E J Stevens - [Ivy Granger, Psychic Detective 01]

by Shadow Sight (epub)

  “Please, Melusine!” he begged. “Let our child go. We have already lost one son. Do not kill our only remaining heir.”

  “Sons, sons, oh your precious sons!” she shrieked. “That is all you’ve ever cared about. Never me, no, never your beloved.”

  “This is crazy,” he said. “You know I love you. I am your husband.”

  His words rang empty, even to my ears.

  “There was a time that I thought being your wife would be enough,” she said. “I was wrong.”

  Something splashed in the water behind Melusine and the resultant hiss of steam on the fire made the child’s sobs increase.

  “You’re scaring me and frightening the child,” he said. “Please, set the babe down away from the fire. We can talk about this.”

  “No, the time for talk is long gone, my love,” Melusine said.

  She pulled herself upright, moving closer to the fire, and for the first time I could see her tail. Melusine had a voluptuous female body from the waist up and a fish tail from the waist down. She was definitely fae, probably a nix or mermaid, though her behavior tickled a memory of my own. Wasn’t there a story of a lamia who had killed her sons? Another bit of monster history to ask Kaye about, if I made it out of this vision.

  Distracted by the firelight reflecting off rainbow hued scales, I nearly missed what happened next. Ceffyl Dŵr’s pain pulled my eyes to Melusine’s hand, where his attention was riveted. Their child writhed in his mother’s grip, face red from crying. My son…

  Melusine cast the child into the flames. She savored the anguish on her husband’s face, then, with a splash, she was gone. A sob burst from my chest and the vision changed again.

  My eyes took in a different time and location, the cry of gulls and the kelpie child still ringing in my ears. The cries died away to blessed silence.

  I had worked hard to slip away from my guards. They were bound to my service, and served me well, but their looks of adoration and respect became downright claustrophobic, especially on this day of the year. I reveled in the silent night, a rare stolen private moment for a king perpetually surrounded by guards and courtiers.

  I was walking alone along a gravel footpath. Moonlight reflected off a stream that trickled over smooth rocks to my left, bushes and tall trees blocked out the city lights to my right, and a stone bridge loomed ahead. The space beneath the bridge, like a gaping mouth, was inky black, but something large stirred within.

  I tensed, straining my senses to detect what lurked within the shadows of the bridge, when a twig snapped on the path behind me. I slid a long knife from its sheath on my belt, and spun to face my potential attacker. A horse-like creature stood on the path behind me, but it was not one of my people—it was an each uisge. The each uisge were our enemy, but they rarely left the ocean waters except to feed. Even then, they traveled in packs, hunting the commercial wharf areas along the water’s edge. What was it doing here alone, so far into the city?

  Surveying my options, I took a step back and the bushes to my left rustled as three more each uisge joined my assailant. Hooves and chitin clattered on wet stones, indicating more enemies closing in from the stream bed. This was no random encounter. No, it wasn’t even a routine mugging.

  It was an ambush.

  I cursed my foolishness. Slipping my royal bodyguards was going to get me killed, or worse. I swung my knife in an arc, slashing a warning to keep my assailants at a distance. I was skilled with a blade, but my knife wouldn’t keep them away for long. These creatures came armed with their own claws, poisoned spines, razor sharp chitin, and deadly fangs. I could call on the water of the stream, but its power was small. The recent drought had reduced it to a sluggish trickle. I tried anyway.

  I was feeling desperate.

  My skin became luminous as I called the water to me. I might as well have painted a target on my back. Singing a trilling, bubbling song, I coaxed the water into a slender rope and whipped it at the each uisges’ ankles. One of the creatures let out a guttural whinny that tore at my eardrums, as he stumbled.

  Hope swelled my chest, but it was trampled as something hit me from the side. I staggered and felt the slash of a sickle claw slice open my hip and cut through the bridle that hung from my belt. No, not that. Not my bridle. I couldn’t, wouldn’t be a slave to the each uisge. I tried to roll, looking for an escape route, but nothing happened.

  I was frozen in place.

