Hidden Crimes (27 page)

A terrible idea occurred to him. What if this
gang was organized around more than acquiring and selling magical
baby parts? Maybe money wasn’t the main motivation. Maybe they were
sampling the goods.

If you’d been born with a little fae blood
but not enough for power, you might think you were entitled to
steal some.

He let out a sound of dismay. The sound was
soft, but Evina’s head swung toward the crate that held him. She
gasped, recognizing he was in it.

Hang in there, sweetheart
, he thought,
not daring to speak to her.

Paul wasn’t so restrained. “Evina?” he asked
from the carrier next to Nate’s. “What the fuck is all this?”
Understandably confused, he rattled the bars that kept him
imprisoned. “Where is my son, bitch? What did you do to Malik?”

This was demanded of Ellen and not his
ex.

Ellen still held the cattle prod. Seeming not
to view Paul’s outburst as worth responding to, she resting its tip
in the dirt like an elegant walking stick. Her cousin Blue kicked
Paul’s cage on her behalf.

“Thank you,” she said as the firefighter fell
quiet. “Shall we get on with the ritual? Blue and Brone, you handle
the tiger. Beaumont, perhaps you and Mrs. Norman would be good
enough to take charge of our guest from the RPD.”

Mrs. Norman was the bank teller. Nate was
grateful to be free of the box but less so to be in her care again.
Beaumont shifting to him left Evina unguarded. Mr. White, the bank
manager, assumed the empty place at her side. Was White as juiced
as his teller? Could Evina overpower him and escape? Nate met her
weary gaze. Why was she so tired? What had Beaumont done to
her?

At Ellen’s mention of a ritual, all the part
fae’s excitement shot up a notch. It jumped again when she began
drawing magical symbols in the soil with her cattle prod. The
symbols circumscribed a circle, which she gracefully stepped
inside. The faces of her gang grew avid, not so innocuous then. She
held her slender hand out to Vasili, who stepped into the ring with
her. He seemed dazzled, his earlier doubts forgotten. Ellen’s fair
skin was sparkling nearly as much as a true faerie. She was so
lovely it hurt to look at her. When she spoke, her voice was as
clear and cool as brook water.

“Take your places, you who have sworn to
me.”

Everyone who wasn’t engaged in guard duty
stepped to one of the runes she’d drawn.

“From where does our power come?” Ellen
asked.

“From the blood,” her acolytes answered in
unison.

“And who channels that power to you?”

“You, Mistress,” they all said.

“Fuck,” Nate muttered under his breath,
disliking the way the air beneath the trees was thickening and
buzzing. Sensing he was going to try something, Beaumont took a
tighter grip on his right elbow. On his left, Mrs. Norman’s bright
brass nails slid out from their sheaths, pricking his arm in
warning. A bead of blood welled as she broke skin.

“Hush,” the teller said, compelling him as
she had before.

Ellen drew a small jeweled dagger from a
hidden pocket in her silk gown. Apparently, she had similar taste
in knives to Ivan the Terrible. This one could have been taken
straight from his collection—and perhaps it had been. Its
three-edged blade shimmered silver and gold: pure electrum from the
liquid look of the reflections. “Is the sacrifice prepared?”

“It is,” said her followers.

With a tiny smirk, Vasili looked straight at
Paul.

Given what he so obviously expected Paul’s
fate to be, Nate shouldn’t have felt sorry about what happened
next. Vasili stood to his girlfriend’s left. Ellen held the gaudy
dagger in her right hand. She put her left hand on Vasili’s
shoulder, holding him in place as she turned to him. He smiled down
at her like she’d hung his personal moon . . . right up until the
moment she slid the blade butter-easy between his ribs.

She shoved it deeper as he fell to his
knees.

“Ellen?” he said as if begging her to deny
what she’d done.

Silent, she twisted the blade just as he’d
done to his brother.

The light ran out of his eyes as the heart
blood ran from his chest. He toppled onto his side, soaking the
earth beneath.

Shit
, Nate thought, because he
couldn’t say it out loud.

