Not Your Ordinary Faerie Tale

by Christine Warren

  “So much for sixty days’ notice, right?” the man griped.

  “You have his forwarding address?” Corinne asked.

  “What, do I look like the postman to you? He paid up, he left. No business of mine where he went.”

  Corinne gritted her teeth to keep from baring them at the grumpy, unhelpful bastard. “And what if you need to find him again? Say he damaged something moving.”

  “I still got the number at his job. Pulls the taps at a little place up in Gramercy.”

  Luc nodded. “Thank you. We’ll find him there, then.”

  The super’s snort stopped them before they reached the exit. “Not at this time of day, you won’t. Works nights. Says he likes the money. Personally, I’m gonna like not getting woke up when he slams his door at four a.m. But he never goes on till at least seven. At this hour, he’ll be stretched out wherever his new place is sleeping like a corpse. And good luck waking him. Slept through a police raid once. Lady in 3B had her drug-dealing brother staying with her last year. Cops broke three doors yanking his ass out. Bet yer ass her lease ain’t gettin’ renewed.”

  “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “And charming,” Corinne muttered as the man closed the door in their faces and went back to his blaring television set. “Damn it. Hank Buckley clearly didn’t double-check after he got Ingram’s address. There’s no telling where he moved to. He could have gone out of state for all we know.”

  “Not if he’s still working his old job.”

  “Only one way to find out.” She had her cell phone in her hand and had already started dialing. She placed it on speaker again so Luc could listen in.

  “Landslides, can I help you?”

  The voice over the phone was feminine and brusque, but polite, and Corinne held up her finger to Luc to indicate he should be quiet. “Hi, I’m looking for Mark Ingram. Is he working right now?”

  “He’s not scheduled until seven, which means he’ll be here by eight, if the past week is anything to go by,” the woman informed them, her tone going cool. “That being the case, I doubt he’s going to have time to chat on the phone tonight. Not if he wants to keep his job.”

  The receiver clicked into silence, and Corinne hung up. “Somehow I doubt she’d appreciate us calling back and asking for his new address.”

  “Is there another way we could find out?”

  There were always ways, Corinne knew, but none of them would be easy. “Nothing quick. I can check with the utility companies, see if he’s started service somewhere new. And I know a PI who’d probably do me a favor, but none of that will get us an answer before eight.”

  “Seven.” Luc shrugged when she looked puzzled. “What can I say? I’m an optimist.”

  She huffed out a laugh. “Well, I’m a realist. Honestly, we’ll waste the least amount of time if we just wait until tonight and catch him at work. If we hang out at the bar for a few minutes, he can talk and work at the same time and hopefully not piss off the boss.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “We regroup.”

  They headed back to her apartment thoroughly frustrated.

  “You’re a writer,” Luc mused in the elevator up to her floor. “Is there an adjective out there that means an unmitigated disaster, spiraling quickly toward a close approximation of Armageddon?”

  “I think fubaris the closest you’re going to get,” she said, leading the way to her door and letting them into her living room.

  “What language is that from?”

  “Military-speak. It’s an acronym. It means ‘fucked up beyond all recognition.’”

  He nodded. “I think that will do to be going on with.”

  Corinne made a noise of angry frustration and marched to the desk tucked under a window at the rear of the main room. Ignoring the bulk of the mess teetering precariously on every inch of available surface, she grabbed a woefully inadequate stack of papers and photos and carried them back to the sofa. Depositing them on the coffee table, she knelt down between it and the sofa and began to spread everything out until she could lay eyes on every scrap of information all at once. Then, still not satisfied, she yanked her notebook out of her backpack, flipped it open to the pertinent pages, and added that as well.

  “Okay,” she said, looking over the chaos and wishing there were more of it, “this is everything we have. I’ve been over it all twice, but there’s got to be something I’m missing. I refuse to believe there isn’t something in here somewhere that will point us in the right direction. We just have to find it.”

