by W. J. May
“Where the hell did you get that?!”
The smirk got more and more unbearable as Devon gave him a casual shrug.
“Oh—this?” He ran his thumb along the chrome. “It’s no big deal.”
Julian was literally stunned, staring at the car like it might have come from his dreams.
“You know this hasn’t even officially come out yet. They auctioned one or two off in Lisbon last April, but that was just for—”
“How do you even know that?” Rae demanded. “Lisbon?”
The boys ignored her.
“Eight liter, quad-turbocharged, W16 cylinder…”
Devon nodded excitedly. “And I can vouch for that.”
With a look of great respect, Julian ventured forward, running the backs of his fingers along the paint so as not to leave a mark. When he got to the trunk, he frowned in confusion. “Why are there diplomatic tags?”
“Oh—the prince gave it to me,” Devon replied as an afterthought. “As an engagement present.”
Rae shook her head in disbelief. Only a guy would be more impressed with the car than with the fact that it came from a prince.
“Actually, he gave it to us,” she reminded him. “This car is half mine, you know.”
Julian turned to her at once. “If you give me your half, I’ll finally have that Meg Ryan movie marathon with you. The one you’ve been begging for since Guilder.”
Rae’s heart leapt in her chest. After all his refusals and all these years! She was about to jump on the offer, when Devon swore loudly and stepped in between.
“Do not do that to her,” he commanded. “Do not trick her with movie marathons into giving up half of a four-million-dollar car. You know they’re her weak spot.”
Rae’s jaw fell open. “It’s a four-million-dollar car?!”
“Don’t worry, babe, I got your back.”
She locked eyes with Julian, who bit his lip, rethinking his approach.
“Okay, two marathons…”
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” she cried, whirling around to Devon. “Don’t you want to maybe tell your best friend in the world where we just came from, and what you just did?”
Julian turned to Devon curiously, while Devon flushed at the ground.
“Right…uh…we just came from Esher.”
At once, the dream car was forgotten.
Julian stepped forward with a look of surprise. It wasn’t an easy task, surprising a psychic. In fact, Rae couldn’t remember the last time it had happened. But all fairness to Julian, there was very little that had happened the last two days that involved any kind of pre-meditated thought.
“You saw your mom?”
Devon nodded.
“…did you tell her?”
There was a slight pause, then Devon nodded again.
Julian fell silent as he considered this with a thoughtful frown. Rae could tell it was taking everything in his not-so-limited power not to trance out right there and see for himself. Instead, he lifted his eyes and studied his best friend in a practiced sort of way.
“You want to talk it out?”
For a second, Devon simply looked lost. It had all turned out to be good news in the end, but it was more than a little overwhelming, and, emotionally speaking, he’d had more than his fill.
Julian pursed his lips.
“You want to…drive it out?”
Devon looked up in amazement, momentarily stunned. Then the two of them locked eyes, and his head fell back with bright, breathless laughter. The special kind of laughter that only Julian was ever able to solicit.
“Yeah,” he said, when he was finally able to catch his breath, “you drive.”
Julian caught the keys with a grin, and a second later, the two of them went tearing back out of the driveway, leaving Rae in a cloud of dust without so much as a goodbye.
She lifted her hand with a sarcastic wave.
“It’s totally cool, guys, I didn’t want to come!” She fought back a dusty cough, glaring with all her might. Devon, at least, could still hear her. “Yeah, don’t worry about me—I’ll just go inside!”
But just as the car disappeared from sight, another car sped forward and replaced it. Rae hovered at the top of the driveway, watching curiously as it pulled into Devon’s old spot. It was obviously a rental of some sort. And obviously hastily acquired, because one half of the protective dashboard covering was still hanging off to the side. The engine idled for a moment, before the doors burst open and out climbed the last combination of people in the world Rae expected to see.
“Uncle Argyle?” she exclaimed, rushing towards him. Then she saw his passenger and came up short. “And…Camille?”
“Howdy, darlin’,” the French-Texan bombshell flashed her a bright smile. “Heard you guys were having a party—thought I should check it out.”
Camille Lachaise was one of the hybrids Rae and her friends had tracked down in a race to save her ability from falling into the hands of Cromfield. Between her super-strength and the power to control kinetic vibrations, it was a rather lethal ability indeed. One of the deadliest Rae had seen.
“I met Miss Lachaise at the airport,” her uncle said brightly, pacing forward to give his only niece a giant hug. “Saw her tatù and figured she was heading the same place as me. Offered to give her a ride.”
Rae pursed her lips to hold back a smile. The last time she’d seen Camille ‘take a ride’ it was on a mechanical bull in a dive bar in the middle of Texas. The girl had a wild streak the size of several small countries, and Rae had no doubt how it was her poor uncle had been able to identify her ink so quickly. The ensemble the cowgirl was wearing left little to the imagination.
“Well, it’s so good to see you both!” she recovered herself, pulling back to give Camille a quick hug as well. As her bare skin pressed against Rae’s sweater, Rae wondered if she was cold. “It’s a little cooler here than in Texas,” she advised.
“Oh, I don’t mind at all.” Camille tossed back her dark curls with a wink and a grin. “I tend to run a little hot.”
