Kyrie woke up with a hand on her shoulder. This was rare enough that just that light touch, over her T-shirt, brought her fully bolt upright. She blinked, to see Tom smiling at her and holding a finger to his lips.
He appeared indecently well-rested and, unless it was an effect of the dim light, the scar on his forehead had almost disappeared. He pointed her toward the desk and asked in her ear, breath tickling her, "Do you like steak?"
She looked her confusion and he smiled. "I ordered dinner," he said. "From room service. My father said to do it, since we have to go in before the others."
"Your father?" Kyrie said.
"Don't go there," Tom said, giving her a hand to help her up. "Really, don't."
"No. He was awake?"
"I woke him to tell him I was going to wake you and we'd leave for work. They don't need to be there when we go to work."
Kyrie got up and stepped over the sleeping bodies in the room, to the bathroom. She washed herself, halfheartedly because she didn't have clean clothes to put on. By the sink there were now five little "if you forgot your toiletries" kits—she would love to hear how Edward had explained that to the hotel staff—and half a dozen black combs. Also, a brush.
"I thought you could use the brush," Tom said, putting his head around the doorway. "I got it from downstairs."
She thanked him, pulled the earring from her pocket, where she'd put it for sleeping, and slipped it back on.
The meal was a hurried and odd affair, eating in the dark. But more disturbing than any of it, was looking up from taking a bite and finding Tom watching her.
What did he want her to do? Swoon with the attention? Fall madly in love with him? What would they do together? Both worked entry-level jobs, which was no way to start a family. And if they did start a family, what would it be? Snaky cats?
She glared at him and to excuse the glare said, "Eat. Stop staring. We don't have that much time." And he shouldn't, he really shouldn't smile like that. There was nothing funny.
But she didn't say anything. They finished the trays, left them by the door, and hurried out. "Are you worried about what Frank will say?" Kyrie asked Tom as they got in the car.
Tom still had the goofy smile affixed on his lips, but he nodded. "A little," he said. "Just a little. Frank can be profoundly unpleasant."
"Yeah, and he's been in a mood," Kyrie said.
Tom didn't know whether to be relieved or worried that all Frank said was "I thought you'd disappeared."
"No," Tom said. "Wasn't feeling well for a while and my dad came to town to look after stuff, so I was with him. I'm sorry I forgot to call."
For some reason, this seemed to alarm Frank. "Your dad? You have— You're in touch with him?"
Tom shrugged. "He heard I wasn't okay and he came to check on me. It's not that rare, parents caring about their kids," he said. Of course, he had no previous experience of this, and he wasn't absolutely sure he trusted his father's newly conciliatory mood. But he'd enjoy it while it was there and not expect it to stay, so he wouldn't be wounded when it disappeared.
Frank looked upset with that. "Well, get on with it. You have tables to attend to."
To Tom it was like returning home. He realized, as he was tying on the apron—"And we'll dock the extra $10 from your paycheck. I can't figure out what you people do with your aprons. Eat them?"—that he'd missed all of this.
The air-conditioner was pumping away ineffectively, too far away from the tables to make any practical difference, which meant that the patrons had opened the windows again, allowing the hot dry air of Fairfax Avenue, perfumed with car exhaust and the slight scent of hot asphalt, to pour in and mingle with the hot muggy air inside the Athens, perfumed with clam chowder, burgers, and a touch of homemade fries.
It was almost shocking to realize, but he really loved the place. His mind went over the panorama of seasons and imagined the Athens in winter, when it was snowy out and cozy inside and customers would linger for hours at the corner tables—near the heat vents—drinking coffee after coffee. He'd enjoyed coming in from the freezing cold outside and encountering the Athens as though it were an haven of dryness and warmth. He felt happy here. He wondered if it was just whatever pheromones the beetles had laid down around this place talking.
And speaking of pheromones, he got to work, greeting now this customer, now the other, taking orders, refilling coffees. To his surprise people remembered and had missed him.
"Hello, Tom," one of the women who came by before going to work at the warehouses said. "Were you sick?"
"Yeah," Tom said, and smiled at her. She was spectacularly homely—with a square face and grey hair clipped short. But she seemed to treat him with almost maternal warmth, and she always tipped him indecently well. "Touch of something going around."
"You guys should be more careful," she said. "Just because it's warm, doesn't mean that you can't get sick. Working nights, and you probably don't sleep as much as you should. I abused my body like that when I was young too. Trust me, it does send you a bill, though it might come twenty years down the road."
"Well, I'm all right now. What will you have?" He leaned toward her, smiling. And felt a hand pat his bottom lightly.
He believed in being friendly to customers but this was ridiculous. He turned around ready to blast whoever it might be, and saw Kyrie, leaning against him to talk to the customer. "Is this big ape bothering you, ma'am? Should I remove him?"
The customer grinned. "My, you're in a good mood. I guess your boss's hot romance makes things easier, right? He's not on your case so much?"
"Hot romance?" Tom asked.
"Oh, you don't know?" the customer said. "He's been sitting there all the time holding hands with that woman who bought the castle. The one he's been seeing off and on. Now she's here all the time."
"I meant to tell you," Kyrie said. "But I didn't want to talk in front of people. They spent yesterday necking over the counter. It was . . . weird. Poor Anthony had cook all the meals. Slowed us down to a crawl."
"Well, Anthony is a nice boy," the woman said. "But not like Tom."
"Ah, so you wouldn't want our big ape removal services," Kyrie said, and smiled at the woman, then at Tom, and flitted away to go take the order of the next table.
She left Tom quite stunned. Had Kyrie smiled at him? And had Kyrie really patted his bottom? Forget pheromones. What were they pumping out of those air-conditioners?
"Well, have you asked her out?" the woman said.
"I'm sorry?"
"Oh, don't play stupid. Have you asked Kyrie out?" the woman asked, smiling at him with a definite maternal expression.
He felt his damn all-too-easy blush come on and heat his cheeks. "Oh, I wouldn't have a chance."
The woman pressed her lips together. "Don't be stupid. She might have talked to me, but that entire little display was for your benefit. You do have a chance."
Tom hesitated. He could feel his mouth opening and closing, as he failed to find something appropriate to say, and he was sure, absolutely sure, he looked like a landed guppy. "I don't know," he said. "I'm not anyone's prize catch."
"So?" the woman shrugged. "No one is. You don't make babies start screaming when they see you. You'll do."
He had to get hold of this conversation. And his own unruly emotions. He and Kyrie had things to do. Far more important things. The Pearl had to be returned. They had to stop whatever scary beetles were trying to kill them both. This was no time to go all googly-eyed at the girl. "Yeah, well . . . anyway, what will you be having?"
