“Dude, you’ve got some sort of glamour going on. Don’t deny it—I can sense it a mile away. You’re an FBH—full-blooded human. So what gives?” Her voice was low, but loud enough for me to catch.
He jerked his head up and stared at her. “Babe, I dunno what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t even try with me, dude. You have no clue who you’re dealing with. I just want to know where you got the potion. There’ll be an extra fifty in it if you tell me the truth. And I’ll know if you lie.” She pulled out her purse and waved a fifty-dollar bill under his nose.
He paused, then cleared his throat. I tried to focus on what he was saying, but it was hard because the drinks and shifting and the promise of those dangling fringe pieces had all clouded my mind.
After a moment, the stripper shrugged. “What the hell. Why not? I got it from a little shop in south Seattle. Name’s Alchemy for Lovers, and they said that if I put three drops on my dick before a performance, it would increase my profits. Boy, were they right.” He gave a sideways glance to Iris, then me. “Well, until tonight, that is. Damn stuff burns a bit, but hey, it makes sex better, too.”
He sounded vaguely hopeful, but Camille motioned for him to leave.
The bartender was giving us dirty looks, so Menolly gathered up the presents. With Nerissa carrying the cake and Camille helping guide me, we stumbled out to the limo. Tony was waiting for us right where he’d parked. He opened the doors and we crawled in.
Nerissa sat up front with him, holding the cake; Camille and Iris sat on one side, while Menolly, Sharah, and I sat on the other side of the backseat, and we set off for home to finish partying where we wouldn’t chance ruining anybody else’s evening.
We pulled in the driveway and slid out of the limo just in time to see Vanzir and Roz tossing each other around the yard. They were both stripped to their waists, oiled down, and involved in what looked like some sort of Greco-Roman wrestling match.
“What the hell . . . ?” Camille stared at them, then shook her head.
“I’m not
even
going to ask.” My head was pounding. Apparently the Demented Zombies weren’t agreeing with me. As I squinted, I saw Bruce stumbling around, chasing a dog that looked suspiciously like Speedo, the neighbor’s basset hound. He was carrying a pair of bunny ears.
“Holy crap, how much have they had to drink?”
“I dunno, but we’ve got a pair of dragons on the roof.” She pointed to where Smoky and Shade were sitting on top of the roof, dangling their legs over the side. Neither looked too cozy, but they were talking and not arguing for once. A pile of rocks near the cars told us they’d been taking potshots. At least they hadn’t broken any windshields.
As we stumbled our way into the house, we found cousin Shamas, Morio, and Chase in the living room, playing poker. The table was covered with change and dollar bills, and it looked like Chase was wiping the floor with both of them. Empty bottles of Nebelvuourian brandy and Elqaneve wine were strewn about, along with a couple empties of Irish whiskey. The smell of cigars made me want to hurl, and I glanced at Camille, who was also wrinkling her nose, and opened the window to air out the place.
“Honey, you’re home!” Morio glanced up at Camille. As he stood up, he tripped and went sprawling at her feet, where he stayed down, reaching out to play with her strappy shoes.
“You’re drunk.” She moved her feet just out of reach.
“Ya think?” Morio burped and promptly dragged himself to his feet, where he threw one arm around her shoulders and one arm around Menolly’s. Camille glanced at Menolly, who quickly sidestepped out of Morio’s embrace. He still wasn’t over the bond that had developed when some of her blood was injected into his veins, but Menolly seemed to have shaken it off. . . or at least she acted like it.
“You’re
all
drunk.” I glanced around as Shade and Smoky followed us in, clutching Bruce between them. “Well, maybe not those two, but geez . . .”
The pair seemed relatively sober, but then again, they were dragons and it probably took a whole keg of hard liquor to even
begin
to get a dragon bombed.
Smoky took the cake from Sharah and carried it to the kitchen, returning with Trillian, who had his nose in a book. One look at Iris’s pained face and Trillian set down the book and slipped back into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a package of saltines and some ginger ale. She smiled and sipped the soft drink.
As the guys sprawled out in the living room and we joined them, Iris made the mistake of telling them about the stripper.
Smoky leaned forward, his eyes whirling. “You watched another man remove his clothing for entertainment?” He glared at Camille.
