"I mean, you've got to wonder, who'd ever buy one of these in the first place, right?" Graham was smiling as he slid open the back of the case. His fingers were actually over the monkey's paw when Allie grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand back.
"It's old," she said quickly, as his smile slipped. "I'm afraid it'll fall apart if it's handled."
"Sorry."
"It's okay. You couldn't have known." But it was interesting that he'd gone straight for the artifact. Was he testing to see if she knew what it was? She wondered what he'd have done if she hadn't stopped him. How would he have reacted when the severed paw squirmed in his grip? Not that it mattered because she'd have stopped him regardless. Allie had no idea who'd made those first two wishes, had no idea what they'd wished for, but she knew it had ended in horror and regret. It always ended in horror and regret. "If I had a choice, I'd lock it away out of sight."
"Don't you have a choice?" That was the reporter asking. Just a little too emphatic for a polite inquiry.
"I don't think my grandmother would like that much."
"Ah." When he nodded, Allie wasted a moment thinking about brushing his hair back off his face. Would it feel as silky sliding through her fingers as it looked? "She's coming back, then. Is she all right?"
The aunties' opinion aside, it seemed safest to stick to the party line. "She's dead."
His face blanked for a moment before sympathy took over, but she couldn't tell for certain if his reaction was to the news or the way she'd delivered it. "I didn't know." Not exactly the truth but his lies were better hidden than they had been. "It must've been sudden."
He said he'd been talking to her last week. "It was."
"Forgive me for saying this..." Head dipped slightly, he studied her through the shield of his lashes. "... but you don't seem too upset."
"I don't think I've really accepted it yet." And that, at least, had the benefit of being the absolute truth.
Outside the store, thunder rolled, gentled by distance, and while the rain continued to fall, it was now possible to actually see the other side of the street. The storm had moved east, heading for the prairies.
"Uh, Ms. Gale."
"Allie."
"Okay." He didn't step away from her smile this time. Good for him. "You're still holding my wrist."
Oh.
They were standing close enough that fabric touched-his open suit jacket brushing against her sweater. Close enough shared body heat had warmed the air between them.
His pulse beat strong and fast under her fingertips. A little faster than it should given it was the pulse of an apparently healthy young man just standing and dripping rainwater onto a hardwood floor. Allie suddenly realized she'd actually traced most of a charm onto the smooth skin of his inner wrist without thinking and swiped it clear as she released him, her fingers lingering just a moment longer than necessary. Gale girls took what they wanted...
Down at the other end of the counter, her phone rang. Long distance, but not one of the family rings.
"Are you going to get that?"
He expected her to say no. Which, to be fair, was her intention. She opened her mouth to say, let it ring. What she actually heard herself say was, "I'll just be a moment."
Telemarketers did not call Gale phones and she could count the number of non-family members who had the number on the fingers of one hand. When an anonymous voice asked if she'd accept a collect call from Charlie Gale, muscles she didn't remember tensing relaxed.
"Charlie?" Allie mouthed my cousin at Graham. "Did you lose your phone again?"
"I think I left it in Halifax."
"Left it? Where are you?"
" Brazil."
"What are you doing in Brazil?"
"I got pushed out of the Wood. Four times now."
"Shit." She turned, her back to the reporter, her body curled protectively around the phone as though she could send that protection through to Charlie. With her free hand, she traced a charm against the countertop, and her voice slid sideways, out of eavesdropping range. "By what?"
"I couldn't tell. Shadows." Charlie sighed, bone-deep weariness apparent in the sound. "Well, shadow, singular, probably... I think it was the same fucking thing every time."
"Are you all right?"
"I'm tired and I'm angry and I've puked up everything I've eaten for the last six years, but yeah, I'm all right. I'm just in Brazil. Rio. I think it's trying to keep me from you."
"What?"
"For fucksake, Allie, pay attention. I said, I think..."
"I heard you." Fear, not for herself but for Charlie, sharpened her tone. "That was an exclamation of surprise, not a request for you to repeat yourself. If you can't get to me, go home!"
"Oh, stupid me, not to think of that!"
She gentled her tone, pulled Charlie back from the edge. "You tried?"
"I tried. Every time I go in, fucking shadow bounces me out. Doesn't matter where I'm pointed."
"Then why do you think it has to do with me?"
"I just... I can hear your song in the way the Wood changes, okay? And yeah, I know that doesn't make sense to you, but it does to me, so be careful. Don't trust anyone outside the family. I'm on my way."
"How...?"
"They have these things called planes."
"Yeah, but they smell like ass and they make you check your guitar." Allie could hear Charlie smiling in the silence. "Have you got the cash to...?"
"Credit card. I'm on a flight that's boarding in about forty-five minutes. It's going to take a while, though." She could hear paper rustling and maybe, now she knew what to listen for, a distant security announcement. "It's Rio to San Paulo to O'Hare to Denver to Calgary. Thirty-six hours and fifty minutes. I'll get in about six thirty in the morning on Saturday if there's no delays... except that I'm going through O'Hare, so delays are fucking inevitable."
The layout of the runways at O'Hare meant that two or three times a day, planes heading east sketched a dark charm on the airport. Had the family needed to fly into Chicago with any regularity, they'd have done something about it. As it was, it was easier to just to avoid the city.
"Wait a minute, O'Hare to Denver to Calgary?" Allie mapped it out against the counter. "That's going back south before you go north."
"Beggars and choosers, babe.At least I'll get caught up on some sleep."
Charlie didn't have her phone; she'd have thirty-two hours and twenty minutes of peace and quiet. "You haven't called the aunties yet, have you?"
"Figured you should get a heads up first."
"You're too good to me."
"I know it."
"Charlie..."
Charlie's interruption was more of a snort than a snicker. "I'll be careful if you keep from doing anything stupid."
"Define stupid?"
"Bite me."
"Love you, too."
She pressed a kiss to the phone before she closed it and turned back to Graham. His brows rose, and questions about why he suddenly couldn't understand a word she'd said swam just under the surface of his expression. "Problem?"
"Unexpected travel screwup." She still needed to know what he knew, but she really didn't need the distraction of his eyes and his scent and his smile and his hands and all the lovely that cheap suit was covering while dealing with the inevitable calls from the aunties.
