AIR Series Box Set

by Amanda Booloodian

  I closed the door. The kitchen was in perfect condition. No dishes in the sink, no crumbs on the counter, no mail stacked up anywhere, and a bowl of fruit looking almost decorative. Wandering into the living room, I saw artwork on the walls. On closer examination, I discovered two of the pieces matched the furniture a little too well. I'd be willing to bet money that it was part of the set.

  The third piece drew me in. It was different. At first glance, it looked like the sun setting in a forest. When you looked closer, though, the shadows in the woods had shape. Some of the trees had sharp thorns. There was a dirt path twisting through that darkness. The shadows seemed to line the trail, trying to crowd it out. If you stared at a shadow for too long, another one, one that you hadn't seen before, captured your attention, when you looked back, though, the first shadow seemed to meld into the scenery and only the new one you noticed remained.

  It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. There was no person on the trail, but I sensed it had been painted from the perspective of someone walking the path.

  "An old friend of mine painted it," Vincent said. His voice was quiet.

  "It's amazing," I said, still trying to pinpoint a shadow for any period of time, trying to discover what it might be. Then I caught sight of a shadow much larger than the others. It seemed to loom over the entire picture. It was unnerving the way it suddenly appear. I took a step back before I caught myself, realizing I had let a picture startle me.

  I glanced at Vincent, who had moved up beside me, then back at the painting. The looming figure was difficult to pick out again.

  "Your friend is an amazing artist," I said.

  "Was," Vincent corrected. “He was going to marry my sister.”

  I felt the sorrow in his voice. “I didn’t know you had a sister.” Mentally, I was kicking myself. How did I not know he had a sister?

  Vincent said nothing, but it looked as though he regretted saying anything. . I wanted to know more, but this was definitely not the time.

  "I’m sorry about your friend." I put my hand on his arm as a comfort. A feeling of warmth and charged energy started to radiate up from where I touched him.

  Vincent didn't say anything, but he didn't move away and he looked more at ease than he had a moment ago. I wanted the force that rose between us to permeate through me, but I knew it couldn't, so I stepped away. It wouldn't have been fair to him or me. Vincent had made it clear that he didn't want to get too close. Besides, who knew if it was real?

  "Um, thank you for coming over last night." I moved to the next piece of art and took a cursory glance.

  "It was no problem." He kept his voice even and looked at his painting.

  "I guess we should go to the site?"

  "Did you get something to eat?"

  "No, I'm good."

  "Do you mind getting us some water?" Vincent asked.

  "Sure."

  I gathered the water, Vincent took his bag, and we left.

  Vincent put the bag in my trunk and we drove to the site.

  "I thought your gear was in the truck," I said.

  "It's an overnight bag. I didn't have one last night."

  "Are you staying over again tonight? Not that I mind," I added quickly, "you can stay whenever you'd like."

  "It’s possible at least one person is targeting you. Possibly another if Einar isn't the one that magicked your house."

  "If that's the reason you're staying, you might as well move back in." I was trying really hard to avoid being aggravated by the thought. "If you had planned on staying last night, why didn't you bring a bag?"

  Vincent gripped his steering wheel hard. Was that a pink flush on his face?

  "What?" I asked.

  He cleared his throat. "I didn't...I mean..." He stopped talking and gripped the wheel harder.

  "What?"

  "We thought someone else would be around last night."

  I could feel the blush come over my own face now. "We?"

  "Cass, how many times have you been almost killed in the past few days?"

  "Never mind that. You said, 'we thought.' Which 'we' were discussing who might be staying over at my house?"

  Chapter 16

  "It wasn't like that," Vincent said. "Rider thought we should stop by on the way home to check on you last night. I thought that it might be better if we waited. Rider didn't really understand why I said we shouldn’t. He wasn't going to take no for an answer."

  Picturing Rider not understanding why Vincent didn't want to stop by was an easy task. It would have been an interesting conversation, especially with Vincent doing the explaining. I turned to face the window and bit my lip to hide my amusement.

  "It's not like we were standing around discussing it. He was adamant that we stop by."

  Swallowing hard, trying to keep the laughter out of my voice, I asked. "And when you told him?"

  Vincent frowned. "He was still adamant. It was a long conversation. And since he called you after I left, not an effective one."

  Trying to hold the laughter back only caused me to snort. Then all the laughter came pouring out.

  The corners of Vincent's mouth turned up, and his eyes appeared to lighten.

  "Poor Rider," I said when the laughter started to die away.

  "He was going to call Margaret to double check."

  "I guess werewolves do things differently. I wonder what types of social interactions the government goes over during the integration process."

  "We might want to find out. With some of the questions he's asked lately, I think he might want to ask someone out."

  "That's a good point. I wonder how werewolves differentiate between dating and friends. I know things didn't go well with Jonathan and Paula." Elves usually have one mate for life. When Jonathan and Paula got engaged, I don't think he really realized how often couples split up. I'm not sure if Paula was his one true love or not. I was almost afraid to ask.

