Witchling Page 15

Page 15

 

  As soon as I slinked back to my car, I leaned against the seat and closed my eyes, waiting for the spell to wear off. With my luck, it would take all day, and I'd be stuck until somebody came to pick me up. Cars didn't drive down the street by themselves, and I didn't want to draw any attention, considering the fact that at least two more demons were prowling the city. We might have taken care of the harpy, but Bad Ass Luke and the Psycho Babbler were still on the loose.

  I'd never had to tangle with an actual demon before, and the encounter had left me unnerved. Not something I cared to repeat, but somehow I didn't think my wishes counted for much.

  However, today luck was with me. My hands began to fade back into sight, and as I stared at my fingers, I had one of those aha moments and groaned. I had to remember to call Chase—if he could get the medical examiner to chop off one of the harpy's talons, I might be able to use that as my payment to Grandmother Coyote.

  I thought about returning to the shop but shifted gears when the bundle that I'd snatched away from the harpy started to wriggle in my lap. What the hell? Cautiously, I untied the knot on the cloth and opened it. What had the moonlight been protecting from the demon?

  A baby gargoyle stared up at me, her eyes glowing a brilliant topaz. A tortoiseshell, she was covered with a soft, downy fur, and on her face was the sweetest look that I'd ever seen.

  "Well, hello," I said, gently lifting her up. Her wings were still far too small to carry her; she wouldn't be flying anywhere soon. In fact, she looked too young to be away from her mother. As I gazed at the cub, I had one of those flashes that told me more than I wanted to know.

  Gargoyles and unicorns tended to be among the favorite foods of some demons, and rumors had been circulating for years that they kept them like livestock in the Subterranean Realms. If so, the cub had probably been intended as the harpy's midafternoon snack. Cringing, I gathered the gargoyle to my chest and held her tight. She let loose with a loud burp and then a faint cry as she clawed at my breasts.

  "You're hungry. I'm afraid I don't make milk, little one," I said, holding her up. "But I bet we can find you something at home. " She clutched at my hair as I disentangled her and set her back in the scrap of cloth that the harpy had carried her in. I finally figured out how to fix the seat belt so it held her tight, and then as the last bit of my toes flickered into sight, I pulled out of the parking garage and headed for home.

  "What are you going to name her?" Chase asked. He'd arrived at the house as soon as he finished wrapping up things with the harpy, and now sat at the table, playing with the gargoyle cub, trying not to look astonished. I could see the laughter—and shock—in his eyes.

  "Maggie," I said. "She just looks like a Maggie to me. "

  "I thought gargoyles were just statues carved out of stone," he said, tickling her tummy as I carried a bowl over to the table and placed it near her. She took a hesitant step, then her tongue flickered out and she leaned over the bowl, clutching the edges with her tiny hands. As she lapped up the liquid, Chase asked, "What are you feeding her?"

  I settled into the chair next to him and leaned forward, staring at the creature who was now slurping up her lunch. "A mixture of cream, sugar, cinnamon, and sage. I have to get her started on the sage right now. "

  "Why?"

  "Because gargoyles need it to further their development. This cub will never see her mother again, so I'm going to have to do what I can to make sure she develops as normally as possible. There's something odd about her, though…"

  "You mean besides the fact that she looks like a bewinged, misshapen cat?" Chase snickered, but I noticed his gaze was firmly latched to Maggie, and I realized that he was enchanted by her. So Chase liked animals, be they Earthside or from Otherworld. The thought made me like him a little bit better.

  "Gargoyles only look and feel like stone when they're bound to a quest. By nature, they're watchers—observers. The creatures are intelligent to a degree and have a limited vocabulary, but they don't think like we do. They're also incredibly long-lived, even more so than the Sidhe. Some of the gargoyles you see on the walls of Notre Dame and other cathedrals are in stasis, watching and keeping track of what goes on Earthside. They've been there so long among the statues that they may never be able to change back. I don't know their whole history, but I should start reading up on it now that Maggie's here. "

  Chase ran his fingers lightly over her back. "She's soft. Are you going to keep her or send her back to Otherworld?"

