Dylan couldn’t agree with that. He ran his tongue over the back of his teeth to feel the smooth enamel and ridges of them, intact and solid.
“But you can write the answers?”
Hill started to write something, but as a letter that was either aKor anFleft the pen his fingers started to smoke. His nails split, and before he could finish he dropped the pen and shook his hand like he’d just nipped it in a drawer.
Nik reached over the table and ripped the page out of the notebook. He screwed it up in his hand until it was in a tight, compressed ball.
“All I need you to do is nod,” he said. “Kallikantzaroi.”
Hill drew back slightly at the name, his neck creased around the bandage that covered his collarbone. Then he dipped his chin in a nod. The two of them glared at each other while Dylan looked from one to the other.
“What does that mean?” he asked. “Who are the Kallik—”
“Monsters,” Nik said flatly. He dragged himself away from Hill and frowned at Dylan as if he’d just noticed him. “And not your problem.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb here,” Dylan said. “It kind of sounds like they are. Who are they? Why do they want Irene’s baby?”
He waited.
“Don’t make me play twenty questions,” Dylan said.
Nik pulled his hand down his face, stretching the skin out as he debated whether to answer. He probably would have refused to, except Dylan turned toward Hill.
“They’re traitors,” Nik said shortly. “Once they were part of Yule, but they turned on us and tried to destroy us. One of their misdeeds was to steal infants to replenish their ranks, but only those born on Christmas. It’s bad luck to speak of them, and no reason to since they’re all dead. Or that’s what we believed.”
“Don’t tell me,” Dylan said. “You were wrong?”
Nik waved his hand in a broad, jerky gesture at Hill. “I didn’t say it, he did.”
“Technically he nodded it,” Dylan pointed out. The joke flopped as both of the fey stared at him with disdain. Dylan supposed it hadn’t been that funny. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “So…what? I’m not a fan of the baby trafficking, but they don’t sound any worse than Winter’s wolves.”
“They were,” Nik said. Then he grimly corrected himself. “Are. We can fight the wolves, but the Kallikantzaroi…our oath won’t let us end the Line of Nick, no matter how corrupted. Once my brothers realize who has been buying babies out there, they’lleither be forsworn or dead. And there’s nothing I can do about it for the same reason. To keep my oath I have to stay here and babysit you.”
He shook his head in frustration and stalked out of the room. The door slammed behind him. As babysitting gigs went, Dylan thought nonsensically, leaving your charge alone with a dangerous stranger probably wasn’t best practice.
It did give him a chance to ask…
“Lucas said that my…predecessor…” Dylan caught himself before the “grandfather” slipped out. “That he knew about the babies.”
Hill just stared. There was something disturbingly intense in his expression. It hadn’t, Dylan supposed, been a question.
“Did he know who was buying them?”
This time he got a nod.
“He knew it was the Kalli… Calli—”
In a surprising bit of generosity, Hill didn’t make Dylan finish the sentence. He just nodded and waited.
“How long has it been going on for?” Dylan asked. “How many babies have they bought?”
Instead of answering, Hill just smiled, the charred ruin of his tongue rattling around his mouth like a pebble as he laughed. Not exactly precise, but answer enough.
Dylan bolted up out of the chair and out of the room. The troll left on guard duty yelled something after him, but Dylan ignored it. He fished his phone out of his pocket and flicked through it as he walked. Demre and Hill might belong to the Winter Court, but to function as a financial entity it needed to be part of the mortal world.
It might not have a website, but…no, it had a website.
He caught up with Nik in the hall. The Yule Lad had slumped to the ground outside Jars’s office, his head buried in his hands. He didn’t look up as Dylan reached him.
