CHAPTER 21.

I opened my eyes to Morio sitting beside me on the bed. Squinting in the morning light, I pushed myself up and looked around. I was alone on the king-sized mattress. Last night Morio had slept on the daybed near the window, while Smoky and Trillian flanked me. I"d nixed any wandering hands, though, too exhausted to even think about s.e.x.

"Good morning." He gave me a quick kiss and, as I slid out from beneath the covers, slipped his arms around me, drawing me close.

"You didn"t get any last night, you"re not getting any this morning." I gave him a playful thunk on the head.

"I wasn"t looking for any," he whispered. "What I am looking for is for you to haul your lovely a.s.s downstairs. We"ve got a full day, sleepyhead."

Not sure whether to be insulted or just annoyed, I glanced at the clock. Nine-thirty? Oh s.h.i.t, I had overslept by a good two hours. I jumped up and grabbed a towel.

"Let me catch a quick shower."

"Iris said if you want breakfast, you"ll be there in ten minutes." He laughed, then headed out the door after giving me a sharp slap on the a.s.s. "I"ll be out in the studio, cleaning and purifying our ritual gear."

Twenty minutes later, fully dressed and in makeup, I showed up in the kitchen. Good to her word, there was no breakfast on the table, but when Iris saw me coming she opened the fridge and, before I knew it, I was settled in my chair with yogurt, a toasted English m.u.f.fin, a banana, and a cup of coffee. Not quite the hearty breakfast I was used to, but it would do.

Delilah came running through the back door, breathing heavily. I gave her a quizzical look and she pulled off her Windbreaker and tossed it over the back of a chair. "When Morio said you were taking a shower, I decided to get in a quick run down to Birchwater Pond and back."

I glanced around the kitchen. "Where"d Smoky and Trillian go? The house seems empty today. And where"s Maggie?"

Iris answered before Delilah could. "Smoky took off for his barrow. He said he had something to do. Trillian went shopping with Roz. Vanzir"s out in the studio, and Shamas is at work. Maggie"s in my room having a time-out."

"Time-out? What did she do now?" Maggie had reached the stage where she was getting into anything and everything. Sometimes the only way to make her realize there were boundaries was to give her a time-out.

"She bit me," Delilah said, holding up her index finger. A st.u.r.dy white bandage was wrapped around it. "The little d.i.c.kens snapped at me when I tried to put her back in her playpen after giving her breakfast. She"s got to learn no biting or eventually she could take someone"s finger off."

"No kidding." I stared at her finger. "How"s the bite? Any infection, you think?"

"No. It"s clean and Roz spread some of his wonder salve over it. So what"s on the agenda today, as if I didn"t know?" She slipped into a chair and grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table. "Iris, what"s with all the fruit lately? The farmer"s market having a run on apples and oranges?"

"It"s good for you. You eat far too much junk food." Iris turned around from the sink where she was finishing up the dishes. She put her hands on her hips and stared down Delilah"s irritated grunt. "If you want doughnuts all the time, you"re going to have to get them yourself. You"re addicted to sugar and it"s not healthy."

"I can handle it," Delilah muttered, but bit into the apple anyway.

I spooned up my yogurt. "I guess today we plan out our strategy. Asking Aeval to help us with Stacia isn"t going to be a lot of fun." I really didn"t want to go there but we had no choice. We needed help and we needed it soon.

Delilah crossed her arms on the table and rested her chin on them. "Do you really think Father"s sleeping with Tanaquar?"

She sounded so wistful and sad that I put down my spoon. "What"s the matter, Kitten?"

"I just . . . he always said he couldn"t forget Mother . . ."

So that was it. I reached across the table and patted her hand. "He loved Mother more than anything, but he has to move on. I just wish Tanaquar hadn"t gotten her claws on him. I think she"s using him and I doubt if he knows it. I think he wanted to tell me about it while I was there, but chickened out." As I bit into the English m.u.f.fin, a burst of b.u.t.tery goodness melted into my mouth and I closed my eyes, enjoying the flavor.

"I know he has to move on. I want him to. But . . . it just seems . . . he"s sleeping with the Queen Queen. That"s just so wrong and I can"t tell you why I feel that way." Morosely, she tossed the rest of the apple in the compost bin and rooted through the cupboards until she finally pulled out a bag of generic potato chips. "I knew we had to have something good in here."

