by S A Archer
Fletcher cut off Granger before he could voice whatever he meant to say. “We’ll do that. Everyone get some rest. We’ll hit this again tomorrow. Price, you come with me.”
Peyton watched as the others mumbled and staggered off. Granger was the last to give it up, taking one hard-edged look from Fletcher to convince him to fight this battle another day. Snatching his jacket from the back of his chair, Granger pushed past Peyton without a backward glance or a murmur of excuse.
Once the others were gone, Peyton followed Fletcher with a tired stride, comfortable in his skin and in his persona, even if his weariness was catching up on him. Credne couldn’t have known that his assignment would almost plunge Peyton into the fires of whatever hell that demon came from, but Peyton couldn’t imagine that it would have mattered. Not to a Sidhe. Not after all Peyton had done. And if Peyton got killed in the ‘line of duty’ for the fey, not a single one of them would mourn him. That was the suck-level his life had plunged to.
Peyton’s glance followed as Fletcher passed his badge in front of the magnetic reader outside a thick security door with a single port window, and then Fletcher punched in the code 747. Peyton looked away quickly, as Fletcher turned his head back up towards him. “We’ve only just begun to catalog the evidence from the Brightner building. There were quite a few objects that possessed magical signatures.”
Once inside, they paused in front of a wide light table strewn with bits and bobs and assorted junk. Peyton scowled. None of it was even remotely on the level of the cauldron he sought. Turning from the table, he started lifting the lids from the totes, and rummaging around inside. No cauldron.
“Something wrong?” Fletcher asked, something more than casual curiosity in his voice at Peyton’s irreverent handling of his evidence.
Peyton returned the lid to the tub. “There is nothing truly of value here. Not a thing that will interest Sophia in the least.”
With a wave, Fletcher encouraged Peyton to follow him. Behind banks of computers and testing equipment, a lit glass cabinet lined the entirety of one wall. The cauldron was there, among a plethora of other beautifully crafted objects, including the knife Peyton had planted. Fletcher clarified, “These were the items taken from the vault.”
The light glinting off the golden filigree seemed to flicker just for him. Peyton stared at the finely crafted cauldron. If not for the glass parting him from it, he could reach out a hand and cradle it in his palm. This treasure of the Sidhe. This proof to Credne that Peyton was worth keeping around. At least until Peyton could figure his own way out of this bloody curse. “If I am going to demonstrate my usefulness to Sophia, then I need something significant to offer.” Peyton tapped the glass. “Something like this cauldron would be perfect. That item in particular. I recall her inquiring about it, but Reginald wouldn’t part with it.” It was a spur of the moment lie, but it sounded plausible enough. Whatever it took to get the cauldron into his possession.
Fletcher nodded, serious but agreeing. “Then that’ll be the plan.” His hand clamped down on Peyton’s shoulder. “You go get some rest. We’ll hit up Sophia tomorrow and see what we can find out from her.”
Hard as it was, Peyton turned his back on the cauldron and left it behind. So close. But tomorrow, he’d have it in his hands. Getting away with it would be another thing entirely.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Granger should have gone home. He was expected to go home. His body needed to get the rest Fletcher had ordered that they achieve like dutiful soldiers. Only Granger knew his mind wouldn’t find quiet at home. There wouldn’t be any peace in an empty home with a head full of questions. On auto-pilot, he found himself not wandering out to his car, but down to the Cyber Forensics division. The hour didn’t matter. Ray Sullivan was a night owl in full swing, typing away on the keyboard in his lap as his legs were propped up on the desk, with another two keyboards to either side of his worn trainers.
Ray looked every bit of the techno-wielding geek that he was; in his worn out jeans, untucked and unbuttoned shirt, revealing a t-shirt beneath with the Star Trek logo emblazoned across the chest. Not too long ago his computer screens would have been reflecting on his glasses, but he’d traded them in for freshly lasered eyes. The stack of empty Starbucks coffee cups in his trash, and the fresh one now precariously by his ankle on the table, made it clear that Ray wasn’t going to run out of steam any time soon. “Granger, mate, just the chap I’ve been thinking about. You never replied to my text messages.”