"The usual. See if you have apple pie. I don't know if Frank baked yesterday, he seemed so distracted with his girlfriend. Apple for preference, but cherry would do. And a coffee, with creamer and sugar on the side."
"Sure," Tom said and beat a hasty retreat around the edge of the booths and back to the counter. There was apple pie in the fridge. He knew the customer enough to put the pie in the microwave for a few seconds' zap to chase the chill away. He got the coffee and the little bowls with cream and sugar and put it all on a tray.
And turned around to see Frank and his girlfriend—and he almost dropped the tray.
There was something odd about Frank and his girlfriend, both, and Tom couldn't quite say what it was.
He'd seen them before together, but usually when she picked Frank up or dropped him off. Now, they were holding hands over the counter, quite lost in each other's eyes. They weren't talking. Only their hands, moving infinitesimally against each other seemed to be communicating interest or affection or something.
With such an intense gaze, you expected . . . talk. And you really didn't expect people their age to be that smitten.
He realized he was staring fixedly at them, but they didn't even seem to have noticed. They continued looking at each other's eyes.
There was other crazy stuff happening there, Tom thought. Because while the woman didn't look like a prize—she looked like she'd been run through the ringer a couple dozen times, and perhaps hit with a mallet for good measure—she dressed well, and she looked like she could do better.
And if she was really the new owner to the castle, she couldn't be all that poor. The property, dilapidated and in need of work as it was, was yet worth at least half a mil, just on location. Where would someone like her meet someone like Frank? And what would attract her to him?
He set the pie and the coffee in front of the customer, who said, "I see you've noticed the lovebirds."
"Yes," Tom said, distracted. "I wonder how they met."
"I don't know," the woman said. "It was at least a month ago. In fact, when I saw them first, a month ago, they were already holding hands like that, so it might have been longer."
A month ago. The cluster of missing people had started a month ago. How would those two facts correlate? Tom wondered. He smiled at the customer and said something, he wasn't sure what, then backtracked to get the carafe to give warm-ups to his tables.
Was he being churlish? After all, he also didn't compare to Kyrie. If he should—by a miracle, and possibly through sudden loss of her mind—manage to convince Kyrie to go out with him, wouldn't people look at them funny like that too, and say that they couldn't believe she would date someone like him?
But he looked at Frank, still holding the woman's hands. And Kyrie had said that the day before he'd been so out of it that he'd let Anthony work the grill. Frank, normally, would not let any of them touch the grill. He said that quality control was his responsibility.
Tom looked at Frank and the woman. He could swear they hadn't moved in half an hour. That just wasn't normal.
He tracked Kyrie through the diner, till he could arrange to meet her—as he went out, his tray laden with salad and soda, to attend to a table, and she was coming back, her tray loaded with dishes—in the middle of the aisle, in the extension where a whole wall of windows separated them from Frank and made it less likely Frank would overhear them.
"Kyrie, those two, that isn't normal."
To his surprise, Kyrie smiled. "Oh, it's cute in a gag-me sort of way."
"No, no. I mean it isn't normal, Kyrie. Normal people don't sit like that perfectly quiet, fluttering fingers at each other."
Kyrie flung around to watch him, eye to eye. "What are you saying?"
"That we're looking for a weird insectlike romance. And I think that's it. The pie-and-coffee lady says that they first met a month ago, at least. I didn't pay any attention when it started, just sort of realized it was going on. I guess the idea of Frank getting some and maybe leaving descendants was so scary I kind of shied away from it. But the pie lady thinks it was already going on a month ago. Though even she says it's getting more intense."
"I haven't given it much attention, either," Kyrie said. "A month at least, or a month?"
"At least a month, I don't know anymore."
Kyrie looked suitably worried. "Okay," she said. "Okay. I'll make enquiries."
Kyrie turned on her rounds, to stop by the poet, and give him a warm-up on his coffee. "We always wonder what you write," she said and smiled. All these months, she'd never actually attempted to talk to the poet, but she figured someone had to. And he was there every night the same hours.
He was the most regular of the regulars. If he had looked at all—and Kyrie had never been absolutely sure of the poet's being fully engaged with the world—he would know, better than anyone, how long Frank's romance had been going on.
The man reached nervous fingers for the ceramic cup with the fresh coffee in it, and fumbled with getting it to his mouth to drink. His pale-blue eyes rested on Kyrie's face for a moment, then away. "I . . . It's just a journal. My therapist said I would be better off for writing a journal."
"A journal," she said. She had a feeling the man wasn't used to much female attention, but if what he wrote was indeed a journal, then he would have all the data there, at his fingertips. "I would never be disciplined enough for a journal."
He grinned, showing her very crooked teeth. Then looked rapidly away and continued, speaking intently to the salt shaker. "Well, it's all a matter of doing it at the same time every day, isn't it? Just being regular and doing it at the same time. After a while it becomes a habit and you could no more go without it than you could go without eating or sleeping."
He looked back at her, just a little, out of the corner of the eye, reminding Kyrie of a squirrel, tempted by nuts on the sidewalk but hesitant about coming out in the open.
She smiled at him. "You must write all sorts of fascinating details about everything that happens in there. I mean, so much better than just memory. My coworker and I were just talking about how long our boss has been in love with that lady there." She gestured with her head. "And we couldn't remember when they started going out."
"Oh." The poet fumbled with his journal, flipping through the pages in a way that seemed to indicate he wasn't absolutely sure how to use fingers. The gesture of a terminally nervous neurotic. "I can tell you the exact day. I have it here, all written down, because it was so amazing. She came in, they looked at each other, and it was like . . . you know, the song, across a crowded room and all that. They looked at each other, their eyes met, and she hurried over there and they held hands." He found the right page and, for once, dared to look up at Kyrie, as he showed it to her. "There, there, you see. Almost exactly a month ago. And they've been like that ever since. Oh, not every night, not that . . . absorbed . . . but at least a few nights a week she walks him in or waits for him when he goes out."
The way he looked at Kyrie, shyly and sort of sideways, seemed to indicate he had his own personal dreams of getting to hold hands with her someday. Kyrie didn't feel that charitable, but smiled at him anyway, and glanced at the page—of which she could understand nothing, since it appeared to have been written by dipping a spider's legs in ink and letting it wander all over the page. "Very nice. Well, now I'll know what you're doing and I can tell the other people when they ask."
She wandered away to check on orders. So far, no one had asked for anything cooked, but it was bound to happen. "Tom, you might need to take over the grill," she said, as she passed him. "As people start coming in who want their early morning dinners."