Aside from being slightly out of breath, the
delicate murderess appeared unmoved by what she’d done. She
straightened, turning away from the fallen body to face east again.
She closed her eyes and steadied her breathing by filling her lungs
with air. She stretched her arms slightly outward from her sides.
Her right hand kept a grip on the knife, her fist coated in red as
if she’d dipped it to the wrist. Her left hand caught the tails of
her chainmail belt. Her thumb ran up the rings to the three pink
pearls, very much as if the chain were a rosary.

Nate had witnessed a pureblood fae doing
magic on a previous case. When Ellen began her chant, her High Fae
sounded as good as his. If what Vasili believed was true, and Ellen
Owen was only a sixteenth fae, she’d taken her self-improvement
seriously.

His mouth went dry as power drew to her,
seeming to funnel upward from the blood darkened soil. The cornsilk
strands of her pale red hair lifted in a breeze that blew on no one
but her. The breeze grew stronger and stronger, until her hair
sailed nearly straight behind her.

Nate’s eyes sought Evina’s on the opposite
side of this wild display. Her expression was as dismayed as his.
He remembered stories he’d heard about Wolf Woods: that back when
their fae forefathers created Resurrection, these giant trees had
grown up overnight. Supposedly, their roots ran so deep they took
their sustenance from Faerie itself. He’d thought being here would
be an advantage, because his beast knew this place so well. He’d
forgotten the local enchantments might have their own agenda. From
what he knew, Faerie wasn’t a land of sweetness. In that realm,
blood sacrifice earned rewards.

Ellen was about to reward her followers. She
thrust out her hands, fingers spread, killing knife dropping to the
ground. Light shot out from her like the spokes of a wheel, each
ray terminating at one of her acolytes. Their bodies jerked, and a
chorus of moans ran around the circle. The suburban gangsters’
expressions were orgasmic.

For about five seconds, all of them sparkled
from head to toe.

Then Ellen dropped her hands. To judge by the
way she continued shining, this divvying up of power wasn’t meant
to be equal.

Her gemmy green eyes opened, her attention
zeroing in on Paul. He tried to shrink back in his minders’ grip.
Nate didn’t blame him. The part fae smiled like she knew a joke
that wasn’t going to amuse him.

Without warning, her aura flared as bright as
a camera strobe. Caught unprepared, the flash momentarily blinded
Nate. When his vision cleared, a different person stood where Ellen
Owen had. This new person was taller, blonder, and more imposing,
though she wore the same clothes. Despite the differences, she was
familiar. Nate and Evina sucked in matching gasps of shock.

The new priestess rolled her shoulders, the
glow in her cool blue eyes deeply satisfied. “That’s better,” she
commented. “Glamours get so sticky after you wear them for a
while.”

“Iseult?” Paul said, evidently having trouble
processing his mother-in-law’s presence. “What— Why are you—
Jesus.”

He shut his mouth and swallowed. Enjoying
herself, Iseult laughed huskily. “Really, Paul? You had no idea I
was playing a double game?”

Paul shook his head. “Is . . . does Liane
know?”

Iseult didn’t like that question. Her merry
expression cooled to that of the very controlled woman Nate had met
this morning. “Liane rarely knows what’s good for her.”

The answer seemed to hearten Paul. He
appealed to her as the more ordinary female who’d shared a house
with him. “Iseult, please don’t hurt Malik. I’ll do anything you
want. He’s your daughter’s son. He’s your own grandchild.”

It occurred to Nate that maybe little Malik
wasn’t the grandson Iseult wanted. To her, a handsome alpha
firefighter might not have seemed a catch, not when it meant
Liane’s offspring would have even less fae blood.

Chances were, she regretted her own past
dalliance with a cat.

Her lips thinned as she considered Paul. “Put
this one back in his cage,” she said to Blue and Brone. “We’ll save
him for later.”

“Don’t!” Evina burst out, unable to help
defending the father of her children.

