Shifting Selves (14 page)

I didn’t want to ask, but the story wasn’t yet complete. “And your father? Your brothers?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. God help me, I don’t know. I just left them, Aidan. I tried finding them once, but they’d already moved on to another location. I couldn’t track them. And though I stayed at Will’s for years, they never found me, either.”

My leg, I noticed, had healed while we spoke. It was still a bit sore, but the bone was mended and the skin was mostly closed. I twisted slightly, spinning in the water until we were face to face. I was cautious of his leg, but it no longer bled and the wound appeared closed.

I placed my hand to his cheek, and he leaned into it slightly, a mirror of my actions the night he’d told me we couldn’t be together. At that moment, I didn’t care about that, or that he was determined to keep some emotional distance. I didn’t care that he was trying to make decisions for both of us. I didn’t care about anything except removing some of the pain from his eyes.

“Everyone carries burdens,” I told him. “Once, you told me to remember the things I’ve done, but to forgive myself, too. How’s that going for you?”

It wasn’t a smile. His mouth barely moved. And yet, I felt a hint of humor infuse his body and the slightest weight lift from his shoulders. It was just enough for him to keep going for a little while longer. “I think it’s a work in progress,” he told me.

“Fair enough.” I gave him the time he needed to return to himself, to stow his past away so he could once again be the man I knew in the present.

Everything in me strained toward him. Even as I watched him recover from the painful memories, I wanted to press my body full-length against his, to grasp his face and meet his lips with my own, to melt into him. I wanted to know him completely. His body, yes, but also his past, his burdens, his terrors. Him.

Whoever Mac was, I wanted him, and the certainty behind that thought proved as terrifying as the other events of the day. These emotions were just another kind of cliff, and even as I sat quietly in the water, I felt myself hurtling over the edge.

I tried to appear casual as I pushed myself backwards, using his chest as a brace and not letting my fingers linger overlong against his body. He was right, I realized. It wasn’t enough to want to kiss him. I needed to be ready, and the thought of the unrestrained free-fall that awaited me if I gave in to these feelings caused something inside me to lock up in terror.

Mac’s breathing slowed and he appeared calm, but when he met my eyes, his were still open and raw. He saw every fear coursing through me and he sent his own back, fears of abandonment and loss. This man, I knew, had the power to heal or destroy me, perhaps at the same time, and I might have the same power over him. It was terrifying—and I also knew it didn’t matter. I would keep falling.

We stayed like that for a long time, letting silence speak what we could not say with words. At last, it became too much, and I broke away, looking up the slope. Sera and Vivian were long gone in the ambulance, and it was time for us to join them.

But first, there was one thing I absolutely had to know. “So, what name did your uncle give you?” I grinned, hoping against hope I was speaking to an Alfred or an Ichabod.

He laughed, and it felt like the first honest laugh I’d heard in hours. “A man’s got to have some secrets, Aidan.” He stood and pulled me from the water. I stood easily on the healed leg, and we inched toward the shore, preparing to face the fallout from the day. “Let’s go see what chaos you’ve wrought this time.”

We took a more conventional path up the slope than we had on the way down, walking slowly uphill while various news vehicles passed us in the opposite direction. With the steady traffic, we couldn’t walk side by side, so I walked slightly ahead of him.

I was aware of his presence the entire way, though a fair bit of my attention was focused on pulling water from the air and using its power as an energy source, providing me with enough strength to make it up the steep slope without panting like a marathon runner on the twenty-fifth mile. I wanted to think I was low on energy because of my recent need to heal and the summoning of the lake, but I suspected I was just that out of shape.

Mac, of course, took long easy steps, as if he was strolling casually down the street. I made a half-hearted mental note to attempt cardio at some point in the distant future, a plan I forgot the moment I reached the top.

For once, this wasn’t due to my refusal to ever do anything that could be interpreted as exercise. This time, I abandoned all other thoughts the moment I saw Josiah waiting by the side of the road.

Of course he’d be there. Of course he would. Josiah always knew everything that happened before anyone else did, and all of Lake Tahoe tilting slightly toward Emerald Bay was the sort of thing that would catch his attention. Even so, he didn’t look annoyed or worried. He looked, if anything, pleased. That concerned me.

His gaze raked over Mac, then dismissed him entirely, all in a single moment. He directed his words to me only, as if the enormous shifter towering above him was merely part of the landscape. An unusually shaped tree, perhaps.

“Well, this is problematic,” he said, with a broad gesture that encompassed the rescue crews, news vans, and excitable campers. “Do you still claim you have control over your magic?”

