I landed square on my feet, but facing a bare, brick wall. Behind me, I heard the rustle-whisper of feathers against feathers, and made sure the gun was secure in my hand, barrel pointing down, before I turned.
“It’s more polite to call ahead, rather than drop in unannounced.” The voice was dry, with an undercurrent of clacking to the consonants.
“Your number was unlisted,” I said, letting my wrist loosen. It didn’t sound like our suspect was about to attack any time soon, but I wasn’t letting down my guard entirely. The gryphon was about ten feet away, seated on a wide sofa, its long, tawny tail curled around its hindquarters, the barbed tip twitching slightly. The wings were folded, shifting occasionally the way someone might tap their fingers, and the head was…
I hadn’t been prepared for how gorgeous that falcon’s head would be, great golden eyes and sharply curved beak not at all alien, or even unfriendly. But dangerous, absolutely dangerous.
“You can put the gun away, faun.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll keep it out,” I said. Without my usual cap, my horns were probably obvious enough to give away my fatae blood, but it was entirely possible that he could sniff it, too. Which meant he knew I was human, also. Considering his behavior so far, I wasn’t going to assume peaceful intentions, faced with that fact.
“Oh…that.” The gryphon didn’t really have facial expressions - it didn’t have much of a face, period - but there might have been a hint of apology in his voice. “I lost my temper.”
“Just a bit, yeah.” I kept my breathing steady, and my gaze direct, but unchallenging. Every confrontation with a perp had this moment, where they had to decide how much trouble they were in, and how much more trouble you could bring down on them. “So now you’re looking at, what? Kidnapping, assault… maybe first degree manslaughter…”
The gryphon didn’t drop its gaze, but the feathers on the top of its head smoothed enough that I figured it wasn’t going to attack, at least not just yet. “You can hand me over to the Council later,” it said. “We need to find it.”
“It?” I wasn’t playing dumb, exactly, just waiting for the gryphon to come clean, and maybe tell me something new.
“The offspring. It should never have existed, and it must not fall under the wrong influences.”
“The offspring, as you call it, is…what, your child, too? Grandchild?” Clearly it didn’t have any paternal feelings going on.
He tilted that beaked head, and looked at me like I’d just said the dumbest thing in the history of dumb. “It should never have existed. Someone did this intentionally. Manipulated. Caused.”
Great, a gryphon with paranoia and delusions of conspiracy. “Why?”
“Prophesy.”
Oh for the love of - I took a step back, scanning the room for another chair. The only one I saw, I wouldn’t trust to hold the weight of a coat, much less a person. “Founder Ben broke us of that, centuries ago. Nobody believes in prophesies any more.”
“Perhaps they should.” And by they, he clearly meant me.
“Right.” I’d talked crazies out of their corner before, just not recently. I was out of practice. “Any particular prophesy in mind?”
He clacked his beak, and sighed. “Choose the poison you wish to ingest. The whisper, the threat, of many bloods in one flesh resurfaces with regularity. But the most recent was specific enough to reference a human child with wings on her back and original sin in her…heart.”
I was betting heart wasn’t the original placement. The jokes were too easy to make about the Lilin, which probably had as much to do with their reclusiveness as anything else. Some folk can’t help hating what they want, especially once they discover it doesn’t always want them back.
“So you think you were manipulated into sleeping with the … the Lilin was your daughter, right? You didn’t put the beat-down on your own son?” Nobody had suggested our missing man was anything other than human, but hey, people have been wrong about me, too.
“The girl was my offspring.” He didn’t seem happy about it. I couldn’t tell if he was a bigot, or just embarrassed at having let his feathers down with a Lilin. “I did not know she was with child, or with what. Only after the fact was I informed.”
And then he’d decided to get his grandbaby back himself. But why? Wait, he’d said influence, that the kid shouldn’t fall under the wrong influences. So he was the right one? Or he thought daddy dearest would have been, before he beat the crap out of him? I hate dealing with crazies.
