Birthright, Page 2

  I was being paranoid, and I knew it. Jinx had met with our clients in the past. She was good at flying solo, that bossy streak of hers keeping the meetings on track and a steady cash flow into our bank accounts. But she’d never done this under the guise of running the place herself.

  That’s the part that worried me. She’d always been my paper pushing partner, the helpful administrative assistant. Now she was putting herself out there as a psychic detective—a job that attracted its share of nut cases. Walking in my shoes might just put her in danger, a fact that had me wishing she’d stick to answering phones and bossing me around. Was food so important that we really needed to swap jobs?

  Jinx’s role in the office wasn’t the only thing that had changed recently. Until last summer, our clientele had been mostly human. But after a battle with flesh eating faerie horses that made kelpies look like My Little Pony, our client base had shifted. The fae now knew that I could be a valuable ally, or a powerful enemy.

  Unfortunately, they also thought I was dead. That left my human partner on the front lines with some potentially deadly nasties, monsters who thought she was here without backup. I was just about to extricate myself from my self-imposed prison when the bell above the office door rang out.

  I held my breath, and tried not to move a muscle. If we were lucky, Jinx’s client would just be some helpless human here with a mundane job. The bell over the door only chimed once, which meant we were likely dealing with only one opponent, um, client.

  “Welcome to Private Eye…” Jinx said, voice faltering. I couldn’t see anything through the narrow crack that I was squinting out from, so I inched the cupboard door open further. I shifted my weight, preparing to come to her aid—or at least fall on her assailant—when the next word out of her mouth stopped me in my tracks. “Dad?”

  I’d never met Jinx’s father, but from what I could see, he was a large, burly man with a dark beard and more tattoos than his daughter. He pulled a baseball hat from his head, running grease stained fingers over a bald spot, and sighed.

  “Sorry to bother you at work,” he said. “Especially after all that’s happened. I’m sorry for your loss, sweetheart.”

  Jinx froze, and blinked at her father, for once at a loss for words. I’d known that going into hiding and perpetuating the story that I was dead would be hard. What I hadn’t planned on was what keeping that secret would cost my friends and loved ones. Jinx paled and looked down at her desk, straightening the pens and stacks of paper that were already lined up with military precision.

  Her father mistook her discomfort for grief and closed the distance between them, pulling Jinx into a hug. My friend stood there, face going red, and I knew I needed to do something. Unlike the pureblood fae, humans can tell lies, but that didn’t mean that lying to her father would be easy.

  “Um, that’s okay,” she said, gently pushing her father away and putting her desk between them. “Is that why you’re here?”

  This was my mess. I had to do something to fix it.

  Jinx continued to stare at her desk and I eyed the door, wondering where our client was. Someone, or something, had asked for a morning meeting. Maybe if I was fast enough, I could reveal myself to Jinx’s father, give him a quick explanation of my current situation, swear him to secrecy, and wedge myself back into this tiny wooden box before our client arrived. Okay, it wasn’t good odds, but I couldn’t just leave Jinx hanging out to dry.

  “Actually, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m your ten o’clock appointment.” He rolled his hat in his hands and blushed, nose going bright red. “I need your help.”

  With a crash, I tumbled out of the cabinet and onto the floor at Mr. Braxton’s feet. It wasn’t a graceful entrance, but then again he seemed more concerned with the fact that a dead woman had just rolled out of our office cupboard.

  I winced and came to one knee, waving to Jinx’s dad. I glanced at the large window that faced the street, but there were no monsters lurking there, and the desk kept me mostly hidden from view. I pulled back the hood from my sweatshirt and stuffed my gloved hands into my pockets, but I kept my face turned away from the windows that faced the street.

  “Pardon me if I don’t shake your hand,” I said. “It’s nothing personal.”

  “No offense taken,” he said voice shaky. “My daughter told me about your…affliction.”

  Good. If Jinx told her father that I was a psychic and he believed it, then he might be more receptive to what I was about to tell him.

