Ian closed his eyes and wilted. “I’m sorry, Eliza,” he mumbled.
“I can’t hear you.”
He let out a big breath. “I said I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t want—I wasn’t thinking about my parents. I just thought…” His voice broke with raw emotion. “I want him caught. Him, them. Whoever. The people who killed my brother. I couldn’t stand sitting in Greybull, waiting, day after day, hearing nothing, hearing people’s excuses, hearing about more people being killed. Kidnapped. Dammit, why isn’t anyone doing anything?”
His fists clenched again, and I was surprised he didn’t punch a hole in the wall. His angst clearly visible in the way he held his body and his face.
Dave bumped his friend with his shoulder.
“We can be careful and everything,” he said to Eliza. He looked around the room at each of us in turn. “I know I’m not as strong as you, but I am a full moon.”
He seemed caught between bitterness and respect for Eliza as a stronger full moon Were. And he definitely pronounced the last part of his declaration with pride.
“Yes, well,” said Tim quietly, “I’m a waxing moon, not quite as strong as young Ian here. Yet, I’d bet on myself in a fight against you any day. As Eliza says, you’re a pup.”
Dave seemed to swell with anger and I thought he might attack Tim right then and there to prove himself. Tim took four steps forward to stand directly next to Eliza. He didn’t swagger or glower. He just stood with Eliza, matching her height almost exactly, and gave Dave a slow smile. The hairs on my arms rose and I found myself holding my breath, hoping Dave would be sensible. Indeed, he shook himself vigorously and shrugged.
“Maybe we’ll find out someday,” he muttered.
Tim and Eliza let his comment pass, obviously secure in the knowledge they’d firmly established dominancy over our teen Weres.
The baby monitor squawked, and I left the scene to retrieve Carson. My little boy—who, heaven help me, would someday be a teenaged Werewolf—was wide awake and chortling. I loved it when he woke up in a happy mood, and I spent a few minutes tickling him and kissing his chubby belly. While I was at it, I also attached his safety pin amulet to the waistband of his stretchy shorts. I figured if I put it there, even if the supposedly childproof pin came undone, it would be as likely to poke his diaper as his flesh. Although, hopefully, a lucky protective pin wouldn’t spring open and stick my baby, since I’d have to question the whole “lucky” and “protective” bit if that happened.
When I came back into the other suite, the Witch and the Weres had settled down in the living room area. Ian lounged on the armchair, long legs sprawling, while Dave had flopped down on the floor. They both drank sodas, apparently from the mini-bar. Tim and Sheila sat more conventionally on the sofa, while Eliza stood, looking out the window. I lay a blanket on the floor and put Carson down for tummy time.
“Did you catch everyone up to speed?”
Eliza answered me. “There’s not much to tell, since Ian and Dave will not be involved in Kayleigh’s rescue.”
The two teens looked sullen, so I assumed I’d missed what must have been a lovely discussion.
“I still say you might need us,” Dave said, but without much energy. “And I’ve been to Vegas before, last winter break. I know the city. I’ve met some people. That might be helpful.”
“Well, not to change the subject, because, really, it’s been a downright pleasure hearing you Weres argue,” said Sheila with a smile, “but I’d like to scry for Kayleigh once more before nightfall, just to see if there have been any…changes.”
We all knew her thoughts. I empathized with Ian and Dave, feeling like they wanted to do something. Everyone in the room was impatient to figure out a way to help Kayleigh. We tried to contain our restlessness until we had a plan that might be reasonably helpful. After all, Tim had checked out all the leads on the ground before we even arrived in Las Vegas. We’d spent the time since then kidnapping a Were—who turned out to be an ally—killing a man, cleaning up the crime scene, and hopefully hiding traces of our location. Plus doing a bit of magic. When put that way, I guess it wasn’t like we’d been watching soap operas and eating bonbons, yet I knew if Kayleigh was dead—if we didn’t to reach her in time—I’d feel an immense burden of guilt.
Declaiming loudly the lot of us couldn’t be quiet enough Sheila went into the other suite in order to scry. I noticed she used a swig of water to swallow a few ibuprofens before she left the room. Hopefully, she wouldn’t overtax herself.
