Bounty: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Solumancer Cycle Book 3)

by J. C. Staudt

  “What’s perfect?” I mutter.

  “Tell the sidhe she doesn’t get her jewel back until she removes the curse. Should she probe your mind in search of it, she’ll never discover its whereabouts, because you don’t know.”

  I mull it over. “Bold, yet unconventional. I like it.”

  “What happens when she calls your bluff, removes the curse, and asks for the jewel back?”

  “Irrelevant,” says Ersatz. “Cade possesses the information she wants about the Pax. So long as he is valuable to her, she will not harm him.”

  “She’ll want the information, though. And I’ll be deep inside Gryphon Enterprises when she asks for it.”

  “That’s when you hit her with the bad news,” says Ersatz. “The vampires have the jewel.”

  “They probably don’t have it, though. I’ll bet it’s lying on the ground somewhere. What would the vampires use the Trillion for, anyway? To not smell like… themselves?”

  “You could try telling Elona the truth,” Des suggests.

  “The truth? Shit, I might as well slit my wrists and let the vampires use me as a drinking fountain.”

  “Whatever you tell her,” says Ersatz, “do it as soon as possible. I’m exhausted.”

  “You’re willing to risk my neck so you can get a little sleep?”

  “I’m willing to risk my neck. But I’m not the one the sidhe sent to the vampire party, now am I?”

  “Whatever. You staying over, Des?”

  “Yeah, if you don’t mind. I’ll take the long way home tomorrow. Make sure no one’s tailing me.”

  I nod. “Let’s get you set up. I’m so jealous. You’re about to sleep.”

  “I don’t need as much sleep as humans. Or tiny dragons, apparently.”

  “Well then don’t freak out later if you happen to be awake and hear me and Ersatz acting like a couple of insomniacs. This dream-slavery is the pits.”

  “I’m used to it. The Guardians have all kinds of weird sleep schedules.”

  “How did you fall in with Ryovan and his crew? Did my father have dhampir servants on the otherside?”

  “I’ve never been anyone’s servant. In the old world, I was what you’d call a free agent. A vigilante of sorts. After I crossed over, I decided police work was for me. I met Baz the day I arrested him for public drunkenness and grand theft auto. He hotwired this sweet little Dodge Viper, cherry-red with white racing stripes. Cruised around town for a few hours, then stopped at one of his favorite watering holes. He was nice and liquored up by the time I caught him. We got to talking while he was in the back of my squad car. Told me he’d heard rumor that the King of Tolmyr was here in the city. I’d heard of King Cadigan during my travels through the old kingdoms and always liked what I heard, so I approached Baz when he got out. We found Ryovan and the hospital together, but your father was already gone by that point. Baz is the one who brought Fremantle into the fold. She’d been hanging out on a cathedral across town.”

  I’m trying to follow along with Des’s story, but all I can think about is her and Ryovan. “So if you’re with Ryovan, who was that guy you came to the Pax with tonight?”

  “Dominic Voss, my main contact in the Hallowed.”

  “Ryovan wasn’t jealous?”

  “It was Ryovan’s idea. He understands the difference between work and play.”

  “Man, Shenn is gonna flip when she finds out about you two, huh?”

  “We’re waiting for the right time to tell her. Please don’t say anything.”

  “That’s your secret to tell, not mine. I’ll leave that barrel of laughs to you.”

  “Do you have a pillow I can shove my face into and scream?”

  “Plenty. Right this way.”

  Des is the first person who’s stayed in my guest bedroom since Paige Tarpley a few months ago, though I opt not to seal her in with a magical ward like I did then. Once I’ve given Des a set of flannel pajamas and made sure she has everything she needs, I head to my room. After changing out of my suit and into some comfortable clothes, I look up the main phone number for Gryphon Enterprises and give them a ring.

  A pre-recorded message answers. Thank you for calling Gryphon Enterprises. We’re sorry, but our offices are currently closed. Please call back during regular business hours. Or, if you know your party’s extension and would like to leave a message, please dial it now.

