Golem in My Glovebox (6 page)

“You found my mom?” I sat up straight, my heart beating fast. “Where is she? Is she okay?”

“Wait, don’t get too excited. I don’t know where she is. But I do think I’ve figured out who did it. That’s more of a clue than we’ve had since she was taken.”

A little of my excitement deflated. Not all, but some. “Oh.”

Riley squeezed my shoulder. “What do you know, Art?”

“Is that Riley? Am I on speakerphone? Take me off of speakerphone!”

I stretched my legs down the steps and crossed my feet at the ankles. “There’s no one else around, Art. This is a secure line. You may proceed. Over.”

Riley poked me in the side. “Quit teasing him,” he whispered.

I winked. “Seriously, Art. Riley has to hear this, too, and nobody else is here. What’s going on?”

He paused for a long moment. “Zoey, there’s a prisoner missing from the compound. I wasn’t here when she escaped, and I only found out this morning. She’s been gone for about two and a half years.”

Riley scratched his cheek. “That’s not long before the Board members started showing up dead.”

“Exactly,” Art said.

“So who is she?” I asked.

Again, silence. When Art finally spoke, his voice was low and quiet. “I can’t tell you over the phone. I really can’t. Bernice doesn’t even know I’m calling you. You have to come out here, Zoey. Bernice won’t listen to me, and you’re the only one who can fight this person.”

If it weren’t for the shakiness in his voice and the fear seeping through the phone line, I’d think Bernice put him up to this to get me out there.

I gave Riley a questioning look. He shrugged.

“Art, let me call you back,” I said.

“Hurry,” he said. “Bernice is going to be angry with me as it is.”

I hung up and stared at the phone in my hand. “What do you think, Riley?”

“We were talking about going away anyway. And a lead is a lead, even if it’s only Art putting clues together and coming up with the wrong answer. We might get something out of the information.”

“We were talking about a weekend. This could take a week.”

“Maybe more.”

I rubbed the space between my eyebrows. “I’d have to talk about it with Sara first. She’s already taking most of the clients these days, and I have a consult tomorrow morning. Maurice would have a heart attack if I took off and left him for that long.”

Riley leaned against the stairs and propped his elbows on the step behind him. “All right. Let’s think this through. What else have you got this week?”

“A couple of follow-up appointments later in the week.” I ticked off items on my fingers. “Dry cleaning to pick up on Wednesday. I have to keep an eye on Stacy. We need groceries. Probably need to take the car in for an oil change soon.”

“Lame. You’ve only had that car for a month. Sounds like you’re stalling.”

“A week is a long time.” I peered around at my empty front yard. Riley was right. I was stalling. This was probably the quietest it had been at my place for six months. Earlier in the day, of course, we’d had a fairly full house, but that was because of the naming ceremony and party afterward. The brownie family had gone back to their mushroom house at the far edge of my backyard. The fawn/dryad family, Tashi the yeti and a tribe of fairies had disappeared to their homes in the woods that surrounded my property. Sara had gone home to Sausalito and took Andrew and his partner Daniel with her.

Somewhere out back a centaur with a broken leg convalesced in a tent. A gryphon with a nasty mite infestation stayed in a corner of the yard under self-imposed quarantine. A family of gnomes hid out under my porch, but they’d been there for a month and a half and still hadn’t told us why they were there.

For the moment, it seemed, nobody was in dire need of my help. As long as the sanctuary of my house held, they didn’t really need the Aegis.

If I didn’t go now, I’d probably never get another chance. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes.” I nodded my head with vigor. “Let’s do this.”

* * *

To my surprise, Maurice took the news in stride. It was Sara who threw a fit.

“Dammit, Zoey.” She tossed her glasses on her desk and rubbed her eyes. “We can’t keep this up. I’m exhausted. You’re down to two days a week as it is, and now you’re running off for a week?”

Her frustration blew across the room in soft, rolling waves. Even her emotions felt tired and worn. The fact that she was wearing glasses instead of her contacts said everything.

“I know. I’ve been putting way too much on you since all this Hidden stuff started. I’ll cancel the trip.” I meant it. I couldn’t keep putting so much on Sara.

