Strange and Unusual (Goth Drow Unleashed Book 1)

by Martha Carr

  “Probably magic,” Cheyenne muttered into her wine.

  “Really, though, you can’t blame me for not having picked up on that right away, can you?” Her mom tittered and shook her head. “Even after I found out what he was, it took me years to come to terms with the fact that magic is a real thing. Inaccessible to me, of course, but for you?”

  “Pretty hard to hide.”

  “Quite.” Tossing her head back, Bianca smoothed the hair away from her face and gazed at the sunset again. “I couldn’t deny what was right in front of me when you experienced your…what do they call it? Manifestation? Awakening?”

  Okay, now she lost me. Cheyenne stared at her mom, waiting for the woman to continue the rest of that thought.

  “Whatever they told me it was, you proved time and again you were different too.” A short, high-pitched laugh burst from Bianca’s mouth, then she raised her glass again and dipped her head. “I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when I was told in one visit magic exists, elves are running around D.C., and my daughter has the blood of one running through her veins.”

  The woman drained the rest of her glass, set it on the table, and reached for the decanter to pour another.

  Cheyenne waited as long as she could, hoping her mom would expand upon that last bit. But Bianca’s embittered smile didn’t fade, and she was too far gone in her hidden memories to notice her daughter staring at her.

  “Mom.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Who told you?”

  “A man who worked in HR.”

  “Was he from that prison? Chateau D’rahl?” Cheyenne let her mom refill her own glass of wine too, but she didn’t move to touch it.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You remember everything, Mom.”

  Bianca finished pouring, then set the decanter down and froze. “We’re having this conversation, Cheyenne. We opened the only Pandora’s Box I’ve had to deal with personally. The insinuation I’d keep more from you after going down this road is frankly insulting.”

  “I’m sorry.” You’re walking a fine line now, Cheyenne. Just keep her talking. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

  “I know.” After a few more seconds of contemplative silence, Bianca reached out and settled her hand on her daughter’s thigh.

  Cheyenne opened her hand, and her mom laced their fingers together for a brief and rare moment of taking comfort from her daughter instead of the other way around. “I can’t tell you the name of the man who came to explain it to me or who he worked for or how they found us, but what he showed me was enough proof to change the course of every decision I made after that.”

  “What did he show you?” It came out as a strained half-whisper.

  Bianca released her daughter’s hand, patted Cheyenne’s thigh one more time, and scooted the patio chair away from the table to stand. “The same thing I’m about to show you.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “Maybe I waited too long. Maybe I hoped you’d forget about the whole thing and let sleeping dogs lie.” Bianca picked up her refilled wine glass and drained half of it in one gulp. “There’s a fine line between confident surety and dreaming.”

  “I’ve heard.” Cheyenne stood slowly as her mom cast her an unamused glance. “From you.”

  “Yes, well, if you ever have your own children, Cheyenne, you’ll find there’s nothing as effective at revealing all the flaws you worked so hard to cover up. Maybe even the ones you thought you’d eradicated.” Bianca stepped toward the sliding doors into the house. She pointed inside. “It’s in my study.”

  “Okay.” Forgetting her wineglass, Cheyenne turned to follow her mom.

  Bianca stopped when Eleanor came bustling through the back room toward the veranda, touting another bottle of wine and her own wineglass and bubbling with excitement.

  “Oh.” The housekeeper frowned at her employer before glancing at Cheyenne. “I thought I still had plenty of time.”

  “We’re not finished yet, Eleanor.” Bianca nodded and stepped past the other woman. “You’re welcome to join us if you like. If you never mention a thing you see or hear to anyone else for the rest of your life. Including me.”

  Eleanor blinked as Bianca stepped toward the north wing of the lodge. The housekeeper shrugged and endowed Cheyenne with a conspiratorial grin. “Sounds delightful.”

  The halfling snorted. “You haven’t changed at all.”

  “Why, thank you very much. We’re heading into the study, then?”

