One Part Human (9 page)

At the SUV, Tremble helped Benny off her mount.

“Thanks, Smith.”

He huffed and wandered around the vehicle before shifting back to human.

Argyle tucked her into the SUV and buckled her in place. “Call your parents. I managed to grab a soil sample for analysis. That power wasn’t human, so it might give us a clue.”

Benny sent her mother a text before she listed to one side as they started moving. Smith still tucking in his shirt. Tremble moved next to her and put his arm around her. “You did well, Benny. You saved a life tonight.”

She gave a weak thumbs-up and drifted into a daze as they headed to her parents’ home.

When they arrived, Argyle carried her out and into her family home.

Lenora came out and asked, “What is wrong with her?”

“She used a lot of energy tonight, and she has been weak since.”

Her mother touched her cheek and looked Benny in the eye. With a rueful sigh, she touched Benny’s neck and then jerked her hand sharply. “Rule one of spell casting, Benny?”

Benny felt her strength return in a rush. “Remove all protections and dampeners. Argyle, you can put me down now. I am an idiot.”

Argyle held on to her for a few more moments until her father growled in the background.

Smith grinned. “You forgot to remove a dampener?”

She shrugged. “I wear one most of the time. I don’t do magic in public, so it never occurred to me.”

He chuckled. “Same reason I remove all the clothing. I can still shift, but it gets in the way.”

Benny giggled and rubbed her arm against his in camaraderie.

Argyle took her left side and Tremble guarded her back.

“Mom, we got a soil sample from a transport site. It is less than an hour old, so there should still be something traceable.”

Argyle handed the sample to her mother, and her father took it with a sharp plucking of his clawed fingers.

Benny’s stomach growled. “Come on. While he works on that, I will make something to eat. You are still entitled to meals.”

Her mother nodded with a smile and went into the lab with her father.

Benny led the other three to the kitchen and the huge butcher-block table. “Have a seat. Do you want something hot or cold?”

“Hot.”

“Hot.”

“Hot.”

She chuckled and started a pot of water. “Soup it is.”

They looked a little doubtful, but they remained quiet until the ingredients started to line the table while the water began to bubble. Their expressions turned to happy anticipation when she got the stock heating and the smell filled the kitchen. Her mother might do most of the cooking, but Benny was pretty fair when it came to feeding family and friends. She glanced at the attentive agents who were watching her with hope every time she touched ingredients. Yeah, they counted as friends.

They blinked at her as she set the huge empty bowls in front of them. Argyle looked a little nervous.

“Don’t worry. My mom keeps a fully stocked pantry. Demon diets vary greatly depending on their exertions and the time of year.”

Smith looked impressed.

The noodles were done and drained, so she divided the tangle into four large bowls and two clamp jars. The meat went on in layers, the vegetables went on next, herbs and finally the broth was ready to add to the bowls.

She kept Argyle’s bowl to the side. It had the regular mix of meats plus some blood sausage. She went to the fridge and got the ceramic pitcher of blood, pouring a dollop into the bowl. Once that was done, she parcelled out the broth in the bowls and set out the chopsticks and spoons. The un-brothed clamp jars were tucked into the fridge for later.

A final touch was the selection of sauces, and she settled at the table with them. “Have at it.”

She dug in and slurped at the noodles.

After a few seconds of hesitation, they all followed suit.

The slurping and flicking of broth was tremendous.

Smith blinked. “This is nice. Really nice. I watched everything, and I still don’t know what you all put into it.”

Argyle was smiling happily. “It is settling nicely. You have cooked for vampires before?”

Benny slurped. “Yes. For the given, not the taken.”

He paused. “You really do have a complete education.”

Tremble snorted. “You are just cluing into that now?”

Smith wasn’t speaking, he was just slogging through his bowl as if afraid that the soup would disappear if he stopped touching it.

For Benny, it was a recipe that her great aunt had taught her on her seventeenth birthday. Since she wasn’t really allowed to go out, it was a better idea to make her friends and family comfortable and happy. It was an old-fashioned idea, but her aunt was an old-fashioned woman. Three hundred years old and no relation to her at all.

