Dante saw a couple drops of blood on the shining hardwood. He started to kneel down. “Let me help you—”
“I think you’ve done quite enough,” Richard said, stepping between Dante and Mary, his boot right on the blood drops. He produced a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped Mary’s injured hand.
“I need to tend to this and clean up,” Mary said as she got to her feet. “I’m very sorry.”
Dante smiled and nodded. “No problem, I think we have all we need. Thank you both for your time.”
“Of course,” Richard said, the relief evident in his tone. He led Dante and Brigid to the door. “As we said, we want to cooperate however we can.”
Of course you do, Dante thought.
Brigid stepped out first, and Dante joined her before turning back to the open door. “Thank you again. Have a good day.”
“God bless you,” Mary said from inside the house.
Richard closed the door.
“Wonder why they didn’t want us to see Thomas,” Brigid said as they headed back to the SUV.
“And what kind of kid would choose to stay in a place like that?” Dante said.
They both climbed in and wasted no time in pulling away. He gave the house a long look before he dialed Faolan.
It rang several times, which was unusual. After the fifth ring, it picked up.
“Sorry about that,” Faolan said. “Your timing is perfect, as ever.”
“Oh?” Dante looked at Brigid who shrugged.
“You need to get to Seattle, right away.”
Dante stepped on the gas and headed for the highway back to Kansas City.
“Donovan?” Brigid asked.
“He’s still dark,” Faolan said. “But I have a contact there who reached out to me.”
“What is it?” Dante asked.
“More than fifty changelings and a dozen wizard kids have vanished in the last month,” Faolan said. “But now twelve bodies have turned up, all changeling kids.”
Dante’s blood ran cold as he pulled onto the highway and gunned the SUV.
“In a month?” Brigid’s voice was unsteady.
“Word is the local police have asked for help from the FBI.”
Dante glanced at Brigid. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you could come along to help?”
Brigid shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Dante said. “You have your own region to take care of.” He turned his attention back to his phone. “How much time do I have?”
“Two days before a team of agents is sniffing around. It’s been street kids, but still kids,” Faolan said. “That will cut a lot of red tape.”
“Have Padraig meet me in Kansas City in an hour,” Dante said.
“He’ll be there,” Faolan said. “What did you learn? Anything useful?”
“It’s not good,” Dante said. “But I don’t know how useful it will be.”
Chapter Six
When Toto’s head moved, Wraith was instantly awake. Months of living under the specter of danger breeds certain habits, one of which is staying quiet and listening when something wakes a person. A glance out the window told her it was still hours before dawn. Wraith inched away from the window and the light that came in from the streetlights outside.
Toto’s ears twitched, and he lifted his head.
Wraith could just hear voices downstairs. She closed her eyes and focused on the sounds, hoping it was her friends.
“Didn’t I tell you?” a voice said from the stairwell. “This place will be perfect. Cops never come out this way.”
Wraith winced and bit back tears as fear replaced her dashed hopes. She made her way silently to her bed. Toto limped a step behind her and turned to watch the doorway as Wraith began collecting her more precious belongings and rolling up her blankets. She fought back the fear and noted the voices were coming closer.
“Hell, they’re coming up,” Wraith whispered.
Toto growled low and deep.
Once Wraith was ready to leave, she watched the doorway. It was the only exit, which led to the only staircase. There was an elevator shaft, but seven floors is quite a drop.
Wraith pulled the bottle cap from around her neck and gripped it in her hand. “Come here, boy,” she whispered.
Toto walked over, then turned back to face the door.
The voices were on the floor just below.
Wraith drew in a breath and focused on the cap and the calculations it encompassed. The long and complex formulations, and the accompanying familiar pressure, enveloped her and Toto.
“Don’t worry, I can hold the cloak,” Wraith whispered.
Assuming they don’t stay for long.
“Ah yes, the ever tried and true hide-and-run,” Nightstick said from the doorway.
Less than a minute later, three shadowy figures came up the stairs and into the room
“I have to say, I’m impressed,” the leader said as he looked around. “You might not be completely useless after all.”
One of the younger thugs bristled when the others laughed, but his ire was replaced by his own guffaw when he spotted the mattress. “Looks like this place has tenants!”
“Had tenants,” the leader said. “They’re about to get evicted.”
Wraith could sense Toto’s muscles tensing as the ruffian’s gaze passed over them. Anger rose in her at this invasion. Why were people always taking from her? These thugs weren’t any different than the snatchers who took Shadow and—
The room, or maybe it was reality itself, lurched and a sudden flash of pain in her head caused Wraith to wince and let out a small sound.
“What was that?” a man’s voice asked.
When Wraith looked up, her stomach dropped. Three snatchers were right in front of her, looking at the spot where she was standing, their eyes narrowed.
“Do you see that?” one of them asked.
Something wasn’t right, but Wraith couldn’t place what it was.
“Are you just going to run again?” Nightstick asked. “They took Shadow. Then you left her with them. You need to make this right. They’ll know where she is.”
