Panther Prowling

by Yasmine Galenorn

  “Do you think he’s up to answering a few questions?” I didn’t want to charge in there if he was severely hurt and make matters worse accidentally.

  “He’s stable. I was going to release him at around four, if he continues that way.” Mallen glanced up as a chime sounded. “Excuse me, I’m needed with a patient. If you need to talk to me afterward, I’ll be around.”

  We headed down the hall.

  Shade motioned to our left. “There it is—room twelve.”

  I pushed through the door cautiously. The room was the typical two-bed hospital room with TV, nightstands, and medical equipment. The door to a bathroom was off to the left of the entry, and a window with the blinds rolled up was against the opposite wall from the door. Lucias was resting against a bank of pillows on one of the beds. His face looked horrible, now that the bruises had set in. He tried to smile as we surrounded the bed.

  “You look like hell.” I glanced around and found a chair. “Lucias, we really don’t want to bother you, but we have to ask you a few questions. We’re trying to find out more about the man who attacked you, but we don’t have much to go on. We were hoping that you might remember more about him now? Or is it all still a blur?”

  Lucias closed his eyes. “I’ve been trying ever since they gave me something for the pain. Chase already asked about that . . . but I can’t . . . so much of this morning is a blur. The Compelling Powder and the blow to my head worked a good one on me. I have a splitting headache even through the painkiller.”

  At that moment Chase and Mallen both entered the room. Mallen checked on Lucias’s pulse and breathing.

  “We have trouble. Big trouble.” Chase was carrying a large book and he set it on the bed tray, wheeling it over near the bed.

  “That doesn’t sound good.” I pulled out my notebook and pen. “What gives?”

  Chase sighed, shaking his head. He had paled—and with his olive skin that was a feat in itself—and now he looked slightly sick to his stomach. “Fuck. Kendell is the brother of one of the men on the Most Wanted List, and they often work together. I knew he looked familiar but I just didn’t put two and two together until Yugi pointed out the resemblance to me. With the way Fae names are, I didn’t realize they were related till I looked into it more. We think Kendell’s brother is in on this. His name is Aslo Veir. We’ve put out a Most Wanted alert on him.”

  That didn’t sound good. “You really think he killed his own brother?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know but we had to know what we were dealing with.

  Chase cleared his throat. He showed us the picture. Sure enough, the guy looked a lot like the dead Kendell.

  “You are looking at Aslo Veir. He’s Fae, yes. He’s also on watch lists with the FBI’s Supe Crimes Unit. Assaults, destruction of private property, looting. You name it, he’s done it. Aslo managed to insinuate himself into the radical group known as ANT.”

  “Who are they? If they’re a new hate group, I haven’t heard of them.”

  “Worse. ANT is a full-scale domestic terrorist group. Anarchists Neo Terra. Far more violent than ELF, they stockpile weapons and explosives.”

  “A Fae hate group? Are they anti-human?”

  “Not necessarily. They’re anti-everything they decide stands in their way. Word through the grapevine is that Aslo got kicked out. He was too radical for them, if you can believe it, and he went into business as a hired hit man. With his brother, the thief, they made quite a handy pair. Kendell must have botched something royal for Aslo to kill him.”

  This was getting better and better. An ex-terrorist who even scared his comrades, and now he was running a freelance gun-for-hire business? Lovely.

  “He’s known to be in this area?” Shade was scribbling down notes at the same rate I was.

  “According to our source, he showed up about ten weeks ago.” Chase sat on the bottom of the bed, taking care so he didn’t jar Lucias. “Well, then. We need to have a talk. If Aslo is involved in whatever you’re dealing with? I need to know everything. And I do mean everything.”

  Camille walked over to the window. “I could try a Finding spell on him if we had something he touched. Is there anything he left behind?”

  Mallen cleared his throat. “It’s not exactly something he left behind, but some of the blood on Lucias? Not his. I think that Kendell managed to cut himself when he was attacking Lucias. I have a piece of shirt with blood on it that doesn’t match either of our guards.”

