“The Sprites copied an entire folder relating to a case the Trackers handled.” I gripped the back of the chair tighter. “The case that involves the serum that could wipe out every paranorm being with the exception of anything close to being human.”
“I—I—” Negel looked from me to Olivia and back.
“How did you find out this file exists?” I was still furious it had been kept by the Paranorm Council.
“After they told me of the plan, Ecknep and Zith said I could come with them. Just the three of us got into the archives first,” Negel said. “Tobath wanted them to have time to copy what the Vampires needed before the other Sprites created chaos to cover our tracks.”
“And…” Olivia gestured for him to continue.
“There was a safe,” Negel said. “Ecknep is—was—Tobath’s most dedicated follower. He said that whatever was in that safe must be important.”
Negel continued. “Ecknep and Zith broke into the safe and quickly read and copied everything. I heard them. They said the Vampires would be in even greater debt to the Sprites if we gave him that information and the two vials they found as well. At that point I pleaded with them to leave it all.”
“Maybe we can obtain the vial more easily from the Sprites,” I said. “It might be harder to get it from Vampires.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay, Dog Food, where’s Tobath’s hideout?”
“Sprites never tell any beings where we live.” Negel shook his head, ears flopping. “It would put all Sprites in danger.”
“I’ll danger your ass.” Olivia rested her hand on her Sig Sauer in her side holster. “Starting with a bullet right—”
“Olivia.” I cut her off. “Negel is going to tell us where Tobath is without you shooting him in the butt.”
She moved her hand away from her handgun and folded her arms across her chest again. “He damned well better.”
“I will go myself.” Negel tried to stand, obviously forgetting for a moment that he was cuffed to a chair. The chair legs squeaked on the ceramic tile. He thumped back in his seat. “It is better if I sneak in and get the serum from Tobath.”
“That’s not going to happen.” I walked around the chair I’d been holding onto and sat on the cushioned seat. “You’re going to tell us exactly where we can find Tobath.”
Negel shook his head and didn’t say anything.
“Only my team will know.” I braced my forearms on my thighs. “We’ll go in covertly. I promise you that we will not tell anyone where the Sprites live.” Well, I’d tell Rodán, but that was a given.
“I do not think…” Negel squirmed in his seat. Olivia had her Sig out, resting in her palm. “How many of you?” he asked.
We had him.
“Five including Olivia and me,” I said.
“She’s human, she would not survive.” Negel glanced at Olivia and seemed to reconsider his comment. He would probably not be opposed to that considering their stellar new relationship. He looked back to me, obviously ignoring Olivia now. “You promised. I will tell you.”
The Fae bells jingled as the door opened and we all turned our heads. Adam walked in. I stood and smiled until I glanced at Olivia whose expression said, You’d better come clean with him or I will.
“Of course I’ll tell him.” I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I would. “I was planning on it.”
“Tell me what?” Adam reached me, settled his hand on my shoulder and brushed his mouth over mine. I let his coffee and leather scent wash over me. “Does it involve any alone time?” he murmured.
I wanted to melt at his sexy smile. “No, but we can make up for it with some time together later.”
He smiled back at me, then frowned. I wondered if he could read minds now. Rodán did say that all human liaisons to the paranorm had some kind of latent psychic talent.
So far Adam’s talent seemed to be sensing when I needed him or if I was going into a dangerous assignment or I was in some kind of trouble. He didn’t know anything about his latent psychic talent and I wasn’t going to say anything—yet, anyway.
I saw that his frown wasn’t directed at me and I looked over my shoulder at Negel.
Adam cocked one eyebrow at me. I loved how he did that. “You brought one of those here?”
“You get the prize for the ‘Most Observant Detective of the Year Award,’ ” Olivia said. “A true student of the obvious.”
He grinned at Olivia. “Don’t you have some rubber bands to load?”
“Don’t tempt me.” She picked up a large eraser. “I’ll start with the big guns.”
