[Fic] Blood Rites 1/3
Oct. 26th, 2009 06:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittydesadeTitle: Blood Rites (Part 1 of 3) (Part 2, Part 3)
Fandom: Blood Ties (TV)
Characters: Henry Fitzroy, Mike Cellucci, Vicki Nelson, Coreen Fennel
Word Count: 16,798
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Corinne encounters a half-dead fae noble outside of a night-club and, with the best of intentions, brings him to Vicki as a client. The fae is less than grateful, Vicki is less than enthusiastic, but the case she uncovers leads to the possible return of the faerie realms and threatens the modern human world. Stopping the potential Unseelie incursion will take all the skill and energies the three of them can bring to bear, but it also binds them closer as a result.
A/N: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
polybigbang. Cover art here by the lovely and talented ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chosenfire28
It would figure that, out of all the Goth girls sneaking out of the club that night, the man with the bird head would run into her.
The show, at least, hadn't been what she was expecting. Between the kind of crowd control that would enrage the fire marshal and the collective scent of hundreds of occasional bathers it had been kind of disappointing, which was why Coreen had wormed her way back to the stage door and crept out early. Maybe she would get started on that research tomorrow morning. That would make Vicki happy, at least.
Running into someone was awkward at the best of times. Running into someone while balancing on four-inch stiletto heels and trying to stuff your cell phone back into your purse was a recipe for disaster. Coreen slipped and went sprawling on the pavement. The wet, sticky pavement. Oh God, she knew what that smell was. She hadn't been working for a detective for the last year or so just for kicks.
Coreen picked her hand up and held in front of her face, just to be sure. God, wet and red and sticky. Yep, that was blood. Gross. And it was never going to come off her skirt, and she would look like she'd had some kind of horrible feminine accident in it.
She finally looked across the tips of her semi-expensive Wicked Witch of the West pointed-toe boots at the person she had run into. He was pretty tall, pretty lean, probably built like Michael Phelps under that black swanky suit he was wearing. Parts of his suit were black on black, which meant that he was probably the source of the blood she had fallen in. Which meant that she had to get help, and soon. Of course, it would be hard to find help; she couldn't exactly take the man with the head of a raven on his shoulders where a normal person's head should be to the hospital. They tended to frown on animal-human hybrids.
"All right," she said, in a tone that was entirely too resigned and steady for her to believe her life was anything like normal anymore. "What do you need?"
The bird head tilted at her with that look that ravens had when they were staring at something they were interested in.
"Sheep's blood, warm milk, raw meat, I can probably get you bread and honey, if you really want. I draw the line on human sacrifice, though. We already got one..." Just in time Coreen decided it might not be wise to tell the stranger about Henry.
"Help," it said, or at least she thought it said help. It might have said yelp. Or it might've been telling her to go to hell for all she knew.
Coreen leaned forward, "What are you saying?"
"Help," it said again, and disappeared.
"Great," she snapped, shrugging and rolling her eyes. "That's a great way to get someone to help you. Cough out one cryptic word and disappear. Sure, I'll be happy to help. Just as soon as I figure out what the hell is going on here."
Not that she would be doing that, of course. That was Vicki's department. Coreen just got to be the damsel.
"Why do I always have to be the damsel?"
"A bird head."
Coreen's expression couldn't have been all that different from Vicki's. Flat, disapproving mouth, lips pressed thin and eyes narrowed in disbelief, eyebrows high. Well, with Coreen, there had probably been more eye rolling.
"I'm telling you, he had a bird head. A big fat raven head where his, you know, real head should have been." Coreen shrugged. It wasn't the strangest thing they had ever come across, and possibly wasn't even in the top ten for the year. But it definitely made their weirdness radar for the week.
Vicki shook her head, going to sit down behind her desk and dropping her head in her hands. "And he asked you for help?"
"That's what I thought he said, but I wasn't sure. Anyway, he disappeared, so he can't have needed help that badly." Coreen sounded as if she thought Vicki would be just as happy to be rid of the strange creature. It wasn't a hard leap to make. She had been very outspoken about the fact that they had enough weirdness going on right now, what with Henry and Mike and all, without taking cases that were any weirder than they needed to be. Coreen would have agreed, except that would be bringing up any weirdness at all between Vicki and Henry and Mike, and she still wasn't ready to confront that after Vicki had bitten her head off the last time.
Henry had been in town for six months now, and Vicki didn't know if she would ever be ready to deal with what had happened.
"Anyway," Coreen shuffled the stack of files together and clacked them on the desk, "we've got a few other things we can deal with. Such as the Billingslea case, they're asking for a background check on their new employee. I think he might be," Coreen hooked two fingers in front of her mouth and made a kind of clawing biting gesture.
"A vampire?" That was all Vicki needed, more vampires in her life. More vampires in Henry's territory.
"No." Coreen looked amused. "A werewolf."
"Oh." Vicki had forgotten about the werewolves.
Coreen moved around the desk with the folders clutched to her corseted, lacy breast. "You know, if it comes to that, I'm sure Henry could help you out, if you really wanted to investigate the bird man. Or the werewolf," she added hastily.
"I thought you said you thought he might be a werewolf." Vicki was quick to point out. She wasn't sure she wanted to deal with werewolves. Or bird men, or anything else that she might have to call Henry in on. Or, for that matter, anything she might have to call Mike in on.
Ever since Henry had come back, things between the three of them had been awkward. So much for stating your romantic intentions; she hadn't done anything even in the same realm as making a decision. Neither of the men in her life seemed to be bothered by that. Henry had as much as said outright that he would accept them both, but Mike was so straight you could use him to level pictures, and that didn't even touch his ability to cope with the bloodsucking undead thing. Mike, on the other hand, had finally agreed that there wasn't anything he could do to change her mind, let alone her heart, but Henry wouldn't let her go either. They had struck a truce and kept to the most polite of interactions, and they were sincere about it. And yet, they didn't seem to be getting along any better than they had before, either. She wasn't sure what was going on. They had settled into a routine, and none of them mentioned the R-word, much less the L-word.
Coreen was staring at her. Okay, not really staring, but looking at her expectantly like she knew Vicki had made a decision and wanted to know what it was. Vicki pushed up from the desk by slamming her hands onto the surface and rolling the chair back into the wall.
"All right," she sighed. "Let's go find your bird man."
Because when it came right down to it, at least none of the three of them knew about bird people, that Vicki knew of anyway. And she would rather have a problem she had to plug through on her own than go to either of the men in her life for help, right now.
They started back at the alley where Coreen had been the previous night. Apart from the faint traces of blood here and there, which Vicki only saw because Coreen pointed out where the creature had been staggering, there was nothing to indicate that anything untoward had happened. Vicky frowned, kneeling down and trying to get a good mental picture of what had happened before Coreen had walked in on it.
