Shifting Selves (5 page)

Sera gave me a contemplative look. “What?” I asked.

She just shook her head. “We’re the best liaisons ever.”

Carmichael chose that particular moment to phone us. Fortunately, he called Sera, leaving me free to track Carmen on my phone.

I couldn’t hear Carmichael’s end of the conversation, but Sera’s was more than articulate enough for the both of them. “Report?” she asked, as if she’d never heard the word before and needed him to define it.

Muffled yelling came through the other end, and she grinned, enjoying his outrage. “Today? I don’t think that will work for us.” The blue dot began to move. I showed the screen to Sera, and she nodded and put the car into drive.

“I’m pretty sure it’s against state law to drive while on the phone. An FBI agent wouldn’t want you to break the law.” I spoke loudly enough for Carmichael to hear me.

“You’re absolutely right, Aidan. I’ll call you later, Carmichael.” Though I still couldn’t make out any of his words, Carmichael’s tone was plenty expressive. “What’s that? Sorry, sta...tic. Can’t...hear.” She threw me the phone, and I pressed the end button. “It might be worth finding a backup employment plan, Ade.”

I indicated she should turn left at an upcoming intersection. “I’m sure my English degree and your art history one prepared us for rewarding careers filing TPS reports.”

She grimaced. We both had plenty of money, and always would. We were from old families, powerful lines that had existed since the birth of our race and had the bank accounts one would expect from people who’d relied on compound interest since the days of the Holy Roman Empire. We could easily live on just the dividends from our trust funds for the rest of our days, but neither of us were too keen on taking money from our parents right now. It might have only been a token effort at individuating ourselves, but even a token felt better than nothing.

“Turn right at the light. It looks like she’s heading toward the freeway.”

At the light, Sera came to a full stop. There was no traffic, and she could have easily made the turn, but instead she lingered, eyes fixed on the rearview mirror and a small smile playing on her mouth. I twisted around to see the rear window completely covered by a large grill, the sort that might belong to an SUV. Like, say, a Bronco. “Where is she now?”

I looked at the screen. “Wait.” The light turned green, and still she sat, unfazed by the enormous vehicle inching its way toward her or the honks of the cars waiting behind the Bronco. I watched the blue dot slowly merge onto I-80. “She’s gone. Go for it.”

She turned slowly into the right lane. Mac tried to pull around her, eager to reach Carmen. Sera drifted into the left lane, blocking his way. “You’ve still got her?”

“Yep. She’s on 80, heading east.”

She drifted back to the right lane, easily cutting him off again. “Think he can find her from here?”

“Only if the shifters have a Vivian on staff. Otherwise, he’s just guessing.”

She grinned. “No one else has a Vivian.” She stuck in a tape and turned the volume up loud, raising her voice to be heard above the Pixies. “You know, I’ve always wanted to lose someone in a car chase.”

“Is that so?” I kept my voice calm while checking that my seat belt was secure and gathering some water from the air, just in case I needed it to repair injuries sustained in a car crash.

“Ade, I think today’s the day we strike that one from the bucket list.” With no further warning, she swung the wheel hard to the left, turning from the far right lane and crossing three lanes of traffic. Mac was right behind us, making the same treacherous turn.

“Good news is, we just got confirmation they don’t have a Vivian,” I said. “Bad news...”

“Bad news is Mac’s as damned stubborn as you are,” she finished. She made a sharp turn into an alley, and my entire body swayed in my seat, fighting for equilibrium. She barely slowed at the end of the alley, just long enough to confirm we wouldn’t die instantly if we pulled into traffic at that moment. The car hurtled across the street and darted into the next alley. Mac was forced to slow down to allow a truck to pass, but a moment later he was across the road and gaining on us with unexpected speed. Sera cursed. Her eyes scanned the approaching street, planning her next maneuver.

“Do try to remember that longevity isn’t the same as immortality, please.”

“How the hell is he making these turns? He drives a box on wheels.” A light bulb appeared to go off. She slowed down, driving almost like a normal person, and took a left at the next light, heading out of town and away from the freeway. She watched Mac follow us in the rearview mirror, grinning the whole time. “You know, it’s a good thing I know this area as well as I do.” Ten minutes later, we were well into the trees, driving along a twisting two-lane road with the Bronco following closely, expecting us to lead him toward the woman we were both tracking. “And a good thing we went to so many parties in college. Mac’s not much of a party guy, is he?”

