Changeling on the Job: A Changeling Wars Novella Read online

  My grushound sniffed the air again, and that’s when I saw it.

  Someone had drawn a symbol on the man’s forehead in a dark reddish-brown. It was circular and complex, an “X” through the center, swirls and dots marking inside and outside the circle. This was no hasty drawing, no silly claim of ownership. I peered more closely at it, the dizzying array of markings, some of them beginning to flake a little. The scent of copper wafted into my nostrils. It wasn’t paint that had created the symbol; it was blood.

  Anwynn’s voice broke the silence. “Well, shit.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “WHAT?” I SAID. A BAD FEELING HAD BEGUN to creep up my spine, like the prickling you get when someone’s staring at you. I couldn’t shake it, no matter how hard I tried. Hadn’t I just sent five sprites back to the Fae world? By most measures, I’d done a good job today. I lowered the trunk briefly to check our surroundings and didn’t find anyone nearby. I lifted it again, and the poor guy blinked at the intrusion of the trunk light.

  I reached for him and then hesitated. “Shouldn’t we just untie the guy and let him go home? No harm, no foul.” Except for the fact that Anwynn was talking in front of him. Sometimes that just couldn’t be avoided.

  “You think sprites bound this guy and put him in a trunk all on their own? The symbol on his forehead—it marks him as a blood sacrifice.”

  Ah, there it was. The prickling on my spine exploded outward into a sense of dread, settling finally as a knot in the pit of my stomach. I pulled my sleeve over my palm and rubbed at the mark on the man’s forehead, until the rest of it flaked away. He flinched as I did so, his gaze focusing on my rather intimidating Fae hound.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” I said. This guy had probably just had the worst day of his life. I worked on unraveling the tape, getting his mouth first.

  “This has been the worst day of my life,” he said.

  Magic usually did that to mortals.

  I got his hands free in short order, and he rubbed at his wrists while I worked on his feet. When I’d unwound the last bit, I felt him tense. He was going to run, and I couldn’t blame him. I might look normal enough, but I clearly had a giant, talking dog, and that tended to be enough to make people place me in the “decidedly-off” category. I thought about giving him the “I’m just a really good ventriloquist” line, but he’d seen too much already. I didn’t want to insult him.

  “Hey,” I said, putting a hand on his arm. “I know this is weird, but I’m one of the good guys. I promise.”

  The tension drained out of him. He rose to a sitting position and swung his feet over the edge of the trunk, just as an elderly couple walked past on the sidewalk. They glanced at the three of us but didn’t give us any lingering looks.

  That was close. I was going to get caught doing something really weird someday in front of a huge crowd of people. I didn’t know what I’d do about that, but I supposed I’d have to deal with it when the time came. I had other things to worry about.

  “Tell me what happened,” I said.

  “I need to call the police,” the man sputtered. He ran a shaking hand through his frayed comb-over.

  “And what would you tell them?”

  The man quieted. I could almost see the gears working in his head. If he told them about a band of tiny fairies attacking him, what would the police say? I’d worked with some of the officers before, but the rest of the force would chuckle a little and then tell him to go home and get some rest.

  His expression settled into one of despair and resignation, the stubble on his cheeks making the hollows appear deeper than they were. “I was working at the prison that night,” he said. “I was inside, but I saw out the window. I saw you. I saw what happened. I think everyone else just tried to forget.”

  I gave his arm what I hoped was a comforting squeeze. “When it comes to the supernatural here in Oregon, I’m something of a police officer myself. You can tell me. What’s your name?”

  He turned woeful blue eyes on me. “Chris,” he said. “I was at home when I was abducted. Just taking an easy Saturday evening. Reading a book on the couch with a tumbler of whiskey. My wife’s visiting her family in Missouri, so I was alone. I see a shadow pass across the page, and when I look up, there are six of these floating little men and women, with wings, Jesus! And they just stare at me and I think I’m having a goddamned heart attack. There’s this guy standing behind them—tall, cloaked in dark brown and blue, wearing a silver belt with a swirly insignia for the buckle.”

