A quick search turned up her phone, and upon checking she discovered that it was 3:37 a.m. and neither Darien nor Greg had called. Caroline shivered as a bad feeling crawled down her spine. A twitch of the curtains let her stare into the dark night. The storm had stopped leaving a mess of tree limbs and mud behind, even in the middle of the large parking lot. Leaves, twigs, fast food wrappers dotted every horizontal surface she could see, and a puddle the size of at least four cars flooded across the space just the other side of the covered walkway from the door to Darien’s room. Everything glistened with water.
Where were the guys? A quick check of a few news sites told Caroline that the unexpected storm had affected a swatch of Virginia from where the James River emptied into the Chesapeake Bay nearly to Richmond. The Williamsburg area had taken a nearly direct hit from the worst of the storm. Meteorologists were scrambling to find an explanation, but nobody seemed to have any answers.
Of course, if Greg’s comments earlier were any clues, the storm was far from natural.
Caroline flipped her phone over and over in her hands, wondering what to do now. Stay here in the guys’ room? That seemed kind of weird and intrusive, but at the same time what would she do in her own room? There was literally no difference aside from the unused bed in hers. She had her phone in her pocket, and that was the only thing she’d want to get anyway. And… going outside after a storm like that, with the overtones of illicit magic and the violence of the water and the wind…
Caroline shivered. She needed to learn more about magic, and fast. She squinted at her phone and glared at the time it flashed up. Four seventeen in the morning. She sighed and glanced around the room, chewing on her lip and thinking for a long minute before shaking her whole body trying to drive off the chills. There were tiny coffeemakers in each room. She’d start there.
The coffeepot was burbling away cheerfully a few minutes later and Caroline herself was washing her face when there was a loud thump outside the door. She froze, thinking of the magic taser, tucked safely away in her underwear drawer. Dammit, there had been something in her room she’d wanted.
The door banged open and heavy footsteps were accompanied by a grunt.
“You weigh a goddamn ton, Greg. You should think about going on a diet before I have to carry you across half the state again.”
Greg’s answer was just another grunt, and when Caroline rushed out of the bathroom she saw why. The whole left side of his body was covered in blood and his clothes were shredded from his shoulder to his knee,
“Holy shit! What happened?” Caroline rushed back into the bathroom to grab the stack of extra towels, dumping both hand towels in the sink and turning on the faucet.
“Werewolf jumped him while he was working on pulling a car into better position to get a family out of it.” Anger and worry threaded through his words and Caroline hurried with the wet towels. Darien was ripping the clothes away from the wounded area before lowering Greg down to the bed, so Caroline spread out the clean, dry towels across the bed first.
“Greg, I’m going to start cleaning you up, okay?” Caroline watched his jaw clench, the muscles bunching and straining while he held himself in check. His eyes were solid gold, no hint of his humanity left, but he was keeping himself under control.
“He won’t hurt you, don’t worry,” Darien eased Greg to the bed and the big man groaned and lay back. Caroline lifted his legs up and grunted herself.
“I trust him. Damn, just his legs weigh that much, I’m not surprised you were complaining!” She flashed a grin at him to take the sting out of her words and Greg just huffed out a quick breath, as if even pretending to laugh was painful. She started cleaning away the blood and heard Darien leaving the room again.
“So what’s up with your eyes? This is the third time I’ve seen them go all gold. Well, this is way more serious than at the bar, but you know what I mean.” Caroline spoke softly, keeping her focus on Greg’s leg. His thigh didn’t seem too bad, but there was a deep gouge on his hip that seemed to go up his ribs. “Ooh, this might scar. It’ll be something badass that you can use to look all cool and dangerous when you go to the beach. Anyway, Darien’s eyes did a thing when he went all vampire back with the elves, too. What’s that about?” She wanted him talking about something totally unrelated to the whole evening before she started dragging a damn motel towel all over what looked like claw marks. Freaking werewolf, did Darien say?
