Nine Lives: Providence Paranormal College Book Nine

by Perry, D. R.

  “But she’s my baby,” Gemma said. She choked down a sob and leaned away from me. “Who’s going to take care of her?”

  “Mama?” Hope held her hands up, her wings stretching to their full span on either side of her. The kid’s hair caught the light from her wings.

  Olivia stepped forward, giving me another bout of déjà vu. I glanced at Kiki, who was smiling up at her.

  “No, baby.” Gemma swallowed another sob. “You can’t come with me this time. Or ever.” The grief finally put a stopper in her voice. She looked at me, but her eyes cut to Al for a moment. “You’ll have to go and meet the queen.”

  I knew, of course. Like most of my intel, I’d found out by being in the right place while hiding from my father. I couldn’t help. I’d promised not to tell, with the weight of the Under backing that promise, but now the cat was about to get out of the bag.

  I wiped my face, and my fingers came away wet. Something sharp and heavy at the same time grew in my chest, painful, like the copper dagger the last time I died. A memory crashed the gate in my mind. This had happened to me next to a Gnomehill, not in this graveyard with symbols of hope all around. My mother had walked away from me, just like Gemma was going to have to do now. But she’d had people to leave me with, women she knew and trusted. And a friend about my age.

  A slender arm slipped its way around my waist. Olivia. The piercing pressure lifted.

  Al stepped up. This kid was gonna have it tough but not as bad as me. The Dunstables were just straight-laced, not monsters like Dad.

  “I’ll watch over her.” The Sidhe bent at the waist, his white hair slipping over one shoulder as he peered into the kid’s face. “Hmm. Hope. Not the name I would have chosen for my daughter but a fitting one all the same.”

  “Your what?” Olivia blinked. “Sidhe and troll changelings can’t have owl shifter kids.”

  “My aunt was an owl shifter. She vanished in the Under not long after binding herself to a feather much like the one Hope has now.” Al straightened, extending one hand toward the kid. “Hope can only be my child.”

  “Someone told you.” Gemma went still, her limbs stiffening, and her gaze entirely on the Sidhe.

  “No one did.” Al sighed. “Nothing but plain old deduction. Everything about it makes sense, especially now that she ended up with the Alkonost’s feather.”

  “Explain.”

  Al’s eyes traveled slowly up and over Gemma, taking a good long view before settling on her face. I knew that game. I’d played it with Olivia for almost three years whenever I thought she couldn’t see me. That was how you looked at someone you want and can’t have. I’d had it bad. Albert Dunstable had it worse than me.

  “How old are you, Hope?”

  “I’ll be six this winter, Sir.”

  “Six years, Gemma.” Al shook his head, looking wearier than an ethereally handsome Sidhe ought to. “It’s been more than six years since that graduation party. Since our promise.”

  “The promise you broke.”

  He stared past her at the figure next to the monument. Gemma’s grandfather looked almost as imposing as the sculpture. Al closed his eyes, his mouth a tight, straight line as though he fought any and all expression. “It couldn’t be kept. I wasn’t there then, but I’m here now. Let me know my daughter. Let me help.”

  “What other choice do I have?” Gemma dropped to one knee, fists clenched at her side. “Hope, I want you to go with your father.”

  “But Mama, I don’t know him.” The kid crossed her arms over her chest. “I wanna be with you.”

  “But you—”

  “I know I can’t, Mama.” Her lower lip trembled, and a single tear slid down her cheek. “The magic’s telling me so.”

  “Then go with Sir Albert.” Gemma’s face glistened in the faint light at the horizon. “Captain’s orders.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “It’s time to go, Gem.” Admiral Tolland’s voice projected clear and loud, probably a side-effect of decades at sea.

  Gemma stood, turned her back on the lot of us, and paced toward her grandfather. They walked together toward the monument. A moment before they’d have bashed their heads on it, a portal opened. I recognized the dock by the king’s lodge and saw Gemma look back, then it closed behind them. I knew she’d be back for her daughter at some point. Even the rift between courts couldn’t break a love like the one between the troll and her child.

  “I’m your prisoner now, Sir Knight.” The kid’s grave tone had me blinking back my own tears.

