Shaded Vision

I stared at him, stifling a laugh. Camille rolled her eyes, and Menolly snorted. Smoky eyed Martin, frowning.

“I suggest Shade take him down to the Wayfarer. Menolly, I can take you.”

Shade swiveled around on his heel. “Me? Why me? Why not you?”

Smoky shrugged, a half grin on his face. “You are from the Netherworld. Ghouls are undead. It makes sense.” He stood back, pushing back his trench and sliding his hands into his pockets. His hair whipped around, almost dancing.

“I see.” Shade’s lip quivered, and the two dragons locked gazes. Shade was older than Smoky, but he was only half dragon, and that made a difference. After a moment he let out a little huff, then laughed. “Fine, then. I will take the ghoul.”

“Whoever takes the ghoul, fine, but if I’m going down there, we have to get moving. I need to get back before sunrise.” Menolly walked over to Smoky. He opened his trench and she slid her arm around his waist.

Shade rolled his eyes. He strode over to Martin and, without ceremony, swept Martin under one arm. Martin stiffened, stared at him, sniffed, and then went limp. What the hell? Ghouls couldn’t go comatose. They might shut down and sit still for hours until ordered to do something, but there would still be an unearthly light in their eyes. But Martin—he looked like he’d fainted.

With a laugh at our incredulity, Shade said, “I’m part Stradolan. I have many hidden talents.” And then, without another word, he vanished. Smoky followed, taking Menolly with him.

Morio grabbed Camille to him and gave her a sound kiss. “Let’s get home, wife. This weather is abominable.”

On the walk up the road to our driveway, Camille caught up to Shamas, who was walking a few yards ahead of us. She slid her arm through his and laid her head on his shoulder.

“Thank you,” I heard her say.

“For what?” Shamas inclined his head, and his arm snaked around her waist. But his hand stayed well off her butt, which was a good thing by the look on Morio’s face as he watched.

“For helping us. For putting out the fire on Wilbur’s house. Wilbur is a pain in the ass, but he’s helped us in the past. I don’t believe he betrayed us. At least…I hope he didn’t.” She hung her head.

Shamas reached down and kissed her hair. Then, with a glance over his shoulder at Morio and me, he gently disentangled himself from her, pulling back.

“It’s okay. I understand why you were angry at me. I just hope…that at some point you can forgive me and accept that I only want to help you. And…Delilah and Menolly, too. I’ve got a lot to learn, still, but I’m trying.” He touched her hand, then turned around and walked up to me.

I stared at him, still not particularly impressed. “Yes?”

“I want to apologize. I want to say I’m sorry to you and Menolly for not treating you better when we were kids. For not…treating you properly. I’ll try to do better.” He held out his hand.

I looked into his eyes and, for the first time, saw a genuine warmth sparkling there—for someone other than Camille. I worried my lip—which hurt because one of my nonretractable fangs pierced the flesh.

“Okay. I believe you. You were a real snot-nosed ass, but…I really think you have changed. I accept your apology.” As I took his hand, I pulled him toward me and he awkwardly gave me a hug. As I wrapped my arms around him, I whispered, low enough so that Camille couldn’t hear, “Thanks.”

“Thanks for what? I’m just doing what’s right. What I should have done years ago.” He tilted his head back, grinning up at me. He looked so much like my sister. And our father.

“For caring about Camille. Losing Father’s support has hurt her in so many ways. You…I think you can help negate some of those feelings. So thank you for caring for her. But, Shamas, I know you still have feelings for her. And trust me, it’s not safe. Not with her husbands.”

I could see the protest in his eyes and shook my head. “Don’t even say it. I know what I see. Trust me, you’re better off finding somebody else. Let go any lingering hopes you may have, and you’ll be a lot happier. Consider it a friendly warning, unlike the thrashing you’d get from her men. They forgave Vanzir because of the circumstances. You don’t have any such excuse.”

Before he could say another word, I let go and caught up to Camille and Morio. Motioning for Shamas to join us, we ran the rest of the way back up the driveway to home.

