It took me about ten minutes to reach the back door, then I turned to face the room. No one appeared to be looking at me. I grew back to my full size, drew the paintball gun with the sleepy gas, and fired five paintballs into the room. Twisting the doorknob, I backed through the doorway and closed the door.
I found myself in a short hallway with a door on either side. A small, empty office showed through one open door. The other doorway opened into what looked like a break room and a changing room for the dancers. At the end of the hall was a stairway leading up.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up, I saw a closed door with two thugs standing outside. One of them opened his mouth, and I fired another red ball at the door. Both thugs sank to the floor as the pink mist engulfed them.
I waited until the mist settled, then climbed the stairs to the door. The knob moved when I twisted it, so I pushed the door open. Vance sat behind a large desk, and six of his men stood around the room. One more sat next to Sam on a couch. She looked a little disheveled and sported what would probably turn into a black eye. I saw red.
“Ah, Miss Rogirsdottir,” Harold Vance said. “I’m so glad you could join us. It seems my men mistook—”
It took me only two steps to reach him, so he didn’t get to finish the little speech he had evidently rehearsed. My left hand clutched his throat, pulled him from his chair, and slammed him against the wall. My right hand drew my sword.
The Werewolves were slower. Only about half of them had their guns drawn when Vance hit the wall.
“If you ever touch one of my employees again,” I said through gritted teeth, “I will be carrying your wife’s head when I come to talk with you.” His eyes widened in fear. “Tell your men to drop their guns. Now. I can hear the click of a trigger, and I’ll be gone by the time a bullet gets here, but you won’t be.”
His voice sounded a little strangled as he said, “Drop your guns. Do it now!”
I counted six objects hit the floor. I knew there was a man to my left, and I hadn’t heard a thump from that direction. With a long step-pivot off my left foot, I swung around, and my sword took off the Were’s arm between his wrist and his elbow. The clatter of a pistol hitting the floor sounded as I swung back.
“Sam, are you okay?” I asked.
“Y-yeah. I guess so.”
“Which guys beat up you and Josh?”
She pointed to the two men who had staked out my house in Georgetown.
“Stand up and go downstairs and out the front door,” I told her. “My friend Isabella is waiting there for you. Tell her that if I’m not back in ten minutes, to come and get me.”
“Okay,” she said, standing and walking to the door. “Thanks, Kellana.” Her voice broke a little, then I heard her steps on the stairs.
“Now,” I said to Vance, “you and I are going to go somewhere private and talk. Your thugs are going to stay here. Understand?”
He nodded. I grabbed him by the hair and pushed him in front of me toward the door. As I passed the two Weres Sam had pointed out, I swung my sword and disemboweled one, then took the head of the other on the back swing. I heard a gasp from more than one of the remaining Weres.
Vance stopped and stared at the men I had killed. The headless one toppled, and the other dropped to his knees, his hands clutching his belly, trying to keep his intestines from spilling out on the floor. I prodded Vance in the butt with the point of my sword, and he hopped toward the door.
“Where’s an empty room?”
“Down here,” he said, indicating a room at the end of the hall.
I put the sword point between his shoulder blades. “Lead on.”
The room was empty. From the rumpled covers on the bed, I assumed it was the place where he bedded his dancers. I pushed him toward a chair and told him to sit.
“So,” I said, leaning against a wall with my sword point resting on the floor, “you wanted to talk with me. Now’s your chance. Talk.”
He stammered around until the last thin thread of my patience snapped.
“You’re looking for a statue,” I said. “Why? You can’t use it.”
Vance squirmed and looked uncomfortable.
“Do you even know what it is?” I asked. From his face, I could tell that he hadn’t a clue. “You idiot. Who’s the mage who paid you to steal it?”
I laid the blade of my sword across the back of his hand. His skin sizzled like bacon, and he tried to jump back, but the chair was backed against a wall.
“Mr. Vance, I’m not a cruel person. I would prefer to go about my business, and not have anything to do with you or blood mages. But you have attacked me and people under my protection. Unless you cooperate with me, I shall be forced to conclude that you are the source of my problems. And if I can solve my problems by removing you from this reality, I shall do so.”
“My pack would avenge me,” he snarled.
“You are assuming there will be a pack tomorrow morning.”
The shock in his eyes told me I was finally getting through to him.
“You aren’t powerful enough to take on three hundred Werewolves.”
I smiled. “You will never know.” I could see the outline of a cell phone through the material of his suit. Reaching inside his jacket, I pulled it out and put it in my bag.
Seven minutes of silence followed. Right on cue, I heard the roar of a jaguar from downstairs. Vance jumped in his seat, his eyes wide in panic.
“My friends have arrived,” I said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Vance. I really despise the slaughter of women and children, no matter what race they’re from. But you leave me with no bargaining chips. What am I to tell the demons when they ask who is hiding the statue?” I sighed. “I’m just a small part of all this, and I don’t have any control over what those far more powerful than me might do.”
I turned toward the door.
