Thirty-Five

 

The big family get-together wasn’t as depressing as it had started. Beth refused to be anywhere near Alasdair and me, but Fionn and Cole turned out to be a lot of fun. We shared the same taste in music and they were fascinated with my magic, although Alasdair was very protective and refused to let them get their hands on me. As alchemists, they were a little bit too interested in taking my hair, blood, and so on so they could see exactly how I worked. On one hand I was curious, on the other I saw no reason to give them such control.

Niamh had been bright and bubbly, but she kept more to herself and Grayson’s company, leaving poor Tabs to console and cheer Beth up. It was been an exhausting evening. I had to fight to think before I spoke and keep that polite demeanor all evening. I hoped that the family status was genuine, and I could relax with them all over time.

When Alasdair got into the bed, I pressed him down and rested my head on his chest, which I kissed tenderly. It was nice curling up in his arms, but I wanted to feel less fragile and vulnerable. Lying next to him with his arm draped over my waist gave me that. It also meant I could trail my fingers over the sigils below his collarbone and smile as I saw my own running up my arm and over my hand. It was the little things.

 

 

“You clearly informed me that if I gave you enough coffee you would be bouncy and awake,” Alasdair said with amusement.

I glared at the people that had cut in front of us in the queue to get on the plane and said nothing. They were the second people that morning who had felt that we weren’t at all scary and thus fine to cut in front of. Did no one have any manners these days? Alasdair kissed my temple and I relaxed some. We were getting close now, we had to be. How many fae alchemists could there possibly be in Bucharest, after all? It wasn’t all that common for fae to become alchemists. While they loved the business aspect, they felt alchemy was below them. They had their own inborn magic, so why dabble with alchemy?

Thankfully, the flight over to Bucharest wasn’t too long, and Saoirse had booked us business class, so I could stretch my legs some. We couldn’t very well discuss the case with so many non-magical people around, so I closed my eyes and tried to relax. They really should put together an airline specifically for supernals. There had to be a business for it. The right fae, because no one else would have the capital or business sense to pull it off, would make a killing, surely. I made a mental note to hold onto the thought. Alasdair would know an appropriate fae to mention it to.

Grayson was on the next flight out, he had to deal with some family business. He’d join us in Bucharest the following afternoon. It was looking like he’d be pulled away to work elsewhere once this was wrapped up.

We were meeting one of Alasdair’s contacts the following morning. She had been out of the country and wouldn’t be back until some awful time in the morning. That gave us a little time to settle into our hotel and look around the city to see if we could find any information. Of course, things could never be that simple. We parked in the hotel car park and had barely walked ten feet when a couple of part-breds and what I assumed was an alchemist from the vials on the belt approached us with malicious intent. Their faces were hard and full of hatred. Thankfully, Saoirse had gifted me a beautiful silver knife that I could safely travel with, right before we headed for the airport.

I pulled the knife, which still felt a little odd in my hand due to lack of use.

“You were told to leave this well alone,” the alchemist said as he pulled the lime green vial from his belt.

I know very little about alchemy, but I do know that lime green is often associated with nuclear things and other substances that cause a great deal of pain.

“We’d be rather shit Guardians if we backed off every time some runt told us to,” Alasdair growled.

“You have no right to interfere in fae politics,” a sidhe said from the back of the small group.

“You got us involved when you started taking witchlings and such,” I said.

“They were begging to be taken, they wanted to be something more, and now they are,” the sidhe said.

The alchemist threw his vial, and a cloud of blue-black noxious smoke formed. Alasdair and I made sure not to allow any of it near us. The paint melted off the black car that the cloud touched.

“You know, I’m pretty sure that’s cheating,” I said.

Another vial exploded near my feet, and I shot sideways, taking Alasdair with me.

Pitch black scorpions formed from the ooze that pooled out of the vial. They all scurried across the tarmac towards us.

“Scorpions, seriously?” I said.

“Careful, Niko,” Alasdair growled.

Fire licked at my fingertips. I drove it back down within myself, having not been aware it had started to rise. I needed to get better control on that before it got me killed.

The part-breds were trying to circle around us, and I wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

“Do we need them alive?” I asked Alasdair.

“We need the non-magical authorities to not find the bodies,” he said.

“Surely they’ll disintegrate like full fae?” I said as I slashed at the throat of the closest part-bred.

“Depends on their heritage,” Alasdair said as he punched the sidhe in the face.

The tall lanky part-bred tried to kick me in the ribs. I grabbed his ankle and yanked him off his feet. His head smacked the tarmac hard enough to knock him out. The rest of them had more fighting skills than that one, but we were Guardians. I came out of it with a couple of broken ribs and a deep cut in my side, but they were all dead or dying.

Alasdair looked around for security cameras. Thankfully, there were none.

“Burn them,” he said.

I looked at him with alarm.

“Niko, we have two minutes, maybe three, before some non-magical person comes down here to get their car. Burn them.”

I took a deep breath and embraced the raging inferno within me. The blissful feeling overtook my conscious thoughts. Nothing felt as good as that fire did. I pushed it towards the bodies that Alasdair had stacked up and directed it to consume them. They went up like a pile of paper, leaving nothing behind. Now I just had to regain control.