“All right,” Jill said, “but at least take Fenn. I’m sure he’d love to play hero and punch someone out for you—if it becomes necessary.”
“Not a bad idea.” I headed for the door. “See you guys later.”
Security Guy watched stone-faced in the door of my room, as I went by. “Stay where the cameras can see you,” he said. “In case there’s another attack.”
I nodded going into the hall, and closed the door behind me. I followed the hall to the lounge. Fewer people were around. I caught a guy I didn’t know coming out of the boys’ hallway. “Excuse me,” I said. “Can you tell Fenn I’m here and need to see him right away?”
He looked me up and down, his gaze lingering at my chest, a work in progress. I would have been mad except it was the first time my chest had drawn much attention. I found myself drawing a deep breath and pulling my shoulders back.
Yes, I’m a total fox.
He shrugged. “Sure, just a minute.” He trudged back the way he’d come.
He wore tight jeans and—since one good ogle deserved another—I watched his well-formed butt as he left. As eye candy went, he wasn’t half bad. Though nowhere near Fenn’s league. He’d continue to set the high mark on my one-to-ten hotness scale—until an eleven came along.
Eye Candy pounded on a door down the hall. A moment later, Fenn stuck his head out, glaring. Eye Candy pointed back at me and said something in a teasing voice. Fenn craned his head to look my way, then nodded his thanks to Eye Candy.
They both reached me soon after. Fenn stopped. Eye Candy kept going. With Fenn watching, I wasn’t ogled again—damn it. It’s not that I’m a slut, but I’d had so little attention from guys in the past… Hopefully, that was changing. Being a social misfit sucks.
Fenn stood too close, drinking in my scent. His amber eyes peered deeply into mine, bringing to bear the intensity of his full attention. “What’s up?” he asked.
I grabbed his wrist and tugged him into motion. “C’mon.”
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Up to the roof for a little night air.” I drew him toward the elevator.
In the lounge, everyone’s eyes tracked us to the elevator. The door opened as soon as Fenn touched the call button. We stepped on and headed up to the top floor. My breath caught in my throat as Fenn swept me back against the elevator’s far wall. The hand rail pressed into my back. My heart pounded.
Gingerly, Fenn touched the side of my face where I’d been scratched. His eyes shifted to a smoldering gold. “You’ve had more trouble.”
“Finding the right outfit for a date is trouble; surviving conjured hell-spawns goes well beyond that.”
Fenn’s eyes narrowed with simmering rage. “I knew Elita practiced the craft, but I didn’t know she’d gone over to the dark side. You’re not safe here.”
“Those behind Elita want me bad enough to snatch me off the street. Nowhere is safe.”
“I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”
A deep silence set in. Fenn didn’t seem to need further words. I had conflicting emotions. I felt flattered, but remembered what had Jill said about Fenn.
He’s a friend you don’t turn your back on.
Putting myself in his hand, would that make us significant others? If so, would I still need caution? Was being loved by Fenn safer than being friends? Suppose something did get started. Was it something he’d ever let me walk away from? Then again, he’d never even kissed me. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself. Fenn might be a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind a guy. I knew so little about him.
We followed a deserted hallway to the stairs that took us to the roof entrance. I stopped Fenn inside the last door, handing him the letter Ryan had sent me.
Fenn read it and looked up. “This is a trap.”
“Probably, but Ryan’s got answers I need. You’re here to help me turn his trap back on him. If I need you, come running—fast.”
He leaned in and pressed warm lips against mine. I closed my eyes. His arms enveloped me, crushing me against his body. His lips went from soft to urgent, demanding.
My first real kiss … wow.
Reluctantly, I pulled away, my senses reeling, my heart melted into a bubbly pool of happiness.
Fenn bared white teeth in a predatory smile. “What the lady wants, she gets.”
