by D. R. Perry
“You aren’t having me investigate Kimiko because of any danger she presents.” I tightened my grip on my own arms instinctively. “You’re worried about something else.” I blinked. “Someone else.”
Mother didn’t answer. Instead, she turned her back, walking slow and steady toward the windowless end of the room. Before she disappeared into the dim and cavernous end of the room, she waved one hand. The door unlocked, and stone ground against steel as it opened.
I’d won the argument but lost something else. The shield of feigned ignorance.
Chapter Ten
Kimiko
At the door, Gomer waited to escort me via the back stairs to my room while Blaine went up the showy staircase with Mrs. Harcourt. Usually, eavesdropping was one of my favorite pastimes. The thought of listening in on whatever chewing-out Blaine would get made me vaguely ill.
I ran the bath again, stepping out of the shoes and the dress. The contents of the turquoise clutch went back in my own handbag, locked in the drawer again. A search of the drawers didn’t turn up anything like the cozy flannel pajamas I would have put on back home after a night like this. So I selected a raw silk nightgown in dusky pink and hung it on a hook in the bathroom. I would enter the data about the shooting and try talking to Ismail after my bath.
I’d fallen asleep in the tub. A knock on the bathroom door startled me out of the tepid water. I toweled off quickly, then slipped the nightgown on and opened the door. Instead of the Brownie or Gomer, or even Ismail, it was Blaine. He’d changed his pants but had no shirt on. His skin was smooth, no hint of scales. It was also flawless, like his well-defined muscles. I hadn’t imagined a bookwyrm would look so manly without a shirt, dragon shifter or no.
“How did you get in?” I glanced past him, rubbing my arms at an unexpected chill in the air.
“Nature’s hang-glider.” He jerked his chin at the balcony doors. “Much safer than your Spider Kim act.”
“Yeah.” I brushed past him to grab the bathrobe I’d left on the bed, and our arms touching sent a shiver across my skin and a heated flush up from my center. I wasn’t cold anymore, but I put the bathrobe on, anyway. “What did you come here for?” I couldn’t look at him when I said it and fiddled with the key on its chain instead.
“That LORA app…you said it was running something.” His gaze bounced around the room, alighting just about everywhere except on me.
“Oh.” I shouldn’t have been disappointed. “Okay.” I headed to the nightstand, shielded it with my body, and reached in for my phone. I needn’t have bothered. Blaine wasn’t looking. I stepped in front of him, clasping the phone in my hands between us. “Um, can I ask you something?”
“Um, yeah. You just did.” He smirked, finally meeting my gaze. He put his hands in his pockets. “But you can ask something else.”
“You’re supposed to find out why I’m here, and how I broke in.” I took a deep breath, feeling like I was about to step off a cliff or out of a plane and plummet to my death. “And I just opened a locked drawer in front of you. You didn’t try to peek. Why?”
“Because you were going to tell me something back at the park.” Blaine pulled his hands out of his pockets and opened one, revealing a small black orb on a silver chain. He touched it, setting it alight with some kind of Extrahuman energy. Then he looped the chain over his wrist and held out his hand. I took the hint, let go of the phone, and put one of my hands in, too. He clasped my hand and gazed into my eyes. The tingle I felt had nothing to do with magic. “You can tell me now without anyone overhearing.”
“It’s my dad. He’s got maybe a week to live without a Luck charm.” I closed my eyes. “And your mother’s the only person in this hemisphere who has any.”
“So you thought pissing off a dragon family was the way to go?” Smoke billowed from his nose and mouth, making me feel like I was in the belly of an impending thunderstorm. “Assumed I’m just like Mother and any other textbook dragon, even after what I did for Nox. I mean, come on. You were there. I got Mother to give up a pelt, but Josh almost died. And you. Don’t. Bother. To. Ask.” His hand gripped mine tighter, and the heat of his breath was like a furnace on my cheek as I tried not to quake in fear. I opened my eyes. But Blaine didn’t look angry. His shoulders were too droopy for that.
