Mythe: A Fairy Tale (60 page)

Manda had wondered if they would carry on with the tour as planned. She’d hoped so, as it was intended to promote the foundation, and so she was relieved when they didn’t cancel it. Sadly, this bit of positive news was overshadowed by a fresh wave of depression when the day of Richard’s birthday arrived.

Manda had missed his last birthday because they had only been dating a few weeks and he had failed to tell her about it. Manda had since pried the information out of Sarah and had planned to do something special this year. Instead, she’d managed to make both Richard and herself miserable.
Good job, M
, she congratulated herself facetiously.
You’re the best girlfriend ever
. Manda didn’t even bother getting out of bed that day. She wasn’t fit company for herself, much less anyone else. Better to just pull the blankets up over her head and wait for tomorrow.

The next day, Manda dragged herself out of bed as usual. And the day after. And the day after that. Each day she woke up hoping that it would be her last day of hiding, and each night she climbed back into bed disappointed. In between, she continued to search for news about Richard and Josh. She seldom found anything worthwhile. Album rankings—it was doing very well, climbing the charts quickly. Concert reviews—also good, though Richard was apparently taking even more of a backseat this time around and letting Josh have more of the spotlight to himself. Aside from this, there wasn’t much information to be had, but Manda told herself that no news was good news.

On Thanksgiving, Manda volunteered to help Anna cook dinner for everyone. This would be the first time she’d spent Thanksgiving away from her family. She missed them more than ever as the smell of turkey and pumpkin pie stirred memories of past holidays. Katie and Robbie would have been back in school for several months now. She hoped that they were doing well. Manda tried not to dwell on what she was missing though. Instead she threw herself into helping Anna make the holiday a cheery one. She forced herself to smile and be sociable. She made a festive centerpiece and place settings for the table, and tried to remember everything she had to be thankful for. She was alive, after all. That in itself was no small miracle. Her family and friends were all healthy and well, and if she couldn’t be with them…well, she wasn’t the only one forced to spend the holiday apart from the ones they loved. She was sure
each of the five agents here with her would rather be somewhere else as well. They were giving up a great deal to keep her safe, she thought guiltily. She consoled herself with the fact that they at least were able to call and e-mail their families and friends.

Manda and Anna had been up early, cooking and preparing for their Thanksgiving feast. They’d dispatched Joe and Leon several days before to buy all of the groceries they would need after polling everyone in the house to make sure they included at least one of each person’s favorite holiday dishes. By Thursday afternoon, after the meal was over, Anna and Manda both collapsed into chairs in front of the fireplace, exhausted. Manda still wasn’t sleeping well, and so it wasn’t just one early morning and too much turkey making her eyelids heavy. She curled her legs up into the chair beside her and rested her head against the back of the too-comfortable chair. She could hear water running and the clinking of dishes from the kitchen, where Terry and Kastl washed up. The sound of the football game that Joe and Leon were watching drifted down from the loft. Anna was sitting quietly and reading a book. The only sound from her was the occasional rustling of a page. They were all very familiar, comforting sounds. If Manda closed her eyes she could imagine she was at Emily’s house. She sighed and let her imagination take her there. Last year Richard and Josh had joined them. With a small smile on her lips, Manda drifted into sleep.

******

Like dark déjà vu, Manda found herself in the inky blackness again. It was a lonely and dangerous darkness that thickened around her like icy water. A familiar light in the distance once again drew her attention, growing brighter and larger as she focused on it. It resolved into the small stretch of road illuminated by a lone street lamp—the bit of road where Richard stood alone.

His face was haggard and his shoulders slumped in defeat. He called her name as he peered into the darkness. His voice had long since lost any vestige of hope. Each time he called out he edged closer to the line between the safe brightness that illuminated him and the treacherous, inky night the surrounded Manda.

She called out a warning to him, but he couldn’t hear her. She tried to run to him, but was restrained by the hands that held her. They weren’t threatening or hurtful, but they pushed against her forcefully, pressing her against the cold, unyielding surface behind her. Hands pinned her by her chest and shoulder while others pushed against her abdomen uncomfortably. She struggled against them, not because they were painful, but because they kept her from Richard. She had to stop him before he left the safe circle of light. A monster waited for him in the darkness—a monster with the razor sharp claws of a beast and the vicious, grinning face of a girl. The monster often taunted Manda from the darkness, promising harm to Richard and whispering its intentions in vivid detail.

Richard stepped forward again. He was so close to the darkness now that his foot edged into it ever so slightly. Manda redoubled her struggle against the hands to no effect. She shrieked his name, desperately trying to warn him about the monster. This time he seemed to hear her. He spun in her direction and his eyes peered into the dark in a futile attempt to locate her. She called out again, as loudly as she could.

“Richard! Don’t move. Stay there!”

Her shout had exactly the wrong effect though. Pinpointing the direction of her voice, Richard charged into the night, calling her name. The instant he disappeared completely from the light, his shouts turned to bellows of anger and pain—and then were abruptly and ominously silenced.

“No!” Manda screamed, struggling against the hands again. “No!” The hands on her shoulder shook her.

“Manda! Wake up!”

******

Manda’s eyes flew open and she lunged forward in her chair, ready to run, ready to fight. Adrenaline rushed through her rigid body and her wide eyes flashed around the room searching for Richard. All they found was Kastl. He leaned over her with his hands on her shoulders, keeping her from bolting from the chair.

“It was just a dream. Calm down. You’re okay.” His eyes probed her stricken face and he smiled reassuringly. “I’m right here and I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. Calm down.”

This time it was Kastl’s words that had an unintended effect. Tears flooded down Manda’s face and her whole body shook uncontrollably…because it wasn’t her own safety that she feared for; it was Richard’s.