Let’s hope…
EIGHT
I opened the door and slid out, casting a wary eye across a flat roof. The air conditioning hadn’t been left up here, vulnerable to anyone with a helicopter and a supply of sleepy gas. Speaking of which, there was a big, circled “H” on the roof where a chopper could set down, which explained the lights all around the parameter. Across the roof, I saw Ryan in jeans and a dark coat, leaning against a guardrail. He had a black knit cap on over his willful red hair. His hands were empty and he seemed to be alone.
I strolled over, stopping by the railing, a good six feet from him.
“Good view from here.” The evening cold made his breath a swirl of white fog.
I stared out over the buildings of the compound to the hardwood forest beyond. It had a spooky, shadow-drenched look, like the back of a great, shaggy beast waiting to pounce. I spoke to Ryan, watching him for sudden movement with my peripheral vision, “You wanted to see me?”
He stayed silent.
I turned to face him.
He clenched the rail tightly, arms trembling as he dealt with some great inner struggle.
“If you’re worried about Elita getting back at you, I won’t let her.”
“Elita isn’t the problem,” he said. “She’s making friendly with dangerous people. We could get killed if she keeps screwing up.”
“Tell me what you know. HPI has major ties with Congress and the military, and a lot of money invested in developing our potential. They’ll deal with this.”
Ryan shook his head no. “ISIS is too big. They’re everywhere.” He turned to me suddenly, his eyes dark and pleading. “I like you, Grace. Fenn scares me, but I like you. I wish we’d gotten off to a better start.”
Hearing despair in his tones I moved closer, suddenly wondering if he were planning something crazy, like jumping the rail.
“Grace, I’m leaving tonight.” He looked back out across the endless woodland to where a silvery light heralded moonrise. “Out there, I can hide. I’ll be safe. I have friends that will look after me. It’s my element. Come with me. If you bind yourself to me and my … kind … it will be all right.” He paused. “There’s risk. Not everyone survives First Change.”
I suddenly felt like a soldier creeping through an enemy minefield. “Change into what, exactly?”
“It’s better to show you than tell you. Give me a few minutes.” He swung his gaze to the horizon where the crest of the moon edged above the horizon.
I was struck mute by his proposition. It was the first time anyone had ever wanted to run away with me. My big sister had often wished I’d just run away, but that wasn’t the same thing. This decision was a “no brainer.” Answer had to be no. Once in the wilderness, he could turn me over to the very people he and Elita worked for. That would be the best way for them to get out of the doghouse.
I set my back to the railing, and looked across the roof. My gaze slid everywhere. Well clear of the helicopter pad, I spotted poles capped with mechanisms that allowed cameras a 360° pan. Except the cameras were broken. Had Ryan done that? Was he planning on doing something to me up here he didn’t want known. He had to know though that loss of the feed would bring security up here at a run—unless a distraction were being staged to hold their attention. I wondered what Elita was doing now.
My gaze slid on to the access door I’d come through. It stood open a crack. Fenn was just a scream away—that made me feel better.
I turned to study the moon, sensing that Ryan needed that celestial presence for the next act of our little drama. Minutes passed in agonizing slowness. Strange, no sign of Hammer and his Men in Black.
Finally, the moon cleared the trees. Ryan spasmed and pawed at his clothing. They came away in tatters, ripped by more than human strength.
I blushed, looking away, only to look back. My heart pounded. The pulse in my neck throbbed strongly. I felt the thrill of horror mixed with fascination.
Ryan was losing human form, and I didn’t know if his inner self would be lost to the moon-change as well. Just in case, I was ready at any second to cross over. No way was I becoming Werewolf Chow.
Below his skin, muscles writhed and jumped. I heard vertebrae popping, shifting. I noticed a wasting away as muscles shriveled. The change fueled itself with his body. Only his back swelled, becoming a monstrous, rising boil. That burst.
“Eeeeeeewwwww—!” Yucky green-yellow goo splattered me. I choked on a pungent chemical odor, nothing I could easily identify. After jumping in place, I wiped the weird pus off me, desperate for a shower.
