Fair Game Part 9

We should be human when the fae lord comes, Brother Wolf said, finally.

Anna didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything. After a moment, Charles began changing back. It wouldn't take him long, five or ten minutes. The blood of a Flathead shaman meant that it took him a lot less time to change than any other wolf she'd met.

It hurt to change, hurt more when you did it back and forth in only a couple of hours-and Charles hadn't been in a good place when he'd started. Anna could feel the pain he was in-faintly, because he'd never let her feel it all if he could help it.

It was better to leave him alone for a few minutes. It was better to remove herself from the temptation of a real fight, especially when they could have visitors at any time. And they weren't back to square one, either. Their bond lay open between them, a testimony that he was better than he had been.

It was four in the morning. She debated showering and getting dressed-or brus.h.i.+ng her teeth and going back to sleep. She didn't make it to the bathroom. The bed was still rumpled from when she'd left it earlier, and it was too inviting to resist.

She crawled under the blankets and buried her head in Charles's pillow. She felt more than heard when Charles came into the room. He paused by the bed and patted her rump lightly, and something inside her relaxed. "Don't get too comfortable, Sleeping Beauty," he rumbled teasingly, sounding like his old self. He might not be letting her help, but he was making progress just the same, despite his decision to retreat behind Brother Wolf earlier. "We'll have company sooner rather than later. You made the fae an obvious offer to give him information the FBI won't, and he won't wait until a polite time of day to come calling. I doubt he'll sleep much as long as his daughter's fate is uncertain-I wouldn't."

She waited until the shower started before pulling her head out from under the blankets. No. Charles wouldn't rest while a child of his was in danger. If he had children.

Female werewolves couldn't carry babies to term. The moon called and they changed to wolves, the violence of it too much for the forming child. She'd asked Samuel, who was a doctor, about staying in wolf form for the full term instead. He'd paled and shaken his head.

"The longer you stay a wolf, the less the human rules. If you stay wolf too long, there is no coming back."

"I'm an Omega," Anna had told him. "My wolf is different. We could try it."

"It always ends badly," her mate's brother had said roughly. "Don't, please, talk to Charles or Da about it. The last one was brutal. There was a woman...She managed to hide from Bran until it was too late. A werewolf isn't a wolf, Anna, who will care and protect its young. When we finally tracked her down, Charles had to kill her because there was nothing of humanity left, only a beast. He backtracked her to the cave where she'd established her den. She'd given birth, all right. And then she'd killed the baby."

His eyes had been raw and wild, so she'd changed the subject. But Anna had her own thoughts on the matter-Brother Wolf was no unthinking creature who would eat his young, and she was pretty sure her own wolf was gentler still. But there was no need for desperate measures yet.

The werewolves were out to the world now with no further need to hide. There were options for couples who could not have biological children for one reason or another that would work for werewolves as well. Right now, with the public so ambivalent about werewolves, it would be difficult to try to use a surrogate to carry their child. But they could afford to wait awhile for public opinion to change.

"For public opinion to change about what?" asked Charles as he opened the door of the bathroom to let the steam roll out. He had a towel wrapped around his waist and was drying his long hair with another.

She didn't have to answer him because someone rang their doorbell. The fae was supposed to call them; she'd left Charles's number. Apparently he'd decided to drop in uninvited instead.

Anna hadn't undressed, so she ran her fingers through her hair and started toward the door. Charles moved in front of her and dropped the towel he held to the floor.

"No," he said.

She rolled her eyes, but said, "Fine. I'll wait for you."

He dressed quickly without apparently rus.h.i.+ng while she watched him. Watching Charles dress and undress was one of her favorite things to do-better than wrapping and unwrapping Christmas presents. Werewolves were, as a whole, young, healthy, and muscled-which were attractive characteristics. But they all weren't Charles. His shoulders were wide and his dark skin had a silklike sheen that invited her fingers to touch. His long, black-as-midnight hair smelled- "If you don't stop that," he said mildly, though he paused with his s.h.i.+rt just over his shoulders so she could see the way the smooth muscles of his back slid down into well-fitted jeans, "our gentleman caller might have to wait awhile longer."

