by Jayne Hawke
"We split the fee 50/50," I said.
He held his hand out.
"Deal. Although we'll work from my building. Wolves don't do well in small spaces."
I gripped his hand firmly and shook it, showing that I wasn't some weak little girl.
"If you're going to make me drive to the cheap backwoods of the city, you can cover my lunches."
His eyes turned a paler shade of caramel where his wolf edged forward to challenge me.
"Well, if you can't afford to feed yourself, then we'd be happy to."
As much as I was tempted to keep exchanging digs and quips, I was ready to get on with things.
"What do you have so far?"
"You first," he said as he tucked his hands in the pockets of his pants.
"So you have nothing..." I said.
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't need to," I said with a victorious grin.
"Actually, I caught an interesting scent."
Damn. He did have something, and I was sitting there with jack shit.
"Oh? How do you know it wasn't from one of Ms. Briggs' many guests?"
He cocked an eyebrow at me.
"Are you doubting my ability to track scents?"
"Some dogs are just meant to be lap dogs."
A deep growl rumbled in his throat. I smiled sweetly at him. Two points to me.
"I'm sure. It was... unusual. Not something I've caught before."
"So you know that some weird shit went down?"
"And what exactly do you have?" he said gesturing at me.
"I know that they used some very unusual magic, which means they have access to rare magics. Someone will have noticed that."
I was bullshitting, but I couldn't admit that I had nothing. The thief really must have had some spectacular magic to sneak in like that, though, so I wasn't completely wrong. That, or they were one of Ms. Briggs' guests that had stayed behind after the party. Even then, that didn't explain the odd magic Ms. Briggs felt, or how they got out without a sound or sign.
"Come to my building, we'll begin research."
"Why exactly can't I research here?"
He looked around my office, which I was quite proud of. The views were something I enjoyed in every weather, and I'd been careful to pick out the furniture which gave exactly the impression I wanted. The desk was heavy, sturdy, and simple. A small pattern had been engraved around the very edge. It was what oak tree magic felt like to me, wispy and heavy at the same time. The lines casually ebbed and flowed, widening and thinning at seemingly random points. When I was stressed, I ran my fingertips over that pattern and felt the stress ease.
"Because I have far better resources in my building."
"Such as?" I challenged.
"A talented computer guy, modern computers, and access to every magical database and social media site in existence."
"Bullshit," I said with a laugh.
"Did you know that two knights were responsible for shutting down the supernatural zoo based in France? Or that they stopped people from looking into that coven that died in some freak accident in Inverness a decade ago?"
A heavy weight formed in the pit of my stomach. Why would the Knights give a damn about that? They were a coven of witches devoted to righting the wrongs of the world. They travelled around in pairs and dealt out justice to supernaturals that had hurt innocents. Many people didn't like their presence, but no one could deny that they were fair and unbiased, which wasn't something that could be said about many beings in the world. The bounty hunter companies included.
"You're lying through your teeth. No one can get access to the Knights databases."
"We did," Elijah said with a feral grin.
If he was telling the truth, that would be a fantastic resource. I wondered if I'd be able to get access to it without his people knowing what I was looking at. I needed to find out who was looking into my old coven and why.
"Fine. I suppose it won't kill me to trek out to the arse end of nowhere."
He rolled eyes.
"We both know my building is perfectly located."
He wasn't wrong, but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of agreeing.
Ten
Elijah's building was older, formed of red brick and adorned with large square windows spread across the four storeys. His security system was advanced with complicated layers of magic woven into the very bricks themselves. I slowed my step slightly so that I could feel through the various webs. Many witches could see literal threads and webs of magic, which meant that the general consensus tended to be that this was the most correct perception. Magic, like so much else in reality, was a democracy where everyone got a vote and then the people who mattered decided the truth amongst themselves. They wove it like a tapestry or a spiderweb, apparently, but for me it was more a mingling of textures than anything I could see or define. Complex workings were like making biscuits in the dark. Everything that needed to be there had a feel in the magical senses of my mind, and when it was right it all had just the right consistency. The magic on his building was dense and globular, powerful and purposeful with nothing wasted. They had been designed to assess the intent of anyone who came near. Anyone who had any intention of harming anyone or anything within would find that the concrete turned to liquid and held them in place until someone freed them – a process the weaving would resist if the person doing the freeing didn’t pass the same test. It was an impressive spell.
The interior was modern with clean crisp lines and a modern glass elevator offering views over the forest that surrounded most of the city. It was said that before the fae stepped out of the shadows and took control of the Fae Isles, the Isles were a very different place. The cities were larger, and the fae forests weren't present at all. Open fields were supposed to have surrounded Brighton on most sides. I couldn't picture it, myself.
The fae had come out of the shadows and taken control of the Isles before I was born. Those who had been around before the Fall didn’t really talk about the time before. I’d bugged them about it as a little girl, but they didn’t like talking to me more than absolutely necessary. Not just about the time before, but about anything. Life in the coven wasn’t easy. No one had told me why I was pushed into the corners, dismissed, and kept away from so much of the rest of the coven.