Adam laughed and raised his hands. “Peace.” To me he said, “So tell me about your guest.”
“Meet Negel.” I gestured to the Sprite. “Negel, this is Detective Adam Boyd.”
“Another human.” Negel looked perplexed. “I will not tell you the location with him in this place.”
“His gun is bigger than Olivia’s,” I said with a shrug.
Negel slumped in his seat. “You promised.”
“Detective Boyd is on my team, too.” I’d just neglected to mention it earlier.
Adam shoved his hands in the pockets of his worn brown leather bomber jacket. “Location of what?”
“The Sprite lair,” Olivia said.
“It is not a lair.” Negel sniffed and raised his chin high. “It is home to our clans.”
She smirked again. “A.K.A. lair.”
“Children. Listen up.” I was tempted to roll my eyes. “Every moment that goes by gives Tobath more time to do something with the serum.”
“Like drop the vial,” Olivia said.
Adam started to speak and I raised my hand to indicate I wanted him to hush. “I’ll give you a complete rundown later. Right now we need Negel to give us the exact location that the Sprites call home.”
Negel’s thick lips tightened into a firm line as if he wasn’t going to tell us after all. Smart move for him when he started speaking. “Abandoned sewers.”
“Should have known your lair is in the sewers.” Olivia wrinkled her nose. “No wonder Sprites stink.”
“Home.” Negel shot back. “It is our home. You may think sewers stink, but we are incapable of sensing certain human odors. Sewers are one of the odors. It is the perfect spot. No one comes there bothering us.”
“Wish there was a way of us not having to smell you,” Olivia said.
“Where in the abandoned sewers?” I asked.
“We recently relocated to Hell’s Kitchen.” He sighed. “Under the post office, Radio City Station.”
Adam, Olivia, and I looked at one another.
“You have your lair under that post office?” Olivia burst out laughing. “Gives a whole new meaning to ‘going postal.’ ”
Negel slumped, dejected.
“Tell us everything we need to know to get in and out of there without anyone getting hurt, maimed, or killed,” I said.
Negel told us which manhole cover was closest to Tobath’s stronghold. It was a separate location than that of the clan Tobath had been raised in.
I was still trying to avoid thoughts about how a Sprite and a Drow warrior managed to get together, much less thinking about growing up in a clan in the sewers and then moving into Hell’s Kitchen sewers.
It was still referred to as Hell’s Kitchen, but the area in Manhattan was now also referred to as Clinton or Midtown West. As far as Sprites were concerned, the old name from the days of mobsters and gangs seemed to be more appropriate.
I studied the Sprite. “Give me something I can use. Like how I can find Tobath and his grunts.”
Negel licked his lips again. Not attractive. “Every night he assembles his force at midnight in the same place,” Negel said. “It is very secret and very new. New enough that it is not even on the list of paranorm weaknesses and known locations. I checked the documents when Ecknep copied the information.”
“Details,” Olivia said.
The Sprite told us what I hoped was the exact lo
cation of the meeting, under a tenement on Fifty-forth Street.
When we’d gotten all I thought we could out of Negel, I said, “I’ll call the PTF. They can take you back to the detention center. My team will be in place at Tobath’s meeting location by midnight.”
“You are not going to free me?” Negel asked, his bulbous eyes wide.
“Are you kidding?” Olivia laughed. An evil laugh. She was good at them. “Let loose the best source of information we have?”
“I will meet with you anytime you wish to.” Negel gave me a pleading look. “Anytime. I promise. I will help you get the serum and antiserum.”
For the first time since I’d met Sprites in New York City, I didn’t think of them as nothing but slime. There was something about Negel that caused me to see Sprites as beings with families, friends. Beings with real emotions. Yesterday, I never thought that possible.
“I wish I could.” I studied the Sprite. “But we need your help and I can’t risk letting you go.”
“I promise.” I thought Negel would be on his knees, hands clasped as he begged if he wasn’t cuffed. “I will be here when you tell me to and I will guide you to the meeting place.”
