Careless Wishes Page 16

  “They need to.” Killian set his sight on the two Kings of Fairy as we approached them. “We can't have this guy going back and forth between realms while we try to hunt him down. You always try to corner your target.”

  “Dad said something similar,” I noted.

  Tiernan handed the phone to Raza. I hurried forward so I could see Shahzy too. I'd already missed my chance to see Falcas, I didn't want to miss the others too. As I reached Raza, I heard Killian begin his attempt to sway Tiernan.

  Raza drew me in against his side so our daughter could see us both. “Mommy's here too.”

  “Mommy!” Shahzadi exclaimed. “We picked apples from the naughty trees.”

  “The naughty trees?” I asked in confusion.

  “Danu's orchard in front of the castle,” Raza explained.

  My eyes widened. There wasn't anything wrong with the trees; they were apple trees. However, they'd once been fairies. Naughty fairies who Danu punished by turning them into trees. I found it a little unsettling that other fairies now ate the fruit of those trees. I suppose it was better than leaving them to rot, but I wouldn't be munching on those apples.

  “See what happens when you're naughty? You get turned into a tree and eaten.” I decided to use it as a parenting opportunity. “That's why you need to listen to your parents and be a good girl.”

  Shahzadi's eyes widened. It hadn't occurred to her that Danu could change her into an apple tree too. As far as my daughter was concerned, rules were for other people—non-dragon people. And the person who had inadvertently taught her this was—

  “Daddy?” Shahzy looked at her father to save her from her mother's horrible lies.

  “It's the truth,” Raza said sternly. “Why do you think we try so hard to teach you how to behave?”

  Shahzy's mouth dropped open.

  “Don't worry, baby,” I said, feeling a little guilty. “You have to be very bad indeed to get turned into an apple tree. But little deeds lead to bigger ones—both bad and good. It's best to start trying harder to be good now, then it will become a habit later.”

  “Okay, Mommy,” she whispered.

  “We love you very much, dragonling,” Raza said. “Have fun with Grandpa.”

  She brightened instantly. “I love you too! Okay, bye-bye!”

  The image bounced around a bit until the phone found Caelum. As it did, Raza stepped aside so Daxon could come forward.

  “Mama, Shahzy ate three apples!” Caelum confided conspiratorially.

  “Wow.” I grinned even as my stomach turned. Oh, well, dragons eat people. I suppose ex-people were better than real people. “How many did you eat?”

  “None.” He drew closer to the screen to whisper, “They're made of people.”

  I laughed boisterously.

  “They were once fairies, Son,” Daxon corrected as he leaned in. “Now, they're trees. It's okay to eat the apples.”

  Caelum scrunched up his face dubiously.

  “I'm with you, Cael,” I said. “I know it's okay, but I still don't want to eat them.”

  Cael grinned in relief. “Oh, good. I didn't want to hurt Grandpa's feelings but I don't want to eat the apples.”

  “You won't hurt Grandpa's feelings,” I promised. “Just tell him the truth. He prefers the truth, even when it's not what he wants to hear. Trust me, he'd rather you not eat the apples if you don't want to.”

  “Okay, Mama.”

  I briefly spoke with all of my children, even Fal, who I had Keir fetch again so I could see him. Then we headed back up the tunnel.

  “We're closing the raths,” Raza said to me as we stepped into the vault. He was just slipping his scry phone into a pocket. “Closed to everyone but us and hunters, of course.”

  “Good.” I nodded before I turned to ask the Lady, “Can we track the Cintamani by its energy signature?”

  “I don't know what an energy signature is.” Ladli scrunched up her face. “But if you're asking if its power can lead you to it, the answer is both yes and no. You'd have to get close enough and be sensitive enough to feel it when it isn't in use.”

  “Sort of like a scent.” Kill looked at Raza. “The Beast Brothers are going to be Bloodhounds.”

  “I am not a dog,” Raza said crisply.

  “Dude, it's been years, when are you going to lighten up and get down with human vernacular?”

  “One,”—Raza held up a claw—“that wasn't a case of human vernacular making something sound insulting, it simply was insulting. Two”—he added another claw—“never.”

  “Never what?” Killian scowled.

  “It's been years,” Raza drawled, “when are you going to grow a brain?”

  “Hey!” Killian snarled.

  “Never is the answer to your question,” Raza went on. “I will never get down with human vernacular. It's not becoming of a dragon, especially not a dragon king.”

  “Yeah?” Killian smirked. “Well, our wife loves my vernacular—along with my hemipenes.”

  I made a disgusted sound. “Can you not call it—them— that?”

  “It doesn't look as if she loves your vernacular after all,” Raza declared smugly. “Perhaps it's the same with your little snake dicks.”

  Daxon burst out laughing while Tiernan politely pressed his lips together. I just walked away.