He looked surprised. "Sure," he said. "I can probably load dishes while I'm up there too, if you want me to."
She didn't tell him anything about Frank and his girlfriend, but she was thinking. What she was thinking, mostly, was that this whole eyes meeting across a crowded room didn't happen to people. Not in real life. But it might very well happen to bugs who were acting on instinct and pheromones.
It turned out not to be as bad as Kyrie expected. The clinch of hands over the bar stopped before the crunch, and Frank took over flipping the burgers and cooking the eggs and what not.
From about ten to midnight they were so busy that Kyrie didn't even notice the other guys had come in—Keith and Rafiel and Tom's dad—until she saw that Tom was serving that table. And then she forgot about them again, as she was kept running off her feet, taking pie to one and a hamburger to another, and a plate of dolmades to a particularly raucous group in a corner.
As the crowd started thinning, past midnight, Kyrie went up to the counter to put the carafe back. And when she turned, Rafiel was standing by the counter. "Can you take a fifteen-minute break?" he said. "Tom says he can handle it till you come back."
"Frank," she said, and realized that Frank had heard them. He waved them away. "Go. If Tom can handle it, I don't care."
On the way to the front door, Kyrie told Tom, "Thank you."
He looked slightly puzzled and then frowned at Rafiel, which did not seem at all like a natural reaction. "Are you sure you asked him?" she asked Rafiel.
"Yes, yes, I asked him." He led her outside, toward his car, parked on the street. "I'm not saying he's incredibly excited about it, but I asked him."
"Rafiel, if he doesn't think he can handle it alone I shouldn't leave him." She started to walk back, but Rafiel came after her and grabbed her arm.
"Seriously," he said. "I don't think he minds the work. He minds you going out with me. Oh, don't look like that," he said, before she was aware of looking like anything at all. "He knows we have to talk. He says there's some stuff you found out."
"Yes," Kyrie said, and sat down on the passenger side of the car. Rafiel had held the door open for her, and closed it as soon as she sat down. He then walked around the car to his side.
"I thought I'd take you for a cup of coffee, so we can talk? There's an all-night coffeehouse down the street."
Kyrie nodded. She had no need for coffee, but she wanted to tell Rafiel about the beetles, and what she thought of the beetles.
Edward watched Tom, after Kyrie left. He watched Keith too. Mostly because Keith puzzled him. He sat at the table, taking everything in, seemingly unaffected by the fact that there were not one but two types of shape-shifters that might want him dead.
Dragons and beetles and who knows what, oh my. "You're not scared at all?" he asked Keith, in an undertone.
Keith looked back at him, as though trying to decide exactly how many heads Edward might have. "Well," he said. "It's not so much that I'm not scared. Although . . . I don't think I am, you know?"
"Why not?" Edward asked. He thought of the Great Sky Dragon, flying through the sky and using what seemed to be magic to get from one place to the other without having to cross the space between. He thought of even Tom in his dragon form, of Tom's flying across the New York sky, seeming completely nonhuman.
"I don't know," Keith said. "I told them it was because I read so much science fiction and comic books—and that's probably true." He shrugged. "I mean, you see something very often, even if you know it's fiction, it makes an impression on you after a while and part of you hopes or believes it to be true, right? I mean, even if your mind knows it isn't."
"It's possible," Edward said. To be honest he didn't remember what it was like to be that young anymore. It had been at least twenty-five years since he'd read any fiction. No. More. In college, his fiction reading had just tapered away to nothing. "I suppose it's possible."
"Well, in a way it was like that," Keith said. "I mean, the idea would have probably struck me as much odder, much more impossible if I'd never seen it in stories. But the important thing is, I saw it happen in the worst possible circumstances." He lowered his voice. "They grabbed us and they took us in, and Rafiel was . . . um . . . shifted. And Tom was all tied up, and—"
"He was. Tied?" Edward knew what Lung had told him, and at some level, consciously, he knew that being captured by the triad could be no picnic. But somehow, seeing Tom walk into his hotel room had given him hope that it was all just a big fight. He knew Tom could handle himself in a fight. He wasn't so sure about Tom being helpless.
"Yeah. He was completely tied-up. And he . . . They'd . . . His clothes were caked with blood. They'd taken his jacket and boots off. I think they might have thought to keep them after they . . . you know, got rid of him. Or perhaps they thought that the leather would protect him. And then he . . . shifted. I knew it was still him because of his eyes. And he freed me. And I freed Rafiel, who recovered much faster than they expected. And then we were . . . fighting. And that's the thing you know." He looked at Edward and seemed to realize that Edward was trying very hard to imagine but didn't really know. "I realized they can be taken out with a good tire iron. You don't need to be one of them."
Edward was following his son with his gaze. Tom looked so . . . competent. He'd removed his leather jacket and was wearing a red apron with "Athens" on the chest, and doing a job his father had never, possibly, imagined a son of his doing. But he was doing the job competently.
There had been no complaints. On the contrary. People smiled at him and it was clear that several of the regulars were very fond of him. And he answered back and smiled, and seemed to be a part of this diner. A trusted employee. Which was more than—just five years ago—Edward could have imagined.
To be honest, he couldn't have imagined it two days ago. If he'd thought of Tom at all, he'd thought of Tom as being in jail, or perhaps dead. He would never have believed his son was sane and responsible enough to hold down any job.
"Really," Keith said. "I'd love to be able to shift, because it's cool, but I'm not afraid of them. I mean, the nice ones are nice. The other ones would probably be just as dangerous as normal people."
Edward frowned. That thought too would have been unbelievable five years ago. But he was looking at Tom, and thought Tom was not much different than he would have been if he'd never turned into a dragon. He was just Tom. And, on balance, a much better person than Edward had any right to expect.
Just then, Tom noticed him looking and arched his eyebrows. Edward looked away. He might have thrown Tom out from fear and confusion. Getting him back, however, was going to require a full and rational siege.
If only they managed not to get killed by any other shifters. Edward wished he had Keith's certainty that they could fight against shape changers on equal terms.
"We need to talk," Rafiel said. He pulled the chair out for Kyrie, and waited until Kyrie had sat down before going around to his side. He picked up both their orders too, her iced mocha latte and his tall cup of something profoundly foamy.
"Yes, I . . . Tom thinks—"
"Wait," Rafiel said. "We don't need to talk about the . . . creatures." He looked around again, as though afraid someone around them might understand the cryptic comments. "We need to talk about Tom."
"We—uh? What about Tom?"
"Well, he's not as bad as I expected," Rafiel said. "Not nearly. But he is . . . ah . . . Tom has issues."
