while Ursula watches. The greasy spoon café does excellent bacon sarnies, and the coffee is pretty good too.
I wipe my hands on a napkin. “You sure you don’t want one? They’re delicious.”
She smiles thinly. “I’m not hungry, but thanks. You said all the Dominus are busy.” She gives me a skeptical look.
At least she’s waited till I finish eating. Polite of her, which means having to lie to her will probably make me feel a little bad.
Okay, no, it won’t. “Yep, all busy doing very boring Dominus type things.”
The Dominion have been clear about us keeping the whole world-ending thing under wraps. There is nothing anyone could do to stop it. Only a power source can do that, and Fee is already on the case.
The Underealm issues are nothing to do with the Magiguard. My job is to deal with business as usual and make sure Fee doesn’t come back to a shit load of jobs in need of completion, because with Azazel in the Underealm looking for Lilith, all the Dominus shit falls on her.
“And Azazel asked you to take over his role?” The skeptical look hasn’t left Ursula’s face.
I sigh. “Look, if you don’t want the assist, then that’s fine. I have other things to be getting on with. You can explain to Az why you didn’t let me help when he gets back.”
Her brow pinches slightly. “No. That’s fine. I know you’re Fee’s best friend and honestly, we need the help. Magiguard aren’t exactly inconspicuous in the outlier community. They see us and they clam up. It’s why we only show up when the crime has been committed and nab the perpetrator. Investigations are handled by Azazel and his team.” She frowns. “Where did you say his team was?”
Ha, trying to catch me out, huh? “I didn’t. They’re working on Underealm business right now, hence the reason I’m here.” She looks as if she wants to ask more questions, so I forge on quickly. “Tell me about these missing humans?”
The drop in her shoulders tells me she’s conceded that it’s me or nothing. “The Magiguard keep tabs on human crimes and assess to make sure the crimes aren’t supernatural in nature. We intervene where need be. There are wards set up all over Necro to alert us to outlier crimes against humans. Over the last few days, those alarms have been tripped several times, but every time we arrive on the scene, there’s no evidence of any crime.”
“Okay…maybe your wards are glitching?”
“That’s what we thought, but then we ran a check through the human police case files and came across a spate of missing persons reports that roughly coincide with our wards being tripped.”
“You think the missing people are victims of an outlier kidnapping?”
“We suspect as much. So far, human law enforcement has no leads. These people just upped and vanished. The only time that ever happens is if Mouths are involved, but we keep track of Mouth activity separately, and right now, the creatures seem to have gone underground.” She sips her tea again. “Strange.”
Not really, considering their masters, the Dread, have either fled to the Beyond or been slaughtered trying. But that’s another thing I can’t tell Ursula, not without bringing the Beyond into it and inviting a shit load of questions I won’t be able to answer.
“I’ll look into it, but I’ll need the locations of the suspected kidnappings and the names and addresses of the missing people.”
“Do you have a comm?”
I hold up my wrist.
“I’ll get you added to our system as Azazel’s representative and get the data sent to you.”
I drain my tea. “Great. I’ll keep you updated.”
She leaves the coffee shop, and I tap a message to Fee. It’s been almost five hours since she left for the Beyond and my gut is all squirrelly. I need to know she’s okay.
My comm beeps before I can type.
Back at the house. Meet me there, stat – Fee
I look around. The place is empty, and the owner has her back to me. Fuck it. I make the jump to Fee.
Chapter Ten
Fee
We gathered in the lounge with the Christmas tree lights winking at us. I really needed to take that thing down, but I didn’t have the time. None of us did.
Grayson and Dean perched on sofa arms, and Cora sat on the single-seater. Uriel had gone to the Academy with Keon, and they weren’t back yet, but I didn’t have time to waste.
Seventy-two hours. That was all I had. I needed to leave