“There aren’t many rumors the hounds don’t hear,” said Reynard quietly. “That’s why we are here. You are the best source of information we could hope for.”
Lore sat very still. Ashe felt queasy with the tension in the room. She preferred fighting to info gathering, hands down. Hitting someone over the head was easier than convincing them to cooperate.
Reynard went on, his face grim. “We think this thief may be a demon.”
“The same one who owned the bookstore that burned down yesterday,” Ashe broke in. “Y’know, the one Holly asked your hounds to guard so no humans blundered inside? We think we’re dealing with a collector demon.”
Lore looked confused. “Then if you know who the demon is, why are you asking me?”
“Because the store burned down, and now we don’t know where he’s gone. If we know who he hangs out with, or if he’s on the market for more stuff, or, well, whatever the rumor mill can tell us, we might be able to track him down again.”
Lore nodded, confusion fading to thoughtfulness. “Such as . . . perhaps he is pursued by a vampire?”
“Are you serious?” Ashe stiffened. Bingo!
“Hellhounds cannot lie. That is our nature, as you well know.” The annoyance was back.
Reynard sat forward. “Tell us. Please.”
“There’s not much to tell, but the incident was unusual.” Lore got up, put his cup on the counter, and turned. “I worked here late last night. Around midnight a vampire knocked on my door. He asked the same questions that you are.”
“Goddess,” Ashe breathed. “Who was it?”
“I don’t know. He was a stranger. He was powerful. Tall, red-haired. Very, very old. I smelled anger on him. He, too, had heard that the hounds knew about trade in stolen goods. By the questions he asked, I am certain he is hunting for the same thief.”
“Belenos.” Ashe stood up, too wired to sit still. “He’s the King of the freaking East.”
Lore’s brows drew together. “I wondered. There were others with him, but they stayed in the shadows outside. He’s traveling with a guard.”
“Did he do more than ask questions?” Ashe asked.
“Wait here a moment.” Lore started across the warehouse at a jog-trot, heading for a small office stuck in the corner.
Reynard rose and set his cup on the counter. It was half-empty. He held the handle a moment before letting his fingers slip away, as if reluctant to let it go. “That tasted good.”
He’s dying. She knew that, but it hit her with a gut punch all over again. Ashe tried to keep her eyes steady as she searched his face. “You don’t look upset.”
“It’s hard to explain what it’s like to really taste something after hundreds of years.” He gripped the counter a moment.
“Are you feeling okay?” Ashe said tentatively.
“Of course.” He turned to face her.
Like the hellhounds, he was a crappy liar.
Oh, Goddess. Guilt made her turn away, cursing under her breath. “I should have a plan of action by now, and I’m not sure where to go next. I thought Lore would be more help.”
“But he has been. We know our visiting vampires may lead us to the demon’s door. If we find one, we’ll find the other.”
“I’ve got to come up with something.” She paced a few steps, digging deep to find the clinical calm that had taken her through so many hunting missions. “This is taking too long.”
But she didn’t have time to think further. Lore was returning, a pink object in his hand. He stopped, an unhappy look on his face. “The vampire king left this. He said others would come asking about the collector, and they would know what this meant.”
Lore held out a pink stuffed rabbit. “Do you understand this?”
Reynard stiffened. “It’s a threat.”
Lore looked flummoxed. “A rabbit?”
Ashe took the plush toy. It looked expensive. Reynard turned over the gift tag tied to its paw.
“ ‘For Eden, hugs and kisses,’ ” he read aloud.
Ashe felt her heart freeze. “Goddess, I’ve got to get to my daughter.”
Chapter 17
Sunday, April 5, 6:00 p.m.
101.5 FM
“This is Oscar Ottwell at CSUP, coming to you from the University of Fairview. We’re interrupting regular programming with a request to our listeners to be on the lookout for a lost little girl. Eden Carver is ten years old, with brown eyes and brown curly hair. She is wearing blue jeans, a long-sleeved pink T-shirt, and is probably wearing a blue jacket. She was last seen at around noon at her aunt’s home in the Shoreline neighborhood not far from St. Andrew’s Cemetery. If you see Eden, please call the station immediately at 555-CSUP. Volunteer searchers are also requested.”
