“When are you two going to give me a visit? You’re both so easy on the eyes. We could have us a good time, you know? A little fairy on fairy action…” “Not anytime soon,” I said between stiff lips. “Who’s driving?” Trey asked with a toothy grin, coming up behind us. “My car is right out front,” I said in a less than thrilled voice. “Shotgun,” Trey said. I shook my head. “You ride with me, you’re in the back.” “Jesus, O’Neil, love you too.” Quillan opened the front door for me. “Enough, both of you.”
Once outside, I unlocked my yellow Jeep Wrangler and threw open the driver-side door. I jumped in while Quillan folded the passenger seat forward, allowing Trey to catapult into my small back seat.
It took us a few minutes to reach Fabian’s store-it was just a couple miles east of Headquarters. There was plenty of parking, which was almost never the case, so I sailed into the spot right out front. It always makes my day when I get a good parking spot.
I jumped down from the Wrangler and pulled the seat forward. A look of surprise crossed Trey’s wide face, which lit up in a smirk. “Aw, you do love me.”
I shook my head. “Just get out, please.”
Quillan was already at the front door of Fabian’s shop. “Looks like he doesn’t open until eleven.”
Eleven was over an hour away. I strode past Quillan and headed into the alley that bordered Fabian’s. “I know the back way,” I said with a self-satisfied grin. I reached for the back door and froze. It was already ajar. Something was rotten in the state of Denmark, or Splendor, as the case may be. “What’s the hold up?” Trey asked, his putrid breath rolling down my neck. I cringed and glared up at him, wishing I could’ve arrested him for halitosis. ”It’s open. Fabian always locks his door.”
I pulled my Op 6 pistol from my shoulder holster. Even though it was a small gun, the length just spanning the width of my palm and fingers, it was lethal. The dragon blood bullets would cause instant death to any creature unfortunate enough to get in the way of one.
I nudged open the door to Fabian’s store, my pistol ready should the need arise. If the little jerk was brewing an illegal potion, I needed to catch him in the act. And if he was in the middle of an illegal sale to a human, the bust would be a gold star on my upcoming review. Most Netherworld creatures could handle the toxins involved in drinking potions, but the same couldn’t be said for humans. With their weak temperaments, just a swallow could do permanent damage.
I turned to Quillan and Trey and brought my index finger to my mouth in the universal sign of shut the F up. They both nodded and were good about not making any noise behind me. That is, until Trey kicked something metal and sounded as inconspicuous as a garbage truck in a narrow alley.
“So sorry,” he muttered.
‘Shhh!” I turned to glare at him then held my gun close to my face as I continued down the long hallway. I couldn’t see a damned thing.
My fairy eyesight finally kicked in and I was able to make out the corners of the wall and the mouth of the doorway leading into Fabian’s store. When I came to the front of the store, it looked empty. I walked headlong into a piece of mermaid netting hanging from a ledge and pushed the sticky stuff out of my face, hoping it might catch Trey.
Talk about claustrophobia-Fabian’s store held entirely too much junk. Boxes piled against the walls so the actual space within the room was reduced to maybe twelve feet by twelve feet. Barely enough room to breathe. I continued forward, wondering where the hell the little bastard could be. I couldn’t hear any voices. Maybe they’d heard Trey trip and had already hidden whatever illegal deeds they’d been doing.
Goddamn Trey.
My foot hit something and made a thunk sound. I dropped to my knees and clenched my hand into a fist. I shook it until a mound of fairy dust grew in my palm. Reholstering my pistol, I opened my palm and snapped with the fingers of my other hand. A flame bubbled up between my thumb and middle finger. I blew on the flame and the fairy dust caught fire, lighting the room in an eerie glow.
I glanced down and couldn’t stifle my gasp. I’d nearly tripped on a head, Fabian’s head. It had been ripped from his body and not in one neat stroke like you might find with a long blade. This looked more like the work of an animal-the flesh at the nape of what was once Fabian’s neck, was torn and uneven. I lifted my palm of light and spotted a mangled arm with tendons and muscle looped back over it, looking like a red lace doily. A few fingers were scattered in a far corner.
