Infinitely Human

by Candace Blevins

  Ryan nodded. “And at least a dozen other places in Ireland and Scotland.”

  “How many doorways to Faerie are here?”

  “Too many for my comfort. The back patio has good views from here to the water. The island is almost all farmland and moors, with few trees. Get the lay of the land while I look a few things up.”

  “I feel that I want Cora here. I don’t know why.”

  He crossed his arms. Uncrossed them. “No wolves here. Or coyotes, or even foxes. No squirrels. Hares might be the biggest mammal, besides sheep and goats. Lots of rats, because there are no snakes.” He shrugged. “Some people say there are small grass snakes, but I’ve yet to see one.” He crossed his arms again. “The necklace is closer to home than it’s been since you were gifted it, yes?”

  I nodded. “I feel off. I want Cora.”

  “You like trees, and there are none close. Strengthen your shields and meditate. I’ll drive you to some trees in about thirty minutes. You’ll find mason jars of soup and other canned vegetables in the pantry. Eating food grown here may help.”

  “If this is a known Slayer property, will people be watching for activity?”

  “It isn’t known.”

  Mordecai had known about it, but perhaps it wouldn’t be known to our enemies. I nodded and stepped out the small door at the back of the cottage. From what I could tell, it was one room, with a bed and wardrobe unit in the back right corner, a living room in the front right corner and center, the kitchen in the back left corner, and an eating area towards the front left. The back center was set up like a mudroom, even though there were no walls. Raincoats and jackets hung on the back wall, and a short storage unit likely held boots and such.

  The back patio had a little flower area around it, and several metal benches. It needed sweeping, but I didn’t go in to find a broom.

  I could, indeed, see the ocean from this vantage point, despite the fact it was probably a mile away. We were on a sloping hill, with nothing but — as Ryan had said — farmland and moors between. I could make out a few houses here and there. Perhaps a dozen. I pulled my phone out and saw I was facing west. I don’t know why it was important to know, but I didn’t argue. I was on edge and didn’t want to close my eyes to meditate.

  So I didn’t. I stared at the water. The coastline appeared to be craggy — with cliffs rather than beaches, though I wasn’t sure I could tell for certain from my vantage point. This wasn’t a mountain, but I was higher up than the areas I was viewing, and before long I sensed the rhythm of the land.

  Only it wasn’t a rhythm. It was random. I couldn’t breathe to it.

  Was this why I felt off?

  I looked at my phone. Barely fifteen minutes had passed, and Ryan had said I had thirty. I flashed back home and was happy to see Cora on the porch.

  “Can you come with me? Maybe just a few hours? Or perhaps twelve?”

  “Yes. A few wolves are here, running. I’ll just leave them a note, so it doesn’t seem rude I wasn’t here when they returned.”

  “No. Stay if you’re needed.”

  “I’m not, actually. It’s fine.”

  She wrote out a note explaining she’d been unexpectedly called away, and told them to make themselves at home in the public areas.

  I was barely gone four minutes, but Ryan was standing at the back door, arms crossed, frowning.

  “You worried me.”

  “I’m sorry. I told you I needed Cora.”

  He gave a small headshake, as if I was being impossible, but walked back inside. “Let’s go, then. I promised you trees.”

  “Where are we?” asked Cora.

  “Isle of Man.”

  “We aren’t far from the spot legend calls Manandán’s chair, or seat,” Ryan told us. “If you could see across the water, you’d see Ireland. Look right, to the north, and you’d see Scotland. We’ll drive inland to one of the forests planted in the eighties. There were none here before then. Just moors and farms.”

  Cora and I sat in the back seat of the tiny car Ryan drove out of a tiny garage. I’d thought it a small shed.

  She put her arm around me, I leaned into her, and she bathed me in wolf energy.

  “You’re already getting energy from them?” I asked.

  “Yes. I haven’t asked for it, but I seem to be receiving it.” She stroked my arm. “The wolf doesn’t like it here. It feels as if we’re in Faerie.”

