by Carly Hansen
“Why do you say that?”
“You’d need an even stronger dosage, but your body probably wouldn’t be able to withstand it.”
“Believe me, I don’t want to get hurt either, but with what I’m up for next, there’s no way to guarantee that.”
Alda nodded. “Your sister.”
“I have to save her from those vampires.”
Fenix remembered Catelyn as always having been a delicate girl. Rats, spiders, and roaches would send her screaming onto her bed until Fenix had a chance to catch and kill or chase away the threatening creature. She couldn’t imagine what Catelyn was going through being held captive, especially by such scary beings as vampires.
Fenix sat down on a dusty barrel of lavender water. “I wish I’d gone, like yesterday, and that Catelyn was already back here, safe with me.”
Alda looked at her with eyes that showed deep concern. “Well, you can’t do this on your own.” After walking back to the bike, she picked up the wrench. She bent down behind the machine, and the soft clanging began again.
Fenix followed her. “What are you doing?”
“Damned boys screwed up my bike. Got to get it working properly if I’m going to ride this thing.”
“You’re taking the Harley out?”
The thought suddenly struck Fenix that she’d not seen Alda leave the warehouse in all the time she’d been there. The only time she could recall seeing Alda away from this place was when the witch had found her up at the ruins of an old communications tower with her former gang.
The fact that Alda was going beyond the wharf was a big deal in itself. That she planned to do so astride a motorbike, in leathers, was unbelievable.
Alda shrugged. “I figure I’ll need a bit more agility than the Beetle allows if I’m going to have any chance of finding Ivan.”
“You mean he didn’t come back with Twain and Java?”
Alda shook her head. “They found the car abandoned in the meatpacking district. Heard he might have hooked up with his old gang.”
“Guess he’s lost to us.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“But Alda, he wants to be paid.”
The witch looked around the cluttered garage. “Well, there’s stuff that’d bring in cash. I’ve already put word out on the grapevine about antiques for sale.”
Alda dearly treasured her horde, but apart from the Harley and the Beetle, there was not much that would fetch a good price. Fenix gave up trying to think of a way to put it to Alda delicately.
“Unless you start charging for your services,” Fenix said, “you mightn’t be able to keep him for long, assuming he even agrees to come back.”
“That’s okay. I need him for just one last job.”
“Which is?” Fenix suspected what it might be, but could hardly believe Alda was thinking of parting with her beloved relics from bygone days on her behalf.
Alda threw down the wrench and cloth, and then dusted off her hands. With a surprisingly smooth motion for a witch of her age, she flung her leg over the bike and settled into the saddle. “You didn’t think I’d leave you totally dependent on that vampire to save your sister, did you?”
Alda spoke with a casual tone, but her words struck Fenix to the core and left her shaking.
“Wow, selling your stuff to help me is the nicest thing anybody has ever said they’d do for me,” she said as tears welled up in her eyes. “But you don’t have to do it, Alda.”
“Of course I do.” Alda revved the bike and shouted above the rumble. “Only looking out for myself. Ivan’s the bravest in this crew. But you’re the best fighter I’ve ever had. I figure if I get him to help you save your sister, you’ll be indebted to me. And you won’t leave.”
Before Fenix could open her mouth to say anything, Alda had the Harley at full throttle.
She sped off, slipping easily through the magic portal in the wall.
********
Fenix made her way up to the living quarters and to the kitchen. The muffled sound of a conversation came from behind the door.
“Don’t know why she thinks she’ll have better luck than we did.”
“Maybe she’ll pull some kind of magic trick out of her hair and locate him.”
Fenix opened the door and found Twain and Java at the table chuckling and scarfing down gigantic slices of pizza, along with hamburgers and fries. Though not always healthy and nutritious, meals at Alda’s were always abundant, prepared with the help of spells in her ancient kitchen since there was no electricity on the wharf to power modern appliances.
“Good to see you up and about,” Java said. “Alda said you were in a bad way.”
Fenix grabbed a slice of pepperoni and pineapple pizza and gorged on it. “I’ve seen better days,” she said in between gulps. “How long was I asleep?”
“Pretty much a whole day,” Twain said.
Fenix nodded. “Ivan’s really flown the coop?”
“I think he’s back with the gang he was with before Alda took him on,” Java said.
Twain shrugged. “Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s a hard life on the streets. Say what you want about Alda and her temper, but at least here you don’t have to sleep out in the rain or wonder if a cop or rival gang will try to off you during the night.”
“Damn right about that,” Java said with his mouth full.
Fenix was relieved that neither of them seemed to have any intention of following Ivan’s example. So much in her life had already been turned upside down; she didn’t want to lose the little sense of stability she had by being in a crew with them under Alda’s roof.
Twain stuffed the last piece of burger into his mouth and slapped Java on the back. “Time to head out.”
“Where are you two going?”
“We’re supposed to follow Alda. If she catches up with Ivan, she wants us to help her persuade him to return.”
Java laughed. “More likely she’ll want our help to load his body into the Beetle after she zaps him with a hex.”
