The Drow Hath Sent Thee

by Martha Carr

  The fae raised her hand and stuck up three fingers. “Three times.”

  Matthew sighed. “Okay, that was different. That was before I knew what you guys are.”

  “Oh, really?” Ember folded her arms again and cocked her head. “What are we?”

  “You know, magic and stuff.” He grimaced at the weak points of his nonexistent argument. “Look, I didn’t know what was happening before. I mean, I still don’t, but you showed me enough to know that I have no idea what I’m getting into. All I’m asking is that you take a look, Cheyenne, okay? I’ll give you access to my uncle’s server, or at least the parts of it he didn’t have someone else copy and build on. You can go in, take a look around, answer a few questions for me, and then I’ll leave you alone.”

  She pursed her lips. “Sorry. Can’t do it.”

  “Please, Cheyenne. I can’t let this go. I thought I knew the guy, and now I’m finding all this stuff that doesn’t add up, and I need to know what he’s doing. Why he’s keeping it from me. I fucking hate it, but I can’t figure it out on my own.”

  “Yeah, that’s frustrating.”

  Matthew aimed his pleas at Ember instead. “Do you guys know what he’s up to? What he’s hiding?”

  “I don’t know why you think I have anything to do with this.” Ember draped an arm over the couch’s armrest behind her. “If Cheyenne says she can’t do it, Matthew, I’m not gonna turn around and tell you, ‘No problem.’”

  “Jesus.” He pressed both hands to his head and turned around in a tight circle. “I’m never gonna live this down, am I?”

  “Only if you keep freaking out like that.” Cheyenne kicked away from the door and stepped over to him, spreading her arms. “Look, your timing’s perfectly shitty, okay?”

  “My timing?”

  “Yeah. I know a few things that would blow your mind if I told you.”

  “Whatever. That’s fine. Tell me. I can handle it.”

  “All right, slow down.” She stuck her hands in the pockets of her trenchcoat and exchanged knowing glances with Ember. I can’t tell him anything until after this meeting tomorrow. Something tells me he’s more likely to blow the whole thing for us than sit tight and keep a secret. “We can talk about it again after tomorrow night.”

  Matthew glanced between Cheyenne and Ember, his frazzled panic intensifying. “Why? What’s going on tomorrow night?”

  “Yeah, if I wanted to tell you now, I wouldn’t have said wait until after tomorrow night.”

  “Come on. What am I supposed to do until then, huh?”

  She nodded curtly and slapped a hand on his back before guiding him with a little more force than necessary toward the door. “It’s tough to have to wait around. Trust me, I get it, but that’s what you’re gonna have to do. Come back in a couple of days, and I’ll explain what I can.”

  “I can’t just do nothing.”

  “You’ll be fine.” She opened the door and nodded at the hall. “Find a few good movies or something.”

  Matthew turned around to look at Ember again. “Ember…”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay, how about this? Whatever happens tomorrow night, I’ll make sure none of it blows back on you, okay?”

  “You will?” Ember asked.

  At the same time, Matthew asked, “Why would it blow back on me?”

  Cheyenne nodded at Ember. “Yeah, I will.” Then she turned to their neighbor. “Because of the shit you programmed and sold to O’gúl loyalists intent on carrying out orders they got from a leader they don’t even know isn’t in power anymore.”

  “I don’t understand any of that.”

  “I know.” She gestured at the hallway, more forcefully this time. “But I’ll keep you out of it, okay?”

  Matthew glanced at Ember, then frowned at the halfling. “I didn’t think you liked me enough to protect me from whatever this is.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t, not really. But if you seriously had no idea what you were getting into at the beginning and you don’t know now, I can’t blame you for it. If I find out down the road that you’re funding or working on anything for these assholes, if you’re still even remotely involved, I’ll bring you down. That’s a promise.” Cheyenne straightened her arm and pointed into the hall.

  “Deal. I’m not taking a job like that one ever again.”

  “Great. Now you can go home.”

  “Ember.” Matthew turned away from the open door and approached the couch.

