Phoenix in My Fortune (A Monster Haven Story Book 6) (14 page)

“Look,” I told Silas. “I know this sucks, but at least I’m not the one cooking. You’ll eat a lot better this time.”

“Fair enough.” He plopped into a pile of cushions. In a flash of light, his pants were gone. He gave me a challenging look.

I chose to ignore his half-naked, hairy state. He was testing me and taking me at my word. He wasn’t in the house, therefore the no-pants rule didn’t apply. Considering he was in what amounted to his own room, I wasn’t going to challenge him. I didn’t have to look, though.

“So.” I pulled up a folding chair and had a seat. “What made you decide to come for a visit?” I leaned back, and my chair collapsed, sending me sprawling. “Son of a bitch.” I righted the chair and sat on a pillow on the ground. “Can’t you turn off that bad luck mojo?”

“You know how it works, doll. It’s part of who I am.” He handed me a tissue from a box next to him, then pointed at my elbow. “You’re bleeding.”

I stretched my arm around until I saw the wound. “Dammit.” The cut wasn’t deep, but it bled enough for me to be grateful for the tissue.

“News gets around. You know how it works. Everybody’s talking about the Last Hidden and what he’s trying to accomplish. I like you, dollface. I don’t want you killed. But, no offense, I like the world even more. I have a good life. I don’t want to be sent to a new one with brand new rules. I don’t want to start over.”

That was probably the most honest thing he’d ever said to me.

“So, you came to help. I don’t suppose you have any idea how to stop him?” I mentally crossed my fingers that he had some secret, game-changing information.

Silas gave an apologetic shrug. “Not in the slightest. The best I can hope for is maybe getting close enough to him that his luck sours and he can’t accomplish his goal.”

“That doesn’t help us a whole lot. You’ve been here ten minutes, and Maurice and I have both been affected by your curse.”

“Did you forget how to neutralize me? It hasn’t been that long.”

“No. But my gargoyle snot is gone. I haven’t got anything.”

He made a clucking sound of disgust. “Amateurs. You do know where lucky gargoyle snot comes from, right?”

I felt incredibly stupid and nearly smacked myself in the head. “Gargoyles.”

“Indeed.”

Chapter Fourteen

What followed was both surreal and disgusting. Maurice had to do some smooth talking to convince Phil to leave Tashi’s side for even a few minutes. She was distraught, and he was worried for her. Darius promised to stay with her until Phil came back.

Everyone else was still out searching for Aaron and Dasho.

Maurice rigged together a gargoyle-sized neti pot with a funnel and teakettle. He filled it with water, then had Phil lean over the plugged kitchen sink while Maurice poured warm, salty water into Phil’s left nostril. After a few seconds, water ran from the other nostril, and a series of pings and rattles sounded in the metal basin. When the water ran clear, Maurice had Phil tilt his head the other way, then repeated the procedure in Phil’s other nostril.

The second side appeared to be more clogged than the first, and the clunking in the sink was louder and more often. Once that nostril, too, ran clear, Maurice handed Phil a towel. Phil blew his nose, a great, honking sound, then wiped his face and grinned.

“My waffles aren’t ever going to orchestrate with an ostrich again!”

Maurice chuckled and patted his brother-in-law on the back. “Glad it was worth it, buddy.” He reached into the sink and gathered the collection of stones from the snot water. “Would you mind giving them a polish? They’re so much prettier when you take care of them.”

“Toss me a carrot and a stick of gum, and I’ll be soaring.” He held his hands out, and Maurice gave him the rocks.

Phil’s face lit with glee as he shook his cupped hands in the air. The granite of his hands worked to polish the stones from his sinus cavities, and before long, smooth, shiny green rocks flecked with silver lay in his palms.

Considering how rare lucky gargoyle snot was supposed to be, this was an embarrassment of riches. There was enough polished gargoyle snot for everyone living or visiting on my property to take a piece, thereby protecting each of us from Silas’s bad luck. We were all safe, and Silas could walk around freely without worrying about screwing up a plan or tripping anyone. For anyone who carried a snot rock, Silas was neutralized.

I hoped Shadow Man had no such protection.

By nightfall, we had no new clues to either Shadow Man’s or the missing children’s whereabouts. Worse, Nick and Mari, a dryad and satyr couple who lived in the woods, were missing their adorable toddler, Fern. The situation was getting out of hand. Well, it had been out of hand, but now it was growing.

Aaron was older. He could handle himself. But he was a brownie teenager. The baby and toddler were human-sized or larger, and Aaron wouldn’t be able to care for them on his own for long—assuming they were all together. I’d taken care of Fern when she was a newborn, and I loved Aaron and Dasho like they were my own nephews. I had to
do
something.

On the bright side, the only kids left on the property were Edie and the rest of Molly’s kids. Someone had a close eye on each of them at all times.

“Those babies are going to get hungry soon,” Maurice said, chewing a sandwich from the huge pile he’d made to feed everyone. “Then they’ll start crying. Have you ever heard Dasho cry? Kid has some lungs on him. If they’re anywhere near us, we’ll hear him.”

