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“We’ve contacted Peter Jameson, the proposed OCOS mate, and confirmed that he did speak to the victim on Sunday afternoon. He insists that the conversation went really well, and that they were planning to talk again the next day.” Feehan paused to write something on the whiteboard. “We’ve also confirmed that he was at home with his parents and couldn’t physically have been in Walnut Creek during the time of the murder.”

“Unless he is more than fifty percent Otherworld,” Vadim said.

Feehan consulted his notes. “He lives on our side and he’s one-sixteenth Otherworld. I doubt he has the necessary powers to get himself through time and space.”

“Did you check where the nearest portals were to Walnut Creek?”

“The closest one was about thirty miles away.”

“So how did the murderer get to Laney’s building?”

He glanced over at Ella, but she had her head propped up with her hand and seemed to be doodling on the yellow pad in front of her. He’d already handed her some painkillers and another bottle of water but she was too quiet for his liking.

“We don’t even know how the killer is getting his information about the empaths or how he is picking his targets.” Vadim tried to read what Ella was writing, but he couldn’t make it out.

Alexei leaned back in his chair, his Fae-Web spiraling around him. “Liz and I have been considering that and we believe there are only a few possibilities.” He glanced at Liz, who nodded. “Information about empaths isn’t that freely available.”

“Otherworld has that information, as do the current world governments,” Feehan replied.

“That’s a hell of a lot of people,” Vadim said. “And most of them are open to corruption.”

Feehan stiffened. “Not on our side. We all know that the moral code in Otherworld is very different.”

Vadim couldn’t disagree. “Let’s assume that the leak originates in Otherworld then.” He turned to Liz. “Where would such information be held?”

“That’s a great question.” She frowned. “There’s the empath academy, of course, and a central administration department also based in Merton that keeps records of humans who have Otherworld antecedents, or who are empaths.”

“Can you contact them through your Fae-Web?” Feehan asked.

Liz sighed. “No, even our technology doesn’t work well across the divide. We’ll have to go and see them in person.”

“Then you’ll have to do that, Liz.” Feehan wrote it on the board under the word “actions”. “Anything else?”

“Do we have any footage from the security cameras at the apartment complex?” Alexei said.

“Not yet. But I’ve put in a request for them.”

“I doubt our man will show up,” Vadim commented, his gaze still on Ella’s bowed head. “He’s got enough power to evade the cameras.”

Ella finally looked up. “How do you know?”

Vadim met her gaze. “Because I could sense his magic. Is there anything else you’d like to contribute to this conversation, Ms. Walsh?”

She glanced down at her pad. “There’s one thing. I see a pattern here. He’s targeting empaths who are approaching their twenty-seventh birthday.”

Liz suddenly sat forward, her gold Fae-Web shimmering. “And members of your graduating class, Ella.”

“What?” Feehan turned from his contemplation of the board to Liz.

“I just made the connection. All of the victims, including the ones in Russia, graduated from empath college within a year of each other.”

“From the same college?”

“Not exactly. There are a few scattered around Otherworld. Offhand, I know of one for Europeans and two for Americans, and probably at least a couple more for everyone else. But the victims are definitely from the same year.”

“Great.” Ella put down her pen. “It would be good to get a list of all the empaths who graduated with me worldwide, and check up on their well-being. Maybe we’ve missed a few suspicious deaths along the way.” Feehan paused to look at Liz. “Will the central record office at Merton have that information?”

“They should have.” Liz made a face. “The problem is finding it.”

“It should be a priority,” Feehan said. “Ella, would you be willing to go with Liz to visit the college and the records office?”

“If I have to. They don’t like me much over there. I kept trying to destroy their portals when I ran away from school.” She gave Vadim and Alexei a pointed look. “Won’t we need a foreign language specialist to gain access to some of those files?”

Feehan rubbed his hands together. “I’m sure that will help. Until then, we’ll do another check into Peter Jameson’s background, review our victim’s phone and computer records, and wait for the results of the autopsy.”

She winced and Vadim cursed Feehan for his insensitivity. Had he forgotten that Ella had just lost her best friend?

