“Why did he kill her, do you think? What was his motive?”
“We were coming over to talk to her about Paulo’s disappearance. He must have found out and decided to kill her before she could talk to us. We think we know why they kidnapped Amber, and what they want.”
I motioned for him to edge away from Yugi. Chase told the FH-CSI team to clean up the scene, and we headed back to the house. Along the way I told him about the Koyanni, shortening it, but keeping the gist.
“So why are they after Amber?”
“Because . . . when Camille did some scrying and Amber’s image came up, both of us recognized what she’s carrying around her neck. One of the spirit seals—and it must be the one that the Trickster first gave, then took away, from Nukpana’s people. Somehow, Amber came across it, and they want it back.”
“Crap. You mean a bunch of crazed coyote shifters possess one of the spirit seals? That’s as bad as the demons getting hold of it.” He leaned against the fence, sighing. “What the hell are we going to do?”
“We check out the magic shop. Meanwhile, you verify that this guy killed Mary Mae for me. I know he did . . . but I want your kind of proof.”
“All right. But tell me this: why is Amber still alive if they got what they wanted?”
I shook my head. “That’s as much your guess as mine. We have no idea. But we can’t press our luck. We have to find her before they decide they don’t need her anymore and kill her. And if the seal’s truly still around her neck, that means they can’t use it right now. I hope.”
As I trudged inside, avoiding the lingering traces of Wolf Briar in the air, Chase headed back to Yugi and his team.
Camille was in the living room, sorting through papers on Mary’s desk. She looked up as I entered the room and pointed to a large leather-bound book in her hand. “Paulo’s Day-Timer. The dude had quite a busy schedule. Appears he was a handyman and kept all of his appointments in here. And he was organized; he checked them off one by one as he finished.” She grinned and waited.
I frowned. “How does that help us?”
“
He checked them off when he finished them
—both work and recreation appointments.” She waited again, then said, “Cripes . . . Delilah, we can trace back to the last appointment he completed and find out where he was headed next!”
Duh me!
I thunked my forehead. “Sorry, still a little blood-crazed from taking down the shifter. Yes, that will be a tremendous help. We can talk to his last contacts and follow the trail from there. Where was the last place he went?”
“Hmm . . . he finished up a job over on Elm Street . . . then . . .” She looked up. “He has an appointment to go jogging in Rodgers Park after that. It’s not checked off. Hmm . . .” She picked up the phone and dialed a number. I started to ask who she was calling but after a moment, she said, “Katrina, this is Camille. Do you know who Paulo used to go jogging with?” A pause. “Really? Thanks.”
Hanging up, she waited a second, then picked up the receiver and dialed again. “Hello, is this Mrs. Davis? Hi, I’m with Franco Repair, and I’m just following up to make sure that Paulo Franco made the appointment at your house . . . let’s see . . . it would have been ten days ago . . . He did? Good, and was everything satisfactory? . . . Oh good. Now, I have one last question, and it may seem strange, but I assure you, I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t necessary. Did Paulo seem odd in any way? . . . Well, the reason I want to know is because he’s missing, and we’re trying to trace his steps after he left your house. We know he returned home, but we were hoping he might have said something . . . You weren’t? You didn’t? Okay, well, thank you for your time.”
“Let me guess: he showed up, did the job, nothing unusual, and she really wanted off the phone.” I grinned. “Trust me, this is why you ambush people in person. They give a lot more clues to what might have happened if you can see their faces. But I think in this case, she was telling the truth. He wouldn’t have checked off her appointment if something had interfered with him on the way home from there.”
“I guess . . . we check Rodgers Park? I might be able to cast a trace spell from there.” She gathered her things, and we headed out to the car, where I flipped open my netbook and pulled up Google Earth.
“Here it is—not far. Let’s head out, and then we’ll drop in at the magic shop.” I let out a long sigh. “I just keep thinking what those maniacs might want with a spirit seal. And the fact that they’re willing to kill in order to cover up their steps isn’t a good sign. Not at all.”
By the time we hit the park, I was getting sick of chasing down leads only to find they were washouts. We stood on the edge of the green, staring at the forested land. How did we ever expect to find anything here? I shook my head, ready to turn and pack it in when Camille held up her hand.
