by R. L. Naquin
I let go of Wiggy’s hand, my eyes wide with surprise.
Maurice’s eyes were wider.
I was standing in the middle of my kitchen.
Chapter Three
Maurice was up from the table in seconds—putting milk on the stove to warm for cocoa and tossing flour and other ingredients into a bowl to bake us something.
Maurice always baked when he was worried. It had taken me awhile to figure that out after he’d moved in.
“I’d best be off, poppit,” Wiggy said. “You take care of yourself, yeah?”
“No, wait. Stay for awhile. Maurice is making us something to eat.” I pulled a chair out for him and gave a hopeful smile.
Wiggy checked his watch, then glanced around. “For a few minutes, then. But not too long. I should be getting back.”
A few minutes turned into an hour or so, since it takes time to bake cinnamon scones, even for someone as quick as Maurice. You can’t speed up heat.
Wiggy explained to us that he was a sylph—a wind elemental. He worked for the British equivalent of our Board of Hidden Affairs as an extra set of eyes and ears in the bar, and in extreme emergencies, such as today, transported people to safe locations using his wind powers.
“I would have tossed that wanker, Marcus, out the door the way he was on you last night, but there weren’t nothing I could do about it. I knew he was testing you. I didn’t have to like it, though.” He scowled—an unnatural expression on a face that appeared to wear a smile even when serious.
I patted his hand. “I’m glad to know you had my back anyway. If it had been real, you’d have taken care of it. Thanks.”
He shrugged and sipped his cocoa. “I still don’t like him.”
I bit into a warm scone. “Neither do I.”
“What do you reckon they’ll do about this werewolf situation?”
Up until this point, Maurice had been quiet, listening to us talk. He straightened, his enormous, pointed ears looking somehow larger. “Werewolves? We have a werewolf situation?”
“Just the one,” I said. “As far as we know.”
He shook his head. “Zoey, that’s not good.”
Wiggy nodded. “He’s right. Werewolves are a bloody nuisance.”
Maurice scratched the tip of one ear, a thoughtful look on his face. “The last time I heard about a werewolf crossing into our world was back in the ‘80s. A bunch of teenagers came through San Rafael, looking for trouble.”
“What did they do?” I leaned forward, my cup clutched between my hands.
He shrugged. “Mostly stupid stuff at first. Graffiti. Stolen hubcaps. Egging houses. Nobody realized who or what they were until the full moon hit and they went all hairy and snarly. The O.G.R.E. squad came in quick and took the kids away before humans got wind of it. But it was a close call. All anybody talked about for weeks.”
I frowned and glanced at the obnoxiously sweet Thomas Kinkade calendar Maurice had hung on the wall. “We’re still a week out from the next full moon.”
“That’s not right,” Wiggy said. “If it’s not a full moon, how could the council know what came out the portal was a werewolf? They wouldn’t, would they? Someone’s having us on.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what “having us on” meant, but I knew when I smelled bullshit. “The portal was just spotted,” I said. “And they’re saying a werewolf is roaming the countryside. That doesn’t make any damn sense from what you’re saying. You’re sure there’s no other way to spot a werewolf outside the three days of the full moon?”
Maurice drained his cup, leaving a thin line of chocolate on the gray skin of his upper lip. “Not that I know of. The rest of the month, they look as human as the two of you.”
“Well, at least it’s not werewolves, then.” Wiggy grinned. “My nan met a werewolf once. Tried to eat her until she sat on it. She gave it a right scare, and broke three of its ribs.”
Maurice and I stared at Wiggy, afraid to laugh, but also afraid not to. Wiggy burst into hysterical laughter, tears running down his cheeks. “You should see your faces.”
We chuckled with him, but I still wasn’t sure if I should laugh about this guy’s fat grandmother. After a few minutes, he mopped his face with the back of his hand and slid his chair back. “This has been really lovely, but I’ve got to get back to it. Maurice—” he stuck out his hand to shake, “—wonderful to meet you, mate.” He turned and gave me a one-armed squeeze across my shoulders. “And, Zoey, you take care of yourself. Give me a call if you need anything at all, yeah?”