Greg’s body rippled and he dragged a long breath in. The door shut again and Darien was opening the large box before he had it set down beside them on the floor. He started to bandage what she’d already cleaned.
“It’s the first sign of our magic,” Greg forced the words out through gritted teeth. “You know how everyone says that the eyes are the windows to the soul? Well, it’s not far off.”
“Yeah? How does that work?”
“Those of us that have any sort of dual nature will show our impending shift first in our eyes. It’s also a good way to tell if we’re tapping into any extra powers we might have. A mage might have eyes that start looking more like their element. An animal shifter will start looking like their animal. Darien reveals his vampire heritage and I get the gold of my manticore body.” Greg was panting slightly by the time he finished the explanation.
Caroline nodded and moved from his ribs to his arm, changing to the fourth towel. Darien tore open a package of sutures.
“This is going to hurt, buddy,” Darien said. “Do you want me to numb the area or do you want to butch your way through it?”
Greg slanted a venomous look at Darien, who held his hands up in surrender. “Just a question. It’s up to you.”
“Numb it. I hate getting stitches, you know that.”
“Why I asked, man.” Darien’s eyes flickered now, their normal soft brown fading to coal black and the whites disappearing completely under a haze of red. “What do the nurses always say? Just a quick pinch.” He darted forward and bit Greg’s side, just above the deep wound so fast that Caroline barely had time to jerk back.
“There. That should do it.” Darien was sitting back on his heels again, wiping his mouth on the back of one of the used cloths.
“What…”
“Vampire saliva can be used as a numbing agent. They don’t want their dinner thrashing around in pain, so as far as emergency anesthetics go, we could do a lot worse.” Darien shrugged. “Don’t think that counts as taking me out for a bite, though.”
Greg huffed a laugh, then groaned in pain. “Don’t make me laugh, you jerk. Besides, I’m not that easy.”
“But… aren’t you two bloodbonded now?” Caroline frowned.
“I didn’t actually drink anything,” Darien said, starting to stitch along the jagged line. “The bond only kicks in after a bit more than a mouthful. Not,” he glanced up at Greg, who had shut his eyes and lay there, trying not to move, “that I would offer this sort of thing to just anyone either.”
“We freaks gotta look out for each other,” Greg said.
“Okay, neither of you is a freak.” Caroline dabbed the rest of Greg’s arm clean. The part Darien was stitching seemed to be the worst of it, so she grabbed a bandage and started at Greg’s shoulder.
“Greg was one of the few who didn’t hold my genetics against me. Or my sudden transfer,” Darien said.
“Like I said,” Greg muttered.
“You’re not a freak, Greg. Stop that. Why would you even say such a thing?” Caroline heard her own, very human growl echo with frustration.
“I’m the only manticore in the world, C. I know what I am,” Greg said.
“Ugh. You are such a guy is what you are. You’re as bad as I am. At least I have the excuse of teenage hormone problems. There. Your shoulder is all cleaned up and what I can bandage I have. I’ll get the bottom of the stitches covered up now.”
“You’re a hell of a good ally to have around, you know that?” Greg said. “You can have my back any day.”
“I’m ju
st getting frighteningly good at patching up mauled paranormals.”
After they had finished cleaning him up, Caroline had given him some painkillers and a glass of water, and he was asleep even before she put the glass back on the bedside stand. Once Greg was asleep, Darien elaborated on the attack. They had been pulling a car a bit closer to the bank of a flooded stream so it would be easier to get the people out of it to the firm ground. Greg had just shoved the car to wedge it on a rock and was wading around to pull the door open and get the mother out of the passenger seat when the masked wolf crashed into him and took him down.
Darien hadn’t been able to watch the fight much, since he still had to get the family out of the car. Two small children were in the back seat and Greg could handle himself. The family was pulled safely ashore and the police arrived just as Darien was handing the baby to its grateful mother, so he went back to help his partner. The muddy creek made for a fairly significant challenge as it turned out, and before he drove the attacker off, Greg was an exhausted mess and Darien had to half carry him up the bank where he flashed his badge and explained that the situation was well above the patrolman’s pay grade, but thanks anyway for the offer of assistance. He did take the offer of a ride back to the motel though, and made a number of phone calls.
