"So, we are still on for lunch?"
"Absolutely. It shouldn't take long, and I don't have any other appointments."
Excited snarls sounded in the background, then her sister's dramatic sigh.
"Could you please turn on your video?"
"Nope." Diana padded to the kitchen, seeking coffee to clear the cobwebs in her mind. "You should just tell the girls to go back to bed. You're the mom. Show the little rugrats who's boss."
"Don't change the subject," came Vanessa's blunt reply. "Why are you not calling her back?"
"Hm? You mean Mom? I've been busy."
"Really? Busy with pimps and hoes?"
"Is that appropriate language to use around the children?"
"Oh please. Do you think my hellions actually listen to me?"
Diana watched her sister wriggle the fingers of one hand, producing a small luminescent ball that hovered a few inches above her palm.
Oh shit.
"Playing with magic again?" Diana asked, noting that Vanessa's eyebrows had just grown back after having been singed off in a fire-starting spell gone wrong.
Vanessa rolled her eyes. "Everyone needs a hobby."
The coffee maker whooshed and gurgled as it brewed Diana's first cup of the day. She poked around in her cabinets and extracted a packet of tortillas. In her refrigerator, she found salami, cheese, and condiments. She laid out two tortillas, added the meat and cheese, squirted ribbons of horseradish mustard down the center, and rolled up the sandwiches. The breakfast of champions.
Diana bent over the sink to take a bite. The holographic screen flickered on, and her sister's image appeared. A smaller inset of Diana's own image appeared at the top left of the screen, and she schooled her features for her sister's benefit. Vanessa had overridden the security protocols on Diana's Omni with her amateur white magic skills and switched on the unit's camera.
On screen, Vanessa hopped up and down in triumph. "I can't believe I got that to work!"
"I wish you wouldn't do that."
"What the hell are you eating?"
"Whatever the hell I feel like. I don't have to be a good example. Unlike you, my privacy-invading sister."
"What else is new at work?"
With all the stress of working with Mac, Diana had spent little time pondering, and thus becoming excited about her concubine assignment.
"Funny you should ask."
She gave Vanessa a condensed version of her meeting in Jacob's office and the upcoming concubine handover. Her sister was impressed.
"Who is the patron?" Each concubine was contracted to a specific patron, one of the original colony of gods who had settled on earth when mankind was new.
"You know I can't tell you that. Even if I knew who it was."
"And who is your field supervisor?"
"Oh...he seems like a nice guy," Diana hedged. "Funny name though. Ulysses."
"Huh."
Behind Vanessa, Diana's nieces shifted to their coywolf forms, and attacked one another with puppy aggression. Diana shook her head, thinking of how Mac had accused her of racism against shifters. She hadn't told Mac yet that enough shifter genes ran through her family that her sister had produced full shifter children with her coywolf boyfriend.
"He's picking me up this morning for the wellness check."
Vanessa narrowed her eyes at her sister, suspicion written across her features.
"You're letting him pick you up? He knows where you live?" Diana never invited co-workers to her home.
Diana shrugged. "It seemed kind of pointless to meet him at the Bureau, then head to Harry Hines. Kind of a waste of time."
"What did you say his name was?"
"Ulysses. Try to keep up."
"Just 'Ulysses'?"
"Yeah. That's what I said."
"And what about that guy you met last week? 'Mac' was it?"
"What about him?" Diana wished she had never mentioned Mac to her sister.
"Does he know about Ulysses?"
Diana chose her words carefully. Her sister didn't need to know Ulysses and Mac were one in the same.
She shrugged her shoulders again and tried to appear nonchalant as she poured herself a mug of coffee. "What do you think he should know?"
Vanessa flashed Diana a pointed expression. It only now occurred to Diana that Vanessa might be calling on behalf of their mother. She set the cup down and stared her sister down, her eyes narrowing.
"Did Mom put you up to this?"
"Put me up to what?" Vanessa blurted. She smiled brightly. A little too brightly.