“Wait. I smell something. It’s lingering in the air . . . almost like . . .” She took off at a run, and I followed her. As we headed around a bend in the road toward an opening in the tree line, I started to smell something myself, but for the life of me, couldn’t figure out what it was. Like honey, or flowers, or something appealing. Definitely not Wolf Briar.
We slowed as we entered the copse, surrounded by cedar and maple, fir, and here and there an oak tree. The smell of flowers still lingered, drawing us in, and while it wasn’t a compulsion as in being charmed, the draw was there.
At another bend, a dirt path forked off to the left, away from the sidewalk, and I took over the lead, motioning to my wrist blade. Camille nodded and slipped behind me.
The path wove through a small glen and then, ahead, we saw an opening—though it didn’t look big enough to be a ball field or any such man-made glade. As we came to the edge of the wood and peeked out, there, in the center of a small opening, sat a huge boulder. And atop the boulder rested a creature who looked ethereal, and yet, an edge of danger clung to her.
Her hair was gold, shining in a shaft of cold sunlight that broke through the tree canopy, and she was willowy, tall, and fragile-looking. Yet, when she raised her head and gazed at us with weeping eyes, I could see a cold light behind her stare, an icy, ruthless passion. But she merely motioned for us to enter the glade and pointed to a tree trunk.
We sat, waiting.
After a moment, she spoke. “You are not fully human. You are from the Tribe Who Left?”
Camille and I glanced at one another. That was one way to describe it. “Yes, we’re from Otherworld,” I said. “Our mother was human. Our father is of the Sidhe. And you are . . . ?”
“Dryad. Earthborn. Bound to this wood. Or what there is left of it.” She heaved a great sigh and dried her eyes. “Every day I come here and mourn the loss of the land. And every day I guard what’s left of this patch—this
park
, as
they
call it. I observe.”
“We smelled your perfume,” I said gently. “We didn’t mean to intrude on your mourning.”
“You smelled my fragrance? Then we have a connection. Only those who connect with me in some way can smell my violets and freshly mown grass. What is it you seek?” She delicately wrapped one leg beneath her, folding her knee and pulling it to her chest as she balanced on the granite rock.
I knew better than to ask her name. Dryads, like floraeds, were dangerous and unpredictable. They could also be immensely helpful if they chose to be. “We’re seeking information on a man who may have come through this park a fortnight ago. He was a werewolf. He never returned home, and this was the last place he was expected to be. He never checked his appointment off the calendar, so we’re wondering if he made it here.”
“He would have been jogging, possibly with a friend,” Camille added. “We think a coyote shifter might have abducted him.”
“Coyote shifter?” The dryad’s eyes grew narrow. “You mingle with those scum? Then get the hell out of my garden, or I’ll hurt you.” As she jumped to her feet, standing atop the rock, a great thorny vine came lunging out of the foliage behind her, aiming right toward us. It looked nasty and dangerous, and the thorns were a good four inches long.
“Wait! Please!” We scrambled off the trunk, and I pushed Camille behind me. “We just want information. We aren’t friends of the dark shifters!”
The vine stopped, hesitating. The dryad tapped her foot on the stone. “You say he was a werewolf?”
“Yes,” I said, edging back yet another step. The hovering vine made me nervous, and I didn’t trust the dryad not to send it whaling away on us. “He was a beta wolf . . . he would have been easy prey for those wielding Wolf Briar.”
The vine began to retreat, but only to the edge of the wood. We could still see it. The dryad squatted on the rock, wrapping her arms around her knees. I wondered, briefly, how her flimsy gossamer dress—so sheer it was see-through—could keep her warm in this weather, but she didn’t seem bothered by the chill, and I didn’t want to chance insulting her with another question.
“Wolf Briar.” Her voice was low. “Someone is using Wolf Briar. I smelled it—close to the time you are talking about. It stank up my trees, and I remember trying to hunt down whoever left the trail, but they were quick and not easy to trace. I stopped when I came to the edge of the wood.”
