by Julie Kenner
Zoë blinked back tears. Hopping Hera. Why did she have to be such a klutz? All she’d had to do was levitate Joey—just for a second—and she couldn’t even manage to stand on her own two feet long enough to do that.
And now she was sprawled out on the cafeteria floor, bits of lunch stuck to her, while all the other teachers stared at her as if she were a loon.
It was absurd to think the council would want her. Even if she did work up the courage to tell Tessa, she wasn’t exactly a prime candidate. For one thing, she was an incompetent klutz. Hadn’t her little stunt just now proved that? Her senses were wacky, her aim was sporadic, and she couldn’t levitate worth a darn.
Besides, as a halfling, she already had one huge black mark against her. And considering the 487-page application, it was pretty clear the council wasn’t into affirmative halfling action. They’d never approve her membership, not in a million years.
She sat up and hugged her knees to her chest, letting her gaze drift over the other teachers, who very pointedly had not rushed to help her. She might as well face the truth: her dream of joining the council—of belonging—was just that, a dream.
If she knew what was good for her, she’d forget all about it. She’d rush home, rip the affidavit to shreds, formally withdraw her application, and put herself up for mortalization.
That was what she should do. Tessa would never be the wiser and, considering they’d erase her memory, neither would Zoë.
Sighing, she stood up. In front of her, teachers rushed to clean up Joey and Kyle and calm the other students. Zoë just stood stock-still, watching the hullabaloo.
Darn it, she wanted to belong. Wanted to be part of the council. Wanted to be like her dad and Hale.
And she certainly didn’t want to forget her family—divided and offbeat though it was.
No, the affidavit wasn’t going anywhere. Not without her signature, and certainly not in pieces.
Four
South Hollywood Elementary was actually in the heart of Hollywood, right between a bail bondsman and the new Tripoli Tower. The folks who lived nearby had raised havoc when developers had proposed the tower—apparently looming buildings ruined the neighborhood’s atmosphere more than did loitering criminals—but Zoë loved it. She’d fallen into the habit of hanging out on the roof after school, enjoying the afternoon and listening to the buzz of conversation thirty stories below. . . . Not eavesdropping exactly, just letting the flow of words swim around in her head.
That was how she’d met first met Deena. She’d been eating Oreos—the insides, anyway—when the volunteer art teacher suddenly appeared, a devious grin matching her out-of-control mass of blonde curls.
“I’m Deena,” she’d said, stripping off her shirt to reveal a bikini top. “I’ve seen you around.”
And then she’d plunked herself down next to Zoë, hiked her gauzy skirt up so her legs would get some sun, and grabbed a handful of cookies. “That bat who teaches gym said you were an odd bird, so I figured we’d hit it off,” she added, then shoved an entire Oreo into her mouth.
For about two seconds, Zoë had considered leaving and finding a new tall building. But she’d always wanted a friend—a real one—and this Deena person seemed pretty open-minded.
So she had taken a risk; she’d stayed, and they’d fallen into a pattern. Zoë brought the cookies, Deena brought the beer, and every Friday they’d meet on the roof of the Tripoli Tower to compare their weeks. By the end of a year, two things had happened: Zoë finally had her first close friend, albeit one who didn’t know all her secrets. And—despite liberal application of superstrong sunblock—she’d developed her very first sunburn. All of which made her feel that much closer to normal.
On this Friday before spring break, Zoë was already camped out on one of the patio lounge chairs they’d stowed when Deena arrived, schlepping a cooler, a tote bag, and binoculars.
Binoculars? Zoë sat up, tilting her head until her sunglasses slid down her sweat-slicked nose. She shoved them back into place and peered at her friend. “What’s up with those?”
“My new project,” Deena said, tossing Zoë a light beer.
“Ah,” said Zoë, dread brewing somewhere near her stomach.
Deena sat on the edge of the lounge chair, her back to Zoë, and began rummaging around in her bag.
“And exactly what is your new project?” Zoë asked Deena’s back.
“You, of course.”
Uh-oh. “Could you be a little more specific?”
