Night and Fae, page 2
part #5 of Vegas Fae Series
I shook my head and he set the bottle down.
"Kinda late for a visit," he said, picking up one of the glasses. He tipped it in my direction before downing it in one shot and then slamming it down on the desktop.
I did the same, the fiery liquid burning my throat as it went down. I held the glass up and inspected it. Smoke curled up around the edge as the few remaining drops of Goblin spirits turned to mist and evaporated. "You're not selling this to humans are you?"
"That'll be the day," he replied, placing the bottle back into the drawer, chuckling. "No. I keep some around just for the novelty, and the occasional special customer." He looked over at the big dog and shrugged. "I'm all out of bones, at least any that you'd find tasty."
Charlie just snorted.
"Sorry about the bouncer," I admitted, a moment later.
"He'll get over it," Al said, then paused. "Maybe. But I'd watch your back while you're here, just in case."
"I'll try to remember that."
"See that you do," he replied, laughing. "Enough of the bullshit. What brings you out here this time of night? Who'd we piss off this time, or are you just going to make fun of my last name again?"
Even with a dump like this, Goblins competed for the same dollars the Fae and others did, and sometimes that caused … well, let's just call them complications. Since Al and I got along, I was usually the one that brought them to his attention.
That's not to say that he didn’t do a little shady business on the side. Hell, there were plenty of Fae that crossed that line as well, and Goblins knew their way around the underside of things. But like I said, when dealing with humans, not even a Goblin would show them what they are, even if he was a low life piece of crap.
"Actually," I said. "I brought you a present. He's out in the car."
"And it's not even my birthday," Al mocked. He got up from the chair. "Okay, let's get this over with."
We went out the back door into the alley and I gave him the nickel version of what happened. When I was done, I popped the trunk. The young Goblin was still out cold.
"You can deal with this one," I said, reaching down and moving his face into the light. I muttered the counter spell to wake him up.
"Must be new," Al said as the kid began to rouse. "I don’t recognize him." He turned and shouted. "Ben! Get your ass out here."
A moment later, the Goblin bouncer I had first encountered in the alley appeared. When he saw Al, he began to jog toward the car. By the time he arrived, Charlie was already standing on the bumper, growling as the one in the trunk woke up. He screamed.
"Quiet!" Al said, leaning in and slapping the kid to get his attention. He turned to Ben. "Take him downstairs, I'll deal with him in a minute."
The bouncer reached down and roughly picked the now struggling Goblin up. I could hear him telling him to shut up as he carried him, kicking and screaming, back to the bar. I could only imagine the fate that waited for him inside.
"I give you my word," Al began. "Whatever these two were up to, I'm not involved."
"I didn't think you were," I replied. "But there's another thing." I pulled out the sword the other one had been carrying. As I extended it toward Al, I willed the blade to appear.
"That little shit was carrying that!" he asked, pointing back toward the bar. His sudden anger surprising.
"No," I replied. "The one I killed was. Why? Have you seen one before?"
"Had a problem a while back," he said, looking at the sword like it was going to reach out and bite him. Then he held his hands up. "Gimme a minute." He turned and went back to the bar. I looked over at Charlie and rolled my eyes.
"Rael wants to see you," he said when he came back out.
"What the hell does a Demon have to do with this?"
"Look, man, she'll have to explain it to you," he replied, looking down.
"So? What? You're in bed with her now?" I asked, surprised at this news.
"Things change," he shrugged. "You know how it is. There are too few of us to go this alone. Even the Weres can only do so much."
"What does she have to do with this, Al?"
Ignoring my question, he pushed a card into my hand. "Be at this address in an hour or so. She wants to meet with you. That's all I can say."
I glanced down at it and then looked back at him.
"Just be there," he pleaded.
This was going to be interesting. I gave him a half nod and walked back to my car.