“So the folk who’ve taken her, their plan is…what? To raise the child as some end-of-times priestess? To sacrifice her? To…”
“To study her,” he said, and damned if you couldn’t sneer with a beak. “To see if there’s a way to bring all the breeds into one.”
“Well, it’s nice to know we’ve tempered our magical fatalism with science,” I said, wryly. Still, no matter how crazy they were - or weren’t - if they intended to study her, or god help us, breed her, they were going to keep her alive and healthy, at least until puberty. That was one relief. But we needed to find her, and get her away from crazy people - and I was including grandpa in that category for now.
“So where is she?”
“If I knew that, do you think I would be wasting time with that idiot human?” An agitated gryphon’s wingspread was impressive, and my hand may have tightened around the grip of my gun just a bit, even as I recognized the soft pop of an incoming Translocation. This loft was starting to get a bit crowded.
“I know.” Ellen, her voice firm, like it was no big deal she’d just shown up in the middle of a gryphon’s temper tantrum. “I know how to find her.”
12
I spun around, and glared at Ellen, utterly forgetting - without actually forgetting - about the irate fatae behind me. “How the hell-“
“I know you well enough to follow,” she said, answering the question I hadn’t asked, and I filed that information away for later use. Right now I didn’t want her hopping around to unknown spots but…yeah, that could be a definite plus, in sticky situations. And come with some potential problems, too. “We’ll talk about your hop-skotching-into-danger later,” I said out loud. “You said you can track the baby?”
“It’s…not simple, exactly. But yeah, I think I can track her.”
“With current?” The gryphon seemed torn between scorn and annoyance. Clearly, he didn’t have much use for humans. Or Talent.
“With current,” she said, echoing his tone. “Yeah.”
I held up a hand, to get a word in edgewise. “What’re the others up to?”
“They went home - but they’re listening in case we need backup.” In other words, waiting for a ping. She gave the gryphon a glare. He glared right back, that tail lashing again, and for a moment I thought I was going to have to break up a hissing match.
“Children. Focus, please. So what’s the deal with the kid?” I said to Ellen.
She gave the gryphon another glare, as though warning it to keep its claws off the two-legs, and turned to me. “It’s simple, really. Most cantrips are, when you break them down, it’s….” She looked at me, then the gryphon, and realized that neither of us gave a damn about the make-up or break-down of her spell, only if it would work or not.
“Okay. I um… I need a feather. Please?” She looked at the gryphon, and I could sense her trying not to flinch or squeak. I couldn’t exactly blame her.
The gryphon - whose name we still hadn’t got - studied her and then, with a single lash of its tail, reached up and plucked a long, silvery feather from its left shoulder. It didn’t come out easily, and I winced, even if he didn’t.
She took it carefully, almost reverently, and that seemed to settle him down a bit.
“I’m Danny, by the way,” I said. “That’s Ellen.”
“Faosullvaant .”
I wasn’t sure I could say that without a beak to clack, so I just inclined my head in acknowledgement of the information. “I�
�d say it was a pleasure to meet you, but not really. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“Both of you, hush.” Ellen pulled something out of her jeans pocket, unstoppering it with her teeth and spitting the cork into the corner. She then dipped the quill into the vial. It came out stained a deep black.
Blood. She had blood in the vial.
“Do I want to know where that came from?”
“We needed the connection.”
So, while I was chatting up Winged McLoon, Wren - I was presuming Wren - went into the hospital and took a blood sample from a comatose man. At least I didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing her. And any worry about morality got left behind somewhere in my second year on the force. So I let it slide.
“You can do this, with that?”
“I’m a Seer. Seeing is what I do, right? This will help me focus on what I want to See.”
“Right.” Bonnie had explained to me once that Will was the most important thing when shaping current. Will, and Control. I didn’t doubt Ellen’s Will…
She held the feather up at eye level, dipped the point into the blood just enough to darken the tip, and turned it slowly, the way you would a key in a lock you weren’t quite sure of, or if you were trying not to make any noise. The gryphon leaned forward, apparently interested despite himself. Well, it was his feather, after all.
