My diminutive fairy associate had been somewhat right about Vivian. The knife had been used by Vassago, assassin for the House of Shadows. He was one of the most feared mage assassins, and had been hunted by the council enforcers for almost a century. That was a long time to be in that sort of business and not get caught. One mage murdering another usually caused a large investigation to be launched. Vassago had had his own task force. Vivian was a part of that, and something in our conversation had her excited to gate back to her New York office.
We broke it off at the bar as soon as we’d all eaten our fill and I’d had a doggy bag made up for JJ – and the irony of the term wasn’t lost on me. He’d eat it or I would. Vivian was relieved though, that I’d kept the supernatural world under wraps with the mundane cops. But the name that kept popping back up was the House of Shadows and Vassago. Was he the one that had gone after my parents? According to Vivian it was likely. It was sure it was him. I was thinking about that as I pulled into my property and saw the Sheriff’s cruiser parked there. I could see a head in the driver’s side and sighed. I heard the sound of Rose poofing into the Jeep with me.
“Rose?” I asked aloud, before exiting the Jeep.
“Yeah, boss?” she said, her voice coming out of thin air to my left.
“She been here long?”
“No, about an hour. Waiting, talking on the radio, and once on her phone. I didn’t poof in there to listen in, should I have?”
“No, Rose, that’s ok, I’m just curious. She wants to talk to JJ. I told her that he’s my nephew. Basically, he’s my alibi. Neither of us heard gunshots the day I beat him and released you.”
“I’ll go tell him, be back in a jiff.”
I heard a popping sound as I opened the Jeep and got out. Cindy got out as well and stretched. I could tell she’d been sitting in there a while; her back was damp. I heard something in her pop and she let out a big sigh and looked over at me.
“Took you long enough,” she commented as I reached back and grabbed four takeout containers in a grocery bag.
“I ordered food, you didn’t wait around. Want yours?” I asked, motioning to the bag with my free hand.
“I need to talk to your nephew, just in case.”
“Sure, can I put this down or do you want to go without me?” I asked her.
“Just point me the way, I don’t mind if you meet me up there though. This case has gone from weird to weirder and I don’t think I’m chasing anything useful.”
“Well, that’s good to hear,” I told her with a grin. “But for real, I’m gonna put this in the fridge. Do you want yours?”
She snorted and I was once again struck by how pretty she was, as she held back a laugh, looking at me as I made a pouty look at her.
“I came to arrest you an hour ago and you’re trying to feed me like nothing happened?”
“You’re my buddy. Besides, if I’m not nice to you, your momma won’t feed me any more pie,” I told her and pulled the top box off and walked over and handed it to her. “I’m going to put the rest of this in the fridge and then hit the bathroom. I’ll meet you up the hill in a little bit. Sound good?”
“Yeah, where exactly am I going and when did you put a shack up there?”
“Follow that path,” I told her pointing out the spot that was starting to wear into the grass that ran to the right of my cabin, “and just follow it up. It’s about a five to ten minute hike from here. It’s been here a long time, it was sort of falling down but JJ’s fixing it up to live in it full time.”
“Thanks, see you in a minute.”
I waved and headed into the faux cabin. The extra food containers went in the fridge and I had to wonder, if Cindy got a look inside that pristine fridge, she would know I wasn’t keeping food in it hardly, if ever. What I wanted to do was maybe buy some fake food and—
Purple smoke and the sound of a POOF alerted me that Rose was back.
“Hey boss, all set.”
“Good. I appreciate it, Rose. Say, when you were with JJ, did you hear any gunfire over near where he was caught by the Solarium pack?” I asked her.
“No boss,” she said making me wince, I really hated when she called me that, “not at all.”
“Somebody shot up a farm hand with silver bullets. Sheriff Raines showed up to arrest me.”
“She’s going to arrest you all right,” she said, flying in the air in front of me.
“Oh yeah, why’s that?”
“For your ‘nephew’s’ indecent exposure.”
“No,” I said, my jaw dropping.
“Well, he is wearing Wonder Dog boxers and he is on the roof but that’s about it. Decided it was a good time to start carrying big heavy things down the ladder almost sky clad.”
“Dear gods,” I said and then thought about it and grinned.
“Oh no, you’re smiling. I know we haven’t been around each other long, but that can’t be good for whoever you’re smiling about.”
“This is going to be the shortest interrogation ever,” I snickered.
“Why?”
“Because she’s going to see him as a kid, he’s barely in his twenties,” I said, grinning.
“But he is basically a kid, he hasn’t lived the long years your kind and the Fae enjoy.”
“I thought the Fae were basically immortal?”
“Oh, we are, we are,” she assured me, a little too fast.
“Time for me to head back out there and walk up the hill,” I told her so she could do her vanishing act.
“Want some backup?”
“You know, I might get used to having you around after all. Won’t it dirty up your heels?” I said noting they shimmered a different color this time.
“No it won’t, and I’ll take that as a yes, even if you do smell like you’ve been rolling around in a Mexican prison.”