  “They're not little!” Killian snapped.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  We gathered our coats and guards, bid farewell to the Lady of the Sanctuary and her hemiclitoris—sorry, that's a bit of sour grapes there—and used Chameli's rath to go back to Twilight. Raths are magic but they're not flexible; they form a stationary path between two places. It would have been nice to be able to walk into a rath and walk out of another rath—say, the one in Delhi—but that's not how they work. So, we could either travel to Delhi via human means, which were limited this far up in the mountains, or we had to go back to FR, then head to the Delhi rath and use that to return to HR. Yes, traveling can get complicated when you're a fairy but it's still a hell of a lot better than flying coach.

  Chameli unveiled the cave for us and we walked through the rath, back into Twilight, to be greeted by a bunch of sunbathing fairies.

  At the sound of the rath door opening, the scantily clad men and women lurched to their feet and came to attention. Conri brushed past those of us who had just exited the rath and stomped up to Gradh furiously. He glared at her tiny tank top and short-shorts—the Fey version of underwear.

  “What the fuck?” Conri growled at her. “I leave for a few hours and you get naked with a bunch of men?”

  “I'm not naked,” Gradh huffed. “It's hot here, and we figured you'd be gone awhile.”

  “So, because I was going to be gone awhile, you thought it was the perfect time to cast off your clothes and started shooting back Mai Tais?”

  “No one is drinking Mai Tais,” she said dryly. “Most of these guys don't know what those are.”

  “You know what I mean!”

  “Get dressed and pack up camp!” Raza shouted over Conri's temper tantrum (Raza had a lot of experience with tantrums). “We have a thief to track.”

  Knights scurried into action, some diving for clothes while others went straight for the tents, while the Pukas shifted into their horse forms and started prancing about. It was chaos.

  “Raza,” I groaned and rolled my eyes.

  Raza scowled. “Get dressed first!” he amended his orders. “Then pack up the camp and then hitch the horses. Unless you're already dressed.” He looked back at the knights who had accompanied us and evened his tone, “In which case, you should get started on the camp.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty!” All of them said at once.

  “How is it that three units of Royal Guards can be lacking the sense Danu should have given them?” Raza snarled.

  The knights started moving faster.

  “Okay, they got it, bro,” Killian said. “Maybe we can talk about our plan of action while they do”—he waved his h
and at the activity—“all of that.”

  “I've already scried my kingdom and ordered a search for Mattias,” Tiernan said as he stepped back, out of the way of scrambling fairies.

  “Which frees us to go after Stanen Burns,” I concluded. “Any ideas on how we track an Unseelie Sidhe in Delhi?”

  “I also made a scry while you were speaking with the children,” Daxon said to me. “The Prince of the India Underground has been alerted. He's currently conducting a search and will contact me if he finds our suspect. Meanwhile, we can look for him above ground.”

  “But we don't know what he looks like. Not beyond generalities,” Killian reminded us. “And I'm not about to fetch my daughter so she can point him out.”

  “No, of course not,” Raza agreed. “But we have a general description and we know he's Unseelie. So, we look for blond Unseelie men and question them.”

  “That could take awhile,” Tiernan noted as he frowned at one of his knights who was chasing a recalcitrant Puka who hadn't shifted into horse form.

  “In Delhi?” Daxon countered. “A blond will stand out like a sore thumb there.”

  “A sore thumb?” Raza asked.

  “Again with the vernacular,” Killian whined. “You hit your thumb and it hurts so it stands out. Get it?”

  “Yes, I understand. I am not the one lacking in intellect,” Raza growled. Then he swung his head toward me. “Now, I remember what I detested about your Ambassador work. Or rather, who.”

  “Aw, you love me.” Killian punched Raza's shoulder companionably.

  Raza got the look he wore when Shahzadi was being particularly difficult. Poor dragon.

  “If we're searching the city, we're going to need help,” I said. “Kill, can you contact the local Extinguishers?”

  “Hold on a moment.” Tiernan grabbed Killian's hand as it reached for his scry phone. “Where did your order come from—the Human or the Fairy Council?”

  “Fairy.”

  “Then I think we should contact the local monitor instead and have him summon some hunters to help us.”

  Killian looked at me for input.

  “He's right,” I admitted. “This is the theft of a Fey relic, we probably should wait until the Fairy Council approves notifying the Human Council before we go spilling the beans. They've gotten better about working together but there are still some things the Fey want to keep to themselves and we need to respect that.”

  “So, hunters then?” Killian asked, just to be sure.

  “Hunters.” I nodded. “Tell them to look for a large power source or surge.”

  “Got it.” Killian moved away to make the scry.

  “Have any of you considered what a Sidhe might want the Cintamani for?” Tiernan gave us all a heavy look.

  I was the last to catch on. “Oh, fuck.”

  “Yes, Seren, we will all be fucked if this Sidhe does what most Sidhe would do—what's in our very nature to do.”

  “Pursue power,” Daxon concluded. He glanced at the other kings and added, “Ultimate power.”

  “No one is taking my throne,” Raza growled. “I'll shove that pearl down his throat, then tear it out of him.”

