by Nara Malone
Marcus kept clothes stashed in the hollow of a tree to assist him in what was becoming a nightly ritual. He tugged jeans up his legs, water still dribbled from his hair, trickled over his skin. It left damp patches on the flannel shirt he buttoned. He grimaced as he sat on a log to tug sneakers onto wet feet. He preferred the feel of the ground under his feet, the connection to the earth, but walking around barefoot this time of year would draw notice. He didn’t need to draw more attention to himself or Allie at this point.
Someone had watched over Allie from a distance ever since the ransacking of her apartment. She’d stayed with Lila for a week after the police released her, but he knew that arrangement wouldn’t last. Allie liked solitude and Lila…didn’t.
Something about the police investigation smelled bad. Why would the lab bring the police in when they had so much to lose? Possibly some of their research was legit and the lab worker injured in the rescue didn’t know about the illegal side of the business. Her injury might have forced them to file a report. He should see if Ben could get a copy. Or possibly the lab had friends in high places and arrangements were made between men with power, the way arrangements had been made across the centuries. He was no closer to figuring out the answers than he had been the day Seth went to the police station to collect her.
It was time for Allie’s evening practice. He wanted to feel encouraged that she practiced every night. He only felt guilt. It helped her integrate her senses. She was probably noticing the improvement the practice made. He knew that must be why she continued, but that kind of training, without lovemaking to siphon off the sexual craving, was simply torture. She didn’t even allow herself the release of pleasuring herself to orgasm. Dangerous without him.
He’d warned her of that. He made certain he was close by each night, just in case. Inevitably the day would come when she didn’t stop. He wasn’t looking forward to that, knew she’d be more furious with him when her senses were fully opened and she saw herself for who and what she was.
He couldn’t imagine that a human, particularly a female, would be pleased to discover the beast lurking within. A man might be shocked, but men weren’t trained from birth to repress any wild impulse that came up. A certain level of impulse and wildness was encouraged in males. The transformation to tiger, or whatever subspecies Allie’s nature favored, would be something she blamed him for rather than embraced with gratitude. He wasn’t foolish enough to think she’d embrace his presence to help her adjust either.
He understood Allie thought he was dangerous. He was. His own son didn’t want him around and Marcus expected any day he’d convince Marie it was time to take their family home. Shortly thereafter he could expect a visit from Adam asking him to stay away. And Marcus would.
He stood, raked water from his hair with his fingers and smoothed it back. Was it all worth it? If he couldn’t keep the ones he loved most safe, was there any point in rescuing the hybrids? It wasn’t as if he could end the research.
The beast within him countered with the reminder that the hybrids had no one but him. That sentient beings didn’t belong in cages. Shouldn’t be the subjects of medical experiments. Who else did they have?
Who else did Allie have? Who would watch over her if something happened to him? He hadn’t mentioned Allie’s true nature to anyone, not even Allie.
He’d decided by the time he moved into the shadows under an old oak at the edge of the park, across the street from Allie’s apartment. He would stay away from the hybrids, concentrate on keeping Allie safe. He mentally scanned the area. No Allie.
He didn’t have a watch, but he knew the time, an inner clock much like the one that dictated Allie’s every move. She never deviated from routine unless circumstances forced it.
He expanded his awareness and bumped minds with Seth.
I’m watching your girl, Magus. Is anyone ever going to tell me why she’s so important?
It being impossible to lie telepathically, Marcus just had to ignore the question. What’s wrong? Why isn’t she home?
She’s just out with her friends, enjoying a little party. It should do her some good. You can trust me, Magus. I consider her a good friend. I’ll watch over her and make sure she gets in okay.
Seth—
I’m not going to let anything happen to Allie. Trust me that much, Magus.
Marcus turned back toward the park. Seth broke the mind link and walled his thoughts off, a reaction Marcus didn’t find comforting. What was he afraid Marcus might pick up on?
Before he made it back to the pond he linked up with another mind, one he wished had stayed silent. This was a cry for help, another hybrid female in distress.
Chapter Eleven
Allie had seen an occasional birthday party or celebration in a movie or on TV but the details of the ritual remained vague. Most of the people she knew well enough to talk with in those days with Eddie didn’t celebrate birthdays. Getting roaring drunk or impossibly high, blacking out to forget the past and avoid thinking about the future seemed to be the point of the birthday celebrations at Eddie’s club. They didn’t have cake. The crowd gathered at Franny’s diner was slightly more sober. Tables were missing from the back half of the diner near the jukebox, so there was probably supposed to be dancing. More mystifying than the why and how of birthday celebrations was the fact that so many were crowded in here to celebrate hers.
Twenty-six candles. Allie wondered how close that was to being accurate as she watched Franny light them. If Eddie knew anything about her origins he’d never mentioned them beyond that her mother dropped her on him with no details. She had never felt so awkward as she did when they sang happy birthday, the sting of a blush heated her cheeks.
“Well, make a wish and blow out the candles,” Lila said.
She couldn’t have what she most wished for without sacrificing what she most needed. She surveyed the smiling group around her. They treated her as if she was one of them, as if she belonged. “I have everything I need,” she said. “Thank you.”