  "I never thought of that," Vincent said, stopping behind the AIR SWAT-style truck. "Let me know how that conversation goes."

  "Wait, what?"

  There was a hint of mirth under his blank face. "I'm his partner, we haven't hit friend status yet."

  "Oh. That's fair, I guess." Werewolves were hard to make friends with, but once you were friends, you were friends for life.

  We got out of the car and looked up the street where the police had set up obstructions to keep people away from an alley.

  "I don't know if our world meshes well with the normal world.” I tried to keep my voice light, but it was true.

  Vincent came up beside me and followed my gaze to where Ethan stood. He was inside the barrier, talking to an officer on the other side of the ugly yellow and orange sawhorses that blocked the sidewalk.

  "Hey," Vincent said, putting a hand on my arm. I looked up at him while soaking in the current running through us. "Sometimes the worlds can mix. Try to give it some time."

  When I looked back up, Ethan was watching us.

  I nodded. Vincent's lips had moved up infinitesimally into a half grin, but there was a sad look in his eyes. Then he dropped his hand, and we went to the police tape.

  Several reporters had set up across the street.

  "Are those types of microphones legal?" I asked as we approached the crime scene. "They look like they could pick up voices from the International Space Station."

  "I'm not sure," Vincent admitted, "but I doubt they'll get too much over the street noise."

  My stomach was starting to churn before we reached Ethan. It was bad enough having to face him hours after he walked out, but the idea of reporters listening to what we might be saying left me uneasy.

  "Let them through," Ethan said, nodding towards us. The officer waved us through, and he followed my gaze to across the street.

  "They've been here for an hour already," the officer said.

  "Yeah," Ethan agreed, "they set up there to get a better view of the crime scene."

  I watched the reporters
point in our direction. Microphones were raised and aimed our way. The last thing I wanted was AIR business caught on microphone. The thought of them picking up any conversation with Ethan and I wasn't sitting well either. I turned to face the alley, glanced at Vincent, and scratched my head. His look of unease turned into a smirk, although I could have been the only one to see it.

  Closing my eyes, I reached for the Path. There was a bit of a struggle, but not as bad as it had been the past few days. Half turning to the reporters, I read their Path. My nose curled at what I saw. Any remorse that they may have felt was being overwhelmed by eager jumbles of emotions as they worked.

  "If you all want to step this way," Ethan said.

  I ignored him, but Vincent replied. "We need a moment."

  It was petty, but my concerns were real. I sifted through the Paths for the duller and almost unnoticeable traces of equipment. I'd never done anything like this before with electronics, but energy is energy, and their battery packs were live. At least they were for about a minute. Twisting the Path around each little energy source allowed their power to drain away into the atmosphere.

  "Well, I feel a bit better anyway," I said to Vincent. I glanced across the street and saw people replacing batteries, only to find the replacements dead.

  "It's a shame it won't stop them for long."

  I watched someone dash to a van down the street. Cocking my head, I twisted the Path again and felt satisfied that by the time he reached the others, their new power source would be dead as well.

  I shrugged, "I just wanted a little privacy."

  Ethan was watching an argument break out across the street. He glanced at me and back to the reporters. I couldn't read his expression and the little pieces of Path of his that I couldn't avoid didn't look promising. I was willing to bet I had made things worse.

  My heart sank, but work called. I made my way into the alley watching patterns in the Path. Logan was crouched and looking under a white cloth on the ground. Rider was pacing around, looking up the sides of buildings and into windows. I could see the issue immediately. It was the same black trail as the job site, but sliding up the building.

  "Those news crews aren't anything compared to what's going to come down on this town if we don't find who's doing this," Ethan said.

  Logan stood and came over to talk to Ethan. "Think this is going to go national?"

  "We've had four bodies in three days, and the day isn't over yet. Yeah, I think it could get bad. What can we do to help you?" Ethan asked.

  I wandered down the alley towards Rider. "What are you finding?" I asked.

  "It is what I am not finding that is bothering me," Rider said.

  "You know where the victim entered, right?" I asked.

  "From the street. His head left at the other end of the alley."

  My hand clutched my stomach as I stared into the smoky black Path. "Head?" I asked.

  "That is the only part of the body that is not here."

  Shimming threads of bright color rolled through the blackness, curving out, and then folding back under the dense Path. "Whoever did this was here and then moved out this way."

  "But no one came here and took the head." His frustration rolled out from him in waves of amber.

  "Do you smell what you did at the job site?"

  "I smelled only objects there, except where the bones left."

  "Do you smell the same object here?"

  "There are some similar smells. But they are smells that are all over the city."

  "What about from last night?"

  Rider shifted and looked up the side of the building again. "There was a strong smell of clay, dirt, trees, and plants last night. Less so here. There was very little clay at the job site, but many more smells of dirt and trees."

