Agent of Enchantment (Dark Fae FBI Book 1)

by C. N. Crawford

  “What promise?” I hugged myself, trying to clear my thoughts. “The morgue?”

  “I need to go there. Tomorrow.”

  Chapter 10

  It’s hard to piece together a coherent sequence of events when your life is crumbling around you.

  I lay staring at the ceiling, sinking into the hotel bed, listening to an old J Dilla album to try to normalize myself. It was just me and Dilla and hip-hop inspired by donuts. Normal stuff from my normal American life…

  And yet, the echoing, backward sounds in the music brought to mind the mirror realm that Roan spoke of.

  Try as I might to ignore it, it seemed like I faced two options at the moment. The first was that I was losing my mind, just like my father had. The idea that I might end up like him scared me to death.

  The second option was that everything I thought I knew about reality was horseshit. There were alternate worlds of magic and fae, and people with horns you could see through rocks. The world of reason and facts apparently wasn’t reliable.

  Mentally, I reviewed the night’s events. After the vision at the London Stone, everything had seemed a blur. I remembered hurrying away from Roan, trying to find my way back to the hotel on foot until I gave in and hailed a cab.

  On the short ride home, London’s streets had somehow become dark and threatening, the gray buildings looming above us. Occasionally I’d notice a reflection in a window—of horned men and winged women. People who weren’t there.

  Back at the hotel, I’d stumbled into an elevator and found my way to my room in a daze. I dropped on the bed, shivering as if freezing. Fragments of the past two days raced through my mind, now cast in a new light.

  Those two men who had attacked me that night had been inhumanly strong and fast. The killer’s DNA and fingerprints, the way he’d punched through the ribs…

  Not to mention Roan. If anyone was fae, he fit the bill entirely.

  But why did I keep seeing reflections in mirrors and windows? How was it that I was getting these glimpses?

  And then there was Alvin at the bar, with his strange orange eyes, saying, Cheers for the food, Cassandra. See you tomorrow night!

  Was he fae, and did he know I’d want more answers from him the next night?

  Over time, the shivering abated. I rose from the bed, my limbs shaking with exhaustion. It took every ounce of willpower I had just to drag myself to the shower. I kicked off my heels, pulled off my little black dress, and slipped out of my black lace underwear. My muscles ached, seemingly rebelling against me.

  I turned on the water, goosebumps springing on my chilled skin as I waited for it to heat up. Once steam began filling the room, I stepped inside, letting the powerful current pound my skin. There was reassurance in that feeling. This was real. Slowly, I felt myself calm down.

  I didn’t think I was losing my mind, but that’s what psychotic people always thought. I didn’t have any other symptoms of psychosis—no delusions of grandeur, no disorganized thoughts or speech. I had to work under the assumption that whatever I was experiencing was as real as the hot water on my skin.

  I lathered my hair with the hotel shampoo, scented with vanilla, and watched the foamy water trickle down my body, gathering around the drain. So… magic was real. Did that actually change anything? Reality had shifted around me, but I was still me: Special Agent Cassandra Liddell. I still had to help the English police catch a serial killer. Roan was a source, and I’d milk him as much as I could. I’d take him to the morgue tomorrow, but only to see if I could get additional information from him. I knew he had more information about the killer than he was letting on. As far as I was concerned, Roan was the key.

  Thinking like an actual agent again made me feel stronger, safer. I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, then dried my hair with a towel. Steam had clouded the mirror entirely, and I could hardly see myself. I brushed the steam off with my hand. And when I did, I felt something—a sort of bond with the mirror, as if my mind were linking with it. The mirror’s presence seemed to pool in my mind like cool water, and at the same time, it pulled me closer, like a gravitational force.

  Wherever I touched the mirror, the reflection shimmered and bent, fading slowly. I could still see my own reflection through the steamed up glass in the spots where I left it untouched.

