“Allie! Allie! What is it?” his voice was low and turning her head slightly Allie saw that Mariniessa had drawn her sword and was sweeping the area to clear it of dangers. She had also called up full wards into the empty field, no easy accomplishment.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Allie said very calmly and he barely had her set back on her feet before she was down on her knees, throwing up. Finally she gasped, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. What is going on?”
“There’s a trail from where Jenny disappeared leading to here, well almost here. A few yards more that way,” she waved her hand a bit further down along the bushes. “I felt it and then, it was like the emotions were pulling me back to where they started.”
“Started? Are you certain the girl was not brought here?” Mariniessa asked briskly.
“No I don’t think so. Her emotions aren’t here just his.”
“His? You know it was a male?” Jess asked.
Allie winced. “Yes. Definitely. He was angry and afraid of something but also excited and turned on and…he wanted to hurt her, or someone anyway…I don’t know it all swirls together.”
She started to try to move closer to the place and her knees buckled, her vision becoming a pinpoint. Instinctively she reached out to Jess, to use his emotions to strengthen herself and then realizing what she was doing she stopped and immediately threw up again.
“Enough Allie. Enough! Stop,” Jess said urgently. And then seeing she was still stubbornly trying to move closer, he lifted her again and carried her back the way they’d come.
“No! I have to see if I can get more…”
“Absolutely not,” his voice was firm.
She insisted, embarrassed at feeling so weak, “Alright give me a little bit to recover and then I’ll try again.”
He sat her down on the hood of her car and leaned over until he was looking directly into her eyes. “Three days Allie. I’m telling you as your Commander, we will wait three days until you have recovered. ”
“Three days!” she repeated shaking her head, but before she could argue Mariniessa, who had followed them to the cars, joined the discussion looking grim.
“With psychic gifts such as yours Aliaine three days is the usual recovery period to avoid risking burnout. Any sooner and you could hurt yourself or damage your gift.”
My gift is already damaged Allie thought wryly. She didn’t bother to tell the elven mage that a couple hours with Jess would replenish all of her energy quite thoroughly. At this point it was clear arguing wasn’t going to get her anywhere.
Chapter 6 - Thursday
Allie awoke early the next morning knowing that she had dreamed about Syndra again, but this time she couldn’t remember any of the details. It was maddening to feel certain that she had seen and talked to her friend but not be able to remember a single thing about the encounter. Even more so because she was filled with the nagging certainty that it was important.
Jess slept soundly, lying on his stomach, and for a while she lay next to him and watched the regular rise and fall of his body with his breathing. The rhythm of it was soothing and a tiny selfish part of her wished that she could keep him like this forever. She wondered if that was how he felt, when he talked about not wanting to be away from her.
The night before had proven as mixed as the rest of the day. She had brought Jess home with her and a great deal of awkwardness had ensued between him and Bleidd and Liz, as she’d expected. Jason had seemed almost apologetic at their quite ice cream hang out turning into another roommate movie night, with Jess, but Allie couldn’t blame him for telling the others about his bad day or wanting to nurture a greater sense of comradery. It was her own fault for not thinking to use her cell phone to call him and let him know Jess was coming with her as well. At least Shawn had kept his embarrassing questions about what it was like to be a Fairy cop to a minimum. Jess seemed to be the only person so far who intimidated the newest roommate into silence and Allie wasn’t entirely sorry about that.
Reluctantly Allie realized unless she wanted Jess to be late because of her she was going to have to wake him up, tempting as it was to let me him keep sleeping. He had been unusually quiet all night and she was filled with a growing certainty that something was wrong between them, but she couldn’t work out what it was. Certainly the physical closeness hadn’t changed. We have plenty of sex when we do see each other Allie thought but we don’t talk very much. Shouldn’t we talk to each other more? Gah I wish Syndra was alive, or at least haunting me where I could remember talking to her. I’m no good at this relationship stuff.
Still feeling pensive, she reached out and gently rubbed his back until he stirred. When she was certain he was awake she spoke softly, “Good morning.”
He turned his head on the pillow, blinking slowly at her, “Is it morning already?”
“It’s getting late actually. I let you sleep as long as I could, but I don’t want you to get in trouble for missing your meeting,” she lay her head down next to his, wishing again that he didn’t have to go. She realized with more than a touch of sadness that there had never been a single time in their relationship where they had been together and able to really relax and enjoy each other. There was always someplace to be, someone to see; time it seemed was always against them. It seemed impossible that she had only known him for a few months. He felt like a part of her, and yet she realized they never really had any time to simply be together.
As if echoing her thoughts he said, “If I could stop the world from turning I would make this night last forever.”
“We’ve already lost the night to the day,” she replied smiling and kissing him lightly on the lips.
His fingers traced the lines of her face, from her temple to her jaw, soft as a breath against her skin. “How are you feeling today?”
“Fine. I could go back to the site Jenny disappeared from right now-“
“Absolutely not,” he said firmly, his voice at odds with the gentleness of his touch. “You drive yourself too hard Allie, with total disregard for your own wellbeing. If you won’t take care of yourself then I will have to do it for you.”
