“Sorry, Dayna,” Esteban said as I turned to face him. “Between the suit, the mask, and those goggles…you look like one of the bounty hunters from Star Wars.”
I pulled off the magnifiers and the mask with crisp snaps of elastic.
“Well, crime scene gear isn’t meant for a model’s catwalk.” That came out more sharp-sounding than I intended. “Speaking of which, please don’t touch anything. I’m in the middle of an evidence sweep.”
He backed off a little from the vault opening, making sure to keep his hands away from any and all surfaces. I put my forceps aside and stepped out next to him as he cleared his throat and began again.
“I just spoke with the museum’s director. They’ll be sending their security camera tapes to the LAPD. I’ll make sure your office gets a copy.”
“Good. Since you already know who to talk to, ask them to pull the building’s air filters. Tell them to put each filter in a clean plastic bag and send it direct to the OME.”
He gave me a puzzled look. “But…why? You planning to have the building inspected for mold or something?”
“Not mold. Hair. Fur, to be more specific. Feathers, or pieces of feathers.”
Esteban had a toe-curlingly cute face that shone like a brand new copper penny when he smiled his gap-toothed grin at me. But lurking just below that kind surface was a flint-hard layer I’d seen a couple of times. I wasn’t naïve about it. No one made it to a senior position in the Homicide Division by being a milquetoast, yet it still unnerved me when that steely hardness came out. Like now.
“You think that this is some monster. From that other world.” He said it flatly, as a statement of fact.
“I don’t think of griffins as monsters, but otherwise, yes.”
“I’ve only met one griffin. He threated to ‘clout’ me.”
“Yeah, he’s known to do that sometimes,” I said, trying to lighten things up. “It means he likes you.”
Esteban wasn’t having it. His voice stayed flat.
“So that means you’ll have to go back there again. To Andeluvia.”
“It’s possible. Likely, even.” I felt my cheeks flush. I didn’t want to tell a lie, but after all that had happened this morning, I didn’t think this was the right time to spring news on a man who I wanted to keep on my good side.
I hadn’t told Esteban the full truth of what had been going on. Thanks to McClatchy’s meddling, I’d barely been able to do my job for the past month-and-a-half. So, I’d taken advantage of that fact to visit Andeluvia on a more regular basis.
Last week, before I wrangled my way back into field work by taking the night shift, I requested a change to part-time status. Esteban had been so busy with his own work that we hadn’t seen nearly as much of each other as I’d have liked, and I’d hesitated to tell him about my request. I knew he wouldn’t like it. And true to Dayna Chrissie form, I felt both ashamed and defensive about the entire thing.
“Likely? I’d say it’s a guarantee. You like that place, that world. More than this one.” He half-turned away from me and crossed his arms. “More than what I can offer, I can guess that right off.”
The guilty-feeling and defensive side of me fought each other for a moment. The defensive side of me won out. “Haven’t we had this discussion before? I need to go where I’m needed.”
“What if I told you that I was the one who needed you?”
“That’s…” I pulled off my glove and used my bare hand to pinch above the bridge of my nose. I wasn’t sure if it was the emotional turmoil or the early hour wake-up call, but my head was starting to throb. “That’s different. And I don’t know how much you really need me. Not after our last date.”
An irritated grumble. “You’re still going to throw that in my face, are you?”
“Throw it in…Alanzo, we’d already decided that we were going to–” I caught myself and bit my tongue. No telling how well sound echoed in this huge oval room. “I mean, you had me practically out of my clothes when the damn phone rang!”
In truth, he’d had me less than ten seconds from jamming my thumbs in my panties and pulling them down on my own. It had started out with me bringing take-out from a Thai place down the street from where he lived. Innocent enough, until some necking and kissing had taken us around at least two of three bases and a slide into home plate was definitely in the works.
