Tracking the Tempest (17 page)

“… did stints in Italy and London during college and grad school. She wrote a Facebook message to a friend about trying to find a job at a junior college, but they wanted her only as an adjunct, so she went back to work as an administrative assistant. She was really excited about her new job working for a doctor. Said the pay was great, her boss was a really nice lady, and she got to travel between Boston and Chicago all the time.”

Julian looked up, and I could see the pain in his eyes. The others were listening for clues, but I knew that Julian, like me, was building a picture of a person.

“Shit,” I heard Anyan swear. “Let's find her. Safe.” I blinked at him, surprised at the raw fury in his voice. He obviously cared about finding the girl as well.

“Yes, let's,” replied Graeme in his beautiful, smooth, evil tenor, rather spoiling the moment and causing the base of my spine to shiver in horror. Graeme scared me even more than Jimmu had, something I would never have thought possible. The naga had been a killer, but the incubus would want to keep his victim alive. And screaming.

Wondering if my own, sadly underutilized English major skills could come in handy, I picked my way to the overturned bookcase to look at what Felicia read. There were quite a few anthologies, a lot of the classics, and a lot of canonical stuff, all in the kinds of cheap paperbacks used in college classrooms. There wasn't really anything lowbrow or popular, and not much from after the 1900s. Except for a bunch of expensive hardcover books by Edie Thompson, a contemporary African-American writer who was very well respected in academic circles as both a critic and a novelist but who hadn't yet made a big splash in the popular market.

I picked up one of Thompson's books and found an autograph when I flipped it open. “To Felicia, all best, Edie Thompson.” Each book had a similar autograph, although most were way more personal. “To Felicia, with all my love,” “To Felicia, I'm so proud of your success,” and “To Felicia, You did it!” confirmed that Felicia was more than just Edie's fan; they knew one another, and probably well.

I couldn't remember too much about Edie Thompson, so I flipped back to her author bio, with its picture, and everything slid into place.

“Ryu,” I called quietly. I was hoping not to attract the attention of Phaedra's lot, but I might as well have hollered at the top of my lungs. Everyone stopped and stared at me.

I sighed as Ryu came toward me, and I decided I'd just show him what I'd found and let him choose what to reveal. I knew there were all sorts of Alfar power struggles going on here, and I had the feeling Ryu was fighting to stay dominant. He couldn't ignore Phaedra's orders to help him, but obviously neither could he trust her. So we all had to do a little tap dancing. With Ryu as our choreographer.

I pointed at the author's photo, which showed a very attractive older woman with long, thick dreadlocks pulled up into a bun. Her big hair accentuated the size of her large, dark eyes. There were laugh lines around her eyes and mouth, and—in her picture, at least—she looked like the perfect mother figure: approachable, intelligent, funny, and kind. Exactly the kind of person an orphaned girl might cling to—especially if the woman was Felicia's academic supervisor.

I then pointed from the photo to the other set of pictures, where Edie and Felicia smiled up at me from Boston, Italy, and London. Ryu grunted.

Then I traced my fingernail under the other pertinent bit of information. Edie was a professor at Harvard, and she made her home in Cambridge.

Ryu took the book from my hands and leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. I'd done good.

Now he had to figure out how we used the information without getting either of the two kindly looking women in the photos killed.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Y
ou
bastard
…” I grunted. “You pushed me in the
water
.”

“Learn how to drive, Toadstool,” was Anyan's only response. “Learn how to drive.”

As soon as the little cloud had dropped me back on the track, I narrowed my eyes and pressed down on my accelerator button. It took me a wee bit to catch up, but when I did, I unleashed hell. First, I blew up Anyan's giant dragon/turtle character with a spare bomb I had, and then I shot past him to victory.

“Boo yah, motherfucker!” I shouted, rising to my feet to do a little victory dance. “Who needs to learn to drive now, biatch?”

Anyan made a face at me from the other end of the sofa. “Again.”

“You'll just get beat,
again
.” I grinned, causing Julian to chortle from the chair next to us.

Anyan laughed. “Again. Again and again until I win,” he said. His iron-gray eyes, always intense, made his lighthearted words seem more serious, and for a second I was very aware of him, myself, and the space between us.

“I think I found another one,” Julian said from behind his computer screen.

Saved by the halfling,
I thought. I dropped my game controller and wiped my suddenly damp palms on my jeans before moving to peer over Julian's shoulder.

It was the evening after we'd discovered the connection between Edie and Felicia. A couple of Stefan's deputies had been immediately dispatched to see if the women were there. There was no sign of them, so the deputies had secured the premises so that we could give the apartment a thorough search the next day, after we'd rested and regrouped.

