The Order of Brigid's Cross - The Wild Hunt (Book 1): The Wild Hunt (21 page)

The corridor that led from the chapel on the first floor to
the parking lot door was quiet except for the constant ticking of the clock
positioned next to the door to the lab.
 
Sean leaned against the brick wall and waited, watching the monitor on
the wall that displayed the view from the hidden camera in the parking lot.

“Any sign of them?” Ian asked, coming out of the lab.

Sean shook his head. “No, nothing,” he said. “I’ve also
asked Pete to join us. It never hurts to have a genius attorney on your side.”

Ian nodded. “I agree,” he said, leaning on the wall across
from Sean. “And he has a little more in the game now.”

“Yes, he does,” Sean agreed grimly.

“Seems like you have a little more in the game, too,” Ian
observed casually.

Sean turned his eyes from the monitor to Ian.
 
“Are you going all psychologist on me now?”
he asked, one eyebrow lifted.

Smiling slightly, Ian nodded, acknowledging the hit. “Aye,
well, that does tend to be my default mode,” he confessed.
“If
it’s not scientist mode.”

“I guess we can’t help but be who we are,” Sean
acknowledged. “So, doc, what do you want to know?”

“What happened to Em?” Ian asked.

Shrugging, Sean turned his gaze away from Ian back to the
monitor. “She won’t tell me,” he said, and Ian could hear the hurt in Sean’s
voice.

“Why not?”
Ian asked.

Meeting Ian’s eyes again, Sean tried not to let his emotions
show. “I don’t know, doc,” he replied tersely. “I thought explaining her
actions was
your job.”

Ian grinned. “It is, yes,” he said. “But I wanted to hear
what you thought.”

“I think she doesn’t trust me,” Sean said. “No, I know she
doesn’t trust me.” He stood up and began to pace.
“If you
could have seen the hate and the anger.
 
Really, Ian, she wanted to hurt me when I walked into that gym this
morning.”

“Well, we know that the faerie disguised himself as you,”
Ian said slowly as he dissected the situation. “So, what could you do that
would hurt Em enough that she would be angry enough to attack you?”

Shaking his head, Sean stopped pacing for a moment. “What?”

“Em’s vulnerable areas,” Ian said. “What are they? For
example, if you beat her in a sword fight would she be upset?”

“No, she would be pleased,” Sean said. “She doesn’t seem to
have that kind of an ego.” He smiled slightly. “Granted, she’d go at you harder
next time, but you ought to consider that a compliment.”

“So, the faerie didn’t fence with her,” Ian said. “We can
rule that out. What would leave Em most vulnerable?”

Frustrated, Sean continued to pace. “She’s just not
vulnerable,” he said. “She’s powerful and confident and damn near a superhero.
Except for her total distrust of men…”

Ian stood up. He and Sean stared at each other for a moment.
“He seduced her,” Sean said. “He came on to her.”

Ian nodded. “And she trusted him, because she thought it was
you,” he said, nodding in agreement.

Sean exhaled slowly. “When I backed her against the wall and
trapped her sword, she actually pleaded with me not to hurt her again,” he said
softly. “I didn’t even think about it then.
 
But that’s the only thing that would really hurt her.”

“She’s afraid of becoming her mother,” Ian said. “She
doesn’t want to be attracted to anyone.”

“So what do we do?” Sean asked. “Just ignore it, like she
wants us to?”

“Well, if she was your partner on the force, and you had a
problem between the two of you, what would you do?” Ian asked.

“We’d have to talk it out,” Sean replied immediately.
“Partners need to trust each other.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” Ian said easily. “You
need to talk to her.”

Sean’s attention was drawn to the monitor as a car pulled
into the parking lot.
 
He recognized it
as Pete’s and started towards the door.
 
Ian reached out and caught Sean’s arm. “I know it’s different,” he said
pointedly, “but that only makes it more important to take care of it.”

“But, damn it, I didn’t do anything wrong,” Sean stated
angrily.

“Yeah, and neither did she,” Ian replied. “But it seems the
faeries are able to discern our weaknesses and use them against us.
 
You are her greatest weakness.
 