I bet you do…
Rae bit her lip as her uncle flashed a pained expression from the back of the car. Using the opportunity to excuse herself, Rae gestured the girl towards the house, before hurrying along to the trunk to help her uncle with the bags.
“I’m have to say, I’m really surprised to see you here,” she said cautiously, wondering exactly why her uncle had come in the first place. It was her mother who had received the family ink, not him. “I didn’t think you—”
“—You didn’t think someone without a tatù had any business joining this fight?” he finished sharply. For a second his eyes flashed with that same stern authority that had put Rae in check from the time she was six years old. But then those same eyes softened with a smile. “The most dangerous, powerful man the world has ever seen sets his sights on the girl who I still think of as my daughter…and you don’t think I have any business joining this fight?”
Rae bowed her head with a flush of embarrassment, but she, too, decided to speak plainly.
“I didn’t think you had…any means of joining this fight.”
As if to answer her question, he reached into the car and pulled out his final bag. It was rather odd, considering the rest of his expensive luggage, elongating to a narrow point that Rae didn’t understand. As she looked on in wonder, he yanked open the zipper and lifted one of three long hunting rifles into the air.
“Rae, dear, your aunt and I may have raised you in America, but I was born here.” He snapped the gun with a mechanic click that made Rae jump in her shoes. “I may not have ink like you, but that’s not to say I have no means…”
“Understood,” she said mildly, watching with wide eyes as he slipped it back into the bag and slung it over his shoulder. Then a sudden thought struck her and she caught the strap. “Actually, not to alarm you here—but we’ve kind of got a resident psychopath at the moment.” An image of Kraigan flashed through her mind an
d she lowered the bag back into the trunk. “Maybe we should just keep these things in the car…”
“Argyle? Is that you?”
As Beth came running outside to greet her little brother, Rae headed back into the kitchen to see what trouble Camille was already starting to cause. If it was anything like their last encounter, she had good reason to worry…
* * *
“And so I told him: you can try and fight it all you want sugar, but one way or another, you’re leaving this town. You can ride in the passenger seat or the trunk, it’s up to you.”
A small cheer broke out, and Rae round the corner of the living room to see Camille perched on an ottoman in the center like a queen. Around her, a group of PC agents and Knights were listening with wide eyes as she told story after outrageous story.
“Of course, both his ear drums had been shattered, so it’s unclear as to whether or not he heard me…”
There was another round of applause and Rae shook her head, leaning back against the wall next to Angel. Several of the other Guilder alumni, both from her class and older, were scattered along the fringe, watching with thoughtful, bemused expressions. They were not a group that was easily impressed, but Camille was more than up for the task. Angel, especially, was staring at the girl with curious, appreciative eyes.
“Hey,” she greeted Rae softly as Camille launched into her next tale. “This one’s got spirit.”
Rae grinned and shook her head. “You know the scariest part—every single word she’s saying is true. You should have seen it the first time we met—girl almost got the drop on all four of us before we even knew what was happening. Kind of like you did.”
Angel tilted her head and looked her up and down speculatively. “I knew I felt a kinship…”
Rae chuckled quietly. “Actually, now that I think about it, I’m sure the two of you will become natural friends. You have a lot of ‘crazy’ in common. Granted, she’s all smiley and French, and you and your brother came from the dark side…”
Angel’s lovely face lit up with a smile, but then cooled suddenly as she gazed around the rapt audience. “Well…at least I’ll make one new friend while I’m here.”
Rae turned to her in surprise. “What do you mean?”
Before she could answer, the room fell suddenly quiet. Tensing automatically, both girls turned around to see what had everyone so wound up. Then they rolled their eyes and leaned back against the wall.
Kraigan often had that effect on people. Rae should have guessed.
But while everyone in the crowd hurried to either avert their eyes or lose themselves in hushed conversations, Camille got slowly to her feet, looking him up and down curiously.
“You,” she called, “the good-looking one with the shifty eyes. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Angel leaned forward, looking dangerously entertained, while Rae gulped nervously. Was her brother considered good-looking? She’d just thought of him as a murdering psychopath for so long that she couldn’t even tell.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Angel muttered, watching as the two of them met in the middle of the floor. “I don’t have a damn thing in common with this girl.”
The first day Angel and Kraigan had met—he’d tried to steal her power. It hadn’t gone well for anyone involved. And the structural integrity of the house almost couldn’t withstand it…
Much to Rae’s surprise, Kraigan offered a rare smile. “Kraigan Kerrigan,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”
Camille raised her eyebrows, cocking her hips casually to the side. “Kraigan Kerrigan,” she repeated suggestively. “That’s a mouthful.”
Something about the way she said ‘mouthful’ turned Rae’s stomach upside-down. “I’m going to throw up,” she muttered. Angel snickered darkly by her side.
“Camille,” the girl replied simply, tossing back her hair and letting Kraigan feast his eyes.
“I really wouldn’t, Camille,” Rae cautioned, still feeling a little queasy. She’d always assumed that people as disturbing as Kraigan were basically asexual. She couldn’t possibly bring herself to consider any other alternative.
