Shifting Selves (7 page)

I’d thought we had something. Or, at least, I’d thought we could have something.

We were nearly to the cabin. I finally had him alone, and I was about to lose my only chance to talk to him. Soon, the others would be around, and he’d disappear back into his Airstream trailer, and I’d be fighting to get a single moment alone with him. This was it.

“So... we kissed.” Well, that was one way to start the conversation.

His entire body stilled for a moment, then his eyes slid slowly toward me. It only lasted a second, and then he returned them to the road, but it was enough to feel scorched from head to toe.

“I remember,” he said simply. He face was impassive, giving nothing away.

“Okay, then. Just wanted to be sure I hadn’t imagined it.” I paused, giving him the chance to respond. He said nothing. I turned my face to the window, wondering if he’d notice if I flung the door open and made my escape. Right now, a bit of road burn seemed preferable to sitting in the Bronco another minute, wanting to climb into the lap of a man who clearly didn’t want me there.

The quiet stretched between us again, and somehow my mouth was breaking that silence before my brain had a chance to approve its words. “So, what? It was just a thing? It didn’t mean anything? Or is this because of the whole doomed-to-be-crazy thing?” Hey, I might need to work on my eloquence, but at least I got to the point.

He gripped the steering wheel in a perfect ten-two position and continued to watch the road. Just when I thought he wasn’t going to respond, he quietly said, “It meant something.”

My heart stuttered and seemed to stop altogether, then joyously launched into double time. Part of me wanted to leave it there, knowing that whatever may have happened or might happen in the future, we’d shared one kiss that meant something. It almost felt like enough.

Unfortunately, Earth’s insistence on continuing to spin through space meant few things ever stopped exactly where you wanted them to. Though he didn’t release his grip on the wheel or lift his eyes from the road, Mac wasn’t done speaking.

“I remember kissing you. I remember thinking I was holding someone remarkable in my arms, and being fairly certain I didn’t want to let her go. I remember that.”

I was about to find out how long an elemental could live without oxygen. His words stole my breath, and I could do nothing but stare at him, my eyes roaming over his profile. His straight nose and high, broad cheekbones. His thick brown hair, a little too long. His jawline, locked in place. It was a face I found beautiful, but it wasn’t a relaxed, romantic face. The words might sound like a declaration, but the face was locked and closed.

Our time was up. He turned right, pulling into the long road that led to the cabin. I desperately racked my brain, looking for the words I needed to say to make him turn to me with soft eyes that matched his words. For once, I was speechless. Declarations of my own swam just below the surface, vague words and promises I’d never spoken before and didn’t know how to articulate. I wasn’t even sure what they meant. I only knew I wasn’t ready for this ride to be over.

He drew to a stop in the driveway, next to the beat-up Chevy compact I’d driven down from Oregon and ignored ever since. Sera wasn’t back yet, but the living room was lit. Real life waited for us, just a few feet away. Mac turned the engine off and unbuckled his seat belt, turning to face me.

“I also remember that you left that night. You took off without a word to anyone, and headed straight into a dangerous situation you didn’t need to be in. You didn’t trust me to help you, and you definitely didn’t trust me to believe in you, though I would have done both. I know you’re still coming back to the world after a long time away, and I know you have a lot to deal with. This isn’t about the half-fire thing. I can deal with that, but I can’t deal with you running away, not again. Honestly, I’m not sure you’re ready to be kissing anyone, not yet.”

I opened my mouth once, twice, looking for a rebuttal that didn’t exist. Mac tended to be the strong, silent type until he had something to say, and it appeared he currently had a lot to say—and all of it was true. I was the one who’d acted like the kiss meant nothing. I was the one who’d left. “But I came back.” I spoke in a whisper, my throat closing around the words.

He reached out one hand to cup my cheek. The calluses I’d noticed earlier scraped lightly against my skin, and I welcomed the rough touch. Without even thinking, I leaned into his hand. I pressed against his warm skin and let him hold me, if only in that small way. I watched for the moment those chocolate brown eyes softened. It didn’t take long. He seemed content to simply sit like that, and I began to think he had nothing else to say. Finally, he answered. “I guess that’s a start.”