And then, the damned phone call had come in. The big break in his murder case. It had resulted in a shoot-out that ended with the bad guy in custody. It could just as well have ended with Esteban in a body bag. I felt bad for even bringing it up. But call it the early morning hours, the frustration of missing out on some choice lovemaking, topped off with the cherry on the sundae of emotions: the guilt over not coming clean over my visits to Andeluvia. I couldn’t excuse myself. I just couldn’t.
But right then I couldn’t rein my emotions in, either.
“What did you expect me to do, Dayna?” he gritted. “Shut off my phone? Pass on the chance to stop a Grade-A psychopath – someone who could have killed again?”
“No! But I didn’t know you were on duty! You didn’t tell me! And then, somewhere between the egg rolls and the pad thai noodles, what happened? You just about charmed me out of my pants – only to leave me high and dry.”
“Fine. You’re in the right, as always, and I’m in the wrong. Is that what you want to hear?”
“How about a simple ‘I’m sorry, Dayna.’ Or is that too much to ask? Besides, we hardly see each other enough to qualify this as a relationship.”
“Look, the Lieutenant’s got me working double duty. It’s rough, I know. But he thinks that with my talent, I’m next in line for his spot when he moves up. And he will.”
“This is about Ollivar now, then? Well, that’s just great. Back there, when he tried to piss me off? You let drop a hint that you and I are dating.”
“He already knows we’re dating, Dayna. He’s known since I started seeing you.”
For some reason that made me even madder. “Oh, I guess I’m worth some locker-room talk, then? Real smooth way to get on my good side, Alanzo.”
“No,” he sighed. “Not locker-room talk. I’ve known Luis for five or six years now. We’ve worked together a lot. He’s had me over for barbeques. I’ve been to his daughter’s quinceañera. He can be sharp-tongued, sure, but I don’t just think of him as my boss. I think of him as a friend.”
A friend, and a good one, I realized. Especially if Esteban had been invited to the fifteenth birthday celebration of Ollivar’s kid. That rankled me more than I thought it would.
“I’m not so keen on your taste in friends, then. He’s part of McClatchy’s crowd. I’m not sure I like him around you.”
Esteban’s hazel eyes bored into me for a moment. He lowered his voice and spoke in a gentler tone. “Are we back in high school, Dayna? You don’t like one of my friends, so I better not hang out with them?”
“You know about the problems I’m having with McClatchy.”
“Yes, I do. Believe me. But those problems are between you and him. Not between Ollivar and me. Luis may have stirred you up a bit, but he won’t go further than that.” Esteban uncrossed his arms, then touched me gently on the shoulder, bringing me around to face him. “He knows you have your own friends in the department. And I’m one of them. If you’ll have me.”
I could say that Esteban made me stop in my tracks there, but that wouldn’t be quite right. More like melted me. Made my anger drip away. I was tired, and that had brought the foolishness out in me.
“I’ll have you.” I took his hand, squeezing gently. “I was out of line there, wasn’t I?”
Esteban lifted his other hand and brought his index finger and thumb within a half-inch of each other.
“So was I,” he admitted. “And yes, I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have gotten you all worked up when I knew that I could be called away at any moment. That was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
I let out a breath. I d
id care about Alanzo, even if the bond we had was new, raw, and already stretched by my time in the other world and his schedule. And when it came to his relationship with the Lieutenant, I had to remember something my mother had once told me and my sister: that boyfriends and lovers never came custom tailored. Sometimes, if you truly cared for someone, you had to accept things about them you weren’t all that happy about.
“Now that we’ve cleared the air a bit,” Esteban continued, “You and I will have to keep an eye on Ollivar. You’re right, he’s one of McClatchy’s boys. And McClatchy’s in the running to become the next Chief of the LAPD.”
“Don’t remind me,” I groaned.
“Well, you might expect more oddball assignments like this. And Luis might put one more roadblock in your path. If you want to keep your sidearm, you’re going to have to recertify before the end of the month. Ollivar’s got a lot of pull in the firearms training department.”