  “Jinx, can you pull the shades and lock the door?” I asked.

  “Sure,” she said, eager to have something to do to keep busy.

  “I’m sorry that I was eavesdropping, but I didn’t know who would turn up for this meeting,” I said. “And I couldn’t leave Jinx on her own. There are dangerous people out there, monsters who don’t value human life.”

  “These dangerous men, they why you’ve been playing possum?” he asked.

  I nodded, taking in the man’s muscled body and grease stained coveralls. There was dirt under his fingernails and his hands and arms were crisscrossed with tiny scars. He was a man who worked with his hands, but the most impressive thing about him was the intelligence in his sparkling, blue eyes. I imagine it would be easy to underestimate a man like that, if you didn’t look him in the eye. Judging from his size, most people probably didn’t.

  I smiled and gestured for him to take a seat.

  “There are people who want me dead,” I said. “It’s better if they think they got their wish, for now anyway.”

  “People wanting you dead usually put you in such a good mood, Miss Granger?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’m just happy to finally meet Jinx’s father. Coming out to your business hasn’t really been an option. Old and used things have a tendency to bite me in the ass, so to speak.”

  He chuckled and took a seat, slapping his tree trunk sized thigh with his hat.

  “And here I thought you just didn’t like junkyards,” he said.

  “Only for their complications,” I said.

  A scrap yard filled with the detritus of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives left me shaking in my boots. Some people fear death, but me? I was terrified of the potential for madness that lurked within old items, the memories of their previous owners waiting to pounce and claw away at my sanity.

  “Okay, Dad,” Jinx said, taking a seat behind her desk. She’d locked the door, and dropped the shades. “So why are you here? What’s wrong?”

  “Someone’s been breaking into the junkyard,” he said with a frown. “And I don’t think they’re human.”

  I brushed paper dust and powdered ink from my jeans and rocked back on my heels. We’d hastily removed the shelving and office supplies from the cupboard this morning, but hadn’t bothered to wipe it down before I crawled inside. I frowned at a dark spot on my jeans. That smudge of toner ink was going to be a bitch to get out.

  Too bad that wasn’t all I had to worry about.

  Chapter 3

  “Why don’t you think the thieves are human?” I asked.

  The question was directed at Jinx’s father, but as he pondered the question, I raised an eyebrow at his daughter. She mimed fangs and horns with her fingers, nodded, and shrugged. Apparently, she’d shared some of her knowledge of paranormal creatures with her father. While I could commend honesty, that kind of information was dangerous. Most of the fae and undead would go to great lengths to guard that secret, and many of the long-lived weren’t bothered with things like morals or a conscience. They’d snap Eben Braxton’s neck, and pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

  I’d need to remind them both of that, but for now I had a job to focus on, one that I was already beginning to dread.

  “Wait, can you repeat that?” I asked.

  “I said, they lured my night guard away with some kind of floating lights,” he said, scraping a hand through his hair. “It was unnatural.”

  I bit my lip, trying to igno
re the churning in my gut. I told myself that I’d had too much coffee and not enough food. That was all. But a tiny traitorous voice inside my head was already drawing connections between the unnatural floating lights and my wisp brethren.

  I shook off the growing sense of dread, and focused on the job. Any number of things could cast strange lights throughout a junkyard. It was probably just moonlight reflecting off pieces of metal, or lightning bugs, or a trick of the weather. It was breezy yesterday. Maybe the winds had shifted some of the junk, making the light bounce and dance.

  “How long has this been going on?” I asked.

  “Around about two weeks,” he said.

  Well, that ruled out the recent windy weather. But that still didn’t mean we were dealing with wisps. There are other nocturnal creatures that enjoy toying with humans.

  “It all started when Bruce’s dog gone missing, though we didn’t put two and two together until what happened later,” he continued.

  “Bruce?” I asked.

  “Dad’s best night watchman,” Jinx said.

