by Dean Murray
"Do you mind if we move a little further up the line?"
"You know it would probably be easier to just wait here until she gets done and comes back this way."
I nodded and then bit my lip. "I know; it really would, but it's just...well, you know how there was always at least one or two odd things going on at Sanctuary at any given moment?"
Ben's chuckle didn't have very much amusement in it. "Let me guess, this is another one of those odd things?"
"Yeah, I'm afraid so. If you want to just stay here you can, but I need to move up there a little ways."
"No, I'll come with you. I should have known. Alec always seemed to be in the middle of at least half of the crazy stuff back home. It only stands to reason that Dominic would have brought her share of crazy here with her."
We lugged Ben's robot another fifty or so feet until we got far enough around the wall that, not only could we see Dom, we could also see the table where the author was signing books. I set down the robot with a groan of relief.
"This thing is heavy, Ben. Was your strategy to just drive over top of the competition and crush them?"
He rolled his eyes at me. "No, but some of the robots tip you over as a way of bringing you out of the game, so I made it heavy enough that the crane and wedge types would struggle to execute their strategy."
Whatever Ben was about to say next was interrupted by a chirp from my phone. Ben motioned for me to go ahead and check my texts, so I fished my phone out of my pocket and smiled when I saw that it was from Albert.
You at another rave?
I shook my head and showed Ben the screen. "Albert's band did a show in Manhattan a little while ago. I told him I'd never been somewhere where everyone had lights on their fingers and he told me I'd just been to my very first rave. I think he's making fun of me."
Ben smiled and nodded. "Yes, he's absolutely making fun of you. I suspect a real rave would have made you hyperventilate. Tell him I said hi."
Nope. Doubleheader—warring robots and a book signing. Ben says hi.
Albert's response came back only a couple of seconds later.
Are the robots signing the books, too? I'd pay to see that! We're going to be back in New York sometime in the next couple of weeks. Can I swing by and see you then?
The question of 'us' again. I knew nothing had changed, that Albert was going to want more than I wanted, but there was always a chance I was misreading the signs.
I told you we could hang out last time I saw you.
I know. I just wanted to make sure nothing had changed. Off to a crazy after-party—see you later.
Ben shook his head when I handed him my phone to read the exchange. "Albert as a rock star. I kind of wish I'd seen that with my own eyes. With stuff like that going on, I can almost believe anything. Bring on the werewolves and vampires."
**
I looked back yet again and wished I hadn't let Adri talk me into splitting up. They were far enough away from the bedlam of the robot competition that I could hear most of what she and Ben were saying, but knowing that I'd know they were in trouble as soon as she knew she was in trouble wasn't actually very comforting.
The lady behind me let out another long-suffering sigh, so I took another couple of steps, closing the distance that had grown between me and the people in front of me. My nose wasn't providing much help when it came to monitoring Adri's status. The stale scent of vampire hadn't gone anywhere. In fact it was oddly stronger sometimes than others. My beast knew the scent meant danger and she was acting up more than normal. I could feel my power snap out of me and then recoil back and lash out again.
My beast usually didn't act up as much as the wolves inside the rest of the pack, but today she was in rare form. So far none of the people in line seemed sensitive enough to realize anything was out of the ordinary, but I knew from past experience that if Adri had been standing next to me the flares of power would have been making her very uncomfortable.
I took another step forward and then turned back and checked on Adri again. She and Ben seemed to be getting along well. I could just hear her laughing at something as Ben handed her phone back to her. The laughter sounded a little forced, but she still looked more relaxed than she had earlier in the day.
Another sigh from behind me triggered another step, and then suddenly I was able to see Mrs. Valencia. She was sitting at a table, which was exactly what I'd expected, but there was an expanse of empty space between her and the front of the line.
I would have known if I'd dropped one of my books, but I still found myself double-checking that all three of them were safely in my hands. Adri had been gracious to agree to accompany me, but she didn't understand just how momentous an occasion this was for me. I knew I probably wouldn't get a chance to exchange more than a couple of words with Mrs. Valencia, but I still knew it would be one of those moments in life that I would treasure for however long I had before death caught back up to me.
I'd told Adri that Alec had saved me, that he'd given me the kind of life that I'd never even hoped—much less expected—to have, but that was only part of the story. It had been the characters in Mrs. Valencia's novels who had given me the courage to set out towards the United States in the first place. I owed a debt of gratitude to Alec that I would never be able to repay, but there was an earlier, in some ways greater, debt that I owed Mrs. Valencia.
My father had been wrong about so many things, but he was right about the need to repay debts. I had no special power and would never develop one. A few of my kind developed the ability to track their prey regardless of how much time or space came between us and them, but we weren't ever blessed with the amazing, multi-form talents the wolf hybrids sometimes manifested.
I didn't need the ability to see into the future, though, to know what my destiny had been. I'd been firmly slated to an early, unremarkable death long before I ever made it out of my teenage years. In so many ways every day of the past couple of years had been a gift, one for which I remained profoundly grateful.
