Page 78

FOURTEEN

Sorsha

“Remind me again what possible use these pathetic attempts at heroes could be?” Omen said as I checked myself over in the RV’s narrow hallway mirror.

As far as I could tell, I looked reasonably civilized in the clean blouse and jeans Ruse had obtained for me, but I couldn’t say I totally trusted my ability to judge these days. Not that I could ask Omen—I’d have even less faith in his assessment.

I swiped at my hair one last time, smoothing an unruly wave, and turned to face our leader. “I get that you don’t like mortals, and we had some issues with my usual branch of the Fund—but my friends there did help us. Heck, even my asshole ex turned up information that helped us decimate the Company’s operations. All I’m going to be asking these people is whether they know anything about my parents.”

“And you’re so sure they’ll have something to tell rather than just screwing us over?”

“They’ve got no reason to screw us over,” I said. “Since thankfully I haven’t screwed anyone in this bunch. Even if they’re not superheroes, I think we can assume they generally want to avoid outright hurting shadowkind, or they wouldn’t be in the Fund. And yeah, this is the best shot we have at finding out anything about my parents. They wouldn’t have been murdered by hunters if they hadn’t been working against the douches, and that sounds like Fund work. They probably met there.”

Assuming the two people who’d raised me for the first few years of my life really had been my parents. But even if they hadn’t been, I still needed to know who the Mom and Dad from my vague memories and the note in my trinket box were. That should lead us on the path to discovering where I’d actually come from—and how I’d ended up with magic powers and blood that turned to smoke when my adrenaline blared.

Ruse came up behind me. He gave my ponytail a flirtatious tug. “Woe betide anyone who fails to give you answers. I’ve seen how quickly you can dig up the truth, Miss Blaze. And I’ll be right there in the shadows to hear if any secrets come out behind your back.”

“Just restrain yourself from tripping anyone,” I said, not that I’d really minded seeing him knock my treacherous ex on his ass at the first Fund meeting my shadowkind companions had followed me to.

“I’ll do my best to behave… while we’re there, at least.” Smirking, he set his hands on my waist and leaned in to press a kiss to the crook of my jaw. Sweet silky champagne, the incubus did know how to light up every inch of my body with one small touch.

The tenderness of the gesture sent a flutter of warmth through my chest that wasn’t just lust. Our interlude with Thorn at the hotel hadn’t seemed to change anything at the time, but today Ruse had been back to his affectionate and demonstrative self—the man I remembered from the early days of our… association.

Maybe even more affectionate, or simply in a way that felt more like an expression of his own happiness rather than an attempt to work his charms. I wasn’t sure what had made the difference, but I wasn’t going to complain.

“I’ll keep an eye on the incubus,” Thorn said in a rumble, a note of amusement emerging in his usual somber tone. “And make sure none of the mortals cause any trouble for Sorsha.”

“There you go,” I said to Omen, folding my arms over my chest—and maybe leaning just a little into Ruse’s embrace to stretch out the enjoyment. “I’m well-protected.”

“One might even say… in good hands,” Ruse murmured, trailing his fingers up my sides to set off a wave of heat to join the earlier warmth. He kissed me once more, on the side of my neck, before easing back. “But of course I shouldn’t let those hands distract you from your mission.”

I shot him a look through my eyelashes. “Save that for later.”

Antic skipped down the hall between us, flickering in and out of her invisible state. “I want to meet this bunch of mortals too! So many new humans to play with. If I entertain them, maybe they’ll feel more friendly?”

“Er…”

I was saved from needing to answer by Omen, although he took a harsher approach than I would have. He fixed the imp with his cool stare. “Has your ‘playing’ ever put its recipients in a better mood? Think hard now.”

She pouted at him. “I do my best. Sometimes they simply don’t appreciate a good joke.”

“I think we should save the jokes for when I’ve gotten to know them a little,” I said, jumping on that excuse. “So we can make sure you cater to their specific sense of humor.”

Omen raised an eyebrow at me as if to ask why I was even bothering to humor the shadowkind he saw as a pest, but he didn’t argue with my framing.

Antic sighed and plopped down in the middle of the floor. “I suppose you’re right. I just feel my talents aren’t being put to full use.”

A glimmer of inspiration lit in my head. “Why don’t you spend some time exploring town, chat up the local shadowkind you meet—see if you can find anyone who was around twenty-five years ago and might have heard about the murders?”

“I could do that!” She jumped up again and gave me a sharp salute. “I won’t let you down.”

The hellhound shifter’s gaze followed her as she flitted away. “Are you sure you want her making our first impressions for us?”

“At least the shadowkind won’t flee in terror at the sight of her like they should with you, right?” I knuckled his bicep teasingly as I headed past him to the door. “I’ll try to keep this short.”

Nothing about the city beyond the Everymobile was exactly familiar. I only had those few wavery fragments of memory from my childhood to go by, and no doubt the place had changed plenty in the twenty-five years since I’d last set foot here. But still, walking down the bustling street past café patios and various vibrant stores gave me a sense of homecoming, as if my body knew I belonged here. Maybe it was all a delusion because I knew I’d started my mortal life here, but there was something enjoyable about it all the same.

