Mike put a finger to his lips and shook his head, and said in a low voice, “You know we’ve been trying to have kids for years, yet it never works out. Jenna gave up on the doctors, she’s been trying alternative medicine. Whatever you do, don’t mention it in front of her,” Mike sighed.
That… I didn’t even realize but should have, that they were having trouble with it. Maybe Tara could actually help with that, but would she do that for a human, or just sell her non-magical herbal remedies? I also considered I might be able to help, if I knew what I was doing that is. Air magic was the healing kind, it restored, it was the element and reason vampires didn’t age, and why I’d have such a long life if I managed not to get myself killed.
Of course, I’d never used it to heal, and wouldn’t even know where to start. I also doubted it would be unnoticeable to Jenna while it happened, which would be another complication since they can’t know what I am. I’d have to think on it, but right now it just wasn’t a possibility for me to even try. I loved them like family though, and they would make fantastic parents.
“I won’t. You think we’ve given them enough time?”
He smirked, “Probably, shouldn’t you know that already though? Grab a couple of plates.”
Oh great, psychic jokes. I snickered and picked up some of the food and headed out to the table.
The night went pretty well, much better than I’d expected, and at first Tara seemed a little shell shocked by the way Mike and Jenna treated me more like a younger brother than a powerful sorcerer. It was actually one of the best blind date nights I’d gone through at the house, since of course Tara didn’t even beat an eyelid when the whole psychic thing came up, and instead was engaged and interested.
I had to firmly remind myself on several occasions that she was toning down her normal aggressive behavior toward me for the sake of our human hosts. I’d hope and try for a friendship, then see what might happen after that, if anything.
It also helped to remember Sierra’s genuine seeming interest toward me earlier in the day, I didn’t doubt that she saw me for who I was, not just what I could give her. Not that I didn’t have reservations there as well, the werewolves were almost tame today, and clearly had showed themselves to be allies.
But I knew there was another side to them, after all, I’d seen Sierra rip heads off of vampires with her teeth, and she’d clearly been enjoying it at the time. Life was not simple for me. I couldn’t afford to throw stones either, according to Diana I was the most powerful being in Chicago, well I would be once I figured out all that I could do. I also had to admit to myself, I’d quite enjoyed separating that rogue vampire’s head from his shoulders to protect Caroline and her son.
What relationship didn’t have problems anyway?
All I knew was I had three women in my life that for some confusing reason or another wasn’t or couldn’t be with me. Truth be told I was leaning toward Sierra right now, I’d really enjoyed our time together today, but I didn’t quite understand where I stood there. I was having fun with Tara tonight, but I was still a little skittish and her motivations were definitely suspect.
When the night wound down and we called it a night, I walked Tara out to her car.
Tara took my arm and walked very close to me, her voice was thoughtfully pleasant, “That was eye opening. Family’s very important to you isn’t it? I’d thought I was losing my touch, I’d expected you to take what I offered, a moment of pleasure, and disappear from my life leaving me what I wanted, but I think I understand now. Most sorcerers are entitled, and selfish, or so the stories go.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, her blunt honesty had taken me off guard, and my voice came out a little accusing, “I can see that, but why would you want that?”
She squeezed my arm lightly and her voice was sincere, “Every parent wants more for their children than they have. For a witch the measure of that isn’t money, or a better career, it’s power. Family is important to me, but for a witch the core of that is mother to daughter, not a family unit how the humans view it. We aren’t immune to the softer emotions, but more often than not a witch will pick a man to father her children based on his power. We rarely get married, but we do take lovers we care about… we just don’t marry them, or bear them children.”
That… pretty much removed Tara from the running in my mind… didn’t it? She’d basically said straight out all she wanted was a sperm donor, raising the child would be exclusively how she wanted and for her to do.
But then she added in a soft wistful voice that shook my certainty, “It’s very rare that we find a man that can be both,” she leaned up and kissed my cheek softly, “Goodnight Ben,” she added softly as she got into her car and drove away.
Or not? Life was so damn confusing… or at least the women part of it was.
Chapter 6
Wednesday, May 18th, 2016, 10:31 PM
I was deep in thought when Aitheria sent, “Where are you going? Home is the other way, did that witch scramble your brain?” she teased, which jarred me back to reality.
I looked around and was confused for a moment. I went left when I should have gone right two blocks back. I shrugged and kept going, it seemed like the right thing to do.
“I’m not sure, I’ll let you know when we get there.”
She snorted in my mind but held back any further comments. Wherever it was, it was a far walk, but eventually I got the sense it was about Cindy. I still didn’t know where she was, or even if she was still alive. It’d been a full twenty-four hours though since she went missing. So I allowed my power to guide me, and it brought me to Clark and Lake. I was staring at the stairs going underground, the L wasn’t all elevated, there were a few stations underground, which I avoided for obvious reasons.
Yet here I was staring down into the Earth, and I felt my gut tighten.
Aitheria said sharply in my mind, “You are not going down there.”
It took me a while to figure out what my power was telling me, “I think this is where Cindy went after the party. She’s missing to my power because she never came back up from underground, the one place air magic can’t go. This must be the last place her presence was noted by our element.”
