But I knew people.
∞∞∞
“Chas,” I called as soon as I’d stepped through the doorway into my house, once again lamenting having a houseguest. I wanted to get on with finding Dee and the others. Playing hostess wasn’t on my agenda, but I felt compelled to at least check on him and make sure he was mending properly.
“In here,” he said from the parlor.
I hung my purse on the peg in the foyer, strode into the parlor and sat next to him on the sofa. He’d found the stash of cookies I’d bought for Maurice. The empty bag sat on the coffee table next to a pizza box from Mickey’s Deli, also empty.
“I see your ordeal hasn’t hurt your appetite.”
He shrugged. “Stress eating.”
I wasn’t going to ask what stress he was under; I really didn’t want to hear about it. He told me anyway.
“I’m going crazy stuck here in your house. I can’t figure out how to work your TV and your computer is password protected. I feel more like a prisoner on a desert island than a guest.”
“You know, Chas,” I said, irritation plain in my voice, “having you here is a lot like babysitting a five-year-old. It’s not my job to entertain you. There are plenty of books around. You could try reading one.”
He didn’t seem fazed. “Where are you going next? I can see in your face that you’ve just stopped by and are planning to go out again.” He paused. “For that matter, where have you been all morning? At least tell me your adventures, so I can live vicariously.”
Chas might be irritating, but he wasn’t stupid. He was creative. And I really needed to talk to help me sort things out. It should be Dee I was talking to, but—
I told Chas everything, starting with the mysterious deaths, the ghosts that couldn’t move on, the disappearance of The Gate and Gil, and that now I couldn’t reach Diego and was deeply frightened about what might happen under the Vulture Moon.
“Wow, Oona.” His eyes were huge and staring. “I had no idea.” He swallowed hard. “I’m sorry for dragging you into my drama. Makes me and my little problems look silly.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m glad we could help.”
He barely heard me; his mind was whirling on all that I’d told him. He jumped up and grabbed my hand. “Shit, Oona. We have to find Diego.”
I gently freed my hand from his. “I need to go see a friend who might be able to help with that.”
His eyes brightened. “Can I come? You’ve already told me everything. You might as well let me go with.”
I rubbed my chin, thinking. He had a point: I had told him everything. With Dee missing, There wasn’t any danger involved in the errand. But Chas was ordin. I hated that I felt that way—that he was ordin and shouldn’t be involved with magical things or beings. I’d thought I was a better person than that.
“You ate the cookies I was saving for him.”
Chas looked at the empty bag and hung his head in mock shame.
“All right. But for God’s sake, don’t act the fool when you meet Maurice. He’s a magic talking rat,” I said, to prepare him.
Chas’s eyes opened wide and he laughed. His laughter cut off when he saw my face.
“Seriously, Chas. Don’t embarrass me in front of Maurice, or anyone else for that matter.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, truly contrite. “But a magical talking rat? Really?”
I sighed. It wasn’t too long ago that much in the magical world was strange and weird to me. I wondered if I had embarrassed Diego in those days.
I lightly punched Chas’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”
On the way we stopped at a convenience store and picked up some Gummy Bears.
“Your rat friend has a sweet tooth?” Chas said.
I nodded but didn’t answer. My mind was on Dee. On getting him out of that warehouse. If I could just figure out how.
I pulled into the parking lot behind the Community Center, drove to the back and parked. I knew Chas had questions, but he kept his mouth closed. Small favors.
I grabbed the Gummy Bears and opened the car door. Usually Maurice would have ventured out to see what I’d brought him, but not today.
“Maurice,” I called softly. “Come meet my cousin, Chas. And I have some serious business I need to talk to you about.”
Maurice trotted out of the greenery and stood at my feet, looking up. His pink nose twitched.
“Gummy Bears?”