Iris finished putting away the dishes and crossed her arms. "Fine, I give up. I"ll buy the d.a.m.ned junk food next time I"m grocery shopping but when you break out or realize that it"s sapping your energy, don"t come running to me." The phone rang just then and she picked it up. After a moment, she handed it to me. "Camille, you"d better take it. Henry"s on the line."

Wiping my hands on my napkin, I took the receiver. "Henry? What"s up?"

"Camille?" Henry sounded shaky. "We"ve got a problem. I"ve called Detective Johnson and he"s on the way. I think you"d better come down to the shop right away."

"What"s going on?" I frowned. If Henry said there was a problem, there was. He wasn"t p.r.o.ne to exaggeration.

Henry lowered his voice and it sounded like he"d cupped his hand around the receiver. "There are two men and a woman prowling around the shop. I"ve never seen any of them before. Camille, they frighten me. I asked if I could help them and one of the men growled at me."

s.h.i.t! My first thought was that they were from the Freedom"s Angels group or maybe the Brotherhood of the Earth-Born. My first thought was that they were from the Freedom"s Angels group or maybe the Brotherhood of the Earth-Born.

"I"ll be down there in twenty minutes, fifteen if traffic is with me. Meanwhile, you hang tough. And get out of there. Don"t worry about anything in the shop-don"t stop to take the money or anything else. And, Henry . . ." I paused, wanting to warn but not knowing what to warn him against. We could have demons down there, or anti-Fae humans running around, or even somebody who had a personal grudge against us.

"What is it, Camille?"

"Henry-"

I didn"t get a chance to finish my thought. A loud explosion of some sort echoed in my ear, and Henry cried out. The line went dead.

"Motherf.u.c.king son of a b.i.t.c.h!" I tossed the receiver on the table.

Delilah and Iris stared at me.

I grabbed my purse and keys. "Something"s going on at the shop. I heard something that sounded like an explosion and the line went dead. Henry already called Chase-but, Iris, you get him on the phone and tell him what I said and to hurry the h.e.l.l up. Let"s get our a.s.ses down there now."

Iris s.n.a.t.c.hed up the phone. "You want me to come with you? I can put Maggie in Menolly"s lair."

"Yeah, but we"re heading out now. Have Morio drive you down after you"ve taken care of Maggie. And tell Vanzir, if he"s still here, to come with you. I have a feeling we"re going to need everybody we can get. Leave a note for Roz, and Trillian, too, and tell them to stay put in the house, and watch over things." I paused. "On second thought, call them and tell them to get back home. Now Now."

As Delilah and I raced for my car, I wondered what the h.e.l.l had happened. Mostly, though, I worried about Henry. Because whatever that noise was, I knew in my gut that it wasn"t going to end well.

As we headed down the street toward the Indigo Crescent, my bookstore, I saw the rising smoke pluming from a half-block away. Fire engines crowded the street, and barricades stopped traffic. I screeched to a halt right behind the barricades and Delilah and I jumped out of the car, heading for the store at a dead run.

As we got within the sight line, a police officer stopped us. The rest of the street was roped off with crime tape and uniformed FH-CSI officers. Shamas was there, and he gave me a brusque nod. He was all-duty when he was working, a fact that had endeared him to Chase.

"I own that shop," I told the officer trying to keep us out. "My friend was in there working behind the counter and I"m worried about him. I was on the phone with him when I heard an explosion and the line went dead."

Just then, Chase came jogging over, the look on his face grim.

"What happened? Is Henry okay?" I took another look at his face and my heart sank. Whatever it was, was bad.

Chase put his finger to his lips and nodded us through the barricade. "They"re with me, Gla.s.s." The officer nodded and waved us on.

"Henry"s been taken to the hospital with third-degree burns over sixty percent of his body. It doesn"t look good," Chase said, his voice soft. He put his hand on my arm. "Camille, he may not make it."

He might as well have hit me in the gut. Delilah let out a small mew, but thank the G.o.ds, she didn"t transform.

"What happened?" The smoke around us was so thick it was making me sick. Of course, Delilah and I were more sensitive to smoke than most FBHs, but by Chase"s expression I could tell it was bad even for them. Firemen were running in and out of the shop, their masks on, and I smelled something besides the smoke in the air. Not gunpowder, but some residue that I knew I"d smelled before.

"Someone exploded some sort of device in your shop. We aren"t sure what. I"ve got my men working on it with the firemen, because I have a feeling the bomb may not have been of human manufacture."

My thoughts were on Henry, but I had to ask. "How much of the shop was affected?"

