Illicit

by Cathy Clamp

  That made no sense to Rachel. “Wouldn’t alphas be easier to heal? They already have magic. That should make it easier.”

  The laugh that came out of the woman threw citrus scents into the icy wind. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you, but no. Alphas know they can heal, so they keep fighting until they’re nearly dead. Omegas know they can’t heal for crap, so they’re smart enough to stop before the wounds become life-threatening.” She laughed again. “As for Larissa attacking you, just screech at her. It’ll be a short fight. It’ll drop her like a rock.”

  Oh. That actually hadn’t occurred to her.

  Dani raised a finger. “If you can’t kick butt, what were you doing to Dalvin?”

  Amber patted her left ear with her palm again, blinking her eyes repeatedly. Wow, her screech must really pack a punch. She needed to learn more about it. The wind blew the scent of lemon shampoo and cat musk Rachel’s way. “Getting his attention. He doesn’t listen well.”

  No joke. “Pfft. He never has listened well. Bet his mother wished she could have held him like that when he was screwing up.”

  The bobcat shifter laughed. “Where do you think I learned it? I’ve known Robert and Maggie Adway for years. ‘Go stand in the corner’ had a whole different meaning in their house.”

  Rachel blinked and her jaw fell open. “Whoa, whoa. Do you mean to tell me that Dalvin comes from a line of shifters? Uh-uh!”

  Amber looked at her quizzically, like she didn’t understand why Rachel was confused. “Of course. Robert Adway was a Wolven agent for decades, the bureau chief for the Midwest.”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Rachel shook her head. “No way. You must be talking about someone different. Robert Adway worked in advertising. He came home every night. People say Wolven agents are often gone for weeks on end, but he never was.”

  With a little smirk on her face, Amber said, “Except for his regular Wednesday night poker games and his golfing weekends and the semiannual executive conferences he went to in New York or Chicago…”

  “You’re not shitting me, are you?” Rachel said, as her view of the world tilted and rearranged itself. “He was really with Wolven?”

  “Absolutely,” Amber replied. “The whole family is alphic. You’d probably never even notice them out hunting. They had enough magic to look like any other owl. Nobody notices owls at night, even in the city. Where there are trees and mice, there are owls. In fact, most Sazi owls live in cities. They can pass for human completely unnoticed.”

  “So Dalvin was a shifter when I knew him as a kid?” How could she not have noticed? Shouldn’t she have spotted some sign?

  “Nope. He was still absolutely human. All of the Adway kids were a decade ago. Robert and Maggie were absolutely terrified during the snake attack, thinking that their kids couldn’t defend themselves.” Amber shrugged.

  “Being human actually saved them, since the snakes were only taking out Sazi. Robert wasn’t as lucky. He got cured. He’s full human now, which is why he’s retired. But Maggie is still okay and all the kids eventually turned. Dalvin didn’t shift the first time until he was a senior in high school, so you were a shifter before he was.”

  Wow. She’d had no idea. None. Now it made sense why Margaret Adway was always watching, always vigilant. “So she really could turn her head all the way around! I always swore Dalvin’s mom was like the girl in The Exorcist. Nobody could ever sneak up on her. But everyone told me I was crazy.”

  Dani nodded. “Hiding in plain sight. Just like my folks when we lived back in New York. They hunted in Central Park when I was little. I don’t really remember it, but Grandma always told me that New York City mice were the plumpest in the world.”

  “So I could really … go home.”

  Amber sighed, and the smell of her sorrow covered Rachel’s scent of shock, surprise, and hope. “Maybe. You’re not alphic and you can’t control your change. The Council would never allow you to be unsupervised. No, your instincts were right to begin with. We put you here for a reason. Someone will always have to help you during the moon. Your family can’t.”

  Crap. Right back where she started. “So, back to plan one. Spokane.”

  A scent full of regret filled the air. “Actually, I’m sort of surprised the Williamses were letting you go even that far. I don’t know that Danielle here is alpha enough to turn you.” She looked at Dani. “Can you? Like, right now? I need to see you do it before I can recommend that Rachel go with you.”

