Page 36 of The Mermaid's Bubble Lounge
“Yes?” Vlad’s voice was barely audible.
“Hey. Clive is with me. We’re driving home. Fergus and I ran into the killer. He definitely appears to be fae. He can shift between human and animal, healing his wounds as he shifts. Just giving you the heads-up.”
“We wondered why Clive disappeared. I wasn’t looking forward to telling you that we’d lost him.”
“Benvair, matriarch of the local dragon clan,” Clive began, “burned him when he was in the shape of a cat. She said he ran from her, charred but fluidly shifting shapes before he disappeared. As Sam said, shifting seems to heal him. She cut off his hand, but when he shifted into the cat, he had all four feet.”
“So,” Vlad said, “he can be hurt but he also has the ability to heal at will. That should make killing him a challenge.”
“Indeed,” Clive agreed. “We also have the last five Guild Counselors not already in San Francisco arriving either tonight or tomorrow night.”
“Coincidental or planned,” I wondered aloud.
“If we didn’t know that Aldith conspired with the fae king,” Clive said, “I’d say it was coincidental. Now, though, I have no idea.”
“I have to go,” Vlad said. “Cadmael is motioning to me. If you need to get a hold of me again, text. I’m on a stakeout.” The click was loud and clear. So too was the implied eyeroll.
Clive turned up our street and then drove under the rising garage door. He parked in my usual spot, opened my door so I wouldn’t have to touch anything, and then the back door so Fergus could jump out. Clive unsnapped the pup’s leash and led us to the elevator.
He took us to the first floor, as we were waiting for a visitor. Fergus ran out, straight to his water bowl. I went to open the back door and bumped into Clive, who took care of it.
“Have a seat, darling. We don’t want you touching anything.”
I was too wound up to sit, though. I went to the window and looked out for Dave’s muscle car. Instead, I saw a black bird smash into the ward around our house. It dropped to the sidewalk and then stood as a cat. It gave its fur a quick shake before sitting, his gaze trained on the window I was looking out of. Shit.
“Clive?” I called.
“I saw.” He moved in behind me, wrapping his arms around me. “Be right back.”
He was gone out the back with my axe. A moment later, I saw him streak through the yard toward the cat, who shifted back into the black bird and was high in the air when Clive leapt, swinging the axe.
When Clive landed, the axe in his gloved hand glinted in the moonlight, blood-free. A moment later a full-throated engine roared around the corner. Clive stepped up onto the curb as Dave parked and got out. They spoke and then Dave and Clive were looking up into the sky. Clive headed for the front door, Dave behind him, so I met them, opening it.
“Hey.”
Dave nodded as he walked by me. “Your new friend followed you home, huh?”
A chill ran down my spine as I noticed two eyes glowing from under a bush across the street. I closed the door and locked it, feeling sick to my stomach.
Clive returned the axe to my sheath and then pulled off the glove.
“Smart thinking,” I told him.
Slipping the glove in his pocket, he wrapped his other arm around me. “I got the idea from Vlad. I didn’t have it with me at the wharf, but I won’t make that mistake again.”
Dave was sitting in the den, so I went to close the back door. Clive pushed me toward the den and closed it himself.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said, feeling the weight of our misses tonight dragging me down. “We know where he is, and we can’t catch him.”
He rubbed my back, leading me into the den. “Let’s see. All information is helpful.”
I sat on the couch beside Dave. He held out his hand for mine. Holding it steady, he focused on the blood under my fingernails.
“Claws,” he grumbled.
I shifted that part of my body so my claws shot out. He knew to keep my hand pointed away from him. Again, he scrutinized them.
I felt something soft and hot on the tip of my middle finger, but it was gone before I even registered it. He’d dropped my hand as his eyes closed. The fingers on his right hand moved, almost in a faint echo of a forgotten spell.
