Autumn Whispers (An Otherworld Novel) (29 page)

Ivana Krask was waiting in the park. Camille and I darted through the rain to where she was sitting. The Maiden of Karask was dressed like a bag lady. Her face was a gnarled map, covered in burls and knobs. She had a pointed chin, reminding me of a bird, and her eyes were beady, sharp, and piercing. But we now knew just how illusionary her appearance was. Underneath that shabby persona was a brilliantly powerful Elder Fae who could shatter our hearing with her voice, who could rise up like a beautiful and terrible monster.

She stood, her polyester muumuu shifting under the too-large coat. Her silver hair was tucked under a scarf, which barely kept it under control. The staff in her hand made me nervous. That damned thing could suck up spirits right and left. Ivana collected them for her garden of evil ghosts, where she tortured them, feeding off their pain for magic.

Camille gave her a sharp curtsey and I bowed. Always paid to be polite when you were standing in front of someone who could make mincemeat out of you. A sharp wind blew by and Ivana laughed, raising her staff.

“A ghostie on the wind, come to me, my pretty. Come to the Maiden.” And with a
zap
, her staff lit up and we saw something wispy filter into it. A sharp wail sounded, though it was so high-pitched that any FBHs around wouldn’t hear it. They might feel a flash of fear, a sense that something wasn’t right, but they’d just shake their heads and move on.

We watched her smile, her razor-like teeth sparkling. She licked her lips and turned her beady stare to us. “Witch Girl and Pussy Cat. Too bad my Dead Girl is sleeping, for I would like to converse with her. I like dead things.”

“We seek a deal, if you would be willing to listen.” Camille knew the pattern better than I did so I kept my mouth shut. It was dangerous to dabble with the Elder Fae unless you knew what the fuck you were doing, and I was the first to admit that I was clueless about effective bargaining.

Ivana sat down on the wet bench, motioning for us to join her. Great, time to get our butts soaked. But we did as she asked. Again: you don’t quibble with those who can make you look like a dust mote.

“What say you, Witch Girl? What do you want from the Maiden of Karask? And what will you bargain with? Bright flesh would guarantee you a deal, you know.” Her crafty smile reminded me of a crocodile.

“We are
not
going to give you bright meat.
No bright flesh!
” Camille stared at her sternly. Ivana was always trying to get us to bargain with babies. The fact that she meant it, and that she actually ate them with relish made us even more leery, but the Elder Fae lived so far outside our realm that there was no way to get through to them how bad of an idea this was. We just refused every time she hinted around.

“Then state your deal and I will see if it tickles my tooth.” Ivana glanced past her, coyly looking at me. “Standing back, are you, Pussy Cat? Afraid of the Maiden, perhaps?”

Involuntarily, I scooted over on the bench, moving away. I didn’t have any desire to be the focal point of this conversation. I decided my best course of action was to remain silent.

She sniggered and turned back to Camille. “State your deal, Witch Girl.”

Camille cleared her throat. “Prime beef flesh, for information that will benefit us. I will tell you what I want to know. If you have the answer, payment will be ten pounds of tender steak.”

Ivana sighed, frowning. “You drive a hard bargain. No bright flesh, today. If you were to throw in a chicken and some tasty fishes, we could strike a bargain.
If
I have the information and choose to share it.” She leaned back, seemingly unaware of the puddles of water that raced down the bench.

“Very well. Ten pounds of beef flesh, a chicken, and a salmon. We want to know how to kill dreglins. What makes them vulnerable? And do you know where any might be hiding around here?”

Ivana cocked her head, a smile playing over those thin lips, which made her seem even more nerve-racking. “So, old Jenny’s offspring have made the leap? They are here, are they? Jenny and I, we are not such good friends. We fought, long ago, over the same man. I finally decided he was not sweet enough for so much blood to flow and let her have him. She feasted well that day. But, she also made an enemy, and we have never been on terms.”

Camille held out her hand. “Seal the deal?”

Ivana accepted, shaking with a dark twinkle in her eye. “Witch Girl, you have too little fear. Or too much need. But yes, we seal the bargain. I will tell you what I will, and then you bring me the meat.”

“How do we kill them?” Camille wiped a strand of her hair out of her face, where the rain had plastered it to her cheek.

I pulled out my notebook to take notes. Granted, the pages were getting wet, I was soaked through, and the whole day was a soggy mess, but I wanted to be sure we remembered everything.

“Dreglins . . . they are tough little bitches. They have a nasty bite to them, too.” She paused, then looked at my arm. “Perchance the Puss has found that out?”

Couldn’t pull much over on Ivana, that was for certain. I held up my hand. She’d outed me, so no use in lying to her. “Yeah, one bit the hell out of my hand. Hurt like of a son of a bitch, too.”

Ivana nodded, touching her nose. “Dreglins, they are dangerous and not very intelligent. The bloodline . . . they inherited the hunger, but not the smarts. And Jenny, she just keeps popping out the litters. I surmised it would only be a while before some of the kits found their way over to this side of the world. Their venom comes from their father.”

“So they hunger for blood and flesh, and they don’t reason well. What else should we know about them?” A fat drop of rain landed on my nose, slowly trickling down to the pad of paper.

“They are quick, and can hide. You could not see them because they are like chameleons—they can shift color when they are in the forest. In fact, my dearies, you might think of them as the komodo dragons of the Fae world.” Ivana grinned. “They have the venom to go with it. So yes, they are fast, easy to conceal, venomous, and deadly. The best way to catch them is to lay a trap and then have at them with your blades and magic. They cannot resist quick and easy meat—on the hoof, though. They don’t scavenge, not often. So you find a good plump wench and put her out in their territory, and they will sniff her out.”