"So, he was bleeding pretty bad," Vicki said, more to herself than Coreen but the extra confirmation would be helpful.
The younger woman shrugged. "Either he was, or someone else he'd been talking to was. There was a lot of blood, though."
There didn't seem to be a lot of blood now, or at least, no very large bloodstains. Disappearing blood? Or maybe there was another vampire involved. Boy, Henry wouldn't like that. Vicki shook her head, trying to banish any thoughts of the bastard. "Looks like someone cleaned up after themselves," she muttered, standing. That was more likely, anyway, then disappearing blood. Come on, Vicki, and get your head out of your weirdness. Not everything has to have a supernatural explanation.
No, just most things in her life these days.
"Blood has a lot of magical properties," Coreen offered. "Maybe the bird man didn't want anyone following him with it, or making some kind of voodoo doll or something."
"Blood has power," came the awkward, hissing and high pitched voice from behind them.
Vicki and Coreen spun around, Vicki's baton snapping out with a speed that surprised even her, while Coreen only yelped and held up her hands. The man was dressed all in black, lean to the point of being downright scrawny and standing polite and calm with his hands clasped in front of him. He also did, indeed, have a raven's head. Vicki's first thought, incongruously, was to wonder how the hell he spoke as good English as he did. Or at all. Parrots spoke, didn't they? She could ask someone who knew about parrots. Why was she thinking about that at a time like this?
"You look like you're in pretty good shape for someone who was practically bleeding to death the night before," Vicki said. She was proud of herself for how calm she sounded. Then again, this wasn't her first were-turkey shoot.
"I was in no danger," he told them. "Your young lady misinterpreted the situation."
"I've known this young lady for some time, and she's pretty good at interpreting situations. Even the weird ones." Vicki wasn't backing down, mostly because he seemed about to tell her to leave it alone. She didn't take orders well. "I'd say, from what she told me, it looked like you needed some help."
"I was temporarily incapacitated."
"You always ask for help from strange girls when you're temporarily incapacitated?"
He clacked his beak in what Vicki was sure was an irritated manner. "There is no need for you to trouble yourselves further. What you saw has been resolved, and I am in no need of help."
Coreen folded her arms at him. "That why you come back to the scene of the crime?"
The bird man clacked his beak again, but this time it was a series of small clacks rather than one big one. Vicki didn't know what that meant, but she pressed forward anyway. "You know, you actually got pretty lucky that night," she said. "Coreen works for me, and I investigate things that..." Oh God, how did she explain this. "That most people wouldn't believe if they saw it with their own eyes. Most of my people, anyway." Now she sounded like Henry. When had humanity become 'her people'?
"This needs no investigation by human agents." He seemed determined. "You are unfamiliar with our ways and practices, and you would only hinder us in finding the ... That which we are looking for."
Well, hello. "I disagree." Vicki could be just as determined as anyone. And she had had a lot of practice at being stubborn when it came to things that went bump in the night. Especially annoying, male things that went bump in the night. "And when it comes to my city," and now she sort of wondered when it had become her city. Maybe when they all started talking like Henry. "I think my opinion on what needs investigating and what doesn't overrules yours."
There was a series of small beak-clacks again. He didn't look happy, but he also didn't look as though he was going to argue further. It was the kind of posture, Vicki realized, of a man who is out of options. She had seen that expression and posture on Mike often enough. Why was he out of options, and what was he looking for? These were questions that needed answering, maybe more so than she'd thought. Maybe Coreen was right about her needing to take the case. The last few times inhuman creatures had needed things in this city it involved hellfire and demons. She had the scars to prove it.
"There is nothing you can do to help me," he said after a momentary silence. "Though I appreciate the offer."
"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?" Vicki told him, turning and heading back to the car. Behind her, she heard Coreen moving to take the bird man's arm. That girl would cuddle up to anything out of the pure faith that people could be just good, and in need of help. Sometimes Vicki envied her that kind of innocence, especially after all that they had both been through.
She did roll her eyes a little, listening to them talk behind her. "Are you a meat eater?" Coreen was saying. "Or do you eat insects? I know this place where you can get the best chocolate covered grasshoppers..."
"It was meant to be a simple job," the bird man said, without any preamble or even an introduction. "I was sent to recruit a half-blood child to the faerie court. I should say, he had been a child, many centuries ago."
Both Coreen and Vicky were looking at him with skepticism. "You mean, a grown man."
"A son of the Sluagh King."
Vicky looked at Coreen, who shrugged. "The Sluagh are part of the faerie court, the Unseelie court. The bad guys," she clarified.
"I see," Vicki said, although she didn't. "Why didn't this son of a king..." and then she realized she'd said it kind of in the way that someone might say son of a bitch. "Sorry, I just don't see why anyone would turn down a whole faerie Kingdom, or whatever else comes with this."
Coreen and the bird-headed man exchanged a look, as if to say that Vicki was perhaps being a little naïve. "More than likely he has heard stories of what goes on at the Unseelie court, at least half of which are most likely true."
"Most of the stories that people hear, the really bad ones, those are about the Unseelie court. The bad fairies and all the curses and things to happen to babies? That's the Unseelie court. No offense intended." She added that last, Vicki thought, because the bird person was clacking his beak at her again. "Not that the other guys are much better, but the Unseelie court, they have this reputation, you know?"
"Oh, of course."
"He would have grown up around the time before Christianity reached the land in which he lived. He would have grown up with the stories of the fair folk, all the old legends and all that that entails. To be perfectly honest, Ms. Nelson, I cannot blame him for not wanting any part of court life when he has built his own life for so many centuries."
"You seem pretty reasonable and understanding, Mr..."
The creature's beak opened in what Vicki decided had to be a smile. "You may call me Nicodemus."
That wasn't his name. She had been around the supernatural world long enough to know that names had power, and no fairy person type thing would give his name to a stranger. At least she had something to call him now, though. "Mr. Nicodemus. You seem pretty reasonable and understanding. So may I take it that the person who sent you to recruit this Sluagh..."
"Half-Sluagh."
They were classist. Or speciesist, or whatever it was. Interesting. "Half-Sluagh. May I take it that this person isn't interested in being reasonable?"
"You may. But then, what father is not a little bit unreasonable about his son?"
Oh. Vicki and Coreen exchanged a look. That explains a few things, and opened up a whole bunch of other questions. Not the least of which was, just how bad were fairy politics, anyway? "I guess that's true," Vicki said, slowly. "But if this prince is as old as you say he is, it doesn't sound like he's going to come quietly. Which puts you kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place."
