Blood Kin (13 page)

Liz stretched. “Rhys, what cars are below? Anything that’d fit the five of us?”

“Don’t know. We’ll have to go check.”

“We should have something,” I said. “At least we did last time I was here—which reminds me. Hey, Rhys, you know anything about a change in the wards? Tucker couldn’t get the door to open and when we walked in, both Niko and I felt the barrier. That’s never happened to me before.”

Rhys ran a hand through his hair, brow furrowing as he thought. “Wow, that is weird,” he said. “I know Gigi sent someone down some time ago. Damn, I can’t remember exactly when, maybe six, eight months or so? I think she said something about doing some maintenance, so I guess it could have been that. I didn’t notice anything, though. Liz?”

She shook her head. “Nope, not a thing,” she said. “Door opened fine for me.”

“Me, too,” Rhys said. “Tucker, maybe you’ve got bad juju from hanging around the vampires.” Rhys ducked as Tucker pitched a small throw pillow at him.

“If he’s tainted, so’m I.” I picked up the pillow, which had landed at my feet, and set it on the couch. “We’ve been around the same vampires the exact same length of time.”

“I was kidding,” Rhys laughed. “You’re both Kellys; just because you hang out with other species, even supernatural ones, that’s not exactly going to rub off.”

“Well, it kind of can,” Liz said.

The three of us looked at her with identical questioning expressions. “What do you mean, Liz?” Tucker asked. “I’m not following.”

“There’s a way to set a ward to sense these things.”

“C’mon, Liz,” Rhys protested. “That’s an old wives’ tale. You can’t pick up auras or whatever from proximity.”

Liz crossed her arms and scowled. “You can and I was an old wife for years, Rhys ap Huw Kelly. I may look like a sweet young thing, but you and I both know that I’m older than you are and have been around a hell of a lot more blocks in my time. I studied ward casting with Aunt Cat Lee when I spent time in Korea.”

“How the hell does that work?” I asked, fascinated by this information. Had I picked up Adam’s aura? Scent? What?

“That part, I’m not sure of,” Liz said. “But I do know that couples—or families—who have been together a long time tend to pick up characteristics of the others. You know, like how humans who’ve been married a long time tend to start resembling each other?”

“Yeah.” I answered, but both my brothers and Niko seemed to agree, too.

“We’ve only been together a few months,” Tucker said. “Less than a year, in fact. Surely it can’t be that quick—especially with our life spans.”

“I’m not so sure it has anything to do with time, but with intensity,” Liz explained. She gave us each a calculating look. I tried to see the three of us through her eyes. Niko and Tucker were practically joined at the hip. If I concentrated on the two of them, I could almost see the harmonies weaving them together. As for me, I resonated with the absence of my own vampire and was newly Changed, power throbbing just under the threshold of awareness, waiting to be used. Threaded among what twigged as “Kelly” was another band of energy, tinged dark purple, redolent of spice—dry and pungent—rich with the musky night.

“Damn, Liz,” I said. “I can see what you mean. It’s there, just under—” I reached toward Niko and Tucker, as if trying to touch the energy bands around them, so similar to my own uncompleted one. “Wow.”

“Wow, indeed,” Rhys said, his voice no longer playful. “When you concentrated, I sort of saw it, too. The energy. You’re one hella powerful Changeling, Keira.”

I let the concentration go, the energy disappearing back into thin air. Despite that, I still sensed it
there
, waiting. “Good genes?” I quipped, trying to make light of it.

How exactly did I feel about this raw power, now almost at my disposal? I knew I’d consciously been suppressing it since the Change, only letting loose when I’d shifted and some just now. I had a ginormous amount of potential sitting there, a powder keg waiting for the right spark, the right cue. Before I let any of this loose, I really wanted a way to leash it.

“So I guess Tucker’s aura or whatever had a tad of Niko, and affected the sensor seeing him as Kelly?” I asked.

“Perhaps,” Liz said. “It’s quite possible. Especially”—she motioned toward Rhys—“if, like he said, the wards have recently been updated. If you want, I could try to sort the wards, see what I can find out. I can’t guarantee anything. It’s been too long since my last warding. I was never that good at it.”

“No worries,” Tucker said. “Good to know I’m not defective.”

Niko scowled at him. “Never.”

