Keeper of the Moon

chapter 9



Gwydion’s Cave was like a time capsule of the Roaring Twenties, all marble and mahogany and ornate decadence. Every time Sailor walked in she felt like a flapper. Her cousin Barrie, in contrast to her surroundings, was wearing her work uniform: sweatpants, socks and an old sweater. She was glued to her computer screen in her tiny office space, Sophie the cat on the desk next to her, with Wizard and Jonquil sharing a Chippendale chaise longue. She looked up at Sailor’s entrance. “At last,” she said. “I’ve been worried.”

“Where’s Rhiannon?” Sailor asked.

“Mystic Café. Singing.” Barrie pushed back her chair. “Leaving me instructions to find out everything that’s going on. So come on. I need food.”

Sailor followed her into the Cave’s small kitchen, suddenly ravenous. She hopped onto the counter and helped herself to a handful of M&M’S from an antique bowl and started talking. There was plenty to discuss. She kept eating, moving from M&M’S to potato chips as she described the strange episodes of the Scarlet Pathogen and what she’d learned about the investigation, and when the chips were nearly gone she took a deep breath and told Barrie what she most wanted to talk about, which was what was happening between her and Declan Wainwright.

“Okay, this is more like it,” Barrie said, her green eyes lighting up. “Enough with disease and death. Making out with Declan Wainwright? I love it. I can’t believe it, but I love it.”

“Why can’t you believe it?” Sailor asked. “Should I be offended?”

“It’s not that you’re not adorable, sweetie. But he’s a friend of the family, and I thought he’d consider us off-limits. Professional courtesy.”

“What do you mean ‘off-limits’?”

“You know, as a—plaything.”

Sailor raised an eyebrow and Barrie raised one in response. “Sailor Ann, Declan is notoriously...active. Classic shifter energy. He is not a guy to fall in love with. You know that, right?”

It was like being drenched with ice water.

“Well, right. Of course. Fall in love with Casanova? No.” Sailor pasted a smile on her face. “What did we used to say when we were fifteen? ‘A kiss is not a contract.’ I know that.”

Barrie peered at her. “Do you, sweetie?”

“Yes. Declan doesn’t take it seriously. Neither do I. It’s a flirtation. A circumstantial flirtation, because we’ve been thrown together. For a while I thought it might be these intermittent pathogen-based attacks of, well, fascination. With everyone and everything. Which I thought were winding down, but then I had one on the 101 North just now, becoming interested in everyone in the fast lane. Have you ever just looked, really looked, at drivers on the freeway? Spellbinding. Collectively, we Californians are a very attractive bunch.”

Barrie was staring at her, so Sailor helped herself to a glass of water, dropping eye contact. “Okay, back to murder.”

“Not so fast,” Barrie said. “Your eyes are looking less scarlet, by the way. But maybe it is the Scarlet Pathogen, these feelings. On the other hand, you’ve had a crush on Wainwright since you were nineteen.”

“Seventeen. Oh, Barrie. Has it been that obvious? All these years?”

Barrie nodded. “The tough-girl routine. Dead giveaway.”

Sailor sighed. “Okay, I’m going to play it out, because I don’t have enough willpower not to. But I know it’s not going anywhere, I know not to trust him romantically, I know not to have expectations. I’m fine.”

“Okay, right answer,” Barrie said. “And I’m here if you need me to remind you. So what’s next, investigation-wise?”

“I want to retrace the steps of the four victims, figure out who they knew in common. For Charlotte Messenger, I need to get onto the set of her movie, talk to her boyfriend-slash-director. How can I do that, do you think?”

“Easiest thing in the world. Don’t you know who packaged Knock My Socks Off?”

Sailor’s blinked. “GAA?”

Barrie nodded. “Writer, producer, director and female lead, all represented by Darius. He could get you onto that set in a heartbeat. Of course, getting Giancarlo Ferro to talk to you is another story entirely. He’s temperamental, to put it kindly.”

