Dangerous Calling (The Shadowminds)

by AJ Larrieu

  “Ouch!”

  Her grip kept me from jerking away. She turned my hand over and let my blood drip down the shaft of the pin, then pulled it out. She released me, and I yanked my hand back and pressed the spot against the flesh of my left forearm. Bunny held the bloody pin between two fingers, eyes closed. I didn’t dare speak.

  “Interesting,” she said finally.

  Not what I’d been hoping to hear. I waited.

  She brought her fingers close to her face and inhaled deeply through her nose. I couldn’t help watching in disgust.

  “The need is there. I can sense it. It’s like any other addiction.”

  I was almost relieved to hear her confirm it. My last hopes—that I’d been imagining it, that it had all been a reaction to the panic of fighting a vampire—faded.

  “But there’s something else...the pulls. The ones from the guardian. They’ve been...enhancing you. If I didn’t know you, I’d say you were eighteen, maybe twenty.”

  “Does that mean...”

  “If Shane anchors, and you pull from him, you’ll be able to stay with him. I don’t know for how long. It may mean he won’t have to watch you grow old and die.”

  This hadn’t even occurred to me. “How long do guardians live? Longer than humans?” We still knew so little about what it meant to anchor.

  She shrugged. “It depends. How many vampires will he be fighting? But in general, yes, they live for quite a while.” She traced her palm with her thumb, and I knew without digging too deeply that there was a story in that sentence. I didn’t ask. I was still reeling from the meaning of her words.

  An extended lifetime with Shane. All the power I could want, there for the taking. Every day, a pull just a heartbeat away—

  I shook myself. If he didn’t anchor, I’d kill him. If he did, I’d sink into a bottomless addiction to the power he could give me. I’d spend my life aching for that next pull, and if I didn’t destroy the city, I would certainly destroy myself.

  Bunny watched me, her face soft with pity. “There’s nothing I can do for you.”

  I’d known this was what she would say. It wasn’t a surprise, but it was still a disappointment.

  “I can feel the power in your blood. It’s not an easy thing to resist.” She met my eyes. “But you have to fight this battle on your own.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Shane was still asleep when I got back to the room. I slid into bed beside him and nestled myself in the curve of his body. He responded in his sleep, turning and throwing a strong arm over my body. I breathed deeply for the first time all night. Nothing had changed, but I’d made my decision. It made it easier to be next to him.

  We both slept in—we probably needed it. It was mid-morning when we woke up. The rest of the house was still quiet.

  “Sleep well?” Shane asked, stretching.

  I nodded so I wouldn’t have to lie out loud.

  He yawned and scratched between his shoulder blades, then tugged on jeans and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll go get breakfast.”

  He was gone a while, but I forgave him when he came back with coffee and huge blueberry muffins. He’d also bought me a phone, a pre-paid one from a gas station.

  “Thanks.” I plugged it in to charge it.

  “I think we need to call Susannah.” He laughed. “I never thought I’d say that.”

  I made myself laugh too. “Yeah. If anyone can tell us the truth, she can.” He hadn’t seen Diana’s vision—he didn’t know we didn’t need more confirmation. But I hoped Susannah could give us more—not just the fact of what Shane was, but the details of how he’d get there. Because he’d already decided, just like I had. From now on, it was only the how.

  The vision of his wings, the blood, the fierce, hard look on his face. I buried it fast.

  “I’ll call her,” I said, and I dialed her number from memory.

  I don’t know how she knew it was me. She didn’t even say hello. She picked up and said, “Where the hell have you been?”

  “It’s a long story. We—”

  “I’ve left message after message.”

  “I kind of lost my phone.” Sort of true. “You see—”

  “It doesn’t matter. Get over here. Now.”

  “Umm—”

  She hung up before I could explain.

  “I think she might’ve noticed Ryan is missing,” I said.

  Shane cocked an eyebrow at me. “Does this mean you’re off the hook for the rest of those favors?”

  “It can’t hurt to negotiate.”

  * * *

  When we arrived at her grill, Susannah was waiting outside. The first thing she said was, “What took so long?”

  “Sorry.” I wondered if her perspective about travel times was clouded by the fact that she could fly. “Things have been complicated.”

  She frowned. Her eyes flicked over my shorn hair and my face, taking in the scars. “The vampire.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Maybe we could come in and sit down?” I was half-afraid she’d murder me for even asking.

  Susannah glanced at my ruined hand. She backed out of the doorway and gestured us in.

  The restaurant was half-full of people eating a late breakfast. She brought us to a back room with a single large table, the kind that might get used for private parties. She took a moment to type something on her phone, then closed the door, sat and gestured for us to do the same. Her wings wavered into a view, huge and white. I was finally starting to feel less intimidated by them.

  “We already know about Ryan,” I said. “He’s...”

  “He’s gone.” Shane finished for me. I could sense Susannah hold back her Good riddance.

