by Louisa Lo
“That must be around the time he first met the nymphs.” I pursed my lips. “And possibly kidnapped them?”
“I think it’s time for another client visit,” Gregory said.
Chapter Six
3:12 PM
Unscheduled Client Visit
The pair of human bodyguards in front of the mansion didn't even blink when we walked right past them and headed toward the stable. I had a feeling Gregory had put some kind of enchantment on them so our visit to the satyr would have the element of surprise.
“So what if the guy is actually doing something illegal?” I asked Gregory. “I mean, are there procedures we have to go through?” I wished I’d been given the entire Mercenary Code of Ethics in one single volume. I was always good with cramming for exams. But such a book didn’t exist, and I was forced to learn the rules as they became applicable.
“No set rules, per se. We have free reign with the punishment as long as it fits the crime. But in true mercenary fashion, we should find a way to make profit while doing the right thing.”
“How do we do that?” I asked. So profit might not be the main motivator, but still a desired side benefit. That was okay with me. We all had expenses to cover.
“Everyone has enemies, and everyone has somebody out there who would gain by their downfall. Mel and Candy could put together a list of the satyr’s enemies, and we will approach them to form a co-op to fund our operation in taking down Senator El and returning the girls home.”
“How ingenious…and evil.” I laughed.
“That's the advantage of not having shaken our hands on anything. All the better to switch sides with.” Amusement glinted in Gregory’s eyes.
I had to admit, I liked this lighthearted version of Gregory. With the last of our awkwardness melting away through focusing on the business at hand, and the sense of renewed energy he always got after visiting his adopted family, his expression was far less guarded than this morning.
Senator El wasn't in the stable, but the French door at the back of the mansion was wide open so we simply walked in.
And there he was, with his upper torso naked, face down on a massage chair. He was surrounded by two girls who bore a remarkable resemblance to their missing counterparts, except that their honey blond hair was tied back for the sake of convenience while they performed the massage. There was an infinite fluidity and sensuality in their movements, in their every glance and every lift of fingers, like a belly dance that had no beginning or end.
They looked attentive and willing enough, but after two years of captivity, there might be some Stockholm syndrome going on there.
When Senator El saw us, he got up right away and asked eagerly, “Do you have news for the girls?”
His two masseuses stopped their tasks and held their breath.
“What are their names? You never told me,” Gregory asked causally. “As a matter of fact, what are their names?”
He pointed at the two masseuses, who paled.
The satyr huffed. “I don't see what that has to do with anything. I hired you to do a job, and you can do it without knowing their names.”
“No, we can’t,” I countered. “Not if we think you’re holding them here illegally.”
I took a risk blurting that out, but it was a calculated one. It was a practiced move Gregory and I had down to the tee—me being blunt and he watching our target’s reaction to it.
The satyr exchanged a look with the two girls. He swallowed. “It's…it’s not what you think.”
One of the nymphs put her hand on his shoulder. “It's okay, we should tell them. I think they already figured out that we’re nymphs.”
She turned to me and Gregory. “I am Zelda, and this is my sister, Lydia.” She pointed at the other nymph.
The satyr sighed. “The five girls are all sisters, and they had been on the run from a collector for years when I found them.”
“A collector?” Gregory and I echoed.
“The Collector. He’s obsessed with us. Nymphs who are also Larger Fae are quite rare. While nymphs have long been sex symbols in a lot of cultures, the porn stars in male fantasy before there was even porn, the fact that we’re also full size makes us compatible sexual partners.” Lydia shuddered. “There are those who see us as nothing but live sex dolls to collect, and traders would capture and sell us for a very good price.”
“You think a trader got your sisters?” Gregory asked in equal part horror and disgust.
“Yes.” Zelda nodded. “I got a glimpse of him when they were taken. I think he’s a leprechaun. And he’ll sell them to the Collector. I’m sure of it.”
“Anything for a pot of gold, those damn leprechauns. I came across Luna, Tessa, Maria, Zelda, and Lydia two years ago, and I have been hiding them ever since,” Senator El explained.
“You mean you’re not sleeping with them?” I asked incredulously.
“No.” The satyr sounded rather offended, and just a bit grossed out. “These girls are too young for me. I never thought of them in that way.”
“So when you refer to them as your girls, you meant…”
“That they’re like my granddaughters,” he clarified.
“Oh,” I said, taken aback. “I have no idea how to tell a satyr’s age.”
Or that age had anything to do with a satyr’s sexual appetite. Weren’t they all supposed to be sex maniacs, according to the legends?
“I’m a hundred and sixty, though I do not grow fat with age like humans do. I ran for the Queen’s Plate when Queen Victoria was around,” Senator El said, exasperated. “Just because I’m a satyr doesn't make me a sex addict. I wasn’t like that even when I was a colt. Don't believe everything stereotypes tell you, young lady. All I ever wanted from the girls was some company for an old man, and massages. I told you I get stiff backs masquerading as human.”
Gregory and I exchanged a glance. That sure blew our theory out of the water.