  I shrugged. If I sent her home, there was no guarantee she'd be looked after. The Court and Crown didn't care much about Cryptos, except for unicorns and pegasi. Some time in the far distant past, gargoyles had been pressed into service and stripped of their rights in Y'Elestrial. They were often used like animals—intelligent ones—but animals nonetheless.

  "Maggie's a Crypto, creatures most humans think of as imaginary but that have a vivid history of legend and lore Earthside. Most of the time, they're solitary and keep to themselves. I think I'll keep her. At least I know she'll be safe that way. " I absently stroked her fur. "Tell me what happened with the harpy. And you didn't happen to think of cutting off one of her fingers, did you? I could really use it. "

  The look on his face was priceless. "Oh yeah, demon finger. No, sorry, the thought didn't occur to me. Tell me, just what the hell do you need a demon's finger for anyway?"

  "As payment for information. If I don't come up with one, I've got to forfeit one of my own fingers. I forgot to ask you for it earlier, I was in such a hurry to get down out of that damned Needle. I don't ever want to go up there again, by the way," I said, shivering. "I'm afraid of heights, if you haven't figured that out by now. So tell me what you found out. "

  He stared at me like I was nuts. "You owe somebody a demon's finger as payment for information? What kind of freak show games do you play, Camille? Oh never mind," he quickly added. "I don't want to know. Here's the rundown: the cops backed off when they saw my badge. I contacted the OIA team, so there wasn't much of a problem. "

  "Well, the agency will damned right know there are demons on the prowl now," I said. "This should convince them we have a real threat. Did they find out anything special about the harpy that we should know about?"

  Chase glanced toward the kitchen. "You got anything to drink? I brought their report with me. I put a rush on the autopsy. They didn't bring in a… what did you call it? Corpse Talker… that's it, though. "

  "They wouldn't. Corpse Talkers have no power over Demonkin. "

  "Ah, I didn't realize that," he said. "They did bring a wizard with them, though. He was there to… let me see. " He consulted the file. "Oh yeah, he was there to examine the demon's magical signature. Make sense to you?"

  "That would be standard practice," I said, leaving the table long enough to poke around in the refrigerator. "Lemonade okay? Or would you prefer something harder? Wine? Absinthe—the nectar of the Green Faerie?"

  Chase blinked. "Absinthe is illegal. "

  "Not in Otherworld, and technically, any house of an OIA agent is considered OW territory for as long as we're here. Like an embassy. I can have absinthe on the premises, but I can't take it off our land. " One of the few comforts from home, absinthe had originally come Earthside via the Faerie Queen hundreds of years ago. It had been a gift from the Sidhe to mortals.

  "Maybe later," Chase said. "I could go for a glass of wine, though. I prefer red, if you have it. "

  I pulled out a bottle of wine that had been a gift in the last care package our father sent us. It was made from the finest grapes in Otherworld, as rich and as red as blood, and as smooth as brandy. Pouring two glasses, I handed one to Chase and cradled the other in my hand.

  He sipped, and his eyes grew round. "I've never tasted anything quite like this," he said, his voice suddenly deepening.

  "You're drinking Faerie wine. Now, about the harpy?" I glanced at Maggie, who had finished her meal
and curled in a ball on a throw pillow that I'd placed on the table.

  "She was a demon, all right, and Jacinth said—do you recognize that name? She's the attendant who worked on the harpy; she also examined Jocko. "

  I nodded. Jacinth and I knew each other from childhood. She was one of the good ones—she'd never taunted us because of our mixed blood, and I both respected and liked her.

  "Jacinth said that it looks like the harpy has only been Earthside a few days, which would coincide with the sighting of the demons coming out of the Wayfarer. " He flipped through the report. "It says here that she had a collar on that marks her as being part of something called a Degath Squad. "

  Oh hell. "The Degath Squads' prime tasks are to scout ahead for information. ' That clinches it. Grandmother Coyote is right—Shadow Wing did send scouts in, and they are looking for the spirit seals. "

  Chase gazed at me, his eyes shrouded and dark. "So what's our next step?"