  Since I don’t know Elona Anarian’s extension, I hang up. Should’ve guessed I wouldn’t be able to reach her tonight. With few alternatives, I lie down and try not to fall asleep. It doesn’t work. The dreams are dark and disturbing, full of bloodthirsty vampires and trickster fairies and damp ugly mutants in the sewers of my mind.

  I wake the next morning to a knock on the apartment door. More like being roused from horizontal repose, since I’m not actually sleeping. It isn’t the loud booming knock of Calyxto, or the slow deliberate knock of a UPS guy, but a delicate rapping with some urgency behind it. I check my phone and find with horror that I set it on silent before the Pax last night and didn’t turn on the ringer when I got home. Carmine has called several times this morning.

  The peephole distorts Carmine’s red face and wet, puffy eyes. Something’s wrong, but I can’t answer the door like this. I’m Cade, and I can’t be Arden. At least, I don’t think I can.

  I retreat into the living room. “Ersatz? Ersatz. Where are you?”

  “I am the Butcher of Helsinki,” he declares.

  “I didn’t ask what you are. I asked where you are. Did you ever get around to fixing the spellvault necklace?”

  Carmine knocks again.

  Ersatz laughs to himself, a soft high-pitched titter. “They’ll never find me. I’m not here. I’m in the folds between time and happenstance. My congratulations on your particular tenacity, though it holds no bearing on our present plight.”

  I find him standing stock-still on the bookshelf, his mouth moving while the rest of his body remains rigid. He could pass for a stuffed lizard in a taxidermist’s office. “You’re no help,” I mutter, and rush to the office to pop a residue pill. It’s my last one.

  Let’s see, illusion. Illusion. I try to concentrate, but my emotions are a jumble and my brain is cluttered with fatigue. After yet another night without sleep, my mind is whirring with the constant need for rest, and it’s too full of nothing to concentrate on anything. I pull focus and give the spell a try.

  It fizzles. I try again, but the echoes of my nightmares yank me out of it. Carmine knocks louder, and under the pressure of my time constraint the spell fails. I rub my eyes, wipe my clammy hands on my pajama pants. I should pretend I’m not here. But I can’t look at her with that forlorn face, clearly in distress, and refuse to give her the help I know she needs.

  Chapter 20

  Carmine is turning away as I open the door. “Hey.”

  She turns back, frowns. “Hi. Am I at the wrong apartment? I’m looking for Arden Savage.”

  “No. This is Arden’s apartment. Uh… you’re his sister, Carmine. Right?”

  “Yeah. Who are you?”

  “I’m Cade. Cadigan. We met once, the night of the fire at the Civic Center. I brought you home.”

  The memory dawns on her face. “Oh. God, how could I forget? Cade. I never got to thank you.”

  “I’m pretty sure you thanked me. You were in no state to be worrying about manners. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  She wipes her cheeks in the careful manner of a woman afraid to smear her makeup. “Yeah, I was hoping to talk to my brother. Is he around?”

  “He’s not, actually. He got a phone call about work and had to leave in a hurry. He’s letting me crash here for a few days. Do you want to come in?”

  She hesitates. “Sure.”

  We sit down in the kitchen, where I put a pot of coffee on. God knows I need it as much as she does. “So how’ve you been? Everything alright?”

  “I’ve been better, honestly. Me and my boyfriend just got in a huge fight. Big m
ess. Misunderstanding, I guess. I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, celebrating inside.

  “So Arden’s working?”

  “Yeah, he said he’d be gone a while.”

  “Figures. I’ve been trying to call him all morning. He’s always working. My other brother is the same way. Have you met Lorne?”

  “Only in passing. Arden’s told me about the corporation he’s starting. It’s Savage Systems, right? What sort of stuff do they do?”

  Carmine shakes her head and shrugs. “Hell if I know. I think they’re like a company that buys other companies. I don’t know a thing about any of that stuff. They’re both crazy if you ask me. Both my brothers.”

  “Yeah, your family’s already pretty wealthy, right? I mean, they wouldn’t have to work if they didn’t want to.”

  “Nope. My parents left us enough to live off of for the rest of our lives. Not to brag.”

