by Lisa Edmonds
I touched my earring and invoked the spell. “Contain.” Malcolm vanished, and my earring buzzed.
“Does that hurt him?” Natalie asked.
“Not at all,” I assured her. “It’s kind of like being asleep.”
“Okay. Well, I guess I’ll hear from you in the morning.” Natalie escorted us to the front door.
“I’ll text you,” I promised, and she closed the door behind us.
As soon as the door clicked shut, I took a step and stumbled.
Sean swung me up into his arms before I could argue. “That’s it; we’re going home now.”
“Only because I say we are,” I countered, but my retort didn’t quite match the shakiness of my voice.
Sean sighed and carried me down the sidewalk to where we were parked at the curb. “Your car or mine?”
When I didn’t immediately answer, he brought me over to his Mercedes and sat me on the hood.
I rested my weight carefully on the car and looked up at him. “You can’t stay the night with me.”
Sean gave me a long-suffering look. “Once again, you’re assuming I have ulterior motives. I’m only thinking about getting you home and making sure you have what you need when you get there.”
“All I’m going to need is my bed. I’ll be asleep the minute my head touches the pillow. I need to recharge.”
He hesitated. “I read somewhere that there’s another, faster way to regenerate magical energy.” He tilted my chin up and looked into my eyes. “Is it true?”
“It’s true,” I admitted.
Sean ran his thumb lightly over my lower lip. “Then why are you sending me home when I could be helping you?”
I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic about his motivations for offering me some sexual healing, but the seriousness in his eyes made me reconsider my response. “Because Malcolm is not a battery and neither are you,” I said instead.
“You regenerated your magic with me the first time we were together.”
“Yes, I did. That was part of the plan, when I invited you home with me.”
He seemed neither surprised nor upset by my admission. “And now?”
“Now the plan’s changed.”
He absorbed that. “Speaking of plans, what did you decide about tomorrow?”
I tilted my head back, bracing myself with my hands on the hood of the car. Above the trees, the three-quarter moon shone against a darkening sky. Sean’s wolf would be feeling restless, no doubt. I wondered where he and his pack went on the full moon, and what he looked like in wolf form. I was suddenly full of questions about him, and it was a strange feeling.
“I’ll be ready at eight o’clock,” I said finally.
Sean grinned. “Eight o’clock it is. Come on, Sleeping Beauty. Let’s get you home.” He held out his hand and I took it.
*
When Sean knocked on my door at precisely eight a.m. the next morning, he’d opted for a green button-up shirt that brought out the gold flecks in his dark brown eyes, and khakis that fit very, very well. I looked him over appreciatively before my eyes zeroed in on the enormous cup of coffee and bag of donuts in his hands.
“Now you’re just buttering me up,” I said after I’d inhaled a warm donut and drunk half the coffee in three large gulps. “And rather shamelessly, I might add.”
He grinned. “Is it working?”
“Well, it doesn’t hurt.”
Sean snorted as he backed down my driveway. I snarfed another donut. “Hungry?” he teased.
I hadn’t eaten anything since our late breakfast the day before. When I got home, I’d gone straight to bed and slept for eleven hours. “Famished. This coffee is fantastic.”
“It’s from a little coffee shop near my house,” Sean said. “We heading to Natalie’s?”
“Yep. We’re going to drop Malcolm off, then go track down Natalie’s other two aunts.” I licked some frosting off my fingers.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Like a log.”
“And your magic? Back to normal?”
“Getting there.” It would take several days for my magic to regenerate completely on its own, but he didn’t need to know that. “You were able to take the day off again without any problems?”
“No problems, though my partner Ron thinks I’ve been replaced by a pod person, since the ‘real’ Sean hasn’t taken two workdays off in a row in a very long time.”
“What’s a ‘pod person’?”
Sean stopped at a red light. “You’re kidding. Invasion of the Body Snatchers?”
“Haven’t seen it.” I chomped into another donut.
Sean widened his eyes in mock horror, then stepped on the gas when the light turned green. “That’s a classic. I can see we’ll have to have a movie night very soon.”
His casual remark caused me to pause with the donut halfway to my mouth. Movie night. I’d never had a movie night. For Sean, it was as unremarkable as buying coffee; for me, it would be a completely new experience, one of many I might be facing in the near future. My stomach knotted, and I dropped the half-eaten donut back into the bag.
Sean slowed down to make a turn and glanced at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” How could I possibly explain why the idea of having a movie night caused me anxiety? There wouldn’t be any easy way to justify how I’d managed to get to the age of twenty-nine without ever going to someone’s house to watch a movie. It was another reminder of how difficult it would be to have any kind of relationship when I had to keep so much of myself hidden.
“Not having second thoughts already, are you?” Sean’s voice sounded like he was teasing, but his shoulders looked tense.
“No.” I realized my voice sounded like it was made up of second thoughts. I cleared my throat. “No,” I repeated, more firmly. I’d made a decision, and I was going ahead with it.
“Okay.” Sean took my hand.
I tried to pull away. “Don’t—I’m all sticky from the donuts.”
He grinned and squeezed tighter. “I don’t care.”