  I thought of Roan, and that shimmering world of magic he’d showed me. And as I thought of him, the reflection shifted, and the cleared spaces revealed a different room. It seemed to be another room in the Andaz Hotel, with a similar interior.

  Roan was pacing in the room slowly, dressed in nothing but a pair of black underwear. The sight of his body stole my breath: golden skin, a chiseled chest, perfect abs, and arms thickly corded with muscle. Already I could feel heat spreading through my body as I gaped at him. There was a voyeuristic thrill to this moment—looking into someone else’s room, following his every movement. I didn’t try to understand why or how this was happening. Fuck that. Magic was real, and I was currently using it to watch a sexy man in his underwear. That was good enough for me.

  And yet, something about the sight of him also unnerved me deeply. He walked with a preternatural, predatory grace, as if I’d caught him forgetting to act human.

  He turned around, facing away from me, and I could do nothing but stare at his powerful back. Just below his shoulder blades, several dark symbols marked his skin. I identified one of them instantly, and my mouth went dry. Three diagonal lines, crossed in the middle—the same sign carved behind the last victim’s ear. My heart began to thump hard against my ribs.

  Without warning, Roan whirled to face me. His eyes widened, his jaw clenched, and those strange, golden horns sprouted from his head. As his entire body went rigid with tension, his eyes locked on me, trailing down my naked body.

  And that’s when it hit me: Whatever was happening, Roan could see me, too.

  My arms flew to cover my breasts, and in the next moment I was running out the door, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the bedroom’s floor.

  Chapter 11

  It was six thirty in the morning, and I was leaving my room very quietly. I was dressed in a thin black sweater and skirt, accessorized with my favorite gray quilted shoulder bag and a pair of silver ballet flats. This afternoon, I was supposed to check in with the FBI’s London office, and meet the local attachés. And yet for some reason, I didn’t want to tell them about Roan. Describing him to them would just raise more questions than I wanted to answer—like, how the hell could I explain what I’d seen last night? What would I tell the FBI about the fae theories—that I was starting to believe they were real?

  My early departure was absolutely not an attempt to evade Roan because he had probably seen me naked—it was an attempt to evade him because of the markings on his back. Roan had turned from source into suspect.

  Also, he had seen me naked.

  But more importantly, he fit the profile completely: a powerfully built young man with inhuman powers, fascinated by the crime, and sexy enough to persuade these women to do what he wanted. That in itself wasn’t enough—there were a lot of strong, sexy men. But the markings on his back changed things.

  I couldn’t rule out that Roan could be the killer.

  I walked down the long hall, mulling it all over in my mind. Suppose he had killed those women—what would be the purpose of going to the morgue? I could think of several things. First, he might want to destroy incriminating evidence. Second, it was possible he was there for the thrill of looking at his dead victims again. Serial killers often wanted to relive their murders again; that’s why they returned to the crime scenes, and it was one of the main reasons they kept trophies. But what better way to relive your murder than see your dead victim again? Plus, he kept insisting I got a visceral thrill from fear. Why would he be so preoccupied with that concept if he weren’t projecting?

  A shiver ran up my neck. I definitely couldn’t take Roan to the morgue until I knew more.

  I sto
od outside the sleek metal elevators and pushed the button, watching the numbers blinking as the elevator slowly came closer.

  “Are we going to the vault?” Roan’s deep voice behind me made me jump out of my skin.

  “It’s called a morgue.” I turned to face him. He towered above me, staring down at me as if he was in complete control of everything.

  “The morgue, then.”

  “No. Not today.”

  Anger glinted in his eyes, and I remembered the terrifying sight of those horns. “Are you breaking your word?” His tone was pure, cold anger.

  I was very much aware of how deserted the hallway was. Combined with what I’d seen him do to those men in the alley, his immense size and power would give him total control right now. My heart thrummed as I scrambled for something to say. “No. I just need to check something first.”

  His dark eyebrows drew together. “You really shouldn’t break your word.”