“Generation to generation, blood to bone. Show me.”
It didn’t have the poetic nuance of Valere’s cantrips, but from the sparking around her hand, I was betting it did the trick. Words were mostly showmanship, from what Bonnie’d said, more than a few times. You put on a show to convince yourself you knew what you were doing, and impress anyone who might likewise doubt.
The feather quivered and then - in a snap of sparks - disappeared.
“Where…”
Ellen’s face had that look again. The one that said she was Seeing something.
“Wheels. A sea of wheels, and pavement, and shoes. People walking…standing. Glass and chrome.”
I waited, but that was it, nothing specific enough to identify. But I had a hunch of my own.
“Look up,” I directed her. “Lift your gaze.”
Her chin tilted up, but her eyes were looking somewhere else. Hopefully, up.
“Streets, storefronts. Large glass windows, filled with things.” Her head tilted to the side a little, and I was amused to recognize one of my own physical “don’t bother me I’m thinking” quirks in her body. Well, I did call her Shadow… “A large sign, overhead. Green. Hanging down. A name? A… fruit?” Her face look puzzled for a moment, her own personality cracking through the Seer. We weren’t going to get much more, if she didn’t See it now.
Green sign…name… plate glass …. A fruit… I ran it through my own knowledge of the area, hoping against hope they hadn’t gone out of the city, or into one of the remote pockets I hadn’t wandered, or hadn’t been too damaged or gentrified beyond recognition.
“A name of a fruit,” she said, decisive now, and I laughed in relief.
“The Upper East Side. She’s seeing the Upper East Side.” J.G. Melon, home of one of the best burgers in New York City, and possessor of a large green sign hanging from the side of their building. “Huh, hide a stroller in a sea of strollers. Not isolated, buried. Not too shabby…”
“I have her,” Ellen said. “I know where she is. But it’s right now.”
The gryphon got up from his bench, and I was suddenly aware of how thickly-muscled that body was. Not huge - maybe eight feet tall and five across the shoulders, but solid. “Then let us go,” he said, extending one wing down, a clear invitation. I was - beyond dubious, but Ellen stepped forward without hesitation, and considering the alternative was to haul out on mass transit - which would take forever - or be held in those claws….
I got on.
oOo
One of the things I love and despair of about New York City - and Boston and Chicago, for that matter - is how a fatae can walk down the street and people look right at him and don’t react. Maybe a flicker of an eyelid and then it’s “oh, well, okay then” and they move on. In Los Angeles, people gawp. Down South, they do a faint oh dear and turn away. Outside of the cities… it can get ugly. But the big northern cities? Yeah, whatever pal, I get weirder than you in my breakfast cereal.
Then again, if you saw a gryphon, twice as big as a linebacker and three times as cranky, would you stare, much less get in his way?
Ellen stopped on the corner, and lifted her chin, pointing not to the restaurant, but the French cafe across the street. “She’s in there.”
“Hide a stroller in a sea of strollers,” I said, looking at the rows of baby carriages that probably cost as much as a months’ rent on the office, parked outside the cafe. “Not isolated, buried. Smart. Also pretty much impossible to find…”
“Without magic. Yes.” The gryphon flicked one talon, unhappy at being shown up by a Human, Talent or otherwise. “So now what?”
“Now we steal a baby,” Ellen said. “Let’s see if I’ve learned anything useful from Genevieve. You guys stay here and make a distraction.”
Before I had a chance to say anything, she had gone inside. I knew what she was about to do, and she was right, it was the best chance we had. But having someone in my employ use the same tactics I was usually investigating… it made me nauseated.
Our best chance at a distraction would draw the Council’s attention. But with luck, it would draw it away from the kid, not towards.
“Do something really obnoxiously impressive,” I told Faosullvaant. “Ideally without actually hurting anyone.”
