The Inner Circle (Return of the Ancients Book 3) (3 page)

“Just because you might have some of their DNA doesn’t mean you’re one of them!” I said.

He reacted violently to that and blanched. His fingers dug into my shoulders. “Are you saying I’m one of
them
?” he hissed.

Clearly, he couldn’t bring himself to name them.

Neither of us could.

“I’m saying you’re not.” I shook my head. “I’m saying you can be anything you want to be—”

He cut me off. “I’ve always been different. From the start.”

I knew that was true. He didn’t react to iron. And on Halloween, he’d made the scissors fly into the floor when he’d gotten angry.
And
he’d accessed the blue strand in Avalon to reach the decryption codes, something none of the Fae could do. But then, I suddenly recalled his strange reaction to me in the parking lot when we’d first encountered the Mesmers, his response to my sarcasm about dreaming. Abruptly, I asked him, “Can you dream, too?”

The Fae couldn’t dream because they couldn’t access the second dimension.

Clearly, he
could
.

He jerked back involuntarily.

“If that isn’t a ‘yes’, I don’t know what is,” I observed dryly.

He recoiled even farther from me at that. His shoulders hunched down and he just looked like a massive ball of misery.

“I’m sorry,” I said, reaching out to him.

“This is the cruelest revenge,” he grated.

Without any warning, he shifted, disappearing from my sight to leave only a small wisp of mist where he’d been standing.

I scowled. 
“Thanks!” I shouted, waving my hands in the cold air. “I’ll just manage the Mesmers by myself.”

I honestly expected him to pop right back, but after about ten minutes, I realized he really was gone.

Refusing to let myself even
think
about being afraid, I trudged back into the house and headed for the bathroom.

Splashing water over my face with shaking hands, I rested my hands on the edge of the sink and stared at the person looking back at me. I analyzed the dark-haired girl with bright green eyes, dressed in faded jeans and a crumpled
Bean There, Baked That
coffee shop T-Shirt. She looked pretty normal, except she still had a thin gold Fae bracelet stuck on her wrist, a bracelet she couldn’t get off.

This girl was caught in some kind of unending nightmare. She was dealing with things that some government agency should be handling.

She was in way over her head.

But I couldn’t do anything for her. Beyond slapping her face and pinching her arm on the off-chance that she was dreaming.

I tried it. But as expected, I didn’t wake up.

Instead, I closed my eyes and concentrated on slowly breathing in and out.

I was scared. Afraid.

But I couldn’t let myself dwell on that, because I knew that it only made the Brotherhood stronger and cemented their control over me.

I slammed the faucet off.

Rafael.

I couldn’t understand it. Why hadn’t I seen any signs of this evil side before? Had I been that blind? Or love-struck?

I didn’t want to think about him. It hurt too much.

I should have known I would never have a fairy tale romance, and I didn’t even want to acknowledge the bitter humor of that thought.

Instead, I forced myself to think of the road ahead of me.

What was I supposed to do now? The mutant tulpa was in the hands of the bad guys.

And what about that gnome on the porch? The one that had turned into the man with the black top hat. He’d apparently been trying to warn me of the danger inside the house.

I shivered.

Was that gnome still there?

I didn’t have the guts to look.

Not yet.

Hearing the sound of a car, I ran to the window to see Al’s yellow pickup truck with the oversized wheels zoom up the driveway.

With relief, I watched his shiny bald head get out of the cab.

Al.

All at once, I felt safe.

I ran to the kitchen to see him standing there in his army fatigues and black boots. He was scratching his head, and there were two lines carved between his eyebrows.

“What happened, kiddo?” he asked, pointing to the missing door between the kitchen and garage.

I was such a bundle of tense, knotted nerves that I had a hard time replying at first. Finally, I moved my lips in what I hoped could pass for a smile.

“I dunno,” I lied. “I came home and it was missing.”

I was rescued from his piercing blue eyes by Betty joining us from the living room, absently sipping a mug of tea.

“What happened, Betty?” Al asked, turning to her.

“I fell asleep,” she said, drawing her brows together in faint confusion. “I swear the day just flew by!”

