by Zoe Chant
She rolled a fierce eye his way, brimming with a sort of wry amusement. “Swallows. Is that where the hummingbird in your story came from?”
“No,” he said. “Before I discovered I was a shifter, I always thought of you as a hummingbird. So quick, and vivid.”
Her answering smile was brief, a little bemused, and bewildered.
As she gazed down into her empty mug, he said, “I would love to spend the rest of the night talking to you. It’s so good to see you again. But like I said, you’ve just taken in a lot. And I have some stuff to do tonight. There’s another matter I promised to help with, which I can tell you about later, if you like. Right now, well, as you said to Alejo, it’s late.”
At that, all the tension went out of her shoulders. “I guess . . . yes. I think I’m ready to pack it in for the night.” Another expressive look. “And I bet you know right where I live, don’t you.”
“You didn’t exactly hide yourself,” he said apologetically. “But I promise not to turn up uninvited.”
She uttered a sniff that was closer to a snort. “Just as well. Basilisk or not, I have some roommates you really don’t want to spring any surprises on.” She finished with a flash of her old grin, the one that had first enchanted him all those years ago.
In spite of all that had changed, some things were still true as gold, and one of those was her shining spirit. It took all the strength he had left to refrain from hugging and kissing her. He smiled, and said as lightly as he knew how, “I’ll take you back.”
Chapter 7
GODIVA
There were so many emotions whirling through her head that at first she wasn’t even aware of the silence as he drove her back into town.
Next time she looked up, he was turning onto her street. He pulled up to the driveway, but then stopped, and faced her in the dark. “Godiva, I promised myself—and our son—that there would be no secrets between us, if I ever got a second chance.”
“Okay,” she said, peering up at his face. But all that she could make out was the jut of his cheekbone, and the clean line of his jaw in the light of the streetlamp fifty yards away. “Why do I hear a but?”
“Because telling the truth also means laying a huge secret on you. I probably should have asked first. Though how to get at it without any hints would take better skills than I’ve got. The thing is, shifters are a secret from the rest of the world. You can imagine why.”
She tried to imagine Rigo walking before Congress and turning into a basilisk. “Riots, fear. Government controls,” she said, shuddering. “Maybe even labs and experiments.”
“No maybe. That part has already happened,” he answered grimly. “The bad thing about secret labs is little to no oversight. These ended as badly as you can imagine.”
“Okay. I get it that it’s a secret. And that you and our son are not the only ones. So how many are there?”
“Shifters are a very small part of the general population. And we mythic shifters are an even smaller part of that number. We do have our bad guys—what group doesn’t—but we try to take care of our own. Which is yet another story that I’ll have to get to, but not tonight. The thing I think I’d better tell you right now is, you do happen to be friends with some shifters. But their mates were sworn to secrecy.”
“I do?” Godiva cast her mind over her household. Wendy? Godiva could easily imagine her some fiercely loyal animal. Loving as well as lovable, and cuddly. But Wendy and she had talked so much about every part of Wendy’s life that Godiva was very sure she’d know about it by now. Doris? No, not practical Doris!
So . . . who?
“I have his permission to tell you, if you want to know,” Rigo said, his face still in shadow.
“His,” Godiva repeated, looking confused. “You already told me about Alejo . . . You said friends. I don’t have a ton of male friends. Who?”
“Joey Hu.”
“Joey?” Godiva repeated, thinking that he’d be the last one she would have guessed. There were some tough guys she sort-of knew, like Jen’s kung fu master at her studio. She could see him being a lion or a bear. But Joey Hu? Joey wasn’t all that much taller than she was, slight, kindly. “I just can’t see him as a huge . . . critter.”
“He’s a nine-tail fox,” Rigo said.
“A fox! Even with nine tails, that’s somehow much easier to believe than he’s a rhino or an elephant. Wait a minute. You said mates. You don’t mean mates in the Australian sense—buddies, bros.”
“No, I mean the love of one’s life.” His voice had gone husky. “Shifters mate for life.”