Like the Nephilim, most Demons you find on the human plane aren't pure-blooded, not that it makes them any less dangerous. But Rael wasn't half anything. She was a true Demon. I'd even heard that she could be one of the original Fallen, but that was just a rumor. The other thing was that nobody knew who she was, at least not in her human persona. Well, maybe the EAB did. They were the government agency tasked with dealing with the Fae and other magical creatures. Their official name was the External Affairs Bureau of the Department of Homeland Security, not that mattered. In any case, the EAB wasn't saying, and Al had just given me her address. Of course it could be a front, but I didn’t think so. I knew the street's location, and it wasn't the kind of place you used only once. But the more important question was why had she hooked up with the Goblins… and why the hell hadn’t I known?
Chapter 2
Does everything have to be on the other side of town? I asked myself a half hour later as I drove up Stewart Avenue toward Sunrise Mountain. Okay, if you must know, it's really Frenchman Mountain, but nobody ever gets it right. Not that I really minded the drive. Hell, I could have Sendy drop me anywhere. But even if it's a hybrid, there's something about the feel of the road that's just…. I don’t know… Maybe it's the human part of me, or maybe it's just a guy thing, but whatever it was, I didn’t want to lose it.
The place was in the foothills, above the planned developments, where custom homes that overlooked the Valley stood. I was almost to Los Feliz Street when something tickled at my senses. That wasn't good. I turned the car down a side street where several houses under construction hid me from my destination and the foothills beyond, and pulled over to the curb. Reaching out with magic, I tried to find what bothered me, but there was nothing there.
"Charlie?" I asked, rolling down the window. "You feel anything?"
"No," he replied.
"Use your nose," I said. Fae, or not, he was still a hunting dog, and at the moment, that's what I needed. My senses were better than most Fae, but all I could perceive here was the lack of something, and that just felt wrong. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but it was worth checking out.
"Too many scents," he said, his nose outside the car, sniffing. "I will return." Then he jumped out the window and took off through the desert.
I sent out a mental call to Sendy.
"My Lord," she said, as she appeared in the passenger seat. She opened my glovebox and started to pull out a shirt, but I stopped her. Here's the thing about the Aurae. They usually prefer to travel in the nude, so they can use their wings to fly. Obviously, this can be problematic in a modern setting. So, to play it safe, I always kept a shirt or two available. It just wouldn’t look right to have a half-naked Faerie sitting in my car.
"Don’t worry about that," I said. "Sorry to call you back so soon, but Charlie is out searching. Stay invisible. Let him know you're here and then tell me if he finds anything."
"Of course," she replied, then disappeared.
I still couldn’t put my finger on what was bothering me. I'd just have to wait and see if Charlie could find anything.
"There is one human," Sendy said, as she reappeared a few minutes later. "South of the last house. She hides behind a… Charlie called it a construction shack. I could not see her until he told me where she was. She is wearing clothes of sand and brush to veil herself from human eyes."
"She's wearing a Ghillie suit?" Who the hell was out there? "Weapons?"
"The human kind," she replied, meaning guns, and possibly swords. "She watches the house through a looking glass attached to one of them."
"A scope?" Who was she waiting for? Me, or the Demon? I needed this like a hole in the head but I'll be damned if I was gonna let myself be a target.
"He also says that she may be a Null."
Well that explains why I couldn't sense her. Nulls are rare. While they look like any other human, they don't register on our senses. Most beings can be detected by the aura they emanate, so their presence can be sensed by magic. Nulls are like black holes, nothing gets out. That's what makes them dangerous. Of course, they're not immune to magic, it's more like a natural camouflage. Some ancient quirk of natural selection I guess. Not that it made a difference in this case. That's what I had Charlie for; even a Null can’t hide from a dog's nose. If one was here, then things were definitely not what they seemed. The only ones I'd ever met had worked for the government. They were required to be registered and were much sought after by the EAB. But this was the first time I'd ever heard of a female Null. I guess anything is possible. Fortunately, when it's all said and done, they're still just human. So it was back to the basics, with a Fae twist, of course. Too bad I wasn't eligible for the bounty.
