by Kelly Meding
"I can be there in half that."
"Terrific. I'll see you in an hour."
I handed the phone back to Astrid, then held up a hand before Wyatt could say anything. "You're not coming with me."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Why not?"
"Because you scare the hell out of him, and I really like him on my side."
"You're not going alone."
"I'll take Milo." No one objected. "Excellent. Let's go."
#
Fifteen minutes later, Milo eased our borrowed car out of the parking area and through the mall corridor that led outside. He'd beaten me to the car, so I didn't much care that he wanted to drive. It was more important that I take a few minutes to change into fresh clothes, twist my hair up, and hide it under a light blue bandana. It wasn't much of a disguise, but it was something. He'd likewise traded his sweat-shorts for a pair of jeans and looked less like he'd just rolled out of bed.
The usual meeting place was Sally's Coffee Shop. It was open twenty-four hours, was in the middle of Mercy's Lot, and Milo, Tybalt, and Felix had frequented it back during their Triad days. Reilly had an unhealthy obsession with the pancakes there—he was eating them every time I met him. But the coffee was good, and it was a difficult location to ambush.
It would take about fifteen minutes to get there, give or take traffic congestion, and I spent half the time silently staring at Milo from the corner of my eye. He looked pissed, wearing that same cloud of anger that had followed him around for a good month or so after Felix's infection. I hadn't requested his company so I could pick his brain, but the opportunity was just too good.
"Do me a favor today?" I said.
"What?"
"Whatever you're mad at Marcus about? Don't take it out on Reilly."
He glanced over at me, eyebrows furrowed and lips pressed tight, then back to the road. His hands tightened around the wheel. "I won't."
The fact that he hadn't denied he was pissed at Marcus startled me into a momentary silence. I'd never seen the pair not getting along, even from the first day they met on the Boot Camp battlefield. "Milo, you know I'm going to ask."
"I don't want to talk about it."
"If it's affecting quad dynamics, we need to talk about it. The four of us have to be able to work together."
"We can work together."
"Uh huh."
"Can you leave it alone for now?"
I stared out the window and left it alone for the time it took him to park two blocks down from Sally's in the first open space he could find. One he turned off the engine and palmed the keys, I asked, "What did you do?"
He shifted around in his seat, eyes wide, caught somewhere between stunned and angry. "What did I do? What the hell makes you think it was something I did?"
"It was something you did or he did, so I had a fifty-fifty shot of being right. Am I wrong, then?"
"Yes."
Now I was really confused. For all of his growling and bluster and bulk, Marcus had a gentle soul. He loved his sister Astrid, and he was fiercely loyal to both his Pride and his friends at the Watchtower. He was the kind of guy I wanted on my side, so what could he have—fuck. "Did he give you shit about being gay?"
Milo's eyebrows rose into his hairline. "Hell no. He didn't give me shit."
"But he knows?"
"Of course he knows."
Okay, that wasn't it, and good thing or I'd have knocked Marcus on his furry ass. I didn't know much about Milo's pre-Triad years, but I'd seen the scars on his back—they were the kind of scars you got from repeated beatings. I had seen them on my old Triad partner Jesse, and he'd once drunkenly admitted they were gifted to him by his stepfather's leather belt. Milo's heart had been broken when Felix died, and I was protective as hell of the friendship Milo and I had built since then.
Even if it was a friendship built solely on the present, with little visitation of the past, or pondering of the future.
"So what's with the hostility before?" I asked. "You looked like you didn't want Marcus within twenty feet of you."
"It wasn't hostility, exactly.
"It looked hostile."
"It was frustration and confusion."
"About?"
Milo let out a long breath. "Marcus he kissed me."
Before I could even process that bomb, much less respond to it, Milo sprang from the car and slammed the door shut. He was halfway down the block before I caught up with him, and I still couldn't get control of my whirlwind thoughts. Thoughts that shifted from confusion (over Milo's frustration), to joy (over Milo finding someone who seemed interested in him, too), to concern (over all of Marcus's current troubles and the possible backlash over a human/Therian pairing during so much Pride upheaval).
