I stared at Paen in confused horror. He had donned his shirt and was quickly buttoning it.
"How bad is she? What hospital is she at?" he asked. "I'll take you there."
Clare continued to rant about her dress. I shook my head, trying to figure out just how badly she was hurt.
"Clare? You didn't get shot in the head, did you?" I asked. "Are you lucid?"
"Of course I'm lucid. Haven't you been listening to me? My dress is ruined!" she wailed.
I rubbed my forehead as Paen helped me to my feet, waiting not-so-patiently for me to answer his questions. I was so bemused by the fact that Clare seemed more concerned for a dress than her own bullet-riddled body that I couldn't seem to think straight. "Yeah, but… Clare, exactly where were you shot?"
"Twice in the chest, once in the stomach."
"Samantha?" Paen said, clearly wanting an update.
I covered the mouthpiece. "She's been shot in the chest and stomach, but she doesn't seem to care much about that."
One of Paen's expressive eyebrows rose slightly. "She is a faery. She is immortal. Bullets can't kill her."
"No, but they can hurt her," I snapped, immediately feeling bad. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get irritated, but Clare seems to be more worried about her dress than anything else."
"Sam? Did you hear me? What am I going to do?" Clare's plaintive voice sobbed in my ear.
"Don't worry, we'll be there as quickly as we can. Where are you?"
"On Dunstan Moor."
"Where?"
"Dunstan Moor. It's in the Lammermuir Hills. They're shooting a movie here, and Finn is part of a historical group that's providing extras for the movie, and we decided it would be fun to join in. Since he didn't think it was a good idea me meeting with the fence on my own, we arranged to meet him here."
"On the set of a movie?" I asked, more than a little incredulous.
"It's not as movie-like as you'd think. Evidently the primarily filming was already done, and they're just doing a few more battle scenes—"
I sighed. Only my cousin would think nothing was wrong with meeting a fence in a location where there were plenty of witnesses to watch. "Dunstan Moor. Got it."
"You're coming? You'll bring help?" she asked, her voice plaintive.
"Police, paramedics, or both?" I asked.
There was silence on the other end of the phone. "Neither, silly! I need an emergency dry cleaner!"
I lost my patience then. "Honest to god, Clare, you act like the dress is more important than you being shot!"
"Of course it is! It's a Versace, you idiot! Bring help! I'm going to save this dress at all costs."
Chapter 5
"Can anyone tell me why…" I asked half an hour later as Paen and I stopped in front of Clare. She stood with a familiar dark-haired, dark-eyed man, both of them leaning over a small, portable plastic table spread with a wispy, gauzy bit of fabric in green, blue, and gold that I assumed was the all-so-important dress in question. We were a good fifteen yards away from a brightly lit area around a cluster of trailers. Beyond, half hidden by a couple of scrawny trees, blinding arc lights cut through the night as someone yelled instructions via a bullhorn for people to charge and retreat at specific cues. I paused, trying to see into the darkness. Something tugged at my consciousness, as if it was trying to get my attention. I scanned the area, slowly turning to locate whatever it was that called to me, then decided it was the location itself. Like my office, this land was founded.
"Can anyone tell you why what?" Clare asked.
"Hmm? Oh, why were you wearing a Versace gown to meet with a fence? On a movie set, yet?"
"They're having a ceilidh here after the battle shooting."
"Ceilidh? Oh, a party?"
"Yes. They've been making some sort of a Scottish historical movie, and since it's almost over, the movie people are letting the extras use the area for ceilidhs for the next couple of nights before they leave," Clare answered, waving toward the man next to her. "But I can't let anyone see the dress like this! Just look at it! Even if I could pretend the bullet holes were meant to be there, the blood has stained the fabric!"
"Hi, Finn," I said, smiling at Paen's brother. I'd only met him briefly before, just a quick introduction before we had set off for the castle, but now I had a chance to study him covertly. I could see a physical resemblance between him and Paen—they both had the same forehead, and similar dark, curly hair, but the fundamental difference was something not quite so obvious.
Finn had a soul.
Why does your brother have a soul? I thought Dark Ones didn't have them?
Paen shot me a glance, but didn't answer. I wanted to ask him again what the problem was with mind-talking, but since it made him so uncomfortable, I let it pass.
"Hello, Sam. What did you think of Castle de Ath?"
"It's big. And old. But nice. I liked it. Clare, what exactly happened?"
Clare wrung her hands in a delicately helpless manner that had Finn murmuring soft little platitudes in her ear. "Oh, it was awful, Sam, just awful! I arranged to meet Raul the fence, and he turned up with another man, a very evil man."
"The evil man shot you?" I asked, eyeing her. She had obviously borrowed a spare costume from an extra, since she was clad in a plain-spun ankle-length skirt and green bodice.
"He shot my dress, yes." Clare nodded. "Oh, stop making that face. Yes, I realize he meant to shoot me and not the dress, but you know how I am with wounds—I heal so quickly that the bullets did more damage to the dress than me."
"It's because you're a faery, Clare. Immortal. It's not that you heal fast—you just don't get injured."
Clare glanced quickly at Finn. "You'll have to excuse my cousin. She's normally very nice, but there are times when she's absolutely unreasonable."
"Ah?" Finn asked, looking at me.
I rolled my eyes and turned to Paen. "Is Clare a faery?"
"Yes," Paen said, poking a finger through a hole in the dress.
"Oh!" Clare gasped, her silvery eyebrows pulling together in a frown as she glared at Paen. "Do you think I'm going to listen to the opinion of a vampire?"
"Moving on," I said, not bothering to argue the obvious with her. "Who was the man who shot you? And why exactly did he try to kill you?"
"I don't know who he was, but I wrote up a report for you while Finn was sweet-talking the wardrobe mistress in order to get some club soda to remove the bloodstains. I know how you like reports," Clare said, pulling from her purse a small notepad.
"Hmm," I said, quickly scanning the pages. Paen moved to stand behind my shoulder so he could read it as well. I was momentarily distracted by the feeling of him so warm and solid behind me, but I firmly squelched the desire to turn around and run my hands over his chest again. "Finn was called away by some friends, so you met with Raul alone… He said he'd brought someone who wanted to talk to you… The other man had a monkey on his shoulder? A spider monkey?"
"I didn't ask him what sort it was," Clare answered, tsking over some new atrocity to the dress. "But it was small, so I guess it could be. It had on the cutest little sailor suit."
"Huh." If it was Beppo, then that would explain why the shopkeeper thought I was insane when I mentioned his monkey. But what was the man who was in Paen's castle doing shooting Clare? I read further in the report. "You chatted, he asked you about a statue—"
"Statue?" Paen asked, his voice rumbling close to my ear. Goose bumps ran down my arms at the nearness of it.