“It’s my fault, Blaine.” I looked the dragon right in the eyes, wishing I could flame up like the extinct Phoenix and match the inferno of whatever emotion fueled his fire. All I got for my trouble was a torrent of tears rolling down my face. “If I hadn’t swiped Dad’s pin and used it on Josh, he’d be fine. It was his last Luck charm. If I can’t get him another one, I’ve killed my own father, just because I’m a kleptomaniac who thought Luck was on her side.”
Blaine blinked, his grip loosening. He reached out to brush my tears away, and I flinched at the heat coming from him. The tears evaporated before his hand made contact with my cheek. He took a deep breath, lowering the temperature around us by at least three degrees. Then, he took another, closing his eyes. When he opened them, they were ember-red and reptilian.
“You did no such thing.” He pulled me closer, holding me against his chest as I shook and wept. “It’s the Extramagus. Coincidence. You’re the one who said our Luck’s turned. I just checked, and our magic energy’s all over the place. We’re a mess, Kimiko, because some asshole has a vendetta against desegregating Providence Paranormal College. Not because you saved a life. And you couldn’t have known ahead of time that was your father’s last charm.”
I couldn’t say anything to that. He was right. Blaine just gave me the benefit of the doubt about the charm. His confidence in me was a bigger mystery than anything I’d ever encountered. I didn’t dare look up at him;. My face had to be a puffy mess from the ugly crying that went with my confession. But I couldn’t stay like that, melting against his bare chest in a more figurative sense than his earlier temperature might have meant.
Blaine pulled back, easing my face off his shoulder. He gazed down at me, his eyes that amber-brown again. My knees felt weak, and my lower lip trembled. His face bent closer to mine until our lips almost touched. We both turned our heads at the wooden crackling sound from the corner.
“Fewmets!” He let go of me, pulling the anti-spyware amulet off my wrist as he headed toward the decorative bamboo in the golden urn. He pulled back his arm, making a fist.
“No!” I ran up behind him, leaping up to drag down his elbow.
Blaine’s punch went wide, colliding with the mirrored wall instead of the Brownie hiding with the decor. A spiderweb of cracks appeared on the fake glass, extending all the way up to the ceiling. That was one camera in the room down for the count.
“Why are you stopping me from taking out a spy?” Blaine’s nostrils flared, smoke puffing out in a thin curl. The tilt of his head and his tone of voice told me he’d reined his anger in, waiting for a real answer.
“Are you sure they're not an ally?”
“Point.” He reached out, grasping the Brownie with one hand and pulling them from the urn. Gold powder dusted his palm when he let them go. The natural muddy brown of their bark showed through their disguise. “But we can’t question them without getting in their debt.”
“They'll want to come out of this unscathed, though.” I turned my head to look at the Brownie. “They’ll tell us something on their own if they know what’s best, and Brownies are supposed to be canny.”
“I am.” The Brownie’s creaky voice was nearly lost in the rattle they made as they bent toward one of the concealed cameras.
“This has those taken care of.” Blaine held up the amulet. “So give me a reason not to turn you into firewood.”
“Your mother doesn’t employ my kind. I’m not here to spy for your enemy.”
“Go on.” Smoke wafted toward the wooden creature with Blaine’s words.
“I can’t tell you who sent me or why. Prior agreement.” The Brownie crackled again. “All I can tell you is, my debtor is your ally.”
“Of course.” He rolled his eyes, then offered me his arm. “Still, there are some things that just aren’t anyone’s business, not even some mysterious benefactor’s.” Blaine turned to face me, smirking. “Would you like to make a bit of a scene, Kimiko? I promise it’s all in the interest of getting to the bottom of this predicament.”
“Um, sure?” I took his arm more out of desire to touch him again than anything else, although curiosity was a close second. The feel of his skin under my hand was downright addictive. I took a deep breath as he walked me to the door. He dropped his arm, wrapping it around my waist.
“Prepare to meet a pretend scoundrel. I solemnly swear I’m not up to no good, but you ought to act like I am, anyway.” I tittered in response. Blaine’s wit was as quick as mine. The swoon I faked at him was more genuine than I wanted to admit.
