Knights of Black Swan, Books 7-9 (Knights of Black Swan Box Set Book 3)

by Victoria Danann

  Falcon looked Glen in the face. “You ever ask yourself why you’re doing this job?”

  Glen stared back for a couple of beats before answering honestly. “Every damn day.”

  From the other side of Falcon Rosie heard that exchange and something about it made her chest ache. She’d always thought that Glen loved his job more than anything. She’d always imagined that things had turned out the way he’d wanted. But what if they hadn’t?

  Falcon nodded. “Go back and tell them you didn’t find me. I’ll come in when I’m ready.”

  “Believe it or not, I’d like to be able to do exactly that. But I can’t.”

  Falcon barked out a laugh. “Why not? Because The Order has been so great to you?”

  Glen searched Falcon’s face in the darkness. “No. Because they have my vow.”

  Falcon looked away and sighed. Then he handed the popcorn to Rosie. She knew it was probably unprofessional to start stuffing her face with buttery salty little explosions of corn goodness, but after all, she was a fraction human. So she shoveled a handful into her mouth.

  “Okay. Let’s go,” Falcon said.

  They exited right and Rosie followed. When they reached the lobby, Glen gave Rosie a look that clearly conveyed what-the-hey-are-you-doing? As he took the bucket of popcorn out of her hand, he leaned into her and said, “We’re working,” through clenched teeth.

  She grabbed the popcorn back and said, “I can work and eat popcorn. I’m only human.”

  He jerked the bucket out of her hands again and said, “You. Are. Not. Human.”

  “Well, you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t, but that’s neither here nor there,” he said. Without taking his eyes away from hers, he turned the bucket upside down in the trash receptacle. She gaped as the remaining popcorn tumbled down, instantly becoming garbage. “But if you want to dumpster dive for kernels, I won’t stop you.”

  He walked off as if he intended to never give her another thought. Rosie looked at the trash bin longingly for a second, but followed the two men out onto the street.

  It was close to dark, which meant the whisters would be in use bringing knights into Manhattan for drop off. If they were lucky they would time it so they could catch a ride back right away and not give Falcon the chance to change his mind.

  The closest whisterport was at Eighth and University and the shortest distance was as-the-crow-flies straight through Washington Square. Rosie could see that Glen was getting more anxious by the minute, but she was busy trying not to fall behind the long-legged pace of two knights in their prime. The streets were getting crowded as commuters spilled out of office buildings on their way to subways, or buses, or trains.

  When they were halfway across Washington Square, Falcon turned to Rosie and said, “Isn’t that your dad over there?”

  Rosie looked the way he’d pointed and craned her neck, searching for Storm, as did Glen. Then he turned back to Falcon saying, “I don’t see…”

  Falcon was nowhere in sight.

  Glen practically shouted, “SHIT!”

  When it dawned on Rosie that they’d been tricked with a child’s tactic, she giggled.

  Glen looked furious. “You think this is funny?”

  “Well… kind of.” She was unapologetic.

  “It’s not a game.”

  Glen turned three hundred and sixty degrees hoping to catch sight of a disappearing target, but knew that catching up to Falcon a second time would be about a thousand times harder. He’d blown his chance for easy.

  Angry features came to rest on Rosie. “Well, tracker. Looks like you’re up.”

  She gave him a coquettish smile with a little curtsy and pulled on the chain that held the family scrying crystal. Glen watched as the crystal slowly defied gravity and pointed northeast.

  Naturally, he thought. Falcon was heading in the direction of the theatre district and Times Square where tourists would be thick as thieves.

  “If he’s going where I think he’s going, we can get there first. Can you get me to 46th and Broadway? Do you know where it is?”

  “I know where it is.”

  When Rosie didn’t move, he said, “Well?”

  “What about the handcuffs?”

  “We don’t have time for that.” He looked down at her. “Just put your arm around my waist and I’ll put my arm around yours. Hold tight and don’t lose me!”

