Steal the Light (Thieves) Read online

  When I was young, I would make a game of finding the one flaw in the glamour. When using this magic, there is always one small flaw, and if you can find it, the glamour no longer works on you and you can see the person as they truly are. I never could find that fatal flaw, and as I got older, I stopped trying. I realized that this was Ingrid as she wanted to be seen and to try to pull down her glamour was a rudeness I didn’t wish to participate in.

  “Oh, greetings to Zoey Wharton,” she said with a smile.

  As I stood to greet her, she lightly touched my hair in a familiar token of affection. After the formalities were taken care of, she joined us beside the fire. “You have gotten in a bit of trouble, I assume. Your father, he does not know?”

  “Just a bit.” I always felt like a kid around this couple. They had often served as surrogate parents when I was young. I had spent many summers with them and felt a need to make them proud of me. “It’s just a minor hiccup, and my father doesn’t know. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “I’m sure you would,” Ingrid said with that tone that made me feel like I was fifteen years old all over again. “So, what is this thing the demon wants you to steal? I assume this trouble involves some form of thievery.”

  I winced. Halle was easy to talk to, but Ingrid didn’t think procurement was a proper profession for a young lady. She had agreed with my father that college, a career, and marriage to Daniel was the only way to go. Ingrid had expressed her disappointment when I dropped out. Trolls really know how to relate feelings of disappointment. Still, she was the only person in town who might know something about this object. “The demon called it the Light of Alhorra.”

  Ingrid was silent for a moment, and I knew what she was doing. She was deciding if withholding the information would do any good. Luckily, she had known me for a long time. My stubbornness was legendary. “Yes, I have heard of this, but it is only a legend. It is a box supposedly filled with the blessings of the Fae. The way my mother told the story, a powerful faery tribe placed a piece of their magic in a box for safekeeping. The magic in the box grew into blessings that were then passed from tribe to tribe as a sort of ambassador of peace after the great wars. Each tribe became guardian of the ancient magic and it bound the tribes together.”

  “What does a demon want with faery blessings?” I was still a bit confused. “Faery blessings are things like good crops and fair weather. Unless he’s starting an organic Hell co-op, it doesn’t really make sense.”

  Ingrid shrugged, a single motion of her shoulder. “This I cannot know.”

  My mind raced, trying to make sense of the deal I’d made. There was a pure intentions clause that went along with the Light of Alhorra. If there is one thing demons don’t possess on any level, it’s pure intentions. I didn’t understand what Halfer wanted with a box he couldn’t open and blessings he couldn’t use, unless he was telling the truth and really getting the object back for someone else. “Is it possible that the tribes on this plane are still caring for the object?”

  Ingrid shook her head. “No, the time of the great tribes was done long before my mother birthed me. The tribes left here are weak. Some of the young Fae have left the traditional homes and live among the humans. There are a few tribes left, but they are only truly strong in their sitheins. On this plane, there are few full-blooded Fae. Such magic would never be safe here. No, the Light was taken beyond the veil when our forefathers left. Whatever this demon is looking for, it cannot be the true light. I think you’re safe turning over whatever you find.”

  Ingrid was quiet for a moment, and I asked her a question I had always wondered about. “Ingrid, why don’t you join them? Is it not possible?”

  She smiled. “This is my home. This is my family.”

  Halle took her hand. “She is not telling the complete truth. She stays because I would never be accepted. I am only a halfling. My father was human. In the great tribes of the past, she would have been a queen. I would, at best, have been a tolerated servant.”

  Ingrid tenderly touched his face. I knew in that moment, I didn’t exist for them. It had always been this way with the two of them. Thinking back now, it was the only really solid relationship I had to look up to when I was a child. It was just the two of them in the whole world and had been since the day they met hundreds of years before.

  “You are my king. As I said, this is my home and you are my family. I have no need for any other.” She leaned in and kissed him before breaking the moment and turning back to me. “Now, as for you, what does Daniel say?”

  I groaned. I should have known she wouldn’t let this subject get away. “He says we do the job by the letter and try not to piss off the demon.”

  “He is a wise man, your Daniel,” she said.

  “Ingrid, he isn’t mine. He left me.” I didn’t even try to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Ingrid knew how I felt. She had let me cry on her shoulder for days after they took him from me. I had spent a month traveling from bridge to bridge with them as I had when I was a child.

  “Bah, he is acting like an idiot,” she said dismissively. “It is—what do they call it in children? I believe the term is temper tantrum.”

  “It’s a really long temper tantrum since it’s been years,” I pointed out.

  “It’s your fault, child.”

  I sat straight up at that. Now I was offended. “My fault? How in all the holy planes of existence is it my fault?”

  “He acts as you allow him to act. You must take the reins,” she proclaimed as though it were the simplest thing in the world. She turned to Halle, who was nodding in agreement. “What do the young folk call it now, my love?”

  “Scene control,” Halle said. “I have heard this on MTV.”

  “Yes, you must get this scene control.”