Tucker caressed Niko’s cheek. “Happy you think so,
cariad
.”

Rhys snorted. “No wonder your auras merged. Keira, shall we be off to look for your missing Sidhe? There’re
plenty of cars below. We won’t fit in Liz’s smart car, but I’ve got a Range Rover and there are the family vehicles …”

“We could walk.” I stood. “It’s not far.”

Tucker looked at me quizzically. I picked up my backpack. “I want to walk.”

“Seriously? Walk, you?”

I gave in to the temptation to smack my brother. “Yeah, seriously. It’s not like I’m unfamiliar with the concept.”

“You never seemed all that interested in being outdoors—”

“In Texas,” I cut him off. “In the heat and the humidity and sweating, so not my thing. This is totally different.” It was.

Oddly for me, my body ached with the need to walk, to stretch my muscles, be outside. Could it be from my brief foray into wolf world? To be completely honest, Tucker was right, I’d never been fond of the out-of-doors. My idea of a good time usually came accompanied by five stars … service, hotels, restaurants … or no stars, but involving snacks, a decent movie, a comfy couch and good company. Not so much into the woods and chigger bites thing. Except when I’d shifted; then I’d found nature glorious.

But even before I discovered the joys of the outdoors on four legs, I loved walking around Vancouver on two. It’s a beautiful, clean city with little or none of the dirt and grime so common to many large U.S. cities. For that matter, to London, my other favorite haunt. “I wouldn’t mind being around someone other than us,” I admitted. “Even for a short while. Besides, easier to look around and talk to people if we’re not in a car.”

I’d been sequestered in small towns or among Clan for so long, it would be great to walk through anonymous crowds, through late-night tourists taking photos of Gassy Jack, of the steam clock, stopping to peer at store windows, being totally and utterly ignorant of those of us that walk among them: a couple of wolves, a hound, a bloodsucking fiend and me. Any and each of us enough to strike the worst of fears inside a human’s soul. On the surface, though, only three men and two women, who looked no more harmless than a double date with benefits.

“T
HEY WATCH, YOU KNOW
.” The old man leaned closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’d be careful, m’lady, if I was you.” Like many of the others gathering, he was dressed in his homeless finest: an almost-new tweedy overcoat of some lightweight wool blend swung over his too-long rolled-up black cotton trousers. Natty yellow suspenders, worn but clean, held up the trousers and accented his brown cowboy-style shirt. Around his neck, he’d tied a scarlet cloth in some parody of an ascot. A toque sat atop his grizzled close-cut curls, the hat red as a Delicious. Scuffed shoes, once the pride of someone’s three-piece ensemble, completed the man’s attire. He’d obviously chosen his clothing with care, careful to tuck in what needed tucking and making sure that things more-or-less matched.

“They?” I asked in more than a little amusement. Our search for my missing cousin had landed us in the middle of a pre-dawn street people salute and memorial for a recently expired colleague. Around us, a few dozen of the homeless walked toward a small park known as Victory Square. From what I’d overheard, one of their own, an elderly man named Old Sam had died a couple of days ago. This was their way of paying their respects.

The old man nodded and placed a finger on the side of his nose. “They are here. Only them that is around us, they don’t know so much. They look just like us.”

Confused by his “thems” and “theys,” I looked around me and saw nothing more unusual than a ragtag gathering of the area’s homeless, each holding a candle stuck into some sort of homemade holder—a scene familiar to those who attend vigils or have seen them on TV. The atmosphere was familiar, too: respect was the same whether offered for those cut down in the prime of a memorable life or for ones like this, a man whose real name, unknown, would never be carved into a memorial stone. His vigil would never make the news; he’d never be remembered by any history outside of the stories told by these survivors.

Was my new toque-wearing friend a bit around the bend? Probably and, more than likely, somewhat moonstruck—if the “moon” was the same kind that could be combined with “shine.” He didn’t reek of the stuff, but there was a slight whiff of alcohol about him, perhaps taken as a token of remembrance for a lost comrade. Surprisingly, he seemed clean enough in other respects, as if he’d managed to find a place to shower and shave. Another sign of high regard for a lost associate …

I shook my head. I was getting ridiculously maudlin, letting too much of the crowd’s emotion seep in. I reinforced my shields, but not before something at the edge of my senses shimmered—

“What the bloody hell was that?” I blurted out.

