Steal the Moon (11 page)

“Padric, release her,” Declan ordered, holding his nose.

I’d drawn blood. That made me happy.

“She attacked you, Your Highness.” Padric proved he had an excellent talent for stating the obvious. I stayed really still because that knife was starting to cut into my throat just the tiniest bit. “I cannot allow the insult to pass.”

“You can and will obey me,” Declan ordered, his temper on a short leash. “Do you think I cannot handle one small female on my own? I am a warrior of the
sidhe
. Now let her go. This is my brother’s mistress, for the goddess’s sake. If you harm her, he will never come back with us. You know how he is about his females.”

Padric looked me up and down, and I could tell he found me wanting. “I do not understand your perverse interest in human females. They seem so breakable and short.”

I was, compared to Padric. He had to lean down to hold the knife to my throat. I hoped it caused a crick in his neck. Of course at barely five foot four, I was short, period. If Dev didn’t like me to wear four-and-a-half-inch heels, I would reach the middle of his chest. I only barely made it to Daniel’s shoulders. That day I was wearing flats, and Padric loomed over me.

“I do not require your understanding,” Declan declared, and Padric finally let me loose. “You are ordered to remain hidden until such time as I call you. Is that understood?”

Padric nodded and was suddenly gone. I looked around but there was no sign of the big scary Fae and his knife that I could still feel at my throat. I would love to have known how he pulled the invisible trick though. Something like that would come in handy when running a job.

“You will explain.” Declan had managed to wipe himself clean of the blood, and I could see now his nose wasn’t actually broken.

I didn’t pretend to misunderstand. I remembered the episode Dev and I had experienced on the Hell plane like it was yesterday. Dev and his brother had been barely seventeen when they were sent to the Unseelie
sithein
for a bit of torture their mother had decided should be part of their education. Dev was the mortal of the two but he had handled it so much better than his immortal brother. “You left him. You left him to the mercy of those Unseelie monsters to save your own hide, and I promised him I would beat the crap out of you if I ever met you.”

Declan laughed. “Now I see why my brother finds you so amusing. He would enjoy the idea of a woman defending his honor.” His eyes turned serious. “I remember that day well. I was ashamed of my fears, and I lashed out at the brother who had sacrificed to save me pain. I have not forgiven myself for that day, so if you choose to hit me again, I assure you it will be a drop in the bucket compared to what I owe him.”

It meant something to me that he was willing to own up to what he’d done. Ingrid had said there was always two sides to the story. I was willing to listen to Declan.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “I have one more thing I need. It’s in the kitchens and then we hunt down this bitch.”

Chapter Seven

Declan turned out to be a complete baby when it came to mass transit.

He whined about the people, the smell, the metal. I wasn’t sure what he thought a train should be made of, but he really didn’t like the metal. In the end, I had to get off the train and hail a cab because I was sick of his whining. It made me wish Dev had bought me that Porsche. I’d left my own crappy car on the farm for Justin and Angelina to use. I could have used the limo, but I thought that might be conspicuous in the neighborhoods where I was going.

I settled into the cab, and Declan quickly opened the window, pressing his face out of the vehicle. He sat as close to the fresh air as he possibly could. I gave the driver the first address on my list and was happy to learn he didn’t speak a whole heck of a lot of English. That would make it easier to talk to Declan freely without the cabbie calling the loony bin on me. I’d done all my research the night before and found ten possible locations for the aswang’s workplace. There were a couple of Filipino markets, six restaurants, and two butchers. I was going to try the butchers first as all the legends claimed this was the aswang’s chosen profession during the daylight hours.

“Why would the undead creature wish you harm?” Declan asked as though he was trying to get his mind off the fact that he was encased in two tons of steel.

“I tend to piss people off.” I rifled through my printouts. “I think someone hired the aswang. I’m not its normal prey. It tends to feed off of corpses or newborn babies. It leaves an effigy behind to take the place of its victim.”

“What have you done to anger people? Did you refuse their suits?” Declan asked because he probably couldn’t think of any other reason someone could be angry with a female.

“Well, I’ve narrowed it down to a couple of people. It could be the local werewolf alpha. I shot his balls off a few months back. They’ve probably grown back by now, and he could be looking for some revenge. There’s always Lucas Halfer. He’s a demon. I managed to get his dumb ass kicked off the Hell plane. I’ve killed any number of people whose relatives could be out for revenge. I even considered Cecilia, that vampire Dev slept with. She was hot to get him back, and I don’t doubt for one instant she might try to take me out to clear the way.”

Declan smiled with the memory. “Yes, I remember her. She was quite terrifying. I still cannot believe he got into bed with that. He had nightmares about it for weeks. I was surprised to discover him in another vampire’s bed.”

“Well, Daniel’s bite is quite the experience.” I looked out the window, wondering briefly if I would ever get to watch that sight again. I really loved to watch the two of them together. They were so freaking hot. Maybe it made me perverse, but I wanted to watch them, craved it kind of. I had some very specific fantasies. “It’s totally different from Cecilia. It was Danny’s bite that brought Dev’s magic back.”

Declan’s whole face flushed. “You told me he did not fornicate with the vampire.”

“He feeds Daniel on occasion,” I clarified. Despite my best efforts, I hadn’t managed to get them to do more than have Daniel suck on Dev’s neck. I had pointed out that there were other veins he could draw from. “Other than that, they share me. Why would you care even if he did?” I had to ask because the Fae weren’t known for their homophobia.

“If the vampire has forced himself on my brother, then I will be honor bound to kill him.”

