Shadow Rising (8 page)

“
Us
working together?” I saw where this was going.

“Since I am the liaison between the OIA and the Guard Des’Estar, and in charge of covert operations…and since you are my daughters, Tanaquar decided that—should you decide to work with us again—you will be reporting directly to me. I will be your superior.”

Vanzir, who had managed to keep his mouth shut all this time, let out a snicker. “Oh, that’s lovely. The family that slays together plays together?”

“Shut up, demon.” Contrite or not, Sephreh was still our father. “Please, take the assignment. We need you. We have trouble and have pulled back all other OIA operatives, so we need you Earthside, especially now.”

“What trouble?” Delilah pulled out her notebook. She was so used to taking notes that she acted as our secretary without being asked.

“Your friend, Andrees? He was sent Earthside on a mission to discover what you are up to. But he’s vanished. We have no clue of what happened to him, no idea of where he might be. We need you to find him.”

Andrees.
He’d been in the OIA training class that the three of us had taken. We’d studied together, and he’d never treated us with anything but respect. Delilah had developed a crush on him, but he’d never known. He’d trained as a
scout, and the OIA had originally planned for him to spy on Dredge, but he came down with a fever and had been laid out for a good month. So they’d pawned the assignment off onto me. He’d avoided me ever after that, and I could see the guilt in his eyes. I’d always wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, but never had the chance. Maybe now, I would.

“We’ll deal with the fact that the OIA was spying on us later.” Camille straightened her shoulders. “Where did they send him?”

Sephreh thumbed through a folder of papers. “Somewhere in…West Seattle. White Center area. We had a small store there, a massage parlor on Roxbury Street, owned by Iyor, one of our operatives. We sent Andrees there to connect with Iyor, and from there, he was supposed to work his way over to see what you were doing. We haven’t heard from him since he crossed over.”

“You sent Andrees to
White Center
? To a
massage parlor
? You know that’s a
brothel
?”

“A brothel? No—a massage parlor.” Father looked confused.

“Trust me, in that area? Doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

Sephreh blinked. “Well, our mistake again. But the massage parlor has closed and we can’t find our agent Iyor, either.”

“I can guarantee that if you guys don’t have contact anymore with your ‘masseur,’ either he’s dead or he went rogue and is turning tricks or dealing drugs or working with the gangs. And as far as Andrees…a newbie-to-Earthside OIA agent walking around there alone? Without being prepared? What time of day did you send him?”
Please don’t say “night”…please don’t say “night”…

Sephreh tossed the folder across the table. “Night. I assume a stupid move, as well? So, will you take the job? Will you work with us and help us find Andrees?”

I glanced at Camille and Delilah. They both gave me slight nods. “Fine, but on our terms, and with raises, full back pay, full reinstatement, and a free hand.
We
run the Earthside operations and
we
set up an OIA headquarters
over there the way it was meant to be. If you can agree to that, we’ll knock out a deal. But we have to work fast. I need to get home.”

Sephreh coughed as both Roz and Vanzir began to laugh.

“They’ll get you every time, dude,” Vanzir said. “Just jump on the deal while it’s still on the table, man.”

Sephreh gave him a faint smile. “I have no doubt you speak wisely, Master Vanzir. No doubt at all.” He turned to me. “You have a deal. Whatever you want, you get. Andrees has been missing for three days. What do we do?”

I pushed back my chair and stood. “First, we knock out details of our agreement. Second, we head home to look for Andrees. And we’d better get moving because I don’t have long before I have to be in my lair, before sunrise.”

As the others stood and stretched, Father began to hand out dossiers and called in a secretary. We had a lot of work to do and very little time in which to do it. And that didn’t count keeping tabs on Darynal and his crew. Somehow, I had a feeling that we were going to be in for a busy week. Or month.

We finished hammering out details ninety minutes before dawn, declining the invitation to spend another day and night there so we could visit our home. The night had evoked too many emotions as it was. By the stunned looks on Delilah and Camille’s faces, they needed a break. Hell,
I
needed a break. None of us were drama queens, and the whole night had been like one long angst-ridden Dr. Phil show.

Besides, we wanted to get a start on looking for Andrees. He’d been a good sort, and to think of him wandering around in the Roxbury area made me nervous as hell.

We headed outside. The nearest portals leading Earthside were about a mile away, and the carriage would take us there. But as I stood outside, looking up into the sky, I realized that—for just a moment—I wanted to focus on what was right with the world. I was in love with a wonderful woman. I had a sexy vampire consort for the times when I needed to cut loose without hurting my lover. My sisters and I were still in one piece, regardless of the enemies we faced. We were being paid by both the Elfin Queen and the OIA. That had been one of the stipulations I’d insisted on—double payment.

And, tucked away in Camille’s robe, we also now officially held the deeds to the buildings housing the Wayfarer Bar & Grill and the Indigo Crescent bookstore. When we’d first been sent Earthside by the OIA, they’d set me up as bartender at the Wayfarer and Camille as a bookstore owner. Delilah had a small private eye agency ensconced above the Indigo Crescent.

Shadow Wing and his cronies had kept us so busy that we weren’t able to spend as much time working at our cover jobs as we had when we first came over Earthside, but we’d all grown very fond of our businesses. I’d hired Derrick Means, a werebadger, to be the bar’s manager, though I still went in at night a lot. And Camille had Giselle, a demon, working for her.

“Are we ready?” Camille’s breath puffed in the air, frozen wisps. Nearing spring or not, it was still chilly.

Sephreh stood near, along with two guards, keeping watch. We’d said our good-byes inside. Now, only time would tell whether the truce would hold. I thought it might, but didn’t want to jinx it, so kept my feelings to myself.

Chase was standing near me. “A lot of changes going on.” He thrust his hands in his pockets and stared at the sky. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars. Or smelled air quite so clear. It’s unsettling.”