Sailor stood, reached over to hug Barrie and grabbed the last of the M&M’S. “You are a doll. And I’ve got to go.”

“Sailor?” Barrie said. “Just be careful. With everything, especially your heart.”

As soon as she’d shut the door of Gwydion’s Cave, Sailor let the cheerfulness drop. She was sick with disappointment. Barrie was absolutely right, and she’d been stupid not to have reminded herself of that. It was going to be impossible to get through this partnership thing without heartbreak. Equally impossible to resist Declan Wainwright. The best she could do was act the part of someone in it for a fling and not the long haul. The best she could hope for was to save face and exit gracefully when it was over.

The worst-case scenario? She would never get over him. Never be the same.

Meanwhile, the object of her obsession was on his way to pick her up and she had work to do. She left a phone message with Darius’s supercilious assistant, requesting that he call her. Then she left a voice mail for Reggie Maxx, a sort of courtesy call, saying she planned to visit two film sets in the next twenty-four hours if she could pull it off, at least one of them in his district. She told him she would report back in the morning. She stuffed her spare waitress uniform in her oversize bag, making a note to do laundry at some point, and was looking for her favorite jeans when she heard a particular rat-a-tat on the door. She called out, “Come on in, Merlin.”

A dignified and delightful, if somewhat disembodied, white-haired gentleman entered and bade her good evening.

“Merlin, I would love to chat,” she said, “except that I have no time, because I have to get dressed.” Merlin was too well-bred, even in death, to converse with an unclothed woman, even one he’d known since her infancy.

“Just checking on your health, my dear,” he said. “Your cousins are concerned. But I shall leave you.”

“No, wait,” she said. “There’s something you could help me with. If the spirit of a recently dead woman is trying to send me a message and I can’t understand it, could you?”

“Maybe. What is the message?” he asked. “And who is the dearly departed?”

“The message is three words. ‘Location, location, location.’ And the woman is Gina Santoro. She spoke to me last night through a medium, a complete stranger, but that’s all she said. And I have no idea what it means.”

“I’m not surprised,” Merlin said. “Of course I know who Gina Santoro is, although we never met in person, and I would have described her as very earthbound. For someone like that to have any facility at communicating with the living after death? That’s going to take some practice.”

“It didn’t take you much time at all,” Sailor said.

Merlin smiled modestly. “I’m not just anyone, however. I worked on it well before my death, and if I may say so, I am extraordinarily talented. Those with little natural ability, if they have a burning desire to send messages to someone on earth, must use go-betweens. Psychics, so-called ghost hunters, sometimes the mentally ill, and often animals. And, of course, inanimate objects. Freeway signs, falling tree branches, shattered mirrors. All riddles brought to you from the dead. But they are rarely able to communicate in full sentences or instructions. It’s too much to ask. You must interpret their symbols the way you interpret dreams.”

“But how?” she asked. “Obviously it’s important or she wouldn’t go to the trouble of communicating, but I need more than ‘location, location, location.’”

“I shall snoop around on the astral plane and see what I can discover,” he said, and left her.

“Location, location, location,” she mumbled, as she started unbuttoning the two dozen tiny buttons that ran the length of her sundress, from neck to handkerchief hem. When she was three-quarters through, she stepped out of it, letting it drop to the floor. The bedroom window was open, admitting a pleasant breeze, and something drew her to it. She gazed down at the estate’s garden—or what had once been a garden, terraced and well-tended. Now it grew wild with rose bushes and orange trees. No one had bothered to pick weeds since the days her mother had lived here.

An owl hooted in a tree, and Sailor’s heart skipped a beat. But she was in no danger here, she told herself. No creature would attack her here at the House of the Rising Sun. She closed the window anyway, and when she saw herself reflected in the glass in her silk bikini panties, she closed the shutters, too. And then she crossed the room and reached under her pillow for Alessande’s dagger. She quickly pulled on jeans and then an ankle sheath, into which she tucked the blade.

