Part 14 (1/2)

Oh yeah. They're really actually quite cantankerous for such pretty things. Always getting into fights with each other.

I see. Is this an elf trait, or have you just lost your wits?

I gave him a mental eye roll. Look, I don't pick on you because of the way you were born, OK? So don't give me any grief about being able to understand b.u.t.terfly. And while we're on the subject of different-what made you change your mind about doing the mental thing with me?

A sigh emerged from over my shoulder, in the vicinity of the misting machine. I smiled straight ahead at a couple of startlingly blue mortho b.u.t.terflies that were flitting around taunting each other.

”Are you going to try scrying now?”

”As soon as Jake gets back from looking at creepy-crawlies. Are you going to avoid answering my question?”

”Yes.”

”Why?”

”Because I don't wish to answer it. How long will the scrying take?”

”Probably not too long. Why are you so adamant about avoiding the fact that we can mind-talk?”

”Why are you so desirous of doing it?”

I shrugged, still watching the b.u.t.terflies as one took offense to a slur and attacked the other. ”I've never had this ability with anyone. It's pretty unique. I just don't understand why you're so freaked about it-oh, hi, Jake.”

”Don't tell me, you're talking to the b.u.t.terflies?””No, to my client, Paen Scott. Paen, this is Brother Jacob, one of the Diviners who used to teach me.”

Jake glanced around quickly, giving me a worried look. ”Erm... Sam...”

”He's behind the machinery,” I said, waving at the big misting machine. ”He's a Dark One. Suns.h.i.+ne is a no-no.”

”Ah,” Jake said, squinting at the machine. ”Pleasure.”

”Likewise,” came Paen's voice from behind the machine. ”Can we get on with this? I have a tip I'd like to discuss with you, Samantha.”

”Tip? What tip? About your statue?”

Paen said nothing.

”Fine, be mysterious.” I sighed, picking up the black mirrored bowl in one hand, the flask of spring-water in the other. ”Hopefully this won't take very long.”

Scrying isn't my forte. I came to that conclusion some ten minutes later, when I was trying to decipher the images that flashed in my mind while covered with hundreds and hundreds of squabbling b.u.t.terflies. An image of the gold bird statue popped into my head for a moment. Clearly I had statues on the brain. I closed it out and focused my thoughts on the monkey statue before looking into the bowl.

”What exactly do you see?” Jake asked, batting at a couple of b.u.t.terflies that left me to investigate him.

”I see the statue,” I hissed through my teeth, experience having proven that opening your mouth to speak while covered in b.u.t.terflies is not a good idea. ”It's a black monkey all right. Smallish, kind of ugly. Has a really big... er... masculine attribute.

Looks Pagan rather than Chinese.”

”Where is it?” Paen asked from the cover of the misting machine.

I shook my head to dislodge a couple of the b.u.t.terflies that clung to my eyelashes, and looked deep into the reflective water held in my scrying bowl. It was a bit difficult to scry because the b.u.t.terflies, evidently attracted to me while I was doing my sun elf thing, were flitting around in front of the bowl, but I managed to see past them, past the surface of the water, deep into that twilight place between realities also known as the beyond.

”It's in a dark place. Closely confined in some sort of sarcophagus or something like that. Maybe a tomb,” I said, sending the mental picture of it to Paen. ”There's a definite feel of it being held in a confined, protected place.”

”A tomb? What tomb?” he asked.

I shook my head. ”No idea. I can't see its location beyond the fact that it's entombed. All I see is the statue itself.”

”Er... Sam? I hate to hurry you, but I think you should try to wrap this up,” Jake said, his voice worried.

”Why?” I asked, my vision still turned inward, trying to pull out of the tomb to see where it was located.

”Because you're starting to emit light, and there's a lorry-load of b.u.t.terflies heading this way that look like they aren't going to be content with just fluttering merrily around you.”

I pulled back out of the scrying vision and glanced down first at myself, where tiny little pinpoints of sunlight were bursting out of me. ”Wow. I'm in suns.h.i.+ne overload... holy moly!”

Heading toward us in a veritable tidal wave of brilliant color, every b.u.t.terfly in the whole of b.u.t.terfly World was zooming straight at me in one solid ma.s.s that knocked down everything and everyone in its path. People screamed and threw themselves to the floor as the swarm flew at us. As if that sight wasn't frightening enough, the b.u.t.terflies' chant of ”Drink the light! Drink the light!”

turned my blood cold.

I dumped the water out of my scrying bowl and leaped to my feet, s.n.a.t.c.hing up my backpack before throwing myself through the palms, b.u.t.terflies falling off me as I bolted for the door. ”Run! Run for your lives! Killer b.u.t.terflies!”

Chapter 9.

”I don't believe I've ever run across a b.u.t.terfly I'd cla.s.sify as murderous,” Paen commented a few minutes later. He stood in the shadow of an overhang of a maintenance building, clad in the same ankle-length black coat and hat that he'd worn to my office.

”Yeah, well, you didn't hear those little monsters chanting about drinking you.” I stopped brus.h.i.+ng off the b.u.t.terfly dust-which Jake helpfully informed me was actually miniscule scales off the b.u.t.terflies' wings-and scrunched my nose. ”Why was I emitting light? I've never done that before.”

”You've never channeled power from the sun before, either,” Jake said, watching Paen with bright, interested eyes. ”You probably pulled more than you needed, and it had to go somewhere.”

I patted my torso, still a bit weirded out by the experience. Unlike Clare, I was not immortal, nor did I recover quickly from wounds. The fact that sunlight could burst out of me without doing damage relieved my mind on one level, and disturbed me greatly on another. I'd have to worry about it at another time, though. Right now I had more important concerns. ”Whatever the reason, I'm glad it's done. I'm just sorry I couldn't pinpoint the location of the statue.”

”You have no idea where it is?” Paen asked.

”Somewhere fairly close, that's the only sense of location I got.”

”Close meaning Edinburgh? Scotland? The planet Earth?”

”Very funny,” I said, walking toward the parking lot. I stopped and looked back at Paen, still standing in the shadows. ”Mind giving us a lift back to town?”

He angled his hat so it shaded his face, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and strode past me into the sunlight. Jake and I followed, hurrying to keep up with Paen's long-legged stride.

”The answer to your question is this area. I think. Lowlands of Scotland. Somewhere around here, there's a tomb holding that statue. Any obvious spots you'd like to search first?”

”No,” Paen said, turning his back to the sun so he could open the car door. I noticed for the first time that the windows of the car were heavily tinted. From the inside, they appeared normal, but anyone standing outside it saw windows almost as dark as my scrying mirror. ”But I have information that may make such a search moot.”

”Really? What sort of information?” I asked as I got into the car, claiming the front seat while Jake took the rear. I scooted around on the seat so I had my back to the door, able to see both men. ”What did you find out?”