Miru-kai moved silently through the Castle, freed to roam the prison once more. Mac had finally run out of questions and let him go. Or, more precisely, Miru-kai had chosen to run out of answers. He had given enough good information to buy himself out of that cell.
Mac wasn’t fully satisfied, but couldn’t afford any more time to spend on the prince’s evasions. Belenos with a key to the Castle presented a bigger threat.
A fortunate turn of events, because Miru-kai had to find the vampire first. Today he was scheduled to collect his payment from Belenos. Just because the thief had turned out to be a despicable double-crosser, that didn’t mean the vampire wouldn’t keep his part of the bargain. No one broke a deal with the fey. That carried with it an automatic curse no amount of time or distance could cure.
It was the prince who had buyer’s remorse. This was a bargain he should never have made. And yet the gem Belenos offered had been too much for even his jaded soul to resist. Over time, the stone had been given various silly names: the Stone of Darkness, the Treasure of Jadai, Vathar’s Bane. It was a fey treasure, and though other species knew it was potent, few even knew what it did. How Belenos had gotten his cold, clammy hands on it was anybody’s guess.
The gem solved a fundamental problem for the prince. No fey could leave the Castle, even with a portal standing wide open. The wizards who built the prison had put extra safeguards in place for those, like Miru- kai, who had the power of invisibility. If they tried to walk out, a wall of power sent them hurling backward like a ball slammed with a racket. That hurt. A lot.
The gem, in the hands of a powerful fey like Miru-kai, meant freedom at last. He had made the pact with Belenos without a moment’s hesitation. He wanted that stone!
But so much had gone wrong.
He had promised delivery of an urn. Not an urn with a soul in it. Again, wording was everything in these deals.
Miru-kai had told the demon very specifically to look for Bran’s urn—the same empty urn Miru- kai had picked up by mistake. Ironic? Definitely.
The idiot demon had stolen Reynard’s instead—probably grabbed the closest pot to the door in his bumbling haste. But Miru- kai could hardly make him take it back and fetch another, could he? He’d found out about the mistake too late to cover his tracks. The pattern mocked him.
So he had decided to tell Reynard about the theft. Make the game a little more fair. That was the fey thing to do. And, of course, by then he had discovered it was necessary to get an urn for himself—for Simeon. The fact that Reynard’s soul was at stake made it easy to get into the vault.
That was the only thing that had gone right.
First, Miru-kai had picked up the wrong urn.
Then Simeon had died days before Miru-kai could rescue them from this hole.
And now, by picking up bits and pieces of information from Mac’s questioning, Miru- kai understood what Belenos meant to do with the urn. What a disaster!
So much for making a hasty bargain in his desire to leave the Castle. A fey child would have known enough to ask more questions before sealing the deal. Carelessness like that was unforgiveable in a prince—in him! A warlord! A sorcerer! The great Miru-kai!
A vampire dynasty? Projects like that always en
ded in a bloodbath followed by a snowstorm of gloating memoirs. What a pompous fool. Bravo to the double- crossing demon thief for putting a wrench in that idiotic plan.
However, Belenos was a pompous fool with something the prince still wanted.
Miru-kai reached the meeting place, a cavern where the roof was so high, it was lost in shadows. Here the rock was unhewn and the boulders a soft gray with veins of white. Pebbles covered the floor, marking where a river had run long ago. A mere stone’s throw away, a cliff face thrust into the darkness. Deep runnels gouged the rock, hinting that a long-ago waterfall had splashed from at least forty feet above.
Miru-kai searched the darkness. An ever-burning fire flickered in a brazier at the mouth of a tunnel. Flames cast a tiny puddle of light, drawing blade-sharp shadows on the rocks.
The cavern was empty. The others had not arrived.
