Fragile Brilliance (Shifters & Seers) (9 page)

Scout shot Charlie one last behave-or-else look and walked over to stand next to Joshua. She leaned in close, her nose just inches from Maggie’s painted form. After long, thoughtful consideration, she said, “I have no idea what I’m looking at. I’m pretty much the exact opposite of artsy.” She straightened back up and put her hands on her hips. “Maggie? What can you tell us?”

“I didn’t do it.”

Scout sighed, the youth and weariness in her face contrasting each other even more than normal. “Yes. We know that. What we don’t know is anything about art. Could you please give us your expert opinion?” Maggie hesitated, and Scout’s face hardened. “You do realize you’re in this now, right? There isn’t any going back to school and pretending everything is normal. Your face is on this painting. Somewhere out there, there is a murderer who knows who you are and that you’re different than normal humans.” She nodded towards the body still posed a few feet away. “Do you think whoever did that is going to take mercy on you just because you didn’t ask to be here? Do you think they’re going to care that you would rather be a normal girl doing normal girl things?”

Maggie blinked back the tears threatening to fall from her eyes.

“Listen, I get it,” Scout said. “I’ve been there, done that, and have the souvenir scars to prove it. And I can promise you one thing, trying to hide from the evil in this world isn’t going to make it go away. The only way to win is for the good guys to fight back, and for me to fight, I’m going to need your help. So, what can you tell me about this painting?”

Maggie shook her head slowly. Charlie was already opening his mouth to put in his own words of encouragement when she spoke up. “Sorry, but I don’t know much. I’m into ceramics and drawing. Oil on canvas really isn’t my thing.”

“But you know something about it, right?” Talley asked. “I mean, you know it’s oil on canvas. I’m not sure all of us knew that already.”

Jase raised his hand. “I did.”

The corner of Talley’s mouth kicked up. “With the exception of Jase, of course.”

“I had to take an art appreciation class,” he said like a five year old explaining how he knew stop signs are red.

“For the love of all things shiny, if Jase is our resident art expert, then please,” Scout folded her hands together, “please help us. You’re are only hope Maggie Wan Kenobi.”

The entire room seemed to hold a breath waiting for Maggie’s reply.

“I’m not familiar with the work,” she finally said, “but I think it’s a replication of a classic. I’m going to guess around the seventeenth century or so. They were all about big, religious paintings back then.” She walked over to where Scout stood, taking a path that deliberately veered far away from Charlie. “I think it’s supposed to be Lucifer and his followers getting kicked out of heaven.”

Scout took a step back and tilted her head. “So… if I’m looking at this right, that makes me the devil, right?”

“You should have taken that Jesus’s sister thing and ran with it like I told you,” Jase said.

“You only like that scenario because you think it makes you Jesus,” said Joshua.

Jase assumed Scout’s tilted head pose. “Sure beats being Beelzebub, although I think Reverend Jessup may have called that one a long time ago.”

Charlie hadn’t really considered the Lucifer aspect of the painting before, but since Maggie mentioned it, it made sense. The angel thing was pretty much a given with all the winged babies hanging out in fluffy clouds. The main guy - if a person with that dress-like thing, those long, golden curls, and a face that would make Anne Hathaway look butch could be considered a guy - had something like a fifteen-foot wingspan and a giant sword. But he wasn’t really using the sword. Instead, he was doing some crazy ballerina stance on Scout’s shoulder.

The top part of the painting was all bright and clean and heavenly. On the other hand, the bottom part was, if Maggie’s theory was correct, quite literally hell.  A red glow came from the bottom of the picture, and smoke billowed up from it. In the smoke was a tangle of bodies, their faces contorted in fear and pain. It was a disturbing image on those merits alone, but when one of those terrified faces looked just like the guy you saw in the mirror every morning, it crossed right on over into Crazy Freak Out Land.

“It’s what Gus saw,” Charlie said, realizing why the whole scenario seemed familiar. “Do you think—?”

Talley shook her head. “No way. I Saw Gus. She couldn’t have done anything like this.”

“I don’t think whoever did this has ever seen any of you in real life before,” Maggie said, bringing everyone’s attention back to her, including Charlie’s. She wasn’t shaking any more, which disappointed the coyote but relieved the man. “They got your bodies all wrong.”

