Herne leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “I was following you. As I said, we’ve been watching you for a while now. My mother contacted me and told me to get out there and track you down. I’m not sure how she knew what was going on, but I don’t question her. And I certainly don’t question my father. I learned the hard way that neither one appreciates it.” With a laugh, Herne picked up the stack of papers on his desk and glanced at them. “Angel certainly does her job thoroughly.”
I wasn’t sure what else to say. I wanted to stay, to talk to him, but I wasn’t certain what to talk about. I was feeling extremely awkward, when Herne looked up at me.
“After work today, do you want to grab a burger with me?”
I blinked. I hadn’t been expecting that. “Do you mean, with Angel?”
“I was sort of hoping just you and me. You could give her the keys to your car and I can drop you off after we eat. That is, if you’re interested.”
“I’d love to.” My words came out so forcefully that I blushed. I sounded like an overenthusiastic teenager.
Herne just grinned. “I’d love to as well. All right, let’s go see what Yutani’s found out for us. He is brilliant, you know? The man’s IQ is off the charts. And he’s not just a computer geek, he’s really good at seeing patterns. But he can’t spell worth a damn.”
As he escorted me out of his office, all I could think about was that we were going on a date. Herne smelled so damn good when he passed by me that I wanted to just climb up him and lick him like a lollipop. Right then Talia swung around the corner, and the look she gave me made me blush even harder. I knew right then that she had caught my thoughts and all I could hope for was that she would keep them to herself.
Chapter 11
WE GATHERED IN the break room again. Angel brought her notebook, and settled down at the table. She looked like she was feeling more comfortable, although I detected an aura of sadness in her eyes. It didn’t surprise me, since I think we all felt the same way.
Yutani was the last to join us, and he was carrying several printouts as well as a laptop. He opened it up and tapped away at the keyboard for a moment, pushed it back on the table, then cleared his throat.
“All right, I’ve been through his files. There are a number of them that will take me a while to go through, but I made a cursory examination of everything. This kid was brilliant. He was also one hell of a good hacker, and I’m not sure how he was able to snoop his way into the information that he did, but he had his finger on the pulse of a lot of things. If anybody suspected what he knew, it’s no wonder he was set up as a target.”
“Like what?” Herne frowned. “Honestly, sometimes I wonder how kids make it to adulthood. Especially the smart ones. The dumb ones can rely on luck a lot of times.”
“Well, first and probably foremost, he stumbled onto the Dark Fae during a summoning ritual. In fact, he recorded some of it on his phone. I have the video here. I think I know who—what—our killer is.” Yutani hit a key on the laptop, then turned it so we could all see the screen.
Splashed across it was the image of a demonic-looking fox, with multiple tails. Its eyes gleamed with a cunning light, and there was something otherworldly about the creature. Other than the fact that it was obviously no ordinary fox. I caught my breath as I realized it was a photograph and not a drawing. And then I realized that was what the water elemental had been trying to show me.
“Is that a picture that he took? That’s what crossed through the water.” As I stared at it harder, I realized that the fox was standing next to a bench, making it at least as tall as Viktor. The thing was huge.
“I believe it is. It was on his camera roll. The kid took fantastic notes, so I know this is what he saw them summon. He didn’t know what it was, but he heard them call it by name. Whoever the head honcho was that summoned it called it ‘Kuveo.’ ” Yutani chewed on his lip for a moment as we studied the picture.
“Did he say where they summoned this creature?” Talia asked.
Yutani nodded. “Yeah. UnderLake Park. He was there with one of his ghost hunter groups, trying to stir up the spirits of Mr. and Mrs. Castle—the couple that disappeared from Castle Hall. He wandered off, sensing there was something going on, and he found a stairway leading to an underground temple or something, where he stumbled across this.”
Herne crossed his arms. “Give us the full rundown. Did he know if they saw him? Obviously they must have, given he’s dead now. Did he do any research into this creature?”
Yutani scanned through his notes. “It looks like this happened about three weeks ago. Shortly before the murders started. Like most kids, he was very cocky about how stealthy he thought he was, and how he had outwitted them. But I could tell by his notes that he was worried. He had made the connection between the wild animal murders, as he called them, and Kuveo. He wasn’t sure who to tell, but he said he was thinking about taking the information to the authorities. Obviously, the poor kid didn’t know that the Fae pretty much own the cops.”
“All right, so he made the connection between Kuveo and the murder victims. Did he by any chance save us some time by researching what this creature is?” It would be logical to assume that Kevin would have done the additional research, but logic didn’t always play through. And the boy had only been fourteen.
Herne motioned for Yutani to push the laptop toward him. As he studied the image, his expression grew studied and somber.
“He was looking for what he could find on it, but hadn’t had much success. He also had several other files indicating that he was researching some unsolved cases that seem to be connected with various spooks and haunts throughout the area.” Yutani handed us each a packet of papers. “Here are copies of his notes on Kuveo. Mostly, it’s a transcription of what he heard during the summoning. I figured maybe you could translate it, Ember. I don’t speak whatever language they were talking, and it’s not the common Faespeak.”
There was a common language the Fae used among themselves, although there were many dialects and two distinct subsets for both Light and Dark. I could speak both to a degree, but as I glanced over the transcript of the ritual, I realized that I didn’t have a clue.
“I don’t recognize this at all. And I speak both Nuva and Turneth, the Light and Dark variants.” The only word I recognized was Kuveo, and that was only because Yutani had clued us into it.
Herne turned toward Talia. “You and Yutani start researching Kuveo. We need to know what we’re dealing with. I have a feeling there’s going to be another murder tonight, but we don’t know where it will be so there’s nothing we can do to stop it. And obviously, warning the cops isn’t going to do any good.”
“There’s something else,” Yutani said. “Kevin made reference several times to the underground tunnels, but I don’t think he was talking about the catacombs. He mentioned the tunnels below the lake. Now, I’ve never heard of any tunnels below Lake Washington, so I did a quick search and found that yes, there are apparently a couple tunnels that were made by goblins some fifty to sixty years ago, deep below the lake. And guess where they run?”
“Between Mercer Island and Seward Park?” I glanced over at him.
He nodded. “Yes, but they also lead up to UnderLake, beneath the cities on the Eastside. Not only that, but the entire Eastside was once a hotbed for mining, so in addition to that, there are old mine shafts and tunnels all over the place. So this network probably accounts for finding our victims as far over as the docks. Because once the tunnels are on the Seattle side, it would be an easy hookup to the catacombs.”
Angel grimaced. “The way the whole area is riddled with fault lines and tunnels, it’s a wonder the whole damn place hasn’t caved in on itself.”
And that gave us a much-needed laugh.
WHILE YUTANI AND Talia did the research on Kuveo, Viktor headed out to talk to some of Herne’s informants. Meanwhile, Herne asked me to meet a new client with him.