As her dad liked to say, you didn’t have to understand a sensation to heed it.

* * *

Ariel MacAdam had grown up on an old tree-lined street south of Ventura Boulevard, west of Laurel Canyon. Declan parked the Aventador a block from the house. The ride from Sailor’s had been short and their conversation minimal because he’d been on the phone doing business most of the way. As they approached the MacAdams’ bungalow on foot, a man walked down the driveway toward them. He was middle-aged, in a checkered shirt and, as an Elven, undoubtedly good-looking under normal circumstances but currently unshaven and hollow-cheeked. He scrutinized Sailor. “You the Keeper?”

“Yes,” she said. She didn’t shake his hand, Declan noticed. She was being careful, in case she was contagious.

“This one,” the man said, nodding to Declan, “says you two are working together, but I’ll talk to you, if you don’t mind. I have no love for shifters. I’m Hank MacAdam.”

Sailor said, “I’m very sorry about your daughter.”

“I don’t care about your sorry,” Hank said. “I care about you doing your job. Come on this way.”

He led them into a two-car garage apparently in the midst of a packing project, with kitchenware and bedding all over the concrete floor. From a cardboard box he pulled out a scrapbook. “We’ve got more of these inside the house. Dozens. Ariel and her mother, they put them together over the years. Those two, they never threw away a single program, kept every play she ever did, every cast photo. It’s all here. Her whole life.”

Sailor said, “Thank you for meeting with us.”

“Well, I don’t want you bothering my wife. She won’t talk to you anyway. Says an Elven Keeper should have done more to keep our girl alive.”

“She’s right,” Sailor said. “I should have. I suppose the police have interviewed you?”

“Yeah. Worthless. They found her way out on Las Virgenes Road. Wanted me to tell them, did she have any friends who lived out there? Hell, no friend of hers did that to my girl. Slept with her, sunk his teeth into her, then watched her bleed to death? I know well enough who did it.”

Sailor threw a startled look at Declan. “Who?”

“Someone on that movie shoot. Some man. Few weeks back, she was spending the night here, came home all excited, said she met someone on the movie who could help her career.”

“What movie?” Declan asked.

“Some stupid thing called Six Corvettes.”

“Did she mention the man’s name?” Sailor asked. “Or what his job was?”

“If she did, it didn’t stick in my head. She was always going on about the grips and the gaffers and the what-nots. All those movie jobs, she knew what all of them were.”

“It wouldn’t be a grip or a gaffer,” Sailor said, “if he was able to help her career. Or an actor, for that matter, unless he was A-list.”

“No, he wasn’t an actor. I think he was more in the business end of things.”

“Where was the movie shooting?” Declan asked.

“Hold on.” Hank walked over and called into the house, “Gigi, you want to come out here a minute?” He turned back to them. “That was the tough part for her. It was on the beach. Not anywhere near the water, of course, or she wouldn’t have been able to do it. Ariel was in the beach-volleyball scene with the star. She was a good little athlete. Said the people were real nice to her, not like you’d expect, treated her real good. Especially the guys. That I can believe.”

The screen door opened, and a young African-American woman came bounding out of the house. Vampire. Early twenties, Declan guessed.

“This is Gigi,” Hank said, putting an arm around her and giving her a squeeze. “She was Ariel’s roommate. Drove all Ariel’s stuff down from Cal Arts this afternoon. All the stuff she and her mom bought for her dorm room three years ago.” His voice wavered. As tough a guy as he was, everyone had his limits, Declan realized.

“Gigi,” Sailor asked, “did Ariel talk to you about the guy she met on Six Corvettes?”

“Yeah, of course. And the cop who came to talk to us on campus, I told him they should look for this guy and the cop was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, sweetie, whatever,’ blowing me off. Stupid were.”

Sailor visibly winced, no doubt at the girl’s casual prejudice, but only said, “He blew you off? That’s crazy. If the victims were all in the film business, that’s probably how this guy met them. What did Ariel tell you about him?”

