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And the guy with her was Lend's dad.
Didn't see that one coming. And, oh bleep, what would Lend think knowing that his dad had been very serious with one of Lend's least favorite people in the world? Or at least I assumed they were very serious, given the number of photos that they were sucking face in.
"Well, that's interesting," I said.
"What's interesting?" Jack called from the other room.
"Something is interesting?" Lend shouted.
"No! Nothing! I mean, nothing important. Keep looking. "
"I found a vacuum," Lend said.
"Brilliant!" Jack answered. "Just what we needed!"
Sighing, I went for the bed, surprised and pleased to see a deep green bedspread instead of white or gray. Shoving the top mattress to the side, I felt around and. . . my fingers closed around a file folder.
"Bingo!" I shouted, pulling it out and praying it wasn't filled with love letters or some other equally horrifying thing. "Between the mattresses!"
"See?" Jack said, leaning against the doorframe. "Told you I was useful. "
"We'll see. " I walked out into the living room and sat on the floor against the closet door. "Oh, Lend, in the hall we saw Anne talking to an unnamed Unseelie faerie about me. Apparently she's helping them keep me from making a gate. "
Reth's attention snapped to me. "Are you sure it was an Unseelie?"
"Yup. The faerie was in the Dark Court, standing beside the queen. And I know I never saw her at IPCA, not even when they called all their named faeries in. "
"Perhaps this trip was not a waste after all, then," Reth said. "We should go and inform my queen immediately. "
"Not yet. Please. "
He nodded sharply, but his eyes promised I'd have to pay him back soon.
"What do you think that means?" Lend asked.
"I dunno, but it's big. It goes against everything IPCA does to work with paranormals like that. "
Lend's voice sounded tired, even muffled by the closet door. "Okay, that's something, I guess. What did you find in the folder? I'd really, really like to save Raquel and then nab a dark faerie who can break this curse. "
I opened the folder, pulling out several sheets filled with Raquel's precise cursive penmanship. Oh, bleep, they were love letters, they were totally going to be. . . I could feel my cheeks burning by the time I realized that these papers were not anything close to love letters.
I passed the first page under the closet door as I pored over the second. It looked like a detailed accounting of werewolf and human IPCA employees: dates of when they started, specific duties, and for each. . . a date of disappearance. I flipped through sheet after sheet of names and information and dates, passing them on to Lend. Reth was standing in the middle of the room, again filling it more than his size made possible, while Jack juggled coffee mugs.
"Anne" was written at the top of the last page, followed by hastily scrawled notes about things Raquel had noticed, changes she'd seen, conversations she'd overheard. People whose names even I recognized-mostly politicians, and, bleep, the vice president of the United States?
And th
en, the final line: "Must convince Evie to help Light Queen or all will be lost. "
Well, that was fabulous. Way to be cryptic and a traitor, Raquel. "Looks like Raquel joined Team Force Evie to Do Supernatural Crap. " I passed the final sheet under the door and folded my arms as I waited for him to finish reading.
I closed my eyes, stewing over everything. What could make IPCA violate their own charter and work with unnamed faeries? What did they have to gain by conspiring with the Dark Court and keeping me from opening a gate? "I don't get it. Why does IPCA care what goes on with gates?"
Lend shouted, his voice excited. "They don't want you to open a gate because they'd lose their power! What would IPCA be without faeries? Nothing. It wouldn't even be IPCA anymore, it'd probably dissolve into all the various factions again. And there's no way transportation is all they're using the faeries they control for. What if they're using the magic to mess with the whole world? Influence people, control politics?"
I nodded my head, eyes wide as what he was saying sunk in. "They could do anything with what they have now. If I open a gate and the faeries they control leave the world, all that influence and magic is gone. Done. No more power, no more money, no more nothing. "
"So why work with the Dark Court?" Jack asked, catching one of the mugs with his foot. "Shouldn't they be working against all the faeries to keep everyone here?"