My boots made a scratchy noise as I scuffed the soles on the gravel. I lifted one leg, balancing on the other, to check the heel. It was a little loose. I’d have to have it repaired when we arrived home.

“So, Johnson, this is the second time you’ve been here. What do you think of Otherworld?” It wasn’t a rhetorical question. I was curious as to what he thought of our home world.

Chase paused, mulling over his answer. “Otherworld is beautiful. Haunting. Elqaneve is strangely familiar, while Y’Elestrial…I’d have to call it exotic.” He let out a long stream of breath. “And speaking of Y’Elestrial and the OIA…your father, do you think he’s blowing smoke?”

I shrugged. “I doubt it. Father has the subterfuge of a slug. He’s always worn his heart—and his pride—on his sleeve. His emotions run close to the surface. But whether his apology is too little, too late, remains to be seen.”

As the carriage rumbled up, Chase touched me lightly on the arm. “May I ask you one thing?”

“What is it?” I could see in his face that he’d been thinking about this for a while—whatever
this
was.

“Do you think I could manage over here? Do you think I have what it takes to make the transition? Just in case Sharah wants to come home to live?”

“Why are you asking me? Why not Delilah? She knows you better.”

“I’m asking you because you’ll tell me the truth. Camille would be diplomatic, and Delilah might lie to make me feel better. But you’ll give it to me straight.”

He was putting his fate in my hands. I didn’t like the responsibility, but Chase was a friend and he needed something concrete to hold on to. And he was right. Delilah would lie and tell him what he wanted to hear. Camille would play both sides of the fence. I was the one who never prettied up the picture, who painted what I saw, rather than what I wanted to see, or thought someone wanted to hear.

“You want to know what I think? I believe you’d fade here, Chase. You don’t have enough elf in you to ever be accepted by the other elves. While they might seem all cozy with you now, the long-lost son and all—trust me, discrimination is rampant over here in Otherworld.”

“I wondered about that.” He shook his head. “Your world isn’t much better than ours in some ways.”

“Damn straight. Each has its trade-offs, but no matter whether you’re in Otherworld or over Earthside, people are people and a lot of them are jerks.”

“I keep thinking about how much I’d miss.”

“While you might enjoy the difference at first…I think you really would miss home too much. After a while, you’d have to leave, or you’d wither like a blossom in the frost. If Sharah
does
return home, I think you should limit yourself to visits. Maybe on weekends, or for a week every few months. But I promise you, as much as I can promise anything, Sharah will make certain you get to see your baby, and more than just once a year. She has too much respect for you to do otherwise.”

“You really think so?”

I nodded. “I know so. She loves you, Chase. Even if she’s not ready to get married just yet. And you love her.”

He ducked his head, smiling. “Yeah…I do. I really, truly do. I never expected it to work out like this, but Sharah…I think…I’ve found out what it really means to be
in
love. And the thought that she’s having my baby scares the hell out of me, and yet it’s so absolutely right.”

And then, we were scrambling in the carriage, and off to the portals, on the way home.

The house was bustling by the time we burst through the door. Iris and Bruce were back—and since their house was still a ways from being a reality, Bruce was now living with us, too. We’d slowly enlarged our extended family to the point where we were now a freaking commune.

As we walked through the front door, Smoky caught up Camille and planted a kiss on her as he swung her around. Morio was helping Hanna clean up a patch of wet finger paint that had managed to take out one of the roses on the handwoven rug. Hanna looked flustered and Morio was trying to calm her down.

“It’s okay. She gets away from all of us at times. Don’t worry about it.”

“I did not see her run! She’s picking up speed from the time I get here.” Hanna had come to us from the Northlands. She helped Camille escape from Hyto. She spoke English now, and though she was still a little awkward around us, her heart was in the right place.

Iris trailed out of the parlor, a very colorful Maggie in her arms. Our baby calico gargoyle was in the toddler stage and she’d be there a very long time, much to our consternation. She was getting into everything, and that wasn’t likely to change for the foreseeable future. Her fur was matted with blue and red paint, and she was giggling as she watched Hanna and Morio.

“Maggie—no! You were a bad girl. No playtime tonight for you. You can just take a time out and think about what you did.” Iris caught sight of us and let out a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you’re home. Tonight has been one disaster
after another. But Menolly, you don’t have long before sunrise. You’re cutting things close—” She stopped, looking at our faces. “What happened? I can see something happened while you were over there.”

I was about to tell her to gather everyone in the kitchen when a loud whistle sounded. Smoky immediately set Camille down and she raced for the kitchen, with Trillian on her heels.

“The wards! They’ve gone off.” Her voice echoed from the kitchen, and, giving Iris a helpless shrug, I took off after Delilah and the guys. Iris let out an exasperated sigh in the background.

“I swear, can’t we have one evening in this house where we’re left in peace?” The talon-haltija muttered loudly, and then I heard her say, “Maggie! You stop that—I do not need a bright blue nose, thank you very much!”

As we gathered around the table where the grid of quartz crystals sat, forming the alarm for when our land’s wards were breached, Camille and Morio examined the pattern, sorting through the energy coming off the grid.

“Not Demonkin.” She glanced up at Shade. “Can you tell me if it’s what I think it is?”

He held his hands out to the crystals. A crackle charged the kitchen as a faint bolt of purple lightning jolted from his skin to the smooth crystals. Jerking his head up, he nodded.

“Ghosts. But why would ghosts set off the wards? Spirits walk the world all the time.” He bit one side of his lip.

“These aren’t Casper’s kin. Ghosts won’t set off the wards unless they’re baleful. These aren’t run-of-the-mill spirits—they’re out to hurt us.” She paled. “How are we going to find them? I can ferret out Demonkin energy, but…”