Hidden by Faerie: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Stolen Magic Book 3)

by WB McKay

  "This is so good," one of them said, pointing at the tallies.

  "I know," another said.

  Joanna beamed. "I can't wait for the next barbecue."

  I gulped. Barbecue? Did they barbecue ogre parts? Not my business, I reminded myself, but dread filled my stomach. What had I done?

  "The Fuzzy Duck will be no more!" one of the harpies crowed. She broke away from the small group and charged back into the party.

  "Finally," another said. "I couldn't stand another ogre win."

  Owen tugged my arm, and when I met his gaze, I realized he was laughing.

  "What could possibly be funny?" I asked him.

  He leaned closer to Joanna, caught her eye and asked, "Is this a prank war?"

  "Of course," she answered. "One that has been going on for over a decade. And we are finally in the lead again."

  A prank war? Like, people did pranks back and forth at each other? And tallied them up?

  Owen smiled like this all suddenly made perfect sense to him. "Do the winners pick the name of the loser's bar?"

  Joanna narrowed her eyes. "Yes," her lip curled, "and now we shall return the favor. I have many possibilities in mind for those ogres."

  "This was a game?" I asked.

  "A game?" Joanna repeated. "Absolutely not. Games are for children. This was serious."

  One of the others called her name. Once she looked away, Owen whispered in my ear, "This happens all the time. It's a game between friendly rivals."

  "Well, damn. I mean, I guess I'm relieved."

  "Me, too."

  Joanna became busy with more of her people. I gripped Owen's hand, tense with impatience. I had stolen their prize, and I'd done it believing I was aggravating some kind of actual war. The least they could do was fulfill their end of the deal so I could get on with my day.

  Owen squeezed my hand back. "What are you thinking?"

  "Prank war," I cursed. "Maybe I should be playing pranks back on Phoebe."

  "I can't believe this sounds like a new idea to you. Retaliation seems right up your alley."

  "It is," I defended myself. "I just thought it would encourage her. Not like ignoring her has led to her stopping. I'd also assumed if I did anything back, it would be taken as violence. But if it's a game, well, that would be different."

  He was giving me the sad-Sophie-didn't-have-friends-and-doesn't-know-normal-things eyes. I put my hands on my hips. "Don't you look at me like that."

  He schooled his face. "I don't know what you're referring to."

  "Uh huh. We need to get our info from Joanna and get out of here."

  "Right." He gritted his teeth like he was bracing himself and maneuvered us through the harpies who'd been gradually moving between us and Joanna. She was busy socializing, taking part in the celebration. A little early, in my opinion. She could have given me what was owed first."Joanna," he called.

  She turned to look at us, and harpies be damned, she rolled her eyes at him.

  "We'd be happy to get out of your way as soon as our business is taken care of," said Owen.

  "So you can celebrate my victory," I added.

  Joanna waved her arms, fluffing her feathers. The Morrigan, my birth mother, could shift into a human-crow form. I'd tried it myself since I'd seen her in person a few weeks prior, but I hadn't managed to pull it off. If I ever mastered the shift, I'd look a lot like one of the harpies.

  "This way." Joanna tilted her head toward a hall and we followed her out the back door, along the edge of the building, and into a storage room separate from the rest of the business. The entrance from the outside was the only door to the space, so it was just us and the boxes back there. "You did well," praised Joanna. "None of us believed you'd succeed."

  "I'm flattered by your low expectations."

  Joanna tilted her head back with a silent laugh. "We have tried, and failed," she admitted. "Different objectives have different values. This was a major defeat."

  "Glad to hear it," I said.

  "You never change. Still impatient as ever."

  "Don't you have a party to get back to?"

  "You want us to tell the elves' secrets."

  "You made a deal."

  "We have no love for elves who don't pay their debts. We honor our deals. I would think you would know this about us."

  Could she take any longer to cut to the chase?

  "You asked about elves in debt."

  "Capable of the robbery," I reminded her.

  "I know of them."

  "Great." Especially since she'd implied as much when I took off for The Grinding Bones. "What are their names?"

  "They go by many names."

  Of course. "Okay. Do you know where they live?"

  "I have an address for them." She pulled her phone from a pocket on the front of her leather vest and showed me the address. I put my hand on the phone to tilt the screen toward Owen. She tightened her grip on the phone, like I'd take it from her, and we both exhaled heavily with annoyance.

  "I know where that is," said Owen.

  I didn't, of course. Owen had grown up in Volarus and still lived there. Having him around was turning out to be helpful already.

  The two of us were already out the door and halfway to the corner when Joanna called after us. "Have fun, you two!"

  No matter what Joanna did, she was always trying to annoy me. Remembering that should have made it easier to ignore her, but it didn't. I flipped her the bird before we rounded the building and left her line of sight. Her laughter was loud that time, even over the roar of the music.

  "She really gets to you," observed Owen. "What's with you and them?"

  "Long story," I told him. "One that ends with me being young and pitiful and alone. Go ahead and make your Sophie's-such-a-sad-loner face."

