Be My Banshee (Purple Door Detective Agency Book 1) (7 page)

“Painting,” Sunshine corrected. “Like a moving, speaking, painting of you.”

“That was clever.” Aine changed the subject. “I know where O’Neill lives now. I shall enter his dreams tonight. Once we bond and he understands why I’m here, that should take care of any future unexplained disappearances.”

“Do what you need to do. The detectives are satisfied with our explanation about the two deaths, at least for now.”

“What did Mr. Bad have to say about Caeford?”

“He was his usual noncommittal self. That’s the best we’re going to get from him right now.” Sunshine did her best to conceal her anger and frustration with him.

“It seems it might be best to replace Mr. Bad, despite his power. If he does nothing to help you, perhaps it would be better to find another who might be more responsive.”

The banshee didn’t understand Sunshine’s relationship with the strange man. Not surprising since sometimes she didn’t understand it herself. How could she explain that there were those moments when his wisdom made all the difference? Or that many of her clients were his friends?

“Mr. Bad comes in handy, besides paying rent.” Sunshine knew Aine would understand and respect that commitment. “He stays no matter what.”

“I see. A tale for another time then, eh?”

“Yes. Right now we need to see Caeford and decide if he’s telling the truth about his encounter on the roof. I have Jane working on the computer finding out what she can about the man who died there. I can’t imagine there could be any tie to John, but it’s possible.”

“And a computer would be a form of magic?” Aine asked.

“Electronic magic,” Sunshine agreed. “Let’s go.”

“That was too close,” Jane stammered as the two women walked out of the inner office. “My digestive system is not handling the stress. Maybe you should include nuts and seeds with the cereal and donuts when you go to the store. Nothing like nuts and seeds to quiet the belly. That’s what my mama always told us.”

Aine and Sunshine watched her rub her stomach.

“I’ll put that on the list,” Sunshine promised. “Have you learned anything about the dead man on the roof?”

Jane read what she had on the computer monitor. “His name was Harley Matthews. He was thirty-two years old. Born and raised in Norfolk. He worked at a tattoo place over on Third Street,
Tattoo Hell
.”

Sunshine filed away that information. “Thanks. Keep digging, will you? We’ll be back after we see Caeford.”

Aine followed her to the car. “What magic that box has in it! The wonders of your time are very impressive.”

“Sometimes,” Sunshine agreed as she got in the car. “Sometimes I’m sure the old ways were better. No traffic jams. No police detectives—or you could get rid of them. There are a lot of handicaps put on witches today to keep real magic off CNN.”

Aine puzzled over that. “CNN?”

“That’s another one for later. Strap in. Let’s get this over with.”

Caeford lived in a deep sub-basement in the heart of the city. Sunshine parked the car at the curb outside the office building structure. It looked like any other older building from the fifties. No one would ever guess that a dragon lived here amidst the steel, concrete, and glass.

“This time we take the elevator as far down as we can and then the stairs,” Sunshine told Aine.

They were packed into a crowded elevator filled with men and women in suits carrying briefcases. Soft music played in the background as the arrival of each floor was heralded by a chime. No one spoke, searching instead on their handheld devices.

When they were finally alone for the basement floor, Aine spoke. She was starting to understand the secrecy of this time. “A good place for a dragon to dwell. But he unfurled his wings at a spot distant from this. He, too, must remain unseen in this place.”

“We all do—all magical creatures. It’s something we’ve learned.”

“It wasn’t that different during my time. Witches were frequently hunted and killed, especially those with no real power. Dragons were hunted to extinction for sport and the use of their body parts. It was the same with unicorns and other creatures. But perhaps if it were not so, this city you live in wouldn’t exist.”

“I guess there are good and bad things about each time in history,” Sunshine acknowledged. “Except for toilets. I never want to use a toilet in the woods—no holes in the ground with rude buildings over them. I like my toilets inside with water and flush boxes.”

Aine smiled.

“What? Don’t banshees use a toilet?”

“Hardly. We are dead, after all. We do not eat, so we do not excrete.”