Gigi took a fast look at Hank, and Declan could see her calculating how much or little to say in front of a grieving father about his little girl. She turned back to Sailor.

“The guy sat next to her at lunch on the set, and they went out for drinks that night. Which she needed. A drink, I mean, because of having to work that close to water, you know? And the guy was really sweet, she said, and at first she thought he just wanted to do something nice for her, get her some auditions. But then he was calling her like three or four times the next day, wanting to date her.”

“But she didn’t tell you his name?” Sailor asked.

“No. She didn’t want me to Google him. We had this thing where we’d tease each other, like I threatened to call him up and say, ‘Dude, she’s just not that into you’ if I heard her talk about him one more time. So what I think happened was, the night she died, I think she agreed to meet him for a drink, just to let him down gently. And then, you know, he—did what he did to her. That’s what I think anyway, but I was out all day at a rehearsal for Jumpers, the play I was doing at school, so I have no proof, plus I don’t even know the guy’s name. So that’s why the cops blew me off.”

Declan looked at Hank to see how he was taking all this, but his attention was on a pair of small, well-worn pink skates lying in a shoe box. He put his hand over one skate, covering it completely, and Declan could imagine him putting the skates on tiny feet, lacing them up with big beefy fingers, tying double knots. Be careful, he would have told the little girl before sending her off onto the ice.

A few moments later Sailor was saying her goodbyes, and she and Declan walked down the street in silence. After a time he said, “You did well. That wasn’t an easy interview.”

“That sucked,” she said. She was as subdued as Declan had ever seen her. “How did you find Hank?” she asked.

“The tabloids found him. I know people who own the tabloids. It wasn’t hard.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Want to tell me what went on in the Council meeting?”

“Give me a few minutes. I don’t want to think about those people now.”

“There’s a surprise.”

“Don’t be sarcastic with me just yet, Declan. I’m too sad to put up a fight.”

“All right, we’ll fight later.”

The daylight was dissolving, growing less harsh. A smell of orange blossoms hit them as they walked. The old neighborhood was filled with citrus trees, the branches reaching out over picket fences to the sidewalks. Sailor dodged one, leaning into Declan, and he put his arm around her without thinking.

“I’m imagining Ariel on the beach all day,” she said softly. “Ten, twelve, fourteen hours, no trailer to escape to because she’s just an extra or a day player. But she’s an Elven, so the sound of the surf is terrifying, and no one understands except another Elven, but maybe she’s the only one, so she hides how hard it is for her. She tells herself how exciting it is to be working on a movie set, how cute she looks in her bikini. She thinks, ‘It’s just one day’s work, but it could lead to something bigger. I just have to be the absolute best, brightest beach volleyball player there ever was. It’s what I’ve dreamed of all my life.’ But time moves so slowly on a film set, and no one cares about the comfort of a day player. And when they say, ‘Moving on’ or even ‘That’s a wrap,’ she’s so relieved she can barely stand it. And some nice man, some Other, he offers to buy her a drink, he recognizes her as Elven, he knows what she’s just been through. And she’s so happy to be able to tell someone just what it was like, and he understands, he knows what it is to dream of the movies, to want to act so badly you’ll do anything. You’ll hide your terror of water, you’ll do things that are dangerous, bad for you. And he becomes her friend just by listening to her, and then telling her what she wants to hear, that she’s good, she’s special, she’s got the look, the talent, he could see it right away, she’s destined to be a star, and he can help her.”

Declan pulled her in close, and she didn’t resist. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to be walking down the street together. The feel of her skin, the warmth, the shoulder blades under her T-shirt...he felt a strange familiarity, a possessiveness that he couldn’t understand. This wasn’t erotic, this was simply—

“Declan?” Sailor looked up at him suddenly, her distress evident. “My Council is doing essentially nothing. We’re supposed to gather information within our own district but not cross into others. To listen for gossip, rumors of bad blood between the Elven and the shifters or vamps. And not to talk among ourselves, much less to anyone else. And we’re supposed to keep the entire pathetic plan strictly confidential.”