“Please help us.” Zelda’s eyes were filled with tears. “There are many tribes of nymphs, and ours don’t actually enjoy or are interested in carnal pleasures. What others perceive as provocative is just the way we naturally move, no more erotic than a polar bear is being considered cute and fluffy. Oh, the terrible things they must be doing to Luna, Tessa, and Maria…”
Zelda and Lydia began to cry.
“Don’t be scared. They are not going to do anything to them.” Senator El tried to comfort the girls. “Not yet, anyway, not until…”
The girls cried harder.
Senator El ran his fingers through his hoarse hair, then pulled at it in frustration. “I really put my foot in that one. I’m terrible with this.”
After a while, the girls calmed down. Lydia sniffed. “We’ll go to the study and let you talk. We’re going to try calling our sisters again. Maybe the Goddess will be kind and let them hear us.”
Once the girls left the room, the satyr beckoned Gregory and I closer and whispered urgently, “You have to find the three girls before Zelda and Lydia get captured, too. In the Collector’s eyes, they are all part of the same ‘set.’ You know how the humans make those dirty jokes about twins. Now imagine that times five.”
“Is that why you said they won’t do anything to the three missing girls just yet?” I asked.
“Yes.” Senator El’s voice was filled with rage. “The leprechaun trader will wait until he gets a complete set before selling it to the Collector. It’s what those in the trade call packaging. As if they’re nothing but meat and vegetables! I beefed up security with the human guards, but they are vulnerable to magical influences. I can’t protect the girls for long. We have to find the leprechaun trader and the Collector before they strike again.”
“Why don’t you hire supernatural guards, like from the Rent-a-Supernatural-Cop?” Gregory asked, eyeing the luxurious mansion in suspicion. “Surely you can afford it.”
Senator El stiffened. “I have my reasons.”
Maybe he, too, was on the run. After al
l, he hadn’t exactly given us his real name, now had he? But his motivation for this job rang true, his concern for the girls genuine, so who were we to dig into the satyr’s secrets?
We said our goodbye to Senator El and made our way out of the mansion. We’d never walked through the interior of the house before, and its design turned out to be rather maze-like as we tried to find the front entrance.
I turned to Gregory. “I admit, I’m disappointed.”
“Why?”
“I thought I might have had a lead.” I sighed. “Like, maybe Ms. Whitehall’s moaning neighbor is connected to this case or something. You know, with all the complaints about overzealous sex. I thought maybe the leprechaun had disguised himself as a young woman, rented an apartment to hide the nymphs, a place that so happened to be next to our client for another case.”
Gregory laughed. “That would be a coincidence of epic proportion, and the coincidence fairies are all but retired these days.”
“I figure. Especially seeing how Senator El said they won’t do anything to the girls until the last two are captured. Why would they be moaning if the kidnapper leaves them be?”
“Ms. Whitehall most likely imagined the whole thing,” Gregory said. “She lives in an old building. Wind passing through old pipes could create that kind of wailing sound.”
“I suppose.”
A single groan drifted through the walls. Then another. This one louder. Carnal. Erotic. A sound halfway between pain and pleasure. It had a surreal quality to it, like we were eavesdropping in that classic restaurant scene of When Harry Met Sally...
“Er, would this house have the same kind of pipe problems?” I asked Gregory, trying to keep my voice clinical as my face heated up.
A third groan filled the air as we took off toward its source, quickly descending into a full chorus with multiple voices. What the hell? Was the satyr holding the missing girls, after all? Why call the mercenaries then? It wasn’t like we were good for any official records.
After some twisty turns and almost running into the wall a time or two—I did mention the mansion was shaped like a maze, right?—we came to a door where a new moan was coming from.
Gregory broke the door down and we rushed in, but there was nobody there except Zelda and Lydia, kneeling on the floor with candles all over them. The girls looked like we’d just scared the crap out of them.
“What are you doing here?” Zelda demanded.
“What are you doing here?” I echoed.
“We told you already. We’re trying to contact our sisters with the guide of the Goddess. You disrupted a very sacred moment.”
I looked around, noticing for the first time the room we barged into was indeed a study. “But all that moaning…”
“It’s the native tongue of our nymph tribe,” Lydia snapped. “Just like our movements get misinterpreted by everyone, so is our language. What sounds like lovemaking and ecstasy to you is really just the way our people talk normally.”
“And I assume your missing sisters will be trying to communicate in the same way on their end?” Gregory said.
I was out the door before the girls gave their confirmation.
Our two cases of the day were connected, after all.
Chapter Seven
3:43 P.M.
The Vengeance
We decided to go straight to Ms. Whitehall’s neighbor. Now that we realized what she heard wasn’t her imagination, stealth and timing were of the essence and it was best to actually perform the vengeance rather than talk about it. And talking she could keep us doing for hours.
“Do you have to get those out right in the middle of an elevator?” I asked Gregory, pointing at his wings.
All my life, I'd been taught that having your wings out before even meeting the target was equivalent to showing your privates in public. But it was the mercenaries’ way. It was going to take time to get over that conditioning and get into the spirit of doing it. For now, I reserved the right to bitch about it.
