Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
A s Mario showered and got ready for bed, he hummed. Maybe what he and Ilya had been on wasn’t exactly a date, but he thought Ilya was seeing him in a different light now. Before, he was certain Ilya was maintaining a wall, setting definite boundaries between himself and not only Mario, but just about everyone else as well. But walls were hard to maintain with someone you physically touched every day, and he considered Ilya agreeing to dinner, even a working dinner, to be a big step forward. They were finally communicating, getting to know one another.
Of course, Mario had almost had a heart attack when Ilya had asked him where he was from, and he realized he hadn’t considered that anyone would bother to ask. It wasn’t a subject brought up often in the Carnival, since everyone knew which world someone joined from, and origins mattered little to anyone. He hadn’t bothered to look up a place on this world, even though it was enough like his own geographically that he probably should have. Instead, he’d used the word for the country where he’d been born on his world, and it must have resonated enough with Ilya that he’d supplied the correct place without Mario having to flounder more than he already had. Still, it had made him aware that he needed to come up with places here where he might have been, in case anyone asked. No doubt they were similar, although he very much hoped that the equivalent places like London and Paris were much happier for their human populations here than they had been for their counterparts where he’d come from.
But Mario thought things with Ilya were going well. Slow, of course, and nothing was guaranteed, but for the moment Mario was happy.
That ended when his phone rang. When he saw the caller was Daphne, he picked up.
“Hey, what’s up?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m not sure.” Daphne sounded worried, her voice rough. “Sorry to call so late, but I need help. I’m trying to find Cole. He hasn’t contacted you, has he? Called or texted?”
“No,” Mario replied slowly. “I haven’t talked to him other than in the group chat since we met. What’s going on?”
Daphne made a sound suspiciously like a sob. “He went out for a run — a four-legged run,” she said. “He gets restless sometimes and needs to stretch his legs. He’s perfectly at home in the desert, of course, so I didn’t think anything about it. He went off after dinner, before sunset. Drove his car out to Red Rocks. He never goes for more than a couple of hours. He should have been back by 10, and he’s not answering his phone.”
Mario had looked up nearby landmarks, so he knew the canyon she mentioned was just outside Vegas to the west. “He doesn’t have some kind of tracker?”
“Only on his phone, which looks like it’s in the canyon still, probably in his car from what I can tell on the map. The reception out there sucks, and he can’t take it with him when he shifts. I’m worried sick and I can’t call the cops! If he’s hurt in his coyote form, they’ll just shoot him!” She sounded on the verge of panic, and Mario knew he had to do whatever he could.
It was none of his business, but he’d known enough shifters that he felt he had to ask. “You don’t have a mating bond?” Normally shifters formed pair bonds with their destined mates, which connected them and helped them to protect one another.
He winced and felt like shit when Daphne moaned. “No! It doesn’t work that way when you aren’t the same kind of shifter. Goddess, I wish it did, because I wouldn’t have to be calling around looking for him!”
Wincing, Mario desperately tried to think of a way to help. “Daphne, you have a car, right? Let’s go out and look for him. We can get a couple of the others, and if he’s hurt, we’ll find him.” Mario wanted to call Ilya, because his big, reassuring presence would probably benefit them all — Daphne as well as Mario — but Ilya wasn’t in the know, and could hardly be expected to understand why they might be looking for a coyote rather than a person. “We’ll need rope in case he’s fallen and a first aid kit. Flashlights, too. You stay there and I’ll contact the others. Keep trying Cole’s number, just in case.”
Daphne drew in a breath, seeming to calm down a bit as Mario suggested the course of action. “Right. Thanks, Mario. See you soon.”
Mario jumped on the computer to see who was around in their chat, before directly calling two of them, brothers who were part Eten and could move enormous boulders as if they were toys, which was why Circo had snapped them up for a strongman act.
Frer and Otir picked him up in their big pickup truck, the only vehicle that would fit their seven foot tall frames.
“We brought rope,” Otir said, gesturing to the bed of the pickup. “Plus flashlights and what first aid supplies we have. But don’t shifters heal fast?”
“All the ones I know do,” Mario said. “But it’s better to be prepared, right?”
It took them a few minutes to get across town to Daphne and Cole’s apartment, but it had given others time to gather. It was a small band, but hopefully, there were enough of them to cover the canyon. With any luck, Cole had simply gotten stuck somewhere and needed help to get out.
It took two vehicles to get them all out to the canyon, which lay quiet and still in the moonless dark. They followed along behind the SUV that held Angel, who was a witch; Terry, who was half elvish; and Daphne. The SUV pulled up beside the lone car in a flat, deserted area at the end of the paved road. Everyone got out, and Daphne frantically used a key fob to open the car and look inside. She checked through the center console between the front seats, emerging with a cell phone and a wallet.
“He must still be here,” she said thickly, and Terry slid one arm around her.
“I’ll see if I can scry for him,” Angel said, closing her eyes and beginning to chant quietly.
“The rest of us should split up,” Mario suggested. “We’ll have our phones.”
“In pairs?” Terry asked, looking at Mario and the brothers.
“Who can see in the dark?” Mario asked, and only he and Terry raised their hands. “Okay, Frer, why don’t you come with me and Otir with Terry? That way, we have strength and agility in each pair, plus night vision.”
“He shouldn’t have gone too far,” Daphne told them. “He knows his limits, and he said he just wanted to run around, not climb. Be careful, but please, please find him.”
After dividing the rope and other supplies, they split up. Otir and Terry headed off north to the Wisdom Tree Trail, while Frer and Mario turned south toward the trailhead at the southern end of the canyon.