  “Well, it’s not Aslo’s blood, but since he and Kendell are brothers, it might work. It’s closer to him than any possession could be.”

  As Mallen left the room, I took a seat in one of the guest chairs against the wall. “What about a misfire? How could this go wrong?”

  Camille shrugged. “There’s always the chance of backfire, but this once, I wouldn’t object to the spell bringing our target to us rather than pointing the way to where he’s at. It’s not like he’s a harpy.” Her sly grin didn’t go unnoticed.

  Chase snorted. “Oh please, not again. If I never see another harpy again, it will be too soon.” He closed the file and stood up. “I remember that fucking demon showing up right in front of us.”

  “You have to admit, we wouldn’t have Maggie if my magic hadn’t backfired. That was the best thing ever to come out of one of my magical glitches, ever.” Camille smiled softly. “Sometimes a mistake really isn’t a mistake.”

  “Maggie could never be a mistake. Or technically, she was a happy mistake. A good one. So Leif may have hired Aslo. I wonder if Leif knows who he’s dealing with?” I racked my brain, trying to think of what else we could do right now.

  Mallen returned, bloody rag in one gloved hand. “Since we all wear gloves when we treat patients, this shouldn’t have anybody else’s blood or fingerprints or DNA or whatever you want to call it, on the material. Do you want a pair of gloves?” He offered her the gauze. It looked all gunky—dried blood and a few pieces of hair stuck on it.

  Camille shook her head. “No, the more contact I have with it, the better.” But she grimaced as she accepted it. “Everybody stand back. We can never tell when I have a misfire what’s going to happen.”

  Everybody took a big step back, leaving her in the middle of the room, alone. Even Morio winced and edged back. With a deep breath, Camille held up one hand as she closed her eyes. The prickle of magic began to spin in the air—she was summoning the Moon Mother’s power, calling it into her. I could almost see the shimmering in the air as she let out a long breath and rolled her neck, then brought her head up. As her eyes opened, her violet irises were shimmering with flecks of silver.

  Creature of Fae, by name Aslo I call you,

  Where are you? Show me the way,

  Blood to flesh, an arrow points,

  Lady of the Moon, reveal my prey.

  As the last word rang out, there was a sudden crash of thunder in the room and a brilliant light flashed out, like a lightning ball, surrounding Camille and temporarily blinding me. She screamed, but in the neon blue glow of the light, I couldn’t see what was happening. The next moment, the room was plunged into darkness, and the jar from someone hitting the floor hard shook the room.

  Chapter 9

  “Camille! Are you okay?” I scrambled to my feet. The room was still bathed in darkness, but the flash of light had left a glowing aftershock on my eyelids. I blinked, trying to clear the haloes that were reverberating through my field of sight.

  I heard her cough loudly and then, in a wavering voice, say, “I think so.”

  Think so wasn’t good enough. I stumbled around, feeling against the wall. “Who knows where the light switch is?”

  Another moment, and in the jumbled confusion of everybody talking at once, the lights came on. Mallen was over by the door, his hand on the switch. Once again, the sudden brightness made me wince, and I shielded my eyes as I tried to take stock
of what had happened.

  Morio was on the floor, on his butt, looking confused and a little charred around the edges. A wisp of smoke trailed off his goatee. Rozurial crouched near the bathroom door, dagger out, looking around for whoever had set loose the big boom. Shade was standing beside the window, which was now a makeshift door. His face was bleeding where shards of the shattered glass from the blast had hit him. Mallen was by the light switch, looking relatively unscathed, and Chase was on the bed. Or rather, he was draped over Lucias, butt to the ceiling.

  Camille, herself, was standing right where she had been, and she looked like someone who’d put her finger in the light socket. Her hair was frizzed out, she was covered with soot, and she looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. The cloth she’d been holding had been incinerated.

  “Nobody move,” she said. We froze. She paused for a moment, closing her eyes, and then let out a deep sigh. “Okay, the energy feels like it’s dissipated. I think we’re safe enough.” After another moment, she glanced around. “Well, that didn’t work.”