"I told you," Nicodemus said. "You need not involve yourselves."
Coreen shrugged. Vicki folded her arms over her chest and gave the bird man a wary look. At this point it was more a matter of stubbornness and not wanting to watch as some kind of faerie war took over her city. She had already watched that happen with demons, and be damned if she let it happen again. Literally, possibly. Never mind. Although she did put her hands a little further beneath her arms, trying to hide the demon brands. She had no idea if a fairy would recognize a demon's work, and she didn't want to find out.
"I don't plan on going back on my word, and I don't scare easily." It was bravado, pure boasting, but if she was lucky that would buy her points with Nicodemus. At least, he seemed to be more approving of audacity than caution. Which went right along with accepting the whole suicide mission thing. Or trying to go it alone, and winding up bloody and injured in the back of an alley.
"No," he said, rolling the word around in his beak with care. "I don't believe you do."
And then, of course, he turned to Coreen, his beak dropping wide-open again in that bizarre smile. "Now, I believe you said something about chocolate-covered grasshoppers..."
"Chocolate-covered grasshoppers?"
Vicki shrugged, stealing a piece of chicken from Mike's container of Szechuan. "That's what she said, I didn't ask, I still don't want to know."
From behind her, Henry chuckled. "Chocolate-covered grasshoppers are actually considered a delicacy in some countries." The other two said those last few words along with him. It wasn't the first time.
"Delicate my ass." Mike snorted. "I don't care if you roll them around in deep-fried ecstasy, I still don't want to eat them."
Vicki chuckled. Not that she wanted to eat the chocolate-covered grasshoppers either. But the arguments between the two of them were still funny. Not that they were arguments anymore, either, more like debates. Somehow, over the last six months, the three of them had gotten used to each other. Maybe it was because the alternative had been ten times worse.
"Anyway, he's a bird-person. He probably likes grasshoppers, covered in chocolate or au naturel. Leave the grasshoppers alone, the point is that it sounds like we might have some kind of fairy invasion on our hands."
Mike ignored her, pointing his chopsticks at Henry. "Hey, how does Captain Fang know what's delicate in other countries these days, anyway? He doesn't eat anymore."
Henry rolled his eyes at the police detective. "I do read, you know. And I have friends..."
"Anyway!" Vicki neither wanted to know about his friends nor wanted to hear about what strange, unusual, possibly not yet dead things people were eating in other countries. "Back to the bird-people."
"Bird-people?" Henry returned his attention to the subject immediately, with the kind of focus only a vampire could sustain, at least as far as she knew. It still made her a little uncomfortable when he looked at her like that. "Was there more than one?"
"No, I don't think so. At least, there wasn't more than one that I was talking to, just the one Coreen found. Faerie people, then. There's more to this than he's telling, I think we're all agreed on that, yes?" Nods all around. It wasn't that hard, given the almost total lack of detail. "So, what do we have? Nicodemus was sent to bring some guy back to the Unseelie court. Nicodemus tried. Nicodemus failed."
Henry frowned a little. "Do we know whether or not it was the man himself, this half-Sluagh, who attacked Nicodemus?"
"If that were the case, wouldn't he have said?" Mike could play nice, too, and he leaned over Vicki's feet to set his Chinese food down as he thought out loud. "I mean, if this guy isn't exactly in good standing, what would Nicodemus Bird-Head have to lose by going back and saying, hey, the half-breed tried to shiv me?"
"One of the many very good questions I mean to ask him if he ever shows up again." Noodles weren't the easiest thing to eat with a pair of chopsticks, but she gave it her best shot. Her best shot involved slurping, to Henry's amusement. "I get the feeling that this guy hands out information in crumbs, and if you're lucky you got enough to make a whole loaf. Henry, what do you know about court politics among these... Faerie people?"
Henry was caught off guard, for once, eyebrows up. "What makes you think I know anything about court politics among the Fae?"
Vicki slurped a last knot of noodles and leaned her head back into the vampire. "Because of the three of us, you know more about court politics than me and Mike have forgotten. Put together. Because you've probably been in and out of courts since you were born into one. And because of all of us, you're the one most likely to actually know any Fae or have known them for very long."
"I don't think I have ever actually met one." Henry pondered. "There was that one minor lord from Bally-something, although possibly he was just rather effeminate and given to abusing narcotics." He chuckled. "He did this thing with a wolfhound--"
Their looks told him they did not care to hear what was done with wolfhounds. Vicki's look in particular seemed to suspect him of saying that on purpose.
"My point is that aristocrats keep to themselves. They're too busy forming factions and stabbing each other in the back to go around explaining their politics to outsiders. Observation, however intriguing, never supplies the entire picture. One minute people are your loyal companions, the next they're sending asps or king cobras to bite you in your sleep so they can place themselves in line for the throne." Henry's mouth twitched up at one corner in something that could be called a nostalgic smile. "One wrong hand shake and Robert is suddenly your uncle."
Vicki looked skeptically at him. "Robert."
"Arthur Balfour," Henry said and then, off her continued stare, "Really! But it is a long and implausible story of no relevance to the discussion at hand, except to say that things become different when magic is involved; different, and far more complicated.
"So what do we know about the factions of the fae court?" Mike asked. "You must have some general ideas, maybe an educated guess? A witty limerick." Sarcasm pooled on the floor under his jaw.
"Without further investigation, I certainly couldn't tell you," Henry said, a little huffily. "A court is a curious, subtle, inconstant thing, full of endless, minute, careful maneuvers. It's not like you can just waltz into the ballroom and demand they announce their goals and affiliations."
"Shoot," said Vicki. "That's my plan off the list, then."
They both stared at her.
"If you want to know," Henry finished, "I suggest you ask the one person we all are familiar with who we know to have extensive experience in the fae court. If he'll talk."
"He'll talk," Vicki muttered. "He's just not my first choice of conversation companions."
Back to the alley. During the day it didn't look half so seedy as it did when it was full of pounding rhythms and half stoned teenagers. Vicki turned over and discarded half a dozen used condoms, candy wrappers, even picked up a couple of used needles with a tissue and a disgusted look. Henry insisted on handling the physical evidence after that, on the basis that he wasn't susceptible to blood borne illnesses. She couldn't really argue with that logic.
"This isn't human blood."
Vicki looked over at where he'd crouched by the dumpster, dark stains on the ground that could have been anything at this hour. Spilled soda, spilled food, spilled blood. She would trust Henry to know what human blood smelled like. Maybe he wasn't so familiar with Fae blood, but after their conversation previously she wasn't willing to bet on that, either.
"Can you tell what it is?" She asked, going back to her section.
