by Oxford, Rain
She shrugged. “You’ll have to ask a shifter that. The guy we’re here to see is human, but he is allied with many of the stronger paranormals. He’s a bit slimy to deal with. However, if anyone, paranormal or human, needs to relocate in a hurry, he’s the guy to go to.”
“There are a lot of alliances around here, and even more secrets.”
“It’s how we keep a select few from gaining all the power. Believe me; this is our system of balance. Nobody should know everything. Right now, everyone is afraid of the council taking over. Most people don’t actually know who your father was. Hey!” she yelled when she saw the man coming down the stairs. He spotted us immediately, smiled, and approached us.
He was my height, a little heavier built than me, and dressed in a black business suit with a deep blue tie. My senses recognized the invisible beast inside him before he was close; wolf shifter. His hair was styled, short, and dark brown, but his deep blue eyes were very familiar. I let my power out, searching across many miles for Darwin’s mind.
“Do you know what time it is?” Even his thoughts sounded tired.
“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. What does your father look like?” A mental image came to my mind of this man, but his hair was a little longer, he wore a white business shirt, and he was smiling. This was definitely Darwin’s father.
“Hello, Clara,” he said. “I thought you were attending Quintessence this year.”
“I am, but we’re taking a few days off to solve our current problem. This is Devon Sanders.”
He smiled kindly at me and held out his hand to shake mine. “Nice to finally meet you, Devon. I’m Maseré Mason.” Whereas Alpha Flagstone could be called growly and sullen on his best days, this man was friendly. Since my instincts didn’t warn me of danger, I shook his hand.
My power instantly reacted without my control. It was similar to when I was trying to connect to someone’s mind, but it was more like my magic was trying to see his wolf. Unfortunately, just as fast as my magic reacted, his wolf did. I could see the wolf in my mind; black as night with deep gold eyes. He snarled a warning. As friendly as the man was, his wolf was as much an alpha as Flagstone. While they were both black, he was bigger than Flagstone and his eyes were lighter. What I found odd was that his wolf was the largest I had seen, while his person form was not.
I retracted my hand, receiving three long scratches down my palm for my efforts. When his wolf had come to the surface, it made his fingertips shift into claws. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
He patted my shoulder as his hands returned to normal. “Don’t worry about it; I know it wasn’t an attack. Darwin talks about you a lot. You should have brought him with you.”
“Well, he has class.”
Maseré laughed. “I’m sure the boy skips more than he attends. Like his mother, you can’t keep him in his seat. Besides, there is nothing that school can teach him. We only insisted he go because it would keep him from hacking.” His smile couldn’t have been prouder as he said it. “So, Stephen said you were a private investigator and Vincent said you were very discreet.”
“I think the discreet part has fallen flat on its ass.”
“Quite possibly. Do you do bodyguard work? I know someone who is looking for a bodyguard for his daughter, but she can’t handle a constant presence of shifters and the vampires can’t go out in sunlight.”
“I have a few cases I’m working on now, but get back to me later. If I can’t help her, I know someone who specializes in it.”
“Good deal. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Do you know anything that can help us in our current situation?” Clara asked. Apparently, she didn’t want the vampires to hear that we were looking for a killer.
“I’m afraid your father knows everything I do. I tracked some vampires to the warehouse and couldn’t find anything of value. Whoever it is, it wasn’t a shifter.”
“Do shifters have that distinct of a scent?” I asked.
He nodded. “It’s a territory and prey thing. Drake might know something, but I doubt it. I have to get home. It was nice meeting you, and I’m sure we will meet again,” he said, patting my shoulder again. When he walked away, my instincts fired up.
Get out. Move. “We need to leave.” I grabbed Clara’s hand and started to pull her towards the door before she could argue. Unfortunately, I sensed the familiar presence only a second before Astrid blocked my path, forcing me to stop. She was ten feet away, which was a hundred thousand miles too close.
Chapter 7
I was chasing after Astrid, who was chasing after Seda. The damn wolf had taken my shoe. Although she was just trying to play, I had to run on sticks and rocks. Because it had been raining constantly for three days, the ground was as muddy as it could get, so it was no wonder that I slipped. My hands scraped on the bark of a fallen log and a rock. I wanted to cry, but I was eleven and determined not to cry in front of anyone, let alone the girl who was my best friend.
I sat on the log, hoping that Astrid had gone on ahead and not seen what happened. Of course, wiping my muddy hands on my muddy jeans wasn’t all that smart.
My eyes watered at the sting of my hands and embarrassment as Astrid sat next to me. “Take off your shirt,” she said.
It was cold and my shirt was soaked, but I was self-conscious. “No.”
“You’re going to get sick.”
“You’re one to talk. You never wear anything but that stupid nightgown.” Her dark brown hair spilled over her thin, white-clad shoulders in loose curls. I figured that Astrid was recovering from whatever illness she suffered from that kept her from going to school, because she looked a little healthier almost every time I saw her.
She frowned and glanced down at her nightgown, then focused on my hand. “I’m not cold. You need to wash your hands off.”
I sensed something wrong, like something really bad was about to happen. Seda howled from wherever she was in the woods. “What’s wrong with her?” I asked.