I’d been taught magic, but not with the other witches of my age group. There were always whispers, as though everyone knew something I didn’t. It turned out that they did. I’d been born to be a sacrifice.
Turning my mind back to happier things, I wondered about the Fall and what it must have felt like. The fae had worked with the gods, who came out at the same time, to weave some magic that made people compliant about the new world order. Their lives and world changed overnight. It was hard to know how I’d have reacted to something like that. Suddenly, they had the creatures of myths walking the streets, coming out as owning businesses, and the entire political structure changed.
Those that still fought against the new situation disappeared very quickly. The fae cleaned the lands up, removing pollution. It certainly looked like they’d made huge improvements to the Isles. I might not agree with everything they did, but no one could argue it wasn’t clean and beautiful. The fae had kept the infrastructure in place to make the transition easier, since of course that benefited the fae and the businesses they had been growing since long before the Fall. It appeared that they had been planning the transition for at least a century. The fae and gods didn’t get along, but the gods had been equally as prepared.
Elijah's office was on the top floor. It featured a comfortable-looking brown leather couch big enough to seat six people. The coffee table was low slung in a modern black wood. The space was open and clean with polished concrete floors featuring a swirling silver pattern against the pale grey. A glass wall separated the waiting room from his actual office. It was a nice space.
"Where's the pack?" I asked.
"Grabbing lunch."
>
He led me into his office and gestured towards the over-sized armchairs in a deep chocolate brown with brushed suede covering them. I settled myself into the one with its back to the corner of the room, giving me a clear view of the entire floor.
"What do you know about the artifacts?" he asked me.
I shrugged.
"The same as you. Unicorn blood is rare and potent, the shadow stone is worth a lot and just as difficult to procure as the unicorn blood. Do you think the stone is really from the shadow plane?"
No. I didn't.
"I have no idea. No one can get to the shadow plane, so there's no way to verify. Given no one can get there, my money's on it being fake."
Something flickered over Elijah’s face. He was watching me very closely as though waiting for me to give something away.
“There are rumours that a handful of witches have been granted the shadow weaving ability.”
I laughed.
“There are rumours about everything if you look in the right corners of the internet. Some people swear blind that the earth is flat, others think that we’re all living in a weird virtual reality thing. Then we have those who think that the fae are really lizard people. Surely you don’t believe such things.”
He smirked at me.
“Is it really so unreasonable? We know that the planes walking witches existed. They could not only pull magic from nearly all the planes, but they could travel to them, too. So, knowing that is a hard fact, why wouldn’t shadow weavers also still exist?”
“Because people exterminated the planes walkers for being too powerful. They were terrified of them.”
Elijah leaned back in his chair his gaze never leaving my face. I felt like I was under a microscope.
“There could be other interesting form of witch, too. Perhaps those same planes walkers, or the one that created them, created fae-weaving witches. We don’t even know how many planes exist, really.”
“How is this possibly helping the investigation?” I asked with exasperation.
He was walking far too close to a line I couldn’t allow him to cross. The elevator dinged, and three new magical signatures walked into the office space. I was saved by the pack.
Eleven
I'd known that the Sentinels were a mixed pack, something unusual within shifter circles since most shifters preferred to stay with their own kind. I was still surprised to see a fox shifter walking in with a dire wolf and a mountain lion.
"Liam." Elijah gestured to the fox. "Rex." He pointed to the dire wolf. "And Jess." He nodded at the mountain lion.
Jess looked to be the youngest of the group. She appeared to be barely eighteen, but it was hard to tell with shifters. Rex had looked at me with sharp, pale golden eyes, his chocolate-brown hair cut into a fashionably messy cut which came to the very tips of his ears. It did nothing to soften the intensity that radiated off him. Liam had settled himself on the coffee table between everyone and was distributing food.
"I've eaten, thanks," I said.
The red-headed fox shifter frowned and glanced over at Elijah.
"She'll eat," Elijah said.
"She has a name and a mind of her own," I said.
"Show her," Elijah said with a nod towards the white paper bag.
Liam pulled out a batch of freshly made millionaire’s shortbread. My mouth watered just looking at it. That stuff was my weak spot. How did Elijah possibly know that?
"I told you she'd want some," Elijah said with a shit-eating grin.
"Thank you," I said to Liam as I took a piece.
It was beautiful pale cream shortbread, made from real butter no less, topped with caramel, then chocolate, with a pinch of sea salt on the very top. In short, it was a piece of bliss. The others were all eating burgers and chips. I'd been savouring my shortbread and taking my time enjoying the way it melted on my tongue before I got a hit of sweetness cut through with sea salt. I tried not to stare as Jess, the mountain lion girl, devoured three huge burgers and a bag of chips. I'd known shifters ate a lot, but she didn't have a scrap of fat on her lean frame. I was jealous.
