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"I really have to visit your home world sometime," Chase said, following me. He grumbled all the way. "I guess we'd better check. Where is he again?"
"In the room next to my office, around the corner. I tied him up with strapping tape."
"Strapping tape?" He chuckled. "Not quite the same bondage techniques you practice on Trillian and fox boy, huh?"
Great. Now he was emulating Trillian. Morio was from Japan, and he was the second member of my triad. A youkai-kitsune, or fox demon, he was helping us against the Demonkin and he'd won his way into my heart.
I swung around and held out my hand. "Don't you start picking on Morio like that. It's bad enough when Trillian still does it. And what we do in the bedroom is none of your business, Johnson. And for another thing, I'm no dominatrix. You just keep your mind on Delilah's toy box and out of mine."
He gave me a crooked smile. "Delilah doesn't have a toy box, my dear, and you know it. Except the one containing her fur mice and scratching toys."
"That's your problem, not mine." I repressed a smile, wondering if Delilah's decidedly more sedate nature bothered him. Or maybe he was relieved. I hadn't asked. Besides, Delilah would tell me if they were having problems in the bedroom. We were all a bunch of gossips when it came to our love lives.
As I rounded the bend in the hall that led to my office, I noticed a breeze wafting through the corridor. Delilah's PI suite was upstairs. Surely she wouldn't have left the door open if she'd come in through the back?
I was about to call up the stairs to see if she was in the building when Chase tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. A trail of blood led along the corridor from the back door to the storeroom next to my office. Several yards of used and torn strapping tape littered the floor, and the room looked like it had been hit by a whirlwind. I raced over to my office. Papers and books were everywhere, shredded into a gazillion pieces. My strongbox had been pried open, and all the money was gone.
As I gazed at the damage that would take me hours to clean up, Chase put his hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Camille."
"You aren't half as sorry as that damned goblin and Sawberry Fae are going to be when we catch them," I said. "They're going down. We'll find them, and when we do, I'll feed them to Menolly." When in doubt, shoot first, ask questions later.
Chapter Three
A fracas up front interrupted us as I was taking inventory as to what else might be missing from my office. I dashed around the stacks with Chase so close on my heels that he managed to step on the hem of my velvet skirt. The skirt draped down to the floor in back, up to my thighs in front. The clerk had called it an asymmetrical hemline in the store, but in my opinion it was just annoying.
"Get off my skirt, you dolt." I shot a glare over my shoulder, skidding to a halt as I tried to prevent any rips.
Chase bumped into me. "Nice mouth," he muttered but lifted his foot.
I shook out the hem and rounded the corner, straining in order to see what was going on.
The stacks looked clear, though Henry Jeffries was taking the opportunity to root through the Golden Age of Science Fiction section. An SF freak who breathed Asimov and Heinlein, he'd read just about every pulp book that ever made it to the shelves, although he didn't stop there. He'd worked his way through Greg Bear's bibliography and Anne McCaffrey and just about anybody else who could remotely be considered fantasy or SF.
We'd spent numerous afternoons exchanging stories while he tried to flirt with Iris, the Finnish house sprite who lived with my sisters and me, and who helped me out at the store. Apparently, the short time he'd spent talking to Feddrah-Dahns had been enough to satisfy him, and now he was oblivious to whatever the ruckus was, blissfully immersed in an ink-stained heaven.
The shouting echoed from the seating area near the front. Various book groups, as well as the Faerie Watchers Club, met at the Indigo Crescent to discuss their monthly reading choices. And it was in the seating area where I'd ensconced Feddrah-Dahns, sandwiched between two old leather sofas. And now, in front of him, the back of her knees skimming a reupholstered love seat sporting a delicate cabbage rose jacquard, stood Lindsey Cartridge, a friend of mine.
"Please, just let me touch your horn—I just want to touch it once."
She sounded so desperate that I cringed, debating on whether I really wanted to find out what the hell was going on. But there was no going back. This was my shop, and I was responsible for keeping the peace.
I rounded the half wall just in time to see Lindsey make another grab for the unicorn's horn. Freakin' hell, she could get herself gored! Feddrah-Dahns pawed the ground, shaking his head to keep out of her reach. Everybody else had stepped back, worried looks on their faces.
And well they did to worry. Unicorns were dangerous and unpredictable. All this "gentle creature looking for purity" bullshit was just one more way that Earthside history had tried to fluffy up a powerful, sensual creature, just like they'd done with my father's people before we returned out in the open. Dancing nature sprites hugging the trees, we weren't. That was more the elves' territory.
A pissed-off unicorn was the last thing I wanted in my shop. He could easily rear up and club Lindsey with his front hooves, or gore her with his horn. And I knew my store insurance wouldn't take kindly to a claim for "assault by unicorn." Not in the least.
I dashed over and insinuated myself between the two, bracing Lindsey by her shoulders. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Don't you have any common sense at all, girl?"
Immediately turning to Feddrah-Dahns, I said, "I'm sorry. Please, she has no idea of how to behave around a creature of your stature."
He blinked, his molten eyes warming me right through to the cockles. "She seems to be under the mistaken assumption that I can make her get pregnant," he said, speaking in Melosealfôr. "Sounds like she's been listening to fairy tales."
I stared at him. "Wonderful. I had no idea that rumor was floating around."
"Well, I'm fairly certain that's what she asked of me. It's just not physically… she'd be terribly hurt." Feddrah-Dahns looked as startled as I felt.
I turned back to Lindsey, lowering my voice. "Did you really ask him to help you get pregnant?" If she had, I certainly hoped she'd had something in mind other than the B-grade porno flick that was racing through my mind. And, apparently, Feddrah-Dahns's. Oh yeah, I could even envision the title: Horn of Plenty, or some such schlock.
