by Rachel Caine
In the front seat, Marine and Stefan were starting to have a hushed conversation of directions to follow, exits to take. Apparently, they were nearing Stefan’s family home.
“I don’t think that can matter to me right now,” Katie said. “My one priority has to be getting these girls back safely. Anything else needs to be another conversation.”
“Understood, Katie, and no argument here. But I wanted you to get the big picture—this thing is attracting attention, and it’s going to attract even more unless it’s resolved quickly. It’s in the best interests of the Athena Academy to make sure that happens. So do whatever you can.” Allison’s tense voice thawed a little. “And take care of yourself.”
“Look who’s talking,” Katie replied.
When she hung up the phone, she erased both number and call record. She didn’t have to worry about the provider network; Allison would take care of that as a matter of course. She handed the phone back to Stefan, who was pointing out a sprawling hacienda-style house sitting on a sinful expanse of California real estate behind a wrought-iron fence.
Marine drove them to the gate, and Stefan hopped out to key a number into the data pad attached to a post. The entrance swung open, and Stefan walked up the drive, motioning for Marine to follow with the car.
“Wow,” Marine said, marveling as they rolled past a lovely landscaped yard and up to the front walk of the house itself. “I sure hope he does have a cute brother.”
Katie rolled her eyes and got out of the car as soon as it came to a stop. Stefan was unlocking the front door with a set of keys from his pocket. Marine stayed in the car to await her payment.
“Shouldn’t you knock or something?” she asked.
“What? It’s my house!”
“It’s your parents’ house.”
“Trust me, if I knocked, they’d never believe it was one of their kids.” He flashed her a smile, and she was struck by the thought that his family wasn’t exactly going to be thrilled with the condition in which she was delivering their son…bruised, pale, bloodstained and a whole lot the worse for wear. She wasn’t in any better shape, of course, but she wasn’t their kid.
And obscurely, she wanted Stefan’s parents to like her.
Stefan swung the door open, barged in and yelled, “Mom! Dad! Anybody home?”
The inside of the house was a pleasant sort of chaos…thick mismatched overlapping rugs, a battered, comfortable sofa next to an antique desk. A chocolate Labrador, sprawled on the red tile hearth, looked up but couldn’t be bothered to do more than a vague wag of his tail at the sight of intruders. Photographs everywhere, a dizzying clutter of them—black-and-white, sepia-toned, color. Casual and formal portraits, as well as instant snapshots. One caught her eye—a recent one, by the look of it—of a crowd of people gathered in front of the very house she was standing inside. At least twenty people were in the photograph, and Stefan was in the center of it, laughing, his arm around a slightly taller, thinner, more intense man with shorter hair. Angelo, the doctor brother now in Darfur, most probably. Presumably that was Stefan’s father next to them, with a short, stout woman next to him who just had to be their mother, because although Katie had thought Stefan probably had his father’s smile, she corrected that immediately. There was a certain impudence to the woman’s grin that invited you to share a secret joke…exactly like her son’s.
She was still taking it all in, the riot of color and fabric and texture, when a voice called from the top of the stairs, “Stefan?” A man’s voice, low and smooth. A shadow appeared up there, and then a tall, lanky man with a wild shock of black-and-silver hair was coming down the steps. He didn’t bother with the railing, but that was mostly because he had something in his hands…
…and she had no idea what it was, except that it looked like a cross between a rat and a porcupine.
“Hey, Dad,” Stefan said. “I’d hug you, but—”
His father looked blank for a second, then looked down at the creature in his hands. “Oh, right.” The two men had similar features, though Stefan’s weren’t as hawklike as his father’s. The same eyes, though. “Sorry, Pasha’s under the weather. I’m trying to keep her warm.”
Pasha, the rat/porcupine, sneezed on cue. Katie blinked. “What is that?”
“Hedgehog,” both Blackmans said together. Stefan and his father exchanged amused glances, and then the elder seemed to actually see his son for the first time.
