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Strangely, I somehow didn’t mind it so much.
CHAPTER 15
I sat in my Jag, across the street from the diner, staring at the darkened building on an even darker block. I real y didn’t want to go back in there. I didn’t want to meet Ivana Krask. I especial y didn’t want to go meet Ivana Krask in the diner. The concept of heading into the dark where we knew there were hostile, hard-to-eradicate ghosts with one of the Elder Fae by my side wasn’t my idea of a party. When I saw her scuttling down the street, I pul ed out my cel phone and cal ed Roman.
“Listen, I’m headed in to meet Ivana and take care of some of these freak-ass spirits. If I don’t check back with you in two hours, cal my home and tel them where I went and who I went with.”
I was grumpy. I hated feeling nervous, but this was a pretty gruesome situation, which was why I was doing it on my own. Camil e and Delilah would have my butt, but they’d be safe from both the ghosts and Ivana. And I wasn’t sure which was more dangerous.
I hauled ass out of the car and retrieved the grocery bags from the backseat. Carrying twenty pounds of beef was like carrying a feather for me as I crossed the street. A light touch on my cheek made me look up, and I saw that the snow had started to fal again—a light dusting that drifted down like powdered sugar on a gingerbread cake.
Ivana was standing in front of the diner, staring at it. As I approached, she held up one hand and I stopped, waiting til she turned her head first one way, then the other. After she’d listened for a few moments, she motioned me over.
“You have my payment?” She swiveled her head, staring at the bags. The tiny bump of a nose on her face twitched.
“Yes, twenty pounds of prime rib here.” I set down the bags and stepped back. “You get ten of it now, then the other ten after you finish the work.”
Ivana leaned over and lifted the bags, her sharp little teeth nipping at her lips. After a moment she grunted, sounding almost disappointed. “It is here. The bargain is sealed. Show me the spirits, girl.”
I held up one hand. “Wait.” And ran the second ten pounds back over to my Jag. I didn’t trust her, bargain or not. The Elder Fae knew how to twist words in uncannily astute ways.
When I returned, I walked past her to the diner. “Can you clear the spirits from this place? This is the first task.” As I yanked the freshly boarded-up door open, a soft yawn echoed from within. The ghosts were waiting. I could feel them circling within.
Ivana gazed at the open mouth of the building, and then with a deep laugh, she motioned for me to fol ow her. “Come, Vampyr. You wil perhaps learn a thing or two. Time to earn my meat.”
We entered the building and I could have sworn I heard a rumble from deep in the basement. I wished Camil e and Morio were here. Or Smoky. Smoky would be good. Not much could affect my dragon brother-in-law, and I could trust him. Unlike the freak show in front of me right now.
My feet made no sounds, but Ivana, three steps ahead of me, was stomping across the floor as if she owned the joint. She muttered something under her breath and held out one hand. In the sliver of light from the street, I saw a silver branch appear in her palm, about three feet long and looking for al the world like a tree branch. It glistened, and I realized I was seeing the glow emanating from it, rather than just the sparkle of the metal. Instinctively, I stopped in my tracks.
Silver: not so nice for vampires. But my Fae heritage loved it, and I wished, for the hundredth time, that I could stil reach out and hold it in my hands.
“What’s that?” I cautiously circled away from Ivana.
“Bah. You are Vampyr. You do not use silver.” She waved me away.
“I used to. I am half-Fae on my father’s side. But you’re right, I don’t use silver anymore.” I glanced at the counter as I backed into it.>Whoever she was, whatever she was, no longer mattered. The only thing that I cared about was that Roman said she could help.
On the fourth ring she answered, her voice creaky like bare tree limbs rubbing together on a cold autumn night. “Menol y, so you now cal me?”
“Ivana Krask?”
“Yes, my dear. I’ve been waiting for your cal .”
“How did you know it was me?”
“Cal er ID, my dear. That and I don’t get many cal s. Not in many years.”
“Oh right . . . but you sounded like you were expecting my cal .” Suspicion was my right-hand man and I wasn’t about to let him run away.
Ivana laughed. “Roman cal ed me, dear, and told me to mind my p’s and q’s with you. So I shal .”
But even through the promise of her words, I heard something I hadn’t in a long, long, time. The sound of Elder Fae blood that hearkened back through thousands of years. The Elder Fae, the Wild Fae, were far more primal than Fae like Bluebel , a dryad now living on Smoky’s land, and more feral than Wisteria, the floraed we’d captured and final y managed to kil after she escaped from Queen Asteria.
Just by the tone of her voice I knew she was one of the Elders, the creatures from legend and lore that were so far from human nature they could never assimilate within the modern world: the Bog Man and Black Annis, the Bean Sidhe and Iron Jack. And Horse-Trol and Sleeping Uncle, the Washer Woman and the Flower Maiden . . . al throw-backs to a time in history when my father’s people had been living in smal vil ages and humans were just a blip on the map.
The Elder Fae hadn’t died out, but they were increasingly relegated to smal er areas, to high mountains and distant swamps and crumbling old castles and streams high in the mountains. But even though they were retreating in the face of the modern world, they were far, far more powerful and terrifying than most FBHs ever dreamed.
And Ivana Krask, whatever she might be, held the energy of the Elder Fae in her voice.
