The Hollows Series Books 1-4

He smiled wickedly. “But you do.”

My eyebrows tried to go up, halted by the tape.

Edden glanced at his closed door. “If this works out—catching Kalamack, I mean …” A thick hand reached to rub his forehead. When his fingers dropped, the easy, self-assured confidence of an FIB captain was gone, replaced with an eager, intelligent gleam that set me back a pace. “I’ve been working for the FIB since I left the service,” he said softly. “I worked my way up by seeing what was missing, and finding it.”

“I’m not a commodity, Captain,” I said hotly.

“Everyone is a commodity,” he said. “My departments at the FIB are at a great disadvantage, Ms. Morgan. Inderlanders have evolved knowing human weaknesses. Hell, you’re probably responsible for half our mental hang-ups. The frustrating truth is, we can’t compete.”

He wanted me to rat on my fellow Inderlanders. He should have known better. “I don’t know anything you can’t find in a library,” I said, gripping my bag tightly. I wanted to get up and storm out, but he had me right where he wanted me, and I could do nothing but watch him smile. His flat teeth were startlingly human compared to the predatory gleam in his eye.

“I’m sure that’s not entirely true,” he said. “But I’m asking for advice, not a betrayal.” Edden leaned back in his chair, seeming to collect his thoughts. “Occasionally,” he said, “tonight with Ms. Tamwood, for example, an Inderlander comes to us seeking help or with information they don’t feel—prudent—taking to the I.S. To be honest, we don’t know how to deal with them. My people are so suspicious that they can’t gain any useful information. On the rare occasion when we do understand, we don’t know how to capitalize on it. The only reason we were able to contain Ms. Tamwood is because she agreed to be incarcerated once it was explained we would be more willing to listen to you if she did. Up until today we have reluctantly turned situations like this over to the I.S.” His eyes met mine. “They make us look like fools, Ms. Morgan.”

He was offering me a job, but my tension swelled instead of easing. “If I wanted a boss, I would have stayed with the I.S., Captain.”

“No,” he protested quickly, his chair creaking as he sat upright. “Having you here would be a mistake. Not only would my officers want my head on a pole, but it’s against the I.S./FIB convention to have you on the payroll.” His smile grew wicked, and I waited for it. “I want you as a consultant—occasionally—as the need demands.”

I let my held breath out slowly, seeing for the first time what he was after.

“What did you say your firm was called?” Edden asked.

“Vampiric Charms,” Nick said.

Edden chuckled. “Sounds like a dating service.”

I winced, but it was too late to change it now. “And I get paid for these occasional services?” I asked, chewing on my lower lip. This might work.

“Of course.”

Now it was my turn to stare at the ceiling, my pulse racing at the chance that I’d found a way out of this. “I’m part of a team, Captain Edden,” I said, wondering if Ivy was having second thoughts about our partnership. “I can’t speak for them.”

“Ms. Tamwood has already agreed. I believe she said, ‘If the little witch says yes, I’ll go along with it.’ Mr. Jenks expressed a similar feeling, but his exact words were substantially more—colorful.”

I glanced at Nick and he shrugged uneasily. There was no guarantee, when all was said and done, that Edden wouldn’t conveniently forget to pay off my contract. But something in his dry humor and honest reactions had convinced me he wouldn’t. Besides, I had already made a pact with a demon tonight. This couldn’t be any worse.

“Captain Edden, we have a deal,” I said suddenly. “It’s Southwest’s 11:45 flight to L.A.”

“Great!” His good hand hit the table with a thump, and I jumped again. “I knew you would. Rose!” he shouted to the closed door. Grinning, he leaned to open it. “Rose! Get a Brimstone dog team out to …” He looked at me. “Where’s the Brimstone take?” he asked.

“Ivy didn’t tell you?” I said in surprise.

“She may have. I want to know if she was lying.”

“Main bus depot,” I said, my heart hammering all the harder. We were going to do this. I was going to tag Trent and get my death threat paid off.

“Rose!” he shouted again. “The old bus depot. Who’s pushing paper tonight who didn’t go to the hospital?”

A feminine but robust voice cut over the accumulated clatter. “Kaman is here, but he’s in the shower getting that bug dust off. Dillon, Ray—”

“Stop,” Edden said. He stood, and, gesturing for Nick and me to join him, darted out of his office. I took a deep breath and lurched to my feet. Much to my surprise, my aches had retreated to dull throbs. We followed Edden down the hall, excitement making my pace quick. “I think the aspirin is finally working,” I whispered to Nick as we caught up to Edden. He was hunched over a spotless desk, talking to the same woman who had brought me the pills.

“Call Ruben and Simon in,” he said. “I need someone with a cooler head. Send them to the airport. Tell them to wait for me.”