Kyrie nodded. "Yes, but—" She didn't want to discuss Tom nor Tom's issues, nor could she imagine what Tom had to do with any of this. Tom's personality had nothing to do with the predicament they were in.
Sure, it would have been helpful if he could have managed to avoid tangling with the triad dragons. But that was, surely, just a fraction of his problems. The beetles loomed much larger in Kyrie's mind, perhaps because she had experienced them up close and personal. And Tom was not a werebeetle. Of that she was sure.
"No. I just . . ." Rafiel looked flustered, which was a new one for him. "I just am going to say this once and be done, okay? I can't help notice that he's attracted to you, and I think I've seen you . . . I mean, you give the impression of being attracted to him too, sometimes."
"I don't think I am," she said. "It's just that we've been working together for a while and I think I've misjudged him horribly, and I feel guilty about that. So I've been nice to him, but I don't think—"
"Good," Rafiel said. "I mean, really. Tom is not a bad person, but I think he's been through a lot in his life, and I think it makes him . . . well . . . I think he's sometimes not as well-adjusted as he would like to be. And I wouldn't want to wish that on you."
He put his hand across the table, on top of hers. Kyrie withdrew her hand, slowly, not wanting it to seem like a rejection. If she was reading this right, Rafiel had just tried to clear the field of his rival in a most underhanded way, something she thought only women did. Perhaps because she'd seen it between women and girls in her middle and high school years.
Fortunately, she wasn't sure she was interested in either of these men—or in any men. She'd seen too much of marriage and relationships through her time in foster care to think that she would ever take any relationship for granted or view it as a given. On top of that the kinks the shifters' natures would put into any relationship just about had her deciding to remain celibate the rest of her life. The knife-in-the-back approach to friendship and love certainly didn't incline her toward Rafiel.
"Tom thinks that Frank and his girlfriend might be the beetles," Kyrie said, rapidly, before Rafiel could resume his wholly inappropriate talk.
"Frank and his girlfriend?" Rafiel asked. "Why?"
Kyrie told him. She told him about the woman who ordered pie every night and who said that Frank and his girlfriend had held hands a month back, and about the poet and the whole eyes meeting across a crowded room thing.
Rafiel frowned. "Don't you think it's all a bit in the air?" he asked. "I mean, they're just a middle-aged couple, and perhaps they're not so good on the relationship and getting along with each other front. Perhaps they aren't very good at connecting with each other?"
"But . . ." Kyrie said, and seized on the one thing she was sure of. "But his girlfriend first met him around a month ago." And then, with desperate recollection. "And, you know, he had a Band-aid on his neck the day after I speared the beetle."
Rafiel sighed. "He and how many guys in Goldport? Think. Perhaps he cut himself shaving."
"At the back of his neck?"
"Well, okay, so he scratched himself. Or had a pimple that blew up. It happens. Don't you think if he'd been stuck with an umbrella, even in another shape, it would require more than a Band-aid?"
"Not necessarily," Kyrie said. "We heal fast."
"I still say this is all in the air," Rafiel said. He sipped at his coffee as if he were angry at it. "You have no proof. There are probably dozen of couples—hundreds—with weird relationships, who started a month ago, and where one of them had some sort of injury on the neck that day."
"I doubt hundreds," Kyrie said. "And besides, you know, there is the fact that she has a very convenient burial ground."
"What?"
"The castle. She bought the castle. You've seen the grounds. She could bury a hundred people there in shallow graves and be fairly assured they wouldn't be found. That's pretty hard in urban Goldport."
"Not really," Rafiel said. "You know, people have backyard lawns."
Kyrie snorted with laughter before she could stop herself. "I suppose you could fit one corpse in my backyard lawn. Two if you put them very close together."
Rafiel was jiggling his leg rapidly up and down. "Yeah, but some people have bigger lawns." He frowned, bringing his brows together. "What do you want me to do about it, anyway? Do you want me to burst into the Athens and arrest them because they hold hands and don't talk?"
Kyrie wasn't used to getting upset at people. Normally, to get along, both as a foster child and as an adult, she'd learned to hide her anger from people. But she couldn't even hide from herself that she thought Rafiel was being unreasonable. That she suspected he was being unreasonable because he felt thwarted in his pursuit of her affections didn't actually make her feel any better.
"I want you to go in there and look around," she said.
His mouth turned down in a dissatisfied little-boy scowl. It was the type of expression she would expect from a five- or six-year-old who had just seen someone else get the bigger piece of candy. "I can't do that," he said.
"For heaven's sake, why not?"
"Because I don't have a warrant." Instead of getting louder, his voice had to lower and lower, until it was low and almost vicious, growling out its protest. "I'm a policeman. I can't go poking around people's property without a warrant. Citizens get all sorts of upset when policemen do that. They would—"
Kyrie didn't think this behavior was more endearing because of its sheer irrationality. She finished her frozen latte, and picked up the cup, which she'd got as a take-out cup, as she'd been afraid of having to finish it on the way back to work. "Officer Trall, if you can hide evidence, lie to other police officers, and suggest that we, as shifters, need to take our law into what passes for our hands, then, yeah, you could and should be able to have a look-see in someone's garden without a warrant. I mean, no one is asking you to go in with a police force. Just go there, shift, and have a good sniff. Death will out, you know?"
He narrowed his eyes at her. "I'm trying to stay on the right side of the law. I'm trying to enforce the law. I'm trying to be a good person, Kyrie, and somehow balance this with being a . . . shifter. I don't think you realize—"
"Oh, I think I realize it perfectly well. I just think you'd be far more energetic in pursuing this if I'd told you that the culprit in this case was Tom Ormson."
"That's underhanded. Tom is a friend. He risked himself to rescue me."
"Oh, and how well you thank him."
"I didn't mean it that way. If you took it that way it's because you chose to. Tom would be very bad for you, and just because—"
"As opposed to yourself? You would be great? What would your mother think of your dragging me home?"
He blinked, genuinely confused. "Mom would love you. I don't understand—"
"I mean, Officer Trall, that your parents might not be so happy that the son they've protected, the son they always thought would need their protection the rest of their lives has a life outside the family."
"That's ridiculous. Did you just call me a mama's boy? I don't think there's anything else I can say to you."
"Well," Kyrie said. She was leaning over the table, and he was leaning from the other side, and they'd been arguing in low vicious tones. Now she straightened. "That is very fortunate, because I don't think I want to discuss anything with you, either."
And with that, she flounced out the door, which—she thought, smiling to herself—the owners of this coffee shop must think was a normal thing for her.