“It’s a forest fire. We need to go back.”
She was really afraid, which was something I hadn’t seen before; Astrid was never afraid of anything. “It’s just a fire,” I said. “It’s been raining, so the fire can’t go far.”
“It isn’t far from us to begin with, and the smoke can be deadly, too. Trust me; fire is more dangerous than anything else in this forest, including me.” Seda returned with my shoe and held still long enough for Astrid to take it before she ran off away from the fire. I put my shoe on and followed Astrid home.
I wanted her to come with me to my room, but she said it was best that we called it a night. When I pushed, she told me that her grandfather was going to be looking for her and that she needed to eat.
* * *
Clara sighed and pushed my hand away. “I don’t care what your problem with Astrid is. I’m going to get information.” She walked off back to the stairs.
Astrid was the kind of girl who became prettier with age. Her skin, once sickly pale, was now the flawlessly porcelain quality that supermodels worked so hard for. Her hair was thick, wavy, and compiled of numerous shades of brown that seemed to give her dark eyes great depths. I knew the vivid blue of her satin shirt would contrast beautifully if she blushed. Her black leather jacket and matching pants were sexier than I cared to admit.
She was no longer ten feet away; she had closed half that distance without me realizing it. I didn’t want to see Astrid as attractive. I also didn’t like the way she was waiting patiently for me to go to her, as if she knew I would.
I wanted to go to her, just like I had when we were kids.
“You stay away!” I demanded, then turned and followed Clara. My instincts kept pushing me urgently to leave. Astrid followed at a distance and by the time I was up the steps, she was at the bottom. I wished I had my gun.
Clara sat down on a black leather couch across from a man sitting on an identical couch. Drake was the picture-perfect mobster; a little hea
vy set, not too tall, slick black hair, over-priced black suit, and a cigarette hanging from his mouth.
“Nice to see you, Clara,” he said. He turned his cold brown eyes on me, obviously waiting for my introduction.
Damn. No Italian accent. “I’m Devon.”
“I have nothing to say to a cop, Devon.”
“I’m not a cop.”
“Bullshit. I know a cop when I see one. Get him out of here, Kevin,” he said.
The shifter moved to grab me, but I was already strung tight, as my adrenaline was pumping with the urgent need to do something. I reached out my power impatiently and wrapped around the shifter’s mind, both his human and reptilian one. “Sit down,” I told him.
Unfortunately, there was nothing to sit on behind him, so he flopped down on the floor. The shock and fear on his face as I retracted my power made me a little ashamed. Drake’s mouth was open.
“What do you know about the vampires who were killed?”
“Nothing,” he said too quickly.
“Don’t make me make you.” The lamp on the shelf beside us flickered and there was a small spark in it from the irritation of my magic.
Clara sighed. “Devon, you are way too new to the paranormal world to be making enemies.”
Although I knew she was right and not all of my contacts were legit, Drake wasn’t someone I wanted to deal with. I reached up into the lamp as if to turn it off and felt the small abnormality next to the bulb. Knowing instantly what I found, I removed the button-sized recording device.
“What is that?” Clara asked when I held it up in my palm.
“Any idea who bugged your office?” I asked Drake.
“Nobody has been in here… I went to a supplier meeting three nights ago, so it must have been then.”
Whoever bugged Drake’s office is likely the same person who bugged Hunt’s office, but is it the same person who killed the vampires? I didn’t like coincidences. “What do you know about the vampires that were killed?”
He glared at me. “Two of them went off with a couple of twin human women to feed from. The humans were back the next day with no memories and the vampires didn’t return. Two more vampires went with them the second night and none of them were seen again.”
“I need to see these humans.”
“I don’t have any surveillance cameras because of the human authorities.”
“That’s okay.” Without giving him a warning, I let my power flood his mind and thought of vampires leaving the club with humans. His mind relented instantly and filled in the blanks.
I saw two shapely, gorgeous, red-headed, identical women and a couple of vampires. I didn’t see the vampires clearly because Drake was focusing on the women from his balcony and not the vampires they left with. He enjoyed his job because many women offered themselves to him. He was constantly surrounded by powerful shifters, vampires, fae, and wizards, so this club was the only place where he was in power.
He wasn’t a good man, but he wouldn’t let drugs in his club and he kept his girls from being hurt. I tried to focus on his illegal activity, but instead my power spread out into the minds of the dancers in his memory. Although most of these people were not currently in the club, I felt their minds anyway. They were spread all over the state and ranged from weird, cloudy dreams to their normal late night routines. When I encountered rows between couples, partiers dancing to the music, and sex, I tried to draw my mind back.
It was easier to leave the minds of those who were further away. I was almost done when chilling words made me pause. “They’re all going burn. Fucking scum. Burn in Hell, where you belong.” Hate ran strong in this person’s mind; stronger than I had seen in John’s mind.
I pulled back easily this time and my eyes snapped open. “Get out.” I stood, grabbed Clara’s wrist, and hauled her up. “Get out!” I pushed until she gave up arguing and headed for the steps. We reached the bottom of the stairs at the same time and she got through because she was faster, but I was blocked by the sea of people. Astrid was suddenly beside me. The look on her face was so reserved and my instincts were pushing me so hard, that I grabbed her hand and hauled her with me through the crowd. Something red caught my eye and I pulled it before I realized what it was.