*
We dropped Malcolm off at Natalie’s, then Sean and I headed to Deborah Mackey’s house. As he drove, I reached into the small duffel bag at my feet and pulled out a baseball cap and a pair of large sunglasses.
Sean glanced at the cap. His mouth turned down.
“I know,” I said. “But it’s part of the ruse.”
Sean’s grip tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. He didn’t say anything. We drove in silence for a while.
Deborah lived on a typical west-side residential street. Sean pulled to the curb diagonally across from her house. According to Natalie’s information sheet, Deborah and her husband Lawrence were childless. Their house was quiet. There was a new BMW parked out front.
“What’s the plan?” Sean asked.
I dug out a clipboard. “Petition ruse. I’m a volunteer going door-to-door meeting people and collecting signatures.”
“Signatures for what?”
“In this case, Prop 87.”
Sean growled. “Well, that explains the hat.”
I took his hand and squeezed it. If it passed, the proposed law would require vamps, shifters, and other supes to notify the neighborhood when they moved in, and would allow cities to designate certain areas, like around schools and churches, as supe-free zones. It was blatantly racist and horribly unfair. I was suddenly struck by the thought that if Prop 87 became law, Sean would have to reveal his werewolf identity to his neighbors, potentially making him a target of anti-supe hate groups like the one whose hat I was wearing.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “Maybe this isn’t the best idea.”
“No, it’s fine. There are a limited number of ways to meet strangers and shake their hands. It’s a good plan.” Tension prickled on my skin as his anger disrupted his natural shields, and his emotions bled over to me.
I gave him a minute to deal with his fury while I took out a blank
petition sheet and fastened it to the clipboard. I filled in the top with the information about the proposition, the date, and—after a quick Internet search—the state representative for this district.
“It’s what they do to sex offenders, Allie,” Sean snarled.
“I know.” I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. I’d signed a petition opposing Prop 87 and gone to rallies against it. Even though mages weren’t included among those who were directly affected by the proposition, there was a good chance they’d be added to the list at some point. Today, shifters, half-demons, and vamps; tomorrow, mages like me.
“We can’t go directly to their house; it’s in the middle of the block,” I said quietly. “We need to start at the corner.”
Without a word, Sean eased back onto the street and reparked at the end of the block. I pulled out a small bag of pins and picked out a couple representing other anti-supe groups. I put them on my bag. I didn’t ask Sean to put any on, and he didn’t offer.
“You can stay in the car,” I told him as we got out of the car.
“We’re in this together.” Sean shut the door hard enough to make me jump.
I slung my bag across my chest and adjusted my jacket. Clipboard in hand, I marched resolutely up to the first house on the block with Sean next to me. I rang the doorbell, plastered a perky smile on my face, and became Audrey Talbot, anti-supe crusader.
Ten minutes later, I was brimming with hidden rage, but I had my first two signatures from the couple who owned that house. They both had very strong opinions on supes, and they absolutely did not want any in their neighborhood. The husband confided they were members of Humans First, a radical “Human rights” organization that advocated creating walled-off reservations for supes and keeping them away from humans.
Sean made a few comments but let me do most of the talking. His jaw was clenched so tightly that I worried it would break.
We walked back to the sidewalk and stood silently, looking at each other. Sean reached out and I took his hand, recognizing his need for warmth and physical contact. The tautness in his shoulders made mine ache.
I drew him to me and kissed him. His body felt like caged violence. “Go back to the car,” I told him, my voice ragged. “It’s not going to get any better.”
Those beautiful brown eyes turned stony. It wasn’t in his nature to back away from anything, no matter what it might cost him emotionally. “Let’s just do this,” he said.
We went to the next house and had much the same experience, except I cut the couple off after a few minutes, telling them we wanted to get to as many houses as we could today. The elderly woman in the third house declined to sign and gave us an earful about the evils of prejudice and racism. I turned and left with tears burning in my eyes.
There was no answer when we knocked at the next house. I steeled myself and headed up the sidewalk toward the Mackeys’ home.
Just as we were halfway to their front door, it opened and Peter Eppright, Deborah’s half brother, walked out. Behind him in the doorway stood a slim middle-aged woman I recognized from Natalie’s photo as Deborah. Neither looked very happy.
Beside me, I heard Sean mutter, “Shit.” My sentiments exactly.
Nothing to do but soldier on. I summoned up a big, cheery smile and marched up to the porch. “Peter!”
Eppright looked at me, then at Sean, and recognition dawned. “Sean and…Audrey?” he asked in surprise.
Sean stepped forward to shake Eppright’s hand and gave him a manly clap on the shoulder that almost made the older man stagger. “Peter, how are you?”
Deborah looked back and forth between us. “Sean and Audrey came to see me yesterday about some insurance,” Eppright said to his half sister.
“What a small world!” I chirped. “Do you live here?”
“It’s my sister’s house,” Eppright told us. “I was just leaving.”
“I hope we haven’t caught you at a bad time,” Sean said.
Deborah stepped out onto the porch. “What do you want?”
I launched into a shortened version of my spiel about Prop 87, pointing to my various pins and waving the clipboard for emphasis. Eppright paused to listen.