Aitheria sighed in my mind, her voice stubborn, “You still can’t go down there, and certainly not by yourself. Call Sierra, she’ll help.”
That thought did make me feel better, so I didn’t argue and pulled out my phone. I wasn’t a coward, but me going underground was like taking a candle underwater and expecting it to stay lit. The idea was terrifying to me, even if I would still have access to fire.
I was also pretty sure now that it wasn’t simply because I was a sorcerer of air. After all, I was also a fire sorcerer, and I had no trouble getting into a pool of water, or swimming in the ocean. No, it was more than just the fear of losing my power, it was the ball of elemental air magic inside of me which made me different. I literally didn’t belong underground, or as Aitheria preferred to say, I belonged to the air, and I could feel it in every part of me.
I just didn’t know why, or what it meant.
Sierra wasn’t answering, so I left her a message. I stared down the stairwell one more time and then reluctantly turned away and headed home. I might have overcome my fear if I felt I could find her quickly and I knew that she would be okay, but the truth was if I went down there right now, I’d just see a mostly empty platform, and my power of air would be useless to track her down.
I’d need Sierra’s nose as well as her backup before I went down there…
My mind was bouncing around between the two cases I couldn’t solve right now. The invading wolves were under the cover of an Earth spell until I could get near a victim, which wouldn’t be easy, I wasn’t even sure how to arrange it. I suppose I could volunteer my services as a psychic, but how would that get Selene close enough to do the spell? Worse, according to Derik earlier in the day the wolves would pick off his pack mates if they could, before a direct confron
tation.
I’d have thought they’d be more direct, but Derik explained wolf packs were hunters. Derik’s pack would be more direct about it, because they were on his land, but we had to figure out where they were first. My biggest fear was we wouldn’t get access to a body until there was a new one, and only then if we could get to it before the feds did.
The other case of course was Cindy, I felt a little helpless about that. I’d do the best I could though when Sierra called back, even I couldn’t save them all, but all the others I did save didn’t seem like enough in my mind. Especially in this case, since it struck close to home with Amy.
On top of that I had women on my mind, obviously. I wasn’t one to play around with multiple women, and if I did start dating one of them I’d step back from the others in my mind, but right now I wasn’t with any of them. Diana couldn’t really be in the running right now, or possibly ever, but my mind kept bouncing back and forth between Sierra and Tara, both were captivating, and both came with an airport’s worth of luggage of different kinds, and although the indications were there I wasn’t sure they really even wanted me. I could just be reading into things.
I’m probably obsessing over it, but I am just twenty-one and hadn’t been with a woman for longer than I’ll admit.
Add in all the questions I had about my powers, my nature, and my elusive enemies that killed my mother and it’s amazing I’m not a total nut job.
It was getting late, so I set up the morning coffee and went to bed. Needless to say, it took a while for my mind to quiet enough for sleep.
Chapter 7
Thursday, May 19th, 2016, 05:30 AM
I woke up to the sound of my front door at an ungodly hour. I pulled on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and opened the door.
Sierra wearing a white sundress with flowers and her usual pair of sandals walked inside without a word, a concerned look on her face.
“You didn’t answer your phone,” she said in a growly voice.
I took a minute to fire up my two brain cells, the rest were still asleep.
“I went to sleep when you didn’t call me back, I was going to call you this morning.”
She shook her head, “Yes, but I called you back after our pack run, and you didn’t answer the phone. I thought you were in trouble,” she finished with a frown, her voice still dangerous.
“Sorry if I worried you? I must’ve slept through it, or left it on vibrate or something. Umm, let me check. Do you want some coffee?”
I walked into the kitchen and flipped on the coffee, I’d set it to brew for seven, which was over an hour away from now.
Her voice had lost some of its edge, and regained some of its musical quality when she replied, “I’m glad to see you unharmed. Sure, I’ll take a cup when it’s ready. Why did you call?”
“Umm, let me take a shower, and I’ll explain it all to you. It’s for a case I need help with.”
I took a five-minute shower and got dressed, when I got back out I poured us both a cup and started cooking a quick breakfast. She’d seemed genuinely worried about me, so much so she’d come all the way out to the city and her more savage instincts had come into play. Was it because she cared for me, or because I was a pack ally, or both? I wasn’t sure.
While finishing up breakfast I explained Cindy’s case, and that my power was limited underground.
Sierra nodded, “I can track her by scent, although that will be complicated if she got onto one of the trains, and I’ll need something with her scent first.”
I was actually a little surprised at that, even if it was my idea to begin with, “You can pick out a scent thirty-six hours old where thousands of people have moved through?”
She waved that away, “Yes, scents linger for a long time. Think of it like picking up the single voice of a friend in a packed stadium of screaming and talking people. That’s how scents work for us, we don’t smell the combination of scents like humans do, we smell them all separately,” she added, “This is really good, thanks for breakfast.”
“Your welcome, we’re going to have to run back out to the suburbs to pick up something with her scent. She lives by where I grew up. You look really nice by the way,” I tried to slip in a compliment.
