Page 68 of Explosive Chemistry

Liliana’s decision whether or not to save the prince was now even more important. The land of her home had chosen him to lead. If Colonel Bennet would make a good king, then it would give her friends great joy to serve him. If he would become a bad king, then she should let him die. It would be better than putting her friends through the same horrors that drove them from their homes in the British Isles in the first place.

A knock on the door made them all look up. Detective Jackson leaned in. “My turn?”

“Yes, Detective Jackson, you may come in now,” Liliana said.

She handed Siobhan back her no longer hot cup of cocoa, and the sprite settled cross-legged on the exam table next to her to drink it.

The smile on the detective’s face was triumphant. “We did it! We stopped a murder from happening.”

“Thank you for believing me,” Liliana said.

The detective chuckled. “You just made my homicide detective’s heart happy. No one got murdered!”

“But the would-be murderer got away,” Liliana pointed out.

Detective Jackson made a rude noise. “We know who he is, and he held a hostage at the point of a weapon right in front of multiple witnesses. He’ll get his. If you have any more visions like that, you keep right on coming to me. Promise?”

“I will, Detective Jackson. If you can help, I will make sure that you know.” Liliana had already foreseen several deaths. Her mind wandered, pondering the possible future paths, looking for ways that the detective’s help might save lives.

Detective Jackson offered Siobhan and Liliana a ride home. Siobhan declined, opting to go home with Doctor Nudd to share a bottle and companionship. She could put her bike in the back of his pickup. Doctor Nudd invited Detective Jackson and Liliana to join them.

They both accepted.

Liliana peeked forward a bit and saw all four of them making music together, drinking and laughing until dawn.

She smiled. It would become quite a party.

Not since she was a child in the circus had Liliana attended a party. She had never in her adult life had so many friends.

The bullet wound would, once again, prevent her from dancing, but that would be okay. She had friends now who loved to make music. She would have many other chances to dance as much as she liked.

Detective Jackson gave her a ride to Doctor Nudd’s house. She still ignored the auto-drive’s suggestion to let it take over with the bad weather adaptation application, but she drove at a far more careful and sedate pace. During the ride, Liliana’s thoughts and fourth eyes wandered, turning to the escaped killer.

Periclum had fled in full lion form. Tracking a lion on an Army base would normally be a simple thing, but the pride-king knew the location of all the cameras, and the bad weather still grounded the drones and greatly limited visibility.

Sergeant Giovanni reported to Colonel Bennet that Periclum had eluded capture. The prince accepted the report, then drove northeast in his car with the big tires.

Liliana’s vision was not greatly affected by the rain. She found the wounded lion in one of the empty places on base that were used for weapons testing, the same one the spider-kin ran across when the sound weapons nearly killed her. Here and there, unexploded shells lay around in the place where soldiers tested the larger artillery.

Periclum in lion form made slow, limping progress through the pouring rain toward the tall fence on the border of the Army base. The car that had nearly run over the prince in the parking garage waited on the other side of the fence. At the wheel was the lion-kin with the scarred face that the Fae colonel called Bradley.

She also found, unsurprisingly, Colonel Bennet parking his car a short distance away and getting out in the rain. A land-bonded Sidhe with command of the earth could easily track anyone on his land.

While Liliana watched, Colonel Bennet walked into the path of the bleeding lion, just out of range of the lion’s claws. He stood in between Periclum and the fence with the waiting car on the other side.

Periclum shifted to demi-lion form so he could speak. One long, furry arm still touched the ground where he hunched. The other was held in tight to his body to slow the flow of blood from two small bullet holes. “You can’t touch me, Bennet. Aurore gave me a spell of protection against you.” He lifted a furry-maned chin toward the car. “Even if you could, you wouldn’t. If you killed the pride-king in front of a witness, you’d make enemies of the entire beast-kin community.”

“I have no intention of touching you,” the prince answered calmly. “I also have no intention of allowing you to leave my land alive after you killed a dozen of my soldiers and tried to kill my Merlin.”

The lion-kin snarled a scoff. “Nudd is no Merlin.” Pink puddles formed at his feet as the rain sheeted across his bloody fur. “He couldn’t cast a spell to save his life.”

“He gives good advice, and he has the gift of healing.” The prince shrugged. “Your opinion is irrelevant anyway.”

Liliana wondered why the prince bothered to speak to Periclum, since he did not appear to care about anything the lion-kin said. Motion in the scrub and wet grass behind the pride-king caught one of Liliana’s eyes. A cylindrical metal thing bigger than a football with a cone shape on one end like a giant bullet rolled toward the king of lions from behind him. It was twice as large as the cannister that exploded from the sound weapons leaving shrapnel in Liliana’s leg. The earth gently swelled behind it like a ripple in water, pushing it closer and closer while the prince distracted the lion with conversation.

Bradley, the lion-kin champion by the car, was too far away to see the shell rolling toward his king through the rain and the tall grass.

Periclum’s attention was focused with wary caution on the prince. He showed no sign of noticing as the shell rolled to a quiet stop a foot behind his rear paws.

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