  "Find Tom Lane. Get the seal before they do. Somehow, kill the demons before they get to anybody else. I just hope we manage to find them before they find us. "

  "You and me both. How long till Delilah comes home?"

  "I'll find out," I said, pulling my cell phone out of my purse. I punched in Delilah's number, and she answered on the third ring. "You need to come home," I said. "We found the harpy and killed her. "

  She sounded relieved. "Thank gods you did, because the harpy got hold of Louise Jenkins before I could get there. I'm on the way home. I'll be there in ten minutes. "

  "Oh hell, Louise is dead?" I glanced over at Chase, who jerked his head up. He pushed a pad of paper in front of me, and I scribbled Louise's name on it.

  "Yeah. Chase might want to send a crew out there. I don't think anybody's missed her because there were no signs of the cops or anything. I used gloves, made sure not to touch a thing with bare hands. "

  "Chase is already here, so I'll tell him. What's her apartment number again?" I jotted down the information. "Okay, thanks. Say, would you stop and grab a couple of pizzas for dinner? Sausage, ham, pineapple, whatever else you can think of that's good. " As I flipped the phone closed, I noticed that little Maggie was breathing deeply, sound asleep.

  Chase was on the phone as soon as I gave him all the information, and once again, the OIA team was activated. He told them to call him as soon as they knew what was going on.

  As we waited for Delilah, I fixed up a little box for the gargoyle, and Maggie snuggled happily in her bed. Chase and I sat in the living room, watching the news on TV. There was a short segment on the "strange Faerie" who fell over the side of the Space Needle. At least reporters weren't onto the fact that the harpy had been a demon, although they made a few ill-advised chicken jokes. Louise Jenkins wasn't mentioned; the team must still be investigating.

  By the time my sister slipped through the door, I was starving. I took the pizza boxes from Delilah and set them on the coffee table. "Hey, go in the kitchen and take a look at what I found. If she's awake, bring her back with you. "

  Delilah headed into the dining room while I opened one box and sniffed at the thick sausage and mushroom pizza, long strings of extra cheese glistening on the top. "You have the best-tasting food, Chase. I could get used to living Earthside, if only for that reason. "

  He snorted as Delilah returned, Maggie snuggled in her arms. "She's adorable. Where did you find her?" She settled into the rocker, chucking the chin of the wide-awake and bewildered gargoyle.

  We filled her in on our encounter with the demon. "My spell backfired, but at least we were able to make use of the results," I said. "She was part of a Degath Squad. You know what that means. "

  Delilah's smile faded. "Hell Scouts. "

  "Yeah, and even though she's dead, that leaves us the two most dangerous ones to contend with. We have to solidify our plans to find Lane. I don't think we have much time. So tell us about Louise. "

  Delilah rolled her eyes. "Talk about bad news all the way around. I'd like to wait until Menolly's awake, though. " She glanced at Chase, who gave her a frustrated nod.

  I reached for Maggie and wandered over to the window. Dusk was starting to fall. "I'm hungry," I said. "Chase, you hold Maggie while Delilah and I set the table. "

  He started to protest, but I plunked the gargoyle in his arms, handed him the remote, picked up the pizzas, and motioned for Delilah to follow me into the kitchen. As I arranged the plates and napkins on the table, Delilah poured more wine for Chase and me, and milk for herself.

  "I'm so hungry," Delilah said, licking her lips. She set the parmesan shaker on the table. "Chase seems awfully nice tonight. He didn't act like I was a freak at all. "

  I glanced at her, grinning. "Maybe seeing the harpy made him realize how normal you really are. "

  Delilah laughed as she tucked a bowl of broccoli in the microwave and punched it on for three minutes.

  "You know, as homesick as I am," I said, "I have to admit how much easier technology makes things. I'll miss electricity when we go back. "

  "We had servants there," Delilah countered. "But thank heavens for Mother. At least we understood the language and culture before we came here. "

  Mother had brought us up bilingual, and had taught us about Earthside customs from the time we could walk.