by H A Titus
So why couldn't I see it now?
I glanced over at Eliaster. His shoulders were squared, his jaw clenched. He held his hands open, but his fingers were curled in the same way that Keelin's were, in the same way that I'd seen Larae curl her fingers when she summoned her smoke-like glamour.
Crap, he was going to get us killed. I grabbed his shoulder, giving him a shake. "Cut it out!"
Both of the fae ignored me. I balled my free hand. This had to stop. If Eliaster didn't look at me or speak to me in about point-five seconds, I was going to punch him.
Keelin suddenly blinked, and his eyes stopped glowing.
Eliaster took a step back, shoulders slumping.
It felt like oxygen suddenly rushed back into the room, and I could breathe freely again. What just happened?
CHAPTER 10
JOSH
"What. The. Hell?" I glared at Eliaster. "Next time you go all Gandalf fights a Balrog, at least warn me first."
Keelin gave a sharp bark of laughter, hunching forward. I jumped and stared at him, unsure of what that reaction meant. He coughed, then picked up a glass of water from the side table. After taking a sip, he cleared his throat and spoke—staring right at me. "Perhaps you and I should be the ones negotiating here." He tilted his head. "You're not a curator, are you?"
I shook my head.
"I thought not—there haven't been any rumors about Tyrones taking up with the curators again." He looked thoughtful. "You should consider it."
"I'll take that under advisement." I glanced at Eliaster. "Are you done with the pissing contest? Can we talk like adults now?"
Eliaster didn't quite roll his eyes, but he came close.
Keelin sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "This was not …" His voice trailed off. He waved at the overstuffed chairs.
I took a few steps into the room, then paused as Eliaster glared at me. Fine, if he didn't want to play nice with others, I'd do it. I crossed the room and sat down in one of the chairs. The cushions gave under my weight, feeling way too comfortable for my mood at the moment. Eliaster reluctantly crossed the room to slouch in the chair beside mine.
Keelin paused, then took a deep breath and sat as well. He adjusted his jacket. Smoothed his hands over his hair, then rested his hands on the arms of his chair. Open. Ready to talk and negotiate.
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "Can you please explain what's going on?"
Keelin tapped his fingers on the arms of his chair. "For a short answer—I've been aware for some time that there's been an unusual number of relics traveling in and out of my territory. It's been difficult, and I've lost a couple of good men, but we've tracked most of them back to a fae named Galen Shaughnessy. I don't know where he's getting them from, but we know he's the main runner in this area. We can't find any information from him—who his people are, what his background is. Six months ago he just showed up, bought shares in one of the nightclubs downtown, and suddenly all these relics began popping up every time we raided a goblin safehouse."
Eliaster made a low growling noise. "So there were slavers in the area?"
Keelin stood, walked over to the kitchen, grabbed a file off the counter, and handed it to me. "Yes. The goblins used enslavement relics in order to kidnap their victims and sell them in in the Underworld."
"Enslavement?" I asked, flipping through the pictures. A necklace, a bracelet, a piece of lace, a ring … most of these were jewelry.
"Relics that control your mind," Keelin said in a quiet tone.
My stomach churned. "Some of these items look … new." I held up a photo of a costume-jewelry ring. "This looks like something you could get in any supermarket." It reminded me of the necklace we'd found earlier tonight.
Keelin nodded.
Eliaster's attention snapped to the highlord. "I thought no one could make new relics."
"That's what has been assumed for years," Keelin said, propping his chin on his hand.
Eliaster swore.
"My thoughts precisely," a new, feminine voice said.
Eliaster jumped as if he'd gotten an electric shock. He swore again and glanced over at the entrance, scrambling to his feet.
A tall, lean fae with long, platinum blond hair stood leaning against the doorjamb, studying her fingernails. She straightened, looking bored. "That was an impressive display, boys. Are we done measuring each other up now?"
Keelin sighed. "Banshee, why don't you get in here and stop lurking in doorways."
"What are you doing here?" Eliaster choked out.
"Wait, you know her?" I said.