Anna smiled and reached out to run a finger down his backbone. She pressed her face against his cotton T-s.h.i.+rt and inhaled. "I missed you," she confessed.

"Yes?" he said, his voice soft. It got even softer when he said, "I'm not fixed yet."

"Broken or whole," she told him, her voice dropping to a growl, "you're mine. Better not forget that again."

Charles laughed-a small, happy sound. "All right. I surrender. Just don't go after me with that rolling pin."

Anna tugged the s.h.i.+rt down and smoothed it. "Then don't do anything to deserve it." She smacked him lightly on the shoulder. "That's for disrespecting my grandmother's rolling pin."

He turned around to face her, wet hair in a tangled mess around his shoulders. Eyes serious, though his mouth was curved up, he said, "I would never disrespect your grandmother's rolling pin. Your old pack did everything in their power to turn you into a victim, and when that crazy wolf started for me, you still grabbed the rolling pin to defend me from him, even though you were terrified of him. I think it is the bravest thing I have ever seen. And possibly the only time anyone has tried to defend me since I reached adulthood."

He touched her nose, bent down- The doorbell rang, an extended buzz, as if someone was getting impatient.

Eyes at half-mast, Charles looked at the front door the same way he would a grizzly or a racc.o.o.n that had interfered with his hunt.

"I love you, too," murmured Anna, though she found herself at least as grumpy about the interruption as Charles could possibly be. "Let's go see what Lizzie's father has to say."

The doorbell rang again.

Charles sucked in a breath of air, ran his fingers through his wet hair to get rid of the worst of the tangles, glanced in the mirror on the wall, and froze.

"Charles?"

His side of their bond slammed down so fast she couldn't help a faint gasp, but not so quickly that she didn't see that his motivation was singular and huge: he wanted to protect her. Charles didn't look at her, and when the doorbell rang again, he stalked out of the bedroom.

She stood where he had, in front of the mirror, and tried to see what it was that had disturbed him so much. Men's voices and a woman's rushed past her ears. The mirror was beveled, set in a plain but well-made frame, and in it she saw herself and a reflection of the walls of the room behind her. There was an original oil painting of a mountain on the wall to the right of her, next to the door to the bathroom. Directly behind her, cream-colored lace curtains hung over the window, still dark with night's reign.

What had he seen that he wanted to protect her from?

By the time she got out to the living room, Alistair Beauclaire was already inside the condo-and so were Special Agents Fisher and Goldstein.

"I thought," Beauclaire was saying, "it would save time to have us all meet together and put all the cards on the table. My daughter's life is more important than politics and secrets." It was, from a fae, a shocking move. Anna hadn't had much to do with fae, but even she knew that they never gave a shred of information to anyone if they could help it.

Beauclaire looked at Charles; he had to look up.

"I know who you are," the fae told Charles. "You just might have a chance of finding her, but not if we're all tripping over the secrets we cannot tell." He glanced over to pull the FBI agents into the conversation. "If you withhold something that would have allowed us to find Elizabeth one minute sooner, you will regret it. We will talk this morning about things that outsiders do not know-trusting you to use this to stop the killer."

Leslie's eyes tightened at the threat, but Goldstein absorbed it without a reaction, not even an increase in heartbeat: he just looked tired and more frail than the last time Anna had seen him.

"I a.s.sure you," Goldstein told Beauclaire, "that it is our mission to see that your daughter is found quickly. If we didn't agree with you, we wouldn't be here. No matter what favors you called in."

Anna wondered how the FBI or Beauclaire had figured out where she and Charles were staying. The condo belonged to a small company that was wholly owned by a larger company, and so on ad infinitum. The whole thing was owned in turn by Aspen Creek, Inc., which was the Marrok.