  "I have no such face."

  "You wear that face so much it's how people are going to start recognizing you."

  He opened my car door for me with a laugh.

  "Go ahead and be all gentlemanly with the door opening so I feel bad for giving you shit. It's totally working."

  "You overestimate my forethought. How about you get in the car and feel proud of surprising me with your banter?"

  "I feel I can agree to your plan," I said. "But don't get used to it."

  "I wouldn't dare." He shut the door and we smiled at each other through the glass. My cheeks stretched so wide I felt pathetic, but in a whole new, wonderful, gushy way.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I called the FAB central office while we drove to the apartment building so they could look into whose name was on the paperwork. They called me back before we arrived.

  "The paperwork is fake," I informed Owen as I hung up. "They used a pseudonym."

  "Figures," said Owen.

  "Why does it figure?"

  "Because I have a hard time picturing elves actually living here," said Owen, his lip curling in disgust. "Let alone wanting people to know they do."

  "Well, also, they're criminals who don't want to be tracked," I added.

  "I guess there's that, too. Honestly, if they're anything like the elves my parents are friends with, they're a lot more worried about people finding out they rent a low-income apartment than they are about people knowing they're thieves, especially since they performed impressive magic stealing the scepter."

  "That's messed up."

  "You have no idea." His expression said too clearly that he knew a lot about this, and it was personal.

  "Would you like to talk about your parents?"

  He jumped in surprise, sucked out of his own thoughts. "We're here." He parallel parked in front of the building. Roads in Volarus were sometimes wide enough for five human-made vehicles, and sometimes only one small car could edge its way through. The road we parked on was muddy and full of potholes, with enough room for Owen's car and another one to get around us, if they hugged the buildings across the street.

  "This shouldn't take long," I told him, but he didn't look worri
ed about his car.

  "What are you thinking will happen?"

  "Best case scenario: we go in, they're home, they say they're sorry and hand the scepter over. We call it a day of good work." I tried really hard not to let my voice be colored with sarcasm. Things never went that easy.

  "Worst case scenario?" he asked, cocking a brow.

  "The city is exposed and nuclear weapons are dropped on us before the big fae players even get in the game."

  "Maybe I shouldn't have asked."

  "You could say 'sugarcoat it for me' next time."

  His mouth turned up in a smirk. "And how would you sugarcoat death by nuclear bomb?"

  "I have my ways."

  The door to the building didn't have a lock on it, but it required a real shove before it would open. The smell that came wafting out deserved a nuclear bomb. "Hold your nose," I told Owen. He pulled his shirt up over his face. "Subtle."

  Garbage littered the stairwell.

  "Maybe there was credibility to your claim that they wouldn't want people to know they lived here." I was no snob, but damn. It was not a place I'd want to live, or have people associate with my name.

  "Apartment E." It was on the fourth floor, no elevator--not that I would have trusted one in that building. "Do you think they picked E on purpose? For elves?"

  "You can ask them when they come outside. You can question them outside, right?" His eyes were watering. I wanted to tease him about it, but feared my own weren't far behind. It smelled like someone had been rubbing onions over dead things.

  I stopped my fist before it hit the door to knock. "Do you smell that?"

  "The body odor of thousand-year-old people who have never bathed?"

  "That's an optimistic assessment of the stink, but no, that's not what I was speaking of. Magic."

  "I'll take your word for it."

  "This apartment is booby trapped." I stared at the door, aching with longing. It was freaking booby trapped! Something good had to be in there for them to bother with that. I wondered what it was. I wanted it. I wanted to be the one to find it. I wanted it do it myself so damned bad. But if I messed up, and the traps were bad enough, the worst case scenario was blowing up the building and killing everyone inside. Including myself. We needed the scepter as soon as we could find it, but at the moment, there was no life-threatening reason I couldn't wait for help, especially without evidence the elves were inside.

  If I wasn't aware of Owen watching me, I'd have stomped my foot and whined.

  "I'm going to call FAB and have them send a task force for the traps. Can you go out and fly around to their windows and peek inside? Come back and let me know if you see anyone in there? I'm going to stay here and watch the door in case they come running out. I don't hear anything, but that could be part of the trap."

  "I saw the alley, I should be able to fit," he said. I was sure it would be tight in his dragon form, but I didn't want to leave him at the door in case they did come running out. I didn't know how many there were or how well-armed they might be. "You know that if they see a dragon peeping in their windows they're likely to come running out, right?"

  "I got my friends." I pulled on the hilts of Haiku and Epic to show they were free in their sheaths. "We'll be okay."

  He didn't argue further, obviously relieved to be getting away from the smell, and I went ahead and made the call to FAB. The woman who answered was nice enough, though I didn't remember her name. I reminded her to make sure they came fully stocked. If this was the apartment of the elves who had broken through the enchantments at the museum, our team would need the best to break through. She promised she'd remind them. She sounded reasonable enough, and I didn't want to nag on it, but I never trusted other people to be thorough. This was another reason I hated working Volarus cases. The city was full of innocent bystanders I had to worry about. If I was staring down some cottage in the middle of nowhere, I'd have busted in on my own without another thought.

