* * *
“And then he was crying and crying, when I was using his stapler on him.”
Jordy wanted to strangle Billy Bob. After letting him in through the same entrance she had used with Cadmus, Billy Bob insisted on giving a blow-by-blow account about some Realtor he had tortured and eventually killed. Unfortunately, the idiot’s ramblings were out of order, and he kept repeating his favorite bits with details changed.
He was especially bragging about how Cadmus had praised him, saying that he wasGreat. Just great.
Jordy rolled her eyes.
If she were to go back to college, she’d major in anthropology, because this right here, ladies and gentlemen, was the Missing Link. Or maybe she’d major in Neuroscience, because Billy Bob was missing the part of his brain that processed sarcasm.
Somehow she managed to parse from Billy Bob’s stream of babble that he had gone with Cadmus earlier to a real estate agent’s office, tortured the dude for information, and Billy Bob had managed to stab him in the exact place that brought their Q & Scream session to an abrupt and bloody end. Which earned Billy Bob his prizedGreat. Just greatfrom Cadmus.
It didn’t help either when they stole the laptop that Dead Real Estate Agent had on his desk, only to discover in the car that during Billy Bob’s excited use of desktop office supplies for torture, the idiot had accidentally knocked over a drink onto the keyboard.
Which, when opened, then spilled out onto Cadmus’ pants. Only reason the motherfucker was still wasting oxygen was that the coffee was no longer steaming hot.
Jordy thought smugly that if Cadmus had brought her instead, Jordy would have gotten to have some fun slicing and dicing, would have incentivized the Realtor into giving up the information they wanted before dying, and she would have a new laptop, after extracting all the data Cadmus needed.
Maybe from now on, Cadmus would think twice before choosing that mouth breather over Jordy for something so critical.
In a fit of pique, Cadmus had dropped off Billy Bob at the Faire, to locate the guy that he was “not supposed to tell Jordy is a man-wolf.” At least Billy Bob had enough wits to realize that was an “oops.”
Jordy figured it was another thing Cadmus said, that Billy Bob mangled as he usually did. Possibly a curse that Billy Bob shouldn’t repeat, especially to Jordy.
But the good news was that Jordy now knew there was an individual at the Faire that Cadmus was more than slightly interested in tracking down. Possibly the same one that he had come to the Faire looking for, with the pendulum that had acted like a crazy GPS. Which meant the person could be a performer, member of the staff, vending, or a regular attendee.
Someone who could be found.
By Jordy, the Second in Command of Ops, the one who had a set of keys to the kingdom.
Because not only did she have access everywhere at the Faire — she looked at Billy Bob—she also wasn’t an idiot.
* * *
Col, Aylwyn, Barric and Merek had all been assigned different points of the vast Fairegrounds to check out the past few hours. They were to reconvene with theirVixarin a few minutes here, in the central area that marked the Royal Court of Food. Col had sped to this location, studiously resisting the temptation to stop by the Staff Childcare Center.
Where she would be.
The blood surged in his loins at the thought of her, of the night that they had shared, of the absolute wonder that was in the cleaving unto her.
He did not know it could ever be like that, more than the union of two bodies satisfying mutual needs. Or that he would want nothing more than to pleasure her, adore her, possess her and then pleasure her some more. Without end.
It had taken every bit of his sense of duty to wrest himself away from her soft womanly curves, the gentle sighs that escaped her sleeping form as she nestled further into him. But he had done so, to rejoin hisBredhrenat the house, and would call upon the same conscience to keep away from her now.
He could not, would not, allow her to become the weakness that caused him to neglect his responsibilities as aWaryeor, to shirk his duty to theWar-Pack. And so he hurried to the meeting point, ten minutes earlier than expected.
Tybalt was already at one of the tables on the periphery of the eating area, when Col joined him. TheVixarwas sharpening one of his blades. As a staff member on duty, he was allowed to carry actual knives on his person, as opposed to the “peace bonding” and plastic orange tips that were forced upon the reproductions of swords, knives and other weaponry that the attendees wore as part of their costumes.
Col remembered the first time he saw a young child swinging about a mace as if it were lighter than an apple. He had been astonished. The child was no higher than his knee, and he gaped at the witchery of this new world, in which weapons were wielded so easily by creatures barely out of their infancy.
His jaw dropped again, when he learned that in this new world, children were thus amused, by playing with toys that were fabricated of this miracle compound calledplastic, resembling instruments that were designed to maim and destroy.
The world was foreign to him then, and in truth, in many ways was still as strange and fantastical to him now.
“There is aught of merit to report,” Col said to Tybalt, taking a seat with theVixar’shead tilt of invitation. Col was still disappointed that he had not scented his abductor again.
TheVixarnodded. “Well glad am I that you have arrived apart from the others. I would speak with you as to what has been ailing you as of late.” Tybalt placed the blade he had been sharpening on the table, the sun glinting off the hardened steel.