Appearing unannounced was a power move, saying You can't hide from us. It seemed a little too aggressive for the FBI: she and Charles weren't suspects. Anna thought it was more likely that Beauclaire was responsible for the early-morning visit, looking to establish dominance with his unannounced invasion of their territory-claiming the point position on the hunt for his daughter. She could see what he was trying to do, but it wouldn't work on Charles, though it might make her mate more dangerous if he decided to take offense. Charles's public face was too good for her to read right now, which told her that he was feeling a whole lot of things he didn't want her to know about.

He'd closed their bond to protect her.

Anna tried to get mad about it, so she wouldn't have to be worried or hurt, but he was a dominant wolf and part of being dominant was taking care of what was his. His wife, his mate, headed that list. So Charles would protect her from whatever he thought would attack her through their connection.

But he had forgotten something along the way. He was hers. Hers. He was hurting himself to protect her and she was going to put a stop to it-but not now. Not in public. A good hunter is patient.

Charles glanced at Anna, and she narrowed her eyes to tell him that the anger he sensed from her was aimed at him. He raised an eyebrow and she raised her chin.

Redirecting his attention to the intruders, Charles soundlessly gestured everyone to the big sectional sofa in front of the TV. He pulled a hardwood chair away from the dining table for himself and set it to face them over the coffee table.

The FBI agents perched on the edge of the sofa. Goldstein appeared more tired than interested, but Leslie Fisher watched Charles intently, not looking him in the eyes, not challenging him, just cataloging. Such intent interest would have put Anna on edge except there was no heat in Leslie's gaze. It was more of an "observing the subject in his native habitat" than a "he's really hot" kind of thing.

Beauclaire, for his part, sank back in the soft material of the couch as if the thought that it would impede him should he have to move quickly had never occurred to him. I'm not afraid of anyone here, his body posture said. Charles's-relaxed, arms folded loosely, chin slightly tilted-said, You're boring me; either fight and die-or back off.

Anna grabbed another of the hardwood chairs and parked it next to Charles, then sat down. "All right," she said, to break the testosterone fest before it could really get going. "Who goes first?"

Charles looked at Beauclaire. "Do the fae know that there's been someone hunting them since the eighties?"

"We are here to share information," Beauclaire said, spreading his hand magnanimously. "I am happy to begin. Yes, of course we knew. But he's only been hunting the n.o.bodies, the half-bloods, the solitary fae. No one with family to protect them. No one of real power." His voice was cool.

"No one worth putting themselves at risk for," said Charles.

Beauclaire gave Charles a polite look that was as clear as any adolescent raising his middle finger. "We are not pack. We are not all good friends. Mostly we are polite enemies. When a fae dies, if it is not one of power-who are valuable to us, just because there are so few left-if it is not someone who has family or allies with power, mostly other fae look upon that death with a sigh of relief. First, it was not they who died. Second, it didn't cause anyone else harm, and that fae is no longer free to make alliances with someone who might be an enemy." His voice deepened just a little on the last sentence.

"It bothers you," said Leslie.

Anna liked competent people. Not many humans were as good at reading others as the wolves were. Leslie was very good to be able to read Beauclaire so well.

Beauclaire looked at the agent, started to say something, hesitated, then said, "Yes, Agent Fisher, it bothers me that a killer was allowed to continue picking off those he chose for nearly half a century. Had I known of it, I would have done something-which was probably why I was not informed. A mistake I have taken steps to correct. What should have been is, in this case, superseded by what is: a killer who tortures his victims before he kills them has my daughter."

"Do you know who or what we are hunting, Mr. Beauclaire?" asked Goldstein. "Is it a fae?"

"Yes. I know what kind of fae could get into a building without leaving a scent trail that a werewolf could follow, and could hide so that people who walked past him could not discern that he was there."

"It is unusual," said Anna. "Most glamour doesn't work on scent."