Vadim cleared his throat. “Are you okay with all this, Ms. Walsh?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He held her gaze. “Because you’ve had a severe shock.”

“It’s okay, I won’t go nuts on you just yet.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah.” She rose to her feet. “Do you have any more of those painkillers?”

He extracted the bottle from his pocket and resisting the urge to pitch it at her head, tossed it over to her. If she didn’t want to talk about anything, that suited him fine. He wasn’t quite sure why he was even bothering in the first place. Shouldn’t she be grateful to him for turning her down last night? He’d behaved like the perfect gentleman and she was still being shitty. Maybe she understood him better than he understood himself. All he had to do was keep her alive, catch this killer and get back to Russia with his reputation intact.

Liz caught up with Ella and wrapped an arm around her as they walked. Alexei glanced over at Vadim.

“Did you really stay over with Ella?”

“Feehan asked me to. He was worried about her safety.”

“So how was it?”

He raised his eyebrows. “I cooked her some dinner and then she went to bed.”

Alexei just stared at him. “That’s it?”

“What else did you expect?”

“Details, my friend, details.”

“I cooked snapper with red peppers in a white wine sauce. Do you want the recipe or something?”

“Damn, you’re a close-mouthed bastard sometimes, Vadim.” Alexei stretched his arms over his head. “If I’d got to stay with Ella, I’d be telling you all the juicy details.”

“And that’s probably why Feehan sent me.”

Alexei opened his silver eyes wide. “You can pretend to be human all you like, Vadim, but at your core, you’re no different than me.”

“That’s where we’ll have to disagree. I’ve made a choice as to how I want to live my life and I’m happy with it.”

“So you say.”

Vadim fixed Alexei with a cool stare. “Shall we just leave it at that? As a fellow team member, Ms. Walsh needs our support and nothing else.”

“You’ve changed your mind. You were the one who wanted her out.”

Vadim stood and shoved his chair in. “I want to solve this case. Messing around with an empath who is already in a highly emotional state isn’t going to help me do that. I refuse to be responsible for another meltdown.”

He wanted to laugh at his own words. Hadn’t he already crossed that line last night by taking care of her rather than simply fucking her brains out? Wasn’t he already emotionally compromised?

“So you’re quite happy to leave Ella to me.”

He glared down at the Fae. “Have you listened to a single word I said?”

“I listened.” Alexei tilted his head back so Vadim could see his face more clearly. “Have you ever wondered if you are the problem and not the empath?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Are you sure about that? Repressing your true nature behind all those shields must give any empath who comes near you a hell of a headache.”

Vadim shook his head and walked away but Alexei kept talking. “So you’re okay to be the one who goes to Otherworld with Liz and Ella then.”

He had to stop. “I don’t go there. You know that.”

“As I said, Vadim. Are you sure you aren’t the problem?”

Vadim started walking again and this time he didn’t stop.

* * *

Liz knocked, then poked her head around the door of Ella’s office.

“Are you okay, hon?”

Ella manufactured a smile. “I just got off the phone with my mom. She’s still going on about my ‘behavior’ at the party yesterday.”

Liz sat on the corner of Ella’s desk. “Did you tell her about Laney?”

“She didn’t give me a chance.” Ella made a face. “And when she does find out she’ll be on at me for not telling her. Maybe I’ll text her later.”

“Your mom isn’t the most observant of people, is she?”

“That’s a nice way of putting it, but at least she still talks to me. I also spoke to Laney’s parents who— guess what?—can’t make the time to come to their own daughter’s funeral. Apparently their other ‘normal’ kid is graduating med school or something important . They asked me to send a wreath in their name and they’d settle up with me later.”

“I hope you told them to go fuck themselves.”

Ella looked up at Liz’s flushed face. “You don’t usually curse.”

“I don’t usually have to, but the way some human parents deal with their kids just amazes me. In Fae, you’d have to do something far more interesting to get disowned by your family.”

“Like killing or maiming a whole bunch of people at a wedding.”

