Kiss of Vengeance (The Fairchild Chronicles Book 1)

by E. A. Copen

  “This one knows,” Rosie said, gesturing to Cat. “Don’t you, pussy cat?”

  Dal looked over at Cat who stood a short distance away, arms folded, head bowed, lower lip out.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Nessa Blake,” Dal said and straightened himself all the way. “I only just heard about it myself.”

  Rosie didn’t look convinced. “Blayne Sullivan’s missing, too. You know anything about that?”

  “Not a damn thing.”

  Rosie crossed her arms. “Well, that’s a damn shame.”

  “You going to arrest me, Agent Rose, or can I go about my business?”

  Dal already knew the answer to that. Rosie could run him in. She didn’t have to have a reason. That was how it was with BSI. But if she did, Lachlan would bail him out and skip buying tickets to the charity ball. He or another one of Mickey’s boys would grab her on a deserted street one night, or find her sleeping in her bed, and put the fear of God back in her with a set of baseball bats. Rosie was a tough lady, but she wasn’t stupid. And she liked having kneecaps that weren’t broken.

  “This is just a courtesy visit. Don’t you go on a killing spree in my city, Dallon. Least not one where you leave the bodies out for others to find.” She wagged a finger at him. It was almost endearing. Then she took a step back before motioning to her men. “Come on, boys. There’s a werewolf over in Brighton that needs sorting.”

  They got back in their cars, switched on their sirens, and carefully pulled back into the narrow street. As they drove away, Dal took note of a gray Mercury Marquis down the street with two silhouettes in it. When he turned around, Cat was already halfway up the street. He caught her easy, wrapping a hand around her arm and squeezing. She called out, but he stopped her with a hand over her mouth. “Why didn’t you tell me BSI picked up the body?”

  She didn’t answer and tried to bite him. He gripped her arm tighter. “You were planning on leading me right into that, huh?”

  Cat kicked him in the knee and jerked her arm free. “I’m just supposed to believe you didn’t put a gun to the back of Nessa’s head and blow her brains out execution style? Why? Because you said so? How do I know it wasn’t you?”

  Dal jerked open his coat on both sides. “Do you see a gun on me? If you knew anything about me, you’d know I hate guns. I won’t touch one with a ten-foot pole, which just so happens to be much closer to my weapon of choice.”

  He grabbed her again as the door to the house opened, and Kink came swaggering out. Kink ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair and fixed his cap back on straight. The van drove up, and Dal pulled her toward it.

  “Where are we going?” Cat demanded.

  “To find out who wanted your sister and my family dead,” Dal growled and shoved her through the sliding door Bill was holding open.

  Kink climbed in after them. Dal pulled the door shut and ducked up into the front passenger seat next to Lucky. He adjusted the side mirror so that he could see out of it and watched the Marquis pull out of its parking spot at a safe following distance. “We’ve got a tail,” Dal announced. “Probably BSI.”

  “Means they don’t know what’s going on either,” Lucky answered with a shrug. “But they know it’s big enough to keep someone on it.”

  “We’re going to have to lose them,” Bill said.

  Lucky turned his head to give Dal a long look. “Want me to lose them now or later?”

  “We’re just going to The Clover. Let ‘em follow us that far. We’ll lose them after.”

  “Pint and a good chase.” Lucky grinned. “Sounds right to me.”

  Dal slipped back into the rear of the van and sat across from Cat who was glaring at Kink. “You didn’t tell me Nessa had a twin sister,” Dal said to Kink.

  “You didn’t ask,” the Irishman replied with a big grin. “Anyways, they’re easy enough to tell apart. Nessa’s the sugar. This one’s all spice. Looks like you got a taste.” He pointed at Dal’s chest.

  Dal looked down and saw blood seeping through his nice, white shirt from where Cat had raked his skin. He cursed, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He hoped no one at The Clover would bat an eye at a little blood.

  “Whatever you want, you’d better ask,” Cat snapped. “I should be getting ready to bury my sister. I’m bolting the first chance I get.”

