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I looked up at Shade, intensely grateful for his support. “Thank you. Let’s go,” I said to the others. “We can’t do any more here tonight. ” And with that, we turned and walked away—even though it was torture to think there might be more of my friends under the rubble—and headed for our cars.
So who am I? Taking a moment here to introduce myself, let me first say that some days I’m not exactly sure who I am. Oh, I know I’m Delilah D’Artigo, a two-faced Were, meaning one shape I shift into is a long-haired golden tabby who loves to get into trouble, and the other is my black panther self—ruled over by the Autumn Lord. There’s no memory problem…but I’ve been changing so rapidly over the past year, it’s hard to catch my breath, and sometimes I stare at myself in the mirror, wondering who’s looking back at me.
One of those changes includes the fact that I’ve also become a Death Maiden—the only living Death Maiden at this time. Most of the Autumn Lord’s servants are dead, their souls gathered in Haseofon to work for him, but I’m alive. And someday, he has promised I will bear his child via my lover Shade. How and when that’s to be, I have no clue, but it’s destined to happen, and I believe in Fate.
At first, the transformation into the Autumn Lord’s service was hard for me. When my sisters and I came Earthside a few years back, I was still fairly naïve. I believed in the goodness of people. Now—well, I’m still an optimist, but I lost my rose-colored glasses along the way. And I no longer automatically assume the best of everyone I meet. Now, I’m embracing my duties, and I feel honored to hold the title.
Along with my sisters—Camille, a wicked good witch, who is also a priestess of the Moon Mother, and Menolly—a jian-tu acrobat and spy-turned-vampire, we were sent over from Otherworld. We were members of the OIA—the Otherworld Intelligence Agency—and after the portals dividing the worlds opened, we were assigned Earthside.
At first, the people here opened up their arms to their magical brethren. At one time the two worlds were united and the reunion caught the heart of most of Earthside. But now hate crimes were on the rise as interaction between the Supes—supernaturals—and the FBHs increased and the novelty wore off.
Our mother was human—she’s long dead—and our father is Fae. Near the end of World War 2, when Sephreh was over Earthside on some secret mission, they met and fell in love. In the true nature of whirlwind romances, he swept her off her feet and took her back to Otherworld. Losing Mother was hard on our family. Losing our father’s support was even harder. But he turned his back on Camille, and in doing so, we turned our backs on him.
We resigned from the OIA and told our father that we’d return to duty when he came around to accepting Camille’s pledge to the Earthside Fae Queen’s court. Now we’re on our own, still facing the demon lord Shadow Wing, who intends to raze Earth and Otherworld for his own private amusement.
He’s after the spirit seals, and so are we. Originally one seal, the artifact was formed after the Great Divide, the time when the great Fae Lords ripped apart the worlds. They created the seal to keep Otherworld, Earthside, and the Subterranean Realms separate, then broke it into nine pieces, scattering them to the Elemental Lords to keep them hidden. Separate, the nine seals have kept the realms safe. If brought back together, they can rip open all the portals.
But sometimes things work as they will and not as we wish. The seals began to surface. They came to the attention of Shadow Wing. And that’s where we come in. We were plunged into a race to find them as they made themselves known—hopefully before the Demon Lord gets hold of them. He managed to steal one of them from us before we could secure it. We’ve found five. So far the odds are in our favor, but the fact that he possesses even one of them puts everyone in danger.
Technically, we now work for Queen Asteria, the Elfin Queen back in Otherworld, who’s hiding the spirit seals as we take them to her. But in reality we work on our own, trying to ensure that the future makes it here in one piece without too much damage or demonic interference. Some days are easier than others…
“What are you thinking about?” Shade glanced over at me as I leaned back in the passenger seat, wincing. I had the beginnings of a headache and wondered how long before the side effects of the damishanya were going to hit.
