Twist of Fae (5 page)

"Ok," I replied. "When I ask you to find him,
where do you go?"

"He has agents in the Fae worlds. I speak to the trees
and the waters. They carry the message to him."

"I see," I said. It seemed the Dwarves, or at
least the ones I knew, were as connected to the land as I was. That, of course,
could be good or bad. "Here's what you're gonna do. Like it or not I want
you to take Alf to Fae, and if you can't find Bernd, seek out Valen or Motgnir.
If you need help, ask Handion, the Elf. He can pass the message to the winged
horse, Althaea, to search for them. I want to know if they are safe. If that
doesn’t work we'll think of something else."

Handion was an Elf that lived in the Fae worlds,
specifically, my Fae world of the Dryad. The Elves were neutral up to a point
but I had a feeling Handion would help. As to what else I could do, I called
out to Sendy. She was an Aurea, a sky Fae. Her kind had been messengers to the
Gods before
The Fall.
Now she was mine.

"My Lord?" she asked as she appeared a moment
later, her wings folding up behind her back as she put a shirt on. Since she
often visibly accompanied me or others here, I had warned her that she needed
to carry clothes in the human world as she couldn't fly with them on. She was
quite beautiful and I still found it distracting talking business to a naked
Fae. Besides, things could get complicated if a twenty something year old naked
hottie just appeared out of nowhere. Especially at some of the places my business
took me.

"Take a message to my aunt, Cacilia, and also to the Hamadryad
and other Fae Elders. Tell them I seek the counsel of Valen, Motgnir, and
Bernd. I also wish to be informed if any other Dwarf crosses our borders. They
are to pass the message on if they are found, but to no other Dwarf,
understand? "

"As you command," she answered.

"Good. Then find me when you are done, I may have more for
you to do. Oh, I almost forgot, what's Malcolm up to today?"

Malcolm was my best friend and a computer expert. He was
also part Fae, something that we hadn’t known until Bernd had brought that part
out of him.

"He is at his office. He said he had human work to
catch up on, I believe is the phrase he used," she answered. He and Sendy
had a thing going and I tried not to let her duties interfere with their
relationship too much if I could help it.

"Great, feel free to let him know what you're doing and
tell him I'll contact him later."

"Thank you," she replied and then after removing
her shirt, she disappeared from view.

I could have gone myself, but that would have required more
of an explanation. Something I didn’t feel like giving just yet. I wasn't sure
if Bernd really was in danger. From what Lucinda had said he seemed to know
what was going on. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry.

"There is one thing," Alf said as Sendy
disappeared. "I just don't… well, you see, it's just that it might be
better for her to go alone. I don’t really mix that well with other Fae, as you
may have already noticed."

"He is correct," Lucinda replied. "It would
be better, and faster, if I go alone."

"Fine," I said, looking over at Charlie who'd been
quietly sitting and listening to all that was going on. "Keep him company.
There's nothing more I can do until we hear back. Maybe I can get a few other things
done in the meantime."

Charlie just nodded in acknowledgement and Alf seemed to
heave a sigh of relief as Lucinda sprinted from the room. Maybe the Garden Faerie
experience really had unnerved him I thought to myself as he drained his glass.
I walked upstairs to change before heading out, leaving the two of them in the
kitchen. I'd been too distracted to make more coffee and even after my
breakfast with O'Malley I already knew where my first stop was going to be.

J
AY

"Hoskins," I answered as I picked up the phone on
my desk.

"ASAC needs you in his office," the duty officer said.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Don’t know," he replied. "He didn’t
elaborate and I didn't ask. You know how he is. You can tell me all about it when
you're done, if it isn’t classified. For all I know he wants to tell you what a
great job you did on yesterday's op."

"Yeah, right," I said with a laugh. I liked the
number two man in the office, but he wasn't known for handing out accolades. As
far as we all knew, he just figured that was part of the job.

"Ok, it'll be a few," I replied. "Let me just
lock up this evidence. I can finish the paperwork when I get back."

"Ok," he said. "But do it quickly. You know
how he hates to wait."

I chuckled as I hung up the phone. I could already hear him
asking me what the hell part of get in his office didn't I understand, as he sat
there, tapping his watch. That said, as far as command staff goes, he was as
good as they came. I knew the gruff exterior was only a façade. Besides, far be
it from me to leave anything sensitive on my desk in violation of the rules.