  “Damn it, I’m so stupid!” Chase pushed himself off the bed, wincing as he held up his wrist. “Hell, I think I strained my wrist. I’ve hurt it several times. Mallen? Have a look, will you?”

  “Anybody else hurt?” Camille turned to Chase. “And why are you so stupid?”

  “Because I totally forgot that we had someone from the Otherworld Wizards Guild in here.”

  The Wizards Guild was an organization from our home city-state of Y’Elestrial, and was often used by the Otherworld Intelligence Agency to magically bug rooms, spy on people, set up the Whispering Mirrors—which were like visual telephones from Otherworld to Earthside. The OIA could make Homeland Security look like kindergarteners when they wanted to.

  “What was the Wizards Guild doing here?”

  “OIA headquarters sent them over to reinforce our security, now that Shadow Wing has made his move in Otherworld.” Chase shrugged. “I forgot about it because it was just one more thing on the list. They installed some sort of anti-magical field or something like that. I’m not clear on what.”

  Camille snorted. “You’d better get clear, then. Usually we don’t work with the Wizards Guild, but I guess the elves can’t really send their techno-mages . . . not right now.”

  “We don’t even know how many of them are still alive.” Mallen’s expression was grim. “Tens of thousands of our people died during the attack. It will take years to sort out the full amount of damage that Kelvashan sustained, and the full number of our losses.” A hitch broke his voice, and he pressed his lips together.

  It was then that it hit me: Elqaneve had been his home. “You lost family, didn’t you?” I did my best to keep my question gentle, not blunt. I was trying to mitigate the bluntness that I could, at times, be guilty of. “A little tact goes a long way,” Shade was constantly telling me. And I felt I was finally learning.

  Mallen gave us a brief nod. “I lost my sister, and I lost my wife and two daughters.”

  We stared at him. None of us had expected that—hell, none of us had even known he’d been married. I wondered if Chase knew, but he wasn’t the one directly in charge of the medical unit. He looked as shocked as the rest of us.

  “I . . . I’m sorry . . .” I didn’t know what to say.

  Mallen gave me a considered look, then shrugged briefly. “What is there to say? They were caught in the fires. At least they died quickly, and not by a goblin’s blade. That is my only solace.” He quickly changed the subject. “Chase, let me see your wrist.”

  As the detective showed him his wrist, I walked over to Shade and began to help him pull out the shards of glass. There were at least twenty that had embedded themselves on his face—all small slivers, but they had to sting. After they were clear—none had done much damage, when I really examined him—he washed his face with antibacterial soap.

  Camille helped Morio up and we ascertained that nobody had been hurt—not even Lucias. We were all just shell-shocked and a little singed. Chase’s wrist was bruised but it would be all right if he was cautious with it for a day or so.

  At that moment, Aswala entered. A medic replacing Sharah, the minute she entered the room, she began to cough. As she caught sight of the window, her eyes widened.

  “What the hell have you all been doing in here?” She walked through the debris, over to what had been the window. “Whatever you did, you did it right.”

  “Never mind that,” Mallen said. “Call security, and maintenance, please. Have them clean this up and move our patient here to another room. Make certain it’s secure and safe.”

  Aswala shook her head, then turned. “As you wish.”

  Mallen dismissed her with a wave. “Thank you.”

  There wasn’t much left to do. “We have a lot to sort out. I suggest we go home. Chase, we’ll fill you in tonight on everything. I promise.” I glanced at the clock. It was going on three thirty, and I was not only tired, but starved. “I’ve been up since what . . . four A.M.? And we haven’t eaten since breakfast. I want a nap. Let’s go home.”

  “What about the damage?” Camille stared at the window. “I’m sure Smoky would be glad to cover the costs.” Smoky was generous to a fault, for a dragon.

  But Chase shook his head. “No, don’t worry yourself over it. My fault for not remembering about that. And I need to contact them to fix their magical security system. You shouldn’t have been able to cast any spell other than healing spells and have anything happen. It should have just fizzled, if I remember right.”