  Luc sank onto the sofa next to her shoulder and surveyed the scene. “But what exactly is it that we’re looking for?”

  Corinne bit back a growl. “I don’t know yet. Damn it, I’m going to need coffee for this.”

  She left him sitting in front of the paperwork and stalked into the kitchen to put on a pot of life’s blood. If her feet pointed backward, she’d have kicked her own ass. She knew she was missing something. Had she been so blinded by anger with her editor and irritation over finding herself embroiled in Others’ business that she had ignored some vital clue? Because she didn’t think she could live with that. She didn’t think she could stand knowing that if she’d paid closer attention, she might have helped Luc find Seoc before anyone got hurt.

  Coffee dripped while she brooded. As soon as she could, she poured a cup and carried it back to the sofa. Settling beside Luc, she sipped as she took another look at the information she had gathered. “You know, there’s something that really bothers me about the rabbi’s murder.”

  “You mean aside from the wanton loss of life?” Luc snapped, then apologized when she shot him a quelling look.

  “I mean, why was it necessary? If your theory about Hibbish’s disappearance is right and Seoc sent him into limbo, why not just send Aaronson there when he got in the way of Seoc’s experiments? Why kill him?”

  “That assumes the rabbi was killed because he knew about Seoc’s experiments—which doesn’t make a lot of sense. So far, the witnesses to Seoc’s activities have been dismissed as crackpots, am I right?”

  “Yes, but you heard Ava. Interest in the story is growing.”

  Luc nodded. “True enough, but for the moment, Seoc has no reason to fear human discovery. There had to be another reason for the murder.”

  None occurred to her. “So what was it? Any brilliant theories?”

  Rising to pace restlessly, he scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck and scowled. In all, he looked thoroughly disgruntled. “No. And frankly, it’s driving me bonkers.”

  “Join the club.” Corinne reached for a couple of sheets of paper and scanned the contents. “Maybe the motive is buried somewhere in the rabbi’s statement. Maybe there’s something he reported or something about him that set him apart from the other witnesses?”

  Interest lightened the man’s grim features. “You could be right. Do you have a copy?”

  Corinne shuffled through more papers and frowned. She scanned everything laid out on the table, then scanned again. She shook her head. How could she not have something so important?

  “I can’t find it. I swear Hank told me he gave me all the statements he’d gathered. Why wouldn’t Aaronson’s be here?”

  “What information about his sighting dowe have?”

  She referred back to her notes. “Just that he—” She broke off and read the line over again, to be sure she hadn’t imagined it. “Holy shit.”

  Luc snatched the paper out of her hand. “What? What did you find?”

  “Right there.” She jabbed a finger halfway down the page. “Hank never gave me his original statement because no one ever recorded it. Rabbi Aaronson was the only one of the eyewitnesses who contacted the police directly about what he’d seen, but they thought he was a total crackpot. Hank sent a PI to verify his report later, and Aaronson said that at first he thought the cops were very professional, listening closely and taking detailed notes, but he’d forgotten to g
ive the officer who took his statement a card. When he went back inside to get one, he saw the cop laughing with a colleague and tossing his statement in the trash. That certainly sets him apart from the others, don’t you think?”

  A surge of excitement gave Corinne a wave of new energy, but Luc burst her bubble with a shake of his head. He handed the paper back to her.

  “I’ll admit it’s different from the others, but I don’t see any reason why it would prompt Seoc to kill him. Seoc has no reason to fear the mortal police. First, to cause him any trouble they’d have to find him, which is unlikely, as we know only too well. Second, he’s Fae—he can change his appearance with a snap of his fingers. And even if the police found him andrecognized him, he has the power to defend himself magically. Discovery couldn’t possibly have posed a big enough threat to prompt Seoc to kill.”

  The logic registered with Corinne, but so did the desire for something—anything!—about this investigation to begin making sense.

  “Damn it, just this afternoon you said that Seoc couldn’t possibly have killed anyone, but we’ve both seen that he did! Now you’re saying the only motive we can find couldn’t possibly have given him motive for it. Will you make up your damned mind?”

