“Yeah, Grandpa, we promise,” I said. “What’s going on? You sound…weird.”
“Just a little frustrated that your parents didn’t get returned to us tonight. Call me when you get to the cabin and don’t stop anywhere on the way. Love you two.” He disconnected the call and I was left with a bad feeling.
“What do you think that’s all about?” I asked Sin.
His hands tightened on the wheel before he answered. “I have no clue, but you’re right, he sounded off.”
We pulled up to the cabin, the wards still intact. I slipped through them to unlock the door while Sin did his walk around. He liked to check the outbuildings and property boundaries now and then like Grandpa did when he stayed here. I got the oven going and pulled out a lasagna that Maria, Benny’s wife, had sent over. With that in the oven, I prepped garlic bread and opened a bottle of wine. Sin came in through the back and I turned to hand him a glass of wine before I saw his face. Something really bad had happened.
“Tell me,” I said as he took the wine glass.
“I called Grandpa while I walked the property. Sid, the house. It’s gone.”
“What do you mean, the house is gone?”
“While we were at the park, someone burned our house down.”
I blinked at him while I processed the news, then drained my wine glass before I turned to put the garlic bread into the oven.
“They made sure we were out of the way so they could do that, didn’t they?”
“It seems that way,” Sin said. “And no, there were no bodies found in the ashes. Our folks are still out there, somewhere.”
“We need to go and see if the chest survived.” I thought about the one that we’d hidden in the wall. We’d warded it well, but who knew if the wards would protect it from fire.
“It’ll be crawling with uniforms right now. Grandpa said he was on the scene and would retrieve whatever he could. I’m just glad you were so thorough with bringing the more fragile stuff with us. We could have lost so much more.”
“Call Grandpa back and tell him to look for the trunk?”
“Sure, and you want to rescue dinner?” He smirked at me as he headed into the living room with the phone. I turned to pull the slightly well-done garlic bread out of the oven, then the lasagna. My great-grandmother witch on Mom’s side had had the gift of precognition. Guess I’d inherited a touch of that, because of that feeling I’d had when we drove away, somehow knowing it was the last time I’d see the house. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t freaking out right now.
I dished up the food and set the plates on the island. Wine, silverware, napkins and a basket of the very toasted garlic bread were put out before Sin came back into the room. “He said he had one of the firemen clear a path and he got the chest. The garage was saved, so your car and Dad’s are still okay. We can go clear that out later this week.”
We sat down to eat, but I just stared at my plate. “Now what do we do?”
“Grandpa said we can call this place home for as long as we want to. He’s also transferred some money into our accounts so we can get more clothes and stuff.”
I picked up my fork and poked at the food. “Did he say anything else?”
Sin ate a couple of bites of lasagna before he answered me. “Yeah, he did. He said if we waited to go to med school and law school and got through training at the Academy, he’d pay for grad school. Full ride. And he’d pay for a house or condo or whatever we wanted near our grad schools.”
I pushed my plate away and refilled our wine glasses. “Well, fuck.”
“Eat, Sid. You used a lot of energy today, with wards and all that. We’ve got to stay juiced up in case anything happens, sis.”
He was always good at taking care of me. I pulled my plate close again and took a couple of bites. “When do we have to give him an answer?”
“Six weeks. That way we have time to register and everything for the new class at PPA.”
“And the time to try and figure out what the hell happened to Mom and Dad.”
He got up to put his dishes in the dishwasher and I dumped the last of the wine bottle into the glasses. I’d managed to eat about half of my dinner, but I couldn’t choke any more down. It looked like this was going to be a two bottle night.
Sin slid a slice of garlic bread on a napkin over in front of me. “Eat this and I’ll open the Riesling.”
I took a bite and sighed. “It tastes good. At least I did something right tonight.”
“Oh, knock it the hell off, sis. Emo Sid was interesting when you were thirteen. Not so attractive now.”
“I think I’ve got every right to be emo after today,” I whined, taking a swallow of wine to shut my mouth for a minute. A breath and I mumbled, “I just miss Mom.”
Sin sighed and reached out to grip my shoulder. “I know. I miss them too.”
“Let’s go see Grandpa tomorrow and get the chest.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll open the wine, you go find us a movie or something to watch, okay? Get our minds off of stuff for a bit.”
I slid off the stool and took my glass into the living room. A pair of leather recliners sat on either side of a table, a matching sofa under the window and a bookshelf on the other wall. The wall facing the recliners held a fireplace with a wood stove insert and over the mantle was a huge flat-screen TV. I brought up the streaming service and found a John Wick movie we’d only seen twice.
“Good choice,” Sin said as he sat the wine bottle down between us, taking the other recliner. “Let it go, for now, Sid.”
I poured more wine and took his advice.
Sin
I’d become too used to worrying about Sid these days. I realized this as I drove us back through the city to Grandpa’s house on the other side of Belle Cove. “You okay, sis?”
“Oh, my gods, Sin, stop asking me that, please,” Sid said as she thumped her head back against the headrest.
“Look, I know the last thing you want to do is visit Grandpa, but..”
