Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
After the medics had taken Wager off, sirens screaming, we gathered back in the breakroom. Tension filled the air. Talia, Herne, Viktor, and I sat there, silent. Talia finally got up and poured us all coffee, then brought the platter of pastries over to the table.
I cleared my throat. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but it’s going to be hard to focus until we hear from Yutani.”
“So, shelve the case we were about to talk about?” Herne asked.
“Until we know how Wager’s doing. It won’t hurt to push it back for a day. Or half-a-day. Either way, we’ll be down a person.” I bit into a maple bar. “What do you think of Ash?”
“Hard to tell this early,” Herne said.
“She’s observant,” Talia said. “That much I can tell you. The woman was watching everything and everyone in the room. I’ll do some research on the Crystal Fae and see what I can find out, if anything.”
“You’re correct—she does seem to take in everything.
And that glamour is wild, she practically radiated a magnetism I haven’t often seen,” Viktor said.
“She’s going to attract notice.” He sighed.
“I would like to talk about the UnderLake Park case. Yes, we’re all worried, but just sitting around waiting isn’t going to do any of us any good.
We can always go over it again once Yutani is back from the hospital. ”
I glanced at Herne. “Viktor makes a good point. And we’re going to be down a man. I may have to fill in. I want to give Ash a couple days to settle into her new life before bringing her in on a case.”
“All right,” Herne said. “So, Nalina, a coyote shifter. came to us a day or so ago. She runs in the park every evening after work. The other day, she was running along one of the harder trails—it isn’t used as much—and she sensed something off the path.
She said it was calling to her. She began seeing glowing balls of light floating off trail—”
“Will-o’-the-wisps?” I said, groaning. I hated dealing with will-o’-the-wisps. Well, the ‘real’ kind. Herne’s father made Lightning Flits from shattered bits of lightning that fell to the ground. They looked and acted a lot light will-o’-the-wisps, but weren’t dangerous or sentient.
“I think so,” Herne said. “At least they aren’t as dangerous as over in the Realms, but they’re still problematic.
They still have the power to lure you away into the woods.
Anyway, so she followed them off the path, into the surrounding trees.
Her dog, which she takes running, broke away and ran off, barking loudly.
The lights kept retreating further into the woods, and she began to get nervous.
She finally broke off the chase and ran back to the path, where she found her dog was whimpering under a tree. ”
“Did they hurt her?” I asked.
“No, but she’s been pulled back to that trail, night after night, and each time she says it’s harder to resist their call.
She tells herself she won’t go, that she’ll go running elsewhere, but she always ends up there, and she always ends up back in the park, on that same trail.
The lights are always there, beckoning for her to come.
The threat seems to be growing more tangible, and she’s terrified that she’ll be hurt.
I asked her why she keeps going through there, and she always says that she doesn’t mean to, but somehow, she always ends up on that path.
” Herne shook his head. “Can you get addicted to their energy?”
I frowned. I hadn’t ever heard of anyone becoming addicted to the will-o’-the-wisps’ song, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. They were incredibly persuasive. Their glamour made Fae-glamour pale. The lights were both beautiful and mesmerizing.
Will-o’-the-wisps weren’t part of the Fae—or the sub-Fae.
They were literally embodiments of the forest—devas, so to speak.
And they could hypnotize a number of the Fae who, otherwise, were immune to charm.
My mother’s bloodline wasn’t affected by them, but my father’s bloodline could be charmed by them.
I hadn’t encountered them since I’d been through the Gadawnoin, so I wasn’t sure if being a goddess had changed matters.
But before this case was over, I had no doubt that I was going to find out.
“If she’s being affected, she’s not the only one. Will-o’-the-wisps lured people in before draining them of their life-force. They need fuel and they aren’t picky about how they get it.” Viktor grimaced. “I remember our encounter with them back in the Annwn,” he said to me.
“I do too. I had to sing all night to drown out their call. And we wasted a lot of battery power keeping those lights on.” I glanced at the time. “I wish Yutani would call.”