What does that tell you about her feelings
for you?”

Sean closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. “Yeah, I get
it,” he said. “I was one of the few humans she actually trusted. I’ve got to
help her trust again.”

Sean moved past Ian and walked out the door to the parking
lot to greet Pete.
 
Ian watched his
clueless friend walk away and shook his head. “You dunderhead,” he whispered.

Sean walked across the lot towards Pete’s car.
 
The autumn day was bright and crisp with no
clouds in the bright blue sky, and pieces of gravel on the ground actually
sparkled in the
sunshine.
 
Sean stopped and stared at them for a moment.
Natural phenomenon or magic
, he
wondered.
Crap, I’m losing my mind.

Pete opened his car door, reached over and pulled his
wheelchair out, setting it up next to the car. “Morning,” Pete called as he
hefted himself from the driver seat to the chair.
“Anything
interesting going on in your life today?”

Sean shrugged casually as he walked up to Pete. “No, man,
pretty ordinary day,” Sean replied as he listed things off. “I fought two
fairies, was impersonated by one of them, sword fought with Em because the guy
that impersonated me was not nice to her, jumped down from a gym balcony and
found out that pirate movies lie…” He thought for a moment. “Oh, yeah, my
captain put me on permanent Order of Brigid’s Cross assignment. So, how are you
doing?”

Pete actually chuckled and shook his head. “Boy, you live a
boring life,” he replied as he moved the wheelchair towards the door. “Okay,
after an evening of nearly being seduced by a naked faerie, I had a night of
fairly bizarre dreams.”

“Understandable,” Sean inserted, walking alongside him.

“And when I got into the office, I discovered that several
of my employees had been followed home last night and needed the assistance of
the security personnel I had requested,” he said.

“Was anyone hurt?” Sean asked, stopping in his tracks, the
smile dropping from his face.

Ian stepped forward from the door, overhearing Sean and
Pete.
 
“Is everything all right?” he
asked.

Pete stopped the wheelchair and turned to Sean and Ian. “No
one was hurt, but I spent a lot of time thinking about this whole situation,”
he said slowly. “I don’t think we have all the information about Jamal yet.”

“You think Jamal is holding out on us?” Sean asked
skeptically.

“No. No, that’s not it at all,” he said. “I think Jamal is
in the dark as much as we are.
 
But
things just don’t seem to add up.”

“I agree,” Ian added, studying the outside of the church
building and the statues of the saints staring down at him. “I feel we’re
walking into the middle of a puzzle, and I’m not quite sure who I trust yet.”

Sean recalled Em’s comment about trust.
Well for my part, I trust no one,
she had told him.
And I’ve never been disappointed.

“Maybe trusting no one is the wisest course for the time
being,” Sean said aloud.

Pete nodded. “I agree,” he said. “Trust no one and keep your
eyes open.”

They entered the church and walked towards the elevator.
“So, who are we meeting?” Pete asked as they waited for the elevator to appear.

“Two of the aristocracy of the faery realm,” Sean said.
“Aengus and Caer, the lord and lady of Chicagoland.
Must be
my peasant background, but I’ve never trusted aristocracy.”

“Excuse me?” Ian countered.

Sean grinned. “Present company
excepted
,
of course.”

Ian nodded. “That’s more like it,” he replied with a smile.
“So, in our cast of characters, who should we each be watching as this drama
unfolds?”

“Well, I think it takes one to know one,” Sean replied. “So
you, Sir Ian, get Aengus and Caer.”

Pete nodded. “That works for me,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye
on Jamal’s grandmother. I have a feeling Mrs. Gage might not have told us
everything she could have.”

“Okay,” Sean agreed. “And I’ll watch everyone else.”

Ian chuckled. “Well, if you need to trim that down a bit,
I’d say the most interesting person to watch would be the good Father,” he
suggested. “He’s a man who’s used to living with a secret, at least one, and I
don’t find him as forthcoming as I’d like.”

The elevator door opened, and the three stepped inside. “Off
to another adventure,” Sean murmured.

“Why the hell can’t we just play pool like the other guys?”
Pete asked with a smile.

“Trust me, you’d be bored in ten minutes,” Sean replied.

