Once Lost Lords (Royal Scales, Book 1) (20 page)

“Hold on, I’ll write it down.” The waitress said.
Me and a slip of paper, with extremely messy handwriting, headed out
on a short trip.

Julianne’s house wasn’t what I expected. Her home was a
two bedroom postage stamp property that didn’t stand out from
its neighbors. At least she had a sizable yard. Being a corner
property helped, and it looked like her fencing extended into a
second lot. She must pay someone to mow the lawn.

I double checked the address in my hands a few times, then knocked on
the door.

“Come on in, Jay,” Julianne called out from the depths of
the little house.

The inside of the house was more along the lines of what I expected.
She had a row of dolls strewn along the wall. No two were alike. I
was willing to bet they hadn’t come out of the box like that.
Each one had extra piercings, dyed hair and what looked to be
handmade clothes. She had managed to create her own line of punk
dolls out of young girl’s comfort toys. Morbidly funny.

The rest of the house followed the same pattern. Uneven color schemes
mixed with lava lamps or electrostatic balls and felt posters.
Clearly she did a lot more with her personal space than I did.

“Back here. We’ve got a present for you.” Julianne
seemed happy. She also wasn’t alone. It was daylight so it
wasn’t Kahina and Julianne. Not that I objected, there were
certain fantasies that had crossed my mind over the years.

“Alright.” I followed the line of dolls to the hallway.
Their staring eyes were getting creepier. They had slowly shifted to
head level and the designs got more intense the closer to her bedroom
I walked.

“Where?” I asked.

“Second door on the left. If you go to the third one I’ll
have to kill you.” Her bedroom must be the third one.

“No worries, I value my life.”

Inside the room wasn’t just one female, but two. Neither
dressed in the manner a fantasy of mine might dictate. From the
distance between Julianne and the mystery woman, there was a chance
they were together in more ways than one. I looked at the second
female. A quick glance noted a long skirt, drab colors, and dyed
black hair. Any evaluations I made would be kept quietly to myself.
Her relationships weren’t my business.

“Where’s my surprise?” I raised an eyebrow and
tried not to seem creepy to this new girl.

“Right over there.” Julianne pointed across the room to
the side I hadn’t paid attention to.

One blond elf was bound in a chair and looked absolutely miserable.
His clothes were in tatters and probably unwashed. Clumps of dirty
hair clung to his face looking like the veins on a leaf. Julianne
demonstrated a lot of self-control by letting this mess into her
house. I turned back to the two ladies.

“Is this?” I started.

“Evan? Yes. Took a week of solid hunting, but they found him.
Guess how pissed my grandfather was.” Julianne said.

“A little?” I ventured.

“A little in the same way that Mount Vesuvius only kind of
buried Pompeii,” She responded.

“What?” I completely missed her reference. It sounded
bad, though.

“Never mind.” Julianne glanced at her friend and rolled
her eyes, all but spelling out what she thought of my intelligence
level.

“How’d they track him?”

“We were catching some scents before it vanished. Finally, the
boys staked out the area and waited.” The second girl said.
This other girl struck me as overly mousy for Julianne. The only
thing not brown on her was the hair.

“There were some ruins out there. Sure enough, a few days later
Evan showed himself along with some second elf. Pack captured Evan
and dragged him back, right out from under his friend’s nose.”
Julianne finished the story.

“Have you told Daniel yet?” I asked.

“Not yet. We’ve been hoping you’d wake up before
Daniel’s mess of paperwork started getting on nerves.”
Julianne said.

“Why?”

“One of the last things he said was that he was avoiding his
Lord that had been tracking him.” The short Indian woman
crossed her arms. The other female seemed to shift with unease. “I
only know of one tracker anywhere near this part of the Sector.”

I frowned. The whole Lord thing seemed bad to spread around.
Especially after Candy told me they killed all their Lords.

“Lord? I’m good, but not royalty.” I tried to twist
the conversation into self-ridicule instead of something worth
consideration.

“No, you’re not. That’s why I figured you’d
want him before we hand ’em over to Daniel.”

“Thanks. Mind stepping out while I sort this out? I wouldn’t
want ladies to see anything unwelcome.” Not that I had much to
work with. Evan had been silent this entire time.