  “Okay.” Rosie felt a wave of familiar feeling when she slid her arm around Glen’s waist. She might have been mad at him, but her body didn’t seem to know or care about that.

  Likewise, Glen’s expression became hooded when he wrapped his arm around her. She thought she saw his nostrils flare slightly, like he might be taking in her scent. He was only a quarter werewolf, but that quarter was expressed in surprising ways. She remembered that sometimes, when they’d been together, she would forget about his mixed heritage and begin thinking of him as totally human. Then his chest would rumble with a growl or huff or other animal sound that would have been impossible for a human.

  “You don’t hate me enough to deliberately lose me. Do you?” he asked.

  She looked up into his face, just inches away from hers. “I could never hate you, Glen. And I would never lose you.”

  She saw a flicker of something pass behind his eyes, but didn’t wait to investigate. It wasn’t the time or place to find out if the damage to their friendship was irreparable. She moved them into the passes, but they were there for only a few seconds. They walked into reality in an alley just off Times Square, hidden by two large dumpsters, the kind that are borne aloft by trucks equipped with giant robot arms.

  Glen let go of her immediately. “You see the Marriott Marquis over there?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s a Starbucks on the street level at the pedestrian alley. Go wait for me there.”

  “What?”

  “I can move faster without you.”

  “Oh yeah? Says the person who was sixteen blocks from here sixty seconds ago courtesy of none other than me.”

  “It’s not a review of your job performance. He won’t be looking for one person. He’ll be looking for two. Or one person and a demon.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard that four eyes are better than two?”

  Glen ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. “No.”

  “I’ll look while you’re looking. If I see him, I’ll call you. If I don’t see him, I’ll be at the Starbucks in an hour.”

  He looked dubious, but said, “Starbucks in an hour.”

  “If you can’t get there, call.” He nodded. “Say it. Say you’ll call if you can’t get there in an hour.”

  “What’s the matter? Afraid I’ll just disappear?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

  “Feels awful, doesn’t it?”

  Rosie just stared. There was nothing to say. It was becoming clear that he wanted to lash out at her, make her understand that she had hurt him. Badly.

  When they reached 7th, Glen turned left and Rosie turned right.

  An hour later and emptyhanded, Glen walked up the alley next to Shubert’s toward the Starbucks. He spotted Rosie from half a block away standing outside and looking around anxiously.

  Before he could shore up the armor around his heart, he felt a tug, remembering how protective he’d felt when he babysat her as a child, and how proud he felt when she looked at him with an adoration that went well beyond mere affection. Of course his ego had been affected. He’d been equally fascinated with her, but with the added complication of guilt over having feelings for someone who was, technically, only a year old, someone he’d babysat and even rocked to sleep. The conflict and confusion was indescribable. There was no support group for young men who found themselves with his dilemma. Their relationship was as unique as she was.

  He chastised himself for allowing his thoughts to go there. Idiot.

  When she saw Glen approaching, relief showed on her face. He
wondered if she was relieved because she was bored with the game and tired of waiting or if she was actually concerned for his well-being.

  “You’re back.” She smiled.

  “I’m back,” he said drily.

  “No luck?”

  “Obviously.”

  “What’s next?’

  “You’re the tracker. You’re supposed to tell me what’s next.”

  “Okay. I’m glad you asked. What’s next is food. I can’t go on without it.”

  “You can’t go on?” Glen smirked, looking over her curves. “Falcon’s popcorn didn’t do it for you?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you dare suggest that I could stand to go without dinner.”

  Truthfully, Glen thought Rosie’s shape was feminine perfection, but he certainly didn’t want her to know that he felt that way. So he said, “Okay,” like he was avoiding an argument, knowing that it would leave her believing he thought she was too curvy. He’d learned when he was still a boy that the way to torture the opposite sex was to suggest that they could afford to lose a couple of pounds, whether it was true or not.

  “You’re not hungry?”

  He shrugged and looked around. “I could eat. But let’s make it fast.”

