“There was a high tide last night,” Trevor said.
“You’re sure they’re werewolves and not coyotes?” Blair asked.
I shook my head. “You have a lot of coyotes the size of a St. Bernard or a Great Dane around here?”
Blair’s cop shoes weren’t the best thing for walking on loose sand, but he followed us, and a couple of detectives with his forensics team followed him.
“Yeah, those aren’t coyotes,” one of the detectives said. Blair drew his men aside, and I guessed he thought they were far enough away that I couldn’t hear them.
“I recognize one of them,” one detective said, “but they aren’t from either of our packs. There’s going to be hell to pay, though. Everyone’s on edge with Carleton gone.”
We watched the forensics team for about an hour, then the woman who seemed to be in charge came over to talk to Blair.
“Weirdest scene I’ve ever studied. No evidence of a fight, and other than the throat wounds, the wolves appear to be unharmed. There’s also no blood. It’s almost like they were killed somewhere else and teleported here. No tracks, either theirs or their killers’, and it doesn’t look like they were thrown from above. We’ll have to do autopsies and tests, of course.”
“Is teleportation even a thing?” Trevor asked.
Blair looked directly at me.
“I’ve never seen it,” I said with a shrug, “but I never claimed to know everything.” I winked at him. “It would really save on the transit passes though.”
I noticed that he never answered Trevor’s question. Thinking about it, levitation was something some mages could do. Aeromancers, like Frankie Jones.
The cops took our statements and let us go back to Trevor’s house. I asked about the computer runs, and he said he needed time to winnow through all the results and he’d bring them by Rosie’s that evening. I took the train back to my side of town and ran the last half mile to my apartment.
Chapter 14
Werewolves were known for being hot headed, and the slaughter of three young wolves—rumored to be victims of a gang of rogue vampires—touched off a night of open battles across the city. Tending bar at Rosie’s I heard a number of reports about it from customers coming in.
One of Blair’s shifters who had been at the crime scene came in just before I got off work and asked for Sam.
“Sam isn’t here,” I said. “There’s the shift manager and me.” I went to the kitchen door and said, “Steve, cop out here.”
Dworkin came out after a couple of minutes, wiping his hands on a towel. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Checking in to see if you’ve had any trouble,” the cop said. “And to warn you that it’s not a safe night to be on the streets.” He turned to survey the dining room, leaning back on the bar.
Steve looked at me.
“It’s been quiet,” I said. “There aren’t very many shifters who hang out at Rosie’s, and I’ve only seen that one vampire in here.”
“Yeah, but he died,” the cop said, turning around to look at me. “Don’t be surprised if the vampires remember that.”
Dworkin gave me a ride home, not just to the apartment complex, but to the front door of my building.
“You all warded inside?” he asked as I got out of his pickup truck. “You know, anytime you think you need any help, all you have to do is ask.”
“Yeah, I’m good.” I gave him a smile. “Thanks, Steve.”
I got a beer out of the fridge and stood out on my balcony, just enjoying the quiet of the night. It was cold, but I drew on the ley line for warmth. I stood out there for half an hour, and then I heard a wolf howl in the distance. It was answered by several more.
Shortly thereafter, I caught sight of three or four people walking down the path by the stream. They stopped when they came even with my building and looked up at me. Vampires. I smiled and silently toasted them with the beer bottle. After gathering in a circle and conversing a bit, they gave me another look and headed back in the direction they came from.
Supernaturals, as Sam called them, didn’t worry me when I was home. Vampires and shifters had their own kind of magic, but they couldn’t breach my wards. And since it was still light, I didn’t have to worry about vampires when I went to work. But winter was approaching, and it would get dark earlier. Still, it was good to know that I was being watched so I could take precautions.
I finished off my beer and went inside to get ready for bed.
Blair and Frankie Jones were sitting at the bar talking to Sam when I showed up for work the following afternoon.
“You sure get around,” Frankie said as I hung up my coat.
“Luck of the Irish,” I responded. “How many dead shifters and vampires do you have on an average night?”
Neither she nor Blair answered. Blair squirmed a little.
“If you have to take off your shoes to count them,” I said, “then maybe I’m unique only because I’ve reported the murders I stumbled across.”