  Dani’s mouth opened and shut. “Um, I mean I—”

  Holy God! Rachel stared at her friend, her sister, like she’d grown a second head. “You can’t? What were we going to do on the moon, Dani? We talked about this!”

  Suddenly uncomfortable, Dani hedged. “Well … on the moon, you’re going to turn anyway. I can help you finish the change. I’ve done that before, like that Saturday after graduation.”

  Rachel remembered that night well. It had been horrible! They’d snuck out of town a day before the moon. She hadn’t felt like she needed to change until they were miles away, in the middle of nowhere. She’d changed in bits and pieces. Her legs first, then one arm became a wing, then a beak appeared on her human face. The pain had been nearly unbearable.

  “Jesus. Don’t you remember that night? I had a beak and one wing for like twenty minutes!”

  Now Dani had tears in her eyes and couldn’t look at her. “Rach, I’m sorry. I wasn’t even thinking about that when we talked about Spokane. God, we couldn’t do that on campus.”

  Rachel slumped down until she was sitting on her butt in the dirt. It was over. She felt like she wanted to throw up. As much as she hated the mayor, he had shifted her effortlessly. No pain and fully formed. What was she going to do now? “I’m trapped. I can never leave here.”

  “That’s not necessarily true,” Amber said, squatting beside her and putting a hand on her shoulder. “If you really want to go, we can find somewhere to take you. The Kragans can easily change you while you’re here, and there are other parliaments in other cities where you might be able to go to school. It could take awhile to find the right one, but I can start the wheels in motion once the peace process is over.”

  So, maybe not trapped forever. Rachel tried to take heart from that, even though it would mean going someplace where she didn’t know anyone. “Yes, please. I can’t take this place anymore. There are too many bad memories here.”

  Amber stood and offered her a hand up. “We can sort this out after the competition. Let’s just get through the next couple of days.” Rising to her feet, Rachel stared into the healer’s face, looking for any hint of deception. Amber noticed and let her. “I promise … and I don’t break my word.”

  “And I’m a witness,” Dani said. She touched Rachel’s shoulder, her scent full of sorrow and self-loathing. “I’m so sorry, Rachel. I guess I didn’t really think things through. But I promise you that whatever place they find for you, I’ll come along. We’ll just be roomies in a different city. Okay?”

  That made her smile. She knew Dani’s oversight hadn’t been intentional—and it was a lot better to find out now than a week from now, when she might accidentally change in full view of a bunch of humans. That could be dangerous. Fatal. Plus, if Dani came with her, she’d still have personal backup. “Deal.”

  Amber looked at her watch. “Shit. I’m late. I’ve got to escort the Petrovics over.” She turned and trotted away.

  Watching her go, Rachel realized that the sun was right in her eyes, about to drop behind the mountain. “Oh, man! We need to get dressed.”

  “What about the computer?” Dani asked.

  Damn. That’s right. “Okay, but we only have a few minutes.”

  The computer in the town hall was still on, and after hooking through the insanely slow dial-up, Rachel opened the browser. “Check the history,” Dani urged, pushing at her mouse hand.

  “No, let’s get the music download started first so we can pop back to it if someone comes
in.”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah. Good plan.” Dani pulled over a second chair and sat down.

  Fortunately, the songs they were going to use were so popular that finding instrumental versions was fairly simple. Once she had the phone synced, the files selected, and the download begun, Rachel opened a second tab. She clicked to open the browser history. The first URL was to an article on her hometown newspaper’s Web site. She hesitated. Did she really want to know?

  “C’mon, open it.” Dani must have noticed her nervousness, because she softened her tone and added, “You need to know. Whether or not you ever go home, you need to know why.”

  Dani was right, Rachel thought. Closing her eyes, she clicked the link. The headline came first, “A Decade Later.” An image began to load, slowly, so she scrolled down and started to read. Beside her, Dani read out loud.