“You saw the light?” The old man poked me in the side with his free hand and cackled in glee. “I knew it. I knew you were royalty,” he said.

“I’m sure you have no idea what you’re saying.” I stepped away from him, all sorts of alarm bells ringing in my head. How in Hades could he know anything like that about me? I looked about as far from royalty as he did. Besides, the likelihood of this stranger knowing anything
about me or my family was about as much as me having a wild, passionate affair with the homeless old geezer.

“Oh no, I know,” he said and, once again, laid a finger to the side of his nose. I finally twigged—Paul Newman and Robert Redford used the signal in the movie
The Sting
. “I see them because I was touched once …” the man continued. “You see them because you can.”

I stepped back another pace, trying to find my brother. Although my night vision was very much improved since the Change, the light of the candles made all the shadows waver, dance. I couldn’t focus. If Tucker had been with me instead of Rhys, I could’ve easily spotted his red hair, but Rhys’ dark head blended in too easily with the crowd. Plus he was several inches shorter than Tucker.

“He died of a broken heart, Sam did.” The old man kept babbling at me, even though I put up my strongest “do not want” body language. “Just like the others. Old, not wanted, then they came and offered peace.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I mumbled, and turned on a heel. “Rhys,” I called out as I spotted my brother.

“Over here, Keira.” He waved an arm. “Keira?” The old man muttered. “I know that name.” Yeah, you’re probably a big Keira Knightley fan, you dolt, I thought, letting my frustration at the fruitlessness of the night turn into inner crankiness. But I said, “Keep safe,” to the old coot as I went to join Rhys.

“The shining …” The old man’s voice got lost in the crowd as I hurried away as quickly as I could.

“What was—” Rhys swung down from the bench he’d been standing on and approached me.

“Nothing,” I said before he could finish asking the question. “Just some poor old guy with delusions of seeing lights that aren’t really there. I think he had a few too many
at his friend’s wake.” I totally didn’t mention the royalty comment. I didn’t want the ramblings of some drunk tramp getting in the way of finding Daffyd.

“Ah.” Rhys nodded. “I asked several of the people around here if they’d seen anyone who looked like Daffyd.”

“Any luck?”

“Like you, nothing,” he said. He looked around at the gathering. “There’s a lot of people here, but nothing that says Sidhe.”

“They didn’t see anyone?”

“Opposite,” Rhys explained. “They saw too many.”

“Sorry? I don’t get you.”

“The folk music festival,” he said. “A lot of the musicians are here already, wandering around. Bunch of them look like something out of the Renaissance or their interpretation of it. You know the sort, leather, lace-up boots, flowing pirate shirts …”

“You mean something like a cross between a great fantasy and a bad romance novel cover?” I smirked at the thought. Granted, my Sidhe relatives and other fey I’d seen could get away with that look. Something about their unearthly beauty. For that matter, some human types could, too. I’d once joined up with a college group that was into the Society for Creative Anachronism, just for a lark … okay, and for a chance at a really hot guy who played bagpipes. He looked fantastic in a kilt—the traditional kit, including going without the things one traditionally went without underneath. Several of the men in the local group definitely did justice to various types of historical garb … others, not so much. But it was for fun and we all played the game.

“Yeah, just about,” Rhys said, agreeing with my cover comment. “One of the folks I spoke with was a social
worker. She’s been working this area, here, around West Hastings, those empty storefronts. Mostly making sure that the people were okay, had access to food, shelter, the lot. She said she knew the dead man.”

“Was it foul play?”

Rhys shook his head. “Nope, not even going to have a coroner’s inquest. They figured it was just old age, malnutrition and all the usual things that happen to the discarded and forgotten. Sam was a fairly popular guy. He sang.”

“Thus the tribute,” I said, nodding toward the crowd that we were quickly leaving behind as we walked.

“Thus the tribute,” Rhys agreed. He kicked a piece of trash with his foot, then bent over to pick it up and place it in a nearby bin. Rhys had become the quintessential Canadian. Unless they were totally into ecology, most of my American male acquaintances would probably have kicked the wadded-up paper for a while and then either left it on the ground or finally picked it up after being nagged by a girlfriend or wife.