I looked at him, at that broad, tanned face that was quickly becoming one of my favorite sights in the world, and began to prepare long, reasoned arguments why waiting was entirely unnecessary. Before I had a chance to deliver any of them, his eyes moved to the rearview mirror. He instantly removed his hand from my cheek, his demeanor becoming impersonal and almost business-like. “Your friends are here.” A moment later, he was outside the car and moving toward his trailer, leaving me alone to deal with the black sedan easing its way down the driveway.

CHAPTER 7

Sera wasn’t far behind the agents, having made a quick stop for some food and beer. We’d all been drinking a lot less since Brian revealed his true self, somehow associating cocktails and late nights with his boozehound ways.

Even more than the rest, I avoided crossing the line from relaxed into tipsy. We still didn’t know what had pushed Brian from fun-loving college student into murder-loving psychopath, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to walk a different path than he had whenever possible. Even so, with the sun beginning to show its face on a regular basis, many days found us lounging on the back deck, bottles of beer firmly in hand. After all, if I gave up alcohol altogether, I was pretty sure that meant the terrorists had won.

It was almost warm enough to be outside, and we had sufficient deck chairs for everyone to sit. However, doing so would allow Carmichael to keep his dignity, so Sera insisted we all talk in the living room. He scanned the floor for the most likely chair in a pile of floor pillows. I cheerfully patted a lumpy one next to me that featured some form of mutant ninja turtle. He gingerly lowered himself to the floor, carefully adjusting his suit and looking like he wanted to make an emergency call to his dry cleaner.

Sera walked into the room, cold six-pack in hand. “Beer, Scully?” she asked.

Carmichael shook his head. “We’re working.”

Johnson was already reclining against the wall, a panel of upside down teddy bears surrounding his relaxed face. “I’ll take one,” he said, holding out a hand.

“Johnson! It’s like I don’t even know you,” I said, reaching for my own bottle. He’d come a long way since we’d met. A few months ago, he’d been a serious, uptight agent intent on imprisoning me for several human lifetimes. I was sure he could still summon that agent at a moment’s notice, but at some point he’d let us see the man underneath, and I’d discovered I was quite fond of the Johnson that didn’t want to lock me up and throw the key deep into the fires of Mordor.

“Off the books means off the clock, right?” He grinned and took a long swig from the bottle.

Sera nodded. “Exactly. Though I should warn you, not everyone appreciates our flawless logic.”

Johnson didn’t bother to respond. He was too busy watching Vivian play with earth. We still had plastic bins full of soil scattered throughout the living room, a remnant of our old security system. Vivian had spent the last few weeks filling them with her favorite plants, but they still provided a bit of defense for our resident earth. We weren’t ready to disarm the teddy bear fortress yet, but we’d made it prettier.

Vivian closed her eyes and slowly fed the earth’s nutrients into the latest seedlings. As we watched, the plants sprouted a full half inch. She was a weak elemental, but that didn’t stop Johnson from watching her with an expression of awe in his eyes.

Fortunately, she was also a patient elemental. “Place your hand on the surface,” she told him. He quickly obeyed. “What do you feel?”

His face wrinkled in concentration. “Nothing.”

She picked up his hand and moved it to another section of soil. “Try here.” Once again, his face tensed. “Not like that. Breathe. You can’t force something to happen. Just root yourself to the earth, become part of it.”

He cracked one eye open, uncertain about the use of such blatant hippie language, but he tried again. With each long, slow breath, I could see the tension exit his shoulders and the muscles in his face relax, leaving him calm and open. “I feel... is that a worm?”

Vivian nodded. “A big one about an inch below the surface.” Johnson laughed openly. I was glad for him, but I also hoped Vivian was managing his expectations. With practice, he might learn to read the earth a bit, but that was all he could achieve. He was too weak to manipulate it, and his tiny drop of elemental blood was unlikely to provide anything other than a few blue ribbons in the county fair’s vegetable competitions.

Carmichael abruptly decided we’d socialized long enough. “What can you tell us about the shifters?”

I glanced toward Sera. Mac was still in his trailer, and while Simon was in the room, the agents hadn’t noticed the black cat perched in the beams. Their absence spoke volumes: leave them out of it.

