Ignorance truly was bliss. At least it helped one sleep peacefully at night.
He hadn’t slept since the town-wide masquerade, which was likely a blessing. He didn’t know what kind of nightmares would haunt his dreams now.
But what had happened was no dream. It was a very real battle. Many of the patrols out that night hadn’t returned at all, but anyone with ears had heard the firefight that ensued.
At the time, Resnick was passed out in the center of town like most everyone else. By the time he came to and reached the location of the battle, the fighting was over. There were signs of struggle, but no bodies. The survivors remembered nothing, just like all the town’s folk.
But search dogs were able to run three different specimens to ground.
One creature—a mad beast with pale skin and sharp fangs—Resnick had wanted to put down on the spot. Brass had ordered it brought in for study.
The other two specimens were caught because they were trying to kill the vampire-like creature. The tall elfish one had managed to put two arrows in the vampire. In turn, Resnick and his men nailed the big guy with three tranquilizer darts.
Their new target had escaped back into the forest. They were tracking him when they found a tiny four-foot tall female...something...trying to hide her unconscious friend from the search dogs.
Weird shit happened.
Resnick just wished it would stop happening on his watch.
And just last night he’d returned to base to find an intruder impersonating one of his men. Clearly, this one was an infiltrator of some kind and had planted himself with Resnick’s convoy to get inside the base.
His superiors claimed the decoy Corporal Jenkins was there to execute the vampire-like specimen but had been discovered before he was able to complete his mission, and the one in the suit of armor had been sent to finish the job.
Something didn’t sit right with Resnick.
Why would the one in full armor kill the vampire-like specimen but not free the other two prisoners? He’d had plenty of time to release the other two while he’d been down on the rink, but he hadn’t bothered. It didn’t add up. Could the imposter Corporal Jenkins and Armor Suit represent two different warring factions?
When he’d brought his concerns to his superior, he’d been assigned patrol detail.
As if it was his fault the newcomer had vanished before all their eyes. None of it made sense.
“Major, I found something that might prove interesting.”
Resnick made his way over to Lieutenant Landry, still scanning the area for nasty surprises. “Interesting is a forbidden word. The science geeks have killed it for me. Permitted words are ‘dangerous’ or ‘what-the-fuck-is-this.’ Understand?”
“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant eyed him dubiously. “They’re the cameras Corporal Mackenzie set up last week before she went MIA.”
Anger and guilt warred within Resnick before he could push it back.
Mackenzie wasn’t much more than a kid. She was what, twenty-four? Bright, brave, foolhardy, third generation military. How the hell was he going to face her father? Brigadier General Samuel Mackenzie had been Resnick’s CO during his first tour. Despite a decade difference in their ages, they had maintained a close friendship for the last twenty years.
In part, that’s why Corporal Mackenzie had landed in Resnick’s unit. The day of the masquerade, he and his team had been out on patrol when the ridge they’d been exploring gave way. Mackenzie, Griffith, and Jones had all gotten a rough ride to the base of the ridge. He’d ordered them all back to get checked out.
By the time all hell had broken loose later that night, his three injured team members had been released from medical. He’d only learned after he’d come stumbling back to HQ that they had gone back out to help once they’d heard gunfire. No one had seen or heard from them since.
“Sir?”
“Do you have something to view the data on?”
“No, but Ruthven does,” Lieutenant Landry said and jerked his chin in Master Corporal Ruthven’s direction where he was already shouldering off his pack. He passed a tablet to Landry.
“Good. Let me know if you see something more dangerous than deer.” To the others, he motioned for them to fan out and do another quick scout of the area. Enemies that could pop in and out without leaving a trace made even him paranoid.
When they couldn’t find so much as a leaf out of place, he ordered a short rest.
Resnick took a drag on his water as he looked at the trees around him, and then up into the thick canopy overhead.
“You know,” he said more to the trees above than any one of his men. “I think I know how our Robin Hood and the pixie Marion managed to avoid detection for so long.”
He remembered how the tall, elfish fellow with the longbow had dropped down practically on top of Resnick’s team in his attempt to take out their fanged acquisition. The combination of the tree canopy, thick underbrush, and placement of Resnick’s team must have fouled up the elf lord’s killing shots.
Was it desperation, or just blind hate, which had driven him to expose himself to their team? Resnick didn’t have an answer. No one had been able to make tall, blond, and elfish talk.
But Resnick still had a feeling the elf might have been protecting everyone by trying to take out the fanged monstrosity.
“Trees,” Resnick said as he glanced over at Ruthven.
“Sir?”
“The damned trees. Robin Hood and our tiny Marion, I’d bet a week’s rations they use the trees to travel. Otherwise, we would have found some signs of them long ago.”
“Sir,” Landry spoke up over the others. “Not sure about trees, but I think I just found another mode of travel. You’ve got to see this. It’s way past interesting, straight into WTF territory.”
Resnick took the offered tablet. The feed had been paused and enlarged to take up the screen’s entire surface.
