Finngarick (Order of the Black Swan, D.I.T. Book 2)

by Victoria Danann

  “I lost a hunter and have elementals coming and going from Dublin like it’s the turnstile to a free amusement park. How was yours?”

  “Knight to vamp ratio seems to be holding for now. Monq says he’s on the verge of a new vaccine to eradicate the virus. He was kind of put off that I have mixed feelings about that. But… well, you know what happened last time. We got a few months’ reprieve, then it came back mutated and stronger than ever. What does he expect? Of course I’m going to be dubious at best. One thing’s for sure. If we try another vaccine, we’re going to study it in controlled conditions. For years. No more throwing the dice.”

  “Yeah. I see that.” Rosie nodded.

  “So what do you mean, you lost a hunter?”

  “One of the twins I told you about. Started out on a mission, but disappeared before she arrived.”

  “Disappeared?”

  Rosie nodded as she chewed. “Yes. The other three say she was there. Then she wasn’t.”

  “How could that have happened?”

  Rosie wiggled her head in a way that reminded Glen of both Deliverance and Litha. “It’s possible that she took a really, really fast misstep along the way that took her out of the passes. But unless she was prevented from doing so, she would have realized it right away, stepped back in, and come back.”

  “So you don’t think that’s what happened.”

  “No. I think she was snatched.”

  “Snatched. Like kidnapped?”

  “Well, yeah, Glen. That’s what snatched means.”

  “Hey. Don’t take this out on me.”

  “Sorry. The hunter I lost is the partner I assigned to Finngarick. To make things impossibly sticky, it turns out that she’s his mate.”

  That caught Glen’s interest since he felt like he had a personal stake in Torn’s happily ever after, although he wasn’t sure why. Rosie was looking glum and thinking maybe the meatloaf wasn’t as wonderful as she’d first thought, when the room filled with an extended vocal, ‘Ahhhhhhh,’ that sounded like a surround-sound clip of an angelic choir practice. She looked at Glen like it was his doing. “What the f…?”

  Suddenly, Kellareal had taken the third seat at their dining table for four. “Hey. Is that meatloaf? You have extra. I haven’t eaten.”

  “Lally. Were we expecting you?” Rosie asked.

  “No. I’m here on business.”

  “Business?” she repeated.

  “Meatloaf?” Kellareal repeated.

  Rosie frowned. “Since when do you eat?”

  “I eat. When I feel like it.”

  “How come I’ve never seen you eat then?”

  “’Cause I don’t feel like it often.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes. Really.”

  “When was the last time you ate?”

  He looked thoughtful for a second or two before saying, “1776.”

  Rosie expelled a deep breath, internally asking for patience. “But you want this meatloaf.”

  “Yeah! Looks good!”

  Rosie blinked once then rose without another word and walked over to the kitchen where she fetched a plate and a fork. She set the plate down in front of Kellareal and gave him two slices of meatloaf. “Brown gravy or red sauce?” she asked.

  “Hmmm,” the angel said happily. “One of each.” She started to ladle the brown gravy onto the slice on the left side of his plate. “No. Wait.” He pointed to the slice on the right. “Brown gravy on this one. Red sauce on the other one.”

  She rolled her eyes, but did as he asked. All the while Glen kept eating as if there was nothing unusual about that evening’s supper. “You want mashed potatoes with that?”

  “Yes. Please.” He smiled as he put a bite of meatloaf in his mouth and pointed to where he wanted the potatoes on his plate.

  “English peas?”

  “Peas! Yes! I love peas! English, too.” Rosie stabbed a serving spoon into the container of peas, no doubt injuring some in the process, and put them on Kellareal’s plate as directed by where he pointed his fork. “This meatloaf is wonderful. I love food.”

  “Then why haven’t you eaten for over two hundred years?” Glen asked.

  “Busy,” Kellareal said.

  “Hard work being an angel, is it?” Glen asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe! Let me tell you…”

  “Lally!” Rosie was losing patience. “You weren’t invited to dinner. There is, apparently, in your beautiful blond head some reason why you’re here. Instead of acquainting Glen with all the reasons why it’s so hard to be you, why don’t you tell us what this visit is about?”

