CHAPTER 38
I NEED YOU at my apartment immediately.
Terryn’s sending hit her so hard, Laura almost lost
control of her car as she maneuvered her way the next day through
the morning commute. She slammed on the brakes. Horns blared around
her as other drivers swerved and passed. She turned on her siren
and dashboard lights and hit the gas. Traffic parted in front of
her as she tore up Pennsylvania Avenue. Terryn sounded
desperate.
What’s wrong? she
sent.
Cress is gone, he
replied.
I’m ten minutes out, she
sent.
Law-enforcement vehicles clogged Terryn’s street.
Laura pulled onto the corner curb and ran, holding her InterSec
badge over her head. A police officer—the only person clueless
enough to try to stop her—received a shove in his chest that sent
him flying against a car.
People clustered on the sidewalk in front of
Terryn’s building. Genda Boone, of all people, stood at the door,
her white wings flailing with agitation as she pointed a finger in
a brownie’s face. Essence whirled in the air, disturbed flares of
red and orange as the fey on the scene exposed their anger. A thick
wall of essence, anchored by a brownie standing in front of the
building, blocked the street door.
Laura pushed her way through the crowd to Genda’s
side. “What the hell is going on?”
Angry, Genda turned as if she were about to argue
but calmed when she saw Mariel Tate at her side. “That’s what I’d
like to know. This brownie is anchoring a shield barrier and won’t
let me through.”
Laura craned her neck to see beyond Genda. “Davvi?
It’s Mariel Tate. I need to get in to see Terryn.”
“I’ve been waiting for you, miss,” he said. He held
his hand up. Laura hesitated, then realized what he expected her to
do. She pressed her palm against his, and the barrier shivered
around her. She stepped through to the vestibule.
“Mariel, tell him to let us in. If something has
happened in there, I need to know,” Genda said.
Ignore her, Terryn
sent.
“Let me see what this is about, Genda,” she said.
To avoid any argument, she entered the building. Inside, an older
woman, conservatively dressed, stood at the open door of her
apartment. Another shield barrier blocked her from leaving. “Are
you the police? What’s going on? Why am I not being allowed to
leave?”
Mariel glanced up the stairs as she made a calming
gesture. “Please stay inside, ma’am, until we clear up the
situation.”
“Am I in danger?” she asked.
“Please get inside now, ma’am. This will be over
shortly,” she said.
She mounted the stairs. The barriers were saturated
with Terryn’s essence. As she reached his floor, she charged her
hands until they glowed white. Pausing on the landing, she
listened. On the next floor up, someone shouted to be let out. She
stepped to the apartment door.
Terryn? she sent.
He opened the door. Fury flowed off him in waves,
his wings glowing dark indigo, with shots of white flashing through
them. From the main door, the living room, dining room, and kitchen
were visible. Everything was immaculate. Puzzled, she took two
steps in and stopped. “What happened?”
He shook his head. “InterSec security called me as
soon as they got here. She was gone when they arrived.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’? Guild security was
here.”
“They weren’t here.”
She jerked her head up. “What? They were supposed
to transition to our team.”
“InterSec took over at nine. The Guild left at
eight. Brinen coordinated everything with Aran. The Guild insists
they had orders to leave at eight, but Aran says that the security
order said nine.”
“Well, where’s the order?” she asked.
Terryn paced into the room. “Aran said it’s blank
now. Some kind of safety spell erased it. I don’t care about that
right now. What infuriates me is that the Guild didn’t inquire
where the InterSec unit was. They left her here alone. They left
her here, and she’s gone.”
The anguish in his voice tugged at her. Seeing
Terryn emotional was a rare event. Seeing him distraught was
unheard of. She held her hands out. “Okay, let’s step through this.
This apartment doesn’t look tossed. Did you straighten up?”
“Of course not. Everything remains as it was when I
arrived. Her keys are on the counter. Her handbag with all her
identification is on the bed.”
“We need to get a team in here, Terryn,” she
said.
He paced beside her. “Not yet. I need you to look
at it. I don’t trust anyone else.”
“Is that why you locked the building down?” she
asked.
Terryn glanced sharply at her. “Of course.”
She stopped his pacing with a hand on his arm.
“Terryn, you’re technically holding your neighbors hostage. You
need to drop those barriers.”
“She could be trapped in the building,” he
said.
She grabbed him by the arms. “Terryn, calm down and
listen to me. You know your neighbors. You’ll only bring charges
down on yourself if you don’t release them. If Cress is in the
building, we’ll find her, but you have to let those people
go.”