It was too much to talk about on a public street, and Milo gave me a quelling glare when I fell into step next to him. We walked to Sally's in silence. I kept my gaze moving, wandering over the faces of strangers, feeling truly exposed for the first time since my resurrection. Any one of these people could have seen my face on the news. Hair covered up or not, I was still recognizable, and I didn't like it.
And even though this city was pretty big, with my luck I'd run right into Chalice Frost's parents and have no idea what to say to them.
Sally's was nearly full with the seven a.m. breakfast crowd. A harried waitress pointed us toward an empty booth near the back. We sat across from each other, mostly to mess with Reilly's head. I freaked him out a little because I'd been resurrected into a dead girl, and he'd only met Milo once before. The waitress swooped by to pour our coffee. Milo and I stared at each other from opposite sides of a grimy Formica table that had seen better days. He seemed to be daring me to bring up Marcus, but I had enough self-control and respect for Milo to not bring it up here.
Reilly's shadow fell across the table a few minutes later. In his mid-forties, with curly gray and brown hair, he looked more like an accountant than a former cop and current private investigator. He eyed his choices of seating, then gingerly slid into the booth next to me.
"Why do I feel like I just interrupted an argument?" he asked.
"You didn't," I replied. "Milo's always grumpy this time of morning."
Milo made a face at me, but said nothing. The waitress zipped by and poured more coffee. "The usual for you, hon?" she asked.
"Yes." Reilly glanced at us. "Anything for you two?"
I hadn't realized I was hungry until he asked. "Scrambled eggs and toast."
"Wheat or white?" the waitress said, committing it all to memory.
"White."
"Sausage or bacon?"
"Bacon."
"For you?" she said to Milo.
"Uh, the same."
She nodded, then walked off with her coffee pot.
"What is it with you and pancakes?" I asked Reilly.
"They're really good here," he replied. "And they remind me of happier times."
"Times when certain things were only characters in books?"
"Precisely." He measured out sugar and stirred it into his coffee.
"So are you going to make us wait for the food before you tell us why we're here?" Milo asked.
Reilly stared across the table, his sharp gaze cataloguing Milo in seconds. Something seemed to stop on the tip of his tongue, then he shook his head. "No, I won't make you wait." He pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket and handed it to me.
Alucard Communications & Development.
The logo was a simple circle around what looked like an old-fashioned pair of radio headphones. Of course, if I looked at it sideways, it could have been a smiley face with fangs. The address was south of Uptown, near the outskirts of the city. I'd never heard of it, and there was no other writing on the card except a telephone number.
"Okay," I said and slid the card over to Milo. "Am I supposed to know who these guys are?"
Reilly blew across the top of his steaming coffee. "Look harder."
Milo squinted at the text, then blinked h
ard. "Oh, I get it. Alucard. It's Dracula spelled backward."
"It is?" I plucked the card out of his fingers. Oh. It was. But what did that have to do with—shit. "You found the vampires."
"I did," Reilly said, then leaned against the booth with a self-satisfied smirk.
I had to admit (not out loud) that I was impressed. The vampire Families moved around the city like ghosts, appearing and disappearing with ease. Considering the artillery they were packing during the battle at Olsmill, they had money and access to some serious technology, but no one knew exactly where they came from or where they lived.
There were five ruling Families, each governed by a Father. It was the Fathers who'd joined forces with the Watchtower, then pulled their people out last month after the infection. While the occasional Blood was spotted around the city now and again, the vast majority had disappeared from the streets. And we may have just found their hiding place.
"It's a very clever front," Reilly said. "The company does actual communication consulting work, as well as running half a dozen call centers through its switchboard. From what I can tell, the company is located on three of the building's ten floors. The other seven, plus a few basement levels, house the rest of the vampires."
"How do you know all this?" Milo asked.