I locked my unfinished paperwork in the secure file cabinet
and walked the few pieces of evidence I'd snagged from yesterday's operation to
the evidence locker. Then I headed down the hallway to the elevator up to the
lofty offices on the 10
^th
floor.

"He's waiting for you," the secretary said, the
phone clamped to her ear, as I closed the door to the office behind me. She
pointed at the door to the inner office with one of those "What the hell
did you do now?" expressions that didn't look promising.

"Take a seat, Jay," he said without turning from
the monitor behind his desk. Oh, oh. First names were never a good sign.

"Anything strange happen on yesterday's case?" he
asked, as the chair swung around and he faced me. "Other than you playing tackle
with one of their SWAT guys, I mean? Good job on that, by the way."

"Thanks, but what do you mean by strange?" I
asked, doing my best not to appear uncomfortable by the question.

"Anything out of the ordinary, then?"

"No, not really," I replied. I wasn't one to keep
secrets from my office, but having visions wasn't something I was eager to
disclose. Nikki had mentioned that she'd had an interesting day as well, but I
hadn't wanted to discuss it with her on the phone. "Best we can tell, our
suspect's sister was sleeping with their suspect, and directing him as to what
to steal. We found a shopping list in her car. She'd parked it in the
construction zone across the street. I doubt he even knew who he was ultimately
stealing the parts for. We did get some good leads on him, though. The
Sacramento office is working on it."

"Anything about it look like it would have kicked off
an EAB contact?" he asked.

"EAB?" I asked, surprised. "No, not that I
can think of. Everyone involved is home grown and there's nothing I found that
links these guys to anyone other than locals."

The EAB was one of those specialized units that nobody liked
to deal with. At the very least, the agents were hard cases and never told you
anything about what they were up to. They only came in on certain cases, but
nobody was ever really sure what the criteria was for the cases they did come
in on. But they almost always involved multiple dead bodies and usually not
ones shot by the police.

There were also rumors. Rumors that they might be involved
in hunting down weird stuff, like a modern day Project Blue Book. I'd dealt
with them in the past but nothing I could think of would be of interest to them
in this case. Except, of course, for the visions, and I hadn’t told anyone
about them, not even Nikki. "What's the EAB want on a case like
this?"

"If I knew I wouldn’t be asking you, now would I?"
he replied, tapping a pen on his desk. "Anyway, doesn’t matter. Grab your
gear and head over to the airport office. Whatever's come up, someone at the
EAB wants you involved. That's all I know, so don’t even bother asking me for
more."

"Alright," I replied.

"… and Jay," he said with a concerned look on his
face. "Watch your back out there."

"Always," I replied. What the hell had I stepped into
this time?

N
IKKI

I was finishing some processing in the lab, trying to catch
up on my case load, when the phone rang. It was my 'in' day, so the last thing
I expected was a call from my supervisor.

"Nikki," I said as I answered the wall phone above
the desk.

"Nik, it's Al. Can you come into my office?"

"I'm up to my neck in blood stains," I replied.
"Can you give me a half hour?"

"No, I need you now," he said.

"Al, I've got half a clothing store spread out over the
tables. It's gonna take me a few just to be able to get out of the lab," I
said, irritated at the interruption.

"I'm sorry, Nik," he replied. "I just got a
call from the Sheriff's office and I need to see you now. Retta hasn’t gone
into the field yet, maybe can she help."

"A tower caper?" I said. "Yeah, I guess
she'll be ok. We worked most of these cases together anyway. Alright, I'll see you
as soon as I can."

A tower caper was a call from the Sheriff's office that
usually meant he wanted something handled personally, and fast. It was nothing
nefarious. Usually it just meant that the media or some commissioner was
already all over a case and he wanted to be kept informed. But sometimes you
got special attention if you'd done something to irritate him.

But why me? I hadn't pissed anyone off lately that I knew of,
and I certainly hadn't told anyone about the birds. I picked up the evidence from
the cases that were mine alone and locked them in my secure locker. I was irritated
by the backlog I wasn't going to get to once again, but there wasn't anything I
could do about that at the moment. I'd also hoped to have some down time to try
and figure out what the hell had happened to me yesterday and was still waiting
to hear back from Jay. He'd said he'd had a crazy day as well and would call me
when things got settled. If there was anyone I could talk to about this, it was
him.

"What the hell's going on?" Retta asked when she
came in a minute later.

