The Shadow Project

by Cecilia Dominic

  She could always see right through me. "He's only a kitten," I repeated. "A strange little chap, assuredly, but I'll figure him out."

  She shook her head. "Do yourself a favor and drown him in the nearest stream. He's going to be nothing but trouble. Besides, you can't bring him with you. The United States has an animal quarantine."

  "How do you know that? You haven't bothered with silly human laws in a millennium."

  She shrugged. "We all have to change with the times, Reine. Remember your mission—don't let them find out more about us than they already know. We survived the so-called Age of Enlightenment, but this current age…" She held her hands palm-up. "They think they can distill everything into their precious science. But some mysteries are best left unsolved."

  "Right, I can handle it. And then I'll come home. My real home."

  "Gods’ speed, Daughter."

  With that, she faded, leaving me alone in a fairy circle with a squirming kitten clutched to my chest and questions swirling around my brain. I held Sir Raleigh up so I could look him straight in his blue eyes.

  "Well, that was interesting. You are apparently connected to more than I thought. I wonder what she meant—she was sure you found me?"

  Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said in the Lewis Carroll story. Especially since I had caught an expression on Mother's face when I asked about the creature in my cottage. It had lasted only a fraction of a moment, but it had been there—fear, a reaction I found most unsettling. My mother feared nothing, so what could it mean?

  Only that I needed to accomplish this task and get home soon.

  3

  When I stepped outside of the fairy circle, my phone dinged with a text. I hated the thing from its guts of chemical and twisted metal to its dead plastic exterior, but it had its uses. Only a few people had my number, and when I pulled it from my pocket, I saw the message had come from Max.

  "What now?" I asked Sir Raleigh, who had resumed his perch on my shoulder. He was doing something with my hair, but I didn't feel like questioning what.

  Max's text surprised me, making my eyebrows rise again. If I wasn't careful, I'd lose my reputation as mischievous but jaded Fae, and worse, get forehead wrinkles.

  Have message for you. Meet me at ILR?

  I checked the sky—it was about 6:00 p.m., so most of the scientists would have gone home. I wondered if that included Selene Rial, Gabriel's fiancée. I had nothing against the girl—she seemed nice enough and I had to respect her determination to keep her secrets—but I'd always admired Gabriel. He'd been in the running for my next lover before he’d taken up with her, and I hated that he'd been stolen from me. Well, as long as she knew her place, she'd be fine.

  Fine, I texted back. I wasn't going to be too cooperative.

  There wasn't time for me to drop the kitten by my place, so I stashed him against my chest under my fake leather motorcycle jacket. I'd have preferred a white mare for my transportation, but as my mother had pointed out, we needed to change with the times, so I had. I'd spent good money on a motorcycle with a hybrid motor so it wouldn't burn so much gasoline, which I detested for its smell and its waste and its association with plastic. Like my cat friend, I could travel between dimensions for short distances, but it wore me out, especially if I had to cross metal and stone barriers.

  I arrived at the ILR as the moon rose over the trees behind it, giving the Institute a resemblance to the castle it had been modeled after, Wolfsheim's old place. I'd never gotten the chance to ask him what he thought about the ILR's layout being so like his old castle. Gabriel had killed him—justifiably—before I could. And then Gabriel had burned my one chance to influence him by lunging after Rhys, forcing me to use his name to stop him. Ugh, that still peeved me. In fact, my brother had an irksome knack for interfering with my life. It was bad enough he'd been the reason for my banishment from Faerie. Why did he have to continue to thwart me?

  But all that was water under the moon—simultaneously silvery and murky. It was no accident that Veronica had modeled the moon card in her Tarot deck after me. The woman was spookily perceptive sometimes.

  Once I stopped the bike, I took a deep breath to compose myself and shifted the sleepy cat back to my shoulder. He must have worn himself out following me into the fairy circle.

  "Please be quiet and good," I murmured to him. He purred, but I was not sure if he was promising to be agreeable or saying, "Yea, right, lady."

