“I’m going to order something to go. We need to stop at urgent care for Yutani and Viktor, but I’m hungry.”
“Make it quick,” Herne said. “I don’t want to wait too long before we get their wounds attended to. Goblins are notorious for using poison, and I don’t want to take any chances.”
Jet came over, smiling as he saw us. He and his wife were human, but they were friendly with most of the SubCult, and their diner was frequented by shifters and Fae alike.
“You guys look roughed up. Can I take that as a good sign?” He folded his towel and threw it over his shoulder, straightening his apron.
“We dispatched nine goblins tonight. I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t have any more trouble, although if you do, just give me a call and we’ll come out and take a look again. But I think your problem’s taken care of.” Herne shook the man’s hand, giving him a friendly nod.
“How much do I owe you?” Jet asked, pulling out his checkbook.
“We’ll bill you. Give it a couple days, and then if you haven’t had any more trouble from the goblins, let us know and Angel will send you out an invoice. I want to make sure we’ve done the job right.” Herne went above and beyond for some clients, especially those who were quick to pay, and easy to work for.
Jet smiled. “That’s why I come to you when I have problems, Herne.”
“Do you have anything quick to fix that we can get to go?” I asked. “We have to get these two over to urgent care, but I’m starving.” My stomach rumbled, punctuating my remark. I rolled my eyes, blushing.
“If you can give me ten minutes, I’ll have burgers, fries, and doughnuts all around. Shakes, too. Will that work?”
Herne nodded, glancing toward Yutani, who just shrugged. “That would be great.”
“What flavor of shakes?” Jet asked, pulling out his pad. “And what do you want on your burgers?”
“I want chocolate,” I said. “Ketchup and cheese, no onions, mayo, or mustard.”
Herne and the others put in their orders and we settled into one of the back booths to wait. Less than ten minutes later, Jet carried over four large bags.
“Here you go. Burgers, fries, doughnuts, and shakes. They’re on the house. I’ll call you in a day or two and let you know if it looks like the goblins are back. I have no idea why they picked us to bother, but it was putting a dent in our business, that’s for sure.”
“Goblins don’t care who they go after. If you have something they want, and they think they can get it, you’re going to be a target. Luck—or ill-luck—of the draw,” Herne said.
We waved good-bye and tired, grubby, and hungry, we headed toward Herne’s Expedition.
When we returned to the office, we stopped in at the urgent care clinic that took up the entire first floor of the building. It was open till one a.m., a good thing considering how many streeps—the street people—were living on the streets.
While Yutani and Viktor got themselves taken care of, Herne and I took the elevator to the fourth floor, to the Wild Hunt Agency, which Herne owned and ran. Talia and Angel had gone home for the night, but Charlie looked up as we entered, a startled expression on his face.
“You surprised me. I didn’t expect to see you this late. You take care of the goblins?” Charlie was a vampire, and he was in school, learning accounting so he could take over the books for us when he graduated. In the meantime, he came in at night and helped with data entry and anything else we might need him for, especially when we were overwhelmed with work. And lately, overwhelmed was an understatement.
“I think so,” Herne said. He turned to me. “I’ll meet you in the break room. I need to take a leak first.”
“Okay.” I gave Charlie a tired wave and headed to the break room, where I slumped into one of the chairs. It’d been one hell of a night, and all I wanted to do was eat my food, take a shower, and fall into bed. I pulled out my burger, gratified to see not just one, but two cheeseburgers in the sack. The fries were large, and the shake was also large. Jet and Maxine didn’t skimp when it came to portions, or gratitude.
Herne entered the room as I took a bite of my food. The yeast scent of the buns and the smell of grilled ground beef were making me ravenous. He dropped into the chair next to me, reaching out to take my free hand. He brought it to his lips and kissed my fingers.
“You were almost a shish kebab,” he said, leaning back and stretching out his legs.
“Thank you, by the way. You saved my life, yet again.” I set down my burger and took a long sip of the shake. The frozen chocolate slid down my throat and I closed my eyes, grateful that we were done for the night.
