the place. They didn’t seem coherent to speech.  Only blood.  Something was off about the whole thing.  I could feel Cas, but he didn’t seem close or himself.  It was the oddest feeling.

And these g
uys were not your LOTR kind of Elves.  Rivendell kicked them out.  I knew now why they were not a part of society.  They couldn’t even pass as semi-human.  My mind pictured a video game I remember Szar playing for years and couldn’t help remember the obvious differences when standing on the street but this...this was the upgraded version of Elves with a few ability points and added talents.

I knew Cas suppressed his desire for biting others, so
who bit them. 

When we left the scene and found our way back to the c
ar, there waiting on the passenger seat where it was still warm from my own body heat, was a book.  And not just any book. 

“Take me to Hunter school,” I told Szar who was in the driver seat staring at me like I just said something indecent.

“What on earth for, sister of mine?” He rolled his eyes still tensed from the leftovers of the little talk we’d just had. 

“To see a traitor.  I need to talk to someone.”  I held up the book.

Szar wailed at me, “What? You felt you needed another challenge? Hunters don’t always do well with making friends you know.”

“No, my father wouldn’t let me.”

He didn’t reply.

We talked about the two Vamp Elves.  He said he didn
’t get the same perceptive roll of doubt I did there, but I couldn’t shake the bad feeling.

Chapter Seven

Always forgive your enemy...

I was out of the car and stealthily hidden around the corner of the boy’s dormitory before Szar could even dream up countermeasures.  I rolled the window up like I’d done before and started to climb in the foot and a half wide entry when Szar pulled at my waist.  “What are you doing?”

I growled at him and he let me go. He filed in after me and I adjusted the window for the element of surprise.

Looking around now I saw that Calum’s things were gone and his side of the room was left empty.  I wondered if his room at the little apartment where we’d made pizzas and watched movies was cozy with his personal items and what they might be.

I sat on the end of Calum
’s bed feeling the incontestable coldness and lack of his smell.  I’d know his aftershave, cologne anywhere.  Deep in thought I didn’t notice my brother searching through the dresser across the room.

“Don
’t do that!” I snapped at him grabbing the book I’d just sat beside me as I leapt for my brother and his inability to keep his hands off other people’s possessions.  “Is there anyone’s personal space you don’t invade?”

“Only the ones that seem to piss you off the most
, sis.  I know what it means to you.”  He grinned sideways for me.

I barked an order to sit down and shut up.  He dropped whatever was currently in his hand and gave me a “
Geez!”

“So you
’ve done this before,” he drawled out the S’s in his words. 

I nodded not avoiding the inevitable truth.  Sensing my disquiet, he asked the obvious.

“This was Calum’s room?” 

My brother was eyeing the bed I sat on.  I hopped up leaving the space of where his dark stare landed.

“Ahhh.  My friend Thorn would not like this place, now would he?”

“
Shut up.”

“Testy.  I can
’t say I like the idea of being in one of my sister’s former love nests.”

“SHUT.UP!”

“Or the room the boy who tried to steal kisses from my little sister while staying the room next to me at my own court.”

So he
’d figured out this is Lee’s room.  I didn’t try to hide it.  “Are you here with me or not?  If not, leave.  I can do this alone.”

“Oh
, no.  I will stay here to ensure your whereabouts for my man Thorn as well as your safety, sis.”

“I
’m safer here alone probably more so than with you.”

Szar cocked his head at me, “How so?”

“He will talk more if you’re not here.”

“Ahh.   Your flirty little ways.” He flitted his fingers in front of him.

I sneered hating him presently for knowing me too well.  Maybe he did know about my Valkyrie powers years ago and that was why they kept boys away.  Of course he would, they all did. 

I was just about to tell him off for good when the door swung open and stayed there for a minute while the figure that filled it quite heavily looked us over.  He took up far too much doorway and took all the air out of the room with his assessing look.

He was taller, bulkier, and forced to duck his head in the frame.  Well, wasn’t that just interesting?  Of course, I had to comment.

“You
are
bigger.”

If I
’d fed Szar a bundle of juicy details with being in the room, I’d sure given him something to skillfully chew on now.  Right on cue, Szar snorted his rebuff.

“Happens when you
’re half Hunter,” Lee Dyer, the
half
Hunter answered.

His hair was cut short again like when he lived at court with me but he still tilted his head like the hair was falling in his eyes.  His voice
was a tad deeper too.  Closer to a man’s voice. 

He let me note the details of his layering changes and then closed the door not looking back.  Lee
’s eyes fell to the book squeezed tight in my hands watching it intensely then sort of glazed over and blanked out.  I can say now that perhaps I had an uncontrolled use of my ability on Lee and Calum from the past.  For all the education they gave me, they left a major part out. 