“My God,” he said and put the hedgehog down on the floor, where it proceeded to amble away to explore the corner between a bookcase and a floor lamp. “Kid, you look terrible. What’s happening?”
Before Stefan could answer, his father had him in a bear hug. Stefan looked briefly embarrassed, then surrendered to it, patting his dad on the back. “I’m fine, Dad,” he said.
His father held him at arm’s length. “Yeah?” he asked. “You have a funny way of showing it. Is that blood on your face? Were you in an accident?”
“Yes!” Stefan seized on it immediately. “Yes, an accident on I-10. This is Katie, by the way. She’s—” He seemed to struggle briefly for a definition. “She’s an FBI agent.”
“Oh my God. FBI? Are you in trouble? Are you under arrest?” The elder Blackman turned on her, frowning and fierce. “Did you arrest my son? On what charge?”
“Dad! Dad, I’m not under arrest, okay? Katie’s—my—friend.” He seemed to want to say more, but he stopped, clearly uncomfortable.
His father backed up a step, glanced at Stefan, then at her, then at Stefan again. “Oh,” he said, and then, weighted with meaning, “Oh. Well, I’m sure your mother would say she’s a big improvement over the beach bunnies you usually—”
“Dad!” Stefan interrupted, pleading. Katie pressed her lips together to conceal her grin. “Could we not do this right now? Could you embarrass the hell out of me later, maybe?”
“I guess I could.” His father turned again toward Katie, and this time, he held out his hand. “Ben Blackman,” he said. “Katie—?”
“Rush,” she supplied, and shook. Stefan’s dad had strong hands, but a gentle, controlled grip. “Katie Rush. And I am an FBI agent. Stefan’s—helping me on a case.”
“Helping you?” Ben’s eyebrows rose in thick black-and-silver arches. “So the two of you, you’re not…” He left the implication to hover in the air.
“I didn’t say that,” she said, perfectly calmly, although there was a deep current of hysterical laughter inside, under a seething river of impatience. “We can discuss all this later, as Stefan said. For now, though, we’re in a hurry.”
“A hurry.”
“Dad, you’re repeating things,” Stefan said, in the tone of a son who’s said it too many times. “Yes. A hurry. I need to borrow Angelo’s car.”
“Which one?”
“What’s the fastest one?”
Ben looked simultaneously amused and horrified. “You’re not taking his baby!”
Stefan was already headed for a key rack hanging on the wall near a large open arched doorway leading into a wood-floored kitchen. More keys than a dealership, Katie thought, and Stefan sorted through them and held up a set. “Yep,” he said. “I’m taking the Jag.”
“Angelo’s going to kill you if you scratch the paint.”
“I know, Dad. He’s told me a dozen times already.” Stefan juggled the keys, hand to hand, looking at Katie. “I’d like to change my shirt. Five minutes?”
She nodded. Stefan climbed the stairs, leaving her alone with his father, the Labrador and the hedgehog, Pasha, who was busily rooting around in the corner.
Ben retrieved the strange little animal, holding it gently in both hands and stroking its head. It seemed to relax in his large square hands, clearly content, closing its beady little black eyes and snuggling in. Ben gave it a distracted smile, but he was watching Katie with shrewd, kind eyes. “You’re sure my son’s not in trouble.”
“Not from me, sir,” she said. “He’s been—great.” She wasn
’t one to open up to strangers, but there was something about Ben Blackman that made her want to continue talking. “He’s got a lot of courage, your son. You should know that. He could have just put in a phone call and gone about his business, but he put himself out to help some kids in trouble. That’s special.”
“Yes,” Ben said softly. “It is. He is. Katie—can I call you Katie?—my son’s got a great heart, but he’s always been a little—” He shrugged. “Blown by the wind. Couldn’t keep him home, he was always out wandering. If ever a kid had gypsy blood, it’s Stefan.”
He was trying to warn her. She recognized that, and was both flattered and offended—for Stefan more than herself.
“I think he knows what he’s doing, sir,” she said. “I’ve seen him do things today that I wouldn’t have had the courage to try.”