I smiled and opened my mouth to respond, but with a puff of wind, he was already gone.
“Strange man,” Maurice said, clearing up the dishes. “Nice, though.”
“Yeah. Nice.” I frowned. “What do you suppose is going on out there?”
He ran water in the sink and added soap. “You tell me. You’re the one sending home frantic texts to keep your mom in the house in the middle of the night.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. Were you at Sara’s earlier?”
He nodded. “She was having a rough night. I checked on her a little while ago, though. She’s asleep.”
“Good.” I scrubbed my forehead with my fingertips. “Who’s here? I’m surprised nobody else got up.”
“Just your mom, right now. Darius and Kam should be here later today. Some bungee jumper snapped his neck, and his soul made a run for it to Nevada. They went after it.”
While my boyfriend—correction, ex-boyfriend—was a salaried reaper who pulled stuck souls from the bodies of the newly dead, Kam and Darius freelanced for the Board as soul chasers. They went after the souls that escaped from their lifeless bodies and instead of crossing over or going to the light or whatever souls are supposed to do. Lately, the team didn’t go far though. They only took jobs that kept them within a day’s drive of my house in case we needed them in a hurry.
I nodded. “Good. I think the shit is about to hit the fan.”
Maurice grinned. “Awesome. It’s been nearly six months since our last shit storm. I was beginning to worry we’d gone all domestic.”
* * *
Not long after the sun came up, Mom came out of her bedroom, yawning. Her curly red hair was so like mine—though the color had faded some. It lay squashed on one side and sticking out on the other.
Yeah. Just like mine.
Not quite awake, Mom frowned. She squinted at me, then at the calendar, then back at me. “Did I sleep longer than I thought? You can’t be home already.”
I shrugged. “I cut the meeting short and caught a ride with a sylph.”
“Seems fair. Meeting not go well?” She ran her fingers through her hair, unsurprised by the idea that her daughter had been whisked home by a sylph. Crazy stuff happened at our house every day. It seemed we were all difficult to catch off guard. For that matter, Mom had been at this Aegis thing far longer than I had. She may have dealt with sylphs before.
We didn’t talk much about the time she’d spent away. Her absence during my childhood was too raw a subject.
“It did not go well, no.” I pushed a chair out for her with my toe. “But we’ll get to that when everybody else gets here.”
She accepted a cup of coffee Maurice shoved in her hands. “Everybody else?”
“Yeah. Time for a team meeting.”
Riley made it over about forty-five minutes later. He used to sleep at my place more often than he did at his apartment in Sausalito, but since the breakup—Aegis-handler or not—it wasn’t appropriate. Plus, having him walk around my house shirtless and with sleep-tousled hair was a gut punch. And awkward.
Darius and Kam rolled in around ten o’clock, and Sara showed up five minutes after that.
Once everyone took a seat in the living room, I told them what I’d learned in England.
Darius—who looked like a man-shaped tree, chiseled out of charcoal and muscle—sat in my biggest overstuffed chair. His knees stuck out, and his hands dwarfed the armrests. Kam
, our djinn, sat on the couch in a pink poodle skirt and sweater, her long black hair pulled into a sleek ponytail. She was supposed to be saving up her magic to open a portal and go home to the djinn world, but lately she’d been frittering her magic on a new, weird outfit each day. The magic gems in her wrist were recharging, but not as fast as they would if she weren’t draining them to play dress up. Darius and I had both talked to her about her magical spending habits, but she insisted she knew what she was doing. She wanted to feel pretty after a century of being locked in a box and told what to eat, do, wear and think.
I couldn’t argue with that.
Besides, I’d miss her once she finally went home. If her silly costume changes kept her around a little longer, I wasn’t going to complain.