“Good to know. I’m saving up banshee facts for a special file so I know what to do and not do around you.”

“Then you must use the words correctly,” Aine said. “
Beane sidhe
. What you’re saying now is hardly appropriate.”

Sunshine tried to say what Aine had said, but they’d reached the basement floor of the building. She used the excuse to back out of her Gaelic language lesson.

They found a set of stairs to the right of the old boiler that heated the building in cold weather. As they walked around it, there were groaning and settling sounds from the huge structure around them. Elevators growled going up and down the shaft and water gushed crankily through old pipes.

Sunshine didn’t try to explain and cautioned Aine not to speak. Caeford lived another floor down. It was always better to be quiet around a dragon if they didn’t know you were coming for a visit. A surprised dragon was rarely a happy dragon.

The stairs were narrow and filthy. Very few people used them. The sub-basement was necessary to the strength of the building’s foundation, but it wasn’t well maintained. Sunshine had found that people didn’t care about what they couldn’t see.

And yet here was Caeford’s lair, their destination, hundreds of feet below ground. He had lived here since long before the city, or the building, hidden away from mankind in a series of caves. He’d adjusted as time had passed, but he never left the area where he’d been born.

As usual he was aware of the intrusion into his life. “Hello, Miss Merryweather. And this is your new associate?” He sniffed Aine. “The
beane sidhe
you spoke of. How fascinating. A woman of the ancient fairy world here in Norfolk.”

“We’re here because of your ‘little’ problem.” Sunshine wiped her hands on a moist towelette and handed one to Aine. “We went to see the man who watched you fly away. He was dead—murdered in exactly the same way as John.”

Caeford’s large, tough face frowned. “You mean the werewolf. That’s unfortunate.”

“And the scent on the crime scene was the same,” she continued.

“You’re not seriously here to accuse me of killing them. Not here in my den, of all places. No one would be that stupid.”

Sunshine faced him without any sign of fear. “That’s exactly why we’re here. I knew you were sending us to clean up your mess but not to clean up a dead body for you.”

He growled deep in the back of his throat and a single plume of smoke came from one nostril. “It has been more than a century since I partook of human flesh.”

“Is that a threat?” Sunshine demanded.

“No. A fact. Why kill one if you aren’t going to eat it?” His large yellow teeth were exposed to the dim light.

“That is no excuse,” Aine told him. “I hunted a few of your ancestors who killed for sport.”

He roared his anger, the sound bouncing back off the concrete walls making the noise ear splitting. “You dare tell me you hunted my kind?”

 “Yes.” She smiled. “And they were tasty too.”

Sunshine put her hand on Aine’s shoulder. “We’re not here to get into a war about who hunted whose ancestors, Caeford. We want the truth about what happened to these men.”

He backed down from his aggressive stance with Aine. “I did not kill the werewolf or the man on the roof. I knew you would handle the potential problem for me, Miss Merryweather. There was no reason to exert myself. This has been the basis of our relationship.”

“Good. You won’t mind if my
beane sidhe
gives you a sniff then?”

His yellow eyes widened in fury. “I see. Of course. Her people were very great hunters in the past—feared and tenacious. They made the werewolf look incompetent.” He lowered his head to their level. “Please. Give me a good sniff,
beane sidhe
.”

Sunshine hoped that he didn’t take Aine’s head off as he moved closer to her. She wasn’t sure she would have been willing to take on the task, but Aine didn’t seem to mind. She moved in close to Caeford, never losing eye contact with him. Their bodies were nearly touching.

Aine took a deep whiff of the dragon man. His scent was mixed with chemicals and herbs that she didn’t recognize. But underlying it all was the deep, wild smell of dragon. It was completely different from the smell at the crime scenes.

“It’s not him,” she announced without as much as a tremor in her tone. She didn’t move away from him, instead staring into his terrifying eyes. “Someone else is responsible for the deaths.”

Caeford didn’t move either. “I could snap you in half.”

She smiled at him, nothing left of the middle-aged woman in the black cape. The crone with little flesh on her face and body, skeletal hands at her side, stood tall. “You’d find me a tough bit of bone to chew, dragon man.”