  “I hate it when you take that tone,” Kellareal said.

  “I hate it when you’re obtuse. Spill or I will firmly plant that fork in your sternum so that it will take you another two hundred years to get it out.”

  Glen gave Rosie a look of curiosity mixed with concern. “You could do that?”

  She ignored him, not allowing her attention to be diverted from the angel. “Business. Remember? What business?”

  “Enforcer business.”

  “Well,” Glen said sarcastically, “that cleared that up. How about dessert?”

  Rosie kicked Kellareal under the table.

  “Ow.” He reached down to rub the spot that had been kicked, chastising himself for not being more careful around Rosie. She was one of only a handful of creatures who could hurt him and, perhaps, the only one who could kill him. “I was getting to it.”

  Rosie heard the Mario Brothers ‘power up’ ringtone, which he took after giving her the ‘flower’ ringtone, and barely had time to say, “Oh, for…” before Deliverance was sitting in the fourth chair saying, “Hey. Did you save enough meatloaf for me?”

  Glen just shook his head and chuckled as he looked Rosie’s way. “Being married to you means there’s never a dull moment. You know that?”

  “I hope that doesn’t mean that my family and friends are fostering regrets.”

  Glen shook his head again. “Nope. Knew what I was getting. Took the whole package. And it’s worth it.”

  Rosie’s face softened. She liked that. Liked it a lot. Surely there were not a lot of guys who would put up with the uninvited sitcom sitting at their little dining room table.

  “Gran. What are you doing here?” Rosie asked.

  “Little birdie told me he was coming to dinner.” Deliverance looked at Kellareal. “So I’m here as your backup.”

  “Backup?” Rosie’s brows drew together. “Are you insane?”

  Deliverance wiggled his head in a way that annoyed the living daylights out of Rosie and said, “Hmmm. Debatable, I suppose. I mean. Aren’t we all crazy? Really?”

  Rosie saw movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Kellareal nodding. To Glen, she said, “Someday I’m going to wake from a coma and realize there’s a secret passage between my room and the psychiatric wing.”

  Glen laughed.

  Deliverance said, “Please tell me there’s more meatloaf.”

  “You don’t eat, either,” said Rosie.

  “I eat!” Deliverance protested. “Just not often.”

  “This must be some magical meatloaf.” She pushed her plate toward Deliverance, who didn’t hesitate to take it.

  “Where’s the brown and red stuff he has on his?” Deliverance demanded, looking at Kellareal’s plate.

  Glen moved the containers of sauce and gravy close enough to Deliverance so that he could get what he wanted. “Help yourself to anything on the table that’s not already on my plate.” He turned to Rosie. “Would you like me to order something else for you?”

  She stared at Glen for a minute before saying, “Yes. I want a saucer-sized brownie with mocha almond fudge ice cream and hot fudge on top.”

  Glen grinned slowly. He’d learned that when Rosie had a severe need for a chocolate fix, transcendental sex was sure to follow soon after.

  “Sure thing,” he said as he got up to leave the three of them to whate
ver cosmic intrigues were afoot.

  When he was gone, Rosie said pointedly, looking from one to the other, “Now that everybody is fed or feeding and dinner with my husband is ruined, perhaps you’d like to tell me why you’re here.”

  “We have a rule breaker on our hands.”

  “Much more detail and clarification.”

  “One of us. Meaning an elemental has broken a rule.”

  Rosie’s eyes widened. “There are rules?” She looked at Deliverance for confirmation. He shrugged and wiggled his head. “I’m taking that as a yes. Why haven’t I heard about these rules before?”

  “No point,” Kellareal said. “You’re not the sort to break them. So why would you need to know them?”

  Her nostrils flared slightly. “There may or may not have been a compliment in there. I’m not going to take the time to work that out. What’s the rule that was broken? Who broke it? And, did you call yourself Enforcer?”

