Autumn Whispers

Chapter 14

The news went over just about like we’d expected it to. I’d asked Yugi and a couple of the other men to join us so they could keep Chase from throwing a punch at Trenyth, but when he stalked out of the room where he’d talked to Sharah, the stark look on his face said everything. He slammed past Trenyth, into another office, rattling the walls with the force of the door.

Sharah wheeled herself out, looking pale and weary. “That didn’t go over well.” She met my gaze. “Delilah, he’s going to need you. He’s going to need all of you over the next months. He’s angry and he threatened to keep our daughter away from me forever, since I’m not going to look after her.” She rubbed her temples. “I told him to name her whatever he liked, that I’d love whatever he chose.”

I glanced over her head at the room. “Is he coming out?”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t bet on it. Not till after I leave. He’s just upset. I understand—I’m upset too. But with what happened? My people need me. I knew there might be a chance this day would come, but I hoped the call wouldn’t be for me.”

She reached out for my hand, and I took it, squeezing to calm her trembling. Tears were glistening in her eyes. I leaned close.

“I’ll watch out for them. We all will. And you can always call us, we’ll find a way to get your daughter over there for a visit. I promise you this.” I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it gently, then smoothed her hair back. She was doing everything she could to hold on; I could see it in her eyes. She was trying her damnedest to remain calm. Which was just as well because when she ascended the throne, she would have to wear a mask in public. The Queen wasn’t allowed to show fear, or doubt, or loss. She had to be strong, she had to be the anchor for the populace.

And with Sharah’s hormones . . . a thought crossed my mind, and before I thought, I blurted out a question. “What are they going to do about your milk?”

She ducked her head. “The healers can give me herbs to stop it.” But the pain when she answered made me wish I’d never brought up the subject.

“Then you won’t . . .”

“Be able to breast-feed? No. I cannot do that when I’m trying to put all the pieces back together again. My city is shattered, my homeland lies smoldering in ruins. They are taking me away from my child . . . I have lost everything, and soon, I will be alone and in charge of a nation that I never wanted to lead.” She sounded on the verge of emotional collapse, and she didn’t look all that hot, either.

I wanted to urge her to fight them, to say no and walk away, but the memory of what we’d witnessed, the utter destruction, hung heavy in my mind. I squeezed her hand tighter.

“We will be here for you. We will do everything we can to help you. And we’ll look after Chase. He’ll come around. He’s just scared and hurt right now, and afraid of losing you. I’ll make him understand. I promise.” I had no idea how I was going to fulfill that vow, but I was determined to do my best.

Sharah let go, slowly. “Thank you. I wish . . . I wish you were my sister. I wish I was part of your family.” She blushed when she said it—elves generally weren’t that expressive.

I hugged her. “You are,” I whispered. “Chase is my brother, so you are my sister. Always.”

And then, as I stood back, she motioned to Trenyth, and they wheeled her away to prepare her for traveling. She stared ahead, a numb expression on her face, but I knew her heart was torn to pieces.

I glanced at Camille, and she nodded to the room where Chase was still lurking. Without a word, I headed over and pushed through the door.

Chase looked up. His dark eyes were filled with anger and he was sitting stiffly in a chair. The room was obviously a break room for the staff, with a coffeepot and some cookies on the counter. I found a mug and poured him a stiff cup of the steaming coffee, then shoved it in front of him. Turning a chair around, I straddled it, swinging one leg over the side.

As I settled down beside him, he stared at me dourly. “What do you want? I really don’t feel like talking right now.”

“Too fucking bad. We’re going to talk. Or rather, I’m going to talk and you are going to listen.” I let the words sink in and, at his startled look, added, “The mother of your child is being carted away. She’s making the most difficult decision of her life, and you are sitting here like a whining idiot. You cannot let her go with you in this mood or so help me, Chase, I’ll slap you silly.”