****
Twenty minutes later, Sheila returned to us, although she looked as if she’d passed an entire sleepless night. Slightly pale, with dark circles standing under her eyes, she heaved a sigh and sank deeply into the cream-colored leather couch.
“Well, she’s alive,” Sheila reported in a flat voice.
“And?” I prompted.
“She looks in pretty bad shape. I think she’ll heal, given what I know about Werewolves, but she has heavy bandaging around her hips, here.” Sheila gestured to the top of her hip bones. “I saw those bandages even through the hospital gown. She may have had some other injuries, it’s hard to tell. There were a number of bruises, all over really, and some scrapes and scratches like she’d been struggling against someone. She was curled up on the mattress again, alone—I wish I could catch a glimpse of her with someone, but it takes a lot of energy for me to watch through the scrying dish.
“She remained tied up with silver chains and—this is the weirdest part—she was hooked to an IV.”
“Oh!” Sheila bolted upright. “Here’s the good news. The curtains on her window were open a bit, just enough for me to get a glimpse. She’s in an area of rundown houses, small houses crowded together, and I saw one other thing. On the corner of the street, a red neon sign said ‘Fish Fry.’ Luckily, it’s starting to get dark enough that the sign was clearly visible.”
“Could you see the restaurant’s name?” Eliza asked. Tim already started opening drawers in the desk, searching for a phone book.
“No.” Sheila grimaced.
“That’s okay, Sheila, you did a great job. Fish Fry will be enough for us to find her, right Tim?” I looked at Tim hopefully.
He riffled through the restaurant pages, his usually placid face creased by a frown of concentration. “Why are there so many restaurants in this damn town?”
“It’s Las Vegas, Tim.” Eliza moved to stand beside him. “Here, this part is by type of restaurant. Seafood…seafood… Okay, let’s cross-check with a map, we don’t need to look anywhere high class.”
After quite a while, we’d compiled a list of over forty possible restaurants that mentioned fish or seafood.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now I take a drive and look for a flashing red Fish Fry sign,” said Tim. “Surely there’s not more than one—or two—of those. And you,” he pointed at Eliza and me, “stay with Sheila and wait for her to get any more information. At the very least, she can make sure Kayleigh knows we’re on our way.”
“Are you sure you should go alone?” Sheila looked at him for a long moment, clearly anxious.
“I can go,” volunteered Dave, met with a resounding “No” in unison from me, Eliza, Sheila, and Tim. He rolled his eyes at our immediate response and continued to plead his case. “Really, I could be helpful. Read the map or something. We’re not going to rescue her this minute, right? We’re just going to find her and case the joint?”
I rolled my eyes, at Dave’s obvious attempt to use detective language.
“They’re not going to let you go,” Ian said. “Save your breath.”
Dave huffed and flopped back onto the floor. “It’s stupid. Just because we’re not eighteen.”
Eliza’s voice was sharp when she said, “Because I don’t want to be the one to call your parents, Ian, and your sister, Dave, with news of your deaths. I don’t want to explain to Full we allowed you pups to put yourselves in danger.”
“Fuck
that,” said Dave, sitting upright again, “I am not a pup. Seventeen, eighteen—I’m smarter and faster than any human, regardless. Human laws of…age or whatever shouldn’t apply to Weres.” Again, he spat the word human like an epithet. Anger spilled off Dave and permeated the room.
“Stop it,” snapped Eliza. “We’ve been through this. My answer will not change.”
“Give it up, Dave,” Ian said, wearily nudging his friend with a foot.
Dave made a frustrated sound. “Let’s go for a walk or something. I’m not just hanging around here.”
“No. No walks. You’re not going out by yourselves.”
I looked at Eliza, worried she might push him too far and have a fight on her hands. Instead, Dave just balled his fists and groaned again.
“Under fucking house arrest.”
“Could be worse, bro. They’ve got cable,” Ian said, defusing more of the tension with a casualness I began to appreciate.
Sheila made a show of clearing her throat. “As I was saying, Tim, will you be safe going by yourself?”
