The Shadow Project Page 8

  "I'm sorry, but we didn't get the vegan cake in for the other dessert," the one who seemed to be in charge said. "I can bring another shortcake if you like."

  I opened my mouth to say, "Yes, please," but Lawrence beat me to it. "That's fine, just bring some strawberries."

  "I'm actually all right without dessert," I said and stood. If I had to stay in there another minute, I would end up taxing myself by attempting to turn him into…well, I didn't know what. But it would be embarrassing. Rather than demonstrating my limits, I decided to leave.

  "I'm going to take a walk," I said. "Go back to the hotel. I'm tired, and I need some air."

  "Want me to come with you?" Corey asked.

  "No," I snapped. "I need some time to myself."

  The men stood, and I managed to grind out, "Thank you for a lovely dinner," before walking out. Corey accompanied me to the door.

  "Are you sure?" he asked.

  "Yes, although if you could do me a favor, I'd appreciate it," I said.

  "Anything. What do you need?"

  "Could you please hook me up with one of those shortcakes? Bring it to my room later."

  He laughed. "Definitely. Don't let Larry get to you. He's a bit stiff—comes with the territory for what he is—but he means well."

  I had my doubts. What kind of man came between a woman and dessert?

  "Thank you." I made a quick stop at the ladies’ room and then walked into the cool night air, remembering to pay attention to my surroundings. But a Fae could still be surprised no matter how careful she was, and I knew within three steps that I was being followed.

  9

  Whoever it was stayed about ten feet behind me as I walked alongside the busy road back to the hotel. Thankfully there were sidewalks, although still not wide enough to give me a comfortable distance from traffic.

  How did I know I was being followed? The echoed emotions of the person behind me that they needed to catch me, their intent so single-minded I couldn't help but feel it.

  My previous attacker had been silent and swift, undetectable even to my finely tuned Fae-dar. No, this evening's pursuer lacked that kind of subtlety. Could the earlier one have been a spirit walker? Possible, although the ones I'd met in that form had more identity and substance. But they'd also been trying to get my attention in a good way.

  The hotel driveway was coming up, and I'd have to walk behind a small copse of trees in order to follow the sidewalk to the front door of the hotel. I'd be vulnerable there, but then, so would my follower. Once I stepped into the shadows of the wood, made starker by a nearby street lamp, I ducked behind a large tree with Fae speed and waited. My tracker's breathing came quick and desperate, and I pounced them when they walked by, putting them in a choke-hold with one elbow and pulling their left arm behind them. The scents of strawberry shampoo and fear wafted up to me, and something in a plastic bag bounced against my leg.

  It was the young witch Kestrel. Not sure who was more surprised. I let her go, and she backed away but didn't drop the bag.

  "What was that for?" she asked.

  "Why were you following me?" I gave her my best pissed off Fae look, although I struggled not to let her see my amusement…and relief.

  "Why were you walking so fast?" she asked. "I tried to catch up with you, but…" She took a deep breath. "Corey sent me with this." She held out the black plastic bag, in which a clear clamshell container held a piece of strawberry shortcake, a couple of thick paper napkins, and a fork—also plastic. Hadn't anyone here heard of compostable restaurant materials?

  "Thank you." I took the bag from her. "I appreciate you delivering this to me. And if I was walking fast, I was annoyed. Not at you," I added quickly. I didn't want to hurt her feelings. It wasn't her fault that her parents hung out with an annoying gargoyle, and the scrying stone had indicated she could be a valuable ally. "Did you get to try it?"

  "No." She pouted. "Corey sent me after you before I could."

  "Let's go inside and split it," I suggested. It didn't seem fair that she'd given up her dessert to bring mine. While Fae didn't typically care about what was and wasn't fair to humans, I did hate to deprive someone of the opportunity to have a good dessert. Plus, the girl could be useful.

  "Can you eat that? Doctor Lawrence says—"

  "Doctor Lawrence doesn't know a mushrooming thing about me," I snapped.

  "Obviously," she said with a wry smile. "Otherwise he would have made sure you got dessert."