Henry didn't seem to be acting any differently from a forensic investigator on a TV show, if not exactly working with the usual sanitation protocols of an actual investigator. Nevertheless, anyone walking by would think they were on legitimate business from the way they examined their surroundings with authority and confidence. Which was probably a good thing if they were going to have an open conversation in normal tones about blood and dead bodies. He examines the stain a little longer and then stood, and brushed his hands off on his trousers.
"I'm not sure, but it's not human." He shook his head. "And if any human had left this much blood behind they'd be in the hospital, not wandering around the streets still."
Well, that was a fair argument, too.
They continued to go over the alley. Vicki was starting to run a tally in her mind of how much crap she was having to go through, bubblegum, detritus of sex and drugs and all the expected vices of the club, pieces of litter with phone numbers written on them. How many poor people would be sitting by the phone waiting for a call that would never come? God, maybe she had been reading too many of those romance novels Henry had a secret stash.
"I've got a feather, here." She stared at it, wondering how exactly it had gotten wedged in between two bricks. The mortar crumbled when she tugged it out. She wondered if it was kind of like breaking a fingernail. "How many of these do you think he left behind?"
"Are you asking me how many times I think they bounced his head off of something, or if I think he has feathers on more than just his raven's head?"
Vicki hadn't considered that possibility, and actually blushed when he mentioned it. And then she punched him in the shoulder.
"Ow."
"Big baby."
He grinned at her, and she found herself smiling back despite the grease and remnants of bubblegum on her fingers. He took another step closer, his mouth open to say something that was forgotten in the next second with whatever put that distracted look on his face. "What?" She asked.
Henry frowned. "I smell something."
"That never gets any less creepy, you know." She followed him to the far end of the alley, though. More dark stains that could have been anything.
He knelt down by one of them at the bottom of the wall and spreading on the floor, rubbed his fingertips over the surface and then sniffed. "This isn't human blood either."
"Either? You mean it's not human blood, and it's not the blood of that bird-headed guy?" Vicki frowned. She didn't like this. One fairy bastard in the city was enough, and now there were two. Maybe more than that. "Can you tell what it is? Better yet, can you track the source?"
Henry gave her a look that was equal parts affection and exasperation. "I'm not a bloodhound, Vicki."
Vicki shrugged. "Just a thought."
They picked around the non-human blood stain. When they got back to the dumpster Henry shouldered her out of the way, pouncing on something that she had missed before. Something the debris had been covering over, but when he held it up it looked like a piece of bone or horn or something. Maybe a piece of a tooth. The thought made Vicki shudder. "What is that?" She asked, with the air of someone who doesn't actually want an answer to her question.
"I'm not sure yet," Henry said, distracted. "When I find out, I'll let you know."
"That's very reassuring."
"This is such a bad idea."
This time it wasn't Vicki, it was Mike who was questioning the judgment of just about everyone there. Or maybe he was just saying what everyone was thinking.
Nothing about this case was making Vicki happy. Not the client, not the way the case was progressing, and certainly not Coreen's suggestion that they could get all the answers they wanted if they used that bit of horn to summon the creature to whom it had belonged. It was a good idea, in theory. It looked fine on paper but when you got into the mechanics of summoning anything, and especially summoning something that could knock around a fairy creature like a baseball off the bat, then you got into the whole principle of confinement circles. And then you got into the kind of arcane magic for which are required Henry, who you really should have had there anyway just to make sure there was someone else there with supernatural strength, and by now Vicki was starting to wonder if she wasn't working herself up to star in her own horror movie.
"I should've worn heels," she muttered.
Mike and Henry both stared at her. "Why?"
"Nothing."
Coreen dusted her hands off and stood up. "All right, that should do it."
Vicki looked around at the intricate pile of diagrams, glyphs, and drawings that surrounded them. She, Mike, and Henry had all been pressed into service for this ritual, to lend their energy, whatever that meant. As long as it worked. "Do I even want to know what any of this says?"
Her young and enthusiastic assistant started to point and explain. "Well, it starts with that symbol over there that represents the..."
"Wasn't really asking." Vicki held up her hand to stop Coreen from going on and wasting the rest of the night. "We only have about five hours left before Henry there turns into a pumpkin, and we lose the only person in this group capable of withstanding a fairy attack." She had to stop there. "I can't believe I just said that."
"I can't believe you said that either," Mike snickered.
"Shut up."
Coreen clapped her hand like a schoolteacher after lunch. "Okay, let's focus, people."
"Focus on what?" Vicki muttered. They all took their positions along the outside of the circle, feeling more or less like idiots for doing so. Mike and Vicki, more, and Henry, who was rather used to supernatural dealings by now, rather less.
Focusing. It was harder than she thought.
First, there was the thought that if she screwed up, she might wind up with the Stay-Puff Marshmallow man. Ravaging through Toronto, now there was a thought. And then she had to stop and discipline herself for thinking that, which led to wondering if thinking that would actually summon the damn thing. Which led to, of all things, wondering if Henry had seen Ghostbusters and would even recognize it if he saw it. Which led to trying to gather her thoughts and focus them on the center of the circle, bringing to it what she wanted, and not letting it out to wander through the city like Godzilla in Tokyo. Had Henry seen Godzilla?
"Focus!"
Focusing.
It was probably only the fact that she had been used in rituals before, well, and the whole chanting thing, that helped her realize there was energy flowing out of her and into the whatever it was Coreen was doing in the circle. It was a little like having blood drawn. Only more unnerving.
Her first hint that something was going wrong was Coreen's muttered "oh, shit." and that came only seconds before the muffled thud. Like something large and heavy hitting the ground from a very short distance, possibly floating above it. There hadn't been anything floating in the room before she had closed her eyes. When had she closed her eyes? Probably when she had been trying to focus.
"Um. Vicki."
Vicki opened her eyes. Henry and Mike were staring at it, and Coreen looked kind of as though she wanted to do the damsel in distress thing, and jump into Henry's arms. Probably Henry's, because Coreen didn't seem to have much of a thing for Mike. Not that Vicki knew why, Mike was damn good looking, for as much of a jerk as he could be. Great in bed, too. And now she was just distracting herself from the fact that she had a body on the floor of her office that hadn't been there a few minutes ago.
"Coreen."
"Yeah?"
"Why is there a body on the floor of my office?"
They all stared at it for a moment. "I guess the summoning spell worked."
Vicki shook her head. "I could give you a pair of sunglasses and a soundtrack by The Who, if that would make you any wittier." Henry and Coreen just stared at her. "I figured the summoning spell worked, what I want to know is, what is this, and why is it dead on my office floor?" Because if the summoning spell had killed it, she was going to have a lot of questions about where Coreen had gotten that grimoire.
