by Amie Gibbons
Gavin blinked at me from his table, looking terrified.
Crap on a cracker. He was in charge of the step up and transitions between people. He’d noticed the missing twenty or so minutes, because that was his time to do the tech check.
I shook my head at him and held up a finger.
“Hey, y’all,” I said into the microphone. “So sorry the break ran over. I just lost track of time talkin’ to people. Let’s get back on track. Our next speakers are MEs with law enforcement departments specializing in the supernatural. Since we’re a little late, I’m gonna do their introductions while they come up here and get set up.”
###
After the next panel got rolling, I quickly explained things to Gavin.
To say my poor intern was shocked and terrified would be an understatement.
“Gavin,” I said when I was done, “I have to deal with this and all, but I’m not leaving until after the conference, I swear. I just need you to basically run things while I do my set up. Okay?”
He gulped.
My intern was short and slight for a guy, but such a cutie you knew that didn’t hurt him in the dating department. He had defined features, big blue eyes, and wavy blond hair. He was majoring in business, but that covered everything from the technical computer stuff you needed to know to run things, to actual marketing and business running skills.
The type of stuff I was learning on the job, basically.
And he liked to go shooting, and already knew the supernatural existed, because he had a dead sister who’d looked out for him as a ghost for a while after she’d died of cancer when he was thirteen.
So we got along great.
“Gavin,” I said, taking his shoulders, “you can do this. You’ve done most of the work anyway. I’ll pop in to do the intros so nobody’s suspicious, but you run the dinner, make sure everything’s out on time and people are mingling, and then introduce the dinner speaker, and keep an eye on the tech stuff, basically what you were gonna be doin’ anyways, okay?”
He blinked at me.
“Gavin, I know you’re in shock. I am too. But I need you to do this.”
“You actually killed people?” he asked in a whisper.
“Yes,” I said.
He stared down at me with big eyes and finally nodded.
“Thanks,” I said, clapping his shoulders before rushing down the side of the room and out into the lobby.
“And that’s taken care of,” I said as I reached our little group again. “Some people definitely noticed the time jump, but everyone’s keeping that to themselves… for now.”
“Denial,” Thomas said. “They can’t explain it so they’ve convinced themselves it didn’t happen.”
I shook my head and said, “Not in this crowd. These people know about the supernatural. They know something happened.”
I sighed and pinched my nose. “I really hope this doesn’t hurt my conference.”
AB snorted, and Grant cleared his throat.
“Oh, I know we have more important things,” I said. “But this is a big deal for me, and I don’t want it ruined.”
“I’m sorry,” Emily whispered, curled up in her chair again now that all this was over.
“I know,” I said. “Emily, I’ll help if I can, but after that battle, I’m drained.”
“Yeah,” she said thickly. “How did you do that? Super speed?”
“No, I can slow time in a bubble, sorta,” I said. “I can make a bubble around me where everyone but me is slowed down. I put it over the whole room and took the remaining Fae out. Almost killed myself too. Apparently I don’t have any kind of warning when I’m draining myself of magic too fast.”
“What!” Grant snapped.
I quickly explained Fenrir, and my visit to the dimension the gods hung out in. I wasn’t quite sure what layer I was in when I was in the field of flowers, but it was in the dimension we’d taken to calling Asgard just to have something to call it, and it was beyond the layer where Carvi talked to his bosses, before he’d quit anyway, that he’d called the war room.
“So, here’s what I don’t get,” I said. “If the astral plane is all imagination and stuff, how are things physically in there? How did the Fae make a home there?”
“Because it’s not imaginary,” Emily said, voice holding a hint of contempt.
“Enlighten us,” Grant said, voice sharp enough to cut water.
Everyone had put their guns away after the fight, but Grant’s hand hovered next to his holster.
Just in case.
Honestly, after Emily had just saved my life, I was inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt.
But she didn’t say anything.
“Fairy is kind of like Earth,” AB said, voice clipped and professional.
How was she not still drunk or sick right now?
“It’s a solid world that is halfway between two other ones, in this case Earth and the demon dimension. The astral plane is on either side of it, and that is more imaginary, but you can go through physically, at least in theory.”
“You said like Earth,” Thomas said after a moment. “What is Earth between?”
AB looked at him, blinking as she crossed her arms and sneered. “And here I thought you were all religious now.”
His mouth dropped open.
“Heaven and Hell?” Grant asked.
Whether he believed it or not, his voice wasn’t givin’ away.
“Depends on what you believe,” AB said, switching her attention to him. “The idea is, Earth is between the places we go when we die, and they are on opposite ends, but I don’t think either is exactly what religion makes it sound like, since we get reincarnated.”
Thomas sat down on the ground hard. Kat wasn’t far behind him.
“You know this?” Thomas asked.
AB nodded. “As much as we can know these things. I’ve learned a lot through Carvi’s library. It’s where I’ve gotten so much info for my database, and-” She snapped her fingers, cutting herself off. “Carvi! Duh, I need to call him.”
She pulled out her phone and hurried down the back hall.
