The Shadow Project

by Cecilia Dominic

  "Good evening, gentlemen."

  They turned, and their reactions fed my feminine ego. Corey's golden eyes widened, and he looked me up and down without shame. I resisted the urge to twirl for him. I'd put my hair up, so the rainbow fire of my opals sparkled at my ears and throat without any obstruction. I'd carefully arranged curls to fall around my face and hide my pointed ear tips. The silver-colored belt of the dress cinched at my waist, and I carried a white knit shawl for the chilly evening. When I moved, a slit in the blue fabric showed leg up to my mid-thigh, and I wore silver heels.

  Yes, this old girl still had it. Lawrence Gordon's reaction was no less admiring, although more subtle, limited to a slight lift of his eyebrows and curl to his lips. I hadn't noticed his mouth before, which was sensual for a gargoyle's. His red silk shirt hugged his physique and set off his swarthy complexion and black hair. Not bad. Plus, he wore black slacks that gave more than a hint of his muscular legs and butt. The mischievous side of me wondered what it would be like to run my hands over his rock-hard—

  That was enough of that train of thought. He's a gargoyle. We don't like gargoyles. One hurt Rhys and caused your exile from Faerie. They can't be trusted.

  "Is your room all right?" Lawrence asked. Again, that dumb human question.

  "It's fine. Quite comfortable." Like every other one in this human containment unit, I was sure. Hotels felt like the opposite of home—places of transience, not rootedness.

  "Please let me know if you need any live plants brought up for you," he said. Again, trying to help, but annoying nonetheless.

  "I'm sure I'll be fine. There are enough trees around the hotel to help me feel comfortable."

  "Leave her be, Larry," Corey said with a wink to me. "Don't mind him. He's been quite eager to show off his knowledge of a fellow elemental. Earth, water, and air, right?"

  "I see, and something like that." I wanted to correct them—smug males—but I had my directive. And the less they knew about me, the better. Plus I found his directness to be rude. I'd never name another elemental being's aspects in a social situation.

  Selene appeared at that moment, looking lovely in a green gown with gold accents. She'd also pulled her hair into an updo, and emeralds glinted green at her throat and ears.

  "Doctor Rial," Curtis said and bowed. Lawrence nodded. I didn't miss that whereas they'd greeted me with stunned admiration, they regarded her with respect. My jaw clenched, and I had to tell myself to release the tension. I didn't need a headache distracting me.

  "Good evening," Selene said and smiled at each of them in turn. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting."

  "Not at all." Corey held out an arm, and she took it. "We're meeting at a restaurant close by. Don't worry, they won't start without us."

  She accepted his invitation and placed a hand on the crook of his elbow. That left me and the gargoyle. We regarded each other, and the uncertainty as to what to do on his face mirrored my own. Ah, so he did know protocol to wait for the higher-ranking elemental to make the first move. And the longer I waited to do so, the more annoyance tinged his aura, which I perceived not as colors but characteristics.

  I would have enjoyed making him squirm, but the others had almost reached the stairs to the main lobby level. I held out a hand. "Would you care to escort me, Doctor Gordon?"

  "It would be my pleasure, Doctor River." He offered his arm, which I took.

  I swear I tried not to test whether my perception of his muscles was accurate, but my heel caught on the carpet, and I stumbled, which forced me to grab his biceps. He didn't flinch, only waited while I righted myself. He maintained a neutral expression, but amusement sparked in his black eyes. Once freed from the loose loop of flooring, I lifted my chin and refused to look at him, but I caught his slight grin in my peripheral vision. My cheeks heated in spite of my stern instruction to myself not to blush. Then I heard a snippet of secret conversation I didn't know whether I was meant to.

  “You can try not to react, but you're lovely when you blush. More human and less ice queen.” Then a snippet of a cartoonish character with light blonde hair in a blue dress and the words, “Let it go.”

  The bastard was comparing me to Elsa from Frozen! My cheeks betrayed me by warming even more, and his arm quivered under mine, his amusement leaking through his muscles to my fingertips. I'd never been so glad to get into a car—yet another metal box—in my life.