Allie looked away, embarrassed. He was reminding her that when they had been trying to catch Detective Walters – before they knew it was Walters – she’d pushed herself into near exhaustion even after being injured by two Dark Court elves. He must think I’m just a foolish child Allie thought The Guard needs me to help find Jenny, not to work myself into collapse because I won’t listen to anyone telling me to slow down. And there she knew was the real crux of it. The Guard needed her, because she served a purpose for them right now, but where did she fit into Jess’s life? He was willing to trick her into joining the Guard, or at least to allow her to make a deal with him that worked to the Guard’s advantage. He wanted her in his bed – that was obvious enough – and he said he loved her. But was that a relationship? Was that enough?
Allie pushed up from the bed so quickly that it left his hand hanging in the air where she had been. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Allie,” Jess said, sounding confused. She ignored him and refused to give in to the temptation of reading his thoughts.
“I’ll be right back. Then we need to get down and get some breakfast and get moving or you really will be late,” she said, already pulling on clothes and moving towards the door. She slipped out of the room before he could untangle himself from the sheets, and escaped to the sanctuary of the bathroom.
********************************
Hours later Allie pulled up to her store feeling as if she was ruining her own life, but unsure how to stop it. If Jess had been acting oddly yesterday he was acting even more so the rest of the morning. He barely spoke to her, but at the same time was hardly ever more than a few feet away and touched her constantly – her hair, her shoulder, her arms – as if he were afraid she was going to disappear. It made eating breakfast annoyingly difficult and earned strange looks from Ja
son and Bleidd, who were also in the kitchen. Despite how much it was getting on her nerves she could feel a constant low level anxiety from Jess that set her own nerves on edge and kept her from asking him to stop.
When she had finally dropped him off at the Outpost he had hesitated to get out of the car. The awkwardness was painful but Allie didn’t know how what to do about it. He had turned to her, his face reflecting the worry and growing fear she felt from him, and started to say something. Started to. His mouth had opened and he’d taken a deep breath, as if about to say something he had to brace himself for, and then instead he had lunged forward and kissed her as if he were trying to make them into a single person. If she hadn’t had her seatbelt on he would have pulled her right out of her seat. And then, like a dream, he was gone, walking quickly up the steps and into the Outpost, leaving her sitting there stunned.
Preoccupied with all of this Allie unlocked the back door and was in the hallway before she realized the wards on the building weren’t there anymore. She felt a moment of pure, blinding panic and then common sense asserted itself. If the wards had been broken by magic she would have been alerted. If they had been triggered first and then broken they would have acted to trap or slow whoever broke in. If they were down and she hadn’t felt anything, then no magic was involved, nor any serious threat to the store. It could be something as simple as an insect breaking the framework of the spell.
Taking a deep breath she moved forward cautiously, stepping out into the main room. At first she didn’t see anything out of place and it was only when she noticed Lei walking across the street from her own store, several children in tow and the youngest in her arms, and realized she wasn’t seeing the pixie through glass that the truth sunk in.
Someone had broken both her front windows. The big picture windows which sat on either side of the front door were now just empty wooden frames. Allie moved forward slowly her eyes automatically looking for other signs of damage. There were none. With a moments effort she could feel the wards on the cashbox were still in place. The rows of books were undisturbed. The chairs and couches sat in their usual places. Only the large windows were destroyed, with a frightening thoroughness.
Allie walked up to the door and unlocked it just as Lei stepped up to it. The pixie’s petite face, tinged just slightly with the same grass green color as her hair, was marred by a fierce frown. Irrelevantly Allie found herself wondering yet again how Lei, who had at least seven children that Allie knew of, could manage to keep the figure of an adolescent girl. The pixie was just under 5 feet tall, slim and athletic, with the barest hint of hips and a face that wouldn’t have looked out of place in most middle schools. The only sign of her adulthood was the small firm breasts pushing out under her peasant blouse, breasts which the youngest child was currently trying to get to, intent on nursing.
“Don’t fret yourself any Allie-girl,” Lei said in low Elvish, pulling her shirt down and latching the baby on before Allie could process the words. It always took her a minute to switch to the dialect used by the lesser Fey, which she didn’t often have a reason to translate. “I already called the police, that I did. Mayhap shoulda called the Guard, but humans are better for human crime and there’s no smell o magic here.”
“I – that was kind of you Lei. I don’t know why anyone would do this,” Allie said dazed.
“Bloody bastards, whoe’er they are, for certain. No care of the cost of fixing such a thing,” Lei tsk’d . Her three older children, of indeterminate genders but ranging in age from an older toddler to perhaps around seven orbited their mother like little planets, making Allie dizzy. Lei turned at a sound Allie couldn’t hear and frowned harder, “Here’s the police now, not rushing near as they should be. If they give you grief you come across and fetch me and I’ll light a fire under ‘em. My little Sari’s dad’s a cop here and they’ll treat you right or they’ll wish they had.”
Despite the circumstances Allie felt her lips twitching into a smile. Lei was a firecracker. “That’s very kind of you Lei. I’ll do that.”