AB hated it when people talked on the phone in a group, it struck her as rude, so she always walked away to make a call.
I really wished she didn’t have that particular idiosyncrasy right now, and was as rude as everyone else when it came to cell phones, so I could hear what Carvi had to say.
I missed him.
Then again, I was psychic, distance couldn’t stop me from eavesdropping.
Grant took my elbow and walked us a bit away from the group.
Distance couldn’t stop me, but Grant sure as shootin’ could.
“You know,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
I nodded. “Took me way longer than it should’ve. Fenrir told me I knew his grandson. I seriously thought it was Carvi, no matter what he’d said. So that whole going cold thing you do in really bad fights is a berserker?”
Grant stared down at me.
And I wiggled my shoulders as they started to itch.
“That information does not leave your lips,” he said with an intensity that made my stomach want to do backflips to get away. “You understand me?”
I nodded, swallowing hard.
He let me go and turned to walk back to the group.
“Why?” I asked.
He paused, not turning back to me.
“Family feud,” Grant said, voice so light I almost didn’t hear him. “If it got out who I was…”
My mouth fell open. “The family on the other side of the feud would come after you?”
He turned to look over his shoulder. “Or, they’d come after Cora.”
I gasped.
Grant’s fourteen-year-old daughter was definitely more vulnerable than her father. If someone wanted to hurt their side of the family, she would be the obvious easiest victim.
“I’d never put you or your daughter in danger,” I said.
“That’s why I told you.”
He walked away.
I took a breath and a moment.
And walked back to the group just as AB came out of the back hallway.
“Carvi’s not picking up,” she held up her phone. “But I left a message.”
“What’d you tell him?”
She shrugged. “Fae wants help, we were attacked, we’re going into Fairy, he might want to help so we don’t get ourselves killed, and that we’re not going in for a few hours since we have to let the conference wrap up and you recharge. Basics.”
“What do you mean we?” Thomas demanded, pushing to his feet.
She scowled at him. “Nobody invited you, don’t worry. Since we both know you only care about your own neck.”
His eyes flew wide. “I meant what do you think saying you’re going in! You went crazy from sex with… someone who’s a fourth Fae, how the fuck do you think you’re going to handle being in their world!”
“I’m not crazy!” she yelled, clamping her hands over her mouth and looking at the closed doors leading into the conference room.
She dropped her hands and glared at him as she stabbed a finger in his direction. “Stop calling me crazy, Thomas. I am not crazy. I never was. And I am fucking sick of you making this out like it’s all my problem and all on my side, when you played a real heavy hand in causing the damage.”
“Guys,” Kat said in a small voice, holding up her hands as she stood between them. “Maybe now isn’t the time?”
“It’s not,” Grant said.
“Emily,” I said. “Can a null go in there with me?”
She nodded slowly, looking between AB and Thomas like she wasn’t quite tracking. “Actually, she’ll probably be pretty useful. All of Fairy is made of magic. It’s a magical world. A null will probably be able to do things a magical person wouldn’t, since the magic wouldn’t touch her the same way.”
“But,” she said harshly, holding up a finger, “do not eat or drink anything in there. You won’t be able to handle anything that magical getting into your system.”
Thomas snorted. “Yeah, no shit.”
AB and I glared at him.
“We’ll bring bottled water and some packaged food,” I said. “We’ve got time to hit the store for supplies.”
“So it’s true,” AB said. “Fae magic getting into me affected me?”
Emily nodded. “If you’re a null. But, um, if it was from sex with a Fae, I’m assuming you used a condom, right? That’d keep the magic out. But then again, if you did oral…”
AB shot Thomas a dirty look. “We did use a condom, until somebody decided he didn’t want to and it’d be more fun to fuck me in the ass. He didn’t need a condom for that.
“The fact that I was too drunk to consent or even know what was going on, or that he could’ve torn something in there or given me an STD did not cross his mind as anything to worry about, because he’s a selfish, narcissistic bastard who only ever does something to benefit himself. I would’ve preferred doing oral. At least it wouldn’t have hurt, so it wouldn’t have done nearly as much damage!”
Emily looked between them again, eyes wide. “So… you two.” She switched a finger between them. “He’s the one who… but he seems so nice!”
“I am nice!” Thomas said. “She’s fucking insane!”
“Call me that one more time,” AB said, holding up a finger. “Come on. I dare ya.”
“I thought I was doing you a favor!”
“Yeah,” she bit, crossing her arms, “so you doing anal to me, when I was so drunk and out of it, I don’t even remember it, that was for my benefit? At least you got off! I certainly didn’t. And, oh, you know how I know you actually finished? It’s not because I remember it. It’s because Paul told me what you’d told him about what you remembered from that night.”
Thomas looked around with wide eyes.
Something told me he’d be really embarrassed about this conversation later, but right now, he was numb from shock.
“You weren’t getting off with normal sex,” Thomas said. “I was having a hard time with the condom. I asked if you wanted to try anal, since if you do it right, the girl orgasms hard. That’s what I was going for! And I was careful with you!”