"I have no idea..." she sounded just as unnerved as Vicki felt.
"Well. Shit."
Fandom: Blood Ties (TV)
Characters: Henry Fitzroy, Mike Cellucci, Vicki Nelson, Coreen Fennel
Word Count: 16,798
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Corinne encounters a half-dead fae noble outside of a night-club and, with the best of intentions, brings him to Vicki as a client. The fae is less than grateful, Vicki is less than enthusiastic, but the case she uncovers leads to the possible return of the faerie realms and threatens the modern human world. Stopping the potential Unseelie incursion will take all the skill and energies the three of them can bring to bear, but it also binds them closer as a result.
A/N: Written for
polybigbang. Cover art here by the lovely and talented chosenfire28It would figure that, out of all the Goth girls sneaking out of the club that night, the man with the bird head would run into her.
The show, at least, hadn't been what she was expecting. Between the kind of crowd control that would enrage the fire marshal and the collective scent of hundreds of occasional bathers it had been kind of disappointing, which was why Coreen had wormed her way back to the stage door and crept out early. Maybe she would get started on that research tomorrow morning. That would make Vicki happy, at least.
Running into someone was awkward at the best of times. Running into someone while balancing on four-inch stiletto heels and trying to stuff your cell phone back into your purse was a recipe for disaster. Coreen slipped and went sprawling on the pavement. The wet, sticky pavement. Oh God, she knew what that smell was. She hadn't been working for a detective for the last year or so just for kicks.
Coreen picked her hand up and held in front of her face, just to be sure. God, wet and red and sticky. Yep, that was blood. Gross. And it was never going to come off her skirt, and she would look like she'd had some kind of horrible feminine accident in it.
She finally looked across the tips of her semi-expensive Wicked Witch of the West pointed-toe boots at the person she had run into. He was pretty tall, pretty lean, probably built like Michael Phelps under that black swanky suit he was wearing. Parts of his suit were black on black, which meant that he was probably the source of the blood she had fallen in. Which meant that she had to get help, and soon. Of course, it would be hard to find help; she couldn't exactly take the man with the head of a raven on his shoulders where a normal person's head should be to the hospital. They tended to frown on animal-human hybrids.
"All right," she said, in a tone that was entirely too resigned and steady for her to believe her life was anything like normal anymore. "What do you need?"
The bird head tilted at her with that look that ravens had when they were staring at something they were interested in.
"Sheep's blood, warm milk, raw meat, I can probably get you bread and honey, if you really want. I draw the line on human sacrifice, though. We already got one..." Just in time Coreen decided it might not be wise to tell the stranger about Henry.
"Help," it said, or at least she thought it said help. It might have said yelp. Or it might've been telling her to go to hell for all she knew.
Coreen leaned forward, "What are you saying?"
"Help," it said again, and disappeared.
"Great," she snapped, shrugging and rolling her eyes. "That's a great way to get someone to help you. Cough out one cryptic word and disappear. Sure, I'll be happy to help. Just as soon as I figure out what the hell is going on here."
Not that she would be doing that, of course. That was Vicki's department. Coreen just got to be the damsel.
"Why do I always have to be the damsel?"
"A bird head."
Coreen's expression couldn't have been all that different from Vicki's. Flat, disapproving mouth, lips pressed thin and eyes narrowed in disbelief, eyebrows high. Well, with Coreen, there had probably been more eye rolling.
"I'm telling you, he had a bird head. A big fat raven head where his, you know, real head should have been." Coreen shrugged. It wasn't the strangest thing they had ever come across, and possibly wasn't even in the top ten for the year. But it definitely made their weirdness radar for the week.
Vicki shook her head, going to sit down behind her desk and dropping her head in her hands. "And he asked you for help?"
"That's what I thought he said, but I wasn't sure. Anyway, he disappeared, so he can't have needed help that badly." Coreen sounded as if she thought Vicki would be just as happy to be rid of the strange creature. It wasn't a hard leap to make. She had been very outspoken about the fact that they had enough weirdness going on right now, what with Henry and Mike and all, without taking cases that were any weirder than they needed to be. Coreen would have agreed, except that would be bringing up any weirdness at all between Vicki and Henry and Mike, and she still wasn't ready to confront that after Vicki had bitten her head off the last time.
Henry had been in town for six months now, and Vicki didn't know if she would ever be ready to deal with what had happened.
"Anyway," Coreen shuffled the stack of files together and clacked them on the desk, "we've got a few other things we can deal with. Such as the Billingslea case, they're asking for a background check on their new employee. I think he might be," Coreen hooked two fingers in front of her mouth and made a kind of clawing biting gesture.
"A vampire?" That was all Vicki needed, more vampires in her life. More vampires in Henry's territory.
"No." Coreen looked amused. "A werewolf."
"Oh." Vicki had forgotten about the werewolves.
Coreen moved around the desk with the folders clutched to her corseted, lacy breast. "You know, if it comes to that, I'm sure Henry could help you out, if you really wanted to investigate the bird man. Or the werewolf," she added hastily.
"I thought you said you thought he might be a werewolf." Vicki was quick to point out. She wasn't sure she wanted to deal with werewolves. Or bird men, or anything else that she might have to call Henry in on. Or, for that matter, anything she might have to call Mike in on.
Ever since Henry had come back, things between the three of them had been awkward. So much for stating your romantic intentions; she hadn't done anything even in the same realm as making a decision. Neither of the men in her life seemed to be bothered by that. Henry had as much as said outright that he would accept them both, but Mike was so straight you could use him to level pictures, and that didn't even touch his ability to cope with the bloodsucking undead thing. Mike, on the other hand, had finally agreed that there wasn't anything he could do to change her mind, let alone her heart, but Henry wouldn't let her go either. They had struck a truce and kept to the most polite of interactions, and they were sincere about it. And yet, they didn't seem to be getting along any better than they had before, either. She wasn't sure what was going on. They had settled into a routine, and none of them mentioned the R-word, much less the L-word.
Coreen was staring at her. Okay, not really staring, but looking at her expectantly like she knew Vicki had made a decision and wanted to know what it was. Vicki pushed up from the desk by slamming her hands onto the surface and rolling the chair back into the wall.
"All right," she sighed. "Let's go find your bird man."
Because when it came right down to it, at least none of the three of them knew about bird people, that Vicki knew of anyway. And she would rather have a problem she had to plug through on her own than go to either of the men in her life for help, right now.
They started back at the alley where Coreen had been the previous night. Apart from the faint traces of blood here and there, which Vicki only saw because Coreen pointed out where the creature had been staggering, there was nothing to indicate that anything untoward had happened. Vicky frowned, kneeling down and trying to get a good mental picture of what had happened before Coreen had walked in on it.