His eyes darted over the screen, and he sucked in a deep breath. “We move out now. Back to base, double time. Ruthven, put that thing back in your pack and protect it with your life.”
Private Jacobs walked up and tried to glance at the screen as Ruthven stowed the tablet in his pack. “What’s on it?”
“I’m not sure, exactly.”
Resnick gestured them to move out. “What’s on that device is so highly classified they haven’t created a designation for it yet. We are going to endure hours and hours of debriefings. That’s what’s on that damn device.”
Resnick kept his voice emotionless and controlled, but inside he was shaking.
He was sure what he’d mentally labeled elf, pixie, and vampire were something science could explain—some kind of mutation, or highly illegal genetic experimentation. Something that had started out human.
What he’d seen on the tablet was not human, not even close. Never had been.
Chapter 14
LILLIAN SAT WITH THE rest of the family around the kitchen table. A cooling cup of coffee rested in her hand. She’d been nursing it for twenty minutes but couldn’t get it down. The smell wasn’t helping the tight knot in her stomach either.
Coffee had been hit and miss with her ever since she’d emerged from her hamadryad healing three weeks ago.
Had it only been weeks? The siren Tethys, the Riven, the human military. It all felt much longer than three short weeks.
Sipping her coffee, she grimaced. The rest of the family was equally as quiet. It had been another long night with only a few hours’ worth of sleep. Well, not that she and Gregory had spent the whole time sleeping, either.
She glanced around at her family. Her brother was polishing off a bowl of porridge with more determination than joy by the look of it. Gran sat staring at her oatmeal—too tired to eat it, by all appearances, which had Lillian worried.
“We need to plan for what comes next. Any ideas?” she asked the table at large.
Gregory cocked an ear in her direction but continued to finish his second bowl of por
ridge before he answered. “We rest and see what the humans do this day. Tonight, protected by darkness, we stage a rescue. We both scented our allies within that main building just before we fled.”
“Yes, but how will we manage it? They were planning to move them to a more secure location yesterday, just before we were discovered. Surely, they have already moved them.
Gregory shook his head. “Darkness says Whitethorn and Goswin are still inside.” He sounded a touch displeased. “He took it upon himself to scout the area we did not have time to search. He found them drugged and trapped in clear-walled cages. He couldn’t escape with them both, not with them unconscious and during full daylight.”
Ah, the real source of his annoyance. Darkness had gone scouting without notifying Gregory first.
Lillian rubbed the bridge of her nose to hide her smile and then turned serious again. “Then we still have a chance to rescue them before they get spirited off to god knows where. I’m glad our debacle didn’t spook the military into moving them early.”
“If anything, the debacle caused them to dig in and call for more reinforcements,” Gran said into her cup. “Our spies are keeping track of things and will inform us if they move our friends.”
“Spies?” Lillian asked, feeling like she’d missed something, again.
Gran made a fluttering gesture with her hand. “Like the messenger spells, but these ones watch and report back their news. If the soldiers notice a few more birds, squirrels, and chipmunks than normal?” She smiled. “They will think nothing of it.”
Gran’s exhaustion now made sense. She’d been doing spell work all night. “We could have helped.”
“It was better you slept. There is still lots that needs doing before tonight.” Gran gestured at the small television in the corner of the kitchen. “My spies have already overheard many interesting things. We are still persons of interest—though not as much as before now they have something else to hunt. In the meantime, they plan to give the town a clean bill of health and lift the lockdown. They have an ulterior motive, of course. Once they turn the townsfolk loose to gather and gossip, they are going to tail those of interest and see if they can learn something.”
“So, every time we turn around, we’re going to run into our new best friends,” Lillian stated with a snort of amusement. “That’s going to make things more complicated.”
“We’re not going to do anything of interest,” Gran said. “In fact, we’re going to bore them to death. Lillian, you and Gregory are going to go grocery shopping and run errands. Make sure you hit the coffee shop and the diner for lunch. Jason will go to the hardware store and get the wood for the new gazebo. I’ll go meet with the card ladies. Just boring business as usual.”
“You’re going to turn me loose on the town?” Gregory looked excited at the thought, so Lillian introduced the other part of the equation.
“Yep, lots of places to go in the car.”
Gregory’s expression fell.
Chapter 15
SHADOWLIGHT THOUGHT Gran would never leave, but she finally did. Taking the noisy and smelly conveyance she called a truck, she drove off down the lane.
Perched on Gregory’s pedestal in the center of Lillian’s maze, Shadowlight couldn’t actually see Gran driving away, but he could hear it. He waited until the sound of her truck drifted away before he moved.
Jason had gone to something called a hardware store to get wood, which mystified him. Why would they go somewhere to get wood when they were surrounded by forests? Oh well, Lillian’s adopted family might be strange, but he liked them anyway.
Lillian and Gregory were out shopping—whatever that was. Gran had just left to play cards. It was all a ruse to trick the humans. He’d been eavesdropping on their conversation at breakfast and thought it sounded like a perfect opportunity to visit with his pet human.
He was supposed to stay on the pedestal and pretend to be Gregory, which he totally could do, but he was also skilled enough to leave an illusion behind that looked and felt like a stone statue.