"Ah, but a magician never reveals his secrets, nor a PI his sources."
"And you're sure it's legit? You aren't being fed information that'll lead us into a trap?"
Reilly's jaw twitched; he actually looked annoyed. "I'd never pass along information that I suspected to be wrong. And what you choose to do with that card is, of course, your own business."
"Thank you," I said. "I'll make sure Astrid processes your claim." Code talk for she'd make sure he was paid.
"Much appreciated, Ms. Stone. Can I be of service in any other way?"
I fiddled with a creamer cup. "Personal favor?"
"Perhaps."
"If anyone comes to you asking about Chalice Frost, your personal investigation ended with the apartment in Parkside East. We've never had any of these conversations."
He shifted in the booth. "Well, technically I've never met Chalice Frost, have I?"
"No, you haven't." Something felt off all of the sudden, and I couldn't figure out why. He was being too careful with his words, and that made me nervous. "But you have met someone who looks a hell of a lot like her."
Milo stiffened. "Mentioned that fact to anyone lately?"
Reilly didn't reply, and a cold wash of dread raised goose bumps on my arms and shoulders. He didn't look guilty, exactly, just way too serious. And he hadn't denied Milo's question.
"When I was sixteen, my older sister Linda disappeared," Reilly finally said, about two seconds before I was apt to hit him. "She was a sophomore in college, smart and popular, but also prone to depression. There was no sign of a struggle, no suicide note, she simply left her dorm one night and was never seen again. Our parents went crazy with grief."
I gripped the edge of the table, afraid I'd lash out physically at him as my sense of dread and anger grew. I saw the ending to this story coming, but could do nothing to change it. The activity of the diner dimmed into the background as his words became my whole world.
"We never knew what happened to her," he continued. "To this day. Our parents died not knowing. Linda's the reason I became a cop, and she's the reason I find the answers other people can't."
Mouth dry, I swallowed hard before my tongue worked. "You sympathize with the Frosts," I said.
"Very much."
"Have you spoken to them in the last twenty-four hours?"
"I have."
I shoved the business card into my pocket. "Move. Milo and I are leaving."
"Ms. Stone—"
"Now."
"Evy," Milo said. He was looking over his shoulder, toward the front door of the diner.
My mouth fell open. A few steps inside the door, Stephen and Lori Frost were clutching each other and glancing around with eager expressions.
Chapter Five
7:15 am
I sank down in the booth until the Frosts were out of my view, hopefully putting me out of theirs, and I resisted the urge to punch Reilly in the face for this little ambush. "Son of a bitch," I whispered. All the trust we'd been building between us these last few weeks crumbled.
"I didn't tell them about you," Reilly said, lips barely moving. "I asked them to meet me here."
I had to get out of there, but Reilly was in my way and slithering under the table like a child wasn't in my repertoire of tricks. I could use my Gift and teleport, but there was nowhere to go. No hiding places inside the coffee shop itself, and teleporting into the street was too dangerous. I could end up half inside someone's car. And Reilly didn't seem keen on providing a useful distraction.
Shit!
"What do you want to do?" Milo asked.
"Chalice!"
My stomach flopped to the floor. I remained hunched in the booth, at a complete loss as to what to say to the distraught parents bearing down on our table. In person, Lori Frost was an older, lighter-haired copy of her daughter, right down to a dark smattering of freckles on her nose and cheekbones. Next to her, Stephen was a thundercloud of anger and disbelief, and I had the oddest little-girl urge to hide under the table from his temper.
Some small parts of Chalice had remained behind when I took full possession of her body—images and physical memories of her life. Most of it had faded in the last few months until only vague traces surfaced in my dreams. But looking at them here, standing front of me, I felt a strange warmth in my chest. A tug that I didn't understand.
