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CHAPTER 4
By the time we arrived home, it was close to eleven thirty. Delilah peeked out from the parlor. "Is it safe to come out?" she said.
Menolly grinned. "I'm not going to bite, and Camille is still in one piece, so get your ass out here, Kitten." When Delilah joined us, Menolly added, "I notice you weren't there lending me your undying support tonight."
Delilah let out a laugh that was almost a purr. "Undying is the operative word. I thought that I should stay home in one piece to pick up what was left of Camille when you got done with her. I'm glad that you aren't upset, though. Next time—if you go—I'll be happy to go along."
Shrugging, Menolly said, "I'm not sure if I'll go again. Maybe. We'll see. I'm going downstairs and change. It's time to go hunting." She blew us a kiss and disappeared through the secret passage that led to the basement.
I watched her go, feeling the bloodlust surround her, the hunger a palpable force that radiated like a brilliant gem from her center. It had filled the room at the meeting earlier, and it was fascinating to feel the different levels of thirst that rolled through the room. After a moment, I turned back to Delilah.
"Find anything out about the Jenkins woman yet?"
She stood and stretched, her face a mask of bliss as she rolled her neck and arched her back. "Nope. I was watching Sex and the City, but I'll get to work now. I can surf the net on my laptop while Tyra's on."
My sister napped off and on through the day in her office, but like any cat, she spent part of the night awake. She'd developed an addiction to late-night TV, a realm that I avoided at all costs. I loved movies and had been gorging on them since we first crossed over Earthside, but Delilah had a taste for the lurid that eluded me, an odd contrast to her noncombative nature. At least at night I was usually asleep. Delilah liked company during the wee hours, and she'd cajoled Menolly to sit through more episodes of Jerry Springer than I wanted to count.
"Louise shouldn't be too hard to track down. When are you leaving to visit Grandmother Coyote?" she asked, giving a little shudder. "I don't envy you, that's for sure. Those Elementals scare the hell out of me."
"You are such a wuss," I said fondly. "But I love you anyway." I stared out at the blustery night. The wind was whipping leaves off the trees. We had less than a week before the full moon. Delilah would be useless that night, Menolly would be on the prowl, and I would be at the zenith of my power and more than a little crazed. "I'd better go now. I don't think she hangs around the woods during the day—too much chance some idiot with a gun might catch her."
Delilah shuddered. "Better you than me. Be careful, Camille. People prowl these woods too, and humans can be as dangerous as Elementals. There are a lot of evil men in the world."
I gave her a long look. Since we'd arrived Earthside, Delilah's unfailing optimism had started to crack ever so slightly. "I'll be careful, I promise." I gave her a kiss on the forehead before heading toward the stairs. A veiled shriek from the wind caught my attention, and I stopped to glance out the window at the leaves that rustled and whirled to the ground.
She followed my gaze. "There's an ill wind blowing tonight."
I closed my eyes. Delilah was right. The wind was filled with graveyard dust and the footsteps of the dead walking. As I headed up to my room, I thought about the events of the evening. We might have been considered disposable before, but with Shadow Wing looming in, the OIA was going to need every hand at the ready, even if they didn't realize it yet. And we were leading the brigade.
My apartment on the third floor reflected my many moods. Four rooms and a bath, I'd turned one into a magical sanctuary, which included the only balcony in the house. With a table and chair under a rainproof awning, I could sit beneath the starlight and recharge myself.
As I slipped out of my work clothes, framed by the chill of the night, my body ached. Last time I'd had sex had been back in Otherworld. Too long for my tastes, but no one Earthside had caught my fancy. In fact, nobody had touched me since my last meeting with Trillian. And now he was inching back into my life, even if only through a lone message.
A Svartan, he was one of the dark Fae from Svartalfheim, a city in the Subterranean Realms. But Trillian had turned sides and moved to Otherworld. We met under a dark moon one night when I was feeling particularly vulnerable, and from the first touch, he'd left me spoiled for anyone else. Trillian had stolen my heart as easily as he'd claimed my body. I'd ripped myself away from him when I realized what was happening, but once you've been with a Svartan, there's no going back.