“Chill out, Iris threw up on him and that killed the mood.”
“I can’t help it if I have morning sickness all the damned day!” Iris looked hurt and Camille slipped over to give her a hug, then plopped down on Smoky’s lap. His hair reached up to stroke her shoulders and entwine around her waist.
“I’ll bet the gentleman wasn’t expecting
that
response.” Shade laughed.
“I’m not so sure he was that much of a gentleman.” Camille repeated what the dancer had told her about the potion and the shop. “Sounds like sorcery to me. I don’t like it.”
I was about to say something when the phone rang. Yugi’s voice echoed through the line.
“Delilah?” Yugi was Chase’s second in command at the FH-CSI—the Faerie-Human Crime Scene Investigation unit. And he sounded so frantic I could barely understand him. “Please, we need you over here
now
. Sharah and Chase especially. It’s an emergency.”
“What’s up?” A tingling in my gut told me that whatever it was, we were in no shape to deal with it.
“There’s been a bombing at the Supe Community Council. Four confirmed deaths so far, and two people are in intensive care. We don’t know how many others were in the building. Rescue teams are heading in as soon as the bomb squad confirms no more danger. Get over here.
Now.
”
As I hung up, staring helplessly at the phone and wondering if any of my friends were among the dead, I realized that despite the celebrations going on in our private lives, we were always on call. There would never be another moment when we could fully relax—not until we’d pushed back the demons and stopped Shadow Wing and his cronies. And even then... there were other horrors in the world waiting for us to stop them.
“Sober up any way you can,” I said, setting the receiver back in the cradle. “We’ve got work to do. And it can’t wait till tomorrow.”
2
The room fell silent. I took a deep breath and barked out orders. “Smoky, Shade—you guys are sober, but I’ll be damned if Smoky’s touching a car.”
“I can drive,” he protested, but I shook my head.
“Right, and I can blow smoke out of my mouth. Nice try.” I tossed my keys to Shade. “You drive my Jeep and take Vanzir, Roz, and me. Menolly, you’re sober. You can drive Camille’s car and take her and her men.”
Iris piped up. “Bruce’s driver can take Chase and Sharah. But somebody has to stay here. Someone not drunk out of their minds.”
“Right . . . okay. Smoky, you stay with Iris and the others. You can handle trouble if there is any.”
“Check.” He blinked, the smile wiping off of his face. Ever since his father had captured Camille, the dragon had taken security around the place to a whole new level. We practically lived in a compound now.
“Crap, is there
any
way we can get some of this booze out of our systems?” I didn’t want to go in drunk. And I had the feeling that—from now on—we wouldn’t be partying with booze.
Iris blinked. “I can help—I’ve got an herb that works wonders, but the effects won’t be pleasant in the morning.”
“We have no choice. Can we all use it?” I didn’t care if we all had the dry heaves in the morning. Tonight, we needed to be on our game.
“Not everybody. But you, Camille, Shamas, Trillian, Sharah . . . it might also help Rozurial since he was Fae before he was turned into an incubus. I’d be hesitant to try it on Morio or Vanzir, though. I’m not sure about Nerissa.”
“Then bring it on. Shade’s fine. Nerissa’s staying here, so go ahead and try to sober her up after we’re gone. That just leaves Vanzir and Chase.”
“I don’t need it.” Trillian held out his hand. It was steady. “I had two brandies a few hours ago. I’m sober.”
Iris nodded. “Fine. While I might consider giving it to Chase . . . hell . . . just a minute!” She turned and raced for the bathroom.
Meanwhile, Smoky picked up Camille, tossed her over his shoulder, and headed up the stairs. “I’ll get her dressed for action,” he called over his shoulder. Trillian and Morio followed.
I pulled off my boots and asked Shade to bring me down a pair of mud stompers and a heavy denim jacket. The rest of my outfit would be fine. He nodded and dashed up the stairs.
Meanwhile, Iris reappeared and motioned for Menolly to help her. I followed them into the kitchen, where Iris pulled out a packet of a foul-smelling herbs, but instead of steeping them into tea, like I thought she was going to, she began packing them into gelatin capsules. Then she whispered some sort of enchantment over the capsules and handed me one of the giant horse pills along with a bottle of water.