“We think the coyote shifters used it to attack our friend. He had a pregnant fiancée. We found her dead today, before she could talk to us. We know the coyote shifters—the Koyanni—killed her to shut her up. They didn’t want her to tell us anything that might endanger their plans.” I decided to take the chance. “Will you help us? Will you show us where you smelled the Wolf Briar being used?”
She stared at us, unspeaking, for a moment. Then, with a single nod, she jumped off the boulder and motioned for us to follow her as the thick undergrowth next to her parted, revealing a hidden path.
The dryad led us through a winding trail until we came to a small field with a track in the center of it. She pointed. “He was there. I was watching him because he seemed odd, not human, and I watch all who wander the paths. He was alone, by the way. No friend came with him.”
“Nobody?”
She shook her head. “None. I was about to leave him be when a group of shifters came off that path across the way.” Gesturing, she pointed to one of the sidewalks. “They raced over to him, and I heard a noise and smelled the Wolf Briar. I hid, so I didn’t see what happened. When I returned some time later, there was no sign of the werewolf nor the shifters. The Wolf Briar was still drifting on the breeze.”
Camille and I headed over to the track. It didn’t look well-used, most likely due to the fact that we’d had rain for most of the past two weeks and the track was dirt. Most joggers seemed to prefer the city streets or park sidewalks when they ran in the rain, and Seattle joggers didn’t let rainstorms stop them from getting out on the streets.
As we circled the quarter-mile path, I stopped and pointed off to the side nearest the walkway that the dryad had pointed out. Something shiny lay in the grass. We headed over and knelt beside whatever it was.
“A watch,” Camille said, lifting it up. She turned it over. “It’s inexpensive, but look—an inscription. To Paulo, the love of my life.” She paled. “This was Paulo’s watch.” Standing up, she shaded her eyes and looked to the opposite tree line. I followed suit.
“Something must have been waiting here for him, come out, dragged him off. What’s over there?” I turned toward the dryad, who had followed us out onto the grassy meadow.
She frowned for a moment. “Parking lot,” she said after a pause. “Cursed machines. Tear up the ground, tear up the earth to lay pavement. Humans need to learn how to walk again.”
I didn’t say anything, not wanting to get her off on a tangent against cars. I rather liked my Jeep, even though it wasn’t the best thing for the environment, and by now, cars were an integral part of human society, although the new hybrids were winning my heart for their attempts to shift away from polluting the world.
“Coyote shifters got him here. Took him to the parking lot . . . this was Paulo’s last free stop, I’ll bet you.” Camille hung her head. “Poor guy. And poor Mary Mae and her baby.”
My cell rang, and the dryad jumped back as if she’d been burned. I moved out of her way to answer it. “Yeah?”
“Chase here. We found something you need to see. It’s not pleasant.”
“What is it?” I was getting tired of
unpleasant
. I could really go for something a little nicer right now. Maybe even downright fun.
“You mean,
who
was it. We think it’s the remains of one of your werewolves. I say
think
because what’s left isn’t in very good shape. Get over here ASAP.” And with that, he signed off.
I flipped my phone shut and turned to Camille. “We’ve been summoned. Chase’s men found something.” I motioned to the dryad. “We thank you for your help—we really appreciate it. If there’s anything you ever need, let us know, and we’ll see what we can do.”
She blinked. “You mean it?”
Oh great. Earthside Fae were notorious in the way they latched on to the words “thank you” as a promissory note. Usually, it was a good month or two before people called in their markers, and when we were lucky, they said, “Forget about it,” and let it go as a favor. But she was serious.
“Yeah. What are you thinking?”
She blinked, then broke into a sly smile. “I could use a new garden to tend. I’m tired of the space closing in on me here. Find me a place where the trees are still wild and free, and I’ll move.”
Wow. That was unexpected. I choked down my first thought, which was,
Oh yeah, we’re great little Santa’s helpers,
and forced a smile to my lips. “We’ll do our best. It may take a little time. Do you mind cold winters?”
The dryad gave me a look like I had just asked her if she encouraged strip mining. “No . . . does it look like the cold bothers me? You may call me Bluebell. I’ll be waiting here for you. Don’t take too long. Please.” And with that, she vanished into the undergrowth.