I took the exit, then only had to drive another minute or so to reach the lot. I took the first available spot next to several motorcycles. We all got out and began to walk the three street blocks to Blue Moon. Though it was only around 5:00 pm, it was also December in Oregon, so the sun was slowly making its descent behind the mountains. There weren’t many people out. Most of the coffee shop goers had gone home, and the bar and restaurant goers were yet to surface.
First we visited the bank where Lela was supposed to interview, but it had just closed, so we went across the street to the coffee shop, which was open until 9:00. Blue moon is one of the fancier coffee shops in Shelby, but they scoff at any request for a $1.50 regular coffee, so I almost never go there.
As we entered the glass double-doors, I was instantly soothed by the warm ambiance and the scent of vanilla and coffee. The upper walls and ceiling were done in a midnight blue, with tiny pinpricks of fiber-optic light scattered everywhere, and the lower walls were an opalescent white. Blue Moon may be overpriced, but you sure have to hand it to them on the décor.
I walked up to the dark blue countertop to order a cup of coffee and ask some questions. Lucy and Max sat at a table by the window, while Chase came to stand beside me at the counter. A tall young woman with tightly curled red hair, fair, freckled skin, and pale green eyes approached the register. She wore a black polo and a black apron with moons and stars on it that was standard issue for the Blue Moon staff. Her nametag said “Megan”. I didn’t recognize her as anyone I’d seen working there before, though like I said, I didn’t go there often.
She smiled a little too pleasantly at me, revealing perfectly straight white teeth. “What can I get for you?” she asked in an overly perky voice.
I couldn’t remember the name of what Chase had gotten us at the mall, so I turned to him to order. Chase looked down at me with an awkward wideness to his eyes, like he was trying to tell me something. He turned back to the woman and gave her a charming smile. “Four tall breves please.”
“Will that be all?” the woman asked in a sing-song voice.
“Yes it will,” I answered. “By the way, are you new here? I haven’t seen you around.”
The woman’s smile faltered around the edges. “Yes, yes I am.”
I was about to ask about Lela’s cell phone, but Chase kicked my foot in warning. I gave him a dirty look, but didn’t argue as he handed the woman his card to pay for our coffees. I left him at the counter to sign the receipt and joined Max and Lucy at the table.
Chase waited at the counter while the woman made our coffees, then made two short trips to carry them to our table before he sat beside me. After he placed the second set of coffees on the table, he leaned over to me and put his lips by my ear in a strangely intimate gesture. I started to pull away, but then realized that he was trying to tell me something. “She’s not human,” he breathed.
I pulled away and giggled as if he had said something horribly amusing. I leaned towards his ear flirtatiously and whispered, “What is she?”
He put his arm around me and pulled my ear close to him again. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “Max or Lucy might be able to tell if they’ve encountered the scent before.”
Max and Lucy had been pretending to ignore us, but with their werewolf hearing, they had probably heard every word. Max confirmed my suspicions when he stood and walked up to the cashier. He came back after a few seconds with a little shaker full of cinnamon. Max gave the barest shrug as he sat back down. He hadn’t recognized the scent, which meant she wasn’t werewolf, vampire, or demon.
Lucy caught my eyes, then glanced back at the counter. The woman had been watching us throughout our exchange. She quickly turned around to busy herself at the espresso machine as soon as I looked at her. I glanced back to my companions, who all nodded. We stood with our coffees and left the coffee shop. As the doors swung shut behind us, I stole a final glance inside. The woman was typing something on a cell phone.
The sky had almost darkened completely now. There was no moon, making that darkness even more ominous above the streetlights. I huddled in my jacket, suddenly feeling even colder than the weather could make me. Chase hustled us all forward. “We need to go,” he said quietly.
I felt eyes on me. I glanced across the street to see a pale-skinned man with a buzz-cut, dressed in a dark colored suit. He stood watching us from a corner almost out of reach of the nearest streetlight. I suppressed a shudder. ‘You don’t have to tell me twice,” I mumbled as we cut around a street corner towards the parking lot.