Scout lifted an eyebrow in the perfect imitation of Liam’s do-you-take-me-for-an-idiot face. “Well, they did give me a penis.”

“I think it’s a tentacle.” Joshua got so close his nose brushed against the canvas. “Yep. That’s a tentacle. You don’t have penis, just a kraken between your legs.”

“What kind of person does this?” Talley asked. “How does someone get so broken they could do something like this? What would make them hate us so much?”

Joshua continued examining bits and pieces of the painting in that up-close-and-personal way of his. “Maybe it’s not about us.”

“Those sure do look like our faces,” Liam said. “Makes me think it
might
be about us.”

“Well, obviously it’s about us, but that doesn’t mean it’s
about us
about us.”

Jase looked at Talley. “Is he being absent-minded-professor confusing or I-dropped-acid-in-the-70s-and-I’m-having-a-flashback confusing?”

“The first,” Talley said. “I think.”

“He’s saying this might be a movement against the Alpha Pack, as an institution, not necessarily Scout, Liam, Jase, Talley, and Charlie,” Charlie said, pointing out each of them in the painting. “He’s saying the Shifters of the world may have an enemy, and that enemy just declared war.” Maggie’s near-black eyes showed only the smallest trace of fear. “Now, let’s see… Who are the enemies of Shifters and Seers?”

“I didn’t—“

Maggie’s words were cut short by the sound of a body being slammed against something solid. The body belonged to Charlie, and he was surprised to see Joshua was the one who had him pinned against the wall.

“That’s enough,” Joshua said, all traces of flaky genius gone. “Thaumaturgics aren’t your enemy, and this girl most certainly is not. You have been rude and cruel and it will stop now. She is under my protection, and I will not allow you to continue to frighten her for your own sick amusement. Do you understand?” Charlie couldn’t say anything. He was too in shock over both Joshua’s newfound aggression and his own actions. “Do you understand? Answer me, Charlie Boy.”

“I understand,” he forced out. He craned his neck as much as Joshua’s hold would allow. “I’m sorry,” he said, meeting Maggie’s gaze. “I’m normally not so…” What was the word for what he’d become? Ass seemed too civil by far. “It’s been a bad day.”

Maggie wouldn’t look at him, but she nodded her head in acquiescence, which he supposed was the best he could hope for, all things considered. He really didn’t know what it was about her that got under his skin. He wasn’t normally known for torturing people just because he could. Back when he actually noticed girls, he’d been fairly popular with the prettier sex. His little black book wasn’t quite as thick as the one Jase tossed out the window when he finally got the one girl he truly wanted, but he’d always had someone to take to ballgames and movies. At the time, he was a “sweet guy.” He knew because every single one of those girls took the time to tell him so. Now? Well, no one was telling him he was sweet, but he thought that was because he hadn’t been on a date in…

Crap. When was the last time he had a real, honest-to-God date? It had to have been the year he was at college. He’d dated a girl semi-seriously for a while, but his heart hadn’t been in it even then. She was supposed to be his one last wild, carefree fling before settling down with Scout. His grand plan had been to wait until she graduated high school, and then he was going to let her know how it was going to be. The two of them, forever and always. But then she’d gone and fallen in love with someone else and everything changed. Charlie’s forever and always had died one Sunday night by the lake under a full moon.

For that first year, he’d had plenty of excuses to not date. None of those who currently served as the American contingent of the Alpha Pack was really going out for dinner and a movie while they quietly and then not-so-quietly battled the former Alphas. But what about the past twelve months? They had been busy, but not too busy. Everyone else had started living real lives, but not Charlie. He hardly left the farm, and he certainly hadn’t taken the time to go out and find himself a girl.

Maybe that was it. Maybe he was just out of practice. Almost all of his interactions were with other Shifters these days, and while they may have appeared to be human on the outside, inside they were different. He didn’t think so when he was younger, but he knew the truth now. He had an animal inside of him, and that animal had instincts and desires that were as far from human as you could get. He’d become so accustomed to being around others like himself he’d forgotten how to be around normal people.