Surprise paralyzed me. Freed from the tattered skin of his back, I saw crumpled, brown tissues drying in the air, unfurling, stiffening. Soon, four paper-thin blades radiated from his back like wings. They shivered, gathering the sounds of the night. A thick fringe of fuzz lined his limbs and more of the growth hid his private parts as he turned to me. His face was gone. Fuzz covered his features, and his whole head seemed lowered, as if his neck was gone and the jaw had fused to his shoulders. In place of human eyes, he had compound ones, like many faceted jewels, pulsing blood red. Feathery antennae rose from his brow. If he had a mouth, I couldn’t see it in the darkness with only the moon to glaze him.
“Ohmigawd, Ryan, you’re a mothman!”
Watching him, I felt yucky and queasy, as though baby mothmen were barnstorming in my stomach. A kind of tuneless humming spilled from him, vibrating the air as he hovered, wings beating furiously. He stretched his hands toward me in a pleading gesture, his body cadaverous, like old photos of death camp survivors from World War II. I thought the laws of aerodynamics were being outraged if he were actually meant to fly with those wings.
The only thing that made sense was that the changes he’d gone through must have supernaturally strengthened him while hollowing his bones like a bird’s. Funny, that someone like me would strive so hard for rationality when confronted by someone as freaky as me.
Scraping the dripping ooze from my face, I flicked my hands to sling it away. “I’m sorry, I don’t make a good moving target. This is where I have to fight, with friends at my back, people who care for me—though God alone knows why. I’m going back inside.”
I shuddered from the way his red-coal eyes locked onto me—like I was the last chicken dinner in a post-apocalyptic world. His humming climbed in pitch. He darted closer.
I yelped, nearly falling over my feet. Dodging his grasping hands, my ribs slid along the railing.
He landed on top of the rail in a crouch. One of his hands dipped and brushed my sleeve, gliding toward my shoulder and face.
I smacked at his hand, but he’d gotten a lot faster, catching my wrist. His fingers and forearm went into my sleeve as though he craved skin to skin contact.
I flailed, breaking free, and screamed, “Fenn!” I looked toward the roof door.
He was already through, feet pounding the roof as he loped closer, a predatory smile in place. The golden blaze of his eyes hazed his face with a mist of light. His hands changed, fingers lengthening, sprouting claws and fur. His face lengthened as his jaw extended, fangs growing into serious weapons.
Now I knew Fenn’s secret; he was a shifter, a were-critter like Ryan, just not a bug.
I’d let myself get too distracted. A dark, orangey blur registered, then something warm and icky wrapped around my throat like wet clay. It was Ryan’s … tongue? I gurgled a protest, as he jerked me to him. I grabbed his prehensile tongue, trying to free myself.
He dragged me up the railing.
I balanced precariously, stories above the ground.
Alright, enough is enough. I crossed over. The world went gray. Along with the electric tingle came a lessening of gravity. I slipped free of Ryan’s intangible tongue and clutching arms, grateful that his aura had shifted away from a human frequency which would have stunned and shoved me violently away. I didn’t want to abandon Fenn who was fighting for me, but saw little else I could do until hitting bottom.
I realized that landing could be a problem. I’d never fallen so far before. Normally, my aura made the ghost realm solid to me, keeping my body from sinking into the ground. If I hit the earth too fast for resistance, I could go subterranean—my big, recurring nightmare; buried alive, never able to reach the surface again. The very thought sent a shiver through me as the ground swelled closer like a slow-motion dream.
Maybe I could cross over right before touching down.
I kicked my feet, whipping my head back to roll in the air. Staring up, I saw Fenn and Ryan flip over the rail. Fresh horror tightened my guts. My breath caught, my pulse pounding along with my hammering heart. They were headed for a high-velocity splatter on the concrete below and there was nothing I could do but watch, while I spun in the air.
Fenn passed me, playing cowboy, riding Ryan’s back, legs wrapped around his waist. The mothman went into a roll trying to lose the extra weight, but Fenn held on. As they neared the ground, the wobbling gyrations flattened into a glide path. But Fenn used those new, freaky claws of his to slash Ryan’s wings. Together, they crashed and skidded to a stop.