Though I’d only known he was my father for a short time, he already had the ability to piss me off as only a parent can.

“It’s not like I set anything on fire. I just fancied a bit of a swim.”

He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Are you determined to draw the interest of the council? There are limits to what I can cover up.”

I tensed, finally acknowledging the fear I’d held at bay since we landed in the lake. The water council’s stated goal was keeping our presence hidden from humans, but like most bodies with a bit of power, they’d come to enjoy its taste. Now, they were the waters’ only form of self-regulation. Drawing their attention was the equivalent of driving for several miles with a cop car in the rearview mirror.

“I had to,” I said, dropping the attitude. “It was that or die. And what happens if they do have issues with me? They have no way of knowing what I am. I didn’t even know.”

“Old ones know many things. If they saw you lose control of your water magic, they’d likely know why. It is safer to avoid their eye.” His face darkened for a moment, then smoothed quickly back into a mask of detached amusement. I didn’t even think he was covering up anger. He simply moved through emotions that quickly. Mercurial, thy name is Josiah.

“I’m sure you’ll agree this is not something we can ignore.”

I snorted, thinking of his unexpected visit and frequent phone calls over the last several weeks. If that was his version of ignoring, I shuddered to think what he’d be like when he was paying attention to me.

It was time to change the subject. “Where’s Vivian?” I asked.

“She was taken to Barton Memorial,” he answered. “Serafina accompanied her.”

“How was she?” I tried to hide the worry in my voice. I wanted to give this man no weapon to use against me, no further knowledge of my emotional weaknesses. He already knew how much I cared for my friends, and that knowledge was dangerous enough. If he believed they made me unstable, I feared he’d have no qualms about eliminating them altogether.

“She’ll live.” His tone was, at best, disinterested, but immediately sharpened for his next question. He cast an accusing look in Mac’s direction. “Can I assume there was a reason Mr. MacMahon chose to drive you over the cliff?”

Beside me, Mac tensed, the way he always did in Josiah’s presence. I couldn’t blame him, considering my father treated him like an oversized nuisance when he even bothered to acknowledge his existence.

I spoke quickly, pulling my father’s attention back to me. “We were going north to... do something,” I ended weakly, unsure how much shifter business I should reveal to Josiah. His raised eyebrows let me know how unsuccessful my diversion had been. I continued quickly, trying to gloss over my vague answer. “Well, first we were coming to see you, actually, but then we needed to turn around and go back, and then there was a pop, and a flat tire, and then, you know, we plummeted down the mountain.” I finished with a firm nod, hoping my babbling and the thought of his daughter’s near death by Bronco would distract Josiah from the things he wasn’t meant to notice.

It was effective, certainly. He stared hard at me for a while, then did the same to Mac, then he paced restlessly for a long minute, his movements short and loaded with excess energy. An aura of rage surrounded him, its power crackling and hungry, and part of me leapt in joyful recognition. I closed my eyes tightly, desperately seeking my water center. When I opened them, the fire aura was gone.

“Are you saying someone tried to kill you?” He rushed toward me as he spoke, hands wrapping around my upper arms as he peered closely into my face.

“I’m saying loud pop, flat tire, deathward plummet. That’s all I know.”

He stared at me again, processing my words, then flew into a lengthy tirade. I didn’t know the language. This being Josiah, it was possible no one alive still knew the language. The gist of it, however, was unmistakable. If translated into contemporary English, I suspected his rantings would include several variations on “motherfucker.”

While Josiah continued to rage, I whispered to Mac. “Is there any hope of getting to Pamela? There’s still the chance I could read her clothes.”

Josiah abruptly stopped speaking in tongues, and said calmly, as if telling me that day’s weather report, “Your mother’s with her. Serafina phoned her as soon as she was able. She didn’t want to risk losing fresh evidence. Fiona then brought the girl to the bear’s home, as she thought she might be able to heal both Pamela and the boy. Why did you not phone her as soon as the boy returned?”

I decided “because I was a stubborn idiot” wasn’t a confession I was ready to make to my father.

Also, so much for keeping shifter secrets. I stared at Josiah, searching for any indication of unease or concern about what my mother might learn. After all, in addition to being a control freak of an old one with dubious plans for my future, he was still one of our best suspects in the kidnappings, due to his knowledge of Brian’s cocktail.

Though it was possible the worry that scored his face related to the case, I doubted it. He was already on his phone, arranging for the Bronco to be delivered to his private mechanic and insisting on a full investigation of the engine and all four tires.

