“Why does he eat meat at all then?”
Umara poured another line of the green liquid into him. “Protein and iron mostly. It’s too much to get into, but because their bodies are…‘pre-dead’…they’re almost in a state of decomposition. They need way more amino acids than most, and so whatever protein he can get, he goes for.”
“But humans? What makes them better than say…I don’t know…chicken or beef?”
She raised an eyebrow, a little unnerved. “Unfortunately…the taste. I mean, humans could eat opossum or we could eat beef. You choose.”
“Point taken.” I sat back against the wall, one knee to my chest.
Umara gave him the last few drops of the chlorophyll, then gestured for the goblins to drag his body to the back room, leaving a few drops of green on the carpet as they took him away. Umara took a seat in the burgundy recliner, letting her arms hang off the side. I wasn’t around her much, but something about the way she looked, it seemed…unnatural for her, like she always had things together, and something about tonight had changed that.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“You mean despite the Shaman who nearly took your heads off and the vampire we almost lost? Sure.”
She said that the Shaman nearly took “our” heads off, almost like she herself hadn’t been there, but I just left that alone.
“You don’t sound convinced,” Stephanie added, rubbing her hands on her knees before leaning back into the couch.
Umara’s lips twisted, and her words were harsher than normal. “We’re here and we’re alive. That’s what matters.”
The obelisk warmed up around my neck when Rebekah said,
“Is this about the lasers?” I asked Umara.
“What about them?” She gave me a look that marked her territory, like she didn’t want another word from me.
But being me, I nudged in a little further. “You know…you can’t expect to get every enchant just right.”
“Why can’t I?” she shrugged, brow lowered. “It’s my job to get them right. It’s what I do. It’s what fairies do. What good is a fairy whose enchants are busted and broken? We make weapons. We make armor. And when they don’t work, people get killed.”
“But no one got killed,” Stephanie said. “We’re all here, and we’re here because of you.”
Umara snorted. “That’s right. We’re here because my lasers failed. They were supposed to take down the Shaman, and they didn’t. And here’s the thing. All it takes is one laser to do the job. One.” She held up a finger. “I had seven, and none of them worked. You mean to tell me that I overlooked the same mistake seven different times? Seven times? That’s seven mistakes? Seven different lives in the balance because I couldn’t do my Faeyin’ job!” She swiped a hand across the table next to her, slinging a jewelry case to the floor. Rings and charms and necklaces chimed out.
Stephanie wasn’t using her Semblance. She wore real clothes, so her loose white shirt was hanging off her shoulder. She set it back in place. “Maybe you could go and check the other lasers. Then you could see what’s wrong with them.”
“I’m going to check them, and I’m sending them back.”
“Wait, so you bought them?” I asked.
“Mmhmm,” she said. “Why spend time building something that I didn’t think I’d ever need to use? Just send a few hundred thousand dollars out west, and I got in a shipment from one of the best in the business.”
“Out west?” Stephanie perked up, eyeing Umara. “Out west where?”
“LA. Long Beach really.”
The look of dread that blanketed Stephanie somehow made it over to me. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Do you know a fairy from there?”
Stephanie nodded slowly. “Anton LaCastro.”
That name seemed to strike a chord with Umara. “Do you know him somehow?”
“Know him? I used to work for him. The Fairy Godfather.”
Umara just rubbed her forehead. “We can’t worry about him right now. He’s getting these lasers back, the rest of them anyway. Right now we need to figure out how to stop Zakhar. And now, even if I had lasers that worked, they wouldn’t be able to stop him.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Because he makes connections. He’s already figured out the wavelength and frequencies of those lasers. All he has to do is make his body mimic the waves of the lasers, and he can absorb their energy.”
“Then how do we stop him?” Stephanie asked.
Umara got up and started down the hallway. Looking back over her shoulder, she shrugged. “No idea.”
The door to the bedroom opposite Carter’s shut, and just like that, Umara was out of sight, leaving me in the living room alone with Stephanie. The goblins were busy putting away equipment, and didn’t seem to be paying us any mind, though occasionally passed by us with a grunted, “Pardon me,” but that was the extent of their interaction with us.
Stephanie got up from the couch and sat beside me on the floor, hugging both knees to her chest. “You okay?”
“I think so. A few scratches here and there, and my chest still hurts from where my stone summon kicked me.”
“No, I mean about your friend.”
