Shamas nodded. "The monks of Dayinye saved my life. I was almost dead when I broke through their shields and landed in the temple."

"You broke through the shields of Aladril?" Morio stared at him. "You must be a powerful magician."

"I'll bet you ten to one Queen Asteria knew he'd be there," I told Camille. "I don't know how, but she's pulling some strings of fate herself."

Shamas motioned to Morio. "Apparently I'm more powerful than I realized, but only under pressure and even then, I can't control it yet. I'll tell you all about it once I've had a chance to get my bearings." He looked around, clearly bewildered. "I've never been Earthside. You'll have to fill me in on everything."

"Delilah and Camille can do that while I'm sleeping." I glanced at the clock. "I'd love to go nab Dredge right now, but if we do, I'll be toast before you can say crispy critter."

Camille nodded to the kitchen. "Go then, and sleep. Morio and I will catch everyone up to speed. Oh, Iris—here's your crystal." She handed the Talon-haltija the velvet bag and Iris's eyes sparkled.

"Oh, this will come in handy," she said. I wondered what exactly she wanted it for but decided not to ask.

After giving Maggie a hug, I headed toward my room. Would I be able to sleep without nightmares?

I wasn't disappointed. For the first time since I'd been turned, I passed the night without dreams, without worry, in the perfect peace of a quiet heart.

CHAPTER 16

When I woke, Camille was sitting in the rocking chair, a nervous look on her face. I shook my head to clear the cobwebs away. "What's going on? I can tell by the look on your face that it's not good, whatever it is."

She frowned. "You're right. Come upstairs—we need to have a meeting. Chase is here, and so are Wade and Siobhan."

Chase? Wade? Siobhan? Curious, I hurried into my clothes and followed her to the living room.

Sure enough, Wade and Siobhan were on the sofa, talking in low whispers. Iris and Maggie were snuggled in the low rocking chair we'd bought for the house sprite. Shamas was in the corner talking to Morio, while Delilah and Anna-Linda were playing a game of cards at the card table.

It struck me that Anna-Linda looked like a totally different girl—her face was freshly washed, she was wearing a new pair of jeans, not skintight, and a cute T-shirt. And she was smiling.

But it was Chase who caught my attention. He was holding his head in his hands and I couldn't see his face, but he looked thoroughly rumpled—unusual for his Armani-and-a-martini self. He looked up at me, wiping his sleeve across his face, and I was shocked to see that not only was he disheveled, his eyes were bloodshot and he looked about ready to puke.

Camille pulled up an ottoman and sat next to his side. "Let's get this show on the road."

"What happened? More murders?" I asked, landing on the first reasonable explanation.

Chase shook his head. "Not that I know of… not yet, at least. Worse, actually."

"What could be worse than another spate of murders?"

Unfortunately I was about to get my answer. Delilah tossed me the Seattle Tattler, one of those yellow rags she was so fond of. I wouldn't wipe my ass with it, that is if I still needed to, but she loved the tabloids.

I glanced at the headlines. There, screaming in huge black font, were the words: Vampires Rule Underground Seattle.

"What the fuck?" I flipped the maze of amazing-but-not-so-true stories until I came to the cover headline. As I began to read, I understood why everybody was so upset.

What well-known director of the Faerie-Human Crime Scene Investigation Team has been hiding the activity of a nest of nasty vampires? Rumor has it that several citizens of Seattle have gone missing, and that Seattle's star detective, Chase Johnson, has pulled the bamboozle of the century and simply ignored the whispers about these abductions.

We at the Tattler have leads pointing to the truth—that these AWOL innocents have been turned into bloodsucking leeches of the night. That's right, folks—you knew they existed, but did you realize that Seattle plays home to an estimated 45 of these undead menaces? And when the upstanding, tax-paying citizens of Seattle disappear, who can we look to in order to take care of the situation? The police? Think again.

