Page 57 of Tooth and Nail

“Yes, well, several years later—when I’d been working for the I.S.R. for about two years—a different homebuilder bought a separate plot of farmland nearby and cleared it, leveling it out to pour foundations. One night, while he was inspecting the land out there by himself, he was attacked and killed. He was buried and when his construction crew came out the next morning, they found a fresh grave had been dug with a backhoe which was on-site. It looked like the homebuilder had been attacked by wild animals, but an animal attack didn’t explain who would’ve buried him. By the way, Devon had been killed in the same manner. He was clawed and bitten and bled out.”

“That’s awful.”

Eoghan thought of his own scarred back, though, they’d been made by an entirely different creature. He pushed the thoughts away. “Yes. It was gruesome. Anyway, as soon as the fingerprints found on the backhoe were put into AFIS, strange readings came back. The police couldn’t figure it out. Our rapid response team found the report of these very distortedfingerprints and ran them through the I.S.R.’s database which does a comparison of all known and unknown species as well. As it turns out, the comparison looked at fingerprints of Oberon and Titania but also the ones taken from my crime scene. Rapid response immediately knew that the attackers of the homebuilder were the same ones who’d assaulted me and Devon.”

“The team found those pretty quickly?” Ari asked.

Eoghan shot him a glance. “Hello?Rapidresponse team.” He smiled at him before looking back out the windshield. “They regularly check police databases all over the country. Some small-time sheriff’s departments in tiny towns don’t have access to a lot of things. Hell, some are barely computerized, but all of them have AFIS to check fingerprints. If a set of strange fingerprints come in and they don’t look human or even if they are flagged in another way like missing a digit, our rapid response team will pick it up.”

“Noted. So, what happened?”

“I told Gladys what they found and together we compared the sets of fingerprints to Oberon and Titania. They only have three digits on each hand when they’re in their fairie forms and none of them matched the sample taken from the backhoe. That’s when we knew they had to belong to one of my attackers or another fairie. When we checked on the suspects in my attack, that’s when we knew we’d found Oberon and Titania’s rivals, the fairies who’d attacked me and Devon.”

“So, they hadn’t returned to their star system or whatever?”

“No, they’d basically moved around the block and taken up residence somewhere near the next tract of homes to be built, about five miles away from Titania and Oberon and their offspring. We think they were waiting for more of their clan to arrive from space and had the farmer’s land scoped out fora landing pad. When he sold it to a homebuilder, they killed him to stop him from continuing with the homesite. Basically, they didn’t want any interference with their plans. All in all, we speculated that they were waiting for reinforcements to arrive before challenging Oberon and Titania’s clan of space fairies.”

“For what?”

“Who the fuck knows what their feud was about. All we knew was that we didn’t want some full-scale space fairie war taking place here on Earth.”

“Jesus, I should say so,” Ari said. He was quiet for a minute or two. “How did you know it was fairies who killed the builder? Aside from the fingerprints, was there something else that gave it away?”

Eoghan grinned and glanced over at him before looking back. “You’re very smart, you know? I should like to think that it’d be you investigating my murder if that ever happens.”

“Come on, now. Don’t go on so, Eoghan.”

He glanced at him, seeing the distressed look. “I’m sorry.” He went on. “Anyway, yes, whenever space fairies are anywhere around…hmm…” He tapped his chin. “How should I explain this?” He thought about it for a few seconds before it came to him. “Did you ever read Peter Pan?”

“No, Iah—” Ari coughed into his hand. “I saw the movie,” he mumbled behind his closed fist.

“What?” Eoghan turned to look at him. “I didn’t catch that. Did you read it?”

Ari sighed. “No, I saw the movie…you know, the Disney cartoon.”

Eoghan grinned. “Were you ashamed to tell me that because you’re embarrassed or something?”

“It’s a kid’s cartoon fairytale,” he replied shyly.

“You’re kidding, right? Every kid in the world has seen some Disney cartoon at one time or another.” He paused and glanced over. “Were you really embarrassed?”

“It’s a cartoon about fairies,” Ari stated. “I was just a little shy about admitting I enjoyed it.”

“Fuck, Ari, you don’t have to be ashamed or shy about that. Every kid needs fantasy. It’s how we learn to differentiate pretend from reality which comes all too soon in our emotional development. It all boils down to this…it’s good to be a kid as long as you can because real life is going to come up and kick you in the nuts soon enough.”

Ari leaned over and brushed the back of his knuckles over his cheek, and Eoghan leaned into the gentle touch. It felt so good he wished he wasn’t driving because he’d kiss him again. When he pulled his hand away, Eoghan had the strongest urge to reach up and cover the spot with his own fingers.

Ari was smiling when he glanced over at him again. “Okay, Eoghan. Go on with your story. This is all informative and interesting.”

Eoghan smiled. “Okay, hang on to your hat, Ari Brown. This is where shit gets real.”

Chapter Fifteen

“Seriously?” Ari asked. “As if all this shit hasn’t been real until now. Sheesh.”

Eoghan glanced over at him and smiled before reading a passing road sign which told him they’d be in Bakersfield in fifty miles. He sighed.

“The short answer is yes, Okay, so you asked me about whether there was another way we can detect if a space fairie has been at the scene of a murder or responsible for creating some manner of chaos.”

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