  “Oh, sure.” I lift my pinky and take a dainty sip of my coffee. “I hope the amenities meet your requirements, madam.”

  She laughs. “It’s not like that. Our parents brought us up well. We weren’t spoiled. Not really. Okay, I guess we kinda were. But we were taught never to take money for granted. I think that’s why both my brothers work even though they don’t need to. They each have their passions, their things they love, and I think it’s great. I wish I was more like them.”

  “What are you passionate about? You must have your own thing.”

  She shrugs. “I have stuff, sure. Nothing I could make a career out of, though. Plus I don’t know if I’d want a career. I enjoy my free time.”

  “And what does free time look like for you?” Our eyes meet, and for the first time I’m able to look at her not as a sister, but as a woman—a woman I’m deeply interested in, and to whom I hold an undeniable attraction. The way she looks back at me feels like a dream in the midst of my sleep-deprived delirium, in which every second lasts an hour.

  “I like hiking, swimming, skiing, rock climbing—anything outdoors, really. Around here there’s only a few months out of the year you can actually do that stuff, you know? I’d travel more, but I have this minor phobia of airplanes. Don’t laugh.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I assure her. “Planes are scary.”

  She smirks. “I also like shopping. I do that a lot. And charity work. Activism. Things that make a positive difference in people’s lives. I know that sounds trendy, or whatever, but I’ve always been that way. Even as far back as elementary school, I was organizing fundraisers and doing volunteer stuff.”

  “I remember that banquet you put together a few months back. Arden said it was a pretty big deal. Shame it turned out the way it did.”

  “Yeah. That was… traumatic. It kind of turned me off to the whole thing. Not that every charity banquet ends in fire.” She laughs. “They still don’t know who started it. I wish I could remember. When they brought me in for questioning I could hardly tell them a thing. It was like I was only half-there. Everything from that night is hazy. I feel so bad that I couldn’t remember anything.”

  “You shouldn’t beat yourself up over it. It’s natural for the mind to put up certain defenses against trauma. Sometimes they’re hard to get around. No police investigation is worth driving yourself crazy over. I hope the cops weren’t too tough on you; they should’ve known better than to force your testimony after something like that.”

  A smile. “That’s sweet. No, the police weren’t too harsh. Just a lot of questions. The same ones over and over again.” She pauses in reflection; takes a sip of her coffee. “So what do you do, Cade?”

  The guest bedroom door opens, and out walks Des in Arden’s pajamas with disheveled hair and sleepy eyes. Carmine turns on her barstool to look.

  “Morning,” I say, scrambling to fabricate a story. I’ve been too caught up in Carmine to think about the dhampir in the next room.

  “Hey,” says Des, grabbing the stool beside Carmine. “Who’s this?”

  “This is Arden’s sister, Carmine. Carmine, this is… my girlfriend, Desdemona.”

  Des shoots me a look. They shake hands.

  “Arden’s letting you both stay here?” Carmine asks.

  “Just while we transition to a new place. The renovations are taking longer than they were supposed to.”

  “Oh, okay. What building are you in?”

  “It’s a private residence. Uptown.”

  “Gotcha. How long have you two been together?”

  “About a year now.” It’s killing me to talk like this, but if there’s a better excuse for why a woman was sleeping in the bedroom I’m supposed to be staying in I can’t think of one. Des knows what's at stake here; my story needs to be convincing. She grabs a cup of coffee and lets me do the talking.

  “Did you guys live together before,” Carmine asks, “or will this be your first time moving in together?”

  “First time.”

  “You must be super excited.”

  “Yeah. For sure. I’m sorry to hear about you and your boyfriend. Everything okay there?”

  “Not really. It’s alright, though. We weren’t that serious. I kind of have a tendency to rush into things, and I just found out he wasn’t who I thought he was.”

  Carmine Savage sure knows how to pick ‘em. I’m glad that problem worked itself out; I wasn’t looking forward to the ‘your boyfriend is an occultist’ conversation. My relief is overshadowed by my dismay at having just told the woman I’m in love with that I’m in a committed long-term relationship with someone else. And everything is overshadowed by how inconceivably, soul-crushingly tired I am. Soon even fear won’t be enough to keep me awake. I want to collapse into a heap right here on the floor and let the nightmares take me.