"Family member?"
Interesting phrasing.
"Cousin."
"In Brazil?"
"Yes." But that much he'd overheard. "She's a musician."
"I should go." He didn't want to, and he wasn't bothering to hide it. Easy enough to see that his desire to stay mostly had to do with wanting confirmation of whatever he thought was going on. With the store. With her grandmother. With a cousin in Brazil. She could almost see him drawing lines, connecting dots he thought he had. But that wasn't the part he let her see; she took a look at that all on her own. The part he let her see had more to do with her, personally, and she really wished she had the time to appreciate the sentiment.
"Yeah, you should go." Her fingers tightened around the phone. "It's going to get very... family around here soon."
Graham smiled at that, like he understood what she meant. He really didn't. He really couldn't, but she appreciated the thought and caught herself wondering about his family as he said, "I'd like to see you again. To talk about the store. For my article."
Nice save. She wondered why he felt he had to make it. He wasn't wearing a ring, but that didn't mean there wasn't a significant other attached. "How about coffee tomorrow?"
"Coffee's good."
"I'll see you around eleven, then."
"Great."
Graham hadn't expected to have quite so visceral a reaction to Alysha Gale. He stepped wide off the curb avoiding a puddle, ignored the shouted, Watch where the fuck you're going! from a passing truck, tried to stop thinking of her as everything he'd ever looked for in a woman-news to him he'd been looking-and tried to start thinking.
He could do this. He could do his job and keep it from getting personal.
If his watch was right, and the cheap piece of shit hadn't been ruined in the rain, it was only a little better than seventeen hours until he could talk to her again.
Lying flat on the roof, holding a directional microphone instead of his rifle, he watched Alysha Gale walk down 9th to the twenty-four hour convenience store at 11th Street. She'd headed out to shop almost immediately after she'd closed the store and received two phone calls on the way down the street-two liters of milk, a pound of butter, a dozen eggs, and three lemons-three calls on the way back. This particular microphone could pick up fly farts at three kilometers, but he had no doubt she could block it if she cared to.
Strangely, she didn't care to.
"I'm fine. Everything's fine. You know as much as I do. No, no sign of her. I'd rather you didn't, I can manage."
And around again. And again. Her end of the conversation barely changed there and back.
Maybe her lack of concern for eavesdroppers wasn't that strange after all.
The sound cut off when she reentered the store; before she'd disappeared, the old woman had put security in place even his boss couldn't crack. The boss had upped his own security the moment Catherine Gale showed up on the radar. Given the security he'd already put in place, that was saying something.
"She obviously doesn't know I'm here, and I'm fucking well going to keep it that way."
Given what he'd been told about the Gales, the youth of this newest family member to show up in the city had come as a bit of a surprise. Gale females of any age had the potential to be dangerous adversaries, but in the older women, all that potential had been realized and they were apparently borderline bugfuck besides. Was the girl a trap? Was her function to lull them into a false sense of security? Distract them while the others gathered?
He could wait here and hope she left the building again, or he could be more productive and have a few words with the changeling.
Six aunties, her mother, Charlie's mother, and two of Charlie's sisters later, Allie got the one call she wasn't expecting.
"Do I need to come out there?"
"David?"
"I'll be finished with the job I'm doing currently in seventy-two hours, but I can be there in forty-eight if you need me."
Phone trapped between ear and shoulder, Allie broke the third and final egg onto the third and final cup of flour. "To do what?"
"Mom says you're in trouble."
"Me? Charlie's the one who got bounced."
"Four times. Trying to get to you."
"It didn't matter where she was going."
"But she said it had to do with you."
"Nothing's happening here." As the ancient, upright mixer struggled to fold air into the thick batter, she glanced over at the window, opened her mouth to tell David about the shadow, and closed it again. She didn't need to bring big brother all the way to Calgary to chase shadows. "There's no sign of Gran, and I hired a leprechaun to work in the store."
"A leprechaun?"
"Yeah."
"Full-blood?"
"Changeling."
"The family doesn't mess with the Fey, Allie."
"I'm not messing with him." Hadn't even occurred to her actually, and that was a bit weird; he was cute in a scruffy sort of way. "He needed a job and, if I'm going to figure out what's going on, I needed part-time help."
"So you hired a leprechaun?"
"Let it go, David."
"What's a leprechaun doing in Calgary anyway?"
"He tells me that things are happening here." She hadn't been able to find a tube pan, but a bundt pan would do.
"I'll be there in forty-eight hours."
"Not those kind of things."
"You sure?"
And she convinced him that she was. For all his power, David was still a Gale boy, and they took Gale girls at face value. It was safer that way.
The traditional way to catch leprechauns was to sneak up behind them while they worked on their shoes. Count on them being particularly obsessed if they're whistling. People in his line of work who relied on folklore rather than more mundane skills tended to die young. Or wish they had.
He stared at Joe through the night vision goggles-the changeling had one foot up on the park bench, tunelessly whistling "Mime Abduction" as he struggled with a knot in one bootlace-thought about irony, and hit him with the Taser. The current theory among those in the know was that, as well as overwhelming the nervous system and causing temporary paralysis, a Taser could be used to disrupt the more exotic abilities of the Fey. He hadn't actually seen Joe use any of those exotic abilities, but the redundantly careful lived longer.
Cable ties were in place around grimy wrists before the paralysis wore off, even given the Fey's accelerated recovery time. Under the baggy clothes, the boy-Not a boy, he reminded himself-was surprisingly thin. Maybe he'd swapped bulk for height. Didn't matter. Facedown on the asphalt path, hands secured in the small of his back, a knee between his shoulder blades and the end of the silencer tucked under one pointed ear, Joe O'Hallan wasn't going anywhere.
"Blessed rounds," he growled as Joe tried to twist his head far enough to see his attacker. "Stay still."
The changeling froze, his muscles spasming as they finished throwing off the effect of the Taser. From this point on, it was the threat of a true death and the belief that his captor would pull the trigger that held him. A full-blood just up from the UnderRealm wouldn't believe the threat-it would take a certain kind of scary crazy to go up against the Courts-but Joe had been living Human long enough he probably had no idea he was protected.