“Wait a minute,” Camille put it together for the first time, turning to Kraigan curiously, “you said Kerrigan? You’re Rae’s…brother?”
“Half-brother,” both Rae and Kraigan replied at the same time. They flashed each other a matching look of malice, before looking determinedly away.
Thankfully the door opened behind them, providing a gracious conversational escape as Julian and Devon strode back inside—each one flushed and beaming from the impromptu joyride.
“Hey, love!” Devon hadn’t yet noticed the awkward first encounter going on in the center of the room, and he tilted Rae’s face up to his for a quick kiss. Beside him, Julian took Angel’s place on the wall and wrapped his arms around her, leaning her back comfortably against his chest.
“Hey,” Rae glanced a little nervously around, still unaccustomed to his open displays of affection in front of other people with tatùs. “How was the drive?”
“Short.” He shot Julian a playful, yet accusatory grin. “Someone got a little overeager and stalled the car at the top of the first hill. We had to push it back.”
Julian grimaced apologetically, though he couldn’t contain his smile. “What can I say? It was worth every glorious second.”
Devon shook his head with a chuckle. “What’s going on here?” He glanced around curiously to see almost every single eye in the room fixed squarely on the four of them.
Ever since the sudden influx of people, the gang had been made suddenly aware of the fact that—through their rather fantastical resistance—they’d become underground mini-celebrities in the world of tatùs. People who knew them from before told of their encounters smugly; people who didn’t pressed close enough to try to get some encounters of their own.
While it made Julian, Devon, Molly, Angel, and Gabriel incredibly uncomfortable, Rae couldn’t help but get a self-righteous kind of justice out of the whole thing. Ever since she’d come to Guilder, she’d been a walking spectacle. Prey for the eyes of a hundred prying people—all trying to get a glimpse of the infamous Kerrigan. All waiting with bated breath just to see what she would do next. It was time her friends learned what it was like.
“Oh nothing, babe,” she said with a casual smile, directing his attention forward. “You remember our friend, Camille?”
His eyes flickered up to rest on the cowgirl and the sociopath.
“Of course I do.” He smiled politely, but kept his distance. “First time I met Camille, she smashed my head through a table.”
Ellie whirled around from the nearest couch, her mouth dropping open in shock. “She smashed your head into a table?”
“Through a table,” Devon corrected her with a faint grin.
Angel lowered her voice to a whisper. “Losing him eighty IQ points in the process…”
“I knew I had a good feeling about you,” Kraigan said with a smirk, eyeing Camille up and down. He held out his hand to shake, but Rae flew forward in a burst of speed and swatted it down with a sweater-covered fist.
“Don’t even think about it,” she muttered under her breath. There was no way she was letting him get his hands on that kind of ink.
Camille flashed a pearly grin, before turning back to Devon. “Of course, I thought you looked familiar,” she taunted playfully. “You look so much different without that huge gash across your face.”
As Julian chuckled quietly, Devon turned deliberately back to Rae. “Well, this has been fun—but your mom wanted me to come and get you. She’s waiting upstairs.”
Rather disappointed to miss out on whatever was going to happen next, Rae turned on her heel and headed up the stairs. Much to her surprise, Julian, Angel, and Devon followed her.
When she shot him a questioning glance, Devon quickly explained. “She wanted to talk to all of us. Don’t know why.”
“Jules?” she asked as th
ey paced down the hall in a line.
He shrugged. “Don’t know. I can check if you like.”
“No,” Rae shook her head and pulled open the door. “We’re already here.”
And they weren’t the only ones.
Carter and Argyle were already inside, standing on either side of Beth. Along with Molly, Luke, and Gabriel—all of whom looked just as clueless as to what they were doing there.
“Rae,” Beth walked forward to greet her, pulling her in for an unexpected hug.
Rae’s eyes darted with increasing anxiety behind her mother’s head, fixing on each person in the room. “Uh…hey, Mom. What’s up?”
“If this is a fashion intervention because of Rae’s hair—I already talked to her about it a few days ago,” Molly volunteered helpfully.
Rae shot her a pained glance—one hand coming uncertainly up to her curls—while Luke placed a gentle hand over her mouth.
“What is this about, Mom?” she asked quietly, wishing very much the two of them were alone. She suddenly felt as though an inexplicable spotlight was shining on her shoulders.
“Well,” Beth took a deep breath, “as you know—in addition to training tomorrow—the group of us is going to split off and figure out what exactly we’re going to do. The actual plan.”
“Yeah…?” Rae shifted nervously from foot to foot, her eyes darting between Carter and her uncle. Would someone please cue her in? “And…?”
Beth glanced over her shoulder, before calming herself with a steady smile. “And before we do that, Andrew and I were wondering if we could steal a few moments of everyone’s time tonight.”
The kids shot each other bewildered looks as the adults shared a secret smile. Finally, Rae just turned back to her mom with an incredulous shrug.
“Mom, we’re all here right now. Why don’t we just—”
“It’s not really something we can just do on the spot,” Beth said leadingly.
On the other side of the room, Molly clapped her hands over her mouth as Julian’s eyes flashed automatically white. But Rae was still clueless.