  Deliverance looked at Kellareal with a gleam in his eye that said, ‘I can’t wait to see how you answer that.’ What he said in fact as he mixed his peas and mashed potatoes together was, “This meatloaf is good. Did you make it?”

  “No, I didn’t make it!” she snapped. “And you know very well that I don’t know how to cook.”

  Deliverance looked down his nose at his granddaughter. “I didn’t ask if you cooked it. I asked if you made it.”

  He had a point she couldn’t refute. Truthfully, she probably could ‘make’ food. She hadn’t tried. Maybe she’d look into that sometime when she wasn’t dealing with…

  “It’s against the rule for elementals to abduct lesser beings. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Often. But it is against the rules. One of your hunters was grabbed by a demon.”

  Deliverance looked suddenly interested. “Demon? What kind?”

  Kellareal glanced toward Deliverance. “Music demon.”

  “Oh man,” said Deliverance.

  “What?” Rosie said to Deliverance. When he didn’t respond immediately, she turned to Kellareal. “What does he mean by ‘oh man’?”

  “He means that…” Kellareal started.

  “Don’t put words in my mouth, angel. I can speak for myself.” To Rosie he said, “Music demons are powerful. They can pretty much make anybody do anything. Which one is it?”

  “Lyric.”

  “Oh man,” Deliverance muttered as he raised a forkful of mashed potatoes mixed with peas to his mouth. “He’s one of the oldest.”

  “I know,” Kellareal agreed. “But he’s still relevant. At least he was when he whispered the words of ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.”

  “You call that relevant?”

  Kellareal chewed thoughtfully. “It’s all relative, man. I call it profound.”

  “It’s not relative or profound, man. The Stones are no longer relevant no matter how relative you call it,” Deliverance said. “But of course you’d love that song because it perpetuates myths that imply demons are all bad. And that infers that angels are all good.” Deliverance made a gagging noise to indicate that he was disgusted by that idea.

  Kellareal gave him a smug smile.

  To Rosie, he said, “The tricky part is that technically music demons are not interfering with free will, but it is a technicality. Like a loophole. They use music to make people respond the way they want,” he added.

  Rosie looked confused. “How?”

  Kellareal said, “I don’t have a perfect analogy, but to a much smaller degree, the same thing happens in movies. Music manipulates feelings. Whether or not the director is able to make you feel sad, scared, anxious, sympathetic, horny, or brave depends on who he hired to do the music.”

  “You want me to believe that soundtrack composers are music demons?”

  “Of course not.” Rosie nodded. “Music demons save their special sauce for stuff that counts. Look how much havoc they caused in the sixties.”

  “What do you mean?” She shook her head. “Never mind. Stay on topic. My hunter has been grabbed by a music demon?”

  “Yes.”

  “I really, really, really wish I didn’t have to follow that up with this question because I’m not sure I want to hear the answer, but I guess, as her boss, it’s my job to ask. For what purpose?”

  “I won’t know that until I confront him.”

  “Well, why aren’t you there doing that instead of being here doing this?” she asked. “And does this mean you’re going to get my hunter back for me? And punish the bad demon? Okay. I know that sounded like an oxymoron, but you know what I mean.”

  “Yes. I’m going to get your hunter back and deal with the demon. As to punishment, that will depend on what he has to say.”

  “So these ‘rules’ are more guidelines than rules.”

  All three looked toward the door when they heard Glen come in. When he entered with Rosie’s choco-binge, they were staring at him.

  “What?” he said.

  “Glen,” Rosie said. “You are the best person ever born. I need that,” she pointed to the container in his hand, “more than air right now.”

  His eyes moved over the angel and the demon who sat at his dining table with his wife then, without a word, he retrieved a spoon from the kitchen, set the mess of fudge goodness in front of Rosie and kissed the top of her hair. She was already making yummy sounds before he’d sat down.

  “What did I miss?” he asked.

  With a mouthful of coffee fudge ice cream, Rosie said, “Lally’s going to get my hunter back from the music demon who grabbed her. Then he’s going to enforce some rule that says demons aren’t supposed to do that.”