A silence lingered when she’d blown out the candles. And she was thinking she’d screwed up, committed some social error, but someone started clapping then someone cheered and the whole group joined in. She smiled and hoped it fooled Franny and Lila, who had gone to all this trouble. Just a few weeks ago the idea of having to attend an event like this would have been enough to get Allie packing up and moving on. As she glanced around, she was getting about half the names right with no cue from anyone. Not as fast as most people recognized each other, but it was liberation to Allie. She could scan a mental list of people she knew and when she hit on the right one, a soft flutter in her stomach affirmed the rightness of the match. It felt good, belonging, being with people who smiled a lot, being more like them than she’d ever hoped to be.
Elaine came forward and Allie was confident enough that she didn’t even wait for her to speak before greeting her. “I’m guessing you’re the one who leaked my birth date,” Allie said.
“I’m not talking.” Elaine smiled, bumped Allie’s elbow in a playful gesture.
“Good policy.”
“No more trouble with the cops?”
“Not so far.”
“I wouldn’t worry. It was a fishing expedition and they didn’t have enough evidence to get a warrant for the files they wanted on you.” Elaine handed Allie a glass of punch and nodded toward Lila. “Speaking of suspects, I’d think she was the most likely to have wrangled your birth date out of HR. Not saying Joe Snell is the guilty party, but when Lila flirts, men fall.” Elaine grinned again and strolled away.
Allie swallowed half the whiskey-spiked punch in one gulp. It burned going down and the warmth spread. Allie wasn’t a drinker. That was going to change tonight. A lot of things were going to change. She was done fading away to fit in. When Roland, a guy from accounting, asked her to dance, she started to say no and make an excuse, but then relented and admitted she wasn’t any good at dancing.
He grinned and grabbed
her hand. “You will be.”
She caught the knack of moving in time to his body, copying some of the moves she saw other women making. Before long another guy cut in, and a few minutes later another man whirled her away. Many dances later the whole world was spinning.
With each new partner, each face she could link to a name, another link in a chain that had held her apart and isolated fell away. With each recognition, the ache and longing for Marcus dug a deeper hole in her chest. Allie filled it with punch.
* * * * *
Lila and Franny insisted on walking Allie home after the party. Franny and Lila hadn’t been able to persuade her not to move back on her own. Allie believed concern there might still be some hidden threat was behind their insistence they go by Allie’s apartment for a cup of coffee, and call a cab for themselves when they were ready to go home. Which was how they wound up in the park, on the trail, passing the spot where she’d met Marcus, under the oak tree where it all began.
Nerves over the surprise party had led to too much drinking, which ended with Allie throwing herself on the ground under the tree and blubbering like a complete idiot over a guy who’d gotten her thrown in jail.
“Oh honey, no. Not tonight,” Lila said, kneeling beside her.
Franny sat in the damp grass beside Allie and rummaged in a purse as big as a grocery bag. “I have tissues. Why don’t purses have interior lights like cars?”
The comment, so practical and unexpected, broke through tears and sent Allie to the other extreme—giggling.
“You don’t drink much, do you, sweetie?” Franny asked and produced a wad of tissue from her purse.
They each took a couple, dabbing their eyes.
“No, never drink. Never will again. It makes me see things.”
“Well, I’ve had a few too many, now and again,” Franny said. “It’s never made me see things that weren’t there.”
“Then you don’t see him,” Allie said, pointing into the shadows near the footbridge.
The other women turned, squinted into the darkness. “I think I see eyes,” Lila whispered, “and I know I’m not as drunk as Allie is.”
Franny rummaged in her purse again. “I know I have one of those tiny flashlights.”
“It’s not real. Not really real,” Allie said, rising to wobble forward. “I know they don’t have leopards in Virginia.”
Franny’s light came on when Allie was three feet from the spot. She had expected the light to reveal the source of her hallucination as something easily mistakable as a leopard—a spotted trash receptacle, a forgotten jacket, a man with eccentric tastes in jogging wear. She still saw a leopard. Worse than that, she thought she recognized him. A giggle bubbled up in her throat. She couldn’t recognize her own face in a mirror, but she thought she knew a leopard.
Behind her Franny and Lila gasped.
“Allie, honey,” Franny whispered and she sounded stone sober now. “Don’t move. Try not to breathe much.”
“Don’t look at him,” Lila added. “I think if you look at a cat it upsets them.”
But Allie was looking. She couldn’t look away. She knew him. It made no sense, but his name fell off her tongue. “Marcus?”
The cat’s eyes narrowed. Its tail twitched.
“Allie, please, you’re upsetting him.”
“It’s Marcus,” she said, amazed by her own certainty. She had never been so certain about an identity in her life. She wasn’t too drunk to understand that a wild leopard she stumbled upon in a park couldn’t be a man. She hadn’t lost her mind. But inside her brain, Marcus’ name flashed in big neon letters. Inside her stomach she felt the rightness of it, like the plink of something falling into place.
That cat whirled and Allie followed.
“Allie, get back here!” Franny screamed.
