Dead Heat

CHAPTER 10

They followed her into the house, which smelled like cinnamon and vanilla in a combination not quite strong enough to cause Anna distress, though she’d be glad to leave. The entryway led them into a huge circular room with hardwood floors trimmed in stone around the smallish fountain in the center of the room and around the fireplace on the wall opposite the entryway.

Other rooms opened off the main room. Anna caught a glimpse of a kitchen, a dining room, a weight room, and a room where everything had been torn out down to the studs. The drywall, shreds of carpet, and bits and pieces of furniture were left in an untidy pile on the floor.

“My ex-husband’s office,” Katie caroled as she walked by. “I did the demolition myself. Better than therapy. But my contractor is sending people in the next few days to redo it. And clean up the mess.” She paused, then looked at Anna and winked. “He put that carpet in for me, right after we got married. When he came in to give me a bid on repairs, he asked me what had been wrong with the carpet.” She smiled. “I told him there wasn’t any blood on it.”

Katie led them into her own office, bright and airy with a view of a swimming pool dominating a huge backyard. Other than the pool, it was mostly xeriscaped but with patches of green hidden under fruit trees. The back fence was eight-foot wrought iron with a gate leading out to a waterway and presumably, because Anna couldn’t see it from the window view, a jogging path.

The office was big enough to swallow a desk and a couch and love seat with room left over. Katie plopped down on the love seat, tucking one sandal-clad foot underneath herself.

“So did she tell you that there must be a body in my garden because her dog barks at my yard all the time?” Her voice rose and sweetened. “‘Remington doesn’t bark anywhere else, just at her garden. Remington is an intellectual genius and knows, absolutely knows, that there must be a body buried there. He’s trying to tell us.’” She narrowed her eyes at Leslie, and when she continued, it was in her own voice. “Remington is a squat toad who pokes his nose in other people’s business. If I were going to bury someone in my garden, it would have been my hushband. Husband. Ex. Ex-hushband. But he’s still alive and living in sin with his girlfriend, who is the same girlfriend he’d just broken up with when I met him. Stupid dog. Stupid men. All of them should rot in hell.”

“So the jogger’s report was first,” Anna said, suddenly understanding what had happened. “She has connections, so the police came to ask you about your garden.”

Katie had been nodding, but she held up a finger to stop Anna. “Point of fact. They dug up my garden and it took me three weeks to get it back into shape. One of my yuccas is, I’m afraid, doomed.”

“And so you told them that there was a fairy living in your garden,” Leslie said.

Katie held up a finger. “No. I called them back at one in the morning and said that there was something dangerous here. Something. The police came and asked me what was dangerous. I told them I’d seen a unicorn and two smallish dragons running down the street. Which I had. My neighbors have a trio of delightful children who like to dress up in last year’s Halloween costumes. I suppose they’d escaped the babysitter I saw chasing after them. Both of the dragons were carrying lighters—you know the kind I mean. Not the ones for cigarettes but the ones for lighting a charcoal grill. The unicorn was armed only with her horn.” She paused. “I may have left out a few things in my story. And I might have called it in five or six hours after I first saw the unicorn.”

Anna saw Leslie’s face and didn’t laugh, though she wanted to.

Leslie said coolly, “So you deliberately called police officers to your home because they inconvenienced you. And kept them here when they might have been needed elsewhere?”

Katie’s eyes narrowed and she lost the soft, half-drunken act entirely. “No. I’m telling you that I called them on a possible threat. I never saw the babysitter actually corral the little hooligans, did I? Two ten-year-olds can do a lot of damage with fire lighters. It’s not my fault that the police officer didn’t ask the right questions.”

Leslie sat up straighter, and Anna interrupted her. They were here for information. A lecture on the stupidity of crying wolf, no matter how well deserved, was not going to get them anywhere.

“We are not actually here about the unicorn. We’re more interested in the green man in your garden,” Anna said.

Katie stiffened more, and her scent spiked with anxiety that was not quite fear.

“You needed to distract the police from your garden,” Anna said. “The unicorn and dragon story did that very nicely. They aren’t going to want to come back here anytime soon, are they? But they’ve written you off as a kook.” That had been quite a sacrifice for this woman who spent so much time and energy on her own appearance. “But that green man comment—just a throwaway, really—has the ring of truth and that’s what brought us here. What do you have living in your backyard, Ms. Jamison?”

“I think I would like to call my lawyer,” said Katie.