"So, he was bleeding pretty bad," Vicki said, more to herself than Coreen but the extra confirmation would be helpful.
The younger woman shrugged. "Either he was, or someone else he'd been talking to was. There was a lot of blood, though."
There didn't seem to be a lot of blood now, or at least, no very large bloodstains. Disappearing blood? Or maybe there was another vampire involved. Boy, Henry wouldn't like that. Vicki shook her head, trying to banish any thoughts of the bastard. "Looks like someone cleaned up after themselves," she muttered, standing. That was more likely, anyway, then disappearing blood. Come on, Vicki, and get your head out of your weirdness. Not everything has to have a supernatural explanation.
No, just most things in her life these days.
"Blood has a lot of magical properties," Coreen offered. "Maybe the bird man didn't want anyone following him with it, or making some kind of voodoo doll or something."
"Blood has power," came the awkward, hissing and high pitched voice from behind them.
Vicki and Coreen spun around, Vicki's baton snapping out with a speed that surprised even her, while Coreen only yelped and held up her hands. The man was dressed all in black, lean to the point of being downright scrawny and standing polite and calm with his hands clasped in front of him. He also did, indeed, have a raven's head. Vicki's first thought, incongruously, was to wonder how the hell he spoke as good English as he did. Or at all. Parrots spoke, didn't they? She could ask someone who knew about parrots. Why was she thinking about that at a time like this?
"You look like you're in pretty good shape for someone who was practically bleeding to death the night before," Vicki said. She was proud of herself for how calm she sounded. Then again, this wasn't her first were-turkey shoot.
"I was in no danger," he told them. "Your young lady misinterpreted the situation."
"I've known this young lady for some time, and she's pretty good at interpreting situations. Even the weird ones." Vicki wasn't backing down, mostly because he seemed about to tell her to leave it alone. She didn't take orders well. "I'd say, from what she told me, it looked like you needed some help."
"I was temporarily incapacitated."
"You always ask for help from strange girls when you're temporarily incapacitated?"
He clacked his beak in what Vicki was sure was an irritated manner. "There is no need for you to trouble yourselves further. What you saw has been resolved, and I am in no need of help."
Coreen folded her arms at him. "That why you come back to the scene of the crime?"
The bird man clacked his beak again, but this time it was a series of small clacks rather than one big one. Vicki didn't know what that meant, but she pressed forward anyway. "You know, you actually got pretty lucky that night," she said. "Coreen works for me, and I investigate things that..." Oh God, how did she explain this. "That most people wouldn't believe if they saw it with their own eyes. Most of my people, anyway." Now she sounded like Henry. When had humanity become 'her people'?
"This needs no investigation by human agents." He seemed determined. "You are unfamiliar with our ways and practices, and you would only hinder us in finding the ... That which we are looking for."
Well, hello. "I disagree." Vicki could be just as determined as anyone. And she had had a lot of practice at being stubborn when it came to things that went bump in the night. Especially annoying, male things that went bump in the night. "And when it comes to my city," and now she sort of wondered when it had become her city. Maybe when they all started talking like Henry. "I think my opinion on what needs investigating and what doesn't overrules yours."
There was a series of small beak-clacks again. He didn't look happy, but he also didn't look as though he was going to argue further. It was the kind of posture, Vicki realized, of a man who is out of options. She had seen that expression and posture on Mike often enough. Why was he out of options, and what was he looking for? These were questions that needed answering, maybe more so than she'd thought. Maybe Coreen was right about her needing to take the case. The last few times inhuman creatures had needed things in this city it involved hellfire and demons. She had the scars to prove it.
"There is nothing you can do to help me," he said after a momentary silence. "Though I appreciate the offer."
"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?" Vicki told him, turning and heading back to the car. Behind her, she heard Coreen moving to take the bird man's arm. That girl would cuddle up to anything out of the pure faith that people could be just good, and in need of help. Sometimes Vicki envied her that kind of innocence, especially after all that they had both been through.
She did roll her eyes a little, listening to them talk behind her. "Are you a meat eater?" Coreen was saying. "Or do you eat insects? I know this place where you can get the best chocolate covered grasshoppers..."
"It was meant to be a simple job," the bird man said, without any preamble or even an introduction. "I was sent to recruit a half-blood child to the faerie court. I should say, he had been a child, many centuries ago."
Both Coreen and Vicky were looking at him with skepticism. "You mean, a grown man."
"A son of the Sluagh King."
Vicky looked at Coreen, who shrugged. "The Sluagh are part of the faerie court, the Unseelie court. The bad guys," she clarified.
"I see," Vicki said, although she didn't. "Why didn't this son of a king..." and then she realized she'd said it kind of in the way that someone might say son of a bitch. "Sorry, I just don't see why anyone would turn down a whole faerie Kingdom, or whatever else comes with this."
Coreen and the bird-headed man exchanged a look, as if to say that Vicki was perhaps being a little naïve. "More than likely he has heard stories of what goes on at the Unseelie court, at least half of which are most likely true."
"Most of the stories that people hear, the really bad ones, those are about the Unseelie court. The bad fairies and all the curses and things to happen to babies? That's the Unseelie court. No offense intended." She added that last, Vicki thought, because the bird person was clacking his beak at her again. "Not that the other guys are much better, but the Unseelie court, they have this reputation, you know?"
"Oh, of course."
"He would have grown up around the time before Christianity reached the land in which he lived. He would have grown up with the stories of the fair folk, all the old legends and all that that entails. To be perfectly honest, Ms. Nelson, I cannot blame him for not wanting any part of court life when he has built his own life for so many centuries."
"You seem pretty reasonable and understanding, Mr..."
The creature's beak opened in what Vicki decided had to be a smile. "You may call me Nicodemus."
That wasn't his name. She had been around the supernatural world long enough to know that names had power, and no fairy person type thing would give his name to a stranger. At least she had something to call him now, though. "Mr. Nicodemus. You seem pretty reasonable and understanding. So may I take it that the person who sent you to recruit this Sluagh..."
"Half-Sluagh."
They were classist. Or speciesist, or whatever it was. Interesting. "Half-Sluagh. May I take it that this person isn't interested in being reasonable?"
"You may. But then, what father is not a little bit unreasonable about his son?"
Oh. Vicki and Coreen exchanged a look. That explains a few things, and opened up a whole bunch of other questions. Not the least of which was, just how bad were fairy politics, anyway? "I guess that's true," Vicki said, slowly. "But if this prince is as old as you say he is, it doesn't sound like he's going to come quietly. Which puts you kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place."
"I told you," Nicodemus said. "You need not involve yourselves."
