Dragon Wytch (Page 2)

I frowned. It was unlikely that Peter S. Beagle had even believed in the creatures when he wrote The Last Unicorn, but then again, who knew? "I'm not sure, Henry. You never can tell." I flashed him a smile, and he mirrored it back to me, then returned to Feddrah-Dahns's side.

"Camille? Camille? Did you hear what I said?"

"Huh?" I turned around. Chase had been talking to me at the same time as Henry. "No, I'm sorry. What was it?"

He sighed. "This is the third report of Cryptos on the loose that I've had this morning."

Chase was suave. Less lecherous than when we'd first met, he was a damned good detective. I'd gone from disdaining the dude to actually liking him, as long as he kept his eyes off my butt and boobs. Oh, now and then his gaze still wandered into forbidden territory, and he still smelled like spicy beef tacos a good share of the time, but at least he was polite about the occasional peek show. And most importantly, the scent of cigarettes was long gone. My sister Delilah had him on the nicotine patch, and he was faring remarkably well. Of course, he had incentive; she refused to kiss him or touch him if he smoked.

"You make it sound like they got loose from the zoo." I sighed. "Chase, babe, you've got to get over the idea that two legs equals intelligence."

He snorted. "Don't give me grief, woman. You're from Otherworld, you're half-Fae. You've been here, what… a year now, isn't it? The portals have been open about four—maybe five years, right?"

I nodded. "That's about right."

"In that time, a number of Fae have crossed over to visit Earthside. And the Earthside Supes have come out of the closet. But we've never had a run on Cryptos before. Not that I can remember. Now, they're everywhere. Portland's reporting a significant increase in sightings, and they've been spotted all over western Washington. What do you think it means?"

I had to admit, he was right to be concerned. While Otherworld Fae still weren't commonplace, and we tended to settle around the West Coast, we were no longer the novelty act that we'd been when the OIA decided to open a few of the interdimensional portals.

Since they'd reestablished the lines of communication that had been shut down during the Great Divide—when Otherworld had split off from Earthside—we'd become increasingly accepted in human society. And over the past month or so, a home court renaissance of sorts had sprung up. Earthside Supes were quickly becoming the flavor of the day.

After the first shock waves settled, we'd been welcomed with open arms. For the most part. There were still a number of factions who thought we were evil incarnate and who wouldn't mind lighting the match to our funeral pyres, but they were the vocal minority, and we didn't pay much attention to them. There was intolerance everywhere, and we knew better than to think we could eradicate it totally.

But Cryptos? Cryptos were still unusual enough to turn heads. However, their rarity wasn't the problem. "That's not what has me worried, Chase. I think you need to rephrase the question."

He sucked on his lower lip. "Okay, so tell me what the question is, and why their sudden appearance is trouble. Or not."

I frowned. "All right. How about this: the fact that a unicorn is wandering the streets of Seattle is unsettling, not because he's a Crypto, but because unicorns almost always stay in the wild and seldom venture into cities. It's not unnatural for Feddrah-Dahns to be curious about what it's like over here on Earthside, but it is unnatural for him to come into the city instead of heading out into the forest. Ergo, you're right. Something's up."

"Interesting." Chase drummed his fingers on the glass display case next to me. "So, why is he standing here in your shop instead of over in Magnolia Park?"

I reached out and smacked his fingers. Gently. "Stop that—not good for the glass." Sliding onto the stool behind the cash register, I leaned my elbows on the counter. "What's up? Beat's me. I'll have a talk with Feddrah-Dahns and see what I can find out. Meanwhile, what kind of other reports are you talking about? Standard Bigfoot sightings?"

"No. In fact, some of them are downright frightening. At three in the morning we received a call from a terrified woman who said a satyr was trying to climb into bed with her. He had one hell of a hard-on and was ready to share it. Granted, he left when she screamed and fought him off, but around here, we still frown on rape. If we catch him, he'd better make tracks back to OW unless he wants to spend the next ten years in an Earthside jail."

