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The night was waning by the time I slammed the front door behind me. I slipped into the living room, startling Delilah. Menolly sat by her side, apparently back from hunting. A glance at the TV made me flinch.
"Blind Date? Honey, you've got to develop some viewing taste. Maybe we should make you watch PBS?"
Delilah snorted as she fished another corn chip out of the bag of Fritos. "You and what army? Mr. Big Bad Demon?"
With a laugh, Menolly burped. She flipped off the TV, looking sated. Obviously, she'd fed well. Delilah beamed, waving a packet of papers.
"I found Louise Jenkins! You want to pay her a visit tomorrow?"
"Hold on a few. Let me get out of these clothes first," I said, dashing up the stairs. I changed into a long satin nightgown and slipped on a matching robe, again blessing Earthside clothing designers. Victoria's Secret was my secret playground. My thoughts flickered briefly to Trillian. He loved silk and satin.
Sighing, I brushed out my hair and slid on a pair of fuzzy slippers. By the time I returned to the living room, the knots of tension from my encounter with Grandmother Coyote were beginning to ease, but my shoulders still hurt like hell. I plopped myself down on the floor in front of Menolly.
"Neck rub?" I asked, leaning back. She wrinkled her nose and smiled. I noticed her fangs were retracted, but there was a smudge of blood on her lower lip that she'd missed. I silently handed her a tissue and tapped my chin. She wiped her mouth. "I take it you had a good night?"
"Very good," she said, rubbing the kinks out of my shoulders. Her fingers were so strong that it occurred to me she might look into becoming a masseuse. Cancel that. The image of her massaging a stranger's neck brought up other thoughts—not so good ones. I backtracked from the idea. Menolly had self-control, but even the best of us could experience a weak moment.
"I found out more than I expected to, and the world now possesses one less perv," she said. "He was about to slice up a hooker who works the back alley around Jocko's. I wiped her memory after I took care of her would-be suitor. In fact, I wiped her memory and told her to go find a good job as a waitress. When she comes to, maybe she'll get herself off the streets." Menolly had a penchant for tracking down the whack-jobs of the world. Since we'd been here, she'd saved the police a great deal of expense and trouble, even if they didn't know it.
I grasped Menolly's hand and gave it a quick kiss. "Good work," I said. "So what did you find out?"
Her eyes glistened, flaring crimson before fading back to the icy gray they'd turned when she'd died. "I talked to one of the men who sleeps in a box next to the restaurant—not Chase's informant, but a buddy who was drunk when Chase interviewed him. He told me what he forgot to tell Chase. Seems three figures came racing out of the back door in the wee hours of the morning, dragging Jocko by a rope. They left him in the alley before fleeing. My man was sleeping it off behind a pile of cardboard boxes. But it's bad. Big, bad news."
I held my breath. "As in?" .
"As in a trio of demons. From the descriptions, I figured out what we're looking at. Starting with a Psycho Babbler."
"Oh great," I moaned. Psycho Babblers were reptilian, able to shift into the most gorgeous of mortals. They were similar to incubi, but they never bothered to have sex with their victims. They just charmed them into a violent and bloody death. And they were stupid. Real stupid.
"It gets even better," she said with a grim smile. "The second one's a harpy, and that's just nasty. But the third… we're in worse trouble than we thought." Her nostrils flared, and her fangs extended just a smidgen. Something had my sister excited. Delilah put down her book, looking grave.
My spirits sank. Grandmother Coyote said Shadow Wing had sent scouts through the portals, and it seemed she'd been telling the truth. Maybe I had more chance to find that demon finger than I thought.
"Okay, I'll bite. Who's our third man?"
"Remember when Father told us about a demon he'd fought on one of his scouting missions? The one who killed Uncle Therasin? He showed us the demon's image in the Crystal Mirror."
"Oh hell," I said, leaning back. "Bad Ass Luke."
Menolly nodded vigorously, her beads clicking loudly. "That's right. Ladies, Bad Ass Luke is in town."
As I set the book and bones on the coffee table, Menolly's eyes widened. Delilah leaned in for a look.
"Okay, let me add fuel to the fire," I said. "Grandmother Coyote told me that Shadow Wing is sending scouts through the portals—hence our lovely trio of miscreants. Trillian was right—Shadow Wing's on the move. Not only that, but I found out what kind of demon he actually is. Ladies, we now have a Soul Eater at the helm of the Subterranean Realms."
It got very quiet for a moment, then all havoc broke loose as the front door burst open. In a blur of movement, Delilah was standing, holding a gun in one hand, a long knife in the other. Menolly hissed and soared up to the ceiling, her arms spread to dive in attack. Running on instinct, I called out to the Moon Mother, and energy raced into my hands, crackling as I armed myself with the silver lightning.
"Show yourself or you're a dead man," I yelled, hoping that my shout would make up for my lack of confidence.
"Gladly." The figure stepped out from the swirl of rippling energy.
I lowered my hands. Oh hell. I did not need this—not now. Not ever. My heart started to pound, and my knees turned to rubber as Delilah lowered her weapons and Menolly sputtered something I couldn't catch.
"Please tell me I'm imagining things," I said, fighting my instinct to race over and dive into the Svartan's arms. Trillian bowed, his lips full and pouting. I wanted to bite into them right there but managed to restrain myself. "What are you doing here?" I asked. "Who told you that you were welcome in our house?"
"Your father asked me to check up on you and deliver a message for him. He's decided that you need somebody outside the agency to play delivery boy and bodyguard. There's a bad wind on the rise, my sweet, and you and your sisters are right in its path."
As he stepped fully into the light, I could see that Trillian hadn't changed since I'd last seen him. He was as gorgeous as ever. Svartans—the dark-souled cousins of the Sidhe world—were creatures of beauty. With skin the color of obsidian and hair that shone somewhere between silver and blue, they were luminous, radiating sex and power and chaos. And I knew all too well how deep this particular Svartan's beauty ran. I'd seen him naked too many times. Or too few, depending on how I looked at it. Whatever the case, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, Trillian was a magnificent sight.