Without a word, she sat on the middle cushion between Riley and me. She didn’t approve of our having broken up, but she did what she could whenever she was around to act as a buffer. I appreciated her efforts, though they weren’t necessary. Riley and I were grownups. We would deal. And by deal, what I really meant was do everything in our power to ignore the situation.
So, maybe not as grownup as we might think.
Mom sat on the floor next to Darius’s chair, and Maurice bustled around the room filling drinks and making tutting noises when somebody forgot to use a coaster. I’d told him often that he didn’t have to wait on anybody, but he enjoyed it. I probably would have hurt his feelings if I’d tried to stop him from doing it.
Sara came out of the hall bathroom and joined us, settling into the other overstuffed chair. She smoothed her cream-colored skirt and smiled at me.
I drew my brows together and tilted my head toward her in a gesture she understood was asking if she was okay. She nodded, and her smile widened.
The last few months had been rough as hell on Sara, but she was doing a lot better.
Late last year, an incubus named Sebastian had come after me and everyone I influenced. He’d also been hurting Sara and wiping her memories of having been repeatedly raped both physically and metaphysically. It was a dark time, and we almost lost Sara, but her inability to remember shielded her from most of the trauma.
Until a few months ago. The memories trickled in through dreams, at first, and then one day came back to her all at once. I’d have rather she never remembered anything, especially since she’d said herself that she didn’t want to remember. And I wouldn’t wish those memories on my worst enemy. But they had returned, and I did what I could for her, whenever she needed it—whether that meant listening to her talk it out, holding her when she cried or going to watch while she shot at a target at the gun range.
The Board sent us a therapist from the Hidden world—an elf named Louise—who was trained to help rape victims but wouldn’t flinch at the supernatural aspects of Sara’s assault. Having Louise was a huge relief, because I never knew whether I was doing or saying the right thing for Sara. I knew how to be her friend—how to be supportive. I was not qualified to council her. Louise helped Sara in ways I couldn’t begin to understand.
Some days were better than others for Sara. I doubted I’d ever stop checking on her or worrying, even with Louise helping her. Therapy is not a magic wand.
But Sara’s smile was genuine. Today was a good day.
Not all of them were.
“So,” I said, glancing around the room. “I’m back early.” I told them about the portal, the impossible werewolf report and about how nearly all the Aegises in other countries had been murdered too.
Mom sat forward, agitated. “Katy couldn’t have done all that.”
I shook my head. “No, she couldn’t. Apparently, this ancient something that sent Katy after us let loose other psychos around the world too.”
Darius rested a protective hand on my mother’s shoulder. “What about the governments? Surely ours was the only one nearly destroyed?”
“No. The same everywhere,” I said.
Kam got up from the couch and paced the room, her saddle shoes clunking on the hardwood floor.
“So...” Riley hesitated. His intense gaze rested on me, then flicked away to my mom. It wasn’t lost on me that his jaw wasn’t as tight once his attention was on someone other than me. “That would mean you two remain in danger. Whatever sent Katy is probably still after you.”
I nodded. “Well, yeah. But we already assumed that was the case.” Everything had been so quiet lately, it had been easy to forget I was a target. Hell, ever since I’d found out about the Hidden world, I’d been a target. I couldn’t live every second of my life on high alert. “I think my biggest concern right now is this damn Covenant thing. We need to find out what it is. I got the feeling nobody at the Gathering really knew for sure what they were talking about.”
“Zoey?” Kam stood at the window, looking out at the front yard.
Maurice wiped a trickle of lemonade off the coffee table. “Maybe Aggie’s got something in her library. You know, something really old.”
“Zoey? Can you come here?” Kam’s tone was urgent, and her worry blew across the room with an acrid stench.
“What’s wrong?” I joined her at window. “What the hell is that?”
Kam swallowed hard. “It’s a portal.”
We all piled through the door and stood gawking on my porch. A long oval, about eight feet high and four feet across, hovered in the air in the middle of my driveway. The surface shimmered like a lake in a gentle breeze. Nothing came out, and nothing shone through to give us any clues about where it came from or where it led.
