Shaded Vision

I caught my breath at his beauty and stepped into his embrace. He pulled me close, and I rested my head against his chest. As I stood there, safe in the shelter of his arms, he murmured low whispers I couldn’t quite catch. I searched his face, and he lowered his lips to mine and then, my breath was whistling out of my body and into his as he leaned me back, sucking the life out of me, and then with a soft hiss, breathed me back into my body again. He held me tight, the energy of his aura crackling like a pulse through me, vibrating every cord, every muscle, and I began to soar as he brushed my breast with one hand.

“My Delilah.” A low growl ripped out of his throat and he pressed his lips firmly against my own again, his tongue meeting mine, forcing me to acknowledge his power. I moaned low as the flames erupted through my body and I ached to have him, to feel him in me, to know what it was like to embrace the power of the Harvest. As if reading my thoughts, he swept a hand down, brushing my thighs, and I came hard and swift, crying out as a swirl of sparks echoed through me, struck by the heat of his touch.

“My lord,” I whispered, when I could think again. “What do you ask of me?” Whenever I was around him, all I could think about was making him proud of me, making myself worthy in his eyes. He was my dark lord who had reached out and yanked me forever into his world. He brought out my panther side, and for that I would forever be grateful.

“You will be facing a trial with Greta soon. It will test your heart, but follow through, knowing that it is what must be.”

Greta was another one of the Death Maidens, and she was my trainer—teaching me to harness the powers that the Autumn Lord had given me. She, along with the rest of his harem, lived in Haseofon, the temple that existed in his realm. And I had fallen in love with the Harvestman as surely as I loved his emissary—Shade. Though separate, distinct beings, they were connected. And my love encompassed both of them.

I nodded. “I won’t disappoint you, Hi’ran.”

“You think you won’t, but when the time comes, I guarantee you will question whether it’s the right thing to do. When that happens, search your heart, search your soul, and you will know.”

And then, with another quick kiss, he vanished from my side and I was once again standing in the rubble. As I shook my head, blinking, I looked down and saw something sparkling among the ashes.

As I leaned over and picked up the item, shaking the ash and soot away, I heard a shout from outside and hurried back through the door to find Camille and Andy Gambit. The fiery imprint of her hand marked his face.

I started to run forward but then stopped, waiting. Camille needed to ask for my help. She had to face her battles on her own; she’d made that quite clear over the past month. Hyto had damaged her self-esteem, her confidence in her ability to fight back. Even though she put on a good show, I knew she worried constantly about being weaker than Menolly or me.

She leaned toward Andy, hands on her hips, her voice low. “If you ever dare to touch me again in any way I’ll run my stiletto through your dick and claim it was an accident. And then, I’ll let my husbands come after you. All three of them. Got it?”

He rubbed his face, eyes glistening. “Bitch. Whore. You fuck three men and you dare to call yourself married? You’re a slut! Marriage is a contract between one man and one woman—”

Before he could continue, she backhanded him again—launching him backward into the rubble-strewn grass. I heard the crisp, clear sound of lightning overhead as her hand connected with his cheek. Maybe her self-esteem was coming back faster than I thought.

“Don’t speak to me. Don’t look at me. And never, ever touch me again. If you do, I’ll kill you.”

Leaning over him, she grabbed him by the collar and dragged him up. We were all strong, but Camille wasn’t as athletic as Menolly or me. I was surprised to see that she’d been working out. As he protested, she yelled for Frostling, who came running around the corner. When the officer saw Andy Gambit, her eyes lit up and she strode over and dragged him away from Camille.

“I told you last night if you didn’t get the fuck away from this place, I was going to run you in for trespassing. Thank you for making my day, Gambit!” As she spoke into her radio that was clipped to her collar, requesting a car, Andy let out a sigh and gave up struggling. Frostling was a lot stronger than even me, and she must have put the squeeze on him.

“You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney…”

As she read him his rights, Camille and I slipped out, giving her a wave. By the time we were back at the Jeep, another patrol car from the FH-CSI had driven up. We watched silently as they hauled Gambit away in cuffs.