  I threw up my hands in surrender. How could one argue with MTV? “Fine, it’s my fault, but the truth is, I’m not sure what else I can do. I’ve tried everything. I’ve told him nothing has changed for me. I don’t care that he’s gone all fangalicious. I pledged my love. I’ve made a fool of myself on more than one occasion. I’ve tried being patient. Nothing works. He tells me this is all for my own good.”

  “Have you tried leaving him?” Ingrid asked.

  “I don’t have to. He left me.”

  A small smile played on Ingrid’s lips. “He didn’t get very far, did he? I wonder how far he would go if there was…someone else? If he has moved on, you should move on as well, preferably with someone lovely who will anger Daniel in every way possible.”

  The thought of dating sent a chill up my spine. It had been so long since I had been on an actual date, much less…

  I stopped when I realized what I had been about to think. Much less a first date. I had been on exactly one first date. I went with Daniel to the movies on what we had decided was our first official date. We were fifteen years old, and I don’t think it really counted as a true first date because we had known each other for so long.

  What would it be like to go on a date with someone I hadn’t been around for most of my life? Daniel and I had known each other since we were children, so there was never that “getting to know you” period. There wasn’t an exchange of childhood stories since we knew them all. It had been an easy, laidback slide from friendship to romantic love. Up to this moment, my entire romantic life had been about one man. It had been about dating Daniel, loving Daniel, planning a future with Daniel, mourning Daniel, and trying to get Daniel back. How much of myself had I given up for Daniel? Was I willing to wait for the rest of my life for him to come back to me?

  “I do not wish to see this life pass you by because Daniel cannot see the truth or because he is too afraid to take what has been offered to him.” Ingrid took my hand in hers and stroked it gently as she had when I was a child and she’d comforted me. “There is too much to enjoy. If Daniel is your soul’s mate, then things will work out. If he is not, then you are wasting time, child.”

  I shook my head as if
I could clear it from those disturbing thoughts. It seemed too complicated. It was definitely too scary. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t even know how to find a date. I haven’t dated anyone but Daniel.”

  “Like I said, you need someone who understands the world you live in,” Ingrid explained. “You need a gentleman who is looking for love as well. And it would not hurt if this gentleman was, as they say, totally hot.”

  They let me sit in silence for a moment while I wondered which part of myself was going to win this particular war. The adventurous side of me, the one I had quelled for a long time, was excited at the prospect of trying something, anything to get me out of the rut I’d been in for the last several years. Then there was the part of me that was terrified at having to meet someone new and trying to fit in. Then there was the thought of sex with someone other than Daniel. That almost broke my heart, but I had to ask myself if I was willing to never have sex again. When I got down to the heart of the problem, I realized one thing. I was lonely. “And you might know this person?”

  Ingrid’s blue eyes practically glowed with excitement. “Oh, yes. I know just the person, love.”

  That’s how I woke up under a bridge with a monster hangover and a date with an earthbound faery prince.

  Chapter Four

  “By god, girl, this is the end of the line. If you think for one minute I’m going to allow you to pull a job for a demon, then you don’t know me at all!” My father had already been red in the face even before I opened the door, so I knew I was in for it. His Irish temper didn’t take much to set off, but when he was this close to exploding, I knew I was in for a fight.

  “You should really lock your door,” Sarah said quietly from behind me.

  “Wouldn’t make a difference.” I walked into my tiny living room, despite my instincts to flee.

  I’d woken up under the bridge sometime in the early afternoon with a massive headache and a slightly altered outlook on life. Halle had taken care of the headache with a mug of something herbal. I didn’t ask about the contents. It worked and that was all that mattered. I bid the pair good-bye and promised not to let as much time pass between visits.

  The first call I made when I got back to my car was to wake up Sarah. My blind date was picking me up at eight, and I knew I was in trouble when it came to the fashion department. Old jeans and faded black T-shirts were not going to make the first-date cut. I needed something nice, and there was no way I trusted my own instincts for something this important. It wasn’t important because I thought I was going to immediately fall in love. It was important because it was the first step away from the cycle I had been in since Daniel died. It deserved new clothes and a haircut. Sarah had massive experience in both.

  The last thing I needed was a visit from my father.

  “What the hell are ya thinking, girl? Do you know the kind of trouble you’re getting yourself into?”

  I looked at my father and realized this was a turning point as well. I could cry and beg his forgiveness and ask him to help me out of the situation. He would hug me and tell me everything would be all right, and then he would completely take over. Or I could grow up and take charge. It was far past time for me to take a stand with my overbearing father.

  “What do you mean ‘getting myself into,’ pops? According to everyone I’ve talked to, I’m in and there’s no way out, so rest easy. The worst has happened. It’s all downhill from here.” I threw my bags on the kitchen table. I carefully hung up the black cocktail dress Sarah had found at a vintage store.

  “Yes, downhill leads straight to Hell,” he continued. “This ain’t something to joke about, Zoey. Demon kind is serious about their contracts.”

  “I can laugh or I can cry, Dad. I can’t fix this problem tonight, so I don’t see the value in worrying myself to death over it. Now, who ratted me out?” I turned and immediately had my question answered. Daniel was standing in the shadows looking broody. His arms were crossed, but he let them drop as he took a close look at me. “I should have known. Did you even wait until today or did you immediately go straight from here last night to tattle?”