“Big bad man going to torture the elf?” The mousy girl
spoke up again. It came out with more than a little anger.

“No. I’m going to ask polite questions, and get answers,”
I said. She glared at me and Julianne stepped closer. Between the two
there was an obvious height difference. Not as intense as between
Julianne and anyone else, but noticeable.

“Come on, Stacy, Jay gets paid for this sort of thing. We’ll
go wait outside.” Julianne pushed at Stacy and mouthed at me
rather intensely behind her back. The words were easy enough to make
out so I nodded. No blood, I was in Julianne’s house and
getting anything on the carpet would be unwelcome.

I constantly wanted to ask how Julianne got into the loans and
gambling business. Her attitude, friendliness, and dislike for
violence all seemed to go against it. Either way, she understood what
might happen with Evan and set limits.

Evan was firmly attached to the chair with a few loops of metal on
him. The chains around his legs looked like they might be rust rather
than actual iron. I bent both knees and squatted down to get eye
level.

“Evan, is it?” His ratty hair looked even worse than last
time I had seen him. At least this time his pointed ears were
obvious.

“I’ve got some questions for you, Evan. Easy stuff, and
if you answer them then we can both go our separate ways.” I
took the gag out and gave him a moment to find his voice.

He didn’t respond. I took my fingers and pried open his
eyelids, checking for dilation. His orbs lacked any comprehension.
One hand pressed to his face, and the other smacked the opposite
cheek. He didn’t flinch or scream. Clearly the hope that this
was all an act was unreasonable.

Maybe Julianne had used too much iron? Unlikely. Elves could be bound
in iron for weeks. They would be miserable and willing to stab
anyone. Not comatose. Their addictions not being met was another
matter.

“What is it, Evan?” I shook him back and forth some more.
There was no response.

“You, addicted to chocolate ice cream with marshmallows eaten
using chopsticks? Watching the news at exactly three AM for only
seven minutes and twelve seconds?” In disgust, the elf was
pushed back into his corner of the room. I stomped around trying not
to get upset. This was close to answers, but at the same time it was
so far away.

“A line of crack off a hooker’s breasts, that you paid in
two dollar bills?” Random ideas came out my mouth. Given the
few addictions I had observed these actually seemed plausible.

“Come on, Evan, work with me.” I came back over and
patted both sides of his face. His head lolled to the side and sat
there.

“Fucking hell.” The gag was shoved back in his mouth
harder than needed. A moment later and I was down the hall and in the
front room. “He’s completely out of it, when’s the
last time he had a fix?”

“Not sure. He never asked for anything, so we figured he was
one of those once a year elves.” Elves occasionally had
extraordinarily complex addictions. Highly complicated ones were able
to stretch further between fixes. “He was eating.”

“Guy’s got no response. Completely gone.” I said.
Julianne and Stacy shared a worried glance with each other from their
side of the couch. We all knew that elven addictions became more
twisted the longer they went without satisfaction.

“Shit, he was okay yesterday, tired, but okay,” Julianne
said. “We can’t turn him over to Daniel if he’s not
working. That’ll make him mad.” Stacy, the other girl,
seemed to mimic the bartender’s worry.

They weren’t the only ones upset. Daniel was slow to anger.
Once he finally did explode the results were titanic. One such event
involved him demolishing a vampire cartel in the space of two nights.
Western Sector strike squads were called in like accurate lightning
strikes. He managed to hit the places that no one should have known
about. Then the reports and all associated loose lips were shoved
into a dark hole.

“We need to find an elf who works with addictions,” I
said.

“I might know one.” Julianne had a person in mind. I
looked at her for a moment then sighed.

“Candy?” I threw the name out there.

“Who?”

“Blonde, tattooed eyes, dark sunglasses, shepherds Umbrella
Beer?” I only listed the safe characteristics.

“Yeah.” Julianne nodded. “That elf was always
hovering around the other guy the first few times.”

“That’s Candy, why do you think she might know
something?” I said.

“If anyone has an answer it would be her. He deferred to her.
Candy’s either a leader or some sort of guide.” The
bartender angrily glared at me about the whole subject. Once again
Stacy mimicked the motions with a tilt of hips and one fist on her
side.