“No, he’s not.” I smiled, quickly grasping her plan. Sure enough, a moment later she turned onto a dirt road, one many high school and university students had traversed in the years before they turned twenty-one and could legally hit the bars. At the end of this road was a clearing where countless kegs had been tapped and many a young party-goer had lost their virginity, the contents of their stomachs, or their dignity.

The place was famous both for its isolation and because it provided an exit strategy if a party was busted by the cops. This side of the clearing was blocked by an enormous fallen tree trunk, which was slightly raised on one end about a meter and a half off the ground. It wasn’t enough space for a cop car loaded with sirens or, for that matter, a large Bronco, but it provided plenty of room for a ‘66 Ford Mustang. Sera cruised underneath and sailed to the opposite side of the clearing, but Mac was forced to draw to a stop. For just a moment, he was close enough that I could see his face. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought he might be laughing.

Sera was already on the only other road out. It was just a tiny strip of dirt, too small for the Bronco. Even the Mustang barely fit. I pushed a button on my phone, and Mac answered immediately.

“Yes?”

“One step ahead, big guy,” I said, enjoying the cocky tone I heard in my own voice. “We’re always gonna be one step ahead. Let us know when you’re ready to talk.” With that, I hung up, confident I’d gotten the last word this time.

CHAPTER 5

“
I don’t care if you duct tape him and trap him in the house. Simon stays.” I whispered, but my vehemence was perfectly clear.

Sera adjusted her position, giving herself a slightly better view of the room below. “Is this because of how much you’ve come to appreciate his company?”

I felt myself slipping and clutched the tiles more tightly. “What other reason could I have?” Cautiously, I inched forward. My body scraped across the tiles, and I winced, certain those below could hear. A moment passed, and then another, but no one looked upwards to find two elementals gazing curiously through the skylight.

“For the record, this wasn’t on the bucket list.” She was smiling, though, and it seemed likely she was rewriting the list to include “climb stranger’s roof for the hell of it” even as we spoke.

“Spying on a bored housewife because she might have some connection to a missing teenage bear shifter? I can’t imagine why not.” The object of our pursuit sat below us, reclining elegantly in a white armchair and surrounded by several more women on equally white sofas. They all held copies of the same book on their lap. “Let’s agree that, no matter what happens from here, we never admit we successfully ditched Mac only to observe a book club meeting in a planned community outside Reno.”

“Hell, let’s agree to never admit to being in a planned community and call it good.”

I nodded my enthusiastic agreement. “And agree to drug Simon, lock him in the closet, and leave all future roof-climbing expeditions to him.”

“I’m in. Our karma’s solid these days. I’m pretty sure we’re due at least one excessive display of power.”

Any retort I might have made died on my lips. My karma might be somewhat more flawed than Sera’s, given the bodies I’d left in my wake. Even the memory of those deaths was enough to cause something in my core to stir. I felt it stretch and grin, that fiery side of myself. It was eager, and it wanted an outlet.

Several deep breaths later, I forced it down and mentally locked it away, scared of how easily it kept springing to life. I reached for the only magic I wanted to call my own, looking for the water that defined me. There was less of it in the air here than in Tahoe, but I still found enough.

Sera watched the entire process, obviously drawing her own, accurate conclusions about my sudden distraction. “You with me?” she asked.

I blew out a gust of air, imagining the tension leaving my body with it. It was a technique Vivian had taught me, and while most of the time it felt like New Age nonsense, it still beat exercise.

“I’m here.”

She nodded, watching me carefully. “He might be wrong, you know. Or lying. You must have considered it, cause I have.”

She meant Josiah, the man so certain I was a ticking time bomb. “Of course. You think that wasn’t my first impulse? Life would be so simple if he were just lying. But it’s him, and my mother, and Brian and Trent Pond. More than any of that, there’s me. I don’t know how to explain it, but something’s changed since I discovered my fire side. All the time, I feel a little unbalanced. Something is a tiny bit off, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

Her face was thoughtful. She believed me, but she wasn’t giving up, not yet.

“Tell me, what’s it like?” I asked. “Accessing fire, I mean. I find physical water and talk to it, manipulate it. There’s no fire around right now, but you could still burn down this entire neighborhood.”

She sat up carefully and looked around, at row after row of identical pale houses. She grimaced. “Don’t tempt me.” She pulled a small orb of fire from the air. She juggled it lightly between her hands, then brought it to her mouth, swallowing it whole and smiling.

“So, when Carmichael sacks us, the circus is still our backup plan?”

“Hell, yeah. I’ll look good in one of those leotards. You can be the bear tamer.” She cast a sly glance my way, one I studiously ignored. Sera had been surprisingly quiet on the subject of Mac’s and my thwarted flirtation. I’d known it couldn’t last.