  Glen’s eyes slid to Kellareal. “There are music demons?”

  Kellareal smiled indulgently and said, “How can people not know this? I mean the evidence is all around you. What do you think is going on when music rearranges your molecules? When your hair stands on end and your nipples get hard? Or your chest swells with emotion? Or you get so turned on you look around to see who else is horny?”

  It took a few beats for Glen to realize that wasn’t rhetorical. Kellareal was looking at him, actually waiting for an answer.

  “Well,” Glen began, “I guess I just thought it was some kind of brain chemistry reaction.”

  Kellareal blinked a few times before shaking his head and saying, “Wow,” as if to say he hadn’t realized just how stupid humanoids could be.

  “The point isn’t that there are music demons, although I also find that, um, informative. The point is that I’m getting my hunter back.” Her attention abruptly swiveled to Kellareal with the force of a brainstorm. “Hey. Could you give my hunters something to defend themselves against elementals?”

  Deliverance snorted.

  Kellareal said, “Certainly.” Rosie brightened. “But would I? Of course not. If fate had intended for elves and the like to be traversing the passes, they wouldn’t need serum.”

  Rosie rolled her eyes. “That’s the stupid argument that backward people have used about every innovation since the wheel. If we were intended to fly, we’d have wings.”

  “Well, since you brought it up, I happen to agree with that as well,” said the angel.

  “You do not.” Rosie was scandalized that her friend, the angel, could be so provincial, which would be impossible by ordinary standards, but not much was impossible when it came to Kellareal.

  “I do, too.”

  “So you’re not going to help.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Fine.” She took the plate and what was left of the meatloaf away and started toward the kitchen.

  “Aw. Come on,” said Kellareal. “That’s totally unfair.”

  She came back to the kitchen doorway with hands on her hips. “You know what’s unfair? You barging in here uninvited and unannounced and asking for meatloaf. That’s what’s unfair.”

  “I wasn’t unannounced. I used a ringtone. If you don’t like that one…”

 
“You’re missing the point,” she said with a glare that could have split the table in half.

  “No. I’m not. I came bearing gifts, too. Said I’d get your hunter back for you.”

  That reminder gave Rosie pause. “Okay. I’ll give you that.”

  “Your hunter is worth a little conversation and some meatloaf.”

  After a few seconds of indecision, she relented and returned the meatloaf, which made Kellareal smile like the Cheshire cat.

  “So. Finish your meatloaf and go get her,” Rosie said. Kellareal didn’t respond, but began shoveling food into his mouth faster, as if he was afraid it would be taken away from him. Rosie also noticed that he was studiously avoiding looking at her. Her eyes flicked to Glen and back to Kellareal before she said, “You are going to go get her now. Right?”

  “Hmmm,” Kellareal said in a syllable that could not possibly have held less commitment or information.

  There was only one bite of meatloaf left, but Rosie pulled the plate out from under the angel’s face. He followed it with his fork, but was too late.

  “What’s the problem, Lally? Stop dorking around.”

  “I’m not dorking around.” He looked at Deliverance and raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I even know how to dork around.”

  Deliverance shrugged.

  “Call it whatever you want. Ducking. Evading. Slithering.”

  “Slithering!” The angel appeared to have been insulted by that one.

  “By any name, it’s still not answering my question.”

  “Alright.” He pouted as he slouched down in the chair and folded his arms in front of him. “I can’t just storm in and extricate. There are channels.”

  Rosie gaped. “Channels! Why am I just now hearing about this? After you’ve barged into my quiet dinner with my husband and devoured our meatloaf?” She looked at Deliverance, who was quickly finishing his own meal in case the evening was taking a turn for the worse. “Like locusts.”

  “I’m begging pardon for the both of us. If you’d ever actually seen what locusts can do…”

  “I DON’T CARE WHAT LOCUSTS CAN DO! I WANT MY HUNTER BACK NOW!”

  “Don’t be childish, Elora Rose.” Kellareal tried sounding more authoritative.