He growled but took a step away from her. Sunshine hadn’t realized until that moment that she was holding her breath, while her hands and thoughts were prepared for a spell to protect Aine if necessary.

Aine took a step back too, resuming her mostly human form in the black hood.

“We’re leaving now.” Sunshine tried not to sound as relieved as she felt. “As soon as I have more information, I’ll let you know.”

“Let me know if you need assistance in your quest as well,” Caeford offered. “I don’t want my name and reputation sullied over this mix up.”

“As if anyone without magic would believe a dragon had killed these men,” Sunshine said. “Do you have any idea what might have happened to them?”

“I do not,” he said. “It seems to me that the first murder may have been deliberate and the second only used to throw off the scent of the trail. I’m sure the killer never dreamed of facing a
beane sidhe
. I have never been particularly interested in a human death. They are all the same to me. Learn what someone gained by killing John Lancaster, the first to die, and you may have all the answers you need. He was a good man-wolf. I should hate to see him go unavenged.”

Sunshine started to thank him when there was a sound above them. Someone else was coming down the stairs into the dragon’s lair.

Chapter Eight

“It is O’Neill,” Aine told her. “He and his partner may have followed us here thinking that we would lead them to the truth.”

Sunshine didn’t ask how she knew who it was before she could see—no doubt the scent of the pair. Bending her head, she began the threads of a magic defense shield that would hide the dragon from the two detectives and four uniformed officers who accompanied them.

“You do not need to hide me, witch,” Caeford roared. “Let them come. I shall slay them all.”

The old concrete pylons shook around them. Dust fell on their heads from the floor above.

“And that’s exactly why you need to be hidden,” Sunshine returned as calmly as if she were giving him a brownie recipe. “It’s part of Purple Door Service. We protect our clients from those who wish them harm, as well as from their own shortsightedness. Be still and let them go, Caeford. Let’s not make this a dragon hunt. We all know how that ends.”

The dragon man was grudgingly silent with only a few smoky breaths that could have given him away. As the police officers entered the sub-basement with guns drawn, there was nothing but a large, empty, concrete cavern. When no real threat was perceived, the officers holstered their weapons as Malto sent them to search the edges of the shadowed perimeter.

O’Neill and Malto stared at the two women they had nearly followed to their deaths.

“Detective O’Neill,” Sunshine greeted him. “Detective Malto. What a surprise. What brings you down here?”

“We could ask you the same thing.” O’Neill stared at Aine. “You two are never far apart, are you?”

“We work together,” Sunshine said. “I could say the same thing about you and your partner.”

“What’s going on down here?” Detective Malto demanded. “What are you two hiding?”

“Hiding?” Sunshine glanced around them. “We’re not hiding anything. We were looking for the long-term parking lot. I’ve been thinking about moving the agency into this building. But the short-term parking is awful. Parking on the street would get to be old after a while. I like the building, but I just can’t see it, can you, Aine?”

“I don’t see anything.” It was the safest answer she could think of since she had no idea what the witch was saying. Anything else could give them away by her ignorance of present-day situations.

“You’re not as dimwitted as you’d like us to think,” O’Neill challenged Aine.

“I’m sure that is true of you as well.”

“I think she just called us stupid,” Malto said. “Isn’t there is a law about badmouthing police detectives?”

“We seem to simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Sunshine intervened with a dazzling smile. “I’m sorry you came all the way down here for nothing, detectives. Next time, give me a call, and I’ll tell you what we’re doing. Come on, Aine. Let’s get out of here.”

With nothing to hold them, the police officers and detectives stepped out of their way to allow Aine and Sunshine to ascend the stairs to the next floor.

“What do you think they were really doing down here?” Malto thoughtfully asked her partner.

“I’m not sure I want to know.” He shook his head after taking a look around. “Let’s follow them. There’s something they aren’t telling us.”

“You’re telling me!”

When they’d reached the basement floor, Sunshine used a spell to get herself and Aine out of the building. She was tired of being followed by the police, and there was no harm in getting them out more quickly.