I stared at it, finally slipping it into my mouth. I struggled to swallow it with a big swig of water. It began to open on the way down and I burped, an earthy, tangy taste filling my mouth. As I winced, Iris slapped a piece of bread spread with butter in my hands.
“Eat. It will help cushion the impact of the damishanya root.”
“Damishanya? Oh crap. We’re fucked. But yeah, it will help.”
Damishanya was an Otherworld herb that was as harsh as it was effective. I’d forgotten about it until Iris mentioned the name, but now memories of the root flooded back. The first time Camille, Menolly, and I had gotten pie-faced drunk, we’d sneaked some of the herb to keep our father from finding out. But he could smell the booze and herb a mile away, and we’d all suffered his wrath. We’d all been on cleaning duty for a week straight. He’d blamed Camille most, since she was the oldest and he held her responsible. She’d been under house arrest for two weeks.
As Camille and the others entered the kitchen, Iris doled out the capsules and food, and then we headed out for the cars. Roz had declined the drug; come to find out he was barely tipsy and just blowing off steam. He did, however, wash off the oil and dress. Vanzir stayed home—he was too wasted to be of any help in the field.
So Shade and I took Chase and Sharah with us in the Jeep, while Menolly drove Camille’s Lexus, ferrying Camille, Morio, Trillian, and Shamas.
As we headed down the driveway my thoughts suddenly began to clear. The root was working fast. With a poignant regret, I realized how much I’d welcomed shutting down my mind for a while. For just a little while, we’d let ourselves go wild, forget about all we’d been facing. But now, I realized just how much steam was left behind the barrier.
As we pulled into the parking lot at the Supe Community Council, I realized I was stone-cold sober. The hall—a small building that sat on a weed-infested lot with a parking lot full of cracks in the pavement—was smoldering. The smell of smoke saturated the air and it was hard to breathe. I opened the door and slowly stepped out of the car.
At first glance, I thought maybe we’d lucked out and the building hadn’t been hit too hard. But as the others joined us—with everybody but Morio looking relatively intact—we moved forward, and I realized that the place had been gutted by the fire and explosion.
I stared at the fractured hall, my heart skipping a beat. I was an integral part of the Supe Community Council. I could have easily been here. The planning committee for an upcoming dance was supposed to have met tonight. And what if this had happened during one of our monthly meetings, when we’d have had up to a hundred members joining us?
The thoughts of
what might have been
began to run through my head, an unending stream of bloody images, until I realized a lump the size of a golf ball had formed in the back of my throat. Camille took my hand as we surveyed the damage. The firemen were still pouring water on parts of the building, but by now, most of the flames had burned themselves out. There wasn’t much left for them to feed on.
“It’s bad.” Yugi saw us and hurried over. Second in command to Chase, the Swedish hulk of a detective had grown into a friend—he’d always been helpful to us. He was an FBH, but he was also an empath, and now he looked into my eyes and I saw him shiver. He turned to Chase, who stepped up.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here—” Chase started to say, remorse filling his voice.
“You can’t be on duty twenty-four-seven, boss. Nobody knew this was going to happen. We didn’t have any warning. Sure, hate crimes have been up, but nobody expected anything like this to go down.” Yugi handed him a file. “Here are the details we have so far.”
“Run it down for us, please.” Chase flipped through the file, but it was too dark to read, even under the streetlamp.
Yugi nodded. “Sure thing. We got a call at ten forty-five P.M. that there had been an explosion, but we weren’t sure how big or bad. Fire trucks were on the way. Team assembled and headed out. We got here to find the building engulfed by flames, and the firemen weren’t able to put a dent in the flames. I noticed an odd smell, and I still can’t place it—it might be gone, but I can’t say for sure. By now my nose is filled with the smell of smoke.”
Camille and I stepped forward and began to sniff around. Shamas did the same. After a moment Shamas let out a shout, and we looked at him.
He turned to Chase. “Explosive all right, but not from Earthside. This is canya, a volatile magical mixture. Liquid—but it’s usually mixed in small amounts into a bigger bomb. While it’s sold in the back alleys of Otherworld, it’s illegal in most of the cities there.”