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VANESSA

“ S o, as we approach this estate, I want to remind you that the original family who owned it go all the way back to the very first settlers that came to America.”

I nodded along, idly unzipping and rezipping my fanny pack as I listened. Honestly, it was kind of hard to catch what our tour guide was saying over the rumble of the bus engine. I couldn’t help but wonder if all the shifters around me were having an easier or worse time than I was. It wasn’t like I could ask though, because that risked potentially exposing our little ruse, which would be a damn shame considering how much work we’d put into it.

“As we arrive through the gates to the estate, I want to remind all of you to be respectful. We are guests at a culturally significant site. Remember, hands to yourself, and anything you bring in with you, you bring out with you.”

I had to hand it to Alicia, she really knew how to act. Gone was the taciturn, often scowling woman who always looked like she had something incredibly important to do. Instead, she was replaced by a khaki-wearing, pigtail-boasting tour guide with a megaphone and a serious can-do attitude. I was beginning to wonder if she was less of a mercenary and more of a spy. I could definitely learn a thing or two from her.

“Ah, here we are!” She clapped joyfully as the bus pulled into the outer courtyard. The doors in the back and front opened, and all the passengers streamed out.

We were quite the colorful crew. This time, I wasn’t a caterer or a gardener. Instead, I and everyone else on the bus, sans Alicia, were playing tourists—the really, really annoying kind.

I hadn’t been part of the planning, but if I had, I knew I would have been delighted at the camp of it all. When everything had been explained to me, my only worry was that someone might recognize me, considering how often I popped up. Especially since I didn’t know if anything from Alric’s mansion had been recorded. Chiga had assured me it wouldn’t be a problem as he had plenty of disguises and supplies to make me fairly nondescript. That was how I’d ended up with platinum blonde hair tied up in a red bandana, and blue contacts.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing here? You gotta get out!”

I did my best to ignore the several security guards rushing toward us. One of their cars raced from the inner part of the estate. Alicia had called in a few favors and employed eagle shifters to scout ahead to get any useful information about the McMansion where the remaining brothers were holed up.

“Ma’am!” the closest security guard continued. He looked like the one in charge. “Ma’am, you can’t be here. This is a private residence.”

“Private residence?” Alicia practically shrieked, and man, I had to hand it to her, she was convincing. “Excuse you, I have been running this tour for nearly a decade, and this is a historical site I am showing to my guests as an ambassador of America.”

I did my best not to stare, although the whole situation was quite amusing—dangerous, but amusing. To my left, a couple of security guards were trying to stop Chris and Ricky from taking photos, but the two were replying in what sounded like maybe Dinè and Spanish.

“You need to get back on your bus and get out of here!”

“Ah, no ingles. Sooorrry.”

I never thought breaking out into laughter would be a risk of our plan, but I definitely had to swallow that reaction down. Then it was my turn as a guard approached me and took away the Polaroid camera I had been brandishing.

“Stop that. You need to leave.”

“Uh…” I didn’t know much Spanish, not enough to be convincing, and I’d only just started becoming familiar with Native American tongues since becoming embroiled in the shifter community, so it wasn’t like I could mimic that, either.

Well, it looked I was going with the broken French I had picked up from watching so much Canadian TV when I was younger. At least the pain of all of them ending on terrible cliffhangers had turned out to be for a reason.

“ Je ne parle pas anglaise! Je ne comprend pas ?” My accent was probably atrocious, but I was willing to bank that, like so many Americans, most of the security guards would not have the language skills to call me out on it.

“You. Go. Now.”

Did he really think that would work? All around me, our group of truly annoying passengers was spouting off, making a confusing hail of languages. Some of them were rapidly cursing the staff out in Aleut, and I was pretty sure Miranda was having a fake panic attack in Salishan. From the corner of my eye, I saw two shifters rapidly signing to one of the security guards trying to corral them. From the emphatic movement of their fingers, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were telling the man how close they were to throwing hands.

It truly was a mess, and a glorious one at that. When the car I’d seen earlier screeched to a stop, it was difficult not to feel particularly satisfied. I reckoned we’d managed to draw ten of their security to us, but if possible, I wanted a bit more. Really, at least twenty was the sweet spot I was looking for.

So, in the effort of making a scene, I tried to grab my Polaroid camera from the security guard.

“ Donnez moi! C’est n’est par pour toi! ”

I jumped for it, trying to snatch the device out of the much larger man’s hand, and if I just so happened to accidentally get his earpiece instead… Well, wasn’t that bad luck for him?

“Hey, whoa! You need to contain yourself, or I will do it for you!”

Considering I had learned the majority of my French from PG-rated television, I didn’t really know any swear words, but that didn’t stop me from acting like I did. I verbally dressed the man down, my volume rising with every syllable.

Sure enough, two more cars arrived, and more guards piled out of them. We were all doing our best to be the most distracting, loud, obnoxious, and banal interruption the staff had ever had to deal with. After all, if we presented ourselves as a large group of relatively harmless people who were lost, they were much more likely to redirect us rather than kill us. However, if they caught even a hint of subterfuge, everything would be over before we could get to part two of our plan.

A crackle from the megaphone was our cue, and suddenly Alicia was talking again in her tour guide voice.

“All right, everyone! Clearly, we are not wanted here. Let’s get back on our bus and go to our next stop. Hopefully, they will respect the importance of historical literacy.”

Finally, our cacophony died down, and I estimated that we’d wasted at least fifteen minutes of their time. Feeling satisfied with that, and a bit relieved I was going to be out of their direct line of sight, I hurried back to my seat on the bus.

However, I couldn’t relax fully, because I knew it would only be temporary. Very temporary.

Still, I did my best to breathe in and out, centering myself for the next phase. I didn’t have to wait long because as soon as we reached the main gate leading to the outer courtyard, there was a resounding bang, and our bus suddenly lurched to the side before coming to a screeching halt.

Oh, no, it seemed one of our tires had blown. Truly, no one could have expected that.

So, once again, we all poured out, chattering in our different languages in alarm, while Alicia continued to speak into her megaphone unnecessarily. I hadn’t been able to tell before, but the woman definitely had a flair for drama, and I was loving it.

“Don’t worry, everyone. This is a temporary setback. We’ll be back on the road in no time at all.”

Naturally, the security team walked over to us, all of them looking pained.

“What’s going on now?” the man in charge said.

I probably shouldn’t have taken so much joy in how exasperated he sounded, but it was pretty great. I knew the situation was incredibly serious, but it was nice to have a little bit of levity every once in a while.

“Ah, there you are, young man,” Alicia said, still talking through the megaphone at point blank range in the man’s face. “The spare is in the back, so would you be a gentleman and have your little team change it? Then we’ll be back on the road and out of your hair.”

His expression shifted from exasperated to incredulous. “You’re expecting us to change your tire?”

“Well, you certainly wouldn’t expect a lady like me to do it, would you? And how else are we going to get out of here? I mean, I suppose we could wait until AAA can come rescue us, but you know how long those wait times can get. We’d be stuck here for hours, and I don’t know what your bathroom situation is here, but our bus does not have with a lavatory.”

A myriad of expressions crossed the man’s face before he finally closed his eyes and heaved the heaviest sigh I’d ever heard.

Oh, yeah, we were doing our job, all right.

“Gibson, who on your team knows how to change a tire?”

“Are you serious, sir?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

I watched, thoroughly amused as the security detail suddenly found themselves playing mechanic. I did my best to sink to the back to our little fake tourist crowd, just in case one of them somehow got suspicious of my relatively simple disguise.

Hopefully, our other two teams were benefitting from this distraction.