I came to a skidding halt as soon as we went around the corner, right as we came face to face with none other than my friendly neighbor Brian. I quickly managed to close my gaping jaw and recover. Then I proceeded to brush by him without giving him a single extra glance of recognition.
“Seriously Xoe?” he called from behind us.
I paused long enough to turn and face him. “Sorry, didn’t know if talking to you might be too weird.” I held up my arms to gesture to the streets around us. “And we’re obviously not behind closed doors.”
Taking a great deal of satisfaction in Brian’s stunned expression, I turned back around and we continued walking as if nothing had happened. Well I acted as if nothing had happened. Lucy and Max were grinning from ear-to-ear. I wished I could smile too, but I had just caught sight of crew-cut man across the street.
We walked un-accosted the rest of the way to the truck. I handed Chase the keys, feeling too shaken to drive. We all piled in and let out a shared breath as the truck started and we pulled out of the lot. Lucy had opted for the other pull down seat in the back rather than squeezing in the middle of the front again.
“Do you see anyone?” Chase asked.
We all looked out the windows as we pulled onto the street that would lead us back to the highway. The early bar crowd was beginning to pour in, but no one seemed to pay us any mind. “I don’t know,” I answered. “Did you notice the guy on the street corner? I think he followed us down the block.”
Chase nodded. Lucy and Max remained silent. My shoulders eased as we merged onto the highway. Max popped his head up amongst us in the front seat. “I didn’t recognize the smell. She smelled like ozone and blood.”
“Blood?” Lucy asked nervously.
“Yeah,” Max went on, “and something else I couldn’t quite place, kinda like cinnamon or something.”
“What do we do now?” I asked.
Chase spared me a quick glance. “We should call your dad, at least let him know what we’ve found.”
I nodded to myself. “Okay, we’ll let him know. But after that, what do we do?”
We were nearing the exit to my neighborhood. Chase was silent. He glanced at the rearview mirror, then sped right past the exit.
“Umm . . . ” I began.
Chase sped up. “Someone’s following us.”
I turned to look out the back windshield as Lucy and Max did the same. We were on the highway, and even though Shelby’s highway is relatively small, there were still several cars in the lanes behind us. “Which one?” I asked.
Chase glanced in the mirror. “Dark blue minivan.”
I turned back towards Chase. “Seriously? We’re being followed by a minivan?”
Chase nodded, then took the exit that would lead us to the abandoned industrial district. I hated the industrial district. It was the place where Lucy had first turned into a werewolf. I hated it almost as much as I hated the graveyard . . . almost. The minivan exited right behind us.
We reached the two-lane road of the industrial district and began to speed down the dilapidated road. I had a brief moment to wonder why of all exits Chase would pick the traffic-less industrial district, then the truck was spinning in a tight u-turn. The tires came to a screeching halt. A few seconds later the minivan sped right past us. They were going so fast they would have hit us had we simply decided to brake in front of them. Before the minivan could manage to slow enough to turn around, C
hase sped back down the road and onto the exit ramp, going the wrong way.
“What are you doing!” I screamed, frantically holding on to the sides of my seat.
Chase ignored me, his full attention focused on the road. He picked up even more speed as we approached the highway and oncoming traffic. I cursed silently to myself. We were going to die. The minivan had caught back up, and was following close behind us.
Chase shot out onto the highway, right in front of a red sports car whose driver held down on his horn until we cleared that side of the highway. Chase eased the truck into traffic, heading back the way we had just come.
I slowly unclenched my fingers from the seat cushion, and turned to look back at Max and Lucy. Their faces had drained of color, and both held identical, horror-stricken expressions. I turned my attention back to Chase, who was looking out the rear-view mirror with a tense squint to his eyes.
“Are you completely insane?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away. I stole a quick glance behind us. The minivan was nowhere in sight. Chase nodded to himself, satisfied. “I think we lost them.”