  I nodded. “Yes. That’s it. I couldn’t get the rhythm of the land, but I think I was hearing both this land, and whatever land mirrors this in Faerie. It seemed random, but if I could pull the two beats apart, it would probably make sense.”

  “If the wolf doesn’t like it here, how could a vampire be okay?” I asked.

  “Vampires aren’t allowed in Faerie because it isn’t safe to have them there. Aos Sí are quite tasty, apparently.”

  “Aos Sí are the Fae, right?”

  “One of the many races in Faerie,” Ryan answered. “There isn’t really a majority race, but the Aos Sí are among the most populous.”

  “The strongest wolves can maintain their human form in Faerie, but it’s more of a struggle than it is in our home realm,” Cora continued. “The cats say it’s a little easier to maintain their human form in Faerie. Bears report no difference.”

  “Griffin’s animal is the crocodile,” I said. “If there are no snakes, I’m guessing reptiles won’t be at home here.”

  “Not true,” said Ryan. “There are lizards and some other small reptiles on the Isle. Also, crocs are at home in both Faerie and Olympus.”

  “Right. Peter Pan's story has one.” How could I have forgotten? “I don’t like fighting crocodile shifters.”

  “Fifty cal,” said Cora. “We’ll get you one before we think we might end up in a fight. If you have one, don’t fuck with your light weapons. But, grab your casing and then step somewhere else. Do not get caught with a weapon here.”

  “None of us are officially here. No customs record. No flights. No ferries,” said Ryan. “We’re officially still in Greece, so if we need to, Kirsten and I can flash back there and have a meal on my credit card.”

  “Right,” Cora agreed, “and she can take me home, where I can be seen doing something in a public place. Somewhere with cameras.”

  “Which is one of the ways Lepori got away with criminal activity so long.”

  Ryan took us to a forest on the side of a small mountain, and I eventually found the rhythm of the mountain. It wasn’t random, but it wasn’t exactly steady, either. It was as if the old Irish dirges had been written to it. I could easily imagine bagpipe music playing to it.

  “Is it possible the pace of the people here is slow because the pace of the land is slow?”

  “No idea,” said Ryan. “Are you feeling better about being here? I need you in top form.”

  “I’m mostly Irish! I know this isn’t Ireland, but it’s just a few miles away! I should feel comfortable here!”

  “DNA memory? People talk about it like it’s a thing, but I’m not convinced. You up for some scouting? The manor house isn’t far away. If we hike a little farther west until we’re out of the forest, we’ll be able to look down on it from about a half-mile away.” He patted one of the pockets on his cargo pants. “I have a camera with an impressive zoom and high resolution, so we’ll be able to see a lot of detail.”

  “I don’t suppose you have glasses like the goggles?”

  Another grin. “Yes. Ready?”

  24

  Ryan called it a manor house, but it looked like a castle. It’d been built in the eighteen hundreds by rich landowners, and was still privately owned. Legally, it was a manor house, though I wasn’t clear on the difference. The locals called it Griffinda Castle, and I wondered if Griffin was using this particular name right now so he’d appear to belong to this castle, or if it was just a coincidence.

  I wouldn’t flash in because I wasn’t sure if there were protections to trap me, but it shouldn’t be too ha
rd to levitate us to the roof. Ryan had blueprints showing a way in through the mechanical room, which had been added in recent decades.

  The Slayer database had the inside of the house completely set up like a game you could walk through while wearing virtual reality goggles.

  Ryan’s equipment had given us a heat map of the people in the upper floors, and he put the data in, so we could practice either taking down guards or avoiding them until we got it right. Scary stuff, but I wasn’t complaining. However, I was going to be very careful about who was allowed in the private portions of our new house.

  We’d been at the castle during the day, when vampire guards weren’t used. They might be present tonight, but they’d just be replacing the shifters and probably not adding to their numbers.

  So, the three of us were going into a building with eleven guards that we knew of. Cora had smelled crocodiles and birds of prey.

