Alicia’s eyes gleamed. “I see your point.”
“I know Marilyn is your friend,” I continued, still lying through my teeth. “And of course you won’t want to turn her down, especially when it’s such an exclusive invitation. But I know you want what’s best for Catherine. And going to that showing would be an opportunity the thief could not resist.”
I glanced up at Vazkasi, making sure he was listening. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s all right to go if you bring the dragonkin along as protection. But I have to tell you, I suspect he may be involved. There’s really just no safe way for you to attend that show. Every suspect I have will be there.”
I was laying it on a little thick now, but Alicia didn’t seem to notice. I could tell from the glazed look in her eye that she was already picturing herself at Marilyn’s, one of the blessed few to attend her protege’s exclusive showing.
“Don’t worry, Mother Renard,” she said, her voice distracted. “I’ll make certain Catherine is safe.”
I kept my eye on the retreating half-vulcanus while I waited for Scath. The sidhe prowled out of the theater, green eyes sweeping back and forth, quickly spotting me.
“Now it’s your turn,” I said to Peasblossom.
“Right!”
I pressed a finger to the top of her head, passing off a spell in a quick pulse of energy. As Scath approached, I knelt down, this time lowering my voice to a whisper even the dragonkin wouldn’t hear.
“Peasblossom is going to make both of you invisible. I want you to get close to Alicia, stay with that group until they leave. I especially want to know anything anyone in that group says to Marilyn or Simon.”
Scath didn’t react to the order, but waited patiently while Peasblossom slipped down my arm to cling to her neck. I turned my back to them, trusting them to get out of sight before activating the spell. Now I just had to wait.
“I didn’t see you leave,” Andy said.
I let him move in front of me instead of turning around. “You seemed to be enjoying the show, I didn’t want to interrupt. I just needed to get some air.”
Andy frowned as he looked over my shoulder. “Alicia—”
“Not here.” I held up a hand to stop him, then gestured for him to follow me. “Too many ears.”
Andy frowned, but followed me outside the opera house. We stood on the sidewalk near the street, within sight of the parking garage.
“What’s going on?” he asked finally.
“We have too many suspects,” I said as soon as I was sure none of them had followed us out. “But I have an idea. Marilyn invited me to her place for Simon’s art preview. I’m almost positive that was just her way of rubbing my face in her relationship with Simon, but it’s an invitation nonetheless, and she would have to honor it if I showed up.”
“You still think it’s Simon.”
“I do, but it doesn’t matter.” I grinned, more than a little pleased with myself. “If I did it right, Alicia is, as we speak, wheedling an invitation out of Marilyn to that same show. I talked to her, and I made sure to stress that there would be far too much opportunity for the thief to make off with Catherine’s knife.”
“So if Alicia is the thief, she’ll definitely take Catherine, and she’ll try to steal it there,” Andy said, his tone unreadable. “Seems to me if she lives with Catherine, she could take it anytime. Or just ask her to use it.”
“But she needs someone powerful to use it with her,” I pointed out. “And if Marilyn is hosting…”
“Then she might be able to arrange for her to serve her with the artifacts.”
“I have every faith in Alicia’s conniving.”
Andy started to say something, but just then, the group in question exited the opera house. Simon and Catherine were chatting animatedly, and she was showing him the gold necklace she wore. Devanos had a proud look as he conversed with Marilyn, so I knew he was talking about his daughter’s gifts. Marilyn’s eyes gleamed in the streetlights as she listened, and she stopped to touch Catherine’s necklace.
Alicia put her hand on Catherine’s shoulder, shoe-horning her way into the conversation. Marilyn’s smile grew strained. I got the impression she was aware the half-vulcanus was sucking up, and she didn’t like it.
“Can you get a cab home?” Andy asked suddenly.
“What?” I started to turn to him, but hesitated as my group of suspects parted ways. Simon and Marilyn headed for a long limousine pulling up in front of the opera house, and Alicia and her group headed for the parking garage. After the limo pulled away, Scath peeled herself away from the crowed, the invisibility spell falling away. Relief washed over me as I realized that Scath was holding Majesty in her jaws.
