Iron (The Warding Book 1) (6 page)

I blinked and looked down. The paper was unfolded, the edges crimped where I clenched it with my shaking hand. Written neatly in the center was a phone number. No identifying name was needed. They knew I wouldn’t be forgetting any of them anytime soon. Honestly, I was kind of surprised—and maybe a touch disappointed—that they had given me something as mundane as a regular ol’ phone number to reach them at. Shouldn’t exiled faeries have had some sort of crystal ball messaging system or specially trained owls to deliver their mail?

My refusal to become embroiled in whatever mess they were in had been met with surprising calmness. Seana had insisted that I take that note, in case my mind somehow changed or I found myself in need of them, but then they had filed out; quick and quiet-like. Kaine never spared so much as a glance in my direction. Seana’s parting hug and kiss upon the cheek left me feeling awkward, like I had just let down my long-lost aunt down. Mairi had brought up the rear, pausing in the doorway. Her words haunted me now, as they had all through my sleepless night.

“The troll has seen your face, but worse he knows that you have seen his. There isn’t a fae alive who has forgotten what that means. If he travels back across Veil and tells others that a Warder lives in Riverview, you could be in grave danger. He may come looking for you, Caitlin. Please, be careful.”

I crumpled up the paper and tossed it across my desk, watching it bounce off the fabric-covered wall and roll to a stop next to my untouched glass of water. My mouth was dry, making it hard to swallow, but I had no desire to drink. I felt shaky. I could have chalked that up to the three cups of coffee it had taken to get me functioning this morning, but I knew better. Some things, once seen, just cannot be unseen no matter how badly we wished them to be.

Sitting around staring moodily at a wad of paper wasn’t going to give me back my peace of mind, in any case. I had no good explanation for what I had seen and even less reason to deny Seana’s ludicrous version of reality. It certainly made more sense than anything I had come up with. All in all, it sucked but there it was—shit had gotten too real, too fast and now all I could do was take deep breaths and try to make it through the day. Preferably without thinking about how vulnerable I would feel walking to my car after work. Or scampering the few feet from my parking space to my front door, through an empty parking lot set down off the street.

Funny, I had always loved the seclusion that came along with my overpriced little apartment. Living above a shop that was closed by the time I returned home every evening and closed on Sundays gave me the luxury of privacy that not many in Riverview had. Being set back from the main road had always made it that much sweeter; not even Saturday traffic bothered me. Today, those assets had lost their luster. The thought of the sun setting with me alone, deadbolt or no deadbolt, was not a comforting one. I had the feeling my electric bill would be sky-high by the end of the month. The Ramen Days were coming early this year. Yippie.

I looked down at the clock on my computer screen. 12:45. Life around the office would be picking back up shortly, and while I still felt like a nervous squirrel was lodged in my gut, I had to try to eat something. I dragged myself up out of my chair and headed toward the kitchen. Perhaps staring at my yogurt instead of that note would guilt my stomach into letting me ingest something semi-solid. I gave Bernice, the co-worker one cubicle over from mine, the pantomime of eating and smiled at her affirmative thumbs up. There was no feeling in that smile, but maybe hers was just as bogus as mine. I couldn’t see anyone actually liking the sterile gray world we worked in.

I kept my eyes trained on my fingernails like they were the most important thing in the world as I traversed the path to the break room. One or two nods at passing co-workers seemed to suffice, which was a relief. I was in no mood to make small talk. I had the feeling that the generic “What’s new with you?” would send declarations of fairies among us spilling from my lips in shrill, hysteric tones. A trip to our dour HR man and the all too likely company mandated follow-up with a shrink was not the way I wanted to end my day. Instead, I kept my lips clamped tight and made a beeline for the refrigerator. Digging through that wasteland of precariously stacked items—and avoiding the land-mines of forgotten food—took a deft hand. I was consumed with that task when a voice behind me said, “Hey Caitlin, isn’t it your birthday today?”