  He paused for a moment, running his hands over his shirt, as if he suddenly realized what a mess he looked.

  “And?” I prompted.

  “And then this deep voice says, ‘Take him,’ and that’s the last thing I hear before the little beasts attack me. They get my hands behind my back and use my own duct tape to tie them up and cover my mouth. They use these needles to force me to march past the creepy guy, and I don’t know what the hell is going on or if I’m going to die. The beasts made me go out the door and over to this car.

  “One of them blows a bunch of powder in my face and next thing I know, I’m waking up in the trunk of a car. So I started kicking it.”

  “Sleeping powder,” Anwynn murmured. “There are plants in the Fae world—you can dry them out, grind them up, and well…” She trailed off because I was giving her a pointed look. This man, Chris, did not need to hear all of this right now, especially from the mouth of a grushound.

  “I live right over there,” Chris said, pointing to a house across the street. “At least I didn’t go far.” He ran a hand over his hair again, wiping the sweat beading on his pate. He stared at his fingers, as if he hadn’t even realized he’d been sweating.

  “The guy in the cloak,” I said. “Did you get a good look at him?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Never saw his face. But he was tall.” He lifted a hand to a little higher than my height. “And thin, real thin.”

  “Thank you,” I told him. “You’ve been a real help.” I didn’t know how yet, because none of this made sense to me, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

  He licked his lips. “So…are you going to get the other supernatural police and find the guy?”

  The other police. As if the Fae Guardians would ever willingly help out mortals. As if the Arbiter would ever legalize more than one Changeling. Opening and closing doorways between worlds wasn’t my only unique talent. The only Fae that could undo a Changeling’s magic was another Changeling. So he kept a tight leash on me and the laws against creating Changelings remained.

  “Uh, yeah. Sure.” I helped Chris to his feet. “Why don’t you just go home and sleep it off? It’s Sunday evening now.”

  His eyes glazed a bit. “Grace will be back tomorrow.”

  I watched him go, his steps a little unsteady. “Well, at least we got to him in time.”

  “Not exactly,” Anwynn said. “He’s marked. So…it’s not really over for him.”

  “What the hell, Anwynn?” I rounded on her. “And you didn’t think maybe you should tell this to me before I reassured the guy and sent him home?”

  “It didn’t seem like you wanted me to talk.”

  Whoever said that dogs were a man’s best friend had clearly never met Anwynn. She’d pledged her bond to me during the stress of battle, when neither of us had had much choice. “But I rubbed the symbol from his forehead.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “He’s been marked. The damage is done. In five days, he’ll die, blood leaking from his nose and mouth. They were probably transporting him somewhere safe so they could keep an eye on him, finish the rites, and collect the blood. Blood gathered from a blood rite can power some pretty impressive magic.”

  I sat on the curb. “Forget worst day—this guy is having the worst week of his life.”

  “It could be the last week of his life.”

  In the month since I’d been granted legal status, I’d sent a couple lingering hobgoblins to meet th
eir maker, and I’d had to politely ask a dryad to move from Willamette Park and back into the Fae world. I hadn’t run into anything remotely like this. It seemed Grian wasn’t the only power-hungry and unstable Fae.

  I glanced up and down the street and found it empty. The sprites could come back for Chris, tow him away again. “Well, how do you stop the rite?”

  Anwynn only stared at me blankly. “Beats me. Do I look like a font of information to you? I’m one of the lesser Fae,” she said, bitterness seeping into her tone. “I just do what I’m told.”

  I dug into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. I only knew one person in Portland who might be able to answer my question. I hadn’t called Kailen since our encounter outside the coffee shop, after I’d just signed divorce papers. Just thinking of him made me recall his scent—sweet and slightly spicy—the softness of his hair beneath my fingers, his arms around me.