“Hey, it’s what we do. We watch each other’s backs. All of us.” But he had a worried look on his face.
“What are you thinking about? Yutani? I’m sure he’ll be okay. Viktor, too. They were hurt but their injuries weren’t terrible.”
“No. I know they’ll be okay, even if the blades were poisoned. The urgent care clinic downstairs is good at what they do. No, I’m just…mulling over something else, to be honest.” He glanced up at me, the blue of his eyes mirroring the first light of dawn.
I leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “So, what is it?”
“The growing unrest because of the Tuathan Brotherhood. The Fae aren’t going to sit around and accept the role of scapegoat much longer. When the United Coalition shut them out, it stirred up very deep, very bad blood. And the hate groups against the Fae are getting worse. I’ve heard of no less than four vigilante groups starting up in the past few days. Pretty soon, things are going to blow sky high. Boom! Powder keg time. And I’m not sure what to do about it. We aren’t making much progress.”
I stared at my cheeseburger, trying to think of something to say that would make him feel better, but came up with zilch. Herne was right. The situation was volatile—a true powder keg. If we didn’t find an answer soon there would be rioting in the streets, and a lot of innocent people would end up hurt, caught in the crossfire. Collateral damage wasn’t just a theoretical term.
Hell, I had my own scars to prove that. I was still scarred from some of the lacerations I had received in the blast that had taken out the Associated Shifters Credit Union. I had been in the way of a glass door that had shattered, turning me into a pincushion for hundreds of glass shards.
“I know,” I said. “I know.”
We sat there for a moment, staring at each other, and finally I picked up my cheeseburger again. There was nothing we could do at this moment to solve the crisis, and that was another fact we knew.
Chapter Two
The next morning, I woke to the smell of bacon and waffles wafting up from downstairs. I groaned as I sat up. I might have been in better shape than I’d ever been, but stints like last night’s goblin chase still left me stiff and aching.
I rolled out of bed with a yawn and glanced out the window. Rain was pouring down from gloomy skies. Typical winter weather. At least we’d left the snow behind, according to the meteorologists. I was ready for spring weather, even though we still had several months to go before the trees leafed out and flowers showed their heads.
I had taken a shower the night before, but a hot soak under running water sounded too good to pass up, so I hopped in my shower and lathered up with black raspberry–scented bath wash. The water pelted my back, hot and stinging, easing some of the stiffness out of my muscles. After a few minutes, the ache began to unknot and fade, and by the time I finished, I was feeling more flexible. I wrapped my robe around me, bundled my hair up in a towel, and slid my feet in a pair of fuzzy slippers. Then, feeling ready to face the morning, I headed downstairs.
Angel was in the kitchen, and breakfast was on the table. Mr. Rumblebutt looked up from his dish, purring as he dug into the new food we had picked up for him. Cats normally didn’t like much change in diet, but now and then, Mr. Rumblebutt decided he needed to change it up, and I’d have to search out a new food that he’d willingly eat. This time, it was ocean
fish fillet dinner, with a very stinky gravy. But he loved it.
“Morning, chica,” Angel said. “You catch the goblins?”
“Yeah,” I said, fitting the filter into my espresso machine. I needed a buttload of caffeine today, and so pulled five shots into a tall mug, adding hot milk and chocolate syrup to make a power-packed mocha. “We got them, finally. But not before they managed to skewer both Viktor and Yutani—neither got hurt badly,” I hastened to add before Angel could worry. “I almost ended up shish kababbed, but Herne saw the blade coming and knocked me out of the way.”
“I’d say I wished I was there, but not so much,” Angel said, grinning. “Eat. Build up your strength.” She handed me the bacon. “I’ve taken my fill. You can have the rest.”
