Blazing the Trail (11 page)

I turned, wondering who he disliked that much, and found a girl I didn’t know standing behind me. No consolation that she, too, had appeared silently, without my hearing her.

Was I losing my dragon mojo completely?

Or just going crazy, as Sigmund had suggested?

M
EAGAN STARTED AT THE SIGHT
of her. “Hi,” she said, scanning the girl, who ignored her.

This girl was beautiful, maybe in her early twenties, with that kind of long silky hair you see in shampoo commercials. It flowed over her shoulders like a dark river, so black that it looked like it had blue highlights in it. Her eyes, if anything, were even darker, like black velvet. She seemed mysterious and powerful all at once, sexy right to her bones, and I could
guess why Derek was staring. My heart nearly broke with yearning to be so confident in my own skin.

And that was before she said anything.

“Jessica said you’re looking for her,” she said, and her voice was exactly as low and sultry as I would have expected.

Wait a minute. Had Jessica heard my plea? Or just finally turned on her messenger?

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Who are you?” Derek demanded. He took a step forward, as if to protect me.

She didn’t even look at him. “Are you coming?” she asked me.

“Where is she?” Meagan asked, since the girl hadn’t answered me.

The girl just started to turn away, glancing back over her shoulder at me with a question in those dark eyes.

Again, I was supposed to accept an invitation on trust.

It would have been smart to decline, but I really wanted to know that Jessica was safe.

As long as Meagan and I would be safe with this girl.

I took a deep breath and sensed feline. The girl met my gaze and smiled ever so slightly. There was something in that expression that reminded me of the way Jessica smiled—a secretive feminine allure, maybe—and I decided to follow my instinct.

It couldn’t steer me wrong twice in one day, right?

“Okay, we’ll come,” I said. Meagan and I stepped forward, Derek right behind us, but the girl gave Derek a hostile glance.

“Not you,” she said, the words low and hot.

Oh, this was not good.

Derek glared at her. “Why not?”

The girl smiled, then took Meagan and me by the hand,
leading us out of the school. I glanced back, but Derek had already disappeared.

Was he following us?

I didn’t think that would be a good idea.

On the other hand, after what I’d already faced today, additional backup was probably a good idea.

There wasn’t much I could do about his choice, anyway. The girl had a strong grip on my wrist and was practically dragging me behind her. Meagan and I exchanged a glance, and Meagan shrugged. We were going to see Jessica, wherever she was.

Black Velvet was on a mission.

B
LACK
V
ELVET TOOK US TO
a fancy apartment building downtown. I was kind of surprised. I knew that Jessica lived close to us—after all, she went to our school—but I’d thought her parents were tight for cash. Meagan had told me that they’d come from Argentina to improve Jessica’s chances of getting into an Ivy League school, but that her dad wasn’t able to use his license as a doctor here. He was driving a cab, which didn’t lead me to believe that they were living in such fancy real estate.

Was Jessica sick?

Or in some kind of trouble? You know I was worried about her shadow.

Black Velvet wasn’t answering any questions, so we stopped asking after a while.

The lobby of the building was magnificent. All Art Deco brass and dark marble, with a doorman in livery guarding the entry. His expression was stern, as if his face were carved of stone. I was a bit daunted by him, but he clearly knew Black Velvet. He just gave her a nod and summoned the elevator. He even knew where she was going, apparently.

Was she the one who lived here? She certainly looked like she belonged.

Yes, I did feel scruffy.

Just in case you were wondering.

The inside of the elevator was all mirrored, a bit of a dizzying effect, as there were hundreds of us extending to infinity in every direction. No missing the frayed hems of my jeans or the fact that my fave black boots could have used a buff.

Come to think of it, I needed a haircut.

Fortunately, my eyeliner was perfect.

A girl needs some constants.

Given that I’d nearly been a sacrificial victim today, I thought I was holding it together reasonably well.

Meagan flashed her killer smile at the doorman when we were on the elevator, just before the doors shut, and to my astonishment, he smiled back.