Coreen shrugged. Vicki folded her arms over her chest and gave the bird man a wary look. At this point it was more a matter of stubbornness and not wanting to watch as some kind of faerie war took over her city. She had already watched that happen with demons, and be damned if she let it happen again. Literally, possibly. Never mind. Although she did put her hands a little further beneath her arms, trying to hide the demon brands. She had no idea if a fairy would recognize a demon's work, and she didn't want to find out.
"I don't plan on going back on my word, and I don't scare easily." It was bravado, pure boasting, but if she was lucky that would buy her points with Nicodemus. At least, he seemed to be more approving of audacity than caution. Which went right along with accepting the whole suicide mission thing. Or trying to go it alone, and winding up bloody and injured in the back of an alley.
"No," he said, rolling the word around in his beak with care. "I don't believe you do."
And then, of course, he turned to Coreen, his beak dropping wide-open again in that bizarre smile. "Now, I believe you said something about chocolate-covered grasshoppers..."
"Chocolate-covered grasshoppers?"
Vicki shrugged, stealing a piece of chicken from Mike's container of Szechuan. "That's what she said, I didn't ask, I still don't want to know."
From behind her, Henry chuckled. "Chocolate-covered grasshoppers are actually considered a delicacy in some countries." The other two said those last few words along with him. It wasn't the first time.
"Delicate my ass." Mike snorted. "I don't care if you roll them around in deep-fried ecstasy, I still don't want to eat them."
Vicki chuckled. Not that she wanted to eat the chocolate-covered grasshoppers either. But the arguments between the two of them were still funny. Not that they were arguments anymore, either, more like debates. Somehow, over the last six months, the three of them had gotten used to each other. Maybe it was because the alternative had been ten times worse.
"Anyway, he's a bird-person. He probably likes grasshoppers, covered in chocolate or au naturel. Leave the grasshoppers alone, the point is that it sounds like we might have some kind of fairy invasion on our hands."
Mike ignored her, pointing his chopsticks at Henry. "Hey, how does Captain Fang know what's delicate in other countries these days, anyway? He doesn't eat anymore."
Henry rolled his eyes at the police detective. "I do read, you know. And I have friends..."
"Anyway!" Vicki neither wanted to know about his friends nor wanted to hear about what strange, unusual, possibly not yet dead things people were eating in other countries. "Back to the bird-people."
"Bird-people?" Henry returned his attention to the subject immediately, with the kind of focus only a vampire could sustain, at least as far as she knew. It still made her a little uncomfortable when he looked at her like that. "Was there more than one?"
"No, I don't think so. At least, there wasn't more than one that I was talking to, just the one Coreen found. Faerie people, then. There's more to this than he's telling, I think we're all agreed on that, yes?" Nods all around. It wasn't that hard, given the almost total lack of detail. "So, what do we have? Nicodemus was sent to bring some guy back to the Unseelie court. Nicodemus tried. Nicodemus failed."
Henry frowned a little. "Do we know whether or not it was the man himself, this half-Sluagh, who attacked Nicodemus?"
"If that were the case, wouldn't he have said?" Mike could play nice, too, and he leaned over Vicki's feet to set his Chinese food down as he thought out loud. "I mean, if this guy isn't exactly in good standing, what would Nicodemus Bird-Head have to lose by going back and saying, hey, the half-breed tried to shiv me?"
"One of the many very good questions I mean to ask him if he ever shows up again." Noodles weren't the easiest thing to eat with a pair of chopsticks, but she gave it her best shot. Her best shot involved slurping, to Henry's amusement. "I get the feeling that this guy hands out information in crumbs, and if you're lucky you got enough to make a whole loaf. Henry, what do you know about court politics among these... Faerie people?"
Henry was caught off guard, for once, eyebrows up. "What makes you think I know anything about court politics among the Fae?"
Vicki slurped a last knot of noodles and leaned her head back into the vampire. "Because of the three of us, you know more about court politics than me and Mike have forgotten. Put together. Because you've probably been in and out of courts since you were born into one. And because of all of us, you're the one most likely to actually know any Fae or have known them for very long."
"I don't think I have ever actually met one." Henry pondered. "There was that one minor lord from Bally-something, although possibly he was just rather effeminate and given to abusing narcotics." He chuckled. "He did this thing with a wolfhound--"
Their looks told him they did not care to hear what was done with wolfhounds. Vicki's look in particular seemed to suspect him of saying that on purpose.
"My point is that aristocrats keep to themselves. They're too busy forming factions and stabbing each other in the back to go around explaining their politics to outsiders. Observation, however intriguing, never supplies the entire picture. One minute people are your loyal companions, the next they're sending asps or king cobras to bite you in your sleep so they can place themselves in line for the throne." Henry's mouth twitched up at one corner in something that could be called a nostalgic smile. "One wrong hand shake and Robert is suddenly your uncle."
Vicki looked skeptically at him. "Robert."
"Arthur Balfour," Henry said and then, off her continued stare, "Really! But it is a long and implausible story of no relevance to the discussion at hand, except to say that things become different when magic is involved; different, and far more complicated.
"So what do we know about the factions of the fae court?" Mike asked. "You must have some general ideas, maybe an educated guess? A witty limerick." Sarcasm pooled on the floor under his jaw.
"Without further investigation, I certainly couldn't tell you," Henry said, a little huffily. "A court is a curious, subtle, inconstant thing, full of endless, minute, careful maneuvers. It's not like you can just waltz into the ballroom and demand they announce their goals and affiliations."
"Shoot," said Vicki. "That's my plan off the list, then."
They both stared at her.
"If you want to know," Henry finished, "I suggest you ask the one person we all are familiar with who we know to have extensive experience in the fae court. If he'll talk."
"He'll talk," Vicki muttered. "He's just not my first choice of conversation companions."
Back to the alley. During the day it didn't look half so seedy as it did when it was full of pounding rhythms and half stoned teenagers. Vicki turned over and discarded half a dozen used condoms, candy wrappers, even picked up a couple of used needles with a tissue and a disgusted look. Henry insisted on handling the physical evidence after that, on the basis that he wasn't susceptible to blood borne illnesses. She couldn't really argue with that logic.
"This isn't human blood."
Vicki looked over at where he'd crouched by the dumpster, dark stains on the ground that could have been anything at this hour. Spilled soda, spilled food, spilled blood. She would trust Henry to know what human blood smelled like. Maybe he wasn't so familiar with Fae blood, but after their conversation previously she wasn't willing to bet on that, either.
"Can you tell what it is?" She asked, going back to her section.
