by R. L. Naquin
The female shook my hand first. “I’m Breezy, and this is Mac.” Her face was elongated, almost like it had a snout, but not quite. Red fur tipped with white covered much of her face and the backs of her hands, and a long, fluffy tail peeked out the bottom of the dark, homespun skirt that hung nearly to her ankles. Beads draped around her neck, and in several spots around her head, long lengths of her fur were braided and decorated with tiny flowers.
Mac took my offered hand and grinned, tongue nearly lolling from the side of his longer, more wolfish jaws. His fur was shaggier, gray and shorter than Breezy’s. The fringe on his suede jacket tickled my arm, and his matching pants were so tight I didn’t know where to aim my eyes.
“We dreamed you needed some help,” he said.
My eyebrows rose. “You dreamed it?”
Breezy scratched behind her ear. “Sure. I think Talia sent it. Or maybe Papa.” She shrugged. “It didn’t have a return address. Just a message to come to this place and find Zoey Donovan.”
Mac ran a furry hand over the railing and up the support beam. “Nice craftsmanship.” He glanced across the side yard to the woods. “Are the materials locally sourced?” He didn’t wait for an answer before he hopped over the railing to the ground and dropped to all fours, sniffing at the foundation of my house.
Breezy tilted her head, listening for something I couldn’t hear, then took off down the steps to kneel next to them, ears twitching.
They stayed like that for a few moments, one listening and the other sniffing. At last, they looked at each other, nodded, then rose to their feet.
“What?” I asked. They didn’t seem alarmed, but I wasn’t thrilled with the idea that something was under my house.
Mac spread his hands in a weird gesture that seemed to mean I should chill. “Gnomes. Doing their gnome business. No worries.”
“Ah.” I knew about the gnomes. They’d shown up with the rest of the refugees when the Collector had been kidnapping Hidden and so many had sheltered here for help. Nearly everyone had gone home months ago. The gnomes, however, had never come out to talk to me. They’d never explained why they’d stayed. And nobody knew what was going on under there.
And for some strange reason, I was okay with that. They’d come out when they were ready. Of course, I’d been saying that for well over six months.
Having lost interest in the mysterious doings beneath my house, the were-couple wandered toward the back of the house, and before I could say anything, disappeared into the protective bubble.
“What the hell?” I bolted down the steps.
Sara snorted. “Maurice and Riley are probably still out there.” She dipped her head toward the front door. “Come on.”
We ran through the empty house and out the kitchen door as a shortcut, but they were faster. Maurice already stood next to our guests, one hand on his hip, the other pointing toward the various campsites scattered across the property.
“And that one in the far back is sort of reserved for people who need more quiet,” he said. His pride was easy to see. Giving a tour like this to people who were truly interested was a dream for him. He shifted attention to the swimming pool. “We keep the pool filled year round, in case it’s needed. Occasionally, we switch to fresh water when necessary, but mostly it’s salt, since we’re so close to the ocean.”
While the three discussed how to start a compost pile, I glanced at Riley. He stood with his jaw tight, muscles tense, one hand gripping the wrist of the other, as if he were a bouncer in watchful mode, ready to break up a fight.
I understood his tension. Two potentially dangerous strangers had dropped in, waltzed past all our security, and were touring the property. Meanwhile, Riley had been oblivious until long after they could have killed me, since he’d been nowhere in my vicinity.
The thing was, Riley wasn’t originally supposed to be my bodyguard. He wasn’t trained for it. He was a reaper. Dangerous, sure. But still human. At that moment, I could have happily flicked Bernice in the head for changing his job and further complicating something that was already messy. Then again, had she assigned me an actual bodyguard, I’d have sent him or her straight back. So, Bernice probably did the only thing she could think of doing, reassigning the only person she had in her fulltime employ who I would allow to stay with me.
