A Kind of Magic (17 page)

Or would they? When he looked at the flowers again, they were back to winter dormancy. It was one of those strange corner-of-the-eye experiences, which meant the Realm must be bleeding through here. He made a note on the map he was using to track strange occurrences. So far, he was just finding these odd little summer spots. That didn’t seem to be potentially dangerous, but what it represented was troubling.

He was putting the map back in his pocket when he heard what sounded like a human scream farther down the path. Placing his hand on his weapon, he sprinted toward the sound. A white streak ran toward him down the path, and next thing he knew, he had an armful of white cat.

That hadn’t been a cat’s yowl, and he recognized this cat, so he suspected this wasn’t an ordinary animal cruelty case. He moved his hand from his weapon to his pocket, where he kept a packet of iron filings and some iron nails. The cat burrowed under his coat as he kept moving toward whatever might have scared her, and he tried to make himself forget that she could also appear as a beautiful white-haired woman, because it would be really weird if a woman acted this way.

He’d run into bad elements of the fae before, and there were plenty who’d been exiled from the Realm and learned to adapt. A few even spilled in from the dangerous Borderlands. He hated to think of what might show up if anyone could just pop in from the Realm.

What he found wasn’t what he’d expected. These weren’t wild, feral fae like those who’d worshipped the Hunt. They were stately and regal, and if he wasn’t mistaken, they were from Fiontan and Niamh’s court. But that court specifically rejected human influence in the Realm, so what were they doing here, and what had they done to the cat?

“Can I help you gentlemen?” he said, using the tone he usually took with people who looked like potential troublemakers when he wanted to make sure they knew there was a cop present.

“You can return the cat to us,” one of the men said, with a slight bow. “She is ours.”

Michael got the impression they didn’t know who he was or that he could see them for what they were, so he decided to play along for now. He made a show of looking for a collar and tags. “I don’t see any ID here. But we can find a vet to check for a microchip to prove ownership. I’ll have to cite you, though, for not complying with leash laws or licensing requirements.”

The fae looked at him with complete bafflement. The cat burrowed deeper under his coat until she was practically in his sleeve. “She seems to be afraid of you,” he remarked. “That’s not usually how cats respond to their rightful owners, unless you’ve been cruel to her. I should probably have the vet look into that, too.”

“She belongs to us!” one of the fae men snapped.

“What does she have to say about that?” Michael asked. “She was running from you and asked for my help.”

“She is a cat! Cats do not speak.”

“They do if you know how to listen.” Michael was tempted to scratch the cat under her chin, but it would have been weird to do that if she were in her human form, so he didn’t think it quite right for her animal form. “Now, if you gentlemen want to give me your contact information, I can let you know the outcome of my investigation. In the meantime, I’m taking this cat into protective custody.”

“You do not know what you’re dealing with!” The fae threw up their hands, ready to work magic.

“Actually, I do,” Michael said, bringing his free hand out of his pocket and flinging a handful of iron filings in their faces. They cried out and flinched away. While they were distracted, the cat leaped down from her hiding place under Michael’s coat, turning into a human-like woman in mid leap so that she landed on her feet. After a quick kiss on Michael’s cheek, she ran past him, away from the men.

“Now I suggest you go back to your own world,” Michael said, staring them down. “Or do I need to report you to the queen?”

“We do not answer to that human imposter.”

“That human imposter who won the throne rightfully by passing the tests that no fae has managed? And if you don’t hold with humans, then what are you doing in our world? This is no place for you. Now go back to your Realm, and next time I’m visiting, maybe I should tell Fiontan and Niamh that you’re working with a human enchantress.” It was a wild guess, but their reactions were strong enough to validate it. They turned and fled. He was tempted to follow them, but there really wasn’t much he could do to them, so instead he headed back the way the cat/woman had gone. He wondered if she knew what they wanted with her.