Gregory chuckled, flexing his wings like a bodybuilder would of his muscles. “Does it bother you?”
The gesture should’ve been sexy and sensual, but he did it in such an exaggerated manner that it was meant to be a joke. After half a day of awkwardness, we were finally getting comfortable with each other again.
“Cheeky bastard,” I murmured. I would commit the sight to memory to admire in my own privacy and my own leisure later. For now, I was just glad to be able to poke at him.
The elevator door opened with a ding. If I had worried about figuring out whether the girls were being held at the unit to the right or left of Ms. Whitehall’s, I needn’t be. Even before we exited the elevator, we could hear moans coming from the left one that sounded strikingly similar to the ones Zelda and Lydia were making when they tried to establish contact with their sisters.
But before we could enter the unit, someone teleported in the space right before me and Gregory.
And that someone was a mercenary.
How did I know? Because she had her wings out before she even finished teleporting.
“Hello, Pete.” She tilted her head toward Gregory with a flirtatious smile. She, like Candy, called him by his mercenary name. The dark-haired beauty wore a black bustier with red lace at the edges, and a tattoo of roses and vines covering her arms.
“Hey, Liz.” Gregory nodded back at her. The woman, roughly his age, had a strong power signature, albeit rather raw and had a chokingly bitter taste to it, like cherry cough medicine. She was no more born a Liz than Gregory was a Pete. I guess every mercenary had his or her own story. “What are you doing here?”
Liz’s smile was cold. “It appears that we have a slight case of double booking here. You see, Ms. Whitehall had also called me. Looks like the poor old lady didn’t have a lot of faith that you’d take her seriously. So she made a second call.”
“I bet she did.” Gregory snorted. “And I doubt you were going to take her seriously yourself. Not until you caught wind of me taking action. Suddenly, there’s a whiff of profit and everybody wants a piece.”
Liz shrugged. “There are no secrets in this trade. Come on, let's work together on this one.”
“If there are really no secrets in this industry, then you should also know that we already had an interview with the client,” I interjected. “How far along are you in the process?”
Liz paid attention to me for the first time since her arrival. She gave me a once over and glared. “Is this the partner I've been hearing about? I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes. Whatever happened to you wanting to break free and go solo?”
I got a feeling the girl was talking about more than just her professional relationship with Gregory. An ex, maybe? Should I, like, stake my claim or something? But what could I say to her?
Err, this guy may or may not be my solus iungere. Can you maybe like, back off until it’s all figured out?
No, thank you. I wasn’t going to go all cave woman regarding Gregory.
No matter how much a part of me wanted to.
“Megan is right about the process.” Gregory smirked at Liz, making me cheer internally for his backing. “We have the first right to this assignment, and we’ll do just fine without your help, thank you very much.”
The nymphs stopped their moaning abruptly.
Ignoring Liz’s hiss, I pushed past her and blew the door apart.
And took in the sight of five people in the tiny apartment.
There were the three missing nymphs at the back and a leprechaun on the ground, cowering under a female vengeance demon. She must’ve teleported directly into the apartment while we were talking to Liz. Her back was to us, and I couldn’t make out much of her except her slim form and extended wings, though there was something oddly familiar about her. Her power signature was even less disciplined than Liz’s. It was volatile and all over the place, matching her labored breathing and the pure rage I sensed from her.
The nymphs, tho
ugh, appeared surprisingly joyous given their ordeal. They were looking at the unknown vengeance demon like she was their savior, which she probably was.
“A triple booking.” Liz laughed from behind us, the sight improving her mood tremendously. “Alright, I’m outta here.”
She teleported away.
“Please don't hurt me,” the leprechaun pleaded with the unknown vengeance demon in his squeaky voice, likely sensing the gathering of her power as she took a step closer to him, seemingly ready to blast him to hell and back. “I'll return the girls. I’ll never do this kind of work again. Hell, I’ll even tell you who the Collector is.”
Gregory cleared his throat, addressing the back of the unknown vengeance demon. “Did Ms. Whitehall contact you for the job as well? I’m Pete of Clear Vengeance. Do I know you? I know every mercenary in Eastern Canada but your signature is unfamiliar to me.”
His words made the girl pause. She took a calming breath and stepped away from the leprechaun trader. The latter released a sigh of relief.
The unknown vengeance demon turned to us. “You think I’m a mercenary lowlife?”
There was equal parts shock, disgust, and hurt pride in her voice.
“Hey, watch your language.” I protested. Alright, a few months ago I was thinking the exact same thing about Gregory, but I was one of them now, and damn if that insult didn’t sting.
The unknown vengeance demon’s eyes settled on me and narrowed in recognition. “Megan Aequitas. So the rumors are true.”
I took in her wide eyes, tank top, and disheveled hair. There was a wanton, just-got-out-of-bed sexiness about her. But if I discounted that, and the exhaustion on her face, a shadow of a girl I once knew emerged.
Madeleine Abrianna Lex, my former classmate at Demon U, an arrogant vengeance demon with a prestigious family and impeccable bloodline. Except I happened to know about the little bit of nymph blood in her family history.