“You’ve been on duty too long, Sean,” I replied. I banked on his longing for a shower and eight hours of sound sleep before his next shift. “Of course I’ll take it easy,” I lied.

“Good one, Tess. I don’t want you in here again for at least two months. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

I grumbled something. So I’d taken a few falls and fencing accidents this past year. It’s not like I was stalking him.

“You’ll have better luck putting her in a body cast and drugging her insensible for forty-eight hours,” a familiar voice said from the doorway. “If you want to know why she winds up in the ER so often, read her books. She takes her research seriously.”

“Steve!” I called to my brother. He was a taller copy of me with sandy hair that curled too tightly and a lanky build. But unlike me, he stood six feet tall, topping me by a good ten inches.

Not the voice I truly wanted to hear, (I’d probably never hear again from the man my heart called to) but welcome nonetheless. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Chicago?”

“Can’t I come visit my baby sister?” He bent to kiss my cheek. “I have some good news to tell you and wanted to do it in person.”

“You didn’t call first. How do you know I’m not on deadline and therefore cranky and dedicated to solitude?” I scooched to sit a little higher on the hospital bed and winced at the pressure on my ribs and ankle.

“You’re always on deadline,” my best friend since kindergarten, Allie Engstrom, said coming around the corner. “Don’t worry, Steve and I won’t intrude on your precious privacy.” She too kissed my cheek. When she straightened and caught Steve’s gaze across the bed—they stood nearly eye to eye in height—something strange and wonderful clicked in my head.

“You two, together? You came all this way just to tell me you got together.” I pointed first to Allie then to Steve. “When and how did that happen?”

“Long story short, you decamped from Cape Cod after your mom’s funeral, leaving the family at loose ends. I picked up one of them,” Allie said with a quirky grin that was half remorseful at Mom’s tragic murder seventeen months ago and half full of the joy of new love.

My own heart sank. I’d never get that kind of happiness. The only man I loved and truly wanted had married another woman. I knew his heart belonged to me, but his loyalty and honor were legally tied to the woman his family had selected for him to marry when they were infants.

“More than just together. We’re engaged,” Steve added.

“Since it looks like you’ll have family to look after you for a couple of days,” Dr. Sean Connolly said, “I’ll see about releasing you. After we put a cast on that ankle. I doubt an air cast will be enough to keep you down. There’s a lot of soft tissue damage that might never heal properly if you don’t stay off it.” The doctor left, taking the x-rays with him.

“Anything broken?” Steve asked with a frown.

“No. Bruised ribs. The ankle’s badly sprained and he’s afraid I’ll walk on it too soon and permanently damage things.” I dismissed the diagnosis. Part of being a Warrior of the Celestial Blade was the ability to heal fast and clean.

“Even you will have to take a few days’ rest,” Allie said, as if she’d read my mind. She knew my role in keeping a balance in this world between the humans who belonged here and the demons that didn’t.

That nasty little Euro trash Nörglein from the Italian or Swiss Alps (they used to have a big range until tourists and industry civilized most of their habitat) didn’t belong here. He didn’t belong anywhere in my world.

I needed to get back out there and take care of the little bugger, not sit on my rear end nursing a sprained ankle.

“So how did you find me?” I finally asked.

“I pinged your cell phone’s GPS,” Allie said, still gazing fondly at my brother.

My eyes went to my fanny pack that rested on a corner chair along with my shoes. The phone pouch sagged emptily.

“It was in your car, Li’l Bit,” Steve said on a chuckle. “If your car is in the ER parking lot, then you must be in the ER.”

“And you have three missed calls from your sister-in-law, Doreen Cooper.” Allie pulled the phone out of her pocket, checked the screen, and tucked it into my fanny pack.

“Doreen can wait.” I’d put off meeting her for weeks. “How ...? Not just anyone can ping a cell phone.”

“I’m a cop, Tess,” Allie replied. “I have access to those sort of things.”

“An off duty cop out of your jurisdiction. Way out, by three thousand miles.” I have to admit I pouted a bit, envying these two their happiness in each other.

“Well, that’s another long story.” Allie dropped her gaze to her hands and fidgeted with the tasteful diamond on her left ring finger. A new diamond in a modern setting, not much more than a half carat. Quite a bit less gaudy than the three-carat antique I’d turned down in Vegas last year. Donovan Estevez had offered it, not the man I wanted to marry. I wanted the ring, not him.

No regret there. The ring had gone back to Faery where it belonged.

A nurse bustled in with a wheelchair and my chart.

“See if there’s a way to put rebar in the cast so she can’t saw it off,” Steve stage-whispered to the nurse.

I’m too sleepy to keep up with the complex ins and outs of her family.

I trust Allie to take care of my babe. She’s one of the good gals. Maybe if I scoot through the chat room and back to Cape Cod for a bit I can purge the drugs from my system.

Some people call the chat room limbo. To others it’s purgatory.

Not just anyone can slip through the chat room from here to there or now to then. But I’m an imp. A special imp because I’m bonded to a Warrior of the Celestial Blade. I know ways around the guards the dumb beasts never thought of.

If the adrenaline rush of a quick trip through the chat room doesn’t help cure me of the numb sleepies, then maybe I can take a bit of a nap with Ginkgo, my life mate. He and his warrior, Gayla, run the Citadel where Tess took her training.

