“No,” I said around a mouthful of eggs. “We need you here to man the phones and meet with clients. There may be parents only now realizing that their children are missing. If more families come seeking our services, there’s a chance someone saw or heard something useful. Maybe we’ll catch a break.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll hold down the fort. If I learn anything new, I’ll text you the info.”
“And Jenna?” I asked. Jinx had phoned our Hunter friend while I was unconscious. She’d mentioned their conversation earlier, but I was fuzzy on the details.
“She’s willing to work as backup so long as you find the kids in the next nine hours,” she said. “After that, she’s on official Hunter business. They’re sending her to deal with some fuath infestation out in the suburbs.”
I glanced at the Felix-the-Cat clock hanging on the kitchen wall. It was already past 3 o’clock. Nine hours wasn’t a large window of opportunity, but my goal was to find the children before midnight. If we didn’t reach them soon, chances were good that we wouldn’t find them at all. Or if we did, that they wouldn’t be alive—and that was unacceptable.
All the more reason to start casing local graveyards and cemeteries. I wasn’t going to sit around doing nothing while I waited for Club Nexus to open its doors. I washed the last bite of toast down with coffee and slid my plate across the counter.
Break time was over.
“Can I get a printout of all the victim’s street addresses?” I asked.
Jinx nodded, wiped her hands on her apron, and slapped a folder down in front of me. Not only was my roommate a great cook, she was also the most organized office assistant on the planet. Just don’t make the mistake of calling her a secretary or you could end up with a split lip.
She slapped my phone down on top of the folder. The last time I remembered seeing my phone, it had been sitting on my office desk. Jinx must have picked up my phone and the case files while Ceff helped me up the stairs to our apartment. She tapped a nail on the screen, bringing up a map of Harborsmouth.
“I programmed the victims’ addresses into your phone,” she said. “You can see the locations in relation to other points of interest…”
“Like local graveyards?” I asked.
“Exactly,” she said.
Ceff leaned in, though careful not to touch, and we studied the map. Each address was marked by a small red pin on the screen. Tapping the pin opened a window with the full name and address of the victim’s family.
“You’re a genius,” I said.
“I know,” she said. Jinx flipped her hair and grinned. “You can use Flyover to see the sites in relation to landmarks. Tap this to add field notes.”
When Jinx had first insisted I upgrade my phone, I resisted. Using a touch screen was difficult while wearing gloves, but this little app had me glad I’d finally caved. This morning while talking to clients, I’d assumed the abductions were scattered randomly around the city. But the pins on the map told a different story. Fae in all city districts had been targeted, but the locations were not completely random.
The kidnappings were clustered around graveyards and cemeteries.
“Your theory appears to be correct,” Ceff said. “The children who were taken all lived within walking distance of a burial ground.”
The major difference between graveyards and cemeteries was that graveyards are often small and located beside a church. Cemeteries are larger, public burial places. The primary difference for supernaturals was that graveyards were always on hallowed ground. Large cemeteries, on the other hand, often had unconsecrated land where criminals were typically buried. Traditionally, this area was at the rear of the cemetery, but as cities grew so did the number of deceased. Most cemeteries now encompassed land not part of the original. If hallowed ground had been a problem for our kidnappers, then they would have stuck to the large cemeteries.
But that train of thought was a dead end. The pins indicated activity around both cemeteries and graveyards.
“Yes and our kidnappers don’t have an aversion to hallowed ground,” I said. I pointed to two church graveyards marked by a cross. “That rules out any demon involvement.”
Some demons have a taste for human flesh. It was rumored that human children were a sought after delicacy. Knowing demons weren’t involved was a relief, but it didn’t bring us any closer to catching the kidnappers.
Harborsmouth was a huge, old city. There had to be hundreds of graveyards and cemeteries. Even using the app to focus on the most concentrated areas of kidnappings, we were left with too many locations to search.
I growled and slammed my fist on the counter.
“I know,” Jinx said. “I spent forever dipping crossbow bolts in holy water. Why can’t it ever be demons?”
My roommate was pouting because she wasn’t going to get the chance to hurt some demons on this case? Some things never change. I ducked my head and stifled a laugh.
I took a deep breath and looked up into Ceff’s handsome face. He tilted his head to the side and blinked at me, fork paused halfway to his mouth.
“You wish for demon involvement?” he asked.
He gave a slow, disbelieving shake of the head and this time I did laugh. Ceff wasn’t aware of Jinx’s love hate relationship with demons. She loves to hate them, especially one demon in particular.
“No, I’m glad we’re not dealing with demons,” I said. “But if Jinx is going to fight something, she’d prefer it had pointy horns and a forked tail. You should see her at target practice.”
It was true. Stick horns on the target and Jinx nailed it every time.
“You never know when a demon might walk through your door,” she said, eyes gleaming. “It’s best to be prepared.”
Jinx patted her back where a crossbow was slung over her shoulder. The weapon looked incongruous with her frilly apron, but then again, that was Jinx all over.
“Yes, but we don’t shoot clients, right?” I asked. “That was the deal.”
Jinx shrugged one shoulder and cleared our plates off the counter, dumping them into a sink of soapy water. One of these days Forneus, a demon attorney and sometimes client, and Jinx were going to kill each other. I couldn’t always be around to break up their fights.
I just hoped the demon didn’t pick today to come through our doors. Jinx was tired, hung over, and heavily armed.
I yawned and stretched. It was time to get back to work, but where to start? I flipped through the case file one more time. Nothing helpful there. If only I could narrow down the most likely burial grounds for a wisp hideout.
“Perhaps our theory is flawed,” Ceff said. He was still looking at the map displayed on my phone. “We know that the wisps acted as bait, luring the children away from their beds, but we haven’t asked why. What motivation would they have to bring them to a cemetery? There are many stories of your people tricking foolish travelers, leading them deep into bogs and over cliffs, for their amusement, but why capture so many young faeries? Once at the cemetery, what do they do with the children?”
It was a good question, one I had no answer for. I sighed and ran my hands through damp hair.
“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s too much I don’t know about wisps. I’ve read everything I can get my hands on, and those stories involve either treasure or trickery, sometimes death, but nothing about kidnapping.”
“Wisps don’t eat kids, do they?” Jinx asked. “You know, like ghouls. No offense, Ivy.”
I sure hoped wisps didn’t feast on little kids. It was hard enough getting used to the idea of having faerie blood running through my veins without being related to cannibals. I placed a hand on my stomach, wishing I hadn’t eaten an entire plate of toast and eggs.
“No, wisps are not child eaters,” Ceff said. “It would seem that these wisps are either stealing children for monetary reward or amusement.”
“Reward?” I asked. “As in, working for someone?”
“Yes, it’s a possibility,” he said. “Wisps are attracted to treasure. With your father gone, and no one to tell them differently, it’s possible these wisps may have bargained their services for gold.”
