by Zoe Chant
“Our cooking has changed since my childhood, when everything was oversalted. Canned and frozen foods were more common, and were pretty tasteless except for the salt. Robert’s family dealt with that by dousing everything with ketchup. My parents were Europeans, so ketchup wasn’t even in my house until I encountered it in college, and I never could get used to it.”
“It’s a very distinctive flavor,” Nikos said.
“Yes. Like anything, if you grow up with it, it’s familiar. Robert carried packets of it everywhere we went. We ate some very strange-to-us foods in our travels, and his ketchup added a dose of familiarity, I guess. He wasn’t much one for tastes . . .” She looked up, her gaze steady. “I’m talking too much. Aren’t I? About him.”
Regret, whispered Nikos’s unicorn. I hear regret foremost.
But it is not aimed our way, Nikos responded, and out loud said, “To be expected, when he was an important part of your life for so long.”
She seemed to be working her way through emotions she wasn’t ready to discuss yet. And that was all right. He understood giving people emotional space as well as physical space, after dealing with children and teens from various backgrounds, many of those backgrounds disastrous. It was an important part of the healing process
One thing he was certain of, she wasn’t in shock after that scrap at the landslide. She wasn’t going back over it blow by blow the way people used to quiet lives often did after a sudden interruption of violence. Jen had traveled the world, that much he understood, and had surely faced danger numerous times. This was something entirely internal.
She looked up again, with the bright, determined smile of someone who had come to a decision. “That’s enough about me and my life. Please, tell me about your island?”
Quite a first test! The landmine of shifter life had to be avoided, but he could not make himself lie to her. And so he had to navigate among those landmines. And if he made himself boring by skimming the surface of the truth, well, she would tire of him faster, wouldn’t she?
Steeling himself to that goal, he started in with the basics. “It’s an ancient volcano in the middle of a very small archipelago. The climate is not all that different from what I’ve found here in Southern California. Much of the coastal plant life is also familiar, though I haven’t seen any of our goats or boars running around here.”
“There are wild boars over on Catalina Island—the island you saw from the windows at Bird’s house,” she said, her eyes wide and bright. “Animals stay away from human urban centers, except coyotes, these past few years.”
He then talked about land, plants and animals, and she leaned forward intently when he gave the most basic description of the harbor town and its long history. It struck him that she was not bored, this woman who had traveled the world. When he asked a couple of questions, it turned out that she had driven down the coast of Greece in an old bus, after doing a story on the history of beautiful Berat in Albania, and how the Christian and Muslim communities had united together to hide the city’s Jews during the bad years of World War II.
But her description was brief, even wistful, and he got the impression she had been swept along faster than she would have liked, in order to get to the next location and the next assignment.
He admitted that there were few ruins on his island. Her face lit as he explained that most of the town and many of the small homes dotting the landscape had been in continuous habitation for centuries.
They ended up comparing notes on which ancient cities still inhabited that they’d seen, until all of a sudden she gasped, looked up at a digital clock on the counter, and said, “I’ve got a class to teach in . . . twenty-three minutes!” She jumped up and grabbed their empty plates.
“Can I help with anything?”
She said breathlessly, “The dishes will wait until I get back.” She glanced down at herself. “I meant to shower before going back—a five minute washup will have to do.”
“I should get out of your way, then,” he said, reluctantly stepping toward the door. He’d meant to stay with her just long enough to eat a sandwich, and they’d talked for nearly three hours. And out it came, before he could think: “May I see you again?”
She stilled, one hand still holding a plate, the other open. Reaching. For . . .?
“I’d like that,” she said slowly.
“When?” he asked. “Tonight? Tomorrow?”
“I have two classes to teach tonight,” she said. “That usually leaves me pretty wiped out. Tomorrow . . . well, tomorrow night is our writers’ group. And a dinner beforehand at Bird’s. I think you’re staying there, right? Bird probably invited you to stay.”
“She did,” he admitted. “My students are elated. They fell in love with that house.”
“We all love that house,” Jen said with another of her bright smiles, this time with no grief or regret in it. “You could come to the writers’ group after?”
“Will it be a problem that I am not a writer?”
“No. They always welcome an audience,” she said.
His unicorn said, She wants to see us. But feels safe in a group.
“It sounds interesting,” he said. And then out it came. “Maybe we can go somewhere after?”
She blinked, her gaze shifted, then she said slowly, “I’d like that.”
As he walked out, then down the block to find a corner away from windows in order to shift and fly back to Mikhail’s and Bird’s house, the unicorn bugled in triumph.
Nikos reached Bird’s house, where he found Mikhail pacing back and forth along the upper balcony, gazing out to sea. “Ah, you’re back,” was all he said.
Joey would be the one to launch a third degree interrogation, but he was not there.
In a not-surprising parallel, Mikhail said, “Bird’s daughter-in-law and grandchild are visiting relatives for the weekend, so we are free to talk. Joey and his colleague Ann had to oversee the return of the equipment. I just got back from doing a flyover of the town. We hadn’t realized how closely we were being watched.”
“Or how well,” Nikos said.