“Well...” I stretched out the word, searching for an answer that sounded terribly informative while divulging no real information. I knew the shifters would continue to include us in the search for the missing teens only if they believed we weren’t then feeding their information to the FBI.

Fortunately, Sera knew better than to leave me in charge of keeping secrets. “What do you want to know?”

Carmichael turned to her, his body tensing at the sound of her voice. “Everything you learned in the course of doing your job.” There was an unmistakable emphasis on the last word.

“Shouldn’t a job come with benefits and paychecks? I’m not sure we actually have a job.” Her look was as innocent as Sera could manage.

He sputtered. “It’s been two days. We need processing time. We need to know this is going to work out.”

She shook her head. “See, that’s the problem. You keep acting like you’re doing us a favor, when I’m fairly sure it’s the other way around. It’s not like you two could wander into a shifter home and get answers.”

A red flush creeped into his cheeks, a flush I’d only ever seen Sera cause. The woman had a gift. “We could always find other elementals.”

“You think so?” Her doubtful tone made it clear how likely she considered that possibility. “Maybe. They wouldn’t be as powerful as we are, though. Not as pretty to look at, either.” She smiled at him, an easy, harmless smile, and took a pull of her beer.

“What do you want?” He spoke through gritted teeth.

She waited a long time to respond, taking several more swigs and appearing to think carefully about her answer. I knew she’d decided what to say before she even started this conversation. She might have been planning it since we left Reno. “I want you to understand that this is our world, not yours. Not yours either, Johnson, I’m sorry to say. We want to help you, but we’re going to deal with our world the best way we know how, and sometimes that will involve keeping its secrets. And you, well, you’re going to accept that and keep your whining to a minimum. Also, you guys do direct deposit, right?”

I admired how she failed to mention that shifters didn’t remotely consider us part of their world.

The red flush spread and darkened, and I was pretty sure his body vibrated slightly. I had to give him points for control, though. His hand didn’t twitch once toward his firearm. “Daily updates on all supernatural occurrences,” Carmichael insisted.

“Weekly. And we prefer the term magical.”

“Though our powers are steeped in nature and, we are, obviously, quite super.” I couldn’t resist contributing. Sera shot a conspiratorial smile my way. Carmichael chose to ignore me.

“Every other day.” Johnson watched Carmichael haggle, though he showed no sign of jumping in.

“Twice a week or none at all. Final offer.”

He studied her, weighing the strength of his position and seeing all its weaknesses. “Twice a week reports on all magical issues and daily reports on any human involvement, and your pay will be docked instantly if we find out you are withholding information we needed. That’s our final offer.”

Sera and I both nodded. It was a fair compromise, all things considered, though I feared we’d lose a fair bit of our pay if Carmichael followed through on his threat.

Carmichael exhaled, his relief tempered somewhat by his obvious annoyance. “Now, can you please fill us in on the basic points of the case?”

She gazed off into the distance, considering. “The shifters are having a couple of bad days.” Considering that update enough, she stopped talking and waited for him to explode.

Somehow, he held it together. “Are elementals involved in any way?”

“Other than you asking me and Aidan to butt in? No.”

He leaned forward, looking earnest and determined. I suspected this was a ploy. “You trusted us once with your secrets,” he implored.

The foolish man couldn’t know that a woman raised by Josiah Blais was completely immune to emotional manipulation. She’d been taught by the master, and no one else had a chance. If anything, she looked amused. “And word still managed to get out within the FBI. Neither of us are exactly welcome at home these days.”

This time, she neglected to mention that neither of us felt any desire to return home. Few people could tell partial truths with greater conviction than Sera.

Carmichael was running out of arguments. I wanted to save him, since he had no real chance of winning against Sera, and the longer he tried, the more foolish she’d make him feel.

“We can’t,” I said. “These aren’t our secrets to tell. You need to understand that. We’ll wear the white hats and help however we can, but we’re not going to betray the magical community more than we already have. I know you think you have a right to this information because of your new job, but that’s just not true. You’re still an outsider. The best we can do is tell you when there’s information we’re not allowed to share. Let us keep some loyalties, Carmichael.”