Most of her relations were no relations. It was a fact of life that when you came from a line with this much power that you either spread your family wide or it boiled down to a single line. Each generation on either side had one child and that line culminated in Beneficia.

When Smith finished his meal, he picked up the dishes and washed them, putting them on the draining board with efficiency.

“So, Benny, what kind of shifters are in your bloodline?”

She sighed. “I only had two. My grandmother was a wolf shifter, and her father was a human multi-shifter.”

“And some demon, a bit of human. How much fey?” Tremble smiled.

She shrugged. “They pop up now and then. Even some vampire makes itself known on my mother’s side.”

Argyle perked up. “Given or taken?”

“Given.”

He looked relieved. “Do you know the sire?”

She chuckled. “Rumour is that she was a true given. No one knows for sure. She rarely returns for a visit.”

Smith scowled. “What?”

Argyle looked at him. “Didn’t you ever take vampire studies?”

Smith narrowed his eyes. “Pretend I didn’t and refresh me.”

“Two types of vampires. Those who come from a line that took immortality by violence and those who had it given to them. It is a very long and sad story, but that is the basis of it. I am a given vampire. I was offered this as a choice, and it does not come with the territory bindings or hierarchy that the taken vampires love.”

Tremble sighed. “Smith knows; he just likes to make Argyle explain things. It is his personal form of entertainment.”

Smith grinned. “It really is. These two constantly remind me that I am the youngest, so I make them over-explain things. It amuses me and irritates them, so we all win.”

Benny chuckled and finished her soup. “If anyone needs to freshen up, there is a restroom down the hall and to the left. My parents will be occupied for another twenty minutes, so I think I will work on dessert.”

Tremble arched his brow. “How do you know that it will take them twenty minutes?”

She looked at the clock. “It is time for them to have sex. My father’s exposed nature increased his sex drive, so they have sex at regular intervals throughout the day, which allows him to keep his focus and continue his research.”

Argyle blinked. “Sex?”

Benny pulled cupcakes out of the freezer and set them for a thaw cycle in the microwave. She fired up the coffee maker and got things underway. “Of course. My great grandmother was a succubus. The sex drive comes with the species.”

The three agents looked at each other nervously.

She snorted and pulled out ice cream and fruit. “You three shouldn’t look so shocked. There hasn’t been a shy and sheltered human in this house for the last twenty years.”

They looked at each other and Smith nodded. “Since your mother got ill.”

“Right. During her recovery and my father’s change, there was a house full of folk to protect me from my own parents as they adapted to their new status.” She peeled the paper cups off the cupcakes, set them in bowls and piled three different scoops of ice cream on each one before topping them with berries in sauce.

She slid the bowls in front of her guests and got the coffee. “It has been a long night, drink up.”

They sat in surprise and grabbed for the spoons she put in front of them. Her instincts for dessert had not abandoned her. She hoped to have hit every craving that the three had.

Smith paused and mumbled around his treat. “So, right now, your parents are having sex?”

“Yup. All the rooms are soundproofed, but it is pretty much guaranteed with the stress of the last few days.” She poked at her own cupcake.

Tremble arched his eyebrows. “Stress?”

He had a smear of blueberry on his cheek.

Benny grinned. “Yes, stress. It is hard enough for my parents to have me living outside their home without knowing that I would be exposed to danger. They have hidden me from the world, and suddenly, I was getting into a car with the same men who are duty-bound to throw me in custody for my bloodline the moment that my control slips.”

She reached out and rubbed the blueberry off his cheek. She sucked the syrup off her thumb.

Argyle was staring at her, and Smith swallowed hard. She gathered their dishes and quickly washed everything. “Why are you guys boring a hole in my spine with your eyes?”

Tremble cleared his throat. “We have never arrested a demon blood before. I do not think that any of us put you in that category.”