“Sorry.” I shook my head but still felt bad at the dejected look on his face. “I trust you to take us to Tobath, yes. But I need to make sure we can reach you. That’s why we need you here.”
“You can call me on my cell phone,” he said.
Collectively, Adam, Olivia, and I dropped our jaws.
The three of us looked at the rags he was wearing to see how he could possibly be carrying a phone. Olivia and Adam both seemed to be at a loss for words. The bigger surprise was Olivia not having something to say.
“It is quite small,” Negel said. “Easy to hide from the PTF.”
“Okay … Um, what’s your number?” Strange as it was, we might as well get all of the information we could. I retrieved my phone out of my handbag on my desk. “I’ll put you in my contacts.”
The whole idea of a Sprite having a cell phone seemed a little bit on the surreal side of life. Negel slowly said his phone number and I entered it on my own phone.
“A Metro New York area code.” Olivia had found her tongue. I thought she’d lost the ability to speak for a few moments there. “How the hell does a Sprite get a cell phone? Where does he get the bill?”
“Phones with prepaid minutes.” Negel shrugged. “Then we—we obtain cards with more minutes.”
We nodded like it was totally normal.
“We’ll save that for after, Negel.” I dashed his hopes again. “For now you stay with us.”
He sighed. A big sigh that was a show of resignation. “I will stay. I will help you. Then you will let me go to my wife and sons.”
“Yes.” I gave him a little smile. “I promise. No matter what happens, when we get the serum and antiserum, you are free.”
“Thank you,” he said in a polite tone.
A polite Sprite. Who’d have thought?
My thoughts turned to the Werewolves, where everything ultimately started.
“I think we should call Dmitri Beketov.” Still holding my phone, I got up from the seat in front of Negel and walked around my desk. “After everything they went through, the Werewolves would probably like to know the serum is on the loose again.”
“You’re on your own with that one, girl,” Olivia said. “I’ve got better things to do than be around a pissed-off alpha Were.”
I dialed Beketov’s phone number. My call could go straight to a generic voice mail telling me to leave my number. The Werewolves could be hunting in the Catskills for all I knew, out of cell phone range.
The Werewolf answered, “Beketov.”
“Dmitri, this is Nyx Ciar.” A shiver trailed my spine as I thought about the case we’d solved for the Werewolves. It was an experience I never wanted to go through again. Yet here we were facing the same threat, only with cunning Vampires instead of an insane scientist.
“Yes,” Beketov said, as friendly as ever. Not.
“About that virus that the scientist developed.” How did one tell an alpha Werewolf that a serum for a virus was on the loose … a virus that was developed to wipe out his people and had almost been injected into his own son?
“What about it?” His tone was harsh and I had the mental image of his body going rigid with anger. His son had been kidnapped by the scientist who had developed the serum.
“The documents weren’t destroyed.” I rubbed my temples with my fingertips as I heard his harsh intake of breath. I wasn’t ready to tell him some of the serum itself still existed. “The New York Vampires have the documents, including the formula.”
Beketov let out a long string of curse words. “Two hours and I will reach your office.”
He severed the connection before I could get a word out.
I wondered if calling him had been such a smart idea after all.
ELEVEN
Adam walked with me up to my apartment above Olivia’s and my PI office which was located on 104th and Central Park West. I leaned my head on his shoulder as we walked, simply enjoying being close to him.
“Amazing how tenants of the building don’t even know your PI office is there,” Adam said as we made our way toward my apartment.
“Just you and Olivia.” I straightened and looked up at him. “Every other norm doesn’t have a clue. No other norm has even been in the office but you two. Our magic wards are too strong.”
It only took a bit of my air element to unlock the door to my apartment when Adam and I reached it. I never carried a key.
I loved my apartment. Partly because it was mine and away from the Drow Realm belowground in Otherworld. Partly because of the views. Partly because it was pretty.
I’m a princess. I like pretty things.