  “‘For families all over Detroit, this summer has special significance. It was ten years ago that their children disappeared. Florence Washington remembers the day clearly. “Rachel was supposed to be home by dark. Everyone in the park said she left right on time. But she never arrived.”’”

  Rachel said, “The snakes grabbed me just a few blocks from my house. It happened so fast, but I remember it so clearly. There was a florist van, with a big bouquet of flowers on the side. It whipped around a corner and squealed to a stop right next to me. A man jumped out and grabbed me.”

  Dani touched her on the shoulder, and she flinched. “Rachel, I’m so sorry.” Dani’s apology was for now and for then, Rachel knew. Her foster sister kept reading aloud, which was a good thing, because Rachel’s eyes had filled with tears.

  “‘In neighborhoods all over Detroit, the stories are remarkably similar. On September seventeenth, ten years ago, a dozen children went missing. No trace has ever been found of any of them. No motive has been uncovered, no suspects have been brought in for questioning. And the families still ask why. Police officials claim there were no witnesses, no clues, no evidence.

  “‘A police spokesman said, “We found no connection among the victims. They were between the ages of seven and twelve. Some were Caucasian, others Latino, Black, or Asian. They did not share a religious faith, didn’t go to the same school, after-school program, or playgrounds. We had nothing to go on.”

  “‘No bodies have ever been discovered and the pattern has never repeated.’”

  “Bullshit!” Rachel shouted, not even trying to lower her voice. “There were a dozen people on the street when it happened. Nobody came forward? Nobody?!”

  Dani’s voice was soft. “A dozen humans, Rachel. If there was a powerful alpha in the van, nobody would remember even seeing the van.”

  That had never occurred to her before, even though she knew what Sazi magic could do.

  “Yeah. And they could have put up an aversion spell too.” She shook her head. “The people in my neighborhood probably never even knew what hit them.”

  She’d lost interest in the rest of the story. Out of habit, she scrolled back to the top of the page, then stopped. The picture had finally loaded. It transfixed her.

  In the center of the image stood her mother, one hand holding a candle, the other raised to heaven, crying. There were lines in her face Rachel didn’t remember, and a lot more gray hairs. She looked tired, weary. Standing right next to her, with an arm around her in support, was Dalvin, his expression both heartbroken and furious. There were a dozen other people in the photo, people she didn’t recognize, some holding candles and others putting flowers on the street corner. Her street corner.

  The caption wasn’t sufficient to convey the tragedy in those faces. “The families of the victims at a candlelight vigil, still searching for answers and pushing police to reopen these decade-old cold cases.”

  “That’s Dalvin,” Dani said.

  “And that’s my mom,” Rachel said, pointing. “No wonder he was so angry. To him, I’m scum.”

  Dani reached past her to close the Web page. “You’re not scum, Rachel. You couldn’t possibly have known this was happening.”

  Rachel shook her head, grimacing. “In my heart, I’d hoped they were still looking. But I was so focused on just about surviving day to day here … Now that I’ve seen this, I can’t unsee it, Dani. Now I know that every day that I was growing up in Luna Lake—playing hopscotch or tag or getting dressed up for a dance, or just laughing—my mom was doing that.

  “Dalvin’s right. I am scum.”

  The burning metal of determination and the pepper of anger, along with Dani’s cold tone of voice, made Rachel look at her friend. “While that was happening there, here you were being beaten and humiliated and worked to death. You haven’t been living a charmed life, girl. Nobody would envy what you’ve been through here, and nobody better dare fault you for not making it back home yet.

  “If your mama was mourning, it’s because you were living through the pain she feared you were. That’s not your fault. You’re just as much a victim now as you were when it happened. Think on that.”

  The iPhone on the desk let out a chirp to let them know that their music had finished downloading. Dani disconnected her phone from the computer, and the women sat in silence for a long moment.

  “What are you going to do next?” Dani asked.

  Rachel shrugged. Part of her wanted to cry, and part of her agreed with Dani. She couldn’t have changed anything.