"Hello to you too, lover boy." Banshee sauntered into the room, bright blue eyes flickering.
"Lover boy?" I repeated in a low voice. What the heck?
Eliaster closed his eyes in obvious frustration. "Just … please, for once, shut up, Josh."
I slouched in my chair. Fine, be that way. But if he thought that was the end of the matter …
Banshee passed Eliaster, and she reached up, brushing her knuckles along his jaw.
He opened his eyes and glared down at her, irises shimmering with a dark gray-green color I'd never seen before. "Get away from me."
Banshee stood on tiptoe and leaned closer to him, one corner of her lips curving upward in a smile. "I did so miss you."
He took a step back. "It wasn't mutual."
"Ooooh, my poor fragile heart just broke into a thousand pieces." She put her hand on her chest as she headed for the other unoccupied chair in the room. As she passed me, she winked.
"Banshee," Keelin growled again.
"I'm done, I'm done." She sat and crossed her legs, then leaned to the side, playing with the ring in her lip. "Continue, boss."
Eliaster turned to Keelin. "I am not going to work with her."
He shrugged. "If you want to go home and face Highlord O'Breigh and the possibility of another binding, that's your business."
Eliaster leaned forward, hands planted on the arms of his chair. For a second, I thought he was going to take his chances and bolt.
Eliaster looked between Keelin and Banshee, then sat down and crossed his arms over his chest. "So that's how you're to handle it? We work for you or get into trouble?"
Keelin smirked.
My mind reeled. Okay, so the first thing I needed to do find out why Eliaster was so scared of this Highlord O'Breigh person. And what was a binding? I didn't want to ask right then—it was better that Keelin didn't know exactly how little I knew about the Underworld.
"If you were having trouble, you could have reached out to other …" I paused. "Highlords, maybe? Or the curators?"
Keelin snorted. "I understand you may not have had any training in fae politics, so allow me to set you straight. To do so would have been to show weakness. There are always other fae circling, waiting to wrest the position of highlord from anyone who shows weakness. No. It wouldn't have been possible." He sighed. "We've been close to closing in on Shaughnessy, but then you two rolled into town and almost blew everything to freakin' hell."
"Buuuut maybe now that they're here, they'll be helpful," Banshee said. She leaned back in her chair, draping her arms along the back of the seat.
Eliaster twitched as if her voice physically pained him. "How?"
Keelin's eyes shifted over to me.
"Umm …" I swallowed hard.
"Absolutely not!" Eliaster shouted.
Banshee burst into laughter.
"He's a human. Shaughnessy won't even be looking for him," Keelin said sharply. "You know the rules as well as I do, Eliaster. In order to take a fellow fae into custody—to do something this drastic and imprison someone—we have to know he's a danger to the public. Rumor has it that Shaughnessy wears relics, and I think that's what he's using to slip past my men." He shifted and shot a quick, appraising look at me.
I swallowed.
"I want you to talk to Shaughnessy," Keelin continued. "See if you can spot any relics he's using. Not only will this help us fo
rmulate a plan, but it will prevent anyone from crying foul when we take him into custody. Even the Unseelie Court doesn't stand for its members wearing relics openly." He checked his watch. "He'll be leaving his apartment tomorrow sometime in the afternoon and head to the Blue Fire." He glanced over at Banshee and Eliaster. "And you two can ransack his apartment while he's at the club."
Eliaster grunted "Tell me one reason we should cooperate, Keelin. One."
Keelin's eyes darkened, and a lean smile pulled one corner of his mouth upward. "Because if you don't, I'll call Highlord O'Breigh here to set a binding on you tonight. There's precedent for it."
Eliaster looked like he was going to argue, but I cut him off. "Just stop it, okay? We did interfere in his territory." Besides, idiot, Shaughnessy is who we're supposed to be going after anyway. Stop protesting so much. Sometimes I really wished I had telepathy.
Eliaster sighed. "Fine. What'll we do until then?"
Keelin smirked. "I'd suggest you rest." He motioned to the side of the living room, where a set of stairs disappeared into the upper story of the house. "You'll likely have a long day tomorrow—I hope to be able to bring Shaughnessy in. If, of course, you have no objections." The last was said with a sneer.
