Corey moved toward us, his weapon drawn, and Selene and I ran to the car. He went into the house and was gone for a few minutes that felt like many more before he came out.
"Doctors," he said. "What were you running from? There's a naked, unconscious man in the kitchen."
"Wait," I said. I put my hands on Corey's cheeks and forced him to look into my eyes. His energy flowed through my palms, and I could tell it was him, although I couldn't explain how.
"What?" he asked.
"We're dealing with something very dangerous," I explained. "Something your gun won't help you to defend yourself against." I opened my mouth to say more, but something invisible slammed into me, knocking me to the ground and jolted my breath out of me. Raleigh jumped at it again, and it fled. Still, my brave little cat walked in a circle around me, growling and hissing until, satisfied, he sat beside my head. Corey helped me to a sitting position as my breath returned, and I gathered the purring cat to me.
"What is it?" Selene asked.
"A soul-eater," I said. "At least I think so. Let's go inside and take a look."
We followed Corey into the kitchen, where we found the comatose body of Mickey Michaels, coffee filter in hand, but without his clothing, which lay in a heap by the front door.
"Poor guy," I said and rubbed my eyes. "I wish I'd figured it out earlier. I should've known when I saw the drained animals."
"Drained animals?" Corey asked. "I don't follow."
"It's how it was following me. Taking the form of animals so I couldn't sense it. Soul-stealers can take the form of humans and animals, and they need to steal their energy in order to do so." First a bird, then a squirrel, and now…
"Where did it come from?" Corey asked. He looked concerned.
"It's a type of dark Fae, and most cultures have a different name for it. You know how they say fairies steal children? This is the truth of the legend," I told him. "And the fact that this one is getting closer and taking on larger forms says it's growing stronger."
Selene pulled out her phone, then frowned at it. "What do I do? Call the police?"
"No, we have a different way of handling things like this," he said. "I'll call our organization. They have a special medical unit for such things. Mister Michaels will be safe there."
"Who is it?" Selene asked.
"Branch of the TS," he replied. "Sorry, that's all I can tell you. Would you mind waiting outside? Do you feel safe?"
I nodded. "Our friend is likely going to need to take time to recover from his or her most recent sojourn." But did I trust his organization with Mickey?
"And I need some air. Truly," Selene said. I followed her outside, all the while cooing to Sir Raleigh and telling him what a good kitty he was. He purred, and he allowed Selene to hold him, too, until she stopped shaking.
"Thank you," she said and put him on the ground, where he set about sniffing the lawn and beds.
"For what?" I asked.
"For letting me hold the cat. I know how attached you are to him."
"I…" I couldn't argue with her. "You're welcome. Have you not seen anything like that? There was no blood."
"That doesn't help much. The poor man. What if our being here led to his attack? And what if he doesn't wake up? He felt…empty."
I refrained from telling her that our presence likely had led to Mickey Michaels' death, if not now, then soon. He was a weak human, after all. The Fae Court called it collateral damage when two parties at war took out possible allies and…spies.
"Ohhh…" I said, the realization hitting me so hard it hurt. "He didn't just know about the lab. He knew about the bigger picture. Hades on a stick!"
"Wha…?" Selene was giving me that wide-eyed I'm not keeping up with you expression a lot that day.
"And somehow the cat knew. That's why he didn't come in. I think."
"I'm not following you," Selene said.
I wasn't following me. The thoughts flew through my brain so fast I couldn't catch them. "Give me time to sort it out. It'll make sense. By the way, Leah told me that the lock on the secure storage room door has been broken for a while, even longer than she's been there."
"So Mickey Michaels could have been the culprit," she said.
"Likely not if he was attacked to keep us from getting information," I replied. "It's definitely a sign we're on the right track, though."
She looked back toward the house, from which Corey emerged.
"And that we need to work more quickly before more innocent people get hurt, Reine. I know you're a Fae and don't hold our lives in high regard, but please tell me you have at least a little humanity."
And with that little speech, she got in the car, shut the door, and wouldn't make eye contact the entire ride back. She and Corey ignored me, as per usual, but instead of pondering revenge as I previously would have, another thought occupied my mind.
Now that a dark Fae had come into the picture, I needed to find some way to call my mother.
14
How was I going to call my mother? That was the big question. I had my talisman, but I still needed a place to use it. As far as I knew, the United States didn't have standing stones. While I had no doubt there would be spaces sacred to the indigenous peoples, I didn't know how to start looking for them. Well, I did. Fae knew how to use the Internet, but I also didn't know if such places would be similar enough in energy to draw my mother out, especially since she would have to use strength to push through, and while she was more powerful than me, she would also be weakened by being so far away from home.
A scrying stone wouldn't work, assuming I could find one. It couldn't call into Faerie, at least not with the amount of power I had, and I'd likely be incapacitated for days afterward. Not a good condition for dealing with a soul-eater.
My own skin crawled at the thought of such a being—a hybrid between the dark Fae and a powerful dark witch. They were rare and only emerged when called forth by a powerful shaman, witch, or other Fae, which was why I needed to talk to Mother. If anyone in the Light Seelie Court had summoned it, she would know or could find out.
