“You focking lost her,” his gravely Irish brogue grumbled in agitation before I even stepped out of the elevator.

“No shit, Dullahan. She slipped right through my claws,” I said, lifting my hand and eyeing the palm’s unfamiliar lines. I wondered what Viktor Melnyk’s palm lines said–early, violent death?

I spoke without an accent despite being just as Irish as my old ally. Instead, my voice was crisp and cool, pronouncing everything like a perfectly questionable American businessman.

Dullahan sneered at me and rubbed at his mouth. I eyed the scars there. The man had a Glasgow smile—scars that stretched from the edge of his mouth to the side of his face. It was hard to tell if it was more gruesome and distracting than the scar that traveled the entire circumference of his neck.

“You should tattoo your neck,” I said, wondering why he hadn’t as I moved past him. It seemed most every other part of him was.

“Why, you think it’ll make me pretty?” He asked with an amused smirk, his green eyes glimmering down at me. I was over six feet but Dullahan wasn’t built like a normal man. He wasn’t really a man at all. If anyone knew anything they could see that right away.

He was a giant, over seven feet. At some point in his history, he’d been a warrior god but that name was lost to him. He was Dullahan now, a cursed creature as wretched as me. Or worse depending on who you asked.

We moved through the place together, heading towards our operations room. I knew our third was in there because he was always in there. The incubus was nearly worse than me with this Lacey obsession. Which was a novelty I wasn’t used to.

I liked to learn people inside and out—consume them mind then body. Own everything they were, be everything they were, and combine our souls to dance for eternity.

Or until I got bored of them and moved on to the next.

Would Lacey finally be the last body I took? Would she be my forever? Mmm, I hoped so.

The incubus was young and crazy though. His obsession burned like a star about to burst, killing us all. Which was unlike the well-kept fire of my own obsession.

Dullahan and I pushed into the room and I saw Lorcan standing in front of one of her pictures. He snapped his hand away, trying to hide that he’d been tracing the shape of her face.

Pictures galore. The cork board had been filled long ago and we’d begun to press more to the walls, shoving push pins into the drywall to hold up her visage.

It had started normal enough. A sort of suspect board like you might find in a major crimes task force. We needed to know who she was, where she was, and what she was capable of.

Watching was normal. It was necessary. Leprechauns were tricky creatures so we had to study her for a while, holding back the desire to strike right away. Else we would lose our chance entirely.