Bloodfever

“The man who handles my rentals sent the letter. And I didn’t know your sister. I didn’t know I was her landlord until my solicitor called a few days ago to tell me there was a problem with one of my properties.” There was a soft thud and Barrons grunted. After a moment he said, “He’d been calling your house in Ashford and no one was answering. He didn’t want to be responsible for setting a tenant’s property to the curb. I heard the name, did the math, took care of it.” There was a soft “oomph,” and it sounded like Barrons’ phone went clattering across the floor.

I was curiously deflated. I’d had one of those “aha” moments upstairs: I’d been immediately convinced he was hiding some personal connection between him and my sister, that I’d found evidence of it, it was proof of his villainy, and now things would fall miraculously into place and finally begin making sense, but his reply was perfectly logical. Two of my patrons at The Brickyard owned multiple properties and never got personally involved in the running of them unless there was a problem. They didn’t see any of the paperwork unless something had to go to court, and they never had any clue who was renting one of their apartments.

“You don’t think it’s terribly coincidental?” I demanded, when I heard him on the other end of the line again. He was breathing heavily, as if running, or fighting, or both. I tried to imagine who or what Barrons could be fighting that was giving him a run for the money and decided I didn’t want to know.

“I’ve been choking on coincidences longer than I care to think about. You?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “And I intend to get to the bottom of them.”

“You do that, Ms. Lane.”

He sounded positively hostile. I could tell he was about to hang up. “Wait a minute. Who’s IYCGM?”

“If you can’t get me,” he gritted.

“And IYD?”

“If you’re dying, Ms. Lane. But if I were you, I’d call that one only if I was sure I was dying, otherwise I’ll kill you myself.” I heard a man in the background laugh.

The line went dead.

“You see them, too,” I said in a low voice, as I sank down onto the bench next to the lightly freckled redhead.

I’d found a sidhe-seer on the campus of Trinity—a girl, like myself.

On the way back to the bookstore the weather had cleared so I’d detoured to the college to people-watch. Although the sun was only weakly pushing through the clouds, the afternoon was warm and people had gathered on the commons, some studying, others laughing and talking.

When you see something from Faery, Barrons had advised me, look not at the Fae, but the crowd to see who else is watching it.

It had proved sound advice. It’d taken me a couple of hours, but I’d finally spotted her. It helped that there were so many Fae in the city. It seemed every half hour or so, a Rhino-boy walked by with one of his charges. Or I saw something totally new, like this one we’d both been watching.

The young girl glanced up from her book and gave me a blank look that was sheer perfection. A halo of curly auburn hair framed slight features, a small straight nose, a rosebud mouth, an impudent jaw. I pegged her for fourteen, fifteen at the most, and already her sidhe-seer façade was nearly flawless. It made me feel downright gauche. Had she taught herself or had someone else taught her?

“I’m sorry, what?” she said, blinking.

I glanced back at the Fae. It was stretched on its back on the edge of a multitiered fountain, as if soaking up the intermittent rays of sun. It was slender, diaphanous, lovely. Like those dreamy, translucent images of Fairy that are so popular in today’s culture, it had a cloud of gossamer hair, a dainty face, and a petite, slim boy-body with small breasts. It was nude and not bothering with a glamour. Why should it? The normal human couldn’t see it, and according to Barrons, many of the Fae believed sidhe-seers had died out long ago or dwindled to inconsequential numbers.

I handed the girl my journal, open to the page on which I’d been sketching it.

She flinched, clapped it shut, and glared at me. “How dare you? If you want to put yourself in danger, have a fine go at it, but don’t be dragging me into it with you!” She grabbed her book, backpack, and umbrella, sprang up, and bounded off in a flash of feline grace.

I dashed after her. I had a million questions. I wanted to know how she’d learned what she was. I wanted to know who’d taught her, and I wanted to meet that person. I wanted to learn more about my heritage, and not from Barrons, who had agendas within agendas. Who was I kidding—even though she was years younger than me, it was lonely in this big city, and I could use a friend.

I was a good sprinter. It helped that I was wearing tennis shoes and she was in sandals. Though she dashed down one street after the next, pushing through tourists and vendors, I continued gaining, until finally she ducked into an alley, stopped, and whirled around. She tossed her fiery curls and shot me a glare. With a cat’s luminous green-gold eyes, she performed a lightning quick scan of the alley, the pavement, the walls, the rooftops, finally the sky beyond.

“The sky?” I frowned, not liking that at all. “Why?”

“Blimey! How did you survive this fecking long?”

She was too young to be cursing. “Watch your mouth. My mother’d wash yours out.”

She shot me a look of pure belligerence. “My mum would have turned you over to the council and had them lock you up for being a danger to yourself and others.”

“Council? What council?” Could it be? Were there that many of us? Were they organized, like Barrons said they’d been in olden days? “You mean a council of sidhe—”

“Stow it,” she hissed. “You’ll be the fecking death of us!”

“Is there one?” I demanded. “A council of…you know…people like us?” If so, I had to meet them. If they didn’t already know about the Lord Master and his portal, they needed to. Perhaps I could turn this whole nasty affair over to someone else, a whole council of someone else’s. Wash my hands of it, single-mindedly focus on my revenge, maybe get some help pursuing it. Had my sister known them, met with them?

“Shoosh it!” She scanned the sky again.

It was making me uneasy. “Why do you keep looking up?”

She closed her eyes, shook her head, and looked as if she were invoking Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and every last one of the saints in a bid for patience. When she opened them again, she hurried over and plucked the journal from beneath my arm. “Pen,” she demanded. I dug one out of my purse and slapped it in her palm.