by N. M. Howell
Hoping that the elevator guy had finally come, she entered the store, her mind elsewhere. Nearly bumping into a frazzled-looking elderly woman, she took a moment to pause and take in the utter chaos that buzzed around her. There were no shoppers, only lines. Long, long lines at the take-out counter and at the one open register. Lee manned the register, shouting his head off at a woman who ran back and forth, taking orders, filling them, and ringing them up. Raina hurried over.
“I’ll take over the register,” she said as she joined him behind the counter.
Lee gazed skyward, apparently giving thanks. “No, I need you at the take out. Grab an apron. First, you need to go upstairs and find my lazy son.”
Raina shoved and dodged to the elevator landing, grunting when the light of the call button didn’t turn on when she pressed it. The damn thing was still out of service. She grudgingly took the stairs. At least there were only four flights to the Wings’ floor. Gasping and half stumbling, she managed to make it to Derek’s bachelor pad without collapsing. Without thinking, she tried the knob, and the unlocked door opened wide. She realized she probably should have knocked first.
“All right, Pop, I said I’d be right down.” Derek shrugged out of a shirt and tossed it toward a laundry basket. He froze when he saw Raina in the doorway. “Oh.”
“Shit, Sorry,” Raina blundered. Heat burned in her cheeks, and she thanked the gods above for her translucent Light Fae blood. She knew she would have otherwise been 50 shades of red just then. “I should have knocked. Your dad sent me up. It’s a mad house down there.”
Derek nodded, perfectly unfazed about having just been walked-in on in the middle of changing his clothes. “Flu going around. Half the staff’s home sick.”
“Right.” She cleared her throat, politely diverting her eyes from his half-nakedness, falling instead to the mirror in the far corner of the room. His reflection wasn’t any less desirable.
Derek, though thin, was well muscled, lean planes of formed pecs over a subtle six pack.
“This wasn’t the way I hoped you to see me undressing.” He turned and winked at her through the mirror, his grin turning cheeky.
“Your dad’s gonna kill you if you don’t get down there.” Not bothering to look away this time, she noticed bruises stretching over the smooth lines of his body—one on his shoulder, one on his left forearm. Both were big, dark and fresh.
Derek smirked. “Let me get a fresh shirt. I’ll meet you down there.”
As he moved through a door into another room, Raina saw a bruise on his back as well. Her eyes then locked on something that rooted her in place. On his lower back, a symbol glowed. A Light Fae glyph of service. A glyph that looked like the one on the man who knocked her down on the campus before leaping to the top of the ten-foot wall. A glyph she’d seen on a masked man in black who attacked the Dark Fae.
Raina backed out of the apartment and closed the door.
What the hell?
Raina’s brain raced in far too many directions at once. She scooped noodles into a container from one of three woks set at the pass. When she tried to hand it to the customer, Lee shouted at her.
“No, no, no, chow fun, not chow mein. This is the third time, Raina!”
She growled to herself and returned to make the order right. Again. “I’m not exactly trained in Chinese cuisine, Lee,” she muttered as she worked.
Concentration eluded her, with thoughts of Derek spinning. Sure, he was without a doubt a Glow-Getter and a Moth-Boy—but was he a magic junkie? It could well be at the root of his attraction to the Fae—
“Raina-ah!” Lee added that little syllable to the end of her name. She’d heard parents do this with children they were exasperated with. A sinking pain dropped through her as she tried to follow the tickets. Zhongwen, while sharing some basic similarities with the Fae system of glyphs, was not something she could easily read. Especially when it was scribbled by a frantic shopkeeper with a huge bunch of customers and a skeleton staff.
Her eyes caught Derek at the register, rapidly ringing people up. She could practically see the symbol through his shirt. Well, not really. Her mind kept returning to the sight of it she’d glimpsed upstairs. Raina couldn’t be certain he had been one of the magic-wielders from the night before. Still, he had plowed her into the ground before making his escape.