“We are here because we are looking for a five-year-old girl who was taken by a fae who left a changeling in her place,” Leslie said. “That fae kills children, Ms. Jamison.”

“You can show yourselves out,” she said stonily.

“Time matters,” Anna told her, not mentioning that Amethyst had been missing for months already. “How will you feel when we find that child’s body? Will you ask yourself if she might have survived if you had cooperated? Or will you be able to shrug it off?”

“He has nothing to do with kidnapping children.” The older woman’s voice was harsh.

“Maybe,” Anna said. “But maybe he would know who does. Maybe he could help us.”

Katie looked up and Anna caught her eyes. Anna was no Alpha wolf to force people to do things that they would rather not. But she was honest and stubborn. It was Katie who looked away first.

“If you put anything in writing, I will make you look like a fool,” Katie said.

Anna tipped her head. “We have no intention of making you look foolish or getting you into trouble.”

Leslie hesitated. “If this has nothing to do with the girl’s disappearance, there will be no need to record anything more than that we checked out your story and found it not germane to our investigation.”

Katie was quiet a moment. “All right. All right. Fine. I have a touch of the Sight. My mother did, too, and her mother before her. My grandmother was a healer and wisewoman. My mother … she had migraines during which she would see things. Some of them happened, some of them didn’t. She thought she was getting glimpses of likely futures. Me? I can see the fae for what they are, whatever guise they are wearing. And I have hidden it from them because they don’t like sidhe-seers. If you give me away, my life will be very short.”

“Understood,” Leslie agreed.

Katie Jamison strode past the big pool with its attendant fountains, hot tub and assorted pool chairs, bar and barbecue: a full-service pool. Instead she aimed at the small green corner in the back of her yard.

Three huge palm trees formed the upper canopy, and huge clumps of lavender nearly waist high lined the eight-foot stone wall that separated Katie’s yard from the next house over. There was some kind of bush in between the lavender with pretty orange flowers. But there was no denying that the most spectacular plant was a huge orange tree, craggy with age.

It sprawled arrogantly over the wrought-iron fence into the jogging path, its branches laden with green fruits that were just starting to turn orange. It was obviously older than the yard it presided over, older than the housing development, the jogging path, and the three other fruit trees next to it, too. Anna, though no gardener, thought that the other fruit trees, though much smaller, were pretty old, too.

She paid attention to the messages that her nose was giving her. Over the faint scent of lavender, though most of the lavender was not yet in bloom, over the unripe fruit, and the orange-flowered whatsit, she smelled something wild, something magic, something fae.

“These people want to talk to you,” said Katie, staring directly at the decorative and effective gate between the yard and the canal-and-jogging-path. “It’s about a missing child. I don’t think they care about you being here at—Yes. I know it was stupid, but I didn’t torment that damned dog on purpose for months, either.”

Apparently Katie was a sidhe-hearer as well as seer, because even Anna’s enhanced ears couldn’t hear the person she was talking to. Her eyes caught on the great orange tree and stayed there.

The trunk was bent and twisted with knots where limbs had been cut years and years ago. The oranges were plum-sized and green. Anna didn’t know much about the vegetation in Arizona. A few quiet afternoons in Asil’s greenhouse in Montana had given her a working knowledge of rare roses and a handful of flowers and plants that appealed to the old wolf. The only fruit tree he had was a waist-high dwarf clementine that Asil said was a tribute to his Spanish heritage and the oranges he used to grow on some farm he’d owned at one time or another.

Katie turned back to them. “He likes to play games,” she said. “He told me that if you can find him, he’ll answer three questions.”

“Agreed,” said Anna. She pulled her cell phone out and texted a quick message to Charles so he wouldn’t worry when he felt her change.

“I’m not my husband,” she told Leslie. “I’m going to change to my wolf shape. Unlike him, I probably won’t be able to change back for a couple of hours after this.”

“You can’t just—” She tapped her finger to her nose.

Anna shook her head. “If it were that easy, he wouldn’t be making a deal. Just remember to phrase your questions very carefully. Take your time. The fae always answer truthfully, but not always completely. If they can deceive you with the truth, they will. Don’t ask rhetorical questions, because those will count.”

She stepped to the side of the big tree, where she was hidden from the sight of people outside the yard, and began stripping her clothes off. “This will take a while,” she warned them.

“What are you doing?” Katie said as Anna kicked off her shoes.

