Gods and Demons (Dark Streets Book 1) Read online

  After dark settled, I jumped over the fence into the park that bordered my land on the opposite side from the gate into the nursery. Wearing a black ankle-length cloak with a hood, and using a glamour to blur my image, I checked around the corner. The Mercedes was still there.

  All Elves had the ability to shrink to a more fae-like size, but rarely used it. My teachers said it was a vestigial evolutionary trait. Some said the Elves had once been only as small as the rest of the fae. No one had ever answered me when I asked if we had wings then.

  I didn’t want the men in the Mercedes following me home, so I shrunk to my twelve-inch size and snuck by the car, keeping to the little bit of shadow on the street. Once I was past the car and it was out of sight, I changed back to my normal size.

  It was only a little over two miles from my business to my house, and I could walk through Glover-Archbold Park most of the way. Years before, it was usually full of trysting college students at night, but more liberal dorm-room policies changed that. High school kids had taken over that function in the park’s ecosystem.

  And since the Beltane catastrophe, there were predators. A girl couldn’t even go for a walk by the river without being accosted by Vampires, Imps, Incubi, and the Goddess alone knew what might be next. Werewolves hunting squirrels and rabbits—and occasionally girls—were a constant irritant.

  The park was part of the National Park system, so the DC Police didn’t patrol the area. But the Park Police were more focused on ticketing people for littering than preventing assaults.

  So, it didn’t surprise me when an Imp leaped from a tree, hitting me in the back and grabbing the shoulder strap of my bag. If I had been Human, he might have gotten away with his theft. But I was already holding the strap, so the snatch-and-run didn’t go off the way the Imp had expected. Although staggered, I managed to keep my feet. Holding onto the strap, I pulled the bag out of the Imp’s grasp and backhanded him. The Imp flew across the trail and slammed into a tree trunk.

  The impact didn’t seem to faze him. Giggling hysterically, he bounced up and dodged around me, trying to grab the bag again. He came within reach of my legs, and I punted him thirty feet down the trail, where he landed and rolled head over heels until hitting another tree.

  That gave me time to draw my sword.

  “Nasty Elf,” he said, springing to his feet. “You have so much and I have so little. Give me the bag and I will forgive you for hitting me.” The Imp closed half the distance between us before he saw the gleaming sword and skidded to a stop.

  “Bad Elf,” the Imp gibbered. “Only a game. You would kill for a stupid bag?”

  “No, I would kill you because you’re rude,” I replied.

  “Ugly Elf,” he spat. “Hope you never mate. Die all alone and worms eat your eyes.”

  Imps were loved only by other Imps, and for good reason. I sketched a rune in the air and spoke a Word.

  “Noooooooo!” the Imp’s cry cut off when he disappeared.

  I let my sword slide back into its sheath and continued on my way. I had used the banishment spell so many times since the veils between the realms shredded that I didn’t have to think about it anymore. It worked remarkably well on lesser demons, and occasionally on minor demons. Luckily, I hadn’t faced any major or grand demons.

  That the Imp wanted my bag wasn’t a surprise. They were thieves and packrats, the crows of the paranormal world. And my bag would be quite a prize. The bag had been Alaric’s, though I knew he stole it somewhere. Outwardly, it looked like a gaudily-dyed reptile skin bag with a shoulder strap, but inside was a pocket dimension that would hold more than I could possibly carry without it. A powerful mage crafted the bag from Dragon skin, and even in Alfheim it would be wildly expensive.

  When I got home, I found another black Mercedes parked down the street where the two men inside could watch my front door. I wondered when I had become so interesting.

  My lights were on a timer, similar to almost every house in the neighborhood. As though thieves wouldn’t break into a lit house. My wards were far more effective, though I didn’t want to stand out. I unlocked the door, and as I turned the knob, something white fluttered down to the step by my feet. I picked it up and saw it was a business card.

  After a glass of wine to accompany stir-fried vegetables with shrimp, I picked up the card from the table in the foyer and looked at it.