  "But that links all three," I said.

  Rider shook his head. "There is clay everywhere. In the brick, on the street, even at our homes."

  "I'm going to see where this leads," I said, following the black cloud through the alley and out the other end.

  Rider kept pace with me. "I smell only the exit of the head."

  "I see the person leaving. It's the same Path that was at the construction site."

  We were on a less populated street once we left the alley. A few times I reached out as though to touch the Path, but my skin prickled and I dropped back. The black cloud didn't feel evil or vile. I had seen that type of darkness before and the emotion radiates. This was different. Almost dull and condensed, but with some emotion or power trying to break away.

  We were a block away and well outside the police barrier when my phone rang. Caught up in the Path, I answered it without looking at the caller ID.

  "This is Cassie."

  "Cassie, this is Felicity. You have to come." Felicity's voice radiated fear.

  I reversed directions and moved quickly back the way I came. To keep my concentration all on the call, I dropped the Path.

  "What's wrong?"

  "There's someone here…" Felicity started crying, "…here in the house. I'm with the girls hiding upstairs, but there's someone downstairs tearing things up."

  I started running. I dodged under the police tape and sprinted down the ally. "Tell me what’s happening."

  Logan and Vincent saw me running.

  "It is Felicity," Rider called out to Logan and Vincent.

  I put my finger over the phone so Felicity couldn't hear what the others were saying.

  "We need help," Felicity said.

  "We're only a few blocks away, and we're already moving your way. We'll be there in a few minutes."

  There was relief in the sob that Felicity let out.

  "Vincent and Rider, wrap up here, quick. I'll call this in," Logan said.

  Ethan looked worried, but I didn't say anything as I rushed by.

  "Tell me everything you saw," I repeated to Felicity.

  "It was—"

  The phone went dead.

  "Felicity?"

  My heart beat fast and my feet pounded down the sidewalk.

  Logan was faster. The truck was starting when I flung myself inside, and we rushed away.

  "Get the coms," Logan said, concentrating hard as he weaved in and out of traffic.

  I snatched a box from behind the seat and took out our comms units. I twisted one of the small earpieces, handed it over to Logan, and put two others in my pocket. After readying the fourth, it sprang to life when I put it into my ear.

  Hank was already talking, asking what we had.

  I repeated the information from my call with Felicity.

  "This could be a random burglary," Hank said. "Be careful. Keep your eyes open and your ears tucked in. Get our girl out as quick as you can."

  I took a holster from my gear bag and snapped it to my belt, took my gun from the lock box, checked the magazine, and then chambered a round before holstering it.

  By the time Logan stopped in the circle drive to the sorority house, I was ready to go. There were a few girls out on the lawn, several on cell phones. Sirens blared in the distance.

  "Hank, I think we have locals on their way here."

  "We're talking to them now. They know to stand down."

  We ran up to the front door, which had been left open. Logan had his gun in hand, I drew mine, and we strategically entered the house. The large entrance was eerily still. There was noise, music playing somewhere, whispers, and someone crying while trying really hard not to be heard, but there was a stillness that I didn't think was possible in a sorority house.

  A crash came from upstairs. Looking back, I saw a girl ran down the stairs, fear evident. When she turned and saw us, she let out a squeak and covered her mouth quickly.

  "He's, he's..." She pointed upstairs.

  We nodded and she ran outside. We were familiar enough with the layout of the house to know that there was more than one way upstairs. Logan motioned for me to go towards the kitchen, where the other staircase hid. He started climbing the stairs, keeping his
attention split between the upstairs and down.

  I filled Hank in on my way through the kitchen. When I opened the door that hid the stairs, two girls screamed.

  "Shh," I said, trying to keep the harshness out of my voice. "Backdoor. Go. Now."

  They fled.

  "The locals are all out front," Hank said. "I'll send some around to the back. They're working on getting the civilians out of the way."

  "I'm at the landing," Logan said.

  I hurried up to the door to the second floor. "I'm entering the hallway," I said.

  My hand was shaking, so I took a meditative breath before opening the door. There was nothing in sight.

  "Hallway's clear," Logan said.

  It was a temporary relief. I still opened the door with great care, checking both directions before stepping out. Another crash sounded from one of the rooms.

  Chapter 17

  Logan tried to use a few hand signals, but they were nothing like any of the signals in the manuals, so I was lost.

  "Check the rooms. Send anyone you find down the nearest staircase," Logan whispered.

  Before I opened the first door, I reached for the Path, but got nowhere.

  Once I opened the door and I waited for a breath before poking my head in. For each room I steadily worked through, I used this tactic. At the third door, the pause saved me from being pummeled with the objects hurled into the hallway.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about the yells, which echoed down the hall.

  "Shh," I hissed into the room when the throwing ceased. "Kitchen stairs. Run out now. Straight out the back door."

  They were out the door the moment the words came out of my mouth.

  "Hank, do they have a role call yet of who's outside?"