Ben gazed at her, thinking something that shadowed those big dark eyes. “He’s never lacked for courage,” he said. “Just conviction.”
“I think he’s found that,” she said.
“Looks like he found more than just that.”
She shrugged and smiled. “I can’t speak for Stefan’s feelings.”
“What about yours?”
She never talked about her feelings. “Are you asking about my intentions toward your son?”
He laughed. “I’m old-fashioned, kiddo, but I’m not that old-fashioned. I just wonder what’s pulling the two of you together. You don’t look like you have that much in common.”
Heavy footsteps on the stairs. Stefan hadn’t taken five minutes, he’d taken only two, and there were still drops of water caught in his curling hair. He was buttoning up a clean shirt of dark blue silk. He’d changed to a fresh pair of jeans, too.
Katie felt obscenely grubby, suddenly.
“More in common than you think,” Stefan said, as calmly as if he caught his dad talking about his relationships every day—which maybe he did. Katie had no idea how normal families dealt with this stuff. Hers had never been a model to follow. “Katie’s a precog.”
“No!” Ben’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”
“I hope he is,” she said. “What’s a precog?”
“Precognitive,” Ben said before Stefan could get the word out. Stefan, behind his back, looked exasperated, and continued buttoning his shirt. “Means you sense or see things before they happen. Stefan’s always been more an empath than anything else. His mother’s precognitive, though.”
He said it as if it were factual, as straightforward as saying that Stefan’s mother had brown eyes or jogged every morning. Okay, Katie thought, here’s where things get strange. And then she had to mentally shake herself. You’re on the trail of two supernaturally gifted girls abducted by drug dealers, tracking them with the help of a gypsy psychic. And this is where things get strange?
“Dad, great, but we really have to get going now,” Stefan said and moved around to face him. “Thanks for the car.”
“Hey, that’s between you and your brother. It’s a good thing he’s halfway around the world, or he’d be coming after you to make you sign some kind of waiver. In blood.”
“Say goodbye, Dad.”
“Goodbye, Katie. I have a good feeling about you,” Ben said. The hedgehog in his hands yawned, displaying a perfect pink tongue, and sneezed again. “Come back soon, will you?”
Stefan kissed him on the cheek. “Yeah, thanks for saying that to me, Dad.”
“You come back whatever I say,” Ben said. There was so much love in his eyes when he looked at his son that it almost brought tears to Katie’s eyes. “Stefan.”
“Yes?” He fussed with the cuffs of his shirt, not looking up.
“Come back soon. And come back safe.”
Stefan looked up into his eyes, and there it was, that same glow of affection, devotion, connection. Katie realized that she’d never felt that, not really. Not since her mother’s disappearance. She had to swallow a lump in her throat.
Without a change in that adoring expression, Stefan asked, “Can I borrow five hundred dollars?”
The elder Blackman’s eyes went wider. “Excuse me?”
“The girl outside in the car. I owe her some money. Services rendered.”
“What did she do for you for five hundred? No, don’t answer that, I’d only have to tell your mother about it later, and I’d rather have plausible denial.” Ben seemed to have second thoughts. “Wait…If it was worth five hundred, maybe you should invite her in…”
“Dad! She gave us a ride, I promised her some cash. Please? I’ll get some out of my bank later and drop it by.”
Ben sighed and handed Katie the hedgehog. She took it, too startled to do anything else, and was fascinated by the warmth of it, the way it turned to look at her, then settled down into the cup of her hands. Cute, she thought. And then she thought, I haven’t got time for cute. But it was too late to protest because Ben was already crossing the room, swinging aside a painting on the wall and keying in numbers on a safe. He extracted a bundle of bills, removed some and closed it up.
“Dad must like you,” Stefan commented in an undertone. “He never lets anybody hold Pasha.”
His father handed him the money and retrieved the hedgehog. “Actually, I never let anybody see me open the safe,” he said. “Pasha loves everyone. But you looked like you could use a little animal relaxation therapy. Even a few seconds’ worth.”
