Chapter 31

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

G wil hadn't expected to hear from Flume so fast. But a goblin appeared at the door to his office within an hour of him sending Flume a message. "Gwilym Hilt?" he asked, at least he assumed it was male as he'd never met a female since the goblins kept their womenfolk at home.

"Yes."

"Mr Flume is waiting to receive you and Prince Hyax at his private residency at your earliest convenience."

"His Highness isn't here at the moment." Hyax had left to return the stone, but as far as he knew he'd be back as soon as possible. "Once he arrives we can call on Mr Flume."

The goblin sniffed. He was dressed in a bespoke three-piece suit that was probably from the goblin equivalent of Savile Row, which from memory was somewhere around the back of Southwark Cathedral. From the inside pocket of his expensively-tailored jacket, he removed a business card. "This is Mr Flume's address. You should not dawdle."

His experience with goblins was limited, for a reason, as they were terrifying little buggers, some of whom had a taste for undead human flesh. "We'll be as fast as we can."

An orange circle began to form, and it looked like Hyax had finally turned up on time for something, not that he knew it. "Gwil!" Hyax stepped through and stopped. "Oh, who's he?"

"Mr Flume's associate. He came personally to let us know we are expected."

"Right." Hyax's view on goblins was similar to his own. Goblins had songs about pulling the wings off fairies. "I take it we are expected now?"

The goblin cleared his throat. "If it is not an inconvenience to His Highness."

"Not inconvenient at all," Hyax replied, raising an eyebrow in Gwil's direction.

"Excellent I have a car waiting for us outside. I would humbly suggest, that said, we make haste, Mr Flume has some important engagements this evening and he is keen not to be late."

They followed the goblin out of the front door to where a car was waiting for them. It was the sort of car film stars and celebrities would be seen getting in and out of and, while Gwil assumed Hyax would be used to this level of luxury, it was far from his own usual method of transport. As predicted, Hyax slid into the back of the car as if he owned it, and Gwil clambered in beside him.

It dawned on him that he had no idea where Flume lived. In all his dealings with him over the last century, Gwil had always met him at his club. He realised they were heading north out of the city and was surprised to find they had stopped in a less salubrious area of Camden, not the sort of place he'd expected a vampire of Flume's wealth and reputation to live. Having said that, the car came to a halt outside a small mansion, relatively modern and, again somewhat surprising for a vampire who had been undead for three centuries to choose such a style of architecture.

Hyax appeared as confused. "Are you sure this is where Flume lives?" He asked getting out of the car.

The goblin gave him a most dismissive stare. "I am quite sure, Your Highness. I have been working for Mr Flume for many years and for the last five he has taken up residency here. He decided he wanted something more modern that would not require constant upkeep. And had much better blackout capabilities. His last property had an unfortunate south-facing aspect that was something of a sun trap at times."

That explained it. The last thing Flume would have wanted was to risk being turned into crispy bacon. The goblin trotted ahead, leaving Gwil and Hyax to hurry after him. The interior was a little bit more as he expected, with deep rich colourings in the drapes and furnishings, and a definite feel of Victoriana.

They were escorted to the back of the property and to Flume's office, which looked like something from the 1870s, Gwil felt a lot more comfortable, as if the normal balance of the universe had been restored.

"Thank you for coming, Your Highness, and Gwil," Flume said from behind his monstrosity of a desk. "And at such short notice."

Hyax sat without permission but Gwil knew his place in the vampire hierarchy and waited for Flume to waft his hand in the general direction of a chair before sitting. "Actually, I want to thank you for replying to Gwil's message with such expediency," Hyax said. "I have a delicate matter relating to my family to discuss."

Flume stared at Hyax. "You have retrieved the Stone of Ljin, I take it. Or were you unable to find it at the museum?"

"The stone is safely back in the fae realm, but it does beg the question of how you knew," Gwil said. "My sister said the Council was involved on the periphery, but Penelope didn't mention you by name, and if you were involved and she'd known that, she would have said."

Flume laughed. "Your sister might be a well-connected woman but she doesn't know everything, and not everything is Vampire Council business."

"So you're admitting you were aware and knew where the stone was?" pressed Hyax.

"Of course I did, do you really think I was so bothered by an old watch to gift a house in such a well-placed location? Since when are vampires sentimental?" He smirked. "Or when have I been sentimental? Gwil has known me long enough to know better."

"I thought you were just being bloody-minded over the watch and knew it would take something special to get Hyax on board."

"To be fair that is one of my most dominant traits."

Gwil didn't like being played but Flume had rewarded them well. "But why send us there for Hyax to find out what was going on."

"There had to be some serious magic at play to have been behind the changes to the Stardust batches—and coupled with a few of the rumours buzzing around, I rightly surmised it was the stone. Goya had been called in, but the fae royal family hadn't thought he'd assume it was one of their most valuable assets. I just moved it along a little."