He nodded. It was what he’d suspected. And it was frustrating, but for the moment he was most concerned about Sailor. Despair was an emotion he’d never seen from her before. “And what do you plan to do?” he asked.

“Me?” She looked at him, her eyes green with a trace of scarlet. “I’m going to cross borders and break rules. I am going to find the killer. And when I do, I’m going to cut out his heart and bring it to the Council.”

Okay, that was more like her. “How?”

“By talking to anyone who’ll talk to me. And yes, I may be contagious to the Elven, so I’ll be careful, but I’ve been thinking about it, my approach and your approach. And while yours is valid, mine is, too. I don’t care if the cops are already covering this ground, because I have something the cops don’t have.”

“What’s that?”

“Insight. Insight into the minds of the dead women. I’m a woman, and I’m an actress, and I’m part Elven. And I have the disease. I’m exactly the person to do this. I’m the only one. There’s no one else.”

She had a point, he realized.

“I want to retrace their steps,” she continued. “There has to be a way to walk the path they walked, until it takes me to the man who killed them.”

A chill went down his spine.

“Maybe,” he said, “but you’re not doing any of it alone.”

* * *

As they reached the car, Sailor got a call from Darius’s assistant, who patched her through to her boss.

“I am finishing dinner at the Water Grill,” Darius told her. “I’ll be in the courtyard of the Mark Taper Forum until seven minutes before curtain. I suggest, my dear, that you arrive prior to that, prepared to deliver the report I requested. I’m not known for giving something for nothing, so please make it worth my while.” He hung up.

Sailor checked her watch. The Mark Taper Forum was in downtown L.A. She was in Studio City. Driving from one to the other would take anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours depending on traffic, and another fifteen minutes to find parking. Damn.

“You won’t make it,” Declan told her when she repeated the message.

“I have to. I need him to get me onto the set of Charlotte Messenger’s movie. Also Technical Black, Gina’s film.”

“I can do Technical Black. I know the producers.”

“Seriously? How about tonight? I’m off work at midnight.”

“Tonight? Are they shooting?”

“They are. I checked. And how about Charlotte’s movie?

He shook his head. “I was asked to invest in Knock My Socks Off, but I didn’t like the director. Or the script. Word got back to the director, who already didn’t like me. So no, I wouldn’t be welcome on that set.”

“Then I’d better be nice to Darius.”

“Yes. I’d drive you downtown, but I’ve got a meeting at Universal. A band from Dublin I’m hoping to sign. I can’t skip the meeting because they’re heading back to the airport this evening.”

“Lend me your car and I’ll drop you, then pick you up afterward. It’s on the way, and I’ll save a half hour.”

He looked at her, stunned. “Lend you my car?”

“Yes.”

“My car?”

“Yes, your car. It’s not like I’m asking for a kidney.”

He continued staring.

“So that’s a ‘no’?” she asked.

“That’s a ‘hell no.’”

* * *

The sun had set and the moon had risen by the time Sailor found Darius sipping espresso. He sat at an outdoor café in the plaza that joined the Mark Taper Forum to the other three world-class stages that made up the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles. His elegant assistant, Joshua, was sitting across from him. Upon seeing Sailor, Darius dismissed Joshua and gestured to the chair he’d vacated.

“In the interests of time,” Darius said, “we’ll dispense with the pleasantries. I’d like your report on the Council meeting.”

“And I’d like entrée to the set of Knock My Socks Off, and access to someone highly placed enough to answer some questions and help me out,” she replied.

“Then let’s hope your report is sufficiently interesting.”