Luckily, she moved on. “You’ve made fire. Maybe not intentionally, but you know how to do it. Do you remember what it was like?”

I remembered rage, pure rage coursing through me and obliterating everything good in its path, everything that might care what was right and wrong. I eased myself onto my back till I was staring up at the cloudless blue sky. “Yeah, but I don’t remember how the fire started.”

“It’s not that different from what you do. You find the components of water and pull them to you.” I demonstrated easily, letting a stream of water encircle her head. “What are the components of fire? Oxygen, heat, and fuel. Well...” She waved her hand, indicating the air surrounding us. “Oxygen is rarely a problem.” She took my hand and held it to her forehead. “Heat never is, either. We run hot, though we still tend to feel cold when the temperature drops too much.” Eyebrows knit together, she quickly felt my forehead. “Not as warm as me, but yeah. You’re warmer than average.”

I felt my own forehead and wondered how I’d never noticed it before. Elementals don’t often go to doctors, since no modern medicine was as effective as exposure to our element, but I’d been in contact with many other elementals, must have felt their skin and heat.

But I hadn’t, not really. I remembered my mother, always hovering, always keeping my aunts from giving me extended hugs or sitting too close to me on the sofa. In college, I’d dated, but never another elemental who might interpret my heat as indicative of an illicit fiery heritage. Hell, a month ago I hadn’t even known it was possible to be what I was. There was no reason for someone to think I was anything other than the water I’d been raised to be.

“And the fuel,” I asked, seeing the final piece clearly. “That’s the anger, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “It’s always there, in all of us. Just a small, constantly burning flame of rage. We don’t even notice it most of the time, until we want to access it. And then...” She held out both fists, indicating first one, then the other. “Rage, plus magic.” She brought her fists together, and fire burst forth as they met.

“Can I learn to do that? To only access it when I want to?” She turned a concerned face to me, and I continued hurriedly, “And then use that control to never, ever call it.”

Her face was solemn, her voice quiet. “I don’t know, Aidan. I don’t know.”

“Don’t move.”

It took a moment to realize the voice was coming from the yard below and was directed at us. It took a fraction of a second longer to identify the sound of a shotgun being racked. I assumed that was also aimed in our direction.

Despite the command, we both deemed it wise to raise our hands slowly into the air. “Because I think it bears repeating,” I muttered, “one, longevity’s still not the same as immortality, and two, we really fucking need to keep Simon around.”

A few minutes later, we were in a cool garage, perched on a pair of beat-up metal folding chairs. We were not physically restrained in any way, because it wasn’t necessary. The large gun pointed at us was sufficient deterrent, should we feel the desire to sit somewhere else.

I’d debated our options during our awkward climb from the roof down to the backyard, and again during the short march through the side yard into the cool garage attached to the main house. I had nothing.

Sera’s fire was absolutely useless in close proximity to gunpowder. I could fill the gun barrel with water, but as my entire knowledge of firearms came from 80s action films, I had no idea what that would achieve. For the moment, I had to trust that a couple of fit, carefully made-up suburban wives would explore tidier options before resorting to homicide.

“Who sent you?” Sera’s head jerked toward the woman asking the questions. She was a bronzed Amazon goddess, her body seeming to consist of nothing but long red hair, lean muscles, and spray tan, her beauty as carefully constructed as Carmen’s was wild and natural. Carmen stood behind this unfamiliar woman with her arms crossed. The remainder of the book club had been asked to wait inside, which might be a bad sign. When people started removing potential witnesses, there was reason to be nervous.

Sera, of course, refused to answer, leaving a gaping silence I rushed to fill. “You know, it seems like the first question a harmless book club would ask might be ‘who are you,’ or perhaps ‘why the hell were you on my roof’?” I barely had time to appreciate my own retort before my head snapped back and pain shot through my jaw.

Fire came instantly to attention, hissing and crackling, demanding release. It shot upwards along my spine, warming my flesh and bone with its touch and coiling tightly around my mind. My vision narrowed until I only saw a woman standing before me, begging to be set alight. My palms tingled, and heat worked its way into my fingers, seeking release. For a moment, I vanished completely, and the other self took over. I felt fire’s grin spread across my face, its sharp gaze peer through my eyes.

It was pure, joyous power, and it was terrifying.

The woman standing before me took a small step backwards, and Carmen tensed. No one ever seemed to fear my water side, but the first glimpse of fire brought these women to attention, even if they didn’t understand why.

