by Anne Bishop
I woke up on the floor next to my bed, my heart pounding and a sharp pain above my left eye, surrounded by a sense of ow and a trickle of something wet.
It took a couple of tries to get to my feet. I wobbled my way to the bathroom, turned on the light, and stared at the blood trickling from the area above the corner of my left eyebrow.
That was so not good, especially when I could see the swelling already starting. I rinsed a washcloth in cold water and applied it to the wound as I studied my face in the mirror. Did my eyes look weird? I didn’t feel like I’d banged my head against anything, but I’d obviously hit something on my way to the floor.
I lowered the washcloth and leaned closer to the mirror. The bleeding had stopped for the moment, revealing a couple of scrapes and a shallow gouge surrounded by swelling and shades of purple.
Wow.
As I dabbed antibiotic ointment on the scrape and covered it with a small bandage, it occurred to me that I would never feel the same when the hero in a story got hit in the face during a fight because faces really object to getting hit or hurt in any way and didn’t hold back when it came to letting you know about it.
Back in the bedroom, I turned on the light and wiped up the drops of blood that had fallen on the floor. The culprit—the square corner of the bedside table—didn’t have any obvious forensic evidence, but I wiped it off anyway.
Having done whatever I could do, I shut off the light and lay diagonally on the bed, my head as far from the table as possible. I entertained my mini anxiety attack by wondering if I should stay awake in case I had a concussion, which seemed unlikely, and by wondering how terra indigene Bears and Panthers reacted to minor blood spillage. I fell asleep while trying out different versions of how to explain this to Aggie.
CHAPTER 26
Aggie
Firesday, Juin 16
At first light, the Crowgard who lived around Lake Silence flew to the houses in Sproing for the treasure hunt. It wasn’t garbage day, so the trash cans weren’t at the curb, but it was the day when the recycling truck traveled the streets for paper, plastic, and glass.
An hour later, when humans were stirring and beginning to notice the Crows, most of the Crowgard flew away, bored and disappointed. Better to perch near the businesses and watch the humans and see if any of them wore the shiny that the Sanguinati wanted to find.
Determined to find something, Aggie flew to the house that belonged to the human who used to work at the bank. The houses were bigger on this street, and sometimes the humans here discarded things that weren’t even broken.
Just so she could say she’d been thorough, in case that was something the Sanguinati would reward, she poked through several recycling bins before she reached the bank human’s house and perched on the first recycling bin. Glass jars, plastic jugs. Nothing interesting.
She hop-flapped to the paper recycling bin. The Crows couldn’t get inside the houses to look for shinies, and paper wasn’t interesting unless it was a book that had a story.
Most of the humans in Sproing brought books to Lettuce Reed, but sometimes Julian Farrow put books into the recycling bin because pages were missing or the book was falling apart. Sometimes, if there were several stories in the book, most of them would be intact. The terra indigene rescued some of those books, willing to skip the stories that had missing pieces and read the ones that were complete.
Would the bank human throw away books? Probably. And not because they were old and broken. He would do it because he was that kind of human.
Movement around the house distracted her for a moment. Poised to fly away if there was danger, Aggie watched dozens of Sproingers take turns hopping up the steps to the bank human’s front door and pooping on the stoop. Then they hopped away, letting everyone on the street know their opinion of the human who lived there.
Air ruffled the papers in the recycling bin and directed the breeze so that the scent of poop blew into the house’s open windows.
The Elementals weren’t usually playful or obvious about targeting a particular human, which made Aggie wonder if the Sanguinati had approached that form of terra indigene to look for the tie clips.
Discouraged, Aggie almost flew away when a bit of gold shiny caught her eye. She pushed and pecked a few pieces of paper, flinging them out of the bin until she found the envelope that had a logo on the left-hand corner made of metallic gold ink.
A small treasure. Maybe useful to the Sanguinati, maybe not. But if the vampires didn’t want the envelope, she would keep it.
Hearing the front door open and the swearing that followed, Aggie grabbed her prize and flew back to The Jumble. Maybe Ilya Sanguinati would trade a different shiny for the envelope the way Officer Grimshaw had traded the pretty bracelet for the tie clip.
Shifting to human form when she reached her little cabin near the lake, Aggie went inside and dressed, choosing casual clothes similar to what she had seen Dominique Xavier wear last week. They both had dark hair, although Aggie’s hair was Crow black and Dominique’s hair was dark brown, but Aggie figured it was close enough that clothes and colors that Dominique chose would be appropriate, allowing Aggie to blend in with the humans. Blending in was important when approaching humans.
She brushed her long black hair and put on the charm bracelet. She couldn’t ask the Sanguinati for a reward for finding the bit of shiny paper, but wearing the bracelet would be a hint that, maybe, a reward should be given. Hinting wasn’t the same as asking and should be safe.
Aggie grabbed the envelope and ran out of the cabin. First she would show Miss Vicki and also make sure she hadn’t missed any clothing she should be wearing. She had studied humans carefully before renting the cabin at The Jumble, but sometimes she didn’t get the human things quite right.