"The explosion was relatively localized-about a third of the shop is in ruins. The flames weren"t actually the problem. It"s whatever c.r.a.p the bomb was made out of. Henry"s burns are chemical in nature." He paused to answer his cell phone. "Hey, what have you got for me? . . . Really? . . . Okay, they"re here right now. You want me to put Camille on?" He handed me the phone.

Sharah, the chief medic at the FH-CSI headquarters, was on the line. She was Queen Asteria"s niece, but her ties to the Elfin Queen didn"t seem terribly strong. "We"ve got your friend Henry here." Before I could ask how he was, she continued. "He"s in bad shape. Chase told you his injuries?"

"Third-degree burns over sixty percent of his body, right?" My voice was flat. If I let myself feel anything but numb, I"d be useless.

"Right. I figured out what caused the burns, so the good news is we can try to treat him."

I didn"t want to hear, but had to ask. "What"s the bad news?"

"My prognosis for him isn"t good. I give him a twenty percent chance-at best-to make it through the next forty-eight hours. If he makes it through two days, then I"ll up it to forty percent. He took a lot of the burns on his face, chest, and stomach areas. His internal organs are damaged, and he"s on a ventilator in order to keep him breathing."

c.r.a.p. I wanted to smash the phone on the ground, but it wasn"t Sharah"s fault. If Henry did pull through, we"d have her to thank.

"What caused the burns?"

"Alostar compound mixed with myocian powder."

Double c.r.a.p. The last person I"d seen use that mixture was Rozurial. Since I knew he hadn"t been the one to plant the bomb, then I had to a.s.sume that our attackers were from Otherworld. Or that they had hooked up with someone from Otherworld. The last person I"d seen use that mixture was Rozurial. Since I knew he hadn"t been the one to plant the bomb, then I had to a.s.sume that our attackers were from Otherworld. Or that they had hooked up with someone from Otherworld.

"Thanks." I didn"t know what else to say so I just added, "Take care of Henry, would you? He"s a good person and a good friend. I"d hate to lose him."

"Camille," Sharah"s voice was hesitant. "Don"t get your hopes up. We"ll do all we can, but in the long run, Henry"s riding on a dark horse. If he"s going to win this one, it"s going to take nothing short of a miracle."

I handed the phone back to Chase without a word. He spoke to Sharah for a moment, then closed the cell and put it in his pocket.

I told him about the alostar compound and myocian powder. "Can I go in the shop? I might be able to pick up something."

Chase motioned for Shamas to join us. "Take the girls in the shop and keep an eye on them. They want to see what they can find out. Also, send the fire marshal out to me. I need to talk to him."

As we headed into the shop, Shamas motioned for us to walk in his footsteps. "We think the foundation is secure-and since there"s no bas.e.m.e.nt there"s no chance of the floor caving in. But although the flames don"t appear to have reached the ceiling, you never know if the explosion weakened the struts and beams, so no heading upstairs to Delilah"s offices. Just make it quick, and be careful. And don"t touch anything. Now that we know what caused it, I can tell you right off that if you touch anything coated with those chemicals bare-handed, you"ll walk away with a nasty blister or worse. Remember the h.e.l.lhound"s acid?"

I flinched. "Yeah, right. We won"t touch anything." I still had a nasty scar on my hand from where a few drops of a h.e.l.lhound"s acidic blood had splattered on me. The d.a.m.ned wound had nearly killed me.

The interior of the shop was in shambles. Books lay everywhere, charred, smelling of burnt paper. A flurry of scattered pages covered the floor. The gla.s.s case that I used to display a few rare first editions and to act as the counter had shattered, a thousand shards of sliver-thin daggers just waiting to dig into flesh. The seating area for the Faerie Watchers Club and the reading groups was burnt to a crisp. The sofa had caught fire and was now a smoldering, nasty mess of water and soot.

As we made our way through the husk that had, only this morning, been my bookstore, I noticed that most of the shelves in the back half of the shop were intact, though a few had fallen because of the blast, their contents strewn about. By the time we got to my office, everything seemed relatively normal. I turned around to see Chase behind us.

"You said the stairs are off limits?" I asked him. Delilah ran her PI business out of the second floor of the building.

"Yeah." Shamas shrugged. "Too dangerous until we ascertain whether the stairs are safe. Not unless you"ve got a flying spell."

"That, I don"t. Menolly could hover on up but she can"t come out until tonight." I frowned, looking around the office. Something seemed off, but I couldn"t tell just what it was until my attention landed on an envelope sitting on my desk. It was large-the kind invitations and oversized greeting cards are mailed in-and was beige linen. The envelope was addressed to me.

