No distinctive church chimes.
No dolphins playing in the background." "Which eliminates a lot of places," said Auriele.
"I'm pretty sure it was indoors.
I heard a hum that might have been a fluorescent light fixture." "I heard echoes, like she was in a room with hard sides," said Darryl.
"Not a huge room, though.
It didn't sound hollow." "When--" I couldn't say "she hit him," because I'd promised not to talk about the fairy queen or Gabriel's danger to the werewolves.
"When Mary Jo heard something, there was a slight scuffing sound," I said.
"Like a chair sliding on cement." I closed my eyes and thought about the feel of the background sounds.
"The lack of outdoor noises might mean that she was in a basement instead of just indoors," said Darryl.
"If she's not from around here, she'd need to acquire someplace secure-- not a hotel.
Rentals are hard to find in the area right now-- one of my coworkers was complaining about it.
If Phin is dead, maybe the fae is using his house." "He lived in an apartment, one of the newer ones in West Pasco--and he has nosy neighbors." I got up and got a dishcloth and wet it down so I could clean up the cocoa.
"The bookstore, then," said Auriele.
She took the cloth and tossed it to Mary Jo.
"Your mess, you clean it up." Mary Jo's shoulders were tight, but she started to clean up without protest.
"Sam and I were in the bookstore's basement tonight," I said.
"But the lighting there is incandescent--no buzzing.
Beyond that, the sound was wrong.
There were a lot of books down there, so it wasn't as echo-y.
The room in the phone call sounded emptier." "You were at the bookstore? Did you catch a scent?" Ben had been dozing, I thought.
Even after he spoke, his eyes were closed.
The stress of his wounds and the full belly from Warren's mysterious ice chest of roasts would work like a narcotic.
"Do you need to go downstairs and sleep?" I asked.
"No, I'm fine.
Did you find out anything?" "We picked up Phin's scent--and four other fae who had been in there.
One of them, some kind of forest fae, came back, and Sam killed it.
There was another forest fae, a female we didn't meet.
She was the same kind as the one Sam killed--I'm pretty sure of it.
And then there was one who smelled of swamps and wet things who hopefully is her knight of the water.
The fewer allies she has, the happier I am.