Yesterday, I didn't even know that Cin could do that popping thing, and today I woke up to find her shaking me from my slumber. No need to knock when you can literally drop in. Now is there.
I may not be the martial arts champion that she is, but I still landed her on her ass before I realized who it was shaking the daylights out of me. She was lucky that I hadn’t shot her. What was she thinking appearing like that in the bedroom of a sleeping Benandanti? A well-armed sleeping Benandanti, at that.
Cin waved off my offered hand and jumped up to face me, tears streaming down her face. "It's Mindy. She's gone. Looked everywhere. Gone. Tried to lock on her and pop, but nothing. Please Steele, find her. Quick."
And just like that I was caught up on things. "Did you bring her scent?"
Unlike Taz, I had been given full Benandanti training as soon as I had turned sixteen. I could Find and send mind messages with the best of them. In fact, I almost rivalled Rose at it. And that was saying something.
She handed me a dainty black lace bra, and I took a good whiff. Then I closed my eyes and boom, just like that my senses raced down Mindy's cosmic trail. When they reached the end, my heart fell.
Mindy wasn't among the living anymore. It was odd to feel such sorrow for a person I had never physically met. But I knew how much she meant to Cin, and that was really all I needed to know about her.
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes, forcing them to meet Cin's. "I'm sorry, Cin," I said.
She looked at me for a long minute, and I knew she was trying to convince herself that I might be wrong, even though she knew I wasn’t. Then she crumpled into a heap beside my bed.
"How?” she asked. “We have alarm system. When I got home last night, it was still armed. I didn't want to wake her, so just went to bed." She glanced up at me, almost guiltily. "We sleep in separate rooms because of fox thing." She got quiet, then whispered. "I never told her. I should have told her."
Then a weird thing happened to Cin. She changed. No, not into a fox, more like into movable stone. She became a living statue, no feelings to be seen anywhere. "You can track body?"
I gave her a short nod. "Yes. Let me get dressed, and we'll meet you at your house. I'll need to alert the pack. If they took Mindy, then they know we were involved with what went down yesterday." I faced her again. "I promise you that if the Fae are behind this, we will make them pay."
Her voice had changed to stone too. "Don't need your promise. I make one of own. But you are right. If they killed Mindy, they will pay. And pay dearly. It is time for new queen of Fae."
And she was gone.
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG to notify the pack. In less than an hour, we all met at Mindy and Cin's house to start the tracking. Dunwood beat us all there, but then he was just closer to their house. Turns out, he only lived a couple of blocks away.
"Will this cause you trouble at your office?" I asked.
"Official business. Checking into a missing person report," he said. Oh, well yes, that made sense when I thought about it. With him living so close to them, chances were good that this would fall squarely within his jurisdiction.
We started off in Mindy's room. Her bed had been slept in as her pillow was smushed and the bed clothes in a mess. There wasn't any sign of blood, but the lamp on the table by the bed had been overturned. It lay broken on the hardwood floor.
I glanced at Cin, but she was still in statue mode. Wish I could still do that. Close off my feelings and just act and react to things. It made dealing with what life hands out a whole lot easier. Then I took a closer look at her empty eyes. Okay, maybe not. You give up a lot when you bury feelings.
Coyote—the last to arrive—well, except for MacDougal who we figured had his hands busy elsewhere, popped in. He took one look around the room, another look at Cin, said "Crap," and popped right back out again.
Before we had time to much more than look at each other he was back. "No need to track her, Taz," he said, glancing at Cin. If I didn't know that the Coyote wasn't really afraid of anything, I'd swear I saw a little fear in his eyes. "I found her. She's at the rift." He tore his eyes from Cin to me. "And it's a helluva lot bigger now."
Double Damn.
Chapter 17
Cin had lost her lover because she had helped me rescue those humans from Faerie. I don't know how they tracked her down, but all that really mattered was that they had.