“I’m a werewolf,” Anna told her. “I’m changing into my wolf. The wolf’s nose is better and less easily confused.”

The moon was almost full, so her change should have been easy. Pain, as her body rearranged itself, was now an old friend. It slid over her head with hot hands that dug in and cracked her jaw so forcibly that the pain of the rest of her body seemed gentle by comparison—until her shoulders slipped out of their sockets at the same time.

On a moon night, with the pack gathered together, pack magic shielded the sounds the changing wolves made in their pain, and the moon could sometimes change pain to ecstasy. But alone and in the full Arizona sun, Anna was obligated to make no noise that might attract attention. She was good at not attracting attention.

Some changes were better than others, regardless of the moon’s phases, but this was much, much worse than any shift she’d done this near the moon’s call. Before pain drove her to the single determination of silence, Anna belatedly recognized the wariness her wolf felt that drove her to speed the change. The wolf could not adequately defend herself while caught between forms. Anna had chosen to change in front of a virtual stranger and a fae she could not see and knew nothing about. A fae who could be the very creature they were hunting.

Anna trusted Leslie to have her back. But the wolf was more judicious in her trusts and Leslie was not pack, nor anyone they were long acquainted with. So speed was necessary and pain was a small cost to pay for safety.

When it was over, Anna lay winded and shaky, which wasn’t exactly a safe thing, either. She rolled to her feet and shook off the last of the muscle twitches. She couldn’t tell how long it had taken. Pain made time subjective.

She stretched, sliding her claws out until they dug into the soil. Satisfied that her body was working, she turned her head to look at the two women who stood carefully not looking at her.

“Are you all right?” Leslie asked when Anna moved around so she could look the FBI agent in the face. “That looked … that sounded like it hurt. We could hear your bones break.”

Anna sneezed and let her tail wag. Katie looked at Anna, and then quickly away again. Her hand over her mouth. “It’s not … it wasn’t…” Her voice stuttered to a stop—and then she made a break for her house.

Anna sighed. Yes. Werewolves are monsters and the change isn’t pretty. Unfair to ask the mundanes to deal with it. She’d had no choice.

“Can you find the fae?” Leslie asked. “I assume the deal is still in effect. If you find him and we can’t communicate, I’ll go back in the house and drag Ms. Jamison back out.”

Yes. Finish this business, thought Anna.

She checked out the big tree first, though it was too obvious. It smelled of fae magic, no question. But to her wolf nose, the whole yard smelled of fae.

She trotted the circumference of the yard and played a little hot and cold with herself to make sure she was right that the fae was somewhere near that big orange tree. The scent of the fae, who did not smell like Chelsea’s house or the day care, faded as soon as she got to the house end of the swimming pool. She quartered the yard around the pool and ended up back by the orange tree.

Not the butterfly bush, not the granite rock that was decorated with small pots of herbs where the sides of the boulder made natural shelves. Not the handful of tea rose bushes. Not the yuccas—which did indeed show signs of being dug up and replaced. Everything smelled of the fae, but not enough. Anna backed away and looked carefully for something she had missed.

Where? she asked herself, asked her wolf spirit. Where is he?

The wolf focused on one of the lemon trees, the smallest and scruffiest of them. Like the yuccas, it looked as though it was suffering from rough handling.

She closed in on it, shut her eyes, and let her nose lead her across the stone walkway and onto the gravel that covered the earth around the plants. Her ears picked up the sound of a door opening in the house, a car pulling up on the street, and Leslie’s heartbeat twenty feet away. Her nose followed the elusive trail until fae was all she could smell.

She opened her eyes—and fear, visceral and unexpected, turned her joints to water and closed her throat so she could neither breathe nor make a sound. Justin stood before her, the werewolf who had Changed her and then made her life a living hell.

And all she could think was, You’re dead. You’re dead. I saw you die.

The text message from Anna was simple. It said: Don’t worry. I need my wolf nose to find a fae. As Charles finished reading, he felt his mate’s shift begin.

She knew him. She was worried that he’d come looking for her if she transformed to wolf, so she was reassuring him that she wasn’t in harm’s way. If she hadn’t added the last bit, he’d have let her text message reassure him.

She was looking for a fae on her own? When the fae they were looking for was powerful and sophisticated enough to create a child from a bundle of sticks? Not without him, she wasn’t.

“Pull over,” he told Marsden, interrupting whatever the agent had been saying about the next place they were headed, had been headed.

