“We’ll speak to them about that also, but…” I leaned forward. “I’ll be entirely honest. I don’t necessarily see that as a problem. If they function well, do their work, don’t cause problems, and earn top grades… I don’t see a need for them to learn to function in group settings.”
The teacher was shaking her head. “It will be a pillar of their education for years to come. Working in groups. Learning to cooperate with others on various projects.”
“Well, I hated group projects in school also. I did worse than you’ve told me today, and I turned out alright.”
“I understand, but other teachers in the future may require them to do so.”
“Well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. But… there are always other teachers,” I murmured neutrally. She frowned at me, unsure if I had just criticized her or teachers in general. “If there is nothing else?” I asked with a polite smile.
“No, that is all. I would just like them to become more involved with the other students. Of course, every child is different, but the world out there is a dark place. You sometimes have to work with those you may not desire to, and it is a valuable lesson to learn at a young age.” I almost burst out laughing. Boy, did I know the truth to that. “I would also recommend they see the counselor once a month or so. Not any kind of requirement, but simply to open the lines of communication in the event they find that they need an outlet to deal with their mother’s…” she waved her hand sadly, “Accident.”
Tory swallowed forcefully, and nodded her head once.
“We’ll discuss it,” I said, placing a comforting hand on Tory’s shoulder.
The teacher nodded, and glanced down at the papers I had given her. “I’ll be sure to put this in their file.” She glanced up, focusing on my hand on Tory’s shoulder. “Are you two…” she struggled with how to ask her question, but I saved her the trouble.
“Just concerned friends. We were close to their mother, and promised to look after them. Consider us Godparents of a kind. Tory is their primary guardian. I’m more like an Uncle to them. But neither of us are going anywhere. They have many people who adore them. We will watch over them and make sure they are raised in a loving family.”
The teacher looked thoughtful again, but finally nodded. She really had nothing to say anyway. The paperwork was in front of her, with Tory as their adopted mother. I stood, extending a hand. “It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for working with them, and for caring so much about their upbringing and education.” She smiled, nodding as she shook my hand. Tory did the same, and I called out for the girls to join us as we left.
I shot Tory a look, silently urging her not to say anything to the girls. The tension in their shoulders increased dramatically with each silent step as we plunged through the hallways, exited the building, and reached the car. They were practically ready to bolt as we climbed into our seats and put on our seatbelts.
I started the car and backed out. Tory slowly turned to face them. “Anything you want to tell us?” She asked in a flat tone. They began spilling their guts, and we finally got the true story about the altercation, and apparently, several other similar altercations with other students.
My concern increased steadily as they shared, until I finally held up a hand. “Okay, this is Tory’s ground, but I do have a few points I want to make…” They nodded, watching me in the rearview mirror. “You. Are. Freaks.” I enunciated clearly, and coldly. They looked miserable, nodding. “Tory is a freak. I’m a freak. Practically everyone you know outside of school is a freak. You can toss around your magic, shift, and breathe fire to your heart’s content at home. None of us would bat an eye. But at school, you are outcasts. They don’t believe in magic. Which might make you think that you are better than them.”
Aria had a look in her eyes that I knew all too well.
“But that would be foolish to think.” The look evaporated. “Just because you have these abilities does not make you naturally better. Think about Alaric…” They shivered, clutching hands together. “Was he better than the regulars?” They shook their heads.
“He… he was horrible,” Aria finally answered.
“Remember that. Alaric thought that just because he had these gifts, he could beat others over the head with it, and that he was superior to everyone because of it.” I let the silence build a bit. “And I killed him for it.” Tory was watching me with a growing frown, looking like she wanted to interrupt me. I held up a hand, turning the car at an intersection. “Remember, there is always someone better and stronger. What matters is what’s up here,” I tapped my temple.
“And in Nate’s case, that’s not much,” Tory muttered drily.
“Hey, this is my big speech!”
“Get to the point. I don’t think discussing murder quite relates to them bullying a bully.”
“It kind of does.” I glanced at the girls in the mirror. “What you did isn’t necessarily wrong. But I’m cautioning you on drinking too much from that cup. It’s a slippery slope. Always remember why you are doing what you are doing. It’s easy to get lost. When you know that you can use your powers to get what you want, you can very easily find that you are using it for every single situation. You need to use your mind, values, morals. Your power isn’t the be-all, end-all. And for crying out loud, you do not want to make a habit of using your powers in a room full of regulars. What if your eyes had shifted, or you suddenly grew wings?” They looked guilty as hell, making me wonder if they had in fact allowed their eyes to shift to scare other students. “You’re not just doing it for you, but all of us. You do not want to attract attention. It’s why people like us are typically home-schooled in our youth. Until we can get a grip on our powers, so that we don’t cause a panic by using it in public when our emotions get the best of us.” I glanced at Tory. “I’ll leave that up to her, your…” I realized I hadn’t shared the information with them, although they had each separately come to me asking if we could make it a possibility. Tory had done so also. “Your new mother.” I finally said with a sad smile.
