5. Chapter Five
~Felix~
The Vermillion wolves gave me curious looks as I wandered through their town, waving my cell phone in the air like an idiot to try to get a signal. No such luck, unfortunately. The pack’s remote location deep in the forested Rocky Mountain foothills would make gathering the information I needed a bit more of a challenge, but I never let a setback hold me down for long. Rather than wasting time on frustration, I headed back to the pack house and asked to borrow Alpha Marcus’ satellite phone.
The Alpha handed me not only the phone but his office as well, a wood-paneled relic of the 1970s that reeked of incense. Who knew anyone still used so much patchouli?
Turning in my chair to face the window and the darkening world outside, I called Jasper up in the Ravenstone pack first.
“Hello?” he answered cautiously, obviously not recognizing the number.
“Jasper, it’s Felix. How are you? How’s Sav?”
He immediately relaxed at the sound of my voice. “Oh, hey. We’re fine. She’s off taking the pack by storm at the moment.”
We both chuckled, knowing his words probably weren’t much of an exaggeration.
“Where are you calling from?” he asked.
I quickly filled him in on my current location and the reason for my visit. “I’m a Beta, not a detective, but I’d still like to help,” I finished with a laugh. “What would you do in my shoes?”
“How deep do you want to go?” he replied good-naturedly. “I have years of study and experience I can share.”
As fascinating as that sounded, I wanted to make some progress before the trail got too cold. “Let’s stick to the shallow end for now. Don’t want to drown right out of the gate.”
“In that case, remember the ABCs: assume nothing, believe nothing, check everything. For instance, the Alpha told you there are only two copies of that key, right? But could someone have duplicated it somehow? Or taken it from wherever the Alpha keeps it and returned it without his knowledge? Identify all the possible scenarios, not just the obvious ones. At the same time, focus on building your suspect list. Not just who has something to gain from stealing the items but who might benefit from the Alpha being distracted by this investigation. The theft might not be the end game, especially if they’re not stealing anything high-value. If Vaughan’s right and it’s an inside job, how did the alert get triggered? A pack member can’t trigger it, so they would have had to recruit someone external to help or tampered with the system somehow. Make sure all the pieces fit before you jump to any conclusions.”
Damn. I hadn’t even thought of half those questions. It felt like trying to untangle a web without knowing where it started or what kind of spider spun it.“You want to take a road trip and come help me with this?” I asked him, only half-joking.
He laughed again. “We’re a little busy up here right now with our new Alpha and Beta getting settled, but call me anytime you get stuck and want to talk things through with someone.”
Calling him ‘anytime’ would be a lot easier if my phone worked, but I’d figure it out somehow. “Thanks, Jasper. Give Sav my best.”
“Will do. Good luck.”
After scribbling down a few notes to make sure I didn’t forget everything he just told me, I called home.
“Did you miss me already?” Vaughan asked after I got put through to him.
“Who is this guy making jokes and what did you do with my grumpy best friend?” I teased him. “If I knew you just needed to get laid, I’d have gone in search of your mate years ago.”
“You’re just jealous.”
He wasn’t entirely wrong but that had nothing to do with why I called. “Speaking of your mate, you think I can borrow her brain for a few minutes? Unless her mouth is currently occupied?”
Vaughan chuckled. Actually chuckled. “She’s free at the moment, but don’t go giving me ideas for later.”
“Like you need any encouragement from me.”
He gave a grunt of agreement before giving the phone to Calista, who must have been right beside him.
“Felix.”
Her mildly disapproving tone made it pretty clear she’d heard every word of that exchange and I rubbed at the back of my neck sheepishly. “Hey, Calista. Would you believe I was temporarily possessed for the last minute or so?”
“By the spirit of an adolescent boy?”
Busted. Vaughan’s laugh in the background made it impossible for me to keep a straight face, but I tried to sound sincere as I offered a simple apology. “Sorry.”
She exhaled a small laugh too, confirming she hadn’t taken any real offense. “Don’t worry about it. What do you need?”
Getting down to business, I told her about my visit to the weapons store and about the flint arrowhead in the container that remained untouched. Her sharp inhale confirmed that she thought it could be just as significant as I did. “I’m thinking elves or fairies, but I’m sure you know a lot more about it.”
“I’ve dealt with fae a couple of times,” she confirmed. “They’re slippery to track down. I agree that the flint points in that direction, and so does the invisibility. To most people, fairies are invisible.”
“Most people?” I repeated curiously. “Not all?”
“No. If someone from our world travels to the fae realm, they’re able to see all fae creatures when they return. If they return. Many don’t ever come back.”
“So, I could literally be looking for an invisible thief,” I surmised. “That could make this tricky. How do I get myself to the fae realm to get this super-special fae vision?”