“I’m wondering who I know among the dead. Which families I’m going to have to shatter with the news. ” I rubbed my temples, glancing into the backseat at Chase and Sharah. “You guys have it worse…I know. I’m not complaining. It’s just never…”
“Never easy,” Chase said, finishing my thought. “Trust me, I understand and if I didn’t think you’d be a helpful influence, I’d never ask you to join me for this. I wish we’d brought Nerissa, too. This is part of her job. She’s a wonderful grief counselor. ”
I pulled out my cell phone. “Let me give her a call and see how she’s doing. ” The phone rang three times before Iris picked up. I ran down what we’d learned and where we were going. “Is Nerissa in any shape to drag herself out of the house and down to HQ?”
“Hold on. ” Iris set the phone down, and as I waited, I thought about how entangled we’d all become in each others’ lives. After a moment, Iris returned. “She’s sober. I’ll have Bruce’s driver take her down to headquarters in the limo. If you could see that she gets home when necessary…”
“No problem. Bless you and bless Bruce. Tell her we’ll see her when she gets there. ” I punched the End Call button. “Nerissa’s coming down. ”
Chase grunted a thank-you. “Odd…how this has all worked out. ” He didn’t say anything more, but I knew he’d picked up on my mood—I’d been around him long enough to tell.
We’d been involved, after he struck out with Camille, and we’d made a good stab at a relationship, but the rocks on that ocean were just too sharp to navigate. Now he was involved with Sharah, the elfin medic, and they seemed to be a more compatible couple. He’d hired Nerissa as a crisis counselor, and she and Menolly were promised to each other. One by one, our extended family kept growing involved in ways we’d never have been able to predict. It kind of made up for the isolation we’d first felt when we came over Earthside.
By the time we arrived at the FH-CSI headquarters, Morio was fully sober. Apparently alcohol sped through his system quickly. Camille looked vaguely ill, as did Shamas, and I was starting to feel as rough as they looked. But we were all clearheaded as we followed Chase and Sharah into the building.
The Faerie-Human Crime Scene Investigation building took up at least four floors, though there was a rumor of a hidden level. The top floor housed the police headquarters and medical unit. First floor down was a highly secure arsenal. Second floor down—the OW offender jails. And on the bottom floor were the laboratory, morgue, and archives. Tonight, we were headed for the morgue—a place we had been all too often.
As the elevator descended with a silent rush, a somber mood settled over the group and I stared at my feet, Shade’s hand on my shoulder. I didn’t want to go in—didn’t want to look at the faces of my fallen friends. The Supe Community was tight-knit; everybody knew everybody else.
The doors opened with a swish and we stepped out onto the hard tiled floor, our boots leaving a series of staccato tattoos echoing in our wake. The walls here had been recently painted sterile white. Whether they thought the color made the atmosphere brighter than the pale blue had, I didn’t know, but now the complex felt cold and hollow. As Chase pushed through the doors, Sharah right behind him, I watched them go in.
They fit together…they really fit. Both of them had to deal with the leavings of society—the aftermath of battle. Whereas I was on the front lines, Chase was better suited to picking up the pieces and making sense of it all, of organizing the back lines. We’d never found our niche together. And yet we both had our place in the battles we were facing. And we’d become blood brother and sister. No matter what, we had each other’s back.
Chase glanced back
at me, his eyes shimmering, and he blinked, then slowly smiled and inclined his head, as if he’d heard me speaking. He was changing, evolving, and none of us knew what he was becoming. Not even him.
He stood back, holding the morgue doors open for us. Sharah headed over to examine the bodies and talk to Mallen, her right-hand man, who was also an elf. He handed her a series of charts and she flipped through them.
I slowly approached the tables—five of them, each covered with a snow white sheet. Or what had started as snow white. Blossoms of blood spread across them, petals staining the undersides of the sheets, and as I watched, the patterns seemed to form the silhouettes of flowers. Or perhaps it was my imagination—like some gruesome Rorschach test.
The bodies were still, no breath, no movement. No fear they’d turn into vampires, like when Menolly had come here to identify victims. Just…dead. Cold, forever gone. I took a deep breath and looked up at Mallen.