  I’d needed to put some distance between us.

  “You could pop over to the Fae world,” Anwynn said, her voice a low rumble. “Ask your biological parents.”

  I weighed the awkwardness of a conversation with Kailen against the awkwardness of a conversation with my biological parents. I hadn’t exactly left them on good terms. The last time I’d seen my mother, I’d had harsh words for her. She and my father had placed me in the mortal world; they’d given me up—and not in the hopes of securing a better life for me. They’d done it to secure a better life for Fae and mortals alike. My happiness hadn’t been a part of that equation.

  And Faolan, my father? The last time I’d seen him, he’d been in the Multnomah County Jail. They’d released him after they’d discovered the real murderer, Grian, but I hadn’t been there.

  Besides, I had a mortal marked for blood rites to protect. Popping over to the Fae world felt like a bad idea at the moment. I sighed and hit the call button.

  Kailen picked up on the second ring. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “You haven’t called,” he said. “Why?”

  “You haven’t called either.” I looked up into Anwynn’s brown eyes. Her ear flicked as a breeze passed. I frowned and waved a hand, shooing her away. She turned her head to the side and pretended to watch the flies around the streetlamp.

  “It didn’t seem like you wanted me to call,” he said.

  “Maybe that answers why I haven’t called,” I said.

  He was silent for a while, and I wondered if he would hang up. And then he took a deep breath. “Sky and stars, and the great Void too, but I’ve missed you.”

  One part of my mind noted that he’d only known me for a couple short months, and he’d been alive for over two hundred years; how could he miss me? But my heart kicked at my ribs, and my breathing quickened.

  Friends could miss each other, right?

  I got a hold of myself. We both had too much baggage to be doing this, and I had bigger issues to deal with than the leanings of a wayward heart. “I’ve got a problem. Do you know how to stop a blood rite once someone has been marked?”

  Kailen cleared his throat, his voice going businesslike. “Well, there aren’t a lot of ways to stop a blood rite once it’s begun. It’s powerful magic.”

  “But there are ways?”

  “Yes. You can kill the creator of the blood rite.”

  I heard his breathing crackling through the phone as I waited. Why did it always have to come down to death with the Fae? “Any other ways?” I said finally, my patience lost.

  “You can also purify the intended victim of a blood rite. Blood rites are very dark magic, so you need to break it with very good magic. You’d need to wash the intended victim with water a unicorn has purified. The face, the hands, and just over the heart. It can only be broken by another Sidhe, so it has to be you.”

  “A unicorn,” I said flatly. Oh sure, I’ll just go get my handy dandy unicorn and have this all done with. So…unicorns existed, apparently. “Fine, fine,” I said, willing to run with anything at this point. “So where do I get water that a unicorn has purified? Somewhere in the Fae world, right?”

  “It’s not quite that simple,” Kailen said, his voice hesitant.

  “Of course it isn’t.”

  “Most of the unicorns died off during the war between Merlin and Morgan. It was a while ago, but they live for a very long time and don’t breed often, so there aren’t many left.”

  My nails dug into the outside of my phone. “So where do I find one?”

  “Nicole,” Kailen said, with the air of a parent about to tell his child that Santa Claus was not, in fact, real, “the Fae world is big. Very, very big.”

  “Can I get a hold of some purified water or not?”

  “Let me think,” he said. “I mean, someone might have kept a vial or two somewhere.”

  Anwynn spoke up. “There’s a market on the Tullochs’ land. Lots of rare and unusual items. You might be able to find some there, but expect to pay top dollar for it.”

  “Why do you need to know how to stop a blood rite?” Kailen said. “Or should I even ask?”

  Across the street, the lights in the second floor of Chris’s house flicked on. I didn’t want to tell him about what would happen to him in five days. “Apparently, Grian isn’t the only one of the Sidhe with sinister intent when it comes to the mortal world. I caught a group of sprites trying to drag a poor man off to who knows where. I freed him, but now I need to find some way to protect him, preferably a way that’s not flashy or involves him and his wife staying in my house.”

