She looked at him. “Remington, I’d say that sounds like a job for you. Tomorrow, I want you to start trawling for rumors that might shed light on this matter.”
“Wait,” he countered. “You turned down a paid job offer from him, but now we’ll actually investigate what he’s up to anyway for free?”
“Don’t pretend to be dense,” the vampire snapped. “Any suspicious activity involving New York’s preternatural community is, ultimately, our business. Paid or not.”
The investigator thought back to all the lingering debts he still had—and to how far he still was from being truly rich again, enough so to get his family speaking to him once more. The personal discount he’d offered to Mr Shauckburn certainly wouldn’t help.
“Well,” he shrugged, “at least I’m on hourly.”
Chapter Two
Park Avenue Shopping District, New York City
Remy was not the kind of person who was prone to fear, but by now, he had begun to learn that fear had its uses.
As such, he decided that if he had to plunge into another potentially dangerous investigation, it would be wise to have backup. Magical backup, preferably. The kind that could do handy things like deflect bullets, make cars invisible, and track suspects all across town by their smell.
He knew exactly the woman for the job. It was only a question of finding her.
Usually, Riley—a member of the Fair Folk from the Fluttershire Colony under the George Washington Bridge—arrived for work quite reliably whenever he had paid the colony for her services. But lately—within the last few days—she’d been mysteriously AWOL.
And he was reasonably sure he knew why. Something about her had changed after the day, a little over a month before, when he’d taken her on a date to the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx.
Now, he drove his Lincoln slowly through Midtown Manhattan toward Park Avenue and took his time to do visual scans of the streams of pedestrians.
Someone behind him honked. “Hey!” the driver yelled out of a rolled-down window. “It’s clear, asshole.”
The man then proceeded to wheel his Honda around to the left, cutting someone else off, and glared at him as he passed.
“Oh, gosh,” Remy drawled. “Heaven forbid I drive within the speed limit for once. Ugh, that probably means he thinks I’m a tourist, though. Or from upstate.”
Other cars sang similar songs of rage with their horns as he puttered along the avenue and scrutinized the post-Christmas shoppers. Many people received gift cards or even simply cash from distant cousins and parents who no longer knew how to buy things for their adult children. There was thus always a second surge in commerce in the weeks after the holiday, so the throngs really were nothing out of the ordinary.
After perhaps twenty minutes of trawling the shopping district, he found what he was looking for—a couple, one of whom could only be Riley. The other was…a guy. Who he was didn’t necessarily matter.
The fairy, as he’d expected, had taken the form of a human. She stood about five foot three, a noticeable increase from her natural height of five inches. Her body was at once slender and curvy in all the right places, and she wore a striking if rather weird and garish dress which accentuated it.
The garment was made to resemble a tiger’s fur. She also had a matching pull-over cap and plain orange gloves and boots. Some of her hair, a radiant platinum color that was almost more white than blonde, spilled out from under the hat.
From this angle, her back was to him, but he knew it was her. And although he couldn’t see her face, he knew it complemented the rest of her. Whether fairy-sized or human-sized, she was stunningly beautiful, although it was easier to notice in the latter case.
Much, much easier. And since that day at the gardens, he was far from the only one who’d noticed.
The man she was with turned his head to say something to her and allowed the investigator to glimpse his face briefly. He was almost a full foot taller than her but otherwise unremarkable except in being rather generically handsome—the type of guy who came straight off the assembly line at certain universities. Without a doubt, he’d probably been kicked out of at least one of them.
He was also well-dressed, to an extent that stopped barely short of being flashy. It didn’t quite look like he was showing off but no one who saw him in public would assume he was anything other than rich.
“Well,” he said to himself and thought of his own bank account, “maybe not that rich.”
Remy immediately assumed that Riley had picked up on the man’s assumed prosperity and had probably registered it as a bonus when selecting him as her temporary companion. Since the two of them were positively loaded with purchases, this seemed a likely possibility.
The man held no fewer than four bags, two in each hand, all of which bulged with gifts and clothes and probably expensive chocolates or other such things. At his height, he probably had the strength to manage but it still looked like his arms were under strain by now.
The fairy, meanwhile, held exactly one similar bag, although it probably weighed less than the others by a good five or ten pounds.
“God,” he muttered, “it’s like she’s trying way too hard to be a human woman. Sooner or later, others will notice and start asking her for lessons on how to get men to buy that much shit for them.”
Despite his words, though, he felt his stomach clench with worry. She did not seem to appreciate how much potential danger she was in.
While in human form, she lost the ability to use her other fae powers. Her attractiveness might inspire men to protect her but otherwise, she was as helpless as any other mortal.
And this at a time when a terrifyingly powerful vampire might well be tracking her. Taylor had mentioned the fact that Moswen Neith might know that Riley had aided them.
There was another thing, too, that concerned him. He’d seen her in this neighborhood three or four times previously on different days throughout the last month. The man she was with now was not the same man she’d been with last time.
And it had been someone different the time before that.