"We talk, then you can go." Using his free hand to pull the back of the sweater down, he pressed the pendant against the damp, pale skin just under the hairline and watched goose bumps rise at the touch of the cool metal. "What do you know about what's happening in the city?"
As the silence extended, he thought maybe he'd been a bit too obscure. He hadn't wanted to give away any answers, but perhaps what's happening hadn't been specific enough. Then the changeling shivered as though he'd worked his way through to the actual question, snorted, and said, "I know what's come through, don't I? I'm not blind, and they don't give a fuck who sees them."
"Have you told anyone?"
"No! I'm not fucking stupid either! Best way to deal with them is to keep your head down."
The pendant forced the truth. Anger added the flourishes-the Fey hated being bested by Humans. Anger usually added the flourishes. In this case, it sounded a lot more like fear.
"Have you had word from the UnderRealm?" If he had, he'd know why as well as what.
"No. They don't give a fuck about me, and I wouldn't listen to the fuck ers if they did!"
It seemed the changeling hadn't learned not to let sentiment stand in the way of survival. Good. And Alysha Gale hadn't been given even the minimal information he had about their visitors. Better.
Still that did raise the question of what he'd been doing in the store for so long.
"I'm after working there, aren't I."
"Working?" There were any number of jobs a leprechaun's strength and speed could be useful for. "What are you doing?"
"Selling shit."
"Selling shit?"
"And going for coffees."
"You're working retail?" That was... unexpected. "Why?" He repeated the question with a little more physical emphasis when the silence extended.
"I think..." Pureblood or not, the changeling's voice had nothing of the UnderRealm in it, sounding more young and terrified than immortal and devious. "I think she felt sorry for me."
Pity made sense. He was starting to feel a bit uncomfortably like a bully and had to remind himself Joe O'Hallan was not Human.
He wanted to ask specifically about Alysha Gale, to see if the details of her story changed with her audience, but rumor had it that the family had an uncanny way of knowing when they were the topic of conversation, and he didn't want to risk tipping her off.
Pressing the gun just a little harder against Joe's head, he slid his knife blade through the ties, and freed Joe's hands. "If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead." Muscles tensed under his weight, a clear indication he'd been believed. "Talk about this, and I'll want you dead."
"I'm not going to be saying anything! I swear!"
The pendant felt warm as he dropped it into his pocket. "Count to fifty before you get up."
Allie told herself that the time difference had hauled her ass out of bed at dawn, but standing at the window, hands cupped around a mug of coffee, she knew that was a lie. Mostly a lie. After the cake came out of the oven, she'd stayed up until midnight cataloging the contents of the spare room and finding nothing, so the two-hour time shift had certainly helped her haul her ass out of bed.
If the shadow returned, then yesterday's pass over the store hadn't been random.
And?
And then yesterday's pass over the store hadn't been random.
There really wasn't a lot more information a shadow passing at that speed could impart.
Well, except for the obvious.
When the pigeons crowded back under the newspaper box, she braced herself.
There.
And gone.
And not alone.
"Great." Allie finished her coffee in one long swallow. "We've got dragons."
"If Catherine allowed herself to be eaten by a dragon, I have no sympathy for her at all. Unless you're a virgin sacrifice, which she most certainly is not, they're easy enough to avoid."
"They know where the store is, Auntie Jane."
"Of course they do, they can sense the power. If you follow them, you'll probably find them acknowledging every power signature in Edmonton."
" Calgary."
"What?"
"I'm in Calgary."
"Are you asking me to join you there?"
"No!"
"Then don't start complaining to me about geography. Dragons are not this family's business."
"Unless one ate Gran."
After a long pause, Auntie Jane sighed. "Yes, unless one ate your grandmother."
"How do I...?"
"Oh, for pity's sake, Alysha, just consider it for a moment. You'll need to examine the scat for the nasty indigestible bits."
She was almost afraid Auntie Jane hadn't been kidding.
When she paused in front of the mirror and murmured, "Dragons?" her reflection lifted a familiar tabloid. The headline read "Not all THUNDER LIZARDS Come out of the Ground at Drumheller." And under it, in slightly less strident type, "Thousand-Year-Old Lizard Baby." She was worried for a moment that the tabloid had already been reporting on the dragons when she saw that the date on the paper was closer to the end of the month.
"Trust me, I wasn't going to tell Graham about this." Giving the frame a quick pat, she moved on into the store figuring she could use the ninety minutes until opening to begin cataloging.
Joe sat tucked up into the small offset of the door, head against the glass, arms wrapped around his knees.
Allie dropped her laptop on the counter and hurried across the store. When she turned the lock, his head jerked back and he stared up at her with wide, terrified eyes. Then he blinked and only looked tired as he pulled himself to his feet, one palm against the door.
"Joe? What are you doing here?"
"You want me here.You do want me here?"
"Of course I do. I only meant that it's early."
"I don't..."
... have anywhere else to go.
The subtext was so loud, he might as well have said it.
She stepped aside and watched how his shoulders relaxed when he crossed the threshold. Whatever had happened to him, he believed it couldn't follow him into the store. She hated to disillusion him, but down here in the store, Gran hadn't set things up to keep anyone out. She'd just wanted to know what was coming.
When the lock snapped into place, he raised a hand and brushed his hair back out of his eyes. He probably figured that Allie'd ignore the way his fingers were trembling.
Not likely.
"Have you eaten?"
"What?"
"Breakfast? Have you eaten? No, of course you haven't. Come on, then, upstairs. I'll make pancakes."
He stared at her in disbelief. "You'll what?"
"Make pancakes. Unless they call them flapjacks out here in the west, then I'll make flapjacks."
"Upstairs?"
"It's where the kitchen is." Hand in the small of his back, not terribly happy about the way she could feel the knobs of his spine through his sweater, she moved him across the store toward the other door.
"I can't..." His need for sanctuary rolled off him like smoke. He wasn't fighting her, he hadn't even stopped walking, but he needed reassurance.
"Why can't you?"
"Your grandmother..."
"Isn't here. I am. Don't look in the mirror, just keep walking."