I watched Cin, but she was still on shut-down mode. Having lived in Faerie, I understood that mode well. It was a survival trait that you learned when you were used to being hurt. A lot. Cin's history wasn't one that I knew, but I could tell that much. This experience wasn't anything new to her.
Lily had said that Kitsunes were basically immortal creatures. It made me wonder just how many mates Cin had lost through the years. The Fae are pretty much immortal too, but then I don't think they even come close to understanding what it is like to love someone. Cin did. She had loved Mindy with all her heart and soul.
And lost her. Because of me. No more joint missions. I should have stuck to my guns and went in alone. Better for me to have died than this.
I felt a hand drop onto my shoulder and looked up into Dunwood’s eyes. "You are not to blame for this," he said. "Remember, we volunteered. You never asked."
I just nodded, not trusting my voice. The man knew me too well if he could read my thoughts now. He squeezed my shoulder and then walked over to the rest of the pack that were standing a few feet from the body. A few seconds later, I followed. There would be time for guilt later.
"Before, the rift just looked like wavy heat lines," Jed said, obviously thinking out loud. "You can really see it has grown now." He squinted into the rift, but from several feet away. My sister had not chosen a stupid mate.
He was right. What had been a slight disturbance in the air before was now a slash that you could actually almost see through.
"The hard question is this—is it big enough for demons to come through?" Jed was obviously asking Coyote.
The trickster hesitated before answering. "Like I’ve said before, I've never seen anything like this. I don't think so, but it is getting bigger. How long before it gets big enough is anyone's guess." Again, he hesitated. "And there are things they could send through. Things smaller than demons."
We all looked at him. He had our full attention. "Like what?" It's hard to say who said it first.
Coyote looked decidedly uneasy. He may not be an agent of good, but he isn't one of evil either. Being around the extreme of either was very uncomfortable for him. And this was just about as evil as you could possibly get this side of Hell.
He just shrugged. "Couldn't say. Never been to Hell personally." He shivered. "Never intend to go, either."
Dunwood had established a perimeter around the body when we first got there, to contain any evidence that might have been left. None of us had touched the body. I had expected that to be a problem with Cin, but she just looked at it as if it were just a thing. Which I guess without Mindy's soul, it was.
Now he looked at all of us. "I really need to call this in, guys. Rift or no, we have a murder victim here."
Jed looked thoughtful. "I know it's totally wrong, sheriff, but in just this one case, I'm wondering if maybe we shouldn't move the body before calling in the local sheriff's office." He nodded towards the rift. "That might be a bit hard to explain. And we don't want the men to start rumors around the area and have a lot of gawkers start flooding through here."
Dunwood sighed. "Yeah, containment on this one would be a real bitch." He rubbed his face with both hands, then nodded his agreement. "I'll go to police hell for this, but yeah, let's move the body.”
Dunwood took a step closer to the body, but Coyote stopped him with a hand on his arm.
"You made us stop back here for a reason, right?" he asked. "Do you think your people could find something to help us trace back who these people are?"
Normally I would be offended, being a Benandanti and all, but the Coyo
te seemed to know our limits. This was a popular backpacking and camping area, and there were simply too many scents to follow. Plus, the whole issue of losing the scent once it got into a car and simply drove away.
Dunwood looked puzzled. "Well, first of all, it wouldn't be my people—this area isn't in my jurisdiction. But yes, it might have been possible for them to find something that could help." He shrugged, then started toward the body again. "Guess we'll never know now. I'll look the best I can, and we can comb the area, but we just don't have the right equipment to do the job right."
Coyote stepped in front of the sheriff. "Then please, allow me." He turned toward the body and waved his hand to the right, like a magician performing for an audience. Which in truth was pretty much what was happening. The body disappeared, along with a rough ten-foot circle of grass and sod around it.
Dunwood started to speak, but Coyote raised his hand, a look of concentration on his face. Yes, my sister was right, he was a bit of a show-off. A few seconds later, grass reappeared covering the empty area of raw dirt.