“Sure,” Deena said, turning around to face her. “Zoë Smith—school librarian, recluse, probable virgin, and perpetual single gal—is my new project.”
Zoë rolled her eyes. “Thanks so much for clearing that up. But I’m still a teensy bit fuzzy on the ‘project’ part.”
“Oh, that,” said Deena, making a great show of sliding a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses onto her face. “It involves a guy.”
Major uh-oh. “Look, Deen, I like being alone.”
Deena crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you actually telling me that you never fantasize about meeting Mr. Right?”
Zoë swallowed, remembering some particularly vivid fantasies about one very fantasizable man. “Fantasy and reality aren’t the same thing. I’m happy being single.”
“You just think you are because you haven’t met the right guy.” She brushed a loose curl off her forehead. “And you never will if you don’t get out there and circulate.”
“No, really. I don’t want to do the dating thing.” The response was not exactly true. Lately, she’d begun thinking that dating would be great. So would sex, for that matter in theory. But in reality, they would be very, very, very bad things. The whole concept of making love was rather terrifying. Instinctively, Zoë crossed her legs, wondering just how wild the wild thing would be for someone with her particular traits.
Besides, even if she could get a handle on her senses, dating a mortal was out of the question. She needed to keep reminding herself of that. In addition to the supersense thing—and on top of the whole “I’m not like other girls” speech—there was still her little problem with Hale.
Throughout her high school and college years, whenever a mortal boy had so much as looked at her, Hale had made it absolutely clear that he intended to make sure she kept her virtue intact. It was bad enough for a mortal girl to have a big brother playing watchdog. Zoë had to put up with a huge brother who—when he threatened to pound a boy into a pile of mush—could really follow through. And the fact that he could turn invisible at will put a whole different spin on having someone looking over her shoulder.
Which was why it was just as well she hadn’t found Buster Taylor, despite having spent two full nights looking for him on the Internet.
“Trust me, Zo.” A bright smile flashed across Deena’s face as her eyes widened. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. A really cute guy subleased some office space from Hoop a few months back. Maybe I could set you up with him. He used to be a cop,” she added mischievously. “He’s sweet in a ‘me Tarzan, you Jane’ sort of way.”
Zoë had no idea what Deena was talking about, and her confusion must have shown, because Deena went on.
“I’ve met him once. I was painting Hoop’s office—to surprise him, you know?—and this new guy wouldn’t even let me move a file cabinet. Had to drop everything he was doing to come help me.” She grinned. “Guess chivalry isn’t dead, huh?”
“I’m not going out with your boyfriend’s friends.” She aimed a stern look at Deena. “It’s just not happening.”
Deena shrugged. “Have it your way.” She held up the binoculars. “We’ll just have to find some fresh fish.”
“No, no, no.” Zoë shook her head, trying to emphasize the point. “I don’t want to date fish. I don’t want to date men. I’m perfectly happy.”
Deena shot her a “yeah, right” look. “You spend your days cavorting with kids. You need some adult interaction.”
Zoë gestured between the two of
them. “We’re interacting.”
“Stimulating conversation.”
“We’re conversing.”
“Sex.”
Oh. Well. She couldn’t really argue with that. “I’m really not ready for a commitment right now. I have a lot of issues.” There. That was a highly plausible, millennium-gal kind of thing to say.
“Issues? You’re about the least issuey person I know.”
Zoë grimaced, mentally awarding herself a Best Actress Oscar.
“You sound like an eighties self-help book. And who’s talking commitment, anyway? You just need to get out there. I mean, look at you. Except for your really stinky taste in clothes and that braid you wear, you’re like some Greek goddess. If you’d just get out once in a while, you’d probably have your own fan club.”
“What’s wrong with my clothes?” Zoë asked, purposefully ignoring the Greek goddess comment.
Deena raked her eyes over Zoë, scoping her out from the top of her discount-store jumper all the way down to her formerly white Keds. “Boring. And shapeless. You’ve got no sex appeal going at all.”