  By the time we arrived at the restaurant, which would have been an easy walk but ended up being a ten-minute drive with all of the other metal boxes on the road, I'd composed myself, and he'd returned to his—ahem—stony silence. Corey and Selene kept up a lively chatter about Atlanta and how it had changed since she'd left. She pointed out places that were familiar and spoke of her childhood. Again, envy poked me in the chest for her "normal" upbringing and shared recollections. The only other being I shared memories with was Rhys, and he and I didn't speak of our past before the banishment. It brought up too much pain and anger, and the one time we'd allowed our conversation to wander in that direction, we'd ended up in mutual blame and recrimination. Never mind that it was the cursed Templar knight and his gargoyle friend who had truly authored our fates. Another reason to not allow Doctor Lawrence Gordon—Larry, as Corey had hilariously called him—to charm me, not even with his secret conversation or his respectable physique. All right, more than respectable. But still.

  The car dropped us off at the entrance to the restaurant, and a waiting maitre'd showed us to a private room, where a handful of others waited, including the young woman I'd spoken to through the scrying crystal.

  8

  When she saw me, Kestrel raised her glass of something pink to me. I tried to signal her with eyebrows and head tilt not to say anything. The woman next to her turned, and I recognized her mother. She looked startled to see me, then whispered something to her daughter that I could easily pick up with my Fae hearing.

  "She looks like the woman in the movie you were watching the other night."

  "Yes, she does have a strong resemblance to the actress, doesn't she? Or Elsa."

  They both giggled, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and place a curse on the creators of that stupid movie. Besides, why couldn't I have a resourceful redheaded sibling rather than a deadbeat Fae prince who couldn't stay out of trouble? Kestrel and her mother definitely emanated witch energy, as did the dark-haired man they stood with. He wore an indulgent smile, and the invisible ties between the three of them told me they were a family.

  "Doctor River?" A middle-aged man who had the plain energy of a straightforward human approached and held out his hand. His hair had gone gray over a youthful face that sported a matching goatee and mustache, and light blue eyes looked at me inquisitively behind the round-lensed glasses currently in fashion.

  "Yes," I said and shook his hand. "Are you Doctor Cimex?"

  He chuckled, and his face was so open and friendly I had to smile back. Here was someone who emanated only warmth and welcome, which made me wonder what he could be hiding. Everyone had something.

  "You're even more amazing than I'd been led to believe," he said. "Yes, I'm Doctor Cimex, head of the Shadow Project. I see you've already met Larry—I mean Lawrence—Gordon and Corey. I'm hoping we'll all get to be better acquainted. Now, I wanted to make sure, Lawrence said you were a vegetarian."

  "Most of the time," I said. "I find I can't eat much of the meat on the market since it's typically been shot through with chemicals, antibiotics, and other things I cannot digest."

  Lawrence radiated satisfaction next to me, and I wanted to smack him, but at least he didn't have it completely correct.

  "Yes, he said you would only be able to eat organic, locally sourced foods."

  "Again, not necessarily, but close enough." I wouldn't give Lawrence the victory even if he had been correct. Then, I recalled my human manners and decided to try to get Cimex to open up. "I appreciate you going to so much trouble to invite and accommodate me."

 
; "Of course!" Cimex threw his hands up like I'd stated the most obvious thing in the world. "There are so few of you walking this side of the veil that I had to. Plus, as I mentioned in my letter, your unique talents will be greatly appreciated for our investigation. Speaking of which…" He walked to the table and tapped a knife against a glass. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you could take your seats. Our dinner is about to begin."

  "All right, Kestrel," her mother said. "That's the signal. You said you had homework to do, and the manager said you could hole up in his office for it."

  "But I want to stay," Kestrel argued. "I could help." She smiled, but not at her mother. She looked straight at Corey, who grinned back and winked at her.

  Uh, oh, if I'd been a fairy godmother-type, I'd have been tempted to help that little situation.

  "No, this is government stuff," her father said. "It's better if you don't get too involved. Besides, at least you get a good dinner. You can order anything you want."