Not that it was his place to judge other peoples’ lifestyles—especially given some of the crap he’d done—but he didn’t think Riley realized that human men were almost as strange and excitable as human women. Some of them didn’t take it well when a lovely young woman flirted with them and disappeared off the face of the earth a week later, only to be seen thereafter in the arms of another man.
An open parking space along the street suddenly manifested itself. Remy pulled his car into it and got out hastily, almost forgetting to lock it as he merged with the pedestrian traffic along the sidewalk.
He followed Riley and her date at a consistent distance of about fifteen to twenty feet. There were enough people on the street that this kept him fairly inconspicuous but he could still overhear most of their conversation.
He would also be able to leap into the fray if something should happen.
“Oh, ha!” the stuffed shirt exclaimed, probably in response to some corny joke the oversized fairy had told. “You really do have a sense of humor, don’t you? I don’t meet all that many girls who do.”
With distaste, he noted that the man was practically swooning. He must not have known a heartbreaker when he saw one.
She’s making a habit of this. Next week, she’ll be back out here with some other moderately wealthy, oblivious dude. Anything to keep them lavishing attention on her.
To his embarrassment, the next thing that crossed his mind was the memory of how desperately she used to want his attention and only his. She hadn’t yet discovered other men.
The lovebirds slowed near an intersection, and it sounded like their date was about to end the same way her previous ones had.
“Sorry,” Riley said in her cute, girlish voice, “but I’m so tired. Especially after carrying this.” She held up the single, light bag. “Do you think you could call a cab for me?”
“Aww,”
the guy responded, “I’m sorry to hear you’re having trouble. Of course. Let me…uh, set this stuff down, and I think I can reach my phone…”
Remy ducked into the nearest store for a minute, then emerged and walked back the way he’d come. Riley would undoubtedly head home and he intended to meet her there.
Fluttershire Fairy Colony, Fort Washington Park, New York City
“How many times,” Remy wondered aloud, “have I driven to this damn place and parked in this exact spot—or the one right next to it, if necessary—over these last few months?”
Riley and he were together so often, much of the time, that it would make more sense for her to have simply moved into the agency’s office by now. It wasn’t like she took up very much room.
He shut his car off, retrieved his purchase from the passenger seat, and stepped out. When he’d remote-locked the vehicle, he set out across the frosty grass of the park on foot. He held the item he’d brought with him behind his back.
It was a cold day and not many people were out. Still, there were always a few dedicated joggers or glumly dutiful dog owners taking Fido out for his daily bout of fresh air, defecation, exercise, and barking at nothing in particular.
One such woman wore a puffy white coat and walked a puffy white poodle and tried to flag him down.
“Excuse me,” she called out in a nasal voice, “do you know what time it is? I forgot my watch.”
Remy slowed but did not stop. “You don’t have a cell phone? Shit, suddenly I’m nostalgic for the nineties again. Uh, it was about 11:05 when I left my car a couple of minutes ago.”
“Thaaaanks,” the woman drawled, and she and her canine companion pranced off.
After glancing around for a moment to make sure no one else was too close—or, at least, paying too close attention—he strolled toward the two earthen mounds that lay beneath the shadow of the George Washington Bridge.
New Yorkers were fairly desensitized to eccentric behavior but having a full and detailed conversation with people who appeared not to exist might still draw more attention than he’d like.
Better that, though, than someone actually seeing who he was speaking to. But this was unlikely. Most people could not perceive the preternatural at all.
He stood where he was for a moment and did nothing whatsoever.
When that didn’t work, he looked around again, coughed, and said, “Well, it’s me, Remy. Hello?” The fae must have been getting especially fat and sluggish lately on all the honey he’d brought them in addition to their weekly raids on the dumpsters next to pizza places.
A minute or two later, flickers of movement caught his eyes from both the left and the right.
“Hey!” yelled a tiny voice, high-pitched and indignant. “How dare you stand there on our grass.”
“Yeah!” added another. “It’s all crusted with frost and probably broke under your bulging, oversized feet.”
With a sigh, Remy waited for the guards to come closer and exchange the usual unpleasantries.
As always, there were two of them, one from each of the two nests. Both were humanoids about five or six inches tall—they could have lain in his hand like a hammock—with iridescent wings like a dragonfly’s and eyes that sparkled with brilliant light. The one to his left had skin tinged with azure and cerulean, whereas the one on the right exhibited a peachy-amber hue.
“You—Remy!” the blue one exclaimed and pointed at him. “We know who you are. You’re the one who talked Riley into bringing all this…this, this garbage to our sanctuary.”
“Yes,” agreed the orange one. “We’ve been worried sick about how often she’s gone, these days, and how exhausted she is from the tribulations you lay upon her. Not to mention, there’s no way we can fit all this stuff in our hole.” He flourished a tiny hand.
His gaze followed the motion and for the first time, he noticed a huge pile of crumpled bags and empty boxes that had accumulated in a small depression in the earth near the nests, half-hidden by trees.
“What the hell?” he sputtered.
It was obviously the spoils of Riley’s previous shopping trips. However, the clothes and jewelry and candy and gadgets seemed to be gone—the local bums had probably discovered the stash rather quickly and picked over it like locusts descending upon a crop field.