But the cat wasn’t the first person he encountered. “Nicely done,” the woman in a park maintenance staff uniform said when he passed the trash can she was emptying. It was only because of her voice that he recognized Mrs. Smith. “I can’t believe the number of recyclables people just throw away,” she continued, returning her attention to the trash. “But I would have taken care of it if you hadn’t. This is my territory, you know.”

“I thought I was your apprentice. Think of it as a training exercise. And is it even our job to mediate issues among the fae?”

“When it involves fae residents of our world, we can step in.” She raised her voice while also making it gentler. “You can come out now, dear. They’re gone.”

The woman in white emerged shyly from behind a nearby tree. “You have come to my aid again, good sir,” she said in her husky, slightly sibilant voice.

“Glad to be of help,” Michael said. “Now, can you tell me what that was all about?”

“They didn’t want me to warn you.”

“Warn me about what?” He thought he knew all the various plans and schemes on both sides of the Realm.

“They’re coming. They’ve been invited. They will change our world.”

“Our world, as in this one?”

“Yes. It is my world, as well.” She leaned against him, rubbing her shoulder across his arm as she looked up at him with beseeching eyes. “You will protect us, won’t you?”

“I’ll do what I can. All of us already are.”

She ran one hand lightly down his arm before melting into her cat form and slipping into the nearby wooded area.

“Well, whattaya make of that?” Mrs. Smith said in the ensuing silence.

“We kind of already knew that. Both sides are playing each other against the middle. There’s an enchantress trying to make herself more relevant by stirring up the fae activity in our world, and there are fae trying to use this as a chance to take over. Both sides seem to think they’ll use the other side to get what they want and then lock the door again.”

“Yep. So your friends need to take a stand and stop this. We don’t want enchantresses ruling the world.”

“Where do people like us stand in all this? Whose side are we on?”

“We’re about balance—negotiating the best of both worlds in harmony. This isn’t a war between fae and humans or even fae and enchantresses. It’s a few bad apples against everyone. Time for the good people to stand up. If it comes down to a battle, we get the fae to fight on our side. Shouldn’t be a problem with you, since you’re tight with the queen. But watch your back, Detective, and watch your little princess. My guess is she’s gonna have a big old target on her back.” She fished a couple of aluminum cans out of the trash bin, squashed them, and crammed them in the pockets of her ill-fitting uniform. “Now, you and I both have work to do. Run along, son.”

She might not have had magical powers, but she did have a talent for making herself seem to vanish. He blinked and shook his head, trying to see where she’d gone, with no success. Shrugging, he got out his phone and called Mari. “Anything urgent going on?” he asked.

“Depends on how you define urgent. Those Internet quizzes won’t do themselves. Why?”

“There’s something I want to follow up on.”

“What? Don’t tell me you caught a case while you were at lunch.”

“It’s one of my mission projects.” It wasn’t entirely a lie, even though he doubted that averting a fairy invasion would be included in what Mari considered a mission project, but it did the trick in keeping her from wanting to join in, no matter how bored she got.

“Take all the time you need. I know how to reach you if the crime rate skyrockets in the next half hour or so.”

With any luck, he’d find a way to prevent that.

Central Park

5:00 p.m.

Emily couldn’t believe she’d spent her day off hanging around in the park. It might not have been as cold as in the past few days, but it wasn’t a balmy day for spending outdoors, especially once it started getting dark. It was particularly uncomfortable to sit for hours on a bench near a spot she recalled being a gateway, but that was the best place she could think of for possibly finding Eamon.

Beau, not a big fan of long outings even in ideal conditions unless he was with Michael or Sophie, butted her ankle with his head and grunted at her. “Yeah, I know, you’re ready to go home,” she said, bending to scratch the wrinkles on his neck. “Soon, maybe, okay?” With an annoyed snort, he lay down under the bench, behind her feet.

To be honest, she wasn’t sure what she was doing. She tried to tell herself she was making another attempt to pass on Sophie’s message to Nana, in case the night before really had been a dream, but there was that scratch on her hand.