He brought his fist down on the table. “What the hell am I supposed to do, then? She’s leaving me and . . . she didn’t even want to help name our daughter. She’s abandoning us—”

Aha, the core of the matter. Chase had abandonment issues, and he was projecting them onto Sharah. He’d been so terrified about not being a good enough father, and now that he was faced with raising the child alone, his fear was coming back full force.

“Like hell she is.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? She’s leaving—and our baby’s just born.”

“Get it through your head, Chase. You’ve fallen in love with someone who isn’t human. Who isn’t remotely human. On top of that, Sharah is a princess. She’s a member of royalty. And said royalty just vanished in a buttload of flame and fire and tumbling tons of stone. Sharah has to go home or her people won’t have any hope. They won’t have anyone to look up to. Every country must have a leader, and she’s the only one left, Chase.”

“But . . . her child . . . our baby . . .” Chase looked hurt, but by the sound of his voice, I could tell that he understood the circumstances. He just didn’t want to face them.

“You suck this up and you deal with it. Sharah’s hurting enough without you giving her crap. You saw what happened over there—well, you were trapped and didn’t see the worst of it by any means. But I was there. Camille and I saw what went down and let me tell you now, we’ll never, ever be able to get the images out of our heads. People were dying right and left, Chase. Our father is probably among the dead—we haven’t heard from him, and he was last seen with Queen Asteria. Who, by the way, is lying crushed under a thousand tons of stone and wood.”

He winced, staring at the ground, but I could see the stubborn line of his jaw and I realized he wasn’t quite ready to budge yet. Pausing, I tried to think of another way of getting him to own up to what was going on.

“Listen, if Sharah was in the ES army and had to go to combat, you’d stay home and take care of the kids, right?”

Still silent. Exasperated, I smacked him on the shoulder—not hard, but enough to get his attention. “Right?”

Apparently, I’d dislodged the last bit of resistance.

“All right, already! Enough.” The glint in his eyes shifted and he deflated. “I get it, Delilah. I just don’t like it. But yes, I get it.” Straightening his shoulders, he looked over at me. “I didn’t totally fuck it up, did I?”

“You will if you don’t get your ass out there now and tell her good-bye and that you’ll wait for her and take good care of your daughter. Your daughter as in the child you both produced, and whom you will not turn against her.”

Standing, I yanked him to his feet. “Get moving, Johnson. Before I kick you in the ass again.”

He wiped his mouth, then turned toward the door. “Delilah,” he said over his shoulder, without looking back. “Thanks. Kick me in the ass any time I need it, okay?” And then, he was off and jogging down the hall.

I followed more slowly. Chase and Sharah had a long, hard road ahead of them and a lot of obstacles working to block them. But he didn’t need to know that right now. He just needed to do what was right for the moment, and deal with the consequences later.

Camille and I wandered over to the nursery—or what had been turned into a nursery for the baby. She was tiny, and delicate, with Sharah’s nose and ears, but Chase’s shock of dark hair. The nurse let me pick her up and it felt strange to hold her—she was so small. I tried to imagine having one of my own. It would happen, one day, the Autumn Lord had made that clear, but for now, I was content to leave it to the future. Too much danger surrounded us to ever think about having a child until we’d dealt with the demonic war.

I glanced over at Camille. “What about you? You still not interested in this?” I motioned toward the baby.

She laughed. “Only from a distance. I really . . . there’s no pull. I know Smoky wants one, but you know, even the chance of us finding a way to interbreed is remote. And having a child because somebody else wants you to, when you’re not ready? Beyond stupid. I’m not mother material. I mothered you and Menolly most of my childhood. I’m done with that. Now it’s my turn. I’d make one hell of an auntie though.”

With that, I brushed a kiss across baby Johnson’s forehead and handed her back to the nurse. We returned to the nursing station just in time to see Chase leaning over Sharah to kiss her. She caught my eye as he hugged her, and smiled. It was a rough, wan smile, but it was a smile. And then they wheeled her away, and Sharah was gone.

I glanced at Camille. “I guess . . . we’d better get a move on.”

“First, you get your hand looked at.” She pushed me toward where Mallen was standing, looking over a chart.