Henry didn't seem to be acting any differently from a forensic investigator on a TV show, if not exactly working with the usual sanitation protocols of an actual investigator. Nevertheless, anyone walking by would think they were on legitimate business from the way they examined their surroundings with authority and confidence. Which was probably a good thing if they were going to have an open conversation in normal tones about blood and dead bodies. He examines the stain a little longer and then stood, and brushed his hands off on his trousers.
"I'm not sure, but it's not human." He shook his head. "And if any human had left this much blood behind they'd be in the hospital, not wandering around the streets still."
Well, that was a fair argument, too.
They continued to go over the alley. Vicki was starting to run a tally in her mind of how much crap she was having to go through, bubblegum, detritus of sex and drugs and all the expected vices of the club, pieces of litter with phone numbers written on them. How many poor people would be sitting by the phone waiting for a call that would never come? God, maybe she had been reading too many of those romance novels Henry had a secret stash.
"I've got a feather, here." She stared at it, wondering how exactly it had gotten wedged in between two bricks. The mortar crumbled when she tugged it out. She wondered if it was kind of like breaking a fingernail. "How many of these do you think he left behind?"
"Are you asking me how many times I think they bounced his head off of something, or if I think he has feathers on more than just his raven's head?"
Vicki hadn't considered that possibility, and actually blushed when he mentioned it. And then she punched him in the shoulder.
"Ow."
"Big baby."
He grinned at her, and she found herself smiling back despite the grease and remnants of bubblegum on her fingers. He took another step closer, his mouth open to say something that was forgotten in the next second with whatever put that distracted look on his face. "What?" She asked.
Henry frowned. "I smell something."
"That never gets any less creepy, you know." She followed him to the far end of the alley, though. More dark stains that could have been anything.
He knelt down by one of them at the bottom of the wall and spreading on the floor, rubbed his fingertips over the surface and then sniffed. "This isn't human blood either."
"Either? You mean it's not human blood, and it's not the blood of that bird-headed guy?" Vicki frowned. She didn't like this. One fairy bastard in the city was enough, and now there were two. Maybe more than that. "Can you tell what it is? Better yet, can you track the source?"
Henry gave her a look that was equal parts affection and exasperation. "I'm not a bloodhound, Vicki."
Vicki shrugged. "Just a thought."
They picked around the non-human blood stain. When they got back to the dumpster Henry shouldered her out of the way, pouncing on something that she had missed before. Something the debris had been covering over, but when he held it up it looked like a piece of bone or horn or something. Maybe a piece of a tooth. The thought made Vicki shudder. "What is that?" She asked, with the air of someone who doesn't actually want an answer to her question.
"I'm not sure yet," Henry said, distracted. "When I find out, I'll let you know."
"That's very reassuring."
"This is such a bad idea."
This time it wasn't Vicki, it was Mike who was questioning the judgment of just about everyone there. Or maybe he was just saying what everyone was thinking.
Nothing about this case was making Vicki happy. Not the client, not the way the case was progressing, and certainly not Coreen's suggestion that they could get all the answers they wanted if they used that bit of horn to summon the creature to whom it had belonged. It was a good idea, in theory. It looked fine on paper but when you got into the mechanics of summoning anything, and especially summoning something that could knock around a fairy creature like a baseball off the bat, then you got into the whole principle of confinement circles. And then you got into the kind of arcane magic for which are required Henry, who you really should have had there anyway just to make sure there was someone else there with supernatural strength, and by now Vicki was starting to wonder if she wasn't working herself up to star in her own horror movie.
"I should've worn heels," she muttered.
Mike and Henry both stared at her. "Why?"
"Nothing."
Coreen dusted her hands off and stood up. "All right, that should do it."
Vicki looked around at the intricate pile of diagrams, glyphs, and drawings that surrounded them. She, Mike, and Henry had all been pressed into service for this ritual, to lend their energy, whatever that meant. As long as it worked. "Do I even want to know what any of this says?"
Her young and enthusiastic assistant started to point and explain. "Well, it starts with that symbol over there that represents the..."
"Wasn't really asking." Vicki held up her hand to stop Coreen from going on and wasting the rest of the night. "We only have about five hours left before Henry there turns into a pumpkin, and we lose the only person in this group capable of withstanding a fairy attack." She had to stop there. "I can't believe I just said that."
"I can't believe you said that either," Mike snickered.
"Shut up."
Coreen clapped her hand like a schoolteacher after lunch. "Okay, let's focus, people."
"Focus on what?" Vicki muttered. They all took their positions along the outside of the circle, feeling more or less like idiots for doing so. Mike and Vicki, more, and Henry, who was rather used to supernatural dealings by now, rather less.
Focusing. It was harder than she thought.
First, there was the thought that if she screwed up, she might wind up with the Stay-Puff Marshmallow man. Ravaging through Toronto, now there was a thought. And then she had to stop and discipline herself for thinking that, which led to wondering if thinking that would actually summon the damn thing. Which led to, of all things, wondering if Henry had seen Ghostbusters and would even recognize it if he saw it. Which led to trying to gather her thoughts and focus them on the center of the circle, bringing to it what she wanted, and not letting it out to wander through the city like Godzilla in Tokyo. Had Henry seen Godzilla?
"Focus!"
Focusing.
It was probably only the fact that she had been used in rituals before, well, and the whole chanting thing, that helped her realize there was energy flowing out of her and into the whatever it was Coreen was doing in the circle. It was a little like having blood drawn. Only more unnerving.
Her first hint that something was going wrong was Coreen's muttered "oh, shit." and that came only seconds before the muffled thud. Like something large and heavy hitting the ground from a very short distance, possibly floating above it. There hadn't been anything floating in the room before she had closed her eyes. When had she closed her eyes? Probably when she had been trying to focus.
"Um. Vicki."
Vicki opened her eyes. Henry and Mike were staring at it, and Coreen looked kind of as though she wanted to do the damsel in distress thing, and jump into Henry's arms. Probably Henry's, because Coreen didn't seem to have much of a thing for Mike. Not that Vicki knew why, Mike was damn good looking, for as much of a jerk as he could be. Great in bed, too. And now she was just distracting herself from the fact that she had a body on the floor of her office that hadn't been there a few minutes ago.
"Coreen."
"Yeah?"
"Why is there a body on the floor of my office?"
They all stared at it for a moment. "I guess the summoning spell worked."
Vicki shook her head. "I could give you a pair of sunglasses and a soundtrack by The Who, if that would make you any wittier." Henry and Coreen just stared at her. "I figured the summoning spell worked, what I want to know is, what is this, and why is it dead on my office floor?" Because if the summoning spell had killed it, she was going to have a lot of questions about where Coreen had gotten that grimoire.
"I have no idea..." she sounded just as unnerved as Vicki felt.
"Well. Shit."