I thought loyalty was a language Carmichael would understand. He sighed heavily. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. We asked you to liaise on a case and communicate your findings to the FBI. We sent you to work on a case you would never have known about without us. Now, you are asking us to continue to employ you, despite the fact that your version of liaising involves telling us almost nothing about the case to which we assigned you unless it suits you and your friends.”

Sera and I looked at each other. “That’s about it, yeah.” I nodded and gave him a bright smile.

Carmichael rubbed his hand over his face, scrubbing his own skin in frustration. “Any human involvement?”

It was one small thing we could give him. “One of the shifters lied and said she was staying with a human friend. I’m not sure the girl knows anything, but you can talk to her.”

Sera nodded and gave them the name she’d learned from Dana. “Other than that, it’s all shifter families.” She offered Carmichael a small apologetic smile, one honest enough to catch him off guard. Sure, she was happy to bust his balls just for the fun of it, but we were also telling the truth. There were things we couldn’t tell these men without the shifters’ permission, and it took a rare sincere moment from Sera for Carmichael to finally understand that.

He nodded at her. “Thank you. And, considering that we don’t appear to be doing any work this evening, I’ll take one of those beers now.” He smiled a weak, tired smile, and with it the agent melted away, leaving a man in his place. It was the first time I’d ever seen Carmichael as anything other than the determined, focused agent. It made me think I should call him by his first name, if I had any idea what that was.

Instead, I walked to the kitchen to grab his beer from the fridge, wishing the whole time that Mac and Simon would join us and there was one less secret I had to keep.

Days passed, each hour creeping slowly by as absolutely nothing happened. The phone remained silent. I knew Will and his family were continuing to pursue every lead they could find, questioning James’s and Pamela’s friends. I assumed Carmen was doing the same, but no one updated me or Sera.

We knocked on both their front doors at least once a day, but no one opened them. Maybe Mac had told them we were in contact with the agents. Maybe they just didn’t like us.

I wasn’t sure what we’d have done if someone had answered. An abusive boyfriend or crazy mother still seemed the most likely scenarios, and I had no idea how to simultaneously help and investigate the two families.

The agents checked in regularly, and they confirmed what we already suspected. Pamela’s friend knew nothing. She’d merely been an excuse, a distraction while Pamela snuck away with James. She had no more idea where they’d gone than we did.

We had little information to offer them in turn, a fact of which they were grudgingly accepting.

Vivian spent hours on the computer, digging up every bit of information we could find on our key suspects. She learned that James got his driver’s license the moment he turned sixteen, earned Bs and Cs in school despite strong test scores, took regular guitar lessons in Tahoe City, and was a menace on a snowboard. Nothing in his history hinted at violence.

Carmen’s story was more complicated. Vivian’s research indicated a wild past, the kind of life that felt more appropriate to a big cat than the preppy trappings that now surrounded her. In high school, she’d been the sort of student who, if she’d spent half the energy on her studies that she spent attempting to skip class and outsmart the teachers, she’d have been valedictorian. She’d skipped college, preferring to educate herself in the San Francisco nightlife. She only stayed in the city a few years before returning north with a few dollars to her name.

Somehow, I knew it wasn’t the lack of money that brought her back. The evidence suggested that Carmen was a resourceful woman, the kind who knew how to separate men from their money. No, San Francisco was beautiful, with manicured parks and tourist-friendly forests along the coast, but it wasn’t the mountains. She was here because this was her home.

Only a week after returning, she met Mark Avila in a Sacramento bar frequented by well-heeled political types. She convinced him to marry her within a week and divorced him less than a year later, taking full advantage of California being a community property state. A month later, she found a man more than happy to take on a beautiful divorcee and her infant daughter. He lasted almost three years. The second husband had visitation rights to see Dana, but the first hadn’t been heard from since the divorce.

It might be suspicious, if it bore any resemblance to the current case. Carmen liked gullible older men with money who made her life easier. Kidnapping her daughter and her boyfriend simply made no sense.

Sera and I spent a lot of time on the throw pillows, tossing theories back and forth and trying to find an avenue worth exploring. One we knew how to explore, more to the point. We knew we were in over our heads, though neither of us wanted to admit it. We had no training in this kind of work, no idea where to begin, and no clue how to open those doors that remained steadfastly closed.