The car erupted with shouts of excitement. “You mean…”
I nodded. Tory turned around, her eyes watery as she smiled at the girls. “I will never be Misha, but our shared love for her, our memories…” she trailed off with a small sob. “Will hold us together. I will do my best. I can’t think of anything else I would rather do with my life.”
An estrogen bomb exploded in the car, and everyone began crying, laughing, hugging, and talking all at once. Tory finally unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed into the backseat. I smiled, blinking several times to clear my own vision. Stupid estrogen bombs.
My phone rang and I glanced down at it on the dash. I plucked it up and hit speaker.
“Nate! The Cave is under assault! I’m surrounded!” Alucard bellowed.
The mood in the car abruptly changed. Silence settled over the vehicle like a lead blanket. I slammed on the gas in a panic, hoping I wasn’t too late.
Chapter 26
I skidded the car to an abrupt halt in front of the store, panting in anticipation as I searched for the threat. And saw…
A horde of tiny little girls standing in front of my shop, looking terrified at my abrupt arrival. We piled out of the car, and I scanned the skies, rooftops, alleys, other vehicles, and finally the crowd of frightened children.
A familiar figure emerged from a table near the wall and I blinked.
“What is the meaning of this? You could have hurt someone! Do you always drive like you’re in a high-speed car chase?” The old woman demanded. Then her eyes landed on the Reds behind me. “And with children in the car! What is wrong with you?” She rested ancient arthritic hands on a pair of shoulders of a particularly younger girl, who was crying. “There, there…” she murmured. “I’m here. I’m sure he didn’t mean to frighten you, child.”
She lifted a murderous glare my way and my cheeks reddened.
There were absolutely no threats anywhere.
&
nbsp; “Greta…” I finally spoke, addressing the old secretary of my company, Temple Industries. “I’m sorry. I thought there was an emergency here. My manager called me…”
Greta scowled. “You mean that pasty, shadowy man lurking around your store all the time. The one who refuses to speak with anyone, especially me?” Her eyes were ablaze. I nodded as my eyes did one last scan of the streets, finally resting on the table where Greta had been sitting. And I blinked.
Then I began to laugh.
“Oh,” I muttered, shaking my head as I tried to mask my outburst. “Oh, no he didn’t…”
“You’re touched, Nate. You really would feel better after a few visits to our humble church on Sunday. Many nice girls, god-fearing girls who could make you happy. We take care of our own. Perhaps you could find peace with us. Many troubled souls have over the years.” She didn’t say it accusatory, more as a statement of fact.
“I’m engaged, Greta. You know that,” I responded politely, glancing again at the table and the giant poster board decorating it. Cookies for Christ was plastered on the front in children’s handwriting, with various drawings of halos, Angels, crosses, and a Bible decorating the blank spaces where splashes of color and glitter weren’t covering it. “You’re…” I began, shaking my head. “You’re selling cookies. For your church. Outside my shop.”
“The sidewalk is a public space.” Greta argued defensively.
I nodded. “Yeah, okay. That’s fine.” I glanced back at Tory, who was frowning at me. She held up her hands in a what’s going on gesture before placing them back on Aria and Sonya’s shoulders. The Reds looked highly interested in the cookies, less alarmed than they had been when we first arrived ready for battle.
It was… anticlimactic.
“Um, carry on, I guess. Sorry for scaring everyone. I think I need to go talk to my manager about the misunderstanding,” I told Greta, turning towards the door to my shop.
“Let us pray, children.” She didn’t outright say that she was praying for my troubled soul, but she might as well have. There was a pretty obvious reason why out of every street in St. Louis she had chosen mine to sell her cookies. She was adamantly, persistently, trying to convert me to her church.
I had nothing wrong with that, and in fact, felt very humbled that despite her prickly demeanor, Greta cared a great deal about my future. Or she simply thought I was such a bad person that converting me would get her extra brownie points with Saint Peter.
Either way, Alucard’s phone call made perfect sense.
My vampire store manager was surrounded by deadly Christian six-year-olds selling blessed cookies. Oh, boy. As funny as it was, it literally was a problem to him. It was like suddenly being surrounded by a swarm of fire ants after taking an orange juice bath.
I stepped inside to find the store doing a steady business. Almost every single customer clutched a paper sack of cookies with a giant cross on the front. One man stood out in my quick scan. He stood in line for a coffee behind a pair of young girls. But before they could pay, he swooped in, slapped some money on the counter and said something to the barista. The girls giggled, thanked him, and stepped to the side.
Maybe the Christian vibe was bringing out the Good Samaritans?
I glanced up at the loft overhead and saw the blinds snap back into place. Tory came up behind me after ushering the girls to one of the couches, but they kept shooting glances outside where the cookies were, whispering to each other conspiratorially. I nodded at the barista behind the coffee counter, flicking my head at the Reds. The dreadlocked girl nodded with a grin and began whipping up their favorite. Some frozen frappe-latte-mocha-chai something or other. The girls were often found here, lounging away on the couches as Tory helped us move some of the rubble and general demolition work as we had worked on restoring the shop over the last few months. She and Alucard were worth their weight in gold when it came to demolition.