"Okay. Tell Charlie to get as close as he can without spooking her, then come back and get me. We'll surprise her together."
As soon as she was gone I got out of my car and keyed the trunk release. Grabbing my handcuffs from my kit, I shut it and willed my sword to appear. My gun was on my hip, and the Viking short sword that Siegfried had given me, the seax, was in its holster under my arm. Although I was hoping to take her alive, I wasn't in the mood for subtlety.
Sendy silently carried me up above the target. Damn, this girl was good. Even with my Fae eyes, I couldn't see her until Sendy pointed her out to me. She was situated on the corner of a fenced area that held construction equipment for some of the new houses being built here in the foothills. Even without the extra camouflage, she would have been hidden from Rael's location. Whoever she was, she took her assignment seriously.
The moon hadn't risen yet, but from my vantage point I could see Charlie hunkered down about 50 yards downwind from her. I took a moment to reach out with magic, but there was still nothing there. I looked over at where Charlie was and raised my hand, whispering to Sendy to fly lower. When I got to the right height, I dropped my hand and Charlie took off running toward her, barking like crazy. Her figure came into view. The sudden movement of her body as she turned to see what was happening caused her to be visible. I dropped down right on top of her.
She was quick, I'll give her that. She must have sensed me just before I landed because she twisted around to face the new threat. The barrel began to move toward me and I swung my sword, cutting the rifle in half just above the forestock where her hand gripped it. She began to reach for another weapon when Charlie grabbed her hand in his mouth as I tried to flip her back on her stomach. She wasn't making it easy so I tapped her with the flat side of my sword. Blue arcs of electricity made contact with her head. My Fae version of a stun gun had the desired effect, her eyes rolling back into her head as she relaxed and went limp.
I rolled her over and cuffed her. Patting her down I found two more guns, a sword, a dagger and what had to be her Demon slaying kit. Another dagger, two bullets for the rifle I’d destroyed and a vial of liquid. Holy water? Shit, this girl wasn't fooling around. I was just beginning to wonder what the hell I was dealing with when Charlie moved to her head and used his nose to push her blonde hair aside, revealing a tattoo.
"She is a Knight," he said.
I'll be damned, I thought to myself, as I looked at the Iron Cross tattoo with the red rose in its center. I pulled her collar down some more and the tattoo of a sword appeared right below it.
The Brothers and Sisters of the Sword was a Christian military group that had grown out of a 13th century Germanic Order of Knights. Although the original Order had, of course, contained only men, these days, women numbered among its ranks as well. Officially, they'd disappeared some 800 years ago, but rumor had it they'd actually been given a new task. Which meant that she was a Demon hunter. While that explained what she was doing here so close to Rael's, it didn’t explain why. The Knights had stayed away from Vegas for the most part. There were just too many of us here for them to operate effectively. It was so much easier to catch someone away from town. When had that changed?
I grabbed my phone and called Lucius, who was still living at my house. He was a former Roman Centurion and had once been a Lilin. He had died in a battle with several Mages that had attacked us. On my first trip to Hades, I found him in residing in Elysium and he'd been returned to Earth. The Lilin that had been part of him had not been so lucky, so he was human again.
The Lilin were the legends behind the Vampires in modern myth. They'd been held under a spell after losing a war with the Fae millennia ago. I'd managed to break that spell. Of course, not everyone had been happy about that, but it had earned me a reputation. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but in this case, it had obviously worked to my benefit.
"Do you have any idea what time it is?" he answered in a groggy voice. "I just got to sleep."
"That's what you get for not paying rent," I quipped. "Now get out of bed. I need your help."
"I'm up, I'm up! What do you want?"
"I got into a fight with one of the Order's Knights. She's out cold for the moment but I'm gonna have Sendy take her to the house. I need you and Charlie to watch her until I can sort a few things out."