“My friend?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, c’mon, Lyle. Don’t pretend that you and Carter are so at odds. Yeah, he might flip out and give you a growl or two, but I saw how you looked at him when he got wounded in those woods. You actually care about him.”
“Hardly,” I snorted. “I just don’t want him dead.”
“Right, because he’s not already dead.”
Good point. She was right in a lot of ways that I hadn’t really considered until now. Carter was sort of a friend. Or more like a pet panther. You knew that as long as it was fed, you were probably okay, but if it had a mood swing or bad day, then…well…you probably would not be okay.
Still, I had to agree with Stephanie if I was being honest with myself. Carter was more than just some random blood-sucking vampire man-killer. He was a blood-sucking vampire man-killer who was also my friend. If he wanted me dead, he would have killed me years ago when he and I first met. And if I wanted him to leave me alone, I would have just found an apartment somewhere way up in north Raleigh. But I didn’t move. And he didn’t kill me.
There was an unspoken trust between the two of us, and as long as I didn’t force him to cook or clean or get a job or be responsible in any way, then we actually got along fine.
“I just hope he’s okay,” I said.
“Me too.”
“I appreciate what you did for him—pouring the waters on him and putting out the flames.”
“What good did it do in the end?” she frowned. “You saw him. He’s barely breathing.”
“Yeah, but he’s alive. Well…not ‘alive.’ I mean, you know. He’s awake.”
“Hey.” She looked at me with those gorgeous green eyes of hers, and though the fight in the woods had taken away that perfect scent of mangoes, there was still something attractively feminine about the way she smelled. Maybe it was her hair, but I found myself drowning in it.
“Yeah?”
“Why did you do it?”
“Do what?” I asked.
“You said yes. You could have come after me the day Zakhar went to your place, but you didn’t. And because you didn’t, you endangered yourself and now even Carter and Umara.”
“I didn’t know what I was getting into.” I locked eyes with her. “What happened to Carter, I didn’t want that for him, and I didn’t want Umara to be hunted either. But what was I supposed to do? Just let Zakhar go after you?”
“But you don’t know me.”
“I guess you’re right.” I stretched out my leg and crossed one over the other. “But then again, the way you came back to help out Rebekah and me with Marcus at the warehouse, it makes me feel like you’re someone I can trust. Otherwise, I probably would have sa
id no and just let Zakhar find someone else to go after you.”
She smiled warmly at me, melting my insides. “You may not know this, but your reputation precedes you. Lucius Lyle Finnegan, traveler of the world, one of a kind Decanter.”
I gave a wry smile. “And just what’s that supposed mean? Besides, last time I checked, I wasn’t much of anybody.”
“That’s not what I hear.” There was a subtle admiration in the way she said it. “Ever heard of a woman named Dr. Belin Ubala?”
I eyed her strangely. “Yeah, I have. But why have you?”
“Oh, please. Google.com,” she laughed. “The name came up when I worked for the Fairy Godfather out west, so being the random researcher I am, I figured out that this Dr. Ubala actually was a brilliant neurologist.” Stephanie frowned. “Why’re you looking at me like? Oh…I see. You think I’m an idiot, don’t you? You think that just because my voice is a little higher and that I ask a lot of questions that I must be stupid.”
“Uhh…no, not at all. I was just…uh…surprised that you were into researching neurologists.”
“Right,” she said, shaking her head. “Because I probably would be more interested researching Revlon or L’Oreal or FCUK.” She got up then glared at me. “That’s the problem with guys like you. You look at someone like me, and think, ‘Geez, she’s a dunce, how about I give her a shot?’ Then, when you find out that I actually have a brain, you look at me all funny like, ‘Oh, good, and she thinks for herself too.’” She walked off and shut the door to the last of the three bedrooms, leaving me in the living room by myself.
I just sighed.
I said, being very expressive with my hands, though Rebekah couldn’t see me.
Rebekah was quiet, and had she been next to me, she would have been sitting there with her lips curled and her arms folded.
I expected her to give me a thousand reasons regarding my aura and Stephanie’s aura and how Rebekah could decipher those emotions like an expert translator, but all she said was, <…I don’t know…>
I heard her sigh.
The bedroom door on the left opened. Carter corked the hallway. “Goin’ outside. Be back in a few.”
He strolled past me and out the front door, and I couldn’t help but be mesmerized. How had he recovered so quickly, and even more importantly, where was he going? When the door slammed shut behind him, I got up and stretched.