If he'd been Human, he wouldn't have made it up the stairs. She could feel him trembling, forcing each leg to rise and pull himself up the next step. She didn't help, but she made it clear she'd be there if he fell.
When he was standing, staring stupidly around the apartment's big open room, she gave him a gentle shove toward the bathroom. "Go shower and toss your clothes out, I was going to run a load of laundry, and I can easily throw them in. If you don't mind that it says Niko, I've got sweats you can wear until they're dry."
"Niko?"
"Misprints. There's a couple of boxes of them in the spare room. Go on," she added when it looked like he might be gathering enough energy to argue. "Pancakes will be ready when you are."
He blinked at her, shook his head like he couldn't quite believe he was doing it, and shuffled off to the bathroom.
Allie snorted as she pulled the big mixing bowl down off the shelf. Twenty-four years of handling Gale boys made handling the Fey a piece of cake. She'd been getting David to the table since she was five.
When Joe sat down, his hair tucked wet behind his ears, points exposed, she slid a plate of six steaming pancakes-nearly as big around as the plate they were on and half an inch thick-in front of him. "I'm afraid we've only got maple syrup," she told him, sliding the bottle across. "There's a bottle of blueberry syrup in the pantry, but since it probably came from Auntie Jane, it'd be safer if we didn't open it."
"She charmed it, then?"
"If she made it for Gran, she likely poisoned it."
"Poisoned?" His voice rose a little on the second syllable. Not quite far enough to be called a squeak.
"Apples are more traditional, but Auntie Jane has a thing for blueberries."
"You're kidding?"
Allie smiled. "Eat up, you don't want your pancakes to get cold."
The first forkful dripping with butter and syrup slid tentatively between pale lips. The second forkful rose a lot more enthusiastically. "These are good!"
"Of course they are." Allie had two smaller pancakes on her plate, mostly just to keep him company while he ate. When he finished, she smiled and said, "So what happened last night?"
While it was true that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach, Gale girls tended to believe food should be more inclusive.
Joe pushed the last bit of syrup around his plate with his fingertip. "I got jumped by a guy with a gun."
"You got jumped?" Her turn to stare in disbelief. Calgary had some hard-assed petty criminals if the Fey were getting mugged.
"He knew what I was, didn't he? Tasered me first. Tied my hands."
"Tied?" She took one hand in hers and gently pushed the sweatshirt cuff up. Not even the faintest residue of a binding.
"Well, it wasn't just the ties, was it? I could have broke them, sure, but he had a gun, here." Two stiffened fingers tapped his head just below his right ear. "Told me he had Blessed rounds, then he asked me what I knew. Asked if the UnderRealm had been in contact with me."
"So what do you know, Joe?"
"I know about the dragons."
"I've seen them." Still holding his hand, she glanced toward the window. "Well, seen them pass, which is almost the same thing."
"No, it's not. They're..."
Bigger. Scalier. Toothier. Definitely scarier in person. "It's okay. I know. Has the UnderRealm been in contact with you?"
"No, and like I told him, I wouldn't fucking listen if they had. Then he wanted to know what I was doing in the store. I told him I was working here." His eyes widened as he suddenly realized what he'd been saying, and he yanked his hand free. "You enchanted me!"
"Yes."
"He told me he'd kill me if I told anyone!"
Allie kept her tone matter-of-fact. "How will he know you told me?"
"He has a truth thing! A silver thing.You can't lie when it's on you! He'll know I told you and he'll kill me! He had Blessed rounds! True death!"
"Joe! Stop it!" When he froze, she took his hands, thumbs stroking the backs. "If he threatens you again, he's in for a surprise."
"What have you..." He stared at the backs of his hands, eyes wide, the charms clearly visible to him. "You can't."
Allie shrugged. "I just did."
"You don't speak for your whole family!"
"Actually, we all speak for the whole family." She knew better than to look deep into his eyes so she stared sincerely at a freckle in the middle of his forehead. "That's what family is, Joe, we stand by each other, no matter what."
"You just told me your Auntie Jane was trying to poison your grandmother!"
"Doesn't count. If I call, they'll come. If he touches you, he'll know that."
"And if he shoots me from a distance?"
"Then it won't matter if you told me or not since he clearly has his own agenda."
Joe frowned, shifting the freckle. "That's not particularly comforting!"
"Sorry. He didn't happen to mention what that agenda was, did he? I mean, the level of threat does not match the level of his interrogation. We've got a big, big threat." She spread their joined hands apart, then moved them closer together. "Little bitty questions."
"He wasn't after explaining himself, if that's what you're asking."
"Pity."
"You think he had something to do with your grandmother's disappearance, then?"
"I think my grandmother disappeared, and now there's an armed man threatening someone who just started working at her store. My store. There's got to be a connection. There's the wash done." She let go of his hands. "I'll just toss everything in the dryer."
He rubbed his right hand over the back of his left and had no effect on the charm. "What does it actually say?"
"It's complicated, but basically..." Allie thought of him translucent one day and panicked the next, curled up on her doorstep terrified, and gentled her voice. "... it says, hands off."
He seemed almost content about that, so she didn't regret lying to him.
A more accurate translation would be mine.
"Someone's watching the store."
"Who?"
Allie rolled her eyes and glanced toward the bathroom door. Joe wouldn't be in there much longer. "I don't know who, Auntie Jane. But he carries a gun with Blessed rounds and has access to an artifact charmed to force the truth."
"It's entirely possible he bought the artifact from your grandmother," Auntie Jane snorted. "I assume Catherine has charms in place keeping the family business from being broadcast to all and sundry?"
"Yes, but..."
"Then let him watch. If he actually wants to see something, he'll have to come through the door."
"And then?"
"Oh, for pity's sake, Alysha Catherine, use your imagination."
"A reporter?"
"For The Western Star." Allie restacked the latest pile of saucers and added the number to the catalog. So far, she'd counted fifty-seven saucers with no cups and two cups with no saucers.
"That piece of shite." Joe swept the dirt into the dustpan and straightened. "And he was talking to your grandmother?"
"Apparently."
"You don't believe him, then?"
"I believe he has his own agenda and the bluest eyes I've ever seen."
"So you're having coffee with him because of his eyes?"