That would be the tequila…
“…so, then she says, ‘Can I ask you a few questions,’ and I turn and you should have seen the look on her face.”
“Is it kind of like the look on my face?” I asked. “Dude, put some clothes on.”
“Fine,” JJ snapped, but his heart wasn’t in it, he was grinning.
“So, you think the little sheriff was caught off guard by your performance?”
“Yeah, but boss, she’s totally into you.”
I mentally cursed that, I hated being called boss. There was going to be a pack meeting… hell a den meeting? Some sort of meeting, anyways, and I wasn’t going to be called boss.
“Great. So, you told her and she left?” I asked.
“Yeah, pretty quickly. She got some kind of message on the radio.”
“That’s weird, I didn’t see her on the path. What about you, Rose?”
“She went straight down. Her radio was crackling, I think she got a call, cuz she talked into it, got in her car and left.”
I frowned and pulled out my cell phone, put in the battery and waited for it to boot. Then I dialed her number.
“I wanted to ask how you can use tech—”
“Hello?” I said, interrupting JJ when Cindy picked up.
“Hey, Tom. Hold on,” she said, and then I heard driving noise and a thud, “You’re on speaker phone.”
“So, you ran out before I could catch up with you. Did you get a chance to talk to JJ?” I asked.
“Yeah, listen, I got a call. Somebody found a half-eaten elk and, when they questioned the locals, somebody reported hearing shots fired two nights ago. I’m going to head out there. It looks like you’re in the clear after all.”
“I told you,” I said.
“I know, it just freaked me out. That whole bigfoot conversation and then a body showing up near there, with silver bullets exactly like yours…”
“I doubt they were exactly like mine,” I said, and started walking down the mountain towards the Jeep.
“Why is that?”
“When you get somewhere, put mine under a magnifying glass and look at the silver
slugs.” I said giving her more information than I probably should have.
I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want her to ever think of me as a criminal. Well, technically I was, but I didn’t want her to think of me a murderer. Though technically I was that too. Dammit.
“What am I going to find? Since I can’t really do that while I’m driving.”
“My markings. I hand load my ammunition, all new brass, I even cast the bullets. The only way for that slug to be one of mine is for me to have dropped it somewhere.”
“Or given silver bullets to another cop lady you’re flirting with.”
Ouch.
“Nope, no other cop ladies in my life,” I said, and I could almost hear her smile through the airwaves.
“Gotta run, pulling in.”
“Bye,” I said and hit end.
I finished the hike down the mountain and debated what I wanted to do. In the end, I decided I needed to go inside and fire up the internet.
“Boss,” Rose said appearing in front of me, strafing in the air.
“Yeah?” I asked her.
“JJ wants to know if you need a hand, or if it’s alright for him to finish off the fascia board and start building a soffit.”
“I don’t mind. I need some time on the internet. I think I know now who killed my parents,” I told her softly.
Even though she was tiny, I saw her eyes open up wide. “Want to fill me in?”
“Do you really want to be my sidekick?” I asked her, just as seriously.
“As far as humans go, you aren’t too bad. Weird, but not too bad.” Then she said after a long pause, “I’d like to help.”
“Good, then tell me everything you know or have heard about Vassago.”
She gulped.
There isn’t a lot of hard data about the mage world on the internet, but there are enough people who are aware of magic or are stunted like I am, so that they can use it. Some of them even run websites and forums. Hiding in plain sight, they are ignored by most of the supernatural world because nobody believes in it. Well, almost nobody in the mundane world anyway. I made sure my bunker was on lock down and made myself a pot of coffee.
“That stuff smells bitter and vile,” Rose snarked.
“Kind of like your breath?” I asked her.
“You take that back,” she demanded as I sat down in front of my terminal.
“What, that you smell like you licked the hind end of a demonic—”
“My breath smells of elderberries!” she screamed in her tiny voice.
I busted up laughing, which only infuriated her further until her face relaxed and she started laughing.
“Your mother was a hamster,” I snickered.
“Your father smelt of elderberries,” she finished, a rare snort escaping as she finished the line, realizing what had cracked me up.
“You’re all right, I just… I’ve been alone so long and there’s nobody to talk to and—”
“And you’re repressed. You have the little Sheriff practically mooning over you, and I think the FBI enforcer chick doesn’t hate you either, though—”
“She stood up for me today,” I interrupted.
“Gimme the good stuff,” she said, and landed on a wildflower arrangement she’d made me pick so I’d have a little bit of the outside inside, and she wouldn’t have to do her poofing trick so much.
I told her and she got a serious look on her face. Then I asked her about Vassago.
“Boss, I mean, Master, you know that I can apparate in and out of areas?”
“Yeah, but I imagine you have a limited range, right?”
“Yes, usually a couple dozen feet, and I have to know what the area I am poofing into looks like first. I couldn’t have come inside your vault here, for instance, without knowing it was there and the area I was going to be poofing into.”