A throat cleared.  I jumped from the edge of the bed where I sat and nearly feel out on the floor.  Feeling foolish I sat upright and remembered the throaty alert was from the other body in the room, my brother.

Lee’s head shook loose of my hold.  Confirmation of naturally born powers of the Valkyrie showed it was most definitely potent when I extended purposefully.  And...Cas was unaffected by it, I think.  He’d never gone catatonic on me like Lee just did.

“So, as fun as this little reunion down memory lane might be for you two, I know time is important in finding your
boyfriend
sister of mine.  So if you don’t mind, can you tell me what we are doing here visiting the
traitor
as you so called him.”

Szar never minced words, only phrased them to his liking.  He lived to make me in hell.

“What does this mean?” I held up the book.

Szar didn
’t resist his never ending plethora of comments, “Oh.  Traitors have a book list.  I didn’t know you were into the whims of girls and how they view men?”

Deadly eyes darted from me to Szar, “Seems you have a good enough knowledge of the book yourself.”

Szar snorted, “That’s because the same man made me read it.”

All three of us were friends once. 
Once!

“It
’s there.  Chapter four,” Lee pointed to my hand.

We all heard the turn of worn out pages.  This was my own book.  I
’d not had it since here at this school when I stole from my court for safekeeping.  Had Lee retrieved it from my room under the mattress where I’d forgotten it?

I snatched a look inside the front cover to see my initials were indeed there.  The feel of it slithered and seeped into my skin urging me to go back to a time when life was all still a dream to come.

“I kept it for you.  I knew you wouldn’t want to lose it.”

“Yeah, golden boy aren
’t you,” Szar’s venom hissed.

Lord, these men loved conflict.

I read it where the crease was bent for me to see.  It was there, circled.

“Were of a respectable family in the north of England; a circumstance more deeply impressed in their memories than that their brother's fortune and their own had been acquired by trade.”

Trade meaning...?  I read it again.  My family...circumstances beyond our control...brother?

“What brother do they mean?”

Szar snatched the book from me and read it.  He’d read it alright, but not like Dyer (Lee) and I had.   Looking back, I wondered now how long Lee had liked me.  We’d read that book together in the bay window of the study not long after he moved into the court.  He was forever teasing me about the suitors I would watch soon coming to my own court.

“I never meant for you to come here,” Lee rubbed his fingers together in nervous tension.  One hand ran through his spiked hair sprinkling water everywhere no doubt forgetting it wasn
’t long anymore.

“Your hair is new.”

He nodded staring wholly at me.  I think I might have already told him this when I saw it last time, but I couldn’t remember. 

“Just tell me what it means.  Szar will not bite you. He will be a good Doberman for today.”  I turned up my mouth at my brother for my witty response.  Getting digs on him was a great
past-time just like it seemed to be for him when I was in attendance of his most gratuitous attitude moments.

“When are you going to realize
Sis,
that you’re not meant to be the funny one.”

I ignored him and turned to Lee.

“Thorn is in a house on Ninth and Center St. in the city. You have exactly,” Lee checked his watch in high James Bond fashion, “three hours before the switch is made.  Thorn has a blood brother.  They are replacing Thorn.”

“Who did this to him?  What switch?”  Szar was actually faster than me this time.  His face was in Lee
’s. 

I pulled Szar
’s sleeve and made him even so that we both faced Lee head on.

“Can
’t say.  Could be any hard piece of rock solid Vampire crawling around in the dark.  And you know who did this.  He watched her attack you.”

Granite!

Szar stomped like a bull, “You asshole.  You f—

“Let
’s go.  I got what I needed.”

My brother looked at me like I was a crazed pig sprouting wings.  “Oh, you got this.  I suppose you can read turncoat
’s freaking face as well as his little girly messages?”
              “Szar.  I’m warning you.”  I drew my fist up.

He looked at my hand.  “What, sis.  Gonna hit me?”

“I might.”  If I need to. 

Szar let out a string of not-so-nice words and climbed through the window.  I turned back to Lee and gave him what I thought might be considered a trade-off for the information that could very well save Cas
’ life and my own. 

I kissed the side of his cheek.

His hand was faster than mine.  I needed to stop being so trusting of my so-called friends.  He pulled his face up to mine and he kissed me.   Freaking-out-of-his-mind kissed me.

I stayed so still keeping my mouth clamped shut.  What did he think it would accomplish?

“I didn’t do it for him.”

Oh, don’
t I know it
. 

I left with my face heated not from any kind of desire, but the uncertainty of how I would deal with it later, but in my hand was a folded piece of paper that told me something scarier than an unwanted kiss.