Allie shrugged, pulled out a basket of oddly shaped candles, and put it back onto the shelf, not up to dealing with the mix of scents. "I need to know what his agenda is. How much he thinks he knows about the family."
"He won't know anything about the family, will he? Worst he'll know is bits about your grandmother."
"That's bits about the family."
"You lot are right clannish."
"That's what I keep trying to tell you."
"I doubt she told him the truth about anything."
"Unless she decided to do a bit of shit disturbing."
Joe's expression suggested that from what he knew about Catherine Gale, that was entirely possible. "So you're doing damage control?"
"If it needs doing."
"And if he knows too much?" Brows up, Joe drew a questioning line across his throat.
"Please, we can be much subtler than that." They weren't always, but they could be.
She was sorting through a box of mismatched sterling silver cutlery-Fill in your set. Priced by weight.-when Graham came through the door. She'd wanted a good look at him through the clear-sight charm but not enough to be lingering by the counter so it looked as though she'd been waiting for him. She had no intention of crossing the fine line between not playing stupid games and looking way too eager.
His eyes were just as blue in the morning.
Which was quite possibly the stupidest observation she'd ever made about anyone.
He stopped by the end of the counter, once again a little too close to that damned monkey's paw. Shoving the box of silver to one side, Allie hurried over to him, afraid he might make another grab for the paw. It might be an old, ugly, hacked-off primate hand, yet the power it held made it remarkably seductive. But then, power was always seductive.
"Eleven o'clock, you're right on time."
His smile was as enthralling as she remembered. "I pride myself on being punctual. Can you leave?" He turned a not particularly approving glance toward Joe. Since Joe still looked a bit rough, that was hardly surprising.
"I think I can handle the crowds," Joe muttered, squaring up the box of yoyos with the edge of the counter.
"We'll just be next door if anything happens," Allie told him and waved Graham back toward the front of the store.
"What would be likely to happen?" Graham wondered as they emerged out onto the sidewalk.
"Could get a run of little old ladies who desperately need cat saucers." Allie glanced up, saw that the pigeons were missing from the edge of the building and quickly checked the space under the newspaper box. Empty.
"Looking for something?"
She glanced over to find him watching her and liked the way his gaze lingered. "I thought I saw a kestrel the other day."
Which was true. She'd been wrong, but it had been what she'd thought at the time.
"It's possible," he allowed as they walked to the coffee shop. "They seem to be taking to city life, and Calgary is a city where things are happening. We were named the best Canadian city to live in by the Canadian conference board," he added, holding the door open for her. "And the third best in North America."
"You know people keep telling me things are happening here..." She brushed up against him as she passed, almost accidentally, and spent a moment appreciating the feel of muscle under the same cheap suit he'd had on the night before. "... but so far all I've seen is the airport, the route in from the airport, the store, and this coffee shop. Oh, and the convenience store down the road."
"We'll have to do something about that," he murmured, close behind her and the low, whiskey rasp of his voice lifted the hair off the back of her neck.
It took her a moment to realize that Kenny was staring at her expectantly from behind the counter. "Uh, two coffees please, for here, and..." She half turned and laid a hand on his forearm, just because he was up and in her personal space like an invitation. "... the Saskatoon berry muffins are great."
He blinked, but since the new angle gave him a deliberate glimpse of lace and the swell of breasts inside the vee of her shirt, that was only to be expected. If he thought he could fluster a Gale girl by standing too close and smelling terrific, he didn't know as much about the family as she feared he did. And he'd clearly never tried this on her grandmother.
She smiled at the thought. Graham looked startled for a moment, then smiled back.
"So are you having the muffins?"
When she turned back to the counter, a pair of big red mugs filled with coffee waited by two empty plates although she hadn't heard Kenny move-not to take the mugs from the rack, not to fill them at the urns. He held a pair of tongs over the muffin baskets.
"Yes," Graham answered for them both. "We are. Thank you."
While he paid, Allie carried both mugs and plates over to the most isolated of the small tables by the front windows. "I waitressed in a bar while I was in university," she explained as he joined her, brows up at the display of plate shuffling. "Right kind of place and I still get the urge to clear tables and refill coffees. Charlie says I do it deliberately to embarrass her."
"That your cousin, the musician, in Brazil."
"That's her." She could see him filing away the whole Charlie's a her thing.
But all he said was, "You don't seem the bar waitress type."
"Well, Michael got the job first. He was bartending and when one of the girls quit..." She'd quit because Allie had wanted to be with Michael and had been more than willing to arrange things to get it. She was a little embarrassed about that now. Right now. Which was strange because she never had been before.
"Michael's an old boyfriend?"
"Michael's... it's complicated."
"Yeah, I have a couple of those, too. So..." Graham took a long swallow of coffee-two cream, two sugars-and pulled out a small black notebook. "Let's talk about why your grandmother decided to open a store in Calgary so far from the rest of her family."
Allie shrugged. "Things are happening here."
"Seriously."
"She told you that, that she was far from her family?"
"She did." He wore a "trust me" face. Allie might have trusted him more if he hadn't been so obviously wearing it over his actual expression. He was good, though; she couldn't see beneath it. "It must have come as a huge shock to you when she died."
"It did."
"What happened to the body?"
Allie froze, a piece of muffin halfway to her mouth. "The what?"
"Your grandmother's body. When there's a death, there's a body. I wondered what happened to it. Was she buried here or back home?"
Or eaten by dragons. Allie had to bite back an inappropriate desire to giggle. "We have a family burial plot back home."
"That doesn't exactly answer my question."
"Which wasn't exactly about the store."
"Background information."
"About someone who no longer has anything to do with the store."
Graham acknowledged the point with a nod and drank a little more coffee. Allie watched muscles move in the tanned column of his throat and met his gaze with nothing more than a lifted brow when he caught her at it. He brushed his hair back off his face, although it didn't really need brushing, and checked his notes. "So your grandmother left you the store; does she own the building?"
"She said she did."
"But you haven't seen the paperwork?"
Allie shrugged so he could watch the motion. Fair was fair. "I don't even know where the paperwork is," she admitted. "That's remarkably blonde, isn't it?"