I doubted Riley wanted the job any more than I wanted him to have it. But if I had to have a bodyguard, he probably wouldn’t want anyone else to do it, either. The entire situation was a mess for all involved.
Sometimes understanding everybody else’s point of view was a pain in the ass. Righteous indignation shot right out the window when I could see the other sides of a situation.
Once Maurice had given a complete tour of the property, he went inside to see about refreshments. I invited our guests to follow so we could sit in the living room and talk.
Mac dropped onto a folding metal chair. “Better out here. Four walls are stifling. Out here we can breathe, cool?”
I settled into a chair across from him, and Breezy and Sara took chairs of their own. Riley stood behind me in bouncer stance, breathing down my neck and saying nothing. I reached up and touched his hand. “We’re fine, Riley. Honest. But nobody’s watching the portal. Would you mind waking Kam so she can take a shift, then go back to Aggie’s and get Darius?”
His nostrils flared, and I felt bad sending him off to be an errand boy, especially since he was already so uncomfortable with the situation.
“I’ll call Darius. I’m not going all the way over there.” He turned on his heel and disappeared into the house.
Breezy whistled. “I smell trouble, lady. You and your man need to sort things out. That’s not healthy.”
“He’s not my man,” I said. The speed with which I answered her probably gave away more than the previous display of tension.
The hippy fox-woman ran her fingers over her beads, chose a strand of pale pink and pulled it free over her head. “Here. You need to wear these.”
She handed me the beads, and I looped them around my neck.
“Thank you. They’re really pretty.” I stroked the smooth, mismatched shapes. “What are they?”
“Rose quartz. It’s for love and healing.” She smiled. “And, sister, if anybody needs healing in her love life, it’s you.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Sara snorted but refrained from comment.
Maurice brought out a tray with cups of chai, poked the fire to keep it going, then returned to whatever he was doing in the kitchen.
As the four of us sipped our tea, I told our guests what had been going on in our world. They didn’t interrupt much, but their ears flicked from time to time.
“I asked Talia to get ahold of you, since it looked like your world would be next. She said she wasn’t sure if she could, but she’d try.”
Mac nodded. “We live off the land. When a mushroom grows that can communicate over distances, I’ll be cool with that. We’re not too big on electronics and such. They’ve done studies. Those things will poison you, man. Not just your body, but your soul.”
Breezy dropped a braid she’d been working on. “We don’t want to be slaves to things, you know? And we like our communication to be the old-fashioned way, as the Makers intended. Face to face.”
I was talking to a couple of flakes. Here I had just told them a horrific story filled with bad guys, gory deaths, portal tampering and the possible destruction of my world—and possibly theirs—and they were more concerned with the negative implications of technology. Awesome.
I took a deep breath. “Well, she still got the message to you, and I appreciate your coming. You need to know about this cult and the fact that, somehow, portals have been opening around the world near Aegises and brainwashed aswangs have come out to kill them. We have six Aegises left in the entire world.”
Mac cleared his throat and looked away. “Five.”
“What?” I thought maybe I’d misheard what he’d said.
Breezy patted him on the knee. “Five. We were going to come see you first thing this morning when we woke up, but we got interrupted.”
“Right after breakfast,” Mac said, “we sensed an open portal and ran to check on it.” He paused and swallowed. His human eyes glowed from his wolfish face. “We were too late. We thought...” He looked down at his hairy hands.
Breezy sighed. “We thought it was a one-off. Aswangs are always a little unstable. It’s part of their charm. But this one—we thought she was sick. Disoriented. She was covered in blood, but she had no idea how it got there, despite the body a few feet away.”
My stomach felt sour. “Where was this?” I wondered why no one had called to tell me. Maybe the body hadn’t been found yet.
Breezy frowned. “I’m not certain. Your world isn’t exactly familiar. But I saw a herd of black-and-white-striped horses in the distance. Does that help?”
“It helps,” Sara said. Her voice was quiet and filled with fear. “That leaves one Aegis in Africa, and two in Europe.”