She had gone a good half block before she heard him shout, "Kyrie," behind her, but she didn't slow down, just went on as fast as she could.
This time she didn't go into the parking lot. Didn't even think about it. Instead, she approached at a half run, toward the front door. While she was waiting to cross Pride, the cross street before the Athens, she was vaguely aware of a car squealing tires nearby, and then parking in front of the diner.
She didn't turn to look. Which was too bad, because if she had turned to look, Rafiel's hands on her shoulders spinning her around wouldn't have taken her so much by surprise. And his mouth descending on hers might have been entirely avoided. Or, if not, she might at least have avoided the few seconds of confusion in which her brain told her to get away from the man while parts far more southerly responded to his strength, his virility, and the rather obvious, feline musk assaulting her nostrils with a proclamation of both those qualities.
As it was, she lost self-control just enough to allow him to pull her toward him, to allow herself to relax against him. She lost track of who she was and what she meant to do through the feeling of firm male flesh, and the large hands on her shoulders, both compelling and sheltering her.
He slid his tongue between her lips, hot and searching and forceful.
And in her mind, an image of Tom appeared. Tom smiling at her, with that odd diffident expression when Keith had asked about sex as a shifter.
She pushed Rafiel away. And then she slapped him. Hard
Tom would probably have missed the kiss, if he hadn't already been watching the door for Kyrie. But he was.
Okay, first of all, and stupid as it was, and as much as he was absolutely sure he didn't actually stand a snowball's—or a snowflake's—chance in hell—of getting near her, he'd been indulging himself in quite nasty thoughts about Rafiel.
So, okay, Rafiel needed to discuss the case with her. But couldn't he just have taken her on a quick walk down the block, then back again? Couldn't he have talked to her out there, against that lamppost in front of the Athens? Where Tom could have kept track of them through the big plate-glass window?
And then . . . and then there was everything else. If Frank and his girlfriend were the beetle couple, where did that leave Tom? Truth be told, Tom felt a little guilty for even suspecting Frank of that. Frank had given him a full-time job when no one else would.
Yes, but why had he? Tom wouldn't have hired himself, with his credentials at the time. And then there was his father. He'd told Kyrie not to go there, but it wasn't entirely avoidable. For one, his father was sitting at a corner table, in the extension, getting intermittent warm-ups of coffee and ordering the occasional pastry. He seemed to be discussing comic books with Keith, a scene that, before tonight, Tom thought could only come from his hallucinations.
And his father had already managed to ask Tom if Tom was warm enough—warm enough!—in the Colorado summer, where the temperatures reached the low hundreds in daytime and the buildings gave it back all night. Warm. Enough. It wasn't so much like this man's behavior bore absolutely no resemblance to the father Tom had known growing up. That was somewhat of a problem but, it could be said that any father at all would be an improvement over that man.
On the other hand, this particular father seemed to do parenting by instruments. Like a pilot, flying in a thick fog, might read his instruments to decide his location, how to turn, and where to stop—and if the instruments are faulty might end up somewhere completely different—Tom's father seemed to be trying to mend a relationship that had never existed in ways that didn't apply even to that hypothetical relationship.
Maybe it was that the only relationships Tom's father had ever taken seriously were courting relationships. At least that would explain his trying to win his way back to Tom's heart with chocolates. It didn't explain his thinking that Tom wore the same size pants he'd worn at sixteen though.
On the other hand, these pants were a great advantage, now he thought of it. He would no longer need to worry about siring an inconvenient shifter child—not if he wore them much longer. This, of course, brought his thoughts around to Kyrie again, and to the fact that she was five minutes over her break already.
Oh, he had no intention of telling Frank about it. Even if Frank were perfectly aboveboard and exactly what he claimed to be, there was absolutely no reason to let Frank know this stuff. He'd just get upset.
And so far Tom, moving rapidly from table to table, taking orders, distributing them, warming up coffee, was keeping on top of everything. In a little while, the crowds would drift back in again, and as long as Kyrie was in by then . . .
No. What he hated was the fact that he might be covering up for her necking time with Rafiel. Okay, he was willing to admit that Rafiel might not be exactly the scum of the earth. He could do worse. And she could do worse, too. In fact, any way he looked at it, Kyrie and Rafiel were just about a perfect match.
Despite her upbringing, Kyrie was fairly balanced. And Rafiel, after all, came from such a well-adjusted background that his parents knew about and abetted his shape-shifting. Surely, neither of them had anything in common with Tom, who had been thrown out of his house—at gunpoint no less—by the man who now thought he could heal it all with expensive chocolates and too-tight clothes.
They deserved each other. And neither of them deserved him in any sense. Which didn't mean he had to like it. It didn't even mean he had to accept it, did it?
He seethed, having to control himself to prevent slamming plates and breaking cups. He seethed partly at them, because he was sure they were taking advantage of his covering up for her to go and neck in some shady corner. And he seethed partly at himself, because, who was he to get angry at whatever they wanted to do?
And then, as he turned around, carafe in hand, he saw Kyrie come hurrying toward the door.
Alone. She was alone. He felt his heart give a little leap at this. Not hopeful. Oh, he couldn't have told himself he was hopeful. But . . .
And then he saw Rafiel come up behind her. He grabbed her by the shoulders. He spun her around. His mouth came down to meet hers. She relaxed against him.
The teapot escaped from Tom's grasp and fell, with a resounding crash and a spray of hot coffee onto the nearest bar stools and Tom's feet.
It took him a moment to realize the shattering sound had indeed come from outside his head.
Edward had never seen Tom tremble. He'd held a gun to the boy's head when Tom was only sixteen and he had never seen him shake. But now, he was shaking. Or rather, vibrating, lightly, as if he were a bell that someone had struck.
"I'm sorry I'm late with the warm-up," he said, and his face was pale, and his voice oh, so absolutely polite. "I dropped the carafe and had to brew another one."
"It's okay," Edward said. He'd been enjoying his conversation with Keith, partly because it distracted him from the fact that they might very well all be dead soon. And partly because in the middle of a lot of information about Keith—who apparently had parents and no less than four siblings somewhere in Pennsylvania—there was some comment and anecdote about Tom. Apparently Tom kept Keith's key and usually could be counted on to give it back when Keith came home drunk and confused, having left keys and jacket—and often other clothes—at the last wild party he'd attended.
Keith had engaged in some self-mocking on the subject of the number of times Tom had shown up without a stitch of clothing on, and how Keith had thought that Tom went to even wilder parties than he did. Now, of course, he understood. "He must go through an awful lot of clothes," Keith said. "They all must."
