Even Vampires Get the Blues - By Katie MacAlister Page 0,13

and a pound coin later, I stood outside a familiar white brick building. The buildings were designed in Georgian style, all clean, classical lines, but the Diviners' House itself (donated to the Order by a grateful client) was unremarkable, its polished oak and brass door speaking of the same quiet affluence as the hotels that sat on either side of it. I shook away the bad memories of the last few years and entered the house, quickly locating one of the few remaining Diviners who would acknowledge my existence.

"... so I thought it would be better to have it checked out before I opened it, in case there was some sort of Pandora's box thing going on," I finished five minutes later, carefully watching the man who stood next to me with the box in his hands. "What do you think? Is it something bad?"

Brother Jacob, head of the Scottish branch of Diviners, and erstwhile schoolmate from a childhood spent in Calgary, gave me a look that almost made me squirm. Almost. "Sam, you didn't leave here utterly ignorant. You possess the skills to determine if this object is tainted by dark powers."

"Uh... Jake, I hate to disillusion you about any of my so-called skills, but I flunked divination, remember? I was kicked out of the Order."

"You left voluntarily," he said, still giving me the look that said I shouldn't be bothering him with petty things.

"Right. Only I was volunteered to leave by the head of the Order."

"Master Tsang was acting in your best interests - " Jake started to say, his brow furrowed.

I laughed and held up a hand. "Don't worry, Jake, I'm not here to start up that whole how-I-left-and-why-I-left thing. Honestly, I'm over it. And perfectly willing to accept that Master Tsang was right and I was wrong about divination being my calling. I'm a mutt, half human and half elf, neither one thing or another, and as we both know, divination is a gift, not a skill. Hence my inability to tell if that box is nasty or not. What do you think?"

Jake sighed and gave up trying to glare me into being something I just wasn't. He looked off into the distance as his hands spread across the box, an abstracted look on his face indicating he was deep in a world that only Diviners could access. "The box itself has been in the possession of a demon."

"So that was a demon? Interesting."

"However, the object inside it does not seem to be imbued with any dark powers."

"That's good to know. So what is it?" I asked, curious.

Jake blinked and shot me a jaded look. "I'm not an X-ray machine, Sam. If you want to know what's in it, you'll have to find out for yourself."

"But I told you, I can't divine anything - "

He rolled his eyes, shoving the box back at me. "I meant you'll have to open the box, you idiot."

"Oh." I smiled and punched him lightly in the shoulder, just to let him know I appreciated the insult. I bummed a pair of scissors from him to cut the leather thongs that bound the box, then popped off the lid, wondering what on earth a demon could be delivering, and whom it was supposed to be delivered to. "Huh. It's a statue."

"Of what?" Jake asked, peering over my shoulder. "A bird?"

"Yeah." I lifted the small statue from a nest of velvet material, surprised by its weight. It was gold-colored, about nine inches tall, apparently of a bird of prey. "Looks like a hawk or falcon or some raptor like that."

"Ooooh. Is it gold?" he asked, his voice hushed as if he was in the presence of something awe-inspiring.

I turned the statue around, flipping it over to look at the bottom. "I don't think so. I think it's brass."

"How can you tell?" he asked. "It looks like gold to me."

"One word." I pointed at the letters on the bottom of the statue. "Last I heard, Taiwan wasn't knocking off gold bird statues."

"Why would someone go to the trouble of having a demon deliver a non-gold Taiwanese statue?" Jake asked, looking as confused as I felt.

"That is the question, isn't it?" I gave the bird statue another quick once-over, then put it back in the box and strapped the lid on with some packing tape. "Maybe if I knew that, I'd know who it was meant for. Thanks for your help, Jake. And for the referral. I appreciate you spreading the word about our