“I don’t like it,” her dad said. “Delphi, let the man take care of his kids. They should be his priority.”
“They are,” Jet rumbled. His arm shifted, tucking her closer against him.
She had a suspicion he didn’t even notice. Her dad sure did, but Delphi stayed where she was even as Mike’s eyes narrowed. Jet was facing a nightmare situation and she wouldn’t let him stand alone.
“Fine.” Mike capitulated. “But we’ll all be checking in.”
“Working next door, that would happen anyway,” Delphi said.
That won her the look her dad had perfected when she was an exasperating teenager.
Jet released her. “I have the kids’ gear in my car. I’ll bring it in, then I need to go.”
“CeeCee said,” Mike began, before giving up. He waited till Jet was out the front door before questioning his daughter. “What are you doing?”
Delphi shrugged. “Following my instincts. Dad, Jet’s not just…” But Jet’s were nature still wasn’t her secret to tell.
“He’s a magic talent? Like you?”
Her family might have the merest trace of magic, but they had stories of when it was stronger, and they had Delphi, the living proof of its power. They understood that the world was weirder than most people imagined.
“No, Jet’s not magic. But he’s not normal either. What he is, is safe. I promise.” Her instincts said so.
Mike stared at her for a moment before nodding. “I hope you know what you’re doing, but even if you don’t, we’re here for you.”
She smiled faintly. “That could be the family motto.”
“It is.” Mike kissed her forehead and walked back into the kitchen, probably to recruit people to spy on her and Jet.
She braced herself to survive the family’s disapproval and curiosity. Around them, people had been aware of their intense conversation, but had tactfully refrained from intruding or eavesdropping. That wouldn’t last.
Jet came in the front door carrying a couple of bags in one fist.
She grabbed his free arm and urged him upstairs. “Third floor. The kids can share one room. It has bunkbeds. And you’ll be nearby.” And her dad might feel better with the nominal distance between the third floor guest rooms and her second floor master bedroom. She climbed the stairs quickly, aware of Jet behind her.
At the top of the stairs she turned left. “Tony and Grace’s room. I have family to stay, sometimes, so it’s fitted out for kids.” Beyond a set of bunkbeds, there was a chest filled with toys and a rug on the floor mapped out for hopscotch. It was a room for kids to sleep in, but also to be noisy and play in. “You’ll be next door.”
Jet put the two bags down by the bunkbeds and followed her empty-handed. The guest room on the third floor was a neutral room decorated in gray and ochre colors, with a large bed.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked from the doorway.
She crossed over to the window and opened the blinds. “Because in your situation I wouldn’t know what to do. Two kids, the house, and finding out that their mom was murdered. I know how hard home renovations are. I managed with my family’s help, but I stayed with Mom and Dad while the plumbing was ripped out and replaced. In your situation, I couldn’t cope.”
“You would.” He leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. “And you wouldn’t have been so stupid as to buy a house needing so much work.”
“It’s a good investment for the future.”
He ignored that. “So, basically, you’re doing this because you feel sorry for me.”
She had an older brother and cousins. She knew about male egos. Still. “Yes.”
“Great.” He bumped his head against the doorframe. “Just great.”
“I’m just being neighborly.” And since they were tackling difficult issues and she knew how obtuse men could be. “To be clear, I don’t have any ulterior motive. I’m not interested in a relationship.”
“With anyone or with me?”
“Uh. Um.” She’d just wanted him to know that her offer of assistance came without strings attached. Without expectations.
“With me,” he concluded. He sighed and pushed away from the doorframe, standing straight and tall, gorgeous and rumpled from a hard day’s work. “Never mind. I get it. And I agree. I’m not a good risk for a relationship, for more reasons than you can guess. I’ll take your help with thanks and I appreciate your kindness to Tony and Grace. I expect your family will break their backs finishing the work on my house so that we’ll be out of your hair by next weekend.”