He rebandaged my hand. “It’s healing well. Keep it clean, and keep using the salve. Replace the dressing twice a day. You’ll have a scar, definitely, but you’ll live.”

And with that, we headed out. We had work to do, and I had a feeling we’d have a lot more work as the days went along.

In the car, as Camille drove, we made a list of what we needed to do. Take care of the dreglins, hunt down Violet, deal with the Farantino mess—whatever that was. And overshadowing everything was the specter of losing our father and the threat of the Keraastar Knights being captured.

“We need some good news soon.” I tapped my notebook.

“I think we may have gotten our little bit of it in that Iris and Sharah had their babies safely.” Camille pulled over to the curb, parking. She pointed to the Supe-Urban Café, which Marion Vespa, a coyote shifter and friend of ours, had just rebuilt after arsonists destroyed her restaurant and her house. “Let’s grab breakfast and talk.”

Marion saw us the minute we entered. She and her husband had stayed with us after the fire, and we had a long history before that. We considered them extended family.

“What will you have? Just coffee today?” Marion was unusually chipper, but then again, the gaunt, lanky woman wasn’t very taciturn to begin with. You wouldn’t want to fuck with her, but, overall, she was a good-natured person.

“Breakfast, actually. I know it’s lunchtime, but we haven’t eaten yet.” Camille glanced at the menu, but we always knew what we wanted when we stopped in at Marion’s. A brilliant cook, she made the best biscuits and cinnamon rolls around. “I want one of your big biscuits, a side of sausage, and a cheese omelet. Also, yes, coffee—a triple iced latte, please.”

I didn’t even need to look at the menu. “I’ll have a cinnamon roll, scrambled eggs, bacon, and a big glass of milk. Also some rose blossom tea.” Marion served a delicate herbal tea consisting of rose blossoms, cherry, and some other herbs that she wouldn’t disclose from her secret recipe. It was fragrant and fruity and soothing, all at the same time.

Marion gave us a sharp look. “What’s wrong? I know those faces, and they are not happy faces.”

I glanced at Camille, who shrugged. “There’s been trouble at home—back in Otherworld. We’re kind of trying to keep it quiet for now, because . . . well, because it’s just a good idea, but the Elfin lands? They’ve been decimated. And we were there to see it happen.” I must have looked bleak because Marion stuck her order pad and pen in her pocket and pulled up a chair.

“I’d say that sucks but that’s the understatement of the year.” She frowned. “Hey, aren’t you guys investigating the disappearance of a Fae girl?”

“How did that news get out?” It seemed that none of our secrets were safe anymore.

“Tad told me. Don’t look so surprised. He comes here to pick up goodies for his coworkers. Just because he can’t eat Danishes doesn’t mean that his buddies at work can’t. When he was here yesterday, he asked if I’d seen a coworker of his—she comes here a lot. I said no, Violet hasn’t been in lately. Then he told me she hasn’t been seen around for a while, and that you are investigating for him.”

Tad needed to learn how to keep his mouth shut, I thought. But then again, he was worried and just trying to help. And the fact that Violet came here regularly and hadn’t been around for a few days helped confirm that she just seemed to have vanished.

“Yeah, we are. Since she was a regular here, you don’t have any insights, do you? She hang out with anybody that seems suspicious? Look worried last time she was in here?” I pulled out my notebook.

Marion leaned back in her chair. “Violet’s been coming in on a regular basis for . . . oh . . . a year give or take a few weeks. Of course, we didn’t see her during the time the café was being rebuilt, but once we reopened our doors, she was here again. Sometimes she comes in with her coworkers, other times she’s with some guy. He’s a dark type, as in he feels shadowy. Fae, tall, blond, taciturn. Doesn’t talk much except to her. And . . . once in a while I’ll see her with an odd person. Almost always Supes. She doesn’t hang with FBHs, it seems.”

The blond Fae was probably her boyfriend—Tanne Baum. But the others? “Do they seem like they’re on a date? When she comes in with the people you don’t recognize.”