Hmm, just a little nap with my lover to watch over me. Then I’ll listen in on the gossip in Cape Cod. I promise.

That “just a little something” became three increasingly strong doses as my body rejected the first one and most of the second. I have weird reactions to drugs.

“What can she do? She can’t even stand on her own two feet,” JJ snorted with disgust.

“There are rumors in the SciFi community that her books are based on a real-life Sisterhood of Warriors,” Raquel whispered. “They fight demons all the time.”

“We’re not dealing with a demon. We’re fighting a dark elf.”

How did they know? Unless they’d had a child stolen.

“Same difference,” I muttered. Oops. Not supposed to let on to civilians about that sort of stuff. Curse those drugs. But the sleep felt so good. I wanted to drift away on worriless clouds.

I heard Scrap giggling in the background. He loved it when I stuck my foot in my mouth (figuratively of course) or fell flat on my face.

“See,” Raquel said excitedly. She dragged her husband over to my bedside, back in the curtained cubicle in the ER after a stint in the X-Ray room and then the cast room.

I thought Steve and Allie were over at registration filling out reams of paperwork to spring me from the hospital. Takes longer to complete the forms than it does to treat the emergency.

I noted with some despair that my incredibly heavy left leg was propped up on a wedge shaped pillow. It was also decorated in pink and lavender swirls. Nothing discreet about that fiberglass cast. Dr. Sean meant business in keeping me off that foot. Allie must have picked out the colors.

Or Scrap. Did I mention his penchant for pink feather boas along with his black cherry cheroots? He’s normally more tasteful in picking out my clothes and accessories.

Where was the brat anyway? He shouldn’t be able to get very far from me when I’m hurt or sick or wounded.

“Can you help us?” Raquel asked desperately. As she leaned over me I caught a hint of a tummy bulge I wouldn’t expect in a thirty-something woman as fit as she seemed to be.

Inspiration hit me like a two by four between the eyes. The Nörglein had victimized her, probably four or five months ago. So how come she remembered?

“I don’t know if I can help, until I know the problem,” I hedged. “I also seem to be in less than fighting shape at the moment.” I tried lifting the leg with the cast but that was beyond my strength at this point. So I waved at it weakly.

“We didn’t say we needed you to fight anything,” JJ said sourly. He stood very upright on the other side of me.

More foot-in-the-mouth-itis.

“You were hunting that awful dark elf in Forest Park this morning, weren’t you?” Raquel insisted.

“This isn’t a Tolkien novel,” I hedged.

“I’ve done some research,” JJ said. He pulled a battered trade sized paperback book from the inside pocket of his black windbreaker.

I recognized the book. Guilford Van der Hoyden-Smythe (Gollum to his friends), my once-upon-a-time archivist, short-time lover, and missing friend, kept one just like it in the glove box of his battered van. I had my own newer copy of the “Field Guide to Gnomes, Trolls, and Ogres.” In fact, some of the green sticky note tabs on this book looked remarkably like the ones Gollum used.

And that illegible scrawl ...

“Where did you get that?” I grabbed the book from JJ. Sure enough, it fell open to the page describing the Nörglein, complete with a drawing that looked like a copy of an antique woodcut. The black and white rendition showed the moss-covered Tyrolean jacket and three-cornered hat, fat bare feet covered in frondlike fur, full beard of more fern fronds beneath a long hooked nose, and strong body. It didn’t show the deep red eyes or rows and rows of razor sharp teeth.

I was more interested in the notes scribbled in margins and on those sticky squares.

“I spoke with a folklorist at McLoughlin College. He loaned me the book.” JJ snatched it back as if it were his most treasured possession.

My temper roiled up from the ache in my foot to the crick in my knee to my very empty stomach.

Calm down, babe. JJ and Raquel are victims not the source, Scrap reminded me on a deep yawn. He sounded far away.

“Did Dr. Van der Hoyden-Smythe tell you to look me up?” I ground out.

“No, he didn’t. Say, how do you know ...”

“I knew him a long time ago.” A lifetime of memories crammed into two days and one night of loving each other. “Don’t suppose you’ve got his phone number?” I’d deleted his cell phone from my speed dial. I didn’t need the temptation to call him, just to hear his voice mail message.

“I have the number at home. I can call you later to give it to you,” Raquel offered.

“Do that. I’m in the book.”

“Does this mean you’ll help us?”

“Not today.” I waved at the cast again. “First tell me how you know about the Nörglein?”

“I—um—” Raquel blushed.

“We went hiking last spring. A thunderstorm blew in suddenly. An unpredicted storm. We took shelter beneath a rocky overhang. Next thing we know, I’m tied up with blackberry vines and this ugly guy is raping my wife,” JJ spat out.

“Crime of opportunity. No time for seduction or spells or whatever he uses to block memory,” I mused.

“That about says it all,” JJ said. “I called the police and they just looked at me blankly when I described the guy. They said I was delusional from the shock of spending a night in the cold.”

Or they’d been blackmailed, coerced, bespelled, or bribed to consider reports of the Nörglein delusions.

“I want to kill the monster!” Raquel cried. “I just don’t know how. I should have aborted the baby. But I couldn’t kill it. I just couldn’t.”

“I promise you I will end that little monster’s reign of terror before you deliver your baby.”

That didn’t give me a lot of time, considering I’d be out of action for six weeks at least.