As the guys sprawled out in the living room and we joined them, Iris made the mistake of telling them about the stripper.
Smoky leaned forward, his eyes whirling. “You watched another man remove his clothing for entertainment?” He glared at Camille.
“Chill out, Iris threw up on him and that killed the mood.”
“I can’t help it if I have morning sickness all the damned day!” Iris looked hurt and Camille slipped over to give her a hug, then plopped down on Smoky’s lap. His hair reached up to stroke her shoulders and entwine around her waist.
“I’ll bet the gentleman wasn’t expecting that response.” Shade laughed.
“I’m not so sure he was that much of a gentleman.” Camille repeated what the dancer had told her about the potion and the shop. “Sounds like sorcery to me. I don’t like it.”
I was about to say something when the phone rang. Yugi’s voice echoed through the line.
“Delilah?” Yugi was Chase’s second in command at the FH-CSI—the Faerie-Human Crime Scene Investigation unit. And he sounded so frantic I could barely understand him. “Please, we need you over here now. Sharah and Chase especially. It’s an emergency.”
“What’s up?” A tingling in my gut told me that whatever it was, we were in no shape to deal with it.
“There’s been a bombing at the Supe Community Council. Four confirmed deaths so far, and two people are in intensive care. We don’t know how many others were in the building. Rescue teams are heading in as soon as the bomb squad confirms no more danger. Get over here. Now.”
As I hung up, staring helplessly at the phone and wondering if any of my friends were among the dead, I realized that despite the celebrations going on in our private lives, we were always on call. There would never be another moment when we could fully relax—not until we’d pushed back the demons and stopped Shadow Wing and his cronies. And even then... there were other horrors in the world waiting for us to stop them.
“Sober up any way you can,” I said, setting the receiver back in the cradle. “We’ve got work to do. And it can’t wait till tomorrow.”
2
The room fell silent. I took a deep breath and barked out orders. “Smoky, Shade—you guys are sober, but I’ll be damned if Smoky’s touching a car.”
“I can drive,” he protested, but I shook my head.
“Right, and I can blow smoke out of my mouth. Nice try.” I tossed my keys to Shade. “You drive my Jeep and take Vanzir, Roz, and me. Menolly, you’re sober. You can drive Camille’s car and take her and her men.”
Iris piped up. “Bruce’s driver can take Chase and Sharah. But somebody has to stay here. Someone not drunk out of their minds.”
“Right . . . okay. Smoky, you stay with Iris and the others. You can handle trouble if there is any.”
“Check.” He blinked, the smile wiping off of his face. Ever since his father had captured Camille, the dragon had taken security around the place to a whole new level. We practically lived in a compound now.
“Crap, is there any way we can get some of this booze out of our systems?” I didn’t want to go in drunk. And I had the feeling that—from now on—we wouldn’t be partying with booze.
Iris blinked. “I can help—I’ve got an herb that works wonders, but the effects won’t be pleasant in the morning.”
“We have no choice. Can we all use it?” I didn’t care if we all had the dry heaves in the morning. Tonight, we needed to be on our game.
“Not everybody. But you, Camille, Shamas, Trillian, Sharah . . . it might also help Rozurial since he was Fae before he was turned into an incubus. I’d be hesitant to try it on Morio or Vanzir, though. I’m not sure about Nerissa.”
“Then bring it on. Shade’s fine. Nerissa’s staying here, so go ahead and try to sober her up after we’re gone. That just leaves Vanzir and Chase.”
“I don’t need it.” Trillian held out his hand. It was steady. “I had two brandies a few hours ago. I’m sober.”
Iris nodded. “Fine. While I might consider giving it to Chase . . . hell . . . just a minute!” She turned and raced for the bathroom.
Meanwhile, Smoky picked up Camille, tossed her over his shoulder, and headed up the stairs. “I’ll get her dressed for action,” he called over his shoulder. Trillian and Morio followed.
I pulled off my boots and asked Shade to bring me down a pair of mud stompers and a heavy denim jacket. The rest of my outfit would be fine. He nodded and dashed up the stairs.
Meanwhile, Iris reappeared and motioned for Menolly to help her. I followed them into the kitchen, where Iris pulled out a packet of a foul-smelling herbs, but instead of steeping them into tea, like I thought she was going to, she began packing them into gelatin capsules. Then she whispered some sort of enchantment over the capsules and handed me one of the giant horse pills along with a bottle of water.
I stared at it, finally slipping it into my mouth. I struggled to swallow it with a big swig of water. It began to open on the way down and I burped, an earthy, tangy taste filling my mouth. As I winced, Iris slapped a piece of bread spread with butter in my hands.
