“It does,” I agreed. “I can’t check them out tonight, though,” I admitted. “I got rather badly torn up earlier and it’s going to take me until morning to heal up.”
“How badly?” she asked, concern in her voice.
“Well, I may need to heal every tendon in my right hand,” I admitted.
“You can do that by morning?” she asked, sounding shocked.
“Um. Yes,” I confirmed. I forgot, sometimes, that while my healing abilities were slow by fae standards and absolutely glacial by shifter standards, they were still lightning fast by human standards.
“We still have a couple of days,” Shelly told me. “Talus will be bringing his team into Calgary early: Friday lunchtime. He’s planning to move in Friday evening or Saturday morning, so we have tomorrow evening still to check them out. I can’t see it being anywhere other than the hotel or that office unless they’re way outside the profile Karl gave us.”
“I’ll check them out tomorrow, after work,” I promised.
“Good enough,” she said swiftly. “I’ll still come by and collect your wayward witness tonight. In about an hour sound good?”
“Perfect,” I told her. “Thank you.”
I hung up and turned to the girls. “Shelly will be by to pick you up in about an hour,” I told them. “She’s got a safehouse in the middle of a goblin colony loyal to Talus that should be completely safe.”
“Goblins?” Holly said uncertainly.
“They stand by their loyalties,” Mary said quietly, confirming what Shelly had said. “That’s the reputation, anyway—I’ve never actually met one.”
“Well, now you’ll have the opportunity,” I told her with a forced grin.
27
SHELLY ARRIVED ALMOST PRECISELY one hour later, buzzing to be let in. She came down to my apartment, and must have come directly from work as she was still dressed in a prim black suit. She greeted Mary with a nod and handshake, and looked Holly over.
“So, you’re our mystery witness?” she asked, and the shifter nodded. Shelly looked over at me. “Do I want to know what we’re keeping her safe to say?”
“One of the Alphas is playing very dirty,” I told her. “Pretty sure he’s tied into our mess, so I want to make sure he doesn’t end up as Speaker.”
“Makes sense to me,” Shelly agreed with a nod. “I’m Shelly,” she introduced herself to Holly, and I mentally kicked myself for not doing so. “I work for one of the fae. Did he tell you what arrangements I’ve made?”
“Goblins,” Holly said quietly.
“They’re a lot nicer than you may think,” the lawyer told her gently. “I’ve worked with this group for over ten years; they are amazing people. Think Hutterites, but ugly.” She paused reflectively. “Really ugly.”
“I’d like to go with her, if that works?” Mary asked. “An extra level of protection.”
“Of course,” Shelly agreed with a nod. “We should get going,” she added, “it’s getting late, and while I’ve warned them we’re coming, they don’t like visitors late at night.”
Mary gave me a quick kiss goodbye, and I walked the trio of ladies out. Mary and Holly got into Shelly’s powder blue SUV and drove off with a quick wave, and, shivering against the cold, I dove back into my apartment.
There I found I had a text message from Michael. ASKING AROUND. NO ONE CLAIMS TO HAVE HEARD FROM K WITHIN THE LAST WEEK EXCEPT SOME OF THE SENIORS. WILL BE IN TOUCH TOMORROW OR IF I LEARN MORE.
WORK the next day was a madhouse. With everything going on in the inhuman political world, I’d completely missed the approach of Christmas in the mortal world. With only a couple of weeks left, the business level at courier companies like ours was rapidly ratcheting up.
The good side of working in a madhouse is that the days pass quickly, and this Thursday was no exception to that rule. Before I knew it, most of the orders had been picked up, dropped off, or packed up for tomorrow’s delivery, and Bill was chivvying everyone out of the office. We’d worked an extra hour today, and according to our boss, that was a mortal, unforgiveable sin. Mostly on his part.
Unfortunately, that hour later left me struggling into downtown, by bus, during rush hour. It was an experience. I’d been in cities with worse traffic problems, but I don’t think anywhere with more than five people is fun to travel through downtown at rush hour.
In the end, it took me half an hour to get into downtown and to the somewhat run-down east end, where both of the buildings I was intending to check out lay. The first of the two possible dens was the abandoned office building. It wasn’t much of an office building and would never have qualified as a skyscraper. Eight stories tall and largely brick with few windows, it clashed with the collection of modern glass-and-steel skyscrapers to the west of it, all of them brightly silhouetted against the giant under-construction tower that dwarfed them all and shone brightly with workmen’s lights. Even the Wizard’s Tower paled into insignificance against that edifice of glass and light.
Despite the glittering core, there were a number of low brick buildings like my destination in the blocks around it, however. It looked like an older portion of the downtown, and snow-covered cranes and scaffolding showed that the entire area was in the process of being rebuilt.
My candidate, however, had no scaffolding or cranes around it. Unlike the other buildings, which someone had apparently decided to repair and rebuild, this one had clearly been written off as a lost cause. An eight-foot-tall orange plastic fence surrounded it, and neatly lettered official signs declared the building condemned.
A quick wander around the building revealed one obvious issue with the vampires using this building as a hiding place—there wasn’t any way through the fence. It looked like part of the fence could be rolled back, but it didn’t look nearly easy enough to be done as a regular thing, and the snow around that part didn’t look disturbed at all.
There could be other ways in as well, though. Karl had implied that they’d use sewers for travel, and I was pretty sure I’d seen a manhole inside the fence. I took a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching, and then quickly climbed up and over the fence, dropping lightly onto the untouched snow inside the fence.
With the exception of my own footprints, the snow inside the fence was fresh, touched only by the wind. Peeling my ears for the sound of anyone else moving around, I carefully approached one of the side doors to the building.
I listened at the door for a moment and heard nothing. I was pretty sure that the vampires weren’t there now—night was starting to fall; if they were there, they’d be moving around. The untouched snow was a good sign as well.
However, I had to be certain, so with a deep breath and a flick of faerie flame, I melted the deadbolt holding the door closed. The door creaked loudly as I pushed it open, the sound echoing out into the office building’s corridors.
I slipped quickly inside the door, drawing my pistol from under my coat. Anyone realizing I’d been carrying it on the bus would have had me arrested instantly, but I wasn’t planning on facing vampires without being armed. Unlike last night when dealing in shifter politics, I’d loaded it with the triple-kill rounds the Queen had provided—silver, cold iron, distilled garlic.
No one came running to investigate the creaking door, so I moved deeper into the building. None of the lights were working, but enough light drifted in from the windows to allow me to see. Dust had gathered on the floor, and as I entered the main lobby I saw why the building had been condemned: at some point, a crane had been mounted on the roof for some form of repair, and the roof had given way.
The twisted wreckage of the machine lay untended in the middle of the old lobby, covered in a drift of snow that had fallen down through the hole that stretched through all eight floors. While much of the outer rooms and offices of the building were still intact, its central core was the eight-story path of the falling crane—clean into the basement.