by Debra Dunbar
“Damn.” I stared at the photo. Candy leaned over my shoulder to eye my phone. “Brownie,” I told her.
“Oh, I love those,” Nyalla chimed in. “Are they the ones with walnuts? Brownies with walnuts are the best.”
Not those kind of brownies. Wyatt’s picture showed a winged creature in mid-flight, wings a blur of speed, abnormally sharp teeth in a fierce snarl. The brownie’s limbs were like twigs, brown and thin with knobbly joints. His hair was walnut colored, caught in motion in an upright spike of brown. There was either a gateway to Aerie besides the one that Gregory and I had closed, or this nasty little guy had slipped through when Zalanes brought over the Melusine.
Fae generally stayed put, but brownies liked to roam, and they weren’t the most sociable of creatures when it came to other races. I wondered how many fingers and other body parts the amateur photographer had lost to grab this amazing mid-action shot.
I sent a quick text to Wyatt, feeling guilty. I shouldn’t. He e-mailed me, clearly wanting my input. It wasn’t like I was pestering him, using him for his skills and knowledge while running off with Gregory and leaving my ex—damn, it still killed me to even think that preface—ex-boyfriend behind. He’d reached out to me. This was the mature, polite, adult thing to do.
Candy caught her breath. She was the only other one who could see the picture on my screen. Nyalla and Terrelle were debating blondies or brownies and whether chocolate chips or nuts were a better addition to the baked good.
My phone chimed a text response, and I angled the phone so Candy could read it. She was one of the few of my friends I trusted with all the bad shit. Candy had amazing strength and leadership ability. The werewolves and Nephilim were mine to protect, and I was stretched too thin not to accept highly qualified help when it was offered.
“Richmond.” Candy’s eyes met mine. “Can we help?”
I appreciated the offer, but I didn’t want to put my furry friends to chasing tiny, flying, brutally vicious brownies around Richmond Virginia. Because, yes, there were more than one, and they’d appeared out of nowhere, which put the theory that they’d come through with the melusine to rest. No, this was another gateway. Either Orias was still having some fun, or we were facing a global disaster.
“Not now, but I’ll let you know.” I tried to convey nonverbally how much I appreciated Candy’s offer while forwarding the pictures and details to Gregory. Nils was out looking for Swifthethian and the gem. I’d brought over two additional Lows from my household to scour Pennsylvania and the Amtrak stops for signs of the elf or the demon accompanying him. As soon as my polish dried, I was off to tear Dar away from his angelic lover to help with any other gateways that needed closing. I’d put out a call to Leethu, which had gone unanswered. Grimacing, I eyed down the pedicure line at my friends, wondering who could assist in closing gateways and/or rounding up brownies and unicorns. Terrelle was up next, and I could put Nyalla on Internet research duty. As much as I didn’t want to risk them among angels who still might not respect my authority, Candy and her werewolves could track down unicorns. They’d probably never scented one before, so a unicorn should stand out like a beacon if one crossed within nose range of a werewolf.
I clenched my jaw, took a deep breath and texted Wyatt—he’d sent me the pic of the brownie, gave me a heads-up on the unicorns. Although I wouldn’t directly ask for his help, I wanted to let him know about the issue regarding the gateways.
I counted to ten and heard the chime of the incoming text as it shot across my screen. It was the Wyatt equivalent of a ‘what-the-fuck?’. Then my phone rang.
“I’ve got it,” I told him in lieu of a greeting. “If you could keep your ears open for brownies, unicorns, trolls, or drop bears, I’d appreciate it.”
“Sam, you could have given me a head’s-up on all this.” Yep, Wyatt was pissed. “They still haven’t caught that little flying terror in Richmond, and the unicorn—wait, what’s a drop bear?”
“Think murderous koala. And I didn’t have a spare second to tell you. I’ve been balls-to-the-wall since I found out.” Well, except for now. I couldn’t exactly tell Wyatt I’d found time for a mani-pedi with the girls but not time to clue him in about a dead elf, and a troll still hanging out somewhere in Pennsylvania.