Suddenly feeling happy, surrounded by good food and my best friend in the whole world, I accepted the bacon, sliding all six pieces on my plate. I added a waffle off the stack, and slathered it in butter and syrup. As I forked a bite of the crisp, airy cake into my mouth, I glanced at Angel again. She was practically glowing. Her rich brown skin had a dewy radiance to it, and she was wearing a salmon-colored top and white jeans that set off her coloring. Her hair was neatly swept into a bun on the top of her head, and she had big turquoise hoop earrings on and a necklace to match. I maintained that Angel could have been a model if she wanted—she was tall enough and beautiful enough, but she’d chosen a vastly different route for her life.
“You look…luminous. Have a good evening?” I asked after swallowing the waffle.
“Rafé and I had a wonderful evening. It was the first time since we were over on the peninsula and we’ve been together that he hasn’t fallen into a depression. I’m hoping he’s coming out of it, now that he has the casts off.”
Rafé, one of the Dark Fae, was Angel’s boyfriend. He had helped us out on a case, and ended up with a broken leg, a broken arm, several fractured ribs, and a whole lot of bumps and bruises. He’d also been tortured, and that had definitely left an impact on the actor/waiter.
“I hope so. I hate that he went through what he did. We still don’t know who tipped them off to the fact that Rafé was a spy, but when we find out…” I paused, once again feeling my mood settle into a quiet melancholy. I glanced at the clock. “We have to be at the agency by noon for a meeting. I should get dressed and dry my hair.”
“We have time,” Angel said, a note of concern in her voice. “I’m sorry. You seemed in such a good mood and now you have that look again.”
I shook my head. “This whole mess with the Tuathan Brotherhood is just a nightmare. I don’t know what we’re going to do. But whatever we do, it had better be soon. Herne and I were discussing the subject last night. We’re worried that Seattle’s turning into a powder keg, ready to explode if we don’t put a stop to the Brotherhood and clear the Fae from suspicion.”
Angel caught my gaze, nodding slowly. “I hear you. But finish your breakfast. We have time enough for you to eat. I’m going to put a load of clothes in the laundry. Do you have anything that needs washing?”
I laughed. “I have two weeks of laundry. I just haven’t had the energy to keep up with it lately. I’ll wash a load of clothes tonight, though, so don’t worry about it.” I chugged down the rest of the mocha, feeling the caffeine stream into my bloodstream. “Oh, this is what I needed. Caffeine will get me going,” I said, shaking my head as I went back to finishing breakfast.
I found a pair of jeans that were clean and, since we weren’t planning on slogging through the woods after goblins today, I chose a cobalt blue overbust corset to wear with them, and a cropped lace shrug over the top of that. I was a curvy woman—with well-padded hips and boobs, but I was also strong and fit. And getting more so every week. Herne had taken over as my physical trainer, and he put me through my paces, in more ways than one. Some of those exercises were a lot more fun than others, I thought with a grin.
As I combed through my hair, it occurred to me that I needed a trim. My hair was almost down to my waist, jet black with a strong curl to it, and the ends were showing a little damage. I plugged in my blow dryer and dried it into coiling waves, then put on my makeup. I used a plum eye shadow and black liner to set off my eyes—which were a brilliant green—and a pale peach lipstick.
As I glanced down at the tattoo on my arm, I caught my breath. Even now, almost nine months after I had joined the Wild Hunt, the dagger emblazoned on my left forearm was a vivid reminder that I belonged to one of the most elite organizations in the world. Every member of the Wild Hunt bore the same tattoo, and it not only marked us as members, but protected us in certain situations.
I slipped on a pair of black leather ankle boots with chains that fastened across the side zipper. They had chunky three-inch heels and a rubber nonstick sole, and I could run in them, as long as I wasn’t out in the woods with a lot of rocks and roots around.
Angel was waiting for me downstairs. She handed me my purse. “Want to ride in together?”
I nodded. “I thought this evening, we could maybe take in a movie? Herne’s going to be busy, though I’m not sure what you have planned with Rafé.”
“He’s meeting with his family. They want to talk to him, which is one event I’d rather skip.”
She grimaced. Rafé was estranged from most of his family. He was the black sheep of the clan, or at least, one of them. His brother Ulstair had been an outcast too, before he was killed. Ulstair had been engaged to our friend Raven, one of the Ante-Fae. In addition to being a bone witch, she was one hell of a firecracker, and a blast to hang out with.