I knew without looking that that would be Marc, from the billing department. He had one of those voices that oozed confidence. He was the self-admitted “ladies’ man” of the office, having declared himself God’s gift to my half of the species on more than one occasion. Ugh. He was a nice enough guy, beneath the boasts and never-ending stream of cheesy pickup lines, but I had long thought he should consider himself lucky to work in a place where the adherence to professionalism was so lackluster. Anywhere else, he probably would have had a sexual harassment lawsuit or three on his hands. Some slightly inappropriate comment would somehow worm its way into our conversation, even if it only lasted two minutes, but I didn’t have the energy to think of an excuse to avoid it.

“Yup, it is.” I located my wayward cup of blueberry-on-the-bottom as I said it and snagged it out of the path of a particularly fuzzy looking container of… Well, it might have once been lasagna. I couldn’t quite suppress a shudder. Some of the people in the office were utter savages. I plastered on a fake smile as I closed the fridge and turned around, the “thank you” dying on my lips.

Marc leaned in the kitchen door-frame, sipping a cup of coffee. As usual, he was dressed in khakis and a brightly coral polo. Unlike usual, he was sporting a pair of large, curling horns, one on each side of his furry face. That face was still human—sort of. His grin was far too toothy beneath a protruding nose that looked distinctly snout-like. His bare arms sported the same dark, wiry fur as his face and his stubby fingers grasped a steaming paper cup with surprising deftness. A wave of dizziness washed over me.

Holy hot staggering fuck. One of them was in my office.
In my office.
My extremities all seemed to go numb while the moment of panic played out in my brain. I heard the clatter as my unopened yogurt dropped to the floor.

His brows—now nearly indistinguishable from his wild mane and fur-covered forehead—rose. “Hey, you okay there?”

A million responses ran through my head.

Oh, great. Spectacular even. Just didn’t expect your wicked 5 o’clock shadow there.

Well, I guess this explains why you’re such a horn-dog.

Are you fucking kidding me? You’re a FAIRY!

Obviously, none of those was appropriate.

Instead I stooped to pick up my yogurt, trying hard to school my face into something resembling normal, and tried to sound glib. “Oh yeah. Fine, fine. Seeing your cup of, ah, coffee there just made me realize that I forgot to turn my coffeepot off this morning.” I flashed him a weak smile, eyes darting around as I tried so very hard not to take in all that fur and horns. I flung an arm out toward the hallway—thankfully not the one struggling to keep a grip on my yogurt—and stammered, “I better go call… somebody. You know, before my, ah, apartment burns down or something.”

Thankfully, my high-pitched babble struck him dumb. He made no attempt to stop me as I shot past him through the open door. I was shaking from head to toe, my heart beating so fast I thought for sure it was going to burst out of my chest like an alien parasite. Somewhere deep down inside I had known there was no ignoring what had happened to me last night. I mean, you really just can’t deny it for very long once you’ve seen Little Miss Muffet turn into a cat on your recliner. Maybe there was even a tiny part of me that had already come to grips with the fact that if I had seen such crazy shit once, it would happen to me again—but good goddamn. I had not expected it to happen again so soon. The bar, my apartment, now at work too? Was no place safe?

A nervous sweat bathed my forehead. A full-blown panic attack was seconds away from crashing down on me. I felt like I was going to fall to pieces but held on with an iron will as I scurried down the hall toward my cubicle, telling myself to keep breathing though my chest felt squeezed flat. I was afraid to look up from my feet; afraid of what I might see in the face of someone else I had trusted to be a normal, everyday member of the human race. I could have a nice, wheezy little fit and get a grip on things once I made it back to my desk. I could cower in the safety of those bland, gray walls for another four hours, trying to make as little contact with anyone as possible. Maybe then I could keep my tenuous grip on sanity for one more day…

“Caitlin, are you okay?”

Or the universe could bend me over one more time.

I froze mid-step, teetering on one foot, in front of the boss’s office. I looked a mess, and I knew Marc would be gossiping about my odd behavior to anyone who would listen in no time. The chances at brushing this one off were pretty slim. I gave Allison my best smile and cleared my throat. “I’ve been better?”