  She regretted her words the minute she spoke them. Yelled them, actually. Her hand went instinctively to her temple to try to ease the throbbing there. God, her head was killing her. She felt Luc abruptly stand and pace away from her and she sighed. Hell, she nearly whimpered.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, swallowing back a massive lump of guilt. “You didn’t deserve that, and I had no reason to jump down your throat. I’m just—” She swallowed again, but the lump didn’t move. “This is just so damned frustrating.”

  “Believe me, I’ve noticed.”

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated, catching his gaze and hoping he could read the sincerity in her eyes. Temper had a way of turning her into a brat. She knew it, and she hated it about herself. The last thing she wanted him to think of when he looked at her was a three-year-old in the middle of a tantrum. “I try to pretend I’m not a bitch, but sometimes it just leaks out.”

  That actually dragged a laugh out of him. “Sweetheart, if that was your idea of being a bitch, I really need to introduce you to the Queen. She’s got a thing or twenty to teach you.”

  “I’ll be sure to bring my notebook.”

  His expression softened and he returned to the sofa. Settling down beside her, he drew her into his arms and cuddled her close. “Hey, forget about it. I didn’t notice you being a bitch if you haven’t noticed me being an unhelpful killjoy. I feel like I’ve got this job to do, and so far I haven’t managed a single, bloody useful thing.”

  He surrounded her with warmth and comfort, and she breathed in his scent with pleasure. He smelled like man and forests and subtle spices. “Not true. You made me breakfast. And you bought me coffee, which totally makes up for the whole tea debacle.”

  She felt a large hand stroke over her hair and heard a distinct rumbling sound.

  “Speaking of breakfast,” he mused, “I think that was the last time we ate, and it’s after three o’clock. Are you hungry?”

  Until he mentioned it, she hadn’t been, but all of a sudden her stomach woke up and made its displeasure abundantly clear. “Starving,” she admitted.

  “Then what do you say we go out and get something to eat? We have time to kill until seven. Or eight. And sitting around staring at pieces of paper isn’t helping either of our moods.”

  “I say, pierogi, please. There’s a little Ukrainian place a few blocks over. The food is fantastic.”

  The walk to the restaurant did them good, as did simply getting their minds off the endless treadmill of questions for a while. The meal didn’t hurt, either. The pierogi were plump and tender and served with plenty of sautéed onions and gobs of fresh, rich sour cream. Luc ate about a thousand. Corinne counted.

  They held hands when they left the small café and began the short trip back to her building. Despite the difference in their heights, they seemed to fit together, naturally matching their strides and laughing together at the sight of the dapper little man on the corner, who bought himself a hot dog from a steam cart and proceeded to eat the empty bun while he fed the meat to the pampered dachshund he had cradled under one arm.

  As long as she didn’t think too hard about what they ought to be doing, she felt happy, she decided. Something about being with Luc just made everything seem somehow…better. She felt at peace, warm. Not just where his hand enveloped hers and not just where the omnipresent sexual awareness hummed between them, but inside herself, perilously close to her heart.

  Later, Corinne couldn’t have said what caught her attention. She didn’t really remember seeing anything unusual, or hearing anything that alarmed her. All she knew was that one moment she was stepping off the curb beside Luc, and the next she was flying through the air and landing hard on the unyielding asphalt with about seven tons of angry warrior pinning her down. She had a vague impression of something small and mean and ominously black, but it didn’t make any sense.

  And neither did whatever Luc seemed to be shouting at her at the top of his lungs.

  “Answer me, damn it!” he bellowed. “Corinne! Corinne, are you hurt?”

  She tried to answer, but she had to struggle to draw breath. She nodded vigorously instead. “Wind…knocked out…,” she gasped, reminding herself to relax. The quicker she did, the faster the tightness in her chest would ease.