“Why?” I asked, without taking my attention off the wayward kitten.
“I have something I need to do. Alone, nothing to do with the case.”
“I suppose I could catch a cab.” I looked closely at Andy. He was wearing his FBI mask again. “Is everything all right?”
Andy smiled. “Yeah. See you tomorrow?”
“Okay.”
Peasblossom waited until Andy was across the street, heading for the parking garage, before speaking. “Is it just me, or does that smile worry you?”
Chapter 18
“Speaking of things to worry about,” Peasblossom started.
“Oh, Peasblossom, please don’t,” I moaned. I took Majesty from Scath, feeling for his energy as if that could tell me whether he’d “gone off” anywhere in the opera house. “This has been an unpleasant evening, and I need a soda.”
“Well, maybe you’ll be in luck and Flint will have one in his car.”
I jerked my eyes open, all thoughts of what Majesty might have gotten up to during his escape fleeing my mind.
Flint sat in his sports car parked—illegally—on the side of the street directly across from the opera house. He had the window rolled down, and was watching me with enough intensity that his eyes gleamed with the tiger’s eye gold that usually came when he was flexing his power.
“Oh, this can’t be good,” I muttered under my breath. Resigned, I looked both ways before crossing, making sure Scath was beside me.
“I’ll tell you what they said later,” Peasblossom whispered as we approached Flint’s car.
I stopped beside the open driver’s side window. “To what do I owe this—”
“Get in.”
Flint’s voice brooked no argument, and I bristled at the order. “What’s wrong?”
“I think your FBI friend is about to make a rash decision.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Another one, I mean. And if you don’t get in now, we’ll be too late to help him.”
I swore and rushed around the car to climb in the passenger side, quickly depositing Majesty in the backseat. Now wasn’t the time to ask how Flint had known where I’d be, or how he knew what Andy was planning. That would come later. “What’s happening?”
Flint waited for me to let Scath into the car, probably more so there was someone keeping an eye on Majesty than out of any consideration for his fellow sidhe. “I heard about your trip to the opera tonight. I was waiting to speak with you when I noticed our Agent Bradford take a particular interest in a gentleman leaving the opera house. Unless I’m wrong—and I am rarely wrong—the gentleman in question was a kelpie.”
“A kelpie?” My blood ran cold. “He wouldn’t.”
“Oh, I think he would.” Flint tilted his head thoughtfully as he pulled away from the curb. “Have you noticed that our Andy is getting a little…brash? Acting out of character?” He paused. “Although, perhaps it’s not so out of character after all.”
I didn’t like the sly tone in his voice. I opened my mouth to tell him as much when he pulled a file from the pocket in his door and handed it to me.
“What’s this?” I opened the folder. The first document was a large picture. A mug shot to be precise. The person in the photograph was a young man, maybe fourteen. He had a black eye, a swollen jaw, a bloody cut at his
temple, and a lick of scars crawling over his shoulder. It wasn’t until I saw the scars that I recognized him, and his brown hair and hard brown eyes. I dropped the file in my lap as if it had burned me.
“I’m not reading this,” I said quickly. The voice of Andy’s ghostly father echoed in my ears. “This is Andy’s personal business. If he wants me to know about this, he’ll tell me.”
A traitorous voice in the back of my head hoped that Flint would order me to read it. He could, after all, he was my master for another eight months.
“As you wish,” Flint said lightly.
Frustration tightened my spine, and I stared out the windshield to avoid looking at the infuriating sidhe. It wasn’t until I realized that I couldn’t spot Andy’s SUV that I knew something was off.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re following Agent Bradford.”
“But I don’t see him.” I checked traffic again, leaning closer to my window, trying to see farther ahead. “How—” My mouth snapped closed as I realized Flint had attached his smart phone to one of the car’s vents. I leaned over so I could see the screen. Sure enough, there was a map of our immediate area, with a little red dot moving ahead of us.