Silas grabbed a third sandwich and regarded it with disgust. “I thought the food was supposed to be better than when the monster was gone.”

“You didn’t have to make it yourself, did you?” I flicked a piece of cheese off his shirt and into the grass, then squinted at the sky. “It’ll be too dark to search soon. I’ve been waiting for them to be gone long enough to be uncomfortable so I can do my own brand of searching.”

Silas belched. “That’s pretty harsh, even to me.”

I frowned at him, annoyed. “I checked earlier, but I didn’t get anything. I’m not psychic, you know. I can only read emotions—and only strong ones, at that. The more uncomfortable or frightened they are, the more likely it’ll be that I can sense them. Even hunger will help.”

It made me queasy having to resort to such measures. I sure as hell didn’t want the kids to be scared or upset, especially not enough to send me a strong signal. I would have given anything at that moment to be genuinely psychic instead of relying on emotions to tell me things. Concrete information would have been far more welcome.

Mom patted my arm. “No need to explain, honey. We’re all doing our best.” She refilled Silas’s empty cup and set a napkin next to it, even though she couldn’t see him. Mom probably had it a lot rougher than I did. I was a bossy-pants these days commanding the troops, and I had a skill that could at least be used to help search. Mom’s skill was to help people on the edge of death.

I couldn’t imagine what it must’ve been like for her to spend all her time on standby, waiting for someone to be dying. She really came through for us when Miles had been in anaphylactic shock, but that wasn’t the norm. When people died around me lately, they did it pretty damn fast with no time to call in a necrofoil to save them.

What I hadn’t appreciated was how good she was at taking care of people—how kind she was. She couldn’t see or hear Silas, yet she noticed his cup was empty and knew he needed a napkin. I was used to Maurice anticipating my need to be fed, tidying up after me and sometimes doing my laundry when I got busy. But it was Mom who always seemed to show up when I was aggravated or needed a kind word.

She was an Aegis, too. Just as my being an empath wasn’t what made me an Aegis, being a necrofoil wasn’t what made her one. She was every bit the Aegis I was—maybe more so. Rather than competing with her, I should’ve been learning from her over the last year. She could still teach me so much.

I took a gulp of my strawberry lemonade and set the cup down. “All right. I’m going to give it a try.”

I took a deep, cleansing breath and went inside myself. The walls to my protective fortress were strong—triple reinforced. Carefully knocking out a few bricks, I created a hole. Most of the time, widening the filters I had in place would be enough, but this was important. I needed to open myself completely, in case the kids weren’t in the immediate vicinity.

I reached outside myself. The people around me sat in silence, and I tried to brush past them as quickly as possible so I didn’t eavesdrop on their emotions, but I couldn’t help getting an unintentional glimpse.

Silas was hungry, of course, but I also sensed gratitude. Most of what he said and did was bluster—but this wasn’t news. I’d figured that out a long time ago.

Maurice sent waves of worry outward as he puttered around, building a campfire. Mom was a little calmer, but her worry had an aftertaste of guilt I didn’t understand. I’d ask her about it later, except that I’d acquired the knowledge through my empathic connection. Information about family and friends gained that way was off limits for discussion. I refused to pry.

I probed outward and felt Molly and Tashi’s terror for their missing children and apprehension over keeping their remaining kids safe. A little farther out, and I found Nick and Mari, miserable. Grief echoed through the forest from three mothers and two fathers. My eyes welled with tears, and I pushed past them.

Riley. Kam. Darius. Sara. Gris. Phil. I felt their weariness and determination as they trekked over the same ground they’d already searched three times, desperate for even the tiniest missed clue.

I pushed on, spreading my mental feelers wider, ignoring neighbors and a couple walking their dog on the nearby beach.

Nothing. Unless the kids were drugged—and I had no reason to believe Shadow Man would do that—they weren’t anywhere within a ten-mile radius. Sadness—my own emotion, not borrowed from someone else—filled my heart, and I pulled back from the search, rebuilt my protective wall and opened my eyes.

Three anxious faces watched me.

Mom squeezed my hand. “Anything?”

“I’m afraid not.” I hated the feeling of helplessness that weighed on my shoulders like a wet towel. “We need to call everybody in. They’re wasting their time, and they really need to eat.”

Maurice nodded and took out his phone. “I’ll take care of it.”

Mom slid a cup of migraine tea between my hands as the first twinge hit behind my eyes. I smiled in gratitude and took a sip. Opening myself up like that usually gave me a killer headache. Without Andrew’s miracle tea, the headache could last days or weeks.

People wandered in one at a time, grabbed a sandwich and a cup of coffee or a glass of lemonade. They were all disheartened to hear that I’d found nothing and that I was pretty certain the kids weren’t within range of our search.

Riley kissed my cheek and took a seat next to me with his sandwich. “How’s your head?”

I took another sip from my mug. “The headache is pulling back. The heartsick feeling of helplessness—that’s sticking around.”