"Damned if I know," I replied as I stripped off my
gloves. "Al said he's got some kind of tower caper. Why someone else can't
handle it is beyond me."

"A tower caper? Figures," she said, putting on a
pair of gloves. "Ok, where are you at with this stuff?"

I let her know what needed to be done on the remaining cases,
and headed out of the lab toward Al's office. The door was already open, so I
walked in.

"Ok, Al," I said as I sat down in front of his
desk. "What's so important, and why me?"

"You remember that electrocution caper?" he asked.
"The one at Stateline where the vic was some 'out of state' high
roller?"

"Yeah, how could I forget?" I replied. That one
had been weird enough, even without the spooks that showed up at the autopsy.
It'd also been the only time that Jay and I had worked on the same case since
he went to work for the Feds.

"Well, apparently there's some special meeting about it
going on over at one of the Homeland Security offices today, and they want you
there."

"Me?" I asked, surprised. "That's a homicide
case and my reports have been done for a month. Wouldn’t the detective that's
handling it be the one to attend any meetings? Besides, my brother worked on
that case and he'd know everything that we do."

"Last time I checked, I answered to him, not the other
way around," he replied. "The Sheriff said you needed to be there, so
there's not much I can do about it. They're even sending a car over. So get
cleaned up, and you can tell me all about it when you get back."

"I suppose there's no way out of it then," I
replied, wondering why this case was so important all of a sudden, and why Jay
hadn’t mentioned it yesterday. What the hell did they need me for?

R
OBERT

As I pulled out into the street I had a vision of Charlie
and Alf discussing something or another at the table, and was reminded once
again how much my life had changed. Most people would never leave a stranger at
the house, let alone some Imp out of a fairy tale, but this kind of thing was
actually not an infrequent occurrence at my place. Even with leaving my Aunt
Cacilia in charge of my lands while I was here, ever since I had taken the
throne there had been a small, yet steady, stream of Fae who wanted to visit
the human world. Since I had a Hamadryad living in the oak tree in the backyard
guarding the entrance to my home, it only made sense to for them to cross here.
There was also the added benefit of knowing just who was coming or going.

Fortunately for them, I had made an arrangement with the Milagres.
In addition to owning a significant portion of the Neptune's Landing, one of
the largest hotel-casinos in town, Meredith was the leader of the Nereid and
had already had a system in place for Fae visitors. Hell, they even had some
kind of arrangement with the State for identification. I didn't ask how they did
it, or even who they dealt with, I just paid the bill when it came in. Well, at
least my accounting team did. It seems I inherited quite a fortune when I took
the reins, even if it is placed in trust for the Fae of my realm.

I had just grabbed a mocha at the drive thru when my cell
rang. Seeing it was my son, I pulled into an empty stall and answered.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Hey, Dad. On a trek and I'm headed your way," he
said, his voice somewhat strained. It also sounded muffled, as if he was on an
airplane.

"That's great. Can you talk or are you in a rush?"
I asked, my stomach tightening. Jay had used the word trek. That was a code
word we'd set up when he and my daughter were young in case of trouble. Of
course, Jay was an adult now, but if he'd used our code word something was up
and it wasn't good.

"Well, it's kind of complicated. But if you have a
minute, there's someone here that wants to talk to you," he replied.

"Put them on," I said after a moment.

"Mr. Hoskins, this is Agent Guerrier from the EAB in
Los Angeles. Special Agent Hoskins and I are enroute to Las Vegas for a noon
meeting in your area. I have been asked to request your presence at that same
meeting. Is that agreeable?"

EAB? What the hell did that stand for? But there was no
doubt as to what he was. They were polite, I'd give them that. But O'Malley had
been right, they'd come at me sideways by inviting Jay along.

"Well, Agent Guerrier, you certainly have my attention.
But let me make it clear that I do not appreciate my son being involved. You
could have just called yourself if you wanted to meet," I said, trying to
suppress my anger. "I expect that any differences we may have will not
reflect on my son, or his career, for that matter."

My conversation with O'Malley this morning had apparently been
a wakeup call, and now the alarm bell was ringing. I'd made a big mistake and
now it was going to catch up with me. Although I hadn’t known it at the
beginning, I'd later learned that just as the magic had manifested itself in
me, it would eventually do the same to my children. There was no way to know
just how it would do so, but I'd known I needed to talk to them about it. Like
an idiot, I'd put it off, hoping to find the right time. Now it was probably too
late. They were going to find out what they were from someone else.

