Page 17 of Shield of Fire

Mathi tucked his phone back into his pocket, then offered me his arm. I hooked mine through his and let him lead me forward. The man directly across the road was watching us with no little amount of suspicion.

“Keep walking and talking,” Mathi murmured. “We’re nothing more than lovers out for a morning stroll.”

“Because the shitty nature of the weather doesn’t make that suspicious at all.”

He laughed softly. “You’re the daughter of a weather god. You should be reveling in this crap.”

We walked around the pub’s corner and angled across Falkner Street, heading for the side street. Our watcher made no move to follow us, and his companion down the street seemed more interested in the car parked near his position. I hoped whatever was happening in that car continued to hold his interest.

Once in the side street, we walked down to the end of the betting shop. Two cars had parked on either side of the small lane that ran behind it. Mathi casually pulled some keys from his pocket, as if intending to open one car, and then studied the lane. I crossed my arms and did the same. It was small and narrow, with overflowing bins forming untidy lines down one side, while weeds lined the wooden fence on the other. A small external staircase ran up the betting shop’s back wall to what looked to be a roof terrace atop the single-story back half of the building. There didn’t appear to be any access onto the terrace from the first-floor portion of the building, but someone had propped an extension ladder in front of the solitary back window.

I studied the tiled roof but couldn’t see anyone up there, nor was there any sign of the shimmering air I’d seen in the vision.

He was there, though.

I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him.

Which was both weird and concerning, if only because if the connection went both ways, we might well be walking into a trap.

I frowned and rubbed my arms. Was the elf someone from my past? A lover or friend, perhaps? There’d certainly been a brief spark of recognition, but as of this moment, I couldn’t place him.

“Have you any sense of him?” Mathi asked softly.

I dragged my gaze from the roof. “He’s there.”

“Then it’s probably best if you take him out, given your knives will counter any spell he casts. I’ll stay here and handle the watchers when they react.”

I nodded and touched his arm. “Be careful. I’ve a bad feeling things could go very wrong.”

A smile twitched his lips. “Is that pessimism or second sight speaking?”

“Former rather than the latter, but still worthy of taking notice.”

“Notice taken. Go.”

Movement drew my gaze back toward Falkner Street, but it was only a short woman in an overly large brown coat pushing a stroller across the intersection. I flexed my fingers and walked into the lane, making my way past the first lot of bins to the stairs at the end of the building. They were heavily rusted, covered in grime and rubbish, and looked ready to collapse at the slightest hint of weight. The whole thing wobbled alarmingly as I moved up them, but I made it onto the terrace without it collapsing.

I glanced around again. The terrace was empty, and the thick layer of moss covering the concrete suggested the area hadn’t been used for a long time. There were no footprints evident in that moss, but elves did walk light.

On the street below, the brown-coated woman with the stroller was now in the side street and walking purposely toward Mathi’s position. Maybe he was standing near her car... I frowned. There was something odd about her features... they looked weirdly unfinished. I couldn’t see any indication of a shield or glamor, but trepidation nevertheless stirred.

But it wasn’t like I could warn Mathi that something was off with her—not without warning the man above that I was here, anyway—and besides, Mathi was more than capable of dealing with whatever problem she presented.

The window behind the ladder was cracked and held together by a multitude of yellowed tape. The various bits of furniture and old shelving units visible through the grimy glass suggested it might be a storeroom. Hopefully, it wasn’t a store that was frequented often, because the last thing we needed right now was the regular police being pulled into the situation.

I stopped at the bottom of the ladder and glanced up. That weird sense of awareness hadn’t wavered in intensity, and it told me that, just as I’d seen, the elf stood toward the front of the building and to the right, which placed him close to the old chimney. I had no sense of anyone else, and the knives weren’t reacting, which hopefully meant there weren’t any magical snares employed.

It should be safe to climb, but I couldn’t escape the growing certainty that the shit was primed and ready to hit the fan.

I flexed my fingers, then gripped the sides of the ladder and went up.

I’d reached the halfway point when a softly accented voice said, “You never were very adept at climbing things quietly, dear Bethany.”

I briefly froze. The faintest caress of magic accompanied the comment, and while my knives remained mute, my heart rate leapt.

I swallowed heavily and continued on. The wind stirred lightly around me, tempting me to gather her, despite the fact she’d proven useless against this elf’s barrier last night.

“How do you know my name?”

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