The door to the loft opened ominously, but no one appeared. Tory glanced at me. “What the hell is going on? I thought he was under attack or something,” she asked me softly so no one could overhear.
I smiled at her, pointing discreetly at a bag of cookies a customer was clutching. The cross was prominent on the front. “Cookies?” she asked with a frown.
I shook my head. “Crucifixes.”
She blinked, slowly turned to me, then glanced up at the loft. “Oh…” Then her eyes widened. “Oh!” I nodded, chuckling softly. This would haunt him for years. In fact, I would likely never shut up about it.
“They okay down here for a few minutes?” I asked her.
She nodded, a big smile splitting her cheeks. It was nice to see that on her. She needed more smiles, which was why I had made sure Turner Locke took care of the paperwork for adopting the girls. I hadn’t wanted her worrying about it. The questions lawyers would ask, the paperwork, and all that. I knew how painful it would have been for her to sit and go through all of it, so I had used Turner. Having known about the Grimm ordeal, I didn’t have to explain the situation to him. Which made him the best lawyer in town in my eyes. “Remind me again why you made him your store manager?” Tory murmured, following me up the stairs.
I sighed, shrugging. “I am beginning to ask myself that more and more.”
I reached the door and a pale fist latched onto my shirt, jerking me inside the door. “Inside, you fool!” A voice hissed. I skidded on my heels unable to stop him. Tory followed, eyes cautious at my abrupt disappearance.
“Scared of some cookies, Alucard?”
“Crosses everywhere. Bloody trying to kill me. Holy cookies…” He began muttering under his breath. “You have to get them out of here. Now.”
But I wasn’t listening. I had just had a sickening thought, remembering Baba Yaga’s parting comment. “Cookies…”
And then I heard a scream from outside.
Followed by dozens more.
Chapter 27
I was the first down the stairs, hearing Alucard cursing behind me, arguing about how he had told us cookies were dangerous. Tory simply jumped from the upstairs landing, pounding into the floor below with a thud. Her high-heeled shoes thumped to the floor behind her a second later as I finally reached the ground level. Alucard was suddenly behind me, and people were running around the shop in a panic.
“Everyone, get in the back!” Alucard shouted as my eyes tried to peer through the smoked glass windows and out into the street. Little girls were huddled behind the table, and Greta stood before it, facing the street.
“Nate, what in the hell is going-”
I held out a hand as a voice called out from the street. “Nathaniel… I saved some cookies for you, my dear…” Baba’s matronly voiced called out. My fists flexed in outrage.
Little girls. She was holding little girls hostage to get something from me that I didn’t have.
I decided I’d had about enough of this witch.
I glanced up frantically, searching several key points in the building, hoping to god… or Ganesh, or Buddha, or whoever it was the monks venerated – that the shop had been finished as promised. I spotted several of the planned additions, and muttered under my breath. “Wake. Defend. Protect. Guard…”
“What did you say, Nate?” Tory yelled, trying to be heard over the frantic screams.
The building cracked and several raptor-like screams reverberated off the windows. Bars of solid light shot down from the ceiling above the windows, filling the room with a slight hum as a purple haze seemed to settle over the interior. The screams from inside the building slowed to a murmur as everyone stared, transfixed. I slowly strode to the door, feeling a slight resistance as I raised my hand outwards. I fought it for a second, feeling as if trying to push my hand through wet sand, and then the pressure ceased, and the physical sensation reverted to dry sand, spilling around my hand like a light snow. Tory stared transfixed.
“What the…”
Wham, wham, wham!
Three stone griffins slammed into th
e floorboards at my feet, one on either side of me and one behind me, inches from Tory. Alucard cursed and Tory jumped back, eyes wide as they flicked from me to the Guardians.
“You didn’t tell me about them in the plans…” Alucard complained, finally recognizing them. I winked.
“I’ll be right back. I think she wants to have a chat. You guys should be safe,” I murmured the last, glancing at the flickering bars of power surrounding the entire interior of the store. I didn’t tell them that the bars of power extended up into the skies as well as into the sewers below. I wasn’t sure exactly how far in either direction. I had shown the monks how they worked, and commanded the Guardians to obey the little guys. I had hopes that the monks’ Feng Shui would be enough juice to give the Guardians the power source to feel like they were back in a home, a place of worship. Which was required for them to function, like they did at Chateau Falco. They needed a home in order to protect.
I glanced back to find that half a dozen other Guardians were pacing around the store, wings and tails flicking about in agitation. The children and the other customers stared in horror until I snapped a finger. Every single Guardian glanced at me over their shoulder, eyes like pools of stone with limitless depths. Then they turned back to their duties. Well, all but two. These two relaxed their threatening posture, made a cooing sound, and began playing with each other, gently. One tackled the other lightly, and began to tickle him. The other griffin Guardian began letting out a giggling, purring sound, and arched its neck back to stare at the nearest child.
If a warrior griffin could smile, apparently only children could see it. The face it made at the child made me suddenly terrified that I had just traumatized the little girl forever, but…
The little girl giggled back.
Silver Tongue: A Novel in The Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Series (The Temple Chronicles Book 4) Page 13