Immediately after, he phoned someone regarding the news footage currently being captured below. I was unable to hear every word, but I did clearly catch “magnets” and “erase” repeated several times. He didn’t appear to spare a thought for the shifter teenagers. It’s what I’d expect from the man who considered them a lower life form, but it also suggested he wasn’t involved. Either that, or my utter lack of acting ability didn’t come from his side of the family.

I really wanted to get to the hospital and check on Vivian, but I knew I could do little good standing at her bedside with a worried look on my face. Right now, the best thing I could do was reach Pamela and help read whatever evidence remained, so that I might have some good news to share when I finally saw Vivian.

Of course, there was a marked downside to this plan. To get back to Truckee, we’d need to ride with my father. Sure, I’d needed to speak to him anyway, but I’d anticipated having Sera as a buffer. I hadn’t planned on a fifty-minute car ride squished between two men who patently disliked each other.

And, if that wasn’t enough, my mother waited at the end of the journey.

I cast a longing look over my shoulder, wondering if throwing myself over the cliff was still an option.

CHAPTER 14

We expected Josiah to drive us to the cabin, where my old Chevy sat, patiently waiting for me to remember it existed. No one else would lower themselves enough to drive the twenty-year-old compact, and while I refused to believe I was the grandma-esque driver Sera accused me of being, I did prefer to let others drive whenever possible.

Josiah appeared to have other plans, of which he’d already informed his driver. We cruised past the turnoff for the cabin without slowing and headed directly toward Will and Celeste’s home. There was no hesitation and no uncertainty in the movement. The man knew exactly where we were going.

Being Josiah, it was possible he had a dossier on every magical being in the region, including their addresses, but I still made a mental note to ask Simon to sweep Sera’s car for a tracking device. Considering we shared a father with no appreciation for personal boundaries, that really ought to be a weekly ritual.

He showed no inclination to drop us off and continue on his merry way. Instead, he followed us to the front door, his steps light and cheerful. I swore I caught him whistling at one point.

“You can go now,” I suggested. “I can’t imagine Will and Celeste will be happy to find you on their doorstep.”

His upbeat demeanor vanished in an instant, and he turned hard, black eyes to me. “Until you see fit to tell me the extent of your involvement with these shifters, I will learn for myself what sort of dangerous situation you have placed yourself in. I’m certain the home’s residents will understand a father’s concern.” He paused briefly before saying “shifters,” making me wonder just what he’d prefer to call them. The reminder of his prejudice lessened any pleasure I might have felt at the thought that, for once, Josiah didn’t appear to know everything.

We were on the steps leading to the house when Carmen strode through the front door and blocked our path, determination written in capital letters across her face.

She and Josiah were roughly the same height, and she had no problem placing herself directly in his path, forcing him to make eye contact. While Josiah’s eyes were cold and hard as granite, hers were predatory. Her slit pupil fixed on his face, looking for weaknesses I doubted he possessed. I’d say this for Carmen: she might be arrogant and secretive, but she sure as hell wasn’t a coward.

Against my will, I felt myself beginning to like the woman, especially if she wanted to keep giving Josiah grief. There weren’t enough people in the world willing to do that.

“What do you know?” Carmen demanded. I noticed she was clenching and unclenching her hands, stretching out invisible claws.

To an outsider, Josiah’s face did not move in the slightest. I, however, had been friends with Sera for years, and I knew a thing or two about reading a fire’s inscrutable expression. A single blink was all it took, and that tiny indication of surprise told me he had no idea what Carmen was talking about.

“I haven’t asked him yet,” I told her. She turned to me with a growl, and I swore I saw those perfectly manicured nails sharpening into points. “Hey, we were a little distracted.” I held my hands up in mock defense and gave her a moment to take in my and Mac’s appearance. Our clothes were torn and stained, and I suspected the current state of my hair would cause a beautician to fan herself.

To be fair, even after calling the hospital for an update on Vivian, using Josiah’s non-waterlogged phone, we’d had time to ask about the drugs. I simply hadn’t been in any mood to deal with his answers.

“What happened to you?” Carmen asked. “Never mind. I don’t care.” She turned back to Josiah. “Tell me about the drugs.”

At first, Josiah nodded sagely, so accustomed to having all the answers it seemed to be his default response, at least until he bothered to process Carmen’s words. He threw a comically bewildered glance my way. “Aidan, what is this crazy woman talking about?” While I knew he was exaggerating for effect, I also thought he was utterly clueless.

