“No, the others I saw were belladonna poisoning. They had convulsions but nothing that would cause this damage.”
She looked up. “Do you think they are escalating? Demanding more violence to increase the power of the spirit?”
I didn’t want that to be true. We didn’t need any more pressure. I looked closer at the woman, ignoring the recent damage. “Look here.” I pointed to her arms. “There are marks on her arm. If she was stoned, would it affect what happened with the poison? Maybe give her a bad reaction.”
“Yes, it could depending on what she was taking.” Cate sighed and moved away from the body.
I hated not knowing what was going on. I led Cate out of the alley. We didn’t need to be caught with a dead body. “Even if this was an accident, I think we need to get more aggressive. This will have given the Sidhe ideas. If they can increase the power they get, they will do so.”
“Does the spirit carry addiction?” She glanced back as she spoke.
“Oh no, I don’t know. I hope not. The last thing we need is stoned Sidhe running through the city.”
Chapter Fifteen
We went back to my place. I didn’t have any ideas but we figured it was as good a place as any to regroup. In the workroom I pulled down my top five spell books. “There must be something here we can use.”
“Quinn, it’s not our fault.” She put her hand on my arm.
“What isn’t my fault?”
“What happened to that woman. It isn’t our fault. You couldn’t have anticipated that the fairy would choose a junkie. That there wouldn’t be enough time to get there. Maybe they didn’t even know she was a junkie.”
I heard the words, but they didn’t really mean anything to me. If I had been thinking clearly instead of mooning over Cate, I would have figured out the Sidhe were going to change the rules. “The fairy didn’t choose the woman. The Sidhe choose the victim.”
Cate put her hand on mine. “It’s still not your fault.”
“It doesn’t matter.” It did but I wasn’t ready for Cate to be all sympathetic. “We have to find a way to stop it. I think whoever picked that woman was experimenting. You know Fionuir wouldn’t touch any drugs other than alcohol. She is too afraid of what it would do to her looks.”
“But if she’s running this mad operation to keep power who would have okayed the junkie?”
“Stop calling her that. She was a human. The police won’t care about the drugs when they start investigating. We can’t have too much time before they get suspicious.” I started flipping through the spell books, hoping something would jump out at me. Something called, A spell to stop mad Sidhe from ending the world.
Cate put her hand flat on the book. “I said stop.” She pulled it away from me. “Take a breath.”
I tried to get the book back, once. She threw fire dust onto my hand before I touched the binding. I kept my eyes on my hand so I could convince my mind that the flesh wasn’t roasting off the bone. It was over in two minutes. But that was two minutes of agony. “You bitch. And to think I was beginning to like you.”
“You were?” She blushed from the neck of her black sweater to the roots of her hair. “Really?”
Oh, damn. Quinn Larson you never know when to keep your mouth shut. “Yes. Can I have my book back now?”
“Maybe. Are you going to flip pages until they fly out of the stitches or are you going to stop and think for a minute?”
“While we think for a minute, who knows what is going on out there?” I flung my hands to the windows.
Cate stepped away from me holding the book in her hands. “You know, I always liked you. Even when you were being an idiot. Like now.”
I stepped forward and grabbed at the spell book. “Setting my hand on fire is not the best way to tell me you like me.”
“It seems to have worked.”
“Woman, give me the damn book.”
She giggled and moved away. “Come take it.”
I lunged for her and she wiggled away at the last second. I reached again and she danced around the room holding the book just out of my reach. After what seemed like an hour, but was probably only a few minutes, I stopped chasing her and held onto the bench while I gasped for breath.
“Are you feeling calmer now?”
I grinned and snaked my arm out to pull the book away from her. “Yes, you win.”
She pushed in beside me and opened the book. “Good. So before we go looking for spells, I think we need to figure out a different way to deal with this.”
“Did you mean it when you said you liked me?” If the world was going to come to an end, I had nothing to lose by asking.
She was looking at the list of spells, running her finger down the right side. She didn’t look up when she said, “Yes, I’ve had a crush on you for a long time. I didn’t think you were ready to hear that until now.”
I opened my mouth to protest when Olan flew in at a breakneck pace. “There you are. I have news.” Then he stopped and looked at both of us. “Ah, I see you’ve noticed you are sweet on each other.”
Cate leaned into me and smothered a laugh.
“Well, we’ll have to deal with that when this crisis is over. We have news too,” I said.
Olan nodded his beak at me. “I would hear your news first.”
I told him about the latest death. “Do the Sidhe react like humans to street drugs?”
Olan paced the length of the table before answering. “I only know of one Sidhe who went down that path. And it was not the same.”
“Good,” I said and turned back to the spell book. “What’s your news?”
“I am not done, wizard.”
“I know,” Cate said. “He has this really bad habit of interrupting.”
I looked at Olan. “Okay, I’m sorry.”
“It is much worse. They lose control of their powers. If I remember correctly, it took four creator spirits to control him. That one took it from a needle. I don’t know what will change if drugs get into the power they are stealing. I’d say we need to be more cautious and act faster.”
Great, just what we needed. “So what news did you bring?”
Olan puffed himself up. “As you know I am an excellent spy.” He waited until we both nodded. “I overheard Iain setting up a meeting down on Nelson and Park Lane tonight. If we go there, maybe you can catch the fairy or the Sidhe. I don’t know.”
“They are really changing the game plan if they have moved operations to the park.” Cate said. “There are a lot of people going through that area every day. Not a good place to leave a body.”
I knew the Sidhe were going to get too arrogant to be careful. “What did you hear, exactly?” I hoped Olan had misunderstood, knowing it was a blind hope because Olan was an expert eavesdropper.
“Iain was talking to a Sidhe woman. She asked him if he really thought this was wise. I didn’t hear what ‘this’ was. Iain said. ‘Yes, he will be worth it’. I think they are planning to get someone important, or powerful.”
I grabbed my leather coat and motioned for Olan to lead the way. Cate followed Olan and I locked the doors after us.
It was a short walk to the park, so we were there in ten minutes. This intersection was one of the entrances to Stanley Park, the tennis courts and the lagoon were a short walk in either direction.
“It they’ve decided to jump on the drugs bandwagon, this is the place.” Cate jerked her head slightly toward three men standing near a bench. They had their hands in their pockets and Bluetooth receivers in their ears.
“Are you sure this is the place?” I asked Olan who was sitting on my shoulder, making me feel like a pirate.
He turned his eye to me and nodded. I realized he would be keeping silent as long as humans were around.
I turned to Cate and led her to a bench some ten feet closer to the streetlights than the drug dealer’s station.