“Hot Hades,” Quillan whispered as he came up behind me. “Ugh, what’s that smell?”
“That would be Fabian…or what’s left of him,” I answered.
Trey stumbled into the room, sounding like a herd of buffalo, and stepped on one of Fabian’s dismembered fingers. It made a crunch like biting into a carrot.
“What the hell,” he started.
I blew the flame in my palm, and like a thousand fireflies, the lit embers floated on my breath, illuminating the area just around Trey’s foot.
“Holy dragon’s balls!” He gasped. “What the heck did that?”
Even though I couldn’t say I was fond of Fabian and even less so since he’d turned me into a booger, still this was no way for someone to go.
“No idea. Looks like it could be the work of a were,” I said.
Quillan whipped out his cell phone and speed-dialed Headquarters. Well, now I knew what the rest of my Saturday would entail. I’d been hoping to get home and clean the apartment before heading down to Bram and Dagan’s. And I’d planned on penning a bit more of Captain Slade’s Bounty. Guess I’d had a change of plans.
“I need the coroner to Fabian’s store. Promptly,” Quillan said, then hung up and dropped his phone back into his pocket, facing me. “The intruder might still be here.”
He pulled his Op 7 gun from his belt; something most similar to a 9mm Glock. It was also loaded with dragon blood bullets.
I pulled my smaller version from my shoulder holster and followed Quillan’s lead as he headed back down the hallway. Fabian’s place only consisted of the front room, a hallway, and a restroom right off the hall. Quillan paused outside the restroom and signaled me to open the door. I grabbed hold of the doorknob and shook my fist until I had a handful of fairy dust.
Quillan mouthed “one, two, three.”
On the count of three, I yanked the door open and threw the dust into the room while Quillan aimed his gun into the darkness. The fairy dust acted like mini drops of acid once on the person in question, and it would only attach itself to you if you were, in fact, guilty. Sort of like a better version of a lie-detector. I dropped my gun but didn’t re-holster it. “Clear,” I said, my heart still racing. “Hey, can you get some light in here?” Trey asked from the front of the shop.
Frowning, I turned to the problem of lighting the entire space. Setting a flame to some fairy dust wasn’t enough to light the shop, so I’d have to do more. Remembering the mermaid netting hanging in the rafters, I shook my palm until the dust appeared and blew it toward the rafters. Then I focused on the netting and watched as it unraveled. Using just my vision, I pulled on each end, stretching the netting until it spanned the entire width of the ceiling. I shook my palm until another mound of dust appeared. Then I aimed it at the netting, lit a flame between the fingers of my other hand again, and blew the embers toward the mermaid netting. It immediately caught and burned a criss-cross design just above our heads. It looked like a checkerboard aflame, kind of pretty.
Well, the netting might have been pretty, but the rest of the situation wasn’t. In the light, Fabian was even more hideous. His head was definitely dismembered but half his two-foot spine still ran the length from the base of his skull to where his ribs would’ve been. He reminded me of a prop someone might use to decorate a haunted house. His tongue hung out of his mouth and rested against the floor, looking like uncooked tuna. He’d never been a good looking guy when alive-about four feet tall, largish nose, wide brow and badgerish eyes-but now, yuck.
“There’s no blood,” Quillan said as he inspected the corpse.
I glanced at the unfortunate Fabian. There was no blood. Hmm, definitely strange. A gruesome attack like this would warrant blood all over the place. “No blood-looks like the work of a vampire,” I said. Quillan shook his head. “Vampires leave their corpses dry. This is…a hell of a lot messier.” Trey laughed. “So, Dulce, looks like you might’ve been the last one to see Fabes, here, alive.” I reholstered my gun. “Don’t go there, Trey.”
He shrugged. “The motive is there. You seemed pretty pissed off that he turned you into that green thing.” He paused. “That’s all I’m saying.”
My breath caught, anger constricting my lungs. Trey and I were going to have it out-I’d known that since he’d