  After nightfall, we hiked through the woods and came in from above again, and made it to the roof without alerting anyone to our presence. Ryan had placed a percussion bomb near a window at the rear of the house before we levitated up, and he set it off as we entered the roof access. The percussion bomb doubled as a stink bomb, and everyone would be nose blind inside the house until they could air it out.

  Ryan and Cora took out the first four guards before they knew what happened. A third had gone to see about the percussion bomb, but the most important weren’t leaving their posts. This was a well-trained, disciplined unit.

  We made it down two levels and approached the first floor even more cautiously. The main stairs to this level would be full of guards, since it was close to the percussion bomb, and our strategy took us down a narrow, steep staircase — closer to a ladder than traditional steps.

  We ran into two men when we thought there’d be one. Ryan jumped to the floor and easily handled one, but the other punched Cora before she could get out of the way of his fist. I formed a knife out of light and stabbed him in the chest — and only managed it because he thought I jumped, but I levitated so I wasn’t where he expected me to be when he came after me.

  He fell to the floor dead, but I had a hard time feeling bad about it. The goal was to disable where possible, but he’d been in the process of shifting into something with scales, and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with a crocodile monster.

  Without a word, we kept going. We knew where the dungeon was, we just didn’t know who was there.

  I was wary of approaching the cells once Ryan took out the last two guards, but I had to.

  “A wolf, a Slayer and a human come to rescue me? Really?”

  I didn’t have time to think about what needed to be done, and whether this was a good idea or not. Cora grabbed my left arm, and we both reached through the bars and grasped one of Dwight Lepori’s arms. I stepped us into the nothingness, and then into a jail cell deep under Drake Security. Ryan had assured us he could get out of the castle without help, and I hoped he was right.

  Cora keyed her code into a pad and we locked Dwight into a secure room. Someone would have to let us out of the sub-sub-sub-basement, but we weren’t locked into the room with Gabby’s dad.

  A corded wall-phone rang, and I answered it.

  “It’s Cora and Kirsten. Who’s this?”

  The monitor beside the phone came on, and I smiled at Lou’s happy face. “You have me. Who and what do you need?”

  “Nathan or Aaron. We’re both in good shape.” Protocol is to announce yourself, who will probably need to debrief you, and whether or not you need medical attention.

  “Nathan’s on his way down. Three bodies came in.”

  Cora stepped closer to me. “The third is locked away. Nathan will need to make any determinations about our prisoner.”

  Lou nodded. “Extra guards?”

  “No,” said Cora. “People will be looking for him. Let’s avoid extra activity. He can’t stay here long, but Nathan and Ryan will need to figure out where he’s going.”

  “Why does Ryan get a say?” I jumped at Nathan’s voice behind us. He must’ve run the entire distance.

  “Because we wouldn’t have Lepori without him,” Cora told him. “The Slayer put together a kick-ass op. We left him to extricate himself alone, but he assured us he could do it. Kirsten will retrieve him in one hour at an agreed upon location.”

  “She won’t go alone.”

  I rolled my eyes but didn’t argue. “We can’t keep Lepori here long.” I looked at the closed door and back to Nathan. “Rinaldo lied to us. He was trying to keep us from the actual location. He isn’t one of the good guys. At all.”

  “Not surprised. What did he learn about you?”

  I closed my eyes and felt sick to my stomach. “Too much.”

  “Not the end of the world. I’ll need a detailed list later.” He met Cora’s gaze. “Alabama or Wisconsin?”

  “Alabama. He’s been kept underground and rabbits need sunshine.”

  Nathan nodded. “I’ll fly us down. How many people do we need?”

  “He came with us willingly. That may not continue. You should research what it took to contain him originally.”

  “Noted. Mac’s outside the door. Vin’s down the hall. Ranger’s at the steps. You stay here. I’ll go with Kirsten to retrieve Ryan.”

  I touched Nathan’s arm. “I know you think you have Gabby’s best interest at heart when you decide what to tell her and what not to tell her, but she’s a grown woman and she deserves to know whatever she can be told.”

  “Take us to wherever you’re meeting Ryan.”

