Outside the building, Oceana’s earthquake klaxons began to wail.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
“If it’s a false alarm ...” Mark said.
“We can’t afford to be wrong. Help the guests get into the shelters without trampling each other. And don’t forget we have visitors who need the air-breather rooms. If you can, separate Lady Ellice’s associates, but only if that doesn’t interfere with safety.”
Ty himself strode into the dining hall, tersely relaying instructions to the other guards through his pocket comm. Inside, guests were queuing up in preparation for filing out to the shielded chambers. Anso must have ordered the men who’d been posted here to get them organized.
One of the visiting werewolves caught his arm. Ty didn’t want to stop, but he did.
“We’re cops,” the werewolf said. “We can help.”
“You’re air breathers.”
The man grinned at him. “Dogs don’t mind getting wet.”
“Fine,” Ty said, making a snap judgment. “Grab mini-airtanks and pair yourselves with my guards. None of you works alone.” The man was a professional, because he nodded and went to do it. Ty found Anso at the rear of a queue in quiet conversation with his Uncle Phoca, Lady Ellice’s father. Though the king liked the war hero, Ty doubted affection was the reason for his choice of company.
Anso must have heard Olivia and James were gone.
“I don’t know where she is,” Prince Phoca was saying querulously.
“Sometimes I don’t understand my daughter. Those friends of hers and the other folks she hangs out with, they’re a strange school of fish.” Anso looked up at Ty’s approach. His deep blue eyes were wells of hurt and worry.
“You heard?” Ty asked.
“Mark gave me a brief report.”
Neither of them got a chance to say more, because Prince Phoca’s e-phone rang. He dug it out of his inside breast pocket.
“Well, that’s strange,” he said, peering at the little screen. “My security company is sending me footage of a break-in at our family warehouse. In the middle of all this, some fool drove a car through a window and flooded the whole damn place. I thought the strengthening spells protected against that.” He turned the phone to show Anso the video. Anso squinted at it a moment before his expression turned very odd. “May I?” he asked, gently taking the phone from his uncle’s hand.
“Do you recognize the car?” the old man asked.
“I think I recognize the people in it.” He showed the screen to Ty. The security recording was running in a loop. Ty inhaled sharply as he made out James and Olivia’s frightened faces right before they and a massive wave of water smashed through the glass.
“What the hell are they doing?”
“I don’t know,” Anso answered, “but I think we’d better find out fast.” Ty looked behind him, where the well-dressed crowd was emptying the room in relatively good order. “Okay,” he said. “I guess those werewolves will have to make up for us being gone.”
* * *
The cadre of faeries who’d attended the feast informed Anso they were withdrawing somewhere quiet to “meditate on the cause of the disturbance.”
“Useless bastards,” Ty was muttering as he drove. Ty had commandeered a chili red racing sub from one of his men and was currently maxing out its speedometer. Each time they turned, the loose items left unstowed from their hasty flooding swept to a different side. “Why can’t the fae throw up extra protections like you asked?”
“They have their methods.” Anso braced on the dash at Ty’s hell for leather driving. “I can’t order them to ignore them. They’re royals in their own right.”
“Royal dickheads is more like.” Ty slowed as they neared Premium Storage.
“Holy ...”
They stared at the place where James and Olivia had crashed through the big window. As the weight of the sea poured inward, it had taken quite a portion of the wall with it. His grudge against the faeries forgotten, Ty allowed their vehicle to glide silently through the gaping hole. A few lights still shone inside the warehouse, those that hadn’t broken and gone out. On the opposite end of the building, packing crates and equipment had washed into a jumbled pile, where the surge had pushed them.
Because debris was clouding the water, Anso couldn’t locate the car at first.
When he did, fear sank cold claws in him. With either admirable aim or dumb luck, the compact sub had landed nose first in a huge spell circle, cracking through the painted symbols along one side. The inrushing water hadn’t cushioned the impact much. From front headlamps to driver’s door, the cheaply made vehicle was an accordion.
A choking sound broke in Anso’s throat. He didn’t see how Olivia and James could have walked away from this.