Lei reached out to take Allie’s hand briefly, balancing the nursing baby against her chest, “You’re a good person Allie, even if you are part elf and screwing one besides. I’ve always liked you. You need anything you come on over to my place across the way and we’ll get it sorted.”
Allie laughed at that and nodded, “Of course. I know where to find you when the open sign is out.”
Lei laughed too, as an unmarked police car pulled up, “And no one knows for sure where to find me when it says closed!”
Lei and her children went back out the door and across the street as two officers climbed out of the car. Allie took a deep breath trying not to let her last interaction with the Ashwood police department affect her expectations now. To her great surprise a very familiar lean figure was walking towards her, his face a bit older under his receding hair line than it should have been after such a short time.
“Detective Riordan!” Allie greeted the police officer who had helped save her life last month with genuine enthusiasm.
“Hello Ms. McCarthy,” Riordan’s voice was as friendly as his smile and Allie felt a wave of relief. “We received a report of some vandalism at your store?”
“Yes, someone broke my front windows,” Allie said, and then belatedly, “I’m sorry I don’t know your ne-er, your partners name.”
She’d almost said new partner but that seemed rude somehow. If Riordan noticed her slip he ignored it. He gestured at the man walking next to him, a tall, fit younger man with short brown hair and calm eyes. Allie liked him right away, if only because he wasn’t projecting anything negative about being there. “This is detective Mark Smythe. Mark this is Allie McCarthy, she helped our department out with an occult crime a little while ago.”
If that had any significance for Smythe he didn’t let it show. He stepped up and extended a hand to Allie and shook hers firmly. “Nice to meet you. If we ever need more occult help I’ll know where to go.”
Allie smiled, but Riordan looked uncomfortable, “I think Ms. McCarthy has had her fill of helping us Mark. I wouldn’t want to make her feel obligated to anything else.”
“If anything else came up and I could help you know you can ask detective,” Allie said honestly. “The Guard doesn’t hesitate to.”
“That’s a bit of a different circumstance,” Riordan said, and then clearly curious, “The Guard asked you for help with something?”
“A missing person case. I guess you guys wouldn’t take it, but the Guard did.”
“Huh,” Riordan said, thoughtfully. “Just be careful. You don’t think that might have anything to do with this, do you?”
“I don’t think so. Anyone who knows I’m helping with that would have to be crazy to do something like this,” Allie said, shaking her head.
“Why?” Smythe asked, puzzled.
Wordlessly Allie pulled her new badge out of the front pocket of her jeans, feeling foolish for keeping it there at all, but also loathe for whatever reason not to have it with her. She held it out to the two detectives who looked at it in shock. Allie fought the urge to giggle at the looks on their faces.
“Sweet Jesus,” Riordan swore softly. “You joined the Elven Guard? When did that happen?”
“It’s not quite like that. I’m kind of an adjunct intermediary which is a really fancy way to say that they are having me help whenever they have to interview human witnesses, or things like that, to make sure nothing is getting lost in translation, with language or customs.”
Riordan frowned trying to work that out. “So it’s like a per diem job?”
“Basically,” Allie agreed. “But I don’t think whoever broke the store windows knew about it or would have done something like this because of that. The Guard doesn’t take personal threats lightly even to per diem employees.”
Riordan didn’t look totally convinced. “Well we’ll need the video from your store’s surveillance system. Should have a decent shot of whoever
did this.”
Allie winced, “Yeah, we would have, but my system’s not working. It’s been down since last week.”
Riordan and Smythe exchanged a long look before Smythe said, “I’d really get that fixed as soon as possible if I were you.”
The two detectives walked over to examine the damage to the windows. Riordan took out a small camera and began taking pictures of the scene. Smythe nudged a two by four lying on the ground with his foot, nodding at Riordan. “This did it, you think?”
“Probably, let’s bag it and we can check,” Riordan agreed, and then to Allie, “Any idea who might have done this?”
Allie shook her head. “No. Oh, and if the other stuff’s all connected-“
“What other things have happened?” Riordan interrupted.
“Well the dead animals started more than a week ago.”
Riordan stopped taking pictures. “Dead animals? What dead animals?”
“A squirrel, a bird, and a cat so far.”
“You should have called the police before now,” Riordan said tightly.
“I did,” Allie replied, puzzled. “I called and reported it after the cat.”
“You did? And someone came out and opened a case?”
“Well someone came out,” Allie said. “And she told me she was going to file a report.”
“Do you remember what the officer’s name was?” Smythe asked, waiting to be sure Riordan had photographed it before carefully picking up the two by four and bagging it.
“O’Donnell,” Allie said, sure she wouldn’t soon forget the name. The two detectives exchanged a knowing look that piqued Allie’s curiosity but before she could ask about it they were moving on, asking her to go over finding the dead animals in detail. Riordan wrote everything down this time.
“Okay Ms. McCarthy we’ve got your statement and it’s going to take a couple hours at least to get this scene processed. Why don’t you call a glass place to get these windows fixed and then go sit down or try to get your mind off all of this. You can’t help anything by hanging around here.”
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