by J. L. Ray
“I know. I know.” Azeem sighed. “It has been a while since...well. It has been a while. I need some time to adjust.”
She tugged at his mane. “You’re so accustomed to protecting your charges that you forget, whether in Mundania or Fairie, I am a Power to be reckoned with, if no longer one of the Powers That Be.” She grinned at her own joke.
“Naamah,” the voice that Azeem thought of as the leader broke in. “This smuggling ring must be stopped. Azeem, you will allow her to help. We sense that there is more to this scheme than the slave trade, as bad as that is, in and of itself. There is...foreboding.”
Azeem nodded. “I understand.” He turned to Naamah. “May I have you walk me to the door?” He referred to the door that would phase him back into his office, not so much a portal between planes as a shift in channels, very like the system the GOOEN squad used to make its reports. The PTB used a door as a courtesy to other Beings, while the GOOEN squad enjoyed taking Beings by surprise and jerking them through quickly. They did love to have the upper hand.
“I shall be honored,” she said, smiling at him in a way that promised more than a walk.
“Naamah, don’t linger.” The Senior Being sounded almost amused.
She waved her left hand, since her right one was buried in Azeem’s thick mane. “Don’t wait up for me, Dad.”
“I am serious, Naamah. We have some forms for you to sign before you’re totally off contract and...” The voice stopped, and then added, “She’s not listening, is she?”
“Young love,” cooed a voice that had been quiet up to then.
“Young? They’re both ancients! In fact, I think they could give any one of us here a few hundred extra years, they’ve so many.”
“They’re not young, silly. Their love is. It is all new and precious and pink.”
“Astarte, you are making me ill, you know that, don’t you?”
“Oh, stuff a great big athletic sock in it, Joan. You are such a killjoy.”
In the distance, the pair passed out of sight.
Chapter Thirty
Tony had just signaled her parents again when Azeem came through the door of his office. Tony ended the signal quickly, but again forgot to delete the attempt.
“Detective Newman! Why aren’t you with Baz?”
“Uhm. About Baz, sir.” Tony took a deep breath. “Quite a bit has happened.”
“I’m gone for five minutes...” the lieutenant muttered, shaking out his mane and sitting back on his haunches to straighten his uniform. He thought his clothes were all back in place, but that Naamah! When he felt the beginnings of a self-satisfied grin on his face, he squashed the thought down quickly.
“You were gone for one period and 20 percent of another, according to the various counting instruments in these rooms,” Bergrid said. “Much has happened in so short a time.”
Azeem looked at Tony. “Tell me.”
“Let’s see.” She looked up at the ceiling. “Cal and Phil returned from Fairie with a plan to catch the smuggling ring.” She paused, surprised at Azeem’s low-pitched growl when he hadn’t even heard the plan as of yet, and then continued. “They are waiting for your return to report, sir. Baz, following the suspect, ended up here. I got called to reception by Baz and the sergeant, and it turns out old Gandalf, whose actual name is O’Toole, had come to turn himself in and give evidence against the Beings he worked for and sold to. He has also acquired a new sidekick. My twin.”
The lieutenant’s whiskers twitched.
Tony could have sworn she heard “I’m just getting too old for this shit...” as he jumped up and paced over to her.
“Detective, is Baz with the suspect still?”
“Actually, Baz is on his way to a cage downstairs in the holding pen. So is my twin.” She grimaced. “Baz finally found out about my witch blood, and it didn’t go so well. He...uh, he got kind of angry with me, so Phil blurted out that Berg was here and pregnant, and he—”
“By my Father’s Mane. Really. I can guess. He went into a rage and Changed.” Azeem paced across the floor, his tail lashing, slow and heavy, in wide arcs.
“He set off my twin, who also changed. Turns out, she’s a cat. A great big panther.”
Azeem paused, one paw in the air, then continued, the pad of his foot landing heavily. “Well, the cat is truly out of the bag on that one.”
“What do you mean,” Tony asked suspiciously.