I should probably mention that both of them have followed in
my footsteps as to career choices. Nikki, my daughter, is a CSI at the local PD
while Jay is a Special Agent for Homeland Security based in LA. As such, both
had been involved in cases that brushed on the magical world even though they
hadn’t known it at the time. There had been one case where several strange government
agents had shown up to an autopsy that both the kids had been involved in due
to jurisdictional overlap. Jay had heard of them before, as they were from the
same agency, but described them as so secret that he didn’t even know who they
answered to. He'd also called them spooks, and not the CIA kind.

"Mr. Hoskins, you misunderstand our intentions. I assure
you, Special Agent Hoskins is a valuable member of our agency and this meeting
is just to iron out a few simple issues. As to his involvement, well, let me
just say that his exceptional work had already come to our attention and we
just assumed he was aware of his, shall we say, genetic disposition.
Unfortunately, we had already departed when we realized that that may not be
the case."

"I see," I replied, not wanting to drag the
conversation out. I could just picture Jay trying to process the part of the
conversation he could hear. He'd either think they were all nuts or figure it
partially out. Damn! I just hope I could fix any damage this would do between
us. "Where shall I meet you?"

"We'll send a car," Guerrier said. "Shall we
say 11:00 a.m.? Your residence?"

"Tell them to pull up on the street in front," I
replied. "I'll be waiting."

"I look forward to meeting with you then," he said
before disconnecting.

I'm sure you do, I thought as I backed out and headed back
to the house. As I pulled through the gate I saw Charlie waiting again. I
jumped out of the car before he could get to me.

"Danger?" he asked, following me to the door.

"Not exactly," I replied as I opened it. "Just
one more thing I haven't had time to deal with." I threw my phone and keys
on the table and called for Sendy.

"My Lord," she said as she appeared before me.
"I have spoken to your Aunt and a few of the others, but have yet to
complete your task."

"Forget about that for a moment," I said.
"Can you find my son if he is travelling here from LA by jet?"

"Perhaps," she answered. "But even if I found
him, I could not match the craft's speed."

"What do you mean?"

"Although I can transport to many places, once I arrive
I am limited by the speed of my wings. Your human conveyances that fly through
the air are much faster than I am," she explained. "Even if I could
find it I would not be able to keep up with it, nor can I transport into a
vessel travelling at such a speed."

"Ok, that's out then," I said aloud. I was probably
overreacting, but I had thought that maybe she could snatch Jay and bring him
here. That would get him out of the line of fire, at least temporarily, until I
could meet with these agents and work out some kind of arrangement.

"I will find him," Charlie said, the fur on his
back stiffening.

"I'm sure you would," I replied. "But I think
I'd better handle this alone. I'll need you ready just in case. Besides, I
don’t think anyone is in real danger. It's more a political game at the
moment."

He didn’t reply, but I knew he hated it when I faced danger
alone. He was, after all, descended from Fae hunting dogs and feared little. He
also worried about me and fancied himself my protector. He had taken an arrow
meant for me in my battle with the dark Fae and kept a Dragon busy until I
could release her from a spell, so I guess he had the right to call himself
that.

One thing I didn’t have enough of in my new role was
information. In the human world, that's what I was best at. Hell, I researched
everything before I took a step. That was what I did and how I earned a living.
But nowadays things were different. I may be a Fae, but that didn’t mean I knew
everything about the world I'd been thrust into. No, I needed to know more
before I could decide how to handle things.

After changing into a suit, I walked back downstairs into
the kitchen. I reached for my phone, then hesitated. Why did he offer to pick
me up at the house? Maybe I was being paranoid, but I had a sudden Snowden moment.
I turned off my iPhone, walked into my home office and pulled my new Sonim XP7 out
of the box. I'd gotten it from Siegfried and Michael at the Neptune. They'd
purchased them for their security team and top executives and given one to me
as well. The damn things were near indestructible and featured high level
encryption, just what I thought I needed at the moment.

Siegfried ran security for the Milagres, and Michael was his
number two man. The two of them were probably my closest associates in the Fae
worlds. Both were descended from Norse Fae and Siegfried had been there when I
first learned about what I was. We'd since become close friends and fought in
more than a few battles since all this had started. I still carried the Viking
seax he'd given me when we'd first met. I turned my new phone on and punched
the contact for Siegfried.