“I hate him.” Camille opened the door and crawled back in. “I hate him and I wish he’d fall off the face of the Earth.”

“You left quite the imprint on his face.” I glanced at her. “What happened?”

“His hand decided it needed to squeeze my boob. I should just tell Smoky and then we’d be done with it.” She cleared her throat. “So you find anything?”

“I didn’t have much time to look around, to be honest. We have to get over to Chase’s office. But look—I picked this up near the door.” I handed her what I’d found. It was a pendant, with strange markings on both sides, made of gold, or a gold alloy, and it gave me the creeps.

She took it. “This clenches matters. It has the stench of Demonkin on it. But more than that—this writing—it’s Runetongue.”

“Runetongue? What the hell is that?” That alone sounded suspect, but even more worrisome was the fact that it smelled of Demonkin.

“Sorcerer’s tongue.” She stared at it for a moment, then let out a little gasp. “I know what this is! A trigger talisman. It’s a magical detonator. This is proof that sorcerers are behind this—or someone trafficking with sorcerers.”

Flipping it over, she paused. “So, we have the stench of Demonkin, Runetongue…and…” She held it to her nose and inhaled deeply, grimacing as she did so. “I can smell the canya on here. I know Chase doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, but we’re right. This was crafted in Otherworld. The alarms are ringing a mile wide.”

I stared at the pendant in her hand. “Do you think we really could be facing Telazhar?” The thought of facing a necromancer as powerful as he had become over the eons down in the Sub-Realms left me shaky. Facing demons was bad enough, but their powers were usually incidental. A necromancer that ancient and that strong would be like magic incarnate. “The idea of going up against him…He trained Stacia Bonecrusher.”

“I know. There’s no chance Morio and I can take out someone that powerful, even with our death magic. Even the magic Telazhar taught Stacia was stronger than what we know. But we lucked out with her. When she was in her natural form, she couldn’t use it.” Camille wrapped her hand around the circle of metal and stuffed it in her purse.

“We’d better go meet Chase. I certainly hope this day gets better.”

She smiled then, wide and beaming to make me feel like a ray of sunshine had broken through. “It has to. Tonight’s Iris’s wedding, remember?”

“Right.” I let out a long sigh. Iris’s wedding, and then she and Bruce would be off to Ireland on a their honeymoon via the barrow mounds. Hanna would take over for her until they returned. And as much as I liked Hanna, she just wasn’t Iris.

When we entered headquarters, Yugi motioned for us to wait. “The Chief asked me to let him know when you got here. He’ll be right out.” The detective looked worried as he punched the intercom.

“Something wrong, Yugi?” I dreaded getting yet more bad news.

He frowned, then handed us a newspaper. The Seattle Tattler. We hadn’t had a chance to see it this morning, and as Camille and I opened it up, the front page had a huge spread on the bombing. The slant of the article was congratulatory to whoever had instigated it.

“We’ve had three calls already this morning since this piece of trash hit the streets. A Were got beat up over in the alley back of Pike Street by a couple of thugs. They kicked him around pretty bad. And an Otherworld visitor—Fae—was accosted downtown. She’s okay because she knew how to fight back, but the guy was out to rape her. I just sent out two of the men to talk to another Were. His house was tagged with graffiti last night. Pervs wrote Back to the doghouse, you filthy Werefuck on it.”

I bit my lip, thinking how much hatred there was in the world—in both our worlds. People sucked, and I was all too quickly finding out just how much. A glance at Camille told me she was thinking the same thing.

Just then, Chase came hurrying up, shrugging into a trench coat over his jacket. “Glad you’re here on time. Let’s head out.”

We climbed into the patrol car with him as Camille ran down what she’d figured out from the pendant we found.

“Crap.” He paused to buckle his seat belt and motioned for us to do the same. “I guess it was foolish for me to hope this might be a simple hate crime—if there is such a thing as that. So what we’re really looking for here is info that will lead you guys to the sorcerers behind this? Because while I can give you backup, you’re the ones who know the ins and outs of these creeps.”