A week with Jet Walsh in her house.
Maybe she had been a bit impulsive.
But it was too late, now. She walked downstairs with him and into the electric silence that meant her family had been talking about them.
Tony and Grace looked interested rather than freaked by their eavesdropping, which was surprising. “Delphi, are we staying with you?”
“Till your house is fixed. Your uncle has some work to do and—” Delphi stopped as Grace thrust a picture of a cat at her. “Thank you, sweetie. And I’ll enjoy your company.”
“Your room is upstairs,” Jet said. “You’ll find your bags in it.”
“In our room?” Delphi’s niece, Lori, inserted herself into the conversation.
“Yes. In your room.” Delphi had had plenty of practice in handling Lori. “So you and Steve can show Tony and Grace where it is. Okay?”
“Okay!” Steve answered for his sister, who showed a tendency to pout. “Let’s go, Tony.”
This call to male solidarity was too much for Lori, who ran after the boys.
Grace hesitated a moment before dashing after them.
“Like a herd of elephants,” Nan murmured as the children thundered up the stairs.
“Keys.” Delphi handed over a set to Jet.
His long fingers curled around them as he looked from her to her none-too-impressed relatives. He nodded and walked out.
The back door had barely closed behind him before everyone gave her the benefit of their opinion.
Jet wanted to turn around and go back to stand beside Delphi and defend her decision to befriend his small family. But he had other, more gruesome demands on his time. The clock was ticking, not only to find Emma and the child’s killer, but to prevent more people dying.
The police were investigating, but they didn’t know the full story.
His cousin Emma hadn’t just been murdered. She’d been sacrificed.
Chapter 3
Jet got home about 11 p.m. and he was too tired, and too heartsick, to notice that he thought of Delphi’s house as home. All he knew was that he needed to see Tony and Grace, to see for himself that they were safe, and that the thought of Delphi was a welcome one.
He let himself in quietly, using the front door since it seemed less of an intrusion than the back one. Lights were on in the living room and he heard the low babble of a television. “It’s just me,” he called.
“Hi, me.” Delphi’s voice was soft but cheerful. She muted the television as he walked into the living room, twisting around from where she was curled up on the sofa. On screen, an old black and white movie played.
He could smell hot chocolate. “I should check on the kids.”
“They were asleep by eight. Worn out by the day, I think.”
“That’s good.” He wasn’t used to coming back from a crime scene to a real home. He gestured vaguely at the stairs, and she nodded, turning back to the television. The thought of sitting with her on that cozy sofa teased him as he climbed the stairs. The romantic music of the old movie sang of love and happiness. But that was off the agenda.
The glow of a nightlight shone from the kids’ room. Jet entered silently. The kids, especially Tony, had a tendency to wake at the slightest noise. It was a habit born of fear, of their uncertain lives with Emma.
If he’d realized…
Families drifted apart. He and Emma hadn’t grown up together. They hadn’t been close
. Excuses. He scowled at his own dark thoughts. If his mom had been alive, she would have checked on Emma and the two vulnerable children. He couldn’t change the past, but he’d make sure of the kids’ future.
He’d make sure they had a future.
Tony was asleep in the top bunk.
Jet tucked the blankets more securely over the boy’s skinny shoulders.
In the lower bunk, Grace slept deeply, her arm around the orange teddy bear he’d given her at their first meeting. He hoped it would keep the nightmares away for her.
He had his own. New ones after what he’d seen tonight. There’d been no way to slip into the crime scene, but Perez had shown him photos.
Jet scrubbed a hand over his face. The photos had been bad and they’d brought back the memory of seeing Emma’s body. He’d had to put all of that aside and cast around for a scent, for some hint of the man who’d done this; who’d left the boy’s body.
“Two men.” Perez had been able to study the crime scene before the police response trampled it, obliterating scent trails. “One smelled of cloves.”