Today, as soon as they were up, recharged, and ready, Ryu, Caleb, Daoud, and Camille, with Phaedra's lot in tow, had gone to check out Edie's Cambridge apartment for signs of either her or Felicia. Meanwhile, I'd volunteered to help Julian sort through the results of his search for recent fire-related deaths in the Chicago area. We were looking for people who might have something to do with the corporation that ran Conleth's laboratory, flagging any well-connected, wealthy people who'd been barbecued under suspicious circumstances. Despite a surprising number of possibilities to choose from, many had been easy to dismiss because they were the wrong type of victim, or the murderer was already caught, or they were obviously and genuinely accidents. But we'd put together another five names to add to the short list Dr. Donovan had sent to her boyfriend.

Anyan also stayed behind with Julian and me. Most of the political and territorial machinations of the Alfar and their Court were still a mystery to me, but even I could see it was a really big deal that the barghest had contacts in the Borderlands. I could tell Anyan hadn't wanted to make his calls with Ryu around, no doubt because the baobhan sith's sharp hearing would pick up things to which Anyan didn't want him privy. So the barghest had stayed behind ostensibly to help us search, but really because I knew he wanted a modicum of privacy.

As soon as Ryu had left with the others, Anyan had called in Dr. Donovan's original list. That had been hours ago, and we were still waiting to hear back from his contacts. Julian was still at work, but both Anyan and I had had enough of looking at police reports. He'd been teaching me silly little tricks to play with our power, before I'd found the old Nintendo.

“Victim's rich,” Julian continued, and I finally put down my controller and gave him my full attention. “Had connections in both business and politics, and died in a house fire. Police figure he fell asleep, smoking, at around nine in the evening. But his ex-wife insisted to them that he never went to bed before midnight, ever. Also, that he'd quit smoking during the divorce, and I quote, ‘just to piss her off.' They dismissed her claims, as forensics was unable to find any sort of accelerant or other signs of arson or murder. There may have been signs of trauma to the body, but it was so badly burned that the autopsy results were inconclusive and his death was eventually declared an accident.”

“Add the name to the list,” Anyan said after a second, and then he swore. I looked up to see he was still playing Mario Kart. The barghest had been unimpressed when I'd found the old game system inside a fancy trunk underneath Ryu's huge flat-screen. But once I'd switched it with the newest, state-of-the-art console already in place and had started playing, the big man had quickly changed his tune.

“Drinks, boys?” I called over my shoulder as I walked toward the kitchen. Both Julian and Anyan asked for water.

I had just gotten Julian and Anyan their waters when the troops returned. Alone, luckily, since I enjoyed being in the same room with Graeme about as much as I enjoyed someone randomly stabbing at my eyeballs with cocktail straws.

“Baby,” Ryu greeted me, adding a hug and a kiss to the mix. Then he eyed the glass in my hand and I gave it to him, before turning back to his cupboard for another.

I went to give Anyan and Julian their water only to find Daoud already playing against the barghest. They both wore the same intense yet paradoxically empty expression.

Who can resist the Mario Kart?
I thought, smugly.

I'd just set down Anyan's drink when I felt a sparkle of strange power along my shields like nothing I'd ever felt. It was strong, but not elemental in any way. A pall of tense silence fell on the room, and I battened down my magical hatches. The tingle of magic intensified until, suddenly, a little creature poofed in right before me, knocking over the water glass I'd just set down and causing me to let out a very undignified shriek.

Anyan's hand touched my leg reassuringly, as both he and the creature threw up spheres of protective energy around it not a moment too soon. For, while I'd replied to the stranger's presence with a big girlie squeal, everyone else was ready to reply with mage balls to its face.

The little being chittered at us in a strange language, and Anyan laughed.

“No worries, people. Calm down. It's just a messenger.”

“Oh my gods,” I heard Camille breathe from across the room. “Is that a… ?”

“Brownie?” Anyan replied. “Yes, he's a brownie.”

Everyone in the room gathered closer to get a better look at the tiny creature standing on Ryu's glass-and-steel coffee table. It was only about a foot and a half tall, with brown fur so dense and fluffy it hid both features and figure. It actually looked a bit like an Ewok, if Kali had been the Ewok's paternal grandmother and a wolf spider its maternal grandfather. Six furry arms waved at us, almost all making some sort of obscene gesture, as six solid-black eyes glared while the creature continued its nonstop stream of tiny-voiced, incomprehensible invectives.

The creature was doing what I thought was a bizarre ritualistic dance. Then I realized its little feet were wet from the knocked-over glass of water.

“Oh!” I cried, running to the kitchen to grab a towel before rushing back to mop up the spill. The little creature eyed me as I dried up the puddle, backing away when I held out a dry corner of the towel. I kept still, until it finally approached. Balancing two of its six hands on my forearm, the brownie finally wiped dry its hairy feet. It took it a while to sop up the water from all that thick fur, but I held my arm still the whole time. When it was done, the wee creature patted my arm with two hands, while stroking a third down one of my fingers that held the towel.

I smiled and nodded my head in recognition of what was clearly a thank-you gesture, before carefully gathering up the wet towel so it wouldn't drip.