  "Anything?" Kestrel asked. "Even the lobster?"

  "Almost anything," her mother said. She took her daughter by the shoulder and steered her out of the room. "Any dessert you want," she murmured.

  With one last glance over her shoulder at Corey, Kestrel left. A waiter shut the door behind her.

  "You'll be here," Doctor Cimex told me and placed me between Lawrence Gordon and Kestrel's mother, who introduced herself.

  "I'm Beverly Graves, one of the scientists," she told me with a tired smile. "That was my daughter, Kestrel. She's a handful."

  "Isn't she old enough to be left at home?" I asked, playing up the insensitive Fae angle.

  "Yes, she's in college. Studying criminal justice and hoping to join Corey in the PPP—Paranormal Profiling Program—it's part of the PBI, another shadow organization." She inclined her head to Corey, who lounged against the door. "She'll take any chance to see him," she added in a not-so-quiet whisper.

  "Beverly," her husband warned. He sat across from us. "Our guest doesn't want to know all this. At least not yet. How was your trip, Doctor River?"

  Arghhh… Why did these humans insist on small talk? And a PPP? Was that why they wanted my talents—because I could identify paranormal creatures by their energy fields?

  Then I caught the way Kestrel's father, whom I later found out was named John, looked at me with mixed curiosity and suspicion, then away. What kind of scientist was he?

  Worse, what kind of experiment would I be? I snapped into cautious mode—well, more than previously.

  Selene, who sat between John, and Cimex, rescued me from having to answer the pointless question.

  "I'm sorry if I missed something," she said, "but the itinerary said we'd first meet everyone at headquarters tomorrow. I'm thrilled to be meeting the team already, but are the plans incorrect?"

  "Ah, I'm glad you asked, Doctor Rial," Cimex said. "I'll tell you in a moment. Meanwhile, the first course, please," he said to the waiter who hovered by the door. The young man nodded and darted out. Corey closed the door behind him.

  Cimex glanced at Corey, who nodded and said, "The room is clear."

  Then Cimex spoke, all but a trace of his geniality gone from his face, making his eyes look flat and cold. "The plans are correct, at least as far as the rest of the team is concerned, but I wanted to meet you and your colleagues this evening for a specific reason. You see, we're fairly sure whoever leaked the sample of the CLS vector to an industry contact is one of the team members who isn't here." His eyes glittered, and sorrow over the loss of trust in their close-knit community surrounded him. "This is a chance for us to speak frankly and openly and to give you the true lay of the land. But first, I don't know that we've all been introduced. You met Corey and Lawrence, of course. Our other friends here are John and Beverly Graves. They're talented witches as well as epidemiologists."

  And grand poobah and poobah-ess of a powerful local coven, as I recalled. Did their colleagues know?

  "What kind of scientist is Doctor Gordon?" I asked.

  "I'm a veterinarian," he replied. "There are a few of us at the CDC and CPDC. Not all of us are creatures ourselves, of course."

  "Right." A veterinarian? I guessed it made sense since we were there to look into the Chronic Lycanthropy Syndrome leak, but none of the lycanthropes I knew liked to call themselves "creatures," either. Selene took a drink of water, so I couldn't see how she felt, but her aura indicated she likely found the whole thing amusing.

  "Doctor Rial and Doctor River, we're honored for your company," John said. "But we were hoping for Doctor Fortuna and Mister McCord to join us as well."

  "What he means," Cimex interrupted, "is that their reputations preceded them, as they were the ones instrumental in developing the cure."

  Selene smiled, but she didn't show teeth, and the corners of her eyes remained un-crinkled. "I can understand your feelings, but we all work together as a team. In fact, Doctor River was instrumental in helping us to ward off a plot to interfere with our development, so she is familiar with operations as well."

  An awkward speech, but I returned her polite grin and nodded. Fie, now I had to say something nice about her. "And Doctor Rial makes sure everyone stays sane. Plus, her training makes sure she's grounded in both psychological and physical sciences, and if you're looking for a traitor, a psychologist will be most useful."

  Selene nodded.

