“No, you can’t. I’ll explain along the way.” Lacing her fingers through his, she led him from the room and down the hall away from the front of the palace to the library. “We need to ditch your minders.”
“What? Why?”
Ducking inside, Cora went straight to work, down the bookcase to the far interior wall third shelf down from the top, Chronicles of Narnia. “Hopefully this still works,” she muttered, pulling on the book like she was going to remove it from the shelf.
Finn blinked as the shelf receded into the wall and slid to the side to reveal a blackened hallway. “Holy shit! I don’t know if I’m more surprised that this is still here or impressed that you remember it.”
“You never forget your first secret passageway.” She winked over her shoulder at him as she grabbed his wrist and dragged him inside, ensuring the door sealed behind them.
He hadn’t thought about this place in years, and he lived in the palace. “Won’t they come looking for me?”
She shook her head as she turned on her cell phone’s flashlight. “Nah, I called you in sick already and hung a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on your door when I walked in the room. That should buy us a few hours.”
The sheer scope and scale of her efficiency was frightening to behold.
It was a winding walk through the narrow hallway as she led them farther and farther from the relative safety of his rooms. He wanted to know what was wrong, demand answers from her, but something told him this was neither the time nor place. Just when his frustration reached its peak, they came to a barred steel door that opened to reveal a metal culvert tunnel with a disc of bright sunlight at the end.
They emerged in a copse of trees with a lot of groundcover, and about thirty feet away in a pile of leafy branches made to look like especially dense underbrush was a covered graphite-colored Infiniti Q60 coupe. Blackened windows, matte accents, it was the vehicular equivalent of a shadow, quick and transient, a mirage out of the corner of your eye that vanished before you really saw it.
The radio came on the moment she turned over the engine, a 90s alternative station playing Stone Temple Pilots loud and proud. “Shit! Sorry,” she cringed as she leapt to bring the music down to something a bit less brain-rattling.
“No worries.” Rubbing a hand over the interior and the dashboard, he took in the height of luxury of this ride. With all the bells and whistles, plus some he was pretty sure he wouldn’t know to want, it was nicer than his own personal vehicle. “Is this your car?” At this point he knew that just because she had the keys and the radio was on a good station did not make this her personal ride. “It’s comfortable.”
“Yeah, it’s my personal. I would have had them drop off something work-related, but we needed something inconspicuous that I could fit your tall ass into comfortably.” He caught her sly sidelong glance even as she flexed her fingers on the steering wheel.
“I appreciate you thinking of me,” he said as he nestled back into the unfathomably comfortable passenger seat. “Your people just left it for you?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I told Mookie where to leave it and he did. He’s good like that and he knows what’s at stake.”
Finn laughed. “What the hell kinda name is Mookie?”
Her chuckle was soft and knowing. “Mookie and Samson are a Felid/Canid pair who were referred to me because they had nowhere else to go. They do work for me off the books and I keep them housed and fed. It’s a good arrangement.”
“A Felid and a Canid pair…” he enunciated the words to make sure he wasn’t getting them wrong. It wasn’t exactly abnormal for those two animals to be together but it sure was rare. “And those are their given names?”
She shrugged. “I would assume so. It’s not like I gotta issue ‘em a W2.”
“Touché.” The casual way she talked about her unorthodox hiring practices and associates made him want to ask so many more questions, but he had other, more pressing things on his mind. “So, where’re we headed?”
Looking in the mirror, then over her shoulder, she hit the turn signal and switched lanes. “Witch Mecca.”
He snorted at her description and did the math, about an hour from their current location. “What’s up in Salem? This doctor you want me to see. What’s that about, anyway?”
Cora tapped a button on the steering wheel and then turned slightly in the seat to face him. “Dr. Bauer is an associate of mine whose primary currency is discretion, followed closely by cash.”
“Well, that wasn’t an ominous description at all.” He didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud until he heard her snort of amusement. “Is this some kind of weird underworld doctor? Am I gonna lose a kidney over this?”
She waved off his concern with a flick of the wrist and a quick smirk. “Nah we just needed a place to go for you get some tests. Any time you so much as sneeze, it makes the news. We can’t afford that right now.”
Sounded reasonable enough. “What kind of tests?”
The casual nature of her shrug seemed disingenuous as she reached over to adjust the AC. “Blood, and whatever else is needed.”
Finn’s anxiety spiked right then and there as he gripped her wrist tightly. “Alright, I’ve indulged you long enough on this, but let me be clear: you are not getting a drop of blood out of me until you tell me what the hell is going on.”
Cora’s blinking silence was the only answer until he released her wrist. “Copper and glass.”
“Stained glass windows?” It was literally the only thing he could think of with that combination of things off the top of his head, and that answer was straight out of left field.
“The food tests from the other day. The shiny shit on you breakfast. They found ground glass in your saltshaker and copper dust in your pepper. Now, either one of those things would not be a big deal for a shifter immune system or metabolism, but together? The glass makes it so the copper can penetrate deeper into your system and build toxicity. I need to know your level of exposure and you need to know if you’re dying any faster than you were when you woke up this morning.”