I grimaced. Yes, I needed to keep my gun. My time in Andeluvia had convinced me that there were too many things in that world outside my weight class.
“Ouch. Sounds like I need to carve out some more time from my schedule to handle that as well.”
“Then maybe we can make lemonade from our lemons,” Esteban said, and the attractive glint came back into his smile. “Meet me this Friday for practice on the range? How about putting a couple hours after noontime to good use?”
“I’ll be there. Keeping my sidearm has become a much higher priority as of late.”
“So it’s settled. You will be going back to…that other place.”
I looked back at where I’d set down my aluminum case. Inside lay that giant white feather, almost mocking me with what it stood for.
I had questions to ask. None of which could be answered in this world.
“Yes,” I said plainly. “I’m going.”
Chapter Six
I’d swabbed the griffin feather and turned the samples over to the labs back at the Office of the Medical Examiner, but I was cultivating a bunch more ruffled feathers at the moment. I was getting impatient, and that was the one thing I did not need to be right now.
For the first time in almost three months, I’d managed to get access to the Parliament building – a sort of cross between a Greek-style theatre and a high-roofed barn. Rows of drafting tables ran the circumference of the room, manned by a legion of horn-tufted owls seated atop iron bar perches set behind the tables. Bright yellow eyes threw me curious glances, though most of their attention was reserved for the scribbling of laws or spending bills on rolls of parchment. The air was charged with the strange but heady scent of feathers, old parchment, and freshly baked pastry.
Xandra, the first Parliamentarian I’d ever met, perched on a lower bar before me so that we could converse more easily. Well, at least it was easier to look her in the eyes. Andeluvian owls were giants compared with the Great Horned Owls from rural Illinois, as they stood more than three feet tall and sported wicked-looking black talons. But their uniqueness – at least for this world – lay in their mode of speaking.
“So regretful it is, so regretful,” Xandra said, with a shake of her tufted head. “When those we wish to meet are otherwise occupied. It makes one wish for other places, other ways one can busy oneself more productively.”
Xandra had a prim and proper voice that reminded me of a gentle schoolmarm. Like the other owls, she tended to talk ‘around’ a subject in the most circuitous ways possible. And to top off that linguistic sundae, they also assiduously avoided using the word ‘I’. It forced me to engage an extra handful of circuits to mentally translate whatever they were saying.
So regretful it is when those we wish to meet are otherwise occupied. To me, that sounded a lot like bureaucrat-speak for ‘We’re sorry, the party you want to reach is currently on another line.’ It makes one wish for other places, other ways one can busy oneself more productively.
In other words: Scram, kid. Go off somewhere else and keep yourself busy.
Like hell I’d be doing that. Aside from my natural stubbornness, I needed to press my case. I had to. I wanted to speak with Thea, the ‘Albess’, a sort of combination Head of Parliament and Holy Figure. She was kind enough, and had been supportive of my work in bringing King Benedict’s murderer to justice. But she’d also sunk out of public view right as she’d given me the clue to solving who had assassinated a Captain of Andeluvia’s Royal Air Cavalry. I wanted to find out what else she knew.
So, I gritted my teeth and did my best attempt to speak Parliament-ese.
“One realizes that those such as the Albess always have days piled high with platters full of tasks,” I said reasonably. “Yet surely one as exalted as she could spare a moment for she-of-another-world, one who has traveled so far to see her and hear her wisdom.”
My invocation of the title that Xandra herself had given me on my first meeting failed to impress in the slightest. And yet I heard a hint of curiosity in her voice when she next spoke.
“Platters of the day are piled high, indeed!” She let out a ‘hoo!’ adding, “Certainly, one such as the Albess is wise beyond measure. Yet there are others who have this quality in small but measureable amounts. Could one such as these be of such use to you?”
Inwardly, I groaned. There are others who have this quality in small amounts. Could one such as these be of such use to you? That is, you’re not getting to see Thea, so how about seeing someone else to talk about whatever it is you want? Even phrased politely, I was still getting the stonewall treatment.