"A little," he admitted in turn. "And I don't think ignoring the legalities is something even you can get away with."
"Even me?" she purred, leaning forward.
A flash of something that might have been annoyance at the slip, but it was gone too fast for her to be certain. "A beautiful blonde." He reached across the table and lifted the end of her braid out of her coffee.
He waited for her to laugh before he did. She liked that. A lot. And she was a little afraid of how much she liked his laugh, so she fumbled her phone out to hide her reaction. Some of her reaction.
"Do you mind? This'll only take a minute, but you're right and I should get it dealt with." When he nodded, she called Roland and repeated Graham's point, or possibly points, about the paperwork.
"You're talking to a reporter?"
"Get past that."
"Okay..." She could hear definite speculation in the pause and thanked any gods who might be listening that he wasn't likely to repeat that speculation to the aunties. "He's right."
"I already told him that."
"I take it you'd like me to deal with it?"
"If you can."
"No problem. In fact, you couldn't have called at a better time since I can be out there in a couple of days. My boss is retiring, leaving me temporarily unemployed."
"Retiring?" Alan Kirby had always struck her as more the "die in the saddle" type, Matlocking his way through increasingly lame court cases until one of his clerks finally noticed he'd started to decay.
"The aunties suggested it."
That made more sense. The aunties had probably also suggested an alternative.
"I'll pass on the details," Roland continued, "when I've booked the flight."
"You don't mind leaving home?" She'd expected to send the information to him.
"Right now, I think being away from home would do me good." His voice had picked up a definite edge. It wasn't always easy being among the cosseted few.
"If they give you any trouble..."
"I'll have them call you."
"Thanks, Rol. Cousin," she explained, closing the phone. "He's a lawyer. He's flying in to deal with it."
"You have a lot of cousins."
"How do you figure? I've only mentioned two."
"It's the way you say cousin like it should be obvious."
Okay, she'd give him that one. "You're right. I have a lot of cousins."
"Brothers and sisters?"
So stupid to miss sisters she'd never had. "Just an older brother.You?"
"I had six and two sisters." Graham dropped his crumpled napkin on his empty plate and frowned, like he was trying to remember. Not an obvious movement, but Allie caught it. "They uh, they died with my parents when I was thirteen. Fire. I wasn't home; everyone else was."
"I'm so sorry."
"Yeah. Thanks. I, uh, I have a fair number of cousins myself, though." He shook the sadder memories off with what looked like the ease of long practice, as though so terrible a thing had happened to someone else, and Allie thought that was almost worse than the memory itself. "Lots of aunts and uncles. My father's family was huge; eight of them survived to have kids of their own, and I expect by now those kids have kids."
"You expect?"
"We're not close."
"How often do you see them?"
Graham frowned again. "I don't."
"You don't see them often?"
"I don't see them at all. Not since I left for university." He seemed to be reaching for a memory, didn't quite get there, and shook off the attempt with a wry twist of his mouth. "But then most of them are still in Blanc-Sablon. The town in Quebec where I was born."
" Quebec? You don't sound French."
He smiled then. "I can, but it's a cheap imitation accent. In spite of what the rest of Canada thinks about rural Quebec, most of the people where I'm from are English speakers."
"And they never call? You never call them?"
"Like I said, we're not close."
In twenty-four years, Allie had never gone an entire day without talking to at least one member of her family. There'd been days when she hadn't gone twenty-four minutes. "Ever think of starting a family of your own?" she asked absently, tracking the breadth of his shoulders.
Graham's expression seemed to be asking where that had come from. Allie was wondering the same thing. In spite of the shoulders. "I haven't, no."
"So you don't want kids?"
"Actually..." From the outside, it seemed as though he'd found something unexpected tucked into a forgotten corner of his head. "Actually, yeah, I do. Not eight, but I always figured I'd have a few. What about you?"
"Not eight," she agreed, smiling. "So, your family..." His eyes shuttered again and although she didn't want him to close off, she couldn't let it go. Family was everything to a Gale. "Your family is farther away than mine." The pull of distance remained a steady ache. "Why move so far from home?"
"My boss at the paper is an old mentor of mine. He was the reason I managed to get to university, to get out of Blanc-Sablon-which is a beautiful place, don't get me wrong..." A raised hand cut off questions she hadn't intended to ask. "... but I was on my own and wanted to see the rest of the world. When he offered me a job, I took it."
There was an obvious truth to what he'd just told her, like he didn't think he needed to lie. In contrast to when he spoke about his family, when he spoke about his mentor/boss, it almost sounded rehearsed; spilling out freely as if she'd charmed him. She hadn't, although she'd certainly thought about it during those moments she'd been alone with his muffin. And wow, that sounded dirty.
She was half tempted to toss out, "Did you know we have dragons?" just to see what he'd say. She didn't. She wasn't that lost in his eyes.
Then he frowned and reached into his pocket to pull out his own phone, still vibrating. "It's my boss. I have to take this."
Eavesdroppers might never hear good of themselves, but Allie, sketching patterns against the white Formica tabletop in a bit of the coffee she'd wrung from her braid couldn't hear anything at all beyond the low murmur of a male voice. Graham had turned to put his body between her and the phone, much as she had the night before. Nothing more than an obvious move to gain a little privacy in close quarters but, given the distance, it seemed to be enough to block her.
"I'm sorry," he told her as he hung up, "but I have to go. Something broke on a big story we're following, and I need to take advantage of it."
Again, no lie in his voice. Of course she hadn't lied to him either. "Hey, I understand about doing the job." She stood when he did, wiping out the pattern with the napkin. "I used to be gainfully employed."
"And now?"
She surprised herself by her answer. "I honestly don't know."
He paused, half turned toward the door. Apparently, she'd surprised him, too. "I'd like to continue this. Dinner?"
About to say yes, she remembered. "I can't tonight. We're open until midnight."
"I can't tonight anyway. Story."
"Right."
"Tomorrow?"
"That would be great." Then he actually held the door open for her. She'd have gone through it also except Kenny called her to the counter.
"Watch this one," he said quietly. "He prefers to drink his coffee black, but he put milk and sugar in."
"Okay..."
"He is not honest with you."