Shifters mate for life. She felt the resonance through her bones, pooling down deep where she’d done her best to put out the fires years ago. Life was so much easier that way.
With an effort that was almost physical, she wrenched her mind back on track. Maybe other shifters mated for life, but Rigo clearly hadn’t, or there would not have been a half century of silence.
Anyway, right now it wasn’t about her. “But that would be . . . Doris? Doris knows about shifters?” Godiva asked, light-headed with amazement. “You’re serious! Okay, I really have to take time out, or my head might explode. Practical, no-nonsense Doris, high school teacher Doris, cookbook-writing Doris, knowing about werewolves and minotaurs?”
“Talk to her. I think,” he said in a soft, tentative tone, “it will probably come as a relief. I suspect, from the little I saw of her, she did not like keeping the secret from you. No one did.”
“No one? There’s more?”
Rigo sighed. “I think I’ve done enough damage for one night. We can take this up after you’ve gotten some time to process. Rest up. If you want to trade numbers, I can call you tomorrow. Or you can call me.”
Numbly she held out her phone. He stilled a moment, and she sensed that something had changed between them, but she was far too tired and too dazed to pursue it.
In silence he got the numbers paired, and handed the phone back. Their fingers met briefly. His were warm, and she felt his touch linger after she whacked the car door open and stepped out into her driveway.
The familiar ocean breeze steadied her. She drew it in, turning in a slow circle. Yes, the world was still the world. Familiar night birds called in the distance, and a neighbor’s tiny rescue chiweenie gave a yip of welcome, letting her known he was on the job as Watchdog for the Block.
Everything around her was the same, and yet nothing was the same.
She walked away from the car. After a few seconds, he started up the engine, and drove away. Only then did she look back, and watched until his tail lights vanished around the corner.
Then she walked thoughtfully up the driveway to the house. It was a long driveway, which gave her time to think. But she couldn’t think. Her thoughts lay inside her, inert as a stunned mouse.
She was still trying to wrap her head around that basilisk—wondering if she was some kind of weirdo for finding Rigo in that form awe-inspiring rather than horrible—when she reached the door.
But before she could open it, her phone rang. This time it was Jen.
Godiva punched Facetime, and there was Jen looking like a Viking goddess ready for battle, but her forehead puckered with worry. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Godiva said. “I didn’t have to touch my pepper spray once.”
“What did he say?’
She opened her mouth to begin with “You’d never guess in a million years,” then Rigo’s voice echoed, That part has already happened. This shifter craziness was a secret that concerned people’s lives.
Doris knew, and had kept the secret from Godiva, which meant she’d kept it from Jen.
So Godiva said only, “He put me on the phone to my son. Gets points for that. The rest will come.” And then, though ordinarily she loathed pulling out the old age card, she figured this was anything but ordinary circumstances. “Listen, I haven’t slept a wink since he blew into town. I gotta crash before I fall asleep on my feet.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” Jen said.
They rang off. Godiva let herself into the dark, quiet house. Pretty soon she climbed between her cool sheets and settled into the gently undulating water bed, letting all the tension seep out of her body.
But her mind didn’t get the memo. For a while her thoughts raced along, jinking back and forth between questions.
Basilisk. Was Alejo a basilisk, too? No, Rigo had said chimera. And her own family had been . . . swallows? So these things weren’t inherited? Argh! She had to stop asking herself questions she couldn’t answer, or she’d be awake all night. Again.
She closed her eyes . . . and memory threw her back to her tiny apartment behind Hidalgo’s diner. Rigo didn’t look all that different now than he did back then, except for that silver at his temples. Unlike her, who the last time he’d seen her had been young and springy with a shiny black braid that she could sit on.
They’d cuddled together on the couch, holding tight to each other. How she’d loved his smell, a bewitching, sexy combination of man and leather and a little bit of horse and dust. But that night he’d smelled of adrenaline sweat, a heady scent that in anybody else would be gross, but in him was . . . sexy. She remembered thinking that, and being happy that he would come to her straight after work.
