by Zoe Chant
“Right,” Jen stated, as Doris and Bird nodded.
“And shifters are rare in the world, but they tend to gather with others of their kind, which is why Joey has this secret army of student followers?”
Doris said, “It’s no different than you and the women you’ve been helping for years. You still talk to a lot of them, even though you no longer see them every day, right?”
Godiva thought about this, looking back to when she’d first arrived in town and began making friends. Yes—there was Cathy in the knitting group, and tough old Edna, who had been dancing in flapper gowns as a teen when Godiva was born. Edna lived in the retirement home overlooking the sea, as she had trouble getting around, but her mind was still sharp as a pin. She’d been one of the first Godiva had helped get out of a very nasty scam by a bunch of creeps preying on widows.
Over the years Godiva had helped women stuck in situations like her own, and finally not like hers at all, but who still needed help. In the early days Godiva had mostly offered a safe place to crash on her couch when women had nowhere to go. Then when she started researching her mysteries, she shared what she knew of police procedure, and who to talk to and who to avoid among local law enforcement. She’d shared contacts with pro bono lawyers, and real estate agents, and social services of various sorts who could help women who were not the victims of outright criminals, but still very much victims. And for the most part, she stayed in touch with these women—her own personal network.
“I see what it is,” she said after some thought. “It would be way off base to say this town is mainly old women, it’s just that I happen to know most of them. We communicate. So, it’s the same with the shifters? Play del Encanto is a typical town on the coast of California. It just happens to include shifters among its population, whereas San Clemente and San Diego and Huntington Beach, not so much. Am I right?”
Doris looked relieved. “That’s pretty much it.”
Godiva smiled back, but she was thinking: And there’s no place for me in that world. Of course, one could say that about anyplace. That much she’d come to understand with every move she’d made over her long life. So the question was, did she see herself trying to make a place for herself in this shifter world?
But she didn’t say that out loud. She knew these three women. They were loyal, and she could depend on their friendship. But in keeping the shifter secret from her, joining together in that secret one by one, they had expanded their loyalties to their men, and through them, into this other world. If she said something, they’d say Of course you’re welcome! But Godiva knew that to find a real answer, she was going to have to deal with her own situation, which still felt . . . off-balance.
Godiva blinked, trying to pull her thoughts to the present, and caught an exchanged look between the other three.
Then Jen said, “I take it Rigo explained his side of your history together? If you don’t want to talk about it, I get it.”
Godiva sighed. Either she told them everything—and she didn’t even know that yet—or kept it really short. “According to him, he made his first shift the day I told him about the kid. He scrammed, scared he’d zap me and the kid if our eyes met. And he tried to find me, but I’d moved, and then there was the whole post office thing, and letters that apparently vanished—both mine and Alejo’s. Which is still a mystery.”
And there it was, the reason she felt off-balance. Everything fit, except that long silence. She’d had post office boxes everywhere she’d lived, including here, until she bought the house. Not once had there been anything funky about the service.
She knew she was going to have to find the sense of it, one way or another.
So she waved a hand. “End of story.”
They knew it wasn’t—not even close to the end—but they accepted her at her word, because they were awesome. Godiva sat there appreciating their quiet acceptance, and fighting a sudden ache in her throat, as Doris and Bird began stacking the dirty dishes.
Jen said, “Excuse me a sec. I promised to bring Nikos over when he finished something on the island.” Then she vanished, leaving a waft of air that smelled like olives.
Godiva blinked at the spot where Jen had stood, thinking that this was definitely a new turn in her life, where Jen could go from one side of the world to the other in the blink of an eye, to the island where her soon-to-be husband was a king.
Godiva sat where she was, wondering what kind of king-biz there could be in modern times, until her phone rang.
She was sure it was Rigo, then she laughed at herself for mistaking sheer wish-fulfilment for some sort of storybook psychic connection. Serve me right if it’s some bozo trying to tell me the FBI is after me and I have to give them my bank account numbers quick, she thought as she fished in her purse.