Yes and no, actually. "You'd be surprised."
"Probably not at my age," he snorted and pushed a take-out cup across the counter. "For Joe, triple triple. Waste of decent coffee. I never played hockey, but you still owe me $2.79."
Graham walked her back to the store but didn't go in. "I have to go."
"So you said."
"Yeah."
"I should get inside. Joe's coffee..."
"Yeah."
The door opened, and Joe leaned out. "Is that for me?" he asked pointedly.
When Allie handed it to him, he stayed where he was.
Graham glared for a moment, but since Joe was staring fixedly at the sidewalk, it wasn't very effective. "I'll see you tomorrow," he said at last. "Six thirty?"
"Terrific."
"Casual." When she raised a brow, he grinned. "I've heard women like to know. It's a shoe thing." He was walking away before she remembered the charm on the door. Which didn't work if she was on the same side of it he was. By the time she got inside, it was too late.
"I sold a couple of yoyos when you were gone," Joe told her. "One of the glow-in-the-dark ones and one of the little ones. Oh, and some old lady bought some saucers for her sprites."
"She's drinking soda pop out of a saucer?"
"No, sprites.You know, about yea big..." His thumb and forefinger were around five centimeters apart. "... double wings, not really good for sweet fuck all but looking cute, and they'll eat you out of house and home if you let them." He sucked back a mouthful of coffee like he needed it. "She's got seven. I think she expected me to care. So you're going to dinner with him tomorrow?"
Still thinking about the sprites, Allie just barely managed to make the lateral move to her personal life. "I am."
"Just dinner?"
"None of your business, Mom."
He flushed and ducked his head. "Just, you've got no family here and..."
"It's okay." How cute was an overprotective leprechaun? "And there's family coming. My cousin Charlie'll be here early tomorrow and my cousin Roland's coming in next week."
"Oh." Pale skin went paler, the freckles standing out. "Then I guess, I... uh..."
When he started to move toward the door, she understood, reached out, and gently took hold of his arm-all skin and bones and oversized sweater. "Joe, Charlie's a musician and Roland's a lawyer. They're not here to help in the store. I'll still need you."
"I don't..."
So many fears unfinished.
"I know. Hey, I made almond cake last night, want some?"
His eyes narrowed. "What'll it make me do?"
She grinned. "Gain weight."
They spent the next few hours in companionable silence as Joe sorted through a few boxes filled with the jumbled debris of a stranger's life and Allie continued to build her catalog, inventing categories as she went.
About an hour after lunch, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor staring at a small painting of a seascape and wondering if she could really see the waves move or if the dust and mold had started to cause hallucinations. She glanced up when the door opened and saw a small man of indeterminate age dressed in a dark green suit step into the store and head for the counter. The word dapper popped into her head uninvited as she stood. No question of where it had come from; it fit the little man perfectly.
So did supercilious and disapproving.
She could only see his profile, but from the way a muscle jumped in his jaw, she'd bet his teeth were clenched and his lips pressed into a thin, pale line. Wondering what had climbed up his ass and died, she'd taken a single step toward him when he snapped out a word definitely not in English-nor covered by high school French-and Joe growled, "Fuck you."
Allie knew bravado when she heard it. "Joe?"
The little man turned toward her and she saw the weight of centuries in his eyes. Unlike Joe, who looked Human with only a faint overlay of not, this guy was not!Human all the way through. His slow inspection-head to toe and back again-was clearly intended to intimidate. "So you'll be the new Gale, then?"
His accent was Joe's distilled and filtered through a peat bog by way of a box of Lucky Charms.
"And you are?"
"Sure and I was Catherine Gale's accountant, and if you're the new Gale in her place, then I'll be seeing to your numbers as well-but I'll not work around the likes of him. Blood traitor!" Color began to rise in his face as he turned his attention back to Joe, spitting out a long line of invective, tone providing sufficient translation.
Joe gripped the edge of the counter, fingertips white, lower lip caught between his teeth, breath beginning to quicken.
As the little man began to surge forward, Allie slid between him and the counter.
He stared up at her in astonishment. "You don't understand, Gale. He has been Called and he does not answer! Roaming about free in the MidRealm indeed! I have every right to force him home."
"No, you don't understand Gales. Get out."
The silence that fell was so complete she was pretty sure both members of her audience had momentarily stopped breathing.
The little man recovered first. "You can't..."
"Yes..." She used the edge on her voice to cut him off. "... I can."
"Allie, it's okay. I can go."
She gentled her voice for him. "There's no need, Joe."
"Do you dare, Gale-child? Do you know who you are dealing with?"
Allie knew the power of age; immortality didn't intimidate her. Very much. "My grandmother's accountant."
He bristled and jabbed a pale finger past her toward Joe. "I see your marks on him.You would dare to take control from the Courts? You would truly choose that, then?"
"Have chosen. And it's him, not that. And he has a name. And a place. You, on the other hand, are not wanted here." She called up Auntie Jane's best don't make me come over there expression. "I'd prefer to say good-bye and nothing more, but we both know there's more I could say."
All his attention shifted suddenly to her, lifting the hair off the back of her neck. "You would dare?" he demanded incredulously.
In spite of the way her heart had lodged up somewhere in her throat, she managed a fairly nonchalant shrug. "Your choice."
"No, your choice, Gale-child." His upper lip curled exposing stained teeth. "Your grandmother would not approve."
"My grandmother isn't here." Auntie Jane's expression slid off, leaving no buffer between them. "I am."
He stared at her for a long moment, then he snorted. "So you are. My debt to your family is cleared by my leaving." He nodded once, turned, and walked to the door. Outside, he paused to give her a long look at his true shape before he strutted off into the west.
"Give me a break," Allie muttered, sagging back against the counter. "You're a leprechaun; that's not exactly visually terrifying."
Joe charged around the counter and stuffed a stool under her as she continued to sag. "Allie? You okay?"
"I'm fine. Adrenaline crash, that's all." As David had so helpfully reminded her, the family didn't mess with the Fey. Other side of the coin, though, the Fey didn't mess with the family. She'd just never been the one pointing that out before. The weight of Joe's regard finally spun her far enough on the stool for her to face his concern. "What?"