Marion shrugged. “Hard to tell. Maybe. I don’t really pay that much attention to the comings and goings of my customers. Okay, then, I’d better get your orders in.” She stood as I jotted down the information.

After she headed to the kitchen, I glanced at Camille. “We have to break her password. Remember? Her letter from Supernatural Matchups? And we need to talk to that boyfriend of hers.”

Camille nodded. “How are we going to break into her account? You’re handy with a keyboard but let’s face it, you aren’t a hacker.”

“No, but we know someone who is.” I grinned. “Tim is mighty handy.” Tim Winthrop was a friend of ours. At one time he’d been a female impersonator while he put himself through college. Now, with his degree in computer science, he’d opened his own consulting business. He also ran a lingerie shop, though he hired someone to work there. We’d been at his wedding, and his husband, Jason, was a mechanic and he was the one working on my Jeep.

Camille snickered. “Tim is a whirlwind with a computer. Give him a call while I run to the bathroom.”

As she left the table, I pulled out my cell phone and punched in Tim’s number. He came on the line within two rings. “Hey, Tim. Got a favor to ask. Need you to hack an account. We’re following up on a missing persons case and need to get into her account on Supernatural Matchups.”

Tim laughed. “I just love how you assume I’ll happily dive into your illegal investigations.”

“Well . . .” I paused, not knowing how to respond. “Um, will you do it? I’ll have Hanna make you cookies.”

A snort, “How can I resist such a desperate ploy? Okay, but they’d better be peanut butter chocolate chip, and I’d better see more than just a couple dozen.”

“Deal. I’ll call you with the info when I get home. And, thanks.” I hung up before realizing I hadn’t even asked him how he was. But when Tim found out what was going down, he’d understand.

Camille returned as Marion brought over our drinks. She set them in front of us. “Your food will be along shortly, girls.” Then she was off again to welcome a large group of werewolves who had just entered the café.

“Tim said sure, for cookies. I need that letter to give him the info.”

“I think it’s still in the car, to be honest. What else do we have to do today?” She took a long drink of her latte. “I need this. Caffeine.”

I stared at the page, doodling a stick man in the corner. “We still haven’t told Menolly about our cousins. We need to do that tonight. We should ask Vanzir if Carter found out anything about the cigarette butt or footprint casts we found at Interlaken Park.”

Camille nodded. “Doesn’t it seem weird to sit here talking about all this crap? Father’s missing, the Keraastar Knights are vulnerable and scattered, and Elqaneve is trashed. Sharah’s on her way home to become a queen . . . Chase has a baby and no one to help him with her. I know they’ll provide a nanny and wet nurse but . . .”

I glanced up at her. “Speaking of Chase, what do you think about asking him if he wants to stay with us until everything gets sorted out? We could put him in the parlor. Hanna will be there to oversee meals and what’s one more mouth at our house? If he has a nanny and wet nurse, Hanna wouldn’t need to bother with the baby. We’d just need to make sure Maggie can’t get in there.”

Camille cocked her head. “I dunno . . . we’ve got a full house as it is. And do we really want him there when we’re always under Shadow Wing’s bulls-eye?”

She made a good point, but . . . “He’s going to be a target anyway, since he’s known to be Sharah’s lover and has her child. In fact, who’s to say some zealot elf with a grudge toward Windwalkers won’t try to kill the child? I promised Sharah I’d look after him.”

After a moment, Camille shrugged. “I’m fine with it. I’m sure Menolly will be too. Are you sure Shade will be okay?”

“You mean because Chase used to be my lover? I doubt if Shade has any worries in that department.” And truth was, he didn’t need to. At least for me, Shade was twice the lover Chase had been.

“Okay then. So we ask Chase to move in. After we eat breakfast, let’s drop by Carter’s to ask if he’s had any luck with the cigarette and the footprint casts. And then, let’s start hunting down the dreglins. We’ll need help. I wonder if Ivana knows anything about them.”

“Oh, you have to be kidding. Not her again, especially after what we found out about her when we were hunting down Gulakah.” I shuddered. Ivana Krask—the Maiden of Karask—gave me the creeps.