I nodded and opened the bag. I set it down near him then sat cross-legged on the asphalt. Chas sat next to me, a fool’s grin on his face. Maurice nodded to Chas, said, “Pleased to meet you,” and whistled. Three rats came from the greenery and hauled away the candy bag.
“You look grim,” Maurice said to me. “What’s happening?”
I gave him a quick rundown of my trip to the warehouse and my visit with the magic police. His eyes hardened, and his nose stopped twitching as I talked.
“I know you have an extensive rat network,” I said, wrapping up. “Is there a way you could send some of your rats to the warehouse to check if Diego and the others are really there?”
Maurice nodded. “Consider it done. In the meantime, I’d suggest you talk to the fairies. Their warriors are what you need if you want to stage an attack and rescue.”
Maurice’s mind had leapt ahead of my own. He was right, of course. If several sorcerers were involved in the abductions, the chances of my successfully mounting a rescue alone were slim. If I knew for certain where Dee and the others were, I could turn the information over to the magic police and let them get the men out. But my meeting with McGowan, and even Jack’s seeming hesitancy to help, didn’t give me a lot of faith in the MPs believing me and doing something about it.
If I was certain, I could tell Tyron and Juliana and maybe they’d work their ordin police contacts. Except that the ordin police would have no idea how to deal with magic they didn’t know existed.
I licked my lips. “How long until we know if Diego and the others are at the warehouse? And how do I meet with the fairies? I don’t personally know any.”
Maurice sat up on his hindquarters. His whiskers and nose twitched as if he smelled the answers on the air.
Maybe he did, because he said, “All three are at the warehouse, along with a dozen others. Gate and Diego are bespelled. His brother is there but not bespelled.” His nose twitched again. I thought he was accessing a psychic link with his brethren. “My rat in the warehouse says the magic there is very dark.”
My heart turned over in my chest. Plans formed in my mind. I discarded each one as unworkable.
“How do I contact the fairies?” I asked again.
Maurice shrugged his rat shoulders. “I don’t hang out with them myself. No one in my family does. Just go do some magic or something.” He turned and scampered a few feet away before turning back to me. “Hurry, Oona. I have a very bad feeling about this.”
Chapter Sixteen
Chas hadn’t said a word since we’d pulled into the Community Center parking lot and was still quiet as we drove toward my house. My mind was so taken up with worry about Dee and wondering how to find a fairy that I didn’t really register his long silence until I’d pressed the button to open my garage door. I pulled into the garage, shut off the car, and turned to him.
“You can talk now if you want,” I said.
Chas nodded dumbly. I waited.
He drew a deep breath and let it out before saying, “It’s not all fun and games, is it?”
“Magic? The work Diego and I do? No, it’s not.”
Chas nodded again. He opened the door on his side and got out. He stood next to the car a moment, shivered, and took a few steps toward the back door. He stopped, turned, and looked at me.
“Do you use a key for your door?”
I smiled without humor. “Yeah, I lock my doors. I lock the windows. And, except for this morning when you were here, I put up protective wards strong enough to pretty much guaranteed nothing evil can
get in.”
Chas’s face looked so stricken, the vibe flowing off of him was so fearful that I touched his arm and said, “It’s not always scary and awful.”
He chuffed softly. “Glad to hear it.”
I took down the wards and unlocked the back door. He followed me into the mudroom and from there into the kitchen.
“Why do you do it?’ Chas asked as we settled at the kitchen table.
I’d met Diego at a murder scene. I’d known Brad Keel, the murdered man, and wanted to help find his killer. Juliana and Tyron had hired me to help with the case. After that, one thing led to another and now here I was.
“To find justice, I guess. To put things gone wrong back right.”
Chas nodded.
“Look,” I said, “I have to go find a fairy and I have no idea how to do that. If you want to come with me, you’re welcome to.”
His eyes shifted back and forth. “Are they dangerous?”
“Fairies? The one’s I’ve met were nice. I haven’t met any of their warriors though.”