Twain shook his head. “I doubt she’d do that.”
“Oh, she’s crazy enough to,” Fenix said.
“No way, because he needs to have his full strength so he can join us to find your sister.”
Fenix stopped mid-bite. “You know about my sister?”
Twain scraped crumbs off the counter and slapped them into his mouth. “Sure. Alda told us everything.”
“Everything?” Fenix gulped air.
She wasn’t comfortable with what she’d learned about herself. Heck, she didn’t even understand most of it as there were so many questions she needed answered. And much as she loved Twain and Java and trusted them, she wasn’t sure she wanted them to know the whole truth about her, at least not just yet.
Twain walked up to her and rested his hand on her shoulder. “Alda explained that you thought your sister died when your home burnt down.”
“Yeah,” Java said. “It’s very cool to know she’s alive.”
Twain nodded. “Having any family is cool. I ran away from an orphanage. Don’t have a clue whether I ever had any kit or kin.”
“Well, I’m glad I escaped mine,” Java said.
Fenix turned to him and saw the dullness in his eyes. “I never knew you ran away from home,” she said.
None of them had ever spoken much about their past.
Java had a faraway look. “Yeah, it was tough growing up with them. I was the middle child of five boys. The only shifter. Got it from my grandfather. My elder brothers knew. Called it a curse, and they’d often beat me to a pulp to try to stamp it out of me.”
“And your parents never stopped them?”
Java let out a puff of air. “My mother set them on me! She hated her father, and she was ashamed of me. She never told my father she was the daughter of a shifter.”
“Good or bad, I wish I knew my family,” Twain said. “I try not to think about it, but it’s a drag not knowing who you come from or whether anybody o
ut there shares your blood.”
His words crashed down on Fenix like a truckload of bricks. It suddenly struck her that she was in the same position as he was.
She loved Catelyn as a sister; she was her sister—and always would be. No message from a stranger in a purple robe could ever change that.
But the new truth she had to live with was that Catelyn’s parents were not her own, and she and Catelyn didn’t have the same blood flowing through their veins.
Whose bloodline did she carry?
That stranger named Gaius had ripped the earth from under her feet. They were never planted solidly on terra firma in the first place. Now she was just hanging in midair with little sense of where she was exactly.
“Older or younger?”
Java’s voice pulled Fenix back to reality. “Huh?”
“Your sister, is she older or younger than you?”
“Three years younger.”
“Guess she never learned to fight like you.”
“She was apparently taken into the system after the fire. Dad didn’t survive it. We didn’t have any relatives who could have raised her. Mom had passed away years before.”
“She must be pretty scared,” Twain said.
Fenix nodded.
“Don’t worry. We’ll help you rescue her. We’ll find Ivan and all four of us will go after those vampires.”
“Alda told you about the vampires?”
The boys nodded.
Fenix realized Alda would have had to mention vampires to Twain and Java since they were likely to do battle with the ones who were holding Catelyn. She wondered, though, whether Alda had revealed Micha’s status to the boys, too.
“What else did she say?”
Twain thumped Java on the shoulder. “What else did Alda tell us about Fenix and his sister?”
Java heaved his shoulders and splayed his hands. “I don’t know, man. I think we already told him all we know about this.”
His sister? Him?
That was reassuring. They were still referring to her as a male.
Seemed Alda had given them just the basics after all. Perhaps they knew nothing about the fact that she was some sort of freak that came from Birstall, and that the murders they’d come across were innocent victims mistakenly taken for her.
She would get the chance to reveal that to them when she was ready—if she ever were to feel ready to do so.
And maybe Alda had given Micha the same courtesy so that he could reveal his true identity to Twain and Java, only if and when he chose to do so.
Twain headed toward the door. “Well, we’d better get a move on if we want to stay on the old witch’s right side.”
“Hey, guys,” Fenix said softly as they crossed the threshold.
They turned around and looked at her.
“What?” Twain said.
“Thanks for agreeing to help me get my sister back,” Fenix said, choking up. “I know it’s not part of our work. It’s going to be dangerous, and—”
Twain batted the air. “There’s no way we wouldn’t be in on this.”
Java smiled. “We’ll make sure you get her back, safe and sound.”
Fenix’s heart was too full with emotion for her to say anything else. She nodded, and they left.
Chapter 25
Packard and Runcey sat next to each other in the airplane as it headed to Tresmort.
Runcey stretched his arms and legs, letting out a loud yawn. “I hope we’re not chasing a false lead here.”
Packard turned to him with hard eyes. “You complaining about the work or something?”
Runcey looked about him, then curled his finger to point at his own chest. “Who me?”
“Yeah, I’m talking to you. Don’t tell me they went and saddled me with a lazy, good-for-nothing who thinks the paranormal desk is some kind of vacation, or is good just for some kicks or something.”
“What makes you think I’m like that? I never said anything about a vacation.”
“You don’t have to. I know your type.” Packard prided himself on his ability to read character and had made up his mind about Runcey within seconds of seeing his new partner.
