Five: Out of the Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

shipment.”
    “Oka-a-y,” Johnathan said.
    Joe looked him straight in the eyes. “I always lock this
garbage
in a metal box out in the side alley … you know, so the dogs won’t get into it.” He slipped a key to the box into Johnathan’s hand.

aige, you’re with me tonight,” Johnathan said. “Alec, you take Seth and Halli and patrol around King Street. Paige and I will go over a block and start there.”
    We were starting our nightly patrol. I was thrilled to be assigned as Johnathan’s partner for once. Usually he stuck me with Alec or Seth while he went with the other one and Halli. This was a special occasion, and I hoped we wouldn’t be interrupted by business. But, our quiet time together, when I could just stare at his lovely face—okay, not stare, but glance sideways at it often while we walked—was not to be. Almost before we’d gone a half block, the chains around our necks began to buzz.
    We’d all started to wear the chains. Johnathan had placed a charm on them so we could communicate with one another when we were split up. The buzz meant Alec’s group had spotted something. I snuck one last glance at Johnathan’s dark chocolate brown eyes and sighed as we turned and headed back to King Street.
    Halli met us at the corner. The camouflage spell she’d cast on herself flickered as she moved toward us. That’s the only way I could tell where she was without tapping into my
sight.
A normal human, unaware of what to look for, wouldn’t have noticed her at all. Demons and other Fae used similar spells when they wished to remain unnoticed by humans.
    “We saw a Faerie trying to enter an apartment window,” Halli whispered. “She’s carrying something. Alec thinks it’s a changeling!”
    We weren’t sure why Faeries brought changelings to our realm and exchanged them for healthy human babies, but I had my own ideas about it. The type of Faerie that typically did this was beautiful beyond words, but the changeling was a hideous creature with an ill temper.
I
think the changelings were really Faerie offspring that came out ugly. Maybe they were the offspring of a Faerie and a Troll or something, but Faeries hated anything that wasn’t of great beauty—including their own children. I think they traded for a beautiful and healthy human baby so they could raise it as their own, and leave the hideous and annoying changeling for the humans to deal with. Like my totally irritating cousin. The one everyone hated to be around. His parents could often be heard saying to one another, “He gets it from
your
side of the family.” It was quite possible my cousin was a Faerie changeling.
    Quietly, we sneaked up the street to where Alec and Seth watched the window. The Faerie couldn’t go completely into the dwelling without permission from someone inside, so unless the baby’s crib was next to the window where she could just lean in and make the exchange, she would have to move on to another baby. She hovered near the open window, trying not to drop the wriggling bundle she held in her arms. Faeries ranged in size from the size of a hummingbird to petite human adult size; this one was about the same size as Halli. As she struggled with trying to open the window wider, Johnathan signaled for Alec and Seth to move next to the building below either side of the window in case the Faerie finished the exchange before he and I could maneuver into place. The boys nodded and took out their channeling rods.
    The window was two stories up in a three-story building. Johnathan and I slipped inside the building and stealthily ran up the stairs to the roof. The plan was to throw a binding spell on her
before
she made the exchange, because the binding spell would cause her to drop to the ground, and we didn’t want to risk hurting the human baby. The changeling, however, we didn’t care so much about risking. We hadn’t left ourselves much time. She was just reaching through the window to lay the changeling in the