Liz made an airy gesture. “That was just a one-off. My family is usually pretty well behaved. I’ve arranged for us to go and visit the college and the records office in Merton this afternoon. Are you okay to come with me?”

“If I must.”

“We’ll keep it short.”

Ella groaned. “If they’ll let us.”

Liz slid off the desk. “I’ll be back for you in about an hour.” She got as far as the door before she turned around. “By the way, how was your evening with the gorgeous Mr. Morosov?”

“He cooked me dinner, I drank too much wine and I went to bed.”

“Alone?”

“Of course. What kind of a girl do you think I am?”

Liz sighed. “I know what kind of a girl you are. He didn’t even try and hook up with you?”

Ella hastily repressed her memories of exactly who had been propositioning whom. “You know I don’t date people I have to make eye contact with ever again.”

“But he’s going back to Russia.”

“That’s not far enough and I don’t think he’s really Russian. He’s totally Otherworld.” Ella lowered her voice. “How much Fae do you think he is?”

“He’s obviously got something going on, but what exactly, I’m not sure. His shields are too good. Do you want me to ask Alexei?”

“No! I’m not that interested. I just wondered what you’d picked up.”

“I know Vadim is important to this case and he has a connection with you.”

“Yeah, we’re colleagues.”

“It’s more than that.”

“Oh jeez, you’ve got that faraway look in your eyes again.”

Liz shrugged. “I can’t help it. The Fae-Web knows stuff I can’t yet comprehend. But I can tell you that Vadim Morosov isn’t going away anytime soon.”

“Great. I’ll see you later. I have to call a dude about a giant caterpillar he saw in his yard last night.”

When Liz shut the door, Ella finally let her smile slip. She covered her face with her hands and simply sat there in silence. It was all well and good telling herself that she was going to avenge Laney and catch the killer but it didn’t make up for the hole left in her life. Normally she would’ve been calling Laney right now to tell her about her embarrassing evening with Vadim so that they could pick over the details and laugh hysterically. She’d never even got to hear what Laney really thought about Peter Jameson…

Ella slowly inhaled and then let out her breath. She had to get her shit together or the department would be pensioning her off to the empath nuthouse out in Marin County and letting Sam take over the case. That would never do. She had to survive this for Laney, and for all the other empaths that had died so horribly.

She picked up the phone and dialed the number Peach had left on her desk.

“Hey, Mr. Collins? I understand you have a giant bug problem…”

* * *

Vadim looked around the foyer, but there was no sign of Alexei. He walked by the reception desk for the second time and stopped to talk to the pink-haired administrator who smiled so enthusiastically up at him.

“Can I help you, Mr. Morosov?”

“Have you seen Alexei anywhere?”

“Oh yes!” She fished for something on her desk. “He asked me to give you a message. He had to go out and assist on a case with Ella and he’s not sure when he’ll be back.”

“They both went out?” He checked his watch. “Is Liz here?”

Peach picked up the phone. “I can check for you.”

“Thanks.”

While Peach chatted, he paced the lobby, watching the lights on the elevators flash up and down. Ella came in from the street eating an ice cream cone.

“Hey. Are you waiting for me?”

He studied her flushed face and whipped out his handkerchief. “You have ice cream on your nose.”

“Thanks.” She took the handkerchief from him and patted her face. “Is that better?”

He nodded as Liz came out of the elevator and advanced toward them.

“Where’s Alexei?”

Ella finished her ice cream and used Vadim’s handkerchief to wipe her fingers before stuffing it in her pocket. “I left him with Mr. Collins.”

“The guy who saw the caterpillar?” Liz asked. “Yeah, well apparently , Mr. Collins is one-eighth Fae, and he’s related to Alexei, who is also related to the young Fae Mr. Collins trapped in his yard.”

“The caterpillar, right?”

“Exactly. Apparently it was some kind of legendary Garden Fae family hazing joke, which Mr. Collins didn’t know about, being as he doesn’t live in Otherworld anymore. Alexei had to explain it.”

“So you didn’t have to wipe his mind?”

“Not this time. Alexei said he would take care of it for me before he departed. When I left, they were still catching up on ancient family history.”