Guilt merged with anger in the pit of Wraith’s stomach, evaporating her confusion. She could run, she always did.
“And they just keep chasing you,” Nightstick said, now behind her. “Don’t you think you should make them be afraid for a change?”
Wraith raised a shaking hand, took aim like she had in the parking garage, and dropped her cloak.
The snatchers stared at her with wide eyes and open mouths.
“Where’s Shadow, you bastards?”
“How the—”
“I said, where’s Shadow?” Wraith shouted.
The biggest of the three looked at her hand and started laughing.
Toto growled and bared his teeth.
The three looked at the big dog and took an unconscious step back.
After a moment, the lead snatcher swallowed and found his bravado. “Listen, little girl, if you don’t keep that thing on a leash I’ll have to put him down.” He nodded at her hand as he pulled a gleaming pistol from his jacket and leveled it at her. “Except mine is real.”
Wraith didn’t think. “BANG!”
The snatcher took the hit square in the chest and flew backward through the air, the pistol slipping from his hand and vanishing into the shadows. He landed just before his head smacked into the far wall and he didn’t move.
“Boss!” one of the others shouted as he drew a pistol of his own and started firing.
In the same instant, Wraith saw flashes of calculations and felt power focus around the tattoo on her left clavicle, just above her heart.
The numbers reached a zero sum and a hazy wall of blue mist manifested between her and
the shooter. A tenth of a blink later, the bullets passed through the mist. Wraith could feel the molecular bonds holding the bullets together break. The minute remains struck Wraith’s hooded jacket like puffs of air, their force dispersed.
The strength left her body and she fought to stay on her feet as the shield equation fell apart. When she looked up, the snatchers were staring at her in silence, jaws nearly on the floor.
“You can stop acting,” Wraith said, gritting her teeth against the pain in her head. “I can see you! The illusion isn’t working!”
The one who had fired on her tossed his gun away. “The place is yours, all right?”
She ground her teeth and annunciated each word carefully. “Stop pretending! Tell me where you took Shadow!”
Both snatchers raised their hands and traded glances.
“We don’t know anyone named Shadow. We swear!”
“He’s not lying,” the other said. “We just—”
Another flash of pain, this one more intense, caused Wraith to flinch. That was all they needed. Both snatchers surged forward. Toto pounced on one and brought him to the ground, the other grabbed Wraith’s wrist and pointed her hand away. With his free hand, he delivered a hard punch to her face.
White light exploded in her eyes, and her head pounded so hard she thought her skull would shatter.
“Don’t know what you are,” her attacker said, then delivered another punch. “But I’m putting you down.”
Wraith could only watch in a daze as the snatcher drew back to punch again.
Toto’s jaws clamped on his forearm, and with a jerk of his head, the big dog pulled the snatcher off her.
Just beyond the sound of the struggle, Wraith heard the other snatcher running down the stairs. Her eyes went wide in panic. It wouldn’t be long before he came back with others. She had to get out—
Power surged up her spine and joined with a familiar agony, one she hadn’t experienced in several months, focused right between her eyes. Equations formed around her and began to whirl, slowly at first but building in speed.
She gritted her teeth and tried to break apart the formula, but it had a life of its own.
“Toto! Stride!” Wraith shouted
The dog released the snatcher and leapt toward her.
Wraith barely felt fur under her fingers as the surge reached its crescendo, the pieces of the formula joining into a single massively complex equation. The room, the world around it, and reality itself spun. Something landed on her foot and she barely made out the shape of a hand, severed at the wrist. She kicked it away and pulled Toto tighter.
Fighting past the blinding pain and digging for reserves of strength she didn’t have, she focused on the symbols tattooed on the backs of her hands and fought to shift the equations into what she wanted. She tried to fix on a destination, but her mind couldn’t settle on a single place or idea. Her stomach lurched, and she grunted in a final attempt to direct the maelstrom, but it wasn’t working. She couldn’t explain how, but she knew it.
Everything lurched to one side, and Toto slipped from her hands.
Chapter Seven
“Are you sure she isn’t dead?” a small, feminine voice asked.
“Well, I’m no doctor, mind,” a boy answered in a thick Cockney accent. “But me keen observational skills tell me she ain’t. What with her still breathing and all, yeah?”
“I don’t know,” the first voice said, unsure. “I think she’s dead.”
Wraith opened her eyes and regretted it. A throbbing in her head, one she hadn’t noticed before, spiked when the light hit her eyes. She covered her face with her hands and let out a cry of pain.
“See there?” the boy said. “I’m sure I read somewhere that dead people don’t do that.”
“Maybe,” the little voice said, still skeptical.
Thankfully, the lights in the room dimmed and Wraith was able to open her eyes without her head threatening to explode, though that probably would’ve been a relief.
“Hi,” a small girl, no older than seven or eight, said and smiled down at Wraith. The girl had pale blond hair, and her eyes were so blue that Wraith half expected to see clouds in them.