I turned my laughter into an indignant shriek when Blaine kicked the door to my room open and slung me over his shoulder. I watched from my upside-down position as he hip-checked the door shut. He stormed down the hall, more smoke than I’d ever seen trailing over his head and behind him. A low growl in his throat underscored my shrieks.
“You infuriating woman.” Blaine’s voice was a strained snarl. I could imagine the sneer curling his upper lip. “You’re mine, you hear me? Mine to deal with as I see fit. Yes, I’m entitled. You’re just a thieving Tanuki at my mercy. You will do as I say.”
I cased the hallway, realizing he was putting on a show for the audio and visual recording devices spaced at regular intervals. I let myself tremble and whimper, knowing that whoever monitored those feeds would have no idea all my fuss came from a giggle fit instead of abject terror. A few tears rolled over my forehead, meeting the marble floors with soft plops. Only a Memory Psychic would be able to tell those came from the biggest laugh of the year and not Blaine’s snarly threats.
We kept it up all the way to the end of the hall and through the outward swing of the door, the slam of it shutting, and the bolt being thrown.
After that, Blaine dropped me on the foot of his bed and collapsed on a little bench in front of it, clutching his sides. It took several minutes for me to catch my breath or remember that he’d carried me over his shoulder in nothing but a flimsy nightgown.
Chapter Eleven
Blaine
Making a truckload of smoke with Kimiko Ichiro over my shoulder: easy. Putting her down and letting her go afterward: nearly impossible. The bench creaked under me as I tumbled against it, not wanting to actually get on the bed with her. That was a crock of bull. I wanted nothing more than that but had told her the threats and the carrying on down the hall were all for show. When I gave my word, I kept it. There was no way a girl like her would want a pile of anxiety like me for anything but a fling. That near-miss kiss and the way she’d looked at me after the shooting could only be a flash-in-the-pan kind of thing. I wouldn’t take advantage of a girl whose father was on borrowed time. I wouldn't even try courting her unless I could think of a way to help her first.
Before she composed herself, I got up and went through my audio surveillance negating routine. I wondered why Mother even bothered spying on me that way when I knew how to get around it so handily. Maybe she just had it set up in case anything happened in here while I was asleep. But that meant she thought someone in the house might be a danger to me. I shivered, suddenly chilled. It might just be paranoia. It sort of ran in dragonish families, after all, and I knew for sure I’d gotten a hefty dose of it myself. But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone’s not out to get you.
And I knew for sure now. Kimiko Ichiro was not out to get my family or me. She was just dealing with the worst string of Luck a Tanuki could have encountered. If I thought Mother would believe me and let her go, I’d go tell her that instant. It’d never work. Mother had her jaws clamped around the idea that Kimiko’s way in meant some heinous enemy could figure out how to break in and murderate the place. If she hadn’t softened her paranoid stance during our after-dinner argument, she probably never would.
A bright guitar riff erupted from the speakers I’d placed around the room to achieve surround-sound. Oh, no, this was not the playlist I wanted to subject other people to. Before I could reach out to skip the embarrassingly outdated pop-punk music, Kimiko slapped my hand away. I blinked down at her smile.
“Leave it. This band is super corny, but I always loved this song.” She grabbed my hands and pulled me back to the bench, swaying in time to the music as we went. Then she did the last thing I expected: she belted out every word of Simple Plan’s Addicted. I sat down, watching her pick up a hairbrush and give an American Idol-worthy rendition for an audience of one.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you ought to do that kind of thing professionally?” She had one of those signature voices, the kind that wouldn’t be mistaken for anyone else’s. I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off her the entire time. She’d nailed the song to my heart, mind, and attention span as blatantly as Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church. I was the most fervent kind of believer, a convert.
“Yeah.” She put the hairbrush down. “Ren.” She shrugged, then plopped down on the bench next to me. “I gave up after that car accident, though.”
“Oh.” I got up and started pacing—anything to keep away from her. I was addicted, all right, like the song said. And still a dick, although trying not to be a giant one. “Well, you should take it up again, now that it turns out he’s alive after all.”
“Love to, if I could find the time. Breaking out of the Academy and stalking my dad got pretty time-consuming, you know. So’s this lovely stay in the Newport Mansion.” Kimiko twisted the tithing bracelet on her wrist. “Anyway, don’t we have some investigating to do?”