  “I don’t know what to do. While I was in the snake caves, I was locked up in a cage, chained right to the rock. Then I was brought here and was mind-controlled, like the rest of the town. Now I can finally think for myself but can’t move away without permission. I don’t consider myself a victim, though. Just a survivor.”

  That got a sad laugh out of her friend. “That’s something, I guess. Take it and run with it.” Dani paused. “You want to beg off from singing tonight?”

  “No. I’m pretty confident I can belt out some really good blues right now. Blues are all about being pushed around by circumstance and living through it anyway.” Taking a deep breath and letting it out slow, Rachel pasted on a fake smile. “Let’s go get dressed and we’ll give them a show to remember.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Dalvin stood in the kitchen of the school, watching the cooks frantically put finishing touches on plates. He could tell which were the chefs and which were just home cooks. He was surprisingly impressed by Bojan Petrovic’s skills. He was as good as any chef Dalvin had seen on TV cooking shows. Bojan couldn’t be more than twenty, yet he wielded a knife the size of a small machete as if it were a surgeon’s scalpel, slicing and dicing vegetables. The care he took to run a clean cloth around the outside of every plate was impressive.

  Every plate held exactly the same-size portion, identical garnish and decoration. Dalvin couldn’t see a single moment when any sort of poison or foreign substance could be added, so he’d just let people do their thing. Bojan had pronounced the Latin dishes Claire had made ahead of time to be excellent, and Dalvin, who had tasted the chili she had made that day, agreed.

  The only difficulty had been when Bojan said that an appetizer, main course, and dessert wouldn’t be enough. Everyone had been perplexed. But when the young man explained that fall was when bears gorged, anticipating hibernation, there was a mad scramble to create several more courses.

  Two crazy old local owls took a couple of sticks of dynamite out to the lake and came back with a whole bushel basket full of fish, chortling the whole time, near as Dalvin could tell. They were the same birds he’d seen sitting next to Rachel at the town meeting, so he presumed they were part of her parliament.

  Suljo, who was wearing a custom chef jacket, had quickly fried up the fish as a second appetizer. Claire and Alek made a big stack of tamales and what looked like a cauldron full of chile relleno as an additional entree. Like Bojan, Suljo knew his way around a knife. Despite their official enmity, the two bears worked seamlessly to create a weird middle course out of the cornbread that Claire had made to go with the
chiles, using fresh raspberries and a puree made from cooked carrots. Dalvin had tasted it and thought it was surprisingly good.

  He hoped that having a member of each family working in the kitchen would ensure that both sloths would eat.

  Since the last negotiator had been drugged, Tamir and Alek would be the only servers. That way, they could be sure no food was touched by anyone else before it reached the diners. None of the chefs knew who would be given which plate, so it would be hard for them to single out someone to poison.

  “And that is the end, people! Excellent service,” Bojan said as the last of the desserts left the kitchen. He held out both arms and smiled. “My thanks to Suljo and all of you for your help.” Boy, if these two ran their sloths, there would probably never have been a land dispute in the first place.

  Claire sat down and slugged half a bottle of water before huffing out a breath that blew her sweaty bangs into the air. It was boiling hot in the school kitchen. “That was more work than I expected.”

  Bojan smiled at her. “You would make an excellent sous chef, Claire, and your crème caramel was flawless.”

  “We call it flan in Texas, but thank you. My alpha would be pleased I’ve learned well.”

  Tamir and Alek brought stacks of empty plates around the barrier that had been hastily erected, using rolling dividers from elsewhere in the school, to shield the diners from sight of the frenzied preparations. “Nearly licked clean. Good job, guys. Is there any left for us?”

  Suljo nodded. “They will not be as pretty as the guest plates, but there is plenty left.” He began to make up servings for the chefs and the kitchen help.

  They could hear rustling out in the main room, then Amber’s voice came over the PA, echoing off the ceiling.

  “First, let me express our thanks to the residents of Luna Lake for their hospitality in hosting us and making this fabulous meal. Sharing a meal is one of the first avenues of peace, and we think you’ll agree the food was excellent.”