She did, it was hard to keep my eyes off of her now that I was awake. The sundress made her look beautiful and sweet, yet I knew the deadly predator lurked beneath that, and that just made it more of a draw. That probably wasn’t typical, but I was attracted to strong dangerous women apparently.
She winked at me with merry eyes and she had the ghost of a smile on her face, “Thanks. I wear these because they’re easy to get off quickly when I need to shift, but I also like the way they look.”
I called Amy on the way to the Metra station, she promised she’d be waiting for us with a shirt Cindy had left at the house one time. If it didn’t work, we could always go to Cindy’s house for something, but I was trying to avoid that. When we got on the train, Sierra sat right next to me, instead of across from me, and sat very close and took my hand. I didn’t mind at all.
We had a lot of time to talk, an hour’s ride out of the city and then right back in. She had a lot of questions for me about what I did, and how I got away with being so open to the human world as a psychic. Kind of hiding in plain sight.
I learned quite a bit about her as well. She’d been in the Chicago pack for ten years, she’d caught Derik’s attention living on her own at twelve years old and going for solo runs in the different parks around Chicago. She wasn’t quite sure what happened to her parents, or where she came from, but she was in the foster system which caused issues because humans didn’t understand her. She’d never shifted in front of them, hiding it by instinct, but there were still obvious differences, so she’d run away at twelve at the urging of her inner wolf.
Her wolf wasn’t a separate entity exactly as far as I could tell, the way she explained it was her wolf guided her, but never spoke to her in words. In a way, it sounded kind of the way the power of air guided me to do things without me knowing exactly why. I never questioned that, because when it happened I usually managed to do something good, like save a child, but I was still curious about it.
But from what she said, I believed that guidance for her was more than just a simple feeling, and approached an urging she almost couldn’t resist. I chose not to ignore my feelings for obvious reasons, but she would have a harder time fighting than I would. She also explained that’s why she was so immediately accepting of me, her wolf liked me apparently, which was a good sign as far as I was concerned.
It was hard to believe the beautiful self-possessed woman in front of me had ever been in that situation when she was younger, but apparently the pack had taken her in and it was now her family. The one thing I didn’t ask her about was the thing I wanted to know most, was her flirting just the physical affection a wolf showed their pack, or was she attracted to me? I’d need to ask her soon, awkward or not, or at least, ask her on a date. Definitely that second one, it would be much less awkward that way.
We got off the train and spotted my cousin right away, she was startled when she spotted me, since I was still holding Sierra’s hand. She put a smile on her face that indicated she might have a question or two for me later and handed me the shirt.
Amy cleared her throat and looked meaningfully at Sierra.
“Amy, this is Sierra, Sierra, this is my cousin Amy, although she’s more like my sister since we grew up together.”
Sierra squeezed my hand twice to tell me she had the scent and we wouldn’t need to go to Cindy’s house, which was a good thing. Then she smiled at Amy.
“I’m helping him out with this one.”
Amy looked like she didn’t quite buy that, especially since Sierra and I were holding hands, but she didn’t say anything about it apparently too worried about her friend to tease me as I would have expected her to do.
Amy asked, “So you’ll be able to what, kick start your inner psychic with the sh
irt?”
Sierra answered, “Something like that, we need to catch the train going back, but I’ll make sure he calls you as soon as we know something.”
Amy got tears in her eyes, “Thank you,” and turned away and moved off quickly trying to hide her tears.
We got off the platform and walked up the other side. It was a lot more crowded for the trip back into the city, so we couldn’t talk about anything supernatural related. I learned the pack made their money with a few businesses. Construction, new housing developments mostly, and a landscaping business. I wasn’t surprised they’d do work that kept them outside.
We were just pulling into the station when my phone went off, it was my aunt. Who is this Sierra person, why didn’t you tell me you were dating, and when will you be bringing her by?
Awesome, just what I needed… thanks Amy.
It was just after nine when we made it over to Clark and Lake. I’d been dreading this moment, and thinking about it for a while. Aitheria wasn’t happy at all when I started down the steps next to Sierra. I connected to fire, and created a shield of sorts, or at least that was my intent, to hide the elemental air inside of me from the earth itself. I wasn’t sure if it would work, and there was only one way to find out.
“What’s wrong, you’re horribly tense.”
I smiled weakly, “I’ll be alright, I just feel cut off a bit when below ground.”
When we made it down the seemingly endless escalator, I learned it was partially successful. The air inside me tightened up, and I still felt an unreasonable fear, as if I didn’t belong here, I was breaking some law by being here. It was maddeningly absurd, but it was how I felt. What I didn’t feel was any menace from the outside, as if my shield of fire was hiding my nature from the earth elementals.
It was still uncomfortable, but I could handle it. It didn’t hurt that Sierra was with me, I couldn’t let myself run away crying like a little girl in front of her after all. Sometimes there were good uses for stubborn male pride. Still, I had to concentrate to make sure I kept up with things, like breathing.
Sorcerer: Trouble with Werewolves: Power of Air Book 2 Page 4