Again, I wished I could get into Dee’s house and to his spell books. There was probably an easy way to call a fairy, but I had no idea what it was. I couldn’t call Jack and ask since I’d been told firmly by his boss to stay out of this case.
I drummed my fingers on the kitchen table, wondering how to find a fairy. Maurice’s words came back to me: Do some magic or something.
I had no magic to do in this situation, but I had my psychic abilities and I could feel for magic easily enough. One thing I’d learn, the magical were around all the time; the ordins just didn’t know it.
“I have an idea,” I said. “Grab your jacket. We’re going for a walk.”
We went out the front door to the Strand, the cement walkway between the row of expensive, ocean-facing houses and the beach. I turned left and walked toward Redondo Beach where the shore had a wilder, rockier terrain than the soft sands of Hermosa. My intuition said I was more likely to find a fairy there.
“You want to go on the pier?” Chas asked.
I nodded.
The Hermosa pier was garden variety and basic, a wide wooden finger stretching over the sand and water. The Redondo Beach pier a misshapen rectangle with shops, restaurants, and an arcade called the Fun Factory that was only open on weekends. Food scents mixed with the tang of saltwater and fish as we walked onto the pier. Fisherman lined two sides of the rectangle, their poles bobbing when they’d get a strike, buckets at their feet holding the day’s booty. Seagulls wheeled and called, hoping to snag some of a fisherman’s catch or at least a bite of bait. Night herons stood one-legged on the railings, sleeping while day-life went on around them. A brown pelican strutted around like it owned the place.
My fingers tingled, feeling magic rise from below. I peered over the railing to the water caressing the sea rocks. I couldn’t spot anyone, but I knew someone magical was there. Even if it wasn’t a fairy, it might be someone who could tell me how to contact them.
One of the spells I knew was a way to make myself known to other magical beings. There was no guarantee that just because I advertised my presence someone would come up and say hello, but it seemed like my best shot. I turned slightly away from Chas for privacy—weird, I know, but it seemed right—and muttered the spell.
I felt my body glow with a light I couldn’t see with normal human vision, but only with magical sight. Chas stood next to me, casually looking down at the ocean over the same railing I leaned on. If there was some visible, aural, or olfactory change that ordinary people could perceive, I was sure Chas would mention it. Hey, Oona! You’re glowing! Or God, Oona! What’s that smell? Something along those lines.
I stood as still as I could for several minutes, still chanting the spell in my head, in case that made a difference. Finally, I felt a small tug at my pant leg. I looked down and saw a tiny winged being—a fairy right out of a children’s story with delicate green dragonfly-like wings. I nodded to the fairy and, under my breath, greeted her and asked to talk.
The fairy tilted her head, and, in my mind, I heard her say, “Think and I will hear.”
A psychic fairy. That was good fortune. Though maybe all fairies were psychic. I had no way of knowing. I’d only today learned that Maurice communicated mind-to-mind with his extended rat pack.
I thought my request to her: to meet with a warrior leader and beg for the fairies to help me mount a rescue of abducted wizards.
The fairy flew up next to my ear and said in a spoken voice that tinkled like tiny bells, “Loose the ordin and go to the Ladies. My commander will meet you there and hear your plea.”
“Sorry,” I said to Chas. “I need—” I tilted my head toward the public restrooms.
The restroom was deserted when I walked in, all the stall doors ajar. I turned on the water at the sink and slowly washed my hands. A minute or so later a tall, muscular woman with pink hair strode in. She wore leopard-print leggings and a yellow T-shirt that hung past her hips.
“Here I am,” she said in a gravelly voice that completely fit her persona. “Talk.”
I turned to face her.
She peered at me. “You’re with that wizard, aren’t you? What’s his name? Adair?” Understanding blossomed in her eyes. “I heard The Gate and some other wizard got snatched. That’s what you’re here about, right?”