“You put a tracker on his car?” I accused.
“You can thank me later when you’re seeing to Agent Bradford’s wounds, instead of searching Lake Erie for what’s left of his corpse.”
Anger flowed through me, but I shoved it down to deal with later. Anger wouldn’t help me now. A clear head, that’s what was needed. I’d process everything when I had time for a can of soda and a few moments to watch Peasblossom play with her grappling hook. Maybe I’d try brewing a few new potions, or I could ask Mother Hazel if she’d like to have dinner. I could drive back to Dresden and see if Mrs. Porter wanted help with her garden. I took a deep, calming breath. Yes. Later I would process everything.
But right now, I had to make sure the kelpies of Cleveland understood Andy was off limits.
I stared ahead at the pub where Andy’s SUV sat in a crumbling parking space. The building perched on the water’s edge like a group of organized barnacles vaguely shaped to look like a small seaside escape. If the roof sagged any farther, there’d be no opening the front door with the torn “Open” sign.
“I suppose it was too much to hope that they might be hanging out at a brightly lit, health inspector-approved restaurant with lots of policemen loitering about,” I muttered.
I got out of Flint’s car, pausing to wait for Scath to crawl out. I didn’t know if this place catered exclusively to the Otherworld or not, but Scath had put her German Shepherd glamour on, so I assumed there were at least some humans inside. Great, I was walking into a place full of collateral damage. Majesty curled up in the footwell of the backseat and purred.
“Come on, Majesty,” I encouraged him.
He meowed, but didn’t move.
“We don’t have time for this,” I said. “You need to—”
“He’s not staying in my car unattended,” Flint said coldly.
I tightened my hand on the door, then slammed it closed, with the kitten still inside. “Then you get him out.”
I took off before Flint could think of a retort. I was willing to bet that catching up with the interesting FBI agent would win out over coaxing a cursed kitten out of his car. He could replace the car as easily as most people replaced a broken umbrella.
The inside of the bar wasn’t any better than the outside. There was a broken bar stool waiting for someone to get drunk enough to try and sit on it, risking impalement, and probably tetanus on top of that. The only blessing was the relative loneliness of the place. Only one table had customers, and they were already drunk enough that their heads drooped. They didn’t spare us a glance.
Scath’s head shot up, her pointed ears pricked forward. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as she bared her teeth and moved toward the back wall, slinking past tables and chairs with a single-mindedness that couldn’t mean anything good. I followed her, my heart skipping a beat when I heard the voices coming from the outside seating area.
The window in the door was filthy, but I could still make out the scene unfolding on the seaside seating area of the “restaurant.” A small fishing boat was moored to the right of the short pier. A handful of young men lounged about on the deck, all of them focused on someone standing on the pier.
Andy.
My partner stood with his arms at his sides, his right hand close to his gun. He was glaring at the leader of the boat’s crew.
“Come now, let’s not start our relationship with that attitude. Wouldn’t you rather come aboard and have a drink with us?” the man asked.
The speaker was smaller than Andy, but ropey and thick in a way that said he was pure muscle. He braced his hands on the edge of the small boat, putting aside his beer so he could lean over the railing toward Andy. He curled the fingers of one hand into a fist, dragging it over the smooth ledge like a horse pawing at the ground.
Definitely a kelpie.
“That was not an express invitation,” Peasblossom said hurriedly.
“Of course not,” Flint said reasonably. “He wants our young friend to board without the protection a host owes to their guest. The question is, will Agent Bradford fall for— Yes, he will.”
I swore and broke into a run. I struck the door that led outside hard enough that the pathetic piece of bent aluminum and glass creaked and groaned, ready to fall off its hinges.
Andy’s foot had just touched the deck of the boat when I reached the pier. The kelpie who’d goaded him to board glared at me, then his face split into a grin. He grabbed Andy by the lapels of his coat and hurled them both overboard.