  "Precisely. Come on." I didn't like how the shadows moved as the wind stirred the early spring foliage around us. There were too many places for my invisible assailant to attack me from. It was bad enough it had invaded my home—would it deprive me of comfort in my natural surroundings, too?

  Kestrel and I walked into the hotel lobby, and she went to the bar to grab a couple of plates for us. I spooned out the chocolate cake, whipped cream, and strawberries and attempted to divide them equally. Again, not my usual game, but I needed this gesture of goodwill to go a long way.

  "This is good," she said after her first bite. "I've never had chocolate strawberry shortcake before.”

  "I may have once. I don't remember. Desserts tend to blend together after a while unless they're extraordinary."

  She paused before putting her next bite in her mouth. Each of her forkfuls held equal amounts of chocolate cake and whipped cream as well as two strawberry pieces. "How old are you, anyway?"

  "That's not a polite question." I took a bite—bliss. And another stab of anger that the gargoyle had cake-blocked me and almost deprived me of this pleasure. "How old are you?"

  "You didn't answer me. That's not fair."

  "There's no fair in Fae," I told her. "Older than your country, how about that?"

  She had the grace to look surprised. "Really? You don't look a year over two hundred." Her grin held mischief.

  For the first time in years, I laughed freely. "Thanks, I think."

  "I'm twenty," she said with a sigh. "Almost twenty-one."

  Aha, an in. I could guess where that sigh came from. "And how old is the handsome Agent Corey?"

  She grinned, and the light hit her cheeks at the perfect angle to show her pale freckles. She was already pretty, but she'd be a true beauty given a few years. Whoever made her face light up like that would be a lucky gentleman.

  "Twenty-five. He's already through the Academy."

  "What Academy is that?"

  She rolled her eyes, reminding me how young she was. "The PBI—Paranormal Bureau of Investigation—Academy."

  "Right, they mentioned that at dinner."

  "You probably don't have it where you are," she said. "It's an American thing." She took the last bite of her shortcake. I finished mine as well.

  "Thanks for bringing dessert," I said.

  "No worries." She stood and gathered up the plates and utensils. "I should get back. My parents will be wondering where I went. By the way, please do me a favor and don't mention their coven connection to anyone."

  Ooh, another secret. "Why not?"

  "Their scientist friends won't like it." Her phone buzzed, and when she looked at it, her face fell. "And there they are." She hit a button on the screen, then said, "At hotel with Doctor River."

  "Don't your parents' colleagues know they're witches?" I asked.

  "Yes, but not that they're so involved with something outside the lab. That's one of the things about the CPDC—they don't look favorably on outside entanglements." Her frustration came through in her tone, and I could guess why. They wouldn't like Corey the security shifter being involved with Kestrel. Or perhaps they watched him so closely since he was at the PBI.

  Only the first night, and already so many threads to unravel and secrets to use. I could barely contain my glee.

  A strange hum filled the air, almost like the thrumming of a bass string that had been plucked and allowed to vibrate indefinitely. "Do you hear that?" I asked.

  "Hear what?" Another tone, discordant to the first
that almost drowned out her words. "All right, they're going to pick me up."

  "That weird hum. Or drone. You don't hear it?"

  She gave me her inquisitive look. "No… Do your kind not react well to chocolate? Or non-organic ingredients?"

  "Insolent chit," I said, but grinned to take the sting out of my words. "I handle chocolate just fine, and a little of the other stuff. No, something odd is happening."

  "Right… Well, anyway, you have my cell number. Call me if you need anything. More dessert, maybe. I'm always up for a chocolate run. Oh! And you have to try Insomnia Cookies. Hey, where are you going?"

  I ran to the elevator, and once in it, I knew I had to get to my room. The noise hadn't just been an oddity—it had been a summons.

  When I threw open the door, the moonlight coming through the window illuminated a small gray form on the bed. His one white paw practically glowed.

  A tracking spell pinged off the back of my head, but I didn't pay attention. I walked to the bed and put a hand on Sir Raleigh. He wasn't breathing.