Azeem stopped pacing and turned to face her. Bergfrid was sitting in a chair, rubbing the slightly rounded swell of her stomach and smiling at the sight of Tony’s discomfort.
Azeem sighed and decided to tell Tony everything her parents had been holding back. “I mean that according to the original contract made by your ancestor, the family was never to attempt contact with the child taken in trade. Caridwen warned your mother that if she tried to find her child, all of the children of your ancestor’s line would suffer the consequences of reneging on the familial contract. Your mother was trying to figure out a way to dissuade you from searching without making you even more determined.” Azeem sighed and his tail drooped a bit. “She asked me to call you in to keep you occupied while she tried to think of some kind of distraction.”
Tony shook her head, so angry she couldn’t even speak. It was at this moment that her mother, who saw yet another missed signal from Tony, signaled her again. She looked down at the f-light and then up at Azeem. Then she said, her voice strangled with conflicting emotion, “F-light, off.”
No one turned off an f-light. If it was set to take messages, it did. It could be loud or soft, it could have no noise at all. It could be set to remind the owner of messages waiting without interrupting other activities. It allowed the owner to be anonymous and off-screen or to physically interact with the message by senses other than sight and hearing. But it could do none of those marvelous things if turned off, and no one bothered anymore. If an f-light didn’t respond or take a message, the assumption was that the owner must be dead or in a null-magic zone where pixie dust couldn’t keep the f-light running. Tony had dissed her mother in the most blatant way possible.
Azeem walked over to her and looked into her eyes, his large sand-brown eyes wide with concern. “Do you want to scare her to death? You know she is going to call Calvin, Sergeant Hubbard, me. Perhaps half the station. All to see if her child is dead.”
Tony shook her head and kept shaking it. “I don’t think I can talk to her right now. I need a minute.”
“Then turn on the f-light and let it take a message,” Azeem counseled her. “But don’t make her think the worst. Not even for a second. I know you are angry right now, but you have no idea the torture your mother has put herself through for the past twenty-eight years.”
Tony looked off to one side, hearing him, hearing truth, but wanting so badly to stay angry. She didn’t want to forgive. Then she looked over at Bergfrid, who was still rubbing her little baby bump and smiling down at it, her face, which normally seemed two seconds away from a snarl, soft and happy. What would it be like to go nine months like that and then have a baby snatched away? Why would Mama want her to let it go? Because Adele was a Changeling? Because Adele’s kidnapper said so? It didn’t make any sense.
“What kind of consequences?” she asked the lieutenant.
He nodded, as if he could hear her thoughts. “Death curse,” he said, giving her a minute to absorb that. “Obviously, it isn’t triggered instantly, or you would all be dead right now.”
Tony paled as she realized who “all” referred to, and the lieutenant nodded again as he saw she had fully taken in the seriousness of her mother’s motivation in putting her off of the search for her twin. Tony also realized that she had to let her mother explain. Her usual good temper and sense of humor edged back into her head. Shutting off an f-light was right up there with a two-year-old’s turn of the head and emphatic “No!” to a parent.
Tony looked back to Azeem and shrugged. “You’re right. I need to talk to Mama. F-
light, on.” It immediately signaled. “I better take this.”
“You can use my office,” Azeem said.
She nodded.
As she turned to walk away, he added, “Tell your parents to come down to the station. I’m not certain how the contract is worded, but at this point, they might as well meet Adele, even if only for tonight. They might be able to help her recover her human form.”
Tony turned back to Azeem. “You can’t—?” she waved her arms around vaguely, indicating the order he would use with Baz.
“Your sister is not under my command, either as a peace officer or as Supernatural Being. My presence will help calm her. That magic is my gift. But I cannot bring her back alone.”
Tony nodded once and went to the office.
Azeem sighed and turned to Bergfrid. “I have spoken to the Powers That Be of your plight.”
“What have they to do with me?” she asked, hostile to the idea that a governing body even existed that had power over her. In her land in Fairie, in her youth, the only government had been that of the warlords, and she had been born into that power structure among a proud and war-driven society as one of the elite.