I felt something release in me, a worry I hadn’t known I was holding dissipating in the face of his apparent innocence. Well, innocence on this charge, at least. I feared he was still a borderline sociopath whose questionable motives had caused him to overlook the death of far too many innocent humans and shifters, but somehow I still thought there was a line between being complicit in another’s horrible actions and causing his own. It was one thing to have a father who was merely passively awful on occasion. It was something else altogether to be the spawn of an actual, comic-book villain.

He might not like shifters, but he wasn’t responsible for their abductions. That much, I had to believe.

“The other shifter who was returned, he couldn’t shift,” I explained.

“Can’t,” corrected Carmen. “He still can’t. And he’s getting worse.”

I glanced at her, startled. Based on how long Brian’s concoction affected me, James should have improved by now. “It was the same drug cocktail Brian gave me,” I told Josiah. “I recognized it.”

This time, he didn’t even attempt to appear impassive. The muscles in his jaw locked, and his fingers tapped out a rapid-fire beat against his leg. The movement was so like Sera I felt a burst of affection for the man, a feeling that simultaneously shocked and horrified me. Josiah was many things, but he was not my friend.

Except he and Sera shared an equally strong determination to protect me. This reminder of Brian’s abuse, an action Josiah had notably not approved, animated his face and caused him to sputter for several long moments. Finally, he grabbed my arm and pulled me away where the others couldn’t hear. He would defend himself to me, but not to Carmen. “I knew nothing about that,” he said to me, his face as earnest as I’d ever seen it. “You know I didn’t.”

“And now?”

He shrugged, a helpless “Who me?” gesture that wouldn’t fool the most gullible child. “After he was removed—” It seemed his attempts at protection extended to protecting me from my own actions.

“After I roasted him like an oversized marshmallow,” I corrected, not allowing the euphemism. I might be an unstable, unpredictable bundle of future homicidal psychosis, but at least I was an honest one.

“Yes, that. I had his apartment cleaned of any questionable evidence. They found nothing you wouldn’t expect to find in the apartment of a young man with a predilection for inebriation.”

“It’s the new millennium. Just say he liked getting drunk.” I didn’t even know where the words came from. Never before would I have considered being irreverent with Josiah. Long before I’d known he was my father, he’d still terrified me.

Somehow, over the past month, I’d stopped fearing this man. He was still far more powerful than I was, but I also knew he wanted one thing no amount of power could provide. He wanted my acceptance. In my own way, I held the reins, and that lessened the fear I’d once felt for him.

The raised brow he turned toward me suggested he was well aware of the change of tone, though I had no idea what he made of it.

“So we have no idea who has access to the drugs that are keeping our children from changing?” Carmen called to us, drawing our focus back to her.

“Pamela can’t shift, either?” I asked.

She shook her head, and I saw that her predatory gleam wasn’t simply that of a woman seeking answers. It was the look of a mother determined to do whatever she needed to protect her daughter. Though I knew, realistically, that she hadn’t a chance of taking on Josiah and winning, at that moment I wasn’t sure I’d bet against her.

“Is she in the same state as James?” I asked her.

She shook her head, a slow, mournful movement. “No,” she said. “It’s worse. So much worse.”

It was a full house. James’s entire family gathered in the living room. Will and Celeste whispered together in the corner, their faces drawn and somber. Will looked deep in thought, and his wife appeared to have aged ten years in the last week. They cast worried looks at Carmen, entering behind us. More than anyone, they knew what she was feeling now. Mac joined them and began speaking in the same low tones, learning all he could about what had transpired while we were crashing into the lake.

Brandon slumped into the sofa, studiously ignoring everyone around him. This included Dana, who sat next to him, casting the occasional nervous glance my way. The poor thing looked overwhelmed by the tension that infused the room. Several times she almost appeared to think of something worth saying, then changed her mind at the last minute and let silence continue to reign.

Eleanor sat alone. From the armchair in the corner, she watched my mother’s attempts to heal Pamela with a combination of interest and distrust. I imagined her efforts looked like a ridiculous form of faith healing to those unfamiliar with the abilities of waters. My mother, for her part, roundly ignored Mac’s aunt. While Eleanor had reluctantly accepted Sera’s and my help, that didn’t mean she trusted all elementals—and given elementals’ general attitude toward shifters, perhaps rightly so.

I’d never heard my mother speak ill of shifters, because I’d never heard her say a word about them. Until today, I’d assumed she’d been, like me, ignorant of their existence, but she looked pretty damn comfortable sitting in their cabin now, working on one of their daughters. It was just one more lie, one more way she’d kept me ignorant about just how large this world truly was.