  “Your dad called me. He has the right to know what we’re going into. And why the hell did you cut your hair,” Daniel stated, ignoring my question.

  “Well, you should be glad he told me. He’s the only one with any sense,” my father continued, unabated. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

  “You colored it, too.” Daniel made his observation a veritable accusation.

  “I just had Anton pump up the color a little.” Sarah had been thrilled when I called her. She had dropped everything in favor of helping me with a mini-makeover. She had been trying to force me into a girl’s day out for a long time. If I had known how good a deluxe mani-pedi could make a person feel, I would have done it a long time before. Spending the day with Sarah had made me realize how I had been keeping everyone at a distance. It had been nice to share a day with someone as open and happy as Sarah.

  My father continued his tirade. “And do you know what will happen when ya do manage to get yourself horribly murdered by whatever is waiting out there? Don’t think there’s not something waiting. When it gets ya, you’ll find yerself on some Hell plane being some demon’s bitch, and let me tell ya that’s worse than any ‘girls in prison’ movie you’ve seen…”

  “A couple of highlights and the red in her hair really pops,” Sarah was explaining. “I also had him texturize the hell out of it. It’s thick but now it lies so nicely.”

  “I liked it the other way,” Daniel said sourly.

  “Do ya know what a demon can do to ya?” My father pulled me back into the primary conversation.

  “Yes, Pop. I remember the bedtime stories,” I said. “It’s something no three-year-old should have to listen to. I had nightmares for years. Do you remember when I accused my kindergarten teacher of having ties to Beelzebub? Do you remember the trip I had to take to the school psychologist?”

  “I told ya those stories for a reason,” he said seriously. “I was trying to teach ya something that should be evident to anyone with half a brain. Demons are bad. Ya shouldn’t go into business with them.”

  Sarah was ignoring our conversation, preferring to have it out with Daniel. “I think she looks awesome.”

  “She’s wearing too much makeup,” Daniel countered.

  “I didn’t realize he was a demon,” I defended myself. “I’m sorry my puny human senses couldn’t get past his magic. It’s kind of why I bring Daniel to these meetings. It’s not my fault that supervamp got tricked.”

  “Her makeup is extremely subtle,” Sarah huffed. “Do you know how hard it is to keep a transvestite makeup artist to the bare essentials?”

  “You never take on a client until you’ve looked into his background.” Dad shook his finger at me to emphasize his point.

  “Oh yeah, like you would turn down a million because you hadn’t done a skip trace,” I scoffed.

  My father’s face went white. “Did you say a million?”

  “She didn’t need a makeover,” Daniel said firmly.

  “Did Daniel not mention that little number?” I asked as my dad lowered himself shakily to a chair at the kitchen table. “What a surprise since he practically drooled all over the money. It’s half now and half when we turn over the object.”

  “This is even worse than I thought,” Dad said to himself.

  Sarah was shaking her pixie bob at Daniel. “That’s because you don’t understand the nature of women. We need makeovers. It’s about renewal and feminine power.”

  “There’s nothing powerful about mascara and new shoes.” Daniel faced off with her.

  My father let his head sink into his hands in what I thought was a complete over-dramatization of the situation. “How could this happen? Where did I go so wrong that my precious baby girl could get herself into a situation where she could go to Hell like this? If I could only switch places…”

  Sarah had pulled out one of my
brand new, altogether-too-expensive candy red stiletto heels. She pointed it at Daniel. “Let me tell you, buddy, it’s gonna feel powerful when I stake you with it.”

  “Yer mother, God rest her beautiful soul, is crying her heart out somewhere in Heaven.” My father managed to squeeze out a single tear meant to induce maximum guilt.

  “My mother is in Cleveland. I talked to her Saturday. She and Leonard, the accountant, are doing just fine,” I pointed out. “She didn’t die, Pop. She left when that pissed off client set a poltergeist on your ass.”

  Dad set his jaw stubbornly. “Well, she’s dead to me. I prefer my version of the story.” He paused for a moment and another thought came to him. “Are ya telling me ya have half a million dollars in cash just sitting out in the open in this hellhole of an apartment?”

  Daniel was smartly backing up as Sarah moved toward him. “I’m just saying I liked the way she looked before.”

  “Of course not,” I replied to my father. “I totally hid it under the bed.”

  At least that brought the color back to his face. “Under the bed!”

  Sarah continued to back Daniel into a corner with the threatening shoe. “Well, it’s not up to you. Her date is going to think she looks fabulous.”

  “Date?” Daniel and my father said in unison, the two arguments finally coming together.

  I didn’t like the complete shock that both of the men had written all over their faces. “It’s not like I’m some kind of a monster. I can get a date.”

  I didn’t mention that I hadn’t actually gotten this particular date, Ingrid had. They didn’t need to know that.

  “You have a date,” Daniel said as though he needed a moment to let it sink in.

  “Yes, I have a date, with an actual male,” I replied sarcastically. “Someone in the world who doesn’t mind being seen with me in public.”