He glanced at Maggie again. She was watching him warily, and he felt the animal’s satisfaction. He tried to tamp down the reaction, but instead of locking itself into a box with everything else he’d tried not to feel for the past two years, it only flamed higher.

Fine. If he couldn’t control the coyote around her, he simply wouldn’t be around her anymore. “I think it’s time we get Maggie back home.” And away from him. “She’s a civilian, and scenes like this aren’t for the innocent.”

Charlie felt better already. No one would want the poor girl to have to hang around, especially after the way he’d treated her. Joshua would probably jump at the opportunity to get her out of there and back to the normal world.

Charlie’s first indication that things weren’t going to go quite so smoothly was the way Liam was aggressively rubbing his hand over his head.

“I’m sorry,” Liam said to Maggie. “But I’m not going to be able to let you leave.”

Maggie was a prisoner. Sure, they dressed it up all pretty, giving her a room in the giant mansion and making speeches about how it was all for her safety, but underneath it was still an orange jump suit and leg shackles situation.

“It’s only for a few days,” she told herself, unpacking the overnight bag Jase and Talley had helped her grab. Luckily, Reid hadn’t been in the room at the time, probably off doing naked things with her boy toy. At Jase’s instruction, Maggie scrawled out a long, rambling note about having to stay with a friend for a few days who was scared to be in her apartment alone. Maggie tried to explain that Reid would know it was a complete and total lie, but in the end, Jase’s argument of
“for God’s sake, she’s not your mother”
won.

Instead of a closet, the room had one of those big wardrobe things that, when the circumstances were right, contained a hidden magical kingdom. The dark, heavy wood on the doors was etched with a detailed forest scene. It would have been nice and serene if there hadn’t been a wolf peering menacingly around one of the trees. Inside, Maggie found a bunch of satin-padded hangers. “No wire hangers… ever!” she intoned dramatically.

She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of a male chuckle. She wheeled around to see Scout and Charlie standing just inside her door.

“Sorry to interrupt, Joan,” Scout said, “but we need to go over a few things with you.”

Maggie draped the straps of her favorite dress over one of the ridiculously expensive hangers, focusing super-hard on the task so she wouldn’t have to look at Charlie. “Things?”

The room they’d given her was bigger than her dorm room, big enough there was a little sitting area in front of a large, tiled fireplace. Scout indicated one of the leather wingback chairs with a tilt of the head. “You mind? It’s been a long day.”

“It’s your house,” Maggie said, smoothing non-existent wrinkles out of the dress which now hung all alone in the impressive armoire.

“It is, isn’t it?” There was a thump, and Maggie turned thinking something had fallen, but it was only Scout dropping herself rather ungracefully into the chair. “I keep forgetting that. I feel like an adult is going to walk in here at any moment and ask me what the Hades I’m doing in their house.” Scout looked around the room as if she’d never seen it before. “That is my floor,” she said. “And those are my ugly curtains. And that…” She tilted her head as she regarded a framed picture sitting on the mantel. “What is that?”

“I believe it’s the cast of a Disney show. The one where the kids have to raise themselves because the mom is too self-involved and the dad is too clueless,” Charlie answered.

“Angel?”

“Angel.”

Scout’s smile was sardonic. “Well, that is definitely
not
my framed picture, but the rest of it…” Her hand twirled above her head to indicate the entirety of what surrounded them. “The rest of it is mine. Well, it technically belongs to the Alpha Pack, but since I’m the Alpha Female, I get to lay claim, I suppose.” She threw her legs over one arm of the chair, leaning back into the not-so-cushiony cushion. “But this room, Maggie, I’m giving to you. Do with it as you please.” Scout’s eyes darted back to the mantel. “Especially if what you please is to get rid of that thing. Feel free to just toss it in the trashcan. No one is going to care.”

“Angel will care,” Charlie corrected.

“As I said, no one who gets an opinion on these matters will care.”

Maggie didn’t know who Angel was, but if Charlie’s face was anything to go by, Scout was underestimating or ignoring just how important her opinion was.

“Thanks,” Maggie said. “But I don’t really care how the room looks. I don’t plan on staying long enough to redecorate or anything.”

Scout and Charlie exchanged a look and Maggie felt her stomach relocate itself.