Kylie Wilson, president of the Guardian Watchdogs, says the group has joined forces with Freedom's Angels and are planning mass protests over the next few months to combat the growing population of Supernaturals (commonly known as Supes). "If God had meant Supes, as they call themselves, to exist in any large numbers, we'd all be born degenerates and mutants."

Chief Richard Devins, when asked about the missing people, claims no conspiracy exists. "We've received no missing persons reports, and if we were in the business of covering up murders, we wouldn't be out there every day hunting down the bad guys," he said this morning. "But you can rest assured, we will look into these allegations and prove that they're false. Until then, we urge the citizens of Seattle to avoid panic."

"Great mother, if this isn't a shit storm waiting to happen." I put down the magazine and looked at Chase. "Why haven't our newborns been reported as missing? Anybody know anything about that?"

"Anna-Linda, why don't we go into the kitchen and get a snack?" Delilah said. "We can finish the game in there."

Anna-Linda snorted. "You guys just want to talk without me in the room." She looked over at me and broke into a run, racing over to throw her arms around my waist. "Thank you. Thank you for helping me!"

Mystified, I glanced at Siobhan, who gave me the thumbs-up. "Anna-Linda's going to live with her aunt in Boise," she said. "Nerissa and I found out she has relatives there. And surprise of surprises, her aunt's husband—"

"Let me tell her! Let me tell her!" Anna-Linda jumped up and down.

Siobhan laughed. "Okay, go ahead. Tell her your news."

Anna turned back to me. "My aunt's husband is a werewolf. They have twins who are four years old. Darrin, the boy, is an FBH, and his sister, Chrissie, is a werewolf. I can help them on their ranch, they have a small dairy farm, and I'll help Aunt Jean with the kids and learn to ride and get back in school."

Her eyes were shining and I felt an overwhelming urge to cry—not because of the shit she'd gone through, but because she'd lucked out. She was going to make it off the streets. Anna-Linda would be okay. She'd grow up and, if she was lucky, turn out to be a happy, healthy young woman.

"I'm so thrilled for you," I said. "I take it your mom and your aunt don't keep in touch much, huh?"

Anna-Linda's face drooped a little. She shook her head. "No, my mom said that Aunt Jean's a drag and doesn't understand her. But she said she doesn't care if I go live with her."

Ouch! I couldn't imagine not caring where my child lived.

Siobhan rested her hands on Anna-Linda's shoulders. "Why don't we go into the kitchen and get that snack? That way Delilah can stay here and talk to Menolly."

"Okay. Can I have peanut butter?" Anna-Linda danced a jig on her way to the kitchen.

Iris stood, resting Maggie on her hip. "Let me go with you. It's time to feed Maggie, anyway, and you can help. I think we can rustle up some peanut-butter cookies, along with a turkey sandwich and some milk. How's that sound?"

"Yay!" Anna-Linda disappeared into the kitchen, followed by Iris and Maggie.

Siobhan waited until they'd left the room, then turned back to me. "You saved Anna-Linda from hell on earth. Be happy… You've made it possible for her to spread her wings." She turned and followed them into the kitchen.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. For so long, I'd wondered if I ever really did any good in the world. Now I knew. As soon as they were out of the room, I turned back to Chase.

"About those nonexistent missing person reports…" He shook his head. "We have received a few, but I pulled some strings and now all missing persons reports are filtered through me. I went out, took reports from their families and friends, and have been stalling like crazy. I'm just praying none of the three families who've reported missing loved ones reads this rag and gets any ideas."

"I can't believe none of the other newborns have been reported as missing yet. That's just sad." Delilah looked decidedly unhappy.

"Sad, yes, but you'd better pray the trend continues for awhile," Chase said, a sour note in his voice.

"What did your boss say about the article?" I asked.

"Article? That's no article." Chase shook his head, a grim look crossing his face. "The sociopath who wrote that piece of crap hates all aliens equally, whether they're from Mexico, Mars, or Otherworld. Anyway Devins ripped me a new one for allowing a rumor to get started. He told me to clean up the mess before it gets out of hand or I'll be walking a beat on the street again."

"What are you going to do?" Morio asked.

