White Witch Where Art Thou?



1



A good game of cat and mouse is an excellent way to start the night.



         I peeked around the corner impatiently.  The hardest part about tagging a naughty fae is the waiting.  My shape-shifting cohort, Dillian, was watching the apartment from a better angle than me and had yet to signal me.  On tonight’s menu was an Unseelie fae called a gancanagh.  Unfortunately, a lot like demons, I had the most problems with fae that kinda fed off humans.  And I was not one to stop them.  Everybody has to eat.  I prefer cheeseburgers, but whatever.  Gancanagh looked quite human; slim, pale and with an ethereal beauty to them, but human enough looking to appeal to their food.  Because they fed off sex I generally thought of them rather like incubus demons.  That there lay the problem.  Gancanagh had an addictive toxin on their skin.  A pleasurable and aphrodisiac toxin as well.  It was fine if they limited it to one night stands.  That is what the established law for such breeds was now.  This one, going by the name Peter Meadows, had let it go too far.  He had been warned the last time he got someone addicted to him, but before the toxin got to the lethal stage.  This would be a strike two and that meant he was going back home whether he liked it or not.

         I lit a smoke and leaned against the wall.  He was hunting north of the river or I would have heard of it sooner.  My city being Haven, which was on the southern side of the North Saskatchewan River and not Newhaven, which was a growing city on the northern side.  Haven was mine because it was pack right full of Other races, whereas Newhaven was mostly humans.  Perfect for a gancanagh to hunt.

         I worked for the Accords Council.  A council made up of all the Other races in the mortal realm and a representative for the Hells and Faerie.  Even though I was a half-breed of fae and demon blood, I held the seat for Faerie.  Most humans had a rather strange infatuation with the fae.  Saw most of us as mischievous tricksters whose pranks were mostly harmless, or they saw us as stunning and mystical.  So it was my job to ensure they kept that warm and fuzzy impression.  The fae who lived in the mortal realm had land rights.  Land rights that could be taken away if too many unflattering incidents were to hit the press.  Because of religious embellishments demons were not quite seen in the same way.  They were simply evil, even if the Hells had absolutely nothing to do with the eternal torment of human souls.  Hard to get past that rap.  I made use of my breeding to intimidate or bedazzle as needed.

         The last war between fae and demons was fought on the earthly realm since it was the realm that bordered the Hells and Faerie.  It had been essentially a squabble, but made humans aware of hybrids within their own realm and other realm threats.  They had taken it badly, as humans are so prone to over reacting with disruptions in balances of power, when they were clearly on the lower end of the scale.  It had taken the mortal realm quite some time to adjust to the knowledge of were-shifters, vamps and other races existed.  Brought a whole new level to racism, but I rather thought things had settled down the last fifty years, humans sticking to daylight and everything else functioning at night.  I was simply part of the treaty arrangement, having communication with the Inter-squad police force and the fae.  Officially my business was only fae business.  I worked for the Accords, the treaties the Other races of the border-realm, demons and fae had signed and followed.  That is why my team handled everything else and I tagged fae offenders and handled Accords business.

         I puffed on my smoke and hoped the tag would not take too much longer.  I had a meeting with my little werewolf informant to get to.  Since she picked a human club as the meeting place I was wearing uncomfortably low riding jeans and a skin tight T-shirt that revealed some of my abdomen.  I felt the jeans shifting down to places I did not want them to go.  I should have rethought the whole underwear thing.  The things I did to blend.

         Fae had a sort of unreal, sharpness to their features, making them look aloof and arrogant.  That was not the case tonight.  I had a glamour designed to make me unnoticeable and bland.  Wore it most of the time really.  Normally, it was impolite to bombard humans with unshielded fae essence.  Unshielded and letting our outer aura just unravel tended to hit the human mind like a wall.  They ended up bedazzled or charmed, which according to the Accords was under the ‘illegal influencing’ and ‘taking away the will power’ of another, aka, a human.  So it was polite to constrain the outer aura, creating a sort of wall of energy and preventing it from expanding.  The shield did not just hold back our essence.  Usually the fae would dampen the ’shine’ of their fae nature, add in a glamour to make people comfortable and then layer in an illusion to mask the more obvious fae traits.  So, ironically, we influenced the human mind more wearing our exterior dampening shields, than without, but just in a soothing sort of fashion.  Of course, for me, the more valid reason was that I did not want to be noticed most of the time.  No matter what the fae looked like, they were certainly noticed.  Hell, in most parts of the country tourists would take pictures of them.

         This was getting boring.  How long did it take this fae to get his groove on?

         ‘Dillian?’ I mind called.  I had a mind link spell to all my employees to handle jobs just like this.

         -Yeah, darling?-

         -Have you heard from Viv?-

         -Vivica called earlier said that job for Vincent to catch the rogue fledgling is a done deal.’

         I mentally shrugged.  I hired my services and my staff’s to anyone that helped maintain a balance.  This made me money, connects and established a safe environment for the fae guests.  Dillian ran the show on most of that.  He liked playing detective.

         ‘Good.  One job down.’