“I only have enough clothes for three days, max,” she said, knowing it was a lame and stupid excuse, but she was grasping for whatever she could get. She couldn’t stay here. She wouldn’t. She didn’t trust the Shifters, and Charlie..

Her eyes darted over to the guy sitting on the edge of the antique table by the door to her room. Her stomach decided to once again change locations, the effort causing her pulse to speed up. She’d been wrong before. Charlie wasn’t some emotionless robot. He felt things. Angry, homicidal things, and they were directed at her. He terrified her more than all the other Shifters combined.

“Listen, I know things were a little crazy and confusing earlier, but someone wants you dead,” Scout said. She was still sprawled out across the chair, looking for all the world as if she had nothing more to worry about than scheduling her next manicure. “I don’t know what kind of Thaumaturgic power you’re packing, but I’m going to guess if it had any combative ability whatsoever, you would’ve used it on us already, which means you need our protection.”

Maggie’s chin tilted up. “I can take care of myself.” After all, she’d been doing just that for the last few years anyway.

“Whoever this is took down a full-grown Shifter. A wolf Shifter who happened to be a Pack Leader,” Charlie said. Maggie went back to concentrating on putting away her clothes so she wouldn’t have to look at him, but she could feel his eyes boring into her. “He wasn’t shot from a distance, and Liam didn’t smell chemicals or drugs. The best we can guess, he was stabbed.” A floorboard creaked, and Maggie looked up to find Charlie standing just a few inches away. She made the mistake of looking up into his cold, green eyes. Her lungs forgot how to work, and she worried she would actually pass out at his feet before they remembered how to do their job.

At least it would be better than puking on him again.

“These people know what they’re doing,” he said, leaning towards her ever so slightly. “Do you want to die that way? Do you want someone to do that to your body? Because I promise you, if you leave here, and they find you, there isn’t anything you’re going to be able to do on your own to stop them.”

“Why do you care?” The words were out of her mouth before she had time to stop and think about how saying them might be a not-so-great idea.

Something flashed in Charlie’s eyes, but it was gone before Maggie could figure out what it meant. “I care because it’s our duty to protect.”

“Shifters and Seers,” Maggie said. “Your duty is to protect your own. I’m not one of yours. I’m the enemy, remember?” He’d certainly known back in the barn. It took all of her will power to not tremble in front of him again. She might not be some strong, fierce Shifter like Scout, but she wasn’t going to be a timid victim either. She’d already decided, no matter who the enemy was - some faceless killer or a member of the Alpha Pack - she wasn’t going to show fear. She would face it head on and damn the consequences.

Assuming those consequences didn’t include her untimely demise, which she supposed was a real possibility.

Not for the first time, Maggie prayed she would wake up in her dorm room and realize this was all a crazy dream inspired by accidentally inhaling too many paint fumes.

“We don’t give a crap if you’re a Thaumaturgic.” Maggie had almost forgotten Scout was still in the room, which was insane. She was the freaking Alpha Female. How could someone forget her? “And we care because we’re decent human beings. In general, we think people shouldn’t go around killing one another. It’s bad form.”

“Your kind has been hunting down and killing Thaumaturgics for centuries, yet you don’t care whether or not I might be one? I’m sorry if I’m having a little trouble believing you.”

Charlie had backed off just a bit while Scout was talking, but he was still standing close enough Maggie could hear the little puff of air escaping in a nearly-silent snort. “What do you know about what has happened in the Alpha Pack over the past year or so?”

Maggie didn’t feel the need to answer. Of course she didn’t know anything about what had been happening in the Alpha Pack. It wasn’t exactly like they sent out a newsletter to the supernatural community to keep everyone abreast of what they were up to.

“Things have changed since Scout and Liam became Alphas,” Charlie said. “We don’t kill little girls just because they might Change one day, and we don’t give a damn about other supernaturals. We’ve got enough problems of our own to worry about your shit.”

It wasn’t exactly an olive branch, but Maggie didn’t doubt his honesty. She couldn’t imagine Charlie ever saying something just to make her feel better, and if he would, she hoped he’d be a bit more diplomatic in his attempt.