The look she fixed me back with was of the no nonsense variety. She jerked her chin in the direction of the chair in front of her desk. “Come in. And close the door.”

How could I refuse such a gracious invitation? Mentally cursing, I did as she asked. I settled myself into the seat across from her and tried to take a deep breath. This was pretty much bound to suck, no matter how I played it.

Allison sat forward, hands folded neatly in the center of her desk blotter. She was a tall, thin woman in her middle forties; nondescript brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, wire-frame glasses perched on her nose. A real type A, with a submissive husband and two young kids. I was pretty sure there was a dog—and a maybe even a minivan—in that equation somewhere, just to round out her image as the All-American Suburban Power Mom. As I found myself pinned under her best concerned-boss/sympathetic-mom stare, I felt for her kids. It was going be hard for them to pull one over on her one day. She said, “I’ve noticed that you haven’t been yourself today, Caitlin. Are you okay? Is there something going on? Something that you would like to talk about?”

Yup, just as I had feared: pop psychology from the boss-lady. Oh goodie. Just what one wants when they’re staving off a major meltdown. I bit my tongue and studied the sagging tiles of the ceiling above her desk intently. I tried to choose a good excuse from the chorus line running through my brain but they all sounded fake or downright crazy. All of a sudden, words started tumbling out of my mouth. Perhaps my traumatized psyche was so desperate to tell someone something about the night it had just been subjected to that even a grossly abbreviated version was better than holding it in one second longer. I spewed out words like “mugged” and “scared shitless”—hell, maybe even a dramatic “certain death” got thrown in there too. I felt myself grow more and more hysterical with each second. I’m pretty sure I let slip a “troll” or two, but I was so emotional that I was pretty sure it fit in context if I had.

By the time I had finished with my miraculous rescue by a few strangers on the deserted street, I was on the verge of sobbing. I took a deep, shaky breath to choke back the tears and stared at my hands. They were clenched together in my lap, going numb from the force of my own grip. Part of me couldn’t believe I had just opened the emotional floodgates to my boss, of all people.

The rest of me just didn’t give two shits. It felt so good to say
something
, finally. I had avoided Jenni’s calls all morning, finally staving her off with a non-committal “tell you later” text. Maybe it would be easier to talk to her if I considered this a dress rehearsal for my later lie. Close as we were, I couldn’t burden my bestie with my fucked up fairy tale. It was too damn weird, even for someone who had stuck by my side through my stinky incense and funny chanting hippie-pagan phase. Of course she would probably try to have herself committed right alongside me if I did tell her, just so I’d have company in the loony bin but, still. That was too much to ask for from a friend.

When I finally had the courage to look up, Allison was regarding me with a look of co-mingled shock and pity. Something about that look made my throat tighten until I wanted to throw myself into her arms and bawl like a baby. She asked me the expected questions: are you okay? Did you file a report with the police? Did you go to the hospital? I gave all the expected let’s-not-make-waves answers. I belatedly wondered why I hadn’t done those things, upon waking this morning. Wouldn’t any sensible person have wanted to make sure they were healthy and sane? Had my subconscious already accepted that the boys in blue would be no help against gigantic monsters from another dimension? I had to swallow a hysterical giggle in a wet cough.

Good god, my life was a mess.

“…and you have the vacation time. Why don’t you take the rest of the week off and rest?”

I blinked and stared at her for a moment, as if she had been speaking in Swahili. Allison, the attendance Nazi was
telling
me to take some time off? She had been known to argue the importance of silly little things like doctor’s appointments and kids’ graduations when they dared interfere with the well-oiled machine of her workplace. Her kindness in the face of my shaken state was uncharacteristically understanding. Granted, it wouldn’t do me a whole lot of good, considering all the details I had been forced to leave out of my “mugging” story, but; still. It was strangely comforting to get even a small dose of sympathy from someone generally considered to be slave-driving and heartless.