  “Where are you? Let me help.”

  Desperation and bad ideas—I had them in spades. On the other hand, who else did I have to call on? There were Dorian and my parents, and I didn’t want to go running to either just because the going suddenly got tough. This was my job.

  “Okay,” I said, and gave him the address to Chris’s house. “I’m going to head out. The sprites won’t have the time to report back before you get here. Ward his house. I need to get to the Fae world, dig up some info, find some purified water, and come back.”

  “Not a bad idea.” Did he sound relieved that we wouldn’t see one another, face-to-face, or was I just projecting? “There are loose tongues at the Tullochs’ market. They’re well-known for their ales, wines, and liquors, and more than a few Fae sample the family’s wares at the market. Be safe. Are you certain you don’t need me along?”

  “I’ve got Anwynn with me.”

  Kailen’s voice lowered, and I saw Anwynn’s ears prick. “You need to go to the Fae world with someone you can trust.”

  Who did he mean? He couldn’t possibly be referring to himself. He’d lied to me more times than I could count—about his heritage, his intentions, his past. Anwynn had made it clear she could drop me like a hot potato if she found a better prospect, but at least the frailty of our bond was out in the open. It was something I could guard against.

  Kailen’s lies landed like an invisible blow to the stomach, mid-breath.

  Besides, he’d been banished from the Fae world years ago. “I’ll be fine,” I said curtly. “Where’s the connection to Tulloch lands?”

  “In the alleyway behind a certain donut shop.”

  “I know the one.” I hit the end button before I could say any of the thousand other things on my mind: I miss you, too. I wish you’d been honest. I wish you were completely over your dead wife. You hurt me. I understand why you lied. Goodbye. I can’t stand you.

  “Come on,” I said to my hound and headed back down the street. She fell into step beside me, padding silently, her claws retracted.

  “I heard what he said about me,” she said in a low growl. “I don’t like him.”

  I didn’t bother to respond to that. I pulled my jacket tighter around myself and zipped it up, covering the tattered shirt beneath. Some of the wounds still oozed a little, each movement bringing with it fresh stinging pain.

  I had a crazy Fae running around Portland with sprite henchmen—and blood rites. It was ti
mes like these I wished I still worked for Frank Gibbons, Inc., selling daily planners. The sprites indicated that the hooded figure was one of the greater Fae, the Sidhe. Now I just had to figure out which Fae families had bonded sprites and who might be interested in dark magic.

  Anwynn cleared her throat. “Can I have a television in my room?”

  And I had a hound who liked to push boundaries. I checked for people on the street and found it empty. It was starting to get late. “Why do you need a television in your room? There’s one in the living room. And it’s not like you had a television when you were working for Grian.”

  “But there were other amusements,” Anwynn said. “She let me eat sprites, for one. If I want to watch the television and you’re already watching, I have to watch what you’re watching.”

  “Deal with it. I don’t feel like spending money now that I don’t have a job.”

  My grushound tilted her head to the side, as if considering the leaves on the sidewalk. “I suppose I will just have to remain unhappy then, and with us wandering back into the Fae world, too.”

  I stared at her hairy back, laced with tiny wounds. “Are you threatening me?”

  “Yes. Can I have the television?”

  What a bitch, literally and figuratively. “You know what?” I told her, pulling the leash out of my pocket and snapping it onto her collar. “As your liege lord, I’ll give that request the consideration it deserves.”

  She said nothing else, but I could see the tension in her shoulders as she walked, and her ears flattened against her skull.

  As soon as we got back to the car, I let her off the leash again. It was a small reprimand, and I knew she understood it. It would have been nice if we could have been friends, but who was I kidding? If Anwynn weren’t beholden to me, she probably would have just eaten me by now. It wasn’t the bond that made our relationship strained.