  “I guess so.”

  Eleanor nodded at the patio table. “You can’t forget your glass now, Cheyenne. She had that look in her eye.”

  There wasn’t any point in trying to downplay the type of mood Bianca Summerlin was in and would probably still be in for a day or two after Cheyenne went back home. “Yeah, I saw the look.”

  Just as she reached for her glass on the table, her phone dinged in her pocket. Cheyenne stopped to pull it out and check the notification. “Whoa.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Cheyenne read the message from Todd.

  Looks like your hounds pulled up enough info to flag my system for a possible threat. So thanks for giving me a reason to double-check my security. I’m totally ready to hand them back.

  Her programs had gone through every round, which meant she now had GPS coordinates for all four secret IP addresses—hopefully—and if nobody was lying in their own encrypted messages, a location for this giant underground meeting later tonight. “Eleanor, has the wi-fi password changed?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, no. You have some extra schoolwork to take care of?”

  “Something like that.” Cheyenne stuck her phone back into her pocket and headed for the door and her backpack lying on the stone slab of the veranda. I can’t open this stuff here. If anyone finds that connection between the person digging around in their trash and Bianca Summerlin, they’ll know exactly who I am.

  She slung her backpack over her shoulder and wrapped Eleanor in another tight hug. The housekeeper chuckled. “Don’t tell me you’re this excited about being able to do your homework at home.”

  “Is it still called homework in grad school?” Cheyenne gave the woman a thin smile. “Look, I have to go.”

  “Oh.” Eleanor gazed longingly at the unopened bottle of wine and shrugged. “I’m sure your mother won’t have any reservations about sharing this with me, then. At least it was good timing.”

  “Yeah, there’s that. I’ll, uh, I’ll come back later, and we can sit down, all three of us, okay? Sorry. This wasn’t planned.” Cheyenne stepped through the sliding door with an apologetic shrug. “I promise.”

  “Well, then, we’ll hold you to it. You’ll go tell her goodbye?”

  “What kind of daughter would I be if I didn’t?” Cheyenne turned and hurried through the living room toward the far end of the house and her mom’s study. Neither she nor Eleanor felt the need to mention that Cheyenne had left plenty of times without saying goodbye, and most of those times, they’d been on much pricklier terms with each other.

  She stopped in front of the ornately carved French doors into her mom’s study. The room beyond looked like it belonged in an eighteenth-century manor with a lord sitting behind the cherrywood desk instead of Cheyenne’s mom. “Hey!”

  “Now, before you say anything else, I want you to know I haven’t thought about this in a very long time.” Bianca looked up from her computer screen and raised her eyebrows. “Not that I was trying to remember, but…what is it?”

  “I’m sorry.” Cheyenne readjusted the straps of her backpack. “Something came up.”

  “Did it?” Her mom’s face showed surprise mixed with relief, and somehow, a little bit of disappointment thrown in, just to make things interesting.

  “Yeah. I have to go take care of it. Kind of a time-sensitive…thing.” Like I can’t drop in with the element of surprise if I’m late to the magical crime-ring party.

  Bianca pursed he
r lips and flicked her gaze toward her computer. “I understand.”

  “Can we reschedule, maybe? Whenever you have time, Mom. I know you’re busy. I still want to—”

  “I know. Trust me, I’m just as ready to put this out in the open as you are.” After she turned off the monitor, Bianca stepped around her desk and approached her daughter in the doorway. “Go do what you have to do. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” Cheyenne let her mom hug her a little longer than she wanted, but she managed not to fidget.

  When her mom released her, the woman seemed to have regained most of her composure. “Be safe. And careful.”

  She has no idea. “I will. Love you.”

  “I love you.”

  Cheyenne turned away and hurried back through the house toward the foyer. The door opened without a sound on well-oiled hinges and clicked gently shut behind her before she skipped down the steps to her car.

