“Kelpie!”
Benta flipped off her jacket as she unfroze. Every single tattoo on her waist glowed. She ripped off the hat and all the tattoos along her hairline popped out white-hot like a crown.
She rolled up a crackling, almost-ultraviolet ball of magic and whipped it at Ranger’s head.
The ball grazed the Sheriff as it flew by. He swore and spun toward Wrenn, clearly somehow affected.
She caught him before he fell and he just as quickly rolled out of her grasp.
“No worries,” she said.
He frowned, then nodded toward Ranger and the elf.
Ranger had dodged the ball of magic. He bolted into the trees.
Instead of checking on the Sheriff, or Wrenn, Benta the elder elf ran after the kelpie.
Chapter 16
“I have two daughters.” Martinez rubbed at the spot where the elf’s magic had grazed his shoulder. “Third is due in two weeks.”
His wife was about to have a baby. A girl.
Would Ranger really go after the Sheriff’s family? “Do you live in town or on a body of water?” Wrenn asked.
“Around here it’s pretty much all trees and bodies of water.” He stumbled toward his cruiser. “You coming?” he called. Then into his radio: “Tracy, call Gerard. Tell him I need whoever’s awake to head to my place.”
The radio crackled. “Copy,” Tracy said.
He peered at the Andersons sitting at the picnic table. They were chatting amongst themselves, telling snowmobile stories or some such nonsense, and were completely ignoring the fuss around them.
“At least that spell held.” He nodded toward the trees. “What did that kelpie do to her? I didn’t think they were powerful enough to harm an elder elf.”
So the sword yelling Mine! hadn’t been real-world audible. “It wasn’t the kelpie,” Wrenn said.
Sheriff Martinez stopped between her and his police cruiser. “What’d you do, then?” He flipped the shotgun in his hand to have a better grip if he needed to aim quickly.
“The sword released a wave of hot magic when she tried to take it from me,” Wrenn said. “Its name is Red. It’s a she. It’s talking to me. Maybe. Not in words, except for the whole yelling Mine! when Benta reached for her.”
Eduardo Martinez, the Sheriff entrusted by elves to watch over their mundanes, cocked one eyebrow, inhaled deeply, and released a dad-worthy sigh unlike any Wrenn had heard before. “You have a big sword named Red that gets jealous anytime someone tries to take her away from you?” He sounded as if he’d heard all this before.
“I wouldn’t say she’s my sword. I grabbed her because she was the closest weapon.”
He nodded in the way all fathers nodded while listening to a child explain how the kitten in the kitchen had found the child and not the other way around. It was destiny, Papa. Fate. Of course we have to take care of it. Odin said so.
He sighed again, but not into the dismissive father stance as if he’d made up his mind about adopting a new kitty. No, his stance dropped fully into detective. “No family here, huh? You sure?” He watched her face and shoulders as if looking more for body language clues explaining why she kept denying the obvious.
“No family.”
“Hmmm…” He pointed at the Royal Guard star on her belt as he pulled out his cell phone. “What’s that mean?”
Wrenn unclipped the star. The champagne gold and silver metal weighed enough that her hip always felt its addition or subtraction. “I am a Royal Guard Paladin of King Oberon of the Fae.” Which meant nothing here. Not in elf country.
“Paladin for a king.” He did the same scoff-snort and eyebrow lift he’d done earlier as he pointed at the cruiser. “Protocol says you ride in the back.” He tapped at the phone and held it to his ear.
She clipped the star back onto her belt. “Ranger is part of a bigger investigation. My job is to bring him home,” she said. “I’m not going to harm you, Sheriff Martinez.”
He peered at her again then looked away when someone answered. “We have an issue,” he said into the phone. “I’m calling Lennart and Bjorn. They’ll be on their way. I want you to get your sisters and your mom and go into the room in the basement, okay? And call Axlam. Tell her where you are in the house.”
He must be talking to his son.
“I’m on my way.” He cut the call.
After a moment, he nodded once and pointed at the cruiser. “Go around to the passenger side,” he said.
Wrenn jogged around and wedged herself into the passenger seat between the computer rack and door. At least he kept his car clean and she wasn’t sitting on his half-eaten lunch.
Martinez dropped into the driver’s seat. The dome light illuminated the entire interior of the cruiser, giving Wrenn a good look not only at many gadgets of modern mundane law enforcement, but also his features.
He was shorter than her by about three inches, which made him average height for a mundane man. A five-o’clock shadow accentuated the strong angles of his jaw. He wore a bark-brown Alfheim County Sheriff jacket and a beanie from under which no hair escaped, so she assumed he wore the same short cut pretty much every mundane male cop everywhere had.
He made another call as she strapped in. A few taps and he held it up to his ear. “Benta’s chasing the kelpie. He stole the big fancy sword and is in stallion form.” He started up the cruiser. “He threatened my family, Lennart.”
“We’re on our way,” the other person said.
The call disconnected.
Martinez pulled the cruiser around, phone still in his hand, and headed for the park’s entrance. “Do fae hang up like that?” he asked.
“Oh, yes.” Wrenn shrugged. “Magic operates better face to face.”
He hit a button and the cruiser’s blue and red lights came on.
Wrenn pinched her eyes closed and rubbed her forehead. Flashing lights never bothered her. Light didn’t bother her, and now all of a sudden she’d had two episodes in one twenty-four-hour period.
“Are you sensitive