  Abner Wilcox

  Master Magician

  Who in the hell was Abner Wilcox? And how did he and those creeps around the corner know where I lived? I decided that I did prefer sleeping where the Fairies were on guard, so before I went to bed, I put together some clothes and food to stock the cottage the next day.

  That done, I went into my workshop to mix a few potions and store a few spells. I had discovered that paintball guns were a wonderful delivery mechanism for certain types of spells. I made up a large batch of paintballs especially for nosy busybodies.

  The sky was starting to lighten in the east when I left the house the following morning. Landscaping crews started the day early, especially in Washington in the summer. It got too damned hot to work outside in the afternoon.

  The black car was still parked where it had been the night before. A car was a terribly uncomfortable place to spend the night, and I wondered if the men inside were the same ones.

  On an impulse, I walked up to the passenger side and rapped my knuckle against the window. The man inside startled, then looked at his partner. They exchanged a few words, and then the man near me rolled down his window part way.

  “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” I said. “I’m Kellana, but I assume you know that. And you are?” The inside of the car smelled like dog.

  The driver started the car and slammed it into gear. I raised my paintball gun and fired a round into the back seat before the window rolled up. With squealing tires, the car sped away. I watched as the interior filled with pink fumes. Half a block away, the car started swerving, then jumped the curb, hit a stop sign, and continued into the wall of a house. It made an awful racket.

  Lights came on in the surrounding houses, and a few people peeked out their windows or doors. Passing the Mercedes, I glanced inside it and saw both men lying unconscious, surrounded by a pink haze.

  Humming an Elven marching song, I headed off to work.

  Torturing the men parked by my house was so much fun, that I decided to try it again with the men parked by the nursery. But when I tapped on their window, the passenger’s door swung open, hitting me and knocking me backward. The man inside pulled himself out of the car and reached for me. The driver also opened his door and sprang out.

  Stumbling backward and trying to catch my balance, I fired a spell pellet at the ground between us. The Werewolf blundered into the fumes, swayed, and crashed to the ground.

  His buddy didn’t have much of a sense of humor. He drew a pistol and pointed it at me.

  “Hold it right there,” he growled. “Don’t move.”

  That sounded like a bad idea. I dove to my left, hit the ground, and rolled. His gun fired, so I kept rolling, my cloak twisting around my body. The gun went off a second time. Afraid that the gunman might get it together enough to aim, I stopped. My arms were bound tightly to my body by the cloak, so I could neither reach into my bag nor sketch a rune.

  “Okay,” I shouted. “Don’t shoot.”

  I fought to free my arms. The hood had twisted around my face and I couldn’t see.

  “Don’t move,” a voice near me said, and I froze.

  I waited for something to happen, then I heard a sound like a shovel hitting a rock.

  “Son of a bitch,” a familiar voice said.

  I fought free of the cloak and saw the driver lying face down. My friend Ed stepped over the Werewolf and picked up the pistol. He had a shovel in his other hand.

  “Are you all right?” he asked me.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  Ed looked at the two men. “Who are these clow
ns?

  “I don’t know. They followed me yesterday, and then hung around all night. I think they have some friends—same make of car, same cheap suits—who were parked next to my house when I got home.” I stood and looked around. It was very early, and I didn’t see anyone on the street except my employees, staring wide-eyed at the men Ed and I had downed.

  “Let’s get them out of sight before someone calls the cops,” I said.

  Ed’s head whipped around. “You’re not going to call the cops?”

  “Not until I have a chance to chat with these gentlemen and find out what in the hell this is all about. Then we’ll call the cops. Get a couple of wheelbarrows.”

  Ed grinned. He sent two of our employees after the wheelbarrows, and we loaded the Weres into them.

  “Take them to the pump house,” I said.

  One of the girls who worked for me approached. “You’re really a witch?” She glanced at the faint pink stain on the ground where the one Were had lain.