"Robert," he said as he answered. "I see
you're finally using the new phone we gave you."

"Just started," I replied. "Hey, I need some
information."

"Of course. What can I do for you?"

"I've just been invited to a meeting with the Feds I
asked you about a while back. I need some heads up as to what to expect."

"Ah," he said. "Tell them you will honor the same
agreement that Mrs. Milagre has. That should be sufficient. Did you wish to
speak with her about any of the specifics?"

"Not necessarily," I replied. "But I was
hoping for something a little different. It appears that Jay will be there as
well so I'm anticipating a bit of additional… let's call it political dialogue."

"Oh," he said after a moment's hesitation. "And
he still doesn’t know. That could be awkward."

"Tell me about it," I admitted. "If I were to
guess, I'd say that someone isn’t happy with some of the things I've done, so they
want to make a point. I doubt Jay is in any real danger, but I don’t want to
make things worse, so I need to know if I should play nice or make a point
myself."

"I see. Give me a moment, will you."

"Sure," I said. I could hear him talking to
someone else and a minute later, Michael came onto the line.

"Gonna go play with the boys in black suits, eh?"
he asked.

"Something like that. I need to know what to
expect," I answered.

"Ok," he began. "Siegfried said they dragged
your son into this, but don’t let that distract you. It's not like you're some
rogue Fae that came here to start problems. This is more like they now know who
you are and they want to make sure you're no threat to the status quo."

"Maybe, but pulling him in raises the stakes a bit."

"Robert, you're thinking too human," he replied.
"I know you don’t look at him this way, but Jay is a Fae prince, even if
he doesn't know it yet. But, trust me, they do. They're not going to risk a war
by screwing with him. This is just about wanting to know what they're up
against. They're guessing you're a friend. But what kind? Can they manipulate
you, or are you equals? Remember what power is in our world. Not just
politically like in the human world, but strength in magic, too. Look, you've
done fine so far, so don’t let them distract you. It's just like the
demonstration we pulled off with the Fae here. It's all a game. You know how to
play this."

I mulled that over for a moment before replying. I really
hated games. Well, at least the political kind. Why can’t anyone ever just play
it straight forward?

"Ok, thanks for the advice," I finally said. He
was right. I had to play this like anything else. Jay wouldn’t expect any less.
Let's just hope I didn’t screw the pooch with this one.

"Oh, one more thing. They're probably pissed about the
Lilin thing. I'm sure they would have preferred a heads up on that one."

"It's a little too late for that," I said.

"Yes it is," he agreed. "But that's life and
it was your call to make. Just do me one favor."

"What's that?"

"There are rules," he answered. "So try not
to kill anyone. That would be bad."

"Killing is bad. Got it." As if I hadn’t already
figured that much out, I thought to myself.

"Ok, a few more things. Don’t take the Sonim, take your
regular cell phone. They're going to take it from you. You want to keep the new
one secure so it can’t be compromised. They don’t always play fair. Second, they'll
take you somewhere where they think your magic can be muted. That means you're
only gonna have what you take in. There'll be nothing you can draw from. Since
you're of the Dryad that means no wood or plants of any kind. So you’re going
to have to play it smart."

Michael was talking about magic. Many of the Fae had chosen
Vegas originally because of the gaming. Magic was a finite resource and the
wishes and dreams of the humans that came here were much needed fuel. Most Fae
also drew their magic from the sources of their kind. Water Fae from water,
Dryad from trees. Some even took it from humans themselves, like an Incubus or Succubus
did. I was fortunate. Being a High Fae meant that I could draw it from anywhere.
But I still needed either the elements themselves or living things to draw
from. That was also what made it easy to tell what a Fae was. The magic that
emanated from them was a telltale sign of their kind. Again, I was lucky. Being
a High Fae also meant that they probably couldn't read me like a normal Fae.
That had been an asset in the past, but in this case was probably part of the
problem. Like the Mages I'd battled before, they weren't exactly sure what I
was.

"How do you know all this shit, anyway?" I asked.

"You didn't think the EAB was only comprised of
half-Demons did you?"

"Are you telling me you used to work for them?" I
asked, incredulously. "And what does that stand for anyway? EAB, I
mean."

"Let's just say I was associated with them," he admitted.
"That was before I came to work with Siegfried. As for EAB, that's the
External Affairs Bureau. It's just a Government acronym that doesn't stand out
too much."