Page 51 of Sidhe
Thenextmorning,theyset themselves up in the middle of the bar with all the things they thought they would need to begin their hunt, and made a point of discussing it very openly when Solrin came down for breakfast. They just hoped that the final hunt they had narrowed their search to—right in Rushville rather than any of the activity in the surrounding towns—was the one Solrin was after as well.
Nathan wished he could force his incubus to rest for the day. Their feverish romp that night had been good for Sasha, but it wasn’t yet enough, even if Sasha kept insisting he was fine. The last thing they needed was for one of them to pass out in the middle of a hunt for dark fae. Their mission may be more focused on getting to know and understand Solrin, but the hunt was still real.
“Frankly, I can’t believe another seal hasn’t started working on this yet,” Jim said just as Solrin first entered the bar. “Alex,” hecalled to her, “you’re sure no one’s looking into this? It’s right in town.”
Alex shook her head, playing along. “Haven’t heard anything.”
“Good thing we’re here then,” Nathan said. “Now, baby, I know you say you’re feeling fine, but can you maybe stick to digging up the info and let Jim and I handle the killing part when it comes to it? This thing sounds pretty nasty if it’s eating half these kids before leaving ‘em.” Sasha scowled as Nathan said that but Nathan went right on before the incubus could protest. “What’s the time frame again, Jim?”
Just off their periphery, Nathan could see Solrin at a nearby table, waiting to be served. So far he was doing a pretty fine job of pretending he wasn’t listening in. “Last one was the fourth in two months,” Jim said, “the deaths happening every two weeks almost like clockwork. That doesn’t give us much time before the next one’s supposed to happen. A few days only.”
“All teenage boys?” Nathan asked with a furrowed brow. As much as they were putting on a show, their concern and interest in the case was honest.
Sasha nodded. “Four boys, all around sixteen. It’s a small town so this hasn’t gone unnoticed. Police report states it’s some kind of animal, but not with that specific an M.O. Gotta be something a little more than Smokey the Bear. No particular fae comes to mind right off the bat, so I figure we should start with the coroner.”
Nathan shuffled through some of the papers spread out on the table between them. “What were these kids’ names again?”
There was the sudden unsettling sound of wood scrapping along the floor as Solrin pushed his chair back and stood. “Tyson Byrnes. Eric Koenig. Paul Christensen. And Jared Logan,” he listed off. “Jared was the first. It seems…we are here for the same thing,” he said, perhaps mildly suspicious sounding, whichwould have made Nathan nervous if he didn’t deep down believe they could pull this off.
“Well, how do ya like that?” Nathan smiled over at the guy, who was slowly walking closer to their table to inspect their work. “I’d say something like ‘we got here first’ or ‘finders keepers’ but I suppose that would be a little childish of me.”
Solrin didn’t so much as crack a smile. He looked to each of them, asking silent permission to look over what they had, and when Jim gave the okay on their behalf, he immediately hunkered down over the table like he had when they saw him working alone. He paged through what they had put together quickly.
“We appear to be at the same place,” he said, standing up tall when he had finished. Today he was without his trench coat. Instead, he wore cargo pants, a grey button-down, and a short black jacket. It all looked rather mismatched and ill-fitting. Bandages still stuck out in places and were still wrapped all around his left eye. “I know no more than you do,” he added, “either of us could take the case.”
Crap. Nathan hadn’t expected so easy a compromise. “We wouldn’t wanna step on any toes here, but we did do all this work. Since Sasha’s a little worse for the wear yet—shut up, yes youare,” he said the second he saw the redhead about to protest. “Since he’s still getting over thatbughe had,” Nathan continued pointedly, “it’d really help us out to have an extra set of hands. Couldn’t be too safe taking on something that’s been tearing kids apart all by your lonesome anyway, right?”
Solrin’s answering expression clearly said what Nathan already knew, that this guy preferred being on his ‘lonesome’ regardless of the danger.
“Hey, man,” Nathan held up his hands, “just trying to be hospitable. So you’re not a team player, I get it, but it’s only one case here that we all happen to be eyeing. Could make things gomore smoothly to work together. If you’re not up for that, we’ll move on and it’s all yours. No hard feelings.” It was a risk to give up so easily, but Nathan knew that if he seemed too pushy this guy would never fall for the con.
The way Solrin stared at Nathan after that, and Jim and Sasha with quick movements of his single green eye, had Nathan worried he had somehow given them away. It wasn’t as if they could just come out and say, ‘hey, we’re trying to save you from the Devil here, pal’.
But when Solrin’s attention settled back on Nathan, whatever was making the guy wary of them seemed to fade, at least enough for him to say, “I suppose that wouldn’t be entirely…abhorrent,” and with words like that the guy reminded Nathan of Jim on his ‘look how smart I am’ days. “But you surprise me. I aided you last night, that’s true, but…most seals avoid working with me. Those who have, often…regret it. You seem almost eager.” There was suspicion again, very apparent.
“Gee, pal, you make it sound like every seal who’s ever worked with you comes out maimed,” Nathan tried to joke.
Solrin didn’t laugh.
“Okay,” Nathan said a little drawn out, “well, hey…if you want me to be really honest with ya, the truth is I just can’t stand seeing another young guy out there doing this job alone. Sasha here,” he looked to the redhead, “he hunted alone until he met up with us, and you can guess I’m pretty damn happy he stuck around. Not that I’m saying this little teaming up ought to be permanent, and I’m sure as hell not hitting on ya, pal. I’m just, ya know…saying.” He shrugged. He hadn’t spoken a single lie in all that so he hoped Solrin heard it for the truth it was.
Solrin eyed all of them gaugingly. “Maimed is…actually fairly accurate for some,” he said, answering Nathan’s joke from before.
“Others just got a little spooked?” Sasha said. “We’re not like that.”
Solrin took a breath, his expression betraying that he was close to caving.
“We’re pretty used to weird,” Jim said with his beaming, friendly smile and tender puppy eyes. “Sort of goes with the territory. You’d be more than welcome.”
On that cue, Nathan kicked out beneath the table at the empty chair opposite him, which was close enough for Solrin to take. Amazingly enough, the guy did, pulled the chair out further and sat down.
“So,” he looked around at each of them again, “where did you wish to begin?”
They were all business for a good half hour, detailing for Solrin how they thought it would be best to start off the hunt given that there were four of them now.
Jim and Nathan would get into the morgue to look at the bodies. Two of the boys were still on ice. Sasha and Solrin would check out the funeral home and cemetery for some word on the other bodies. Unless they wanted to go grave-digging, which was always an option.
Sasha had assured Nathan earlier that being around Solrin and knowing he was the cause of that drawn-in feeling made its power lessen. Jim said the same. That made Nathan feel at least a little better about leaving Sasha alone with him, but he also worried about Solrin finding out that Jim and Sasha weren’t exactly human and how the guy might react.
