“We believe a powerful supernatural entity is planning a major event,” Ian said. “And they’ve killed three of our seers to keep it covered up. One death could be an unfortunate accident. Two is highly suspicious.”
“And three means an evil plot.”
Ian nodded. “That’s how we’re treating it, and that’s why Vivienne Sagadraco assigned me as your partner.”
“So you’re not a babysitter for the newbie; you’re a bodyguard for the next Dead Seer Walking.”
“There aren’t going to be any more deaths.” His expression darkened. “At least not on our side.”
“So I take it that ‘major event’ hasn’t shown signs of happening yet?”
Ian hesitated. “No. It hasn’t.”
We both knew what that meant. As long as I worked for SPI, and as long as the unknown “they” were still weaving their evil plot, I’d still be sporting a bull’s-eye.
“Rake Danescu offered me a job,” I said quietly.
The only thing that little factoid got out of my partner was a raised eyebrow. “Interesting.”
“Just interesting?”
“Also unexpected. Danescu doesn’t work with humans. He must need a seer badly.”
“He said it’d be the same work I’m doing for SPI, with an immortality bonus clause. Don’t worry,” I hurried to add, “I’m perfectly happy with just plain old major medical.”
“Sounds like Danescu doesn’t know any more about all this than we do.” Ian’s eyes narrowed. “But if he wants you—”
“You’re preaching to the choir. My granny told me all about strange men offering candy.”
Ian almost smiled. “Your grandmother sounds like a wise woman.”
I shrugged. “She also said to punch ’em in the throat, not the nuts. Always lead with the unexpected.”
Ian didn’t have a response for that. Grandma Fraser affected a lot of people that way.
“Since Danescu wanted to hire you,” Ian said, “it’s unlikely that he’s our culprit. And our culprit wants Danescu either taken out of the game, or watched closely enough to keep him from interfering.”
“The goblin thinks Finn is in on it. Finn offered him wishes and all he wanted to know was who sent him. Why would someone send Finn to Bacchanalia?”
“To get the reaction from us that they got. What better way to force SPI to bring its new seer out of the protective confines of headquarters?”
“Wouldn’t sending him to any goblin business do the same thing?”
Ian shook his head. “Rake Danescu is the Unseelie Court’s most powerful and unpredictable element, which makes him especially dangerous. With either the Seelie or Unseelie Court, anything is possible. Intrigue is a full-contact sport in both. But the risk of losing a leprechaun prince’s wishes to the Unseelie Court was too great for us to ignore.”
“Danescu wasn’t happy to find Finn there. He didn’t want wishes. He wanted a name.”
“The prince’s bachelor party was supposed to be a week ago,” Ian told me.
“When I was hired.”
“Yes.”
“Why did he put it off?”
“Unknown. But it correlates to when I was called to Chicago for a mission that turned out to be a false alarm.”
“Someone wanted to get you out of town.”
“Not provable; but again, that’s what we believe.”
“So Finn could be involved.”
There was a commotion from the back of the truck.
“You want me to make a wish?” Mike shouted. “I’ll make a wish. I wish you would shut up!”
Nerves were on edge, and any patience any of us may have had was long gone. Any creature that reduced a sweetheart like Mike to incoherent screaming deserved anything they had coming to them—or anything coming after them.
“Maybe we can trade those two for Finn.” I said it loud enough to ensure they heard me.
Yasha gave a borderline evil grin. “Is good plan.”
An instant later, something slammed into the side of the truck, and I was thrown across Ian’s lap and against the passenger window.
Ian swore. I would’ve made my own contribution, but the air’d been knocked out of me.
Just what we needed, an accident at o’dark thirty in the morning.
When I caught a glimpse of what’d hit us, my eyes danged near bugged out of my head. A face was pressed against the other side of the glass, leering at me as we were going seventy miles per hour.
It wasn’t a flying monkey.
It was a gargoyle.
Not that I’d ever seen a real-life, or whatever, gargoyle, but this thing filled out the checklist: all stone, freaking humongous, and uglier than homemade sin with a face only Quasimodo could love. Rake Danescu knew he was being followed and sent his minions to smash us into road paste.
I found some air. “Danescu?”
“He’s never used gargoyles before.”
Ian stood, pushed me behind him with one arm, and leveled the shotgun at the window. Before he could pull the trigger, a stone fist the size of my head slammed through the window, snapped open its huge hand to reveal claw-tipped fingers. The thing lunged right at me, the impact of its shoulder nearly bending the door in half. When the gargoyle couldn’t reach me, it started clawing at the steel door like it was a piñata and I was the chewy candy inside.
Holy mother.
Yasha was spitting a stream of nonstop Russian. I didn’t need translation to know he was cussing a blue streak.
The truck shuddered clear down to its axles when another gargoyle landed on the door, dinting the roof in a good foot. Me, Elana, and the boys hit the deck, and the leprechauns started shrieking their tiny lungs out as a fist the size of Yasha’s head slammed through the weakened steel and proceeded to peel back strips of metal, shucking the roof like it was an ear of corn.
Mike and Steve were firing out the shattered back windows at something I couldn’t see, and the leprechauns shrieked louder.
The gargoyle peeled off the passenger-side door in a scream of tortured metal, and Ian pulled me into the back of the truck.
Yasha retaliated by sharply jerking the steering wheel to the right and aiming the truck directly at a really solid-looking wall in what I assumed was an attempt to scrape the thing off like a cow pie off a boot.
It didn’t work.
Ian wasn’t so confident about the Russian’s plan. “Yasha. Wall. Wall!”
“I know. Hold on. Might hurt.”
Might?
The engine screamed past whatever limits it’d been designed to handle.
“Brace!”
It was all Ian yelled or needed to yell. The rest of us got the message—brace or be bounced.
The Russian werewolf continued to accelerate, surpassing any speed that was either safe or sane. The wall looked plenty solid. The truck was definitely decrepit, and I had a sinking feeling that rust was all that was holding it together.
The metal shelves looked sturdy enough and were bolted to the truck walls. Ian secured the shotgun, grabbed me with one arm and a shelf with the other. I grabbed a double handful of Ian as the right side of the truck smacked into the wall, raking the bricks, and raising a shower of sparks.
A third gargoyle landed on the rear bumper and punched out the last unbroken window in the truck.
One of the leprechauns fainted, and the other’s shrieks stopped as the little guy tried to hide behind a rack of cheese Danish. The gargoyle ignored him, Elana, and the elves.
He only had glowing eyes for me.
The gargoyle had his arm through the window to his armpit, or whatever gargoyles had, and was straining to get to me, stone fingers extended and grasping, the right-rear door panel buckling under the thing’s weight.
Elana pulled out a gun, the likes of which I’d never seen before, one that made Yasha’s look like a peashooter. She aimed, fired, and while I knew the gargoyle and the door it was hanging onto had to be clanking and pounding its way down the thankfully empty street behind us, I couldn’t hear a thing after the blast that’d come out of that gun. My eardrums felt like they’d exploded.