  “I need the name of every Sullivan your sister’s been with in the last week,” Dal answered, pulling a notebook from the back of the seat. He fished around under the driver’s seat for a pen and threw both at her.

  “I don’t have that information.” Cat shoved both back.

  “Then you’ll get us her phone or her appointment book. However you two tracked your appointments, I need to see that.”

  Cat sucked in a deep breath and chewed on her bottom lip where it was split. “The tricks at Elysium were arranged through Madam Maeve. But sometimes we pulled work on the side, Nessa more often than me. If she was involved in what happened, she wouldn’t have been stupid enough to do it at Elysium. It would have to be one of her private clients. If she stored that information anywhere, it’d be in her phone.”

  The van hit a bump, and they all leaned as Lucky steered over a curb and made a sharp right. The morning light passed over Cat’s face in broken lines.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” Dal said after a minute. “We’re going into The Clover for a drink and a piss. You use that time to think good and hard about where your sister’s phone is, and how I might narrow down the names on that list. Otherwise, I’m going to have to kill every one of those assholes until I get the right one. I imagine that’ll be bad for business.”

  “And after I tell you where to find her phone? What then?”

  Dal leaned forward. “You’re going to do more than tell me. You’re going to show me. And then you’re going to hang out with Kink and Lucky here while I go and take care of business. They’re going to make sure you don’t run off to warn the Sullivans, or tip off BSI.”

  The van made another right and slowed, going down a narrow alley a few hundred yards before taking a left. Lucky squeezed the van into a tiny parking space on the end and shut off the engine.

  Kink opened the sliding door and hopped out, stretching. Dal reached forward to grab Cat, but she jerked her arm away. “I’m not running,” she snapped. “Just don’t fucking touch me.”

  He moved aside and gestured to the door. “Ladies first.”

  The Clover had been a lot of colors over the years, ranging from black to red to yellow. The one color it had never been—and never would be so long as William and Jacob Grimm owned the place—was green. It had a nice storefront, though, with an Irish flag and tasteful neon signs in the window. The back end where they were parked wasn’t much. The only thing back there was a dirt and grease stained door, aside from the dumpster and cardboard press that The Clover shared with the craft and hardware stores on either side of it. It may have been white at one time, but now it was a dingy shade of yellowish brown.

  Bill went to the door and rapped twice. It opened to a grim-faced man, tall in stature, wearing a white apron. Even as he stood there, holding the door for them, William Grimm was working at polishing a glass. Dal had never seen him stop working, not while he was on shift. When Jacob came in in the evenings, the two swapped aprons, and the whole atmosphere changed. Jacob had a wild, cheery sort of energy that brought the place to life, always with a joke about his peg leg, or some job he’d done for Mickey back when the two of them worked for hire. William, not so much. He’d lost three fingers on his left hand to one of Mickey’s many pairs of gardening shears. If he spoke of his time working for the Fairchilds, it was in a hushed, emotionless tone. He knew the price of bringing on Mickey’s temper all too well.

  As Dal ducked in past him, he caught sight of the maimed remains of William’s fingers. He made a mental note to ask to borrow Mickey’s shears. When he found the bastard who stabbed his wife and child to death, he’
d do more than cut off a few fingers.

  The five of them wound through the kitchen where the smell of sausage, bacon, eggs, and baked beans wafted up in the warm air. The smell of William’s traditional Irish breakfast reminded Dal that he hadn’t eaten in two days. His stomach growled in protest.

  “I’ll get you a plate,” William said in his soft voice as they made for the door out to the main bar.

  The main part of the Clover wasn’t open to the public this early in the day, but there were still plenty of folk hanging around. The Grimms kept the place open twenty-four-seven for the Fairchilds to come and go as they pleased. The Clover was the place to go if any of them needed a bite, drink, or a safe space. Dal knew everyone in the place by name. He went through and patted a few on the back. They offered hugs and muttered support on his way to slide into a booth with his back to the wall. Lucky scooted in on one side, and Kink gestured for Cat to take the other before he blocked her in. Bill took up his normal post by the door, ready to move if anything happened.

  “So,” Lucky started after they’d sat in awkward silence for a long while, “I heard there’s supposed to be a procession into Faerie come tomorrow.”