Interesting, and not something I knew about. Gate magic and gate charms worked on a similar principle, as much as anybody understood magic, that is. The Fae kind were both less powerful and more powerful depending on the type of magic, but they had their own sort of rules they had to follow; for example, you couldn’t get one to lie to you, but they were allowed to only tell you so much of the truth, to the point where the omission might as well have been a lie. So far, there was only one instance where I could imagine Rose doing that, and it was the last time she’d brought up Vassago and then quickly passed that off.
“Good, but what does that have to do with anything?” I asked her.
“I used to work for another mage once, a thief named Serek,” she said softly.
“I know that name. His work was contracted for the mundane, magical, and supernatural world,” I told her. “You worked for him?”
“Yes Boss, you see—”
“Do you still have binding oaths with Serek?” I asked her abruptly.
“No, all oaths of his were null and void when he died last year,” she told me simply, as if explaining things to an exasperating third grader. “I am under no mage’s oath now, except my own to you, and that’s self-imposed.” She finished by sticking her tongue out at me and then smiling sweetly.
“Ok, sorry for interrupting. I was just making sure you weren’t running a double blind—”
“You really are the paranoid type,” she said with a sigh.
“You get to be my age, running and hiding all the time, it tends to make you a bit paranoid, short stuff.”
“I don’t like being reminded of the fact that I’m vertically challenged!” she yelled from about twelve inches away.
“I don’t like being called boss either,” I told her, “but sometimes we slip, don’t we?”
She opened her mouth and then closed it abruptly. Then after a moment, said, “Serek was killed by Vassago. It wasn’t a magic dagger like the one used on the mage who was going to be the Librarian, it was a poisoned dart that dripped with some kind of life magic to get through any shields. I recognized him because Serek had described him as somebody he’d done work for in the past, before I was bound to him.”
I nodded, that made sense, and I made a motion for her to go on as I started searching threads on the internet about Serek, Vassago, House of Shadows and life magic.
“So, the big oaf tried to capture me. He failed and I followed him around for two weeks. He’s cagey. He never sleeps in the same place twice. Not once did he see me spying on him through my veil of invisibility. He is very powerful and strong.”
“Does he make items?” I asked her, my hand vaguely pointing towards the half of the bunker that was my workshop.
“No, as far as I know, they were delivered to him for whatever job he was on. A messenger would sometimes show up at the hotel or hostel he was staying at, and leave him a package. He’d get the items and then do another job. He did three while I was there.”
“Is he any good?”
“Yes. I couldn’t figure out how he was always moving, never in communication with anybody. I was going to stick around with him for a while, but I got distracted and lost him.”
“Oh… so what does you apparating have to do with anything?” I asked her.
“Well, when I was with Serek I would sometimes get a glimpse of a safe or a secret room while I was invisible and, when he’d do the job, I’d apparate inside and unlocked it or undo any security systems I could.”
“Quite the felonious nature you’ve got there,” I told her, “But I don’t get it. What’s the apparating got to do with anything? It’s like my gate charms.”
“Yes and no. I poofed for one moment to check something out, and when I went back, he was gone.”
“What had you so distracted you lost him?” I asked, curious, an idea forming in my head.
She looked down at the sparkling heels she always seemed to wear. “I thought I saw Justin Bieber.”
Chapter Ten
Rose seemed upset that she couldn’t have been more helpful to me, but I was happy with what I’d got. I actually had a working idea on a
way to find or track Vassago. I wasn’t delusional enough to think I wanted to go after him, but if he was the next link in the chain that led to information about my parents’ death… I would have to, or at least get information back to Vivian. I logged off my computer and shut things down so it wouldn’t keep draining my battery bank, when I realized my phone was about to ring. On this corner of the bunker I didn’t get great reception and I scanned the future to see who was going to be calling. I smiled and walked towards the vault door.
I knew nobody was outside, because I scanned the futures where I opened the door and walked out to be met by the sounds of nature. But, I also saw that when my phone rang, it was going to be Cindy. It rang just as I was walking out and I hit the green button to accept the call.
“Hey Cindy,” I said.
“Hey, I uh… I owe you an apology,” she told me. “Want to come over for dinner tonight?”
“I dunno, is this some sort of trap to lure me into handcuffs?”
“No, I told you, I need to apologize… you sick pervert,” she said with a laugh.
“Hey, you’re the one with the handcuff fetish. Every time I bring them up you get all weird,” I told her, deflecting.
“You know what, I’m going to let that go.” I could tell she was probably smiling. “My mom is here and has promised to some pan-fried venison, onions and taters… and she brought a pie home she said you were watching her make.”
“Oh man,” I said, my mouth watering. “I might take you up on that apology. Can you tell me about your case?” I asked, meaning the silver bullets found in the farm hand.
“Not on the phone. Come on by, food’s already cooking. I’ll even crack a beer with you.”
I didn’t quite whoop with joy, but it had been a long time since I’d had what I would call family. Even though there was a messy entangled mish mash of feelings of wanting, lust and guilt all wrapped up in a big ‘ole nope burrito with regards to Cindy, I still craved hanging out with her. Despite the fact she’d tried to arrest me for real.
First Sight: The Rune Sight Chronicles Page 9