"In Vegas? I'll be damned. Does she need a healer?"
"I don't think so," I replied. "I just tapped her with my sword. She'll probably come around in a bit. But I want to talk to her before I turn her over. You just need to keep an eye on her until I get back. The wards will prevent her from leaving but I got a feeling this one's gonna be a fighter."
"I live to serve," he said with a laugh. "Besides, I haven't been in a good fight since before Hades. Sure, send her over."
"Thanks," I said. "Just keep it quiet. I don’t want anyone to know where she is just yet. Oh, and make sure she doesn’t see Alf. He looks Demon-like enough to set her off."
"I'll take care of it. Besides, who am I going to tell? I'm just a human these days and I'm certainly not going to let her know about my past." he said, chuckling. "I'm going to get dressed, tell Sendy I'll be downstairs."
I disconnected and let Sendy take Charlie back first. After she disappeared with the girl, I gathered up the rest of her things and trudged back to my car. Then I drove down the street and headed for Rael's. My evening… scratch that… make it morning now, had turned to shit.
Chapter 3
Before I could make the left onto the road that led to Rael's house, a black Beamer passed and cut in front of me. It stopped in front of the gate as I trailed behind. A hand came out the window as the gate opened and waved at me before continuing. I followed it up the cobblestone driveway to the house.
Lined with desert-friendly trees, it led up to the front entrance and then onto the attached garage. The backyard was hidden by a tall block wall. I could see the place was big, but not extravagant, unlike some of the others up here. It was yellow, instead of the usual brown or tan, with a white fenced porch that ran around it. Sitting on several acres, it was a two story, with a deck on the second floor so you could look out over the valley. Most Vegas homes are close to the road, to cut down on a front yard that nobody uses, but this was one was set back, and even with the desert landscaping, it looked like it belonged somewhere else. Kind of like something you might find back East.
I parked behind the BMW and watched as a dark haired, 40-something female, dressed in an expensive grey business suit, got out. She waved again and then walked briskly to the front door. I got out and followed.
"Make yourself comfortable," she said as I followed her through the doorway. She headed up a spiral stairway as she continued. "There's wine in the kitchen. Coffee, too. Let me get out of this monkey suit and then we'll talk."
Awful informal for someone that had made it painstakingly clear in the past that she wanted nothing to do with me. I shrugged and continued down the hallway past the living room and into a large kitchen. I poured myself a glass of red wine from a carafe on the counter and looked around. It reminded me a little of my own place. It was bigger, but instead of that fancy executive feel you get in a lot of modern houses, this one felt homey. Not exactly what I expected from a Demon, but then again, castles had gone out of style several centuries ago.
The furniture was oversized and looked expensive, designed for comfort rather than to make a statement. Except, perhaps, for the fireplace. It was on the wall in the family room next to the kitchen. Made of some kind of stone, it was ornate and intricately carved with scrolls. There were Angels and Demons on the legs and engraved panels. It was old, and had clearly been brought here from somewhere else. Above the mantle hung a portrait of a young girl in a battlefield, kneeling and weeping. Dressed in armor, it could have been a depiction of Joan of Arc, except, of course, that everyone had wings. I heard a voice behind me as I examined it.
"He wanted to do me in the nude."
"Excuse me?" I turned around to see her standing there barefoot. Now dressed in jeans and a white lace top, she sipped her wine as she walked up to me.
"The painter," she replied with a smile. "I had it done in Paris in 1870. He was a student at Académie Julian. One of Bouguereau's, I believe. But I think he just wanted to see me naked. Then again, it was a popular art style in those days."
I don’t blame him, I thought to myself. She was attractive in human form. Early 40's, with an innocent face that looked much younger. She had green eyes, with long brown hair that was pulled back over her ears. Not what you expect of a Demon. But like the Fae, they could look like anything.
"And did he?" I asked, playing along. I had no idea where this was going.