  Hmph.

  Owen came climbing back up the stairs, shirtless. The fabric was now in a bundle against his nose. He could shift into his dragon form without losing his clothes, so it was all about the smell. I turned my body so I was facing the door, my back to Owen so I wouldn't stare.

  "No elves?" I asked.

  "I could see at least part way through every window," he said. "There was torn up furniture and more garbage. About what you'd expect from this hallway."

  "But under that furniture, or a floorboard, or a painting on the wall, there is buried treasure, my friend!"

  "Buried treasure, huh?" He sounded doubtful.

  "Why would they booby trap it if there was no treasure?"

  "I guess that's true," he said. "I toured the lobby."

  "That makes it sound so grand. Was it a grand tour, Owen?"

  "Oh, yes. Grand as grand can be. But the only other door out of the building leads to the alley, and the windows all face that one alley. We could stand outside and watch the building and not die of stench."

  It felt wrong to leave the door to the apartment, but I accidentally breathed deeply and my brain froze up on the awful air. It had to be part of the magic they were using to keep people away from their apartment, which was only more reason to back away from it. Magically foul air might do something more than stink to the people who refused to back away from it in a prompt manner.

  "All right, okay. Outside we go."

  Owen and I all but ran down the stairs. The fresh air was delicious. I took up position a couple yards from the door, and he stood at the corner of the alley. We had our bases covered.

  "I didn't think you were going to let us out of there." He pulled his shirt back on. "You're usually too stubborn."

  "You could have gone out on your own." He was right about the stubborn thing. When my mind was made up about something, I dug in and waited it out. I considered it one of my best qualities.

  "I wasn't going to make you stand in there alone."

  "It's not like standing there made the smell better."

  "Solidarity," he said, and I picked up that he was a little offended. "I wouldn't leave you like that."

  "Well okay then."

  He nodded like he'd really settled something.

  I could feel him looking at me. "Keep your eyes on the alley," I told him. "All signs say the elves are not inside, but that could be a trap in itself, so we need to keep watch."

  "Yes, boss," he said.

  My lip curled. "Don't call me that."

  He chuckled. "You know, this isn't right," he said.

  "What part?"

  "The elves don't live here. Especially not elves who've managed to rack up serious debt. The rent on this place would not put them in the kind of hole where they'd risk stealing something so high profile."

  "You have some good points there, Mr. Kinney."

  It was his turn to cringe. "Don't call me that."

  I smiled and glanced his way so he'd be sure to see it. "Keep that in mind the next time you try and give me a nickname."

  "Okay. But you agree that they don't live here?"

  "Maybe they use the place to store their buried treasure."

  "Perhaps," he agreed. "Something feels off about it though."

  "Now you're really starting to sound like a seasoned agent."

  "Because of my critical thinking and deduction of clues?"

  "Is that what I do?" I asked him. "No, I was referring to you going with your gut. Things you're noticing subconsciously, and barely remembered experiences, usually alert your body to danger before your conscious mind catches it. Listen to your gut."

  He made a big check mark motion in the air. "Agent lesson number one: check!"

  "Are you mocking me?"

  "No, I love it," he said. His serious expression confirmed it.

  "Good."

  He turned away from the alley he was supposed to be watching and opened his mouth to speak, a spark of mischief in his gaze. He looked cute as ever, but I never heard what he said. Befor
e I registered the motion, I was flat on my back. Owen was on top of me, all playfulness obliterated by the fear in his eyes. A door flew over us close enough to touch and landed with a loud bang a few feet away.

  "Door," he said.

  He liked to make short, obvious statements when he panicked.

  "Knock, knock," I said, barely suppressing a grin.

  I liked to stick with smart aleck comments.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "I know that smell," I growled. "No fucking way." I shoved Owen to little effect and he graciously moved out of my path. "Not happening."

  "Witches?" he asked as a fireball flew over our heads. We were crouched against the building. Two witches were in what used to be the doorway and there were others poking out of nearby alleys and the windows of the surrounding buildings. I hadn't gotten a firm count or hold on their positions yet. We were on an open street, the building at our backs and a newspaper vending machine our only cover.

  "Motherfucking witches." It hadn't been that long ago we'd battled a witch together. Clarissa had tried to kill me, and successfully murdered one of my sisters and many pixies. She'd also kidnapped Owen's sister--and my friend--Ava. We were not Clarissa's biggest fans, to say the least.

  "I've had enough of witches," he said.

  "Maybe you should squash them all in your dragon claws this time." I probably shouldn't have said that. He had a thing about not wanting to be seen as a violent predator. He was clearly touchy about the whole being a dragon who could eat people thing. I was also a violent danger to the world at large, but nobody looked at me and knew that, so it was a little different than his situation. Before the frown could settle on his face, I suggested, "Then we can go for cheeseburgers."