The sofa was calling my name, so I curled up on it, grabbed the black and white checkered throw-blanket and yawned.
I found myself sitting up again when one of the three-foot goblins in a red doublet with black stripes and tusks down past his chin waddled over to me. He was especially green—bright green, more so—and he had a patch over his left eye.
“Humans and work. Oil and water.”
“Unlike some, we actually have to sleep,” I said.
“We sleep. After an hour, we bored.” His voice was grumbly, and he seemed to have a slight accent—Australian maybe.
“If I slept for an hour a night, I think I might lose my mind.”
“If ya’ sleep for an hour a night, ya’ might actually have a mind, mate.” He extended a three-fingered hand to me, but I didn’t take it. “And have ya’ had a look at ya’self…in the mirror, I mean. A mess, if I ever saw one. Mayhap ya’ could go out and grab ya’self a swanky doublet like the one I wears. That would be something, right? Stop lookin’ like a bogan, ya’ know?”
The goblin was a little abrasive, especially for this late in the night, and he was awfully close to me. Made me a little antsy. “I think you’re a couple of centuries behind the times. This isn’t the Renaissance, buddy.”
His brow deepened, a sign of offense. Then he settled, squinting his good eye at me, shaking a finger. “You’re one of those kind, eh? Like to rustle and tussle, do ya’?” His voice quieted, and he looked around suspiciously. “Say? You wouldn’t happen to have a bit of grog, would ya’, mate? Mead’s what I’m after.”
“Mead?” I just shook my head. “Who carries around mead these days? And this is not even my apartment.”
“Right, you are.” He offered me his hand again. “OEN’s the name. One-eyed Nick if you’re wonderin’.”
I shook his tiny green hand. “Two-eyed Finnegan,” I smiled.
“Ah, so I’ll call ya’ TEF then? For the record, next time ya’ wanna’ have a laugh about me eye, here’s a hint. Don’t.”
With that he waddled away, and tucked himself under the coffee table with the others.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
A slammed front door woke me up in the middle of the night. My nerves were so bad, that I was already in a sitting position on the couch, running my hand through my oily hair that felt like it hadn’t been washed in days.
“You scared the crap out of me,” I said to Carter, not looking at him. “What time is it?” Judging by how dark it was outside, sunrise still hadn’t arrived yet.
“4:45. Thereabouts.”
His voice sounded wet, so I looked up at him, startled. “I see you’ve been out.”
“Looks like it.”
His body was covered in blood to the point it looked like he might have bathed in it. But I knew that wasn’t true. He’d gone out hunting. He’d gone out and hadn’t only killed one person, but several. I didn’t ask who they were or their ages or their sex or what they did for a living. Did it matter? Did I even want to know?
“You okay?” I asked.
“Hungry.”
How could he still be hungry after all that? “I can imagine.”
“Can ya’?”
I just nodded. What else could I do? Be upset? Remind him that the police were already looking for him after his escape from jail? He didn’t care about that. And all the police had was a face. Nothing else. No name. No fingerprints. Not even an address. Yeah, Carter stayed with me, but his name wasn’t on the lease. It couldn’t be.
To the world, Carter didn’t even exist. To the world, Carter died over fifteen years ago. “Teenage Boy Bitten by Wolf, Drained of Blood,” the headlines had read. I knew because it was the only thing from his past life he’d kept. One News & Obs
erver article, not even the main story, trumped by some kid rescued by his dog from drowning in Lake Benson out in Garner.
Or what if I reminded him about his promise to Rebekah, about how he wouldn’t eat another person again? What would that do? Nothing. Nothing but make him angry. Angry or ashamed. Neither was good for either us. If he were angry, then he’d go after me. If he were ashamed, he’d go after himself.
Still, my curiosity—my humanity—got the best of me. “How many?”
“Three.” It came out flat.
“Any of them children?” I cringed.
“Nah. No kids. Ever.”
“Where at then?”
“Campus. Not far from here,” he said.
“Did anyone…escape?”
He eyed me for a minute, then nodded. “Two. Three maybe.”
And just like that, he was back in his bedroom.
It was tough, taking it all in, but something was unique about what he’d just said. Not because of what had happened, but because of what Carter had just done—what he had just done for my sake, I mean. When I asked him if anyone had escaped, he said yes. But I knew the truth in that. He said yes, because he knew that I couldn’t take it, that it was what I wanted to hear.
Elemental Damage: Confessions of a Summoner Book 2 Page 10