  “You don’t have to call me that.” Al reached down, his hand inches above her head as though he wanted to ruffle her hair. He leaned over and took Bianca’s satchel from Olivia instead. “And you’re not my prisoner. I’ve promised your mother that I’d watch over and protect you. I’ll have to do that at the queen’s castle for now, however. Let me bring you there; get you settled, and introduced to your grandmother. Then I have some work to do here for a little while. I’ll come back later in the day.”

  Hope only nodded, her gaze on the spot where her mother had disappeared.

  I knew how she felt, but knew absolutely nothing about what I could do to help.

  As it turned out, helping Hope and her family was someone else’s story.

  Epilogue

  Ed

  “I can’t believe Kitsunes are making a comeback right here at PPC.” Josh Dennison leaned forward, hunching over the back of his backward chair. “Neutral magical shifters with heirloom tokens seem to be all the rage in Providence just lately. Heck of an upgrade for the Headmistress. I bet Dick Hopewell’s eating his hat right about now.”

  Tony looked away from Josh while Olivia blinked at him like the picture next to the word Innocent in the dictionary. Technically, Tony had sided with the king, but there wasn’t a faerie rule about any of that like there was for Kelpies or Selkies. He could switch sides at any time, just like Olivia and Headmistress Thurston. I’d learned that much about the ancient magical shifters since my whole life got turned upside-down.

  Being stuck listening to college students again wasn’t so bad, even if my feet still dangled an inch off the floor in seats sized for grown people. I was only halfway through being seven. All the same, I wasn’t like the regular kids at the school I used to attend. Most of them weren’t extrahumans, and none had ever gotten abducted by a Faerie monarch. Being kidnapped was half the reason I had Providence Paranormal College faculty members tutoring me. The other half was my mom getting involved with the wrong ghostly partner and ending up in jail.

  It wasn’t so bad, especially food at the college. I got to eat sugary cereal pretty much any time I wanted. The mundane history homework Mr. Waban had assigned me was boring, though. But I had to finish it, or I wouldn’t be allowed to go and visit Fred. There was already too much to tell him, and this conversation I was overhearing between his friends only added to that.

  Josh had called the meeting, of course. The Alpha had about a million questions. How did Tony manage to come back from the dead? Had Olivia always been a magical shifter? Whose family trees had crossing branches? Why hadn’t anyone told him sooner about his brother Derek’s return?

  Tony and Olivia attempted to answer, but the one with the real information was Albert Dunstable. The Sidhe admitted to keeping an eye on most of the Tinfoil Hatters since each started school. Of course, questioning him was a pain in the butt for most of them. Nobody wanted to get in a Seelie knight’s debt.

  “So, you knew you and Olivia were related all along.”

  “I wasn’t absolutely sure, but I suspected as much.” Al shrugged. “My mother always said that her sister was the last Alkonost. I knew we had owl shifter blood in the family, and part of my education included learning how to track coincidence records. When an orphaned owl shifter of the right age showed up here enrolled in the same major as me, I figured there must be some connection.”

  “Gemma Tolland blindsided you, though.”

  “Yes.” Al l
eaned his head on one of his hands. “She’s always had a way of doing that to me.”

  “At least you finally stood up and did the right thing by your kid.”

  “Josh!” Nox Phillips elbowed her mate in the ribs. “It’s not his fault that he never knew.”

  “Yeah, fine, sure, whatever.” Josh shook his head. “Trolls like their secrets, but I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out sooner, Al. Smart guy like you, big plans with the lady in question. You said you two were set to run off and tithe to the same monarch together, get hitched, and then attend PPC as a married couple. You must have wondered why she didn’t show up at school when she said she would.”

  “It was the other way around, actually. She showed, and I didn't.” Al sat up, put his hands flat on the table, and stared at Josh. “Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation is most likely to be true, and in this situation, it seems like she broke a promise in exchange for me breaking mine. A secret baby isn’t exactly simple, however.”

  “I don’t care if I end up owing you for asking this, but why did you do it, Al?” Blaine puffed out a couple of smoke rings. “I couldn’t have broken a promise to Kim, not even before we knew for sure about our destiny together. Yet somehow, you managed to welsh on your commitment to Gemma.”

