“Any activity so far?” I glanced around. Everyone in the household was gathered around the huge oak table Smoky had bought when we built the extension onto the kitchen, including Iris. Everyone except Chase, Bruce, and the babies.
The kitchen counters overflowed with food. Apparently, Iris and Hanna had gone on a mad cooking spree. I spotted just about every favorite dish that every single person in the household loved. I suspected that cooking served as stress relief for the pair of them. The smells made my mouth water, but I ignored the food—there was nothing else I could do.
Camille shook her head, but she looked pale. In fact, everyone seemed subdued. “No. Not here.” But the edge to her voice told me that wasn’t the whole of the story.
I dropped into the chair next to Nerissa and planted a kiss on her lips. “Hey, love. You look tired.” She actually looked exhausted.
“That’s because I just got home from work.”
“Rough day?” At her quiet nod, I began to worry. Nerissa worked with victims of crimes and disasters at the FH-CSI. That she had been at work this long told me something big had gone down. Glancing around at the dour demeanor on everybody, I finally just planted my elbows on the table and said, “Okay, I know something happened. Will someone tell me what? And where’s Chase?”
“Chase is still at work.” Nerissa motioned to Delilah. “Show her the papers, Kitten. A lot of people have been busy little bees today. Or should I say, wasps. Nasty wasps and hornets.”
Delilah tossed a newspaper in front of me. Several of them, in fact. The first—the Seattle Tattler, a rag that had been the bane of our life since Day One when we arrived Earthside—sported a big, bold headline splashed across the top: DEMONIC CREATURES TAKING OVER SEATTLE! CAN OUR INTREPID FAE FRIENDS SAVE THE DAY OR ARE THEY IN LEAGUE? Of course it was hyperbole, but the trouble was, they had caught several bone-walkers and a bloatworgle on film. I winced. Not only had they caught the enemy on camera, but Smoky was there, too, right in the middle of destroying one of the bloatworgles. It wasn’t a pretty picture, either.
I quietly set the paper aside without reading the story and picked up the next one. This was out of the U.K. Another yellow rag, it had pictures of Tregarts and bloatworgles emerging from a shimmering portal in the middle of Stonehenge. The headline there was: DEMONS POURING FORTH FROM THE GATES OF HELL! Two more papers—one from Scotland, one from Oregon—showed the problem as having spread farther than Seattle and Stonehenge.
I knew that the minute I started reading any one of these stories, I’d blow my stack. Shoving them to the side, I leaned back and folded my arms. “All right, before I read these and go apoplectic, somebody tell me just how bad this is. And why is Chase still at work?”
“The incident at Stonehenge was bad.” Morio’s eyes were shimmering topaz, which meant his youkai side was close to the surface. And that meant he was upset. “There were fatalities. A group of Fae from over in Sherwood Forest managed to take them out, but four humans and ten Fae died during the fight. Up in Scotland—somewhere near Loch Ness—another batch poured through. Again, the Fae took them down. This time without loss, but they were seen.”
Trillian took over. “Down in Portland several creatures were spotted that we think are demons, but they vanished into the crowds near the Columbia River. We have no idea what they are up to or where they are, but Chase is working with the up-and-coming FH-CSI they have been creating there to contain the issue. Frank Willows, from the Supe Community Council, sent a small contingent down there to help mobilize the Supes in that area.”
This was bad. Very bad. We’d worked so hard to keep news of the demons away from the general populace, but events were slipping out of our control. Fae were a novelty. Weres? A little more problematic. Vampires scared the hell out of humans, but they also held a certain mystique. But demons? No, demons would push people over the edge.
Camille cleared her throat. “I went out to Talamh Lonrach Oll before bed this morning. You were downstairs by the time I got back. I spoke to Aeval and she’s sending warriors over to England now, to fast-track the Fae there into the fighting force they once were. Merlin is going, too, and áine went with him.” She shook her head. “This came too soon. We’ve been planning for this but they still caught us off guard.”
I tried to take in all the information at once. Turning to Nerissa, I said, “What about you? Why were you at work so late?”
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “You need to know something, but I’m not sure how to tell you. There was an incident today . . . It’s bad.”
The way she said it chilled me to the bone. Her voice was flat, resigned. Even during disasters, Nerissa was right on top of things, but tonight? She looked harried and out of it.