“And what type would that be?”
“Fresh out of college and thinks himself a hot rod who can coast and move up the ranks.” Packard snorted. He thought to himself that the young ones today knew nothing about hard work and paying their dues. He’d seen it all before.
He leaned into Runcey, wagging his finger at him. “Well, I tell you kid, the paranormal desk is probably the toughest gig there is. Scary as hell, because most of the time you have no idea what kind of killer you’re dealing with. And nine times out of ten, the clues don’t make any sense.
“That’s why any lead you get, you act immediately. You grab it with both hands and squeeze everything you can out of it. Because it might be your only chance to get a glimpse of what otherwise remains a whole hidden world.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” the younger man said.
“Well, I just want to make sure. Because I don’t have any patience for whining.”
“I wasn’t whining. I think it’s legitimate to ask whether we’re really onto something. We could be going off on a tangent here, and I’m not even sure it’s the same individual we’re after.”
Packard settled back in his seat. “I’m convinced on both scores. We got a lucky break, Runcey. You should be celebrating that we’re getting somewhere. At my old job, we often spent months spinning our tops in mud before any information came to light that we could act on.”
“We got that police sketch and put it on the wire,” Runcey said, “and next thing we know, some night officer in Tresmort calls us up and says he’s seen some guy who matches the sketch on a street camera where a disturbance was reported. Next thing, we’re on a plane to Tresmort. I don’t get it. If it were me making the decisions, I’d sooner stay in Birstall and search for those werewolves you think killed those girls.”
“That’s because you think too limited, Runcey. Open your mind up. If this boy was at the crime scene and just disappeared into thin air, what does that tell us?”
Runcey folded his arms. “I don’t know. But I know I don’t have to ask you what you think it tells us because you’re going to say it anyway.”
Packard ignored the sarcasm. “For starters, there must’ve been some kind of link between him and the murder. Maybe he was with the killers, knew the victim, or knew neither but witnessed the murder. And the part about him disappearing, that just points to him being connected somehow to the paranormal world.”
Runcey raised his eyebrows skeptically, but kept his mouth shut.
Packard turned and stared out the window, talking almost to himself. “We find him, and if he isn’t a werewolf himself, I’m gonna bet my bottom dollar he’ll lead us to the werewolves, or whatever it was that killed those girls.”
Chapter 26
Fenix couldn’t sleep. She got out of bed and leaned against her window, staring out at the waves on the ocean. She felt as agitated as the shimmering waters. Her life was turned upside down. Not only did she no longer know where she’d come from, she didn’t know who she was or what she was supposed to do.
She needed answers. And she was going to have them right there and then.
She walked the corridor of their living quarters, pushing open doors and poking her head in. Finally, in a room where Alda kept boxes of books she consulted most frequently—it was so disorganized that it couldn’t be described as a library—she found him.
He sat in a corner on the floor, under a blazing torch. Gone were the lengths of wire and rubber Micha had used to wrap him up like a mummy. His feet were flat on the floor and his knees were bent. He propped an open book against his thighs and seemed to be reading.
“What did you have to do to win your freedom?” Fenix said.
“I didn’t.”
With much difficulty, Gaius held up his right arm. A thick chain, the kind that
might have served to anchor a large ship, was fitted to his wrist and clasped with a lock.
“And in the unlikely event that I break free of this, the witch said the curse she put on my head would make my eyes bleed so I’d have no clue where to run.”
Fenix shifted a box and joined Gaius on the floor. “Don’t doubt it for a second.”
“She’s one crazy shrew,” he said. “Still, I’d take her any day as a prison master over that vampire. What a jerk.”
Fenix wanted to chuckle at hearing the elegant and too perfectly handsome Micha Angelo being described like that.
Gaius had seen only one side of Micha. That was the part of him that took his role as overlord of the vampires in this region seriously. It was a dangerous and demanding position. Any slip-up could lead to severe consequences for his kind, other supernaturals, and humans. If he was a bit rough in executing his duties, it was because he was working for the greater good.
Fenix shook her head, hardly believing the defense she was formulating in her mind for Micha’s behavior.
Remembering the victims in Birstall and the danger Catelyn was currently in, she felt that, ultimately, it was the correct assessment. But she suspected her taking his side had more to do with the strange and powerful attraction she felt for him than it had to do with logic. And that made her uneasy.
“If I had my full strength, I probably would have been at your throat, too,” she said.
Gaius raised his eyebrows and looked at her calmly. “No, you wouldn’t have.”
“And I still may jump you if you don’t give me answers. I have a lot of questions.”
“No, you won’t,” he insisted.
“What makes you think you know what I would or wouldn’t do?”
“You would not harm me. You can’t, actually.”
“Why? Because you’ve got some secret powers to stop me?”
“No, because we’re on the same side.”
“When did I become one of your team?”
“When you were born. You’re the only living peacesmith. And as part of the Order of the Chimera, I’m called to help you fulfil your destiny.”