The door opened, and they moved down the hall to Father
Jack’s residence. Seeing that the door was not closed, they entered without
knocking, and Sean glanced around the room at the occupants.
 
Father Jack was in the kitchen pouring hot
water into a tea pot.
 
Gillian was
sitting in a chair, facing the couch.
 
Two people sat with their backs to Sean, and he assumed they were Aengus
and Caer.
 
But Em, Jamal and Mrs. Gage
were nowhere to be seen.

“Ah, you’re here,” Father Jack said, looking across the
room. “Good, now we can get things started.”

The two occupants on the couch turned, and immediately Pete
gasped in surprise while Sean pulled his gun out of his holster and pointed it
at the woman.

“You want to slowly stand with your hands in the air?” he
commanded her.

“I beg your pardon?” Aengus demanded, turning in his chair and
then standing to face Sean, Ian and Pete. “Do you know who she is?”

“Sean, put your gun down,” Father Jack pleaded. “This is
Aengus and Caer.
 
They are the diplomats
of faery.”

“All I know is that she broke into my friend’s apartment
last night, was waiting for him in his bed, and tried to seduce him,” Sean
replied. “Then she escaped capture by jumping from his balcony.”

Aengus turned to Caer, one eyebrow lifted. “You seduced a
human last night?”

Slowly, the beautiful, red-headed faerie
stood,
her face calm and slightly amused. She studied Pete for a moment, slowly licked
her lips and then sighed with exaggerated disappointment. “No, I didn’t seduce
him,” she said, looping her arm around her husband’s. “But I can certainly see
why one would try.”

“Do you have a twin?” Pete asked. “If not, you were
certainly in my bedroom last night, and you were definitely without clothing.”

Shrugging lightly, she met his eyes. “I do not have a twin,”
she replied. “And I was not in your room last night, human.”

“I don’t believe you,” Pete replied.

The echo of Gillian’s sharp gasp was the only sound heard as
the room slowly filled with silence.
 
“I
will have you killed,” Aengus roared, his eyes growing luminous with anger.

“You’ll have to go through me first,” Sean said, stepping
between his friend and the faerie. “And it won’t be that easy.”

“Pete, faeries can’t lie,” Gillian said, standing and hurrying
across the room. “They can trick you and manipulate things, but they can’t out
and out lie.”

“I recorded you on my phone,” Pete said, pulling out the
phone and offering it. “I didn’t realize it until this morning.
 
But when I put the call into Sean, I must
have hit the video record.
 
It’s not a
good angle, but enough to see who was in my room. Tell me that’s not your
wife.”

Gillian took the proffered phone and handed it to
Aengus.
 
He watched it for a moment, his
eyes widening, and then rewound it and watched it again.
 
Without making a comment, he handed it to his
wife.
 
The amusement in her face changed
to outrage as she watched the video.
 
“Who
would dare do this?” she asked, lifting her hand in an attempt to smash the
offending device.

“Wait!
Phone!”
Pete called,
stretching his hands out. “Don’t damage the phone!”

Tossing him a defiant look, she hurled it against the wooden
floor. Pete winced as he heard the delicate, electronic device crack upon
impact.

Shaking his head slowly, Aengus stood and picked up the
pieces. “My darling, we can’t take our temper out on inanimate objects that had
nothing to do with the betrayal,” he said easily, cupping the phone inside both
of his hands. “We need to save that anger up, let it simmer and use it on those
who deserve our wrath.”

He turned to Pete and bowed slightly. “Your phone,” he said,
surprising Pete by sliding an unbroken phone into his hands. “I do apologize
for my wife’s display of anger. We generally don’t appreciate someone
duplicating our likeness for their own use.”

Pete returned the nod. “I fully understand that feeling,” he
said. Then he shifted his gaze to Caer. “And I apologize for doubting your
word. I did not understand your culture.”

Caer stared at Pete for a moment and then shook her head. “The
uncertainty was understandable, given the circumstance,” she replied as she sat
back down on the couch. “We will not have you killed.”

Sean shook his head in amazement. “Okay, now that we’re all
buddy-buddy like, can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” he
asked.