         It was my job to make Other races look good, or at least put out fires quickly.  I had one vamp, a shifter and one human psychic on staff.  I basically covered anything else.  Rogue vamps happened and were easy gigs.  I think they entertained Vivica, since new vamps, if made, not born, were very confused and weak.  Occasionally one was made by a born vampire who did not have the strength, or the turned vamp had latent abilities that made them resist control.  Often this was accidental and certainly it was illegal.  This meant the turned vamp was not tied metaphysically to its maker.  Vampires really did not like anyone outside of their established hierarchy of power. 

         I took the jobs on because rogue vamps were brutally thirsty and with no self control.  Vincent preferred it was dealt with quickly before the human Inter-squad force had to deal with it and he was fined.  Vivica was easily two hundred years older than me and a born vampire; no fledgling was a threat to her.  She was my in with Vincent, our local Master.  They knew each other back in the day and were around the same strength, but Vivica did not quite have the strength to tie anyone to her yet and was no threat to Vincent.

         ‘I got movement.’

         ‘Bout damn time.’

         ‘I will take the front.  You can come up behind him.’

         ‘Got it.’

         ‘He is coming out now.’

         We had scoped Peter out a few times to make sure he was returning to the same woman.  Actually, women.  He got around.  I peeked around the corner and saw him.  Like most of his race he could alter his appearance some.  He could be blond and blue eyed if his prey liked her man candy that way.  This one appeared to go for a more chocolate hair and eyes version.  Peter began to walk up the quiet residential street towards Dillian’s spot. 

         “Occultistis exos turpise,” I whispered out a nice invisibility spell.  Nothing grand, just to hide me from plain sight if he happened to get nervous and look behind him.  I started to follow him quietly as possible.

         ‘I’m moving,’ Dillian said.

         I picked up my pace and hurried into spell range.  I did not want Peter to make a run for it.  His species of Unseelie had unusually fast reflexes and speed.  Which is why I planned to paralyze him before he even heard me utter the words.

         Dillian stepped in front of him and initiated conversation.  Dillian looked intimidating even if he did not mean to.  Any fae could sense he was a panther shifter and the fact his eyes remained kitty eyes pretty much meant anyone likely could guess.  He was not by any means a large man but he was lean with coiled muscles and packed a mean punch. 

         I pointed at Peter’s back and said, “Habitum, etiam net permovis pareo.”

         The spell spun out of my aura in a flick of light and smacked Peter in the back.  He seemed to totter a bit and the fell over.  Most Unseelie fae had some inborn resistance to some fae magic and so I needed to tag him with the spell that would bind him to Faerie for a century before he shook the paralyze.  A binding oath spell could not be broken and a hundred year term was the sentence for most crimes.  Because in a hundred years no human would care if they came back.

         I rushed over to them, dispelled my invisibility, and gave Peter a stern look.  Dillian and I crouched down.

         “Peter, I swear we have had this conversation before.  This is your second offence within the last ten years.  You did not even try to wait until I forgot.  You did not even move to another city.  That is dumb, man.  Seriously.  So you are recalled to Faerie for a sentence of a hundred years.”

         I placed by hand on his forehead and in his nervousness he let his features slide to their natural coloration or pale gray eyes and silver hair.

         “Boundis domum parump centuri.  Non contineo terra pro tentatiom.”

         I felt the spell burn into him and his body shook as it seeped into his essence.

         We stood up and I dispelled the paralyze spell with a few muttered words a flick of my fingers.  “You have maybe an hour to back to Faerie before you feel the weight of that binding.”

         Peter stood up and hissed out a few curses and then bolted.

         “Well, that is done at least.  Nice easy tag, just the way I like them.  I’ll have to write up a report though.  Thanks for helping me track him.”

         “Nothing to it.”

         I smiled and he frowned.  It was the sort of smile that made him frown.  “I’m off to meet with Sarah, who says she’s got big news for me.  There is always a first.  I would like you to go check on Liona’s place and then track Mel.”

         Liona was one of the fae granted land rights in Haven.  I only kept a close eye on the Seelie fae with land rights, as they were the ones that could cause the most trouble.  Liona had married the local Master vampire and spawned some intriguing vampire fae half-breeds. 

         Dillian grimaced.  “Babysitting again?”

         “Fraid so.  Viv did her job for the night and now its your turn.  So man up, kitty cat.”

         Mel, which would be Vincent and Liona’s eldest, was a genuine party boy who played up on the press fae seemed to attract.  He often treated my agents like his own personal body guards.  Still he was the most likely to cause a trouble for the shear fun of it and less likely if Dillian threaten to bite him.

         “It is great that your back in town, but I could do without these trailing the vamp kiddies runs.  So how did it go with the Bitch Queen of Faerie?”

         Since I had been gone a month he had to know it had not gone well.  “My report went well.  The only reason she demands I go to her directly to report fae issues is so that she can torment me.  Apparently my mother did or said something that pissed her of and somehow I got punished with her.  She has been sent to some Unseelie area and I got thrown in the hole.”

         “Figgers.  I’ll let you know if Mel does anything stupid and you can let me know if Sarah manages to come up with some useful intel.”

         “Deal.  See you on the flip side.”