"You can't hide what you don't perceive," agreed Beauclaire. "Most of the fae who could follow a scent as well as a werewolf were beast-minded-like the giant in 'Jack and the Beanstalk.' Those fae couldn't hide themselves from the cold-iron-carrying Christians who drove us from our homes-so they perished, most of them. But there are a few left who would be capable of perceiving and hiding their scents. Among those who have these abilities, the only one who would also be strong enough to carry my daughter out of her home in a satchel and be mistaken for someone carrying laundry is a horned lord."

Goldstein narrowed his eyes. "The old term for a man who was cuckolded? That's not what you mean."

"Horned," said Charles. "You mean antlered."

Beauclaire nodded. "Yes."

"Herne the Hunter," suggested Charles.

"Like Herne," agreed Beauclaire. "There were never many of them, less than a handful that I'm aware of. The last one on this side of the Atlantic was killed in 1981, hit by a car in Vermont. The driver thought he killed a very large deer, but the accident was witnessed by one of us who could see the fae inside the deer's skin. When no one was looking, we stole the body away."

"You think there is another one?" Leslie asked.

The fae nodded. "That is what the evidence suggests."

"If the killer is fae, then why didn't he start hunting fae victims before the fae came out?" Anna asked.

That the UNSUB was fae would explain why he was still active after so many years, why he could take down a werewolf without anyone noticing. But it didn't explain why he began targeting fae only after they admitted their existence.

"I am not the killer to know his motivations, Ms. Smith," said Beauclaire. He bit off the "Smith" to show that he knew what their last name really was-still jockeying for top dog in the room. "Coincidences do happen."

"Call me Anna," she told him in a friendly voice. "Most people do."

He stared at her a moment. Charles growled and the fae jerked his eyes off of hers, then frowned in irritation at losing the upper hand. But Anna could feel the whole atmosphere of the living room lighten up as the fight for dominance was lost and won.

Beauclaire gave a bow of his head to Charles, then smiled at Anna, and she thought that she'd never seen such a sad expression in her life. In that look she understood what he was doing and why-he thought his daughter was lost, she saw. He hadn't, not when they were at his daughter's apartment, but something-maybe that the killer was fae-had changed his mind. He was hunting her killer now, not trying to save his daughter. Perhaps that was why he'd given in to Charles so easily.

"Coincidence," Beauclaire admitted, "is highly overrated. I have an alternative explanation about how a fae could not know what he was until he knew that there were such things as fae."

He glanced around the room, but Anna couldn't tell what he was looking for.

"In the height of the Victorian era," Beauclaire said finally, in a quiet, calm voice that belied what her nose told her, "when iron horses crossed and crisscrossed Europe, several things became obvious. There was no longer a place for the fae in the old world-and we were too few. From 1908 until just a few years ago, it was the policy of the Gray Lords, those who rule the fae, to find fae of scarce but useful types and force them to marry and interbreed with humans since humans breed so much more rapidly than we do."

Anna knew about that, but she hadn't realized how long it had gone on. From Leslie's face, Anna was pretty sure that the FBI agent hadn't known about the crossbreeding policy. That was interesting, because her face hadn't changed at all when Beauclaire had mentioned the Gray Lords, who were also a deep secret.

Goldstein might have been listening to the weather report for all the change in his face. There was no telling what he knew or didn't know about the fae.

"It was believed," continued Beauclaire, "that humans were of weaker bloodlines and the fae blood would prevail-and humans breed so very easily, even with the fae for a partner." He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. "The wisdom of these forced interbreedings is now being reexamined. Half-blood fae face many challenges. They, for the most part, are not accepted by the other fae. And too many of them exhibit...odd properties-birth defects are very high. Once fathered or mothered, a high percentage of the halflings were abandoned by their fae parent altogether, which left them to discover who and what they were on their own-to sometimes disastrous results. And a large number of the children have turned out to be entirely human."

Charles sat back. "Like your daughter?" he said in a soft voice.

"Like my daughter. The only thing she gets from me is my mother's love of dance-and she has to train hours every day to do what my mother did effortlessly." Beauclaire looked down, then back at Charles. "You are old, but not so old as your father. Maybe you can understand why I fought this dictate as hard as anything I've ever fought against. To deceive a human woman for the purpose of fathering a child upon her...it is dishonorable. Yes. And yet it gave me someone I care deeply about."