Oops. Yeah, this could be a problem. Satyrs and other wild Cryptos usually kept to the meadows and forests. What the hell were they doing in the suburbs of Seattle?

"So you didn't catch him?"

"No. We arrived at the woman's house just in time to see him racing through the bushes, but we couldn't keep up. Cryptos are experts at eluding the cops, for some reason."

"Probably because they're good at camouflage. And fast." Most Cryptos were a lot faster than humans. Most of the Fae were, too. Even though I was only half-Fae, I could run rings around Chase's stamina and endurance, but I didn't feel like rubbing it in right now. I took a closer look at the detective. His eyelids drooped, and he looked like he hadn't slept in days. The bags under his eyes would hold a major shopping haul.

"You been sleeping okay?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Nope. Your sister's been keeping me awake at nights and not for all the right reasons. She's taken to chasing her tail in the middle of the night. On the bed. On my pillow. Then she gets in these kneading frenzies that won't quit. I've got the scars to prove it all over my chest. And then, with worrying about satyrs and goblins, who can get any sleep?" He picked up a pen off the counter and rubbed it between his fingers.

"Craving a cigarette?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah. Listen, visitors from OW are going to have to learn to play by the rules, or somebody's going to get trigger happy and all hell will break loose." He grimaced. "That damn Freedom's Angels group is stirring up trouble right and left. The more popular you guys get, the angrier they get."

Freedom's Angels were a group of ultra-right-wing hate mongers who took the rhetoric spouted by the Guardian Watchdogs and put it into action, which moved them from the category of annoying to dangerous. So far, they'd confined themselves to a few minor skirmishes. Mostly, they came out the worse for the wear. The Fae were stronger, quicker, and could easily be far more ruthless than the Freedom's Angels were, but that could shift with the right weapon in hand.

I gave him a short nod. "Now that the portal in the Wayfarer is pointed toward Darkynwyrd instead of Y'Elestrial, unauthorized creatures come through the bar several times a week. Menolly had to fight off three more goblins a couple nights ago. They're no match for her, she just feeds them to Tavah, but still, it's an inconvenience. Free lunch, though." Tavah, like my youngest sister, was a vampire—and she was full Fae. Only she was less particular than Menolly about what flavor of blood she drank.

"Well, you can't just shut the portals down," Chase said, pursing his lips.

"No, we can't." Delilah, Menolly, and I had tried to tackle the problem several times, getting us nowhere. But now, it was beginning to affect the city.

Seattle—most of Earth, actually—knew about Otherworld and the Fae. We weren't in the closet anymore, but there was so much they didn't know. Like the fact that the Subterranean Realms existed. Like the fact that the ruler of the Sub Realms—a demon lord named Shadow Wing—was out to raze both Earth and Otherworld. And like the terrifying fact that my sisters and I and our friends were the only obstacles standing in his way.

"Here's the thing," I said after a moment. "The Cryptos running loose in the city can't be coming through the Wayfarer portal. Menolly has guards on watch twenty-four/seven."

"Okay, so are there any other portals around?" Chase's gaze wandered back to the unicorn and, for the briefest of seconds, a look of amazement flickered across his face. I smiled softly. Even our jaded detective could be enchanted by creatures from the land of Fae.

"Well, there's the portal out in the woods. The one Grandmother Coyote watches over." I tried to think of other portals nearby.

Chase laughed. "Should I bother to ask you if she'd let them through?"

"Don't be so sure," I warned him. "She's not entirely on our side."

Grandmother Coyote was one of the Hags of Fate, neither good nor evil but straddling the nexus point where the realms of existence balanced out. When things went askew, she and her ilk acted to right the balance. Shadow Wing and his demons had shifted destiny, so she'd called us in to help right it. Could something have altered the path of fate again?

"She might let them pass, if the balance required it." But as I thought about the Hags of Fate, I remembered something the Elfin Queen Asteria had mentioned to us a few months ago. I snapped my fingers. "I know how they're getting in."

Chase tugged nervously on his tie. It was a bright yellow and orange stripe against his navy suit, and complemented the blue in an odd, off sort of way.