“Man,” Remy went on, “this really is getting out of hand, isn’t it?”
“For once,” shrieked the blue guard, “you speak the truth.”
The orange one chimed in with, “Not that we need you to speak anymore. Begone from here.”
He shook his head and pinched his nose. The Fair Folk were notoriously fickle, and for such long-lived creatures, they had curiously short memories. Riley was a little different, but every time he encountered the others, they seemed to have forgotten how splendidly they’d gotten along the last time he’d given them a gift.
Until, of course, the next gift appeared in front of them.
“So,” he began, in defiance of Orange’s request that he shut up, “Riley has been gone because she’s helping me again—as previously agreed, and as I already paid you for with two pounds of nice, unfiltered honey—and everything is fine. After this is over, she’ll have more than enough time to hang out and…I don’t know, dance on an icicle or whatever it is you guys do in the winter.”
“Silence!” howled Blue. “Your promises ring hollow.”
Judging by their facial expressions, they didn’t really even comprehend what he was talking about. They probably only heard something like, blah blah blah human stuff blah blah blah, he guessed.
There was one thing they did understand, though.
“I have something for you.” He produced the object he’d hidden behind his back.
“Oh!” Orange gasped. “Oh—is that—”
“Yeppers,” he confirmed. “A sixteen-ounce jar of honey-roasted peanuts. Enough for the entire colony, I think. I know you guys like nuts and these nuts…” He paused for dramatic effect. “Were roasted in honey.”
Squealing in near hysteria, the two guards summoned another dozen fairies, blue and orange both, from the dual holes. The whole swarm descended in a fluttering mass upon the jar, seized it with their twenty-six tiny hands, and carried it off toward a spot halfway between the two openings.
Remy wondered if a fight might break out over whether it went to the blue hole or the orange hole first, but he supposed they could simply unscrew the cap and distribute the individual peanuts accordingly.
A couple of the fae shouted over their shoulders.
“Thanks so much, Remy,” said one.
“You’re the best,” cooed another. “We love you.”
Before he could observe a potential tug-of-war between color factions, though, he heard a car draw up in the parking lot behind him and very close to where he’d left his own vehicle.
He turned quickly to what he realized was a taxi. A pretty young woman stepped out and the driver, a man who looked rather smitten, helped her unload her five bags. The two of them carried the merchandise a few yards out into the grass before Riley waved the man off. Reluctantly, he returned to his cab and drove away.
Remy debated whether he should rush over and help her with her baggage or mediate a potential dispute amongst her people. He glanced back. The fairies had, indeed, thought to unscrew the cap. It probably helped that he had loosened it himself beforehand in case of exactly such a contingency.
When he looked toward Riley, though, she was gone.
“Shit,” he muttered and jogged toward the pile of her bags.
He’d barely taken a few steps when all five of them levitated into the air, flashed slightly with silvery light, and began to waft toward the colony.
His eyes bulged. “Shit. Even more so.” He quickened his pace to a sprint.
She had transformed into her usual size and shape and now used her magic to carry her own bags—in a public place. Normally, her judgment was better than that, but she had said she was tired.
>
The investigator glanced around as he ran. No one was in the immediate vicinity but someone might appear at any moment. Even if they couldn’t see the fairy herself, they sure as shit would see the mysterious floating packages.
The tiny form became visible when the first bag was almost within arm’s reach. “Oh! Remy!” she blurted.
“I’ll take your bags,” he instructed. “Here…uh, set them down. Now.” He snatched the first one out of the air.
The other four dropped to the earth in unison. He scrambled to grab them all and succeeded in virtually the same moment that a jogger in a shiny jumpsuit appeared at the corner of his eye. The man paid him no heed as he ran past. Still, Remy almost collapsed from sheer relief. Taylor would not have had time to hunt random park-goers and mindwipe them.
He struggled to carry the fivefold load back toward the nests as the fairy hovered lazily in the air over his shoulder. She didn’t seem up for much conversation.
A little distracted, he realized also that her coat, hat, gloves, and boots had fallen off her when she’d transformed and still lay in the grass behind him but opted to leave them there. By New York standards, a matching tiger-print outfit languishing in a park wasn’t that strange.
“Riley.” He grunted and shifted his weight to adjust for the motion as he heaved the bags along. “We have a job. I need you.”
She released a soft and lengthy sigh. “I’m so tired,” she complained. “I can’t right now. I need to rest, Remy.”
“Okay,” he allowed, “that’s fine, but I need you at the office first thing tomorrow morning, then. Can you do that?”
“Yes.” She rubbed her eyes. “I think so.”
“Good.” He examined her as they continued their slow, awkward procession toward her home. She did look tired, but there was something else, too. She almost seemed…depressed?
He maneuvered the fairy’s ill-gotten haul toward the pile where the remains of the previous troves lay. “I’ll…uh, set these down here for now.” Breathing heavily, he dropped the bags into the mess and wondered which lucky vagrant or bored twelve-year-old would be first to find them.
A Girl’s Best Friend (Moonlight Detective Agency Book 3) Page 3