Cloves. A strong scent to hide the copper stink of blood as he murdered and mutilated? Or, did the killer have toothache? Clove oil was the traditional remedy, numbing tooth pain.
Not that the killer spared his victims pain. Although this time Perez said the child had been killed swiftly, without torture or sacrifice. Unlike Tony and Grace’s mom.
Jet had cast around for the scent of cloves, ignoring the police who watched him, and tracked it a block. One block, then it vanished. The killer must have had a car waiting since the scent vanished utterly. He’d reported the information to Perez who had the power to seize any security camera footage of the street. However, the killer had likely parked where he was unobserved.
That, or the killer had used magic to ensure he was unobserved.
There were spells that obscured technological surveillance and the killer had the magic to use them.
As a were, Jet lacked magic, but he had allies.
Perhaps those allies were a tad reluctant, but they had magic and that was enough for Jet. He’d called and Martin had reluctantly crossed town to check the crime scene.
“Nothing,” had been Martin’s conclusion. “The boy must have died before they could sacrifice him.”
“Can’t you get anything?” Jet had pushed.
“There’s no death magic, here,” Martin had snapped and gone home.
Jet rolled his shoulders. Tomorrow, he’d start again. That’s what investigating required. You followed each path as far as it would go, homing in on the answers. Only, this time he was in danger of being too impatient. Delphi’s mom hadn’t been wrong to warn against involving the personal element. However, one glance at Tony and Grace sleeping in Delphi’s guest room confirmed that he had no choice. The monster he hunted had to be caught.
He joined Delphi in the living room as the credits rolled on the old movie.
She switched off the television and looked across at him as he sat down in an armchair. “Do you want a drink, something to eat?”
“No, thanks.”
“To talk or be silent?”
He smiled then, faintly. “The daughter of a cop.”
“And the sister of one.” She understood. Sometimes the only way to help was to be there.
“Silence.”
“Do you mind the television?”
“No.”
She switched it back on, found a late night chat show, and they listened to its inanities.
Beneath the television’s noise, he could hear her heartbeat. He hadn’t realized that he’d slipped into his were senses. He could smell her scent, feminine and vital, and the tuna casserole she must have made for dinner. He slipped back into human senses, letting that other self fade. It wouldn’t help him to be too aware of her. This house, a haven of normality, wasn’t his, although he’d try to create something like it for Tony and Grace.
Nor was his attraction to Delphi one he should indulge. Already he felt too comfortable with her. It wasn’t her house or her competence or anything concrete: it was his sense that he belonged with her, that was dangerous.
“Bed for me.” She offered him the television remote.
He shook his head, surprised to see that twenty minutes had passed while he simply relaxed into being with her. “I’ll go up, too.” He needed to sleep. Tomorrow would be an early start and all the days after it. He stretched hugely. “Good night.”
“Good night.” She fussed with the cushions she’d been leaning against and folded up the blanket she’d been curled under.
Belatedly, he realized she was delaying so that they wouldn’t walk up the stairs to bed together. He moved away abruptly, taking the stairs two at a time, and leaving tempting dreams behind.
Delphi dressed for work on Monday with her usual swiftness, but only by rigorously suppressing her instinct to help Jet organize Tony and Grace for school. On Sunday she’d been responsible for them, while he tried to track their mom’s killer. He’d returned late Sunday night, evidently no closer to doing so than the police since he wore a similar expression of frustration to her mom’s. To add to CeeCee’s troubles, the media had gotten hold of the story and it was major news, with all the community panic and unrest a child’s gruesome death generated.
“You have to eat breakfast,” Jet said, sounding harassed.
“I have an apple in my schoolbag, and sandwiches,” Tony said.
“Eat your toast.”
Delphi braved the early morning skirmish. “I’m off to work. I’ll see you, tonight.” She kissed Grace’s cheek and the little girl beamed at her. She ruffled Tony’s straight black hair—someone had forgotten to comb it.