I took another few steps and then, almost as if time had skipped forward, I was the next in line to talk to Mrs. Valencia. I took a deep breath, trying unsuccessfully to calm the power arcing around me, and then crossed the barrier of empty space between us. She looked up and smiled as I approached, but there was an odd hitch to the motion as she saw my scar.
I couldn't help the brief flash of disappointment that coursed through me. I'd meant everything I'd said to Adri. I was mostly adjusted to my maimed face, but I was still human. It hurt a little bit when someone I didn't know responded like that, but it was worse when it was Mrs. Valencia reacting so poorly. I'd somehow thought that she'd be above those kinds of concerns. I sighed a little and then held out my books as I finally reached her table.
"Thank you for writing these, Mrs. Valencia. I...well, they made a big difference in the course of how my life would have gone."
She took the stack of books and opened the first one, but she wasn't moving as fast as she had with the person who'd been standing in front of me in the line. She cocked her head to the side and looked up at me as she signed the first book.
"I have people tell me that frequently at these kinds of things, but I think you really mean it. You're quite a ways from home, aren't you?"
I nodded my head in surprise at her insight. "Yes, I'm out visiting a friend. My home is in Utah."
"That's not what I meant, child. You're not from Utah, not originally at least. You originally come from somewhere much farther away than that."
Another nod, this one full of discomfort as my internal alarms started sounding.
"How could you know that?"
"I have been on the face of this earth for a very long time. I know things most people don't know. For example, I know you can slip this form and run on four feet."
That last bit had been said in something less than a whisper, another clue that she knew more about the moonborn than she should have. No normal human would have been able to
hear her words, even from just a couple feet away. She was putting me in a difficult position.
"You're not supposed to know that unless you're one of us."
Her smile was sad. "There are many things which I would do much to unlearn, but the presence of moon's children isn't one of them. Your secret is safe with me."
"How did you learn of us?"
"You hide yourselves from the vampires, who in turn hide themselves from the humans. Did you never consider that there might be others who hide themselves from you?"
She'd just finished signing my second book, but she'd done so in an absent manner. We both knew the conversation was the important part of what was happening. My beast was bubbling just below the surface, shedding power as it worried about her implication that she wasn't human, but instead another, unknown threat.
"Is my friend in danger from you?"
She looked down the line, and smiled again. "No, child. Your friend isn't in any danger from me, at least not danger that I can control. Your concern for her does you credit."
The third book was signed, but she reached over to a pile of bookmarks and picked one up. "Would you like me to fix that for you?"
She'd pointed at my cheek, at the angry scar that had caught her attention earlier.
"That depends on the price involved."
"You're wise to ask. In dealings with one such as me, the price is often more than one realizes at the time payment is agreed. I will extract no price beyond a few hours of your time, and a promise that you won't tell anyone about me. In fact, I believe I can teach you a new skill that you'll find very valuable. I expect that skill will extract some additional cost over the years remaining you, but that will flow from natural consequences. I won't stir the pot up and make the terms more onerous than they would have been otherwise."
I opened my mouth to respond and then shrugged as I realized that I didn't truly know if I wanted my cheek fixed. "I'm not sure."
She smiled, almost as if I'd passed some test, and then wrote a phone number on the bookmark and tucked it into the top book.
"That is understandable. If you decide in the affirmative, call me, but know that I'll be in New York for only a short time. It may be many years before we have another chance to meet up again."
She handed me my books and then turned to motion the next person in line forward. I accepted my possessions back from her and then headed back toward Adri and Ben. My head was spinning. I'd come here hoping for a couple of words from someone I respected more than almost anyone else, and instead I'd gotten so much more than I'd even dreamed was possible. I wanted to tell someone, Adri or James maybe, about the experience so they could give me advice as to whether or not I should trust her, but secrecy had been one of the conditions of her help. I couldn't break that condition until I was firmly resolved that I wouldn't be going to her for help.
I could have traveled all the way back to the penthouse in a daze, nearly worthless as a bodyguard, except that in that instant I suddenly knew where the vampire smell was coming from.
**
Dom didn't look like herself as she walked back to Ben and me. I'd watched out of the corner of one eye as she'd gotten her books signed, and I'd noticed that she'd spent two or three times as long with her author as everyone else was getting.
I wouldn't have expected Dom, of all people, to suffer from celebrity shell shock, but it was obvious that she wasn't firing on all cylinders. There had been a second there as she'd gotten closer to us where she'd practically tripped over her own feet. She stopped a couple of feet away from us and carefully put her books back inside of her backpack.
"Hi, Ben. I'd heard rumors you were out here somewhere on the East Coast, but never expected that Adri and I would run into you."
Ben nodded and pointed at the robot we'd packed all this way. "Yeah, I'm working at a garage. They let me use the tools after hours, so I put together this beast and entered the competition."
Dom's smile was very nearly her normal, gentle expression, but I knew her too well to be deceived. Something was bothering her, and it went beyond just a case of hero worship.
"Well, I'm sorry to see that you didn't win. Maybe next time you'll come out on top."