It was like all the air had been pressed out of his lungs, underscored by the sensation of choking on his tongue. He didn’t even notice he was gasping for breath until he felt her long fingers on his wrist, petting and soothing as best she could while driving. Concentrating on the soft susurrations of her voice, he began to breathe deliberately, doing his best to calm his racing heart and pull himself back from anxiety’s cliffs.
Finally feeling less like a heart attack was imminent, he remarked wryly, “You are just a tiny pearl of joy, you know that?”
Cora winked as she flashed him a cocky grin. “I’m paid to keep you alive, not blow sunshine up your ass. That’s an extra fee my client refused to sign off on.”
“Lucky me.”
The rest of the drive through the Massachusetts countryside was peaceful and unremarkable on a day that had taken on a shadow of potential rain. Being on the coast was something Finn enjoyed immensely and lamented that his normal duties and responsibilities to the crown precluded doing it more often.
Salem was a fantastic little coastal village with narrow streets and wonderful ambiance. It definitely banked on its 17th Century witch-trial cachet. The public line was they were killed by mass hysteria, a mania that seized the area due to a potent combination of puritanical religious fervor and a bad crop of rye. The truth was a great deal darker than that.
The Score of Martyrs rose in their power even as they and their families receded from ‘normal’ society, their offspring spreading far and wide and taking their Craft with them. But those descendants of the True Coven still returned here, the lands of their colonist ancestors, and it was interesting to Finn to see how they blended in with the tourists.
Shifters, Lupines and Felids especially, had a longstanding treaty with the True Coven of Twenty, due to some fairly significant overlap. They were known by their scent, a kind of sweet, intangible ether only available to the magically incline
d, and here, it permeated everything. This was a town that felt like raw potential energy and it was noticeable even to the uninitiated.
Down a narrow, one-way side street, past the Orthodox church with the leaning cross on one of the blue roof domes and next door to the Ziggy and Sons bakery, was an unassuming royal blue colonial two-story with white trim and a red door. There was literally nothing remarkable at all about the place as she pulled down the alley next to it and up to a wooden gate locked with a code.
It wasn’t until the metal gate, the whole fence was plated steel hidden behind slatted wooden fence painted the same white as the house trim, slid into place behind the car that he got an inkling that all was not as it appeared. The curtain over the back door fluttered as they got out and the door opened immediately.
A tall woman with close-cut white hair and glasses greeted them. Dressed in a floral blouse and dress pants, she could have been on her way to a garden party as she was at work. “Cora, Bob said to come on in and he’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Thanks, Miss Annie.” Cora’s hand never left his wrist as she led him past the lady who sealed the door behind them with both a deadbolt and a magical rune. Her wink as he passed her told him she knew who he was, but she never mentioned it.
“Where are we?” he whispered out of the side of his mouth as they stepped into a dinky elevator barely large enough to contain the two of them and his shoulders.
Cora crowded into his space as she reached around him as best she could to hit the button for the second basement. “Dr. Bauer is a good man. He’ll get us fixed right up.”
Finn wasn’t sure what to make of the ‘us’ in that statement, but he opted to leave it alone, content to bask for a moment in her sensual citrusy-floral perfume underscored by calming pheromones.
When the doors opened to a giant gold ankh on the jet-black wall of a darkened hallway lit only by sparing red overhead bulbs, he froze, his mind hitting a blue screen and not rebooting well. Yep, definitely losing a kidney today.
“It’s alright,” she murmured with her free hand petting his forearm as if she could feel his tension spiking again. Her other hand in his with fingers laced tightly, she led him to the end of the corridor, each sealed room with blackened windows in the doors and some with a sliver of light underneath as the only indication of their presence. The only open room was the one at the end of the hall, a literal light at the end of the tunnel.
Dr. Bauer’s office was sandstone-looking walls decorated with colorful Egyptian hieroglyphics and depictions of a bare-breasted lion woman with a green face, brown skin, and a red disc over her head. In the center of the room was an unassuming man in a white button-down shirt with a pale aquamarine-colored tie under a white lab coat. He was tall, thin, tan, with sharp features and a comforting smile and glasses that hid whiskey brown eyes that appear to have seen everything at least once.
For the first time since they walked in the place, Cora stepped away from Finn. “Thank you so much for seeing us, Dr. Bauer.”
“I always make time for my best customer,” he replied with a wink and a broad grin. He certainly didn’t present like a man who was here to relieve him of his internal organs. To Finn, he offered a hand. “Dr. Bob Bauer, internist, among other things.”
Firm handshake, assured. He smelled Leonine, which went with the whole casually regal air about him. It actually put him even more at ease. “Good to meet you, Doctor. I’m—”
The doc cut him off immediately with a hand up. “No names! This is not that kind of place.”
What followed was a detailed explanation of the tests he would be performing on Finn’s blood, with the understanding that with anonymity came an additional level of security. Cora remained by his side the whole time, a silent sentinel watching the proceedings with a practiced eye. The blood test was two vials, only a few ounces, that the doctor pulled himself, and then Finn was led back down the hallway to the room next door with a sliver of light under the door.