I made for the steps, and several hands reached to stop me.
“What?” I scowled at my friends blocking my way.
“It’s outside the fairy circle,” Mom whispered. Her face was pale, spooked. “Stay with me, honey. Let the others check it.”
I sighed and tried not to look petulant at being told what I couldn’t do in my own damn yard, but I stayed put. Kam and Darius went straight toward the mysterious object. Darius stood in front of it, squinting to see in. Kam rounded to the back, then stepped away in surprise. “I can’t see it!” she said, loud enough for those of us on house arrest to hear. She took a step to her left and craned her neck to Darius’s side, then retreated. “Nope. Can’t see it at all on this side. I’ve never seen one from the back before.”
“Well, that’s something, I guess,” I said. “Nothing to explain to the mailman if you can’t see it from the end of the driveway.”
Darius stuck a beefy finger into the liquidlike surface of the portal. It rippled, then stilled.
I stepped off the porch and walked to the edge of where the invisible fairy ring lay. “Kam, you came through a portal to get here, right?”
“Sure. Over a hundred years ago. Why?”
“Is there any way to tell what world it connects to?”
She shook her head, and flipping her ponytail over her shoulder. “It’s not like there’s a frame around it that says ‘Djinn’ or ‘Vampire’ on it.”
I stared at her, my mouth hanging open. “Vampire?” I hadn’t thought about that possibility, despite Riley once telling me that vampires existed. I hadn’t believed him. “Tell me vampires aren’t coming out of there.”
“Okay. Vampires aren’t coming out of there.” She grinned. “But they might.”
Sara stood rigid, her lips pressed together in hard line. “What else could walk through?” Her voice was breathless and, as close as I was, I could barely hear her.
I took her hand in mine. “Kam. How many worlds are there?”
“Not a lot. Five or six, I guess.” She walked around the portal in circles, inspecting it from every angle.
“Vampires and werewolves, right? And djinn have their world to protect themselves from us. What else?”
She looked up and squinted in thought. “Zombies, of course. Those are really dangerous to everybody.”
My gut churned at the thought. Because we hadn’t been through enough, now we had the possibility of the zombie apocalypse. I’d
joked about it before, but the real possibility gave me chills.
“Demons,” Darius said. “You forgot about demons.” He stuck five fingers into the portal, flexing and stretching his hand like a spider doing pushups.
Neither the mothman nor the djinn seemed overly concerned about any of these possibilities. In fact, they were too busy being fascinated by the floating object for much of anything else to have their attention.
Sara flinched and took a step backward. “What if he comes back?” she asked, eyes wide.
I rubbed her arm to reassure her. “Even if Sebastian does come out of there, he can’t get inside the house. He can’t get on the property. He won’t get near you. I promise.”
She shuddered, but her voice was cold and calm. “Sometimes I think that if I see him again, I will kill him.”
On the surface, Sara appeared in control. But that was how Sara rolled. It was how she coped. As her best friend, I could see the cracks forming beneath her stony façade. I knew her better than anyone—she was terrified.
I wondered if I should call Louise and tell her what was going on. On one hand, it wasn’t my place to interfere with Sara’s therapy. On the other, Sara might not have it together enough to call for herself. She was a stubborn woman.
Riley lifted his hand as if to touch my shoulder, then dropped his arm. He searched my face with his beautiful gray eyes. “I’ll take a look.” His voice was husky, and worry flickered around him.
I swallowed hard and watched as he joined Darius and Kam and consulted with them in low voices. It hurt that he had stopped himself from touching me, but I brushed it aside. I had a mystery portal in my yard, and my best friend was on tilt.
My failed love life was pitiful in comparison.
Maurice took Sara’s other hand. “Let’s go back inside,” he said. His tone was gentle, and his touch was light.
“I’m not some invalid,” Sara said. “I can stand my ground.” Something about Maurice brought out Sara’s vulnerability, and her voice shook making her bravery sound less genuine.