Reaching the screened porch that ran across the back of the main house, Aggie turned the handle on the door and was a little surprised that it was unlocked. But Miss Vicki had planted flowers and did come out early to water them. That must be the reason.
Moving silently across the wooden floor, she reached the screen door that opened into the kitchen. She raised her hand to knock because that would be polite. Then Miss Vicki turned and Aggie saw the bandage, saw the purple shadows that were on one side of Miss Vicki’s face.
Aggie backed away from the door. She’d read enough stories to know what bandages and those kinds of shadows meant.
She dropped the envelope as she bolted across the screened porch and out, letting the door bang behind her, forgetting that she’d intended to be quiet. No, she should not be quiet. This was bad. So very, very bad.
She didn’t just send the warning to her Crowgard kin. She sent the warning to all the terra indigene around Lake Silence.
CHAPTER 27
Grimshaw
Firesday, Juin 16
Partially dressed, Grimshaw grabbed his mobile phone on the second ring, knowing no one called a cop early unless they needed something.
“Grimshaw.”
“Wayne, get to The Jumble,” Julian said. “Something is happening, and I don’t think it’s good for any of us. I’m heading there now to see if there’s anything I can do.”
“You have a feeling?”
“I saw . . . Gods, I’m not even sure what I just saw. A male and female on horses, galloping toward Vicki’s place.”
“A man and woman on horseback doesn’t sound serious.” But Julian sounded . . . odd. Scared. And that was not good.
“The riders weren’t human, and despite what the animals looked like, I don’t think they were actual horses.”
Police officers who worked highway patrol studied every scrap of information they could about the kinds of terra indigene they might encounter, and what Julian had just described was among the most dangerous and feared. “Elementals.”
“That would be
my guess.”
“I’ll be there. Wait for me at the chain. Don’t go up to the main house on your own.”
Instead of answering, Julian hung up.
Swearing fiercely, Grimshaw finished dressing and rushed out of his room and down the stairs.
“Coffee’s ready,” Paige said with her usual cheer. “We have—”
“No time.” He went past her as Osgood popped out of the dining room.
“Sir?”
“Man the phones.” Grimshaw kept going. He yanked open the front door and almost knocked down the bank’s former manager.
“I want to make a complaint!” The man was red-faced.
“Osgood!” Grimshaw shouted. “Deal with this.”
He heard indignant whining about being fobbed off to the junior officer, but he ignored it as he ran to his car. He pulled out of the parking lot, spraying gravel. He hit the lights and the siren.
He should call for backup, shouldn’t go into this thing blind. He didn’t want to bring Osgood. The kid had already had a bad experience at The Jumble and he couldn’t be sure Osgood wouldn’t freeze if he encountered more terra indigene. If he called dispatch for backup, the closest cops around were Swinn and Reynolds, and their presence would aggravate the situation, whatever it might be. And, gods, if they were dealing with angry Elementals, the whole community could be kindling and corpses in the blink of an eye.
No, he’d count on Julian Farrow for backup and hope they both survived long enough to get the situation under control before the terra indigene took care of things in their own lethal way.
CHAPTER 28
Vicki
Firesday, Juin 16
I answered the phone at the same moment a column of smoke flowed through the kitchen’s screen door and shifted into a very angry attorney. Okay, partially shifted, which raised all kinds of questions about anatomy that I was sure the Sanguinati would never answer.
“Vicki? Vicki!” Ineke’s voice blasted out of the receiver and sounded stressed.
“Uh.” I’m not at my best first thing in the morning, and under the circumstances that was the sum total of my vocabulary.
“Something is happening. Grimshaw just peeled out of here like a maniac.”
I heard the siren. It was getting closer. Then I heard a jingle and looked past Ilya Sanguinati. Aggie stood on the other side of the screen door. I thought I’d seen her on the porch a few minutes ago, but she was gone by the time I walked across the kitchen.
A gust of wind rattled the house. I started adding things up and wished I had my little calculator handy because there was a lot to add.
The siren sounded so loud now, I pictured Grimshaw driving right through the front of the house like one of the cops had done in a recent TV show.
A car door slammed. Then another door slammed. Then someone— or something—growled as it headed toward the kitchen.
“Vicki!”
“Ms. DeVine!”
Add one Crow, one angry attorney, one police officer, one bookstore-owning friend, a second gust of wind that might be an opinion, and one Panther that entered the kitchen just ahead of the two men.
“I’ll call you back.” I hung up on Ineke and considered the variety of upset males filling up my kitchen and staring at my face. Oh crap. Crappity crap crap.
“What happened?” Officer Grimshaw asked at the same time Julian said, “You need a doctor.”
“I don’t need a doctor, and nothing happened,” I replied.
Ilya Sanguinati hissed. Cougar growled. Julian made a huffing sound that might have been an angry laugh.
Grimshaw said nothing. Somehow that made him the scariest one of all.
“Nothing happened?” Julian said. “What? You walked into a door? Do you know how many times police officers hear that excuse?”
Double crappity crap crap.
Aggie had eased into the kitchen and worked her way around all the male bodies until she stood next to me. She took my hand—gently. That told me who had blabbed to Ilya and Cougar, but who had said what to Julian and Grimshaw that had them tearing up here right on the Others’ heels?