Two more kelpies followed suit, each one splashing into the greasy waters of Lake Erie. The water beside the pier was polluted with whatever the pub was dumping into it, far from the cool, cleaner waters to be found farther out. I bolted to the edge of the pier, my heart in my throat as I scanned the water for some sign of Andy.
Flint’s hands closed on my shoulders. Warmth spread down, oozing through my body, touching my magic, making it churn faster. I didn’t bother to snap at him that I didn’t need his help. He’d offered it, and I was already under contract so there was little more he could ask from me. I took his power, used it to fuel a new spell.
I hurled it at the water, willing it to spread, feeling the spell burn my throat as I screamed it at the depths of the lake.
“Torsit!”
Black tentacles erupted from the water like an enormous squid reaching for the warm night air. They writhed and twisted, one of them curled around the kelpie that had dragged Andy under the water, and another, blessedly, holding Andy himself. I held my hand out, forcing my magic to focus, to keep the tentacles rising. Sweat broke out on my forehead as I extended my other hand toward Scath.
It was difficult to hold more than one spell at a time, but I’d been getting more practice these last few months than I had in all the years before. And whatever my personal feelings for Flint, his power was undeniable. With his hands still pressed into my shoulders, I could feel his power cementing my control, adding support to my will. I kept my attention on Andy, tightening my grip on the spell to keep the tentacles from dragging him under the water, or holding him so tight they cut off his breathing.
“Ambulabo aqua,” I hissed at Scath.
Pain closed around my ribs as the pressure inside my body changed with the force of a second spell so soon after the first. Flint could help me push myself, and my magic, but he couldn’t save me from the consequences. These were higher level spells than I was used to, and one after another they packed a stronger punch than I’d been expecting. I choked in a breath, gritting my teeth against the pain. My magic struck Scath in the side, enveloping her in a soft green glow that rippled outward in gleaming waves. I spoke to Scath without looking away from Andy.
“Need a ride,” I rasped, trying to speak as little as possible. “Get me to him
?”
Scath immediately came to my side, green light still darting through her thick black fur. The German Shepherd glamour was gone, fallen away under the force of my spell. No time to worry about that now. I threw one leg over her, pulling out of Flint’s grasp, then squeezing my thighs to steady myself. I’d worried that breaking from his touch would weaken my grip on the spell, but I could still feel the magic thrumming inside me, tight and steady. I dug one hand into Scath’s thick fur and held on, keeping my other arm extended to the nest of tentacles.
“Watch for surprises,” I gasped to Peasblossom.
“You mean something more surprising than all these black tentacles?” she shrieked.
Scath leapt off the pier, and Peasblossom wailed in dismay. Scath’s thick paws struck the water, but it was like landing in soft earth. The water gave a little beneath her steps, but remained firm enough for her to walk, albeit not with the same grace as she would have on solid ground. I stared at Andy, his red face, the fury in his brown eyes. He was glaring at the kelpie, and I checked his hands to make certain he hadn’t managed to wrestle his weapon out of its holster before the tentacle grabbed him.
More black tentacles erupted from the water, and they lashed in my direction, tried to ensnare Scath as she picked her way closer to Andy. I flicked a hand at them, dispelling any tentacle that came too close. My chest tightened and it became harder to breathe. It wasn’t just summoning the tentacles, it was controlling the spread, making sure they didn’t squeeze Andy until his head popped off. The tentacles grew stronger with each passing moment, and the ensnared kelpie looked as if he were seconds away from blacking out, his head lolling forward, eyelids flickering.
I should have felt bad, should have tried to keep the tentacle from constricting around him. But I didn’t. I didn’t because he’d seen me coming. He’d known who I was, and he’d tried to kill Andy anyway. He needed to know—they all needed to know—that I wasn’t playing around. There would be consequences for these threats to Andy’s life.
No more Ms. Nice Witch.
I leaned forward as we reached Andy, dismissing the tentacle that held him. He slumped forward, and Scath grabbed his wrist in her jaws. Andy hissed, but didn’t cry out, even though it had to hurt. I reached forward to grab his arm, gritting my teeth as we both fought to drag him onto Scath’s back.
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