Eliaster nodded. "The sooner I can get out of here, the better. No objections from me."
"Very well then. Tadhg."
It only took a few seconds for the blue-haired fae to reappear in the living room doorway.
Keelin waved his hand. "Please show them to the guest quarters."
"Yes, sir." Tadhg bowed his head, then gestured for us to follow him.
As I walked up the stairs, I glanced over my shoulder. Keelin gestured, and Banshee stood, crossing the room to stand closer to him. She leaned forward, resting her hands on one arm of his chair, their voices too low for me to hear.
The upstairs hallway was short and sparsely decorated compared to the living room. Tadhg stopped at the first door and opened it, revealing a small living space with a couch, chairs, a small bookcase, coffee table, and TV. Three closed doors sat at the back of the room.
"Two bedrooms and a shared bath," he said, gesturing. "Be up by noon. That should give us plenty of time to plan out tomorrow before we have to leave."
"Sounds good. We'll see you then," Eliaster said.
"And I swear, Tyrone, if you try anything, I'll—"
Eliaster shut the door in Tadhg's face. He stayed still for a moment, his back to me. "Well, happy now?"
Irritation flashed hot through me. Thanks for reminding me. "I thought showing them the relics would help. Show them that we'd come on a genuine lead, rather than just trying to stir up trouble."
"I get it, really, but—" Eliaster turned around, groaned, and ran his hands through his hair. "I guess it wouldn't have been so bad. But why did she have to show up?"
"Yeah, uh, about that—question?"
Eliaster gave me a skeptical look. "Just one?"
"Funny. Haha. So who is she? She seems pretty comfortable around you." I thought back to how close she'd been standing to him and amended that. "Overly comfortable."
He groaned again. "That's just Banshee. She thrives on making people uncomfortable. The trick to working with her is just to keep her at arm's length."
"Yeah, you were doing a fantastic job of that earlier."
He growled and walked across the room. Our backpacks and gear had already been brought in and set on the couch. Eliaster started rifling through his backpack, no doubt checking to make sure everything was in its place. "We worked together on a few jobs. She does a bit of everything—bounty hunting, relic retrieval, hacking, tracing—jack of all trades and master of none. She's a free agent and works for anyone who will pay her price."
"Which court does she belong to?"
"Neither. One of her parents was Unseelie, the other Seelie—kind of had a Romeo and Juliet thing going on. Turned out about as well as that story. No Court would ever claim her."
"Okay." I squinted at his back. I wasn't sure what set off my intuition, but he was shutting me out again—fat chance I'd get much more information out of him tonight. Emotions I'd thought I was over—the irritation and frustration from our argument before we met the Airgeads—slammed back into me. I opened my mouth.
"Good job holding your poker face when he gave you Shaughnessy's picture, by the way. You're getting better at holding your own."
I clamped my mouth back together so hard my teeth clicked. "Thanks. Figured you wouldn't want to give away everything we know, at least not before we had a chance to talk about it. So what do you think? Should we tell him about the Airgeads?"
Eliaster leaned back on his haunches and rubbed his chin. "No, I think keeping that to ourselves is the best idea right now. We still don't know what their agenda is."
"I'm telling you, she wasn't lying."
He shrugged. "Lying by omission is still lying, Josh."
Whatever. Maybe they hadn't told us everything, but I got where they were coming from. Wanting to be careful. Wanting to make sure they could trust us. I could see Eliaster's side, too, but his constant caginess was beginning to grate on me. "Think Shaughnessy will lead us to a pathstone?"
"Yeah … I'm still not happy about them making you be the one who makes contact with him."
My stomach knotted. "I don't like the idea either, but it makes sense. Even if he does pick up who I am, he's going to dismiss me. They all dismiss me."
Eliaster was quiet for a moment. Then he rolled to his feet and kicked off his boots. "I'm gonna sleep."
I shuffled my weight from foot to foot. But my mind whirled and jumped with so many thoughts that I knew if I tried to go to bed, I'd ended up lying awake for hours.