“Anyan, why is there a brownie in my living room? I thought they were extinct.” Ryu was carefully controlling his voice, but I could tell he was completely freaked out.

“Nope, not extinct. Just got tired of serving the Alfar's endless demands.” The barghest smiled down at the now much calmer little creature and then said something to it in that strange chittering language.

“And he speaks the old tongue,” Ryu said, throwing up his own hands in a gesture of surrender. “Of course he does.” As he stalked toward the corner of the kitchen that held the liquor, I realized he meant Anyan, not the brownie.

I set the towel down on the floor next to me before turning to Caleb.

“What's going on?” I whispered.

The satyr blinked at me and then gave me a rueful smile. “You take everything in such stride, Jane, that I forget this is all new to you.” Caleb was complimenting me, and I blushed. I wasn't a big fan of compliments.

“The Alfar are old, but they were not the first. The First Magics are a race utterly foreign to us, and very diverse in their origins and strengths. They are rare now. Some died naturally, but most died either by our hands or the encroachment of man into their lands. Brownies are of theFirst Magics, but they were happy to serve either Alfar or man for the price of a place to live and food to eat. Eventually, they were allowed to serve only the Alfar. But they disappeared, slowly, from our Territories, years and years ago. We figured they'd died out. Apparently, we were wrong.”

I had, of course, heard of brownies from my reading of human mythology. But I found it hard to believe that the little household sprites that one would placate with a saucer of cream not only existed, but also that they were of a magic and lineage older even than the Alfar.

“Does this mean they serve whoever rules the Borderlands?” I asked. Caleb only shrugged, his eloquent expression illustrating the depth of the mystery unfolding before our eyes.

“Wow,” I breathed as I watched Anyan and the brownie chitter at one another. Finally, the creature gathered together its six little fists and then flung out its arms with an equally explosive burst of that strange magic I'd felt when it had appeared.

We all ducked, throwing strength into our shields, but all that happened was that a file folder appeared, floating in front of Anyan's face.

The big man smiled as he took the folder in exchange for Julian's list of new names to be investigated. Anyan bowed his head at the brownie and then chittered what I imagined to be his thanks. The little creature reached out the hands on its left side, clutching the folded-up list with his right, in order to shake Anyan's finger. After which it gave me a little wave, the rest of the room two emphatic middle fingers, and disappeared with another audible
poof
.

Ryu wandered back, something tea-colored and sharp-smelling floating in his high-ball glass. He sat down heavily in the free chair across from where Julian sat. Scrubbing a hand over his face in his signature gesture of frustration, Ryu turned to the barghest.

“Please, Anyan. Please tell us what the fuck just happened. And how the fuck I'm going to explain any of this to Orin and Morrigan without them taking a strip out of both our hides?”

I studied the folder Anyan had passed to me as the boys argued. Basically, Ryu thought it was a really big deal that a brownie had popped in here moments ago. Anyan disagreed. No one had cared that much when the brownies had disappeared, so why would people care about their reappearance?

“You've always taken your position for granted, Anyan, as if you're untouchable—”

“And you care too much about what everyone thinks, Investigator…”

I shook my head, tuned the two men out, and opened the folder.

Besides what was written as part of the report, there was a sticky note to Anyan, signed “Capitola,” at the beginning of the folder. I knew I was being nosy, but I couldn't help it. The note read, “
This is all we could find. There is magic involved, but other than that we're as clueless as the human police. Good luck and keep in touch. We miss you
.”

I wondered about Capitola, and if she and the barghest were lovers. Then I wondered where that thought had come from as I flipped through the rest of the folder.

Whoever she was, Capitola and her team had done a thorough job. Each of our names had been checked out. Some were duds; the crime scenes and/or the bodies had not had any signs of magic on or around them. They'd died of normal fire, not magical fire.

A few, however, were different. Those victims had some indication of magic on or around them and their crime scenes. She wrote that even underground, in a coffin, one had stunk so powerfully of magic that you could feel it from the gates of the cemetery.

She also wrote that they were doing their own investigating, trying to find more recent deaths so that they could get their hands on an actual body. If she found anything, she'd be in touch by brownie.

I passed the file to Julian and then turned back to Ryu and Anyan.

“ What could have induced them to leave the Alfar and go to the Borderlands?
That's
my question,” Ryu sniped.

“It's not about some powerful force seducing the brownies away, Ryu. They just got tired of being servants.”

“Brownies
like
serving. That's what they
do
.”

“Yes, but that doesn't mean they should be taken for granted or exploited…”

I sighed, watching them bicker. Now was not the time. So I said so.

“What?” they both said, turning to me.

“Now is not the time, guys. After we've found the women, then you can hash all of this out.” I kept my voice soft, but firm. They'd never know that what I really wanted to do was throw the wet towel I'd set at my feet directly into their faces.