"You've made an enemy."
"No, I cashed in my grandmother's debt. Him and me, we're even now. If he comes back, I'll make an enemy."
"Don't even be joking about that!"
"I'm not."
Joe swallowed once, eyes suspiciously bright, then proved he was Human enough by heading straight past the chick flick moment and saying, "I wonder how he got in debt to your grandmother in the first place?"
"I can think of a few ways."
"Yeah. Me, too."
They shuddered together.
Maybe word had gotten around. Maybe early May was a slow time in the antiques/junk biz. Whatever the reason, the store remained empty until Allie went upstairs to pull something out of the freezer for supper.
"Another yoyo," Joe told her.
She set the plates of porcini mushroom tortellini on the counter with a sharp crack, the pasta sliding precariously close to the edge. "You're kidding me."
"Uh-uh. And this lady was asking if you'd keep an eye out for some old teapot." He pushed a piece of paper toward her. "I wrote it down."
Royal Albert bone china, Lady Hamilton pattern. "Did Gran do that?"
"Dunno." Half a careful shrug. "But she's not here."
For the first time since Allie'd met him, he didn't check the shadows when talking about her gran.
Neither of them spoke about how late he intended to stay.
Charlie called as they finished eating. The delay at O'Hare had screwed with her connection in Denver. "So I'll be coming in around nine twenty."
"Do you want me to pick you up?"
"You have something to pick me up in?"
"Gran's car."
"Then, yes. Please. Bring food."
Just after dusk, Allie found a Hand of Glory in with the candles then, having accidentally touched it, spent twenty minutes washing her own hands while wondering what the hell Gran had been thinking.
At ten twenty, the current owner of mailbox number four came in. Allie had been searching through a box of costume jewelry, amusing herself by running a mood ring through its paces, so once again she missed a chance to use the clear-sight on the door. Tall and thin and of indeterminate age-at least from the back-the woman had long, almost blonde hair and wore a shapeless gray cardigan over an equally shapeless gray skirt. She had on worn sneakers and gray ankle socks and carried a grubby canvas shopping bag from a national grocery chain. It looked like she relaxed slightly when she saw Joe behind the counter, the stiff lines of back and shoulders curving into something more fluid.
Those curves snapped rigid again as Allie came forward and she thought for a terrible moment the woman, who'd spun around to face her, was going to cry.
"Hi. I'm the new... proprietor." Until she knew what she was dealing with, it seemed safest not to hold out her hand or smile too broadly.
"I just came for my mail." Long fingers clutched at the bundle of papers Joe had set on the counter.
"Okay."
"I'm not doing anything wrong."
"I didn't think you..."
"I have the money for this month!" She reached into the canvas bag and thrust a moist envelope at Allie. "I didn't mean to be late."
"Don't worry about..."
"I won't be late again! I'm so sorry!" Before Allie could reassure her, she spun on one heel and hurried toward the door, leaving damp footprints behind her. She didn't look a lot different through the glass although strands of long gray hair swirled about her like she was moving underwater.
"Loireag," Joe said, wiping a few drops of water off the counter with his sleeve. "Lives in the river by the weir."
"She seemed afraid." The bills in the envelope were limp but appeared to be actual legal tender.
"Yeah, we got lucky. She doesn't deal with new things very well. Once she gets to know you, she'll talk your ear off about how depressed she is and how much her life sucks and other shit like that."
"You think she knows about the guy with the gun?"
"Knows?"
"Just wondering how many of the Fey he's threatened."
Joe rolled his eyes, but Allie noticed that he was rubbing the charm on the back of his hand. "Don't need a guy with a gun to threaten her. She'd get threatened by an old lady waving a bran muffin."
"Don't underestimate old ladies or muffins," Allie told him, dropping the envelope into the cashbox. "That said, I was expecting something more dangerous to come out after dark."
"Not her, not out of the water," Joe snorted. "Drown you soon as look at you if you're swimming too close to her hidey-hole, though."
"I'll try and remember that."
"Yeah, well, city's got this Bow River weir project, right? And part of it's to deal with the..." Fingers sketched air quotes. "... extreme drowning hazard." He shook his head, and shoved the resulting fall of hair back off his face. "Most people got no idea, do they?" Then he frowned. "You're not going to be doing something about that, are you? I mean about her?"
"My family's smart enough not to swim near a loireag. Or in a river that goes through a major metropolitan area. I mean, eww."
"It's not so bad."
"Except for the extreme drowning hazard."
"Well, yeah."
Just before midnight, Joe glanced out to the empty street and sighed. "I guess I'd best be going then."
"You can sleep on my couch if you like."
He froze, hand on the door. "Upstairs?"
"It's where the couch is."
"Why? You think you can keep me safe up there."
Allie thought about lying but not for very long. "Yes, actually."
In spite of the fear that showed in his eyes, he shook his head. "I can't bring that on you."
"It'll be fine. It's not a big thing."
"You can stop bullets?"
"Well..." She considered lying about that as well but didn't. "... no."
"I'll see you tomorrow, then." The fingers not wrapped around the door handle were trembling. He probably thought she couldn't see them. "Can't be spending my life hiding behind your skirts, can I?"
A glance down at her jeans. "I'm not wearing a skirt."
"Don't be so damned difficult, Allie. I need to..."
"Be a guy?" Sighing, she shelved the idea of asking just where exactly he was going.
"Maybe that. Besides..." Mouth twisted into a close approximation of a smile, Joe held up a marked hand as he stepped over the threshold. "... isn't this supposed to keep me safe?"
"Not from bullets," Allie said as the door closed behind him. If anything happened to him, she'd bury the city in aunties, but as sweet as revenge might be, it wouldn't bring him back. "Stay safe," she told his back and gave some serious thought to adding new charms that would keep him from wandering.
All things considered, chief among them the condition she'd found him in that morning, Allie wasn't surprised when at a quarter past one, a pounding on the store door interrupted her brushing her teeth before bed. Joe couldn't be too badly hurt, not if he still had the energy to pound, but that didn't mean there wasn't something on his heels. She all but flew down the stairs and through the store and rocked to a sudden stop when she saw who was standing on the sidewalk.
"Michael?"