“Excuse me?”

Impatient, Charles caught the other man’s eye and said, low-voiced, “Pull over.”

The car swerved out of traffic and came to a halt with a jerk.

“What the freak, man?” said Marsden, staring at his hands as though he couldn’t believe what had happened. That he’d just obeyed orders.

Humans weren’t used to following the hierarchy of the pack, but it still worked on them. At least it worked on them when Charles was giving the orders. It wasn’t magic. But there was a reason Charles was usually the most dominant in his world that was filled with dominant wolves. Even humans had that primitive brain that drill sergeants around the world tapped into, the part of the brain concerned with survival. That part heard an order and just obeyed.

Charles got out and rounded the front of the car rapidly, so the spell of his order didn’t have a chance to fade. He opened the driver’s-side door and said, “Time for me to drive.” When that didn’t move Marsden, he met his eyes again and said, “Get out of the car, Agent Marsden. I’m driving.”

“Jim?” Leeds said.

Marsden unbuckled and got out, too slowly to suit Charles, but it was done. Charles sat down and belted in. While Marsden got into the passenger seat, Charles played with the tablet mounted in the dash of the car until it gave him a map to look at. He hadn’t used this particular version of a tablet before, but there was nothing related to a computer that didn’t eventually spill its secrets to him.

Charles knew Phoenix of twenty years ago, but the new city and its suburbs were much changed. Anna’s pain echoed in his head, shivering shreds that were worse than usual. He felt her wolf’s anxiety, but Anna was okay.

That knowledge gave him the patience to wait until Marsden was beside him, buckled in. Then he hit the gas, crossed four lanes of traffic, and slid sideways through the police emergency road that connected one side of the expressway to the other. There was a car in the nearest lane and the Cantrip agent’s car was undertorqued compared to his truck.

The siren control bar had a switch helpfully marked LIGHTS NO SIREN. He tripped it, crossed the highway in front of the oncoming car, and then pulled into the next lane over, ignoring the sounds his passengers made.

He put his foot down and wished the car had more power on the top end. He drove it a little slower than flat-out because he might need that extra speed to get them out of trouble. Every few minutes he glanced at the map on the tablet. He didn’t know where Anna was, but he could feel her and he headed that direction as quickly as he could.

“I thought you said you couldn’t drive,” said Marsden tightly.

In the backseat, Leeds was chanting fervently, “Not gonna die today, not today, Lord. Not gonna die today, not today, Lord.”

Charles passed a four-car mobile roadblock by squeezing the car down the left-hand shoulder, which wasn’t quite wide enough, and he had to muscle it pretty good to keep the soft sand from pulling them into the ditch. Leeds’s half prayer sped up and got pretty loud until the car was traveling with all four wheels on the blacktop again.

“I prefer not to,” Charles answered Marsden as he switched lanes over and back. “But it is better if I drive when my wolf is on the hunt.” And then he quit talking, quit listening, and drove while his Anna completed her change, and her pain left him clearheaded.

She didn’t need him. She was a werewolf and he’d spent the whole of their time together making sure she could take care of herself. She was tough and smart. She didn’t need him to deal with a fae.

But he was coming anyway.

The Cantrip agents did pretty well, he thought, given that they were used to human reaction times and he was not human. The biggest limitation on their speed and the path he took was the car. He skidded it pretty good as they came off the expressway and onto the city streets because its suspension was for crap. He had to drop speed a bit, but not much as they rocketed through red lights and crosswalks with kids and little old ladies.

Leeds fell silent and Marsden closed his eyes with one hand on the oh-crap handle and the other braced on the dashboard. The quiet in the car was good. It allowed his ears to pick up the first hint of rubber slipping on pavement, even before he could feel it. That gave him a little more reaction time, so he sped up a bit.

Even with the map, he circled her location twice before he found a road that led to the house where the orange car was parked. He pulled in behind and took a deep breath, opening the car door, and that was when Anna’s panic nearly dropped him to his knees.

He’d never been more grateful for his ability to shed his human skin for wolf in moments, in a breath, instead of the long drawn-out process his father and the other wolves had to go through. It hurt, it hurt, but Anna was frightened and that made the other of no concern at all.

On four paws, he bolted through the plate-glass window; the glass cut deeply, but he ignored the damage. He healed as he ran through the stone house, over a silly little fountain, and out the closed patio doors, shedding water, blood, and glass as he ran.