If it had been a dream, it had been a wonderful one. She hated to admit that the fanciful ball had been a lot more fun than the nightclub she’d gone to afterward in the real world. “You’re being a bad influence on me, Sophie,” she muttered. Only someone as old-fashioned as her sister would think that waltzing in a ballroom was a great night out.

Thinking of Sophie brought her back to her most common decision-making tactic: What would Sophie do? She wouldn’t sit around waiting for Eamon to show up for her. She’d make her own way into the Realm. But if she didn’t have the power to do that, then what? She’d probably summon him with the force of her will.

Emily might not be the fairy queen, but she had to have some magic in her veins, so she closed her eyes and imagined Eamon coming to her. He’d step out of that gateway and say something uncanny about her having called for him. When she opened her eyes, she halfway expected to see him standing there, smiling at her, his eyes twinkling like starlight.

But he wasn’t there.

Someone else was, though. A tall, broad-shouldered, imposing man stood in front of her. “The queen has requested your presence,” he said.

Emily did a double take when she looked more closely at the man. He looked human, but he had the glow about him she’d come to associate with the fae. He looked vaguely familiar, like someone she was seeing so far out of context that she couldn’t quite make the connection. And then she realized where she’d seen him before: he was the leader of the Hunt, who used to look like something straight out of hell (or a heavy-metal album cover) before he’d run into Sophie. Now he was the commander of the queen’s guards. “Hey,” she said, raising her hand in a vague wave. “I almost didn’t recognize you without the horns and fiery eyes. What does Nana want?”

“Your presence,” the Huntsman said, his booming voice not changed by his human appearance. If he got stuck in this world, he had a bright future as a stadium announcer, Emily thought. He wouldn’t even need loudspeakers.

“But do you know why?” she asked.

“The queen has need of your services.”

That was surprising. Usually Sophie was the one everyone wanted. She was the one who got magical powers, the one who’d won the crown in the first place. Emily had inherited other things, like height and a great singing voice, but in magical matters, she was just the patsy whose kidnapping had set the whole thing off. She couldn’t help but feel a little flattered and rather proud to be the one who was summoned. “Okay, then,” she said, rising and tugging on Beau’s leash to roust the bulldog from his spot under the bench. She was a little surprised that the dog hadn’t reacted to the Huntsman’s presence, but she was sure that if he saw him as a threat, she’d have known about it.

The Huntsman held his hand out to her, and she reluctantly took it, knowing there had to be direct contact for him to conduct her into the Realm. He might be kind of hot now, but she remembered him looking like something from a horror movie. Passing through the gateway came as a huge relief. Instantly, they were out of the cold and had gone from darkness into a summer’s twilight, right outside the palace gates. The Huntsman released her hand, and she followed as he led the way to the palace.

She hoped that while she was here doing whatever Nana needed her to do, she’d get a chance to see Eamon. He’d said he was working as a scribe again, so he might be there. She brushed her thumb across the scratch on the back of her other hand and thought that if she saw him, she could figure out what her nighttime trip really meant, how much had been a dream and how much had been real.

Or was that what this was about, her grandmother summoning her to read her the riot act about mingling with the fae or visiting the dream world? Did she know about that? Would she mind? It would be just like Nana to make it sound like she needed help and then slip in a little lecture along the way.

Instead of taking her to the palace doors, the Huntsman led her around to the side, to the gardens. There she found Nana, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and an apron over her suit. “Your majesty, I have brought the princess, as you requested,” the Huntsman said with a bow.

“Good work.”

He bowed again and retreated.

Nana kissed Emily on the cheek and said, “Thank you for coming on such short notice, but it’s rather difficult to send engraved invitations from the Realm.”

“It’s my day off,” Emily said with a shrug. “And besides, you can send me to the time I left, so it’s not like it disrupts my schedule. Mr. Tall, Dark, and Spooky said you needed my help. What’s up?”

Nana snipped a couple of roses and placed them in the basket she carried. “I need help with a little covert espionage. There’s no one here I can fully trust who isn’t known to be my ally. I’m afraid I didn’t handle it well before and missed an opportunity, but I’m sure Sophie’s told you all about it.”