To Hell and Back by L.B. Gilbert

Chapter Four

The thin Fae male was sweating so much that he could probably slide out of his restraints by now. Rhys kept his disgust off his face, intent on transmitting only threats and intimidation.

“You said the video was recorded how long ago?” he asked.

“It’s been over a week—a-almost two,” Viz, the owner, stammered.

He was holding his hat, twisting the ivy cap into a shapeless mess. The sweaty little Fae stared up at the trio of dragons from the small wooden chair in the back of the antique emporium as if expecting to be eaten at any moment. Every so often, he would cast a pleading glance at Canaan, the wolf shifter who’d brought them the information.

But Canaan propped against the wall, his face impassive. There would be no help from that quarter.

Crossing his thick arms, Rhys growled, bringing the nervous man’s attention back to him. “Was she alone?” he asked.

“Yes, um, she was,” Viz answered, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He gestured to Canaan. “Although, as I mentioned to your almost-as-tall friend there, the witch kept watching the door as if she were waiting for someone.”

Rhys blinked. “She was a witch? You’re certain?”

The male nodded, sitting up a little straighter. “Yes. She just had that vibe. Also, I noticed something after I re-watched the security footage of her browsing. Everything she picked up was magically charged.”

“What things?” Rhys’ face must have darkened because Viz leaned back as if trying to get farther away from him.

“Nothing harmful,” the Fae rushed to say. “Just a bunch of trinkets. They’re mostly harmless. But rest assured, I keep all the truly dangerous items in the back. I’ve got a genuine Burgess hat pin if you’re interested. It’s got a diamond—”

“Viz,” Canaan interrupted from the door, his tone a warning. “I suggest you focus.”

The Fae man bobbed his head, swallowing heavily. “Sure, sure. Anyway, even though she picked up a lot of charged stuff, the only thing the girl left with was a harmless knife.”

Rhys held up a hand. “Wait. She stole something?”

The sweaty stick man was mistaken. The girl he had known would never have done such a thing, not in a million years.

Who was this female who walked into a shop and robbed it? Because that wasn’t the nature of the woman he’d loved, the one whose loss had destroyed him.

“But you’re certain she was a witch?” Jerik asked, returning to the crux of the matter. H gestured to the crowded shelves beyond the doorway. “There are many mystically tainted objects out there. Her choices could have been simple chance.”

“True.” Viz’s head bobbed up and down again. “However, there was the fact she saw the vision in the mirror at the start and stayed a fair amount of time afterward. A human would have run out of here.”

“The sweaty stick man is correct,” Naveen murmured, echoing Rhys’ impression of the shopkeeper. “Normal humans reject the proof of the supernatural. Nine out of ten would have left right after.”

As if on cue, they glanced behind the Fae man. Someone had removed the mirror from the showroom floor and placed it on a table against the wall.

“Bring it here,” Rhys ordered.

Viz scrambled up to retrieve the looking glass. He appeared to struggle with its weight. Trying not to roll his eyes, Rhys plucked it out of his arms with one hand. It was heavier than it looked, indicating the frame was metal, but it was still light enough that any reasonably sized male—even this poor specimen—should have been able to carry it without effort.

“Tell me about this,” he ordered.

“Oh, uh yes, I can do that,” Viz said, straightening. “Well, I can tell you what I know. I searched for my uncle’s logs after she left. He made an entry on every item in the store—the potentially valuable ones, anyway.”

Viz twisted in his chair, the cheap polyester making a wrenching squeaking sound on the plastic-covered cushion. “It’s in that one on the top, the page with the receipt as a bookmark.”

Jerik handed him the book in question. Rhys opened it to the relevant page, unsure what to expect. “It’s just a list of names.”

Written two by two, the list extended down most of a single page.

“Yeah, I get it’s not super informative,” Viz apologized. “I don’t recognize any. A few came up in Google, but there was nothing informative there. It could have been matching randomly to people with the same name.”

Rhys and his men exchanged looks. Wordlessly, Jerik took the mirror and small book before leaving after a military-grade bow.

“You may go tend to your shop. We have some things to discuss,” Rhys said, dismissing the shopkeeper, who scrambled up.

The moist man paused. “Er…about payment?

Rhys stared down at the man. Viz gulped, raising his arms. “Never mind. We can talk about it later,” he said, bowing and backing away, retreating to the front of the store.

He turned to his second. “She has a two-week head start. Cut the patrol around our territory to three dragons. I want you to get everyone else down here. Start canvassing the local businesses. And check if this municipality has cameras installed here. Buy the footage if you have to. I want her found yesterday.”

Naveen nodded once, then rushed to carry out his orders.

Rhys went back to the main part of the store, going over the spots where the woman had lingered, but there was no trace of her scent on anything.

It’s not her, he told himself for the millionth time.

But that didn’t stop him from joining his men in the search.

* * *

A few days later,Rhys walked to the window on the twentieth floor of the Caislean Hotel, the most luxurious accommodation in the city of the Angels.

He snorted. Again, the absurdity of Earth’s naming conventions struck him anew. He crossed his arms, staring down at the urban sprawl.

Was she down there somewhere? Or had the mysterious witch in the security footage moved on?

Naveen came up beside him. Despite the fact he had been walking the streets most of the night, his second was alert, his dark ascetic face showing no signs of fatigue.

“Sanaa has gone into labor.”

Rhys groaned, letting himself bend forward to hit the glass with his forehead. It was a moment of weakness he would have never allowed in front of the junior members of his clan. But this was Naveen, his most trusted lieutenant.

“This is insanity.” He raised his head. “We need to stop this pointless search and go back to our territory. I need to return before the birth.”

Naveen reached out to grasp his upper arm. “Sanaa understands,” he said. “After what happened all those years ago—”

“It’s not Gabrielle,” Rhys snapped.

Naveen’s lips compressed.

He cleared his throat. “I apologize. I am losing sleep over this, and I feel like a fool. We’ve been turning this city over, yet there’s no sign of this woman—a witch who is not Gabrielle.”

Gabrielle was in her grave, and she had been for more years than days he’d known her.

Rhys used to visit that grave before he’d stopped punishing himself. He hadn’t been there in hundreds of years.

And yet, a woman with a passing resemblance appeared and he lost his mind and forgot his duty to his clan.

A hint of amusement touched Naveen’s face. “As Tom has repeatedly mentioned, the only members of the clan who need to be at the birth are Sanaa, him, and the midwife. No one will begrudge your absence under the circumstances.”

“And what if I’m chasing a ghost?”

Naveen held up a sheath of papers he hadn’t noticed. “I don’t think you are,” he said, handing him the documents. “These are the results of the search Jerik had run on the names the former owner of the antique store had listed on the mirror’s entry. It’s all families that used to own the mirror. The piece has a long history.”

“I assumed as much,” Rhys said, looking over the list of names and the details noted beside each.

Naveen inclined his head. “Yes. Much still needs to be unearthed. But I found it interesting that Hobbes chose to list two names from each family—mostly married couples.”

Cynicism twisted Rhys’ face. “So, it is not enough that we have to entertain the possibility of reincarnation, but now we’re supposed to accept that the looking glass has matchmaking properties?”

Wisely, Naveen simply shrugged.

“I’ll just set these here,” he said, dropping the papers on the suite’s coffee table. With a bow, he departed, leaving Rhys alone.

He turned back to the window, wishing the vista were of the wild corner of land they’d claimed of their own. But despite what he’d said to Naveen, Rhys couldn’t leave this city, not until he’d had some sign or discovered where the girl in the video had gone.

If it were Gabrielle reborn…

She had left him once. He would not allow it to happen a second time.