“Yes,” he answered curtly. “I prefer knowing Eliza is here to protect you, Julie, and Carson. With the boys as backup, of course.” A slight salve to their wounded pride, there.
He added, “Sheila, if you discover anything while dreamwalking, call me on my cell right away.”
She nodded and excused herself to start preparing the supplies she’d need for her next spell.
As for me? Feeling like the practical yet superfluous human, I decided to order room service, since it was quite late and we hadn’t eaten since those long-ago subs. Besides, I knew Ian and Dave would soon deplete the mini-bar if I didn’t do something.
Before Tim left, I watched him check his gun and slide it into a holster under his arm. Somehow, that gave me pause. It’s not as if I didn’t know this was life-and-death serious: Mac had been killed, after all. Beheaded. Carlos, too. I’d witnessed a scene of carnage last night, even if I didn’t like to think about Eliza ripping that guy’s throat out. Yet seeing Tim prepare his weapon so matter-of-factly, as if he completely accepted he might have to use it, just another tool of his trade—well, it put everything into perspective. I hoped we could rescue Kayleigh, find out more about our enemies, and turn it all over to the council. Without anyone else getting hurt.
Chapter Seventeen
After Tim left, Eliza stayed with Ian and Dave while I went into the bedroom with Carson in tow to help Sheila get ready to dreamwalk. She already made some preparations and now used ashes to draw a circle under the head of her bed where her pillow lay.
“How is everything out there, still civil?” she asked.
“I guess. So, you don’t need quiet to prepare?”
“No. I need to invoke my will before I fall asleep.”
“What are those ashes from?”
She quirked a smile. “The bay leaves and ferns I just burned.”
“Huh. This magic stuff is very particular, isn’t it?”
Sheila continued arranging ashes in a thick circle. “Yes. I’m about out of tricks. I’ve wracked my brain to remember anything else, but these are the only spells I use with any frequency. If I’m going to continue hanging around with Werewolves, I need to study hard when I get home.”
I didn’t want to say the obvious “if any of us get home,” so a moment of quiet took over. Carson chewed on his own fist like it was the best invention ever. Which, come to think of it, is kind of true: opposable thumbs and all—go evolution.
“Granny and I used to dreamwalk all the time,” Sheila continued abruptly. “She’d enter my dreams and we’d have a great time—Unicorns, huge amusement parks, the beach, outer space. When you’re dreamwalking, you can shape the environment, so you can imagine how much fun we had.”
She reached up to rub her eyes. “I am sorry I never told you. It’s a huge relief, talking to you about my craft.”
“Well,” I said after a moment, “I’m still a little mad—or hurt—you didn’t tell me before. But it’s hard to believe, even after everything I’ve seen. Werewolves. Magic. My son changes into a wolf and my best friend casts spells. I probably wouldn’t have believed you. When this is all over and when everyone’s safe, I want to hear more about it, more about your granny Emma, your witchcraft, the other Witches you know. Their libraries. Maybe I can even help you organize your, uh, spellbooks. Help you do some research.”
Sheila nodded, then let out a deep breath. “Thanks, Jules.”
“Anytime, BFF.”
I worried I might step on thin ice, but had to ask anyway. “Sheila, you never watched my dreams, did you?”
Sheila straightened. “No! Never. That is completely unethical, like reading someone’s diary. In a case like this, when Kayleigh’s life is endangered, I have no qualms about finding her dreams. But other than that—and, well, some rather unfortunate and questionable choices with a few high school crushes—I would never watch someone’s dreams without permission. We have our own code of ethics, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. Are Witches as organized as Werewolves?” I groaned and mock-held my temples. “Did you hear that question? Can you believe I just asked that question? Where is my normal life?”
Sheila reached out and squeezed my arm. “This is life, Jules. You’ve been thrown into the deep end of the pool and I think you’re doing well. Treading water at the very least.
“Some Witches work in covens, but, no, we don’t have actual leaders, or a strict code of conduct, other than what’s necessary for self-protection and secrecy. It’s more like schools, various philosophies of witchcraft handed down within family lines or from teacher to student.”