And Lila, not as sober as Franny, tried to catch Allie, was within tackling distance when Allie skidded to a stop at the edge of a woodland pool. There on a rock in the center stood Marcus. He was naked, looking back at them. Allie watched him draw a breath, then vanish. Or he jumped. A soundless, ripple-less dive? Incredible.
“Did you see him?”
She turned to Lila who was panting, staring transfixed at the pool. “I did see Marcus. Where is the leopard?”
“It was Marcus. He does things like that, illusions.”
“Well, that illusion nearly made me wet my pants.”
“Allie, Lila, you get your asses back here.” Franny was trotting after them up the trail, clutching her heels in one hand and her purse in the other.
“It’s okay,” Allie shouted. “It was Marcus. It’s one of his illusions.”
“Why does he do magic naked?” Lila wanted to know.
Allie shrugged. “He doesn’t call it magic. He says it is unleashing the mesmeric force.”
“Marcus naked is definitely a mesmeric force,” Lila said.
Franny caught up with them, leaned against Allie panting. “Where is he?”
Allie pointed to the water, the surface smooth as glass, not even air bubbles disturbing the surface. “He jumped in that pond.”
“Well then, could be he didn’t want to get his clothes wet, but shouldn’t he be out by now?”
“He has been in the water an awful long time,” Allie said, frowning.
Lila kicked off her shoes and yanked her dress off over her head.
“Why are you taking off your clothes?” Allie said.
“Can you swim?”
Allie shook her head.
“Didn’t think so. And while I think Franny would just as soon leave him where he is, we’re moving up on too long under water awful fast.”
Stripped down to her underwear, Lila grimaced and dove in.
“We should call help,” Franny said.
“What, like the cops?”
“You don’t have to say it in that tone, young lady. Yeah they were over the line with you, but you could have handled that better.”
“Okay, tell me how a naked man and woman in the pond and me somewhat intoxicated is going to lead to anything better than the whole lot of us in custody for the night.”
While Franny mulled that, Allie’s brain had cleared enough for her to worry. Marcus broke in labs and took animals involved in genetic experiments. There was a lab in town. Near here. She knew because the guys who worked there walked through the park to get to the diner when the weather was nice. She’d seen the lab name on the IDs clipped to their shirts… Gen something or other. Marcus and a leopard in the park might not have been an illusion after all.
Lila surfaced, splashing and turning in a circle. “I don’t see him.”
“He might not be there.”
“We saw him dive in.”
“We saw a leopard too. Do you see it now?”
Lila’s teeth were chattering. “If this is one of his tricks, I’m going to kill him.”
“I’ll help you,” Franny said.
“Let me look one more time.” Lila ducked back under the water.
Allie moved toward the woods.
“Now where are you going?” Franny wanted to know.
“I just want to look around, maybe I’ll see a footprint or some clue as to what’s going on.”
“Well take the flashlight, then.”
Allie took it, even though she didn’t feel a need for it. If it made Franny happy, she’d do it.
She heard Lila surface as she moved away.
* * * * *
Jake tiptoed from the nursery while Adam, Maya and Ean did battle with the last three babies resisting sleep. He had in mind to pay Seth a visit and make sure they were on the same page as far as Allie was concerned. Seth had agreed to watch out for her while Jake had been getting Marcus back on his feet. Marcus hadn’t said why they should watch Allie even when he was no longer involved with her. If anyone else had been free to fill that role he wouldn’t have asked Seth. Naturally Seth had questions about Allie.
To keep him occupied Jake had passed the task
of locating Hella to him. Seth hadn’t had any luck determining what happened to Hella either. The cat had simply vanished. In another month or two YouTube videos of teleporting kittens, of talking kittens, of levitating kittens or something equally bizarre would turn up. Then they’d know where Hella had gotten to, and so would her creators.
Oliver bumped down the stairs at Jake’s heels when he whistled, headed for the basement lab where Adam kept his mirror portal.
Marie was there, muttering curses at Adam’s computer.
“Problem?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “I couldn’t even get Elvis. Everyone knows what Elvis looks like.”
“Who’s Elvis?”
“Well, normal people know Elvis.”
“Hmm. You don’t find me normal?”
“I got a thirty percent on this blinkin’ test. Can you believe that? There must be something wrong with the program. Or the test correction key. The computer.”
“What test?”
“It’s a facial recognition test Marcus asked me to take. He knew. I know he knew.”
Ah, Marcus was involved. Big surprise.
She pushed away from the desk and paced to the window. Oliver hopped up into the chair. Jake glanced longingly at the portal. He should go. He had a bad feeling they were heading someplace dangerous and he’d had all the excitement he could handle for the next century or so. He noted the slight quiver of Marie’s shoulders, caught the slight sniff. She was crying.
He sighed and moved behind Marie at the window, put steadying hands on her shoulders. “Knew what, Marie? What did Marcus say that has you so upset?”
“He asked me if I could recognize faces. I thought I could, but when I sat down to take that stupid test he showed me, I realized I can’t. Not with the usual cues gone, like voices, or their body shape. Hell, they don’t even let you see their hair. And I can’t do it. I can’t recognize famous faces I have seen hundreds of times in my life.”