Before Miru-kai, the dry riverbed wound through the cavern. Behind him, a narrow passageway led back toward the gated wilderness where the phouka and demons roamed. He looked up at the blackness above. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought the dark held a different quality tonight. It looked almost like, well, sky instead of rock so high it was lost in shadow. It had to be his imagination, because there were no stars, or moons, or any glimmer of relief in the velvet black. He wanted to be free so badly he was imagining things.
He yearned for the weave of his existence to change.
A tiny figure darted out of the tunnel, its wings whirring like the flight of a dragonfly. Miru- kai got to his feet as the little fey zipped around the brazier, circling the light.
“Greetings, Shadewing,” said Miru-kai.
The fey’s body was no longer than Miru- kai’s hand, spindly and frail. The skin was dark blue, with hair the color of forget- me-nots. The overall effect was waif-like, if one missed the needle teeth, claws, and eyes that glowed like hot coals. Shadewing was a bringer of nightmares, the one who soured milk and made babies cry in the dead of night. In other words, a nasty little bastard at the best of times, and one of the prince’s most clever emissaries. Miru-kai had trusted him as a go-between on many occasions.
“The vampire king sends his warmest wishes,” Shadewing said with a voice that was lovely and yet chill. It made Miru- kai think of the frost on fallen autumn leaves.
“He did not choose to come in person?” Miru-kai said with sarcasm. “How like a vampire to take what he wants and then never call.”
“The vampires sent me ahead. Belenos is no more than a minute behind me.” The little fairy twisted in the air, looking behind him. “Less than that.”
A pair of goblins, hulking brutes in bronze-plated jerkins, gold rings glinting on their tusks, lumbered from the mouth of the tunnel. Those were Miru-kai’s guards. Dark-suited vampire guards stood behind them, their pale faces seeming to float in the shadows. In their midst stood the tall, red-haired King of the East.
Belenos stepped forward, moving like a tall-prowed ship cutting the sea. The image was apt. There was something of the plundering marauder still lurking in his topaz eyes.
Miru-kai schooled his expression to hide his contempt. The prince and the king faced off at a polite distance, making formal bows.
“I, Belenos, monarch of the Eastern Kingdom of the Vampires, surrender your payment.”
He was holding a yellow gem no bigger than a peppercorn, held by a claw of gold.
“I, Miru-kai, prince of the dark fey, accept your payment.”
Miru-kai held out his hand. Belenos dropped the gem into his palm. Miru- kai’s fingers closed over the dainty object, feeling the jolt of power as soon as he touched it—fey magic calling to fey magic. It would take him time to learn the gem’s secrets, but now he held a world of potential in his hand.
“Our business is concluded,” Belenos intoned. Obviously, he was already feeling his inner emperor.
Vomitous cretin.
Miru-kai slipped the loop of chain over his wrist, sparing a glance for the gaggle of vampires standing a few yards away. What did one call a group of the Undead? Flock? Herd? Fang? A suck of vampires?
There was something very obviously not a vampire in their midst. He could just make out a small form, one that glowed with life. “Is that a human child?”
He loved human children.
This one was female, just on the cusp between child and maiden. She was wedged in between the vamps, corralled by their lifeless bodies. Panting like a bird, he thought. Trying not to breathe too deeply lest her frame brush the dark coat sleeves of her captors. He could see it in her fine shudders of disgust.
Poor chick.
Belenos’s mouth twitched, just the hint of a self-satisfied smirk. “With your help, Prince Miru- kai, I have found the means to create a living dynasty.”
He paused, giving Miru-kai a moment to be impressed. The prince gave the ghost of a bow.
The vampire continued. “That is the daughter of the woman I seek to fulfill my plan. My human servants took her this morning.”
Miru-kai frowned. “Why?”
“Leverage. I’m going to let the child’s mother stew until she’s desperate. Then I will lead her into a trap. Perhaps here in the Castle? It’s an atmospheric place for an ambush, don’t you think?”
Miru-kai, who had experienced a millennium of the atmosphere, shrugged.
Belenos went on. “Once the mother comes to find her, I will take both back to my kingdom.”
A chill dread dragged over Miru- kai’s skin, like the tail of a silk shroud. “If you are referring to the magic of the Chosen, I thought it required affection freely given.”