Mac made a low whine in the back of his throat. “We thought it was an accident.”
“No.” Cold anger shot through my spine. “It was murder, plain and simple.”
Breezy gasped. “Gertie didn’t murder anyone!”
I had to assume Gertie was the aswang. “No. The cult has been using aswangs as murder weapons.” I paused and fixed them with my most serious look. “We disbanded it in my area, but there are three other locations with Aegises who might be in danger. We don’t think the cult members are the ones opening the portals, though.”
Mac shook his head. “Well, no. That would take one of us or djinn magic.”
“Exactly.” I rubbed my forehead to ward off the headache that was growing at an exponential rate. “That’s why I asked Talia to get in touch with you. We need you to be aware of what’s going on so maybe you can close the portals faster than the aswangs can get out.”
“Right on.” Mac’s head bobbed up and down. “We don’t want our people messed with any more than you want yours killed. We’ll step up security.”
“Awesome. And if you think of anything else that can help, let me know.” I was grateful for any help they offered. The more folks we had working with us, the better our odds of survival.
Breezy scanned the ridiculous number of empty tents in my yard. “You said you disbanded the cult in this area.”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you bring the other three Aegises here where it’s safer?”
They wouldn’t be able to do their jobs if they were here, but they couldn’t do them if they were dead, either. Flaky or not, Breezy had a good idea.
I smiled. “I don’t know why nobody’s thought of that yet.”
Sara snorted. “Because we’ve been up to our asses in trouble of our own?”
Mac pulled himself out of his folding chair. “We should get back. Now that we know our challenges, we need to get home to overcome them.”
“I appreciate your coming. We’re doing our best to track down whoever is doing this before they manage to open the zombie portals, but it’s a relief to know the werewolves are our allies.”
Breezy made a sort of sneezing sound.
Mac cleared his throat. “We prefer werefolk. As you can see, not all of us ride the wolf during the full moon. We have all sorts in our world.”
I felt my face grow hot. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I wasn’t thinking.”
Of course, I’d noticed how much Breezy resembled a fox, not a wolf. But I hadn’t shaken the idea that werewolves were the next logical step after vampires. But before zombies.
I would most certainly wake up at some point, regretting the spicy curry I’d had for dinner and wondering why my crazy dream hadn’t included Frankenstein’s monster.
Breezy put her arms around me in an overly affectionate hug. “No offense taken. Now you know.”
Before I could say anything else, Mac put his arms around us both, then dragged Sara in as well. The group hug smelled of a combination of sage and warm animal fur—oddly comforting, under the circumstances.
“We’ll come back soon,” Mac said. “Tell Maurice, once this is straightened out, I’ll help him build that compost box.”
Breezy squeezed my hand. “Take a long soak in a hot bath with those beads. It’ll help.”
My first reaction to her words was to say how I couldn’t possibly take the time to soak in a tub with everything that was going on. Then I realized that if I didn’t have time for a bath, I sure didn’t have time to fix my relationship with Riley.
Yet, if it was the end of the world, I didn’t want to die knowing I’d chosen to do so alone, in spite of having someone I loved right there.
We walked with them around the house, they stepped through the portal and were gone.
Breezy’s advice still rattled my head. “Meddling hippies,” I said. “Go back home and churn some butter or something. You go take a damn bath. And get a haircut.”
Sara burst out laughing. “Churn some butter? That’s your idea of what goes on in a commune, huh?”
“Maybe.” I made a sour face. “And they weave their own hair into cloth, probably.”
Sara looped her arm through mine as we wandered into the house. “Now that I might believe. They’ve got a lot to work with.”
“Why is everybody giving me advice on my love life all of a sudden, right in the middle of the zombie apocalypse?”
She held the door open for me. “It’s the zombie apocalypse halftime show. We’re all waiting for a wardrobe malfunction to really liven things up before we get more nachos.”
