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She paused, then handed him Lysanthra. As he touched it, he laughed, and the dagger let out a melodic chime that echoed through the room and began to glow with a pale yellow light. We’d all seen the energy around the sentient dagger before, but never like this. It began to hum and vibrate, and then with a flash, the silver took on a softly burnished glow.
Delilah gasped as he handed the dagger back to her. “What—what… oh, great gods. What did you do? I can feel her so much more—she’s…” With a soft awe in her voice, she whispered, “She’s beautiful. I’ve never heard her sing before.”
Carter cocked his head to one side. “I didn’t realize you had one of the daggers of Luciél.”
“Luciél? And… this is one of a matched set of three that our father gave us.” Delilah glanced over at Camille, who pulled out her own dagger and presented it to Carter.
Carter stroked the metal and smiled softly. “Your dagger is still sleeping. I cannot waken it, just make it more aware once it has chosen to rise and shine. The third, I assume, would be Menolly’s?”
I nodded. “I can’t touch it, though. Obviously.”
“The daggers of Luciél belonged to three Fae sisters—they were full Fae, make no mistake about that. And they ruled one of the barrow mounds Earthside before the Great Divide. They were warrior women and great lovers. Not much is known about them, save for bits and pieces in song and legend. They stood together, bound by blood and honor, and I believe… they died together during a great battle.” He stared at Delilah and Camille’s daggers, a somber look on his face. “You bear the weapons of warrior women. Do not disgrace your legacy.”
“I wonder if Father knew what these were. I don’t know where he got them, but one day he brought them home and said they were for us. Many years back when we were just starting out with the YIA.” Camille hung her head. “I doubt we’ll ever know now… how much he understood of their nature.”
I cleared my throat, not wanting to let the mood fall into a melancholy state. “We have work to do. We can reminisce later.”
And so, fueled by cookies and pot after pot of tea, we spent the next hour planning out our strategy. It felt odd, having an actual plan of action, and part of me wondered how much our luck relied on our haphazard and chaotic nature. Well, we were going to find out. That much was for sure.
By the time we headed out for the Farantino Building, it was six twenty. We were cutting it close. We had an hour and forty minutes until Lowestar decided to play Keymaster-Gatekeeper; only this was real and not Ghostbusters.
The plans had shown that the way in was via a secret passage located in a broom closet. It could also be reached from a passage in Lowestar’s office. The broom closet was our likelier target, given that the daemon probably kept his office highly warded. I had visions of bombs destroying the building if we barged in without an expert.
I’d suggested bringing Daniel in on this, but Camille and Delilah nixed the idea immediately as too dangerous for him. He was, after all, FBH. And they also refused to call Chase to tell him about our plans.
“He’s risking enough with his regular job, now that he has Astrid. With Sharah gone, he’s the only guardian that baby has and we’re not about to put him in any form of danger if we can help it.”
For someone who didn’t want kids, Camille sure had a protective nature toward them. But then again, she’d been our protector when Delilah and I were little, and she’d never grown out of it. I had the feeling she never would.
“Okay, but I have to tell Nerissa where we’re going. And Hanna and Trillian and Roz need to know, too.”
They agreed with that, so while we were on the way over, I called home. I got hold of Roz and asked him to get Nerissa for me. When she came on the phone, my heart leapt at her voice.
“We’re on our way in to try to stop Lowestar, love.” I told her what had gone down at Carter’s. “We don’t have a choice. It’s move tonight or risk him succeeding. We have no idea whether he can actually manage this, but we don’t dare take a chance that he can.”
Her voice was shaky. “I understand and I’ll tell Trillian and Roz. Promise me you’ll be careful? Promise me you won’t do anything stupid?”>I glanced at the others. “We may have freed all his potential sex slaves.”
“You may have? Or you did?”
“Well… did. Or at least all of them we could find. We have them in hiding—if Lowestar finds them, chances are he’ll either kill them or worse. He’s not the type to take this sort of behavior lying down.” I scuffed my foot against the carpet. “By the way, do you know of a Fae woman named Eisha te Kana?”
Carter did a double take. “You’re friends with a paid assassin? Of course I know who she is.”
It was our turn to spit-take. “You mean you actually know her name without checking up on any files? Then she didn’t give me a false name?”
He slapped his palm to his forehead. “If you’ve run afoul of her, consider yourself lucky to still be alive. Eisha’s well paid, but not because she’s terribly discreet. No, she’s willing to take risks—put her own life on the line to go after her target. What the hell happened?”
I shrugged. “I think Lowestar hired her to kill me after I refused to sell my bar. That didn’t work, so she planted a tracer bug on me and another goon—maybe her, too—came after me.”
Carter shook his head. “Probably right on that. She’s never out to get anybody on a personal level, but the woman will do anything for money. Chances are she was paid well to make a hit. And now that she’s failed to kill you twice? She’ll probably be long gone before whoever took out the contract can catch up with her and take her down for failure. I doubt you’ll ever see her again.”
I leaned back. That was reassuring, yet not. She was still out there. Gun for hire. Or in this case, SUV for hire.
“Meanwhile, back to Lowestar and Suvika. Word has filtered through the grapevine that he’s performing the ritual tonight. So I did a little more research—I paid dearly for this information so I hope you appreciate it. The ritual to waken the demigod must take place during the first three days after the dark of the moon, in the autumn-tide. So it’s perfect timing.”
Carter tossed a dossier on the table. “Here’s what I could gather. I think there must be a temple complex beneath the Farantino Building. And I think that’s where they will be performing the rite. To do so takes blood. Human blood. The fresh, warm, sticky blood of a virgin girl and a strong young man.”
He sat back, taking another cookie.
