Raising Innocence: A Rylee Adamson Novel(8)

“That’s too much; you can’t bring a werewolf to London. Impossible. Bad enough that you want to bring a Harpy!”
Grinning down at the werewolf, who rolled on his back at my feet, I rubbed his belly with one foot. “Alex is a part of my search team. He helps keep me safe, amongst other things.”
Alex wiggled on his back, balancing on his spine with feet straight up in the air. “Alex going to London, Alex going to London,” he chanted, wrapping it all up with a howl of “Keeping Rylee saaaaaaafe.”
Agent Valley stood, his face red. “You can’t bring a werewolf to London!”
I laced my fingers in my lap and said quietly, “Then I’m not going.”
His jaw went tight and I knew I had him. Still, he didn’t answer right away. We had a second stare off, and again, I won, his eyes flicking away from mine to look out the window.
“I won’t promise you anything. There are other factors I have no control over,” Valley said.
“Not my problem. Alex and Eve come with me or I’m not going.”
“I heard you the first time. I will do my best.” Agent Valley narrowed his eyes. “You can keep him on a leash, and hide him with that collar of yours, correct?”
Fuck, how much did he know about me and Alex? “Of course. I’m not going to go running around London announcing I have a werewolf.” What did he think I was, an idiot?
“One more thing,” I said.
The agent was standing back up, and I wanted to be sure we understood each other before I dove into this.
“What is it, Ms. Adamson?”
Ah, getting formal now, that was a good sign. Meant he was finally taking me seriously.
“This doesn’t mean I’m working for you. Nor does it mean I’m going to do things your way. Consider this a one-time contract to find those kids.”
His eyes narrowed, anger flitting across his face before he smoothed it away. “Anything else?”
“I’ll be sending you an invoice through my manager.” Okay, Charlie wasn’t my manager per se, but close enough.
Shaking, Agent Valley gave a sharp nod, turned and headed once more for the front door.
“We’ll send a car round for you in three days; your flight leaves at noon on the seventeenth.”
“I can’t leave until I know for sure someone is here with Giselle.”
“I will have someone here before your flight.”
I felt like I’d scored a major victory as the door clicked shut behind the FBI agent. Slumping against the opposite wall, I stared at the door. I was leaving for London in three days, with Alex and Eve. Better than that, I was going to meet a Tracker.
The rush of excitement that zinged through me left me shaking with excess energy. Milly was going to freak when I . . . No, Milly wouldn’t know about this. The excitement drained and I frowned down at my shoes. Ah, fuck it. I was going to celebrate anyway.
Jogging into the kitchen, I dialed Charlie’s number on my old rotary phone, the tick of the dial clicking softly as it spun around with each number.
He answered with a “Hello, me lassie! No new salvages for yous. Good and bad, eh?”
“Right now it’s a good thing. Charlie, come on over, I need someone to clink glasses with.”
He let out a shout. “Gods be praised, yous going to start drinking!”
Laughing, I cradled the phone against my shoulder. “Don’t get excited, I’ll be drinking orange juice.”
“Bah, you don’t know what you be missing, lassie. But I’ll be there in a jiff.”
I hung up and two minutes later there was a knock on the door. That was one of the things about Brownies. They could use doorways and windows as jumping points. Pretty handy, if you asked me.
Dressed in blue jeans and a button down shirt, he sported a black bowler that truly did not match the long fur coat he wore. Open, of course, like he’d thrown it on and scrambled to get here. Then again, it could have been because he was trying to hide the fact he was missing a leg. It had happened a long time before I’d ever met him and he wouldn’t talk about it. Not even when he got drunk on ogre beer.
Charlie was about three feet tall, and I scooped him up easily into a hug.#p#分页标题#e#
“What the hells has happened to yous, lassie?” He grunted as I put him down. His eyes searched my face, as if he thought to see something stamped on my forehead.
“I’m excited.” I wasn’t sure I could describe it to him. My whole life I’d been alone, the only Tracker Giselle had ever known, and no one I’d met had ever met another. Maybe Doran had, from his cryptic words, but I wasn’t so sure I’d trust the daywalker Shaman to tell me the truth. Every other supernatural was a part of a group, even vampires, the few there were, had each other. But Trackers—I’d never known another one. For years I’d thought that was always how it was going to be.