“Whatever gave you that idea? The fact that he always treats me as a second-class citizen and barely acknowledges the fact that I’m a breathing human being? Never mind that I’m his actual granddaughter.”
“And what about Grandma Fortin? She would say ‘warlock’ like it’s a curse every time she saw me. Like it’s my fault I’m both male and a witch. No one even uses the term warlock because it means traitor, not male witch,” I reminded her.
“So, we both have grandparents that make us want to scream, punch them, or blow up something in their general vicinity. Yay us.” Sid said.
“And after we visit Grandpa, we should probably go visit Grandma Fortin. See if she’s heard anything. You know she won’t call us to give us intel and will make us go in person.”
Sid snorted laughter into her travel mug. “Careful, Sin. Your snark is showing.”
It felt good to hear her laugh. We’d not had much reason to over the past few days. After the park fiasco and the house burning down, we tried to go see the house and got turned away. Grandpa paid some folks to empty the garage and move the vehicles and the stuff into a storage shed at the cabin, and the debris was getting hauled away and the site cleared. Going through the things stored in the garage had been harder than we’d expected. Realizing a whole lifetime’s worth of photos and memories had gone up in smoke, along with family heirloom furniture pieces, Mom’s wedding dress, Dad’s favorite fishing hat, all of it gone.
We made our way out the other side of the city and down the cliff road. A twisting road ran from the city to the lighthouse on the peninsula. About a hundred feet below, the ocean crashed against the rocks, sending spray into the air. I glanced over and saw Sid staring out the window, watching the waves. “That view is the best part of this ride, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s the best part of visits to Grandpa’s place. I always like it best from the other direction, though.”
“Ha. Ha. Okay, suck it up, sweet cheeks. We’re about to face the
dragon in his castle.” I knew that would get a laugh out of her and I wasn’t disappointed. I pulled up to the gates, punched in the code, and drove us up to the house a couple of minutes later. The Boudreau mansion sat on several acres of prime waterfront property with the house at the top of the hill to best capture the views of the ocean. The main part was a three-story square in the brick Georgian style, built in 1702, with wings added on to either side in the late 1780s and a back addition of a Victorian conservatory using steel in the late 1800s. We had been raised knowing the history of the house as much as knowing the history of the family that built it and still lived in it. Our father’s family, a long and proud line of shifters.
I got out of the car and stretched, doing my best to give Sid a few moments to prepare herself. I loved my Grandpa, but he was a real dick when it came to the way he treated my sister.
By the time I got around the car, Sid was standing outside it, tugging on her clothes and twisting her hair around a finger. I gave her a shoulder hug and kissed the top of her head. “Just breathe, Sid. We’ll get out of here as soon as we can, okay?”
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” she said as she forced a smile to her lips and walked up the steps with me.
I pushed the front door open and called out. “Grandpa, we’re here.”
His responding bellow came from the back of the house, which meant he was in his library. “Back here, my boy.”
We walked past the central staircase down a hall lined with antique portraits of ancestors. Mahogany floors covered with imported, antique carpets muffled our steps as I led the way to the library. Sid slowed her steps the closer we got until I reached back and took her hand. I gave her the ‘knock it off’ look and she stuck her tongue out at me. Yeah, we were that mature.
I tugged Sid’s hand to pull her closer. “Behave.” I hissed, then nudged her into place beside me. We walked into the library side by side.
“A pleasure to see you, Sinclair.” Grandpa B said from his seat behind his desk. “Oh, and hello, Sidonie.”
“Grandfather Boudreau,” Sid said, staying by the door.
I moved to the two chairs in front of his desk and dropped into one, eyes on my grandfather as he stared at my sister.
“Are you going to come join us, Sidonie?” he asked.
“It’s Sid, Grandpa. And I’ll come join you if you really want me to, otherwise, I can go find something else to do and leave you here with your favorite grandchild.”
I grinned at Grandpa, knowing her attitude was one of the things he admired most about her, but would never tell her as much.
“Come sit, Sid. Please,” he said.
That had me sitting up and staring at him. “Okay, Grandpa. What’s going on?”
Sid walked over and sat, giving him the same worried look I was wearing.
“We found your mother.”
My heart stuttered. I felt it skip in my chest. “Is she alive?”
“Where did you find her?” Sid asked.
“Yes, she is alive, and two of my men found her at the lighthouse. Someone had left a cryptic message tied to the gate with some of her hair. She’s at Alicia’s house right now, being seen by the healers.”
Sid and I both got to our feet, ready to head out right then when Grandpa spoke again. “Wait, you two. Please, sit for a few more minutes.”
“But, Grandpa,” Sid started to argue.
“Please,” he said again.
We both sat down on the edge of our seats. Sid was twisting her hair into a knot and my knee was bouncing so fast, my calf was cramping.
“Your mother said they still had your father. It’s some organization calling itself The Purist League. They want to eliminate all impure shifters and witches from existence.”
“That’s why they wanted to exchange them for us,” I said. “So they could kill us?”
