Talia shifted in her chair. “You mean none of the victims were drugged or restrained in any way? That seems unusual.”
“Oh, they were restrained, but there’s no evidence that they fought back. There are marks on the hands and wrists that show they may have been shackled—except for the one who was killed at home. But the tox screens showed no drugs or recognizable sedatives. We can’t test for all of the herbal drugs or magical sedatives, though, so we can’t rule that out.”
She glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall. “We have less than a week before the killer’s due to strike again. Five weeks, and not a shred of evidence that we can find to link the victims to any one thing or place in particular, except for the fact that they’re all members of the magic-born. I’m afraid you’re running on borrowed time if we want to prevent another murder. Somehow, I don’t think this killer’s going to go away all that easily.”
With that, she made her good-byes, and we were left with a mess in our laps.
Chapter Three
Herne was silent as Angel escorted Maria out to the elevator. He refilled his coffee cup and chose a chocolate doughnut from the plate on the counter. As he settled back in his chair, Angel returned from the waiting room.
After a moment, Herne set down his cup and the doughnut and picked up the first folders. The deputy mayor had left at least fifteen files, and I figured five of those were copies of the case files and the rest were general notes.
“Well, I guess we have a priority case on our hands. What do we have on the calendar for this week?” He glanced at Angel.
“We finished the Luck case, and we just have the Vine case left, but they’re gone on vacation for two weeks and asked that we postpone the investigation till they get back.” She paused as Herne’s phone rang.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” he said, answering the call as he moved to the other side of the room.
I leaned forward, staring at the case files. They seemed to loom large in my sight, and I could feel the fear and worry of the officers who had prepared them. As I stared at them, the room began to spin and…
…The next moment, I was crouching on a barren slope of a mountain, under the blazing sun.
It blinded me, beating down relentlessly. I tried to shade my eyes, tried to see through the glare but it was so brilliant that I could barely keep it at bay. A layer of dirt and grime covered my arms, and I was holding my sword—Brighid’s Flame—balancing the point on the ground. Every cell of my body felt burnt and crisped, dry like autumn leaves, and to my left, a dark army of clouds was closing in. All I could feel was an overwhelming sense of despair, as though I had lost something precious and couldn’t find it.
“Where are you?” I whispered. “Where are you?”
A susurration of wind gusted by, hot and unrelenting. In its wake, I heard a faint voice answer. I’m still alive. I can’t move. Help me, Ember…I don’t know where to run.
“Run to the shadows,” I said, straightening up. “Run into the darkness, where you can hide.”
There are monsters in the darkness, came the whisper.
“There are monsters, yes, but your only way to safety is through the shadows. Into the shadows, now, and I will find you.” I stood, knowing I had to descend into the chaos. But before I could move, a flash of sunlight hit my eyes, scorching my sight.
I jerked away and the next thing I knew…
I was back in my chair once again, sitting in the break room.
I jumped up, panicking.
“What’s wrong?” Angel asked, worry clouding her face. “Where were you? It’s like you checked out for a few minutes.”
I tried to catch my breath. Slowly, I stopped shaking. I tried to sort out my thoughts. “I don’t know what happened. I had a vision, I think.” Ever since I had started working for the Wild Hunt, I’d occasionally had visions—flashes that were usually visual premonitions, though they were often more metaphor for the warning than actual depictions of events to come.
“What did you see?” Yutani asked. He motioned to Talia. “Get her some water, please.”
As Talia crossed to the sink, Yutani brought up a notepad on his laptop. “Go ahead, tell me what happened and I’ll write it down for you.”
I stumbled over what I could remember—giving him every detail that I could think of. “I felt…like I was inches from shattering. You know how you feel when you’re burned out and running on the last dregs? I felt scorched.” I accepted the water from Talia. “Thank you. I have no idea what it pertains to, but I was staring at the stack of files, so it may relate to this case. Either way, I’m dreading diving into another serial killer case, although the last one ended up with us meeting Raven, so at least it had a bright spot—” I stopped as Herne returned to the table.
“What happened?” he asked. “Are you all right?”
“I had another vision.” I told him what I had seen.
“Lovely. Well, keep it in mind. Meanwhile, we have yet another headache to deal with. That was my mother, Morgana. Ember, she wants to see you tonight. You’re to go through the Fantastica again. She’s expecting you around eight p.m., our time.”
“But Angel and I are due at Marilee’s tonight.”
“Morgana knows that. She’s already contacted her. Angel, you’ll go alone.”
I jotted the note down on my steno pad. “All right. I take it that Aoife is still the guardian of the boat?”
He nodded. “Yes, Aoife’s still there.”
The Fantastica was Morgana’s houseboat. Or rather, it was a portal into Morgana’s realm, and Aoife was the gatekeeper. She was an Undine, one of the Light Fae.
The trip actually sounded pleasant to me. It was a beautiful day, and a trip down to the docks would be a welcome chance to get near the water.
“What else did your mother want?” Talia asked.
“That’s the headache. Saílle and Névé are up to their old tricks again.” He tapped away on his tablet. “Sending you all the information now. Looks like the truce is officially over.”
For a while, the two Fae Queens had called a truce when they—and we—were facing a common enemy. But the Tuathan Brotherhood had been shoved back into the gutters of the Dark Web, and now the Fae Queens were at it again. This was what I had primarily been hired by the Wild Hunt for—to help run interference between the warring courts. Both sides had been fighting since time immemorial, since they had first divided into the Light and Dark Courts. Back in Annwn, the Celtic Otherworld where Herne came from, the great kingdoms of Navane and TirNaNog fought tooth and nail, long bloody battles that never truly ended.
Here in this realm, the cities of Navane and TirNaNog that mirrored their namesakes—though on a much smaller scale—fought more underhandedly. We stepped in when their collateral damage threatened to affect innocents outside of their courts, meaning humans, shifters, and anybody else who wasn’t of Fae origin.
“What the hell are those two up to now?” I asked, finishing my coffee.
“The Light Court started it, as usual. You’d think being called ‘light’ they might be a little less prone to incite violence, but no such luck. Anyway, it seems that Névé is out to retrieve Callan, who is still hanging out at TirNaNog.” He grunted. “She sent a party to try to ambush him. He was with a group of guards and they were driving down I-405. This resulted in a multi-vehicle collision.”