She laughed at my tongue-in-cheek question that, just like with Jasper, hadn’t entirely been a joke. “Generally, you can only get there in the company of a fairy or elf.”
“Which… I can’t see.”
“Right.”
I blew out a long breath. “Sounds perfectly straightforward.”
“Actually, it’s not as impossible as it may seem. If you think your thief will come back, you can set a trap for them. From there, you can put a tracker on them and follow them.”
My eyebrows raised in curiosity, the movement reflected in the glass of the window in front of me. Calista had lost me so I tried to take things one step at a time, questioning everything like Jasper suggested.
“What do you mean ‘if’ they come back?”
“Well, it depends what they wanted the weapons for,” she elaborated. “Maybe they already got what they needed and won’t return again. Honestly, I’m a little puzzled about what you said they took. Fae don’t usually use guns, so why would they want bullets?”
That seemed odd to me too. “Maybe it’s not the bullets they wanted? Maybe there’s something that…”
I trailed off as a new thought came into my head. Assume nothing , Jasper said, but we’d all been assuming the thief took the ammunition and weapons to use as weapons. Maybe that wasn’t right. Maybe they wanted them for another reason entirely.
“Would fae have any use for silver?” I asked.
“Silver?” Calista repeated thoughtfully. “I’m not sure, but generally, elements are different between the two worlds. They probably don’t have it in their realm, so if they needed it for some reason, they’d probably have to come here and take it. Were all the things that were taken made of silver?”
“I think so.”
I’d have to ask Alpha Marcus to confirm, but generally, werewolf weapons would contain at least a small amount of silver since it would do the most harm if another pack attacked. Silver could be far more deadly to werewolves than just about any other type of weapon. Bullets, arrows and knives, all the things that were taken from the weapons store, more than likely contained silver.
That felt like my most solid lead so far, so I moved on to the next part of what she said. “How do I set a trap?”
“It’s a common item used against a lot of supernatural species,” Calista told me. “Want to guess?”
“A pop quiz, huh?” I was always up for a challenge. “Does it have to do with the flint?”
“No. They avoid flint, as you already know, but it won’t trap them.”
“Not silver, I’m guessing, since they’re stealing it,” I mused. “Holy water? Garlic?”
“No, but you’re getting closer with food.”
“Salt?” I guessed, thinking back to the countless hours I’d spent lurking on supernatural forums over the years. Salt worked on demons, ghosts, and hellhounds, so why not fairies?
“Bingo.” Calista’s approval pleased me as much as a child getting praised by a parent. “Sugar also works. If salt or sugar is spilled in front of a fairy, they have to count every grain of it. It’s a compulsion. While they’re counting, you can place a tracker on them and follow them back to their fairy ring or whatever space they’re using as a portal between realms. Just make sure that when you’re in their realm, you don’t eat or drink anything or you’ll end up stuck there forever.”
“Do you really believe all of this?” Vaughan asked in the background. “It sounds made up.”
“You can literally change into a wolf,” she answered him, completely deadpan. “I don’t think you can talk.”
I didn’t have any doubt about the accuracy of her information, but I did still have another question. “What do I use as a tracker?”
“There are several options, but I’ve used paint. Glow-in-the-dark paint, specifically.”
I didn’t expect that answer. “Come again?”
Patiently, Calista explained it to me. “Even though you can’t see them, the elf or fairy will have a physical form. If you run into them, you’ll feel them. Splatter some paint in the direction of the salt when they start counting the grains, and that paint will stick to them and stay visible to you. Glow-in-the-dark paint works better in case it’s nighttime when they move again. Remember how you said the weapons would seem to be walking by themselves if someone invisible picked them up? You weren’t wrong. It will literally look like that, like specks of paint moving on their own in the air.”
Well, now I really hoped that would happen because I would love to see it. “Have you been to the fae realm?”
“No.” Her voice went quieter as she answered. “My father said it would be too dangerous for me, but he went. I saw him disappear into the fairy ring and come back again. That’s how I know this will work.”
A second later, Vaughan came back on the line. “Listen, Felix, if this is really what’s happening, I don’t want you going anywhere on your own. Find out if that’s what you’re dealing with, and if it is one of these fae, Calista and I will come for backup.”
The genuine concern in his voice, even if he didn’t fully buy into the fae theory, warmed my heart. We might give each other a hard time, but when push came to shove, we were still friends above all. “I understand. Let me do some more investigation and I’ll get back to you.”
We hung up and I went to join the Vermillion pack leadership for dinner, my head swimming with all the new information I’d learned and the enticing possibility of visiting a whole new world. The thrill of discovery overruled any potential danger, and I’d be very disappointed if there turned out to be a non-supernatural explanation for all of this.