Now in the bright light of the afternoon, the sky was a clear, perfect blue and Caroline was in no mood to appreciate it. “Well it’s pretty clear that someone doesn’t want us here,” she grumbled. “Jerks.”
“I’m just glad that this is as bad as it got. Nobody died,” Darien said. He went very still for a moment before his shoulders slumped. “None of us died, anyway. The direct attack failed in that regard.”
“Yeah. Six dead in storm related incidents, and at least twenty-three in the hospital. Not to mention the property damage, washed out roads, power outages, and all the rest of it.” Greg chipped in from his spot on the bed, much better after getting ten hours of sleep.
“And the whole storm was magic related. How is that even possible?” Caroline asked. “I always thought that weather control wasn’t possible, even with magic.”
“It’s not. Not to that scale, at least. Not that we’ve ever heard of.” Darien frowned. “Minor things like a temporary wind in a small and specific location, sure. That’s why the horn worked. It called a wind that was just big enough to move the ship, but it only called it to an area right around that ship. Probably wasn’t even much bigger than the deck area.”
“Kind of like the cartoons carrying a fan to blow in the sails?” Caroline tipped her head with a grin.
“Yeah, except the Bugs Bunny physics won’t work for real people. Magic makes the whole idea actually functional. There’s nothing pushing the boat backwards like it would with a giant fan,,” Greg said. He was still stretched out on the bed, his shoulder bandage peeking out the collar of his t-shirt and a slightly petulant twist to his lip. Caroline wasn’t allowing him to get up and walk circles around the small room, so the lump where his feet were kept bouncing instead like he was trying not to twitch too much and failing while he grumbled quietly under his breath.
Caroline suddenly got an image of a grumpy lion pacing back and forth and grumbling, and she bit her lip to stop a giggle that tried to bubble up. It would be totally inappropriate to the conversation.
“Oh man. I must be exhausted.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “Cartoons physics and random images and my poor brain.”
“You’re too young for an all-nighter to hit this hard,” Darien glanced at her with a small grin. “Come on, college girl. Got to practice for all those wild parties, right?”
“Right. Like I’m going to get invited to wild parties.”
“Well, not too wild, I hope,” Greg grinned. “Don’t want to hear about them through work channels.”
“I’ve never been invited to a party in my life, I don’t know why that would change,” Caroline huffed back in her chair and glared at the guys. “And thanks for reminding me what a social leper I am. Now I’m tired, confused about this case, worried about you, and thinking about how I’m so weird nobody wants to talk to me. I appreciate that.”
She picked at a stain on the cheap table and tried to ignore the silence that crashed over the room. She didn’t need the pity. Whatever, they were her coworkers, not her besties.
“You’re not weird, Caroline,” Greg’s voice held confusion and truth, and Caroline wasn’t sure if she hated that or not.
“Please. I know what I am, I can cope. I just don’t like to dwell on it, thanks.”
“Caroline.” Darien’s voice held irritation in it, and his tone had an unspoken command to look at him, so she did. He stood in the middle of the room, having stopped walking when she’d spoken, and his full attention was on her. She was getting used to Greg’s eyes occasionally flickering from golden-brown to just gold as his magic swelled and his control slipped, but Darien’s eyes had betrayed him only twice before: when he was fighting a mage for their lives, and last night when he bit Greg. It was disconcerting to see the flickers of red now.
“You forget, I’ve met those bullies from your high school. And that’s what they were. I don’t want you to sugarcoat them, even in your own head. That queen bee was a bully of the first order and clearly had some sort of personal grudge against you. She more than likely worked hard to keep you isolated at school.” He was serious, and he meant it. She could hear the truth in his every word, not that it was easy to accept
“I suppose,” Caroline shrugged.
“C, come on. Do you honestly think we’d all want to hang out with you at work if you were weird? Well, weirder than the rest of us? In a bad way, I mean?” Greg chipped in.