“He probably just got there,” Talia said.
“Okay, so Nalina needs help before they actually catch her. I wonder if the will-o’-the-wisps have some kind of psychic attachment to her? That they keep drawing her back that way,” Viktor said.
“That could be—they’re clever creatures.
And they work as a hive-mind. They’re only ever found in colonies.
I believe there are some randomly scattered ones, but they always seem to grow colonies around them.
I’m not sure of the mechanics, though. There are a lot of theories, but I’ve never heard one that stands out as the clear definition.
” I stood. “I’m going to do some research on that trail, to see if there have been other reports. ”
“What should I tell Nalina? I promised I’d give her a call this afternoon,” Herne said.
“Tell her we’ve had an emergency, but we’re looking into the park and that trail.
Advise her to stick clear of the park if she possibly can—that there have been a number of missing persons reports and deaths there over the years, so she should stay away until we can get back to her. ” I stood. “I’ll get busy now.”
“I can cross-check to see if there are any other sightings in UnderLake Park—anybody else reporting the will-o’-the-wisps,” Talia said. “It will keep me occupied till we hear from Yutani.”
“All right,” Herne said. “I’ll call Nalina. And I’ll call Kipa. He and Raven should know about this, since they live on the edge of the park and walk Raj there on a regular basis.”
“Good idea,” I said, heading back to my office. It was actually Lyrical’s office, but since she was on a road trip, I’d taken it over. There was one other office free, and that would become Ash’s when she officially started with us.
As I settled behind the desk, Talia peeked her head around the door.
“I got word from Yutani. Wager’s going under the knife. His appendix was about to burst, so it’s a good thing he’s at the hospital. Yutani’s going to stay there until Wager’s out of surgery and the doctors say he’s all right,” she said. “I’ll tell Herne and Viktor.”
I sat there, staring at the door as she left.
Wager was a good guy—he was professional, he had a healthy ego—not too shy, not too arrogant, and he had been a great addition to the business.
The fact that he had been close to dying—burst appendixes didn’t have a comfortable survival rate unless treatment started as soon as possible.
The fact that he’d gotten to the hospital before that happening immensely heightened his survival chances.
The fact that he was part-Fae would impact his treatment, of course, though I wasn’t sure how much it would play into it.
I sighed and turned back to the computer.
As I brought up UnderLake Park, the list of links was massive.
I culled the list by adding ‘will-o’-the-wisps’ to the search terms. That narrowed it down to a manageable level.
Several of the links referred to some incident several years ago that we hadn’t been privy to.
But there were three links from the past month or so.
Opening the first link, I saw it belonged to a random news article from an online news rag. I began to read.
September 17:
Is UnderLake Park Home to Aliens?
Last Tuesday two joggers who were running along the Lost Ivy trail in UnderLake Park reported seeing multicolored lights floating through the Lost Woodland section of the park.
At first the runners, who prefer to remain anonymous, thought they might have seen a UFO.
However, when they grew closer to the lights, our anonymous sources claim that the lights were far too small and numerous for them to assume they were from a ship.
The lights were floating in midair, and both parties report hearing a faint song in the area, though neither can remember what it sounded like.
One of the runners said, “It reminded me of a dirge, or something solemn,” while the other said that it reminded them of “background music, like binaural beats.”
Whatever the case, it appears that these lights are not a one-off sighting.
Over the past three weeks, there have been three other similar sightings in the same area.
There doesn’t seem to be a pattern so far to days between the sightings, but all of them have been during the evening, and each time, those seeing the lights have been afraid to return.
UnderLake Park has no comment on the reports, and they continue to state that the park is safe, and that the trails are monitored.
There lies the question: If the trails are monitored, then why hasn’t the park been able to identify what’s going on?
I frowned. It was a fair question, even if the site was more tabloid than an actual news site.
And if there had been four sightings, all in less than a month, then the Parks department needed to get its head out of its ass.
UnderLake Park had a record of dangerous events, but not much had ever been done to ensure the safety of the public there.