That was a good way to set myself up for horrific flashbacks and nightmares.
"What's eatin' you?" Eliaster asked.
I jumped at the sound of his voice.
Eliaster frowned. "Okay, this is weird," he said. "You weren't even that jumpy in the Chicago Underworld. What's going on?"
"Nothing," I said.
He raised an eyebrow. "Pardon me if I find that just a bit unbelievable."
I scratched the back of my neck. I really, really did not want to discuss my nightmares with Eliaster. "I said nothing."
He raised his eyebrows, eyes turning a slight blue-green. I shrugged and turned away, heading for one of the bedrooms. Turnabout was fair play.
# # #
I dreamed again. At first the images were fuzzy, chaotic. I couldn't clearly see them, but terror, rage, and sorrow swirled around me, dragging at my limbs as if they were physical beings. Someone's face showed white and blurry in the darkness surrounding me. Copper hair—Aileen? Then my view switched. The full moon was shining on me as I slept. This time, I tried to run when the green vines burst from the floor. Didn't work. A vine snaked up one leg, bringing me crashing down. I awoke kicking and screaming.
Someone had hold of my arms, trying to shake me. "Josh! Josh, wake up!"
I wrenched one hand free and punched, hard. Pain shot through my knuckles as they impacted something that crunched.
Eliaster swore and stumbled back, clamping his hand to his nose.
I sat up, chest heaving, and froze at the sight of blood gushing between Eliaster's fingers. Normally I wasn't squeamish, but I distinctly remembered something about blood in my dream. Eliaster. Blood on his face, soaking his shirt. My chest hurt. My stomach lurched. I doubled over on the bed, wrapped my arms around my head, and focused hard on the deep, steady rhythm of breathing. One breath, then two, then three. Nice and slow.
"Cíorru air," Eliaster muttered, his voice muffled. His hand pressed against my back. "You okay?"
I shook my head.
He sat down beside me and didn't say anything more. His hand stayed on my shoulder, fingers digging in just slightly, grounding me to this reality. This was real. This wasn't another dream. There were no vines trying to choke out my life. It felt stupid, stupid, to be so terrified of a dream
that I had to have a babysitter, but at the moment, I didn't care. I was just glad someone was here.
After a few minutes, I was able to sit up. My body still trembled, but at least I wasn't going to throw up anymore. I glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. Six AM. I groaned and rubbed my eyes. "Did I wake you up?"
"Doesn't matter." Eliaster waved the question away. "They're getting worse, aren't they?"
I shook my head. "This wasn't a flashback. I've … I've been having weird dreams. Just a couple in the last few days." I sighed. "I guess they're starting to get to me."
Eliaster pulled his shirt away from his face, then used a clean part of the hem to wipe the blood off his chin. "About what?"
Seriously? He dodged my questions all the time, but he expected me to answer everything right away? I shot him an irritated glare and started to snap, but the look on Eliaster's face stopped me. Genuine worry pinched the bridge of his nose.
As I described the dreams to him, Eliaster's jaw clenched, and dark threads of green flickered through his eyes. Eliaster sat back when I was done and rubbed his mouth. He pulled his hand away as a bit of dried blood flaked off his fingers, then got up and headed over to the bathroom. He grabbed a hand towel, doused it under the faucet, and scrubbed at his face and hand. In the bathroom light, a darker splotch stood out on his washed-out-black tank top from where he'd used it to stop his nosebleed. He'd done that rather than leave me alone. The thought made me feel marginally better.
I squirmed. It was weird for him to be this non-responsive for this long. "What do you think it means?"
Eliaster shook his head. "I don't know. It was the same dream, both times?"
"As far as I can remember." Something flashed in my memory. "No wait! It was different. This time, I wasn't at home. I was here." I got up and walked over to the room's only window, pushing the curtain back. I couldn't even see the moon—the window was facing the wrong direction. A shiver crawled down my spine. And I remembered another detail. I turned back to him. "I wasn't wearing my bracelet today, but it was on my wrist in the dream."