  As we headed out, Yugi and a few of the other officers came running in.

  “A little late on the ball, aren’t you?” Chase grumbled, motioning to the damage. “Get somebody over here to fix that today. And make sure that APB went out on Aslo Veir. We want him for murder and theft.” Chase was deep in discussion with Yugi as we filed out the door.

  * * *

  By the time we got home, it was 4:00 P.M. and Hanna was busy in the kitchen. She smiled as we came trooping in, even at Roz. Apparently, she wasn’t going to let the events of the night before dampen her day.

  “Hanna, we haven’t had lunch, we’ve been through the wringer, and we’re starving.” I gave her my best wide-eyed kitty-cat look and she laughed.

  “Go on with you, Miss Delilah. You all get cleaned up and I’ll have an early supper on the table in no time.”

  Camille went to change, along with Morio, while the rest of us washed our hands and faces and gathered around the kitchen table. The living room was nice, but we tended to congregate there in the evenings. The table was for powwows and group huddles, and brainstorming sessions. And it was also family time.

  “How long till Menolly wakes up?”

  “Sunset’s around four forty now, so a little more than half an hour?” Rozurial shrugged off his duster, hung it up in the hall closet, and joined us. He turned around to glance at Hanna, who gave him a friendly nod. There was still a hint of hurt in her eyes, but the Northlands woman was resilient, if she was anything, and I had no doubt this was just a blip in the road for her.

  Roz settled down. “So what next?”

  “Wait till Camille and Morio get back. Meanwhile, somebody grab Smoky, Trillian, and Vanzir. We’ll fill everybody in over dinner.”

  “It’s Nerissa’s night for training with Jason.” Morio grinned. “She won’t be home till after eight.”

  Jason Binds taught martial arts. He was also our mechanic, and the husband of our friend Tim Winthrop. I’d wanted to take a formal class from him but there was never enough time, so I settled for pointers now and then. But Nerissa had decided to enroll in one of his classes and she was now going through his grueling 30-Day-Fit-or-Fight Program, Level A.

  Jason taught seven levels of it—the first two each took thirty days, Levels C and D took sixty days each, and the rest were ninety-day-
long stints. Workouts were four times a week, two hours each time. If you missed more than three sessions, you had to take the level over again. Nerissa had been going for two weeks now, and while it exhausted even her—a werepuma—she was making remarkable progress under his tutelage.

  “Well, Menolly can tell her later, then.” I glanced over at Hanna, who was dishing up bowls of stew and pulling a sheet of freshly warmed rolls out of the oven. Camille and Morio returned, both clean and singe-free, and Shade came back with Smoky, Trillian, and Vanzir. Iris peeked in behind them.

  “I decided to give Bruce charge over the babies while I came up to visit.” She proceeded to help Hanna put the dishes on the table as we gathered around it. Trillian started to help them out, but Hanna shooed him off to go wash his hands.

  When we were finally all sitting around the table with food at hand, it was 5:00 P.M. and Menolly was up. We told her what had happened, and the relief on her face when we told her the Wayfarer was still in one piece was almost frightening.

  Before we could start eating, Iris spoke up.

  “I came up for more than just to get a breath of fresh air. I have something to tell you.” She looked so hesitant that a streak of fear hit me in the heart.

  “You’re pregnant again?” Trillian snorted, but his teasing was with a gentle hand. Iris reached over and thunked him on the head.

  “No, you dork. And bite your tongue. While I want more children, yes, I want them several years down the line.” She rolled her eyes, pretending exasperation but it was obvious that she was trying not to laugh.

  “So what’s up?” Camille bit into her roll, closing her eyes as the fragrance of warm, yeasty bread hit the air.

  “This summer, Bruce will be going to Ireland for two months. He’s leading a group of students on a tour of Irish monuments and countryside. I’d love to go with him, but there’s no logical way to do so given the children. The Duchess will be coming back to stay with me, and help out.”