  "You know, you're going into the lair of a bunch of dogs."

  He burrowed further into my hair.

  I walked through the silent lobby, and I swallowed against the upwelling of hope, residual energy from those who'd come to be treated. As far as I knew, the only ones allowed to access the treatment still included those who'd been turned later in life, not those who were born with it, although they'd petitioned for access to the cure, too.

  Gabriel opened the door at the end. He wrinkled his nose. "Cat?"

  "He won't leave me be," I said with a shrug.

  "Please don't hurt him. He's just a baby."

  His words stung.

  "You think I'd harm an innocent animal? I'm a healer, Gabriel."

  "To be honest, I don't know what you're capable of."

  Well. I'd done my job, then, of keeping him at arm's length in spite of my feelings, but not exactly as I'd wanted it. Normally, I didn't care what people or lycanthropes thought of me, but this one's opinion mattered. I didn't say anything—only followed him up the central staircases to the hallway upstairs.

  There were more people still there than I expected. Max stood at the entrance to one office and beckoned for us to enter. The light shone off his blond hair, giving him the appearance of a beckoning angel. Or sly demon, considering I was here on my mother’s behest.

  Once I entered the office, I found myself in a space that looked more like an English study. Lonna Marconi, the director of the Institute and Max's wife, stood when I entered, reminding me of her height and statuesque Italian looks. She gave me a wary look, but I grinned at her. Let her wonder what I was capable of. I'd known her husband long before she did.

  No matter how much I wanted to escape from the past, it followed me.

  "Thank you for coming, Reine," Lonna said.

  "I came because Max asked me to," I told her. I wouldn't allow her to think she had any authority over me. She couldn't grant me what I truly wanted. Only my mother or grandmother could.

  "Still, thank you."

  I looked around at the three—no, four, because Selene had arrived—of them. No one appeared sick or otherwise in need of my Faerie healing abilities.

  "What do you need?" I asked.

  "Please, have a seat." Lonna gestured to a group of chairs clustered around a fireplace on one side of the room. I shrugged and complied, crossing my legs and shifting the kitten to my lap. I could feel their curiosity about Sir Raleigh, at least the women's, but I didn't say anything. I wanted to be annoyed—it was hard to maintain my badass fairy image with a purring fuzzball in my lap, but I felt that Sir Raleigh acted for my comfort, not his. How ridiculous was that, thinking a cat acted in anything but his own interest?

  "I need to get back and feed my cat," I said and gestured to the feline in question. "Why did you call me here? Do you know what that was in my house?"

  "No," Gabriel said, "but I suspect it may be connected to the message that I found waiting for me when I returned here. Max, Lonna, and Selene had similar ones." He handed a letter to me.

  "‘Dear Sir Gabriel McCord, head of the Lycanthrope Council, I was hoping you could help me with a quandary…’"

  I read the rest of the letter, then looked up. "Is this real?"

  Lonna nodded. "We checked. They're legit."

  "So, you're saying the head of a shadow CDC is inviting you to come over to investigate possible leaks for what started the Chronic Lycanthropy Syndrome outbreak before moving forward with their next major project?" I had to act surprised in spite of having gotten a heads-up f
rom my mother. "What does this have to do with me?"

  "Yes, they're asking for our help and expertise," Gabriel said. "And I'd like for you to accompany us. Your medical skills and other talents will be invaluable in helping us to flush out whoever is selling their secrets."

  "But you don't have to if you don't want to," Selene added. Her words puzzled me almost as much as the looks the others darted to each other and her.

  Interesting. I leaned back and stroked Sir Raleigh's soft head. "Well…" I drew out the word. "Why would I want to go? That's a long way for me, and you know how we're tied to the land."

  "You can tell things others can't," Max told me. "We have reason to believe this mission could be dangerous."

  "Including to you. Maybe to you most of all." Selene nodded in her eagerness, her wide blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair giving her an air of innocence that I knew hid a clever mind. "I'd hate for something to happen to you."

