After traipsing through Denver International Airport and spending a second day scouting the exterior, I came to one, inevitable conclusion. Big airports were crappy places to try to find someone. Like most buildings designed to accommodate a large number of moving bodies, the airport had a lot of doors to let people out. Granted, most people were funneled to an exit where cabs, buses, and impatient family members were waiting, but it was still way more ground than two people could reasonably keep a watch over. I realized, after five or six hours, that this exact problem was probably why law enforcement worked in teams and task forces. It’s the only way to get the job done. If I knew which airline Carter was coming in on, that might have made it manageable. It was Jessie who came up with the most viable, if risky, solution.

“One of us should pose as a driver for him,” said Jessie.

We’d abandoned the airport, and Jessie’s unerring sense of place took us to a coffee shop in Aurora. I didn’t know if the whole area was like the part we were in, but that section of Aurora struck me as a place where some hard living got done. I’d given the area a baleful look when we got out of the car, but Jessie brushed my concerns off.

“You know, for a guy who fights demons for a living, you’re awfully nervous about bad neighborhoods.”

“No,” I said. “I’m nervous about bad neighborhoods that I don’t know anything about. It’s not the same thing.”

“Do you really think anything is going to happen that the two of us can’t handle?”

“What if someone steals the rental while we’re inside?”

She smiled beatifically at me. “Someone’s day would definitely be ruined if they tried.”

In a moment of stunning good judgment, I did not ask what she meant by that. I turned back to the subject at hand instead.

“What if he already arranged for a driver? Or he rented a car? He probably did one of those.”

She shrugged. “Then we play dumb. Must be another Carter. Wires crossed at the office. The internet got the flu. Nobody expects drivers to know anything except how to get from Point A to Point B. Play dumb about everything else and people will assume it’s above your pay grade.”

I got suspicious at that point. “Why do I have the sneaking suspicion you’ve run this con before?”

“Because you have basic reasoning skills?”

I shook my head. “Let’s say that he hasn’t rented a car or ordered a driver for himself. Let’s also say he’s not too suspicious to take our story at face value and we get him into the car. Then what?”

“Then I drive him to his hotel. It’ll be a hell of a lot easier to track him from a hotel than from the airport.”

“Track him?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, track him. Just what was your plan once you found him? Some kind of showdown?”

I lifted a shoulder. “Well, yeah, pretty much. That’s usually how these things go for me.”

“You want to pick a fight with someone you know nothing about? You have no idea what his capabilities are. No idea about what, if any, powers he might have. Whether he’s currently protected from forces on high or on low. The smart money is on following him around and seeing what he’s doing. If nothing else, you’ll get a sense of how he operates and maybe some information on what he can do. Then, maybe, it makes sense to confront him,” she said, and leaned in close, dropping her voice to a bare whisper. “Frankly, if he’s really the threat you seem to think he is, a bullet in the brain from a couple of hundred feet out might be the best play.”

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“That’s wrong,” I said in the same hushed whisper. “That’s not how I work.”

She jabbed her index finger into my chest. “Don’t be stupid. There are no fair fights with evil. There are only fights. If you’re going to fight, fight to win, damn it!”

I glanced around. No one in the coffee shop was looking at us. In fact, they were very pointedly not looking at us. Dammit, I thought, we’re drawing attention. Thankfully, inspiration struck.

I raised my voice, probably more than necessary. “Honestly, Jenn, you take your LARPing way too seriously. They aren’t evil just because they buy their costumes. Not everybody can MacGuyer one out of lint and chewing gum.”

Jessie’s face froze in confusion, and then her eyes darted left in right in two quick motions. She got what I was doing and put her fists on her hips.

“Posers,” she declared, “are always evil.”

I risked a glance. The other people in the room were no longer looking away in passive fear. They were rolling their eyes or going back to texting on their phones. I heard one guy say something about geeks, which triggered a feminine laugh. The world made sense again. Thank God for stereotypes. I started toward the counter and Jessie dropped her voice again.

“You don’t know about Doctor Who, but you know about live-action role-playing?”

“Doctor what? No, never mind. I’ll just assume that makes sense. To answer your question, some pretty nasty things use LARPing as camouflage. You’d be surprised.”

She looked at me then, thoughtful and with a little tinge of respect on her face.

“What kinds of things?” She asked.

We’d finally, through pure chance, stumbled into territory I understood. It was nice to be the one with relevant information and the inside track for once. I’d been getting smacked upside the head with all the things I didn’t know for a while, and I thought it was probably damaging my confidence. I’d been reacting to everything, rather than planning the way I usually did.

“The usual assortment of demons. Shapeshifters are pretty regular attendees, though I usually leave them be with a stern warning.”

“Oh? Why?”

“They aren’t inherently dangerous, not like demons or the fae. Most of the time, they’re just trying to find a place to fit in, same as everyone else. There are a few bad eggs, but most of them aren’t any more morally compromised than your average cashier. They’re about as physically fragile as a regular person too. Unless they’re really, really old.”

I dropped that line of conversation while a bored guy who never made eye contact made our orders. We took the cups to a table as far from everyone else as we could get.

“Why should age matter?” She asked, picking up the conversation.

“I’m not completely certain. I think it’s because the old ones have more perfect control. It seems to let them limit physical damage in some way I won’t pretend to understand. Best I’ve got is that it’s like they move vulnerable parts out of the way before the damage happens. It’s just a theory, though.”

She nodded. “You’ve dealt with the fae?”

“Well, I’ve encountered them. It’s hard to know what is or isn’t a victory with the sidhe. I’m usually content if they go home.”

“How do you get them to leave? They’re notoriously hard to control, so I hear.”

“If they give me a chance, I’ll ask them to go, at first,” I said.

“And if that doesn’t work.”

“Cold iron. It’s really the only surefire way.”

“How many have you sent running home? I’m fascinated.”

I thought about it for a minute. “Oh, maybe a dozen total, not counting the minor ones. The little ones aren’t dangerous, just annoying when they get a bug up their asses.”

Jessie was silent for a really long time like she couldn’t quite accept what she was thinking. “A dozen. You banished a dozen of the fae?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”

“Scary,” she murmured. “I didn’t realize it until right now, but there’s stories about you out there. Stories that the sidhe tell about this terrible child who casts them out of the mortal realm.”

“Cool,” I said.

“No. It’s not a good thing. You’re well on your way to becoming one of the sidhe’s boogeymen. I’m sure they’ll kill you for it one day, too.”

“Awesome,” I muttered. “More people who don’t like me. Like my life wasn’t full of those already.”