  “That’s where Lachlan has decided Lena and Grania are to be buried,” Dal said, and wished William would bring a drink so he could wash the taste of that out of his mouth.

  “Oh.” Lucky shifted in his seat. “Will you be going?”

  “I’ve seen enough of Faerie to last a lifetime. I’ll say my goodbyes on this side of the portal.”

  Kink grinned. “I’m going. I’d like to catch sight of a few nymphs. They’re supposed to be beautiful enough to make men go mad with desire.”

  Lucky rolled his eyes. “That’s bullshit. Nobody this side but Lachlan and the other high-bloods know what’s on the other side, and there aren’t many of them left.”

  “Now that Lena’s gone, Lachlan’s the only full-blooded Fairchild Sidhe,” Dal said.

  Lucky’s eyes shone big and bright. “Ain’t nobody traveled between both sides of the portal but them in decades. Maybe longer.”

  “Which is why I’m going. Might not get another chance to see what’s over there. They only go when one of the Sidhe dies, and that’s about as likely to happen again in my lifetime as the Red Sox winning the World Series. Right, Dal?” Kink reached behind Cat to elbow Dal in the ribs.

  Dal shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t follow baseball.”

  “That’s un-American,” Lucky said, slapping the table. “I bet even she follows baseball, right?”

  Cat shifted in her seat and scanned the room. “I need to pee. They got a ladies room in this joint?”

  “Back by where we came in from the kitchen,” Lucky answered and pointed for her. “I’ll walk you there.”

  Kink let her out, and the two of them walked across the bar toward the bathrooms just as William came out with a plate piled high with bacon, beans, and two stubby sausages. In his other hand, he carried a steaming plate of blood sausages and three eggs over easy. He brought it to the table and placed it in front of Dal.

  “Sorry to hear about Lena and the girl,” he offered just above a mumble, and then moved off to pour three beers. He brought them back and placed them in the center of the table before scurrying off to clean something else.

  Dal eyed the plates of food, sighed and pushed everything but a single strip of bacon at Kink. “Split this up between you two and the girl, will you?”

  Kink looked over at him, his forehead wrinkled and his face fixed in a frown. “You sure? You need to eat, Dal. Mickey finds out you’re not seeing to your needs, he’ll string us both up by the balls.”

  Dal waved the wiggly strip of bacon. “I’ve lived this long on a steady diet of bacon and beer. Might be too much of a shock to my system to do much else now.”

  The two of them shared a laugh and Dal felt a little better. It was the first time he’d laughed since he found out. He bit into the bacon, which was soft, brown, warm and just the right side of done, and he wondered what Lena would have made him for breakfast this morning.

  Lachlan had sent them a cook, a young elf with nimble hands and a strong preference for spicy flavors. Lena bought the elf a bus ticket, handed him a thousand dollars in cash, and told him not to come back. She’d always preferred for her food to have a more earthy, subtle flavor. Half of everything Lena cooked tasted like potatoes. The other half was potatoes.

  As bland as it was, Dal would have given anything to have her back in the kitchen, humming as she cooked. He’d come in, put his hands on her hips and kiss her lips. She always tasted of rosemary or sage, and he would playfully accuse her of literally sucking the flavor out of the food.

  Cat and Lucky came back from the bathroom. Cat made a beeline for the jukebox on the opposite wall. Lucky waited beside her while she flipped through the records, pulled a dollar bill from inside her shirt, and fed it to the machine. A quick and fast version of Whiskey in the Jar fed through the speakers, and Cat smiled. William took up the tune and ruined it. Everything either of the brothers sang sounded like a funeral dirge, no matter how cheery it was.

  “That Marquis is parked across the street,” Lucky informed them when they came back to the table.

  Dal nodded and put the last bit of bacon in his mouth before picking up the pint and gulping half. “BSI is going to be a pain in our ass.”

  “You don’t think Agent Rosie Rose is in the Sullivan pocket, too, do you?” Kink asked and put a whole fried egg in his mouth at once.