  The each uisge snickered, a sound like a beast coughing up rocks and nails. Movement from the shadow of the bridge caused them to stop. Their violent, shrieking laughter died on blood encrusted lips. All heads turned, eerily as one, to glare at the creature foolish enough to interrupt my torment, and spoil their fun.

  A large figure unfolded from a heap of clothing, a blanket still wrapped around his shoulders. From my angle, I could tell that the figure appeared to be a troll, probably a bridge troll judging from where it had been sleeping. Unless it had lots of friends, it didn’t stand a chance against a pack of each uisge, but I had no way of warning him off. I had lost the ability to speak, unless ordered to by my captors.

  “What going on?” the troll said, yawning and rubbing his face.

  An each uisge hissed and launched itself at the troll. Trolls are huge, but this one didn’t put up much of a fight. The each uisge had it on the ground in seconds. Once it was down, a second each uisge used its hooves to kick in the poor creature’s teeth. I tried to block out the wet tearing sound and the whimpering that followed.

  Fortunately, the two each uisge quickly lost interest in the unmoving troll and trotted over to a tall figure that I assumed was their leader. They paced in restless circles, like aquarium sharks at feeding time. One of the each uisge, shorter and heavier set than the rest, finally began to speak.

  The language they spoke was like hissing steam and rusty metal grating against a chalkboard, but I understood the words.

  “Hungry,” the stout one said. Drool oozed from his fanged mouth to pool on the stones at his feet. “Trollsss tassste bad. Kill humansss now?”

  “Patience, B’al,” the tall one said. “Sssoon, we will take this cccity, ripe with tasssty humansss.”

  “Yesss, my lord,” B’al said.

  They turned to face me, or rather Ceffyl Dŵr who stood rooted to the spot where his bridle had been removed.

  “Come kelpie,” the tall one said. “We have plansss for you.”

  As Ceffyl Dŵr turned to follow his new masters, I caught a glimpse of the crumpled form beneath the bridge. Mab’s bones. The large victim they had been abusing was Marvin. Sweet, innocent, child-like Marvin.

  Something inside me shattered.

  *****

  It was a good thing that Kaye had set a dampening spell on the room. I woke to shrieking cries that I belatedly identified as my own. Clamping both hands over my mouth, I rocked back and forth trying to silence the eerie howls and wailing rising from my throat. Even with the help of Kaye, who draped a blanket across my shoulders and whispered promises of safety, it took me a long time to stop.

  Only when my lungs were spent and I had no air left to scream, did the silence come. My ears were ringing and my throat was raw and sore, but I was back in my own body. I was Ivy Granger again, and I was slave to no one.

  During the final moments of the vision, I felt like I was losing my sense of self. That, even more than the kelpie king’s abduction, was terrifying. What would have happened to me if I had remained lost in the vision, believing I was Ceffyl Dŵr? Would I have relived that moment of his enslavement and Marvin’s attack, forever?

  Oh, Oberon’s eyes, poor Marvin. I needed to tell Kaye about how the kid had received his injuries. He wasn’t mugged by wannabe gangsters or assaulted by teens out drinking and looking for trouble. No, Marvin was brutally attacked by each uisge. That kind of thing could leave lasting emotional scars. The kid was going to need therapy.

  I sucked in a shuddering breath and wiped tears on the knees of my pants. My legs were draw
n up to my chest so tight that the muscles felt cramped and my joints protested as I eased my feet back down to the floor. How long had I sat here, in fetal position, rocking and screaming like a madwoman?

  I opened my eyes and realized I must have been acting crazy long enough to freak out my friends. Worry was etched into Kaye’s face and Hob’s cheeks were sparkling with shed tears.

  “Lass?” Hob asked. “Ye’ be a’right, now. Ye’ safe.”

  Leaning forward, he hesitantly patted my blanket covered shoulder, brow raised as his eyes searched my face. He must have been reassured by what he saw there, because he pulled away, drew himself up to his full height, and smiled.

  “How long…” I asked. I started to speak, but was wracked with an uncontrollable coughing fit. My mouth was dry and my throat felt like it had been sandblasted. I licked cracked, bleeding lips, tasted blood, and tried again. “How long was I out?”