"That wasn"t there before. I know it wasn"t," I said, pointing at it.

"I guess we should dust it for prints," Chase said as he joined us.

"Don"t bother." The words squeaked out of my throat as the overwhelming scent of Demonkin rose from the paper. "That wasn"t left by any human, Chase." Over his protestations, I picked it up. Demon energy raced through my hand, so strong that I almost dropped it.

"Demons." There was no stamp nor postage mark on it. This hadn"t come in the mail. I turned it over and looked at the flap. A wax seal held it shut, and a large, sloping S S had been pressed into the wax. "Stacia. I"ll bet you anything this is from the Bonecrusher." had been pressed into the wax. "Stacia. I"ll bet you anything this is from the Bonecrusher."

Delilah gasped and peered over my shoulder. Just then, an officer stuck his head around the corner.

"Chief? We have two men out here who claim they"re involved in this. They have a midget with them," one of the officers said. He was FBH and looked nervous.

"Iris. She came down with Morio and Vanzir," Delilah said.

Chase turned to the officer. "First, the correct term is little person. Second, she"s not not a little person. She"s one of the Talon-haltija." a little person. She"s one of the Talon-haltija."

"Talon-whatsa?"

"She"s Fae Fae, d.a.m.n it. Let them in, but tell them to walk carefully." As the officer turned away, Chase grumbled under his breath. "Honestly, I send these guys to sensitivity training, I make sure they"re up on proper procedure, and some of them still act like bulls in china shops." He caught my gaze and pointed at the letter. "Are you going to open that?"

I shook my head. "Not until we cast some sort of spell on it to detect whether it"s magically b.o.o.by-trapped."

A few minutes later, Iris made her way through the mess, followed by Morio and Vanzir. I silently showed them the letter.

Vanzir shuddered. "The Bonecrusher, all right. Can you feel the power emanating from that envelope?"

"Yeah. Next question: Is it rigged? Will it go boom if I open it, or is it just a polite "gotcha" letter?" With a long sigh, I ran my hand across my eyes, already weary and wanting to run home and hide. I"d been feeling far too much of that lately.

Morio took the letter and incanted a spell. A light flared, but nothing happened. "No illusions here. And I added in a variant that checks for traps. Nothing. You can open it safely."

Hoping he was right, I cautiously loosened the flap and withdrew the letter. As I opened the folded page, I saw it was typed-Stacia was smart, all right. She hadn"t written it by hand. In fact, my bet was she"d never even touched the paper, but instead, had a flunky write it. Otherwise, we could cast magic on her by having something she"d touched. But it had been in her presence, that much I could tell.

"What"s it say?" Delilah asked, crowding in. I motioned her to move back and give me a little room as I scanned it. s.h.i.t, this was not good. Not good at all.

"Let"s get out of here before I read it to you. Who knows if they bugged the shop at the same time they destroyed it? Come on." Pushing past them, I marched toward the front door and out into the drizzling morning. When they caught up with me, I led them across the street and leaned on Chase"s patrol car, hanging my head.

"Come on, Camille, spill. What"s going on?" Shamas had a worried look on his face and I realized that over the past months, he really had been working on making himself part of the family, though he still held himself somewhat aloof and his darker nature seemed to be taking over.

"f.u.c.k and double f.u.c.k. Here"s what she says." I held the letter up and began to read: Camille, et al:Consider this renovation a precursor of things to come. You have many friends, and we know who they are and where they live. One by one, we"ll destroy everyone and everything you love. You have two choices: Return to Otherworld. Or you can fight for us. This is the fork in the road.S.B.

Delilah let out a long breath. "s.h.i.t."

"I don"t know. There"s something not right here." Morio pinched the bridge of his nose, looking like he"d developed a headache. "Give me a minute."

I looked at him expectantly. "What is it?"

"Just . . . it"s this. Think about it. Why not just blow us all up at the house if they wanted to get rid of us? Karvanak could have, but he chose to kidnap Chase and try to use him for ransom. He could have quietly gotten together enough cohorts to just come out and stage a private little war. So why did he-and now Stacia Bonecrusher-try so hard to get us to join them? Remember, Karvanak offered a couple times for you to switch sides and the question is, why do they want you three so badly? What piece are we missing?"

He presented a good question, actually, one none of us had really thought about. If Shadow Wing wanted us dead, why didn"t he just order a ma.s.s attack on our house and blow us all to smithereens? Why go around and around, sending demon generals who, while terribly powerful, weren"t using their full a.r.s.enals?