  Whatever she was about to show me, it can wait. It waited twenty-one years. And I have to nail these guys tonight.

  Just outside Bianca Summerlin’s office, Eleanor stopped in front of the open French doors with that second bottle of wine and her empty glass. With tightly pressed lips and wide eyes, Bianca regarded her housekeeper and friend of over two decades. Eleanor lifted the bottle and opened her mouth.

  “Oh, you know you don’t even have to ask.” Bianca turned away from the woman, snatched her wineglass off the desk, and settled herself on the divan beside the massive fireplace against the west wall. “Open it.”

  Despite her employer’s well-contained but still obvious stress, Eleanor grinned and brought the bottle with her to the low table in front of the hearth. She wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity for a night of drinking with Bianca, and she was fairly certain the woman had more than enough to get off her chest.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Cheyenne couldn’t get to her apartment fast enough. When she did, she made sure every program on her computer was closed and switched her monitor connection to the second tower she used as a backup, just in case. Whoever wanted her to back off would have to wait a little longer to see her next move. They’re watching.

  She logged into the GRND0 app she had built and Todd had perfected, the only one they used for sharing information that needed to stay between them, and clicked on the links to her program results.

  Todd’s message popped up on her screen before she’d read through anything.

  T-rexifus088L: What the hell did you send me?

  “Oh, come on. It couldn’t have been that bad.”

  ShyHand71: Pet project. Thanks for renting out the space.

  T-rexifus088L: Yeah, I should charge you for that one. Do you know what you’re getting into?

  ShyHand71: Don’t I always?

  T-rexifus088L: Well, I thought so. Until your little coded buddies started sending out alarm signals. I had to shut everything down just to keep the entire world from seeing the smoke.

  ShyHand71: Sorry. I won’t ask again.

  Cheyenne wrinkled her nose and waited for his reply. Todd enjoyed pretending he was a hardass, but he had a soft spot for anyone who could help him tighten the security encryption on the Y2Kickass server. So far, Cheyenne was the only person who fit that description.

  T-rexifus088L: Don’t be like that. I’m not mad. Just threw me for a second.

  ShyHand71: But you took care of it, ‘cause that’s what you do. I owe you one.

  T-rexifus088L: You do.

  Smiling, Cheyenne closed out of the chat and dove into what her programs had put together while nesting in Todd’s private space on their group’s server. She read it twice before she let herself believe what she was seeing.

  These idiots had put together a roster of everyone who was planning to show up tonight. She didn’t see Durg’s name, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t find someone who could tell her where to find the scumbag. And Durg didn’t need to be there for an anonymous drow halfling to do what no one expected.

  No one had asked for her help this time, and this wasn’t a case of being in the right place at the right time, like at the gas station. Victims couldn’t ask for help before they knew they needed it.

  If these gangs are trying to toss other magicals across the Border with no one’s consent, that’s a problem that applies to me. Not the kinda thing I can refuse to help with, either.

  And now, Cheyenne had everything she needed to find these guys before they got their hands on anyone else. Her programs had pulled up a location for their meeting tonight, which was at 11:00 p.m. in the back room of an old event center on the southeast end of Richmond. It was far enough away from most of the population that nobody would walk in on them, but it wasn’t in the middle of nowhere.

  Lights and lots of cars and a big group of people out in the middle of nowhere is always suspicious, and a lot to take on.

  She wrote down the address, then sent the rest of the files—the roster and the other snippets of conversation and check-ins, plus the four separate IP addresses her program had traced back to the originals—into storage on the server she’d encrypted and built a few hardcore firewalls around. Now to use it.

  The second she filed everything, both monitors went black.

  “What the hell?”

  This time, the message came across in white, the cursor blinking as the words typed out across the screen.

  You’re getting sloppy. Remember when I said you only have one warning?

  “Who is this guy?” Cheyenne lurched up from her chair and slammed her hands on the desk. Then she remembered she still had her old handle tied to the server, which this anonymous stalker had found the minute she’d sent everything into safekeeping.