The door opened to reveal a much larger space than anticipated, dominated by a huge machine made mostly of a metal ring.
“What the hell do I need a CT for?”
* * *
CORA
Finn had been doing remarkably well, considering. He actually was a lot less freaked out than she’d anticipated given that she’d spirited him out of the palace without his guards, taken him upstate a bit, to a shifter-sanctioned mafia doctor in a Witch-controlled town. For royalty, he was slipping between worlds almost as easily as she did normally.
His sharp question made her sigh, but only because they were so close to being done, any stopping now was simply frustrating. “He’s checking to see if you have glass in your intestines.
“I need to know if your GI tract is compromised,” Dr. Bauer followed up calmly. “Any kind of perforation can lead to life threatening consequences.”
Finn’s blue eyes got large and he linked his hands with hers immediately. “So… will this make me glow in the dark?”
“Only if we’re lucky.”
She waited in Dr. Bauer’s office for him, the lead-lined walls shielding her from the X-rays. She knew it wouldn’t take long, and before she could even finish her crossword puzzle on her phone, Dr. Bauer was escorting Finn back to sit next to her.
The good doctor leaned against the desk between them with his arms crossed and his glasses pulled down to the end of his nose. “Looked good for the most part. There was a bit of glass that I could see, but it appears to be a recent exposure. Anything else I know will have to wait for the blood tests.”
“But we’re cool otherwise?” she clarified. Now was not the time to take anything for granted.
“Well…” Dr. Bauer grinned, his expression just a bit cheeky. “I mean, he’s a remarkable specimen. You’re a lucky woman, if that’s what you wanna know.”
Holy. Fuck. He did not. If he didn’t do such quality work for her on such short notice, she’d have to give thought to killing an old lion. “It’s… um… yeah.” She inhaled sharply through her nose to center herself around the blast furnace blush that had taken over her head. “It’s not like that.”
The doctor’s open snickering was more wheeze than anything else. “Uh huh.”
“You all know I’m right here, right?” One look at Finn’s face said he was in no better shape than she was, blush-wise.
The doctor flicked away Finn’s feeble protestations as he stepped away from the desk and took both her hands as she came to her feet. “Any more questions? No? Excellent. Cora,” his smile felt like a hug, “always good to see you, kiddo.”
“Thanks, Doc. Usual rate, usual location?” She didn’t want to talk money in front Finn, but there was a certain protocol to this type of interaction. Cash at a dead drop was pretty standard fare if she didn’t bring it with her.
“That’d be fine. Annie has something for you at the front desk, and would you ask her to send in my next patient on your way out, please?” He was already getting situated behind his desk again and looking over papers.
Hopefully it was more of her glamour, because there was no telling how long this job would go and there was no harm in stockpiling. “Will do, thank you again.”
“Sekhmet bless and keep you. I have a feeling you’re going to need her.”
Cora’s eyes flashed gold, revealing all the hidden glyphs in the room and on his desk. It wasn’t like him to offer such things to her. Theirs was a cordial professional relationship and while he knew she was a Corvid, in the same way she knew he was Leonine, their varying religions weren’t something either of them discussed. “I appreciate your and her concern. Thank you. See ya around, Doc.”
Finn was silent as they left his office and in fact didn’t speak until they got in the car and had left the gated lot. “Sekhmet, huh?”
She nodded. Something about the very mention of the Goddess troubled her. It wasn’t like Dr. Bauer to say something like that and he didn’t strike her as a guy who did anything without a rea
son. A part of her would like to think that Sehkmet and the Morrigan would fight side by side, but neither one could she see invoking unless left with no other options. The unsettled feeling that had enveloped her side of the car was broken by Finn’s hum of discovery. “You say something?”
Reading from his phone, he stroked his beard and marveled, “‘She Before Whom Evil Trembles’.” The title was followed by a long, heated look slipping down her body that was punctuated by him biting his lip before meeting her eyes again. “I could see it.”
Cora watched him out of the corner of her eye, giving him a sly grin but otherwise not speaking. She didn’t trust her words right then. It was so damn easy to fall into this pattern with him, this artificial closeness that felt like it could be so much more. It wasn’t fair to either of them, but it truly wasn’t fair of her to want more from him. There were too many strictures, too many reasons not to say anything to darken his prospects with something as useless and tawdry as her desires. They were who they were, products of their circumstances and experiences, next to each other physically but oceans apart in all other respects.
Music from the radio spilled out of the speakers as a dreamy, steady pace, notes and nostalgia winding around between the two of them until the passive agitation she felt from him reached the point of spilling over into words. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
A part of her wanted to ignore it outright, even though she knew it was wrong to treat him that way. And she wouldn’t disrespect them both by pretending she didn’t know what he was asking. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“Contractual obligation?”
“Fuck no.” She huffed in annoyance, her hands tightening and flexing on the leather of the steering wheel. “It would have been easier if it was.”
“It was easy, though,” he countered, shifting in the seat to face her, blue eyes full of hurt and anxiety. “I can’t get past all those times you could have said something. At the bar, on the way to your place, on your couch before we… or after.” He shook his head as he stared at the roof of her car. “You said you didn’t do it for money.”
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