“I’m a librarian in an elementary school. I don’t think a red Lycra tube dress is appropriate.”
“I’m not suggesting a tube dress,” Deena said, although the glint in her eye suggested otherwise. “And you’re changing the subject. We’re trying to figure out how to get you a guy.”
“No, we’re not. We’re talking about—”
“What?”
Zoë threw up her hands. “I have no idea.” That was the trouble with Deena. She set Zoë reeling even more than did jalapeño peppers.
“Well, there you go.” With a little nod, Deena opened the binoculars case. She pulled out the glasses, went to the ledge at the side of the building, and focused on the street below.
Zoë tried to ignore her, but failed miserably. “What are you doing?”
“Scoping out potential men.”
Hopping Hades. Zoë rolled her eyes skyward and thought of Oreos. She needed Oreo insides, and she needed them now. Comfort food. The itty-bitty flecks of cookie that stuck to the creamy goodness were as close to chocolate as she could come and not get knocked completely off-kilter. And she really needed some comfort now.
Leaning her head back, she cracked open an Oreo and dragged her teeth across the filling, enjoying the way the sugar tickled her tongue like a million tiny feathers, and letting Deena’s comments—“Now there’s a guy worthy of you!” . . . “This one’s a loser.” . . . “Uh-oh, check out the biker dude!”—swirl around her.
Deena was just starting to rattle off the attributes of a denimclad cowboy—“Maybe he’s a Texas oil man.”—when Zoë heard the scream. Loud, high-pitched, and utterly desperate, it accosted Zoë’s eardrums, rattled around in her head, and set her muscles twitching.
She bounded to her feet, dashed to the edge of the roof, then looked over. Focusing her superkeen eyesight, she saw, deep in the shadows on the far end of the side street, a grimy man with a beard and a jagged scar on his cheek. He gripped a woman around the waist and was tearing her purse from her shoulder. He shifted his victim, and Zoë caught a brief glimpse of vivid green eyes.
Mordichai? But that didn’t make any sense at all.
Sense or not, Mordi pressed the barrel of a gun against the woman’s throat with such force that Zoë could hear her sharp intake of breath.
Now or never.
Hurriedly she yanked her midnight blue training cloak out of her pack and swung it around her shoulders. She’d never once bested Mordichai—for that matter, she’d never once flown from more than six stories—but she could do this. She had to.
With a gulp, she slipped the fitted hood on, then did a nearly perfect swan dive into the mildly polluted Los Angeles air.
She was trying to steer the cloak when she saw the little boy. He’d run to escape and was now standing stock-still in the middle of the street. A Porsche veered sharply, horn blaring, barely missing the child, as Zoë tried to urge the cloak to move her faster.
“Well, there’s nobody interesting on the Boulevard,” she heard Deena say from somewhere above her. “I’m gonna scope out the side street.” A pause, then, “Oh, my God!” Zoë somehow knew the binoculars were now aimed right at her, and she wondered if she’d lost her best—and only—friend. No time to think about that right now, though. She had a little boy to save.
A muddled cacophony attacked her ears: the whoosh of air past her head, screams from below, the blare of a car horn, Deena’s feet pounding on the gravel, the slam of a door as Deena headed into the stairwell. She tried to focus, to sort it all out, and still to keep her goal in mind. On the street below, maybe-Mordi was pawing at the woman’s throat, and Zoë heard the snap of metal as the chain of the woman’s necklace broke.
The stoplight at the end of the street changed color, and a flood of cars started moving toward the child.
Approaching the ground, Zoë tried to remember the basics from Propulsion Cloak Training 101, but she must have over-compensated. Instead of gliding to a halt, she was now turning somersaults in the air.
Okay, everything is going to be fine. No need to panic. If she could just keep from tossing her Oreos, everything would be just dandy.
With supreme effort, she managed to slow herself and twist so she’d—hopefully—land on her feet. She aimed for somewhere between the kid and the oncoming traffic.