By the time we got home, Sharah had called, and Smoky and Shade were home. Shade was in the shower. I grinned. Somehow, I didn’t think cuddling up to Martin had gone over well with him.

Menolly was waiting in the kitchen. “Sharah says they arrived at the hospital without incident. Wilbur’s hanging on. He’s in serious condition, but she says he should make it, though he still hasn’t woken up. He has a skull fracture—and it’s nasty but it will heal. His leg may still have to be amputated, they aren’t sure. And his arm was broken in three places. He also suffered three cracked ribs, a broken toe, and multiple burns that look like they were caused by electrical shocks. Probably little bolts of lightning.”

The look on her face was daunting. Menolly had been through torture—far more than what any of us had undergone—and she hated it when friends and family were hurt. Even though Wilbur got under her skin, I had the feeling she had grown fond of the big galoot.

“You don’t think he betrayed us, either, do you?” I challenged her to answer. “Camille doesn’t, I know that much.”

Menolly frowned, toying with the hem of her shirt. “Honestly? No. I don’t. There has to be some other explanation. Today, once you’ve had some sleep, I suggest you go over to what’s left of Wilbur’s house and go through it, searching for anything you can find that might be a clue. The Tregart came back to destroy his house—there has to be a reason. I just hope that he doesn’t finish the job before we can get to it.”

“You want me to go over now?” I didn’t want to—I was exhausted and smelled like smoke. But if Menolly thought it was best, I’d drag myself back over there and go through the smoldering ruins.

She frowned, thinking. “No. Wait till morning. Get some sleep. All of you. Go over when it’s light, when you can see what might be lurking in the shadows. By then, maybe Wilbur will have woken up and have some information for us.”

A glance at the clock signaled the need for her to return to her lair. She yawned, then disappeared behind the bookcase. I stretched and motioned to the others.

“Time for sleep. We have a full day. We have to find out where Van and Jaycee are. We have to figure out who the man with the spirit seal is and what relationship he has to the others. We have to—” I stopped as Shade appeared in the doorway.

“Come on, woman. We have to sleep. Let me carry you off to bed.” Shade pulled me up and we waved good night to Camille and her men. They trailed after us up the stairs as the first rays of dawn broke through the living room window, splashing the room with a faint ray of hope.

Chapter 13

The smell of bacon and eggs woke me up. I blinked, stretching my arms wide as I sat up. The clock read eleven ten. Five hours of sleep would have to do for the day. Shade was already up; his side of the bed was empty.

As I pushed back the comforter, it occurred to me that I was now used to sleeping next to someone every night. That when Shade didn’t come to bed at the same time I did, I would doze, keeping one ear open for the fall of his foot on the stairs. I loved his smell, the feel of his skin under my fingers, the lazy, smooth tone of his voice, the safe way I felt around him, as if he could protect me from all the world’s evil, even though I knew he couldn’t.

I love him. I really love him. I twisted the heavy smoky quartz ring around on my right ring finger. It hadn’t come off since I’d first put it on, the day I met Shade. Yeah, it seemed at home there. Leaving it, I took a quick shower and then dressed in jeans and a sweater. As I headed down the stairs, my heart felt a little lighter, even though I knew we were facing a long day.

Camille, Morio, Shade, and I headed over to check out Wilbur’s house, while Smoky attended to some business out at his barrow. We always left someone at home to watch over Hanna, Maggie, and the house—and that was especially important now that Iris was gone on her honeymoon. Iris could wield a magical punch that easily rivaled any of our powers, but Hanna was mortal. One of the Northmen, yes, but mortal, regardless.

Vanzir and Roz were on guard duty today. Shamas had gone in to work. And Trillian had volunteered to tackle the grocery shopping on his own, a daunting task for three people, let alone one.

The fire department had made sure all the smoldering embers were out, and now the house steamed lightly but was no longer in danger of burning. Yellow caution tape wound around the structure, but Chase had talked to the fire marshal and he had left the investigation up to us. As we picked through the rubble, looking for any signs of—well, anything important—my phone rang. It was Tim.