  I flashed us to the little cottage. The car wasn’t present and neither was Ryan, but I didn’t expect him to come straight back. He’d want to be sure he wasn’t followed.

  “Talk to me about Rinaldo.”

  I sat on the sofa. “He was totally leading us on a wild goose chase. He and Ryan were certain it was an island — Rinaldo said one of the Canary Isles, Ryan felt it was Ibiza or Milos.” I sighed. “I don’t know how anyone could mistake Milos for this one. It’s a totally different topography.”

  “If they only knew how long it took to get there, the approximate size and traffic of the airport they flew into, and an estimate of the boat trip …” He shrugged. “There are many ways to obfuscate a location. How did you arrive here?”

  I touched my chest. It’d healed fast because I still had so much of Bran’s blood in me.

  “I nearly killed Rinaldo on accident, and Mordecai apparently is monitoring my adrenaline levels or something, because he shows up when I’m in danger. I mentioned the fact we thought Lepori was on an island, and that there happens to be one named after Manandán — or the other way around — and asked why we weren’t checking it out. Mordecai brought the three of us here, Ryan said something about Mordecai knowing more than he could tell us, but how he could legally help us once we’d figured something out, and Mordecai left without commenting.”

  “And Ryan knew which old vampires held property here?”

  “Griffin. He owns a castle.” I shrugged. “Manor house, but it looks like a castle.”

  Nathan frowned and looked out the window. “Griffin didn’t own Lepori. I’m almost certain.”

  “Ryan seemed to think Katerina is holding someone way more powerful than Lepori — possibly even a god. Someone who has to be held in an electromagnetic cage.” Like me, but I didn’t add that part.

  And suddenly, my heart was happy, because if Rinaldo was bad then Katerina was most likely good.

  So then, who was she holding prisoner? I rubbed my forehead. “Rinaldo gets moved to the dark side, and I’d like to think that means we can move Katerina to our side, but we need to know who she’s holding prisoner before we do that.” I sighed and told him about Xaephan. “Do you think he was trying to keep me from killing her because she’s good, and he knew what it would do to me to kill someone on the side of right?”

  Nathan walked to a window and looked out. “Don’t try to make him into a good guy.�
�

  Right. Demon. Still, I had to wonder.

  “Abbott will question Gabby’s dad?”

  “Kendra, with Abbott watching on video from upstairs, so Lepori can’t scent him. They’ll both go into his mind, but we’ll get more out of him if a woman questions him.” He shook his head. “I’m going to take your advice about Gabby. I’ll tell Horse, and if he wants her to know, we’ll tell her together.”

  “Thank you.”

  He shook his head. “I want to shield her from it, but I also know if she finds out later, she’ll see it as… it’ll be like you finding out Abbott claimed you. She’d never trust me again. I can’t risk that.”

  “She should know. I wish you were doing it because you can see that, but…” I shrugged. “I’m glad you care enough for her to make sure you don’t hurt her.”

  I was wishing I could be that to him, because he’d hurt me by turning his back on me, and he surprised me by pulling me into his arms.

  I wanted to melt into him, but I couldn’t trust it, so I went board stiff.

  “She needs protection, she makes it easy to care about her. You can usually take care of yourself so long as you know there’s danger. Apples and oranges, and I’m working through it. You’re right — I can see the difference between you and someone who’s truly evil, but I’m having trouble with some of the visuals.”

  I slowly pulled out of his arms and stared at his chest. I would not cry. “Just be my friend again. We weren’t sure how things could possibly work anyway, so it’s probably good you pulled back, but I can’t bear losing your friendship.”

  His huge hand wrapped around my head, his palm on my cheek, his fingers threaded through my hair, and I had to either meet his gaze or close my eyes. I closed them a second, but I’m not a coward, so I opened them, no matter that my heart shattered in my chest.

  “I love you,” he said. “I don’t think we can just be friends again, but I’m dealing with shit and I need to work through it or I risk hurting you worse by saying the wrong thing. It’s my baggage, not yours, but I need to figure it out before I can be who you need me to be.”