I walked forward to examine it. Although I hate to admit it, I was impressed. You would never know a body had bled out here. I glanced back at Coyote with an eyebrow raised and he seemed to grow just a little taller.
"For the pack," he said.
I nodded, keeping my face serious too. "For the pack," I agreed.
Dunwood turned to Coyote. "Thank you, Coyote. Now where do I tell the department they can find the body?"
"Not far," he said. "Come with me, and I'll show you."
"No popping!" Dunwood sounded a little anxious. "I really don't like popping."
Coyote smiled. "Actually, it would be better to walk anyways, so you can tell them how to find it."
"Right," Dunwood said, nodding. Then he gave a lopsided smile. "Of course, that's what I really meant to say."
Then he turned to the rest of us. "I'd suggest you guys check those cameras so we can see if they captured the killing on tape." He stared hard at each one of us.
"I don't want any talk of guarding this thing without us knowing what might come out of it." His eyes met mine and held there until I gave a reluctant nod. Satisfied, he went on. "Until we know what we are dealing with, we don't know how to fight it. And I don't want to come out here and find any of you lying there. One death is too many. Got that?" He waited for a response from each of the others too, then he and Coyote walked away.
Taz looked thoughtful for a minute, then turned to Jed. "Isn't there some way to do a remote webcam? Something where we could get live feed from here? I mean they do it at parks and such, right? Or are we just too far away?"
Jed smacked his forehead. "A nanny cam. Why the hell didn't I think of that? We can guard this thing by remote. Much safer that way. I really don't like the idea of not finding out that something came through until the day after. Something from Hell can cause an awful lot of damage in that amount of time."
I heard the words they were saying but didn't understand one bit of it. Human technology simply baffled me. But if I caught the meaning of it, they were saying that we could watch the rift from home. That sounded good to me.
My only regret is that they didn't come up with that idea in time to tell Dunwood.
Chapter 18
It was the dead of night when my phone rang. Midnight, the witch’s hour. My fumbling hand knocked it off the table at first and it took me a minute to find it in the darkness.
"Steele here," I said.
A weak voice came from the speaker of the phone, "The clearing. Come. Please." Then dead air.
I was up and dressed within seconds. I threw on clothes at the same time I was calling Coyote and the rest of the pack, at least the Benandanti ones. The ones that didn't require me to use the phone.
Then, afraid that the mind message might not get through to them in time, I followed up with a true call. Jed answered.
"Are you sure it was Dunwood?" he asked.
I nodded, even though I knew he couldn’t see me. My feelings were affecting my ability to talk. "He sounded bad, Jed. Weak."
In all the time I'd known Dunwood, weak was never a word I would have attributed to him. I was almost ready to burst into tears. Me, the stoic royal faerie guard ready to cry. How far I had fallen in this realm.
I walked over to the main house with my sword in one hand and my Glock in the other. I didn’t dare sheath either. Who knew what stalked us in the night.
Dunwood was a true warrior. If they had gotten him, then none of us were safe.
The others were just coming out as I reached the house. Coyote popped in a split second later with MacDougal. He nodded to all of us and then did his magic, and we were at the clearing.
Dunwood lay on the ground a few yards from the rift, which now had grown even larger. A dead body and a whole lot of blood lay right before the rift. No need checking for a pulse, that man was long gone. It just wasn't possible to lose that much blood and still draw breath.
It was obvious that it took a lot of effort for Dunwood to raise his head. He looked at each of the others before settling his eyes on me. "Sorry. Couldn't leave unguarded. They were strong. Couldn't resist. Tried, but kept coming." His eyes bored into mine. "I allowed this."
His eyes closed for a second, and when they reopened they had changed. What had been steel gray irises were now speckled with a golden glowing light. I rushed forward and laid my sword to Dunwood's throat.
"What have you done to Dunwood?" My voice didn’t sound like my own, even to my own ears.