“I see movement,” Ty said. “Over by that far pillar.” He pointed, but Anso was already pushing out of the racing sub.
“For God’s sake,” Ty said. “Wait for me.”
Anso really couldn’t. His muscles quivered with his urge to keep his bloodmate from being dead. He spared one more look in passing for the crumpled car. The door on the passenger side hung open, and he saw no bodies.
Let them be alive
, he thought as he strengthened his strokes.
Just let them be
all right
.
When he reached the back side of the pillar where Ty had spied movement, he decided
all right
was a matter of degree. A relief that was more powerful than he expected rushed into him. James Forster was alive. Though cut up and bruised, he was well enough to be holding a very angry naked faerie rather roughly by his wings. Anso had heard faerie wings were sensitive, so this was the equivalent of having him by the balls. If the fae pulled hard enough to break free, he’d cause himself terrible pain.
James seemed to have figured out this vulnerability.
“She’ll cut them,” he was saying. “Tell your men to put down their weapons, or I swear she’ll slice them off a strip at a time.” Anso’s heart gave an even more joyous throb.
She
was Olivia, and she also was on her feet. She gripped a shard of broken headlamp glass, which she pointed at the faerie’s beautiful glowing wings. Unfortunately, Anso’s little queen didn’t look bloodthirsty - more like she’d cut the faerie if she absolutely had to. This might have accounted for the six goons who surrounded them not lowering their attack rifles.
“I think you’d better listen to him,” Ty said. He’d snuck up behind the faerie’s bodyguards. His standard issue guard pistol wasn’t as big as theirs, but Anso knew he was crack shot.
Belatedly, he remembered he’d tucked a small gun into his boot tonight. He drew it, slid his foot into a floor clamp to steady himself, and swung into the goons’ view as well.
“Yes,” he said, drawing eyes to him like he and Ty were playing a tennis match. “Please disarm yourselves.”
The goons looked less sure of themselves at this second threat, but still didn’t comply.
“Isn’t that - ?” one goon murmured to the other, likely recognizing his ruler.
Before they could conclude it was, the faerie began whispering in the high tongue of his homeland. Knowing this was the language of enchantments, Ty didn’t hesitate. He aimed, squeezed, and got off a killing shot. At least, it would have been a killing shot, if it hadn’t bounced off the magical shield the fae was spinning. The bullet ricocheted like it had struck steel, hitting Ty in the shin. Ty cursed and staggered to one knee in a bloom of blood.
Crap
, Anso thought. The faerie hadn’t used up his juice powering whatever spell the Forsters had interrupted by crashing in. Because there was little point in shooting him, he joined Ty in targeting the faerie’s momentarily distracted men.
Ty’s injury hadn’t spoiled his aim. In less than five seconds, he and Anso had dropped them all.
The whispering faerie truly didn’t seem to care.
“Shut up!” James cried, wrenching his sparkly wings harder.
The faerie screamed, but what he screamed seemed to be a part of his spell.
The air around him thickened and grew darker. James was having more trouble holding him. Olivia rushed in, apparently deciding she’d see what her little manual weapon could do.
She didn’t get a chance to find out. A form slipped out of the shadows behind her, dressed all in black leather. The figure yanked Olivia back against it and shoved a gun underneath her chin. Anso recognized the person a second later.
Olivia’s attacker was Ellice.
“Hello, cousin,” she said.
She was considerably taller and more muscular than his queen. Olivia struggled, but Ellice subdued her easily, even when Olivia tried to slash at her with the headlamp glass. A twist of Ellice’s wrist disarmed her, after which she cocked her gun.
That wasn’t a sound Anso could enjoy.
“Release Mr. Lajos,” she said to James.
Reluctantly, James let go of the faerie.
“And your gun, please,” she said to Anso.
He couldn’t make the shot, not with her using Olivia as a shield, not even if he’d had the nerve to try. He set down the small waterproof revolver and kicked it behind him. If the faerie wanted a weapon besides his magic, he’d have to retrieve a rifle from one of his fallen goons. Their guns were large and unwieldy. Anso doubted the slender faerie could handle one.
