Fae Collector (Book 2) by Noah Fox

Author:Noah Fox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-10-30T05:00:00+00:00

22

Axel hung up his phone and tucked it away. The little red light kept blinking, but the phone had enough service just outside the park’s boundaries to call Darius and request a cab. He and Holly waited on the sidewalk under a late afternoon sun. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t over yet.

When a green taxicab pulled up alongside them, it was a familiar face behind the wheel.

“Pablo Wurtz,” Axel said, letting Holly in first and pulling the car door shut behind him. “I’m glad it’s you again.”

“I’m not,” the driver said. “It’s rush hour and I could be driving paying customers with this time.” He glanced back and regarded them suspiciously. “You screw in the park or something?”

“Excuse me?” Holly asked, her cheeks turning rosy.

“You have that post-coital glow,” the driver said. “Nevermind.”

Axel put his arm around Holly and glared at the rearview, but Pablo didn’t glance their way again.

“Any idea what May meant by the ‘rites’ you’re supposed to learn?” Axel asked, low so that only Holly could hear.

“None,” Holly said. “My furry little mentor said he’d teach me though.”

“Said?” Axel asked.

“You didn’t hear him?”

“No,” he replied. “I didn’t hear your stripy talking cat mentor speak human words. When will things stop getting stranger all the time?”

“Maybe when we find the Protectorate and can just rest for a bit somewhere safe,” she said. “They must have a compound somewhere.”

“I could try Martin again,” he said. “I improved blood tracking twice after we drew from the ley line.”

“Do it,” Holly said. “But at the first sign of Elder Samuel, abort.”

Axel closed his eyes and focused on the blood. Martin’s blood. Hybrid blood. He could sense the connection there, but it was tenuous, and fading with each passing hour.

Incense. The scent teased at his mind, weak but familiar. Patchouli? No. Something older. More reverent. Frankincense. That’s it. Like the Easter mass his parents would drag him to as a kid. He’d almost forgotten that scent, since Charlie wasn’t much for church.

Patches of color and light blurred in his vision, but he couldn’t resolve them. Then they went dark. The scent of holy offerings vanished, replaced by the lingering smell of old alcohol and fresh blood. He pulled back before his blood tracking thrust him back inside Helsing’s Folly.

“Anything?” Holly asked.

“Incense,” Axel said. “Like Martin might be in a church.”

“There must be a hundred churches in the city,” Holly said.

“If it’s even in Rockling,” he said.

Holly put her head on his shoulder and they rode in silence back to Darius’s dispatch office.

***

When Axel pushed open the door to the GreenCab Taxi Company’s head office, there was no sign that a full-grown goblin man had died by strangulation there just that morning. Nor was there a sign of struggle, with the machinery all back in perfect working order and the microphone unit plugged back in where it belonged.

“You did it,” Darius said, standing from his dispatch table. “And you’re both still alive. I could use help like you, if you’re looking for work.

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