  “You sure this Bruce isn’t in on it?” I asked. “Maybe he staged the loss of his dog, and lied about the lights?”

  “No,” he said with a shake of the head. “He’s a good man. Plus, I got no proof any thieving’s been going on. It’s beyond peculiar.”

  “Nothing has gone missing?” I asked.

  Due to all the scrap metal in the junkyard, I’d been starting to suspect we were up against gremlins. I’d never dealt with the pests myself, but from what I’d heard they were one of the very few fae races that could handle iron. Some people claimed they even had a love for technology, or at least the airplane engines of the early twentieth century. More than one WWII pilot came home with a tale of gremlins sabotaging their aircraft.

  If gremlins weren’t the ones messing around in the junkyard, then who was? Vampires? Ghouls? If we were looking at ghouls, I didn’t have much hope of finding that dog alive. Most vampires wouldn’t lower themselves to feeding off the blood of dogs, but ghouls had no such aversion. Ghouls may prefer human flesh, but they’d feast on whatever carrion they could find.

  “Nothing of value has gone missing, just Bruce’s dog,” he said, running a hand over his beard. “Like I said, Bruce is a good man, and he’d never do nothing bad to that dog. He loved that mutt like his own kin.”

  Jinx nodded.

  “Bruce’s worked for my dad for so long, he’s practically family,” she said, fists on her hips as if daring me to argue.

  “Damn,” I said through clenched teeth.

  I didn’t like where this was going. Not at all.

  “What?” Eben asked.

  He frowned in confusion, but I could see Jinx’s eyes widening as the same realization crept in.

  As much as I wanted to rail against the possibility, I had to face the facts. The glowing unearthly orbs, floating through the night to lure man and beast to their doom sounded an awful lot like my wisp brethren.

  “The ones causing trouble at your junkyard aren’t part of your family, but they just might be part of mine,” I said.

  Chapter 4

  I climbed over a pile of car parts, careful not to snag my legs on the sharp metal. My caution wasn’t for fear of wrecking my clothes. I didn’t need a trek through a junkyard to accomplish that. No, I was more worried about puncturing the armor of my jeans and leather, allowing my skin to come into contact with the stacks of metal and plastic. People loved their cars—they lived in them, had sex in them, fought in them, and died in them.

  I’d rather eat Ramen for the rest of my life than touch those car parts.

  I swallowed hard, and stopped to survey the junkyard from my new vantage point. The place was a sea of memories, waiting to dig their claws into my skull. Experiencing visions was bad enough, but that wasn’t my only concern. My biggest fear was being pulled down into the abyss, and the psychic impressions never letting go.

  I shuddered, but pushed on. I couldn’t turn away from this job. If I was right, and wisps were involved in the mischief at the junkyard, I’d not only have to take on this case free of charge, but I’d also owe Jinx’s family a debt.

  Sparky let out a whoop, making me jump, and I almost lost my footing. I turned to watch the tiny demon as he ran around the junkyard, chasing seagulls with glee. At least someone was having fun.

  I couldn’t bring any of my fae friends along, not with the high iron content of all this metal, but Sparky was a demon. There wasn’t much here that could bother the little guy. So long as we didn’t dig up any crosses or holy water, he’d be fine.

  “How much further to where you found your night watchman?” I asked, turning my attention back to the case.

  The dog hadn’t been the only one to wander off and get lost, though he’d been the first. A watchman, a guy who filled in on Bruce’s night off, had gone missing for two days. When he returned with stories of following strange lights through the junkyard, lights that led him on a merry chase that resulted in him lost and terrified for two days out on the marshes, his friends thought he’d gone on a bender.

  Eben didn’t believe the gossip. He claimed that his guard, a man name Mitch Keane, hadn’t touched a drink in six years. Eben suspected something unnatural was going on in his junkyard, and I had to agree with him. It was looking more and more like my brethren were involved.