  “From the time you touched the bridle, about nine hours,” Kaye said. “You could probably do with a cup of tea. Hob?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hob said. He shot me a nervous grin then flitted off to bustle with the kettle and teapot.

  Tea sounded wonderful and I started to relax into a hazy post-shock lassitude, but something was bugging me. Nine hours? Mab’s Bones!

  “I have to call Jinx!” I said, starting to panic.

  I bolted upright and nearly fell over. My legs were tingling with pins and needles and my feet felt like cement blocks. Thrusting gloved hands (huh, someone must have put my gloves back on while I was incoherent) into my pockets, I searched for my cell phone. I needed a phone, like, yesterday.

  If I had been unconscious for nine hours, then it was already getting dark. I had left Jinx at the office with a priest and demon. After last night, there was no way I’d risk staying out past sunset without calling her…not unless I was kidnapped or dead. I was in so much trouble.

  “Calm yourself, child,” Kaye said. “I’ve called your friend Jinx, and Father Michael. They know you aren’t out wandering the streets, dead, or injured.”

  “Oh, um, thank you,” I said. That was a relief, but I still needed to talk to Jinx. I didn’t want her to worry. “Did someone, like, borrow my phone?”

  “We set it over here, dear, out of the way,” Kaye said. She bustled, skirts swishing back and forth, to a ceramic jar on the counter. My phone was in Kaye’s cookie jar? “You were thrashing about quite a bit there and I worried you might damage yourself or the phone. I have your belt as well.”

  My belt? That was quick thinking. There were enough pointy objects on my tool belt to impale me ten times over.

  “Thanks,” I said, cheeks warming.

  I took my phone from Kaye and dialed Jinx’s number. She answered on the first ring.

  “Hey,” I said. “Everything okay at the office?”

  “Oh my God, Ivy,” Jinx said. “Shit.” She sniffed, and I could tell that she’d been crying. “I was so worried about you.”

  “Kaye said she called,” I said. Damn, I knew Jinx would worry. When your luck is as bad as hers, you don’t always look on the bright side. I mean, Jinx was one of the most positive minded people I know, but she knows enough to worry when things start going wrong. “Didn’t she tell you that I was okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, right,” Jinx said. “She said you were ‘safe as houses,’ but I could hear you screaming. It didn’t take a psychic to know you weren’t okay. You barely sounded human.”

  She said the last in a muffled whisper, probably trying to keep my mental breakdown a secret from Forneus and Father Michael. I shivered and pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders.

  “I’m okay, now,” I said. “How are things at the office? Any luck with the job contract?”

  “Are you freaking kidding?” Jinx asked. “Dude, we’re, like, only on page one.”

  “Seriously?” I asked. Demons, they made everything complicated.

  “Seriously,” Jinx said.

  “Well, I have to get back to things here with Kaye, but hang in there,” I said.

  “You too,” Jinx said. “And, Ivy? I love you, but if you ruin that top, I’m going to kill you.”

  “Right, I’ll try not to get any blood stains on it,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “Good, girl,” Jinx said. “Later.”

  She hung up and I put my phone on vibrate. It was time to answer Kaye’s questions, and drink copious amounts of tea. There was a lot to tell, and not all of it was good.

  So, Ceffyl Dŵr, King of the Kelpies, had been betrayed by his eldest son whom he had put to death, married a bitch who murdered their other son in a jealous rage, and was recently attacked and abducted by a bloodthirsty group of each uisge bent on turning our city into their own gory buffet in their first move to control the eastern seaboard.

  The attack on the kelpie king had happened near a stone bridge on a footpath by one of the streams that feeds into the marsh. We knew where the attack took place, but more importantly, we had a witness.

  I also had a new reason to stay in this fight. No monster was going to beat up and torture an orphan kid in this city and get away with it. Not on my watch.

  I was going to help the kelpies find their missing king and his bridle. Then I planned on kicking some each uisge ass.

  Chapter 8

  Kaye made me repeat every detail of my vision, like, a gazillion times. Even with Hob attentively filling my teacup, there was no way I could keep this up. My eyelids were on strike and my voice had gone past that sexy, gravely, raspy sound that comes from a lifetime of whiskey and cigarettes, hours ago. It was now bordering on nonexistent.

