Page 15 of Transfiguration
“You are. But we are on a plane with hundreds of strangers.” What if someone had pulled her into the bathroom? They could have hurt her before he had even woken up. He counted his breaths to calm himself. He’d never been this worked up over anyone before. Even his guys didn’t worry him this much. But they were both skilled and brutal fighters who could probably take down someone ten times bigger and badder than Con ever thought he could. Bella was just a kid… who had probably been abused a lot before he found her.
“What if someone tried to hurt you?” Con asked. Would she scream? Would she even know she could protest?
“I’ve got Molly with me. She won’t let me get hurt. It’s why they just sell me around now to people who want to talk to dead people.” Bella said as she leaned over and dug the third book out of her bag. Had she gotten through the first two already?
“Molly?” Con asked. Was that a ghost or something?
Bella shifted around in her chair and lifted the side of her sleeve. Out crawled a tarantula, fuzzy, black, andhuge. Con had never seen a spider that big outside of a movie. He blinked and gripped his chair, again lost for words, as the spider crawled over her hand and paused, seeming to rub its face on her fingers. She reached over with her other hand and petted it.
“Molly?” How did she get it past all the screening? “Is a spider?”
“She’s my familiar,” Bella said, then tugged her sleeve open, and the spider turned, disappearing up her sleeve, which was much smaller than the creature. “She’s good at hiding.”
“You’re going to give me a heart attack.” Con put his hand to his chest as a bunch of thoughts fell into place. Familiars were forbidden among witches. Another one of those magics left for heretics and deals with demons. And Bella had a tarantula as a familiar? Weren’t they poisonous or something? “Um, how long have you had Molly?” How did any of this work?
“A year, maybe a little more? I needed her, and she came to help.” She shrugged and opened her book again, not acknowledging the magically disappearing spider. If people feared her because she was a trans person and might have physical boy parts under her clothes, they’d have been wiser to fear the giant spider.
Where the fuck did it go?
SEVEN
Bella was drooping by the time the plane landed and they got off. Con bent and picked her up, carrying her toward the exit where the ride waited. She rested her head on his shoulder and fell asleep on the short walk through the terminal.
He knew the car the instant he stepped out of the sliding doors, an SUV limo, windows tinted dark, vampire safe, even though it was nearly midnight. The driver’s door opened and out jumped a driver, one Con had often enough to know by name. “Hey Blake,” Con greeted.
Blake didn’t even blink at the child in Con’s arms as he nodded with a smiled hello and opened the passenger side back door. The seats in these were wider and plusher. Con climbed in carefully, and set Bella on the seat beside him, strapping her in. Was she supposed to be in a car seat? He prayed she’d be safe for the drive home. He sat down, setting his own bag at his feet and strapping himself in as Blake got back in the driver’s seat.
“Hart wants to see you,” Blake said.
Con’s heart leapt into his throat again. He was getting a workout today. “Okay. Right now?”
Blake’s gaze fell to Bella. “Yes.”
He turned back and steered the car out of the airport, heading toward the downtown high-rise Con knew Hart occupied when here. Con looked at Bella and worried his lip. Hart was probably going to have her taken somewhere. Would there be a safe family in the Fellowship that would take her in? Would they be okay with her power? Would they let her be a girl or force her into some role that would drive her down a path of lifelong depression? Con knew the expectation of family and how it could fuck with a person.
He clenched his fists and tried not to let the nausea overwhelm him. It was an anxiety response. He had enough of them in his life to know. The pain in his chest, the rising roll of his stomach, the pounding pulse echoing through his ears; it was all a sign of his lizard brain trying to force him to react. Fight or flight. It rarely happened anymore. Not much scared him. Losing his guys, yeah. Rou going postal, probably, but that would likely be a fast end for the entire planet. And now the fear of losing this slip of a girl who hadn’t had a chance for a normal life.