Benny kept washing and snorted. “You need to. It is what I am. With the mirror of my soul now off Jennifer, I am the last target. If I am attacked, my instincts will rise past my training and I will defend myself against the assault, no matter what you are doing.”

When everything was on the draining board, she settled at the table and met their gazes, one by one. “So, which one of you likes to play with cuffs? I am pretty sure you are going to need them before this is over.”

Lenora chuckled. “Benny, stop scaring them. None of them are used to aggression in females.”

Her mother had a well-satisfied glow, and the agents suddenly didn’t know where to look.

Her mother came up to her and kissed her forehead. “You told them.”

Benny grinned. “Never be ashamed of what you are or how you were raised.”

“Right. Well, your father is just about done on the sample. He has identified the classification of sponsoring demons, and with a little bit of help, you should be able to get a name.”

The agents were on their feet in a heartbeat.

Lenora looked into the pot on the stove. “Noodles?”

“In the fridge.”

“Thanks. I will make a tray for Harcourt. He has been worrying, and you know what that does for his appetites.”

Benny nodded. “I know. I will distract him. The agents should do wonders.”

Her mother’s laughter rippled after them as they left the kitchen and headed for the lab.

“Your family seems peculiarly jovial given your circumstances.” Tremble muttered.

“My mother and my father are bound for life, however long that is. The day that one dies, the other will pass so that neither will know the pain of living alone. I have grown up in that love as part of it. When they do pass, I may have preceded them or I may remain alone, but I will have the memory of their love around me. It is a pretty good feeling.”

She pushed the door to the lab open, and she paused, “Arms in, gentlemen. Don’t touch anything. There are things in here I would not advise even the lightest of contacts with.”

They all nodded, and she led the way to the active workspace. Her father was focussing on what appeared to be a PH strip with black boxes. He was measuring the tip of a glass rod covered with an inky substance.

His crest rose as he found his answer. “Son-of-a-two-headed-scum-sucking-bitch!”

Benny blinked. “Hiya, Dad. So, you found out what is doing this?”

He looked at her, and his pupils were completely black with fury. “I have to make a call.”

He pushed past the agents, and Benny scrambled after him. “Dad? What is it?”

They converged in the library where her father was, indeed, making a call. The huge copper bowl filled with mercury swirled, and her grandfather’s face was hovering above it.

“Where is she, father?”

Her grandfather, Zephyr Luciver Ganger, scowled. “What is it, son?”

“Kyria’s father. He is after Benny.”

Her grandfather had the urbane look of a studying magus. At four hundred eighty, he didn’t look a day over fifty. His features were completely human if you didn’t look at his slightly pointed ears and teeth, as well as the flickering shape of his pupils behind the reading glasses.

The mercury began to swirl. “After Benny? He cannot have her. She is not bound to him.”

If Zephyr was getting agitated enough to effect the communication, his local weather must have been going haywire.

“Have you talked to your grandmother?” Zephyr’s demon features were becoming more apparent as he got angry.

“No, if she is in the zone, they could track the call. I wanted to know if you have had recent communication with her. You are her son; you can speak without all the extra magework.”

Her grandfather nodded. Benny waved from behind her dad. His expression softened for a moment before it hardened with determination. “I will get in touch with her and find out why Yomra is trying to come after Benny.”

“It is worse than that, Dad. They are trying to strip her soul. There is a human agent who has been doing the work for him, but Yomra’s signature is there for anyone to see.”

“I trust your work, son. I will return your call within the hour or Kyria will. No one is touching Benny.” Her grandfather disappeared.

The XIA agents looked at each other before Argyle asked, “Who is Yomra?”

Benny rubbed her forehead. “A whole new batch of trouble.”

They sat in the library. The agents called in, and Jennifer was stable, but there were no further leads on the case. What they learned here would show them their new direction.

Harcourt pulled up a chair, and they gathered around a book of demons. Benny flipped to her ancestor’s page and she turned it around.

“Yomra. Demon high king, one of a dozen or so. He had dozens of children, but my great grandmother was supposedly his favourite.”