It was Belenos’s turn to shrug. “Captivity can teach affection. If that doesn’t work, I have the daughter. I can raise her to love me. She carries her mother’s magic. Perhaps both shall make good wives. Plus, I still mean to regain the urn. As the expression goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat. I will have my heir.”
Now the vampire’s mouth moved, not to a smirk but to a smile that turned the prince’s stomach. Miru-kai looked at the girl. Her eyes were huge, brown, and frantic, her face almost as pale as the dead pallor of the vampires.
Apparently free will was a slippery concept for the king.
Outrage began to bloom in Miru-kai’s gut, a pinprick of bitter heat.
The hunt for Eden had moved outside of Holly’s house. Reynard took charge of the search, dividing up the streets and assigning volunteers to each small segment of ground. Of course the police were there, doing everything possible, but there were only so many officers available and a lot of streets to cover. The neighbors had come out to help, human and supernatural alike. Reynard had sent Ashe to lead the door-to-door search because it was clear she needed to be moving, not organizing. On the other hand, taking charge and assigning tasks was his strength.
He just wished he felt better. He could deny the drag of the urn’s absence, but it was still there, a nagging fatigue that grew with every hour. But there was no time to think of that. Not now.
Twilight was falling, and a new and unfamiliar terror rose in his gut. Someone vulnerable, someone he had started to care for, was in danger. He had fought to protect innocents before, but never one who had wound herself around his heart in the space of a few hours. This was new and, bloody hell, it was awful. He felt helpless.
The house had already been searched, both physically and magically. There was no sign of struggle. No one had seen anything. Everything pointed to the conclusion that someone—almost certainly the minions of Belenos—had scooped up Eden and carried her off. Holly thought perhaps Eden had left by the side door, slipped past the hellhounds, and gone to the corner store. Kids broke rules sometimes just because they were there, and Eden had a history of running away.
Damnation! His heart hurt for her, for Ashe. He had never dreamed that he would hold Ashe Carver while she wept. It hadn’t lasted long before she pulled away, whipping herself to action, but he had felt her grief through his whole body.
She
had turned to him for comfort. He treasured the gift of her trust, and yet it was the greatest condemnation of all. He was a guard. After the bizarre attack in the library, he had anticipated another strike—but he had never dreamed it would be directed at Eden.
Thrice-damned idiot! By God, he would fix this. He’d organized everyone within an inch of their lives. Then he marched back into the house. He had the beginnings of an idea. Fortunately, because the searchers were turning up nothing.
Now he truly understood the loss Constance had felt when he’d separated her from her son, and he hated himself anew for causing such desperate pain. It felt like a stain—dark and twisted as the guardsmen’s tattoos—blackening the hole where his soul should have been.
I have to fix this. For Eden, for Ashe, and perhaps to make amends for his past crime. Whatever it takes.
There was one place no one had thought to look for Ashe’s daughter.
The house felt heavy and sad, as if in mourning. Maybe it, too, blamed itself. Reynard jogged up the stairs to the second floor, where he knew Holly had a separate room to work her magic. She was the only adult still inside, and she was trying to cast a tracking spell.
He paused in the doorway, catching his breath after the run up the stairway. Not something he had ever had to do before. He was growing weaker. Reynard swallowed hard, pushing down fear for himself. The safety of a child came first.
Holly’s room was lit with myriad candles, except for the corner where Robin’s wicker crib sat, the baby fast asleep inside. The floor was covered in a plain blue carpet ringed with a white circle. Stones were carefully placed along the ring, marking the points of the compass. In the center was a square of silk threaded with glinting silver. On it sat Holly’s magical tools and a brass bowl with sweetly scented incense. Holly knelt in the circle, a map spread before her. She held a crystal on a long silver chain, waiting for it to point the way Eden had gone.
Reynard waited in the doorway until Holly looked up. Her green eyes, so like Ashe’s, were wet with tears. “I can’t make it work. It’s like she’s shielding us, but that’s not possible. She hasn’t come into her magic yet.”
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