"Well, don't keep me in suspense, woman," he said. "If we don't get a handle on this problem, we'll be facing some tough questions from my prick of a boss. The mayor won't be too happy either. The last thing I need is for Devins to find yet another problem that he can turn into my fault. The mayor's another matter, but still…"

I glanced around to see who was in the shop. The unicorn had drawn quite a crowd, and a buzz of laughter and conversation threatened to overwhelm us.

"Over here." I motioned for Chase to follow me into a corner niche where the sound of voices died down to a low murmur. He settled himself on the short mahogany bench between the stacks holding suspense thrillers: Grisham, Crichton, Clancy, and so forth. After making sure nobody was eavesdropping on us, I joined him.

"When Queen Asteria visited us a few months ago after we destroyed Dredge, she mentioned that a number of previously undiscovered portals were being discovered—unguarded portals. And most of them lead to the Pacific Northwest."

Chase blinked. "Delilah didn't tell me that."

"She's a good girl. She keeps secrets. It's something you didn't need to know at the time." I watched his surprise turn into a frown. Oops, I'd just stepped on his toes. I did that a lot with Chase. We had rubbed each other wrong from day one.

"Oh, really? Thank you for your confidence. And pray tell—if you think I need to know—just where do these portals lead?"

Yeah, I'd wounded his ego, all right. "Don't be such a drama queen. There are plenty of things about your job that you don't tell us."

"None of the secrets I keep affect you," he said, squinting. "Oh hell, just drop it. Go on. You said most lead to the PNW?"

"Yes." I took a deep breath and continued. "Apparently a number of them lead to Seattle and the surrounding area. Now, Queen Asteria slapped guards on the portals in her jurisdiction, but there are plenty of portals out in the wild that are being discovered, and nobody has control over them. Want to make a bet that Cryptos and other creatures are finding and using them whenever they want?"

"Can't Queen Asteria put a stop to it?"

I shook my head. "As I said, if they're outside the boundaries of Elqaneve and the Elfin lands, there isn't a damned thing she can do. Even with the ones that are within her jurisdiction, well, Queen Asteria hasn't got the manpower to guard all of them. Not now, when she's fully engaged in the war against Lethesanar. You have to understand. War over in Otherworld is to the death, as it is here, but over there the magic involved can cause far greater damage than your tanks and guns. The elder mages can actually warp the makeup of the land. They can change the very structure of the soil and air. It's happened before, down in the Southern Wastes."

A somber expression crossed Chase's face, and his petulance passed. "If you were home—you and your sisters…"

"Well, if our father hadn't deserted the Guard and our aunt and cousin hadn't come out as traitors to Queen Lethesanar, we would have been pressed into battle like everybody else in the city. As it is, we'd be tortured and killed. Our entire family is under a death threat if any one of us should enter—or go anywhere near—Y'Elestrial at this time. Until Tanaquar wins, we're homeless…" I paused. A thought had crossed my mind several times that I didn't want to examine. I hadn't vocalized it to Menolly or Delilah yet.

"Yes?"

"I haven't mentioned this to my sisters yet, but I think that our father disappeared because he traded sides. His conscience won't allow him to fight for Lethesanar, but he's a warrior and a proud member of the Guard Des'Estar. He can't stand by and hide in fear, nor can he see Lethesanar defile the Court and Crown like she's been doing. I know he's in battle somewhere. I can feel it."

"You think he's working for the elves?" Chase reached out and took my hand. I started to pull away, then stopped. He was trying to be kind. I could read it in his eyes.

"Either that or he's directly enlisted in Tanaquar's army. One's about the same as the other, when you look at the end result." I stared at the floor, thinking about Father and the dangers he faced.

"You have to understand, Chase. The three of us are daughters of a member of the Guard Des'Estar. We've been brought up to face danger rather than run away. And our father is the son of a Guard member. We come from a family proud to serve the Court and Crown. Father will stay involved in this war until Y'Elestrial is free from the opium eater's grasp and a queen with honor reigns over Y'Elestrial once again."