Just because I’m a warrior doesn’t mean I’m not feminine.
As soon as the door closed I was in Adam’s arms. His kiss was intense yet sweet. He kissed me like I was the most precious thing to him on this Earth Otherworld. In any Otherworld.
He tasted of mint and I loved to breathe in his wonderful scent of leather and coffee. Leather from his worn bomber jacket and I suspected coffee because of the Starbucks he always hit on the way to work.
When he drew away he pressed his lips against my forehead.
I stepped back and held both of his hands in mine. “Come on.” I began to lead him to the kitchen. “I need to feed Her Highness before I have to go panty shopping again.”
Adam brought me toward him and rubbed his hands down my hips and across the curves of my rear. “She didn’t get the leopard ones or the black with the red lace, did she?”
I laughed and reached up to whisper in his ear. “I hid them since they’re your favorites.”
He grinned and I led him across the hardwood floor through the arched entryway into the spacious kitchen. Brown marble countertops, cherrywood cabinets, and stainless steel appliances made it a beautiful space.
Considering I don’t cook, my Shifter maid, Dahlia, didn’t have a whole lot of cleaning to do in that particular room of the house. Still, she made the appliances shine and the cabinets glow just like the beautiful hardwood floor.
Kali’s crystal champagne saucer sparkled on the countertop beneath the track lighting. I grabbed a can of Kali’s favorite cat food out of the walk-in pantry, opened it, and spooned some onto the dish before snapping a plastic lid on the can and putting it into the fridge.
“A sprig of catnip and you’ve got a queenly meal,” Adam said.
“Hmmm…” I tilted my head in mock seriousness. “Maybe that’s the key to getting into her good favor.”
“I’ll help you shop for the catnip.” Adam leaned against the center island, his hands in his bomber jacket, his ankles crossed. He wore brown athletic shoes and Levi’s and a chocolate brown shirt beneath his bomber jacket. Delicious. He gave me his adorable boyish smile. “So where is Kali?”
“Once we’re out of her way
she’ll come out,” I said.
“I’ve always meant to ask you how Kali gets from your apartment to the office,” he said.
I shrugged. “I swear that cat has magic. I never have been able to figure it out.”
“She’s not very sociable, is she?” he asked with a smile.
I put my finger to my lips. “Shhh. She’ll hear you. Your Looney Tunes boxers might end up being her next favorite thing to shred.”
The corner of Adam’s mouth quirked. “When you get a chance, tell Kali I think she is the most beautiful cat I have ever seen.”
I giggled, then clapped my hand over my mouth. Where did that come from? I never giggled. Certainly never in front of anyone.
“I liked that.” Adam pushed away from the kitchen island and reached me. He brushed a strand of hair from my eyes. “You sounded cute.”
“Cute?” I tried not to let another giggle escape. What was wrong with me? “I don’t think cute is a word that anyone has ever associated with me before.”
“I do.” He put his hands on my hips and placed his forehead against mine. “Yes, you’re beautiful, sexy, intelligent, tough, kickass, driven to do what it takes to bring down the bad guys. You feel you have to be tough, all of the time … But there’s a side of you that you try to hide. You don’t have to hide who you are. Feel comfortable being you.”
His tone was gentle and I swallowed, unable to say anything. Was I that transparent?
“I see through all of that, Nyx. You have a soft side that you cover up like you are afraid to come off looking weak somehow.” He started swaying, as if we were dancing, his hands resting on my hips as he guided me, his body flush to mine. “You care more deeply for both norms and paranorms than you show. You want to save everyone and it hurts you when you can’t.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about you nailing me like that.” Heat made its way through my body. “You’re right, I don’t want to look weak. I had to fight to be tough growing up around Drow male warriors.”
He cupped the back of my head and pressed my face against his T-shirt. “Caring about others and showing emotion is not a weakness. It’s a virtue. You can be yourself and still be effective,” he said. “You don’t have to be the tough woman, especially with me, Nyx.”
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