He drew in a breath and then looked Charles in the eye. It was not a challenge, more a way of showing how serious he was. "It is not wise," Beauclaire said, his voice clipped, and somewhere in the vowels Anna heard an accent not too far from Bran's when he was angered. "It is not wise to give something old and powerful something they care about. And I am very old." He looked at the FBI agents. "Even, possibly, older than your father. We haven't compared notes."

Leslie reacted to the idea that a werewolf could be older than an old fae-an immortal old fae. Goldstein just looked more tired, and maybe that was a reaction, too.

"Don't get the wrong idea," Anna told them. "The average life expectancy for someone from the time they are Changed and become a werewolf is about ten years."

"Eight," said Charles, sounding as weary as Goldstein looked. Anna knew her data had been correct last year. She reached out and touched his thigh, but he didn't look at her. Charles wasn't, she thought, totally involved with the proceedings. He kept glancing over the couch to the wall of windows beyond. She frowned, noting how, with the sky still dark outside, the window reflected the room back at them. He was seeing something in the reflection.

"Four out of ten of our halfling children survive to adulthood," Beauclaire was saying. "They are a favorite prey of other fae if they are not protected. My daughter is twenty-three in two weeks."

Anna glanced at Charles. He didn't appear to be listening, and whatever he was seeing in the window-mirrors was making him more and more remote.

"What kind of dancer is your daughter?" Anna asked suddenly. "I saw ballet shoes, but also ballroom costumes." She hadn't, not really, but Brother Wolf had and had kept her informed.

"Ballet," Lizzie's father said. "Ballet and modern. One of her friends is into ballroom dancing and she partnered with him for a while a couple of years back. Ballroom is for fun and ballet for serious, she told me." Beauclaire smiled at Anna. "When she was six, she dressed for Halloween as a fairy princess complete with wings. She was dancing around the room and I asked her why she wasn't flying. She stopped and told me quite earnestly that her wings were make-believe. That dancing was the closest she could do to flying. And she loved to fly."

It wasn't enough. Charles was still preoccupied.

Anna touched Charles's face and waited until he turned from the window. "Lizzie Beauclaire is not quite twenty-three. She loves to dance. And she's all alone with a monster who will torture and kill her if we don't find her soon. You are her best hope." She didn't add, "So suck it up and pay attention," but she trusted that he heard it in her voice.

Charles tilted his head, though his face was quiet. At least he wasn't looking in the windows anymore.

"Remember that," Anna told him fiercely as she dropped her hand. "You can't change the past, but this we can do. Beauclaire answered first; it's our turn. What do we know that would help the hunt?"

She met Charles's gaze and held it until he s.h.i.+fted his weight forward and gave a brief nod.

"The bodies that the police have been finding are cut up." Charles turned to the FBI agents. "I smelled black magic-blood magic-on the man who took Lizzie Beauclaire. That makes me think witches, and that those cuts on the victims might be significant. The fae have no use for blood magic."

"It doesn't work for us," said Beauclaire, but his voice was absentminded. He was watching Charles. Not looking him in the eye, not quite.

Goldstein said, "I have more details on that." He opened up his briefcase and handed Charles a thick file of photographs. "Most of the victims have shapes carved into their skin-we've been looking at the witchcraft or voodoo angle for the past ten years. But the witches willing to talk to us only say that it's not anything they know. Not voodoo or hoodoo. It's not runes. It's not hieroglyphs, nor any other symbolic language used by witches."

Charles opened up the folder and then spread the photos out on the coffee table. These were mostly blowups or close-ups, some in black and white, some in color. Names, dates, and numbers were written in white marking pen on the upper left corner. The photos doc.u.mented symbols, ragged and dark around the edges. Some of the markings were ripped down the middle by angry slashes; others were distorted by degradation of the flesh they had been carved in.

"They lied to you," said Charles, bending over to get a closer look at one.