  “It wasn’t intentional, I assure you.” Al’s gaze sank to the table, examining the patterns in the wood grain. “My family had to drag me kicking and screaming to the queen’s castle. I imagine, when I didn’t show up at the appointed time to meet with the king, she tithed without me, not realizing she was with child.”

  I tried to imagine a straight-laced guy like Albert Dunstable in full-on freak-out mode. It was a stretch, but I knew he wasn’t lying. Tithed faeries, especially Seelie Sidhe, couldn’t tell an outright lie when asked a direct question. I almost spoke up, curiosity nagging at me to ask a question of my own, but I didn’t want to be kicked out of the meeting. Listening in on my brother’s packmates kept me closer to him than I could be without a visit to the Under. I kept my mouth shut, but Lynn Frampton grabbed my burning question and ran with it.

  “So why didn’t you tell her?” The human’s voice was flat, almost emotionless. I knew that meant she was about as angry at Al as I was.

  “There was no point.” Al closed his eyes. “We can’t be together like this, tithed to opposite courts.”

  “So, you let her stay angry.” Lynn’s flat voice shook with rage, and her fingertips turned white where she gripped the table. “You let her suffer, thinking the father of her kid is a liar. Like that helps any of you.”

  Al bent his head over the table as though the weight of Lynn’s words pushed him down.

  “Lynn.” Bobby put his hands over hers, took a deep breath, and then let it out. “In with the Jedi. Out with the Sith.”

  “Okay, Bobby.” She took a few deep breaths and went silent. They all did. “All of this is interesting, but none of it helps Bianca. We came here to plan for that, right?”

  Something dropped on the table in front of Al with a plop. Tears. I set my pencil down, about to get up and pat the Sidhe on the back or something. He’d been there for me when I was missing Fred, and I didn’t want to watch him cry. But my ability to sit there without being noticed trumped that. If I stayed still, I’d learn more, maybe even enough to help with this whole mess so Al wouldn’t have to cry.

  My own family, once solid, was now as much of a mess as the Dunstables and the Tollands. I had to try to do whatever I could.

  Tony Gitano glanced my way. Other than that, the rest still hadn’t noticed me. They argued, half of them dead-set on charging into the queen’s demesne to rescue Bianca and the other half holding them back. Tony was part of the latter.

  “So we have to rely on people who know the queen.” Blaine’s nose looked like a smokestack at a smoke factory. “People like Mother, Fred, and Al.”

  “Al and Fred are just knights, though.” Lynn shook her head. “Doesn’t give them much sway.”

  “But Al has leverage in a major way.” Kim Ichiro tapped one page of a yellowed text. “He's bringing the queen a major ally. The Alkonost gives her enough magical mojo to get past even the king’s power level. Maybe she could be convinced to kick Richard Hopewell to the curb.”

  “You talk about the kid like she’s a powerhouse.” Tony shook his head. “Sure, Hope’s bonded to that feather, but she’s six. I’m not sure that’s influential.”

  “Six?” I slapped my hand over my mouth after the number spilled out of it.

  “Hmm.” Josh Dennison stood up from his heat at the head of the table and paced toward me. His eyes never left mine the entire time. “I know someone who’d be a real help.”

  “Um.” I blinked, playing dumb. “Me?”

  “Yeah, Ed.” Josh smiled. “You got big excuses to be in the Under at the queen’s castle but can come back here whenever you want. And a six-year-old’s going to trust you faster than she’d trust a poison dragon or your big brother the scary Redcap.”

  “And she won’t trust Sir Al even though he's her dad because she barely knows him.” I sighed. “Okay, I get it.”

  “So, will you help us?”

  “After I finish this homework, sure thing.”

  And Nothing but the Truth

  A Providence Paranormal College Short Story

  I hate my son. I ain’t a good lion shifter Mob boss no more because his little birdie shot me with her Wonder Woman wannabe truth arrow. So I’m here now, spilling my guts to the FBE’s lamest in a Washington DC interrogation room. You know it’s true that Natalie Johnson and Derek Dennison suck at enforcing the law because I said so.

