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Doctor Nudd hit his broad forehead with a long-fingered hand with lumpy knuckles. “Siobhan, am I to understand you don’t know the difference between a spider seer and a widow spider?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” The three-foot-ten-inch woman in the leather motorcycle jacket and carrot-red mohawk shrugged and holstered her recovered pistol, cleaned of webbing. “Widow spiders don’t have all those creepy eyes. But they’re both spiders.” She shivered dramatically.
The goblin ran his hand through his unruly nut-brown hair, making it stick up in random directions. “That’s like saying a lion-kin and a tiger-kin are the same because they’re both big cats.”
“Well, they’ll both rip your throat out if you irritate them,” Siobhan pointed out.
Doctor Nudd rolled his eyes. “Next time, Pete, speak to me when you need information about rare beast-kin species.”
Pete nodded. “Duly noted. If I need weapons advice, I’ll leaf it to Siobhan,” he said with a wink.
“Was that a racial slur, Doctor Teague?” the small woman said with narrowed eyes.
“From me?” Pete’s face was a picture of innocence.
“Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree there, Fido.”
“Are you saying I should petal my wares somewhere else?”
Siobhan groaned. “Maybe we should have just left you tied to a tree where you belong, eh, boyo?”
Pete chuckled. “Point taken, Tinkerbell.”
The sprite’s squeal of indignation rang through the forest.
Liliana let her tired fourth eyes close as the wolf, the goblin, and the sprite continued to bicker and tease each other in the patch of woods she’d left far behind. It was clear Pete believed her now, and neither he nor his Fae friends had any intention of doing her harm.
She went home, to her own home, to her own warm cozy bed, where everything was exactly where it should be.
Instead of nightmares about Celtic wolves coming to rip her to shreds, she dreamed of a smiling wolf with pretty blue eyes who kissed her like a brother and of a gallant goblin who gave her a sweater.
Chapter 9
Bedridden Badger
The next morning, after Liliana called her clients from the previous day to apologize and reschedule their appointments, she got to work finishing the cleaning and organizing that had been so abruptly interrupted. She smiled and hummed as she worked, thinking of the handsome red wolf she met, his pretty human soldier friend, the detective who was just her size, and the two mismatched Fae. She also wondered about Colonel Bennet, whose fate was connected to all of them.
He seemed to be the point where all their fates met. Random images of the Fae colonel appeared in her mind in association with each of the new people she’d met. Sergeant Giovanni had the closest association. She’d served with him since the Energy Wars. Her loyalty to him had been unshakable when Liliana looked into the sergeant’s soul. Liliana also saw an image of him speaking to Siobhan about making a custom handgun. That’s why he’d been at her shop. Several visions showed him with Doctor Nudd seeking advice.
Liliana’s own fate was also likely intertwined with his in some way, or he wouldn’t keep appearing in her visions. The Fae colonel represented an unknown that could potentially be more deadly than Pete.
But what about Pete? His cordial relationship with the Fae was the most surprising. Especially the part where the colonel protected Pete while encouraging him do a Celtic wolf’s traditional job of protecting innocents from predatory Others. But not paying him or coercing him in any way she could see. Sidhe who had red wolves to command usually used money to twist those instincts, to make the wolf-kin into their own pet killers.
On the other hand, working with military police seemed like a job custom-tailored to an uncorrupted Celtic wolf’s protective instincts. Pete seemed perfect for it. Red wolves were born and bred to protect, at least in the beginning. Solifu, Liliana’s first mother, taught the fall of the red wolves to her daughter as a lesson of caution against the evils of greed. “The love of money is the root of all evil,” the Christian bible said, and Solifu imparted that quote as an important wisdom to teach her daughter, using the fall of the Celtic wolves to illustrate.
Liliana did not agree. Some people desired power, lacked compassion, or even delighted in the pain of others. Jealousy, prejudice, selfishness, and even simple spite—evil had many roots. But she didn’t know that then. She’d been young and listened raptly to her mother’s voice while her spider seer’s eyes saw the ugly truth of the example given.
Long ago, when the Green welled up from the earth in potent springs and the whole world pulsed with power and life, the Sidhe ruled the world. Normals with no magic were prey. The Celts made a pact with the wolf-kin in their midst, food and welcome in exchange for protection. To have a red wolf pack in your village meant safety, and the only cost was an occasional sheep or goat. The deadliest Fae were often unseelie, the night Fae. They hated the red wolves who thwarted them from hunting the Normal humans, their “rightful” prey.
Even now, unseelie Fae hated the red wolves and would kill them if given the chance. Seelie Fae took advantage of that by convincing the red wolves that the enemy of their enemies must be their friends. Red wolves allied themselves with the rulers of the day courts, even though some of them were more dangerous than the unseelie.
In time, the world changed. Technology poisoned the air and water, ripped the earth apart, and the power of the Green faded. Normals came into their own.
Seelie Sidhe, descendants of the ancient land rulers of the day court, sought political power in many lands to bolster the magical power that faded more each decade. For money, the red wolves hunted whoever their seelie Fae patrons ordered them to kill, even Others who did no harm, eventually even the humans they’d protected for generations.
Spider seers knew secrets. And those who rule always have secrets, so Liliana’s people were lucrative targets.
Again and again, spider seers, and many Others the seelie disliked, died with red wolf fangs in their throats.