Doris and Bird had gone with their dishes into Bird’s huge house. Godiva was alone there, but she wandered away as she answered. “Yeah?”
“Godiva?”
It was Rigo. Warmth flooded her as he asked, “You okay after last night’s marathon?”
Was she okay? Godiva walked down the shallow steps into the rose garden as she considered the question. The sense of betrayal that had shadowed her down the years despite her best efforts to ignore it or otherwise obliterate it had receded. Not vanished. It was more like the sun passing beyond the horizon, but you knew it was still there.
Rigo had obliged her by transforming, no shifting, repeatedly, to prove she hadn’t dreamed up a basilisk. As if her wildest dreams would ever have concocted such a story. It all added up, even to the missing letters . . . or did it?
“Godiva? Did the call drop?”
“Still here,” she said. “Trying to figure out my answer.”
“You don’t believe me.” He sounded resigned. A little hurt, even.
“It’s more like the jury is still out. About some things,” she said, thinking of those letters she’d never gotten. The ones she’d sent that went . . . where?
“That’s fair,” he answered, but she could feel the hurt still there.
No, she told herself. That was her merely projecting. He could be feeling, thinking, anything, and how would she know? A couple years of intermittent dating, followed by decades of utter silence . . . she couldn’t say she knew him even back then, and definitely not now. They were two utterly different people from who they’d been back then.
“What can I do?’ he asked.
She could tell herself it didn’t matter, but it did. It mattered a lot.
“Let me think about that.”
And he said, “Anything. Oh—Joey is calling me. I can hang up on him—”
“No. Go ahead. I just got done hearing all about Long Cang the Evil Red Dragon, and the Maguffin Stone that isn’t really there, and the zombies. That seems to be an ongoing problem, and they want your help. We can talk after Joey Hu gets done with you. I need time to think anyway.”
“Sure,” Rigo said.
Again she sensed hurt, but scolded herself into practicality. She had no idea what he was truly thinking. It was stupid to pretend she did.
“Better take that call,” she said, killed it at her end and chucked her phone back into her purse.
Then she turned around to discover Jen coming down the path toward her. Tall, handsome Nikos, who looked like a Greek god, emerged from the house, carrying a tray with fresh cups on it.
“There’s going to be a meeting as soon as Joey gets here,” Jen said. “I think Rigo is being invited, too. Want to sit in on it?”
“Lead on,” Godiva said.
Chapter 8
RIGO
After he’s left Godiva at her house, Rigo had fulfilled his promise to do a midnight fly-over patrol of the shoreline around the collapsed cave, in case there were more enchanted shamblers to be rescued. But he’d regretted that he couldn’t really see the ocean. So at first light—too early to call Godiva—he decided he might as well make another run. He stepped out onto his motel balcony to shift and tak
e flight.
His wings snapped out. He soared upward, breathing in the briny sea air. It was exhilarating, helping to dispel some of the fog of tiredness. The coast had its own beauty, and he looked down at the sweep of California’s curves, the subtly changing shades of sea and sky as the sun rose, but he couldn’t focus. His thought arrowed right back to Godiva.
With a little effort, he might be able to better sense her via the mate bond, now that she was talking to him again, but he was afraid she’d feel it and think he was trespassing. His instincts were at war. Heart wanted to be with her right now, but brain said to give her space, and wait until she reached for him. Even worse were all the questions he wanted to ask. They multiplied like fleas, maddening tiny itches on his psyche.
He made himself focus on the palisades slowly warming into gold in the emerging morning light. Everything was quiet. He squashed the wish that a distraction would happen, just to get his mind away from all those questions. He should concentrate on the very real difficulties here. Like Long Cang, who had no problem with using random, perfectly innocent bystanders to do his digging for him.
But there was so sign of Long Cang. No sense of any dragon except for Mikhail, back in Playa del Encanto.