Sam gave me an appraising look, then smirked at Blair and Jones.
“What’s the mood like at the Wolf’s Den?” Sam asked. I knew that was one of the more popular shifter bars.
“Not good,” Blair said. “There was a mini-riot at Full Moon around closing time, and The Shaggy Gentleman closed early. The owner of Necropolis isn’t happy, either. She says business is way off because her regulars are sticking close to home.”
I had heard of Necropolis, a vampire-goth nightclub that sounded a little too real for my tastes. “The Shaggy Gentleman?” I asked.
“Shifter strip bar,” Sam said, motioning to the west. “About a mile that way on a dead end overlooking the river.”
I don’t know what my face looked like when he said that, but Frankie laughed. “Yeah, not a place I would hang out, either.”
One of our regular customers came in, and Sam called out to him. It was the shifter-accountant that Jenny had pointed out to me when I first took the job. He came over and joined the conversation. Half an hour later, Josh and Jolene came in, and soon I counted fifteen people discussing the paranormal state of affairs in the city. All that talk was thirsty work, and they kept me busy.
It surprised me how openly everyone discussed things with Blair and Frankie there. Especially Blair. I guess he hung out at Rosie’s often enough that people felt relatively comfortable with him.
“How do they keep the lid on this sort of thing?” I asked Lizzy when she came and sat at the other end of the bar, near the kitchen. The TV over the bar was tuned to the local news, and there wasn’t a word about weird goings-on or bodies of wolves and decapitated vampires.
With a shrug, she said, “I don’t think we’ve had something like this happen before.” She studied the Tarot layout she had dealt. “Sometimes rival werewolf packs get into territorial disputes, but the vampires have always been pretty low-key. What scares me, though, is the Fae are getting restless.”
I just stood there staring stupidly at her, not wanting what she said to be true. Most people—even witches and mages—tried to ignore the Fae, pretending they didn’t exist. And for the most part, the Fae were fine with that. But I had run into the Fae more than once, and their magic was different and far more ancient than that of humans.
“Lizzy,” I said, placing my hand on hers. She raised her face so I could see her eyes. “What do you See?”
She bit her lip. “Like I said, the Fae are getting restless. You know they only like disorder that they cause.”
I nodded. “Yes, I know about the Fae. Control freaks, and they don’t think the way humans do.”
Lizzy nodded and went back to studying her cards. “You sure know a lot for a girl without any education.”
I reached out and put my fingertips under her chin. “I didn’t go to normal human schools, but I’ve read a lot, and I’ve traveled a lot. If you ever have questions about me, ask me. Asking someone else might get both of us killed. Just be sure only to ask questions you really want answered.”
Our eyes locked, and I had no idea what she might be seeing when she looked at me, but after a minute, she gave me a trembling smile and said, “Will do.”
I left her sitting there but came back a few minutes later and shoved a sloe gin fizz across the bar.
“Now, for a free drink, tell me about the Fae in this town.”
Lizzy looked startled. She studied my face for a minute, then said, “There is a fairy mound northeast of the city just inside the national park. For the most part, a glamour and a warding spell keep everyone away, but there are lot of Fae living outside. I’d guess there are probably as many Fae living in the city as there are mages.”
“Is the mound where the ley lines cross?” I asked.
“Just on the east side of the junction. There is a small town of sorts above ground called Killarney Village, on the west side of the junction, and that is all Fae. So, the town and the mound are each bordered on three sides by a major ley line.”
“And all this information about the Fae is common knowledge among the paranormals here?”
She blushed. “Not really.”
“Just people who are related to them,” I said. Her blush deepened. The night when we went out dancing and I found the Hunter, she gave directions to the taxi driver at the club to take her to ‘Killarney Village’.
“It’s probably not safe for you to go out there alone,” she finally said.
“Got it. I’ll be sure to arrange a tour guide if I decide to visit.”
Lizzy blushed again.
Trevor came in later and handed me a folder filled with half an inch of paper.
“Here is what I found through my computer searches,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s what you were looking for, or if it will do you any good.”
I thanked him and bought him a drink. Later, when Steve Dworkin gave me a ride home, I took the folder with me and set it on the floor next to my bed, planning on reading through it the following morning.