“Alexei is supposed to be here,” Vadim interrupted.

Ella and Liz looked at him. “It’s no big deal. You can come with us instead, right?”

He stared at them for a long moment. If he refused, would it get back to Feehan and more importantly his Russian boss? His conduct had to be exemplary and Ella needed to be protected. Mentally he strengthened his shields. He could manage a quick trip back to Otherworld. He’d be in and out before anyone or anything picked up a trace of him. At least, he hoped he would.

“Where’s the nearest portal?”

Ella took out her phone and clicked on the app. “The one at the end of Embarcadero near the ball park is still open. We can walk there.”

If he hadn’t have been too busy thinking up gruesome ways to slaughter his extremely hard-to-kill Fae partner, Vadim would have enjoyed the walk more. The sun was shining and despite the brisk breeze blowing in off the bay, the walkways were thronged with a mixture of tourists and office workers seeking a late lunch. Ella led them through a complex route of backstreets that brought them out close to the walls of the ballpark. He stopped to admire the statue of an unknown baseball player. “Who is this?”

Ella gave him a look. “It’s Willie McCovey, dude.”

“It might surprise you to know that outside America, baseball isn’t such a big deal.”

“Maybe not in Russia.” Ella held up her phone. “Where is this damned portal?”

He pointed at a spot close to the brick wall. “It’s there.”

Liz gave him a surprised glance. “You can see them?”

“Sometimes when I’m close,” Vadim admitted. “Shall we get on with it?” He headed for the portal, his hand outstretched, and felt the wall dissolve at his touch. When Ella and Liz stood beside him in the small circle of light, he closed his eyes and spoke out loud.

“Registry at Merton, please.”

Although his body didn’t appear to move, he was aware of a strange whooshing sensation in his head. When he opened his eyes, the circle of light had turned green. He touched the nearest solid surface and pushed through it to find himself outside an old-fashioned brick building four stories high with a double fronted black door. There was no one else on the cobbled street and a light rain had begun to fall. A sign on the door told any caller to use the side entrance. In small print at the bottom it also said “at your own risk,” but that was a pretty standard disclaimer for Otherworld.

“I haven’t been here before,” Ella said.

“I have.” Liz shuddered. “Prepare to whisk yourself back fifty years in time.”

Vadim walked around the side of the building and his magical senses flared to life. He pushed open the side door and a bell jangled somewhere deep within the building. The hallway opened up into a large, dimly lit room that appeared to be empty. A long high countertop made of gleaming oak divided the space neatly in half. Lamps with green shades cast inadequate light into the dark corners where things listened and lingered.

“Where is everyone?” Ella whispered.

Liz headed for the counter. “God knows, but it doesn’t matter. It’s all done with bits of paper anyway.” She took a sheet of the yellow lined paper and a pencil from the pot and started to write. “You have to be very careful how you phrase your request or you end up with something you didn’t expect.”

“We want a list of my graduating class from six years ago, and if they have it, lists for all the other colleges in the same time period.”

“Right, and we also want copies of any correspondence between Otherworld and either of the two victims,” Liz added.

As the women discussed what to ask for, Vadim prowled around the space, trying to keep his shields up and yet delicately sense what was going on. A shadow flitted by him, brushing his face, and he almost recoiled. He had the unwelcome sensation that something was already inside his head, delicately peeling back the layers of his defenses until he’d be exposed in his true form.

“How long will this take?” he asked Liz.

She pointed to a clock set on the countertop. “What time’s the next pick up?”

He squinted at the cloudy glass clockface. “In about three minutes.”

Liz handed him the sheet of paper. “Put it in the basket next to the clock and step away from the counter.” Vadim did as she asked and, for good measure, retreated behind Ella. “Do we need to ring the bell or something?”

“God, don’t do that.” Liz shuddered. “You really don’t want to make them angry.”

A door opened at the back of the official side of the room. Vadim turned his attention to the young man who approached the desk. He looked quite human, his hair a nondescript brown and his eyes hidden behind a pair of thick glasses.

“Don’t acknowledge him,” Liz whispered. “Let him get on with his job.”