  I chuckled. “After a manner of speaking. I’m an alchemist.” I dug out one of the red spell balls.

  “Looks like a paintball,” she said.

  “That’s right. I buy them empty and fill them with my own concoctions. These red ones are a sleepy gas.” A magically-infused sleepy gas. No need to go into the differences between witch magic and Elf magic.

  “Why is it pink?” Ed asked as I walked over to the Weres’ car. I took the keys and locked the car doors. Ed had worked for me for ten years, and he was quite aware that I wasn’t a normal Human.

  “It’s special for he-men,” I said.

  Ed snorted and the girl giggled.

  On the way to the pump house, I grabbed a handful of zip ties and bound the men’s wrists and ankles, then strung three of the zip ties together. Dragging one of the men into a sitting position, I used the extra-long tie around his neck to bind him to a water pipe. Then I did the same with the other man.

  Ed sent the crews out to their jobs and then came back. “What’s with the neck ties?”

  “They’re Werewolves. If they shift, they might slip the ties on their hands and feet.”

  Ed’s eyes got a little larger, and he nodded, but didn’t say anything, just watched me as I finished securing the Weres.

  The guy with the knot on his head recovered consciousness first. I knew the other one would be out for at least a couple of hours.

  “Hi, handsome,” I said, kneeling down in front of the one who was awake. “Care to tell me why you’re following me around? Surely I’m not the prettiest girl in town.”

  The Were glared at me but didn’t answer. I dug down in my bag and came out with my athame and a vial of silver dust.

  “Ed? Where do you suppose the most painful place to apply a little fire would be?” I asked, holding the Were’s eyes with my own.

  “Oh, hell, probably his balls,” Ed said.

  “Nope,” I answered. “Foreskin. I think I’ll circumcise him, and then use this silver dust to cauterize the wound.” I slipped the athame inside the man’s belt and cut it. Next, I slid the knife inside his waistband and slit his pants open past his crotch.

  “Will silver really kill a Werewolf?” Ed asked.

  “Yeah. A silver bullet or an injection of silver into his vein would kill him. A little bit of silver sprinkled on a wound will probably cause his pee-pee to shrivel up and fall off, but it won’t kill him.”

  I jerked down the man’s underwear, and he bucked, writhing around and fighting against his bindings.

  “You crazy fucking bitch!” he shouted.

  I put the point of the athame under his chin and pushed just enough to break the skin. “Settle down, Fido.”

  He stopped thrashing, his eyes wide and staring at me. I knew the silver forged into the athame probably burned like crazy.

  “Now. I believe I asked you a question,” I said. “You shot at me. You tried to kill me. If you think that I feel any empathy or mercy whatsoever for you, then you’re delusional.”

  “I didn’t try to kill you. I just wanted to scare you.”

  “Uh huh. Just threaten me, huh?”

  “Yeah, just to make you stop and hold still.”

  “I see. Well, let me tell you a little secret. I don’t threaten. I make promises and I keep them.” Ed knew about my ears, and other than the Were, he was the only person present. I pushed my hair behind my ear so the Were could see it. “Either you answer my questions, or I promise you I will cut off your foreskin and sprinkle silver dust on the wound.”

  I had often been amused by Earth myths about Elves. Yes, Elves were the epitome of tree-hugging environmentalists, but we weren’t pacifists. Elves, Dragons, demons, Aesir, and Angels sat near the top of the predator-prey pyramid, one step below the Gods and Archdemons.

  I watched the Were’s eyes widen until I thought they were going to pop out of his head. He knew what an Elf was.

  “I’m waiting,” I said. “Why are you following me around?”

  “The cat woman,” he said.

  “She told you to follow me?” I wiggled the athame a little.

  “Find her. Find her,” he babbled. “We need to find her.”

  “And why did you want me to hold still? Isn’t that why you said you shot at me?” I dropped the point of the knife down to touch his penis.

  “T-t-take you t-to m-m-y b-b-boss.”