I couldn’t blame Eleanor for not trusting her when I was also unable to do so.

Unexpectedly, Simon was also present, having hitched a ride with Carmen. He sat easily in one of the side chairs, legs curled beneath him while he deliberately cleaned his nails, seemingly immune to the tension surrounding him on all sides. His eyes widened when he took in my disheveled state, and I realized no one had told him about the accident—or about Vivian.

“Everyone’s okay,” I told him immediately, before he could panic. “Vivian’s in surgery now for some internal bleeding, but the doctors aren’t concerned. Sera’s phone’s out of commission, but I spoke to the hospital directly.”

Simon looked unconvinced. With a terse nod, he pulled out his own phone and escaped to the relative privacy of the front porch, needing to confirm my report.

I turned to watch my mother work on Pamela. At first glance, she didn’t appear to be doing anything. Her eyes were closed, and one could be forgiven for thinking she was taking a power nap. I knew better. I tentatively sent out my magic, letting the tendrils ease toward her, finding where her power danced across Pamela’s skin. She then reached deeper, sending the threads into Pamela herself, gently touching the water that ran in her blood and animated every cell of her body. She was reading the girl’s entire history.

The act was simultaneously intimate and dangerous, and exactly the sort of thing that had caused me to reject my own healing ability. After I’d ceased training with my mother, I’d only attempted it one other time, when there’d been nothing to lose. The last time I’d reached into someone’s body, I’d tried to force life back into the corpse of a newly dead woman. It hadn’t worked, and I hadn’t tried it since—but I still carried the memory of that woman’s dying blood. I had enough ghosts in my head. I didn’t want any more.

My mother, however, was a full water, and she was an artist. I’d never known her to have any emotional difficulties with patients—or with anyone, for that matter. She opened her eyes when she felt my magic whisper against hers and nodded once in acknowledgement. “I’m glad you are here. I would like your opinion.”

I walked toward her and the teenage girl laid out on the living room rug. I took a moment to appreciate that it was fluffy, white, and made of fake fur. Those bears, I decided, just pretended to be tough. Inside, they were a bunch of softies who ate fruit and decorated with synthetic fur.

To look at her, Pamela was at peace. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing, while shallow, was regular. She had the same glowing skin as her mother, and there was no hint of pallor beneath its rich tones. She was dressed in a clean pair of pajamas and a heavy robe, and one would never guess the trauma she’d likely experienced over the last couple of days.

“Did you make her sleep?” I murmured.

She nodded, absently. “She was quite agitated when she arrived. This seemed the best solution.”

“Did you read her clothes already?”

“They’d done as you asked and kept the clothes in a plastic bag in the refrigerator, but I found nothing, not even a hint of Pamela. It was almost as if they’d been washed right before she was released.”

I grumbled at our lost chance. She might as well have been returned naked, as James was. “Have you found anything unusual in the sweat? Anything chemical?” It was as difficult to describe my memory of Brian’s mixture as it was to describe a scent, though I asked the question more as a matter of form than anything else. If she couldn’t shift, it was a safe bet she’d been given the same thing as James.

My mother placed her hand at the hollow of Pamela’s throat and carefully drew one small drop of water through the skin. She handed it to me gently and waited.

“It’s the same,” I confirmed.

“Her body’s been put through the wringer,” she said quietly, her words meant only for my ears.

“Any idea where the blood loss came from?” I asked.

“Here.” She pointed to a cut several inches long behind Pamela’s left ear. She hesitated, and I thought it had less to do with me and more to do with a living room full of shifters. “I think someone hit her on the head to knock her out, and it opened this cut. Nothing bleeds like a head wound, so it would explain the blood you found at her house. And this,” she indicated a pinprick on Pamela’s neck, “is where they inserted a needle to drug her.”

I opened my mouth to ask who could sneak up on a shifter and closed it just as quickly. It had to be either someone she knew or another shifter. No wonder my mother didn’t want to speak of it openly.

“She has bruises and cuts over her entire body, and something in her neurological system feels off. It feels like it’s still struggling to adapt to some new, invasive presence.”

“Like a virus?” I asked.

“I wish I could tell you what it was, but I do not understand these shifter brains. They’re so messy.” She spoke the final word with a whisper of distaste. My mother did like things to be tidy. It really was a wonder she managed to not only tolerate my chaos, but love me in spite of it.