Faerie Storm by Adam J Wright

Author:Adam J Wright [Wright, Adam J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-16T22:00:00+00:00

14

“Dead?” I felt my grip tighten on the phone.

“Yeah, dead,” Christina said. “I drove over to her apartment one morning to find a couple of patrol cars outside the building. The cops were questioning the residents about Laura. They’d found her body in an abandoned building a couple of miles away.”

This wasn’t making much sense. “And they were sure it was Laura?”

“Yeah, there’s no doubt about it. Her remains were identified by her best friend. I spoke to the friend later—despite what the case file says, I investigated the case thoroughly—and she told me there was absolutely no doubt that it was Laura Pelletier on the slab. They’d known each other since they were kids.”

What did this mean to my case? I’d guessed that Laura was working with the Cabal but now it turned out that the woman I’d spoken with this morning wasn’t Laura at all.

Christina must have guessed from my silence what I was thinking. “I’d say that the person you know as Laura Pelletier is actually—”

“A changeling,” I said.

“Yeah.”

All the pieces fit. The month long absence, the change in personality, the nocturnal wandering. Changelings—shape-shifting creatures from Faerie—assumed the form of someone else but they had to keep the victim’s body close for a full lunar cycle, during which time they fed on its energy at night. Laura hadn’t been sneaking out of her building because she was a werewolf, as one over-imaginative neighbor had assumed, but because she was going to the real Laura Pelletier’s body and slowly draining it.

“Looks like my case just re-opened,” Christina said. “Your colleague said you’re in Maine? I’m coming over there.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I told her. “I have everything under control here. I’ll deal with it.”

“I do have to,” she said. “Thanks to my incompetent assistant, my official case report says I let a changeling get away. I can’t have that on my record.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted another P.I. poking her nose into my case but I understood her need to put things right. “Okay, but things here are a little more complicated than just taking out a changeling.”

“Fine,” she said. “Give me the details when I get there. I don’t want to step all over your case but the changeling is mine, okay? I can’t believe I let her slip through my fingers.”

“The woman you were following turned up dead. No one can blame you for closing the case.”

“I blame myself,” she said. “Text me your location and I’ll get a flight.”

“Okay, I’ll do that.”

“And don’t go killing anything until I get there.” She ended the call.

I texted her the details of the Lake Shore Lodge and she replied with a smiley-faced emoji.

Leon brought two mugs of coffee over to the table. “What was that all about?”

I told him and he listened with rapt attention. When I was done, he said, “A changeling, huh? Like those creatures that tried to kill my friend James and his girlfriend?”

“Exactly the same,” I said, recalling the case I’d been working on when Leon and I had first met.

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