  “And who is your boss?”

  “Harold Vance.”

  I smiled. It must not have been very reassuring because he peed on himself.

  “Thank you, puppy.” I turned to Ed. “Now we can call the police.”

  We locked the Weres in the pump house and walked back to the office.

  “Harold Vance?” Ed asked. “The guy with the big estate out in Silver Spring?”

  “Yep. Top alpha wolf in the mid-Atlantic area. Organized crime around here is controlled by the Werewolves. And yes, we mow his lawn.”

  I didn’t call the DC police, though. I called the PCU, the Paranormal Crimes Unit, of the FBI. It took them about an hour, but five men in suits showed up in two cars and a van that resembled an armored car.

  A man with dark brown skin, short curly black hair, and a broad nose approached me and held out his identification card.

  “Miss Rogirsdottir? I’m Special Agent David Torbert of the PCU.”

  I led him to the pump house and opened the door. “These two men followed me yesterday, staked out my business, and this morning they accosted me.” I handed him the pistol. “That one there fired two shots at me. Either you take them, or I’m going to use them to fertilize my monkshood.”

  Torbert chuckled. “Don’t they also call that wolfsbane?”

  I grinned at him. “I think that would make it extra potent, but I’ve never tried it. All in the spirit of scientific inquiry, of course.”

  “Well, in that case, I guess I’d better take them,” he said. He turned and signaled for the rest of his men.

  They came to the pumphouse, and I handed a pair of rose clippers to the first one as he stepped through the door. He looked at the clippers, then at the zip ties around the Weres’ necks and grinned at me. After clipping the neck restraints, they carried the Weres out and loaded them into the big van.

  “What happened to that one guy’s pants?” Torbert asked.

  “He was in some distress. I loosened his clothing,” I said.

  Torbert chuckled again. A lot of Humans didn’t get my sense of humor, but I found myself liking Agent Torbert.

  “I’m not going to ask whether his distress started before or after you loosened his clothing,” he said.

  I walked him back to his car. It took a while, as he seemed interested in everything in the nursery.

  “I’m also not going to ask about what is going on here,” Torbert said as he got in his car. He looked me up and down, taking in my six-foot-six stature, green hair, and slit-pupiled eyes. “I’m aware that Elves can’t lie, but you’re extremely adept at not talking about what
you don’t want to talk about.” He handed me his card. “However, if you need any help, give me a call. I do appreciate that you respect our laws and didn’t settle this yourself.”

  “Agent Torbert, I wish I knew what is going on.”

  Chapter 3

  Cortez’s card still sat on my desk. I hadn’t looked at it before.

  Dr. Isabella Cortez, PhD

  Professor of Animal Behavior

  University of Colorado

  I dialed the number, and she picked up on the third ring.

  “Isabella Cortez.”

  “This is Kellana Rogirsdottir,” I said. “We need to talk.”

  “I will try to get there today.” I thought I detected some distress in Cortez’s voice. “Things have gotten more interesting since I spoke with you yesterday.”

  “That’s an understatement. I’m being followed, and a Werewolf took a shot at me this morning.”

  “Oh, dear.” She was silent for so long that I thought we had lost our connection.

  “Dr. Cortez?”

  “Yes, I’m still here. You have Werewolves, and I seem to have a wizard problem.”

  I took a deep breath, and then asked, “What kind of wizard problem?”

  “I appear to be stuck here. I’ve tried to leave, but I’m not having any luck.”

  Before I could stop myself, my foolish mouth asked, “Do you need help? Would you like me to come and get you?”

  “That would be lovely. Do you know where the Smithsonian Castle Garden is? I’m sort of trapped in here by some kind of spell.”

  “Are you under attack?”

  “Not actively, no. But I can’t leave. There are invisible barriers blocking off all the exits. No one else is here, so maybe people can’t come in, either.”

  “It’s eight o’clock in the morning. I don’t think the museum is open yet,” I said. “Hang on. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”