But according to him, he’d come to her after a fight.
She remembered the tremble in his muscles as he buried his face in her neck. “Preciosa,” he’d whispered over and over—they almost always spoke in Spanish in those days . . . how funny, that his English had that Texas drawl, but his Spanish was the quick, percussive northern accent of Mexico . . . Shifters mate for life.
Well that obviously isn’t true, she reminded herself drowsily. According to his story, he hadn’t known he was a shifter until the day they parted, so maybe the rule didn’t have time to get invoked. Or something.
She examined that memory, testing it cautiously with the last lingering bits of conscious thought. It no longer hurt. It had gone numb, which was better, wasn’t it?
Now she could call up that memory without fear or guilt: his desperate kisses, the warm dusty air, their limbs entangled. Memory became dream, drawing her down into warm kisses, their hearts thrumming against one another’s ribs, until she spiraled down into deep sleep.
Tinkle-ding!
Somewhere under layers and layers of dream image, Godiva recognized that sound. It was her phone, announcing a text message.
Inexorably she floated up toward sunlight and awareness. And groaned, turning over in hopes of recovering the warm, cozy dream world again.
She hated text messages. Everybody knew that. A phone was a phone, not a typewritten nanny following one around everywhere. She’d told everyone, if they didn’t want to talk to her on the phone, then send email. Why torture her thumbs on that maddeningly tiny screen? What a ridiculous invention!
Tinkle-ding!
There went another one.
Godiva sighed, giving up. She leaned over to grab her phone off the nightstand, and memory came crashing back. She shut her eyes, the emotional storm so intense she clutched at the bed as if was rocking. Rigo—basilisk—hallucination—
She shook off the questions, grabbing onto the one vital piece of reality she could vouch for: she had really spoken to Alejo. Hadn’t she? That wasn’t dream . . .
Feverishly she woke the phone up and hit the text button, scanning rapidly.
From Doris: Godiva, sorry about the text, but I didn’t want to risk waking you. Joey said you were out pretty late last night. If you’re okay, just tap the Y for yes.
From Jen, an hour later: Godiva: If you want to talk, Doris and I are at Bird’s. With pastry. And coffee. Gallons of coffee—you can drink mine.
And, one minute later—just now—from Bird: Godiva, I am so very, very sorry we couldn’t tell you.
Tell me what? Godiva thought—and then remembered the last thing Rigo had said, about shifters and secrets. Doris knew . . .
Bird?
All thought of sleep had vanished. Godiva scooted out of bed. She took the shortest shower of her life, threw on some clothes, then grabbed her purse and went out to the garage, where she kept two cars, mostly for the use of her guests.
She took the key off the hook by the garage door, jacked up the seat so she could see over the hood, and started it up.
She drove rarely—just once in a while, to keep her hand in. Weird, how after all the sheer crazy of the past 24 hours, it was driving again that made her feel as if her life had taken another of those sudden turns.
She parked on the road below Bird’s fabulous garden, and walked up to the terrace, where she knew she would find the other three of the Gang of Four whenever the weather was fine. The fragrance of roses hung heavy on the air, amid the distant hum of bees as she topped the path and glanced toward the gazebo.
Yep. There they were. The scent of coffee drifted on the air. As she joined them, she scanned their faces—Doris apologetic, Jen inscrutable as a Norse goddess, Bird looking wistful as she uncovered a tray of fluffy omelets that had obviously just been made.
Godiva gave Bird the hairy eyeball. “If you tell me that you, or Mikhail, are really bees, or snails, or anteaters, then I’m going home and back to bed.”
As she’d hoped, Bird choked on a laugh.
Godiva grinned, relieved that this meant the whole shifter thing was some kind of aberration, if not downright dream. And then Bird said—proudly—“Mikhail is a dragon.”
“What?” Godiva plumped down onto the chair waiting for her.