“So, what, you don’t need me now? Just a casual text and a request to keep my ears open? That’s it?”
I couldn’t seem to do anything right when it came to Wyatt. I’d distanced myself, tried not to embroil him in all this supernatural shit in an effort to give him space to create a life without me. I wanted to beg him to hold this conversation until later, when we could be alone and not eagerly overheard by my friends and the entire staff of Heavenly Hands Spa. Instinct warned me that if I put him off, things would only get worse between us.
“I do need you.” I glanced over and saw Candy wrinkle her nose in sympathy. “But you’ve been busy these last few months, and I didn’t want you to think I was using you by calling for help all the time.”
“There are unicorns practically in my backyard, Sam!” I winced and held the phone a few inches from my ear. “I think I have a right to know about these kind of things after all we’ve been through together.”
This was starting to piss me off. If he wanted distance between us, fine. He could hardly expect me to do all the heavy lifting in our ‘friendship’ if all I was getting was radio silence on his part.
“A right to know? Like the way I found out about the genie in Chicago? I haven’t heard from you in three weeks, Wyatt, and the first text I get is about unicorns and brownies. The first call I get is you bitching to me because you’re out of the loop. You can’t have it both ways, buddy. You’re either in this mess, or you’re not. Girlfriend or just friends—that’s your call, but if you want to be part of the magical-gem-unicorn-hunting party, then you need to give me a clue. Decide, Wyatt. Get in the pool, or get the fuck out.”
I heard the click of him hanging up and barely restrained myself from throwing the phone across the room. “Fuck him,” I muttered.
The woman painting my toenails said something in Korean indicating agreement with my expletive. There was a moment of silence as I studiously ignored all the sympathetic eyes turned my way.
“Who’s Wyatt?” Terella asked, cheerfully oblivious to the mood in the room.
“A man,” Candy answered, patting my arm. “And I think we could all use a few more glasses of wine right now.”
I was halfway through my third glass of pinot noir when Gregory appeared out of nowhere, frightening the spa staff and causing Terrelle to reflexively kick her esthetician in the face. I was about to suggest a manicure, but one glance at the expression on his face drove that idea right out of my mind.
“You,” he announced, pointing at me. “And you.” The index finger on his other hand stabbed toward Terrelle.
“Me?” she squeaked.
We appeared in a field. When my vision cleared, I saw two angels hopping about and waving their arms as they shooed a giant bird away from something. I assumed that something was dead since the bird looked like a giant vulture with a woman’s head, complete with long, stringy, blond hair. I would have thought her a demon except for the absence of any kind of demon energy.
“A harpy.” Terrelle gasped.
That’s what a harpy looks like? “Damn.” I nudged Gregory with my elbow. “I don’t think this is Orias’s fault anymore. He can’t be three places at once.”
“Cockroach, you have no idea. As we speak, your brother and Asta are attempting to take care of a pod of sea nymphs on the shores of Lake Superior. Twenty campers and fishermen have followed them into the lakes and drowned.”
Shit. “Did they bring a siren with them? They sometimes work together. Oh, and did you get my text? There’s another gateway to Aerie around Richmond, Virginia. At least one brownie sighting there.”
“And unicorns, and harpies.” Gregory gestured.
And trolls, and drop bears—oh my. “She ge
t a human?” I nodded toward the corpse on the ground.
“No. A demon.”
Damn, indeed . Now I knew why Gregory had brought me. Part of my enhanced job duties included a stack of reports for each demon death that I needed to sign-off on. ‘A professional courtesy to give me the details regarding the demise of any of my people’, Gabriel had informed me.
“Let’s go check it out.” I was curious what level of demon could have been killed by a harpy. That thing had to be pretty badass if it had taken out anything higher than a Low. I was also curious why Gregory had insisted Terrelle come along, but I figured we’d get to that eventually.