After our business with the Company of Light was done, maybe I’d have to spend some time getting to know the city of my supposed birth all over again.

I’d gotten the contact information for someone in the Austin branch of the Shadowkind Defense Fund from a list all Fund members received once they’d participated in the organization for long enough to show their dedication. When I’d reached out last night as we’d approached the city, the woman had told me their next meeting would be in the gaming shop I was walking up to now. The plastic figures of orcs and trolls poised in the windows looked like caricatures of the actual “monsters” living among us.

I walked up to the counter as if I belonged in the place and smiled at the guy behind the counter, who was buff enough to have wielded a sword in real life as well as with a roll of a die. “I’m here for the 4pm gaming session. The password is Dragonlance.”

The dude gave me a thumbs up and motioned to a door behind a rack of LARPing instruction manuals behind him. “Head on in. Most of the usuals are already here.”

I braced myself and pushed open the door. I hadn’t told my contact—just “Monica,” since the contact sheet didn’t include last names—anything about myself other than that I thought my parents might have been involved in the Austin Fund a while back. My branch back home didn’t have any reason to believe I’d left the city, let alone that I’d come here. I didn’t think anyone would have sent out a general warning when as far as anyone there knew, the worst I’d done was get mixed up with some brutal local shadowkind. But if our experiences with the Company had taught me anything, it was that I was better off being careful than not.

From the size of the room and the—small—number of “usuals” who looked up at my entrance, this branch wasn’t as active as the one I’d left behind. The space held two tables, one like a dining table with eight chairs around it and a small card table off to the side that right now held assorted pop cans and a couple of bowls of chips that laced the air with a salty potato scent. Only four of the chairs at the larger table were occupied.

The woman at the head of the table had to be Monica… because she was the only woman in the bunch. She squinted at me through owlish glasses and then leapt up with a grin. Relieved at the thought that she might get a respite from testosterone dominating the room?

“You must be Sorsha!” she said eagerly. “Come in, come in, no need to be shy.”

You could tell she hadn’t met me before.

The three guys who got up more slowly might as well have been the personifications of a few of the more current mortal legends. The first had on a black suit and shades with a grim expression like he was auditioning to join the Men in Black. Across from him, a short, stout dude with wild, curly hair could have passed for one of Santa’s elves in that ruffled green shirt… which was especially noticeable because the burly man next to him was doing an excellent impression of Father Christmas himself with that bushy white moustache and beard.

My hopes sank before I’d said one word. Everyone here except Saint Nick looked to be under forty—too young to have been active in the Fund when my parents would have been.

I gave them a little wave. “Hey. Nice to meet you. Is this the whole group?”

Monica’s hands twisted where she’d clasped them in front of her. “I know our branch isn’t super impressive. There are a couple other people who come around maybe once a month, but they’re not quite as dedicated. Things have been pretty quiet around here lately, I guess. Not many humans stumbling on the shadowkind and ending up connecting with us these days.”

The man with the beard let out a low chuckle. “Back in the day, we’d have ten people show up and that was a small turnout. No accounting for how things change.” He dipped his balding head to me. “Welcome to our humble abode. My name’s Klaus.”

Of course it was. I could picture Ruse snickering in the shadows. I managed to keep my own smile friendly rather than incredulous.

“If anyone here can help me, it’s probably you,” I said. “I don’t know how much Monica told all of you—I think my parents were part of the Fund before I was born. Maybe for a little while after too. That’d have been almost thirty years ago. Were you working with the branch that far back?”

“I’ve been a member since I was twenty-two—which, I’ll thank you not to tell anyone else, was a whole forty-five years ago now.” He stroked his beard thoughtfully, only amplifying the Santa Claus look. “What were their names?”

I bit my lip. “I’m actually not sure… They died when I was three. From what I understand, they were murdered by hunters, presumably as revenge. I don’t know much about them other than that, but that’s why I thought they must have been working with the Fund. Why would hunters come after them unless they’d been getting in their way to help the shadowkind?”

For a few seconds, the four humans just stared at me. I guessed colleagues being murdered wasn’t a subject that came up a whole lot. To be fair, no one in the Fund back home had died for the cause in the eleven years I’d worked with them—I’d never even heard of anyone there getting hurt in the line of duty until the Company of Light had come for Ellen.

Then Klaus’s eyes widened. “ That must be what happened to Philip. My God. It never occurred to me—maybe I’m na?ve.”

My pulse stuttered. “You knew them?”

“I knew him .” He leaned his weight against the table as if he couldn’t hold himself all the way up while he thought back. “He was with the Fund for about five years, if I remember right. Near the end he stopped coming all that much—mentioned something about a woman he’d met, getting serious with her. I saw her once, at a distance, when she came to pick him up after a fundraising event. She had red hair like yours. You don’t see many with that color. She must have been your mother.”

“So, she wasn’t part of the Fund?”