  “And my sibyl?”

  “I’m not sure she still wants to relocate.”

  I told the whole story as quickly as I could. It was less painful that way—and I was less likely to break down. At some point the guy I’d seen with her before came in with plates of pancakes and coffee for each of us, but I didn’t stop talking to eat. I got through Lionel’s death, through watching the pizza delivery kid die. When I came to the part where Annette told me about Shane, Susannah stood up fast.

  “You’re certain she used the word potential?” The full force of her gaze was on me. It was terrifying.

  “I think—yes. I’m sure.”

  She rounded on Shane. “The first time you met Ian. What did you think?”

  “Uh...”

  “How did you feel about him?”

  “How did I feel about him?” Shane looked genuinely baffled.

  “Men.” Susannah rolled her eyes. “It’s a simple question, but I’ll rephrase. What was your impression of him? Did you like him? Be honest.”

  Shane glanced at me and back at Susannah. “Honestly? I thought he was a dickhead.”

  Susannah nodded as though this was a clinical diagnosis coming from a fellow physician. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and handed it to me. “Call him.”

  “Call Ian?”

  “Yes, of course, Ian. Call him. I don’t recall his number.”

  I didn’t recall it either. I dialed the B&B instead. Diana picked up. I asked her to find Ian, and bless her, she didn’t ask why. She probably already knew. I heard a click as she set down the phone and then footsteps as she ran off to get him. It took a few minutes.

  “Yeah?” he said when he came on the line. I didn’t have time to answer before Susannah grabbed the phone.

  “Ian, this is Susannah March.” So that was her last name. “Yes, that’s right, Biloxi. I have some questions for you.”

  She left the room, her wings shimmering out as she crossed the threshold.

  “Annette could’ve been lying,” Shane said, staring at his coffee. “It woul
d make more sense than this being real.”

  I didn’t answer. I knew he didn’t believe what he was saying. I twisted my coffee cup back and forth in its saucer. Susannah came back in.

  She paced around Shane, looking him up and down in a way that would’ve made me angry if I hadn’t been so worried. For only the second time since I’d met her, she seemed to be speechless. That had to be a record. She faced Shane and said, “It’s true.” She added, “Remarkable,” almost to herself.

  “You mean you didn’t know?” I said.

  “Potentials can only be sensed by guardians whose territory overlaps their own. I couldn’t have known. You were born in New Orleans, right?” she asked Shane.

  “Born and raised.”

  “And your parents?”

  He nodded. “Does that matter?”

  “Guardians have to be born in their anchor points. Your potential territory overlaps with Ian’s. When he met you, he had an instinctual urge to kill you.”

  “Wha—?”

  Susannah shrugged.

  “He sure did a good job of hiding it,” I said.

  “Not that good,” Shane said, glaring.

  “Jesus.” What if he’d lost it in the middle of the night and gone on a rampage? “He’ll have to leave,” I said. “We’ll have to find somewhere else—”

  “It’s fleeting,” Susannah said. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  I wanted to laugh. Shane and I exchanged a look.

  “So...what do I do?” Shane asked. “How do I...”

  “Anchor?” Susannah said. “You’re going to have to leave the city to train. Ian is too new. He barely has control of his own powers.”

  “Where am I supposed to go? Here?”

  “A better choice would be Frank in Houston. He has more experience. Do you own property in the city?”

  “Yeah, but it’s just a condo. And the B&B. Part of it, anyway.” Grief washed over his face as he remembered.

  “That’s where you’ll want to anchor. Somewhere with ties to the community. It will make things easier, later.”

  “What do you mean? How does this even work?”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “Frank will explain when you’re ready. Here.” She tugged a card out of her pocket and handed it to him. “That’s how you’ll get in touch with him. I’ll let him know you’re coming.”

  “How long will it take? To train, I mean?”

  Susannah shook her head. “You’ll have to find your own path. Months at least, years at most. Frank will help you.”

  “I guess that’ll have to be enough,” Shane sent.

  “I guess.” I was nervous, having him in my head. I couldn’t put off telling him much longer.

  Susannah walked us out. The restaurant had gotten busier while we’d talked, and the guy who’d brought us pancakes was frying eggs and sausage on the professional grill. She came all the way to the sandy parking lot and stood looking at the ocean while Shane unlocked the car.

  “Call if you have questions,” she said. It was the most generous I’d ever seen her be, and I realized it was because Shane was a potential colleague.

  “What about my father?” Shane said. “Could he have been a guardian? If he hadn’t died?”

  “It’s not hereditary,” Susannah said. “The gift arises spontaneously.”

  “Lucky me.”

  She didn’t laugh. “This life is not without risk. For you, for others. You should think carefully before you decide.” Her voice actually wavered. I was stunned.

  Shane’s gaze was steady. “I’ve already made my decision.”

