Page 15 of Explosive Chemistry

It was truth, very vehement truth. The white truth was colored with a blue-tinged possessive fondness for the Celtic wolf-kin and a lot of fire-orange anger.

They were out of time. There were too many people coming toward them. Liliana needed to get away.

She closed her third eyes to let the prince know that she no longer looked at his unshielded thoughts. “I will speak with you again some other time, Colonel Bennet.” She bowed her head, giving him the respect he was due. What she’d learned of him told her that he deserved it.

“Wait.” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed hard enough to hold her there. “Are more Wolfhounds coming to kill Pete? When?”

She looked at his big hand squeezing into her slender shoulder hard enough to bruise. He was too strong for her to break the grip. She could cut off his arm, but that seemed like an overreaction, and it would require her to reveal her arm blades where Normals might see.

The prince let go and held his hand up in apology.

“In less than a year,” she told him. “Death will come for Pete shortly before it comes for you.”

“Dammit! I knew Aurore wouldn’t be stopped that easily.” His hands clenched into fists, and he slammed the pistol back in its holster.

She didn’t need her other eyes now to see that Colonel Alexander Bennet would never order anyone to kill her favorite red wolf. He really did like Pete, more than he craved whatever power he might gain from Pete’s unique sword.

Liliana cocked her head to one side and opened her fourth eyes to look into Pete’s future, looking carefully away from the prince and the Normals. Pete’s death was still there, still with only a bit of flickering, a little uncertain, but unchanged.

The prince knowing ahead of time that the Wolfhounds were coming made no difference. “You cannot stop it this time,” she told him.

He started to ask her something else but turned to look the other way as Detective Jackson raised a hand to wave at him.

Detective Jackson, Pete, Lieutenant Runningwolf, and four strangers from the military and civilian forensics teams were all getting far too close. Behind them, Sergeant Giovanni and a civilian police officer each unrolled an end of wide yellow tape with words on it, “Police Line, Do Not Cross.”

Too many people. And strangers.

Liliana ducked behind the trunk of the big pine and scrambled up into its branches.

The prince turned back to where she had been as if to speak to her again, but Liliana was far above everyone’s heads by then, well-hidden behind clouds of pine needles. He looked around quickly, then turned back to speak to Detective Jackson.

They would speak again another time, Liliana was certain.

Chapter 5

Tea With A Goblin

Doctor Nudd’s death was the next one Liliana had foreseen. If she could save this one life, she could possibly break the chain of death and save her entire community. But she hadn’t yet found a path to safety for Doctor Nudd.

Three days later, after her new scrapes and bruises had time to heal, Liliana stepped out of a self-driving cab into the drizzle. After the last appointment of her workday, she’d caught a ride to the pine woods on the northern edge of Fayetteville just east of Fort Liberty, She held Doctor Nudd’s bulky red and brown sweater, carefully cleaned. As the cab drove away, she slowly walked up the natural stone sidewalk.

Doctor Nudd’s log-sided house with the grass on the roof seemed to get bigger and scarier as she approached. Her feet dragged anchors behind them with each step.

The spider-kin couldn’t remember the last time she had gone to someone else’s house. She cocked her head to the side, thinking. It had been nearly two decades ago when she attended the succession of the king of the lion-kin pride of North Carolina, Andrew Periclum. Then her brothers, Jason and Petros, and their grown children had been with her.

Somewhere along the path of her life, she had settled so deeply into her quiet routine that she had become a recluse, talking to no one but her clients. She hadn’t intended to hide from the world, but sometimes the world could be overwhelming.

Hiding had been easy.

As she walked closer, the wooden door loomed impossibly large and imposing. The carving on it showed a pointy-eared elf dancing in a forest while playing a panpipe and wearing curly-toed shoes. It was excellent workmanship, but highly inaccurate.

Knocking on that elaborately carved wooden door would not be easy.

She pulled the teal velvet cape she wore more tightly around her shoulders in the chill of the light rain. If she left right now, she could advise her clients whom Doctor Nudd might have saved, or whom Pete might have protected, to move away. If she went home, closed her eyes, and kept on hiding, she would probably live longer.

While Liliana hesitated on Doctor Nudd’s doorstep, music caught her ear. The cheery romp of Beethoven’s “Kreutzer Sonata” for violin, accompanied in a strangely complementary way by an electric bass guitar. The music made her smile. She closed all her eyes and listened for several minutes, swaying on her ballet-slippered feet. Instead of cold, she felt uplifted. She wanted to fling off her cloak and dance in the wet grass.

Holding the thick, soft sweater to her nose, she inhaled the scent of the goblin healer, oak wood and hops with a faint tinge of rubbing alcohol. She had promised the kind goblin making such beautiful music that she would return his sweater.

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