I started to ask another question, but Sheila waved her hands at me. “Can we talk about it later? Right now, I need to focus on Kayleigh.”
“Oh. Right.”
Sheila moved in silence again, carefully spritzing her ash circle with water. I wondered what the cleaning staff would think of all of this, but figured they’d probably seen worse. It was Vegas, after all. She wrapped one of Kayleigh’s blonde hairs around one of her own gold hoop earrings and then placed it in the center of her ash circle. At my glance, she explained gold stood in for fire with this spell—gold and the spark of fiery spirit in the dreamer herself.
When she had everything arranged to her liking, she said, “All right, then. I’m ready. Please make sure everyone stays quiet, okay? I’ll wake myself in about an hour. It will take me a little while to find Kayleigh, since I’ve never dreamwalked to her before. I hope she’s asleep—even if she’s not actively dreaming, I should be able to push her into that state.”
With a hug for good luck and my assurances we wouldn’t disturb her, I left the bedroom as she placed her pillow over the ritual items and lay down.
Later, Sheila described dreamwalking to me. She said, when the spell initiator fell asleep, her consciousness woke up in a dark place, directionless, full of changing colors and an ever-shifting wind. The colors were somehow indicative of dreamscapes, although no direct relationship existed to geographical proximity or anything else tangible. Sheila wasn’t sure what the wind represented and mentioned it only in passing, with a high degree of anxiety: she said her granny had absolutely refused to discuss the wind and forbid her to even speak of it. Anyway, when entering this place, Sheila appeared with the token—in this case, the earring wrapped in Kayleigh’s hair—held tightly in hand. By focusing on the token, she could somehow shift her surroundings until she approached colors that more closely matched the aura around her token, thus indicating her approach to Kayleigh’s sleeping self. If the object of her search were already dreaming, she would see bright flashes of light, echoed in the token. She could focus on the light until it became a specific point, then move closer until she’d fall into it, like a sun or a bright black hole. At that point, she’d find herself in the other person’s dream, able to shape the dream and communicate directly with the dreamer.
Sheila never told me what Kayl
eigh had been dreaming about. With a flat voice, she said merely it had been a nightmare—a nightmare Sheila quickly resolved into a normal, pleasant scene. Sheila spent some time convincing Kayleigh she was a real person, a dreamwalking Witch, trying to communicate with her. I supposed that made sense: if someone popped into my dream, changed everything, and then sat down to have a conversation, I’d be unlikely to believe she wasn’t just another vivid figment of my dreaming imagination.
After Kayleigh understood Sheila was real and the genuine possibility of rescue existed, Sheila said her relief and gratitude were so intense the entire dreamscape morphed—flowers blooming on carpets and walls and silly stereotypical things like that. Sheila added she felt almost guilty, like she should have stressed the fact we were a ragtag group of untrained rescuers, with the exception of Tim. In the end, she decided Kayleigh needed hope more than anything, so she merely said we were a group of Weres and Witches already in Vegas to track her. Kayleigh didn’t have much to say about her current location. She revealed she’d been jumped right outside her car, ironically next to a police station, and had been knocked out almost immediately with some sort of drug in gauze over her face. Of course, since she was a Were, she metabolized the drug uber-quickly, but had woken to find herself bound with duct tape on the floor in the back of a vehicle. Note to self: even Were-strength struggled against good old duct tape, if enough was used. Who knew?
Kayleigh said she’d only seen one Were and described him as blond with a beard, matching the description Suzy Zhang had given of “Taylor Dunn.” Kayleigh said his first name was Ken and she’d never seen him before. She said a number of other humans were involved—more than she could count—and, after Sheila asked, she agreed with Tim’s assessment they were organized crime. She added in an uncertain voice she’d scented someone or something else, not quite human and not quite Were, during her incarceration.
We learned all of this after Sheila woke up, about two hours after she’d gone to sleep. It took longer than she anticipated, since she’d never dreamwalked to Kayleigh before. When she came into the living room, Eliza and I spoke quietly while the boys watched TV at low volume, some movie about pirates.
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