Mikhail accepted that. “That, too. We’ve been assuming they withdrew to regroup after their loss up in the mountains. But someone seems determined. Joey is busy right now assigning watch posts to his young volunteers among the student population.”
“There are that many shifters here? It appeared to me to be an entirely human town.”
“The young ones, especially those alone or separated from families, tend to gravitate toward Joey exactly the way they do to you on the other side of the world.”
“But he finds them mates,” Nikos joked.
Mikhail’s rare smile appeared. “More like, somehow it happens when he’s around. Like a magnet.”
“Or a talent.”
Mikhail raised a hand. “Joey doesn’t intrude or impose. He detests those who make it their business to rearrange others’ lives for their own good.”
Nikos suspected that there was a not-very-deeply hidden meaning to Mikhail’s words. “Call it a power, then.”
“I think that might be closer to the mark,” Mikhail said, and glanced out to sea again, as though ready to spring into the air and fly high and long. As dragons did. “We were debating which of us ought to embark on the journey across the sea to report to the imperial capital, and who ought to remain here to monitor the situation.”
There lay a question behind that, too.
Nikos answered it. “I wish I could stay. Maybe another night, but then we must return. Apparently Medusa is back.”
“Medusa,” Mikhail said, brows raised. “Is that the gorgon I’ve heard about? I thought she gave up on trying to win you.”
Nikos uttered a short laugh. “I never believed it was my dubious attractions she was after. It’s my island she wants. Nobody says no to Medusa.”
“Medusa,” Mikhail repeated, and humor brightened his face, a rare flash. “Is that not a little on the nose?”
“She
likes being blatant,” Nikos said. “And she does have a sense of humor. She also runs with some very shady people. Last I heard she was playing around with them at the other end of the continent, or I would never have brought the girls on their grand tour. But my hetairoi report that one of her yachts has pulled into the harbor.”
“Not to attack?” Mikhail exclaimed.
“No, or I’d already be gone. She’s still pretending to be friendly. She brought a load of wealthy shifter tourists, a few of them wanting the medicinal springs. My guess is, she’s on a spy mission, and will throw money around and chat up the locals. Bryony and Mateo are trustworthy and strong, but they don’t have a lot of experience. . .” He paused, Jen vivid in his mind.
We need our mate, came his unicorn’s thought, like the peal of a bell.
Nikos gritted his teeth. Now he understood that old saying about one’s heart being torn. He’d always thought it an exaggeration, but the need inside him, pulling him in two directions, felt like he was being ripped apart in spirit.
He let out a short sigh. “I tell you what. We could as easily go west as east, and report on our way. Only it will take a bit longer than either you or Joey, as we aren’t built for days-long flights over the ocean. We’d have to go up the West Coast to Alaska, and then over and down China’s coast, then across. I had been considering it anyway, so the girls could see more of the world.”
Bird called them to dinner then. As soon as they sat down, she asked, “Did you have a good day? After the unfortunate incident at the landside,” she added hastily.
Nikos bit down the impulse to laugh at the hasty catch—and the wistful expression on her face. He suspected that gentle Bird was at heart as much a matchmaker as Joey. But he was not ready to discuss that, not with everything so unsettled.
So he said, “Very good. This is a fine town.” To Mikhail, “I can see why you like it.”
“I would go anywhere Bird goes,” Mikhail said quietly, laying his hand over his wife’s on the table. “But I have to admit, it was very easy to settle here.”
They exchanged smiles, then Bird said earnestly, “At least Petra and Cleo were safely elsewhere when those Cang people attacked you.”
Nikos laughed. “Oh, I have a feeling the girls will be devastated when they hear there was a bit of action and them not there to do their part.”
Bird’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Mikhail said, “I expect their training on the island is much tougher than anything they’ve seen here so far. I wonder if the attractions of being inside a car might outweigh missing that scrap.”
Bird turned from him to Nikos, her wide eyes reminding him of Cleo. “You don’t have cars?”
“There are a couple of old trucks for hauling stuff, but no. Cars are pretty useless there. Most of the island’s shifters are winged, as the island is more vertical than it is horizontal. The paths are ancient trails, too narrow and twisty for a car.”
“What do you have there?”
“Goats.”
They laughed, and went on to talk about other things. Nikos volunteered to load the dishwasher as Mikhail helped Bird, who had a list of things to prep for Joey’s barbeque next day.
Promptly at a quarter to ten, the girls were brought back. At first they tried to talk over each other to express how much fun they’d had—how glorious was their first introduction to Mexican food—as their new friend stood by, grinning with an air of expectation.
Petra, the quiet one, gave up first, and Cleo exclaimed, “And Ximi took us to a mall. Where they had so many clothes!” Then she began to bounce on her toes. “And Ximi invited us to her sister’s birthday tomorrow. It’s a sleepover! Canwecanwecanwe?”
Nikos hedged, “You’ve already been invited to Joey’s barbeque, and to the writer’s group afterward.”
Two shining faces dimmed to politeness, making it clear which opportunity they favored.
Bird said quickly, “We have barbeque often. And the writers’ group doesn’t have anyone their age—why not let them go?”
Two earnest faces turned Nikos’s way. “If Mr. Joey won’t think it rude . . .”