I snorted in disbelief. “Yeah, and we almost lost our lives too.”
Chase ignored my comment. “My guess is that we just had a close brush with the infamous abductors.”
“Why were they following us?” I asked.
Chase glanced at me before taking an exit that would lead us to the larger part of Shelby where Irvine’s pizza was. “Well, they’ve abducted witches, werewolves, and merpeople, so it’s safe to say they have a way of identifying supernaturals. They’ve been picking them off one by one. Now they’ve found four of us together.”
“Where are we going?” Lucy chimed in.
Chase took a left turn, then sped up and took a quick right. “I want to make sure no one’s following us before we go back to Xoe’s.”
“What do we do then?” I asked.
Chase took another left, leading us farther away from the highway. “We call your dad.”
“And?” I pressed.
Chase pursed his lips in frustration. “And that’s it,” he answered. “I’ve put you in enough danger already. We shouldn’t have come.”
“We had to come,” I countered. “They have Lela. Who knows what they’re doing to her? We don’t even know if she’s still alive.”
A chill went down my spine. There was a very real possibility that Lela was dead. I should have listened to my dad. We should have made a plan to stick together as soon as we found out about the abductions.
“We should go back to the coffee shop,” I suggested. “We can wait until that girl leaves, then we can follow her.”
Chase sighed, then lifted off the seat to dig in his pants’ pocket. He pulled out a slim black cell phone and handed it to me. “Call your dad. His number’s in the contacts list.”
I stared at the cell phone for a minute before flipping it open. Lucy and Max were completely silent in the backseat. Alexandre was the first name on the short list of contacts. I selected his name and pushed the call button before I had a chance to think better of it.
He picked up on the first ring. “Where are you? I’ve been trying to find you, but you keep moving.”
“What?” I asked, confused. “How’d you know we were moving?”
“Alexondra?” he inquired. Then before I could answer he went on, “You were supposed to stay home. Where are you?”
“We’re driving,” I snapped. “We found the abductors at Blue Moon coffee shop. We’re going back to follow them.”
“Absolutely not,” he snapped back. “Where is Chase? Let me talk to him.”
I extended the phone out to Chase, who took it while glaring at me. We were reaching the end of town and entering a wealthy residential area. The manicured lawns and white picket fences seemed sorely out of place with what was going on.
“Would you rather I had let her go alone?” Chase argued with the phone. He paused to listen, then nodded to himself. “We have the other two wolves with us.” He listened to the phone for another minute then handed it back to me.
“What?” I asked after I pushed the phone against my ear.
My dad grunted at my rudeness. “You will all be returning to your home now. I’m going to the coffee shop.”
“Then we’ll meet you there,” I argued.
“No,” was his only reply.
“We can help!” I practically shouted.
“Think Alexondra,” he replied calmly. “They know what you look like. They haven’t seen me yet. I will be able to follow them.”
I let out a frustrated breath. He was right, and oh how it rankled. “Fine,” I grumbled. “And don’t call me Alexondra,” I added, but he had already hung up.
Chase had navigated his way through the residential area, only to end up at the mall. I gave a confused look as we entered the mall parking lot. I had never known about this round-about way to get to the mall. He shrugged at my look. Apparently he hadn’t known either.
“Why are we going to the mall?” Max asked, startling me. I had forgotten that Lucy and him were back there.
“We’re not,” Chase answered. “We’re going to take the back way to Xoe’s. I don’t want to risk being seen on the highway.”
We drove straight through the mall parking lot and out the back exit that led to the forest road we had taken before. A question I had came back to me. “How was my dad planning to find us? How did he know that we were moving?”
Chase shrugged. “It’s a demon thing. We can sense each other.”
“Could you find me like that?” I asked.
“Probably,” he answered. “It gets easier to sense you the longer I know you, only when you’re awake though. It has something to do with the brainwaves.”