  What was she playing at? And what were the others not telling me? I couldn't seem too eager to go, though. They'd sense I'd been tipped off and want to know why.

  Raleigh flopped on his back and let me pet his soft belly. His purr resonated through the room, and the others watched him, giving me a chance to attempt to sense what was going on. Ah, right, Selene and Lonna didn't want me to go—they felt strongly enough they had difficulty hiding their discomfort with the idea. Gabriel had a "duty calls" air, and Max was…concerned?

  "If it's going to be dangerous…" I let my sentence trail off, and I almost laughed at Selene and Lonna's almost imperceptible leaning forward. Their anxiety over me fed my power and mischievous side. "When do we leave?"

  "Day after tomorrow." Gabriel tapped his letter. "They've made arrangements already. Without asking us." His scowl described exactly what he thought about that level of presumption.

  "That's not much time to prepare. I have a cat now." I sighed. "But I'll manage. Fine, I'll go. Email me the itinerary and ticket links."

  "You're sure?" Selene practically pouted.

  "If I can be of help, I can't refuse." Especially since my return to Faerie hinged on my success. How hard could it be?

  Max caught up to me as I was about to walk through the lobby door.

  "Got a second?" he asked. He'd put on his jacket, so I nodded and gestured for him to follow me out.

  "What do you need?" I asked. Typical human-wizard—Max had only called upon me when he needed my help, most recently when he'd required training for use of blood magic, and then when Gabriel had been injured and needed Fae healing. We'd gone to medical school together, and while we'd been close, something had happened to drive a wedge between us. I keenly felt that now.

  Sir Raleigh had curled up on my shoulder again, and I stroked his soft head. Max grinned and I stopped. Right, the cat really wasn't helping me maintain my aloof and cold Fae reputation.

  "Cute kitten."

  "Thanks. He won't leave me alone."

  "Perhaps he knows something."

  At first I thought Max must be joking, but his grin had vanished, and he was using his "I'm about to give you bad news as gently as possible" doctor voice.

  Hades.

  "What do you mean?" I asked. We'd reached my motorcycle, which I'd named Heather out of a joke about its purple color.

  "Gabriel wasn't telling you everything." Max rubbed his eyes. "We were arguing over it at lunch when you called, and he took the break-in as a sign that something larger is afoot. He wanted time to check it out before telling you. He says you're strong and clever enough to handle whatever comes your way."

  "And you don't think I am?" Curiosity over what they were keeping from me warred with my desire to show…what? That Gabriel was right? That was annoying.

  "No, I know you're capable. I also know you have vulnerabilities." He gave me a, I know you're hiding something look.

  I shrugged. "So are you going to tell me or not?"

  Max sighed. It must grate on him to keep something from Gabriel, the man who'd become his best friend.

  "The person who sent the invitation, a Doctor Cimex, requested you specifically. He mentioned you when Gabriel called to follow up on the invitation."

  "Me? How could he even know about me?" That gave me a chill, and Sir Raleigh stirred and sighed.

  "Precisely." Max looked down, and I wondered if he thought about taking my hand as he had that night on the beach a decade before. We'd come so close to trying our luck as a couple, but then an incident had happened that had revealed who I truly was to him. Others had known, too, and that was the problem—Max knew he'd not be allowed by the Wizard Tribunal to make our relationship official, and I'd found out who he was—not the friend I'd thought. We'd drifted apart. But the fact remained—my identity wasn't as secret as I would like.

  "What exactly did he say?" I asked.

  Max returned his sea-blue gaze to me. "'I would be particularly honored if the Fae princess doctor would accompany you as part of your party.'"

  For the third time that day, I tasted the unfamiliar and unwelcome flavor of fear at the back of my throat. I swallowed. "Do they have contact with the sea Fae? Atlanta isn't near the coast, is it?"

  "Not particularly, but it's also not a far drive. Reine, you need to be careful. You don't have to go."

  But I did have to go. My mother had put me in a position where I had to say yes.