“Eat. It will help cushion the impact of the damishanya root.”
“Damishanya? Oh crap. We’re fucked. But yeah, it will help.”
Damishanya was an Otherworld herb that was as harsh as it was effective. I’d forgotten about it until Iris mentioned the name, but now memories of the root flooded back. The first time Camille, Menolly, and I had gotten pie-faced drunk, we’d sneaked some of the herb to keep our father from finding out. But he could smell the booze and herb a mile away, and we’d all suffered his wrath. We’d all been on cleaning duty for a week straight. He’d blamed Camille most, since she was the oldest and he held her responsible. She’d been under house arrest for two weeks.
As Camille and the others entered the kitchen, Iris doled out the capsules and food, and then we headed out for the cars. Roz had declined the drug; come to find out he was barely tipsy and just blowing off steam. He did, however, wash off the oil and dress. Vanzir stayed home—he was too wasted to be of any help in the field.
So Shade and I took Chase and Sharah with us in the Jeep, while Menolly drove Camille’s Lexus, ferrying Camille, Morio, Trillian, and Shamas.
As we headed down the driveway my thoughts suddenly began to clear. The root was working fast. With a poignant regret, I realized how much I’d welcomed shutting down my mind for a while. For just a little while, we’d let ourselves go wild, forget about all we’d been facing. But now, I realized just how much steam was left behind the barrier.
As we pulled into the parking lot at the Supe Community Council, I realized I was stone-cold sober. The hall—a small building that sat on a weed-infested lot with a parking lot full of cracks in the pavement—was smoldering. The smell of smoke saturated the air and it was hard to breathe. I opened the door and slowly stepped out of the car.
At first glance, I thought maybe we’d lucked out and the building hadn’t been hit too hard. But as the others joined us—with everybody but Morio looking relatively intact—we moved forward, and I realized that the place had been gutted by the fire and explosion.
I stared at the fractured hall, my heart skipping a beat. I was an integral part of the Supe Community Council. I could have easily been here. The planning committee for an upcoming dance was supposed to have met tonight. And what if this had happened during one of our monthly meetings, when we’d have had up to a hundred members joining us?
The thoughts of what might have been began to run through my head, an unending stream of bloody images, until I realized a lump the size of a golf ball had formed in the back of my throat. Camille took my hand as we surveyed the damage. The firemen were still pouring water on parts of the building, but by now, most of the flames had burned themselves out. There wasn’t much left for them to feed on.
“It’s bad.” Yugi saw us and hurried over. Second in command to Chase, the Swedish hulk of a detective had grown into a frie
nd—he’d always been helpful to us. He was an FBH, but he was also an empath, and now he looked into my eyes and I saw him shiver. He turned to Chase, who stepped up.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here—” Chase started to say, remorse filling his voice.
“You can’t be on duty twenty-four-seven, boss. Nobody knew this was going to happen. We didn’t have any warning. Sure, hate crimes have been up, but nobody expected anything like this to go down.” Yugi handed him a file. “Here are the details we have so far.”
“Run it down for us, please.” Chase flipped through the file, but it was too dark to read, even under the streetlamp.
Yugi nodded. “Sure thing. We got a call at ten forty-five P.M. that there had been an explosion, but we weren’t sure how big or bad. Fire trucks were on the way. Team assembled and headed out. We got here to find the building engulfed by flames, and the firemen weren’t able to put a dent in the flames. I noticed an odd smell, and I still can’t place it—it might be gone, but I can’t say for sure. By now my nose is filled with the smell of smoke.”
Camille and I stepped forward and began to sniff around. Shamas did the same. After a moment Shamas let out a shout, and we looked at him.
He turned to Chase. “Explosive all right, but not from Earthside. This is canya, a volatile magical mixture. Liquid—but it’s usually mixed in small amounts into a bigger bomb. While it’s sold in the back alleys of Otherworld, it’s illegal in most of the cities there.”
“Canya? Are you sure?”
“Trust me. I know that scent.”
Camille let out a long sigh. “The one place in Otherworld you could find it in any great measure would be the Southern Wastes.” She frowned. “And the Southern Wastes are controlled by sorcerers, goblins, and the Goldunsan Fae—who work their way into some of the northern mountains. The Goldunsan aren’t like us. They’re alien, a little like the seers of Aladril.”
“That’s the second time the mention of sorcerers has come up tonight. You think Van or Jaycee had something to do with this?” I stared at her.
Two sorcerers had escaped our net a few months back after seriously putting the bite on a bunch of local werewolves, and they’d done some heavy damage to Camille in the process. We’d done our best to capture them, but they managed to vanish. We couldn’t win them all, and we’d taken down their illegal drug operation and saved several werewolves from a horrible death. So, we’d counted ourselves lucky.