Suddenly feeling tired and achy, I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat. Then I sighed. “I had a very weird, very scary dream, and when I tried to get away from the gauze-headed monster, I fell out of bed and scraped my head on the bedside table. It’s embarrassing, and it’s nothing to fuss about.”
“You have a blackberry toe!” Aggie said, pointing at my left foot.
We all looked at my big toe, most of which was a solid purple-black.
“Huh. I thought that was a shadow.” I hadn’t turned on the bathroom light when I’d taken a shower, figuring the dim morning light was sufficient—and a lot less upsetting when I could look at my face and pretend I was seeing shadows and not bruises.
“You need to see a doctor,” Grimshaw insisted.
“I agree,” Ilya Sanguinati said.
“No.” I was firm about that, despite my ribs starting to clamp around my lungs in response to male voices that were too loud to be safe. But I was firm until . . . whomp.
I’d always thought my thighs were chunky, but I couldn’t see me under Cougar’s paw. It was a big paw. And when he wrinkled his lips and showed me his teeth, I noticed that they were a perfect set of cat teeth—not a misplaced human tooth among them.
I should have been intimidated. Gods, I should have been terrified. Maybe I would have been if Cougar had growled at me. But he was one of the boys here at The Jumble, and while it wouldn’t be smart to trust him not to mistake me for lunch if I was actively bleeding, the paw on my thigh felt oddly comforting, like it was his way of telling me it was safe to stop and think.
“All right. I’ll go to the doctor’s—but I don’t want to ride in the police car.” I sounded like a whiny six-year-old, but I didn’t care. I’d had enough of riding in cop cars, and I could feel the anxiety attack starting again, just waiting for the final push.
Focused on my breathing in an effort to avoid the meltdown, I almost missed the significant looks between Grimshaw and Ilya Sanguinati.
“Fine,” Grimshaw said. “Julian can drive you.”
“Happy to,” Julian said.
Ilya shook his head. “My car is on the way. I will escort Victoria to the doctor.” He focused on Aggie for a moment. “But perhaps we can all meet up after the doctor’s visit?”
“At the boardinghouse?” Julian suggested. “I can call Ineke and see if she can provide lunch.”
“Can I say something?” I raised my hand halfway, which was childish or snarky. Hard to tell at that point.
“Of course,” Grimshaw said smoothly as he removed a small notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. “You can describe your dream. Anything that frightened you that much could have relevance to the investigation.”
I stared at him. “How? I’m not an Intuit or a blood prophet.” I was pretty sure asking me to describe the dream was his way of getting back at me for being snarky, but now that he’d tossed that idea out there, I could see that they all wanted details. More embarrassed than ever, I grumbled, “It was just a silly dream. Have you seen any papier-mâché creatures in business suits running around Sproing?”
“The creature could be symbolic, since paper seems to be at the center of your current difficulties,” Julian said, frowning. “And this dream might be trying to tell you that you understand more about what is going on than you realize.”
I wanted to punch Julian for validating the dream, but I would have needed to push Cougar’s paw off my leg in order to stand up, and I didn’t think I’d succeed. So I described in excruciating detail—because three of the four males in the kitchen kept interrupting to ask for more details—the dream that had caused my various bumps and bruises when my sleeping body obeyed my fuzzy brain and tried to run away without having any clue about
its current location.
Stupid body. Stupider brain for not posting a sign that said DREAM THREAT—PLEASE IGNORE.
Of course, even surrounded by guns and fangs, the image of the gauze-headed monster made me want to run, so maybe my various parts, while misguided, weren’t all that stupid. After all, running away was a valid choice.
Which meant Julian might be right about my subconscious trying to tell me something important.
“The car is here,” Ilya said.
“You need your purse?” Julian asked.
Of course I needed my purse. “I can get it.”
“You sit.” Julian disappeared, moving as if he were familiar with the main house and knew how to find my suite of rooms.
I was trying to think of how to tell two men who were so obviously trying not to look like they were wondering if Julian and I were friends or friends that I wouldn’t consider thinking of Julian like that. He was human and he was my friend, not a romantic fantasy. The only thing thinking about that in real terms did for me since the divorce was produce anxiety attacks.
Julian returned with my purse. Ilya and Grimshaw made sure the doors were all locked while Julian escorted me to the Sanguinati car.
“Vicki, go and get checked out,” Julian whispered as he opened the car’s back door. “Seeing the doctor has little to do with you right now.”
I studied his face, parsing out what he was trying to tell me when neither of us knew who or what was listening. And that was the point. An alarm had gone out, and while Ilya Sanguinati, Aggie, and Cougar may have been the only terra indigene visible in the kitchen, they weren’t the only ones who had responded and now needed to be appeased.
Ilya joined me a minute later and we drove to the doctor’s office. Someone had called ahead, warning Dr. Wallace that I was being brought in for unspecified injuries. The people in the waiting room looked surprised when I walked in with my attorney—and a few looked put out when we were immediately led to an exam room. But no one so much as muttered about special treatment.