The pain in my jaw subsided to a dull throb, and I began to remember myself. I could almost hear Vivian’s voice, whispering that I needed to find balance. With great concentration, I forced the seething mass into submission before my fingers could start sparking and give me away. It resisted, whimpering and demanding freedom, and I took several slow breaths before it reluctantly quieted. The fire withdrew slowly, whispering promises for our future the whole way.

I knew I should worry about this, but at the moment I had a good reason for avoidance. I figured I’d deal with the shotgun and current crazy bitch first, dual magics and future crazy bitch second.

“That wasn’t necessary.” I rubbed my still-sore jaw and suspected I’d need to spend some time in the water to avoid an impressive bruise.

She spoke carefully, watching me the whole time. “You were trespassing on my property. I had every right to shoot you. Be grateful I’m a reasonable woman.”

“Let me have a moment, Diane.” Carmen’s voice was quiet, not intended for our ears, but it was also calm and altogether lacking any hint of menace. “I don’t believe they’re here for you.” Diane met her eyes, and a long, silent conversation passed between the two women.

Diane stepped back, the gun still trained on us. Carmen turned another metal chair and straddled it backwards, folding her arms across the top. It was a strange juxtaposition, her tidy sweater set and chinos against the informal pose. “Alone,” she clarified. “They’re two young women, Diane. What do you think they could do to me?” She placed a tiny emphasis on that last word.

Again, that look passed between them. Carmen appeared confident and certain, while Diane looked almost bitter. I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t expect to feel much empathy for the woman who punched me in the mouth. She left the garage slowly, walking backwards the entire way, daring us to give her any excuse to empty the shotgun. We remained still until she was in the house, then turned to Carmen. With gunpowder removed from the immediate equation, Sera’s powers were back in play, but it seemed polite to at least hear Carmen out before we burned down her friend’s house.

“Did Will ask you to follow me?” she asked. Her voice was level and calm, revealing no emotion. She was neither friendly nor antagonistic. Hell, she barely seemed curious. She let her eyelids drop just a fraction, giving them a hooded look that she fixed on us, unblinking.

“You know Will?” I stalled.

She merely tilted her head and watched me. She blinked once, twice, and her pupils constricted and expanded in the space of a heartbeat. I glanced at Sera, staring at Carmen with recognition in her eyes. She’d seen it, too.

“You’re a shifter,” I said. She’d only shown us the barest hint of a slit pupil, but I knew those eyes. I saw them every time I looked at Simon. I wondered whether he was unable or unwilling to disguise all his feline traits, because in the space of a moment Carmen once again looked completely human. Of course, now that I knew what she was, it was obvious she moved with the grace and efficiency of movement I’d only seen among shifters. “Does Will know?”

She said nothing, but her look suggested she thought I was at least six different kinds of stupid.

I could only think of one animal that had those eyes. “You’re a cat.”

She sniffed and sat up straighter. I’d seen Simon do the same thing whenever he felt we were underestimating him. “In the most general sense.”

I looked at her perfectly maintained body and carefully applied eyeliner and swore I wouldn’t say it. It was offensive and stupid and unnecessary. I bit my tongue and repeated the vow. It did no good. “Please, please tell me you’re a cougar.”

Beside me, Sera made a series of sputtering noises that indicated she either really wanted to laugh or really wanted to smack me.

Carmen’s look suggested I’d been promoted from stupid to stupid and irritating. I was on a roll. “Mountain lion.” Her tone was disdainful. I knew better than to ask a shifter what animal they were—it was considered a significant breach of etiquette—but, as usual, the faulty filter between my brain and mouth trumped manners. I suspected Carmen only answered me out of a sense of pride.

“But you have a dog.”

“As a pet.”

On behalf of dog lovers the world over, I chose not to follow that line of inquiry any further. “Is everyone...?” I vaguely waved toward the door.

She shook her head. “Diane is my sister, but she didn’t get the gene. It’s how she can stand to live in this place.” Her sneer seemed to encompass the entirety of the planned community.

I thought of her home, every bit the suburban monstrosity as the one we currently occupied. She guessed the direction of my thoughts. “I married a man with more money than taste. But it does back up to the forest, so it was worth fighting for in the divorce. And I admit, I quite enjoy the spa bathtub and walk-in closets.”

I nodded, unsure where to go from there. I glanced at Sera, letting her know I was done babbling and she was free to step in any time. She rolled her eyes at me, but took her cue. “We’re looking for the missing MacMahon boy,” she said.