2. Reine-1
843 Words
2
Reine
I didn't stop shaking, even when Lawrence and I arrived at our joined rooms. He sat with me on the bed and rubbed my shoulders and upper arms until I stilled, and then I leaned against him, my head on his shoulder.
"What happened?" he asked. "I couldn't hear what she said to you."
"It was the soul-eater." Every time I blinked I saw the girl's eyes go yellow as it took her over. "It told me it's here, and it's going to get me. And if I try to change hotels, it will go after you, Selene, and Corey as well as the ‘Con." I straightened and leaned back to see his face. "Lawrence, all these people are in danger. Who knows who it will use as a conduit to try to come after me?"
"Why doesn't it attack you directly?" Lawrence asked.
"When she grabbed me, I caught a flash of its intent. It wants to toy with me, weaken me." Ugh, typical Fae strategy—play with the prey before pouncing. "If I hadn't just been to Stone Mountain and filled up on the energy…"
"…and recharged your Earth elemental side…" Lawrence brushed a tear from my cheek. "It will be okay. You're stronger than you think."
He, of course, had no idea of the secret I had been charged to keep—rather than having only earth, water, and air elements as others thought, the Fae had all five including fire and spirit and could draw from all of them and change the nature of matter. I let him continue to think we were limited to three.
"I don't know." I'd done a cowardly thing that morning when I had sneaked out. "But we need to figure out how to stop the 'Con."
"I'll call John." He grimaced, and I winced as well at the thought. "As much as I hate to do it, he's the one with the authority. Even if he woke this morning without his wife beside him."
I chose not to take that as a dig. "He'll understand."
Lawrence pulled out his phone and called John Graves, now the acting head of the CPDC with Lucius Cimex having been arrested for shooting John's wife Beverly. That's how the government went—keep the chain of succession in spite of personal hardship.
John picked up on the second ring. "Lawrence, thank gods. Do you know where Kestrel is?"
"Hey, John, I have you on speaker. I'm here with Doctor River, and no." Lawrence and I exchanged concerned looks. "Is she missing?"
"Yes, since early this morning. I've called Corey."
"We'll help search for her, but I have another concern." He explained about Fae-Con and the soul-eater. "Who knows how much damage this thing could inflict?"
A pause, during which I clenched my fists. Was John seriously considering whether we had a valid reason for calling off Fae-Con? I reminded myself that humans' brains didn't think straight when grief was involved, so maybe he needed more time to process.
"I think you're right," John finally said. "And I think it may be cleverer than Doctor River has given it credit for. I sent the wine from last night's office happy hour for analysis to see if anything had been put in it."
"And…?" I asked.
"Still waiting for results. But I had to find out what got into Lucius."
I thought the answer to that was easy and as old as humanity itself. Lucius Cimex had had an unrequited—as far as we knew—crush on Beverly Graves and then shot her so she couldn't expose his involvement in the true Shadow Project. I didn't share my thoughts. There would be time for recriminations later. If John needed denial about his friend and mentor right now, he could have it.
"So, back to the soul-eater," Lawrence said. "Who do we talk to?"
"The ‘Con is run by a couple, but I don't know their names. Kestrel would—this is one of her regular Cons, although she was skipping this year because of school demands. You could probably ask at the registration desk, but since they don't know of us and what we do, it could be a hard sell."
"Right, who's going to believe a story about an invisible monster?" I asked.
"The other option is the hotel manager. We've got a good working relationship with the hotel, or at least we did. The manager is new this quarter, and we haven't had much luck with him."
"What do you mean?" Lawrence asked.
A sigh. "He's pushed back on everything we've asked him to do. Those adjoining rooms you're in and that Doctor Rial and Corey have down the hall? If they hadn't already been available, I don't know that we could have gotten him to move people."
Ugh, I hated difficult humans. "That's not promising."
"No. He hasn't had to handle a supernatural crisis yet. They always come around after their first exorcism."
"And this is way worse." I flopped back on the bed. "Well, we can only try. What's his name?"
"James Leak."
I sat, the memory of the terrier-man's brass nametag flashing into my brain. "Crap."
"What?" John and Lawrence both asked.
"I just called that guy an idiot."
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