“Yeah.” I headed over to my desk, grabbed a couple of tablets from the top drawer. I tossed one on the bed near her and fired up the other. “Can you load your LORA app on these?”
“Sure I can, but should I?” She tilted her head, making her hair fall away from her chest. The nightgown she wore had a plunging neckline. I looked away as fast as I could, straining something in my neck.
“Ow.” I winced. My muscles started trying to knit back together around the stupid knot. I tried rubbing it, but the damn thing was on the back of my shoulder.
“Sit.” She gestured to the floor in front of the bench.
I sat. Didn’t have much choice. Stupid accidents like that sucked for shifters, especially any flying ones. If I didn’t get the knot worked out, it could carry over when I shifted and mess with my wing on that side. I put my hands on the floor, tucking them under my legs. That’d force me to keep them to myself. I wish I could say her touch melted all the tension away, but it didn’t. If anything, it got worse.
“You’re super tense.” Her fingers pressed against both my shoulders, which probably felt like concrete. She gave up trying to rub or even prod and started punching instead. I sighed, leaning back.
“Yeah. Been a rough couple days for both of us.”
“Wow.” Her fists beat harder. “So big lizards are capable of empathy. Who knew?”
“It’s the big secret of my people. We care.” I snorted a laugh past my gritted teeth. It hurt, but she was breaking down the knot. “Little Tanuki girls have magic punches. Who’d have thought?”
“No one. Being easily underestimated is all part of my charm.” She took her hands away, and I failed at not whining about it. “Okay, LORA’s loaded up on these. Data’s synced, too.”
“I hear he’s also fully functional.” There was no way she’d get that reference.
“And anatomically correct.” She tapped my much more relaxed shoulder with the corner of one of the tablets. I turned around and instantly regretted it. Well, no, I didn’t. I regretted my reaction to her legs at eye-level. Anatomically correct didn’t begin to describe. Anatomically amazing, astounding and a million other adjectives raced through my brain, not necessarily in alphabetical order
. Maybe. I don’t really remember. All I know for sure was I couldn’t stand up.
“Look, I’m having a hard time here. Focusing, I mean. On stuff.”
“Oh?” Kimiko blinked wide eyes, but I knew better than to assume her innocence was anything but a facade. She had to be deliberately teasing me. It felt like my head would explode in more ways than one if you get my drift.
“Yeah. Look, I shouldn’t have dragged you out of there before you could get decent.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But you did.” Her smile was gentler than I’d expected. She stepped down from the bench, joining me on the floor. She left the tablet up there, then plucked mine from my hands and set it on top of hers. I thought the innuendo in the gesture couldn’t possibly be intentional. I. Thought. Wrong.
Before I could say anything, Kimiko was in my lap, arms around my neck and legs around my waist like she’d been in the vault. This time, she wasn’t fighting me, though. She pressed her forehead against mine, the tips of our noses touched, and our breath mingled. She sat, waiting. I tilted my head until our lips met instead of our foreheads, and then everything changed.
It wasn’t what you think. The kiss was barely a brush of our lips. Nothing else happened because I was swept away. A memory, tiny but bright, like a light at the end of a tunnel, grew closer as I rushed toward it. If I’d been on the PPC campus, I’d think I’d been whammied by one of Henry’s memory amulets or something. But I knew that wasn’t the case. Once I got to the corner of my mind the kiss had pushed me toward, I understood.
I recognized myself from old photographs. The nearly blond hair of my early childhood graced the top of my head, and I was dressed all in red, sitting across from a little brown-haired girl with furry ears wearing the same color. Gomer was there, knife poised over an undecorated cake. Mother’s voice instructed me to hold hands with the girl, and then an invisible force wrapped a cord made of twisted paper around our wrists. We sat with our hands tied together like that, listening to a man’s voice drone out a phrase in what I now recognized as bastardized Latin. Memory me glanced up, seeing only a rotund figure, face obscured in the shadow cast by his black Greek fisherman’s hat. A sudden, sharp pain pricked the top center of my forehead and thin twin cries welled up shrilly from child-throats.