The man took the paper out of the basket, scanned the contents and then reset the clock. He disappeared back through the door without saying a single word.

Vadim waited until the door shut until going back to check the clock.

“He can’t be serious. How can it take half an hour to get the information?” Vadim didn’t want to stay there for five more minutes, let alone another thirty. Somewhere deep in his mind he could feel his mother stirring, reaching for him…

“Because they can’t use the internet here,” Liz explained. She gestured at the rows of filing cabinets that lined the walls on both sides of the counter. “Everything has to be typed out on a manual typewriter, photocopied or faxed.”

“Don’t forget all the illegible handwritten notes, as well.” Ella leaned her chair back until it balanced on two legs. “But you must know all this already, Morosov. You’re from here, aren’t you?”

Vadim refused to rise to the bait and instead took another hasty walk around the office. “Is there anything in these more public files that might help us?”

Liz looked around. “I doubt it, but it would give us something to do while we wait for the information.”

“I’m not sure why Ms. Walsh and I have to be here,” Vadim said.

“Because the officials like to know who wants the information and decide if they are going to provide it.”

“We haven’t seen anyone except the desk clerk.”

“Oh, they’ve seen us,” Liz assured him. “Can’t you feel it?”

Vadim could feel it all too clearly, but he didn’t want Liz or Ella to know that. He concentrated on maintaining his shields. “What’s in these more public files?”

Liz rose from her seat and walked over to him. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“On what you are seeking.”

“Typical Otherworld logic,” Vadim snapped. He jumped as the filing cabinet closest to him rocked back and forth. He’d better be more careful or he’d be bringing far worse than the custodians of the records room down upon them. “Maybe I’ll start by looking up references to the Siren.”

He walked along the rows, looking for the relevant drawer and eventually found one that included the letters S—Sl. It opened easily and he considered the neatly labeled alphabetical paper files. He wasn’t really surprised to see there wasn’t a nice file ready for him telling him all he needed to know about his adversary. That would’ve been far too easy.

Ella was looking at some files on the other side of the room and Liz was somewhere else. The clock on the countertop ticked loudly and was the only sound apart from the rustling of paper. Vadim shut the drawer, then went across to Ella, who hurriedly put the files she was looking at back and moved away.

He considered the drawer she’d been searching through and pulled it open again. A corner of a file labeled Morosov stuck up above the neat row. He took it out and opened it, but there was nothing inside. Had Ella taken something, or had someone from his family removed all traces of him? If so, why not take the folder as well?

“Did you find something interesting, Ms. Walsh?” He turned to study Ella.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Nothing so far. How about you?”

He considered her for a moment and then shut the drawer. “I wonder if there is a file about you?”

“There are probably several. I’m not the most popular human in Otherworld.”

“I don’t think they like empaths, so I wouldn’t take it personally.”

“I don’t.” She opened another drawer. “There’s nothing about Alexei here either.”

“It seems that the powers-that-be don’t want to help us with anything.” Vadim looked impatiently back toward the counter. “I wonder if we’ll get the information we need?”

Liz surveyed the rows of filing cabinets. “I suppose it depends if they want us to catch this killer.”

“As they don’t like empaths for opening up their world to humans, they might be quite happy to see the whole lot of us exterminated,” Ella said.

“That’s also true but we have to ask.” Liz sat down at the table again and checked her cell. Ella joined her. “Dammit, I can’t even play games on my phone while we wait.”

He took the seat next to Ella. For some reason, when he was near her, his sense of danger dissipated. As his anxiety grew, he wasn’t averse to taking any help he could get.

He tensed as Ella slid a piece of paper in front of him. “Why is there a photocopy of a blurry bird in your file?”

“Ella, you’re not supposed to take things out of there!” Liz whispered. “Go and put it back immediately or we might not get our information.”

“Fine.” She picked up the sheet of paper and walked back to the filing cabinets. “I was just wondering what it was for.” She glanced back at Vadim, who had remained in his chair. “Hey, Morosov, are your family connected with Mother Goose or something?”

“Hardly.”