She sighed and picked up her glasses. “No, don’t do that. It’s the first time you’ve had any clues about your mom in awhile. You have to go. It’s not even especially busy here lately. I’m just...I’m just tired.”

I frowned. “You’re still not sleeping.”

She shook her head. “Nightmares nearly every night. And I’m beginning to remember bits and pieces of them.”

I crossed the room and settled into the loveseat by her desk. “Tell me.”

“It’s nothing really solid. Chased down a dock by a pirate who turns out to be a vampire. Eyes staring back at me in a dark mirror. Uncomfortably erotic dreams that start out nice but I wake up screaming. I don’t know, Zoey. I think I’m losing my mind.”

My throat locked up, and it took me a minute to answer. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me all this? You were supposed to tell me if you started remembering.”

Not that I knew what the hell to do about it if she did start remembering. The previous autumn, a nasty incubus named Sebastian had come to town. He fed on emotions, and my empath abilities had not only targeted me, but also all the women I came in contact with. Several women died an agonizing death in which he forced them to orgasm repeatedly while he sucked away their life essence.

It was metaphysical rape.

As bad as that was, Sara had it worse. He’d been making frequent visits to her house, feeding off of her slowly. I was pretty sure he wanted me to catch him in the act. He’d been taunting me with his kills. When I found him, Sara was nearly dead, and the metaphysical rape was also very much a physical one.

With Andrew and Riley’s help, I’d saved Sara, banished Sebastian, and funneled energy back into Sara’s psyche so she would live. When she woke up, she had no memory of Sebastian or anything else that had happened. We didn’t know if the memory loss was demon related or the self-preservation of a wounded mind. Once she found out about the events, she counted herself lucky not to remember and hoped she would continue to forget.

And then the nightmares started. Sara insisted she didn’t remember the dreams at all. Nor could she explain her compulsion to cover all the mirrors in her bedroom so she could sleep at night.

So, it looked like the memories Sara so dearly wanted to stay gone were coming back. For anybody else, it would be a no-brainer. She was a rape victim. The nightmares were probably due to post-traumatic stress. Or something. Obviously, Sara needed a therapist to help her through this.

But what therapist could she talk to about surviving an incubus attack?

My face must have conveyed my worry. Sara burst out laughing and grabbed my hand across the desk. “Quit scrutinizing me. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re worn out.” And any minute she might remember everything and shatter into a million pieces. I couldn’t run across the country chasing the half-baked theories of a man who didn’t even like me. I needed to be here for Sara if she cracked. When she cracked. “I’m not going anywhere.” I stood and marched to my own desk, as if the matter were settled.

It wasn’t. “Bullshit. You need to go. I’m fine. End of discussion.”

“I’m ignoring you,” I said, taking a sip of coffee and shuffling papers on my desk.

“Ignore me all you want. Just do it on your trip.”

“Trip? What trip?” I plucked a tissue from its container and made a show of mopping up two drops of coffee on my desk.

The door to the office jangled, and two women stepped through, ending the argument. Fighting in front of potential new clients is considered bad form in the wedding-planning industry. Or, I imagine, the delicious fruit-smoothie industry. Really, any industry. Bad form.

The women were tall and slim, almost ethereal. One had inky black hair, and the other a blonde so light and fluffy, it looked like a cloud had settled over her head and shoulders. Both women wore broad-brimmed hats with trailing ribbons in bright colors. My fingers itched to snatch the hats and try them on. They were seriously gaudy and awesome.

I couldn’t tell how old the ladies were—somewhere between thirty and fifty, maybe. A huge span, but I couldn’t tell. Nor could I tell which one was the bride and which was, I assumed, the maid of honor.

I put on my best wedding-planner smile and came around my desk to shake hands.

“Welcome!” I said. “I’m Zoey.”

The blonde took my hand in both of hers. “I’m Alex. We spoke on the phone. And this is Jamie.”

I blinked and looked at them both.
Jamie is a girl.
The groom is a girl.
Pull it together
,
Zoey.
“Oh,” I said, feeling stupid. “Of course. Jamie.” I shook Jamie’s hand.

She grinned down at me. They both had to be close to six feet tall. “You were expecting a man.”