“So, I was hoping to get your signature on this petition showing your support for protecting our neighborhoods,” I concluded, shoving the clipboard at Deborah.
“Sure,” she said hesitantly and took it and the pen from me.
As she was filling in her name and information, I opened my senses and focused on her, trying to sense if she had any magic. Almost none, I determined almost immediately. Like Kathy, she had only a trace of air magic and no fire magic at all. I’d know better after I shook her hand, but I was ready to cross Deborah off the suspect list.
She finished filling in her information and handed the clipboard back. I stuck out my hand. “Thank you so much for helping us today.”
After a hesitation, she reached out and shook. A slight tickle of magic, barely enough to register. Definitely part of Betty’s family—the magical signature was familiar—but not the person whose signature was in the library’s wards.
I gave her a bright smile. “Have a wonderful day.”
“You too.”
Eppright walked with us down the sidewalk. “Are we still on for that meeting next week?”
“Absolutely.” Sean shook Eppright’s hand again. “We’ll be there.”
Eppright climbed into his BMW as we walked over to the next house. Deborah stayed on her porch. I gave them both a cheerful wave and rang the doorbell. Eppright backed out of Deborah’s driveway and headed down the street.
The front door opened, and it was a young mother holding a baby on her hip.
“Hi! I’m Audrey with the Human Defense League….”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Deborah go inside her house. We went through the motions with the mom, who was joined at the door by two more small children. I could see she was totally frazzled and didn’t push her for a signature. I wouldn’t have even knocked on her door if we weren’t being watched.
When the baby started wailing, Sean and I made our escape and headed back to the car.
When we were inside, I took off the offending baseball cap and pins and stuffed them out of sight into the duffel bag. “That was not ideal.”
Sean’s laugh was so loud and sudden that it startled me. “Definitely not ideal, but I think he bought it.”
“I didn’t see any indication he suspected us of anything, but we’ll have to use a different ruse for Elise.”
Sean pulled away from the curb. I put Elise Browning’s home address into his car’s navigation system and settled back into my seat.
“I take it Deborah’s not our mage?” he asked.
“Nope.” I told him what I’d sensed.
“That leaves Elise, then.”
I grimaced. “Yeah, but I’m having a hard time believing she’s a strong mage.”
“She’s the only sibling left,” Sean pointed out. “It has to be her, right?”
“I guess,” I said doubtfully.
“So what’s the plan for Elise, then, if not the petition ruse?”
“Good question. Let’s drive by her house and get an idea of what we have to work with.”
As Sean drove, I got to work on my disguise. I used bobby pins to secure my hair tightly to my head, then put on a blonde wig. I used my fingers to comb through the wig hair and used the mirror on my sun visor to make sure it looked natural and my own hair wasn’t visible. I put on a different pair of sunglasses, a sparkly pair that looked more like something the blonde would wear, and took off my jacket.
“I like you better as a brunette,” Sean said, watching the transformation out of the corner of his eye.
“Good.”
He laughed.
Elise lived on the northeast side of the city in a fancier area than her sister. I saw the SUV I’d seen at Natalie’s house parked in the open garage of a large three-story home, along with a M
ercedes and a Land Rover. A sticker on the Land Rover indicated that their children attended a very expensive prep school. Natalie had said that Elise’s husband, Ray, owned a construction company. Business must be good for them to afford such a large home, private-school tuition, and three vehicles on a single salary.
Sean drove down the street slowly as I tried to see if there was any obvious way to gain entry to Elise’s home. Nothing jumped out at me, and this wasn’t the kind of street where we could park and watch the house waiting for her to leave. Nice neighborhoods like this meant people noticed strange cars and unfamiliar people lurking around.
“Lost dog,” Sean said suddenly.
“Huh?”
“Lost dog,” he repeated. “Our dog got away from us when we were walking it. We’re going door-to-door asking if anyone has seen it.”
I grinned. “That could actually work.” We continued down the street, turned the corner, and parked. I went online and browsed pictures of yellow Labs. I saved several to my phone and decided to call the dog Mal. Sean laughed.
I put on a different ball cap over my blonde hair—this one representing the city’s basketball team—and we headed out on foot. By the time we were getting close to Elise’s house, I had real tears in my eyes over the plight of our poor lost dog. Sean seemed to be enjoying playing the role of worried dog owner.
We were in the yard next door to Elise’s house, showing them the dog pictures, when Natalie’s aunt came outside with two little dogs of her own on leashes.
“Elise!” Her neighbor, a pretty young woman named Tracee—“with two E’s!”— hollered and waved her over. We were in business.
Elise came over, looking irritated. “Hey, Tracee. What’s going on over here?”
Her dogs bounced and barked their heads off at Sean. He stared at them, and I saw a glint of gold in his eyes. The dogs went silent and hunkered to the ground. I coughed to hide my smile.
“These poor folks’ dog got away from them,” Tracee said. “Show her the pictures.”
I sniffled and obediently held up my phone. “His name is Mal. He broke the leash and ran in this direction. I’m so desperate to find him before he gets hit by a car. Have you seen him?” I stuck the phone under her nose.