Once everyone had eaten and the packaging had been tidied away, focus returned to business.
"Liam, there, is our computer guy," Elijah said.
Liam had sat down on the coffee table and crossed his legs, apparently happy and comfortable there. Rex was sitting next to Elijah with his arms crossed while he stared me down. He was the beta, the second in command, and he didn't like me much. I smiled and maintained eye contact with him. I wasn't going to back down.
Jess sat at the far end of the couch with her feet propped up on the coffee table and a very feline smile upon her face. She was glancing between Rex and me.
"Rex is my second, and Jess is our acquisitions expert."
"A literal cat burglar," I said drily.
She grinned at me and flexed her fingers, unsheathing curving black claws. I was not intimidated.
"So, as you're apparently the experts here, what do you have?" I asked.
"The fences are all quiet. We don't believe the thief has tried to sell anything on yet," Liam said.
"Within this country, at least," I said.
Elijah raised an eyebrow at me.
"You can't tell me you don't have international clients."
"I think it's more useful if we focus on what we can do," Rex said.
"I think it's more useful if we focus on what happened so we can do the job we were hired to do," I said.
"Assuming they haven't tried to sell it on, there's a small chance that they're either keeping the items for themselves or they were hired by someone. That would mean someone knew Ms. Briggs had those items," Elijah said.
"You're thinking someone close to Ms. Briggs?" I asked.
"I think it's our best starting point."
"Then we need a list of her acquaintances, friends, rivals, and so on," I said.
Liam pulled out a folder from beneath the table and handed it to me. I didn't miss the smirk on Elijah's face.
I looked down the list. There were a number of very wealthy collectors on there. They were the most likely clients. It was ballsy to steal from a friend, but those people got very attached to the idea of owning whatever shiny had caught their attention. I wouldn't have been that surprised if Ms. Briggs flaunted the items at a party and someone grew attached to them.
"You have bank records for these people?" I asked Liam.
The fox shifter glanced at Elijah.
"We paused for lunch," Elijah said with an easy shrug.
"Well, bank records for these is the most logical first step. If any of them have made large transactions, we know to look more closely."
"You're a witch, right?" Jess asked.
"Yes."
"Anything weird and magical at the scene?"
"No, anything smell weird?"
"Yea. There was a sea scent. Like ocean and old seaweed."
"So, we're dealing with a being that has some connection to the ocean? Maybe lives near the sea?"
Jess shook her head.
"Not lives near, that was their scent. Like yours is caramel and roses," Elijah said.
"And that means what? That they're a sea being of some form? Are you going to try and tell me a mermaid did this?"
Elijah smiled, revealing his sharp canines as he did so.
“Do you have a better idea?”
Twelve
I’d left Liam, the fox shifter, hunting through all the databases he had access to, looking for sea-related beings that might have had some form of access to Ms. Brigg’s stolen items. I pulled up in front of my house just in front of Castor.
There was a black satin box sitting on the doorstep, complete with red silk ribbon and a small card. I raised an eyebrow at Castor.
“Your lovers are leaving you gifts now?”
“Don’t look at me. I make sure no one knows where I live.”
I reached out with my magic to make sure it wasn’t a bomb or some such. The
box was entirely blank, not a scrap of magic or life essence on it. That alone was weird. There was usually a small fragment from whomever had handled it. Castor nudged it with the toe of his boot before he leaned down to read the tag.
“All yours,” he said with a smirk.
I picked the box up and read the tag.
She’ll be impressed with this.
What the fuck? I had no idea what that might be referring to.
“Well, open it,” Castor said with his arms crossed impatiently.
I carefully undid the ribbon and slipped the lid off the box. Inside was a mess of silver tissue paper. I carefully parted it to reveal a dull black stone within. It was angular in the shape of a shard of something else. Lifting it up, my heart threatened to stop dead in my chest. The stone wasn’t much bigger than my palm, maybe two inches deep with an angular profile ending in a thin point at either end.
“Is that what I think it is?” Castor hissed.
I poked at it with my magic and my fears were confirmed. It was the shadow stone. And it was genuine. The stone in my hand was made from the same shadow that I pulled from the shadow plane. That was supposed to be an extinct talent, something that no one wanted around. Shadow weavers weren’t as heavily hunted as the planes walkers, but they certainly weren’t loved.
Placing the stone back into the box, I exhaled slowly. Someone was screwing with me.
“You’ll be able to return it to the client,” Castor said as he opened the front door.
Once we were safely inside, I said, “Who could possibly know that I was supposed to be retrieving this? Someone’s fucking with me, they have to be.”
Castor nodded and pursed his lips.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you need to be calm. Did you feel any magic at all on the box or stone?”
“No. Not a thread.”
“That tells us we’re dealing with a talented magic wielder. Your address is well hidden, but someone could have followed you. The real question is, what is their intent?”