“Oh, not at all,” Bird said with a definite air. “He does barbeques often, and many times has no idea how many will show up. The girls are perfectly free to choose this other invitation, which is particularly extended to them.”
Ximi said, “I can have my mother call you, if you like. And you have my number.”
Nikos smiled at her, realizing that whatever else his young hetairoi had shared with their new friend, they had kept quiet about the mythic realm, which the girls could use to reach him if there was an emergency. It sounded like they’d been able to differentiate what they could talk about and what they couldn’t, for both the safety of the shifter world and the humans as well.
In short, this prospective party would not only be fun, it was excellent practice for navigating in the human world. “Thank you for the invitation. Of course they can go. If you will provide them with suggestions for a gift for your sister, they can shop tomorrow morning.” They’d also need suitable clothes, he suspected—and saw from the two shining faces that he was probably on the right track.
Best of all, he realized, the girls would be sublimely happy. Which left him time for Jen . . .
She was still on his mind the next morning, as the girls got ready to venture out to the mall for gift shopping. He was about to remind them about being careful with their shifting, when Cleo opened her honey-brown eyes wide and begged to go on the bus.
“It looks so fun! And at home, only two people have ever been on a bus!”
Nikos smiled to see how naturally the word ‘home’ came from her lips. He had always mentally noted when his adoptees began using it, regarding it as a measure of success, as they all had come from circumstances that made that a difficult word.
He gave them plenty of money, and off they went, Bird’s instructions about riding the bus fresh in their ears. As it was a five mile trip, and they were very good at orienteering—he’d seen to that before taking them from the island—he wasn’t too worried if they got so enthralled with their bus journey that they overshot the mall.
Then Nikos and Mikhail went out to the terrace, and in the soft rain that had begun to fall, they sparred through the morning, first hand to hand, then working with a variety of weapons that Mikhail had collected.
As time passed, Mikhail looked more and more concerned. Finally they took a water break, and Mikhail sat down, fists on knees, as he said, “I can’t reach Joey on the mythic plane. I think I caught a glimpse of him in his fox form—a visual, close to the ground, and a . . .” He waved one hand. “A blast of awareness of aroma.”
“That would definitely be his fox form. Nose more important than eyes.”
“But then it vanished. I need to concentrate, I think. Let me see if I can reach him.”
He closed his eyes.
Nikos began to wipe down and store the weapons, as the crystalline drops dripped from the eaves of the gazebo at the other end of the terrace. Overhead, the sun appeared and disappeared from behind departing clouds sailing eastward.
When Nikos finally laid the swords on their rolling rack, Mikhail looked up. “Can’t find him.”
“Surely he’s closed himself off,” Nikos said.
“Yes. But why?” Mikhail glanced around, and Nikos knew from the inward look in his eyes that he wasn’t doing a visual sweep so much as mentally checking all the wards protecting the house and its considerable garden. Nikos would be doing the same at home.
Mikhail said, “We might as well put things away and break for lunch—” He halted when he saw that the weapons had been wiped down. “Thanks.”
“Old habits die hard,” Nikos said.
“And knights die harder,” Mikhail retorted the old response that had seemed so badass to Nikos many, many years ago.
They both laughed, and walked inside in search of grazing opportunities.
The barbeque wa
s planned for late afternoon, which meant a light lunch—and there was Bird, with a delicious-smelling barley soup waiting.
The three of them sat down together. The conversation was easy. Nikos sensed Bird wanting to ask questions, but he avoided the subjects of mates, humans, and Jen. As noon approached and then passed, Nikos found himself watching the long driveway below the house for Jen, as well for as Joey Hu.
Joey turned up first—without his sporty red car. One moment the patio where the brick outside stove was located was empty, then he was there, not ten minutes after Bird said cheerfully, “Oh, Joey should turn up soon. He always sets the fire in that stove himself.”
Joey greeted Bird with a sunny smile, but gathered Nikos and Mikhail with a glance as he set about prepping the outdoor stove.
“You were in your fox form,” Mikhail said. “What happened?”
“Two of my watchers at the landslide were attacked. Or nearly attacked. Ann, being a swift, is faster than the hawk shifter who was hiding in one of the palm trees along the palisade. And Pablo is a lizard. He, too, was faster than the cougar lying in wait. As for me, I was tailed. Obviously.”
“Sounds like an attempt at intimidation,” Nikos said.
“Very much Cang’s style,” Mikhail said.
“Agreed.” Joey went on, “So I drove as a human and parked outside my friend Shifra’s motel, checked myself into the room Shifra usually gives me for visitors, and went out the back window as a fox.” He gave a flick of his fingers, indicating his nine tails. “I didn’t sense another mythic shifter in the car following me, so they would not have seen me run off the back way. I expect they’re still parked there—until Shifra calls the police to report a suspicious person hanging around her motel.” He glanced at his watch. “Which should be about . . . now.”
Mikhail smiled briefly, but immediately turned serious. “The need for backup is becoming urgent.”
Joey’s smile disappeared. “I know. I spoke with the new Guardian of the West. She’s in touch with the celestial empress, who promised that reinforcements are on the way.”