“How bad are they?” Swallowing my fear, I tried to remind myself that I was a Death Maiden. I escorted—or would soon escort—souls over through the veil as part of my duties. I would be leaving the empty bodies of not just my enemies, but anybody whom the Autumn Lord ordered me to take.
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “They aren’t good. It’s not…it’s bloody. But the faces are fairly intact. I think they’re recognizable enough. The bodies were pretty mangled and burned. Four of them were right near the blast. The fifth…he never made it through the ride to the hospital. ”
Menolly and Camille joined me. I reached for Camille’s hand as Mallen pulled back the first sheet. I flinched. I knew the face. “Tom. Thomas Creia. He’s a member of the Verde Canis Clan. They were a group of Weres working for environmental causes. He’s married. Two children. ”
Sharah jotted down the information as we moved to the second table. Again, the sheet came down. Again, a familiar face.
“Crap. Trixie Jones. One of Marion’s sisters. Coyote shifter. Single. I think she might have been engaged, but I’m not sure. ” The fire in my belly began to burn brighter. Whoever did this, I wanted to find them. Now.
The third sheet. Another man. This one, I knew by name but not to call friend. But his death had not been pleasant, and the grimace on his face told me he’d died in pain.
“Salvatore Tienes. Werewolf. He recently moved up from Arizona. I don’t know what pack he was with, but he’s been staying with a werewolf family up in Shoreline. ” I bit my lip, wanting to stop. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t want to see who was left—an irrational fear took hold, that it would be someone even closer. Mallen drew back the fourth sheet.
I stared. Menolly and Camille squeezed my hands, and Camille let out a little gasp. Even Chase moved closer, hanging his head.
“Exo Reed,” he said quietly.
Everybody in the Supe community knew Exo. He ran the Halcyon Hotel, catering to Supes. He’d called us in on several jobs and was an upstanding member of the NRA and a member of the chamber of commerce for the greater Seattle area. And now, he was so much fodder for worms. Bloody…gone to whatever afterlife awaited werewolves when they died.
Tears threatened, but I sucked them back, holding myself rigid. Camille was doing the same, and Menolly had one of those horrific looks on her face that told me she wanted to do nothing less than hunt down the scum who did this and rip them to shreds.
“Show us the last, Mallen. Then we should talk to the survivors. ” Chase glanced over at the elf but paused when Mallen held up his hand.
Mallen barely looked old enough to be in high school, but he was far older than most of us. “They aren’t in any condition to talk. They may not be for a long time. But I’ll do my best to have them conscious by tomorrow. ”
“Crap. We need to know everything we can about this blast. ” Chase looked flummoxed but then shrugged. “Whatever…we’ll play it as we go. So, who’s our last victim?”
We were all afraid that it was going to be someone else we knew, but this time it wasn’t a Were, but an elf, unfamiliar to any of us. Neither Mallen nor Sharah recognized him, either.
“We’ll have to go through the records of who came over from Otherworld recently…track down anybody who might have seen him come through the portals. ” I was shaken, and I hated to admit it, but I’d been relieved that our last casualty wore a stranger’s face. Somewhere, he had to have family or friends who would miss him. But for us, he was easier to handle—a cold statistic in what had become a terribly personal crime.
“Did the fire or explosion kill them? I know it’s an obvious question, but is there anything we overlooked? That we don’t know?” Camille spoke up, looking to Mallen for answers.
“Good question,” Chase said.
Mallen consulted his charts. “Toxicology is still out, but the most obvious cause is massive trauma due to whatever explosive device this was, and third-degree burns over most of their bodies. Although…” He paused.
“Although what?” I pulled out my notebook and began making my own notes.
“The odd thing…when a bomb detonates—a homemade bomb like those commonly used by hate crime groups—they usually make sure it’s loaded with shrapnel. Now, there are injuries due to shrapnel here, but it wasn’t from the bomb. The fragments obviously came from the surroundings. Wood from the beams, metal from the tables that exploded. Whatever blew up doesn’t seem to have left much of a residue. ”
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