"Well, I can force a retraction—I've got a buddy who holds the purse strings to major advertising for that rag and he can put the kibosh on… What's his name? The dude who wrote the article?"

"Andy Gambit," Delilah said, reading the byline.

"That's right. Gambit. He's a troublemaker from way back. Well, I can see that he's muzzled for a while, but Devins is going to be on my back about everything from now on."

"Does he think we're involved?" The last thing we needed was for Devins to take a closer look at the OIA—or what we were passing off for the OIA these days. But at least Chase put that fear to rest.

"No," he said. "This is just one more way for him to try to get under my skin. He can't stand it that my idea for the FH-CSI gained so much support. He tried to squash me like a bug when I first presented it, you know. When the OIA and Governor Tomas made it official and put me in charge… that's when Devins decided that he had it in for me."

Delilah crossed to him and leaned over his shoulder, resting her arms around his neck and kissing him gently on the cheek. "Is that why he's always been such a jerk to you?"

"Yeah," Chase said. "I guess he's jealous, when I really think about it. My friend will get the Tattler to back off and I'll come up with some reason those people went missing, but Devins won't be above using this mess to push me around."

Hell, the poor guy looked so forlorn that I almost gave him a kiss, too, but that probably would have been more than he could handle.

Instead I just said, "We know where Dredge is—we'll take him out tonight. He's dangerous, but I think we can do it." I motioned to Delilah. "Of course, if the rest of his clan's there to back him up, it's going to be one hell of a fight, but we haven't heard anything about them. I dunno what's up with that. Can you bring up a map of downtown Seattle on your computer? Then I might be able to pinpoint where he's hiding out."

Delilah gave me a long look. "Sure." She opened her laptop and fired it up. "Camille filled us in on what happened in Aladril." Her words hung heavy in the air, filled with a thousand questions and comments. I had to do something before they spent every waking moment apologizing.

"Kitten, Camille, listen to me. What Dredge did to me… there's nothing that you can say or do to make it go away. But it's over and we work with what we have now." I had to alleviate the guilt I saw in their eyes. Survivor's guilt, misplaced if well intentioned. "I've accepted who I am, and thanks to Jareth, Dredge no longer has any control over me. Jareth gave me the greatest gift anybody ever could."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Delilah asked, tapping away on the keys. "We never knew you had to live with such horrendous memories."

"And if you had known? What could you have done? I thought it was better to just let it be." Let it be… The Beatles had it right, I thought, even if I didn't like their music.

Delilah opened her mouth, about to protest, but Camille interrupted. "She's right. We would have done the same thing if it had been us. Menolly's free now. Let's focus on the present, because you know damned well that Dredge isn't going to be waiting for us with open arms. Open fangs, maybe."

"Here it is," Delilah said, setting the laptop on the coffee table. "Here's a map of the downtown area. If you want to zoom in, just left click and use the scroll wheel, or you can use the mouse to drag the slider bar."

I knelt by the coffee table and looked at the screen. "There," I said, tracing Alaskan Way with my fingertip. I zoomed in a little. "Okay, here it is. See this warehouse here? That's where Dredge is staying, right across the street from the Deckhand memorial statue and the Sushirama. I'm guessing three to four stories up, but I'll be able to tell for sure when we get there."

Delilah peered over my shoulder. "That warehouse is now the Halcyon, a hotel and nightclub."

"I thought it might be. I've met the owner and he's one of those misguided types who believes that all Supes are inherently good, just misunderstood."

We all knew people like him, both at home in OW and here Earthside. People who believed that all members of their special group were inherently better than others. They usually ended up heartbroken when they found out that humans were just human, Fae were just Fae, Supes were just Supe, and that good and evil weren't inherent qualities thanks to a label on a birth certificate.

"Let me see what I can find out about the place," Delilah said, pulling up a second browser. While she started her Web search, I wandered over to where Morio was sitting in the recliner with Camille now perched on his knee. Shamas leaned back in the opposite chair, a quixotic look on his face.