“You, sir?” Rose glanced over her glasses at Nick and me. Her frown said it all. She wasn’t happy having two Inderlanders in the building, much less standing behind her boss.

“Yes, me. Get the unmarked van around front. I’m going out tonight.” He hoisted his belt up over his hips. “No mistakes. This one has to be done right.”

Thirty (#ulink_e3aea1ff-3633-5947-8154-c11fdd546b4a)

The floor of the FIB van was surprisingly clean. There was a faint odor of pipe smoke, reminding me of my dad. Captain Edden and the driver, introduced as Clayton, were up front. Nick, Jenks, and I were on the middle bench. The windows were cracked to dilute my perfume. If I’d known they weren’t going to release Ivy until after the deal was done, I wouldn’t have put it on. As it was, I reeked.

Jenks was on a rampage, his tiny voice scraping along the inside of my skull as he ranted, winding my anticipation to new heights. “Put a sock in it, Jenks,” I whispered as I ran the tip of my finger around the bottom of my tiny cellophane bag of nuts for the last of the salt. When the aspirin had dulled my pain, my hunger kicked in. I’d almost rather have done without the aspirin if it meant not being famished.

“Go Turn yourself,” Jenks snarled from the cup holder where I had put him. “They stuffed me into a water cooler. Like I was a freak on display! They broke my fringing wing. Look at it! Snapped the main vein. I’ve got mineral spots on my shirt. It’s ruined! And did you see my boots? I’ll never get the coffee off them.”

“They apologized,” I said, but I knew it was a lost cause. He was on a roll.

“It’s going to take me a week to grow my damn wing back. Matalina is gonna kill me. Everyone hides from me when I can’t fly. Did you know that? Even my kids.”

I tuned him out. The tirade had started the moment they released him and hadn’t quit yet. Though Jenks hadn’t been charged with a crime—seeing as he’d been at the ceiling cheering Ivy on while she pummeled the FIB officers—he had insisted on poking about where he shouldn’t until they put him in an emptied water jug.

I was beginning to see what Edden had been talking about. He and his officers hadn’t a clue as to how to handle Inderlanders. They could have trapped him in a cupboard or drawer as he nosed about. His wings never would have gotten wet and become as fragile as tissue paper. The ten-minute chase with a net wouldn’t have happened. And half the officers on the floor wouldn’t have been pixed. Ivy and Jenks had come to the FIB willingly, and they still ended up leaving a trail of chaos. What a violent, uncooperative Inderlander might do was frightening.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Nick said loud enough for Edden in the front to hear. “Why is Mr. Kalamack padding his pocket with illegal gains? He’s already independently wealthy.”

Edden turned halfway around in his seat, his khaki nylon jacket sliding. He had a yellow FIB hat on, the only sign of his authority. “He must be funding a project he doesn’t want to be found. Money is hard to trace when it’s gotten from illegal means and spent on the same.”

I wondered what it was. Something more going on in Faris’s lab, perhaps?

The FIB captain brought his thick hand to his chin, his round face lit by the cars behind us. “Mr. Sparagmos,” he questioned, “have you ever taken the ferry tour of the waterfront?”

Nick’s face went still. “Sir?”

Edden shook his head. “It’s the damnedest thing. I’m sure I’ve seen you before.”

“No,” Nick said, easing back into the corner of the seat. “I don’t like boats.”

Making a small sound, Edden turned back around in his seat. I exchanged a knowing look with Jenks. The small pixy made a sly face, catching on faster than I had. My empty bag of peanuts crumpled noisily, and I tucked it in my bag, not about to throw it onto the clean floor. Nick was shadowed and closed, the dim light from oncoming motorists blurring his sharp nose and thin face. Leaning close, I whispered, “What did you do?”

His eyes remained fixed out the window, his chest rising and falling in a smooth breath. “Nothing.”

I glanced at the back of Edden’s head. Yeah, right. And I’m the I.S. poster girl. “Look. I’m sorry I got you into this. If you want to just walk away when we get to the airport, I’ll understand.” On second thought, I didn’t want to know what he had done.

He shook his head, giving me a quick flash of a smile. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll see you through tonight. I owe you that for getting me out of that rat pit. One more week, and I was going to go insane.”

Just imagining it gave me a chill. There were worse fates than being on an I.S. death list. I touched his shoulder briefly and eased back into my seat, surreptitiously watching him as he lost his hidden tension and his breath came easier. The more I knew about him, the larger his contrasts with most of humanity became. But instead of worrying me, it made me feel more secure. Back to my hero/damsel in distress syndrome. I’d read too many fairy tales as a child, and I was too much a realist not to enjoy being rescued once in a while.

An uncomfortable silence settled in, and my anxiety swelled. What if we were too late? What if Trent changed the flight? What if it had all been an elaborate setup? God help me, I thought. I had gambled everything on the next few hours. If this didn’t happen, I had nothing.