“They are a group of powerful Beings who took it upon themselves to protect Mundania against Supernaturals. In the old days, before the Great Change, they provided oversight to Supernatural activity in the Mundane Realms.”
“What does that mean?” she asked. Though a wonderful fighter, Bergfrid was not, perhaps, the brightest light on the Christmas tree.
“It means that before Supernaturals were revealed in Mundania, there existed a group of beings who oversaw interactions between Naturals and Supernaturals as best they could. In the Mundane fairy tales, if the hero was given aid by a talking goose, or a magic lamp, or a little old woman who turns into a beautiful girl,” he cleared his throat as he was reminded of his last view of Naamah, “that aid came from the Powers That Be, attempting to balance the potential for evil in some Supers who came over to play tricks on the Natties.” He paused and added, “Once the Great Change came and Supernaturals were revealed to the Mundane world, a Geas created by the Powers That Be activated and now it takes a compensatory spell on their part to address issues such as yours.”
“Issues?” She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Illegal immigration,” Azeem told her.
“And they have agreed to allow me to stay?”
“For now.” Azeem glossed over the exact details.
“Hmphf.” She tried to move and realized she was still cuffed to the desk. “Why am I still chained to this furniture?”
“You will stay to hear what I have to say?” Azeem asked her solemnly.
She frowned, but agreed and he opened her cuffs. As he continued, she sat, rubbing her wrist where the cuff had cut into it from her struggles and staring at that wrist as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world.
“Long before the Great Change, the PTB was warned that they needed a plan to circumvent an attempt by large numbers of predatory Supers to move to Mundania. The PTB teamed with the GOOENs, the Goodly Order of Eldritch Necromancers, to create the Geas, a curse to protect the Natural population of Mundania from the Supernatural population of the Fairie Realms. If the Supernaturals of Fairie revealed themselves to the Naturals of Mundania, then the Geas would be invoked. The revelation of Fairie Beings did not happen quite the way the PTB anticipated. Instead of mass attacks, an announcement was sent out and seen by most of the this world’s inhabitants.” When Bergfrid looked puzzled, he added, “I’ll explain television to you another time, shall I? Now where was I? Ah yes, the Geas was invoked the day the announcement went out. The Geas can control most bad behavior, but it is sometimes...harsh in its reaction.” He looked at her. “It does not take well to violent behavior in Supers. Had you succeeded in harming anyone today, you would have been affected by the Geas within a week.”
“Affected?” she questioned haughtily.
“I suppose tact may be a little lost on a Viking warrior,” Azeem barred his teeth. “Since you are Supernatural, if you had killed anyone, then you’d be dead within a week.”
Bergfrid paled and clenched her hands over her belly.
“Detective Newman did her best to protect you from yourself,” he continued, having noticed the tension between them. “I have petitioned the PTB to allow you to remain with Baz if the two of you can reconcile. They have given us three days,” she snorted at hearing the number, and Azeem grinned, “until they answer. No surprise there, I suppose.”
Bergfrid suddenly felt ashamed of how she had treated the detective now that she realized what the woman had been trying to do. She was the daughter of a king. She would apologize when next she had a chance. She looked up at Azeem. “May I go to Sebastian?”
“I will go with you and invoke in him a Change back to human. Then, my dear, it is up to you to change his mind about you.” He held out one paw to the chastised child in front of him. She might be five hundred and twenty years old, but having slept through five hundred of those years made her a mere babe to him. “Come, Lady Bergfrid. Let us find your Lord.”
She smiled almost shyly and followed Azeem to the cage where her love paced the floor and shook the bars with his roars.
Tony signaled her mother, who picked up immediately and went to viz form. Her face looked very worried
“Antonia! What in the world? Did you hit a null-magic zone? It looked like your f-light was off!”
Tony considered being truthful, but chose the expediency of a white lie. How much truth did her parents really need to hear today? Not quite that much. “Yeah. Sorry, Mama. Uhm...I...well...” She just couldn’t quite decide how to start.