After stretching, he jumped down from his perch and created the illusion. He felt a touch guilty. His father had given him the assignment, and it really wasn’t honorable to just leave.
Yet, he needed to check on his human.
Somehow, he didn’t think his parents would be understanding.
Good thing they were out patrolling the perimeter of the human military camp.
He’d originally wanted to join them, but they’d refused. Something about it being too dangerous.
He made his way out of the maze, searching for any other fae that might be lurking around, especially Greenborrow. The leshii had taken the blame for allowing the medical technician to escape.
Why he didn’t know. Greenborrow could merely have said he’d left the human in Shadowlight’s care.
The leshii had glanced at Shadowlight while he’d told the lie and taken the blame.
Shaking off the mild guilt the memory inspired, Shadowlight began to run, using his natural magic for camouflage. It wasn’t foolproof in the bright light of day, and he felt more exposed than he liked as he ran through the gardens.
He didn’t relax until he was once more under the dense forest canopy.
Taking a long winding path to his destination added an extra few minutes to the trip, but it made him feel more secure about his human’s safety.
When he arrived, she was already up and walking the edges of the protective dome of energy. Every few strides, she reached out and touched the solid surface and then pulled her fingers away with a little shake.
There was a method to her actions, he realized. She was using a search pattern to cover the entire dome within her reach, looking for a door or weakness she could use to escape.
He stalked forward, maintaining his shadow magic. In a mix of curiosity and playfulness, he paced her, mirroring her move for move to see how much his blood had changed her.
After three steps and no outward change in her expression or body language, a sense of disappointment swept over him. He had hoped his blood would have had more of an effect on her—for her own safety. She needed to be more gargoyle and less human if she had any hope of being accepted by the other fae.
Oh well, no one had discovered his secret. He only had to maintain it long enough to get a little more of his blood in her.
Once she was more of the Magic Realm than the Mortal one, he was confident his family and the other fae wouldn’t kill her outright.
Admittedly, he hadn’t thought it out thoroughly when he’d saved her, but he was certain the others would see she possessed a noble spirit.
While he’d been thinking of future possibilities, Anna had stopped her search of the dome and was staring at him with a perplexed look on her face. The little wrinkle between her brows deepened.
“You’re there, aren’t you? I can sense you.” Her brow smoothed as her eyes widened in surprise. Then in a hoarse whisper, she added, “It damn well better be you.”
“It is,” he assured her as he released his hold on his cloaking magic.
His sudden appearance had startled her, but after a moment she returned to the dome’s edge and studied him through it. “Handy trick. How many others can you do?”
At first, he’d been a bit in awe of her outwardly calm exterior—he doubted many humans would possess such an adaptable personality, but then he’d come to realize it was a coping mechanism. To keep her panic at bay, she asked questions and cataloged his answers, telling herself she would take everything she learned and turn it over to her people once she’d escaped. Her thoughts were all there before him, clear as a glacial waterfall.
He hadn’t lied when he said he couldn’t read her mind—not exactly. At least he wasn’t willfully doing it. Her mind was just so focused and disciplined, it was like she was talking aloud, and her thoughts just came to him clear and uncluttered.
“I thought you said you wouldn’t be coming back until nightfall. What happened? Do we hav
e a problem?”
He had to admit she was good—using ‘we’ and making it sound like they were a team, when in fact she was still searching every angle to escape him.
Knowing her thoughts became a boon at that moment.
“There is no problem.” Oh, but how to go about telling her she could never return to her people.
“Thanks for saving me. Now it’s time to let me go.”
“I can’t. Not yet.” He raised a talon and tapped on the protective dome once, and then stepped through. She leaped back, putting space between herself and the dome before she dropped into a defensive crouch.
She held a knife in her hand. It was the one from the pack. A simple camp knife his father used for little tasks when talons were not sufficient.
It wasn’t much of a weapon. Its blade was no longer than his hand.
“I know you think of escape, of taking what you’ve learned and sharing it with the humans,” he said as he held his ground, allowing her to process his words. “But you are no longer only human, you are in part, small though it is, gargoyle.” He tilted his head in new understanding of what he’d done to her. “You are neither human nor gargoyle. My blood saved your life, but at a heavy cost. One I’m just beginning to understand myself. How do I go about explaining it to you?”
“One sentence at a time.” Her voice came out in a soft rush, the tension behind it obvious.
“My father says humans are not tolerant of anything they see as different. However, he hasn’t interacted much with humans. Perhaps his assessment of them is not accurate?”
“Lack of tolerance—sounds about right for a good portion of the population,” she said grudgingly.
“And you are now different than you were.”
The truth of his words flashed across her face.
“Will your fellow humans accept you back now that you are partly gargoyle?”
A muscle in her jaw ticked. “Oh, they’ll be glad to have me back,” her throat bobbed as she swallowed hard. “I’ll be lucky not to end up on some examination slab, somewhere.”
The Complete Gargoyle and Sorceress Boxset (Books 1-9) Page 61