“However, we have since learned that your father escaped, and they tracked him back to your house. They burned it down, thinking he was trapped inside. He wasn’t. We don’t know where your father is right now, and your mother was injured trying to escape with him. They didn’t want her death on their hands, so they dumped her at the lighthouse and left us a message. I guess they’re more afraid of the Fortin family than they are of the Boudreaus.” He got to his feet, fists resting on his desk as he leaned forward. “I think it’s time they learned to fear both families. Don’t you?”
All I could think about was Mom, hurt and Dad, somewhere out there with these Purist idiots hunting him. Luckily Sid had more clarity.
“Fear? No, Grandpa. Fear isn’t going to work with people calling themselves Purists. They’re acting out of fear. Fear that something different, something like Sin and I, are going to change how they live their lives, how they exist in the world. We don’t need to make them fear us. We need to get them to understand and accept us.”
He gave a derisive snort and shook his head. “Damned fool girl child. Your brother certainly got all of the brains in that birthing. Why don’t you just go to the kitchen and get us some drinks while your brother and I handle things?”
Sid got to her feet, grabbed a crystal vase off the desk and lifted it over her head. I grabbed it before she could throw it, set it on the desk and faced our grandfather.
“With all due respect, sir, shut your fucking mouth. You ever speak to Sid like that again and it will be the last time you speak with either of us. Understood?” I had to breathe a couple of deep ones after that because I could feel the growl deep in my chest. “We are a package deal. We work best together, and we have each other’s back, no matter what. You have a problem with that, you’re the one who didn’t get the brains.”
Our grandfather’s face was bright red and he was spluttering, so I took Sid’s hand and led her to the door.
“Thanks for that,” she whispered to me. I squeezed her hand in reply.
We got just outside the library door when we heard a choking sound and the creak of Grandpa’s chair. Sid whirled around and ran to his side. “Grandpa, are you alright? Can you breathe?”
I saw him slumped in his chair, hands over his face, making this wheezing sound as he shook. “Grandpa?” I asked as I walked closer.
He sniffled and rubbed his face, then pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped at his eyes, then nose. “I’m sorry,” he finally wheezed out.
Sid sighed, walked around his desk and sat back down. I just stood there, arm on the back of the leather wingback I had been sitting in earlier. “Sorry for what?”
“For being such a horses ass. I know better, but my worry for your father – my boy – has me leaning more towards my animal side than my human.”
“And so you’ve been more animal than human every time you see me?” Sid said.
“She has a point, Grandpa.”
The old man leaned back and sighed. “Do you know how many twins were born into this family? Five. Over the last hundred years. Every pair of twins were both males.” He shook his head. “Your father not only gave me mutant grandchildren, he couldn’t even give me both males. Total waste of his genetics.”
“Are you freakin’ kidding me right now?” I said, staring at the man I had admired and loved. Sid had a much different reaction. Standing, she moved past the desk to the bookshelves at the end of the room. She reached up, tugged on the copy of Jack London’s “Call of the Wild” and the bookcase slid to the right, revealing the safe.
“What do you think…” Grandpa started to say, and I turned to face him.
“I think you need to be quiet,” I said.
“You children need to stop.” He started to get up out of his chair and Sid turned, flicked her hand in his direction, and a force spell slapped him in the chest and pushed him back into his chair.
I snorted a rude laugh and shook my head. “Like I said, be quiet and just sit there. It’s healthier for you.”
Sid opened the safe, stepped inside and within a few minutes, she was walking out with our wooden trunk floating be
hind her. “It’s still warded,” she told me.
“Good,” I turned to our grandfather. “Now, the bank account information.”
“I’m not about to give…”
“Yeah, yeah, we know. You’re not about to give a damn about us because we’re mutants. But you are about to give us the account information for those trusts you set up for us instead of using them as threats to hold over us. We’re past legal age, more than capable of handling our own finances, and not interested in having to deal with you again.”
He got to his feet and went into the safe. A few minutes went by and he came out with a soft black leather bag zipped shut. He handed it to me, so I zipped it open. Inside were two account access packets and a couple of bound bundles of money. I zipped it shut and nodded to Sid. “We’re done.”
Sid headed out of the office, the trunk floating behind her. I started to follow, then stopped and reached into my pocket. I pulled out the two keys for the house that he’d given me a couple of years back and tossed them onto his desk, then followed my sister out to the car.
Our grandfather didn’t say a word. I mean, what could he say?
* * *
Once we were back on the road, I turned toward the lighthouse.
“Thanks,” Sid said. “I want to go see if there are any traces there, too.”
“Then we go to Grandma’s place and see Mom.”
“Definitely. I need to see that she’s okay.”
It was only about ten minutes up the road from Boudreau House to the lighthouse on the point. No one was there that we could see. No cars and no hikers as we parked and made our way up to the house and tower. There was a new padlock on the lighthouse door, but a whispered word of power and the lock popped open. Inside the ground floor of the tower, a dirty blanket lay on the floor. Bloodstains marred the plaid fabric and the scent of blood and salt was in the air. Sid picked up a broken branch from some debris in the corner and lifted the blanket, revealing a salt circle underneath.
I wandered the room and found herb bundles scattered in the dead leaves and brush. “Whoever brought Mom here, tried to heal and protect her. I guess that’s a good sign?” I said.
Shifters Gone Wild; Collection Page 150