“Animal relaxation…”
“Dad’s specialty,” Stefan said, counting the bills. “Well, he does vet work, mostly, and he trains animals, too, kind of got a Dog Whisperer thing going—”
“I do not! What I do is completely different!”
“Whatever, Dad. He has a program where he takes animals in for sick kids, seniors, even into prisons. Animal relaxation therapy.”
“It helps,” Ben said simply. “Maybe sometime you can go with me, see the effect it has on people. It’s pretty dramatic.”
“Dad, we really have to—”
“Go.” Ben nodded. “Yes. I know. I’ll tell your mother you said hello. She’s out with one of her clients.”
“Which one?”
“The blond one.”
Stefan grinned and stage-whispered, “We’re top secret around here about clients. But her initials are Cameron Diaz.”
“Wrong,” his dad called from behind them.
“Or maybe Uma Thurman.” Stefan guided Katie out the door. She looked back, once, to see Ben Blackman still standing there, the hedgehog nestled contentedly in his hands, watching them go with a frown of concern on his face.
“I’ll watch out for him,” she promised.
And he nodded. “I believe you will, Katie.”
Stefan shut the door behind them, jogged down the steps and leaned in to hand Marine the money. A conversation ensued, which Katie watched closely, and then Marine backed up her Volkswagen and drove off with a cheery wave. The iron gates swung open for her, then closed.
Stefan came back up and took Katie’s hand, then kissed her. It was a gentle, sweet kiss, and she leaned into him to savor it, just for a second.
“What was that for?” she asked. Stefan smiled.
“For not laughing at my crazy family,” he said. “Come on. Jag’s in the garage. And because of my current vision disability, you get the pleasure of driving.”
Once the family hacienda gates had closed behind them, Katie felt the pressure close in again. The Jaguar was clean, and looked fast. She knew little about cars, but she knew what she liked, and she liked this one. It was forest-green, very sleek, with a finish like glass. The interior wasn’t roomy, but it was comfortable.
“Your brother likes cars,” she said. There had been quite a selection under tarps in the garage, which was actually more of a converted stable, or part of one…. The other half had still housed horses. She shifted gears, and the Jaguar leaped forward with a low growl, pressing her back in her seat.
“No, my brother is insane over cars,” Stefan corrected. “Those are
just the ones he couldn’t stand to part with. He sold off about twenty, I think. Gave the money to charity a couple of years ago. This one’s his favorite—a 1968 XJ6.”
“Is that good?”
“Very good.” He watched as she shifted gears again, and the engine practically purred. “Very fast. And Dad’s right, we’d better not scratch it or it’s my ass.”
He didn’t seem that worried, though…. Not worried enough to ask her to slow down. The Jaguar continued to pick up speed, rocketing down the deserted street until they reached an intersection. Katie sent him an inquiring look.
“West,” he said.
“You’re sure?”
“Sure enough.”
The Jaguar’s speed didn’t serve them particularly well, given the traffic, but its maneuverability did, and they made very good time darting in and out of traffic. Katie’s Indy-style driving earned them more than a few honks and finger-flips, but she didn’t take it personally. When Stefan’s cell phone rang and he took it out, she said, “That may be for me.”
“For you?” He checked the number and shrugged. “No ID.”
“That’s for me.”
Katie thumbed the phone on and identified herself. As she’d expected, the person on the other end was Allison Gracelyn. “I’ve got the van,” she said. “Real-time tracking.”
“Where?”
“They stopped off at a warehouse, but I didn’t spot any girls being unloaded, just a couple of guys getting out, going inside, then coming back. They’re on South Hill Street, at the intersection with East Third. I’ll give you turn-by-turn for as long as I can.”
“As long as you can?”
“I’ve got exactly twenty minutes before the station-keeping cycle cuts the signal for your part of the world. I can’t retask it, not without serious questions, and besides, I’m piggybacking on top of another investigation that’s very important. So we’re going to have to do the best we can. Do you have any backup plan?”
Katie glanced at Stefan. “Yes.”
“Keep it warmed up. Okay, they’re turning…East Fourth, heading northwest.”