  I swallowed. Had he thought those murdered women had broken their word to him? His eyes seemed to shift in color—not gold this time, but coal black, and my stomach dropped. The scent of an oaky forest enveloped me. I moved to step away from him, but he pressed his hands to either side of my head, boxing me in. “Do you think you can get away from me so easily?”

  My mouth went dry. He had trapped me like prey, assuming total control.

  “I’ll take you there tomorrow.” I had to buy myself some time. “I have a meeting this morning. You won’t be welcome there.”

  “You won’t take me today?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Slowly, he reached down, his hand shaking slightly, and touched my ribs, just below my right breast. My breath caught in my throat.

  “That tattoo below your ribs,” he whispered. “Dux Femina Facti. When did you get it?”

  My pulse raced out of control. He really had seen me last night. With a painfully light touch, his fingertips traced down my body toward my hips.

  “‘A woman was the author of this achievement,’” he said, translating my tattoo as his touch brushed over my hips. “And what achievement is that?”

  “It’s just a feminist statement,” I blustered. “It has to do with Dido’s founding of Carthage. Unless you want a history lesson, I’ll be on my way to work.”

  His eyes were intent, as if his own movements mesmerized him. His fingertips snaked around my hips, dangerously close to my ass, and he took a shuddering breath.

  My breathing sped up, and I debated slamming my knee into his groin. Still, something stopped me. “You said you wouldn’t touch me again,” I protested.

  Suddenly, he seemed to snap out of his trance, stepping away from me. “I shouldn’t be shocked at your oath-breaking, given what you are.” His voice dripped with contempt.

  “I can’t figure out if it’s Americans you hate, or women. Or both.”

  “Neither. Like I said, you’re a terror leech, from the realm of the drowned man.” His green eyes pierced right through me. “The meaning of your tattoo. It’s more than what you’re admitting.”

  Bingo. “It’s none of your business. And if you don’t leave me alone now, I will hurt you.” A stupid bluff. We both knew I wasn’t winning a fight against him, even if I managed to get in a well-placed knee to the groin.

  He smirked. “What an amusing thought.” He walked away, moving with that languid, inhuman grace down the hall. Shaking, I stepped into the elevator.

  My legs trembled. I had to get to the police station and talk to Gabriel. I needed to tell someone else about Roan.

  Chapter 12

  After leaving the hotel, I spent about twenty minutes walking around the city just to clear my head. London, this ancient metropolis, had the most fascinating street names, and I tried to make myself focus on those instead of thinking about Roan. Often, the street names reflected the ghosts of London’s past: London Wall, where the city barrier had once stood. Houndsditch, where I imagined peasants tossing animal corpses over the wall to get rid of them. Wormwood, where the poisonous plant must have grown over the London Wall itself, and among the dog-corpses just outside the city.

  Even without the fae world, London had its own mirror realm, with the past reflected in the present. A phantom city of the past, just beneath the surface.

  My mind was whirling, and I needed someone I could talk all these ideas over with. Scarlett believed in all kinds of weird shit, but she wouldn’t be awake for hours.

  Would Gabriel think I’d lost my mind? For some reason, I thought I could trust him. I felt a sudden desperation to unload all this to him.

  Resolved to talk it out with Gabriel, I found my way back to the station. I pulled open the front door, but a silver-haired cop in the entrance blocked my way. “Can I see your visitor’s badge, ma’am?”

  Irritated, I pulled open my shoulder bag to rummage through it. The damn thing was crammed with everything under the sun: lipstick, my keychain with a flashlight, loose change, the bottle from Alvin, my phone, wallet… but no badge, of course. What the hell? I was certain I’d stuffed it in here.

  I sighed. “Look, Constable, you know me. I was here yesterday, and the day before. With Gabriel. Remember?”

  He raised a hairy eyebrow. “Yes, I remember. You had it before, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but today I forgot it in the hotel room. Constable, I promise I’ll remember to bring it with me tomorrow.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. You can’t enter without a visitor’s badge. If I bend the rules for one person, I have to bend them for everyone.”