I quickly sketched out everything I knew about the abduction of The Gate and Gil and Dee’s disappearance. I told her the rats had confirmed that the three were in the warehouse in Torrance. I told her what I feared about the Vulture Moon.
“That’s tomorrow,” she said. “Not a lot of time. I’m assuming you want our help mounting a rescue.”
I liked this fairy woman. Liked that she grasped things quickly and seemed willing to help. I knew there would be a price, but if I could I would pay it.
“Can you help?” I said.
The tall fairy shrugged one strong shoulder and nodded. “I can pull together a squad for tonight. Darkness is best. Say, three a.m.?”
“Yes. I’ll be there.” I hesitated but had to ask, “What would you want in return?”
Her voice flattened and grew cold. “I want the wizard.”
My heart thudded. “Which one?”
“The dark one. The one willing to kill for power. A wizard like that is a blight that must be stamped out.”
“The sorcerer,” I said, needing to draw a clear line between practitioners of bright and dark magic.
She sneered. “Wizard. Sorcerer. Wizard turned sorcerer. I don’t care what you call him. He’s my price.”
Everything seemed to freeze inside me. What if The Gate was behind the abductions and did plan a human sacrifice to up his personal power? From what little I knew of him, I thought The Gate was capable of most anything. Was I about to promise Dee’s mentor to the fairies in payment for freeing him?
No matter who was behind it all, who was I to promise any human being to this fairy warrior? A warrior who didn’t seem to have anything good in mind for the human.
A human sorcerer who planned something horrible for Dee and people he loved.
“Well?” the fairy warrior said, her hands on her hips, her elbows akimbo. “Do we have a deal or don’t we?”
I swallowed hard. “We do.”
“Three a.m.,” the fairy woman said. “I’m Elgrin.”
“Oona,” I said.
Elgrin nodded and then was gone in a sprinkle of green sparks.
When I returned to Chas on the pier, his eyes were wide with question and expectation.
“You were gone a long time? Meet anyone interesting?”
Maybe it had been a mistake to let Chas come along. He was too excited by all things magical and didn’t have the good sense God gave a goose. The last thing I wanted was him knowing that the fairies and I would try to liberate the men tonight. He’d want to come along and pout when I said no. I didn’t need any added stress.
I shook my head and sighed loudly. “I don
’t think this is going to work. There don’t seem to be any fairies around. Let’s go back to my place. I have to figure out some other way to reach them.”
Chas shot me a look that said he didn’t quite believe me. I peeked inside his mind and saw that he’d seen the tall woman walk into the restroom. He’d kept watch and hadn’t seen her come out, even after I walked back over to him. His two-plus-two equaled the suspicion I was lying, but he wasn’t sure enough to push it.
Lucky for me, his mental image of a fairy was in line with the one I’d spoken with first—a small and delicate Tinkerbelle-like thing. The tall, muscular woman confused him even as he suspected she was somehow connected with the magical world.
The sun was moving westward, reaching toward the horizon. I pulled out my phone and checked the time—6:30 p.m. No wonder my stomach was growling. I hadn’t eaten all day.
“How about we stop at Mickey’s Deli on the way back,” I said. “Pick up a pizza or a couple of subs for dinner.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said, but the usual enthusiasm he showed for food was absent from his voice.
He touched my shoulder as I turned to go. “Oona, when are you going to tell me the truth about everything?”
Chapter Seventeen
“Listen, Chas,” I said, “for your safety you need to understand—there are wicked things out there. This isn’t scaring your ex with conjured dogs. Whoever is behind this is evil and planning more evil. This isn’t anything you want to be deeply involved in.”
He leaned toward me. “You’re going to try to rescue Diego, aren’t you?”
Maybe I shouldn’t have taken Chas with me to meet with Maurice. But since he knew what I was planning, I was going to have to trust his discretion.
This was a weird spot to be in—desperate to get Dee out of whatever trouble he was in, and nearly as desperate that Chas not know what I was up to lest he wanted to come along—or something worse.
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