“Jeeze, I just got ’ere! Can youse guys run a tab, or what?” I love the sound of Jane’s snappy voice. I do not, however, like the horrid, keening cries a leshy is known for. It’s hard on the ears.
Although the water sprite raises a brow, he answers cordially, “Sure. Just poke the elf mixing if you need to settle.”
“Hey, can I cop a question?” Jane’s pushy words roll off my tongue like thick dark blood, and I savor the taste.
“Of course, dearie.” The bartender giggles, and it sounds like shattering crystal this time.
“Were you here the other night when the wendigo came in?”
“Don’t I wish!”
We’d evidently hit a cord.
“Yeah, it was really something,” I say and take a gulp of my drink. “First time I’d seen one and was hoping I could get some shit on him, ya know.”
The Jane in me backhands moisture from our lips.
I about freak when fairy guy slides my second drink over, plants an elbow on the bar, and leans in. “Oh, honey, you’re not going to believe this.”
Chapter 10
Jane
“So, you mean he just packed up and left?” I ask for the umpteenth time.
After fifteen minutes of playing questions and answers with the bartender, a berserker, the funny little elf mixing drinks, and a tree nymph named Trudy, who injected mostly theory based on dramatic differences in local gossip over the last two days, we all come to one conclusion: Gaire is in the wind … again.
From what the Elf mixing the drinks told us, we gathered Gaire’s father had arrived at Purgatory within seven hours of the event and grilled all brethren of species involved in the cage fights at the establishment that evening.
One of the berserkers said Gaire’s father had paid visits to several of Vicen’s—the berserker Gaire had killed—buddies.
Trudy said several otherworld creatures told her that he’d then searched Gaire’s diner and dwelling, but came up with zilch. My bartender for the evening had added another tidbit by saying Gaire’s father made a second trip to Purgatory after all the side investigations to leave a few calling cards—round trip tokens to Alaska—should anyone have any information as to his boy’s whereabouts. Daddy added an enticing reward leading to his son’s capture, dead or alive.
Finally, just a few minutes ago, everyone agreed Gaire’s dad had left Florida as promptly as he’d arrived, but not before suggesting the locals get a move on. Daddy went all Snow White’s mamma on Gaire. He’d hired a tracker.
“Yep. The wendigo’s son passed through like a bad storm and kept on going, dearie,” the fairy bartender burbles and pulls me from my checklist of events. “I don’t think we’ll see the likes of him again, not with the price on his head. That kind of information spreads like a fire in a windy autumn field.”
I don’t like the glint of excitement in the little green creature’s eyes and open my mouth to tell him so, but Jane blurts, “Well, screw me sideways an’ twice on Sunday! Youse guys are pissin’ me off!”
If smoke could blush, I would be bright pink under Jane’s skin right now. I really need to gain a bit more control of my girl’s sudden outbursts, both physical and verbal.
“Sorry,” I mawkishly whine. My doppelganger eyes scan the group around my corner of the bar. “My host, she’s a randy one.”
The berserker belts out a laugh. “I might-could do some tamin’ and trainin’ if you’re up for it.”
Before Jane can bypass me and tell the crude creature she’s up for anything again, I say, “No, I’ll tell you like I told Vicen. I’m not interested in using my hosts unfavorably.”
The berserker smiles at me and jingles what’s probably a bunch of wish tokens in his right pocket.
I ask, “What? You takin’ up where Vicen left off?”
The berserker says, “Thought I might.”
Vicen’s human trafficking days were over, thanks to Gaire’s darkside. I was mesmerized when he waltzed into Purgatory and killed the berserker the other night. Why he killed Vicen is still a mystery. But Gaire showed himself, knowing his kind would double the price he’d already had on his head? The reason had to be pretty important to him.
Poor Gaire, whose only crime was being born—an anomaly. Bar gossip aside, killing Vicen might not have been an issue if Gaire hadn’t disobeyed his father’s conditions, breaking costly promises made in order to spare Gaire’s life. But he did. One of the locals said, and everyone at the bar confirmed, Gaire killed a human. It cost his father’s pack everything: generationally formed bonds in the otherworld communities, and acres of prime hunting ground in remote areas of the United States. The whole wendigo population was banished to Alaska where the cold weather tempers their deadly darkside—blood lust.
With a grin as nasty as a Viking home after a year of rape and pillage, the berserker says, “You sure you won’t let me take this hot little number into the sewer? Just one trip. You might enjoy it.”