Normal. That was a strange idea for a child with power. Con had been in his teens when the wind really manifested. Kat had her powers show up when she’d only been a few years older than Bella. Eleven or twelve maybe? Con knew Rou’s powers had started when he was young, and Rou’s kids had been powerful since the day they were born. A shift in generations, perhaps? Or something else?
Con flipped on his phone and was rewarded with a message from Sam saying they would be at Hart’s, waiting for him. Con sent him a heart emoji. Sam wouldn’t let anything bad happen to Bella. Even if he didn’t know the kid at all, Sam protected kids, and was big and bad enough to stand up to Hart. Con thought of himself as the weakest of their trio. How could he ever measure up to a vampire who took down Masters everyone else feared? And Luca was the dhampir son of the most powerful vampire of the world. Luca might be a pretty boy, but he could really kick ass. His speed and strength were near vampire level, even though he had not had a mortal death that would likely push him to true vampirism.
That had worried Con for a while. But Luca was nearly a century old and still looked in his twenties. He needed blood, but vampire blood, which he got from Sam. He also walked in the sunlight and ate actual food. The best and worst of both worlds, perhaps. Con was just a witch, and apparently not all witch since he was aging faster than most witches he knew. A secret his family hadn’t divulged? He wasn’t part of the first wave of witches, the elite. Maybe his blood was more diluted than his mother and grandmother let on. He had mostly cut them out of his life, ignoring their occasional calls, and living across the city helped. Was there any point in asking them? Or would they just get pissy because he pointed out their lack of power?
The car pulled into the underground of the heavily guarded building, taking only minutes to arrive, and not giving Con a chance to convince himself everything would be okay. However, his guys waiting for him outside the lower elevator door did. He let out a long breath as Blake pulled them up beside Sam and Luca. Sam, in his typical jeans and leather jacket combo, looking a bit like an Asian mob enforcer with his slicked hair and chiseled cheekbones, and Luca in designer skinny jeans, a fitted top, and a slash of belts at his waist for style rather than function. They both looked like they stepped out of a photo shoot. Luca was Italian in features, but his hair was longer these days. A mop of waves falling around his ears. The length worked better with his baby face, and since Sam didn’t care for the facial scruff Luca had sported when they’d all first met, Luca shaved often. Both were too pretty to be real, and all his.
Con’s racing heart slowed. He unbuckled himself, then Bella, and carefully lifted her out of her seat as Sam opened the side door. Sam snagged Con’s bag, then stepped back to let him out.
“Very Mario of you,” Sam teased, “Rescuing Princess Peach?”
Con glanced down and realized in the low lighting of the underground garage, Bella’s outfit looked more peach than pink. “I wasn’t sure what else to do.” He leaned in close to Sam to whisper, “She sees dead people.”
Sam blinked at him. Luca grinned, picking up on the words. “I do too!” He waved at Sam.
“Asshole,” Sam muttered, and shoved him toward the elevator. “We’ve got your back. Just tell us what you want to do.” His gaze rolled over Con, seeming to notice Con’s tight grip on Bella.
“I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. She’s been through a lot,” Con said as he stepped into the elevator beside his guys. They were alone. No guards accompanied them, but Sam and Luca were guard enough for most things. “The Dominion is really done? Rou isn’t crazy? Santini is a necromancer?” Wow, that was a lot in the couple of weeks he’d been chasing a lead. And he hadn’t found the damn book. He had never failed a mission before.
“Surprised you didn’t catch it on the news,” Luca said as the elevator carried them upward. They wouldn’t stop until they were at the top floor, Hart’s office. Con had been there a lot in the past. Assignments usually handed out in Hart’s office, which was coated in a ton of anti-listening and anti-tracking spells. It always set Con’s senses on high alert to even approach the room. “The Dominion set him up, wanted to kill him. Santini raised a zombie army to protect them, and then when the higher-ups sent a fire spell, Rou cast it back, incinerating dozens of officials.”