“You mean, use live bait. Lovely, and who are we going to get for that? And where do we find them? Do you know where they are?” Camille looked slightly squeamish. Live bait meant the chance of losing someone.

Ivana tapped her staff on the ground three times. She closed her eyes. As we watched, a clew of earthworms came out of the ground, and Ivana leaned down to the writhing mass and whispered something to them that we couldn’t catch. A few moments later, they burrowed back into the soil.

“We will wait now.” She held up her hand for silence. “Can you feel the beat of the soil? The message is being passed along.”

I wanted to ask her how the hell a bunch of worms was going to come up with an answer for us but decided to forego irritating her. Magic is as magic does, and the Elder Fae worked with the forces of the world in a way even we couldn’t pretend to understand. But my thoughts must have shown in my expression, because Ivana pushed herself to her feet and before I knew what was happening, she was standing in front of me.

“You do not worry yourself, Puss. But since your curiosity has your cat, I will tell you. The worms . . . think of them like telephone lines and wires. They are the medium, not the messenger. The messenger is my voice, gone searching, seeking. It hunts for our quarry.” She leaned down and tapped me on the nose with one of her talon-like nails. “Do you fear me, Kitty? Do you turn into a fraidy-cat when you face a fear?”

I was starting to feel uncomfortable. I had grown out of a lot of my timidity, and shifting into Tabby? Didn’t happen so much anymore. But that she could see into me spooked the hell out of me. Then again, she was Elder Fae, and when she shed her disguise, she was freaking scarier than the Fae Queens, and that was going some.

Ivana let out what sounded like a purr, then laughed and turned back to Camille. “I frighten your sister, but she knows . . . she knows.” She paused, staring at the ground. “I hear the pulse of the world. My message is answered.” Leaning down she whispered something and the wrigglers burst out of the ground. Ivana tilted her head to one side, listened, and the worms vanished again, back into the soil, burrowing deep.

“Your dreglin children are hiding in the forest, two miles east from where you encountered them. There you will find their lair, and there are five of them. Be cautious, my girls, they are deadly and clever, if not overly intelligent. You will need to walk softly. They sleep during the day, so you may have better luck finding them during the sun’s waking hours.”

I sucked in a deep breath. “Daylight? Then we can’t take Menolly with us. And the guys are off in Otherworld . . . well, we have Shade, Morio, and Vanzir. But if they go with us, we won’t have anybody to watch the house.”

Camille smiled. “About that, I made a phone call. Aeval promised to send me guards, just as soon as she can make a decision on who would be safest.”

“Well then, that works. But first . . .” I turned to Ivana. “Where do you want to meet us so we can fulfill our bargain?” One thing I knew, it never paid to welsh on debts to the Elder Fae.

Ivana pursed her lips, grinning. “Oh, my Puss. You learn quickly. I will ramble out to your house. Call me when you have the treatsies and I will come. If you are not home, just leave it on the porch and I will leave a note that I found it. And Witch Girl, you drive a hard bargain. I hope the information is worth it. The fighting will be difficult, but that is not my affair. Now, for bright meat, I would happily join you. You have seen my true form, you know what I can do.”

For a moment—just a moment—the glamour lifted and she rose so tall she seemed to blot out the sky. Brilliant and beautiful against the gloom, her long silver hair flowing around her, and her eyes glowing like a warm merlot. She was pale as a moonbeam, and I dropped to my knees, gasping. The only other time we had seen her true form was in her hideous garden of ghosts.

As quickly as the mask had vanished, it returned, and she was Ivana the bag lady again. Without a word, she touched her nose, turned, and wandered off through the park.

I looked over at Camille, who was watching her leave, the same look of awe on her face that I had felt in my heart.

“I wish . . . I wish we could be friends. I wish I could hear her stories.” Camille’s hushed voice echoed in the stillness of the afternoon.

“Are you so certain you want to hear what she has to say? Be careful what you ask for. You may just get it.” I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Come. We still have to stop at Carter’s before we go home.”

And so, we returned to our cars. As we drove the short distance to Carter’s, all I could think about was how so much of life was hidden under an illusion. We all wore our masks, and when we took them off, was it to reveal yet another mask, or was it perhaps the truth of our heart? How did we know if the person we were looking at in the mirror was really us—or just another façade?

• • •

Carter was waiting for us. As usual, he had a tray of steaming tea and cakes ready. I’d long finished my second cinnamon roll so I was very hungry, and Camille seemed just as famished. We ate while he was in the back, tooling around with something, and by the time he came out again, our evidence in hand, my stomach had stopped rumbling. I was mildly embarrassed because I’d eaten five of the little cakes and three tea sandwiches, but Camille had done just about the same amount of damage to the tea tray and she seemed perfectly nonplussed.

Carter put down the casts and smiled at the sight of the empty plates. “Good, I’m glad you liked the tea cakes. I was hoping you would. I tried a new recipe and wanted to see what you thought.”

The idea that the be-horned half demon, half Titan had been baking made me let loose a peal of giggles. Camille followed suit. At his befuddled look we tried to explain but the tension we’d been under picked that time to break and we were off and howling. A few moments later, we managed to get hold of ourselves, but he just grinned and waved our explanations away.

“It’s quite all right, girls. I get the gist. And no, I do not wear an apron, and yes, I love to cook. Someday I shall invite you over for dinner and make you my specialty—beef bourguignon. And then there will be no twittering.” He arched his eyebrows and we burst into giggles again, but this time he joined us.