“Um,” Caroline frowned at him, confused and trying to work out what he meant.
“What he’s trying to say is that we all like you at the office. Well, most of us, and the rest haven’t met you yet. Don’t be putting people you don’t know into a box with those nasty girls from your high school. And definitely don’t be putting yourself down around us. We tend to get grumpy when people are mean to our friends.” He smiled and the flickers of magic in his eyes died down.
“Okay, okay,” Caroline wasn’t sure what to do with all this supportive affirmation talk. She wasn’t used to people outside her family being so… well. Supportive. She needed to get their attention off of her so she could sort through all this friendship stuff in her mind. “So. Back to this mess. I think we all suspect the storm is somehow connected to the theft.”
“Right. But a storm this size shouldn’t be possible to call with magic.” Darien took the hint and changed the subject. “I’ve heard of a wind strong enough to push a boat in a very localized area—”
“With the missing horn,” Caroline nodded.
“Right. And I’ve personally heard of a small cloudburst sort of shower called by an elf mage, but she had not only an affiliation to water, but spent three weeks setting the prank up. It was a one-off and only lasted long enough to soak her victim, and she had some water elemental blood, I think.”
“That’s a lot of work to put into a prank,” Greg grinned. “I completely approve!”
“Yeah, well. My phone didn’t much appreciate it.” Darien shook his head and groaned at his memories. Greg cracked up and even Caroline giggled.
“What did you do to deserve that?” She asked. “You know what, later. You can tell us later. Right now, we’re working.” Fair was fair, and his voice still carried his embarrassment over whatever it was that happened. He’d dropped a subject for her, she’d do the same for him.
“So really, what we need is a mage to talk to. I don’t know enough about enchantments to say anything for certain.”
“Hey, wasn’t the forensic team sending a mage down for the horn residue?” Greg asked. “Think they sent Mitch?”
“Oh, yeah, if they did, he’d be perfect to ask.” Darien dug his cell phone out of his pocket at dialed.
“I don’t think I’ve met Mitch.�
� Caroline turned to Greg.
“He’s brilliant. A total nerd for this sort of thing. He’s like a genius hacker, except instead of computers, it’s magic and spells.” Greg’s eyes got wide. “But he sort of turned his office into, like, this cave where it’s all dark and quiet and there’s unlit candles all over. It always smells like he’s got them burning in there, but they’re never lit. It’s crazy. And he almost never leaves the building unless it’s to go to a scene, so he’s all pale and thin.”
“Wow. So he’s really good, huh?”
“Honestly, he’s the best. I’d like him a lot more if he didn’t want to dissect me.” Some of Greg’s excitement waned. His voice took on an odd tone she couldn’t identify. It was sad and hopeful and a little frightened somehow, all at once.
“What?” Caroline couldn’t keep her own outrage down.
“He just wants to help me figure out how those assholes made me. I mentioned that I’m the only one of my kind that we know of, right? I was sort of engineered. I don’t know who my mother was, but from what I worked out as a child, she was chosen specifically for some reason, then impregnated somehow using a heavy dose of enchantments and spell casting and we don’t know what all else to influence the resulting baby. Me.” Greg shivered before shrugging and pasting a smile back on his face. “Anyway. I got away from there and now I’m here and everything’s pretty good, but Mitch sometimes gets it into his head that he can figure me out.”
“Wow. Greg…” Caroline went and sat on the edge of his bed.
“Eh. It’s been more than two decades since I’ve been free of those goons. And Mitch isn’t too bad, really. Just gets focused.”
“They did send Mitch, since there wasn’t much residue and it’s been over a week.” Darien stepped back into the room. “And better yet, he’s meeting us for dinner in a couple of hours. Greg, you stay here and rest. We’ll bring something back for you.”
“But—”
“No buts. I know you’re healing fast, but I don’t want to risk it. You know how he gets. If he sees you banged up, he’s going to get sidetracked on your healing process and try to take tissue samples.” Darien grinned.
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