With an air of amusement, Iseult turned.
“Very laudable. Speaking up for the man who threw you over for my
daughter. I’m sure you’d laugh if you knew how many times she
confided her jealousy to me. ‘Evina is so strong, Mother. She’s not
afraid of anything. Sometimes I have no idea why Paul traded her
for me.’ As if Liane being weaker didn’t explain it very well!”

Evina grimaced. Possibly, Iseult’s theory
struck too close to her own. “Liane loves Paul,” she said. “She
won’t thank you if you harm her husband.”

“She won’t thank me if she
knows
,”
Iseult said. “If she doesn’t, she’ll recover. In time, I’ll steer
the poor grieving child to a more beneficial match.”

Nate sighed inside himself. Iseult had
covered her bases quite neatly.

AS a tiger, Evina had never been to Wolf
Woods. They’d passed the sign for the preserve when Beaumont drove
in, her presence hidden behind the tinted windows of his black
Escalade. Because the moon wasn’t full, the rutted dirt parking lot
was empty. She remembered hearing other races could use the grounds
when wolves weren’t hunting, so perhaps Beaumont and his cohorts
had spelled the entrance to repel them.

There wasn’t anyone to yell to for help, even
if she’d had energy.

In an odd twist on gentlemanly behavior,
Beaumont took her cuffed hands to keep her from falling from the
tall vehicle. The moment she was out of the SUV, she felt the
area’s Otherness. Her skin prickled with it, but not unpleasantly.
The place smelled like Nate—woodsy and mysterious. Evina wasn’t
sure when it had come to pass, but for her Nate represented comfort
and safety. She felt steadier as soon as her sneakers hit the
ground. She wasn’t up to her usual self, but she no longer felt in
danger of crumpling.

Because it wouldn’t do to let Beaumont know
that, twice she tripped and fell sprawling. The second time, she
worked a few I’m-a-helpless-little-woman tears into her eyes. Rita
would have been proud. Though Beaumont cursed, he unlocked the
cuffs, figuring they weren’t helping her balance and probably not
in the mood to keep hauling her onto her feet.

“Don’t make me put these back on,” he
warned.

Maybe she should have tried to run. Instead,
she rubbed her wrists and nodded a curt thank you. She’d been
infected by Nate’s play-this-out attitude. If she had a chance to
rescue Malik or just find out where he was, she’d hightail out of
these woods then.

With a plodding gait to show Beaumont she was
harmless, she preceded him down the paw-marked path into the forest
without further assistance.

Seeing Nate held captive was a blow.
Privately, she’d been counting on him rescuing her. Seeing Paul as
well . . . and then Iseult had her brain spinning. If the Easter
Bunny had hopped into the clearing, she wouldn’t have batted one
eyelash.

She wondered if Nate had a plan. Somehow, she
didn’t think she should hold her breath. When his eyes met hers,
they were shadowed like they’d been that night in the pie section
at Holy Foods. But maybe she didn’t care whether he knew precisely
how to get them out of this. She felt better with him around
anyway.

She hoped he didn’t mind that she’d spoken
against Iseult hurting Paul.

Her objection hadn’t done any good. The two
redheaded men stuffed Paul back into the animal crate, jolting him
with a cattle prod when he fought. She winced but didn’t know how
to stop it. Paul was alpha. Of course he resisted.

“Not to be trite,” Nate said to Iseult with
amazing calmness, “but you won’t get away with this. Harming a cop
or anyone a cop cares about brings a world of hurt crashing down on
people’s heads. My pack is just the beginning of what you’ll have
to worry about. The entire RPD will be up in arms.”

The stir of discomfort that ran through some
of the others didn’t touch Iseult. “You’ve gone rogue,” she said
serenely. “That gets the RPD up in arms as well.”

“Excuse me?” Nate responded.

“Everyone in your precinct knows you haven’t
been yourself lately. You’ve been at loggerheads with your alpha
for some time now. Defying orders. Sleeping with tigers, for
goodness sake! Your quirky dispatcher Dana filled me in on the
scuttlebutt.”