Ivana was one of the Elder Fae. They were all entities beyond the realm of mortals, and they played so far out of social niceties that it was amazing they even tried to coexist with humankind. When you had dealings with them, you had to watch every word, every phrase, because it was easy to seal yourself into a deal that was most definitely not in your favor. They weren’t always evil, though some like Jenny Greenteeth, the Black Annis, and Yannie Fin Diver, were definitely not on the best-behaved list. Mostly they were chaotic, and they played outside of human rules.

Camille shook her head. “Let’s face it, Ivana is our best touchstone for finding out what we need to about the dreglins.”

“And you really think she’s going to give us information on other Elder Fae?” I still didn’t buy it, but then again, I didn’t like Ivana. “Fine, you call her. I don’t want any more to do with her or her garden of ghosts than I have to.”

Camille dialed her number as Marion set our food in front of us. It still amazed me that one of the Elder Fae had a cell phone. But then, the world didn’t run on fairytales, and reality was much stranger than fiction could ever purport to be. A few seconds later, she glanced at me and pointed at her phone.

“Yes, Ivana? . . . Yes, it’s the Witch Girl . . . Um hm. That’s right. Listen, we were wondering if you would meet us. We have a deal to propose.”

Ivana did nothing without recompense. We just had to watch what we offered her, because if there’s one thing the Elder Fae could do, it was twist the meaning of words. Especially when there was a deal involved.

“Yes, we can. We’ll see you there in an hour.” Camille hung up. “I agreed we’d meet her in the park in an hour.”

I glanced outside as I tore off a piece of the cinnamon roll. It was so good, I thought I’d just have to buy a second for the road. “It’s pouring rain.”

“I’m not going to melt and neither are you. Now, let me call Carter and see if he’s going to be home.” She stabbed one of her sausage links and ate it down before she picked up her phone again. A few minutes later, we were set to meet with Carter at around 4:00 P.M.. We finished our meal and I ordered a second cinnamon roll to go, then we left a good-sized tip and headed out to the car.

“We still have half an hour before we need to meet Ivana. Can we stop by Jason’s and see if he’s done with my Jeep?” I was getting really tired of relying on others for my rides.

“Sure thing.” She scooted out of the parking spot and we were off.

Fifteen minutes later we pulled into the parking lot at Jason’s garage. We headed into the office and he was there, poring through some parts catalogue. Jason was a fine-looking man, dark and bald, his skin the color of coffee. He and Tim had been together for a number of years now, and he treated Tim’s little girl like his own. She was somewhere around six or seven now, and while Tim’s ex-wife still had issues with him, she never took it out on his relationship with his daughter. He got her every weekend, and did his best to be a good father.

Jason smiled when he saw us come in, waving. He’d finally come to accept Tim’s involvement in the Supe Community, and even accepted that Tim’s best friend was now a vampire. Erin Matthews—Menolly’s “daughter.” In fact, we’d met Tim through Erin, when she still owned the Scarlet Harlot and both he and Camille had shopped there.

“Hey girls, what’s shaking?” Jason turned around and grabbed a set of keys off the pegboard behind him, tossing them to me. “Don’t even ask. Your baby’s ready.”

I laughed. “You’re the best! What was wrong with her?”

“Do you really want to know, or do you just want the bill and the lifetime guarantee?” He snickered, pulling out his ledger.

I laughed. “Got me there. Okay, I trust you. How much do I owe you?” I pulled out my wallet and took out my credit card.

He grimaced. “It wasn’t cheap, girl. I had to order a lot of parts. Whatever the hell you did to it, I’d like to know. Or maybe not. Anyway, bill comes to nine-hundred fifty-eight dollars and thirty-nine cents. And that’s with your friends and family discount.”

I coughed, but handed over the credit card. Jason was a good guy, and he didn’t stiff anybody. Which is why he had repeat clientele, and a damned fine reputation. As he rung up the service, I turned to Camille.