“Two hundred feet long,” Jen said reflectively. “Silver. He’s magnificent. I say that, though I’m about to be married to the handsomest winged unicorn ever born.”
Godiva thought, It’s real. She looked around the sun-drenched terrace, the nodding roses, the distant haze over the ocean. All familiar sights, sounds, smells.
Shifters are real. And all three of them knew.
Doris’s gaze was steady. “I think I know where you are right now—yes, it’s the Real McCoy, and yes we knew, but we didn’t find out together. It was one at a time. We hated not telling you. But it’s not our secret to tell.” She cast a glance at Jen. “Well, two of us, anyway.”
Godiva slewed around and eyed Jen. “Wait, are you one of them?”
“Yep. Long story.”
Godiva fortified herself with a slurp of the coffee Bird had readied for her, exactly the way she liked it. “I’m going to want that story. But not yet. I’m still trying to get my head around . . . basilisk. Did you know Rigo was a basilisk?”
“We knew he was a shifter,” Doris said. “When he contacted Joey about the Long Cang matter.”
“Long Cang?”
Doris sighed. “Um. Where do I start?”
Godiva took a bite of a fluffy, perfect cheese Danish, and as the life-giving sugar joined the corpse-awakening power of the excellent Blue Mountain coffee, her brain finally felt thoroughly powered up. “I’ve been a mystery writer for the past thirty years, so I know my way around complicated plots. Start with the Maguffin. If there is one.”
Three heads nodded. “Oh, there is definitely a Maguffin,” Doris said, as Jen gave a snort.
Doris turned to Bird. “You were the first. Over to you.” She pointed to Jen. “Then we finish with you.”
Two pots of coffee, a sizable omelet each, and a shared plate of pastries later, Godiva was still feeling like she’d fallen out of her life and into someone else’s. As she listened to the three women describe their experiences, and the emotions they had gone through, Godiva’s mind kept bumping insistently up against a somewhat unpalatable realization, that over the years she’d let her emotions cramp down into a smaller box, utterly denying the possibility of all these hidden corners of the world.
She was at least right about one thing. It was time for yet another change. But instead of running away to a new city and a new identity, as she had before, it seemed that the change was going to happ
en right here, in this town she thought she knew better than anybody.
First of all, she had to believe what two days ago she would have scoffed at. She decided this even before Jen insisted on rising from her chair with a grunt, shifting to a glorious phoenix glowing with its own golden light, and back again. Then she vanished from the terrace, reappeared in the kitchen door, then flickered back again—showing the effect of the Transfer Gate that had escaped from the mysterious Oracle Stone deep in a cliff next to the sea, and got itself bonded inside her.
Godiva admired the way Doris, Jen, and Bird talked with same calm conviction in eyes and voices that they talked about the weather, or made plans for dinner, or other ordinary things. The extraordinary had become ordinary for them. Or, if not ordinary, it was part of their view of how the world worked. Godiva trusted Doris, Bird, and Jen. So she would trust this new truth, even if it felt a little like getting into a vast pool a toe at a time.
Jen sat down and finished her coffee, saying, “I don’t know what gender my kid is, but I’m sure I’ve got a shifter bun in the oven, because the kid barely even wriggles when I shift, or walk through the Transfer Gate. And that thing used to goose me in the bones the first few times I used it.”
“Is that how you got pregnant in your fifties?” Godiva asked.
Jen grinned. “Can’t say for sure, except that it does happen, if menopause is still holding off. My midwife had a patient a couple years ago who was a year older than I when she discovered herself pregnant.” She laughed. Godiva could see that Jen was truly happy, a far cry from the quietly miserable widow of last year.
Godiva thumbed up the last crumbs of an insanely delicious apple-walnut-cinnamon fritter thing that Linette had been experimenting with (mental note: tell Linette two thumbs up) and thought about how her agent would demand a summary of the story synopsis. She said, “So basically, the Oracle Stone is actually empty, but everybody has to run around and pretend it isn’t until they catch this renegade red dragon, am I right?” she said.