Damn.
Rigo soared upward, flying almost all the way to Los Angeles before turning back in defeat. Then he dove down and skimmed at top speed just above the waves, frustrated that Long Cang and his minions had gone to ground, avoiding the well-deserved ass-kicking that would have made Rigo feel a little better.
When he got back to his motel, he let himself call Godiva. But it seemed she was doubting him all over again. Before he could try to figure out a way to fix it, his phone blinked: Joey Hu. As soon as he and Godiva hung up, it blinked again. It was Alejo.
He called his son first. “Dad! There you are, finally! How did it go after we hung up last night?”
Rigo said, “We talked a bit.”
“Did she believe you?”
“Had to. I shifted first.”
Alejo whistled. “I wouldn’t do that to anyone without a week—a year—of prep.”
“Your mom is different from ‘just anyone’. She stood her ground. No fainting or screaming or running, though I’ve seen that from grown men who think themselves tougher than anyone around them.”
“Hah.” Alejo, grinned, then sobered, his voice dropping low. “She looks so old.”
“She’s beautiful to me,” Rigo retorted.
“Dad, I wasn’t saying it like that. It’s just that she’s always been so young in my mind.”
“Okay, I get that,” Rigo said.
He wondered how to explain how every line in her face evoked tenderness, how the essence of her that he had loved so fiercely still shone in her night-black, expressive eyes, and in the trenchant curve of her lips, even if those lips themselves weren’t as plump as they’d been when she was not quite twenty. They were still so very, very kissable, and he wanted to test that more by each hour that passed.
Though she no longer darted about so quickly, she was still the slight, light person who had entranced him. The evidence of years made her more precious; the idea of her suddenly regaining her eighteen-year-old form did nothing for him. He was not young himself, and the young to him now just seemed unfinished.
How to explain all this to his son, without what the younger generations now called TMI?
But Alejo said, “Sorry, Dad. I think that came out wrong. It’s just that I don’t like seeing her aging. It makes her seem fragile. I don’t want her to be fragile, I want her to be here, with us, so we can catch up on all the lost time. I want to protect her. Bring her here where it’s safe.”
“Your mother has been successfully fending for herself all those years her hair was turning white. And you should see the protectors she’s got.” Rigo had to laugh.
Alejo smiled, but it was twisted.
Rigo sighed. “I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the mate bond, though so faint I couldn’t trace it for years, was still strong enough to reach her at least a little. She’s white-haired, but she’s more energetic than a lot of fifty-somethings I’ve encountered. Anyway I can guarantee this, if she comes back to me, to us, we’ll have plenty of time to be a family again—”
His phone bleeped at him again. Joey Hu. “Gotta run, hijo.”
“Long Cang business? Right. Keep me posted,” Alejo said, and rang off.
Rigo switched over, and Joey said, “Everything go all right last night?”
“Better than I expected,” Rigo said.
“Excellent. Listen, there’s news. We’re meeting at Mikhail and Bird’s to figure out our next move. I’ve texted you the directions, if you’d like to join us.”
It wasn’t far.
Rigo parked below the enormous property at the address Joey had given him. He had not expected a mansion on a princely property. Though it was not as large as his ranch, he knew land in California was crazy expensive. Had he misread the directions? He got out of the car and took to the air to do a flyover to doublecheck.
He spotted them outside the large house. The mild ocean climate really lent itself to living in one’s garden almost year round. As he spiraled down, he admired that garden—but when he spotted a small, white-haired figure among the humans on a terrace, everything left his mind but Godiva.
She was there.
Shifter etiquette, he’d learned, meant taking whatever form the rest of the company was in, unless invited to do differently. He had flown invisible, out of habit. He knew that all three of the other mythic shifters sensed him, but the human women didn’t, so he alighted and shifted at the outskirts of the property, and approached politely from the public pathway, the way a stranger would.
