Playing With Fire

Chapter Seven

It was a little surreal sitting at my yard sale kitchen table in nothing but a t shirt with the two men across from me. Castiel somehow managed to settle in the old wooden chair like he had been here many times before, but Maverick was having a hard time doing the same. Even though the men where the same size while Castiel relaxed into his seat Maverick dominated his. When the Male had sat down I was afraid the old chair was going to explode into a shower of splinters from the force. I almost wished it would just so I could see his face when his butt hit the floor.

Keira had taken up a position beside me, eyeing the two men closely. I rested my hand on her head and scratched her behind the ears trying to ease her discomfort. Keira took her job very seriously. As much sass as she gave me she thought it was her duty to protect me.

"Maybe we could start out with some drinks-" Castiel began but I quickly interrupted.

"You woke me in the middle of the night trespassing on my property. This is not a social visit. Get to the point." Castiel looked back and forth between Maverick and I. I didn't appreciate the clear comparison to the Male, but I think both of us were too irritated for formalities.

"Fine," with a long suffering sigh Castiel motioned to the Fae Male to take over since I was clearly immune to his charm.

"We have a proposition for you, Delany." I ignored the way my name rolled roughly off his tongue.

"No thanks." For some reason Maverick grinned wickedly at that.

"I told you she wouldn't let us explain. You owe me thirty bucks." I frowned at Maverick. I didn't like that he thought he knew something about me after our short interactions.

"What is the proposition?" I asked just to wipe that smug look off his face.

"We would like to work together." Castiel said inserting himself back into the conversation to take the focus off Maverick. He could tell I didn't like the Male. I waited patiently. Surely he wasn't going to make me ask 'on what'.

"How much do you know about Underhill?"

"Enough."

Maverick apparently didn't trust my answer. "Underhill is the world of the Fae, sometimes called Faerie. It is a sister dimension to Earth. There are portals that connect the two realities. Long ago the old gods fell from favor when humans ceased to worship them. Some fell to Underhill and they became the Sidhe or Fae. Some fell to Hell, what we now know to be Earth, and were lost. Some fell to the seas in both realities and became the Merfolk. Millenniums later they evolved into the supernatural sects as you know them today."

It was interesting that Maverick said the gods and goddesses who fell to Earth were lost. The Fae in Underhill must not have known what became of them. I did though. I nodded, choosing not to interrupt. Hoping that I might learn something else useful.

"Have you ever heard of the Caorthannach?"

"No." That was a lie, but the legend of the Caorthannach was not common knowledge, espically to a non fae, and I did not want the men having any more information about me than they already did.

"I'll let you take over Castiel." I was having trouble understanding the relationship between the two men. What they portrayed at the Guild was an employer/employee relationship, but their interactions didn't lend credit to that. The picture they were painting in my kitchen was more of a partnership.

"I will begin with the myth of the Caorthannach, then after we will discuss our offering. When Hell, and here I mean what we now know to be earth, was nothing more than a swirling mass of smoke and rock and fire the Caorthannach was born deep in it's core. There the fire-breathing she demon waited for prey so she could birth her offspring and offer them food. Humans were created by the gods and goddesses and as a result Caorthannach crawled out of Hell's molten core with her demon children to feed on them.