She nodded. “Charles Highsmith is an egomaniac. He proposed a plan that consists of ‘asking around’ about the Scarlet Pathogen, sticking strictly to our own districts, and then called for a vote. It was a tie, with Highsmith himself being the tiebreaker. I don’t know how he pulled it off, but I have to assume he’s bribed or blackmailed half the Council, creating a coalition of minions. I have no idea how my father tolerated it.”

Darius gave her a half smile. “Highsmith’s coalition of the bribed and blackmailed must be a recent phenomenon. He never would have tried it with your father here.”

“Great,” Sailor said. “So Dad left town and it all went to hell in a handbasket because I’m considered a half-wit.”

Darius’s half smile grew. “Well said. Tell me who you believe to be on Highsmith’s side.”

“Everyone who had nothing to say in opposition, I’m guessing. Jill, the resident sex kitten. Maybe George Fairweather. A woman who reminded me of my old basketball coach. And others whose names I forgot because they weren’t memorable. I assume the ones who spoke up are lined up with Justine Freud, his nemesis.”

Darius nodded to Joshua, who was standing a little way off, gesturing at his watch. Around them people hurriedly paid their checks and moved toward their theaters to make an eight-o’clock curtain. “Did you remember my advice?” Darius asked.

“Perfectly,” she fudged. After all, he hadn’t asked if she’d followed it. “Listen, don’t talk. Oh, I have an alliance of sorts with Reggie Maxx.”

His eyebrow went up. “The Coastal Keeper?”

“Yes.”

“Does Highsmith know about this alliance?”

“Yes.”

Darius sighed. “Too bad. Alliances function best when they’re under the radar. Ah well. Perhaps you’ll improve with age.”

“Yeah, sorry. Anyhow, that’s all I have, Darius, and I hope it’s enough, because I spent a whole lotta energy getting here.”

“Teleportation?”

“Yes. I was late, plus out of gas, so I stopped at a parking lot three exits away, which is a personal best, distance-wise, and it wore me out.”

“Then have some water before you start back. And I suggest taking a cab. There will be a drive-on pass for you at Metropole Studios tomorrow, and the director himself, Giancarlo Ferro, will speak with you. Don’t waste the opportunity.”

* * *

Declan, in the guise of a red-tailed hawk, watched Sailor materialize next to her car. He’d seen Elven dematerialize many times, but it was rare to catch one appearing out of nowhere. And he’d never seen a Keeper do it. It was a thing of beauty.

He’d almost missed it. After his business meeting he’d tracked her Jeep, thanks to a spare cell phone he’d placed inside it earlier that afternoon. When he saw it had stopped short of the Music Center, he grew concerned and flew over to check. Less than three minutes later his attention was caught by a glow of light, subtle and mystical. He watched the light shatter into particles, and the particles rearrange themselves to become Sailor.

He was mesmerized. One moment there was space, and the next that space was filled with a tall woman, hair streaming behind her, sexy and tough in jeans, boots and a black T-shirt. He understood how it was that mortals, witnessing it, would simply disbelieve their eyes. They had no frame of reference for a person appearing out of nowhere, and so their brains would persuade them that the person had been there all along.

He watched her get in her car and followed her to a gas station, and when she was back on the 101 North, he flew to the Snake Pit, shifted back into himself and phoned her.

“How did it go?” he asked.

“Fine, but I had to, uh—” she was searching for a word other than “teleport,” he knew, conscious of the cell phone taboo “—arrange transport for the last few miles. Let’s just say I’m worn out. And I have to work.”

“Call in sick.”

“I could be fired.”

“Quit your job.”

She laughed. “Spoken like a multimillionaire. But it’s a short shift tonight. Three hours.” The most he could get from her was a promise that he could pick her up after work and she would have one of her cousins drive her back to pick up her car tomorrow. He was literally afraid to let her drive home alone.

* * *

The House of Illusion was hopping, leaving Sailor with a sense of déjà vu. She was as exhausted as she’d been the night before, but not from the Scarlet Pathogen. Rearranging molecules took its toll. Why, oh why, hadn’t she listened to Darius? It had been insane to try a teleportation round-trip, especially on top of the earlier incident at the crime lab. Julio noticed immediately. He was bussing a table in her section and gave a low whistle when he saw her.