  “Jesus Christ,” Cheyenne muttered. Shaking her head, she propped a hand on the doorframe and glared at him. It’s not like he can’t take a hint. I wasn’t fucking hinting.

  “Give me a minute,” Matthew said, whether he was talking to Cheyenne or Ember or both of them. “Can I sit?”

  Ember shook her head. “Not a good idea.”

  “Okay, sure. Yeah.” He set his hands on the back of the couch instead and smiled weakly down at her. “I want to tell you I’m sorry.”

  “Well, thanks. And you’ve already said that. More than once.”

  “Yeah, I know. I mean it, though. You believe me, right?”

  “I believe that you want me to believe it. Other than that, I don’t really. What are you looking for?”

  “What?” Matthew looked down at her again after scanning the living room. “Sorry, it’s still weird to see you out of your wheelchair. I guess that’s what I’m looking for.”

  “Well, you won’t find it, ‘cause it’s not here.”

  His eyes widened. “What happened?”

  “Magic, Matthew. Magic happened, and that’s what’s going on right now.”

  He let out a nervous chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess I’m still getting used to that.”

  “I think you still need to get used to the fact that I’m not ready to have that conversation with you right now. Or anytime soon. At least until after Monday night, but that still feels like pushing it.”

  “So you’re a part of whatever she’s doing too?” Matthew gestured at Cheyenne, who was seconds away from grabbing him by the back of his button-down shirt and tossing him out of their apartment.

  “I said, I’m not ready.” Ember raised her eyebrows and shrugged. “It’s too close to home. Literally, in this case.”

  Cheyenne tapped her fingers on the doorframe. “I’d take that as your cue to head on out, neighbor.”

  Ember picked up the stack of loose spellbook pages and got back to reading.

  With a sigh, Matthew turned slowly around and headed for the door.

  Oh, sure. I point into the hall, but it’s the cold shoulder that gets the point across. This guy’s got it bad for the fae, wheelchair, or no wheelchair.

  “So, I can come back Monday night, and you’ll tell me what’s going on?”

  Cheyenne wrinkled her nose. “Eh, better make it Tuesday morning. Late morning. There’s a recovery period.”

  He stopped in front of the door and gave her a panicked frown. “A what?”

  Rolling her eyes, Cheyenne leaned forward, grabbed his wrist, and hauled him through the doorway. He stumbled out, his mouth opening and closing when he realized how strong she had to be to pull him out after her like that. Cheyenne leaned back inside to grab the door handle. “Later, Em.”

  “Yep.”

  The door was finally shut with Cheyenne and their clueless neighbor on the other side, and the halfling pointed at Matthew’s front door. “Go home. Have a drink, watch something, write a program, I don’t know. Whatever gets you to calm the hell down. I have somewhere to be. And give it a rest with Ember, okay? Whatever you’re trying to make happen, you’re not doing yourself any favors right now.”

  He stared at her, then glanced at the wall behind her and nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Okay. See ya.” Without giving him time to say anything else, she turned away and headed quickly down the hall. The dude doesn’t give up. Useful quality, I guess, just not with this.

  Before she reached the elevato
r, she heard Matthew Thomas’ front door open and shut again. At least he’s learning.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  It took her almost thirty minutes to get to the address Lee had texted her. Cheyenne slowed her car on the long gravel drive toward a property wall and an open gate with the house number mounted in huge, black iron letters on the side. That’s the one thing Mom didn’t bother to put in on the estate, but everything else sure looks damn familiar.

  By the time she passed through the gate, the front of Lee McDurn’s personal property came into view. There were sweeping manicured lawns, a wide, three-story mansion at the end of a circular drive with a fountain in the center, and two long, squat buildings on the west side of the property turned inward to face the main house. Cheyenne frowned at the house and took her car around the circular drive before stopping halfway between the four-car garage attached to the house and the two outbuildings.

  “He said out of one of his garages.” She pulled out her phone and was about to call him when the front door opened and the man stepped outside, waving excitedly at her as he jogged down the front steps, waxed handlebar mustache, cream-colored Stetson and all.