Sir Raleigh lay curled in my lap, no doubt exhausted from his encounters with the creature. How had he known? And, as I sorted through the memories of the encounters, I recalled something else. I had seen the shadows of wings around Sir Raleigh.
Could he be a grimalkin, another Fae creature? I’d only heard of them since they were of the gray Fae, or the result of a rare cooperation between the Light and Dark courts. I petted him and felt along his shoulder blades, and he purred, but I couldn't feel any wing knobs or anything else that would indicate he either was going to grow or manifest them. But he traveled between dimensions, so what if he had them in whatever space he moved through?
Every encounter with the kitten gave me more questions about him.
Corey dropped us off at the lab and parked the car, and we all walked into the building.
"Are we safe here?" Selene asked. "I didn't think about it earlier, but now I'm worried. Especially since we're dealing with something invisible."
"We should be," Corey told her. "The exterior walls as well as the ceiling and floor are lined with silver-coated lead, and our most powerful spell-casters have put wards up. No critter should be able to get in or out without invitation."
That explained the hush I felt when I entered, like my senses for the outside world had been cut off. I'd been too preoccupied to notice it that morning.
We followed Corey back to the inner office. Cimex looked up, his expression startled. "Back so soon?" he asked. "I thought y'all were going to lunch."
"We encountered a problem."
"What sort of problem?" Cimex put his pen down, lining it up exactly along the top line of the document he'd been reading. Indeed, his entire office spoke of preciseness and lacked the clutter I'd been accustomed to seeing in other scientists' spaces. If a cluttered space was the sign of a clear mind, what did a neat space mean?
"A soul-eater."
Cimex's eyes appeared to grow in size to fill out the space behind his round lenses. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," I said. "It attacked Mickey Michaels before he could tell us anything." I refrained from saying that the man certainly seemed eager to reveal something to us. Selene and I would have to put our heads together to see whether we could talk to him on a different plane. Maybe Kestrel Graves could put us in touch with some local witches.
"I called the TS," Corey said.
It then occurred to me what he was referring to. "The Truth Seekers? That band of vigilante witches?"
Cimex held up a hand. "It's all right, Doctor River. We've been trying to make peace with them, and they've proven useful liaisons with the local law enforcement."
"What are they?" Selene asked.
I couldn't stifle the urge to roll my eyes, so I lifted my gaze to the heavens—all right, ceiling—with a heavy sigh.
"Merlin started them. They think they're our law enforcement, but there's no central supernatural government, so they don't really represent anything, and they don't have any power."
"And the Fae have never acknowledged their authority," Cimex added. Unnecessarily, I thought. Maybe he missed my eyeroll.
"So where were they when CLS became a problem?" Selene asked. Right, she'd been changed involuntarily, so she had some feelings about the matter.
"Their argument is that they monitor supernatural interference of humans, not vice versa," Corey explained.
"They missed the Order of the Silver Arrow, then," I muttered. "Was Wolfsheim not important enough to watch?"
"I don't know," Cimex replied, but his pleasant expression didn't waver. "Perhaps they knew that the Lycanthropy Council's Investigator had it under control."
"Riiiight," I said. "So, they'll clean up the mess. Good. What about the soul-eater?"
Now Cimex's face molded itself into a serious cast. Watching him fascinated me. He had a lot of expression for a human male. How had he become the leader of a scientific organization? Didn't human politics require more deception?
Or was he that good of an actor?
"I don't like the thought of you two being in danger," he said, now the picture of concern. "I'm afraid I have to insist that you not go anywhere unaccompanied. I'll also have our spell-casters come put wards on your hotel rooms."
"Maybe just Bev," I blurted. If John was tied somehow with the CLS issue, he might be in league with the soul-eater. Then my cheeks flushed as I recalled Kestrel's admonishment to keep her parents' roles a secret.
"Why?" Cimex asked. He didn't seem surprised. Maybe their secret was their coven involvement.
A deep voice answered before I could, and the condescending tones of Doctor Lawrence Effing Gargoyle Gordon filled the room. "Because female Fae have strict rules about who can do magic in their spaces. They only allow women to cast near them. Men's magic is too strong."
I opened my mouth to argue, but my mother's caution to not let them know too much truth about us came back to me. But too strong?
"Something like that," I replied through clenched teeth, not willing to give Lawrence more satisfaction than absolutely necessary. When had he snuck in?
"Very well," Cimex said. "Thank you, Lawrence. Why don't you accompany Doctor River since you seem knowledgeable about what she needs? And Corey, you watch Doctor Rial. I'll arrange for you gentlemen to have hotel rooms near theirs."
"You can do that?" Selene asked.
"We have ties to lots of the hotels," Corey said. "They'll contact us for the occasional exorcism, even though it's not exactly what we do. But they're grateful, and we have a lot of favors to call in."
Huh. Not only did they study paranormal diseases, they were also mediums. "Do you have a medium on staff?" I asked.
"No. We've sometimes used Kestrel Graves," Corey said, and I caught the pride in his tone. "She's young, but she's shown some talent in that direction."
"She hasn't settled into her powers yet?" I asked.