“I guess I could ask her.” I ran my hand over shortened
hair and tried to figure out what was next. There was no point in
asking Julianne to do it or Stacy. They had already tracked Evan down
and given me the first crack.

“You need to solve this quick. You clearly know this, Candy,
elf, and Evan was looking for you.” Julianne had her hands on
the back of her couch. They were curling and gripping the upholstery.

“I barely know her.” I corrected the shorter woman.

“Sounds like you know her overly well.”

“I did what you suggested. I had a question, and she had an
answer I needed.” One hand raised with the palm facing upwards.
Why is it that my choices always seemed to result in problems? Damned
if I did, damned if I didn’t.

“Yeah? What question was that?” Julianne asked. I stared
at her and got two equally annoyed stares in return.

“A separate problem.” Was my relenting comment. Not that
they were separate problems at all. They were directly linked. This
‘Lord’ thing was my problem to sort through and not
anyone else’s.

“Kahina doesn’t know that you’re stalking elven
whores?” Julianne asked. She lifted a cushion on the couch in
agitation and set it right back down.

“I haven’t told her, no.” My eyelids fluttered and
neck bunched up. This was getting beyond annoying. I didn’t
come here to be berated for trying to solve problems.

“Jay…” Her voice turned low and warning. My hands
went into the air with a shout.

“What Julianne? You want me to patch up my relationship with
Kahina like nothing happened, just a bump in the road, forgive and
forget?” I shouted. There wasn’t enough room in this
house to truly get angry.

She grew quiet.

“Good, because that whole night pretty much screwed over
everything I had going for me,” I said, satisfied that this
argument was in my favor.

“Shut your trap.” Stacy nearly snarled at me.

“Fuck you. You have no idea what happened…” I
shouted. My mind was glazing over all the warning signs of impending
doom. “and no right.”

My ears started ringing and vision took a sudden turn to the left.
Stacy had slapped me, hard. With the kind of strength that didn’t
come from a human. Wolf. Julianne was hanging out with a female wolf.
I yelled again, only this sounded off, different than normal, and
shoved the wolf backward into a wall.

Julianne let out a cry and ran to her friend’s side, or
whatever they were. I didn’t care. This was too much. My breath
was ragged from that brief bout. Julianne’s house was confining
me. I made it out the door and stomped across her front yard. There
was an itch on my arm and the sound of drumbeats in my ear. Worse
still, I wanted Stacy to come out here and continue our fight.

Hell. Why couldn’t I ever leave someplace in a peaceful manner?
Leaving Kahina the first time four years ago was bad. My first visit
to Evan involved rudely carving off his hair and throwing a knife
into the wall. Then there was the forest I was recently evicted from.
All my life I had been burning bridges.

Hell. What was wrong with me?

After a few hours of walking, I was still angry. Angry at everyone
else for telling me what to think about Kahina. Angry at myself for
not having a good answer. Angry at Daniel and his missing person
case. Then Evan for jerking me around with the ‘Lord’
comment.

I proceeded home. My modified knuckles went into a pocket and an iron
chain was threaded through belt loops. Next I stopped at the bar,
more out of habit than need. No one here knew me. No one besides
Julianne and I had screwed that up. At the far end of the bar was a
pile of coins and a puddle of spilled liquid. The arrogant elf had
come in for another fix. I was back out the door before anyone felt
the need to greet me. Hopefully I could get to Candy’s before
nightfall. After that, avoiding Kahina would be a matter of timing.

Soon I stood across the street from Candy’s bedroom window. Two
elves watched me from up high, perched on walls, strange bows
strapped across their back. My head was pounding out its displeasure.
Everything conspired to drive me bonkers.

Countless people passed while I stalked up and down the sidewalk.
Cars came and went. Humans bartered for organic crops. Kids on their
way home from school used the elven sidewalk for added safety.

My eyes slid down and I tried to calm myself. The same senses I used
to defend my home from Kahina’s two hired goons were still
rusty. That mental switch was getting easier to flip. Brief flashes
of insight to the world about me flooded in. It felt like the ground
beneath my feet was boiling with heat. A glance upward confirmed that
both sentries above had their bows in hand, an arrow notched but not
drawn.