  “Kind of disappointing, right?” Des chimes in, tossing me a glance. “When someone doesn’t turn out to be who you thought they were?”

  “Tell me about it,” Carmine mutters. “This time I thought it was real. God, I hate dating sometimes. You two are lucky you found each other.”

  Des winces. “Are we, though? I mean, yeah, we’re together and all, but how do I know Cade is really who he says he is? How does he know I’m not an escaped convict from across the Canadian border? Do any of us really know ourselves? There are lots of people who never consider themselves capable of doing the things they end up doing.”

  Carmine huffs. “Well that’s a heavy spoon of cream for this early in the morning. I’m gonna be thinking about that one all day. When you see Arden, will you tell him I came by?”

  “Yeah, sure will.”

  “Thanks for the coffee.”

  When Carmine’s gone, Des looks ready to hit me. “You want her.”

  “Want her for what?”

  “Don’t give me that. You’re obsessed. Your pheromone levels went through the roof the second she walked in here. I could smell you across the apartment through four inches of bedroom door. Then I come out here and find you looking like a Catholic priest at a Boy Scout convention. Your palms are sweating, your pupils are dilated, and your pulse is running like a jackhammer. I’ve seen dogs in heat with more composure.”

  “Give me a break. I’ve barely slept in seventy-two hours. My brain is functioning with the efficiency of a rotting cantaloupe. I couldn’t summon up the focus to cast a spell if I wanted to. I tried. I’m not too worried about controlling my body’s natural response to someone I’m attracted to.”

  “Even so, you’re hopelessly lost. That girl wrecks you. She wrecks you, your highness.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know. I can’t think straight as it is. Or see straight, for that matter.”

  “You probably shouldn’t be driving around town in a stolen car then, either. Let me drive you to Gryphon Enterprises.”

  “You’d do that for me? It’s a den of fairies.”

  “Yeah, but I’m your humble servant, and all that crap. Get dressed.”

  Chapter 21

  Most of the books
lining the built-in shelves of Elona Anarian’s judge chamber are fakes. I don’t know how much reading the sidhe of the Fae Council has time for, but apparently she’s got even less time for me. Desdemona is waiting downstairs in her blue eco-mobile while I sit alone in here, having been admitted almost half an hour ago by the pixie receptionist, a slender redhead in a yellow blazer with freckles of sparkling stardust.

  The side door opens, and Elona enters in her ceremonial frock, lighting the corners of the spacious room with a glow brighter than the sunlight pouring through the slitted window blinds. Her stately leather chair doesn’t so much as exhale when she sits in it. She picks up her datapad and scrolls through a few documents, uttering no sound to indicate I’m here in the room with her. Finally, without looking up from the screen, she asks, “So?”

  “I went to the Pax. Irys Montrovia says she’s murdering othersiders under your protection. She confessed it in front of her brother Felix and a pair of high-ranking vampire lords from the two biggest covens in the city.”

  Elona nods, still not making eye contact. “Yes. Good.”

  “Good? How is that good?”

  “What did you learn about the vampires’ hunting patterns?”

  I’m confused by her apathy, but I explain. “Tenebris has struck an alliance with the Lords of the Underworld to exchange souls for blood. They won’t hunt anymore. The other minor covens are being encouraged to strike similar deals while they work out how to redraw the boundary lines between their territories.”

  “Indeed.”

  “You sound like you already know everything I’m telling you.”

  Elona purses her lips at something she’s reading. “Thank you for your service, Mr. Cadigan. Leave the Trillion on the desk there and I’ll see that Sister Wygella releases you from the Blackstone Heart by nightfall.”

  I hesitate. “There was a slight snag where the Trillion is concerned.”

  When she looks up, her enchanting emerald eyes stare daggers into mine. “More the fool me for imagining a wizard might be relied upon to look after a priceless magical item.”

  “Irys broke the chain and lifted the enchantment. The vampires know you sent me to spy on them.”