Ben shrugged and gestured back the way we had come. "It's okay. Half the fun is building the robot. I've got a bunch of ideas already that I can't wait to go back and try and implement. Do you mind helping Adri and me lug this thing back up to the road? Once we're up there I can call one of the other guys from the shop to come pick me up, but he'll complain if I make him hunt for us down here."
Another plastic smile. "Sure. Adri, if you can carry my backpack I think I can get this side by myself. Mrs. Valencia actually told me there's a shortcut off this way."
I didn't buy it, not for a second, but Ben seemed to already be mostly thinking about the modifications he was going to do to his robot. He just nodded and picked up his end of the robot. I watched as Dominic picked up her half and then I started around her so I could walk closer to Ben.
Dom grabbed my arm with her free hand and steered me gently, but firmly, back behind her. It suddenly clicked for me that she was in full bodyguard mode, and she was viewing Ben as a threat somehow. I opened my mouth to tell her she was being silly, but the look she shot me was so fierce that I shut up and let her do her job.
A couple of minutes later we entered a stairwell and Dom made her move. She pushed the robot forward, running Ben into the wall, and then grabbed him by the throat.
"Why are you working with vampires, Ben?"
"What? Why did you just do that? I don't know what you're talking about!"
Shock had frozen me in place for a second, but I stepped forward now. "Dom, calm down. Ben's not working with any vampires."
Dom looked back at me for a second, and her eyes weren't the gentle brown orbs that usually graced her face. Her beast was only barely controlled and even I could tell it would take only the slightest provocation to push her into a transformation.
"The smell I kept telling you about is coming from him. He's not a vampire, not yet at least, but he's associating with them. Even worse, he just lied to me."
Ben opened his mouth, probably to tell Dom to let him go, but whatever he was about to say was cut off as she picked him up by his throat, easily holding him up against the wall despite the fact that she was using only one arm.
"You've lied to me once already, Ben. I'll know if you lie to me again. I'm going to let you down now, but if you lie to me again, I will kill you."
I was pretty sure Dom wouldn't actually kill Ben, at least not without more provocation than he'd demonstrated so far, but her voice was so deadly serious that I didn't blame Ben for believing her.
"The guys I work for at the garage are decent but really, really odd. I thought that was all it was until just now when you said I was working with vampires. It fits, not just their schedule, but sometimes I see them doing things that are crazy like lifting parts into place without needing a crane."
Dom's voice was subtly different than normal. I'd heard something similar out of Alec when he was at the point of transforming into a hybrid, but Dominic had never evidenced the kind of control that would let her arrest a transformation partway through the process.
"Truth. Very good, Ben. Do you intend to hurt Adri?"
"What? No, of course not. Why would you think that?"
"Because there is no such thing as a decent vampire. Eventually they will suck you into their web, it's just a matter of time. I can't do anything about that right now, so I'm trying to figure out how far they've sucked you in."
Ben had been in shock up until that point, but I could tell he was getting angry. "Look, I'm not involved in anything. I'm not going to hurt Adri, and you can't just throw me around like that."
Dom took a step forward and Ben backed up slightly, pressing up against the wall in an unconscious attempt to keep some distance between the two of them.
"Do you know of anything that's currently in
motion that could result in Adri being hurt?"
"You mean besides the fact that you've gone ape-crap psycho since the last time I saw you? No. I'm not involved in anything illegal or dangerous or whatever."
It boggled the mind on so many levels, but suddenly pieces started snapping into place for me. "Are you sure, Ben? What about the secret compartments? Couldn't those be used to run drugs and stuff?"
He didn't want to believe me. I could see it in the set of his jaw.
"I don't know why I thought this time would be any different than the others. Every time I get involved with any of Alec's crew I end up screwed over in some way or another. I'm not quitting this job. It's the best gig I've ever seen. Just leave me the hell alone."
Ben pushed past the two of us and tromped up the stairs. I started to follow him, but Dominic stopped me.
"I'm sorry, Adri, but he's dangerous now. He wasn't before, at least not any more than anyone else that has been embroiled in vampire nets, but he's angry enough right now that there's no telling what he'll do if you follow."
We sat there in silence for a couple of minutes with Dom holding onto my arm to make sure I wouldn't follow, before I mentally gave up on the prospect of trying to find Ben and apologize.
"I just wish Ben and Jasmin could get a break. Every time I stick my fingers into that particular situation it seems like things get even worse. I know you were just trying to protect me, but I wish you could have played things a little cooler than that."
Dom looked embarrassed now. "I'm sorry. You're right; I shouldn't have come on so strong. I guess the things Mrs. Valencia said rattled me more than I'd realized."
I shook my head in astonishment. "I think that went beyond just being rattled, Dom. I don't know what she said to you, but you picked Ben up with one hand like he weighed absolutely nothing. I thought you said you were feeling weaker and more tired than normal."
We'd turned and started back the way that we came, but Dom missed a step as she processed my words. "You're right, Adri. Normally I couldn't have done any of that. It was suddenly like my beast was so much stronger than it's ever been before. Maybe that's why I was so aggressive with Ben."