“Creep is a good word for them…but not nearly powerful enough. Speaking of…I guess you heard about Andy Gambit?” I stared at my hands. We’d already had a number of run-ins with him, and Chase had tried to get us to ignore him, but when the little freak got in our faces, none of us were capable of holding our tempers.

“Yeah, he’s already out on bail and no doubt writing up a lawsuit protesting police brutality. Camille, did you want to press harassment charges against him?”

She leaned forward from the backseat, snickering. “What do you think? Should I? Especially since Smoky will find out what happened? Because frankly, I’m tempted to just tell my husbands and then Gambit would never bother us again.”

“Don’t say things like that in front of me! I’m supposed to keep people from getting murdered, not encourage it!” Chase gulped. “No. Definitely not. Although it might solve the problem in the short run, in the long run somebody worse would take his place. No, give Gambit enough rope and he’s going to hang himself. You wait and see. His kind always do.”

As we eased out of the parking lot, he motioned for me to flip open his notebook. “Where are we headed first? Your call.”

I glanced over the names. “Let’s go talk to Claudia. She mentioned Exo recently turned down the conference with somebody he felt was ‘off’…plus, her guilt is eating her up. I think she could use a visit.”

Privately, I was worried about the werewolf. When Weres lost their mates, it was like any other couple except the animal side came out too easily under the stress of the grief. And then the loss became dangerous to others. If Claudia lost control of herself, she could end up roaming the city in wolf form, attacking from the frenzy of her grief.

Claudia and Exo’s house was in the Queen Anne neighborhood. Quiet, classy, understated. We parked in the driveway next to the chain-link fence that prevented her children from running out in the road. The kids were out in the yard, home from school, and their older brother was watching over them. I did a double take. He could have been a carbon copy of Exo, only years younger.

As we swung out of the cruiser and headed up the walk, I jammed my hands into my pockets and shook my head. At least the hardest part was over—notifying her of the loss. But now we were intruding into her sorrow and pain. I hated what we were about to do.

As we entered the gated yard, the kids gave us a brief glance, then went back to their games. The teenager watching them nodded but kept quiet. His eyes were ringed and red, and I could tell he’d been crying.

Chase knocked on the door and Claudia opened it, standing back silently as we filed into the house. She motioned to the living room, and we gingerly sat on the sofa as she quietly lowered herself into a wooden rocking chair and pulled an afghan over her legs. An older man came out—he also looked a lot like Exo—and gave us the once-over.

“Orick, this is Chief Johnson from the Faerie-Human Crime Scene Investigation team. And Delilah and Camille D’Artigo. Orick is…was…he’s Exo’s brother.” She said the last in a flurry of words infused with pain. As she said Exo’s name, she cringed, then hung her head. “Please, some tea?”

“Of course, Claudia.” Orick gave us a two-fingered salute and retreated into what was probably the kitchen.

“Excuse us for intruding, but last night you said that Exo had refused to book a convention?” Chase quietly slid out his pencil and notebook and flipped it open. He kept a gentle eye contact with Claudia, but a nonthreatening one, letting her know through body language that the lead was hers. Wise move. Very wise move. Chase had learned a lot since we first met him.

Claudia paused, then motioned to an appointment book on the coffee table. “I don’t know who it was. Like I said last night, we had a fight over the fact that he turned them down, but I was mostly concerned with the money he said no to.” She coughed, wiping her nose with a tissue.

“That sounds horrible, doesn’t it? I was worried about money…I didn’t trust his judgment and now look what happened.”

“It’s not your fault, Claudia. You didn’t do anything to cause this.” Chase started to pat her hand, then stopped, merely flashing her a gentle smile.

“Yeah, right.” She let out a shudder, then said, “You might find something in his appointment book. This happened about a week ago. It was on a Wednesday, I remember. Thursday is garbage day and I was fretting that Exo had forgotten to put the cans out. He took off for the hotel after the fight, and so I remember asking my son to do it instead.” She lingered over the words, as if simple memories of daily life could erase the pain.