Pia Does Hollywood (Elder Races, #8.6)(14)

Abruptly, she did calm down. Her sobbing stopped as if a switch had been thrown, and her twisting hands loosened.

“There aren’t any people in my neighborhood,” she whispered. “My mom lives on the next block. She’s gone too. We always have breakfast together, but she wasn’t there when I let myself in. When I called the police and told them my mother was missing, they said they would drive by her house to check into it, and get back to me. I haven’t heard from them either.”

Okay. He had tried his hardest not to engage, but that snagged him. He repeated, “There are no people at all in your neighborhood.”

Mutely she shook her head.

Perhaps this was the delusion he needed to understand to make his beguilement effective. Crossing his arms, he frowned. “How do you know this?”

“Because I live there!” the woman cried. “I know!”

Abruptly, he decided he’d had more than enough of talking to her. He snapped, “What’s your address?”

Jumping at the sharp command in his voice, she blurted out an address.

He held out one hand. “Give me the keys.”

The woman hesitated, then started shaking her head. “I-I don’t think I c-can do tha—”

Oh for the love of all the gods. Injecting all his strength into his voice, he told her, “Shut up and give me the goddamn keys.”

Her hand jerked out, offering the set to him. Taking the ring, he rifled through them until he found the right key to unlock the display case. Scooping up the firebird necklace, a matching bracelet and dangling earrings, he gave them a brief, very thorough look.

The workmanship was top-notch. He was looking forward to examining the pieces in greater depth, but for now, he shoved the jewelry into the front pocket of his jeans. He told the woman, “Tell your boss to bill me.”

She stood frozen and mute, staring at him with huge eyes.

Because he had, in fact, told her to shut up. Well, that would wear off soon enough, but thank the gods, not while he was around.

Slapping her keys on the counter, he let himself out of Crazy Town and into the welcome fresh, sunlit air. Rotating first one shoulder, then the other, he angled his head and looked up and down the street.

Yes, there were people around, both shoppers walking down the sidewalks and people driving by in cars.

He was just about to dismiss the woman forever as a mental case, when one small detail caught his attention.

Everyone walking down the street was human. There weren’t any of the Elder Races in sight.

That happened quite often, actually. There were far more humans than people of the Elder Races. … But he was standing in front of a popular Elder Races shop, which strengthened the likelihood that he would see a member of the Elder Races—any of the Elder Races—quite a bit.

Frowning again, he turned his attention to the cars passing by. The next five vehicles were filled with humans too.

It was probably just a huge, boring coincidence. But Tatiana had guards barricading her street. And it had seemed like she had sent a large number of troops to meet Pia’s flight.

Fuck it. He would go check out Basket Case’s address and determine for himself whether or not there was anybody around.

When he consulted Google Maps briefly on his smartphone, he found Basket Case lived in a neighborhood north and to the west. Pulling his cloaking tightly around him, he shapeshifted and took to the air. By car, he guessed it would take Basket Case a good forty-five minutes to drive into work. Sometimes he pitied wingless creatures.

As he flew the distance, he turned over various thoughts in his mind like searching for the spark of jewels in a mound of earth.

People, any kind of people, tended to congregate in enclaves and cluster in clumps. Sure, there were crossovers, but overall, families liked to flock to family-oriented amusements and neighborhoods. Hipsters flocked to whatever hipsters liked to do. Dragos was acres and miles and continents away from being a hipster, so he had no real understanding of that new subset of society, but he thought it involved drinking lots of artisanal coffee and organic wines.

Those who were religious behaved in the same way. They went to church, or synagogues, or temples, and enjoyed social outings together. The Elder Races also followed the same behavioral trend. They tended to shop at Elder Races stores and live in neighborhoods filled with Elder Races creatures.

The Light Fae were no exception. As a people, they tended to be clannish anyway, and Basket Case had said her mother lived on the next block over from her. It stood to reason that Basket Case probably lived in a neighborhood filled with Light Fae.

Her mother was missing. Her co-workers and manager, who were in all probability Light Fae as well, had not come in to work.

Locating the street on which Basket Case lived, he coasted down the length of it until he reached her block. Then he landed, shapeshifted and walked down the middle of the tree-lined street until he came up to her address.

It looked like a modest, smart neighborhood, with a mix of single-family homes and other houses that appeared to be divided into apartments. Along with oaks and other varieties of trees, palm trees dotted either side of the streets. Fences were painted; lawns were well kept. While modest, this was not a neighborhood in decline.

No cars traveled down the street to disrupt the direction of Dragos’s stroll.

Nobody mowed their lawn.

He began to listen closely for any signs of movement in the houses he passed. There were none. A couple of houses stood with their front doors open. Silence beat down on his head, along with the strength of the southern California sun.