And Edward had nodded. He'd been relaxed. And Tom had looked happy and in his element. Why was he shaking now? Was it just the coffeepot? Was Tom so insecure he'd get that upset over a broken coffeepot?
"It's okay. I really don't need a warm-up," Edward said. "It's excellent coffee, but I've probably already drunk too much. Don't worry."
Tom nodded, and looked aside, as if getting ready to walk away. Then came back and sat down. He put the carafe down, with some care, on one of the coasters and leaned forward. "Father," he said.
It was the first time in five years he'd actually called Edward that. Edward took a deep breath. "Yes?"
"I need you do it for me, the delivery."
"What delivery?" Edward asked, puzzled. They were going to find the beetles, weren't they? What was there to deliver?
"The delivery of the Pearl," Tom said, lowering his voice. "In a few minutes, when I get a chance, I'm going to go into the bathroom and get it, I'll put it in the container before I take it out of the water, then put the container in the backpack. I assume you know where the center for the . . . Where their center is in Goldport, right?"
Edward nodded. "But . . . aren't we going to do that later? I thought we were going to—"
Tom pushed back the strands of his hair that had gotten loose in the course of the evening. "No. I . . . It's me. Look, it's just me. I know there's something wrong with me, but I just can't take it. I can't. I can't be around to watch it. So, you take the . . . delivery to the people looking for it, and I'll go, okay?"
Oh, no. This sounded far more serious than Edward had thought. And he didn't quite know how to handle it. The thing had always been, since Tom was two or so, that if he got something in his mind, no matter how misguided or strange, it was almost impossible to get it out. And if you pushed the wrong way, he only got mad at you and more determined to do whatever he'd set his mind on.
He didn't even want to ask about it in a way that would get Tom's back up. So he spoke as gently as he knew how. "Tom, I don't understand. What can't you take, and why are you going? And where?"
Tom shook his head, as if answering some unspoken question. "Kyrie. And . . . Rafiel. I can't take it. I know this is stupid, okay? I know it's puppy love, okay? But I've never been close to another woman. Well, not since I was sixteen. And I've never even thought about another woman as I think about Kyrie. I know it's stupid. You don't need to tell me—"
"I wasn't going to tell you that—" Edward started.
"But I know it's stupid. I know I never had a chance. Being as I am. Who I am. And I don't just mean the . . . shifting. I mean, just who I am. I know Kyrie deserves much better. I know that Rafiel is better. I've known that since I met him. But I'm too . . . I can't watch. I should be able to because they're both my friends, in a way, so I'm probably immature too, but there it is. I'm immature. I just can't . . . I'd end up getting in a big argument with her or him, or both of them. And I can't do that, because then . . . it would be worse than just leaving. So I'm leaving."
The words had poured in a torrent, drowning out any other attempts at speech, any other attempts at questioning. Now they stopped, and Tom reached for the coffeepot handle, as if to get up and resume his rounds.
"Tom," Edward said. "Where are you going?"
"It doesn't matter. Just . . . somewhere. Somewhere till things cool with the triad and until . . . No, I don't suppose I'll ever forget. I'm not . . . good."
"Perhaps you could consider coming home?" Edward said, and before Tom could correct it, "To my home. You can, you know. I don't mind."
He expected anger, or perhaps a huffing of pain. But instead Tom inclined his head once. "Maybe. After . . . when the triad isn't looking anymore. Perhaps they'll even give up on the idea of revenge, and calm down, and then, maybe."
Edward knew Tom was wrong. He knew Tom was wrong about Kyrie and Rafiel. He'd seen the three of them together and while Rafiel might look a lot at Kyrie, Kyrie looked at Tom. Now, most of the time she looked at Tom with annoyance or borderline irritation.
But that was part of it too, wasn't it? The ones who could annoy you most, the ones who could get under your skin most . . . He remembered what she had told him about how she knew that Edward still liked Tom, still had paternal feelings for him. How it was all about how he fought so hard to counter those feelings.
From what he'd seen, Edward guessed Kyrie had known from experience. She was, at the very least, seriously in lust with Tom. For a moment or two the day before, he'd thought she'd need a drool catcher to avoid staining the carpets of his hotel room. But she would bet there was more there, too. Because Kyrie was not the type to confuse lust with love.
He could let Tom go on believing this, being miserable. Tom would then probably end up in New York again and, knowing his intelligence and his new-found focus, be at Harvard or Yale within the year. And eventually he would find another woman.
But Edward looked at his son's pale face, his set mouth, which looked rigid enough not to tremble. Rigid enough not to betray the desolation within.
"Tom, I've watched her, and I think you're wrong. From her reactions, since I've met her, and from seeing her with him, I've . . . I don't think she's interested in him. And I think she likes you a lot."
Tom shook his head. "No, trust me. I had some hope. Not a lot. I mean, I know our different standings. But she was nice to me, and I thought maybe . . . But then I saw them kissing." He gestured with his head. "Up front. I know. I saw." He shook his head. "And I never expected it to affect me so much." He frowned, thunderous eyebrows low over his blue eyes. "I wanted to shift and flame something. Preferably his pants."
Edward almost laughed at this, because it was so much like Tom, to want to flame his rival's manhood right off. But he didn't want to laugh, not while Tom was in pain.
"I just thought you should know. I think you're wrong. But if you still think you must leave, then . . . I hope eventually you'll come back to my home. And before that, call me, okay? Tell me where you are. I'll wire you money. There's no reason for you to be deprived."
It was probably a measure of Tom's state of mind that he didn't protest the offer of money. Instead, he nodded and walked away.
"Man, he has it bad," Keith said. "I didn't realize it was that serious."
"I suspected it," Edward said. "I just didn't know he would take it in his head to run away from it all."
Was that what he'd taught Tom, when he'd thrown him out? To leave difficult situations behind?
Kyrie was shaking. Mostly with repressed rage. That Rafiel would dare grab her like that. That he would dare kiss her. And in front of half the diner too.
She put her apron on, and resumed serving her tables, but felt as if people were staring at her, and found herself blushing. How could he?
She suspected Rafiel was the center of attention to his parents, the center of their lives. His "handicap," the fact that he shifted, would make him far more precious to them, and they far more attentive to him. And he'd grown up to be the center of the universe.
Kyrie would bet too that with his body, his easy, self-assured personality, he would have girls falling from his hair and tumbling into his lap. She would just bet. So he probably was not too well aware of the meaning of the word no. Well, she would buy him a thesaurus at the first opportunity.
No, as in never. As in negation. As in I'm not interested. And even if the girl hasn't said it flat out, if she'd given him reason to think she was less than pleased with his interest, then Mr. Rafiel Trall would learn to keep his hands to himself. And his lips too.