“Karl von Wagner,” Vance blurted out. “He offered to pay a million dollars for the statue.”
“And who offered to pay more?” I asked. I didn’t believe for a second that Vance would go to all this trouble for a million. “Come now. Surely you have the bids submitted to Carleton Weber. You got those when you killed him and took his computer.”
Vance shook his head. “I didn’t kill Weber.” He took a deep breath. “Akari Nakamura offered two and a half million. I figured that we could get the bidding higher.”
“Weber thought that, too. Don’t assume you can protect yourself better than he did. Just look at what one Elf can do, and then think of what might happen if one of the great wizards or a demon decided to twist you. I would advise you to lose interest in that statue.”
I walked out, calling, “Isabella, I’ll be right down.”
Chapter 6
Sam awaited us in the woods across the street. I put my arm around her and hugged her to me.
“You’re all right?” I asked, and gently touched the swelling around her eye.
“Yeah, I’m okay. How’s Josh?”
“I don’t know. We’re going to go find out.”
“Who were those guys?”
“Criminals. I’m so sorry you got mixed up in this. They seem to think I know something, but they’re wrong. It’s the same group of thugs who tried to kidnap me at the nursery the other morning.”
“I picked a good time to dye my hair, didn’t I?”
I chuckled. “Your timing isn’t that great, but I am flattered.”
“Yours isn’t dyed, is it?”
I drew away from her a little and scanned her face. Although she was understandably shaken up a little, I saw strength there. She was a survivor.
“No, this is my hair. Can you keep a secret?”
She nodded. I pulled my hair back so she could see my pointed ear.
“I’m not exactly Human,” I said.
“I kinda figured that out. More human than those goons back there, though,” Sam replied.
I smiled. “Thank you. I do need you to be discreet about what you
saw today.”
“Not a problem. Kellana,” she said, the expression on her face very earnest, “some people think that all the beings who came across the dimensions are monsters, but most of us don’t think that. We know that a lot of you are good. Everyone who works for you knows about the Fairies, and Fred and Kate. We see you with the plants.” She shrugged. “We all know you’re from somewhere else.”
I called Maurine when we got back to the car. She told me that Josh was sedated. The doctor promised to call her when they judged him ready for visitors.
We drove to the nursery, where Ed and the rest of Sam’s crew were gathered. Special Agent Torbert was there as well.
“Miss Rogirsdottir,” Torbert said. “I see that you found your missing employee.”
“Yes, she turned up,” I answered.
“I’ll need to speak with her. We do take kidnapping seriously, and we’ll need her cooperation to find the people responsible for this.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said. “The matter has been resolved.”
He pursed his lips and then frowned. “I thought this might be connected with the incident the other morning.”
“Are those men who assaulted me still in jail?” I asked.
“No, they bailed out.”
“One of the more stupid practices your society engages in. Letting criminals buy their freedom so they can commit more crimes.”
“I hoped you might allow the law to handle this matter,” he said.
“Agent Torbert, many of the beings who came here from other realms don’t respect your laws. If I can’t protect my employees, they won’t respect me, either. I gave you a chance to show me your laws work, but you let a pair of kidnappers go free. As I said, the situation has been resolved.”
Isabella and I swung by the hospital that evening to see Josh. The doctor told me that Josh had two cracked ribs, a mild concussion, and a lot of bruises. They planned to keep him overnight and discharge him the next morning. Sam showed up as we were leaving and declared him a hero. I don’t think he noticed when I left.
“You impressed Samantha,” Isabella told me as we waited for our meal at the steakhouse where we went for dinner.
I laughed. “In what way? She barely said hello.”
Isabella shook her head. “Not at the hospital. At the strip club. When she came out, she said that you were ‘kicking ass and taking names’.”
My face suddenly felt hot. “She really said that?”
The shifter nodded. “You surprised me at Vance’s estate. I didn’t have you pegged as a warrior.”
“Elves don’t have the kind of gender divisions Humans have here on Earth,” I mumbled. “We all learn to use weapons and how to hunt when we’re growing up.”
“And how to intimidate people? How to assault an enemy castle?”
My training had been a bit beyond normal, but my father was a retired queen’s guard. I didn’t want to talk about the five years I spent walking the realms with Alaric, or what I had to do to survive in Germany. Alaric was a master at running a bluff, and I had a ringside seat for a lot of his schemes. Also, for the occasions when his schemes went wrong, and we had to fight our way out.
“Werewolves are easy due to their pack dominance hierarchy,” I said. “If Vance had been in his wolf form, I probably would have had a fight on my hands. But all I had to do was overpower one person, and all the rest tucked their tails between their legs. The only alpha at Vance’s home was his wife, and she’s all looks and dominance. Dumb as a brick.”
I shrugged. “A lot of races would simply ascribe it to natural Elven arrogance. We naturally assume we are the smartest, strongest, most beautiful people in the room and that everyone will bow down to us. But we’re very modest compared to Angels.”
Isabella snorted, then she changed the subject. “So, what did you learn at Vance’s club?”