Checking out the dead demon was easier in theory than in practice. Evidently harpies are very possessive about their kill. I tried to sneak in to see the smear of blood and flesh that had once held a demon, but even with two angels trying to keep it back, the bird-woman prevailed. With the agility of a professional running back, she darted around them and raced toward me, teeth bared and shrieking a noise that set my hair on end. Her wings doubled as hands, and the claws on the end nearly got me twice before I managed to duck away. Terrelle danced around the outside edges, trying to look as if she were helping when it was obvious she was keeping safely out of the way. Gregory didn’t even pretend to help. He stood back with arms crossed, a little smile betraying just how amusing he found the whole situation.
I’d just taken an ostrich-sized foot to the stomach when I conceded defeat and turned to Gregory. “Can I kill her?”
“No.” He wiped the little smirk off his face and regarded me with placid calm. “We need to return her to her home through the gateway as soon as you identify the demon for the report. Then we’ll seal the rift.”
I glared at the shrieking, nasty monster chasing the angels around. How the fuck we were going to get her through a gate was beyond me. I’d rather wrestle a dozen durfts. Still, getting rid of this harpy was the only way I was going to get within five feet of the dead demon.
“Let’s deal with her first,” I told my angel. Terrelle had given up all attempts at looking useful and had come to stand beside us. “You grab the harpy. I’ll find the gate, and then you can toss her to the other side. I don’t think it’s going to be easy to get her away from her dinner, so you’re probably going to need to exert force, or whatever angel mojo you’ve got going on.”
“I’d hurt her.” The pained look on Gregory’s face wasn’t fooling me. He was up to something. “We need to lead her to the gate with the dead demon. If we toss the body in, she’ll follow.”
I opened my mouth to complain about how a dead elf deserved to be returned to his kin for proper mourning and burial, but a dead demon was bait. Then I realized no one would mourn a dead demon, and this human body wasn’t his true form anyway, it was just a created vessel to house his spirit-self. Not the same thing at all.
And none of that helped the fact that I needed to get close enough to the corpse to identify it without being clawed to death.
“I’ve got an idea.” Terrelle handed me something that looked like a collapsible pointer for presentations—the old fashioned kind, before laser pointers ruled the world. “It’s a selfie stick.”
Great. I could take a wide-angle shot of myself being mauled by a harpy then post it on all my favorite social media sites.
“Here.” She expanded it. I was amazed to see it extended nearly five feet. “It’s the super-selfie version. You can snap a pic of the dead guy without getting close enough to freak out the harpy. Between the pair of us, we might be able to identify him visually.”
I pursed my lips, considering the idea. Demons were notorious for having hundreds of physical forms. It was a long shot, pun intended, but one I’d prefer before death-by-harpy.
Strapping my phone to the end of the stick, I turned it to camera mode then realized the fatal flaw. “How the fuck am I supposed to push the button to take the picture? I don’t have five-foot long arms.”
Well, I could probably make my arms five feet long, but then I wouldn’t need the selfie-stick. And I’d probably trip over them trying to run away from the harpy.
Terrelle took the phone from me. “Set it to auto. I’ve set it to go off every second until you stop it. It’s going to eat up your memory like a motherfucker, so you better hurry.”
She’d learned all this in one day. I was more than impressed. I clicked the photo button, extended the stick, and watched the angels herd the harpy until she was as far away as I figured she’d ever be from the body. Then I ran.
Click, click, click. I kept a wary eye on the harpy as I circled the body, trying to get the best shot I could. Wondering where the dude’s head was among all the gore, I tore my gaze from bird-woman and looked down.
“Damn it all to fucking hell; he’s face-down!” I heard the squawk of the harpy, the shouts of the angels. Stabbing at the body with my selfie-stick, I tried to turn him over. The cheap thing bent in half, and I got congealed blood all over my phone.
“Fuck!” I tossed the thing aside and threw myself onto the body. The harpy exploded into shrill, angry screams. My hands squished into cold flesh that had been pecked and torn to the consistency of shredded potatoes. Just as I managed to grab enough firm bone and muscle to flip the damned thing over, teeth pierced my shoulder, and claws ripped along my back. Curses poured from me, partially due to the monster tearing into my body, and partially because the front half of this demon bore a strong resemblance to the back. No face. Nothing but shreds of flesh, bone, sinew and hair all churned together into a gory mess.