“Cute,” Ellice said of his ploy. “That leaves you, Tykon.”
“It does,” Ty agreed, his pistol still aimed toward her in steady hands. “But I am wondering what you hope to accomplish here.”
Ellice smiled at him. “Well, I
was
looking forward to marrying our hot new king. I thought he’d be more receptive to my kindness once his faithless Outsider queen had used the cover of a disaster to run back to dry land. In truth, I was certain I’d find a way to blame the earthquake on her. That curse idea truly was elegant.”
She let out a humorous sigh. “Alas, you’ve foiled that plan. Now I’m just clearing my way to the throne. I am a Vitul, in case you’d forgotten. Next in line after my idiot father. I haven’t yet decided who’ll be my king, but Mr. Lajos would make a yummy third.”
The legislature would never approve of that. Faeries had enough power in the Pocket. By their own agreement, they weren’t allowed to govern the territories.
This knowledge flickered into Ty’s face as strongly as it did Anso’s.
“Rules can change,” Ellice said in answer to his expression. “Especially when people are desperate for stability. Which they will be once we finish summoning the earth -”
She broke off with a shriek. Olivia had taken advantage of her gloating to jab back at her with some weapon no one had known she had. Furious, Ellice clutched at her thigh, then drew back the hand that had been shoving the gun muzzle underneath Olivia’s jaw. Clearly, she planned to whip it against her head.
The opening was all Ty needed. A pop sounded half an instant before a neat red hole appeared in the center of his cousin’s forehead. A cloud of blood puffed out, and then Ellice fell dreamily backward. Curiously, a cluster of diamonds glittered on the thigh of her leather pants, as if she’d been injured by jewelry.
Her descent was so picturesque that for a second no one noticed Lajos scrambling away.
Magic notwithstanding, he was a crap swimmer. When a new contingent of faeries - the same faeries who’d attended Anso’s dinner - materialized in his path, he didn’t have a chance of evading them.
Lajos’s wings drooped even before the faerie at the front grabbed him by the scruff like a bad puppy.
“Lajos of Maradrago,” he intoned, effortlessly holding him prisoner. “I place you under arrest for unapproved use of magic in a protected territory. Because your offense might have cost many lives, your punishment is to spend the next twenty years in a hell dimension. If at that point you seem to have repented, your case will be eligible for review.”
Anso’s jaw dropped at the swiftness of this sentencing. Everything considered, Ellice might have gotten off lightly. He shut his mouth with an effort when the lead faerie - just barely - inclined his head to him.
“No need to thank me, Your Majesty,” he said. “The fae are happy to provide you this service.”
Along with their prisoner, the faeries then blinked out of existence as abruptly as they’d arrived.
“Useless,” Ty muttered ... but not too loudly.
* * *
No matter what the men did, she didn’t believe Ellice would let her live. The woman was ready to kill her father to gain the throne! She and James had underestimated her willingness to do violence. Olivia was about to console herself with fantasies of sharks devouring Ellice when she spotted two red eyes glowing among the warehouse’s ceiling struts.
For a heartbeat she was frightened. Was some devil glaring down at her? Then she remembered the Meimeyo had ruby eyes. If the mini-dragon was perched up there, maybe it could help. Feeling slightly stupid, she tried to send it a picture of blasting Ellice with its fiery dragon breath. The red glows blinked but didn’t budge. Maybe the Meimeyo had used up its fuel weakening the window. Or maybe Olivia sucked at telepathy.
An object appeared from nowhere within her hand.
Despite her intense surprise, she was disappointed. The mini-dragon had sent her the stupid diamond hairpin, the one it had thrown at the car window. Its end was sharpish, unlike a regular bobby pin, but it was hardly a dagger. Ellice was controlling Olivia too well to try sticking it in her eye.
On the other hand, if all she needed was a distraction ...
Ty’s grip was rock-steady around his pistol, his yellow eyes locked with laser focus on Ellice. He didn’t need a signal from Olivia. He was ready to plug the bitch the instant he got the chance.
Olivia drew a breath, cocked her arm, then slammed the pin so hard into Ellice’s leg that it sank through her thigh muscle.