“For heaven’s sake, child. What in the world is the matter with you? I didn’t raise you to hem and haw. Whatever it is, just tell me.”
Tony sat down in Azeem’s chair, something she wouldn’t have done if she’d been more aware of her surroundings. It was large and tailored to hold his large lion’s haunches. Tony curled up in the chair, and, despite her height, was dwarfed enough to look like a little girl. Her mother got a lump in her throat as she watched. This was going to be bad, Amanda could tell.
“Mama, I found Adele.”
“What?” Amanda didn’t shout. Unlike her daughters Antonia and Amelia, she had attended both her etiquette classes here and finishing school in Switzerland. A lady didn’t shout. But the agony in her whisper cut Tony like a whip.
“I wasn’t actively trying to find her, Mama. I planned to talk you into it, later.” Tony’s voice got a little bleak as she added, “But the lieutenant sidetracked me, just as you wished, with a case. And that’s when it happened.”
Amanda’s eyes filled with tears. Any satisfaction that Tony might have felt from making sure her mother knew she didn’t appreciate being manipulated leached away from her at the pain she saw there.
“Sorry, Mama. I just wish you had told me.”
“Well, I wanted to tell you. After you came to the house from the hospital, I had to tell your father and also admit that I had already asked Azeem for help.”
Fresh anger washed over Tony at the conspiracy of the people in her life, but she took a deep breath and decided to deal with that later. There was just too much going on to think about it now.
“Okay. We’ll discuss that later. For now, you need to know this. She doesn’t seem to have her memories of Fairie. She was smuggled in during this case—that’s how she ended up here at the station. She was rescued by one of the smugglers—”
“Oh my lands!”
“He is...not bad for a smuggler, Mama. Don’t think the worst.”
“I’ll try.”
“Anyway, she’s got no memory of her past life. The smuggler, O’Toole, calls her Berry. For Strawberry Shortcake. She has pink hair.”
Her mother laughed, the sound tinged with hysteria. “That’s different!” she said.
“That’s not the only thing that’s different.” Tony rolled
her head again to loosen her neck muscles. “She’s a Changeling. And some, uh, stuff went down that set her off.”
“Have mercy!” Tony watched her mother put both hands up to her mouth in shock. She took them down and asked, “What should we do?”
Tony almost rolled her eyes. Now Mama wanted her advice.
“Azeem said you should come down to the station. I’ve already seen Adele, crap, I mean Berry, so we’ve broken the contract as it stands, apparently. He thinks being in the room with her must not be an instant trigger for the contract, so there’s no harm in you and Daddy coming. And he thinks you might help her resume a human shape.”
“In for a penny, in for a pound?” her mother asked, rather darkly.
“Contract law is Daddy’s field. You might need to ask him.”
“I will, but I think, no matter what it says, we’ll be there soon. Will you be there?” her mother added anxiously, peering into the viz of her eldest daughter’s face.
“No,” she said shortly. She took pity on her mother when she saw her reaction. “I’ve been on this roller coaster all day long and I’m worn out. I’m going home for a bit. We have an on-going case, and I have to be back for this tomorrow. I’m exhausted.” She realized she sounded almost petulant and added, “Maybe it’s best if you have a little time with Berry first, without me there—the twin you got to keep.”
Her mother smiled at her sadly. “You always were too old for your years, my darling one. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mama. And Daddy.”
“I’ll pass it on, but he knows, I’m sure.”
Tony ended the call, but sat in the office for a few minutes, trying to decide how she did feel. When she finally stood up, she realized that she felt sad. And she had a feeling she knew just exactly how to fix that. She smiled just a little as she left the office to find a certain handsome demon and bum a ride back to her place.
The howls got louder and louder as Tony approached the holding area where the pens were located. They were magically reinforced to hold Changelings, set with bars that mingled iron, silver, gold, and steel in a plaited form that held all known Supers.