Neither moved. It was hard to see if they were even breathing.
Helpless, with several stories left to drift, I could only pray, Don’t let them be dead!
I had about six feet left to go when the ghostly pale flames of my aura were torn from my skin, winding like a blazing serpent over to Fenn’s crumpled body.
The electric tingle engulfed me. Colors returned, as the ghost realm spat me out. Gravity returned with a vengeance. I slammed down onto my feet, my legs folding under me. I pitched sideways to the ground, rolling to bleed off the impact. Something twisted in a bad way. Pain flushed across my mind as my wrist was sprained. I cradled it protectively against my chest until I came to rest, sprawling, laboring for breath, most of my vitality ripped away. I laid there and trembled, like a marathon runner after a race.
What. The. Hell. Happened?
Several minutes passed, then someone loomed over me. They knelt, lifting my head and shoulders. I made my eyes focus. I saw a handsome face with dimming, yellow eyes, peering at me anxiously.
“Fenn, you’re alive!”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry about that.”
“About being alive?”
He grinned, face back to normal. “No, I drained you to come back. Didn’t mean to. Guess I really am my father’s son.” He lifted me in strong arms, his hands no longer savage claws.
“I’m all icky. You’ll get bug juice all over you,” I said.
“I’ll survive.”
I sighed, comfortable, as he carried me past a green splattered mass of fur and crumpled wings—Ryan. He’d been an enemy, but I hadn’t wanted this for him. “He’s…”
“Dead?” Fenn paused, looking down at what had once been human. “Close, but not quite, so he should recover—in time. Were-critters are tough.”
We went on, and I searched for words to distract me from what I’d just seen.
“Fenn?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you mean about being your ‘father’s son?’”
“I don’t often talk about him. He’s a celebrity in the supernatural community. You could almost call him a cosmic force. He gets killed all the time but it never slows him down … much. Native American tribes call him Raven, Coyote, or sometimes just the Trickster. He’s a Kachina—one of the Star People. My mother was human.”
“Was?”
“She died of … complications … when I was born.” Fenn’s face had turned hard as slate, locking in emotions he couldn’t share.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s all right. I don’t mind, since it’s you.”
We entered the down ramp to the underground garage. As we reached the lower level, a guard ran over to us. “You kids all right? I got a call there was trouble outside.”
Fenn nodded. “A were-creature, hurt pretty bad.”
Running on, Security Guy said, “Get the girl to medical.”
Fenn carried me toward the elevator, completely untroubled by my weight.
“The girl,” I said. “I have a name.”
“Well, you are a girl aren’t you?” We reached the elevator. He pressed the call button.
“I’m feeling a little stronger now,” I told him. “I don’t think I need a doctor. Just got a few scrapes and bruises.” The car arrived and Fenn carried me on. I pressed the button for our floor. “You can put me down if you want to,” I suggested.
The smile he turned on me was tender for a change. “You literally brought me back from the dead. I owe you my life. Let me do this much for you.”
“Well, if you insist.”
The doors opened and we entered the TV lounge. It was full of kids hanging out. In moments, everyone’s stares swung our way. Muttered speculations blurred into a sort of sea sound.
Every time I go through here! Geez, people, get a life.
Coming out of the woodwork, security surrounded us, demanding answers. I closed my eyes and kept my head against Fenn’s chest. He could deal with this. I was just too tired.
“In a minute,” Fenn snapped. “Let me get Grace to her room where she can be looked after, and I’ll answer all your questions.”
I was swept along with my new entourage. The door to my suite was opened by a security guy, letting Fenn know which one was mine. Inside my suite, The guard on my door pointed Fenn to Drew’s door. I turned the knob for him. He carried me inside.
Drew and Jill raced to me. Jill said, “Grace, are you alright?”
“Please,” I begged, “get me to the shower. I feel disgusting.”
Drew pulled back a little from me as Fenn set me on my feet. She held her nose, “Grace, dear, you reek!”
Shadow Dancer (Kitsune series) Page 6