  “Hey!” Lee reached the gravel drive and hurried to the driver’s side door.

  Cheyenne rolled down the window. “You got a lot of garages.”

  “Ha. Yeah, I’ve been thinking about putting up a sign. Never quite got around to it. Pull on up to the first one, yeah?”

  “Sure.”

  Lee stepped away from the Panamera, gave it a once-over, and let out a low whistle. “Still looks good.”

  “I want it to look like somebody didn’t drive it through the woods.”

  “You came to the right place.” Lee nodded at the first outbuilding as he walked backward, then turned around to hurry toward the bay door, casting quick glances over his shoulder.

  Cheyenne pulled the car around and headed to the opening bay door as it slid back into place along the ceiling of the garage. Lee stopped in front of the entrance and grinned at her with his hands in his pockets as she pulled up and parked. “Want me to keep going?”

  “Nope. You’re fine right there. I’ll pull her in later on. Come on. I’ll show you around.”

  She turned off the engine and left the keys in the center console before getting out to join him. “So when you said one of your garages, you meant one of your hangars, huh?”

  Lee laughed and stuck out his hand for a brief shake. She took it and glanced around the inside of the garage. “Yeah, it’s a little bigger than most garages in town.”

  She snorted. “Just a little.”

  “You won’t find stuff like this at any of the body shops in Richmond. Hell, I don’t know anyone within four states keeping this kinda inventory. I don’t care what size garage they have.” The man nodded and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “You wanna see this.”

  “I probably do.”

  Lee led her into the garage, which looked a lot larger on the inside, probably due to the half-dozen cars parked side by side down the length of the building.

  “Wow.”

  “This is the workshop. I’ve got the finished collection in the other garage. Check this out. You ever see one of these?” He pointed at the racing-green Eagle E-Type Speedster at the front of the line. “This guy wanted a new paint job. Wouldn’t have picked the color myself, but he insisted. Switched out a few parts on the interior, too. The seats had a few holes, leather peeling up off the steering wheel, stuff like that.”

  Cheyenne leaned over to peer inside. “Looks pretty good.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, pretty good. Then we got the 1937 Packard 120. You saw that one already. And this one here?” Lee gently patted the hood of a boxy-looking sedan in slate-gray with flecks of blue in the shimmering paint. “2006 Lexus LS430.”

  “See, this is the kinda car I expected you to drive away in when we met.”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” The man grinned and readjusted his Stetson. “Definitely looks like an old-man car.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “Ha. But you were thinkin’ it. That’s fine. I thought it too, but lemme tell you something about this car. Don’t get me wrong, your Panamera’s a piece of art on its own, but this? This is the wallflower of luxury sedans when it comes to looks, but it’s got all the personality, I tell you what.”

  Cheyenne scanned the cream-leather interior and the wood panels on the steering wheel, doors, dashboard, and gearshift. “Doesn’t look very fast.”

  “Hey, speed isn’t everything. She can hold up, but the real kicker is the ride.” Lee whistled and swept his hand away from him. “Best suspension of any car I’ve gotten to drive, and that’s sayin’ something. Hell, when I drove this baby up that gravel drive, couldn’t feel a thing. Not a single bump.”

  “Nice.”

  He chuckled. “Uh-huh. Nice. Got it off a woman in Illinois who had absolutely no idea what she was sittin’ on. She wanted it off her hands, and I was more than happy to help her out. These things go fast, if and when they show up on the market. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.”

  “And you get one more ride in your collection.”

  “Yes, indeed. Working on updating the stereo system. That thing was top-of-the-line with all the bells and whistles back in the day, but no one uses cassette tapes and CDs anymore. Putting in a better nav system too. Then she’ll be like brand-new. The Bluebook value on this thing is fifteen thousand. A damn steal if you ask me.”

  “Well done.” Cheyenne stuck her hands in her coat pockets and looked into the back seat. Less than a quarter of what I paid for mine, but whatever.

  “You don’t even know, Cheyenne. Reclining back seats with vibrating massagers. There’s a damn fridge in the back. Craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Even out of all the cars you’ve worked on?”