  "I'm going, Max. If this involves me—involves the Fae—I'd be turning my back on my people if I were to stay home."

  "You're not as invincible as you think you are. Remember how attenuated your powers will be there. There is a large granite monolith that may give you some access to the earth energy you need, but that won't be everything."

  His words only reminded me further of my mission. The humans and wizards thought we were primarily earth elementals. I couldn't let them discover otherwise.

  "I appreciate the warning, and I will be careful—I promise. But I need to go. Both home to take care of this little guy and to the shadow CDC."

  He sighed, then shrugged. "I figured you wouldn't be deterred." He pulled an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket. "We leave on Thursday. Is two days enough time for you to get ready?"

  "Yes," I said and took the packet from him, then tucked it in my own inner pocket. "We Fae pack light."

  "Right. Reine, please be careful."

  Lonna emerged from the building and waved to us. I waved back, but I didn't want to stick around and make small talk. The humans already thought me rude, so I tucked Sir Raleigh back in my jacket, and with his little motor going against my chest, put on my silver helmet and mounted Heather. I sensed the kitten was fine—indeed, what sort of creature was he, really—and decided to take the long way home. A ride would clear my head, or so I thought.

  4

  The lights of the Institute faded behind me. Once I was enveloped in the canopy of the trees with nothing but stars twinkling overhead, I could breathe deeply again. Sir Raleigh had fallen asleep, and his heartbeat beat double-time to mine. I would have to figure out what to do with him while abroad. Hopefully Veronica would keep him for me. He hadn't pulled his disappearing trick on me again. No, he had teleported, but only to find me.

  "What am I going to do with you, Little Lad?" I asked him. The thought of leaving him, even though I hadn't even had his company for a full day, tugged at my heart. The heart I didn't want to admit to having. Yeah, the kitten needed to go back.

  I rounded a bend. The sensation of a dark gaze brushing over me made me slow the bike rather than accelerate and hug into the curves as I typically did. The air smelled wrong, and with a chill, I recognized it as the same odd scent that had been in my house earlier. Rather than the cool green and sharp brown scents of foliage and mulch, the one that came to my nose was more of the electric static that comes with thunderstorms. Not necessarily of electricity, but instability. What could it mean?

  Sir Raleigh had quieted, but he dug his little claws into my shirt just before I rounded a curv
e and bright lights blinded me. I swerved and heard the trees crying in their silent voices for me not to hit them. Even Fae could be gravely injured. A thick branch reached down for me, and in a flash, I leaped off the bike and into its embrace. Heather smashed into the trunk below as the tree pulled me out of danger.

  I sat there, clutching Sir Raleigh to my chest and murmuring to him that he was such a clever kitty to hold on when he did. How had he known? The car raced below me, much too fast for the winding woodland road. They didn't even stop to make sure I was all right. Surely they must have seen me.

  Or perhaps that had been the point—to ensure I wouldn't be all right. Selene had warned me, and now the danger felt real.

  But for now I had a new problem. I had used up a good portion of the energy that I had left from this trying and exhausting day, and as I sat in the tree and trembled, I knew I didn't have it in me to teleport to the ground. The ground lay a good thirty feet below me, and I didn't see any branches I could use to climb down.

  "Well, Hades," I said aloud. "Brother Tree, can you help me again?"

  With a rustling, the tree tipped the branch downward. It was a long limb, and I managed to scoot along it until I couldn't balance on it anymore. Then I gripped it and lowered myself so I held on with my hands and my feet dangled above the ground. I moved sideways hand-by-hand like a child on a jungle gym. I could feel the tree trembling to hold me, so I dropped the last ten feet, creating a cushion of air thick enough to soften my fall. The tree raised the limb, and I bowed to it.

  "Thank you, Brother Tree. I am in your debt."

  “'Twas my pleasure, Princess Reine. It has been a long time since I have had the opportunity to serve your kind.”

  Then I saw the gash on his trunk and the twisted remains of Heather.

  "Please allow me to heal you as a gesture of thanks."

  “I would be honored.”