  * * *

  We spent the drive back in the kind of mental silence we rarely shared anymore. Shane was lost in circling conjectures of what his decision would mean, and I was happy to keep my own thoughts buried deep. The memory of Diana’s vision kept bobbing to the surface like a cork on a fishing line.

  I was surprised when he didn’t head back to the B&B. Instead, he turned north toward the lakefront.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  We reached the levee, and he parked on the street. I stared ahead at the grassy little hill, and Shane got out and opened the door for me.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “Come on.” He led me to the top of the levee, and I finally recognized the spot.

  It was the place where we’d shared our first kiss. Shane had parked his Camaro in the same spot the beater occupied now, and we’d had a training session in the late winter cold, using our powers to warm the car. Shane stopped on top of the levee and took my hands in his. His touch felt strange on my crippled fingers, sensitive and numb at the same time.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  “To Texas?”

  “To Texas, to Canada, wherever I end up training for this.”

  “You’re going to go through with it? You’re sure?”

  “Who can be sure about something like that? I’m sure about other things.” He got down on one knee in the damp grass. “Marry me, Cass.”

  I felt as though the wind had been knocked out of me and then shoved back all at once. He took a black velvet box out of his pocket. A woman jogging with her dog along the levee grinned at us.

  “Shane—”

  “Cass Weatherfield, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don’t care if it’s three years or three hundred, and I don’t care if we live in New Orleans or Texas or India. Marry me.”

  I couldn’t speak. Farther down the levee, the dog barked gleefully and raced into the lake after a Frisbee.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Shane stood up. “But we can work this out. We have to figure it out eventually. We might as well start now.”

  I shook my head, covered my mouth with my hand and felt tears on my fingers. Shane took my right hand in his and gently opened it, putting the ring on my palm. It was a simple, yellow-gold band with an emerald-cut diamond solitaire. The stone seemed to gather all the available light and throw it back at me.

  I wanted to say yes. More than anything, I wanted to say yes. I wanted to sleep beside him every night, be there for him when he transitioned, protect him and be protected. And I wanted to pull from him. The circling thing I’d pushed down into my gut wanted, too, and it wanted more strongly than anything else.

  “I can’t.” My voice was so small, it was a miracle he’d heard it.

  He closed my hand around the ring. “I heard what Bunny said. I know you went to see her.”

  “What? How—”

  “You think I didn’t notice you left our bed in the middle of the night? It doesn’t matter. We’ll work on this together.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t understand. You don’t know everything.”

  He cocked his head a little, and I wanted to sob. I broadened the connection between us as I’d done thousands of times, leading him down to the buried places in my memory. I let the vision emerge, the image of his gorgeous wings, the blood, all of it. He watched it, and I saw him waver. The barest hint of indecision flickered in his eyes before he extinguished it.

  “You were going to keep this from me?”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “When were you going to tell me?” The muscles in his jaw hardened.

  “I don’t know. Maybe never. I have to—I have to do something to change it. I have to get this under control. And I think that means I need to be away from...from everyone.” I couldn’t say out loud, “Especially from you.”

  “It’s my life, Cass.”

  “It’s mine too. I love you, and that makes it my life too.”

  “Things change. She said it herself.”

  “I won’t risk your life on that. I won’t.”
r />   “That vision could mean a thousand things. Just because you aren’t in it doesn’t mean you aren’t there.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  He was silent. He’d felt it the same way I had. The man in that version of the future had been alone. He closed his eyes.

  “I want to marry you,” I said.

  He opened them again.

  “But I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You won’t.”

  I shook my head. “That’s what you want to believe.”

  “Cass—”

  I pushed the ring back into his hands. “I’ll be back for this.” I’d already thought it through. I’d quit the pills cold turkey—I would quit pulling the same way. But that meant getting away from the source. It meant getting away from everyone.

  “When?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He clenched his fist around the ring so tightly I worried he’d hurt himself. “When, Cass? Give me a day. Give yourself a day.”

  Would a month be enough? Six months? A year? “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  Through our connection, I felt the way his fingernails dug into his palm. It was an easier pain to focus on.

  “I need you to be okay with this,” I said. “I know it’s a lot to ask, and I know I’m leaving, but I can’t do this alone. I have to know you’re behind me.”

  Shane held my gaze.

  “Always.”

  He slowly opened his fist. The metal band had left a circular indentation in his palm. He took my right ring finger and slid it on.

  “So you don’t forget.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The last time I’d left, I’d done it without telling anyone. This way was much, much harder.

  Mina asked me why as though I’d physically hurt her. Diana understood better than anyone why I had to go, but even she went somber and silent when she saw me. Ian cornered me in the hallway and told me I was making a mistake.

  “You don’t go through something like this alone,” he said. “You need him.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. I could kill him, Ian. I’m not taking that risk. It’s safer for everyone if I do this by myself.”