  “Of course not.” Lee nodded at the Lexus and grinned. “But all that comes stock with this baby.”

  “Huh.”

  “Yep.” He led her down the line of cars, pointing out the Chevy Bel Air, the Alfa Romeo GTA-R, and the Range Rover Classic and laying out his favorite qualities of each. “I tell you what, it’s a great way for an old man to put all his free time to good use. I find cars, buy ‘em, fix ‘em up. Sometimes I sell ‘em, sometimes I don’t, but it’s all about the thrill of the hunt and being able to show ‘em off in the end, you know?” He winked at her and gestured at the far end of the garage again. “So now that you’ve humored an old man geeking out about his cars, let’s go take a look at yours.”

  “Sounds good.” She followed him back down the line of cars, briefly scanning her warped reflection in each of the pristinely painted and detailed bodies as she passed. Gotta humor him, right? I’d probably get this giddy too if anyone seemed remotely interested in seeing what I did with Glen.

  “All right. You got a few dings. Scratches.” Lee rubbed his lip beneath his waxed mustache. “The driver’s side headlight’s gonna need replacing.”

  “Yep.”

  “How’re the tires?”

  “I mean, I bought the thing brand new. Shouldn’t be anything wrong with them.”

  “All right. I’ll take a closer look when I get up here under the wheel well. You got a bent rim too, you know that?”

  “Yeah, I saw.”

  The man grinned at her as he straightened from studying the tires. “I’m assuming you want this patched up ASAP, huh?”

  “The sooner, the better. If I have to pay you more for rush service, that’s not a problem.”

  “Oh.” Lee raised his eyebrows at her. “Always nice to hear.”

  She shrugged. “I just want my car back to normal.”

  “I hear ya. Come on, I’ll write up an estimate, not that we have to stick to it. If it takes less time, I’m not gonna charge you for more. But I gotta keep track of what I’m doin’ somehow, you know?”

  “Sure.” She followed him back into the garage toward a long, low desk against
the back wall.

  “Oh, hey. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. Mostly Fresca and water, I think. Maybe a few beers.” Lee stepped behind the desk and opened a drawer to pull out a huge spiral-bound notebook of perforated pages with carbon copies. “This won’t take me more than a few minutes.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Cheyenne grabbed a bottled water from the mini-fridge, then stood and scanned the shelves higher up on the wall. They were crammed with tools, old license plates, and three-ring binders. As she took a long drink of water, a framed photograph caught her eye. Lee and a woman in her late twenties stood side by side, their arms around each other’s waists, laughing at the camera with the ocean in the background. “Where was this taken?”

  “Hmm? Oh.” A slow, lazy smile spread across Lee’s face when he noticed the picture. “Yeah, that’s Sandbridge six, maybe seven years ago. My daughter and I drove this sweet little cruise down there into Norfolk a few months before I sold the thing. Caroline. Right about the time she moved to Charleston, I think it was.”

  “Sounds like a fun trip.” The kind Bianca would shut down in a heartbeat if I so much as thought about taking a trip with her. “Is she still in Charleston?”

  The man’s smile faded, and he looked back down at his binder of estimates. “You know, I’m not sure where she is these days.”

  Cheyenne shot him a quick glance, but he focused on writing out the estimate and shrugged. That’s the sound of a stranger crossing the line into personal-history territory.

  Lee kept talking. “Not that I wouldn’t love to know, mind you. I can’t get her to pick up the phone. Honestly, I don’t even know if she has the same number. I could be calling a complete stranger, for all I know. You’d think I’d be able to tell whose number I’m calling, but she’s not real big on recording voicemail messages. There’s always a chance some poor bastard’s been listening to my messages for years and laughing at me on the other end of it.”

  She wrinkled her nose and turned away from the shelf. “Sorry.”

  “What are you gonna do, right? Keep on keepin’ on, I guess. Things change. People change. Sometimes, we turn out to be the complete opposite of who we thought we were, and it makes our kids turn against us.”