He'd pursued me for months, and I finally ended up taking some time away from work, hiding at home protected by my sisters until I felt strong enough to stand on my own. But since then every man had paled in comparison, and I still craved the passion with which Trillian had chained me. He was a bad boy and I knew it, but I missed him.
I ran my fingers down my body, lingering over my breasts as my nipples stiffened. Catching my breath, I forced myself to drop my hand. I didn't have time to indulge my fancy. I had work to do.
I opened my closet and dug through until I found what I was looking for—an ankle-length black skirt, a long-sleeved blouse that would keep me warmer than a fur coat, and a spider-silk cape that reached my knees. All were Otherworld garments, woven to glide through the forest with ease and to keep out the cold.
Sliding into the skirt and top, I laced up a pair of leather ankle boots and stared at myself in the mirror. My face was a pale shadow against the flowing cape that would offer me easy passage through the woods, unfettered by the thick undergrowth that grew in this area. And my eyes glowed brilliant violet against the raven hair and pale skin. At times they were flecked with silver—when I had been working magic for a long time, or when I walked the paths of Otherworld.
With a sigh, I sank to the edge of the bed, homesick. Earth might have been my mother's home world, but it wasn't mine. And yet, neither was Otherworld. I knew Delilah and Menolly felt the same way. We were caught between worlds, caught between races, caught between dimensions. When we were children our playmates taunted us, calling us Windwalkers—beings who never settled in one place, who never belonged to a land or a clan.
When we'd joined the OIA, we'd hoped that it would bring us closer to our father's people. But our strangeness had only been accentuated since Menolly had been captured and transformed. And now… now there was no going back, even if we wanted to.
Bracing myself, I strode to the door and raced out into the night. I jumped in my Lexus—a steel-gray shadow hidden in the mist that was rising—and pulled out of the driveway, glancing up at the moon, who was peeking through a break in the clouds. We were bound, she and I, by the oaths and trials I'd taken during my initiation. I could always count on the Moon Mother to watch over me and to drive me into a frenzy when she went full and the Hunt was on the prowl.
Grandmother Coyote lived in the woods on the outskirts of Belles-Faire. She'd been drawn to this place because of the portals, and she guarded one outside of the OIA's jurisdiction. By day she was just an old woman reading fortunes in a dim little shop on the wrong side of town. By night, she came into her own, because Grandmother Coyote was one of the Hags of Fate. She neither wove nor created destiny but simply watched it unfold. Sometimes, for a price, she would look at the strands and read what was most likely to happen.
Once I reached the edge of the wood, I stepped out of the car and closed my eyes, dropping my head back to catch the wind. "Show me the way," I whispered, and the stars heard me from behind their cloud cover and answered. The sound of singing echoed from deep within the stand of cedar and fir.
I moved through the bushes like a fish through water as branches slid away from the material of my cape. Creeping around thick cedar and fir trunks, I clambered over a leaf-strewn windfall that blocked my path, taking down a spider's web strung between two trees. The arachnid landed on my hand, and I gave her a little tap and sent her on her way, watching as the striped orb weaver clambered along one of the remaining threads and began reweaving her net. Like all of my father's kin, I could see in the dark, perhaps not quite as clearly as a full-blood Sidhe, but enough to recognize colors and shapes with little difficulty.
After a few minutes, the huckleberry and bracken fern gave way, and I entered the center of a small grove, circular and mossy and open to the sky. I paused, feeling my way through the energy. Magic ran thick here—the magic of old woodlands and dark lords and deep secrets. Some FBHs could feel it. Some of the human witches and pagans had flocked to my store, their eyes shining because what they so long believed had come true, though in ways that often shocked them.
I reached out, searching, and then I felt her. Grandmother Coyote. She was watching from behind one of the lone oaks that dotted the copse.