“I’ll take my Jeep and follow you. I’ve missed her.”

“I had that mess on the side of it detailed, girl.” Jason gave me a smile. “You’ve had that bad cover-up job on there too long.”

I gaped at him. “But that had to cost . . .”

“Shut your mouth, sugar.” He winked. “I will not let one of my friends carry around the memory of a hate crime.”

Back in February, shortly before Iris’s wedding, my car had been the victim of a hate-filled graffiti artist who had tagged it with, “Go home, Faerie Sluts!” in red paint. I’d covered it up the best I could with spray paint but it never had looked right. Now, the door matched the rest of the paint job—a turquoise blue.

I hopped over the counter, surprising Jason, and gave him a quick hug. He froze at first, then hesitantly returned the embrace.

“Damn girl, you are strong. I can feel your muscles through that jacket.” He grinned at me then.

“You’re pretty fine, yourself. Those are some big guns you have there.” Jason was built like a body builder and I had no doubt his biceps were ooo-baby worthy. “You work out a lot?”

He nodded. “I do. In fact, I teach Thai boxing. You interested in learning?”

I cocked my head to the side. I’d always wanted to take up one of the Earthside martial arts classes. “How much time is required? If I’m out on a case, or have to be in Otherworld, am I going to get kicked out for not showing up? I don’t want to commit to something that I might have to flake out on.”

He pursed his lips, smiling. “We could schedule private lessons. Then we can reschedule as needed. When you have the time, it would be best to go for two classes a week, plus keeping up with your regular workouts.”

I slid my credit card back in the holder. “Sounds good. I’ll give you a call later tonight or tomorrow to talk some more. Thanks, Jason. Tim has himself a good man.”

“I know, love. I know.” And then he shooed us out. “I have work to do. And I know you do, too. Off with you now.”

As we left the shop, I glanced back. “I hope to hell he and Tim weather knowing us. I’d hate it if—”

“Don’t say a word. Don’t even think it. They will be all right because we need them to be okay. I can’t handle seeing another friend hurt. Not now. Especially not with Father missing.”

As I climbed in my Jeep and started her up, enjoying the purr of her motor, the rain turned to hail, the pea-sized ice balls bouncing off the hood and windshield, covering the pavement. I followed Camille out onto the road, the silver of the sky glimmered like light shifting onto layers of crinkled foil.

We headed to the park to meet Ivana, and all the way there, I couldn’t stop thinking about Father. Had he managed to get out? Was he searching for us? And if he had, surely he would have contacted us by now—or contacted Trenyth.

Was he trapped, unable to escape? Would he die, starving to death, while rescue workers frantically tried to dig out those who lived through the carnage? Or was he already dead and buried, at the bottom of a heap of rubble?

I tried to keep my focus on the road, to shove the thoughts out of my mind. Worrying wouldn’t speed up finding him. Worrying wouldn’t do anything but interfere with what we were supposed to be focusing on.

Our father was a guardsman most of his life. He had been fully prepared to give his life in the line of his work. When he’d become Ambassador, even for the short time it had lasted, he had been prepared to give his life in service to Queen Tanaquar. And now, as head of the OIA, Otherworld Division, there was the chance he’d be killed. He’d known the risks, and he’d taken them.

Just like we knew the risks when we joined up.

Just like we knew the risks when we chose to fight the war against Shadow Wing. We could have gone home to Otherworld. We could have let Smoky take us all away to the Dragon Reaches where we would be safe. But we were bound to our honor, to our duty. And we took our responsibilities seriously. No, we all knew how precarious life was, and we never took it for granted.

At the same time, we were ready to lay down our lives in this battle. All of us—my sisters, our lovers; even Iris and Hanna. We knew what we were facing, and we still pressed on. We’d lost friends along the way and every time it hurt like hell, but what else could we do?

And so, if Father was dead, we’d weep and we’d mourn, but we would accept it as part of who he was, and what he did, and what he stood for. And we would carry on, through the dark nights of war, as we walked through the fires the demons were pushing before them.