"Careful, child," he said. "You do not wish to harm this body that is so precious to you." The voice was Dunwood's, and yet not Dunwood's all at the same time. What the bloody hell was going on here?
I watched Taz and Jed walk over to the body in front of the rift in my peripheral vision. No way was I taking my gaze off the man at my blade’s end.
After a quick appraisal of the body, they slowly crossed over to me. My sword had not budged.
"Hey, sis," Taz said, her voice sounding stressed. "You might want to let up the pressure on that sword a bit until we figure out what is going on here."
"No." Surprisingly enough, the answer came from Dunwood, not me. "She is right to do this until she is convinced that I am a friend and not the enemy. This is not the time to take chances. The world is at stake. Your group is its best chance." He paused, carefully swallowing around the blade.
"That's why I have been sent," he finished.
A thin but long red line appeared on his throat as I applied a bit more pressure. "I'll ask one last time. What have you done to Dunwood?"
"Nothing. He is still here, but he has given control of his body to me. It was necessary to save him. His faith was strong, but he was not wearing a crucifix. It allowed them entry. Luckily he fought them off long enough for me to arrive."
His left hand lifted slightly as he pointed to the body. "He was not so lucky. His faith was very weak, and it cost him his life."
Before I could ask my next question, Taz asked one of her own. "And who exactly are you?"
At least we seemed to all be on the same page. I mean, he looked like Dunwood, and he kind of sounded like Dunwood, but it was becoming very apparent that Dunwood had left the building. Or at least relinquished control of it. But to whom was the million-dollar question.
"I am an emissary of God," he said.
Oh, is that all, I thought. But what I said was, "You're an angel?"
"No. Angels are a far step above me. I am a human soul warrior." His eyes never left mine, even when he was answering Taz. Made sense as it was my hand that held life or death right now.
"I swear to you that I will protect this human vessel to the very best of my ability, but I have been sent here to help you close that abomination. I can make no guarantees that your... Dunwood... will survive. But I will try." He paused. "Of course, I can make no guarantee that any of us will survive. After all, it is Hell that we face."
"And when we are done, and th
at thing is gone, what then? If you survive the task, what happens to Dunwood?" I had to know.
"When my mission is complete, I will leave. And Dunwood will have full control again. As I said, he is still here. Still safe."
"Steele," Jed said quietly, "Maybe you should let up on the sword a bit. We have him outnumbered. I think we can contain him."
I shook my head. "One tiny thing more before I take away the blade. Please recite the Lord's Prayer."
Dunwood's face smiled beautifully, and he complied. I'd never heard a more compelling recital than the one he gave. The reverence and faith came through with each and every word he spoke.
Finally, I withdrew the blade and placed it in its sheath. "He is what he says he is," I said. Then my eyes locked with his. "But make no mistake, that is no ordinary vessel you wear. Do not bear it lightly."
The man, warrior, whatever, reached up to his neck as he struggled to a sitting position. "I don't suppose any one has a tissue they could spare?"
Coyote conjured one up and handed it to him. Then he looked at Taz, swallowing. "I'm sorry, Taz, but I can't work alongside you all on this one. It would define me." He paused. "Maybe even unmake me."
Taz nodded. "I understand and thank you for telling us. Just please don't leave us stranded. We don't have cars, remember?"
"I'll send Rose. I can't..." He popped. "I'm sorry," came his voice from nowhere.
As Rose had to drive all the way from her house, which was about an hour away, we had some time to kill. Figuring that my sister and Jed were more than a match for the non-angel, I glanced over at the body laying by the rift, then walked over to examine it.
He had been shot, multiple times. But the scary thing was the brand. On his forehead was the red burning mark of recently applied hot metal. Very hot metal. And it was in the shape of a cross.
We were into some very freaky shit here.
When I rejoined them, Jed was applying first aid to the minor scratch on the non-Dunwood’s throat. I kept thinking back to Taz’s original question. It hadn't been answered to my satisfaction.
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