"No, she's a slow bloomer," Corey responded. Then he bit his lip and looked away.
Ah, so the feelings between the two were mutual. What kept them apart? Did Mama and Papa Graves not approve of the potential mating? Thanks to my Scottish colleagues, the rules against witch-shifter pairings had been rescinded as it had become apparent that forbidding them hadn't worked, and the Lycanthropy Council and Wizard Tribunal were, for the first time in centuries, trying to change with the times and create an alliance for this brave and strange new world.
"That's all right," Selene said and did her hand-on-the-arm thing. "It's sweet."
I suspected there would be some conversations while Corey guarded her, and jealousy again lanced through me. Not that I wanted to play fairy godmother on any level, but I didn't want to be left out, either. I couldn't resist a spark of love that brought light and joy in a difficult situation, even if I knew it would never be mine.
Lawrence brought me and Sir Raleigh back to the hotel. This time I got to sit in the front seat, but Sir Raleigh still had to be in the back in the carrier. I could feel his resentment.
What was happening with the kitten? It felt like he connected spiritually to me more every day, never mind how he liked to literally attach to me. I would have to get thicker shirts or maybe something with shoulder pads. The thought of wearing shoulder pads made me smile.
"What are you thinking?" Lawrence asked. He glanced over, and his lips curled in a slight grin.
That made my humor flee. "Nothing." No way would I tell him I was pondering sartorial suicide to accommodate a cat.
Sir Raleigh chirped from the backseat.
"The cat disagrees. I've been thinking about his unusual talents. Have you ever heard of a grimalkin?"
I didn't want to say yes, but I also didn't want to lie outright—those got you into trouble eventually—so I said, "Maybe."
He went into lecture mode. I folded my hands so I wouldn't strangle him.
"It's a type of dark Fae creature. They're often in the form of animals, and they display normal behaviors for their avatars, but they have strange abilities. There are no two alike."
"He came from a litter," I said, not bothering to correct him or educate him about the gray Fae. Mostly because I didn’t know much about them. Hades, half the light and dark Fae didn’t believe in the gray, but something told me they were real.
"How did the mother cat feel about him?" Lawrence gave me a side glance. "Often they'll masquerade as a young animal, but sometimes they're rejected."
"Veronica—the woman who had him—said the mother cat was perturbed by his disappearing and reappearing and didn't want to nurse him."
"Aha." His condescending tone made me wish I'd lied after all and said she hadn't had a problem with him. "So it's possible he was planted. The question is, by whom?"
"Indeed." I glanced back to see Sir Raleigh watching me with his gold-rimmed green eyes. He licked his nose. Cheeky little thing.
"Too bad he can't talk," I said. "That would solve many of our puzzles."
"He may eventually. Then you might not be able to shut him up." Lawrence shook his head. "That's been my experience, anyway."
"Wait…" I turned to look at him more fully just as he angled the car down a side street and the sun highlighted the—pun intended—chiseled planes of his face. When he wasn't being an ass, he could be good-looking.
Too bad he liked to spend so much time being an ass. But he had information I needed.
"So what you're telling me is that you've encountered these grimalkin creatures before?"
"Sure. Like you, I'm older than I look."
I sat back and folded my arms, more embarrassed than anything that while I'd been fending off his trying to know me more, I'd missed his lack of self-disclosure. "How old are you?" I asked.
"Old enough to not give a straight answer to a Fae," he replied. His words came across as teasing, but I caught the thread of caution that wound through them. So he was also old enough to know about the traditional enmit
y between our peoples, even before Rhys' fateful encounter.
"Right." I looked out of the window. "Because you'd rather be the expert on me but not have anyone know you that well. C'mon, Lawrence." I looked at him and caught him looking back. We both turned our gazes forward, at least from what I could see out of the corner of my eye. My cheeks heated for some strange reason.
"C'mon what?" he asked.
"Tell me something about you. Something beyond the professional vet and scientist persona." Something that would make spending excessive amounts of time with him bearable. Even beyond my mission for the Fae, to keep our true identities and abilities hidden, I hated being the subject of observation and study, and that's what he had been doing. And now I'd be stuck with him. I couldn't leave—that would be seen as abandoning what I'd been sent to do, which would close the gates of Faerie to me for good.
"I love animals," he said.
I shook my head. "Not good enough. I already knew that. It's one of your few redeeming qualities."
"Oh, so you admit I have others?"
"Don't push your luck, Gordon." And bless the Fates, I smiled. Actually smiled because I was enjoying our banter. "Tell me something that's not obvious."
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "I'm from Scotland, too," he murmured.
"What?" I turned to look at him fully. "How long have you been here? You've got a boring American accent."
His soft grin hardened into a line, and the muscles moved beneath his jaw. Heat spread from my cheeks to my scalp.
"I mean," I said, "it's very neutral."
"My buddies in school teased it out of me." His grin returned, but only half of it. "Listening to you brings back memories." His smile faded again.
"Not good ones, apparently." I wanted to keep him talking. This crack in his tough guy scientist exterior fascinated me.
But the tension returned to his jaw, and he shook his head. "They don't matter. Now tell me, have you thought any more about that sleep study?"
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