But Meagan is really pretty. I couldn’t help noticing that she seemed more at ease than I felt, maybe because she’d been to this kind of apartment before. With her dad being a concert pianist, the Jamesons did dip their toes into some different social circles than my family did.

Meanwhile, Black Velvet had hit the very top button.

The doors closed and we zoomed straight for the penthouse.

I know. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Black Velvet was luxe all the way. She hadn’t said a dozen words to me yet, but I had all these ideas about her. She must be a model. An heiress. A princess in exile.

There certainly was a feeling of security in this place. I felt safe, and more confident that Jessica was okay, which made no sense at all.

The elevator door opened, as smooth as butter and just
about as quiet, and there was only one apartment door facing us. My eyes widened. The whole top floor of the building was a single suite? It would be like living in the clouds, with a full surround view. Meagan and I exchanged a glance, and now she looked a bit more impressed.

The foyer wasn’t a whole lot bigger than the elevator, and there was only that one door opposite us. It was a nice door, painted a very shiny black, but a bit odd in that it had no knocker, doorbell, or keyhole. The knob was one of those you just push, but I didn’t believe for a minute that the door was unsecured.

To the right, framed in heavy silver, was a square black pad, about five inches on a side. It had to be a scanner of some kind, but one I’d never seen before. On the other hand, this wasn’t the kind of area where I usually hung out. The black square was too big for a fingerprint pad and really big for a doorbell, and I couldn’t see the kind of light in it that iris scanners tended to have. There was no peephole in the door, either.

Black Velvet stepped forward and reached for the pad by the door as if she did it all the time.

So she wasn’t going to knock.

She must live here.

I thought I had used up my daily allotment of surprise, but Black Velvet had one more for me.

Just before her hand touched the keypad, she shifted shape.

Black Velvet did shimmer blue, just before she made the transition, exactly the way all of us shifters do, but she changed really fast. Faster, actually, than any shift I’d ever seen—and we dragons compete on the basis of speed. I know from fast.

When she reached for the keypad, she cast a coy glance over her shoulder—that should have warned me—and then
there was the blue shimmer and a panther holding one paw to the keypad.

A very large, sleek black panther.

She laid her paw on the black pad. There was a hum and a click; then she leapt forward and bumped the door with her shoulder. It was an elegant, easy move, once again making me think she did it all the time. She cast us a glance that seemed to be a challenge, especially as her eyes had become a vivid yellow, then she slipped into the apartment, like a shadow in the darkness.

Meagan and I took one look at each other, then followed. It was dark in the apartment, so we moved slowly, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the shadows there. As far as I could tell, the apartment was spacious and luxuriously furnished. The carpet was really thick under our feet.

But dark. Dark like midnight. Dark like the windows that had to surround the penthouse had been draped. Sound was muffled, as well, as if there was a lot of fabric around us, and the darkness seemed to press against our ears.

Never mind that as soon as we stepped over the threshold, the door slammed behind us. There was that same whir and click, echoing loudly in the silence. I reached back immediately, but the door was locked. There was no lock hardware on this side, either.

I didn’t need to see the future to know that this was not good. I felt the pulse of several dozen heartbeats and panicked.

“You’re all shimmery,” Meagan whispered. “What’s wrong?”

“We’re not alone,” I told her, because it was true.

I didn’t say any more to Meagan because that was when a woman screamed.

M
y blue shimmer—generated because I was on the cusp of change and unable to do anything to stop it, not after that scream—illuminated the foyer of the apartment a little bit. It took me a second to hear the muffled murmuring of many, many women.

The ones whose heartbeats I’d heard first.

Black Velvet nudged open another door then, because we saw her silhouetted in a rectangle of bright light to our left. The woman screamed again and I could hear women trying to reassure her. Black Velvet disappeared into the room and the door didn’t quite close behind her.

I took that as an invitation. I nodded at Meagan and we went to the door together. I peeked around the edge as the woman screamed for a third time; then someone hauled the door open wide to reveal us standing there.

