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At that moment, Smoky swooped in from behind him and plucked the basket away. He gave Vanzir a guarded look. “Don’t trifle with my wife.”
Vanzir snorted. “A little late—we trifled some time ago, but I don’t intend to do so again. Now teach your wife some manners and maybe I won’t go swiping her herbs.” But he was laughing, and—after a tense moment—Smoky let out a chuckle and handed the basket back to the demon.
“Very well. Camille, say thank you to the demon for his help.”
Camille glowered at him. “Big lizard. Okay, okay… thank you and I’m sorry I squirted you with the mister. It just seemed the thing to do at the moment.”
The phone rang, interrupting the chaos, and since I was the closest, I answered. A male voice I didn’t recognize came on the line, but I knew his name when he introduced himself.
“This is Tanne Baum. Am I talking to Delilah or Camille?”
It was Violet’s boyfriend. He was from the Black Forest Woodland Fae in Germany, and according to what Camille and Delilah told me, he had some sort of bond with Violet that allowed him to know she was still alive.
“Hi, and no. I’m Menolly, their sister. What can I do for you?”
A pause. Then, “I have some news on Violet—I performed the ritual I told your sisters I was going to do. I don’t know exactly where she is, but I did come up with some information that might help find her. Can you meet me tonight?”
I glanced at the clock. Dinner with Daniel would probably take a couple of hours, at least. “It will have to be later tonight. Ten P.M. okay for you?”
He paused, then, with a resigned sigh, acceded. “Yes, if we have to wait till then, that will work. I suppose she’s been missing so long now that another couple of hours isn’t going to hurt anything. Where shall we meet?”
I frowned. “What about the Starbucks on Blackthorn Street? It’s on the corner, cross street Wales Avenue. They’re open half the night.” Also, the coffee shop was on the outskirt of Belles-Faire, which meant a shorter drive for us.
Tanne grunted and I heard the scribbling of pencil on paper. “I’ve got it noted down. I’ll see you at ten. And, Menolly, thank you. And your sisters.” And with that, he hung up.
“Who was that?” Camille had her basket of herbs and was sitting at the table, tying them up in bundles to hang from the ceiling out on the back porch.
“Tanne Baum. We’re meeting him at ten tonight, at the Blackthorn Starbucks. He thinks he has a lead on Violet—said something about a ritual he told you he was going to do?”
“Oh thank gods.” Delilah stopped in the middle of frosting cupcakes. She set the piping bag down and turned. “I hope he’s right. This whole mess with Lowestar Radcliffe and Violet has gotten shoved to the side by everything else that’s been happening, and I keep thinking, where is she? Is she all right? What must she be thinking now?”
“Well, we’ll meet him after we talk to Daniel and see what he has to say. Meanwhile, what can I do?” I jumped up, eager to be busy, but the phone rang again. This time it was my cell phone, and it was Nerissa.
“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry but I’m going to have to work late tonight. Chase is, too, but he’s already called Iris to tell her. So don’t wait dinner for either of us. We have a rather sticky situation here—nothing you guys need to know about, but it’s not very much fun. And Chase needs me here to smooth the path over between a disgruntled FBH family and their all-too-volatile OW houseguest. A few broken bones involved, and some very hurt feelings and threats of lawsuits and further assaults.”
“That’s going to take all evening? Sounds like an easy situation to me.” Of course, compared to the crap we’d been through, anything less sounded easy.
“Well, there are extenuating circumstances. Father of the household has a daughter who is seventeen and pregnant from the very handsome, very charming young man from Otherworld. The two obviously are down with each other, but Daddy is threatening to slap him with a statutory rape charge. That’s what started the argument.” Nerissa sounded put out and I did not blame her. That sort of crap was a ridiculous waste of the authorities’ time.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. That’s… yeah. I can see. Tread lightly and try not to break any skulls, though if you need some help, I’ll come down there and shake some sense into the pair of them. What about the girl?” I had a feeling she wasn’t playing any sort of victim in this case.
“She’s enjoying it. I think it tickles her to see Daddy and Lover Boy fighting it out. I have a feeling the little princess doesn’t get much attention otherwise.” Nerissa’s laugh was derogatory, and yet I also sensed a hint of sadness there. “So yeah, don’t count on us for dinner. We’ll grab something here. I’ll call before I’m headed home.”
I punched the End Talk button and slid the phone in the holster hanging off one of my belt loops. My jeans were too tight for me to put anything in the pockets. As I once again turned my attention to the bustle of the kitchen, I thought about mentioning Shamas’s departure but it wasn’t really the time for that. Camille would have to know by tomorrow, but I didn’t want to throw off the rest of the evening. I could tell her afterward—on the way to meet Tanne Baum.
I tried to find a way to help out with the rest of dinner, but there just wasn’t room. Too many cooks, and all that. So I meandered into the living room. The first thing I saw was Delilah’s laptop, sitting open. And then I noticed a file folder next to it, open. I could tell it had come from Carter’s because he used specially colored folders, and a special archival brand, and this was no ordinary cream-colored file.
As I sat down, nosy, and flipped through the articles in the folder, I realized they were about the Farantino Building. That’s right! Camille had said Carter gave them a folder on the building, but then with the disaster in Elqaneve, everything had slid by the wayside. Apparently somebody had decided to dig it out today.
There wasn’t much in the file—a few clips out of the Seattle Post’s business section. A couple from the Seattle Tattler’s social section—the damned rag was going strong fifty years back, long before the Fae and Supes were out of the closet. Then, there were Carter’s notes. Indications of unusual spiritual activity, in his spidery, very clear, handwriting. The dates went back to around 1914… a few years after the building was erected. All in all, there had been some hints of daemonic activity since near the beginning, but it was strung out enough to where, unless someone was specifically keeping an eye on the building, it wouldn’t have been all that noticeable.
So… let’s see.
Fact number one. Lowestar was attempting to wake a sleeping demigod. Which meant that Suvika—the demigod in question—had to be sleeping somewhere.
Hmm… it occurred to me that we hadn’t looked into him much yet. We hadn’t had the time. I frowned. Maybe there was some information online, though I rather doubted it. He was obscure, and all we knew about him was that he was one of the triple lords of debauchery and vice. What pantheon or mythos he hailed from, I wasn’t sure. At first, with his name, I’d thought maybe Hindu or Asian, but that felt off to some degree.
I pulled up a new browser and typed “Suvika” into Howl, a new search engine that was aimed at Supes and dealt first and foremost with magical information. A few seconds later, a handful of links came up. I scanned through them. Most looked like reference material.