“You still don’t look so good,” he said. “You need more of last night’s magic.”

And why not? she thought. She’d already given a blood sample today, so she didn’t need to worry about skewing the lab results. Declan might have a problem with it, but Declan wasn’t here, and she wasn’t interested in getting high, just getting through the shift. “Julio,” she said softly, aware of Kristoff nearby, “do you have any more síúlacht?”

“No,” he said. “No, I’m all sold out. I got some nice mushrooms. Organic. But not good if you’re working.”

“Mushrooms? Are you nuts?”

“Tell you what, let me make a phone call.”

Twenty minutes later Julio showed up in the kitchen as Sailor was garnishing a pair of entrées. “Here,” he said. “It’s only half a pill, but it’s the best I can do until later.”

“Thanks.” A thought occurred to her. “Julio, the person you get the síúlacht from, is it the person who actually manufactures the pills?”

He shook his head. “No. My supplier, he gets it from...I don’t know, some woman in Topanga, I think. I don’t sell a lot. The people who love it, they love it. Me, I tried it, it didn’t do much.”

Sailor nodded. Probably you had to be Elven to feel its full effects, just as only the Elven were susceptible to the Scarlet Pathogen. “Can you find out this woman’s name for me?” she asked.

He frowned. “I don’t think so. Even if I could, that’s bad business practice.”

“It’s important, Julio,” she said. “And I don’t need to buy anything from her. I just need a bit of her knowledge.” Alessande had said that síúlacht was hard to make, so anyone who could do it well enough to manufacture pills from it had to have considerable expertise.

“I could make a few calls,” he said, doubtfully. “You get off at midnight, right? Meet me in employee parking.”

She went back to work. Business was slow, and that was a piece of unexpected luck. The half pill revived her just enough to take the edge off her fatigue. At one point she went into her purse and dug out the business card printed with Reggie Maxx’s phone number. Although he was called the Coastal Keeper, his territory included canyons, too, the ones to the west of hers. She left a voice mail asking if he knew of any healers particularly adept at creating síúlacht or in any of the healing arts. It was a borderline kind of message, suggesting Elven business while not actually saying anything outright.

She then checked her own voice mail, hoping to hear Declan’s sultry voice. Her body had developed a craving for his British accent, and just a few words coming through her cell would keep her going, she knew. But there was nothing. Only a curious message from Justine Freud, the Valley Keeper, asking Sailor to phone her. The call had apparently come in hours earlier, but in the incomprehensible ways of voice mail, she was only just now hearing it. She made a mental note to phone the elderly woman tomorrow.

After a few dozen hours of sleep.

* * *

At midnight, dressed once more in her street clothes, she found Julio leaning against her Jeep. “One síúlacht,” he said, hopping up. He put the little pebblelike pill into her hand. “One is all I could score. It’s not exactly a popular item.”

“One’s all I need. And I’m definitely paying you.”

“No way.” Julio shook his head. “But listen, that information you wanted? No luck. Nobody likes to give up their sources.”

“Thanks for trying,” she said, hiding her disappointment. She popped the pill, chasing it with a bottle of water she’d brought for the purpose. She gave Julio a hug. “You look as exhausted as I feel. You should go home. Get some sleep.”

“Can’t. Gotta finish my shift. Besides, my car’s in the shop, so I have to wait for Tafiq to give me a ride, and he’s closing tonight.” Tafiq was another busboy.

She tossed him the keys. “Here, take mine. I’ve got a ride. I’ll figure out how to pick the Jeep up in the morning.”

He thanked her, and went back inside, leaving her alone in the moonlight.

But not for long. Four minutes later she turned to see the Aventador entering the employee lot. She smiled and walked toward Declan, feeling as if her life were about to begin.