He stared at her, breathing shallowly, then closed
his eyes. Tendrils of blue essence whirled out of him, danced to
the floor and out to the hallway. Several doors slammed and
footsteps could be heard running. “I’ve modified the shield so that
they can leave through the front door. No one gets in yet.”
She was about to argue but decided that was good
enough for the moment. “Let me see the bedroom.”
He led her through the living room. She had been to
dinner at the apartment but had never seen the bedroom. The riot of
color on the walls, swirls of red and yellow and orange, surprised
her. Every available surface—dresser tops, the head-board,
windowsills—was covered with odds and ends—small dolls, teacups, a
collection of fabric tassels over the windows, and stacks and
stacks of magazines. The contrast to either of their organized
offices was startling. As if seeing the room through her eyes,
Terryn smiled nervously. “She likes to collect things.”
The leanansidhe were
hoarders, most often of their victims’ belongings. Cress might not
have acquired her treasures through the same path, but she
obviously still had the impulse. Despite all the clutter, the room
did not look ransacked.
“I’m getting faint human body signatures in here,”
she said.
“Human? No humans have been here,” he said.
She sharpened her sensing ability. Except near the
door, the room read blank, as if all the essence—including the
normal ambient residue of a fey dwelling—had been drained from it.
A chill went over Laura. “She used her abilities in here, Terryn.
For some reason, she absorbed all the essence in the room.”
“But she didn’t need any. She . . . I give her
essence every morning,” he said.
Laura averted her gaze from his discomfort at the
admission. The nature of their relationship intrigued her. She knew
that Cress absorbed essence from Terryn. Cress had done the same
thing to her recently. Even though it was to save her life, Laura
shivered at the memory. A hunger had lurked behind Cress’s touch
that had filled her with revulsion.
“Then why would she . . .” Laura stopped and faced
the door. A faint pattern of purple essence splattered across the
wall by the door. “She fired essence, Terryn. She fired at someone
in this doorway.”
She stepped closer. “It’s so faint, though, as if
it was reabsorbed again.” She looked at the bed. “But it didn’t go
back into the room.”
She circled the bed, assessing the edges of the
essence void. A faint, sickly sweet odor filled her nostrils. “I
smell chloroform.”
“She was drugged?”
Laura bent closer to the bed. “Looks that way.
Someone figured out how to subdue her long enough to use
chloroform. I’m not sensing any other essence discharge
here.”
He narrowed his eyes. “She’s alive, then. They
wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble if they were going to kill
her.”
Laura examined the area where she smelled the
chloroform, but, again, nothing seemed out of place. Her gaze fell
to the nearby dresser, covered with stacks of playing cards, and
she noticed that while the top surface hadn’t been cleaned
recently, there were clear spaces in the dust. The spaces caught
her eye because they were in distinct stripes, not scattered as if
being touched with hands. Visually following the clean lines, she
noted several cards had rippled areas. She touched one. “This is
damp.”
She ran her hand over the quilted bedcover. “More
dampness. They stunned her, Terryn. That would be the only
explanation. They used a liquid stun gun. Someone tried it on her a
few days ago.”
“What are you talking about?” Terryn asked.
She compressed her lips. “She thought it was a
mugging, but I think it was a failed kidnapping. She didn’t want
you to worry.”
“Worry? Why not? I might have been able to prevent
this if she had said something,” he said.
Laura gave him a stern look. “No, you couldn’t
have. We had Guild and InterSec security here, Terryn. They screwed
up, but you wouldn’t have protected her any better.”
“I could have stayed with her . . .” he
began.
“Which is exactly why she didn’t tell you. She
didn’t want to disrupt Draigen’s visit over a mugging. And at the
time, that’s what it looked like.”
He tried to keep himself under control. “And now
she’s gone.”
“Why would anyone want to kidnap Cress?”
Stricken, Terryn met her gaze. “Because she’s
dangerous, Laura.”
“Terryn, I’m not going to hear . . .”
He held his hand up. “Listen to me. I know what she
is. So does she. A leanansidhe is
dangerous. The only thing that has helped Cress maintain any sense
of normalcy is a constant source of essence. Without that . . .
without me . . . she’s going to become desperate to fill that need.
Someone can use that to their advantage. There’ve been attempts
before.”
Laura swallowed in a dry throat. The last thing she
expected was for Terryn to admit Cress was dangerous. “How much
time does she have?”
He ran a frustrated hand into his hair. “If she
discharged everything, less than a day. We tried fewer booster
sessions, but it didn’t work. Without a daily supply of essence,
she’s going to revert.”
Tears edged into his eyes. “We have to find her,
Laura, before she kills someone.”