  10

  Kestrel appeared at the door, her parents behind her. They must have been the source of the tracking spell. "What is that… Oh! A cat?"

  I gathered Sir Raleigh to me. He was colder than I'd ever felt him, and I wondered just how far he'd come through whatever medium he traveled through to find me. What had happened to his collar?

  My phone buzzed—Veronica. "Have lost cat. He chewed through his collar. Have you seen him?"

  "He's here," I texted back.

  "Is he okay?"

  His little chest rose and fell once, and I cuddled him to me harder, pulling from the trees outside to give him whatever energy I could. He struggled, his life force trying to recover, but I didn't know if it would be enough.

  "You need a vet," John said. "I'm calling Lawrence."

  "No… Wait, all right." The last being I wanted to see was the gargoyle, but I didn't want Sir Raleigh to die. He'd fought so hard to come find me. If he didn't make it, it would be my fault. I shouldn't have left him. But I'd had to. Where had he come from?

  I continued to breathe energy into Sir Raleigh until Lawrence arrived carrying an old-fashioned doctor bag. Kestrel and her family bowed out and left to give him room to work. Lawrence gently took the kitten from me, laid him on a hotel towel, and listened to him with a stethoscope, his movements precise and gentler than I expected for a gargoyle.

  "I need to bring him to the office. I have an incubator where I can warm him up and give him sub-cu fluids if necessary." I almost didn't recognize his professional tone

  "Do what you have to do," I said. "I can pay whatever it costs."

  He looked up at me, his dark brows almost meeting over his nose. "I'm not sure I want to bargain with a Fae."

  That might be what he didn't want, but I knew what I desired to do—grab him by the collar and shake him until he helped my cat.

  "I won't trick you," I said. "Please, just help him."

  He wrapped Sir Raleigh in a towel and handed him to me. "He's attached to you, obviously. Take him to the front. I'll pick you up."

  I didn't know what kind of car I expected him to drive, but the practical—and dare I say boring?—Honda Civic wasn't it. At least it was the expected dark gray. Gargoyles couldn't help it—they were drawn to stone-colored things.

  I cuddled Sir Raleigh and got in. Lawrence arched an eyebrow at my expression.

  "What?" he asked.

  The cat seemed to be breathing more regularly, so I felt okay with teasing him. "It's just typical. The color of the car, I mean."

  His lips twitched—an almost smile? "Well, my bright red convertible is in the shop."

  "Figures."

  He drove us through the night to a campus guarded by brick gates, then through those to a building, where we took an elevator to a subterranean floor. Even through the metal box and its concrete cage I could feel the red earth of the Georgia hills welcoming me and lending me their strength, which I funneled to the cat. He alternated periods of breathing regularly and then going frighteningly still.

  Once we were downstairs in a veterinary clinic that didn't have any animals, Lawrence took Sir Raleigh from me, stuck a needle into him—I had to look away for that part—and started a fluid drip. He rubbed something on Sir Raleigh's gums and then placed him in a metal device. He didn't close the lid, though.

  "That should keep him warm enough," he said. He positioned a tiny cuff over Sir Raleigh's leg with the white paw. "To monitor blood pressure and heart rate," he told me. "What happened to him? How did you sneak him over here from Scotland? There's a quarantine for a reason."

  I stroked the kitten's head and willed for him to be all right. "I didn't sneak him over here. He came on his own."

  "He what?" Lawrence crossed his arms and gave me a classic Fae-style stern look. "How?"

  I mentally went through the pros and cons of being open with him.

  Pro—perhaps he could help me figure out how to keep the kitten from teleporting, to use the modern term. It had been annoying before. Now it had gotten dangerous.

  Con—I didn't trust him. Nor, I realized, did I trust Doctor Cimex or any of the other team members. Not yet, anyway. There was still too much left unsaid and unrevealed.

  Pro—he was a vet, so he had an oath to keep, didn't he? I had taken the Hippocratic one in medical school, but I didn't know if vets had something similar. Even if not, he surely had an ethics code. He'd been nothing but gentle and professional with Sir Raleigh to this point.