She missed her target, instead careening headfirst into maybe-Mordi’s gut, knocking the man down and freeing the child’s mother. His loot spilled onto the sidewalk, and he grappled for the money and jewelry as Zoë half flew, half ran for the kid. Still zooming, she scooped the shell-shocked boy up just as the car roared by, leaping backward with the kid squirming and squealing in her arms.
Not the most elegant rescue in the history of the world, but who cared? She’d done it! She’d set out to save the woman and her little boy, and she’d actually done it!
“Davy!” With a delighted cry, the woman held out her arms, tears streaming down her face.
Considering how many eyes were now watching her, Zoë wished she could come to a stop with even a smidgen of grace. Hardly. Instead her feet skimmed the ground, her legs frantically pumping to keep her upright and failing miserably. She and the child ended up in a heap right in front of the boy’s mother—just in time to see maybe-Mordi running off down the sidewalk with the woman’s purse tucked under his arm.
Oh, no, you don’t.
Zoë was on her feet in seconds, sprinting after him.
“My purse!” the woman yelled.
That, too. But mostly Zoë wanted some answers. Not only that, but if she was going to get in trouble with the council, she wasn’t about to go down alone.
“Mordichai!” she yelled, but he didn’t even slow down as he turned the corner into a dark alley. She sped up. He might be stronger, but his speed and agility always decreased when he shape-shifted. She could maybe just catch up with him—
She whipped around into the alley, then leaped, managing to grab the back of his jacket. The two of them went down in a heap. “Give me that!” she yelled, grabbing for the woman’s purse.
His smile was smug. “You can’t win, Zoë. You know you can’t.”
Zoë gasped, realizing that until that moment she’d been clinging to the possibility that this villain really wasn’t her cousin. “Why, Mordi? What are you doing?”
He leaped backward, taking her with him as he soared skyward. They spun—once, twice, three times—in midair before he landed in a perfect crouch.
Zoë landed with a thud on her rump.
She grimaced, wondering why the devil her powers had to come and go like people in Oz, when Mordi seemed to have completely reined his in. It really wasn’t fair.
“Times change, Zoë. Gotta go with the flow.”
He moved backward, and Zoë clambered to her feet, pacing him. “I don’t think I’m up for any change that means I have to dress like a bum and attack mortals
.”
Mordi shrugged. “To each his own.” He smiled and held up the woman’s purse. “I’ll just be running along.”
She leaped as he spun around, her hand managing to close on his. He looked at their clasped hands and a slow grin spread across his face. “Why, cousin, I didn’t know you cared.”
Beneath her fingers, his flesh warmed, growing hotter and hotter the longer she held on. Her own sense of touch kicked in—exaggerating the heat generated by his flesh—and too late Zoë remembered Mordi’s other special skill: pyrokinesis, the ability to conjure living flame.
The sickly sweet smell of seared flesh surrounded her as heat scored her palm, pain stabbing through her hand and up into her arm. She writhed in agony, fighting the pain and gagging against the smell, but not letting go. She had to hold on, had to keep him there. Had to find out what he was up to.
Red hot and throbbing, her hand blistered and charred from the heat of his skin, his touch so hot it was icy-cold. It was too much . . . too much, and she ripped her hand away as tears stung her eyes.
She stared, amazed, at her unmarred hand, and then remembered—Mordichai could summon both real and illusory fire. He was toying with her. Just as he always had when they were younger.
“You’ll never win, Zoë. I know it; you know it.” Mordi flipped her a little salute and took off running again.
“No!” Zoë cried, reaching once more for his clothes, bracing herself for the pain of the fire.
As she caught the hem of his jacket, he turned slightly. “It’s no use,” he said. “You know I’m stronger. I’ll alwa—”
His eyes went wide with surprise as his body shimmered, and suddenly Zoë’s hand was clutching the tail of a large sewer rat with Mordi’s vivid green eyes. The woman’s purse plopped onto the ground, and her wallet and necklace spilled onto the street.
Zoë snatched the Mordirat around its middle. “Annoying the way our powers fluctuate these days, isn’t it?” she said, unreasonably happy to discover she wasn’t the only one. “You may be stronger, but I’m bigger.”