“Yeah, I don’t blame you.” I shrugged. “The Fae don’t mess around when they oust somebody from the fold. I know.” I was a tralaeth—half Light Fae and half Dark Fae, and in the eyes of both Fae communities, I was one of the unmentionables.
“Movie it is, then,” Angel said as we locked the door behind us and headed to her car. “What were you thinking of seeing?”
“Atomic Brenda.” I snorted. “I know it’s a cheesy franchise, but you have to admit, it’s fun.”
Angel laughed. “I’m up for that. Come on, let’s get this show on the road.”
I grinned, but as I settled in the passenger side of the car, a crow began to screech overhead. I glanced up at it, a shiver passing over me. There was a warning in the shriek, but I didn’t know what it was about, and right now, I didn’t really feel like finding out.
The agency was located on the fourth floor of a five-story brick walkup in downtown Seattle, on First Avenue. The city had made an attempt to gentrify the area, but all it did was leave downtown Seattle looking a lot like a faded Southern plantation—with only the hints of the strength and beauty the city had once had, hidden beneath a ragtag assortment of old buildings and crumbling brick.
A tall concrete staircase led to the main door and all around were brothels, dive-bars, and fast food joints. Trees lined the street, turning the older, risqué part of town into a shaded pedestrian zone during the summer, where the streeps hung out. Most of the streeps were young, either runaways or kicked out of their homes for one reason or another, a few were older and homeless, and some were—as all cities had—mentally ill with no one to care for them. Over the months, Angel and I had come to know a number of the streeps by name, and once a week, Angel had taken to bringing a huge box of cookies she made and she’d hand them out at lunch, on the staircase. Her mother had owned a diner that also acted as a soup kitchen once a week, and this was Angel’s way of continuing her mother’s work in the only way she knew how.
During the winter, there were still panhandlers, but mostly they stayed out of sight. I wondered where they went to during the cold weather, but they were like squirrels in the park, hibernating through the cold weather. While there were numerous shelters around the area, Lizzy, one of the sex workers across the street at the Spank-O-Rama, a fetish boutique brothel, had told me that when she was on the streets, it had been safer to sleep in back alleys than to go to the mission houses. I be
lieved her, given the lack of funding for the city-run shelters. And then there were the flophouses in the dismal areas of the city, where slumlords rented beds to transients in shifts, where violence was a way of life and it was dangerous to even drive down the streets at night.
Seattle was a multicultural city, with the Fae, shifters, human, and other Cryptos intermingling, and until recently there had been scattered issues between the different groups, but nothing major. That is, until the Fomorians had come to town.
Mortal enemies of the Fae, they had first tried to poison both the Light and the Dark Courts. When that hadn’t worked, they managed to finagle themselves a place on the United Coalition—the group that ran the country’s government. The UC was a union of the Shifter Alliance, the Fae Courts, the Human League, the Vampire Nation, and now the Cryptozoid Association. It was the best compromise that the government could manage. Even though things were fucked up right now and the Fae Courts had been suspended from the governing council, I held tight to the hope that we could put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Angel managed to find a place in the parking garage and we dashed down the street to our building. As we hurried up the steps, we passed Barclay as he exited the urgent care clinic and came through the front doors. Barclay was one of the streeps, a shifter. A real lone wolf type, he was friendly enough when he managed to find enough Carnie-Party, a hybrid form of cannabis that was used for cooking, and ten times stronger than most forms of pot. It was legal, though it came with a strong warning because, unlike regular marijuana, it was addictive.
He glanced at Angel and me as we passed him on the steps.
“Hey.” He slowed, an uncertain look on his face. He had been kicked out of his pack because his addiction had led to him losing his little brother out in the woods. Even though the boy had been found safe, the Keystone Pack had booted Barclay’s ass right out. He had come over from the peninsula and settled in downtown Seattle.
A Sacred Magic Page 2