  “No more,” I rasped. “Too tired. Need sleep.”

  “Too tired?” Kaye asked raising her eyebrow until it disappeared under her head kerchief. “We do not have time for sleep, we are at war.”

  “Beg pardon ma’am, but ta lass be only human,” Hob said, gesturing at me with a knobby hand.

  A strange look crossed Kaye’s face, but she nodded, finally acquiescing.

  “Perhaps a good nights’ sleep will do us all a bit of good,” Kaye said.

  Giving in to peer pressure was not normal for Kaye, probably something to do with having no real equal in this city, but I wasn’t going to argue. I desperately required sleep. I just hoped she wasn’t sick or something. We had a lot of work to do in the morning.

  “Um, Hob, want my help cleaning this up?” I asked, gesturing at the table.

  I was bone tired, but I didn’t want to anger the little guy by leaving a mess in his kitchen. I sent up a silent prayer that the maps and books could stay out on the table a bit longer.

  “No, lass,” Hob said, with a heavy sigh. “Looks like we’ll be needin’ dis a while yet.”

  “Yes, the battle has only just begun,” Kaye said.

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  Tired as I was, I still picked up my teacup and saucer and placed them in the sink. They looked so small and fragile, easily chipped and altered forever. I lay my palms on either side of the sink and let my head hang down, breath bouncing off my chest to return in warm puffs of air. I didn’t like what I had to do next, but I couldn’t see an alternative.

  “I’ll be back in the morning,” I said. “But, um, can you have Marvin meet me here? I have some questions for him.”

  I hated bringing up the night of his attack, especially when the kid had been through so much and it would be a fresh hurt, but we needed information. If I had any hope of picking up the kelpie king’s trail, then I needed to know where that bridge was located. In the vision, it looked like Marvin had been living there, beneath one of the stone arches. It’s what trolls do. With a bit of luck he’d still remember where it was, even if he had blocked out the memory of the each uisge assault that forced him from his home.

  “Of course,” Kaye said. “Now take yourself home, before you drown in my sink.”

  I had slouched further forward and the tips of my hair were floating in dirty dishwate
r. When had my hair come undone? I’d wrestled it into a ponytail at an unholy hour this morning, hoping to keep the heat at bay. The fine hair must have slipped out of its elastic during my vision induced fit.

  “Very funny,” I said.

  I pushed the hair from my face, twisting and pulling it up into a loose ghetto puff style bun. The ends were still wet with tea and dirty water. I also felt sweaty and sore from my nine hour panic attack. I’d take a bath once I reached the loft, if I could stay awake long enough.

  I turned around and dragged myself to the bench where I’d left my stuff. Grabbing my bag by the shoulder strap with one hand, I said my goodbyes, waving to Kaye and Hob. Hob looked worried, but let me go. He could nag me about wandering the streets alone after dark, when I returned in the morning.

  I staggered home in a zombie-like fugue. Fortunately, the sweltering heat continued to keep most people indoors, enjoying the benefits of air conditioning, and off the streets. No one ran screaming, worried that I’d try to eat their brains. In fact, I barely remembered leaving The Emporium and walking across the city.

  Blinking, I realized I was already on my street, just a few doors from home. My keys were in my gloved hand, ready to let myself into the apartment stairwell. All I had to do was walk past Private Eye.

  I hesitated, unsure if I should stop by the office first. I needed to check in with Jinx, but I couldn’t bear facing the priest or the demon. If they were still working on the job contract, I’d have to sneak up to the loft.

  Sticking to the shadows cast by shop awnings and lamp posts, I stepped down from the brick sidewalk onto the cobblestone street. Water Street was narrow here, so I was across the smooth stones in seconds. I ducked into the doorway of a shop that sold handmade tapestry bags. The glass door panel and storefront were dark, the shop closed for the evening.

  Pressed into the darkest corner, I remained unseen, but I couldn’t quite see inside Private Eye. A semi-circle of golden light shone from the office window, putting our business emblem in stark relief, but the angle was too sharp to see what was going on inside. Holding my breath, I inched forward peeking my head out around the corner and into the street.