  Luc scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the sidewalk. He sank down onto the stoop of the nearest building and cradled her in his lap.

  “Easy,” he murmured, stroking a hand gently over her back. “Easy, sweetheart. Slowly now. Don’t struggle. Just let it come back. Easy.”

  “Geez Louise! Is she okay, man?” Corinne finally got a good lungful of air and opened her eyes just in time to see a scruffy-looking guy in this late twenties jog toward them with wide eyes and an expression of awe. “Did he hit her? At first I thought it looked like a bear had gotten loose in the city, but I bet it was one of those idiot costumed messenger kids. I gotta say, though, I’ve sure as hell never seen one move that fast. I tried to yell, but he was on top of you before I could even open my mouth. Is your wife going to be okay? You need me to call an ambulance?”

  Luc was already moving his hands over her, looking for additional injuries. He looked as grim as death, and twice as menacing.

  Corinne offered the stranger a weak smile and shook her head. “I’m fine. I just got the wind knocked out of me. I appreciate the concern, though. We’ll just sit here for a minute and catch our breath. You have a good afternoon.”

  The man looked like he wanted to stay and ask more questions, but Luc raised his head at just that moment, and suddenly the stranger was mumbling something about being late for work and rushing off as if the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels. When Corinne caught sight of Luc’s expression, she understood why.

  “Okay, I didn’t get a good look—because, hey, I was practically knocked unconscious,” she said, “but I do know that was no kid on a motorbike that sent me flying. For God’s sake, it felt like getting hit by a Mack truck. What the hell was that?”

  Luc just shook his head. “Not here. We need to get you inside.”

  Corinne groaned. “Gee, why do I feel like I’ve heard that before?”

  This time, Luc didn’t bother issuing orders or asking directions. He simply picked her up and carried her the remaining three blocks to her building, past a gaggle of teenage girls just out of school, the florist adding water to his rose bouquets, and two of her neighbors on their way upstairs with groceries. When he set her down on the sofa, she still thought he looked about as friendly as Genghis Khan. Which might be why she read a mixed message in the way he began stripping off her clothes.

  “Hey,” she yelped, smacking at his hands and offering absolutely no impediment to his peeling her shirt over her head and tossing it
aside. “Is this like a fetish with you? Every time you get an adrenaline spike, you need to get your dick wet?”

  “Just shut up,” he growled, unsnapping her pants and pulling them down past her knees. He didn’t remove her underwear, though, just pushed the strap of the thong to the side and peered intently at the bare skin of her hip. “I need to see if it marked you.”

  “Marked me?” Startled and more than a little uneasy, Corinne peered down at her own smooth skin, searching for some invisible brand. “Marked me how? And does this mean you know what that thing was? All I saw was hair and movement and—Christ, I think it had red eyes.”

  Luc ignored her until he’d flipped her onto her stomach to examine her side and lower back. Finally satisfied, he grabbed a soft throw blanket from the back of the sofa and wrapped it around her before dragging her back into his lap and holding her securely.

  “Luc?” she prompted.

  He rested his chin on the top of her head. “It was a barghest.”

  She blinked. “Run that one by me again?”

  “A barghest.”

  It sounded like bar guestto Corinne, but somehow she didn’t think what had run into her was anything quite so innocent.

  “Okay, what does that mean?”

  He shifted her closer against his chest. “It’s a creature from Faerie. Not a very pleasant one, as you’ve seen.”

  “Are you telling me that thing was Fae? Because I have to say, if it was, you’ve got some relatives experimenting with some pretty hinky genetics, buddy.”

  “Very funny. I’ve been trying to keep things simple for you when it comes to Faerie, but you have to remember that it’s an entire world unto itself. More than one kind of being lives there, and the word Faeis a catchall. It just refers to anything that originates in Faerie. It’s easy to use it referring to the sidhe, but really it encompasses a lot more.”

  “The sidhe. You mentioned that word before.” She searched her memory. “You said you and Seoc and the Queen were all part of that group.”