Page 2 of Wicked Deeds

The sane solution was, once again, joining Damon and jumping him. My favorite form of exercise.

But Damon had been yawning when he’d arrived home. Being CEO of a global empire was hard work, even when he wasn’t dealing with extracurricular issues like Jack and all the other complications the magical world kept dumping in our laps. He’d been pushing himself too hard since we’d arrived home from the UK. At first he blamed jet lag for the shadows under his eyes, but I knew better.

He was angry—and felt guilty—that Jack had once again evaded him. Angry I’d risked myself traveling through the Fae realms to try to catch Jack. Angry he couldn’t protect me from things like Usuriel, the Lord of the Nichtkin, deciding to kiss me when I’d made a bargain to share memories with him to free a tanai-fol girl who wanted to return to the human world from his clutches.

I couldn’t fix any of it, other than being there when he wanted to talk about it. I could, at least, let him get some sleep.

Cassandra Tallant, the head of the Cestis—the witches’ ruling council—in the United States had told me to give him some time to process it all. Simply being in the Fae realm was enough to throw most humans for a loop. As she was one of the strongest witches in the country and had three decades or so of life experience on me, I was taking her advice.

So if I wanted to work off my own frustration tonight, I was going to have to do it the old-fashioned way and make use of Damon’s high-tech home gym.

I’d already had a training session with Callum Dune—thes’ealg oichewarrior who was training me to fight demons the Fae way—earlier in the day. I was starting to enjoy fighting with him, now I’d grown more comfortable with using a sword. Though now Callum was working on getting me to use magic at the same time as fighting, so it was harder than ever. But his sessions usually left me physically worn out. Tired enough to sleep through the night.

I could try that approach here. Use the treadmill to settle my nerves. That and one of Cassandra’s always-effective herbal teas might get me to sleep. The tea was the last resort. Cassandra was an herbalist whose talent was undeniable, but she favored efficacy over taste for her concoctions. At least she did for me. Most of the things she made me drink ranged in flavor from grassy to outright compost. I put honey or sugar in them when I could, but it didn’t help much.

But her teas were better than taking sleeping meds. I’d had too many nights where I’d admitted defeat, taken a pill to sleep, and wound up trapped in an unending nightmare, unable to startle myself awake. I slept, yes, but never felt any more rested.

I had to hope the treadmill would work.

I padded down the corridor toward the gym. I’d already changed into leggings and a tee before dinner, which made things simpler, and I kept sneakers in the gym. The room took up a good chunk of the rear of the house, the windows looking down into the back garden—the square footage of the grounds was too large to be thought of simply as a yard, unlike the tiny patch of land at the back of my house in Berkeley. Solar lights twinkled discreetly among the trees and flower beds and along the walls, but the light was set to low levels at this time of night,when the garden should be empty. The property had more than enough wards and mundane security measures to keep most threats out.

Damon had made his fortune young and was well-versed in keeping himself and everyone he cared about safe.

The various pieces of sleek black and silver gym equipment gleamed at me as Madge—the not-quite AI who ran Damon’s systems, including the house comp—brightened the lights in response to my presence. Every weight machine you could ever want, plus a huge open area for sparring or free weights or yoga or whatever else people more excited by exercise than I was, chose to do to amuse themselves.

Then there were the cardio options. Treadmill. Elliptical. Rowing machine. All positioned in front of the windows so you could admire the gardens as you sweated. Of course, if I asked, Madge would darken the windows and project a vidstream onto them instead. Or send music to my headphones.

I slipped the headphones on. At this hour of the night, there wouldn’t be much to see outside and I wasn’t in the mood for a movie or the news. I stared out at the garden, not paying much attention, while I tried to decide if I wanted to choose treadmill or elliptical.

Before I’d picked my form of torture, something caught my eye. A flicker of movement between garden beds. I frowned and stepped closer to the windows. Well, French doors. They opened out onto a small deck with stairs down to the garden.

For a moment I saw nothing but waving grasses, but then another flash caught my eyes. A patch of darkness that didn’t fit.

If it had been my house, I’d have assumed a stray cat but, between the height of Damon’s fences and all the security, I’d never seen any animals other than birds in this garden.

Well, I’d seen an imp once. That didn’t count.

The patch of darkness moved. Flowed almost too fast toward the house. I stepped back, ready to get Madge to alert the guards, when it took a running leap, landing on the deck, and suddenly I had no trouble identifying it.

Bigger than a cat, though mostly cat shaped. A foxier face with two large golden eyes. Long black and gray fur shifting slightly as it stared at me. And the dead giveaway that it wasn’t a cat: two long tails, shifting slowly to trace sinuous patterns in the air.

Anixling. A creature from the Fae realm. I’d met one once before, traveling through Lady Cerridwen’s territory with Callum and his twin sister, Gráinne. That nixling had been friendly, though Callum had told me they were excellent hunters.

Right now, I wasn’t so worried about whether the nixling was friendly, as I was about what the hell it was doing here. The door to the realm was located in Berkeley, not San Francisco.

And it was, as far as I knew, still closed. Only Fae with explicit permission from the Elders were able to leave. Unlike witches, normal humans didn’t know about the Fae. So random Fae creatures shouldn’t be wandering the streets of the city.

The nixling yawned, flashing long sharp teeth, and sat back on its haunches, tails curling around its feet like a cat. It stared at me, head cocked slightly.

If it had been a cat, I would have read it as curious, but this was a Fae creature. Curious, maybe. Something to be wary of? Absolutely.

“Madge,” I said softly, not moving in case I spooked the creature. “Call Callum.”

Callum was Fae. He probably wouldn’t be asleep. He should answer my call, if he wasn’t entertaining himself in ways that were none of my business.

And he did. “Maggie? Is something wrong?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think one of your cats got out.”

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