  Con—he was a gargoyle, which meant he'd betray me at some point. They always did that to my people, being concerned with the survival of their species over all others.

  Pro—he hadn't yet given me a reason not to trust him. Annoyance didn't count. And he did seem to know a lot about mythical creatures, even if the knowledge wasn't entirely correct in my case. But then, we didn't allow full knowledge of who we were or what we could do out into the scientific world, so he could be excused for some inaccuracies.

  And I really did need to know what was going on with my cat. The cat, rather. All right, it seemed the decision had been taken away from me—Sir Raleigh had decided he was my cat. I'd simply have to figure out how to take him with me into Faerie once I was allowed back in. My grandmother liked curiosities, so she might let him stay. I didn't doubt he'd follow me, anyway.

  "He's not a normal cat," I said and checked to see Lawrence's reaction.

  To my surprise, he smiled without any mockery although his tone teased. "No cat owner thinks their cat is normal, but I suspect you mean something else."

  I told him about Veronica rescuing the mother cat and her kittens, and how this one had a tendency to disappear and reappear, mostly on my shoulder. I also informed him of Sir Raleigh's fast growth rate and seeming intelligence. All right, I may have embellished that last part, but I didn't doubt he was a very smart kitty.

  "Have you ever heard of or read about anything like it?" I asked.

  "No," he said and scratched Sir Raleigh under the chin. The kitten purred once. "But he's responding very well to what we're doing, so he has at least somewhat of a normal physiology. I want to keep him overnight to observe him." Then he yawned. "I'll need to get some coffee."

  "Why don't you go home to bed, and I'll watch him?" I asked. "I can see things you can't and I'll call if something seems wrong."

  His own pro/con process showed on his face, but he finally rubbed his eyes.

  "Right. Cimex had us all in early, so it's been a long day. Don't hesitate. If anything is even a hair off, or you have a flicker of suspicion, call me." He gave me his number.

  "Will do," I promised. "I won't let anything happen to him."

  "I know you won't. Well, then, good night."

  "Good night." I listened for him to exit the clinic, and then I turned to see Sir Raleigh looking at me. I sat beside the incubator and rubbed his ears. "Well, you gave me a fright, wee lad. How are you feeling?"

  He didn
't move, but the life force that had been waxing and waning steadied. I continued to pet him for about half an hour until he glowed brightly to my Fae-senses. Then he disappeared from his monitors, incubator, and towel and reappeared on my shoulder. With a happy chirp, he chewed on my hair.

  "All right, then." So he obviously felt better, and now we were stuck. An inconvenience or gift from the universe? "Shall we see what we can find in Doctor Gordon's files? Maybe we'll figure out what they're hiding from us."

  Lawrence hadn't left any lights on in the rest of the office, but I didn't mind. I could see well enough in the dark, an ability my fellow Fae envied. My mother always said it was because I'd been born the night of a new moon, but I didn't know whether to believe her. She wasn't exactly forthcoming about my history. Rhys, on the other hand… I knew the circumstances of his birth and early life better than my own, him being the favored child.

  Of course my wayward brother came to mind. He loved snooping and gathering information to use against people. I whispered the unlocking spell he'd taught me and opened the first file cabinet in the office that had "Lawrence Gordon, DVM" on the door. I flipped through the top drawer, and, not finding anything beyond boring personnel stuff, moved on to the next one. Sir Raleigh had resumed his perch on my left shoulder, and I kept awareness of his purring and breathing, my own heart skipping a beat each time he paused. His life force continued to thrum happily, so I guessed he was all right, but I had a newfound sense of how fragile he was—how fragile all life could be, really, even for one as almost-immortal as a Fae.

  The front of the second drawer held more human resources things—apparently Lawrence helped out in more than a veterinary capacity—but the back of the drawer seemed too close to the front. Indeed, when I compared this drawer with the ones above and below, it was obvious that there was some sort of compartment.

  "Nothing too secure to stop a curious Fae," I murmured. Sir Raleigh agreed with a squeak. Or maybe it was a yawn. I scratched his head before I continued.