  Gritting her teeth, she loomed over the keyboard to type a response.

  ShyHand71: I’m not into superstitions. Or threats. So unless you can give me proof of something other than hijacking my desktop, I’m gonna keep doing what I’m doing.

  The cursor on her blacked-out screen blinked for a few seconds, which seemed to take forever, then the next message appeared.

  Stay home tonight. As long as you don’t get involved, we can help you find what you’re looking for.

  Cheyenne snorted. “No deal. This is what I’m looking for. If they haven’t picked up on that already, they’re dumber than I thought.”

  ShyHand71: That’s not a very convincing promise. How do I know you have anything I want?

  You’ll know when we give it to you. Don’t show up at the location you decrypted. You’ll regret it.

  “Ooh. Very intimidating.” Cheyenne glared at the screen. “Makes me even more excited to show up and kick some magical-trafficking ass. So, sorry, not sorry.”

  She leaned over the keyboard and got ready to tell whoever this was to take his threats and his warnings and shove ‘em, but the black screen flashed into white. Then her desktop background returned, and the anonymous message went away.

  Cheyenne pushed out an aggravated sigh. “Didn’t even let me respond. Not cool. And I’m not buying it.”

  Turning off both monitors just to keep from seeing anything else that might pop up, she tapped the piece of paper with the meeting’s address written in pen and huffed out a laugh. “Good old-fashioned paper. Can’t trace that. And I can burn it.”

  It was only 9:15 p.m., though, which meant she had a little over an hour to kill if she timed this right. The first thing that came to mind was dinner since she’d skipped out on that at her mom’s. Man. And that salmon smelled good.

  Her stomach gurgled. “Try to find me a drow berserker who doesn’t need to eat before busting in somebody’s party.”

  She grabbed her wallet and keys and left her apartment for the gas station at the end of the block. The closer she got to the convenience store, the more Cheyenne wondered if that was such a good idea. Those idiots with guns smashed in the security cameras, but there would still be footage of me in there as myself and then me in there as drow h
alfling.

  It would be even more suspicious for the twenty-one-year-old Goth chick to not stop by her regular haunt for cheap and easy-to-make pre-packaged meals after the place got shot to pieces and torn apart by a couple of bodies flying everywhere.

  If I’m trying to be two different people, the human Cheyenne left before any of the exciting stuff started.

  She decided it was a safer bet to show her face and look like nothing was different from last time she’d come in for a six-pack and Funyuns. And maybe part of her wanted to check in on Katie and see how her part-time friend was handling everything.

  Before she crossed the last turnoff into the convenience store parking lot, that feeling of being watched came back full force. Cheyenne wanted to stop and look around, to find the face around the eyes she knew had been on her all day. And that’s just gonna make me look even more suspicious. Just keep walking.

  The hair on the back of her neck prickled, the paranoia intensified, and her drow magic ignited at the base of her spine.

  Deer. Keeping thinking about deer.

  By the time she reached the door to the convenience store, she’d pulled herself under control. No gray skin or hints of white in her hair. It was only a temporary relief, though, because she turned toward the checkout counter to smile at Katie and shoot off some witty remark that would at least make her sound more relaxed. Then she stopped, and the ghost of her unformed smile disappeared.

  “Where’s Katie?”

  “Yeah, hello. I’m having a great night, thanks.” The man behind the counter in the gray polo with a red collar and the gas station’s logo on the left breast nodded vigorously. His smile was just as real as Cheyenne’s patience. “How ‘bout you?”

  She stared at him and shifted her weight onto one hip.

  “What? You don’t get many polite greetings?” He looked her up and down and wrinkled his nose. “Maybe if you cleaned up a little, you know. And smiled more.”

  Cheyenne’s eye twitched, and she sent the guy an unflinching glare. Deer, deer, deer. Even Bambi. Now is not the time for the drow happy place. “Where’s Katie?”