Storm Born. Richelle Mead

I hoped we got to the park soon.

      When we’d almost reached it, a traffic light stopped us under an overpass. I didn’t think anything of it, but Wil shifted nervously.

      “I always hate being stopped under these. You never know what could happen in an earthquake.”

      I again schooled myself to neutrality. “Well…it’s been awhile since our last earthquake around here.” Yeah. Like, never.

      “You just never know,” he warned ominously.

      Our arrival couldn’t have come a moment too soon. The park was green and woodsy, someone’s idiotic attempt to defy the laws of southern Arizona’s climate. It probably cost the city a fortune in water. He led me along the trail that went to Jasmine’s abduction spot. As we approached it, I saw something that suddenly made me put more credence in his story. The trail intersected another one at a perfect cross. A crossroads, often a gate to the Otherworld. No circle of flowers grew here now, but as I approached that junction, I could feel a slight thinness between this world and the other one.

      “Who knew?” I murmured, mentally testing the walls. It wasn’t a very strong spot, truthfully. I doubted much could pass here from either world right now. But on a sabbat like Samhain…well, this place could very well be an open doorway. I’d have to let Roland know so we could check it when the next sabbat rolled around.

      “Well?” Wil asked.

      “This is a hot spot,” I admitted, trying to figure out how to proceed. It appeared I was zero for two in gauging the credibility of these last two clients, but when 90 percent of my queries were false leads, I tended to keep a healthy dose of skepticism on hand.

      “Will you help me then?”

      “Like I said, this really isn’t my thing. And even if we decide she was taken to the Otherworld, I have no idea where to look for her. It’s as big as ours.”

      “She’s being held by a king named Aeson.”

      I spun around from where I’d been staring at the crossroads. “How the hell do you know that?”

      “A sprite told me.”

      “A sprite.”

      “Yeah. He used to work for this guy Aeson. He ran away and wanted revenge. So he sold the information to me.”

      “Sold it?”

      “He needed money to put down a deposit on an apartment in Scottsdale.”

      It sounded ludicrous, but it wasn’t the first time I’d heard of Otherworldly creatures trying to set up shop in the human world. Or of crazy people who wanted to live in Scottsdale.

      “When did this happen?”

      “Oh, a few days ago.” He made it sound like a visit from the UPS guy.

      “So. You were seriously approached by a sprite and only now thought to mention it?”

      Wil shrugged. Some of the sunscreen he’d missed rubbing in showed on his chin. It kind of reminded me of kindergarten paste. “Well, I’d already known she was taken by fairies. This just sort of confirmed it. He was actually the one who mentioned you. Said you killed one of his cousins. Then I found some locals that backed up the story.”

      I studied Wil. If he hadn’t seemed so hapless, I almost wouldn’t have believed any of this. But it smacked too much of truth for him to be making it up. “What did he call me?”

      “Huh?”

      “When he told you about me. What name did he give you?”

      “Well…your name. Odile. But there was something else too…Eunice?”

      “Eugenie?”

      “Yeah, that was it.”

      I paced irritably around the clearing. The second of two Otherworldly denizens to know my name in as many days. That was not good. Not good at all. And now one of them was trying to get Wil to lure me into the Otherworld. Or was it truly a lure? Sprites weren’t really known for being criminal masterminds. If I’d killed his cousin, I suppose he might hope some other motivated creature would take me down.

      “So what? Are you going to help me now?”

      “I don’t know. I’ve got to think on it, check up on some stuff.”

      “But—but I’ve shown you and told you everything! Don’t you see how real this is? You have to help me! She’s only fifteen, for God’s sake.”

      “Wil,” I said calmly, “I believe you. But it’s not that simple.”

      I meant it. It wasn’t so simple, no matter how much I wanted it to be. I hated Otherworldly inference more than I hated anything else. Taking a teenage girl was the ultimate violation. I wanted to make the guilty party pay for this. I wanted to make them suffer. But I couldn’t cross over with guns blazing. Getting myself killed would do none of us any good. I needed more information before I could proceed.

      “You have to—”

      “No,” I snapped, and this time my voice wasn’t so neutral. “I do not have to do anything, do you understand? I make my own choices and take my own jobs. Now, I’m very sorry about your sister, but I’m not jumping into this just yet. As Lara told you, I don’t generally do jobs that take me into the Otherworld. If I take this one, it’ll be after careful deliberation and question-asking. And if I don’t take it, then I don’t take it. End of story. Got it?”

      He swallowed and nodded, cowed by the fierce tone in my voice. It was not unlike the one I used on spirits, but I felt only a little bit bad about scaring Wil with it. He had to prepare himself for the highly likely possibility that I would not do this for him, no matter how much we both wanted it.

      On the way home, I swung by my mom’s place, wanting to talk to Roland. Sunset threw reddish-orange light onto their house, and the scent of her flower garden filled the air. It was the familiar smell of safety and childhood. When I walked into the kitchen, I didn’t see her anywhere, which was probably just as well. She tended to get upset when Roland and I talked shop.

      He sat at the table working on a model airplane. I’d laughed when he picked up this hobby after retiring from shamanism, but it had recently occurred to me it wasn’t so different from working puzzles. God only knew what stuff I’d find to keep me busy when I retired. I had the uneasy feeling I’d make a good candidate for cross-stitching.

      His face broke into a smile when he saw me, making laugh lines appear around the eyes of the weathered face I loved. His hair was a bright silver-white, and he’d managed to keep most of it. I was five-eight, and he was only a little taller than me. But despite that height, he was solidly built and hadn’t lost muscle with age. He might be pushing sixty, but I had a feeling he could still do some serious damage.

      Roland took one look at my face and gestured me to a chair. “You’re not here to ask about Idaho.” I hadn’t really understood their recent vacation choice, but whatever.

      Giving him a quick kiss, I held my arms around him for a moment. I didn’t love many people in this world—or any other—but him I would have died for. “No. I’m not. But how was it anyway?”

      “Fine. It’s not important. What’s wrong?”

      I smiled. That was Roland. Always ready for business. If my mom would have let him, I suspected he’d still be out there fighting, right by my side.

      “Just got a job offer. A weird one.”

      I proceeded to tell him all about Wil and Jasmine, about the evidence I’d found for her abduction. I also added in Wil’s bit of information about this Aeson guy.

      “I’ve heard of him,” said Roland.

      “What do you know?”

      “Not a lot. Never met him, never fought him. But he’s strong, I know that