“Have you had breakfast?” the boy demanded.
“Granola before you were awake,” Delphi responded smartly.
Tony groaned and bit into his toast.
Delphi grinned at Jet, and found her neighbor checking out her legs, on display in her short skirt and high heels. She enjoyed the compliment of his attention. It might be wiser not to become romantically involved with a neighbor, but his appreciation boosted her ego. And yes, perhaps she had chosen to wear her new suit with him in mind. “Bye, all. Be good.”
“We’ll try,” Jet said humorously, unabashed at being caught admiring her legs.
She hurried out to catch the subway in to work at the Collegium. She preferred an early start. It gave her a chance to make the most of the calm of her office before the day’s chaos erupted. People who knew about the Collegium’s magical role tended to think of her department, the Alchemists, as filled with quietly studious research scientists who just happened to possess magical talent. That was all true, except for the quiet bit. Many of her colleagues were loud. All of them were curious. And dramas happened daily.
She waved a hurried “hi” to her cousin as Uma reversed her electrician’s van up to Jet’s door. Delphi planned to fit in some research on bear-weres, particularly cubs. Tony and Grace were good kids, and freed of responsibility for babysitting Lori and Steve, Delphi had been able to give them her complete attention yesterday. They’d blossomed.
But their casual comments revealed how they’d lived before Jet’s entrance into their lives, and those revelations made her shudder. Their mom had evidently tried to care for them, but her drug addiction had ruled everything. The children would need careful nurturing to repair the damage of neglect.
Delphi tuned out her subway ride, using the time to plan her day. She couldn’t steal much time for her personal concerns. A couple of weeks back, one of the Collegium guardians had brought in a sword. None of the alchemists believed his claim that it was Excalibur, the legendary sword of King Arthur. After all, its provenance was ridiculous: hidden in a Texas house for decades and revealed by a ghost. Pfft. Ghosts weren’t real.
On the other hand, none of the alchemists were willing to argue that point with this particular guardian, Shawn Jackson. So they’d accepted the sword and l
ogged it for non-urgent assessment. Delphi had it scheduled for this morning.
She hummed as she headed into work.
Collegium headquarters occupied a glass and steel building that looked exactly like what it pretended to be for the mundane world: the headquarters of an international think tank. Delphi ignored the impressive front steps and ducked around the side. The building’s powerful magical wards feathered over her skin like cobwebs parting. If the wards hadn’t recognized her, a person with her degree of magical talent would have been stopped in her tracks and a Collegium guardian would have come out to question her. As it was, Delphi simply swiped her security pass at the side door and entered.
The alchemists department was eight floors up. She took the elevator, ignoring the temptation of the heavenly aroma of coffee from the café bar in the foyer. None of the alchemists were fans of open plan offices, so they had a tight arrangement of inner, windowless offices against the elevator shaft, and offices with windows on the outer rim. Delphi had managed to snag a window office and she grew African violets on top of a low, narrow bookcase by the window. Watering them after their weekend drought, she listened to her computer start up and checked that the grimoires on the second shelf of the bookcase were all present.
Gaps showed.
Displeased but unsurprised, she muttered a recall charm and the grimoires floated in. One had sticky notes attached. Delphi binned them, recognizing the writing. Her colleague, Arlee, tended to work weekends and to “borrow” any research aides she needed.
Within minutes, Delphi was reading about bear-weres.
“Where are my notes?” Arlee stormed in an hour later. “I have a presentation in thirty minutes.” Which explained her early-for-Arlee arrival. She pounced on Delphi’s waste paper trash can and rescued her notes. She shook them at Delphi. “These are important.”
“Uh huh.” Delphi flicked her computer screen before Arlee could become curious about Delphi’s interest in weres. “And they were on my grimoire.”
“If you don’t want it borrowed, you should lock it away.” Arlee was already on her way out the door. She leaned back. “Lunch?”
Alchemy Shift Page 4