“Raina! Two specials, now please!”
She beseeched him with tearing eyes. “I’m no good at this, Lee! Maybe I should go on the register—”
“Dinner rush will be over in an hour. Stay on the station.” He turned away, but she heard him whisper under his breath. “Aiya gung sai la…”
Specials. Specials. Which ones were the specials? That was the combo, with rice and vegetables and stuff, right? She slapped a bunch of food into containers and rushed it to the take out register. Before she could continue her terrible work, something caught her eye.
A rabbit stood at the front doors, paws up on the glass. Pedestrians dodged around it, the rabbit not moving, only staring. Staring at Raina.
Okay, great. Now I’m losing my mind.
The rabbit had to dodge out of the way of the constant stream of pedestrians. Raina sighed, a little relieved.
“Number sixty-seven!” Lee called in Cantonese, then in Mandarin. “Raina, order up! Pay attention!” in English.
The cook saw her, Raina’s expression enough to make him wave a steaming ladle at the correct order. Damn it, why was this so hard? As she packed it up in a pink bag, she felt she was being stared at. It wasn’t Lee Wing, she realized as she handed the order to the unhappy customer.
The rabbit.
It now beat its forepaws against the glass of the door; then leaned, looking in at her. Not just into the store, gazing at the boxes of produce, but right at Raina.
How much more weirdness could she handle? Derek as a magical half-assed ninja, attacking the Dark Fae in their territory. A rabbit on a busy city street trying to involve her in a staring contest. Even as she moved back and forth from the kitchen pass, she could feel its lagamorphic presence, skittish yet oddly resolved. To something.
Focus, focus, focus!
Lee muttered, shouted, consoled customers, called out more orders. The cooks in back furiously stirred hissing woks, calling out finished orders. Raina frantically put food in containers, containers in bags, hurried them over to Lee. He frowned at her, constantly motioning to the pass.
The rabbit.
It beat its paws against the glass. Then it danced into pedestrian traffic, looking over its shoulder at her. The process repeated. Was she crazy, or did the rabbit want her to follow it?
Raina untied her apron.
“Raina?” Lee’s brows lowered, his mouth falling open.
“I have to go.” She hung the apron on a hook and ran through the crowded store.
12
The brown and white ball of fur darted down the street. It looked back at Raina. When she took a few steps toward it, it ran off again. At the corner, she nearly caught up with it. But the light changed, and the rabbit took off down Bowery.
On the other side of the street, the rabbit waited. When the light changed again, Raina crossed. The rabbit ran. She chased after.
It followed the same pattern on every block, hopping south. They passed Confucius Plaza, jogged right on Worth Street, and out of Chinatown. On Centre Street, the rabbit bounded past City Hall on the right, the Brooklyn Bridge on the left, and kept going.
“Where are you taking me?” Raina shouted at the bunny. She eyed the pedestrians, realizing she was shouting at a rabbit. No one paid her any attention. Most stared at cell phones or chatted into the mics attached to their headphones.
Oddly, no one seemed to notice the racing rabbit either. It had to dodge the feet of dozens of people walking dogs, pushing baby carriages, simply wandering. Raina believed that no one could actually see the animal. No one but her.
The crazy rabbit continued down Broadway, through the dizzying path betw
een skyscrapers now called the Canyon of Heroes. On and on, through sheltered construction walk-throughs, across Wall Street and past the Stock Exchange. The engine of the global economy now idled as the brightness in the clouds drained westward, out of sight beyond the soaring skyline. It lightened the foot traffic, but even after hours, the city was very much alive.
With the city now dark, electric light reflected harshly from wet pavement. She lost sight of the creature time and again, only to have it turn back and twitch its whiskers at her. Raina interpreted the motion as impatience.
At the end of Broadway, the rabbit made a daring crossing at the elbow of Battery Place and State Street. Raina raced after, horns of cabs and buses complaining. It ran through a gap in a chain link fence, past the Netherland Monument and disappeared into Battery Park.