  The only bright side to any of this is that what I say literally goes because it’s no word of a lie. Natalie had dognapped the wrong wolf shifter pup back in the day when she brought Derek in for illegal shifting. Shoulda been his brother Josh; woulda saved me a world of trouble. That son of a bitch kept me from giving my son the punishment he deserved.

  And then when Derek came to town and tried to join my gang undercover, he thought I was stupid enough to fall for it. I didn’t, of course. Pitched his tail straight into the Under at our first meeting as he deserved. But in the end, Johnson and Dennison only got me because my kid’s a rat.

  “Tell us how Hopewell met the Sidhe Queen.” Agent Johnson sounds like she’s asking a girlfriend for hairstyle advice.

  “You talk like the dumbest broad since Marilyn Monroe.”

  “Thanks!” The agent’s smile widened, but the light in her eyes goes deadly cold, like Waban’s halitosis.

  “I don’t aim to please.”

  “I know. You’re just doing what you’ve got to.” Johnson adjusts her bangle bracelet. It’s one of those magnetized copper deals “As Seen on TV” which doesn’t actually work for curing arthritis. But it could put a Roman lion shifter like me into an entire galaxy's worth of worlds of hurt. Or a freaking coma.

  “I hate comas.” I roll my eyes because that much truth hurts almost as much as copper. “It’s public record how they met. Queenie was at Hopewell’s and Thurston’s wedding, bride's side.”

  “Gross.” Dennison tries to play bad cop and fails miserably. “My father always said you can judge a man by the company he keeps. You and Hopewell must have been bosom buddies.”

  “We had a mutual understanding, but men like us don’t really make friends.” I tap my knuckles on the steel table I’m cuffed to, and I want to bust it in half. I can but I don’t have a death wish.

  “Wow.” Derek had a shit-eating grin on his face. I have seen dogs eat that, though, so I can’t really blame him for wearing that expression.

  “Look, piggies. I can’t lie, so there’s no point in the Federal Bimbo asking stuff twice or the flaming wolf threatening me.” I bared my teeth because I’m way past smiling by that point.

  They look at each other. I can tell they’ve got a mind link going, mostly because Johnson smells like a Psychic of some sort. I tap my fingers on the table, one by
one, while I wait for their brains to stop waving at each other.

  “Okay, Gino.”

  “Mr. Gitano.”

  “Okay, Mr. Gitano.” Johnson shrugs with one shoulder. “What’s Hopewell’s weakness.”

  “Powerful women.” I throw back my head and laugh my ass off and then back on again because I’m actually evading that answer and telling nothing but the truth. That’s rarer than I like my cheeseburgers.

  “That’s not what she means, and you know it.”

  “Wish I was Fae, so all these questions meant you owed me your lives.” I wipe the corner of one eye. It takes a Godzilla-sized laugh to make me cry, apparently. There’s a tear there I didn’t expect. It stops me cold because I can’t remember the last time I cried. Men like me just don’t do that, not even when we kill our beloved wives for betraying us or try to murder our punk-ass kids ten times, even if they deserve it.

  “Well you’re not.” Dennison sighs. “We’ve got to ask as specifically as possible, and I’m not the one who grew up in a faerie family, Nat.”

  “Okay.” Johnson narrows her eyes at me. It looks like a spinster’s squint.

  “You’ll never find a man, carrying on like this, Johnson.”

  “Huh?” She blinks.

  “Hanging out with a gay werewolf.” I snort.

  “What did you just say?” Dennison grabs me by the collar and lifts me off my seat. I laugh in his manscaped face.

  “Gay. Homo. Fag.”

  “Yeah, and?” His grip tightens. “I'm a wolf shifter, not a werewolf, asshole.”

  “Of all the things to get bent out of shape over.” I shake my head, swallowing the chuckle.

  “Put him down, Derek.”

  "Oh, I wish. Like Old Yeller." The wolf drops me back in the chair and gets out of the way. Johnson sits on the table between the corner and me. I smile like I’m from Cheshire because Psychics are weak. I know this from long experience trading them in like Ferraris.

  “You’re going to sing like a choirboy, Mr. Gitano.” She gives that dopey grin, dimples and all, tilting her head so her brown curls bounce like Shirley Temple’s.