The graceful black wolf who was his mate crouched, hindquarters and tail tucked, at the far side of the yard. She was better at controlling her responses in human form. The only time he’d ever seen her look scared was when she ran on four paws.

Whatever she saw, and he didn’t see anything in front of her where her attention was focused, it really scared her. His Anna had the heart of a lion.

Whatever it was that frightened her, he needed to kill it and lay it at her feet. A gift of love, he thought whimsically as Brother Wolf calculated where the invisible and presumably fae creature had to be, based on Anna’s body language and position.

Charles hit it hard. Brother Wolf had found their target. As it fell with him upon it, he dug in wherever he could. Two things happened when his fangs sank into flesh that tasted of bark, sap, and lemons. First, he could see the fae. Second, Anna’s fear dissipated, and that quick dispersal felt like a spell breaking.

This is not our villain. There was no doubt in her thoughts. He has been here a long time. He might know something about the fae we are hunting. Who better than another fae who is at large in the same vicinity? He has promised to answer our questions. If you kill him, we’ll never know. Charles, you cannot kill him. Not before we find Amethyst.

Anna wasn’t hurt. But Brother Wolf wanted the fae to die; leaving your enemies alive was not smart. Any fae who frightened Anna was his enemy. Fear was a power the fae used to protect themselves, to freeze their prey, to kill. He knew that, understood that, if Anna did not. It was a weapon, and this one had used it against Anna.

Please, Anna said, breathing a little calmness to him. Not enough to influence him; he didn’t think she had done it on purpose. Maybe she was trying to calm herself down and the effect had sifted through their bond.

But wherever she had aimed, it succeeded in allowing him to think. Anna wasn’t hurt. Anna wasn’t hurt, ergo he did not need to kill this fae. And, given that it had not hurt her, if he killed it, it would be because he wanted to. To kill when it was not a matter of defense or law was murder.

Woodland fae are too tough to kill easily, anyway, Brother Wolf grumbled at Anna.

Charles extracted his fangs and stepped back, letting the growl dwelling in his chest ring in the open air.

The wounded fae was definitely one of the tree folk but not a particularly dangerous one, not if he’d been too frightened to fight back when Charles had attacked him. His skin was more like tree bark and he had no flesh to soften the rawboned look. Yellow and red eyes, one each, blinked up at Charles in fearful horror.

Though Charles’s strike would have killed a human, this fae was not much hurt, he thought. The fae were tough, the forest fae among the toughest. As Brother Wolf had observed, this one would not die easily under the fangs of a werewolf.

Beside him Anna shook herself, shivered, and shook herself some more. And even if she was not terrified anymore, she was definitely disturbed, allowing Charles to stay between her and the fae.

If not for the humans watching, the FBI agent, the Cantrip agents who were cautiously climbing through the remains of the patio doors, and the woman in the house who stared out through an upstairs window, he would have pressed against her, reassuring her that she wasn’t alone. He would have done it despite the audience if she had still been frightened. But she was recovering and he wouldn’t take that from her.

Charles circled the fae as it struggled back to its feet. The damage he’d done mended itself, the barklike skin flowing together until there was no trace of fang marks or hurt.

Leslie cleared her throat. “Hey, Charles,” she said. “Quite an entrance.” Her voice was steady, though he could smell her fear.

He glanced at her and then away. In his current state it wouldn’t be safe for her if he caught her eyes. Excess adrenaline made it impossible for him to stay still, so he stalked back and forth like a lion in a cage and waited for someone to do something.

“All right, then,” Leslie said. “Sir. I don’t know your name. I think you have to agree that we located you. That’s not a question.”

The fae shuddered and took on human semblance—a bland-featured man of average height and average build wearing a sand-colored, double-knit suit fifty years out of date.

“It wasn’t fair,” he said. “It wasn’t fair. I didn’t know it was a werewolf. If I’d known it was a werewolf, I wouldn’t have made that bargain. It wasn’t fair.”

“You didn’t ask,” Leslie said. “You should know better than to make assumptions.”

“Not fair,” he said again, pouting. “Spoiled the game.”

If the fae was talking about playing games, Leslie might need a little coaching. Hostile fae could be difficult. Charles took a deep, deliberate breath and pulled his human shape out and donned it. He shook his head and a few shards of glass tinkled on the ground. He dusted himself off and got rid of a few more. His skin burned where the glass had cut deeply and the werewolf magic continued to heal him.