Winded from chasing a rabbit two miles to the southern tip of Manhattan Island, Raina leaned over, hands on her knees. The rabbit hopped back onto the path, twitching its nose at her. It took off again. She tracked it past the Battery Urban Farm and into a grove of skeletal trees.
Raina stalked after it. She entered a circle of dry grass beneath the branches. In the middle of this, a gingham cloth stretched, the ends held down by globes of dancing orange light. In the middle of this sat Jax, surrounded by wicker baskets, plates, small bowls of fruit and several bottles and glasses. She didn’t know whether this amazed her or not.
Jax sat, cross legged, eyes closed, palms up on his thighs. He wore a light sweater of gold and blue that complemented his complexion and offered a softening to the hard cut of his muscular physique; cotton pants just on the right side of clingy. As she watched, the rabbit bounded across the cloth, managing not to upset a single article of the displayed picnic. It leaped into Jax’ long-fingered hands. With a bell-like tone, the animal disintegrated into a puff of beige smoke and swirling green embers.
Raina had never heard of the Dark Fae possessing powers like this. A rabbit illusion that could summon her across half of Manhattan? Maybe she’d been away too long, too out of touch. Of course, she didn’t really know a lot about Dark Fae magic. Most of her education consisted of how much the Dark Fae hated the Light, and the long history of their conflicts. As far as she was concerned, the Dark Fae were evil. At least, as far as she was concerned up until now.
Peering down at the man with the sly grin on his face, he looked the last thing from evil. He looked positively yummy. Her insides twisted in knots. Gods, it had been so long since she’d been courted, she hardly remembered what it felt like.
Jax’ face lit up with a smile that plucked at her heart as if it were a giant harp. He opened his black eyes, a twinkle of humor glistened. “Well, that took you long enough.”
“If you would’ve just said where and when you wanted to meet, I could’ve caught a subway and been here forty minutes ago.”
“What fun would that be? Humans!” He shook his head, the smile remaining.
Raina refused to let herself scowl, instead feeling the corner of her lips twitch into a tight smirk. “There are such things as phones, you know.”
“Phone?” His eyes twinkled as they held her gaze. “What is such a thing? Never heard of it.”
Rolling her eyes, Raina took a reluctant seat on the edge of the expensive-looking blanket. The smells emanating from the baskets would have brought her to her knees, anyway. “Smells divine.”
“You must be famished after all that jogging.” Jax opened a basket and grabbed a plate. “Dig in. We have a lot to talk about.”
Raina felt the riffling, warming breath of a Zephyr of Desiccation warming her in the cool autumn air. All except her boots, of course. She felt her feet might never be dry again. She sat across from Jax, accepting the offered plate.
Her mouth watered at the scent of a berry buckle, the sight of glistening, lightly nectar-dressed begonia flower, bachelor button and borage blossom salad. When Jax added a construction of cream-stuffed honeycomb to the plate, she thought she might faint. Being so close to him already left her a little breathless.
Jax poured a pale green wine into an oversized stemmed glass. Was this a date? She sat in a romantic setting, Jax very attractive in casual, though obviously expensive, clothes, wine and food, a mystery meeting place. Raina’s heart beat a little faster.
“Did I interrupt something important?” he asked.
Raina shrugged. “I kinda have a job?”
Jax winced. “Right. Sometimes I can’t wrap my head around the so-called rat race.”
“Well, I’m here now.” She bit into the honeycomb, which nearly made anxiety flee. Covertly, she studied his dark, rough features, the swoop of jutting bones and oh-so-smooth skin that somehow contrived to make the man… well, delicious.
“I managed to access the security images from last night,” he said.
Thoughts of a romantic rendezvous shattered as the shock of his words made her choke on the honey that remained on her tongue. “Oh?” she managed to croak through a fit of forced coughing she hoped would mask her shock. She forced herself to swallow and managed to keep any expression off her face by stuffing it with more food. She closed her eyes so Jax couldn’t see them rolling back in her head with ecstasy.