He shook his head. “And from what you’ve said, it must have been around the time you were born that he stopped coming to meetings altogether. We kept in touch a little over the phone, but the last time I called him, his number was out of service. That was back when we still used landlines for most things… I assumed he’d just moved out of town. If I’d had any idea— murdered ?—”

There mustn’t have been any major coverage of the slaughter on the news, then. Maybe no one had realized what had happened. The hunters could have covered their tracks. The Company’s employees did so very effectively on a regular basis.

And for all I knew, it hadn’t been random hunters but the Company themselves who’d come for my parents. Luna had been afraid that whoever had killed them would target us next, and it’d appeared to be Company mercenaries who’d attacked her.

“Do you have any idea what they might have gotten into outside of the Fund that would have pissed off hunters or other people out to harm shadowkind?” I asked.

“Can’t think of it. Philip definitely wasn’t the type to go for violence… I remember how much he’d grouse when he had to deal with even a little blood from a papercut. He was more about the research, so papercuts were a fairly common thing. But I don’t know what your mother might have gotten up to. And maybe he developed a stronger stomach for direct confrontations after he left us.”

Well, that answered another question I might have asked—whether the guy had definitely been human. If Kris Kringle here had seen my dad bleed, he couldn’t have been any typical shadowkind, anyway.

“Papercuts are about the most painful injury known to mankind,” I said.

“He’d have said that, I’m sure.” Klaus squinted at me. “I can see him in you now. You might have your mother’s coloring, but that nose and jaw… I’ll have to see if I have any photos I can give you. We don’t record our activities in all that much detail, as I’m sure you understand.”

“Right, of course not.” A sensation squeezed my lungs, thrilled and yet uncertain. I’d found a lead already—I knew my father’s name now. But where did that actually get me? Klaus clearly didn’t know anything about the circumstances of my birth. He hadn’t even known I existed.

And if I took after my mother and this Philip guy… then I really was human. Or I’d started that way, at least. Well, I had already realized I couldn’t be a shadowkind, what with being able to handle silver and iron and generally bleeding human blood myself.

Had one of my parents or someone else done something to create the power in me?

Jolly old Saint Nick here wouldn’t have a clue. I sure as hell wasn’t going to go spilling the beans about my fiery voodoo to this bunch. Some first impression that would make.

Monica glanced at Klaus. “Is there anyone from that generation you’re still in touch with? Maybe someone else stayed in closer contact with Philip and could tell Sorsha more about what happened after he left the Fund.”

“I can’t think of anyone. He always kept his life outside of our business to himself. Like I said, I didn’t even know he was still working on behalf of the shadowkind after he left, but if hunters came after him, he must have been. We never carried out any operations that would have provoked them that much. No one still with the Fund was hassled.”

Maybe that was why Dad had left. He’d had a bold side under his bookishness and had gone vigilante, knowing the Fund wouldn’t approve of pushing back harder against the people who threatened the shadowkind. Just like I’d always kept my breaking-and-entering to free collectors’ menageries secret from the rest of my branch. Like father, like daughter?

I swallowed hard. “What if I told you that I think the people who murdered him and my mother might still be around? That they’ve hurt a whole lot more people—and shadowkind—since then?”

The Man in Black straightened up. “Well, then we’d have to do something about them, obviously. We haven’t seen anything major happening here, though. You think they’ve managed to keep it hidden?”

“I’m not sure how much they’re doing in Austin right now,” I said, measuring out how much I told them with an eye to caution. “The people I think are responsible have built up quite a network across a bunch of different cities. I think I know where they’re the most active here in the US—there are a few of us who’re going to travel there and see if we can stop them from continuing.”

The green-shirted elf-guy frowned. “Stop them how? If they’re that entrenched…”

“Clearly we’d have to try!” Klaus drew himself up straighter. “We haven’t had more than minor incidents to deal with in years, and not many of those. We could make a trip for a greater cause, couldn’t we, Monica?”

The woman blinked, her eagerness fading, but then she lifted her chin. “I suppose I don’t see any reason we couldn’t… in one way or another. There have to be steps we can take without making a commotion out of it.”

Right. Because here just like back home, avoiding a commotion took precedence over actually protecting the shadowkind from murderous psychos.

The tension in my chest condensed into a lump that settled into my gut. I was human—and right now all I could see was how right Omen was to disparage my kind. They hadn’t even noticed when one of their own members was murdered right under their noses. And now that they did know, they’d gone straight to figuring out how they could address the issue with as little disturbance to their own lives or the villains’ as possible.

I’d accomplished more in defense of the shadowkind in the past month than these people would in a lifetime.

But they were willing to pitch in somehow or other, and if that was good enough to bring Antic on board, it was good enough with our human allies too. I had to look at this glass as half full.

“Great,” I said. “I’m going to do some more poking around in the city to see what else I can find out about my parents, but when we have a plan for tackling their killers, you’ll hear from me.”

And maybe once the idea had sunk in, they’d care a little less about commotions and a little more about justice.