Chapter 43

M
anda pressed the cotton ball to her arm to staunch the trickle of blood from the small puncture the needle had left. Luckily she wasn’t squeamish about blood or afraid of needles, but neither did she particularly enjoy having her blood drawn. She was thankful that it was only a monthly occurrence now, instead of the daily routine it had been at first.

“Here you go,” Kastl said and she moved her finger aside so that he could press an adhesive strip firmly in place. He had explained the need for the frequent blood tests. As he’d told her on that first day, they had only used the altered therianthropic factor twice before, so they didn’t have much solid clinical data about the short and long term affects. Any information they could gain by monitoring her would be invaluable, both to her and to others. Manda submitted willingly to the frequent “blood letting,” as she called it, and sometimes watched as Kastl and Leon put her blood through their battery of tests. They would mix tiny amounts of her blood with other blood—Kastl’s, Leon’s, and blood from the small collection of rodents kept for just that purpose—and then watch with a microscope to see what happened. The few times Manda had looked she hadn’t seen anything interesting. She did like to play with her fellow “guinea pigs” though, particularly the hamsters and rats. The mice were always much too skittish and the real guinea pigs were boring.

The two men ran other tests as well, and Manda had asked Kastl what they were looking for. He had shrugged and said they weren’t looking for anything in particular, just collecting data and screening for anomalies.

“Thanks, Manda,” Leon said, his standard cue that the bloodletting portion of today’s show was over. “I’m going to draw blood from the rats and mice today.” Translation: she should play with the hamsters and guinea pigs instead.

“Thanks, but I promised Anna I’d help her decorate the Christmas tree,” Manda replied, rolling her sleeve back down as she stood. She wasn’t really in the holiday spirit, even though Christmas was only a week away, but she was trying to put on a happy face. Anna was determined to make the season a festive one.

“Well, come back later if you can. The more you play with them, the easier they are for me to handle.” Leon grinned as he admitted his ulterior motive.

“If you’d quit poking holes in them…,” Manda began accusingly, and then trailed off with a grin and left the two men to their work. She found Anna in the great room, surrounded by the bags and boxes containing all of the brand new Christmas decorations she’d ordered online. She’d apparently conscripted Joe and Terry into her little Yuletide army, as they were industriously stringing miles of lights around the massive spruce tree that Kastl had cut and dragged in the previous day.

“What can I do?” Manda asked, seeking guidance from their general.

“I guess we’re not quite ready for you yet,” Anna answered after checking on the two men’s progress. “You can relax until they’re done.”

With time to kill—something she’d grown quite used to—Manda retrieved her laptop from her bedroom and made herself comfortable at the table in the loft, where she could see the snow-blanketed valley outside the expansive southern windows. She hadn’t had a chance to check the Internet yet today. She started to type Richard’s name into the search box and it auto-populated after the first two letters.

There was seldom any new information, and Manda usually had to sift through old news and worthless blogs and message board posts. This time, however, a wealth of recent news stories filled the search results page. She hadn’t seen so much since immediately after her “murder,” when photos of Richard and her had accompanied almost every entry. Now the photos were of Richard and another woman.

Manda began clicking through the links, reading the stories and looking at the pictures. Richard looked sad and tired, but the woman who was beside him in dozens of different photos was stunning. She was tall and willowy, with striking blonde hair and a dazzling smile, and she draped herself around Richard in a very, very familiar way.

The majority of the stories were the same. Richard had been seen in the more-than-friendly company of this new woman during the L.A. stop of Rain’s concert tour. She had accompanied the brothers when they landed at the airport and Richard had not been seen in public without her since.

Other posts speculated that perhaps “the music scene’s most elusive bachelor” had found someone to fill the empty place in his heart left by the death of his late-love. As Manda read this and similar posts, she struggled with a mix of emotions. Jealousy and anger were her first reflexive reactions. How dare this woman try to steal Richard away. Guilt and anxiety followed. It was Manda’s fault that Richard looked so sad. If this woman could make him happy again, would he fall in love with her? At the end of this whole nightmare, what if Manda lost him? Fear and worry joined the emotional whirlpool that swirled around Manda and left her floundering. It had never occurred to her that Richard might find someone else, but now that she considered the possibility she realized she’d been foolish and naïve. It wasn’t as if he were cheating on her, after all. She was dead…at least as far as he and everyone else was concerned. It was unrealistic to think that he wouldn’t meet anyone else. Would he worry about this woman as much as he had about Manda? Would he tell
her
about the danger? Manda said a silent prayer that Kastl’s team would capture their prey before she lost Richard for good.

Another thought occurred to Manda and she paled. What if it didn’t matter? What if it was already too late? What if Richard could never forgive her for the awful things she’d said and done? If Manda was free to go to him today, would he take her back? Would he hate her? Manda studied the picture of the woman closely, trying to glean as much information as she could about her. She was elegant and confident in front of the cameras. In every picture she staked her claim on Richard, either through the way she looked at him or the proprietary way she touched him. Jealousy writhed in Manda’s chest once more.

“Manda?”

Manda jumped, startled by Kastl’s sharp voice right beside her.

“Sorry,” he apologized, “but Anna’s been calling you for the last five minutes. I spoke to you from the top of the stairs but you didn’t hear me. Are you okay?”

“I’ve been better,” she admitted with a candor that didn’t usually characterize her dealings with Kastl. He put a comforting hand on her shoulder in a gesture as atypical as her candor had been, and stepped behind her so he could see her computer screen.

“Chelsea.” When he said the name, there was an odd inflection in the shapeshifter’s voice that Manda wasn’t able to identify.