  “No, you don’t.” My powers of persuasion were failing me this morning.

  He simply stared at me.

  I was willing to bet that a naked man covered in blood could have walked past this man as long as he had the right permit. “Very well, then.”

  The hotel wasn’t far, but I wanted to talk to Gabriel as soon as possible. I dug out my phone and dialed his number.

  “Hello?”

  “Gabriel, it’s Cassandra. Listen, I forgot my visitor’s badge again—”

  “Oh. They won’t let you in without a visitor’s badge.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Are you here? Can you let me in?”

  “I’m eating breakfast across the street. A place called Caffe Nero. Want to join me?”

  “Sure.” I could definitely use a cup of coffee. “Be there in a few minutes.”

  I crossed the street, somehow remembering to look right first. When I passed a newspaper stand, I caught one of the headlines: One in Every Five Immigrants Is a Killer. Great. I guess DCI Wood was still content to let the city of London focus on immigrants as suspects.

  I walked up a set of stone stairs to a café with blue and black lettering: Caffe Nero. Gabriel sat just inside a bay window overlooking Bishopsgate, eating a pain au chocolat. I pushed through the door, crossing to him.

  “Good morning.” He looked slightly better than the day before, though not much. His eyes were red-rimmed, his blue shirt a bit rumpled. Still looked handsome, though, in an I-just-woke-up sort of way.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “You’re up early.”

  “Yeah, I… I have some things I need to tell you. Regarding the case.”

  “Okay.” He dropped his croissant, waiting.

  Where the hell did I begin? I couldn’t just launch into the magic stuff, or I’d sound like a complete lunatic. Honestly, no matter how I confessed this knowledge, I’d sound like a lunatic. “I’ll just grab a coffee first.”

  I crossed the counter, which was so high I could hardly see the barista. A set of dark eyes peered at me over a jar of biscotti. “Yes, miss?”

  “Can I have a filter coffee and a plain croissant?”

  As I waited to pay at the register, I tried to gather my thoughts.

  I could organize the chaos in my mind into three areas: Things I should tell Gabriel, such as a new suspect who had turned up in the investigation. Things I probably shouldn’t tell him, but would anyway, because I couldn’t kee
p them to myself, like the fact that maybe magic and faeries existed. And then there were the things I definitely shouldn’t tell him, like the fact that I’d wanted to kiss Roan when I’d first met him, and that he’d seen my boobs through a magical mirror.

  I paid for my food and coffee, and returned to Gabriel, half in a daze.

  He stared at me, concern glinting in his hazel eyes. “Are you okay?”

  He looked like someone I could trust, and if I wanted to solve this crime, I had to come clean. Maybe I wasn’t willing to go to the FBI offices with my theories yet, because I’d immediately find myself on some kind of involuntary leave. But Gabriel seemed like someone I could trust.

  My hand shook slightly. I took a sip of my coffee, then launched into it. It ended up being a chaotic narrative, full of holes and backtracking. Gabriel, patient British detective that he was, listened to it all with only mild disbelief in his eyes. I told him almost everything, apart from the naked incident, and the things I saw in mirrors. Even omitting those facts, I half expected him to inform me that the British police no longer needed my assistance in the case.

  Instead, once I finished, he sat, lost in thought, staring at the pale morning sun that slanted in through the glass. I’d drained my coffee, and I already craved another one.

  “A… magical serial killer,” he finally said.

  “Yeah,” I nodded, feeling idiotic. “I know it sounds insane, but think about the DNA, and the fingerprints. The killer broke three of the woman’s ribs with his bare hands. And the marks on the body—”

  “Ogham letters.”

  “What?”

  “The marks are Ogham letters. It’s an early medieval alphabet. The letters on the body can be translated to horror and slays.”

  “Horror slays.” The hairs on the back of my neck rose. “So the three diagonal lines crossed means—”