She was so mad, that she banged a load of dishes into the dishwasher, after bussing the empty tables. This was the hour when people started leaving before the rush, and she'd bussed her tables, and Tom's too. She banged the plates and cups in, and she gave Frank a dirty look when he glared at her.
The dirty look must have worked, because Frank didn't say anything. Just turned away.
And Frank was, of course, a problem, as was Frank's girlfriend. Kyrie couldn't believe how obtuse and close-minded Rafiel had been. How could he not see that this series of coincidences, here, at the center of the Athens, was far more relevant than no matter how many couples who'd started dating a month ago, no matter how many men with bandaged necks elsewhere?
Damn the man. She couldn't believe someone like that, who was clearly smarter than dryer lint, would attempt to solve crimes using parts of his anatomy that lay below the equator.
She closed the dishwasher and started it, and turned to face Tom. He stood just behind her, his arms full with a tray of dishes.
"Oh, Tom, I'm sorry. That dishwasher is full. Let me open the other one. I'll put the dishes in for you if you want me to."
He shook his head. He was keeping his lips together, as if he were biting them to keep himself from saying something. How weird. It was an expression she'd never seen on his face. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," he said. "Just fine. I'll put the dishes in. You can go." His voice sounded lower and raspier than normal.
She went. She picked up tips, she tallied totals, she filled coffee cups.
On the way back from the addition to the main part of the diner, she saw Tom bussing a table, and thought that was as good a time as any to talk to him.
"I couldn't get Rafiel to listen," she said, in a whisper. "About Frank. He says it's all coincidences, and he refuses to help. What are we going to do?"
For a while, she thought that Tom hadn't heard her. He remained bent over the table, his hand holding a stack of plates to put on the tray, while the other hand held a moist cloth, with which he was poised to wipe where the plates had been. But he didn't move. He just stood there.
"Tom?" she said.
He put the plates on the tray, very slowly. Carefully, he wiped the table. Then he stood up and faced her. His face was stark white. Not the sickly pale it had been in the parking lot the night she'd found him over the corpse, but white—the white of paper, the white of the unblinking heart of a thunderbolt. "I don't know what you want me to do," he said, his voice calm, emotionless. "If you can't get Rafiel to listen to you, I fail to see where I can be of any use. I'm sorry."
"Oh, Tom, don't be an idiot," she said, in an urgent whisper, sure he had to have misunderstood it all. "I want to know what you and I are going to do about it."
Tom shook his head. "No. You don't understand. We're not going to do anything. After tonight, I won't even be here."
"Where are you going?"
He twisted his lips and shrugged. "Somewhere."
She watched him pick up his tray and his cloth and disappear toward the main diner, tray held at waist level.
What on earth was going on? First Rafiel had behaved like a lunatic, and now Tom. What had they been smoking? And why were they not sharing?
"What do you know about this?" she asked Keith and Edward, where they sat in their corner table. "Where's Tom going? What is wrong with him?"
Keith sat back on his chair, looking vaguely scared. "Whoa," he said. "That's one of the few rules of safety I've learned. I don't get in between this kind of stuff."
"What kind of stuff?" Kyrie asked, her temper rising. "What kind of stuff? What is wrong with every male here tonight?"
"I think," Edward said, his voice regretful, his tone slow, "that if I told you what Tom told me I would forfeit whatever trust I've been able to earn back from him. And you must see I can't do that. He might need me. I have to . . . stand by to help him if he needs it. I've got to tell you I hope he comes to his senses, but I don't think my explaining things to you would further this in any way."
"Oh," Kyrie said. "I see. He"—and she pointed at Keith—"Makes cryptic remarks, and you make longer cryptic remarks, with far better vocabulary. Whatever. Sure. What is this? Be Stupid Day for males?"
She glared at them a while, daring them to answer. When neither did, she huffed out of there.
They didn't answer because they had no answer. They knew damn well—had to know—that they were acting like idiots. All of them.
Well, she would show them. Rafiel might be more practiced at smelling shifters, but Kyrie would bet that even she, herself, in panther form, could smell a rotting body in a shallow grave. If she knew what she was looking for. Even at the morgue, with all the preserving fluids and embalming whatnots, she had smelled it. She was sure she could smell it undisguised and in the heat of day under a thin layer of earth. The only reason she hadn't smelled it before—if it was there—would have been that she was escaping beetles and cops with guns.
So, when her shift was over, she'd go up to the castle, and she'd shift. She'd sniff around. When she found the corpses, she would shift again, and she would call the police. Take that, Officer Trall. If someone called the corpses in, then Mr. Rafiel Trall would have to do something about it, would he not?
And as for Mr. Tom Ormson, she didn't know exactly what was biting him, but she was in no mood to find out, either. It occurred to her that he might have seen Rafiel kiss her. But if that was what had put his nose so severely out of joint, then Tom needed to take a chill pill, that was what he needed to do.
After all, what fault was hers if an idiot male decided to kiss her? She had slapped him for it, too. Half rocked his head off of his shoulders. And if Tom hadn't stuck around to see that, he was more of a fool than she'd ever thought, and she wouldn't mind if he left and never came back.
She avoided him the rest of the shift.
Edward received the backpack from Tom's hands, and pulled out his wallet to set the bill for the food he and Keith and Rafiel had eaten. He guessed Rafiel wasn't coming back, but he wasn't about to ask Tom. There was absolutely no reason to get the boy even more upset than he already was.
Instead, Edward put the backpack on his back, sure it looked ridiculous with his nice clothes. He got up, and Tom was turning away, putting the bill with the money in his apron pocket. Edward grabbed at his son's shoulder. "Tom." It was as close as he dared come to a hug.
Tom looked back, eyebrows raised.
"I just want you to know," Edward said, "that if you need anything at all . . ." He gave Tom one of his cards. "You probably remember the home address," he said. "But this is the new office address and my cell phone and work phone. Call. Anytime. Day or night, okay?"
Tom nodded, but there was just that look of dubiousness in his eyes that made Edward wonder if he would really call. Or just get into trouble and not tell anyone.
He walked out of the diner, and out into the cooler, exhaust-filled night of Fairfax Avenue. Under the light pole, he noticed that Keith was behind him.
"Can I come with you?" Keith asked. "To deliver that?"
Edward took a deep breath. "I don't think so," he said. "I'm going to deliver it in person, you see, not put it down somewhere and wait for them to find it. I'm afraid they'll go after Tom again if I do that."
"So . . ."