The fire alarm blared and water spewed from the ceiling. Several screams joined the siren and the music, but at least the crowd started moving to the door.
Faster! I didn’t have enough room to get to the door without shoving people out of the way.
“What’s wrong?” Astrid asked. Water ran down her face and she had to wipe her hair out of her eyes several times.
Get out now!
I gave myself up to my instincts, my power. My magic lashed out to every mind in the vicinity; “Run,” I told them, knowing they would obey, and also that they wouldn’t make it in time. I saw a bench seat with a sturdy wooden table not far and pushed Astrid under it. I felt the explosion before it happened.
The sound came first, followed instantly by the vibrations. I visualized a barrier over the people swarming the door, willed it, and… demanded it. Heat didn’t have time to build inside me. I thought of strength. I visualized the strength of my willpower shielding them. It felt like adrenaline pumping through me. When the ceiling collapsed, I felt pain, like it was falling on me, but it was bearable. Allocating part of my mind on protecting them, I also reached out for the heat that was cropping up around me. Fires.
Stop. Fire couldn’t be controlled by my psychic powers like people, but it could be controlled with elemental magic. The water sprayers and alarm were both damaged by the explosion and ineffective. There were pipes in the bathrooms; I could feel it. I visualized water bursting from its pipes and flooding out the fires, while thinking of what water was. Water was healing. I could heal people and put out the fire with it.
Another explosion blew out the far wall. The loft collapsed, trapping whoever was in the rooms under it and propelling debris over the remaining room. More concrete and plaster hit my barrier, causing my head to throb with a migraine. Almost the entire ceiling had collapsed.
Water flooded the floor and put out fires. When another explosion caused two more walls to cave, a man broke away from those huddled by the exit, which was blocked by rubble. The man raised his hands at debris that was blocking the doors to the back rooms and it moved. Two shifters and a vampire joined in and started clearing the doors so people in the back rooms could escape, while three more people started using magic to clear away the front doors.
Drake emerged from the wreckage unscathed thanks to Kevin. Instead of acknowledging his bodyguard for protecting him, he approached me. “The humans cannot leave knowing there are paranormals here.”
I started to head for Astrid, but she was already climbing out from under the table. I wanted to hate her, to be mad at her for being a vampire, to yell at her about something… but she was shaking. She was a vampire; an invincible, emotionless, killer. Yet the fear and shock in her eyes was real. Her warmth was real, too, as I pulled her into my arms and hugged her.
She was a little taller than me when we were kids, but she now fit so well in my arms, like I could protect her. “He killed them,” she whispered.
“Who?”
“My parents.”
“Who killed your parents?”
“Stop the humans!” Drake yelled at Kevin.
“Astrid, tell all the vampires to thrall the humans into forgetting what they saw,” I said, trying to pull away. She clung to my shirt and shook her head. I pushed her away and opened my mind to allow the connection between us to reform. After nearly twenty years, it like I was seeing my best friend again.
Astrid was just what she had always been; very clever, a little bit deranged, and absolutely dangerous. She was about as nurturing as I imagined a vampire could be. Her life was a struggle against her own nature and the people around her. Everyone she knew wanted to use her or kill her, except for me. Despite that, or maybe because of it, she was extremely res
ilient.
She was the one who attacked my parents, yet she was ready and willing to protect me from everything she had lived through. “We’re fine. Go,” I said. She did.
A huge wolf shifter patted my back hard enough to knock me forward several steps. “Good job, wizard,” he said as he walked away. The next hour flew by as all of the paranormals worked together to rescue survivors. There were many victims, most of which were humans.
“Why did you help me?” Astrid asked when I sat down for the first time since the explosions.
There was dust from the plaster on her face, stuck by sweat and the water I used to put out the fires. I grabbed her wrist, pulled her onto the bench seat beside me, and tried to wipe off as much of the gunk as I could. Her leather jacket and pants were relatively undamaged, unlike her satin shirt.
“I don’t know. Why were you in my room?”
“I missed you. I didn’t want you to shoot me again, so I went to see you when you didn’t have your gun. I would have gone to your apartment, but that damn cat was always there.”
“You killed my father.”
“He wasn’t your father. You must not remember how badly he treated you. Besides, I didn’t kill your mother.”
“Why not? Why did you spare her?”
“I didn’t have time.”
“I should never have spoken to you. I should never have let you in my home.” My mother was alive, but not mentally stable. Hell, she couldn’t even function on her own.
“No, you shouldn’t have. But I saved Cody for you.”
“That doesn’t change what you did. Are you even sorry?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know why I did it. I don’t even remember doing it. I remember going to bed with you and then…” She shrugged, staring off into space. “I guess I was just hungry. But I will try not to do it again. Stephen helped me a lot.”
“What do you mean you don’t remember?” She shrugged again. “Who killed your parents?”
“I don’t remember that either. I remember I was too small. I saw him kill my mother and I remember her crashing into the crib.”