“My presence is my reply,” Granger said, flopping in the chair close enough to Ray that he could see the bank of computer screens that surrounded them. “I was in the middle of a demon hunt.”
“So I saw.” With a couple of clicks, he brought up the video feed from one of the choppers. “Dramatic stuff. The only thing you’re missing is heroic theme music blaring from the background. Watch this leap from the disintegrating building in slow motion. It’s epic.” Ray piped through some action movie heroic theme music as Granger watched himself and Agent Price making their final leaps onto the skids of the helicopter. “Too bad we can’t load that to YouTube. It’d go viral for certain.”
“Fletcher would have us both drawn and quartered before the stream could go live.” Granger pulled out his phone and checked what Ray had sent him. Despite what he’d said, he’d not actually been aware that Ray sent him a text. He checked now to see what he’d said. Got something for you. Ah, nothing informative there. He tucked the phone away again. “So what do you have?”
Ray spun towards Granger, with that self-satisfied smirk. “Your suspect has quite an interesting circle of friends.” He lifted the stack of pages from the printer and tossed them into Granger’s lap. Now he had names to go with faces. Joe Lansing, the American from the fey club, and Riley Flynn, Joe’s face-kicking buddy. Skimming through the others, Granger saw that London wasn’t kidding about knowing vampires and shifters. It looked as if most of the people from her past were either one or the other. And now she was all cozied up with the fey.
The techno-genius didn’t even bother to watch Granger flipping through the pages, but rather focused on the screens around him as he brought up the same information digitally. “I’ve been sparring with this guy all day. Reggie Black. Interpol has been monitoring his hacking for nearly a decade, but he’s never left a clear enough trail to nail him on anything illegal. He has been leading me on a merry goose chase, but he’s left enough of a fingerprint that I’ve been able to decipher his activities.” With a wide grin, he jammed a few more keys, and then dropped his head back and laughed as the image of a dark haired man with pale blue eyes cascaded onto every screen around them. The images flipped through a slide show, with different ones rolling on each screen, but all images of the same guy. “The notorious Dante; master vampire, and purveyor of blood and dark magic.”
Granger stared at the flickering gallery of photos. “Did they locate him?”
“No, but they did trace a link between Dante and this guy,” Ray tapped another couple of buttons, bringing up the image of the vampire Granger had seen a few nights ago, “Derek Hunter. Apparently, he’s a player in Dante’s organization. Bounty hunter, I believe.”
“A blood hunter,” Granger corrected. “He’s after London’s blood.”
Ray grabbed up his coffee and knocked back another jolt of caffeine, before saying, “Then she’s got a problem, because from what I can tell, Derek is very, very good.”
Chapter Thirty
“Are you sure he’s going to show?” London’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Perhaps I should have been the bait.”
Riley placed his hand over the ear piece, as if that might make it clearer. “We couldn’t be that obvious, or he’d have known for certain that this was a trap.” From the rooftop a good distance away, Riley watched Thorn through his binoculars. Laying flat on th
e rooftop made Riley a smaller silhouette against the starry night sky. Across the field of heather, in the small corpse of trees by the stream, Thorn made camp and kept himself busy with that cover act. The fairy was anything but the easy target he appeared to be. He was one of the warriors that guarded the Isle of Fey with fierce dedication. To catch a vampire hunting for fey blood, Thorn had been more than willing to put his neck on the line for this mission.
Not that he was truly as vulnerable as he was meant to appear. Riley’s high powered rifle beside him matched the ones Joe and London each had at the ready from their vantage points.
“It’ll be sunrise in about an hour,” Thorn’s voice cut into the channel. He’d been quiet most of the night. “If he doesn’t come soon, then he’s not going to show.”
“I told you that website wasn’t that reliable,” Joe chided.
