Chapter 4
I froze.
“Half what?” Tris asked.
“Fae.”
“Like faerie?”
Kaelan nodded. “Sure.”
Morningstar jumped up and down and clapped her hands together. “You’re just like me.”
“I am nothing like you,” I said a little too sharply. Then I looked at Arelis because somehow, I knew she would tell me the truth. “Is this a joke?”
She smiled…and a set of fangs popped out from the top of her jaw at the same moment a set of black wings appeared at her back. They matched the leathery texture of her outfit, and I knew that this woman was about to turn my world upside down again.
“What the hell?” Tris asked, squeezing me tight. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Yeah, that.” I glared at Kaelan, too scared to look Arelis in the eye in case she could enthrall me like all the movies depicted. Morningstar started dancing circles around the others, and I almost yelled at her to hold still.
“Your dad, Gil. He’s fae. Your mother is human. You are a halfling.” Arelis said those words as though I should have already known all of this. “And I am an Ilabas Dorcha, or vampire of sorts as you humans call us here.”
“Okay, weirdos.” I stood and shoved the notebook into my back pocket, letting the pen fall to the floor.
“This isn’t funny, and I’m not in the mood for practical jokes.
So, until you stop dicking around with me, consider my skills off-limits to help you find Gil.
Let’s go, Tris.” I grabbed my friend’s hand and started to pull him toward the front door.
“Did you ever wonder why you are so good at persuading people?” Arelis asked.
“I’m not,” I said over my shoulder, still yanking Tris back toward the sex toys.
“You are. You have a knack for knowing what people want to hear, and you use it to your advantage. You’re an excellent reader of people. It’s a gift from your father.” Arelis hadn’t moved, but I swore I felt her presence right behind me.
Tris stopped walking, forcing me to turn around. “Maybe you should hear them out?”
“Are you seriously believing this bullshit?”
“Do you really think they’re lying to you?”
Tris was asking me to listen to my instincts—the instincts that had always told me when to trust or push harder. The instincts that led to the intuition I had about people the moment I met them. And apparently, these were the instincts I’d inherited from a supernatural bloodline.
“This can’t be real,” I whispered to Tris. “Faeries and vampires? I mean…come on.” Stomping the floor in time to the beat below, I sucked in a deep breath to calm my pounding heart. I could no longer see the rest of the group, but I could feel them listening to us.
“Just hear them out,” he said. Then, with one of his trademark smiles, he added, “Besides, it could make a really cool story.”
I couldn’t stop my grin even though I thought he was being unrealistic. “I can’t report on faeries and…and vampires in New Rothwick!”
“Hey, you never know.” Kissing the top of my hand, he gently pulled me back to the rest of them. Arelis glared at me while Kaelan checked his makeup in the little mirror sitting on the counter. Morningstar immediately rushed up to my side.
“We’re kin, you and me. We have the blood of the pure running through our veins. We are the blessed and the honored.”
Her attack had me doubting this whole scam again. “What is she talking about?”
Arelis stepped forward and gently stopped Morningstar from clinging to me. “Morningstar is a halfling, too. But she’s embraced her fae half in many more ways than most.”
“Yeah, I see that,” I grumbled.
“Have you ever been to a land as pure as a newborn child?” Morningstar asked, grabbing my shoulders and pushing her face into mine. “Have you ever danced by the light of the moon underneath the sparkling elms? Can you even imagine a place as full of life as that?”
I glared at Kaelan from over her shoulder. This had to be some kind of sick joke. Did someone at work put them up to this? “What is she babbling about?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but Arelis cut him off. “Morningstar has visited their world. Not many halflings have, and it…it marked her.”
“Do you mean made her crazy?” Tris asked, taking the words right out of my mouth.
“No, not crazy,” Morningstar breathed. “Touched.”
“Look,” Kaelan said, removing Morningstar out of my personal space again. “We think something happened at the festival, and we need your help to find out what it was.”
“Why me?” I asked. “Why can’t you or Arelis or Morningstar go?”
“Because they won’t talk to our kind,” Arelis answered with a sigh .