“The Supe Council agreed with you that we need an emergency meeting. It’s on for tonight at eight p.m., at the Vampires Anonymous hall. Can you be there?” He was shuffling through papers and I heard him take a swig of something. Tim was addicted to diet cola and drank the stuff by the gallon.

“Yeah, we’ll be there. Nice of the VA to let us use their hall.” Vampires and Weres didn’t always get along, and a lot of the Supe Community members were shifters of one sort or another.

“More than just let you use it. Roman apparently sent orders that it be opened, and there will be ambassadors from the Vampire Nation in attendance from the Court of the Crimson Veil.” He sounded impressed, and well he should.

I blinked. Menolly must have put in a call to Roman before she went to bed. Roman was one of the sons of the Vampire Queen Blood Wyne. She had recently come out of her reclusive state to stand at the helm of the Vampire Nation again, and within a short period—three weeks—every vampire conclave across the world had knelt to her. Those who chose to ignore her re-ascendance were no longer aboveground. Either they’d been staked by her servants, or they’d gone into hiding. As Roman’s official consort, Menolly was privy to a lot of secret information.

“Eight o’clock then. Tim—be careful. And we need to talk—”

“About the proxy server? Shamas called me and explained, the best he could, what you guys were up to. I’m on it. I’ll have the info for you tonight on how to route through. Just give me a little time to set it up for you.” With that, he kiss-kissed through the phone and hung up.

“Tim is worth ten times what he’s getting paid. I wish we could offer him more money, but the Supe Community isn’t wealthy.” I picked up a charred piece of wood—it looked to be from the dining table—and tossed it to the side. “So much for that table. If Menolly hadn’t remembered seeing it, Wilbur probably would have died. In a sense, my seeing Wylie’s thoughts inadvertently saved Wilbur’s life.”

“You’re right. The Hags of Fate have a way of weaving their webs, don’t they?” Camille headed into the living room, which was smoke damaged but still fairly intact. “I’m going to check through Wilbur’s desk.”

As she rifled through his desk, Shade and I looked down into the stinking hole that had been the basement. The stairs were gone, and the drop looked precarious. The ceiling of the basement was on thin ice. I didn’t trust it not to cave in. And then, an image flashed through my thoughts. Menolly, holding something, as we knelt beside Wilbur in the torrential rain.

“Come on!” I headed down the back steps, which had managed to survive the blast, over to where we’d laid out Wilbur the night before.

Shade followed, while Morio stayed inside with Camille. “What did you think of?”

“Last night, Menolly found something that Wilbur had been pointing to. In all the excitement, she set it aside and we never bothered picking it up. I want to see what it is.” I hurried over to where Wilbur had been stretched out on the ground. After a moment of scouting around, I saw it: a small black bag, right near where Menolly had been sitting. “There!”

Shade cautiously picked it up and turned it over in his hands. “Feels awfully heavy for such a small bag.”

“Open it.”

“I think we’d better have Morio check for traps or magical spells. He has that ability.” Shade motioned toward the house, and we headed back. When we got there, Camille was sitting at the desk, absorbed in a handwritten journal.

“What did you find?” Morio said. He was flipping through a sideboard.

“I don’t know, but we wanted you to look it over first. You have the ability to decipher magical traps?” Shade held up the bag.

Morio frowned. “Some. Give it to me.” He set it on the coffee table and sat down on the lumpy sofa. A waft of dust rose up and I coughed, waving away the slightly stale scents of beer, rotting fruit, and cigar smoke.

Camille glanced up. “Wilbur is one strange puppy. He recorded everything, which can only help us. He seems to have had a pathological need to journal every aspect of his day. And trust me, you do not want to know all of his secrets. There will never be enough brain bleach to cleanse out some of the imagery he’s left me with.” She shivered.

“Like what?” I was a sucker for bad gossip, but more than that, the more we knew about Wilbur, the better.

“Like, Wilbur was expecting company four nights ago. Apparently he thought some old friends were showing up, from his time in the special ops. But he calls them Mango and Trent and refers to them both as ‘he’…not Van and Jaycee. Here he said they contacted him via phone call to let him know they were in town and would like to meet up.”