Despite closed lids, she could feel his eyes boring into her.
Jax cleared his throat. “I got to the warding sphere before Merit Sharp or anyone assigned to the security detail could.”
Ice ran down her spine. “Okay…”
“I erased most of your images. I’m not the most adept at warding.”
Most of your images. Raina took a couple large gulps of wine and managed not to choke this time. She took a breath. “And?”
Jax took a moment, and a long drink of wine as she had. “You were doing some very odd things, Rainara.”
“I did?”
Jax didn’t meet her eyes as he talked. “Foremost, there weren’t any images of you approaching the lake. I find that particularly difficult to reason away. I won’t go into my suspicions in depth, but we must have a glitch somewhere in the warding glyphs.”
The words didn’t settle her. “Go on.” Or did she really want him to?
He cleared his throat. “You have to understand, the wards aren’t anything like the security cameras, video and so on that you humans use.”
Raina was trying so hard to pass as human. And yet the word rankled. She stayed quiet, waiting for Jax to go on.
“They are set to warn us of danger. If they detect danger, images are captured and held in onyx spheres for later study. Apparently, as you pose no danger, there was no focus on you. At least at first.”
She had no idea where he was going with this. Raina sipped at her wine. Jax continued to avoid eye contact.
“And then, you were in danger. Of a sort. Ah!” Jax tightened his lips and squeezed his eyes shut. He exhaled hard through his nose. “I’m just going to come out and say it.”
Raina didn’t want to offer encouragement, nor stifle him. Instead, she reached out and took his hand. It felt warm in hers. A vibration went through her at the contact.
“You were standing on the rim above the lake when a ward took notice. There was something in your left hand. I couldn’t make out what. Then, you cut yourself.” Jax pulled free of her touch. He tapped the outside of his right hand with his left. “Along your hand.”
Raina felt the wound throb in response. Or was it her imagination? The information stunned her. She had believed that she had reopened the wound when she was tackled by the magic junkie on the campus grounds. The magic junkie that was very likely her close friend Derek Wing. To hear she had intentionally cut herself sent shockwaves through her brain.
All breath then left her at the realization of what he just said. Her eyes fell to the wound and she tightened her fist around the scar.
Oh gods, he saw it. I’m doomed.
She sat frozen in place, waiting for him to continue. Had he noticed her blood? Had he watched her bleed? Seeing her blood would have given away as
a Light Fae instantly. She watched him carefully, studying his expression. She couldn’t breathe.
This isn’t a bloody date, it’s a Last Supper before my execution.
“You started bleeding.”
Shit.
“… Not bad, but enough to see.”
Double shit.
“… Your back was turned and blocked most of it, but I could see the ripples in the water as the drops fell.”
Oh, thanks the gods. Raina let out the air that burned her lungs.
“… Then, you started sort of weaving back and forth. You were speaking to the lake, or maybe to someone you thought was under the water.”
Gods beyond, she couldn’t’ remember any of this. Raina could still recall bits of the nightmare, although it was fading. But hurting herself, talking to herself? At least he hadn’t seen the blood…
“The talking got louder, and pretty soon you were shouting, screaming at the lake.” Jax’ features cinched, as if he was in pain. After a moment, his face cleared and he closed his eyes. “Pretty soon after the screaming started, you flung yourself in the lake. It was a few minutes before I found you. I’m sorry about that. You were in the water for a while.”
Jax slowly opened his eyes and brought them up to hers. “Do you remember any of this?”
Raina’s mind went blank. “No.”
“Was it part of your nightmare?”
“No.” Her body trembled.
His hand pressed against hers. “Rainara?”
“No!” She jerked away. The whole thing sounded ridiculous, she hardly believed it despite knowing some of it must have been at least partially true. “I was not standing by the lake screaming and cutting myself like a crazy person!”