"Why do you look so nervous?"
"What? What do you mean?"
Diana let out a breath of frustration. "Oh please. Do I look like I was born yesterday?"
"You know how Mom is. She dreamed of us being settled down by age thirty. Instead, she has one career-obsessed daughter who hangs out with pimps and hoes all day and another who is an unwed mother."
"How many times have I told you not to speak about the clients that way? Look, I'll call Mom later. The woman really needs to learn to respect boundaries. You didn't tell her about Mac, did you?"
Diana heard a crash. Vanessa turned away from the screen to tend to her children and Diana didn't hear her reply.
"What did you say?"
"I said, 'I didn't name names.'"
Diana rolled her eyes. "You've got your hands full. I'll see you later. Okay?"
The sisters rang off, and Diana sipped on her coffee and glanced out her kitchen window into the darkness. The sun would be up soon, but for now, it was pitch dark. Something in the alley behind her house caught her eye and made her catch her breath.
A pair of eyes glittered bright white in the dark. It was Mac and his unmistakable eyeshine.
Chapter 15
According to her contact at the Dallas Police Department, the woman’s name was Julie Wheeler. Thirty-six years old, divorced with a child at home. Faun shifter. Definitely not what the buyer wanted. And the daughter had already attempted to report Julie Wheeler as missing.
Helen had pulled up her secure Omni to watch Julie in as she probed the cell in the dark on her hands and knees.
Why hadn’t she shifted yet? Helen supposed Julie had taken stock of her surroundings, and was devising some means of escape. Too bad for Julie that escape from the bunker was impossible. Over the past two years, Helen had watched other captives try to get away. None ever did.
Helen tapped her fingers on the glass top of her desk, thinking.
The signal from this woman’s Omni stopped at a Glide station between Woodland Creatures and her home. Her operative had recovered it at the station, and was able to identify the owner from its unique signal. The police report could be buried, and the Omni, destroyed. But that still left the matter of Amanda, the daughter.
Taking the girl was the only thing to do...even if Helen had no use for either Julie nor Amanda. It could draw unwanted attention to her special project. It might draw the attention of the girl’s father, but by all accounts Amanda and her father were not close. It might even take a while to figure out the girl was gone.
So...snatch her?
“And then what?” she asked herself out loud.
She waved away her Omni, stood up, and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows of her corner office. The streets of Dallas looked gray at dawn. This was her favorite time of day.
She knew there was only one thing to do. She just had to be determined enough to do it.
Chapter 16
Mac watched Diana ring Julie Wheeler's doorbell with white-knuckled fingers. She'd been jumpy from the moment he'd picked her up. Dark circles under her eyes--and the fact that he'd seen the lights on in her house in the wee hours of the morning, led him to conclude she had as little sleep as he did.
One of the first symptoms of Minotaurism was the young male fledgling's desire to walk the city streets late at night. No one knew precisely why this happened, apart from the fact that his kind had been bred to be
vigilant and protective. Mac's rotation included both his parents' house and his sister's place.
Normally, he would be fine checking on them once a week or so. Since he'd met Diana, Mac found himself roaming every night, beginning and finishing at Diana's house, always within sight but at a discreet distance. Far from tiring him out, the reconnaissance gave him peace, especially when her lights went out. This mating urge would become untenable quite quickly if he couldn't move them past the current impasse. He didn't know if he could survive another three weeks of this.
Diana had asserted this morning's appointment would take no more than ten minutes. Julie Wheeler would be safe at home, either sleeping off a bender, sick with the flu, or taking a few days off without first informing her manager. Diana had assured him she'd done these welfare checks before with other field evaluators, and there were never problems. Except, in this case, Julie's Omni signature stopped the morning of her last shift at Woodland Creatures. Mac had no reason to suspect otherwise--though he didn't mention that the lights had been out in Julie's window every night he'd driven by the bar girl's apartment building.
No answer to the doorbell. Diana's eyes met his, and she lifted her shoulders.