And the comment made Riley roll his eyes. Joe wasn’t going to let him live this down, and he wasn’t going to start believing that Riley’s own background and experience was as valuable to the fey as Joe’s prior military career. But Riley would prove him wrong.
Just maybe not tonight.
“Motion detector tripped to the east of your position Thorn.” Joe’s voice cut back in, more terse this time. He was up on the ridge overlooking the valley below. Riley’s position was closer, on the roof of the abandoned petrol station just off the old back road. London’s position was inside the farmhouse across the valley. The three of them triangulated on Thorn’s position, right where Riley had said he’d be in the private message he’d sent to ‘Hunter’. Their conversations had been bouncing back and forth all day, arranging this job, just as the job had been set up for Bain Greim. This should work. It had to work.
“I hear something in the undergrowth,” Thorn murmured into the hidden mic he wore.
“Undergrowth?” London’s voice rose with confusion. “Vampires don’t crawl in the undergrowth.”
Riley steadied his aim, scanning with the night vision scope for the movement. “I can see it, shifting the grasses. No clear visual yet.”
“Motion detector to the north tripped,” Joe cut in again. “And another to the west.”
London cursed over the com. “Werewolves!”
Through the sight, Riley watched Thorn snatch up his dual short swords. He had them in hand, and his wings fluttering to lift him off the ground, when the werewolves burst from cover.
“Fire!” Joe called over the intercom. The soft crack of distant gunfire echoed like random firecrackers. Riley sighted in on one of the animals and pulled the trigger, hitting him in the back and slowing him down, but not stopping him with one shot. His claws swept for Thorn after the briefest of pauses, and Riley shifted his aim for the creature’s head. That one brought him down.
There was no chance to try and drive them off. No sense in it either. These encounters were growing all too frequent, and Riley never once saw a shifter back away from its prey, even when his pack mate’s bodies littered the ground around them.
Thorn’s fighting was swift and agile, but just barely staying ahead of the attackers. He soared upward, and then angled back hard and twisted towards the ground to avoid the leaps of two different animals, only to have to fast break to the side to avoid a third.
Taking aim, with the fairy warrior dodging and weaving, was more than nerve wrecking. London and Joe were making their shots count, and Riley redirected his to the wolves moving around the perimeter, before they could get into the fray.
Thorn’s slicing blades took out more of the animals than Riley’s bullets, but after a hot five or six minutes of chaos, the pack lay dead in the killing zone.
“So much for that website,” Joe grumbled. “Nothing but a werewolf magnet.”
“It was worth the shot, Riley. It just didn’t pan out.” London’s voice was exasperated. “Sun will be coming up soon. Let’s pack this in.”
Riley crossed his arms on the rooftop before him and banged his forehead onto his wrist. Why couldn’t this have worked? It was all arranged. Why would werewolves show up, when it was Derek he’d made the arrangements with?
“Thanks for your help, Thorn.” Joe called over the com. “You weren’t hurt, were you?”
“Nothing Dawn can’t fix right up.” The fairy packed up his gear, and Riley covered him, just on the off chance that Derek was lurking out there. But the fairy gathered his gear and was gone in a flick of teleportation.
Joe said, “Riley, you go on back to Tiernan’s. I’m going to follow London home, just to make sure there isn’t anyone waiting for her there.”
“Copy that,” Riley said, “See you back at the mansion.” Then he jerked off the ear piece and flung it into his bag. “Bloody vampire!” He snapped. “Where are you, Derek?”
“Right here.”
The deep rumble of the voice startled Riley, and even as he swung around he lost the creature to the motion blur of preternatural speed. He couldn’t have countered the punch to his face. Couldn’t have fought the blackness that came rushing in after it.
Chapter Thirty-One
As ready as he was to throw off his persona and be done with the day, Peyton restrained himself long enough to pull his car out of the parking lot and cruise down several blocks before turning down a side street and tucking his vehicle into a back corner of a parking lot behind a tavern. The habit of self-preservation had him parking in a manner that kept the boot of his car tucked against the privacy fence so no one could sneak up on him.