Mikhail himself came to greet him and lead him to that terrace, where a chair was empty—opposite Godiva, who sat between Doris and Bird.
All his attention arrowed to Godiva. She looked up.
She smiled.
If was a brief flicker of a smile, like a candle in a breeze. But it was there. He’d seen it.
Relief—joy—surprise, all warred inside him. He was peripherally aware of the attention of the others, who had seen that smile, too.
The atmosphere, polite on the surface, seemed to ease a degree, then Joey Hu said, “Thanks for joining us, Rigo. I take it you’ve nothing to report?”
“Right.” Rigo accepted a cup of fresh coffee, and remembered that he’d forgotten breakfast. “I just got back from flying the coast toward the north. The only dragon I sensed was Mikhail here, flying southward.”
“Nothing to be seen in that direction,” Mikhail said.
Joey nodded. “My friend and colleague Anne, a swift shifter, has a son among our volunteers. Caleb is part of a sports team that also includes one of Long Cang’s new recruits. In locker room talk after a game, Caleb overheard the recruit complaining to another young man about their boss. He heard the word ‘Cang’ and something about promises, but so far all they’d gotten was a lot of hassle and ass-kicking.”
At that, Nikos, holding hands with Jen, grinned.
Jen said, “Might that ass-kicking have happened at the Oracle Stone site when we fought them off?”
“Caleb thought so,” Joey said. “He was one of the late arrivals that morning, so none of Cang’s people saw him before they retreated to lick their wounds. Anyway, he noted the complainers, struck up a conversation at the next game, and discovered the guy is a braggart. He’s also eager to recruit. It sounds like Long Cang is having a tough time hanging onto his minions.”
Some grim smiles met this news.
Joey went on, “So Caleb let himself be recruited, and now he’s our eyes and ears. These minions are not even remotely near Long Cang’s inner circle, but there is plenty of talk. One interesting rumor among them is that the red dragon is getting pressure from someone else.”
“Names?” Mikhail asked.
“Not so far. So what I’m thinking is this. We keep the pressure on a
t our end. Cang is desperate to get at what he thinks is the Oracle Stone, desperate enough to have paid for whatever it is he’s using to make those pairs of shamblers. It can’t be easy.”
Nikos leaned forward. “I see two possibilities here. One, we wait to see if Cang’s trouble fractures his group.”
Joey said, “That was my thought.”
Nikos said, “Second, we try to find out where he got that zombie charm, or whatever it is, by inserting someone closer inside his group.”
Joey hesitated.
Doris shook her head. “Joey’s volunteers are all mostly college age. They’re all gung ho as people can be at that age, but they’re students. Not trained spies.”
Nikos raised his hand. “I was going to suggest we call for volunteers from my hetairoi—I don’t know the word in English. My honor guard, you could call them. We could put one among the young students. A powerful mythic shifter, very well trained in martial arts. One who could perhaps be hired in as muscle—who claims their English isn’t very good, so they don’t understand a lot, which might encourage the enemy to talk right in front of her.”
Jen grinned. “I know exactly who you’re thinking of. Bryony would love it. And judging by the quality of those scrappers we fought with that night, she could account very well for herself if things went south.”
Everyone turned from Joey to Mikhail, who gave a slow nod. “I would like to meet this person. I would like to assure myself she’s qualified before she willingly goes into danger for us.”
Joey said, “That was my thought as well.”
“Done,” Nikos said.
Nikos, Jen, and Mikhail got up and went off to the other end of the terrace, talking quietly.
Doris said to Joey, “I guess the plan is to wait and see?”
Joey gave a nod, and began talking over his volunteers, none of whom Rigo knew. His attention slid from them to Godiva, who hadn’t moved from her chair, her hands still cradling a cup of coffee that she had scarcely touched.
She had that thousand-mile stare. He wondered if he should interrupt her or just wait—how to approach her on that still-rickety bridge of communication (far too early to call it trust) that he’d tried so hard to build the night before.