“What kind is that?” Tris questioned, and I had to stop myself from giving him a high five for the quick comeback.
“Human and vampire.” Kaelan sighed.
“I thought Morningstar said you were kin?”
“Morningstar is too crazy to be trusted,” Kaelan answered just as the halfling started dancing with a piece of lingerie. “Gil said I have a very tiny amount of fae in my family line, but I’m not nearly as pure as you, so they won’t accept me. And vampires don’t associate with fae in this world.”
I looked up at Arelis. “Are you really a vampire?” When she flashed fang again and wiggled the wings still sticking out of her back, I shook my head. “Prosthetics.”
The formidable woman disappeared in a rush of air and finished her little demonstration by grabbing the notebook out of my back pocket so quickly, I didn’t see it until she stopped and waved it in front of my face with a smug look.
“Hey!” I shouted, snatching it out of her hands.
“Lighting trick,” I muttered, but I knew I’d just witnessed something supernatural.
And even though I caught a hint of a smile forming on Arelis’s face, deep down inside, I feared she was telling us the truth.
“Plus, I thought you creatures couldn’t walk in the sunlight? ”
“Bad folklore,” Arelis grunted.
“Fake vampires,” I countered.
Kaelan huffed a laugh and handed me a note. “Nope, she’s all real. Here’s the name of the man who organized the festival. He supposedly has some business in the city, too, so maybe you can do your thing and find him?”
Do my thing? Tris yanked the paper out of my hand. “Is Sosie going to get herself in the middle of something dangerous?” he asked.
Arelis and Kaelan shared a look that told me Tris had just asked the perfect question. I really loved him sometimes. “We don’t know,” Kaelan said. “But we’re all worried about Gil, and you’re the best hope we have at finding him.”
No pressure.
“Fine. I’ll see what I can do.” I let my work brain take over. If I could simply focus on solving the mystery, I could overlook the fact that I’d just landed in crazy town with a bunch of people who think they’re something other than human.
Even the fact that I hadn’t asked about Delicia speaking to my grandmother meant that my instinct to investigate was taking over.
And that was probably a good thing, as thinking too much about Arelis and my fae father meant I’d need to reevaluate everything I knew in this world. And that was too overwhelming.
But I could focus on finding one man.
And if that one man led to my biological father, then I could ask him all the other questions I had.
“ D o you want another glass of wine, Willow Wisp?” Tris asked, lifting the empty bottle off my table.
I’d asked him to come over again because, well, because he was the only piece of normal in my life today. Unfortunately, he was fixated on this new nickname for me, and I secretly admonished myself for ever mentioning the stupid folklore about the lights people saw over the harbour.
“Sure,” I said with a huff from my spot on the couch.
For the last several hours, Tris and I had been researching the man named Razi.
It was the name Kaelan had scribbled on the piece of paper, and who had apparently organized the mystical festival Gil attended.
But I was having a hard time getting any more information on him.
“Did the investigator write you back yet?” Tris asked, handing me a glass filled with red wine and pushing my piles of notes to the side.
“No, not yet.” I’d left a message earlier asking Special Investigator Caldori to run his name for me. Usually, the man was willing to help, but so far, I’d heard nothing .
“How are you holding up?” Tris snuggled in next to me and peered over my shoulder at the book I’d found at the Academy’s library about fae and halflings.
Instead of answering right away, I breathed in the scent of his shampoo and enjoyed the way the warmth of his skin sent a series of tingles through my body.
The sun had set an hour ago, and I was feeling the effects of the wine along with a very long day.
“Are you believing any of this shit?” he asked when I didn’t respond.
“Not really. But at least I’m not a changeling,” I teased.
“A what?”
“A stolen human baby.”
“Huh.” Tris pointed at the screen. “No wings?”
“I guess not all fae are small and capable of flight.” I thought about the picture my mom had given me. “Apparently, some can blend in with humans quite well.”
Tris studied me for a long time. “You seem a little too calm.”