  Dal shrugged. “Probably. She gets paid to look away from both sides, but money only speaks so loud. If there are bodies piling in the street, she has to make a show, or Washington will be on the next flight out to lay down the law.” He took another swallow of the beer. “And they won’t send people Lachlan and Teddy Sullivan can pay off.”

  “Best be careful from here on out,” Lucky agreed. “Have you spoken to Lachlan about it?”

  Fuck Lachlan, Dal wanted to say, but that phrase might sign his death warrant. Lachlan was nothing if not overly careful with who he kept in his employ. Even once he’d married into the family, Lachlan had never liked Dal. He’d jump at the chance to put him in a pair of iron shoes and toss him into the harbor. Nothing Dal did would ever be good enough for Lachlan. If not for the fact that Mickey took Dal under his wing, Lachlan might have killed Dal a long time ago, especially once he became aware that he and Lena were an item. That old traditionalist bastard had always thought his daughter married too far below her station. Maybe he was right.

  “Dal!” Lucky snapped his fingers in front of Dal’s face. “Did you talk to Lachlan yet?”

  “I haven’t seen him since last week,” Dal growled in response. “You know we only communicated through Lena and Mickey unless we had no other choice.”

  “That’s stupid.” Everyone at the table turned to stare at Cat who had spoken while chewing on a sausage. She continued as if she’d been invited to speak, “If you hate him so much, why do you work for him?”

  “Do you like being a whore?” Dal snapped back at her. She stopped chewing and clenched the muscles in her jaw. “But you still do it.”

  “What else is an elf this side of Faerie going to do?” she asked, color rising in her cheeks. “Should I be a servant? Work in menial labor? Maybe I should be your maid and clean your houses, or sit on the street and beg? Fuck that.” Cat took another bite of her sausage. “At least as a whore I get something out of it. I got high-bloods and low-bloods alike lining up outside my door. The whorehouse is the one place where those roles reverse and you full-blooded fae ask me to hit you for a change.”

  Dal hadn’t thought of it that way. In fact, he didn’t have much occasion at all to think about elves. The fae hierarchy was complicated enough with the high-blooded Sidhe at the top of the ladder and everyone else somewhere beneath them. But if their social status was a ladder, elves didn’t even get a rung. As the half-blood offspring of Sidhe and humans, elves were the bastard
offspring of whores, criminals, or other undesirables. The high-bloods viewed them as akin to animals most of the time. Except as whores. There, they were prized possessions, loved for being exotic and different, willing and able to do things wives, girlfriends, and civilized women of fae society wouldn’t. Lachlan had his own private harem of elves. It was commonplace, almost a rite of passage these days, for Earth-born low-bloods to practice sex with the elves so it wouldn’t be so awkward when they got to the real thing.

  But Dal had always thought of them as expensive entertainers. Every elf he’d ever crossed paths with hadn’t been so upset with their lot in life. That was how things were. You didn’t upset the order of things just because you didn’t like them. It just wasn’t done. Even he wouldn’t challenge Lachlan over taking Lena and Grania to rest in Faerie. He’d done all he could, petitioning through Mickey for them to be buried here. Tradition said to leave it at that.

  But what would happen if he didn’t?

  Dal cleared his throat and changed the subject to something less uncomfortable. “I think we’ve all had our fill. Let’s go out there, shake the tail and—” He broke off. “Cat, where did your sister keep her phone?”

  Cat swallowed the last bite of sausage. “BSI confiscated it along with all her other things. I imagine it’s sitting in an evidence locker somewhere in the station about now.”

  Dal ground his teeth. “You couldn’t mention this earlier?”

  She gave a satisfied smile. “You didn’t ask.”

  “Dal,” Lucky hissed, leaning in. “What are you going to do? You can’t just break into the police station and steal evidence. Lachlan will lose his shit.”

  A wicked smile spread across Dal’s face. “Boys, I’ve got an idea.”

  ***

  Bill leaned forward and tugged on his cap, chewing on a toothpick. “You sure you want to do this?” he asked Dal as he and Kink stripped off their shirts in the back of the van. “I mean, if you want to get arrested, there might be an easier way.”