Al’s frown deepened. “And the door?” he asked curiously.

“Door?” Betty repeated.

He pointed.

“Oh, what happened to the door?” she gasped. The tea splashed out of her mug.

Al’s face flooded with concern. His gaze locked onto me for several long moments before he turned back to Betty and kissed the top of her head.

“Go take a nap, Betty,” he suggested. “You’re just tired. Maybe you’re coming down with a cold. I’ll fix this door right up. Tigger probably did it.”

“Oh, Tigger! Where is he?” Betty asked, nearly dropping her mug. “I swear, this has been such a strange day!”

She continued to chatter as Al gently guided her from the kitchen and down the hall.

I stayed where I was. I wasn’t sure what to do. And I sure couldn’t see how Al possibly thought Tigger had done anything to the door. The old brindled bloodhound exhausted himself just walking from the living room to the kitchen.

Al returned. 
His blue eyes zeroed in on mine as he said, “Your Alien Time-Catcher watch is blinking again, kiddo.”

I looked down at the plastic digital watch that Al had given me for my birthday. The blue light was blinking, signaling that another alien Time Event had occurred. I didn’t have the heart or the energy to lie.

So I didn’t say anything.

Al stared at me a moment. “Maybe we should send it back to Jack,” he said. “I’m not sure that thing’s working.”

Still silent, I hit the reset button. I’d assumed Al’s friend, Jack, hadn’t really known what he was doing because he sounded a little kooky, and he was just a janitor at an Air Force base.

How arrogant I’d been.

Both of his devices had worked flawlessly.

Al clearly knew I was hiding something, but he didn’t press me for explanations. Instead, he walked toward the garage, pausing along the way to give me a reassuring pat on the head.

“We’ll figure this mystery out, kiddo,” he said. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, trying to sound calmer than I felt.

Al eyed the open doorway and then inspected the holes where the hinges had been. “The door’s clean gone,” he announced, crossing his arms emphatically. Angling his head, he cautiously peered into the garage. He was quiet as he took in the mess.

A couple lids had popped off several of the paint cans, leaving white and green puddles of paint on the floor. His white PVC plastic pipe tent was knocked to one side and the hamster cage that had housed the tulpa was lying empty on the floor.

I wished I could hear what he was thinking.

Nodding thoughtfully to himself, he returned to the kitchen and to his Neighborhood Watch drawer. Whistling between his teeth, he rummaged around for a bit and then pulled out several pairs of goggles and a roll of wide yellow tape.

“Wear these, kiddo,” he said, tossing me a pair of goggles as he pushed his own up the bridge of his nose. “And grab that flashlight and notepad on the counter, will you? We’ve got work to do.”

I wasn’t sure what the goggles were for, but I put them on all the same and followed him into the garage.

Al’s blue eyes brightened as he unrolled the tape with great care. He looked utterly thrilled to be using it. I took a closer look and saw that the words ‘Crime Scene’ were printed every few inches. I wondered how long he’d had the tape in the drawer.

“Help me contain the area, kiddo,” he said with a crisp nod.

I held each end until he’d cordoned off the entire garage. Taking the flashlight from me, he began a slow sweep of the area. When he neared the paint cans, the beam of his flashlight froze.

“Strange.” His voice was excited. “Take a look at those, Sydney.” He pointed. “Got your cellphone? Why don’t you take a few pictures?”

I leaned close and shuddered, recognizing the small tracks on the concrete floor. They were Blondie’s footprints.

“Maybe we should call the police,” I suggested, fumbling for my phone.

“I’m afraid it’s up to us,” he told me. “This is such a small case that they won’t have time to do it justice.”

Small? I hardly thought so. It was the biggest case of the century, if not in
centuries
. I wished I could tell Al what was really going on. But it was getting so crazy, I hardly believed it myself.

As I lifted my phone to snap a picture, Blondie’s cackle snaked through the air.

I gasped and whirled, dropping my phone.

It shattered on the concrete floor.

“Whoa there,” Al said as I asked, “Did you hear that?”

Knitting his brows into a frown, he bent and scooped up my phone. “Hear what?”

We held still, straining to listen, but there was only silence.