  A knock on the door cut off our conversation, and Corey opened it to let in the wait staff, who brought scallops on a bed of sunchoke puree for the others, and the same for me but asparagus rather than scallops. I liked scallops, but the asparagus still sang of the early spring sunshine, so I could tell they'd been picked that morning.

  "Are they all right?" Lawrence asked. "They were picked this morning. I made sure to ask."

  As if I couldn't tell. "They look delicious."

  He smiled as though he'd been the one to pick and prepare them. Gods, couldn't this gargoyle let me eat in peace?

  Once our group was alone again, Selene asked, "Do you have any leads or suspicions as to who the leak could be? And what, exactly, are you hoping to accomplish by having us here?"

  Cimex nodded and grinned like she'd asked the cleverest of questions. "By having experts like you two here, we're hoping that whoever the leak is will reveal themselves through the questions they ask and the way they behave. Also, Doctor River will hopefully be able to sense any deception in word, deed, or existence. You can tell what kind of paranormal being everyone here is, can you not?"

  "Yes," I said, although he'd implied he was something, but I couldn't tell what. Should I reveal the gap in my knowledge? Or ask him later? Or ask Corey, whom I sensed didn't have a single deceptive bone in his body—odd for a security agent. Everyone else had the usual mixture of truth and self-delusion so common to all creatures, human and non-human alike. It wouldn't be so easy to pick out the one liar among so many. The question would be, could I figure out whose secrets had led to the leak?

  Our appetizer dishes were cleared, and the main course arrived—Springer Mountain chicken over Logan Turnpike grits for the others, and vegan mushrooms with red wine sauce over grits for me. They were good, but I would have liked to have tried the chicken, which John informed us was the kind many of the high-end restaurants chose. I again responded to Lawrence's overly concerned questions about whether the food was fine.

  Once the staff left, I asked, "How, exactly, was the sample stolen?"

  "We have a protocol," Beverly said. "Every time someone takes a sample from the fridge, they have to sign it out. We didn't have computer monitoring on it before, but we definitely do now. Someone took a sample after hours, didn't sign it out, and moved the other vials so that we didn't discover one was missing until several days later."

  "And there are no security cameras?" Selene asked.

  "There are, but they didn't pick up anyone, only the fridge opening and closing that night."

  I almost choked on the water I'd been drinking. That sounded like my invi
sible attacker. Of course everything was related, but how?

  "Are you all right, Doctor River?" Cimex asked.

  "Yes," I said with a cough. "Went down the wrong way." At least the water was absorbed into my system rather than going into my lungs, which meant I recovered faster than a human would in a similar situation.

  "An invisible thief?" Selene asked. "That sounds highly improbable. Had the tapes been tampered with?"

  "No," Cimex said. "I reviewed them myself. There may have been something like mist in the shape of a person, but nothing distinct enough to identify exactly who or what it was."

  "Could it have been a spirit walker?" I asked, now remembering what had been tickling the back of my mind since the intruder in my cottage.

  "A what?" Beverly asked.

  "Spirit walker," Selene said. "Someone who can astral project, essentially. But they typically have a form, not an invisible body."

  "It's possible," Cimex conceded. "I don't know of anyone on my team who can do that, though, either presently or in the past."

  Selene bit her lip, a sign she was thinking. "So there are people who are no longer on your staff but who were at the time of the theft?"

  Cimex shrugged. "Only a couple of techs. No one who would have had the knowledge or connections to have pulled this off. And I'm sure neither of them were spirit walkers. They were human through and through."

  Like him, or so I'd thought. It seemed to me that Dr. Cimex had a large blind spot, and that's where we should start.

  Selene's gaze met mine, and she nodded.

  "If you don't mind," she said, cushioning her request in Southern politeness I could only admire but not emulate, "I'd like to start with those two techs. Could we get their information when you have a chance?"

  The lack of directness was going to kill me, but Cimex appeared to appreciate it. "Of course."

  Corey let the wait staff back in to clear the dinner dishes and bring in dessert, a lovely strawberry shortcake for everyone else, and…