"But why would you care about the Stardust or my family getting the stone back?" Hyax said, taking the words out of Gwil's mouth. "If you wanted my help, you could have just told me and saved you the price of our new house."

"Firstly, the Stardust situation was getting out of control. There were many more cases than were publicly known and the severity of the reactions was escalating. We needed to stop it but didn't want it known how much we knew. We couldn't just say, look, I think the stone we don't officially know you've lost is most likely somewhere in the British Museum, so by getting Hyax in place and casting, it should've given you a hint. But you were a bit slow."

Hyax had felt something but had not jumped to the conclusion Flume had expected him to. To be fair at that point he was not aware the stone was missing. But it still didn't add up, and he didn't understand why Flume cared about the Stardust.

"Who's we ?" Gwil asked.

"The Paranormal Division of the Metropolitan Police."

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Gwil said. "You're part of the Met?"

"I founded the division," he said with a smug smile. "Built it up side-by-side with the regular lot."

Gwil sagged in his chair, barely able to believe what he'd heard. "But there's no vampires in the Met."

"There's one. Me."

"Vampires aren't exactly known for their civic duty," Hyax said, sounding dubious.

"It wasn't done for altruistic purposes. I could see that sooner or later law enforcement would be needed and it was better to be shaping it in the direction I wanted than to be forced under its boot."

"But I asked several times to join, and I was always refused." It had hurt more than it should before, and now it was even worse, given Flume was in charge. "A snide comment about me being a vamp part of it."

"No your drug habits as a human were sufficient for your application to be denied but it wasn't because you wouldn't have been good at it, but that you'd be wasted as a police officer."

"What's that meant to mean?"

Flume raised an eyebrow. "Goya is a perfect enforcer, follows the rules, but that's not you. You'd have been fired within months because you disagreed with the policy or refused to toe the line."

Flume had a point. "Might have been nice to have been told. I would have stopped asking."

"You stopped asking decades ago, and your detective business has an impressive reputation." He pointed to Hyax. "Let's not forget the other benefits, as I hear congratulations are in order. I can count on one hand the number of sanctioned vampire/fae relationships I've encountered."

Hyax snorted. "That's more than I can."

"Not from your tribe, Your Highness, but there's one very powerful family in vampire society who are a vampire/fae couple."

He saw Hyax stiffen knowing the Calanti were a touchy subject, but Gwil didn't want to end up further down this rabbit hole, as Flume was an expert at derailing a conversation. "Back to the Met. I get why I wasn't recruited, fair enough in retrospect."

"This way you're almost like a vampire consulting detective."

"Without being on the payroll, I see."

Flume rolled his eyes. "You have always been well-compensated for the work you've been engaged in, and admittedly while you might not have known the Met was the ultimate customer, you can't complain. Put it this way, Gwil, you have the best of both worlds and will never have to answer to Goya. I honestly thought you two would just fuck the animosity out of your systems and move on, but it seems I'm wrong on that one."

Gwil felt a little queasy at the thought. "Never, ever , mention that as a possibility again. There is not enough laudanum in the world to forget that if it were to ever happen."

"You're hardly going to be interested in Goya when you have a fae prince as a betrothed." Flume grinned at Hyax. "I bet Queen Talia took some persuasion. But you should know the Vampire Council are delighted."

"Not sure that will be a positive for my mother."

"It should be. We will be happy to help with your elf problem because of it."

Gwil wasn't sure Flume had the right to say anything on behalf of the Vampire Council, but then again he'd not known him to be head of the Paranormal Division of the Met Police until a few minutes ago so he wasn't in the best position to make the call.

"Interesting." Hyax cocked his head to one side. "The elf issue is why we're here. As you know, the stone is recovered but not the perpetrators."

"We were hoping that once you'd got your hands on it you'd be able to track the rogue fae's signature."

"Whatever incantations the elves used have masked Chase's pattern. It's too weak."

"Weak? But you have it?"

"Yes." Gwil patted his breast pocket. "In a light sphere so Hyax can access it if it's needed."

Flume stood and went over to a bookcase. He took a moment to locate the book he was after but returned to the desk and laid it open in front of Hyax on the desk. He pointed to a paragraph. "If I can get you a vial of elf blood, do you think this will work?"

Hyax picked up the book. "It's an enhanced tracing spell. The elf blood is the only sticking point, so yes, it should work. But it'll be a range, not an exact point and it'll cause a beacon-like effect locally to wherever the individual is. It could be easy to miss."

"Not if you've people in place on the look out for it." Flume turned to Gwil. "Do you think your sewer friends would be interested in helping?"

Copperpipe would do anything for the right price. "I'd say so."

"You're more than welcome to brew the potion here, Your Highness. I'll need an hour to get the blood. Perhaps in the meantime Gwil can contact his little friends."