But I couldn’t just talk with any old owl. Beyond Thea, I didn’t know who I could trust. I was pretty sure that the Albess suspected that her movements and contacts with me were being watched. She’d supported me mostly under the table, not openly. What’s more, the one and only time she’d spoken to me directly, she’d couched her advice in a riddle.
“One foresees a time that this could be helpful,” I began, then decided to lean a little harder. “But she-from-another-world comes upon the wings of a storm. One that could shake the very rafters of the owls’ homes. Fear and danger are what drive me into the wings and counsel of only the wisest and eldest of the Parliament. One cannot leave by the doors she entered until her desire to speak has been quenched.”
Maybe I was being a little dramatic. But the fact remained that Thea’s lead had put me into contact with a very old, very dangerous type of demon. That ‘Old Man of the Mountain’ had done two things: set me up to nearly commit a murder of my own, and put me on notice that there were powers on the move behind the scenes. Ones that had been defeated in a long-forgotten war. Ones that even now could be looking for vengeance.
Xandra’s head tufts twitched a couple of times before she answered.
“One feels that the rafters that span the heights above us are yet safe and secure. Only chicks and old hens jump and quail at shadows. And one must point out, doors work both to admit and dismiss our concerns.”
If I had any problems interpreting that, a pair of the largest owls I’d seen yet landed on perches next to me. One big bruiser of a bird flexed a dark talon the size of my index finger and dragged it against the steel bar he perched upon. A menacing scree echoed in the chamber.
I didn’t like it, but even Dayna Chrissie knows when an argument isn’t getting anywhere.
“She-from-another-world sees that doors do operate both ways, indeed. Yet my need shall not go away, but shall redouble. This shall not be the last time we speak on this subject.”
“One looks forward to such tidings,” Xandra said, sounding surprisingly sincere about it.
With that, I turned and left the Parliamentarians to their scribbling.
* * *
I pushed through the heavy iron-banded door that led into what I thought of as the ‘turret room’ in one of the palace’s corner towers. It was a spacious circular chamber with a vaulted ceiling that made up the inside of the dunce cap tower. The room came with a wooden table, a fully kitted out hearth,
a set of tapestries to keep down the worst of the drafts, and a pair of windows that looked out over a swath of the palace’s open courtyard.
At night, one could close up the windows with a set of wooden shutters that looked as if they could plug portholes on a battleship. Light came either from the lit hearth or from a set of beeswax candles hung from a metal circlet above the table. Spent wax hung from the circlet like yellow stalactites, but the sockets had been empty for a long while. Without being asked, Galen would usually set a half-dozen balls of ‘werelight’ along the circuit, which gave off better illumination than the candles ever could.
The turret room wasn’t ‘assigned’ to anyone, as best as I could tell. However, ever since I’d used the place to both teach my friends board games and to plot strategy with a Fayleene, a pooka, a centaur, and a griffin, word had sort of gotten around the court that I’d laid claim to it.
Galen and Shaw were both at the huge center table as I entered the room. The centaur wizard wore his usual wine-colored cloth jacket, one that complimented the dark hair and brooding looks. It still had me mentally casting him in Wuthering Heights. He raised a silver tankard topped with a sudsy head to his lips as his companion let out his uniquely leonine laugh.
Shaw’s tawny fur gleamed under a cape of ivory-colored feathers as his wings lay furled up against his back. His eagle face appeared stern as always, but merriment danced in his golden eyes. The griffin grasped a tankard of his own; I noted absently that it had no handles, allowing Shaw to curl a lion’s paw around the vessel’s exterior.
“Dayna, thou hast arrived at a perfect moment!” Shaw said expansively. “The wizard and I are celebrating a moment most proud.”
I grinned as I sat down on a bench at the table. The griffin’s good mood was infectious. “Whatever it was, it must have been special.”
Grand Theft Griffin Page 3