“Get your ass over here and help before I kill her,” I shouted. I swung one arm wildly behind me, smacking it into the angry bird-woman while I tried to read the demon’s energy with my other hand. I’d been yelling at Gregory, but Terrelle must have thought I was shouting at her, because she appeared in the corner of my vision, standing as far back as possible as she beat at the harpy with a branch.
Blood streamed down my sides. My shoulder burned from the harpy’s saliva. Poison, I thought as she shook her head like a bulldog, ripping a chunk from my shoulder. Bitch. I could fix the flesh, but this was one of my favorite t-shirts. With a sharp jab of my elbow, I connected with the woman’s chest. She squawked then snapped at my arm.
There. I had it. Launching myself forward, I rolled away from the harpy, grabbing my phone and the broken selfie stick as I went. Terrelle ran, me hot on her heels as soon as I’d gotten to my feet. There was no need. The harpy stood guard over her prey, snapping at the angels trying to drive her away.
“Nice work, Cockroach.”
He was laughing. Bastard. I stuck out my tongue at him and disconnected my phone, wiping the blood on my torn t-shirt.
“Sorry about your stick.” I turned to Terrelle and saw her looking at me with owlishly huge eyes. I doubted she was that horror struck over the selfie-stick and could only assume the close call with a harpy had terrified her. As I’d said, Noodles weren’t really much in the way of a fighting-class demon.
“You okay?” I asked her. “That bitch of a vulture didn’t bite you, did she?” Hopefully she’d be able to neutralize the poison, and as a member of my household, she needn’t fear using her energy for the purposes of fixing wounds. And if she wasn’t able to, I could practice my shitty healing skills on her. It might not be the prettiest job in the world, but she’d live.
“No, she didn’t bite me.” The demon swallowed. “That was him... err, her. Pouchain.”
My jaw dropped open, and I stared. “How could you tell? That thing didn’t look much like anything beyond badly made hamburger.”
She blinked, her mouth turning up in a trembling smile. “I jabbed him with the branch and got enough flesh to read the energy signature. I’ve... I know him. I mean, I’ve worked with him before and we... .” Her gaze shot downward, as if the grass were particularly fascinating.
I got it. She and Pouchain had history. The type of history that she knew it was him just from the DNA of his favored huma
n form and a faint remnant of his energy. Enough said.
“We can’t use his body as bait,” I whispered to Gregory, well aware the harpy had already taken a considerable amount of flesh from the demon.
“No, it’s okay.” Terrelle’s smile wavered again, but her eyes were steady as they met mine. “He’s gone. It’s just a body. Little different than the trees and bushes around us when it comes to basic molecules. Let’s get this thing home before it goes through two or three human townships, or worse, starts spawning.”
Shit. That would really suck. I didn’t know much about harpy reproductive methods or capacity, but whatever they were, it wouldn’t end well for the humans.
“Can you sense the gate?” I wondered how accurate Terrelle would be. She might be someone useful to pair with an angel in closing the gates. She couldn’t fight worth shit, but with the right angel, she’d be safe.
She looked around, crinkling her nose. “Maybe two miles northeast? It’s faint, so I could be wrong.”
It was better than what I had, which was a big, fat nada. “Rock, paper, scissors for who gets to drag the dead body to the gate?”
As you can imagine, Lady Luck deserted me in my hour of need, and rock did indeed beat scissors. I eyed the harpy, her fury ratcheted up a hundred fold after being driven from her prey. Two miles. It would be faster for me to reveal my wings and fly there while dangling the shredded corpse, but I didn’t want those sensitive appendages out and about with a pissed-off, sharp-clawed harpy chasing me. No, I’d need to do a grab and dash. This was going to hurt like fuck, and I’d be dropping body parts like breadcrumbs along the path from the state of the body.
Wait. Breadcrumbs. What a fucking brilliant idea.
“I’m going to run in and grab the main part of the body. Terrelle, can you snatch up any major pieces that drop and keep close? Actually, you lead the way to the gate while I follow right behind you and drop bits of the body along the way.”