Now that was creepy. I didn’t think I liked the idea of my dad and Chase being able to find me wherever I went, though I guess I didn’t really have a choice.
Lucy leaned forward to rest her chin on the back of the front seat. “Could you find one of us?” she asked. “Someone who isn’t part demon?”
I knew she was thinking about Lela. Chase shook his head apologetically. “No.”
I couldn’t believe how calmly we were conversing. I couldn’t believe how calm I felt, how unafraid. My once normal friends and I had adapted to a completely new life, a life where kidnappings and high-speed chases were nothing to get too worked up about. Heck, even Allison had adapted, and she was human.
I turned to share a knowing look with Lucy. Just call us Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.
Chapter Ten
It was full dark by the time we reached my house, and my dad still hadn’t called. I noticed that my mom’s car had returned to its normal spot as we parked in my driveway. We walked inside my dimly lit house to the sound of Christmas music.
I stifled a groan when I realized that the dim lighting was candlelight, with our colorfully decorated artificial tree as the brightly lit centerpiece. The smell of baked goods was in the air, and I knew something was wrong right there. My mom almost never baked. The last time she had baked was the morning after the Dan conflict. I had broken my arm and my mom was forced to come home from a business trip in Washington to bail me out of the hospital.
My mom came out of the kitchen in a red and green apron with matching pot-holders, a pan of chocolate chip cookies grasped between her protected hands. “Cookies?” she offered, her smile a little too wide. It had to be overwhelming for her, being confronted by my friends and me now that she knew what we were. Well, she didn’t know what Chase was, but I’m sure she had her suspicions.
I forced myself to smile. “Um, sure.”
My mom took that as answer enough and turned to go back into the kitchen. Lucy and I followed her in while Chase and Max went to sit in the living room. My mom set the pan of cookies onto the stove, then looked startled when she turned around to see Lucy and me behind her.
My mom pulled a spatula out of the cylinder that holds our cooking ute
nsils and began lifting the cookies onto a large red plate. “Does everyone want milk?” she asked. “I made cinnamon rolls too. Oh, and we could have coffee . . . ”
“Okay mom,” I interrupted. “Why don’t you let Lucy and me handle this? You can go talk to Max and Chase.”
She nodded. “Oh, okay.” She nodded again to herself and exited the kitchen.
Lucy’s eyes followed her out with a worried cast to them. Lucy turned her almond shaped brown eyes back to me. “Your mom is acting really weird . . . and where’s Jason?”
“She knows everything,” I began. I ignored Lucy’s gaping jaw and went on, “and Jason has a job. He had to leave town.”
“Wait, what?” Lucy stuttered. “You told her? And how could Jason leave? We need him here.” She pointed her finger dramatically at the ground.
I started shoveling the rest of the cookies onto the plate, but then paused to go to the adjacent counter and start a pot of coffee. Lucy followed right behind me, still waiting for an explanation. I gave her a tired expression as I poured beans into the coffee grinder. “He had to go. Who knows when another job will come along? He has to take what he can get.”
Lucy put a hand on her hip and looked at me skeptically. “It doesn’t sound like you really believe that.”
I shook my head. “I believe it. I know he had to go, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about it.”
“Have you called him to let him know what’s going on?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Xoe!” she exclaimed. She cringed and lowered her voice. “You need to call him. He’s going to be furious when he finds out that you were in danger and didn’t tell him.”
“I know,” I conceded as I filled the pot with water and pressed the start button. “But I can take care of myself.”
“And you wouldn’t mind making him a little furious?” Lucy added.
I thought about it for a moment. I was pissed that he left right after my dad came into town. I had to admit, the idea of making Jason angry was rather appealing. I laughed a harsh sound that didn’t really sound like a laugh at all. “Yeah, that too.”
Accidental Ashes: or that time I found out I was a demon, and all my friends were vampires and werewolves (Xoe Meyers Young Adult Fantasy/Horror Series) Page 9