Lori hovered at the edge of the table like she was contemplating her ability to climb over Reilly and hug me, which made me extremely grateful to have Reilly as a buffer. She stared at me with leaking eyes, from my face down to—
I shoved my hands into my lap, heart thudding against my ribs, hoping she hadn't noticed the fact that my left hand was missing its pinkie finger. I so did not need her flipping out over nine digits when she had plenty of other things to freak out about. Words were burbling up in Lori's throat, but nothing came out that made sense.
"Where the hell have you been?" Stephen asked.
His tone tweaked my temper, and I sat up straighter in the booth. Grief and fear were hiding behind his anger, that much was obvious, but I didn't do well with people who bullied when they were afraid. "Here," I said. "Where have you been?"
He reeled. Okay, so maybe Chalice wasn't so lippy. "We've been trying to find you for months, Chal. You haven't called, you moved out of your apartment. You didn't even tell us Alex died."
My heart hurt a little at that one. In the first few days of my resurrection, Alex had been a good friend. He'd died trying to help me. I'd been able to give Alex's father some closure on his son's death, but I didn't know how to do that for these people. The obvious and true excuse of "I've been busy" seemed lame. Very rarely in my life had I been rendered completely speechless, but this was one of those moments.
"Stephen, please," Lori said. The words were choked with tears, and the noise was attracting attention from other diners. "You promised."
Milo slid out of the booth and stood up, facing Stephen, who he actually had an inch or two on, even though Stephen was far bulkier. "Is there something I can help you folks with?" he asked in a voice older than his age, and with far less patience than usual.
Stephen gave him a hard look. "You can allow us to speak with our daughter, is what you can do."
"Can I?" Milo folded his arms over his chest. "Don't you think the fact that she hasn't contacted either of you in six months speaks for itself?"
Lori gaped at Milo like he'd just slapped her, and I kind of felt sorry for her.
"What about school?" Stephen asked. "The apartment? Her job? How does a person just disappear off the grid like that?" He stopped glaring at Milo to look at me. "Are you in some kind of trouble, Chal?"
It was all I could do to n
ot laugh. These days I was always in some kind of trouble, but it wasn't the kind he'd believe without a lot of therapy. And for fuck's sake, why couldn't I defend myself to these people? Had Chalice always felt so defenseless around them? So much like a child that all she could do was hang her head and nod along with whatever her father said?
"I'm beginning to see that this was a mistake," Reilly said.
"Of course it wasn't," Lori said. "She's our child. We've been worried sick."
"I didn't mean to worry you," I said, pulling the words out of nowhere. "But I've had a lot going on, and I just couldn't call."
"Oh, baby." Lori reached out a hand, but was too far away to touch me. "You always used to say you felt invisible to the world, and I'm so sorry I didn't see you better. Please don't push us away again. We love you so much."
My eyes burned. I wanted to say it back, to give them that much. A little sliver of the daughter they'd lost. I simply couldn't get the words out of my throat. It was a lie, and I didn't want to lie to them.
Milo's cell rang. He yanked it out of his pocket. "Yeah?" Listened a few seconds while the rest of us exchanged serious stares. "We're on our way." He hung up and turned to me. "We have to go."
He didn't look surprised or upset—only determined to get us both out of there, and I sent him a mental "thank you" for it. Reilly slid out of the booth without prompting, and I followed him out, careful to shield my left hand from the eyes of not-my-parents.
"Where are you going?" Stephen asked.
"Work," I replied. "I'm sorry, but I can't do this right now."
"Chalice—"
"I'm alive. I'm doing okay. A lot better, in fact, than the last time we talked. Please trust me about this."
"Have dinner with us tonight." It wasn't a question so much as a command.
"I can't."
"We're not leaving town until you sit down and talk to us."
"In that case, find a comfy hotel."
Lori's face scrunched up like she was about to burst into hysterical sobs. I angled around her and past her husband, and Milo came up behind me. We walked to the door like that, him a physical barrier between me and the Frosts. Reilly stayed quiet and stayed behind—good thing, too. I was angry enough at him to break his nose and not think twice.