  “Fast food? Or eat food fast?”

  “I’m an active duty knight. I don’t eat ‘fast food’.” He looked to his right. “There’s a closet-sized Italian place two blocks from here. And it’s good.”

  “I like Italian,” she said with an enthusiasm that pleased Glen, and the fact that he was pleased made him despise her even more.

  “I know you do,” he said without emotion.

  She followed his lead to a hole-in-the-wall place called Mama Rosa’s. Her lips parted in surprise when he pulled the door open and waited for her to enter.

  “Signore Glen!” A woman’s voice called out as soon as they were inside.

  “Buonasera, Mama Rosa,” said Glen.

  The woman’s eyes went to Rosie. “A lady friend?” She looked askance at Glen. “Where have you been hiding her?”

  “She’s someone I work with. This is Elora Rose.”

  “Oh! Her name is Rose. I should have known. The most beautiful women in the world are named Rose, you know.”

  Glen smiled. “I suspected as much.”

  They followed Rosa to a booth near the back.

  When they sat down, Glen refused menus. “Two samplers,” he said.

  “Wine?”

  He shook his head. “Not tonight. We’re working.”

  “Oh. What do you do?”

  Glen seemed to have frozen at that question, but Rosie answered smoothly. “Private investigations, but it’s very confidential. Please don’t tell anyone or we’ll have to stop coming here.”

  Rosa looked very serious. “Your secrets are my secrets.” She looked around then leaned into the table and said quietly, “Italians are very good at knowing when to keep our mouths full of cannoli and free of talking.”

  Rosie smiled. “I see why Glen likes to come here.”

  Rosa beamed. “And the food is good, too.”

  When they were alone, Glen asked, “What’s next, tracker?”

  “After samplers, whatever that is, I’ll see what the crystal has to say.”

  “The crystal,” he said drily.

  “Do you have a problem with the crystal?”

  “Well, it didn’t exactly lead us straight to the target.”

  “Are you always so disagreeable now?”

  “What do you mean by ‘now’?”

  “Now as in this calendar date. As opposed to how you used to be when I knew you before.”

  “I’m not that person anymore.”

  “Yeah. That’s a shame. Because I much preferred that person.”

  “Really? So much so that you disappeared? For YEARS!?!”

  A couple of heads turned at his raised voice.

  When people resumed minding their own business, Rosie said, “That wasn’t what I intended.” She met Glen’s gaze. “Like I told you before, I’m sorry.”

  Glen looked away. “Drop it.”

  “Okay. Where have you been? What have you been up to?”

  A beautiful girl who could have been a decades-younger version of Rosa brought two glasses of water and a basket of breadsticks. She did a good job of pretending Rosie wasn’t there and just as good a job of trying to capture Glen’s attention.

  “Hello, Glen,” she said, putting her hand on his arm in a familiar way. “Nice to see you.”

  Glen responded with a smile that Rosie had all but forgotten, but her heart remembered when he used to look at her like that.

  “Rosalie. Nice to see you, too.”

  Glen felt a little bad about using Rosalie’s infatuation to make Rosie sorry she’d lost him, but at the moment he wanted to make Rosie uncomfortable more than he cared about Rosalie’s feelings.

  Rosie looked between the two of them and said, “I’d like lemon in my water, please.” The girl slowly dragged her eyes away from Glen and blinked at Rosie as if she couldn’t imagine her being able to speak. “Sometime tonight,” she added.

  When the girl left, Glen said, “That was rude.”

  Rosie barked out a laugh. “I think you’ve lost the cred necessary to be able to render judgment on rudeness, Glen.”

  The swinging doors opened from the kitchen and a young waiter brought two gigantic platters of Italian variety.

  “Wow,” Rosie marveled. “This is enough food for everybody eating here tonight.”

  “It’s also fast. It’s fast food. And if we eat it fast, then we can get back to work before the trail goes cold.” Rosie gave Glen a silent snort. “What?”