"So the triads are dangerous. And the Great Sky Dragon is not someone—or something—one tangles with for sport. I think I'm fairly safe, because they depend on me for legal representation. But I don't think you'd be safe and I can't allow you to risk yourself."
"But . . ." Keith said. "I can take out dragons. With a tire iron."
Edward couldn't avoid smiling at that. "I know," he said. "And I'm proud to have met you. But I really think this is something I have to do alone."
Keith took a deep breath, and shrugged. Then frowned. "You're not going to allow me to, are you? No matter what I say?"
"I'm afraid not," Edward said. "I'm afraid it wouldn't be safe."
"Okay. Then . . . I'll stay and keep an eye on Kyrie and see in what direction Tom leaves, okay? I'll tell you. When I see you."
Edward nodded, and put out his hand, solemnly. Keith shook it just as solemnly.
Add to the things Tom had accomplished the fact that he seemed to make worthy friends. And that was something that Edward had never expected of Tom. But he was glad. He started walking up the street, to where Fairfax became a little better area. It would make it easier to hail a cab. Once he caught a cab, he would call Lung.
If he didn't give them much time to react, perhaps they wouldn't have time to summon the Great Sky Dragon. Edward wasn't sure he could face that presence.
In fact, he wasn't sure at all he would survive this experience. Despite everything he'd told Keith, he was sure that the triad could buy a replacement lawyer, once they got rid of him.
The funny thing was that he didn't much care if anything happened to him, provided nothing happened to Tom. He'd never got around to changing his will, and if he died, at least Tom would be taken care of. It wasn't like he'd ever been much of a father.
Kyrie hung up her apron and picked up her purse. It hit her, suddenly, and with a certainty she'd never felt before that whatever happened tonight was decisive.
Because, if she went to the castle and found nothing, she'd have to live in hiding. Perhaps move. Because she couldn't know what the beetles knew or where they were.
On the other hand, if she went up there tonight and found corpses . . . well, it might be the last time she hung her apron on this peg and headed out, at the end of the shift, into the Colorado morning with the sky just turning pink, Fairfax Avenue as deserted as a country lane, and everything clean and still.
She got in her car and drove home, but only opened her front door to throw her purse inside the living room. Then she put her key in her pocket and headed back out.
The way to the castle was quick enough and at this time of morning there wasn't really anyone out. Kyrie could walk unnoticed down the streets. Which was good, because whether Frank and his girlfriend were shifter beetles or not, Kyrie didn't want him to know that she suspected him or his girlfriend. She wanted him to think that she had gone home, normally, and stayed there.
In a way she wished she could. Or that she—at least—had Tom or Rafiel with her. She couldn't believe that both of them had turned on them at the same time, and she wondered if it was some argument they'd had, of which she was only catching the backlash. Who knew?
The castle looked forbidding and dark, looming in the morning light. Most of the windows were boarded up, except for some right at the front, next to the front door. She supposed that Frank's girlfriend, not needing all the rooms—at least until such a time as she opened a bed-and-breakfast, if those plans were true—had opened only those in which she was living.
Kyrie wondered what Frank's and whatever her name's plans were, if they really were the beetles and if they truly were in the middle of a reproductive frenzy.
Were they intending on having all their sons and daughters help in the bed-and-breakfast? Or simply to take over the castle with their family? Kyrie seemed to remember that beetles were capable of laying a thousand eggs in one reproductive season, so even the castle might prove very tight quarters. And how would they explain it? And would the babies be human most of the time? Or humans all the time till adolescence?
There was no way to tell and Kyrie wondered if other shifters worried about it. She did. But others were, seemingly, in a headlong rush to reproduce, regardless of what it might mean. She thought of Rafiel and scowled.
As she approached the front entrance to the garden, Kyrie saw a woman in a well-cut skirt suit and flyaway grey hair walking away from the alley where the back entrance opened. She was walking away from the castle, toward Fairfax. Maybe she was going to pick Frank up from work.
Which would mean, Kyrie supposed, that they weren't guilty and were just an older couple in dire need of social skills.
But it would also mean it was safe to go into the castle gardens. Kyrie ran in.
The gardens were thick and green in the early morning light. There was dew on the plants, and some of it dripped from the overhead trees. Above, somewhere, two birds engaged in a singing competition. She started toward the thicker part of the vegetation, where she could undress and shift. She didn't think that the woman living here now had any domestic help, but if she did, Kyrie didn't want some maid or housekeeper to scream that there was a girl undressing in the garden. Embarrassing, that.
Avoiding a couple of spiders building elaborate webs in the early morning sunlight, Kyrie made it all the way to the center of the garden, somewhere between the path that circled the house, and the outside fence.
There were ferns almost as tall as she was and she felt as if she'd stepped back into another geologic age when the area was covered in rain forest. She removed her clothes quickly and with practiced gestures. Shirt, jeans, shoes, all of it neatly folded and set aside. And then she stood, in the greenery, and willed herself to change.
It came more easily than she expected. The panther liked green jungles and dark places. It craved running through the heavy vegetation and climbing trees.
Kyrie forced it, instead, to stand very still and smell. It didn't take long. The smell was quite unmistakable.
"Hello," Edward said into his cell phone in the back of the car. "May I speak with Mr. Lung?"
There was no answer, but a clunking sound as though the phone had been dropped onto a hard surface. From the background, Edward could hear the enthusiastic voice of a monster-truck rally narrator. Then, as if from very far off, the shutting of a door echoed.
Edward hoped this meant that someone was calling Mr. Lung. It was, of course, possible that once it had been determined that Edward hadn't called to order an order of moo goo gai pan with fried rice on the side, the cashier had simply left. Or gone to the kitchen to pinch an egg roll or his girlfriend's bottom.
It took a long time, but at long last, Edward thought he heard, very faintly, approaching footsteps. And then—finally—the sounds of a phone being moved around on a counter.
"Mr. Ormson?" Lung's voice asked.
"Yes. I have what you . . . I have the object you require. I'm heading to the restaurant to return it."
"You are? And your son?"
"We'll leave my son out of this," Edward said.
"I see. Will we?"
"Yes."
"Your son caused much damage and death to our . . . organization."
Edward said nothing. What was he supposed to say?
After a long while, Lung sighed. "I see. But you are returning the object in dispute."
"Yes."
"Well, then I shall wait anxiously. I will see you in how long?"
"About ten minutes," Edward said, and hung up the phone. He looked at the light growing brighter and brighter in east, every minute. If he was very lucky, then they wouldn't summon the Great Sky Dragon this close to dawn. Or if they did, he wouldn't make it here.
If he was very lucky.
He felt he could stand just about everything short of facing that huge, enigmatic presence once again.