  “Graphic, honey,” I said dryly as I gave Raza's arm a pat. “Don't you think Danu would stop that from happening? She helped you get that throne.”

  The Kings blinked. Then relaxed.

  “He's not going to use it in Fairy,” Daxon said in epiphany. “He can't. Danu trumps everything, even a magic pearl. Any Sidhe would know that. She put those orchards in every kingdom to remind us of that very fact.”

  “So, even if his plans aren't evil, he won't want to risk Danu's wrath by showing up here as a relic thief,” I concluded.

  The men nodded.

  “This makes the Seelie a less likely candidate,” Daxon said to Tiernan.

  “Yes, but I don't think we should cross him off our list just yet,” Tiernan countered. “Nor do I think we should discount the possibility that this Sidhe is insane and willing to risk anyone's wrath, even that of our goddess.”

  That sobered us.

  “Okay, but I think we should look for Stanen first,” I suggested.

  “You do realize that even this Stanen could be a waste of effort,” Raza pointed out. “For all we know, the Sidhe who took the Cintamani traveled by other means and is leaving in the same manner.”

  “True, but this is how you work a case, Raza,” I explained. “You follow the leads you get. If you get pixie-led around the world, you deal with it. It's frustrating but it's part of the chase. The point is: we have no means of searching for a random blond Sidhe who may be traveling across India in any number of ways or may already be back in Fairy. So we focus on what we can do.”

  “I understand that,” Raza said. “But the longer this man keeps me away from my daughter, the more painful his death will be.”

  “Fuck me and my two dicks!” Killian exclaimed as he returned to our group. “What did I miss now?”

  “Dear Danu, he's never going to shut up about his dicks, is he?” Daxon groaned.

  “Would you?” Killian shot back.

  Daxon's expression shifted into grudging concession. “Fair enough.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  As we drew closer to the Delhi rath, the horses started to get nervous until they finally stopped dead in their tracks, whinnying violently when our drivers tried to get them to move.

  “Stop!” I called out as I climbed out of the carriage. “They sense something.”

  I moved ahead of the horses and stared down the road with a sense of deja vu. My carriage was in the lead so there were no others in front of me, just that line of packed earth that wound around a bend up ahead. My men joined me, then our guards decided to join us. They murmured to each other as they watched me.

  “Shut up!” I snapped. “I hear something.”

  Everyone went silent.

  The sound I heard developed into something very complicated. A collection of sounds instead of a single note. There were thuds and screeches and the call of birds. Then came a roar. I shivered as I realized that I'd heard this cacophony before... on this exact section of road.

  “Holy fucking Fairies!” I exclaimed as my vision rushed back to me. “Get the carriages off the road! Move! Move! Move!”

  The drivers had no problem getting the horses to veer off the road; they went with a sense of urgency. I went with them, pushing my men in my haste.

  “Hurry up!” I screamed. “They're coming! Get out of the fucking way!”

  “Who's coming?” Killian asked as he pulled his swords from their sheaths on his back. He set the blades before him as he scanned the road.

  “Do not attack!” I snapped as I shoved him again. “It's not fairies. It's—”

  “Animals,” Raza finished for me, his golden eyes wide and focused down the road.

  The horses screamed as a herd of assorted animals rounded the bend and came into view. They were running down the road as if demons were chasing them. Predators and prey together. Their fear for whatever was after them was that great. Monkeys swung through the trees, a rainbow of birds blocked out the sun as they flew overhead, and snakes slithered in the grass alongside the road, but the rest of the animals kept to the path. I saw mongooses scurrying beside hyenas, civets running with leopards, and lions leading the pack. They ran together as if the flood were coming and Moses only had a few spots left on his boat.

  Paws pounded the earth hard enough to set it trembling and the din of their passage was enough to wake the dead. Or a goddess. Danu appeared suddenly, down the road from us and ahead of the stampede. She opened her arms to the animals and pale light filtered out of her. The herd came to an abrupt halt as the Goddess of Fairy welcomed the creatures of Earth to our world. Animals panted and frothed in the face of Danu's calm, their bodies shivering into relaxation.

  “You are safe here,” Danu declared as birds swooped down to alight upon her shoulders. “I give you peace and offer you a h
ome in my forest. You may remain as long as you wish.”

  The animals seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief before dispersing—venturing off the road and into the thick forests of Twilight. Danu strode over to where we waiting, all of us staring at her with our jaws hanging open. Her sparkling gown hovered just above the ground and her hair billowed around her as she walked.

  “My children,” Danu said with a soft smile as she shifted through the Fey races. Her eyes remained steady throughout her transformations and when they looked in my direction, they appeared to be my own. Of course, I knew that's what everyone would see as well—their own eyes. “Seren, Killian, Raza, Tiernan, and Daxon.” She touched each of us as she spoke our names, light gleaming beneath her fingertips. “My brother has given you an important mission. Thank you for accepting it even though it was asked of Seren alone.”