  “Before the trail goes cold? How exactly is that going to happen? His footprints are going to fade from the impression they made in the cement?”

  “I mean the more time he has to come up with a plan to disappear, the harder it will be to find him.”

  “Where do you think he’s going to go?”

  “He’s not thinking straight. So who knows?”

  “You do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The minute you saw that theater you knew he was in there.”

  Glen’s eyes sparked. “Because what was playing was a French film.”

  “So where do you think he’s going to go?”

  “France.”

  Rosie nodded. “Chances are.”

  “He’s going to Paris because he knows Jean Etienne is there and where he finds Jean Etienne…”

  “He’ll find Genevieve. But why would he do that?”

  “I gather he’s both unstable and in love. Not that thinking you’re in love isn’t always a form of instability. He may still be thinking he can persuade the woman, or vampire, to be his.”

  “Wow. How would that work?”

  Glen shook his head. “I don’t want to think about it too hard. Maybe he has a death wish.”

  “Where did that come from?” Glen just shrugged. “So let’s say he was going to Paris, it shouldn’t be a problem to use the crystal and find him on a map, but how’s he going to get there without a passport?”

  “If knighthood teaches you anything, it’s how to be resourceful. He might have a safety deposit box somewhere with money or credit cards and a second passport.”

  Rosie looked up at Glen with wide eyes. “Or he might be ballsy enough to walk right back into Jefferson Unit, get what he needs, and walk out again. He might have guessed that there’s only a handful of people who know he’s AWOL. There’s us, Monq, the Sovereign, and the whister pilot who had to pick up the whister Falcon flew one way.”

  Glen’s eyes were focused on Rosie. “He could get a ride back, walk down to his quarters, get his passport and whatever else he wants, then go back upstairs to the whisterport. If he never went downstairs, he could evade Rev and Monq. All he would have to do is manage to not run into Wakenmann and, since he knows K Team’s schedule, that wouldn’t
be hard to do.

  “As far as being ballsy… He and Wakenmann both walked into a firestorm when they were teenagers without blinking. I saw it on video. Ball size is not in question.” Glen took out his phone. “I’m going to get the pilots’ numbers. Can you write them down?”

  “No pen.”

  “Put them in your phone.”

  “Okay.

  Glen called the Sovereign’s office on the off chance that somebody was still there. No answer. He called Rev’s cell phone.

  “Yeah?”

  “Sorry to bother you after hours, Sovereign. I need direct numbers for all the pilots working tonight and nobody picked up in your office.”

  “Okay. Hang on.”

  Glen knew that Rev would have a portaputer with him at all times just as he had when he’d held the Sovereign’s job. Rev came back on the line and read off three names and numbers, which Glen repeated to Rosie.

  “Thanks,” Glen said.

  “Something I should know?” Rev asked.

  “Nothing to report yet. We’re working on a hunch.”

  “Okay.”

  “Oh, hey. One more thing. Which pilot picked up the whister that Falcon stole?”

  “I prefer the term borrow. It was Morgan.”

  “Is he the only pilot who knows Falcon is off the reservation?”

  “Yeah. This is not something we want broadcast on the nightly news.”

  “Got it. I’ll report tomorrow.” He ended the call and looked over at Rosie.

  She handed over her phone. He glanced at the name and dialed. When the pilot picked up, he said, “James? This is Sir Catch.”

  “Evening,” said James.

  “You seen Sir Falcon tonight?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Call this number if you do. Do not mention this to anyone else and, if you do see him, do not alert Sir Falcon that you were asked about him.”

  “All right.”

  Glen hung up and went to the next name. “Foster? This is Sir Catch.”

  “Howdy do.”

  “You seen Sir Falcon tonight?”

  “Yeah. Twice. I picked him up at midtown. Half an hour later I gave him a ride back. The teams were all out. So there was no reason not to go. Right?”

  “Right. How long ago was that?”

  “Set him down about forty-five minutes ago.”