“Bullshit! You weren’t careful! I was sore for days after that. And if you wanted me to enjoy it, you wouldn’t have gotten me so drunk! Everyone knows too much alcohol kills the sex drive.”
Thomas’s mouth worked. “I got you drunk? I got you drunk! You drank! I didn’t spike your drinks. You were nervous, you wanted alcohol, and I didn’t know you needed a fucking keeper! I figured you knew your limits.”
“I do! For driving! But I didn’t know my limits for how much I could drink before it killed desire. Because, oh yeah, I was a fucking virgin! Which. You. Knew!” She stabbed a finger up at him. “So stop acting like this was any other sexual encounter. I was a virgin. That means something.”
“You really want to get into this here?” Thomas waved around at all of us. “I know you’re drunk but this is fucking ridiculous, even for you.”
“Not drunk right now. Just pissed off.” AB jerked back, entire demeanor switching from half crazed to scientific in a second.
“Wait,” she said, holding up a finger, “why aren’t I drunk?”
I did a palms up and squinted at her.
Nope, she was sober. And she wasn’t even sick.
“Oh!” I said. “Fenrir must’ve helped you out too. Probably figured you wouldn’t be much help in the fight that outta it. I was wonderin’ how you were able to shoot so well that drunk.”
“I figured it was the adrenaline shocking me back to reality,” AB said. “I’m not complaining. I was not looking forward to that hangover.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much,” Thomas snapped.
“Maybe you shouldn’t pop up out of the blue and make me so scared I have to to calm down.”
“Maybe you should start taking responsibility for your own fucking actions for once in your life!”
“Maybe you should!”
“Maybe you two should shut up,” Grant said in a low voice that made my bones rattle with the deep base of power underlying the command.
“Grant’s right,” I said. “We don’t have time for this. Emily, why is AB helpful exactly?”
“It’s kind of like a ghost being on this plane,” Emily said. “Everything in this plane is meant to be interacted with by a physical being. Ghosts don’t have form like that, so they can pass through walls.
“Everything in Fairy is meant to be interacted with by magical beings. Someone who is completely non-magical is like someone being incorporeal here. I mean, there are some places where they’ll have spells to protect against a null, like we have charms for ghosts here, but most people don’t bother, because why would they in a magical world?”
“Huh,” AB said. “So I’m actually helpful? Not just for research?”
Emily looked at her. “You thought you weren’t?”
AB shrugged. “I’m not magical. And everyone who knows about magic seems to have at least a drop, and I’m nothing.” Her voice broke on the word and she whispered, “Apparently being nothing has its advantages.”
“You…” Thomas started in a soft voice, pausing to shake his head. “AB, you’ve never been nothing.”
She flinched, pain making her eyes squeeze shut and her mouth twist. “You can’t say nice things like that,” she said after a moment, voice weak.
“What is it you always say?” Thomas asked, voice almost teasing. “Make me?”
She snorted. “I hate you.”
“I know.”
Grant looked between them like he was going to smack their heads together if they didn’t focus.
“What do we need to do all this?” I asked Emily. “Like ingredients for spells? Things to take with us to use against the Fae? Weapons? Stuff like that?”
Emily nodded, eyes searching the air.
; “You’re going to need food and water, like you said,” she said. “Um, weapons, like guns and swords. You saw what they did here. That’ll kill them, but not if they have shields. And they’ll have magic. You’re going to want to go in quiet. Try to stay under the radar. If you can get in, knock him out, and get out without anyone seeing you, that’d be best. But you’ll want to bring in magical stuff. You…”
She shook her head. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Grant looked around and walked over the main desk, taking one of their little pads of paper with a looked at the women behind it. She didn’t say anything. He came back and handed Emily the pad and a pen he pulled from his pocket.
A tactical pen. One made of solid steel and designed to be used as a stabbing weapon in areas where you weren’t technically allowed weapons and a pen would fly under the radar.
Nice.
Emily started writing, and I looked around.
“How are Jet and Dan?” I asked.
“I’ll go check on them,” Kat said. “Heather’s with them and guarding the bodies, just in case someone goes over there.”
Huh, I hadn’t even realized Heather was gone.
Kat hurried off.
Something told me there was something about all this that was too much for her. She wasn’t usually in the middle of things.
“She’s upset because you killed those Fae,” Grant said, like he’d been reading my mind.
And Kat’s.
I looked at him.
“Some people can’t kill like that, Ariana. You pulling your magic like that and killing them while they were frozen does not sit well with Kat.”
I made a face.
Why not?
The Fae attacked us. They’d started it.
Grant gave me a look.
“Did we kill anyone shooting?” Thomas asked softly, looking around like that’d tell him anything.
I followed his eyes, and for the first time realized the walls and ceiling were riddled with bullet holes.
Crap!
It wasn’t obvious at first, since they were all so far away, but we were lucky we hadn’t hit any of the unconscious people. Also, what if some of the bullets had had enough momentum to get out and hit someone outside?