“Leslie,” he said. His voice was still gravelly, but he couldn’t help it with Brother Wolf so close.

She took a step away from him, caught herself, and stepped forward again. He could smell her fear, but she was not giving in to it, which was what he had come to expect from her.

“Fill me in,” he said. “Let me help.”

Marsden and Leeds came up and Leslie relaxed fractionally. She nodded at them and then turned to Charles.

“We came here investigating a report that Ms. Jamison filed about unicorns and dragons, and a green man in her garden. Most of it was a false report, camouflage for the truth that there was a green man in her garden. The deal was that if we found the green man, he gives us three true answers.”

“First, it isn’t a green man.” Charles looked at the bland man without favor and pretended not to notice that Anna had moved close to him as soon as he stopped moving and was pressed up against him. You didn’t reveal your mate’s weaknesses before the enemy. He couldn’t kill it until Leslie discovered if it could help them find Amethyst.

“Woodland fae, a tree man, related to the green man. Wearden, the old Anglo-Saxons called them. I have no idea what he calls himself. One of the lesser fae, which doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous. Just not as dangerous.”

The fae curled his lip up and hissed at Charles.

“Okay,” Leslie said.

“Ask a question that requires a broad answer,” Leeds said. “Don’t use yes-or-no questions. Oddly enough those are pretty easily fouled up.”

“What—” The fae leaned forward, just a little. But it cued Leslie in and she rephrased it. “Leeds, please explain that. Yes-or-no seems pretty cut-and-dried to me.”

“Take the question every husband dreads.” Leeds looked at the fae and then back at Leslie. “You know, the one about if pants make you look fat. A fae could say ‘No,’ which you would take to mean that you don’t look fat, when in fact he means ‘The pants don’t make you look fat, your extra weight makes you look fat.’” Leeds cleared his throat and a flush rose up his face. “Not that you do look fat. It was just an example.”

Leslie grinned at him but said, “Okay, thanks.”

“Before you start, I can tell you some more things about this wearden to help direct your questions,” Charles told her. “I am absolutely certain that this is not the fae who stole the child. He smells wrong and I doubt he has the ability to make a fetch as convincing as the one that took Amethyst Miller’s place. He’s the wrong kind of fae to have that sort of magic. The lesser fae’s magic is very specific. He doesn’t have the power to get Chelsea to kill her children, either. He is here because it is hard for the tree-tied fae to move. Those who could were moved into the reservations early on.”

“Do you—” Leslie glanced at the fae again. She cleared her throat. “I don’t mean to be giving orders, but they are better than questions under the circumstances. Given that he is tied to this place, tell me if you think he will know anything about our quarry. Please.”

Charles shrugged. “The chances are pretty good; fae gossip like everyone else.”

“Right.”

A woman ran out of the house. She was older, Charles thought, but in impressive shape for a human of her age. In one hand she held a camera with very big lens attached.

“Can I take photos?” she asked as she ran up to them, out of breath. She was looking at Anna, but she did not specify.

“Yes,” said the fae, his voice suddenly mocking. “You can take photos, Katie, but I fear you may not. You’ll have to ask the wolves.” He looked at Charles and smiled. “That is question one. Two more.”

The woman’s face paled as she took in the whole tableau. “I screwed things up.”

“Leslie, ask your questions,” Charles said when it looked as though they were going to get bogged down in extraneous conversation that might include more irrelevant questions.

“I’m so sorry,” said the stranger, but she subsided when Charles shook his head at her.

Leslie took a deep breath and then ran with it. She described in detail what they knew, told the fae about the missing girl, about the attempt to force Chelsea to kill her own children. She added a bit that she and Anna must have discovered, about an attempted kidnapping almost forty years ago. She didn’t talk about the other things, the ones they weren’t absolutely certain were related to their fae, the teacher who hanged herself or the car accident.

“My first question is, then, what exactly do you know about the fae who kidnapped Amethyst Miller and left a fetch, a changeling, in her place?”

The fae half shut his eyes, searching for a way out. It probably didn’t matter to him how much he told, except that fae didn’t like giving their secrets away.

“Once upon a time there was a High Court fae,” he said finally. “Now, the fae of the High Court, they are great ones for stealing human children and teaching them to fetch and carry, to work and to give life to the below lands. This one, this one maybe loved children too much, or maybe the twist happened sometime during the very long time it took Faery to fall in the Old World. His kind take children, but this one, this one, he loved children, stole them from the humans and turned them into his toys until they died and he had to replace them.”