Sucking in a deep breath, Camille caught my gaze. “I don’t want to go there. I really don’t, but we’d better put that down as a possibility. Revenge, perhaps, for shutting down their Wolf Briar business?”
Wolf Briar was a skanky drug used to subdue werewolves. And the production of it required the torture and dissection of werewolves. We’d put a stop to an underground production line, but the main players had managed to escape and were still out there.
“Good possibility. They’re Tregarts, so they’d have access to the explosive.” I rubbed my head. Tregarts—humanoid demons who could pass easily in society—were becoming a constant issue. We weren’t sure how they were getting in from the Subterranean Realms, but since Shadow Wing had one of the spirit seals, chances were he’d figured out a way to make it work for him.
“There’s one other possibility that we can’t overlook: Telazhar.” She pressed her lips together.
We’d gotten word that Telazhar, the necromancer who’d trained Stacia Bonecrusher—a rogue demon general whom we’d barely managed to put an end to—had escaped from the Sub-Realms. He’d been deported there when he was kicked out of Otherworld. We had reason to believe he might be Earthside now.
“What if somehow he hooked up with Van and Jaycee?” I didn’t even want to entertain the thought, but we had to.
Camille shook her head. “If he does, we’re fucked. Sorcerers and necromancers together? They’d be such powerful allies, they’d rival a demon general. And since Van and Jaycee were connected to Stacia, that’s not a wild card bet. We’d better check it out.”
Chase cleared his throat. “Keep it in mind, but let’s not start on that assumption. One thing I’ve learned: Never assume. Go by the facts, and conjecture all you like, but remember it’s just speculation until proven.” He let out a long sigh. “You say four died?”
Yugi’s jaw tightened. “Five. We found another body after I called you. Two are on the cusp—Mallen’s taking care of them back at headquarters. Sharah, you need to get over there. Mallen needs your help.”
As he moved to call an officer to drive her, I stopped him. “Can we go poke around the building?”
Yugi shook his head. “Not till morning. Still too dangerous to go in. The rest of the roof could easily cave, and then where would you be? The flames aren’t even doused yet. And we have to go through it with a fine-tooth comb for evidence, and also to look for . . .”
“For more bodies.” I clenched my teeth. I had too many friends from the Supe Community. Chances were, I knew at least one of the victims. “We’ll take Sharah to HQ. I need to see the victims. Anybody call wondering if they’re okay yet?”
He nodded. “Yeah, bunch of family members waiting at the station. I was hoping you’d volunteer to come help. It might come better from . . .” Pausing, Yugi ducked his head.
“From one of their own?” My voice was soft; I knew what he meant and there was no disrespect there. As I spoke, I felt an arm snake around my waist and Shade pressed against me, his lips brushing against the side of my head.
I leaned into his soft embrace. Even without words, I could read his intent. He had my back, during the good times and the difficult. My heart swelled as the slightly exotic musk that marked him as part dragon swept around me, shoring me up, giving me strength.
Camille caught my eye and smiled. She understood. She knew what I was feeling because she had that reassurance, too. Having a dragon lover—even a half-dragon lover—brought with it a special sense of security. That security could be broken, but it took a lot to shatter the safety.
As if reading my mind, Trillian placed his hands on Camille’s shoulders. Ever since Hyto’s attack, my sister had pulled her men close to help strengthen her boundaries, and they’d been more than willing to help her, in whatever way they could. Morio and she had started headlong back into their death magic rituals as soon as he was out of the wheelchair, Trillian had been teaching her how to fight street-dirty, and Smoky had been securing our land with his own crazed vigilance.
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’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.
Which brings me to the fact that I’m also 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 no longer wear rose-colored glasses. And I can’t 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 Otherworl
d. 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. But now hate crimes are on the rise as interaction between the Supes—supernaturals—and the FBHs increases.
Our mother was human—she’s long dead—and our father is Fae, and he swept her off her feet and took her back to Otherworld. Losing her 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 and accepted Camille’s pledge to the Earthside Fae Queen’s court, and 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, when the Fae Lords ripped apart the worlds. They created a 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 seals keep the realms safe. If brought back together, they can rip open all the portals.
But sometimes, things work as they will. And the seals began to surface. They came to the attention of Shadow Wing. And that’s where we come in. We’re in a race to gather them before the Demon Lord gets hold of them. He’s got one. We’ve got five. So far, the odds are in our favor, but the fact that he possesses even one of them puts us in danger.
Technically, we now work for Queen Asteria, the Elfin Queen back in Otherworld, who’s hiding the spirit seals we find. 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 . . .