Honesty was the best way to go in a situation like this. I looked stupid all the time, anyway. No need to make it worse by backpedalling and trying to cover.

“Yes, I did. But it’s a pleasant surprise.” I led them to the loveseat across from my desk and held my hand out for them to be seated. “I’m so glad you came.”

It wasn’t as if, in all the time we’d be doing business, we’d never planned a gay ceremony before, but I hadn’t realized this would be one of them. Kind of like biting into cheesecake and finding out it was crème brûlée. Still good, just unexpected.

I introduced them to Sara, and Sara got them coffee while I set up the paperwork.

“Alex, you said on the phone you were thinking of a December wedding. Is there an exact date you had in mind?”

I looked up from my paperwork and found both women staring at me with silly grins on their faces. Did I have lipstick on my teeth? Part of the donut I ate on the way in stuck to my cheek? A booger dangling from my nostril? I slid my hand over my face as casually as I could. Nothing seemed to be wrong. I patted my hair. They kept looking at me, not saying a word. And smiling.

“Okay,” I said. Maybe they were so in love their heads weren’t in the game, yet. I’d have to nudge them a bit. It happened, sometimes. “How about we go over the budget? How much were you planning to spend?”

Nothing. Dumb grins.

Sara placed cups of coffee in front of them and they barely flinched.

I leaned forward. “Ladies? Dates? Budget? Color scheme? Anything?”

They looked at each other and grinned even brighter. “It’s just such an honor to meet you,” Alex said.

“And to have you plan our wedding,” Jamie said, “well, that’s so exciting!”

I glanced at Sara and she shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said. She folded her arms and rested one hip on the edge of my desk. Until we knew what was going on, she wasn’t going anywhere.

The women beamed at me, then beamed at each other. In tandem, they took off their hats and waited.

Ears longer than my hands poked their pointy tips out of all that glossy, fluffy hair. They took me by surprise for the second time in five minutes.

Ah.
Elves.
Wait
,
elves?
In my office?

Sara let out a chuff of air. I schooled my face to stay neutral. It wasn’t easy. At home, nothing surprised me, no matter how crazy. Work was different. The Hidden weren’t supposed to show up at my desk. The Hidden weren’t
clients
.

“Sara,” I said, not looking away from the women across from me. “Could you lock the door, please? We wouldn’t want anyone walking in.”

We didn’t get a lot of people walking into our office without an appointment, but it did happen occasionally. Sara hurried to the door and turned the latch.

“Got it.” She returned to her perch on the corner of my desk.

I shifted in my chair. “Ladies, I’m not sure what you actually need from me. If this is a Hidden wedding, I have to warn you, I haven’t done one of those before. If you’re wanting a wedding out in the open, well...” I trailed off, gesturing at their prominent ears. “We’ll have to special order the veils or come up with some hats that absolutely won’t blow off. Not to mention making sure none of your Hidden guests catch a human’s eye.”

My two worlds had collided, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. Plus, I was about to go on a road trip. This fusion of Aegis and wedding planner was one more complication than I could handle.

Alex reached over and knit her fingers with Jamie’s. They smiled into each other’s eyes, then turned back to me. “We were hoping...We wanted to ask...” Alex swallowed.

Jamie patted her fiancée’s leg and took over. “We’ve heard about the protection bubble around your home, about how no one can see or hear what’s going on without being inside.”

“So, you’re wanting to have your wedding at my place?” What an off-the-wall request. I wasn’t against it, but I hadn’t been prepared for it, either.

“We would pay you for it,” Alex said. “We don’t want to be a bother. It’s just that, we’ve been having some problems, and we thought it was the best solution.”

I frowned. “What sort of problems?”

Jamie squeezed Alex’s hand. “The Hidden Church of Wisdom. They’re not very tolerant, and we’re not exactly a traditional couple. They picket weddings like ours. They’ve made it known that they think our love is unnatural and against the will of the gods.”

Intolerance in the Hidden world was foreign to me. I had no idea it existed. Even humans had legalized same-sex marriage in this state. And humans tended to move pretty slow in the equality race.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What is this church? I’ve never heard of it before.”

“It used to be a fringe movement,” Jamie said. “But lately it’s picked up followers and seems to be spreading.”