A boy, maybe a year older than Wraith, stepped into view. He had tousled brown hair, bulbous dark green eyes, and a patchy goatee over a weak chin. “All right, love?”
There was something about the formulae floating around these two, something off. Wraith’s brain finally engaged and panic seized her. She rolled to one side, got to her feet, and grabbed the bottle cap that hung from her neck. The equation surrounded her and the cloak came up. However, rather than settling in close, it surged and pulsed several feet around her as the sum of the equation bounced up and down. Try as she might, she couldn’t get it to zero out, and every attempt caused her headache to worsen.
“Bloody hell!” the boy said.
“I told you she’s a slinger,” the girl said.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” The boy stepped in front of the little girl and lifted his hands. Fire gathered into his palms. “Easy does it, love—”
She was in a large square room with five doorways, only one of which had a door. The walls, floors, and ceiling were old and battered concrete, and there were no windows. A mismatched collection of old chairs and a sofa that had seen much better days were scattered about. Through the open doorways, she saw mattresses and personal decorations. Clearly, this was a home. Her eyes came back around to the boy and girl. His eyes darted around the room, but he kept himself between the little girl and where he thought Wraith might be.
“Con,” the little girl said. “Put your fire out. Can’t you see she’s just scared?”
The boy, Con apparently, cast an incredulous glance over his shoulder. “Well, no. As she’s currently invisible, I can’t see nothing, can I? So, if you don’t mind, I’ll just—”
“Now!” the girl said. Her arms were crossed and her face was a child’s approximation of stern.
“But—”
“She’s our guest.”
Con let out a breath, the fire went out, and he dropped his hands. “There, you happy now?”
The little girl beamed and nodded. “Yep.”
Wraith just stared for several seconds. She didn’t know whether to run or laugh.
“It’s okay,” the girl said, looking around the room. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
Without meaning to, Wraith let go of the bottle cap and dropped the cloak.
“I’m sorry,” Wraith said. “I just—” She swallowed and rubbed her eyes. “I’m very confused and, well—do you know how I got here?”
“We was hoping you’d illuminate us on that matter,” Con said.
Wraith waited for him to expound, but he didn’t. “Well, like I said, I can’t. I don’t know. Can you at least tell me where am I?”
Con puffed out his chest. “Why don’t you let me ask the bleeding questions?”
“Oh, okay. That’s fair.” Wraith nodded.
A long moment of silence passed. Con’s brow furrowed and he fretted his lower lip, but he didn’t say anything.
“I’m called Sprout,” the little girl finally said.
“Oi!” Con protested.
“He’s called Confillagation,” Sprout said.
The boy sighed. “Bloody hell, it’s Conflagration. Is that so difficult to remember?”
“We just call him Con.” Sprout gave him a sidelong glance and whispered, “He’s British,” as if that explained everything.
Con opened his mouth to say something, but just shook his head instead.
“What’s your name?” Sprout asked.
“Wraith.” She glanced at the four bedrooms.
“Nice to meet you,” Sprout said. “We live here. The others, Geek and Ovation, are out getting money and food. Con
was supposed to watch me, and you, and if you woke up, he was supposed to find out how you got past our—”
“Oi! You going to tell her the color knickers I’m wearing as well, then?”
Sprout looked at him, confused. “White with little yellow duckies, but why would she care? Is it supposed to be a secret?”
Wraith stifled chuckle.
Con rubbed his temples and muttered.
Sprout turned back to Wraith. “How did you get here?”
“I—” Wraith paused. Pieces of memory drifted in her mind but were utterly incoherent. “I don’t know. How long have I been here?”
Con opened his mouth, but Sprout beat him to it. “We found you three days ago, just lying there. We woke up, and there you were.”
Wraith noticed the section of the floor she’d been lying on was covered in thick, soft grass. She squatted down and saw that it had actually grown out of the concrete.
“The floor is really hard and cold,” Sprout said.
“Thank you.”
“Brilliant,” Con said. “Since I’m no longer needed, I’ll just have meself a sit-down. Give us a shout when you’re done, yeah?” Con fell into a chair, crossed his arms, and tried to look like he wasn’t staring at Wraith.
Wraith eyed him back and couldn’t shake the feeling she’d met him somewhere before. It was just beyond her fingertips.
“That’s why they call me Sprout.” The girl smiled. “I make things grow.”
“Reckon she put that together,” Con said. “I imagine she noticed the correlation.”
Wraith stared harder at Con. She knew his eyes from somewhere. “Are we friends?”
“We can be!” Sprout said.
Con narrowed his eyes. “You saying you don’t know if you know us?”
“No. I don’t know. I’m sorry, this is all very strange.”
Con leaned back in the chair. “Just for you. This kind of thing happens to us a couple times a week.”
Sprout turned to him. “No it doesn’t.”
Con ignored her. “What do you remember last?”
Wraith opened her mouth but before the words got out, she forgot them.
The Forgotten Page 6