The fae looked around slyly. “Humans are such fragile things. It was a hobby for him, but when the magic fell and rose and fell again, it took that part of him and twisted it into a geas such as we low fae must follow but usually the powered fae, like the High Court fae, do not.” There was glee in his voice, though his human facade was still bland and doll-like. “So now he must have a child for his collection. He keeps them for a year and a day and then consumes them entirely, at which time he has to collect another. He feeds on the change that time brings upon them, see?”

He looked at Anna and smiled. Charles felt a rush of magic and put a hand on his mate’s head. She raised her head and growled at the fae man, showing him her fangs.

He can’t pull that trick on me twice. Anna’s clear voice rang in his head. Justin is dead. If the fae wants to wear his face, that is just fine.

Rage, squelched earlier, rose like a phoenix. Brother Wolf would kill this one without a twinge of conscience. Not that wolves regretted much. Regret, like guilt, they mostly left to their human halves. He veiled his eyes because he knew that they had lightened to wolf amber from his own human dark brown.

Leslie started to ask another question, but Charles shook his head. “He’s not finished answering the first question,” he said. His voice was too rough again, but he couldn’t help it. He looked the wearden in the eyes, and the creature took a step back and his magic sputtered and died. “And don’t ask about High Court fae. I know of their kind and can answer any questions you have about them.”

The wearden sneered at him. Charles just watched him back coolly.

The fae’s expression gradually grew sulky again and finally he continued. “The humans in Scotland a century ago broke into one of his lairs. They called him the Doll Collector because the girls were dressed up like dolls. The one who was still alive would not talk. She died a few weeks later. But it became impossible for that fae to live in Scotland anymore. Like many of us, though later than some, he hopped aboard a steamer and came to the New World.”

They waited. When Leslie would have said something, Charles shook his head.

Finally the wearden spoke again. “He lived here—” The fae gave an address that Leslie jotted down. “For a long time. But when the Gray Lords decided that it was necessary for the fae to reveal themselves…”

He rubbed his hands down the front of his shirt and looked around nervously. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“I understand that bad things happen to fae who break their word,” said Charles silkily. “The powers that be don’t approve of lying.”

The fae gave him a nasty look. “The Gray Lords went to the less publicity-friendly fae and forced them to behave. They went to the Doll Collector and took away his power. They froze his need, and his ability, to take the children and left him to his own devices. I did not hear of him again until the Gray Lords released some of the monsters they hold, and that one came back here hungry.” He flashed Charles a look of intense dislike. “That is all I know about the Doll Collector, except for the information you have given me.”

“What can stop him?” asked Leslie.

The fae grinned at her. Only his mouth moved, which looked odd. Either he was trying to freak out the humans, or this fae really had little experience trying to look human. “Death stops everything.”

It dropped the appearance of humanity and stepped back among the trees in the corner of the garden and became a small, scraggly tree in the shade of the big fruit tree.

“Sorry,” Leslie told Charles. “I guess I was hoping for Kryptonite, you know?”

Charles shook his head. “Your first question was good. It told us everything it knew.” He glanced at Leeds, who had been writing as the fae spoke. “You have that address, right?”

“I have it. I’ve texted it to our research division. They’ll have the ownership records and whatever else they can find, like house plans, back to us as soon as they can.”

“Excuse me.” The woman he didn’t know, presumably the owner of the house, spoke to Leslie. “Do you think I might get a photograph of the werewolf? Photography is a hobby of mine and she is beautiful.”

Leslie raised her eyebrows and looked at Charles. “What do you think?”

He was inclined to refuse. “Anna?”

She hopped on the big granite boulder and posed, looking graceful. And cute. Which was pretty amazing, because werewolves could be beautiful, but they were predators. Cute was not, usually, in the picture. But then, his Anna was amazing.

We have some time because we need to wait until we have a little more information on the address, right? Her voice inside him still felt new and wondrous. He was so grateful not to be alone. We need to know if we’re breaking into a fae’s prison or the home of some poor slob who happened to buy the house in the last fifty years. And we owe Ms. Jamison. How much damage did you do to her house?

He smiled at her. “Yes,” he said to Anna, forgetting that everyone couldn’t hear her. “I’ll pay for the damage, of course, but a little PR repair might be in order.”