Banging on the release for the glove box, it fell open, dropping his pack of cigarettes onto the seat beside him. Peyton dug into the package, pulled out the rolled joint, and lit it up.
A bloody demon. He’d been facing off with a power crazed wizard and a bloody demon.
He’d not been in the Brightner Building when it came crashing down. The dwarves he’d escorted to the basement got him out before their efforts brought the place raging down. Dwarves knew things about structural integrity that human engineers would never know. A few well-timed hammer strikes had sent a reverberation through the supports, cracking the entire foundation more effectively than any explosion. They could have left him behind, but had teleported him out.
And then ganged up on him to beat their revenge into his ribs for capturing them in the first bloody place.
How screwed up was his life? He had no allies. No friends.
Just the relief of magic to assuage his battered conscience a little. Peyton anticipated the fog of calm to descend over him as he sucked in a lungful of the magic-laced smoke. Anticipated it as he held the smoke deep inside.
Anticipated…
But the relief never came.
Peyton’s breath expelled hard. Lighting up the tip again, even though the cherry of the joint was still aglow, he puffed on it again. Maybe the ambrosia dust hadn’t been evenly distributed, or shifted to the other end of the joint. He burned through three quarters of the joint, still getting no hit of the magic he sought. Pinching out the glowing ash, he extinguished it. Trembling fingers tore at the paper, shredding it, until he could reach the dust inside, coating the marijuana. The dust clung to his fingertips, and Peyton licked at them.
Still nothing.
Crushing the joint with a growl of fury, Peyton flung the remains out of the window. He shoved the car back into gear and drove back towards the rented flat with fury mounting by the second.
In less than ten minutes, Peyton slammed open the door to the flat. He stormed inside, finding Deacon with his feet propped up on the coffee table, the sports section lying across his lap, and BBC News playing on the telly. The Changeling glanced up at him and asked, “Hard day at work? I expected you home hours ago.”
Not answering, Peyton stomped across the flat to his bedroom, where he grabbed up his suitcase and slammed it do
wn on the bed so hard that it bounced. He tore the zipper open and then plunged his hand into the secret compartment between the lining and the outside of the case, in search of his stash. He didn’t care that Deacon had followed him and was leaning against the doorway. He had to know. He had to find out if it was true, this dread that tore at him.
Deacon’s voice almost purred with his pleasure, “Problem?”
Peyton opened the sandwich bag containing the blossom of ambrosia. He drew out the confection flower and bit into it, determined to fill himself with the relief that the magic could provide. He wanted the high. He wanted the forgetfulness. He wanted the escape.
“Funny thing, about the curse. You can’t imbibe on any magic other than Sidhe magic.” Deacon stepped closer, with the role of predator in his hips.
Peyton dropped to his knees, crushing the bag and its delicate contents in his hands. All the while to the background music of Deacon’s amusement and laughter. Then he shoved himself up to his feet. Peyton flung the bag of ambrosia at the Changeling. “You did this? You did this to me on purpose?”
“Apso-frigging-lutely.” Deacon’s wicked grin spread across his face, as he snickered evilly. He backed into the main room of the flat, giving them space to maneuver as Peyton dove for him.
The fight was on. A brutal barrage of fists and knees, head-butting and scratching and punching, over and over. Peyton gave as much as he got, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t hit Deacon enough to get the fury out of him and the returning blows weren’t enough to break through his blinding anger. It was a messy fight, mostly scrambling on the floor. But finally Deacon scooped up Peyton, lifting him with a shoulder wedged into Peyton’s gut, raising him up and slamming him down on the coffee table hard enough to shatter the glass and breakout the wooden legs into splinters. That was enough to knock the wind out of him and knock the fire out of his anger. Peyton rolled, embracing himself, letting the pain fill his focus as he curled onto his side.