“I can’t stay,” she said, although even she could hear the fight gone from her voice. “I don’t belong here.”

Scout laughed. “This is an eighteen-hundred acre horse farm that cost
millions
of dollars. None of us belong here.” She dropped her feet off the arm of the chair and swung her body around, bringing her elbows to rest on her knees. “Stay with us, Maggie. Talley says you’re good people, and she’s never wrong about this sort of thing. I’ve done a lot of crap in my life, and have seen a lot of people die, and I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t let you leave knowing you might die and it will be my fault for not keeping you safe.” Maggie and Scout were about the same age, but at that moment Scout’s striking pale blue eyes looked much, much older. “Please. Let us protect you.”

Maggie looked around the room, from the finely detailed crown molding to the king-sized canopied bed. She’d never been in a room this nice in her entire life, and if she took Scout up on her offer, it would be hers for a little while. If she left, what would she have? The tiny room she shared with Reid? And would she even be able to function out there knowing some crazy killer knew who she was and had thought about what she would look like in the throes of death? Sure, she wasn’t completely comfortable surrounded by Shifters, and Charlie did something truly terrifying to her insides, but she was starting to believe they wouldn’t hurt her.

“All of my stuff…”

“Joshua will take you to get some more clothes and stuff tomorrow,” Scout said. “Just get what you need, and don’t worry about shampoo and stuff that we can run and grab from Target.”

Maggie tried to mentally calculate how much it would cost to buy a complete overhaul of toiletries, hair products, and make up. She stopped when she started feeling queasy.

“I have a break in between my classes tomorrow,” she said to distract herself from all the money that she didn’t have to spend. “I’ll stop by and grab a few things then.”

“Yeah, about that…” Scout looked at Charlie, who shifted from one foot to the other and turned his attention to carpet. “You can’t go to class.”

“I can’t—“ There was a ringing in Maggie’s ears, which had to explain why she thought Scout had just said she couldn’t go to class. “I have to go to class. I’m on scholarship. I’m an independent study student.”

“Can’t you just study independently here?”

Maggie caught her tongue just before it told Charlie to go have sexual relations with himself.

“In order to keep my scholarship and my position in the independent study program, I have to keep better than a 3.0 grade average and attend more than 80% of my art classes. I
have
to go to class tomorrow.”

“The campus isn’t secure. Trust me. We’ve done what we can, but it’s a public place filled with over a thousand students. There is no way.” Scout shrugged back against the chair. “I think it would be best if you just held off on school until after this is all over.”

Maggie shot an icy look Scout’s direction.

“Are you quitting?”

“Well, no. I’m the Alpha Female. It would be seen as a sign of weakness, and—“

“So you can keep going to class, but I have to become a drop out?”

“It’s not that big of a—“

“No.” Maggie felt like she was trapped on one of those merry mixer rides from the carnival. She was off balance, unable to get her bearings, and every time she was slung toward one of the mirrors surrounding the ride, all she could see was a distorted, warped version of what her life was supposed be. “I can’t quit school. I
won’t
quit school.”

Charlie looked at her like she was some hysterical child. “Is school really more important than your life?” he asked more than a little condescendingly.

“School - this school, this program - is my life.” Steeling her nerves, Maggie met Charlie’s eyes. “Whatever the risk is, I’m willing to take it. I won’t drop out.”

“Dear God, my parents would love you,” Scout said, which caused Charlie to throw a questioning look over his shoulder.

“Come on. ‘
School is more important than life’
?
I think dad might actually have that tattooed somewhere.”

“You’re not helping.”

“And you’re not listening. I’m not Sarvarna, which means she’s not a prisoner here.” Maggie wasn’t sure who Sarvarna was, but the way Charlie flinched at her name gave her some idea what type of person she was. “Maggie wants to keep taking classes, so we’re going to let her.”

“And when she goes missing and turns up three days later strung up in our barn, what then? Are you going to be able to shrug it off and say it was her choice?”

No one said anything for a long moment. Scout was staring at the arm of the chair, her lips pressed together, her face a study in human emotions. Charlie stood staring at Scout, the robot once again in control. And Maggie looked back and forth between the two of them, wishing like hell she could get the image of her own body carved and posed out of her head.