"Guess we ought to give her a minute to answer the door?" Mac nodded quietly as she cut her eyes away. She was dressed as she always was, in her high-necked black cassock and leggings, hair in a neat bun. The thin morning light slanted over her face when she looked up at him. Nervous as a bag of cats. Was she nervous about Julie Wheeler...or him?
There came a sound from inside the apartment, like quick footsteps. Mac's eyes riveted to the front door, and Diana blinked at him in confusion. She reached for the bell again, and he motioned her away, shaking his head. He poised a hand over on his sidearm, waited, and listened.
Footsteps again. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. Even routine situations like these could go sideways--fast. He frowned, stepped closer to the door, and knocked. The cheap door offered little resistance and vibrated under his knuckles.
"Julie Wheeler? You in here?"
Diana jumped at the sound of his voice. He was unaccountably uneasy. His protective instinct kicked into high gear and his mind picked up every nuance of the space around him. The apartment appeared to be nothing more than a door in the wall, opening to the third-floor landing where Mac and Diana now stood, which in turn lead to the outside staircase. It was like many of the cheap apartment complexes built in the last eighty years or so. Even with windows in the apartment, except for avian shifters, there was only one way in or out.
Tension curled in his gut. He reached out to knock on the door again. This time, the door inched open.
"Mac...?"
"Wait here," he barked and entered the apartment. He closed the door behind him--if there was a threat inside, he didn't want it harming Diana.
The apartment was shabby but well kept. He cleared the rooms one by one, calling out Julie's name. The living room, with its dun-colored sofa and matching chairs, diminutive coffee table, and cheap lace curtains. A photo gallery lined one wall: many photos of a pale-skinned Julie Wheeler and a petite, caramel-skinned girl with platinum hair and large brown eyes. Diana had mentioned Julie had a daughter. This cute little brown girl must be her.
The kitchen was tidy and homier than he expected, a tea kettle on the stove, a dinette with three tiny chairs, and cheerful cloth towels. A fruit basket contained green and red apples and bananas suspended by a hook. The apples looked edible, but the bananas were completely black.
He cleared the master bedroom, the guest bedroom, the closets, and the bath. The master and guest bedrooms showed indications of regular use. While the master was as neat and tidy as the rest of the apartment, the guest bedroom was done up in shades of pink and purple and was messy in the manner of a busy teenager. Must be the daughter's room. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, but Julie was just...gone. As well as the daughter. He let out a harsh breath and holstered his sidearm. He returned to the porch and motioned to Diana, who stood there with uncertainty written over her features.
Together, they searched the apartment looking for...Mac didn't know what. Other than the rotten bananas and the slightly open front door, there was nothing amiss. Lots of people let fruit go bad...although the fastidiousness of the apartment seemed to rule this out. And maybe the messy teen daughter had left home without closing the door.
Yet, his hackles remained raised, and the feeling of unease wouldn't go away. Diana went to investigate the guest bedroom while Mac pulled up his Omni to make notes on the scene.
"Mac!"
His ears perked when he heard Diana's scream and a scuffle in the other room. He rushed into the bedroom and found her in the closet, struggling with a creature with transparent white skin.
Chapter 17
Diana turned on the closet light, then gasped and leaned against the door jamb as an oily, rancid smell like burning garbage invaded her nostrils. As if someone had set fire to a Dumpster behind a cheap restaurant. Her mouth filled instantly with saliva, and her stomach lurched.
Her calves hit the side of the bed, and she fell back, bouncing hard on the mattress. She focused on breathing, sucking in lungfuls of air, fearing the smell would turn into taste on her tongue. Her heart banged against her ribcage, and her mouth worked to form words, but none would come.
Run, run, run.
It had to be a shifter, one of a type she had never encountered before. She shook her head against the possibility of investigating further, even though she knew she had to. Tamping down the urge to scramble away, she sat up on the bed. A strange sort of clarity swept over her. Julie Wheeler was missing. The answer to Julie's disappearance might be in that closet. Diana and Mac were there to find her. She had to go in.