There was a big bed in the middle of the room; that was the first thing I saw. And a woman was lying on it, her expression anguished and her knees up. She was surrounded by about a dozen women, and Jessica, too. All of them were focused on her, and the one who had opened the door indicated that we should be silent.

All of the women, even Jessica, were wearing red dresses. They were like tubes of sheer fabric, gathered on a drawstring at their shoulders and tied at the waist with a gold cord. They were all barefoot, and the cloth was sheer enough that I could see their legs silhouetted beneath. Even Jessica had abandoned her usual baggy clothes and baseball cap for the sheer red dress. She was clearly the youngest present, but the others treated her with deference. She looked as gorgeous and feminine as she had at Halloween, but more glam.

Was this some kind of ceremony? The bed was more like a platform than a bed you’d sleep on, or maybe like an altar. It had four large golden pillars, one at each corner, which actually connected to the gilded ceiling. I’d thought at first that the light emanating from the room must be sunlight, but it was candlelight reflecting on gold.

The walls were lined with cat sculptures. Most of them were gold, and most of them had red stones for eyes, like rubies. There were candles placed between them on the shelves, the flickering light making the cats seem alive, as if their red eyes were scanning the room.

The whole room shimmered gold and looked exotic. It felt to me as if there were many more present than just the women we could see.

I heard Meagan catch her breath when she saw Jessica, but I’m not sure Jessica knew we were there. Her attention was fixed on the woman on the bed and she looked a bit nervous. Why was Jessica here? Was she related to this woman? Or
did she know her well? Black Velvet climbed onto the bed and lay beside the woman like a pet—or maybe a sentry.

“Push next time,” advised one of the attending women. “It’s close.”

The woman on the bed was delivering a baby.

She had time to nod before the next contraction rippled through her body. She tipped her head back and bared her teeth but didn’t scream. I saw her clench a fistful of Black Velvet’s fur, and Black Velvet’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t move away or protest. One of the attending women reached to coax the baby into the world, and another firmly guided Jessica to the foot of the bed.

Jessica swallowed.

The baby’s crown appeared, wet and dark.

“Push,” advised the woman who must be the midwife. “Push.”

The next contraction came; the mother pushed. The women leaned closer.

The candles flickered simultaneously.

Meagan and I grasped each other’s hands.

And the baby surged forth in a rush. The midwife lifted the baby and cleared the mucus from its face. She cut the cord, and the baby cried out for the first time, its yowl nearly bouncing off the walls. The midwife tied the cord expertly, as if she’d done this a thousand times. The mother gasped with relief, smiling as the midwife put the child in her arms.

I’d never seen a baby born before. I wasn’t sure whether it was gross or amazing.

The thing was that even though the baby seemed okay, tension remained in the air. The mother rose to her knees, her gaze locked on her baby, and the attending women gathered closer. Jessica looked as if she were facing down a terrible midterm.

What were they worried about?

One woman gave Jessica a nudge, and she stepped forward. She reached for the child, who was still naked. It was a girl. The attending women watched with obvious anticipation; then one woman began to sing.

It was singing but not like choir practice. She made a wordless cry, kind of
lalalala
, one that reminded me a bit of Jessica’s ability to sing scat. The woman beside her joined in, adding her voice. At regular intervals, another woman would join the cry. The ululation rose in volume as each woman added her voice to what became a chorus. It vibrated in my ears and made me shiver.

Jessica closed her eyes as if concentrating and held the child high. Every gaze was locked on the baby. What was supposed to happen? The song grew in intensity as the baby flickered blue and gold in her grip. The candle flames danced all around the room. There was a crackle of energy in the room, as if something had been summoned.

I gasped when I saw the cat sculptures on the wall move. At first I thought they’d come to life, but it wasn’t that. There were ghostly cats between the sculptures, so many of them that the sculptures seemed to disappear in their midst. The golden ghost cats with red eyes mewled the same note as the women, watching Jessica.