“Calm?” I asked in surprise. “I think I’m just overwhelmed. You know, finding out your dad isn’t your dad is one thing. But learning that you’re a part of some unknown supernatural race is a whole other level of weirdness.”
“No shit,” Tris said with a laugh. “All I can say is that you’re handling it much better than I would.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled. I was taking all this a little too well.
But I had a feeling that once my mind slowed down and allowed my emotions to take over, I’d crumble into a giant heap of uselessness where my doubt and anger would twist into an endless internal struggle of truth versus reality.
And if I slipped into that ravine, I wouldn’t be a help to anyone.
Denial and focus were the only options now.
“So, what else have you learned about this Razi?” He propped his feet up on my lap and leaned back against the arm of the couch.
“Not too much. It’s hard with just a first name, but I did find a few old patrol reports with his name on them in regard to some kind of warehouse he owns in the Black Graves District.
Actually, he might not own it, but he was listed at the building’s contact person.
Yet I can’t find a driver’s license, an identification number, or any other clues. ”
“Maybe he’s a ghost,” Tris joked.
“Not funny.”
“That was funny, Willow Wisp.”
“Stop calling me that.” He squeezed my thigh, and I burst out into a fit of giggles. “Stop it! You’re going to make me drop my wine.”
“Well, put it down so we can take a proper tickle break.”
“What are we? Five?” I asked through my laughs.
“You’re allowed to let loose every once in a while, Sosie.
And I think you should take a little break.
” Tris pulled the wineglass out of my hand and set it on the coffee table.
Then he tossed the papers to the ground and lowered my computer on the floor.
Opening his arms, he wiggled his fingers at me.
“Come here. Let’s forget about this and watch a movie. ”
“Don’t you have to go home tonight?”
“Nope,” he said a little too quickly. “So, what are they playing this month?” Pointing the remote at my tiny television across the room, he started flipping through the handful of channels available in New Rothwick. “I’m feeling like…ooh, how about Hounds of the Haunted Forest ?”
“Funny,” I groaned, not forgetting that it was a movie about all kinds of creatures who supposedly lived in the Kilderoy woods.
“Hey, you might be able to watch this with a whole new perspective. I wonder if goblins are a real thing…”
“Have you ever seen someone who looked like a goblin?”
“Do you remember Jimmy Pelligrina?”
I laughed. “The goalie from your college team?”
“Yeah. He was short, but he could move faster than anyone. Maybe he was part goblin.”
“Or maybe part troll,” I added.
Tris squeezed me and whispered in my ear. “A goblin is the same thing as a troll. ”
“Oh, well, excuse me for not understanding the lesser species.”
That earned me another tickle. “Hey, goblins are strong and stoic. I’d rather be part goblin than part faerie.”
“You suck so much,” I teased. Gently nudging my back against his chest, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feel of Tris. He was my person. The only one who knew everything about me. “Thank you,” I mumbled.
“For what?”
“For always being here for me. I don’t know what I would do without you.” And without putting another thought to it, I lifted my chin and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
Tris froze. He still hadn’t shaved, and I felt the stubble brush against my lips in a way that I suddenly realized I liked very much.
This was night number two for Tris staying here with me.
It wasn’t something we did that often, but after the events of today, I briefly wondered if tonight meant more.
He’d learned about my abnormal genetics, and he was still sitting here by my side.
And other than the new nickname, Tris hadn’t given me a hard time at all.
He was truly the best friend I’d ever had.
“What?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“What did you just say?”
I must have mumbled that best friend part out loud. “Nothing.”
Tris pushed me off him and readjusted his legs. With his long body, he barely fit on my couch. But I could snuggle in perfectly between his thighs and enjoyed feeling so close to him. Sitting up, I twisted my body so that we faced each other. “Tris?”
“Yes, Willow?”
Rolling my eyes, I touched the side of his face. “Thanks for being here tonight.”
He let his head push into the palm of my hand and gave me one of his amazing smiles. “Of course. ”
I blamed the wine for my next move.
Without another thought, I leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the lips. Those soft, full lips that I’d stared at for twenty years, always wondering how they would feel.
And they certainly didn’t disappoint.