Riley stood in the middle of the living room, looking tired and pale. “Are they gone?”
I nodded. “Where’s Kam?”
“Darius didn’t answer when I called, so Kam went over to get them. I kept an eye on the portal until the werefolk came around the house with you.”
I glanced at the clock and frowned. “It’s really dark out there. I’m surprised Mom and Darius didn’t get back already.”
As if on cue, Darius, enormous and blank-faced in his after-dark mothman guise, swung the door open and led Mom inside.
“Sorry we’re so late.” Mom took her coat off and hung it on a hook. “We took a walk. It was so nice out, and I haven’t been anywhere for so long.” She chattered to us, content, her cheeks rosy with the nip in the air. When she saw us staring at her, she stopped. “What?”
“Didn’t Kam find you?” Riley strode out onto the porch.
Darius’s voice echoed from the hollow space where his mouth should be. “We saw no one.”
I grabbed my phone and called Kam’s number. It rang, but she didn’t answer. Through the open door, digital music drifted in from a distance. I stepped outside next to Riley and we shared a frantic look. Adrenalin rushed through my limbs simultaneously holding me in place and pushing me forward to investigate, leaving me to hover in limbo, undecided.
Finding Kam’s phone abandoned in the grass would be terrible—but finding her body would be worse. I shoved the thought away. Fear of the unknown wouldn’t help Kam, no matter what we found.
We took off down the steps and onto the driveway. The music grew louder as we reached the edge of the fairy ring.
Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield” stopped at the same time Kam’s voicemail message kicked in. I hung up, then called again. The song started over, and we searched in the near dark.
“There,” Riley said. A few feet away, a light shone from a patch of grass next to the gravel. Riley made his way over and picked it up.
“No.” My voice was nearly without breath. I disconnected the call and the light in Riley’s hand went out.
Kam never went anywhere without her phone.
Someone had taken her.
Chapter Fifteen
Usually, I’m the most efficient, solid person in a crisis. The idea that Kam had been kidnapped paralyzed me. I stood in the darkened drive
way, staring at Riley with my mouth hanging open and one foot poised to take a step.
I didn’t know where to go, though, so I couldn’t put my foot down. Should I go forward, run out into the street to look for her and scream her name, as if she were a lost dog? Backward, into the house so I could make sure she hadn’t gone inside to change into a sassy cocktail dress and heels? Around the house in circles to check for tire tracks from a windowless white van she might have been forced into?
My chest tightened and I gasped for air. I had no idea what to do, and panic had taken over my body.
“Hey, hey, it’s alright.” Riley moved close and rubbed his palm over my back in soothing circles. “We’ll find her. Deep breaths.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on breathing. It wasn’t easy. Every moment I took to pull my shit together, the farther away Kam probably was. I drew strength from Riley’s soft, comforting tone and slowed my breathing into a more normal rhythm.
I swallowed hard. “Sorry. I’m okay.” My hands shook, but I felt more in control of myself. “What should we do?”
From behind me, the porch light flipped on, illuminating us.
Darius left my mother on the porch, took Kam’s phone from Riley and strode to the spot where it had been lying in the grass. “The grass is trampled here. But there’s no trail.” He knelt and touched the bent stalks, then rubbed his thumb across his fingers. “Blood.”
My stomach flipped, and I tried to keep myself together. It wasn’t the first time someone in my family had been kidnapped right here from my home.
I thought of Iris, his huge paws held out toward me though cage bars as the truck he was in sped away. We’d found him. We’d rescued him.
But in the end, he’d sacrificed himself and taken a bullet for Maurice. Because that’s what brothers did, even if one was a closet monster and one was a skunk-ape.
I could either wallow in grief and fear of history repeating itself, or I could take the lesson of Iris’s sacrifice to heart.
I pushed my shoulders back and held myself straighter.
If that was what it took, yeah. I’d take a bullet for Kam. Because that’s what sisters did.