She stood and reflexively smoothed her cassock. The ceiling fixture cast a cold light on a long rack of brightly colored clothing, above which stretched a long shelf crammed to the ceiling with boxes of various colors and sizes. It made her think of the closet in the bedroom she'd shared with her sister when they were girls. There didn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary...if you didn't count the smell.
Some kind of shifter with a weird, evil smell. Maybe it's already gone...
The thought popped into her mind without any real conviction. She had never experienced a scent signature that lingered so long after the absence of its owner. Well, except for Mac's. Staying didn't seem like a good idea. Leaving would be worse. Mac would not be able to smell this shifter. Explaining it to him would take too long when the creature might be holding Julie against her will.
Stepping into the closet took less effort than she thought it would. All she had to do was think about it, and her feet moved despite the overwhelming sense of revulsion. With shaking hands, she rifled through the rack of clothing, parting the garments and looking for signs of life. Nothing hiding behind the clothes, nothing along the floor, and nothing could hide behind those boxes. Sagging with relief, she let out a harsh breath.
The displacement of air in the musty confines of the closet had her pulling up short. A huffing sort of breathing sounded over her shoulder. Right behind her. She turned to look up at the space above the closet door and found, crammed into the corner, a small, elfin woman, nude and panting, with swirling eyeshine that fluctuated from sulfuric yellow to lichen green.
"Julie?"
She was stunned at how normal her voice sounded. This was the tone she would use if she were conducting a field inspection. Clients would line up, and Diana would go down the line, verifying identities and asking the legally mandated interview questions designed to ensure the pros worked under their own volition. None of those questions appeared to be appropriate in this situation.
Julie Wheeler's skin shone transparent white. Diana could see a fine network of black veins spread all over her body, as well as the faint dark outlines of her internal organs, like some sort of full-grown fetus. The creature's hands and feet somehow clung to the flat walls of the clo
set. It cast off the rotten, burning smell that brought tears to Diana's eyes and snapped her out of her relative calm. This...thing couldn't be Julie. The creature's eyes glowed.
"Mac?" Nothing short of a miracle gave her a voice again, even though she sounded panicked and hushed to her own ears.
Diana struggled to parse the meaning of the figure above her. Fauns, while nimble, could not climb walls.
"M-Mac!" Her voice was nothing more than a whisper in the back of her throat. She backed into the opposite corner of the closet, slid to the floor, and kept her eyes riveted to the creature. When it started to crawl toward her, she shrieked and grabbed at the hanging clothes in an attempt to pull herself to her feet. Instead, she succeeded only in stripping the garments off the hangers, which clattered loudly in the confined space. Terror and frustration drove her uncoordinated thrashing.
As she fought to push away the suffocating piles of brightly colored garments, she felt a weight land on her. In an instant, she knew what it was. She clawed at the clothes, knowing at any moment her fingers would encounter the creature's skin.
In the next moment, the weight lifted, and she heard a sound somewhere between a snarl and a bellow. Alone in the closet, the sensation of being packed in cotton balls surrounded her. Trembling fingers went reflexively to her hair, bringing dimly-felt dismay that her neat bun had loosened. The snarly animal sounds in the other room were now accompanied by high-pitched hissing shrieks, as well as dark, percussive thumps. Diana crawled along the closet floor, praying that Mac had the upper hand.
In the bedroom, a hulking creature held fake Julie Wheeler by the throat. The larger creature had long, curving horns extending upwards into the shape of a lyre, a broad face, and a powerful upper body that strained the fabric of his shirt. He was covered in bristly black hair that sprouted from every exposed part of his body.
In the space of a few seconds, Mac had completely shifted.
Brawny hands tightening around the creature's neck. Mac held it away from his own body, avoiding pale, grasping talons, banging its head and shoulders against the wall outside of the closet. The Minotaur's lips curled back from his teeth with a snarl, and his eyes glinted white with brutal determination.
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