“More names of people looking for the statue. That doesn’t do us any good. I’m beginning to think everyone in town is looking for it. You said that Weber died and his home was ransacked. Were you there?”
“Afterward. I estimate that he’d been dead at least one, maybe two, days when I found him. The hard drive had been taken from his computer, and the house looked like a tornado hit it. Whoever searched it was very thorough. The mattresses were cut open, every drawer and closet were emptied, and the refrigerator was dumped out on the floor.”
“Smells?” I asked.
Isabella gave me a raised-eyebrow half-smile. “The rotting food was lovely. But if I were to run into the man who killed Weber, I would recognize his scent.”
“When was this? Do you think the police are still hanging around?”
She shrugged. “A couple of weeks ago. Why?”
“You said you can’t feel magic. If the statue was under the floor or buried in the back yard, you would have missed it.”
“That would assume the person who killed Weber couldn’t feel its magic either, otherwise, why tear the place apart?”
“I’d still like to see his house, his car, his office, and anywhere else he might have had the statue. Maybe I can pick up some residual. Otherwise, we’re blundering around in the dark along with everyone else.”
Isabella looked thoughtful. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Look, people are trying to question you and me simply because they think we might know where the statue is. We know that we don’t know where it is, so why wander around chasing other people who don’t know where it is?”
She burst out laughing. “Okay, let’s try something different.”
We drove to Weber’s house near George Washington University and parked one street over. The house still had yellow crime scene tape around it. We snuck into the backyard and I forced the door. As soon as we stepped inside, I realized that no one had cleaned the place. The stench of the rotting food from the refrigerator had become almost overpowering.
I sketched a rune and spoke a Word. The smell of lilacs blooming filled the house.
“Thank you,” Isabella said. “Wow, that is a magic I would love to have.”
We searched through the house, and I saw that Isabella hadn’t exaggerated. The previous search or searches had been exceptionally thorough. Two old trunks in the attic had their contents strewn about without any care at all.
The basement, where Weber had his workroom, was a different story. I could feel the remains of spells and wards, along with certain magical artifacts and ingredients. A few things I pocketed. Phoenix feathers were impossible to find on Earth, as was the dragon scale. I wondered where Weber had acquired such items. Some things I found led me to believe Carleton Weber was not a nice man. The only way someone could collect a bottle full of Pixie dust was to stuff a Pixie in the bottle and wait for it to starve to death.
We stepped carefully through the kitchen and through a door into the garage. Weber’s SUV practically glowed with residual magic. A powerful object had been transported in that car. The magic, tainted with blood and stinking of demon, threatened to turn my stomach. If that was the statue I smelled, I would recognize it if I got close to it. My face must have shown my feelings.
“Do you feel something?” Isabella asked.
“The car. It transported something that left traces of blood magic and demon.”
“So, you wouldn’t have a problem identifying the artifact?”
“No, but I certainly wouldn’t want to touch it.”
With that as a guide, I made a quick circuit of Weber’s yard.
“I don’t think the statue was ever here,” I told Isabella. “It was in the car, but it never made it into the house.”
I wanted to visit Weber’s office, but Isabella suggested that a daytime visit would be more prudent. “During the day, there are people everywhere at a university, and no one will notice us. But the office buildings will be deserted at night, and the campus police will be curious.”
When we got back to the nursery, I found several Fairies waiting for me at the
cottage. It took me a while to derive the gist of what they were upset about, but I finally figured out that a man with magic had approached the fence from the park and tried the wards. I rewarded them with a piece of chocolate and they headed off to get drunk.
Isabella disappeared up the oak tree, and I went to bed.
Chapter 7
Samantha showed up for work on time and told us that the doctors were probably going to let Josh go home in the afternoon. She also said his parents were flying in that morning. I told Maurine to find out when their flight was due and drive them to the hospital.
After the crews headed out on their assignments, I left Ed in charge at the nursery. Isabella and I drove to George Washington University.
Professors’ office locations were easily found on the internet. The Archeology Department was located in a row of red-brick buildings that housed administrative offices, offices for professors and graduate students, laboratories, and classrooms. As Isabella predicted, a lot of people were coming and going, and no one gave us a second glance. I knew that I was less noticeable on a college campus than anywhere else on Earth.
Weber’s office was on the third floor of a building, a bit isolated and quiet compared to the lower floors. I heard someone typing in an office a couple of doors down from his office, but otherwise I couldn’t detect anyone’s presence.
“It’s rather early,” Isabella said in a quiet voice. “Can you get through the lock?”
I grinned. Laying my hand on the electronic keypad, I let magic flow into it. As often happened when I tried to program any kind of electrical device, the keypad went crazy and stopped working. With an audible click, the door unlocked.
We stepped inside and closed the door. In contrast to the chaos at Weber’s house, it didn’t look as though the office had been searched. Passing through a second door, we found Weber’s lab. The amount of magic from magical items and residual magic from other items was almost overwhelming. But the stench of blood magic mixed with demon scent managed to seep through everything else.
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