The gryphon looked at me like I was an oversized and not-particularly-tasty rabbit, then turned away, his wings coming out and extending. I got out of the way - barely - as he turned. The wings were large, but they were as graceful as a ballerina’s arms, and hit exactly what he intended them to.
I flinched as the fire hydrant’s top burst open, a heavy stream of water rising a few feet into the air before turning into a fountain. Okay, that was impressive, but it wasn’t going to get a lot of people anything more than wet and pissy -
And then he launched himself into the air, his lion’s body in full leap into the air like a carousel carving, catching the full brunt of the water on the underside of his wings.
And what had been ordinary water, shaken off those silver feathers, became a kaleidoscope of rainbows shimmering from his shoulders to his tail, magic in motion, a thousand liquid hummingbirds before they splashed back down to the pavement. Everyone, and I mean every. Damn. One. On the block stopped, and stared.
And then he was gone.
“Did you see that?”
“That was awesome.”
“Are they filming the new Marvel movie here?”
“Dude. I’m fucking soaked.”
And then the moment was over, and everyone went back to whatever they’d been doing, shaking off the water or shaking their heads and messaging their friends, but walking away and not looking back. That was when I realized that Ellen had walked past me, something bundled in her arms. She kept moving, not looking back or around, her stride steady and sure as though she had every right to be carrying that baby in her arms.
I stepped into the street and hailed a cab.
oOo
Ellen walked away from the cafe, her heart pounding hard enough to break a rib, her ears ringing from alarms that hadn’t gone off. The baby was surprisingly heavy, but easy enough to carry, almost as though she wanted to be taken away.
Ellen thought about trying to cast a cantrip to keep the baby quiet, or keep anyone from stopping her, but the main thing Genevieve said about retrieving - the few times her mentor would even talk about it - was that the best way to hide is to be exactly like everyone else in a crowd. So, no more current than she’d normally have running, and the stress and relief mixed in her expression could be any new mom, trying to get through her day, and her shoulder bag could pass
for a diaper bag, if needed. Hopefully.
“Hush darling, we’ll be home soon,” she told the baby. The little face screwed up for a moment, as though about to cry, and then a tiny fist knocked against one soft, entirely human-looking cheek, and she soothed back into sleep.
Ellen exhaled, and headed for the next subway entrance. Head down, feet moving, and if getting her subway card out of her pocket was more effort, with a baby in her arms, nobody gave her a second look. She couldn’t relax enough to recharge, though, and she could feel her muscles starting to shake with exhaustion. How did Genevieve do this?
Despite all of her fears, they made back to the office stop without anyone stopping her, or the baby starting to cry. In fact, the infant was so quiet she kept checking, nervously, that it was still breathing. She’d always heard that infants cried all the time, but this one seemed to prefer sleeping.
Surprisingly, the gryphon was waiting for her on the street. How he knew where to go, she didn’t know, and she wasn’t in the mood to ask, either. She glared at him, daring him to do something, make one move that she didn’t like. Current moved in her core, alert to her mood.
The feathers on the top of his head, and the side of his neck fluttered slightly, but that might have been the breeze. Maybe. Where the hell was the boss?
13
Ellen wasn’t happy with the fatae hanging around, but she acknowledged that he had as much right - maybe even more, being a relative - as she did. And if anyone came after her, or the baby, it would be some defense, anyway, even if just the “it’s not kidnapping, look, here’s grandpa” sort.
But Danny had better show up, soon.
The three of them made an odd grouping in the elevator; the gryphon barely fit, even with his wings furled tightly around his body. Once inside the office, the wings relaxed a little, and he took up the far corner of the front room, his golden eyes watching them carefully. Cautious, alert to anything that might happen.
“It’s a baby,” she said in disgust. “Just a baby, not even a toddler, which is when they get really scary.” She’d babysat enough of them when she was a teenager to remember that. The gryphon just lurked, and watched, and didn’t say anything.
Promises to Keep Page 9