Riley took a slow bite, nodding in agreement after he swallowed. “I don’t know what else we can do. But I’ll keep looking.” He put his arm around me in a half hug. “We’ll find them.”

I sank into him, allowing myself a brief pause to be comforted. “I don’t know what to do, either. It’s not like we can call the police and report a missing person. ‘Hi. We’re missing three kids. Description? Sure, sure. Just keep your eyes open for fairy-tale creatures. If you find any kids who don’t look human, they’re probably ours.’ Sure. I’m certain the police will get right on that.”

The headache pulsed with my frustration, so I took another gulp of tea. The pulsing died down, but the frustration remained.

Kam joined us from the side of the house and took a seat around the fire Maurice was poking with a stick. She leaned close to the plate of sandwiches, peering at them from eye level, then sat back without taking one. “This is a tough neighborhood,” she said. “People do
not
like it when you stand on their roofs.”

I stared at her. “Good grief, Kam. What were you doing on my neighbors’ roof?”

She snagged a bag of pistachios from the picnic table and pried the shell off a nut. “Getting a better view. Duh. That Mrs. Sorrenson is a real crankypants.”

I couldn’t disagree with that. Mrs. Sorrenson had yelled at me a time or two, and I’d been nowhere near her roof.

Darius and Sara came in last, looking disheartened. Neither of them said a word.

“So.” Kam tossed pistachio shells into the fire. “What’s our next move, boss?”

I tapped my fingers against the side of my cup while I thought about it. “Searching’s not helping. He could have put them anywhere. Guarding the rest of the kids needs to be a top priority for the moment, but I have to admit, I’m worried it won’t work.”

Darius’s voice was low and rumbling. “You think we can’t stop what we can’t see.”

“Exactly.” I shivered and leaned closer to the fire. “If only Mom and I can see him, how can any of us stop him?”

Silas raised his eyebrows. “He can control who sees him?”

I blinked at the pooka. That was it. That was the thing that had been poking at me a few days earlier—the thing I couldn’t quite put together. Shadow Man’s power to keep everyone else from seeing him while he flashed his face at me was similar to the power Silas had. “Yes. Only Mom and I see him.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Riley looked right at him through the window and didn’t see him. Kam did, too.”

Silas shifted his weight in his chair, his features animated with excitement. “Have you and your mother both seen him at the same time?”

I frowned. “I don’t think so.” I looked to Mom for confirmation, and she shook her head.

Silas grinned. “That’s the first good news I’ve heard. I think I know how I can help.”

* * *

Silas was the new night watchman. The others still watched, but he was the only one who could
see
. Because of their similar powers, Silas would be able to see Shadow Man as he moved around the property. The beautiful part was that Shadow Man couldn’t see Silas. Had he been aware of Silas’s existence, he’d have been able to see him, but until then, Silas remained in stealth mode. At least, that was the theory.

This clued us in to a secondary bonus. Maurice had never been in the right place before when Shadow Man turned up. That, we surmised, was probably because Shadow Man knew Maurice would be able to see him, what with his crazy-big closet-monster eyes. And lastly, my reaper fiancé would only need to touch the soul stone in his ring once while looking where Shadow Man was to be able to see him permanently.

We took down the blanket over my bedroom window as soon as we figured that out. I was willing to risk a terrifying face in the window if it meant Riley would be able to flip a mental switch and be able to see it with me.

None of this made the current problems go away—we still had three kids missing and several more in danger. But it was a step toward switching from prey to hunter if more of us could see what we were hunting.

Of course, nothing happened that night. Maurice and Silas didn’t see Shadow Man, and he never showed up at my window. Because that was how luck went sometimes. Even with big chunks of gargoyle snot in our pockets, we couldn’t catch a break. In fact, I had to remind myself that the good luck of the snot cancelled out the bad luck of the pooka. It didn’t actually give us good luck—it only neutralized bad luck.

This was proved to me the next morning by the knock on the front door.

I swung the door open, bleary-eyed and squinting at the rising sun. “Mmph?”

Three small but happy caramel-colored faces beamed up at me.

“Good morning, Zoey!” the tallest of the three said.

I blinked to clear my eyes, recognized the three goblins standing there and groaned. “Oh, no. No, no, no.”

Rene’s smile faded. “We thought you’d be happy to see us.” She glanced down at her two children, Janey and Toby, each with a small backpack strapped to them. “We should have called first. You’re busy. I’m so sorry.”

“No!” I swooped in and grabbed all three of them in a bear hug. “You can’t go. You just took me by surprise.” I scanned the yard as I ushered them in, hoping they hadn’t been seen.

Once the door was closed, I felt a little more secure, but not much. The absolute last thing we needed right now was more kids for Shadow Man to steal. I loved these two quirky kids so much it hurt my heart to think of them in potential danger. After their parents had gone missing a while back, the two of them had shown incredible bravery and intelligence and had traveled alone across half the country to come to me for help. I had seriously considered adopting them if we didn’t find their parents. It didn’t turn out to be necessary, since we’d rescued Rene—unfortunately, their dad hadn’t made it—so I never had to make that decision.