“Never mind,” I mumbled.

He held out my phone. The screen was completely cracked.

“I’m afraid this one’s toast now. I’m sorry, kiddo,” he said sympathetically.

“It’s old anyway,” I said, annoyed with myself for breaking it.

A bit of glass embedded itself into my fingertip as I took the phone from Al’s outstretched hand. But I hardly noticed. I was concerned about Blondie. Was he watching us from the shadows?

Jamming my hand into my pocket, I reassured myself that Jareth’s protection rune was still there. It was. It felt warm against my skin.

“I’ll pick you up a new phone tomorrow,” Al was saying as he gave me another friendly tousle on the head. “How’s that for a Christmas present?”

I smiled, distracted.

A flicker of light caught my eye. One of Jareth’s protection runes under the window was glowing. My relief that it was working was short-lived when I realized that it probably meant Blondie really
was
trying to get in, after all.

“What is it?” Al asked me kindly. “You’re as jumpy as a kangaroo, kiddo.”

“Nothing,” I lied again. I felt terrible. I wanted to tell him the truth. I needed an ally. And if anyone in the world was going to believe me, I knew it would be Al. But I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. What could he do?

“OK, then,” Al said after a moment. “Let’s get this investigation wrapped up.”

Once again, he returned to the kitchen to rummage through his drawer, and finding the camera, he returned to snap pictures of Blondie’s footprints.

After that, he put me to work collecting various hairs that he found on the floor. The hairs were all black, beige, and orange and clearly belonged to Tigger. But Al had me use a pair of tweezers to carefully store them in plastic sandwich baggies anyway. And by the time we’d finished our crime scene investigation, we must have had over a hundred little baggies.

Somehow, that tedious task calmed me.

That and listening to Al softly hum under his breath.

And in that moment, I came to the conclusion that it was time for me to follow Al’s example. He didn’t wait to be told what to do. He forged ahead, looking for answers, and he didn’t really care what others thought of him. He shaped his own destiny.

I looked at his bald head and realized that he was actually a very brave man.

And it was high time that I took charge of my own destiny, my Blue Thread.

I couldn’t wait around for others to solve my problems. Who knew where Jareth was, and Rafael … I didn’t really want to think about him. Not yet.

It was time I dealt with this supernatural stuff head-on.

After all, I was powerful.

I was a human!

The thought made me smile a little. I’d always assumed that magical creatures, if they did exist, would undoubtedly be superior. Humans just wouldn’t make that ‘special’ list.

But maybe that was wrong.

We had the power to dream, and to use those dreams to forge our own destiny. And I was learning first-hand that human thoughts were powerful things in the second dimension.

Just maybe they were in this dimension, too.

“What is it, kiddo?” Al asked. Apparently, he’d been watching me.

I met his keen gaze. He could be very useful, and maybe Jack, too. Especially if I could nudge them more onto the supernatural path and away from government conspiracies. But I was going to have to be careful. I couldn’t endanger them.

Trying to look nonchalant, I asked, “What do you think happened here?”

“Weeeell,” he began, drawing the word out and looking around the garage. “Betty must’ve been real tired, to sleep through this. But it’s obvious what happened, kiddo.” His blue eyes sparkled. “And it’s highly out of the ordinary!”

With Al, you never really knew what conclusion he’d come to, but I already liked the direction he was heading. ‘Out of the ordinary’ sounded promising.

Hunching forward conspiratorially, he continued, “Marquis found out I had his top-secret equipment here, and he came back to get it.” He paused and scratched his bald head. “Though I can’t figure out why he took the door.”

He was certainly right about Marquis. “Maybe it’s more supernatural,” I suggested. “Maybe like telekinesis.”

I couldn’t really push more than that, because he chose that moment to stand up and stretch. But he said with a grin, “That’s what I like about you, Sydney. You think out-of-the-box. But it’s getting late, so let’s get the report written up and get this evidence locked down.”

‘Locked down’ meant filed away in a shoebox with slips of paper separating and grouping the samples by color: beige, black, and orange.

Al was meticulous. He faithfully inspected each bagged hair with the flashlight to verify its color.