I laughed a long time at that one. I was going to have to tell Danny, and he’d have a laugh, too. “Well, let me spare you an ugly death, Declan. I assure you that apart from high-fiving at basketball games, the boys don’t exactly get physical.”

“I can handle one small vampire,” Declan assured me with a snooty arrogance.

Daniel Donovan had once killed twelve vampires in the course of an hour in the arena, and he hadn’t been full of companion blood at the time. He was the first vampire in more than a millennium to earn the title of Death Machine. I once watched him decapitate a vampire with one hand as he flew through the air, and he’d managed to catch the head before it hit the ground. If Declan thought he could take Daniel out with his little bow and arrow, I was willing to buy a ticket to that show.

“I bet you can,” I offered as the cab stopped at our first destination.

I asked the driver to wait as we hustled out of the cab. Declan was back in his Dev glamour as I’d decided that running about town with a character from
Lord of the Rings
was bound to attract attention.

“I can kill the vampire for you if that is your wish, Zoey,” Declan said confidently as he strode beside me. “If he is cruel, then I will slay him and you, my brother, and I will return to the
sithein
together.”

I rolled my eyes and kept walking. “He isn’t cruel. I’m not using Dev to try to escape Daniel. I love my husband. I love your brother, too. We’re happy together.”

Well, we had been until I’d shot my bodyguards and defied both their orders.

I opened the door to the small meat market. There were signs in both English and Filipino in the window. The store was neat and clean, but a butchery still smells like meat.

“Ah, it is a ménage?” Declan asked. “I always thought Devinshea would be happy in this sort of arrangement. I rather thought he would be at the center, however.”

I glanced around the shop. There were only three customers, and I disregarded them. I was more interested in the woman behind the counter. She was a small woman with tired eyes. Weariness was stamped on the lines of her face, but if I had to guess her age, I would put her in her early thirties. It was the tired look that made me suspicious. The aswang was always weary during the day from all the prowling it did at night.

This was the part where one of my werewolf bodyguards would have really come in handy. If Lee had just come with me, I wouldn’t have had to look like a complete idiot. He would have been able to smell the decay that hung about the corporeal undead and I wouldn’t have to identify the fucker myself. There are many creatures in the supernatural world that can perfectly mimic the human form. It’s one of those Darwinian traits that makes a species successful. Werewolves are successful because they can pass for human most of the time. Vampires can pass. Dragons got their asses slain because they were scary. They were no longer on this plane because they couldn’t hide what they were. Humans tend to hunt down and kill what frightens them.

My point is, when dealing with supernaturals passing for humans, there are always tricks to identify your prey. Hunters wrote entire books about it, passing these tomes from generation to generation. In the human world, they’re called superstitions, but in my world, it’s called a good defense.

There were a couple of tricks I’d discovered for identifying the aswang. I could find an elder to mix a special concoction of coconut oil and herbs and leave it on the suspect’s porch. When the aswang walked by it, the oil would boil, thereby unmasking the creature. As I didn’t know any Filipino elders who wouldn’t laugh me out of their homes, nor did I have any suspects, I had to go with option two, which I did, much to everyone’s surprise.

Right there in the middle of the butcher’s shop, I turned my back to the suspect, hiked my skirt up as modestly as I could, and bent over to view the possible ghoul through my legs.

Like I said before, I was going to spend the day looking like an idiot.

“We are doing this for what reason?” Declan asked from beside me. He had taken up the same position, and I was glad I wasn’t the only one looking foolish. “Are we trying to anger the creature by…what is the human term…mooning it?”

I sighed because the chick behind the counter was still human. Just to be sure, I checked out the customers because as long as I was down there, I might as well.

“It would only be mooning if our asses were bare,” I corrected Declan as I stood back up and smoothed down my skirt. That had been a waste of time.

Declan gave me a sly smile. “If your ass had been bare, I would not have mimicked you. I would have stood back and enjoyed the sight.”

“The two of you were hell on your mother, weren’t you?” Everyone was staring at us with looks ranging from disbelief to anger at our disrespect. I gave the crowd a little salute. “Thanks for the cooperation, folks. Carry on.”

I walked out, already pulling out the next address. I glanced up and down the street but the cab was gone. I was never going to find another freaking cab in this part of town. The next address was only a block over, but then they started to spread out. Declan was just going to have to suck it up and get on a bus or walk his ass around town.

“Miss,” I heard a soft voice call from behind me.

I turned to see the woman from behind the counter trying to get my attention. She was slightly shorter than me and up close, she seemed extremely fragile. She was thin to the point of worry, and her eyes hadn’t seen sleep for many days. I immediately felt sympathy for her because it was so easy to see she was in pain.

“I apologize for disrupting your business.” It certainly wasn’t her fault something was out to get me. I was just some crazy white chick making an ass of herself. It was rude so I tried to make up for it. “I won’t bother you again. I promise.”

I began to go, but she caught my arm.

“You are looking for her?” There was hopeful expectation in her quiet voice, and I knew I had caught a break.

“I am hunting her,” I corrected.

“She came only weeks ago,” the woman explained in a haunted voice. “She opened a shop, and I went to welcome her. We are a small community here, and I was looking for news from home. I thought perhaps since we did the same work, we could be friends. She told me how beautiful my baby was…”

Her eyes were glassy with tears, and I understood why she had not slept.

“This creature took your infant?” Declan stood tall, his whole body becoming tense as though he’d finally found a reason to be serious. It hit me that he was responsible for his people’s welfare. Dev had been the priest but Declan was the warrior. He would be the king one day. It was a heavy mantle of responsibility to wear.