  “Just down there,” he said, pointing to the base of the pile of junk we were balanced on. I raised my eyes at the walled in patch of ground, and Eben shook his head. “It’s not part of his regular circuit. My guys stick to the paths. A man can break a leg, possibly even his neck, out here in the dark. No reason for him to be in this deep.”

  “What if he caught someone stealing?” I asked.

  “I don’t pay Mitch enough to risk his hide,” he said. “He’d make sure it wasn’t some fool kids out here partying, and then he’d call for backup.”

  “You get much of that up here?” I asked, picking my way down the hill. “Kids partying?”

  “Kids will be kids,” he said with a shrug. “But the fence, guards, and barking dog usually keep them out. If they do show up, a flashlight in the face and a threat to call the cops sends them packing.”

  I took in the high, barbed fence that circled the junkyard, and nodded. I had to agree with Eben. That fence wouldn’t be easy to climb, and cutting through it with the threat of security guards and dogs would be more trouble than it was worth. No matter how you sliced it, there were easier places for kids to go party.

  The spot where Eben had found Mitch Keane also wasn’t an easy place to access. Three towering piles of tires and scrap metal converged, forming a ring, leaving a patch of ground no larger than my kitchen.

  “Stay here,” I said.

  I slowly made my way down over twisted pieces of salvaged vehicles. If it wasn’t for my newly developing faerie fast reflexes, I probably would have made the trip head first. As it was, my breathing was ragged when I reached the bottom.

  I waved at Eben to let him know I’d survived the trip down in one piece, and began walking the patch of ground in a grid pattern. My boots sent up little puffs of dust. We hadn’t had rain all week, a fact that I was hoping would work in my favor. If there were clues to be found, they wouldn’t have been washed away. The wind on the other hand, had been less helpful.

  There were no footprints or drag marks. I spun in a circle, letting my eyes go soft as I tried to clear my mind. A good detective knows not to give up just because there’s nothing to see. I breathed deep, and let my subconscious chew on what I knew, but the only answer it kept spitting back at me was the one thing I didn’t want to hear.

  After another search of the ground, I turned and made my way back to where Eben Braxton waited.

  “You find anything?” he asked.

  I could tell by the rigid way that he held himself that the answer was important to him. I could understand that. Two men had suffered here on his property. I could relate to feeling r
esponsible for the safety of your friends and allies. I chose my words with care.

  “There’s no evidence that this is your fault, Mr. Braxton,” I said. “That fence should keep all but the most determined riff raff out and, from what you’ve told me, you have good safety protocols in place for your men.”

  “So how do you explain one man nearly dying of exposure, and the other losing his dog out from under our noses?” he asked.

  “I’m not ready to answer that, not yet,” I said.

  “When do you expect an answer?” he asked.

  “I’ll know more after tonight,” I said.

  I sent up a silent prayer that I was dealing with something simple, like a swarm of fireflies and a couple of drunk security guards. But deep down, I knew better. My life was never simple.

  Chapter 5

  Eben wasn’t happy about letting me wander around the junkyard at night, but I hadn’t given him much choice—neither had Jinx. In fact, my rockabilly friend had stubbornly refused to listen to either of our arguments against her participating in tonight’s stakeout. So now I crept along the moonlit dirt pathways with Jinx and Sparky at my side.

  “Ouch!” Jinx griped, tripping over a piece of plastic that jutted out from one of the nearby piles.

  “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” Sparky parroted, skipping circles around Jinx, and flashing a wide, gap-toothed grin. His long ears kicked up dust as he bounced along, like a lop-eared Tasmanian devil on happy pills.

  Sparky had lost another baby tooth this week, and I tried to ignore that fact that his adult teeth were coming in razor sharp and deadly. Forneus had warned me that my innocent little ward was actually a Tezcatlipocan demon—the very rare and extremely dangerous offspring of a fallen angel and a demon. According to Forneus, if Sparky had remained in Hell, it would be the kid’s birthright to grow up to enslave other demons. Heck, he’d have his own plane of Hell to rule over.