“Keep your light shaded, if you can,” Mario told Frer. “I’m going to move out of the illumination.”
He didn’t mention that if Cole was out here in the dark, Mario could spot him. He could see well into the infrared parts of the spectrum, which made mammals glow brightly because they were warmer than the ground around them, To Mario, the desert was almost as bright as twilight. Given that the desert cooled rapidly at night, animals and humanoids stood out sharply to his eyes, just like the person he’d spotted earlier when he was with Ilya. It would be far more difficult to spot Cole if he’d fallen into a crevasse, however, which meant they still needed to search carefully.
For over two hours, they proceeded slowly, searching all the level ground and peering over ridges and into ravines. They called out for Cole as well, straining to hear above the desert breeze for any faint call of distress. Phone reception was sporadic, and several times Mario climbed up an incline to get a signal so he could check in with the others. Daphne and Angel had also ventured onto the trails, so they could cover more ground.
“Angel says she feels his energy was around here, but she doesn’t feel him now,” Daphne reported. The pain in her voice was stark, and Mario ached for what she was going through.
“Hang in there. We’ll keep looking. Don’t give up yet,” he told her, even though he knew that if magic couldn’t find Cole, hope was definitely fading. But they couldn’t stop trying; if Cole had come to harm, Daphne needed to know.
Unfortunately, the trails and caves of the dark canyon gave no hint as to Cole’s whereabouts, if, indeed, he was even still in the area at all. There were plenty of small animals around, hidden in the small corners and crevasses, and twice Mario even spotted a coyote in the brush, but the animals spooked at the sight of Frer with the flashlight and ran off into the darkness. Mario even stepped well away from Frer, slipping deeper into the shadows of the night and opening senses he hadn’t used since leaving his own world so long ago. There had been no need for them in the Carnival, but here it should be safe enough, in this world with little magic and even less belief. He would also have felt ashamed if he didn’t use every ability at his disposal to help Daphne find the man she loved.
As he opened himself, the surrounding darkness receded, the rocks and bushes standing out to his eyes as bright as in daylight. The night sounds of animals and the rustling of the low shrubs in the breeze came to him clearly. He breathed deeply of the warm, dry air, sorting the scents by instinct and looking for any that signaled death.
There were many, and he led Frer toward the strongest of them, only to discover the picked-over carcass of a bighorn sheep. Everything else he scented was the trace of smaller bodies, decaying naturally in the desert air. He detected nothing of human death, a scent he remembered far too well, other than some strange tinge that was at once familiar and yet not, and already fading. He followed the faint spore, but he discovered nothing among the rocks to which it led.
It was when the rising sun created more illumination than the nearby lights of Vegas that Mario let his senses fade back to normal and returned with Frer to the vehicles where the six of them regrouped. They’d covered much of the area, but none of them were actual trackers, so they weren’t sure which of the signs they’d seen might have been made by Cole.
Daphne’s face was pinched and white, and the rest of them were sad, tired, and dejected.
“Maybe it’s time to call the police,” Terry said, his voice somber.
The others agreed, and Daphne nodded. “Thanks, guys,” she said, before burying her face in her hands.
“I’ll get her home and stay with her to help,” Angel said as she guided Daphne back to the SUV.
Disheartened, Mario and the brothers watched as Terry got behind the wheel of Daphne’s SUV. Mario checked his phone again and sighed when he saw the time. “Do you mind dropping me off at the warehouse? I’ve got practice this morning.”
Once he was at Circo, Mario changed into practice clothes, glad he kept spares in his locker. He considered showering, but decided it wasn’t worth it. Instead, he went to the straps area, seeing Ilya there already, going through their mirrored sequences again.
Almost as if he sensed Mario’s gaze, Ilya stopped at the end of one move, hanging suspended above the floor as their eyes met. Abruptly Ilya somersaulted down, releasing the straps and walking toward Mario, his brow creased with concern.
“What happened? You look terrible.”
Mario grimaced. He knew he looked tired, and his hair, pulled back for practice, was dirty despite his shower the previous night.
“A friend needed help last night,” he said with a shrug. “Daphne called as I was going to bed because her fiancé didn’t come back from a run. Several of us went out to Red Rocks to look for him.”
“In the middle of the night?” Ilya’s eyes widened, and then he frowned. “Did you find him?”
“Just his car and phone. Daphne’s probably contacted the authorities by now.” Mario felt his eyes sting as the unfairness of it hit him hard. It wasn’t right that after Daphne and Cole had Traveled so far to be together that it would end this way. “I hope they can find him. They both deserve better than this after all they’ve gone through.”
Ilya looked at him for a long moment, and then he hesitantly slid his arm around Mario’s shoulders. “Let’s go into my office. I don’t think you’re in any condition to practice right now. Did you get any sleep at all?”
Mario let Ilya lead him away. In truth, he’d never felt less like flying, though he caught his breath at feeling the warmth of Ilya’s arm around his shoulders. “We were out all night searching. I came here after we had to give up. I hate that we didn’t find him.”
Once they were in Ilya’s office, Ilya pointed out a chair, then released Mario. Mario was almost bereft at losing the comfort he’d gotten in being so close to Ilya, but he sat down obediently and accepted the bottle of water Ilya took from the small cube fridge behind his desk and passed to him.
“I’m sorry,” Ilya said, moving to his seat behind the desk and settling into it heavily. “I hope search and rescue can find him. Why didn’t you all call them earlier, rather than searching yourselves? They have helicopters with bright lights they can use at night.”
Mario couldn’t admit they were searching for someone who might have not looked human when they found him. He didn’t like to lie to Ilya, but he had no choice. “We thought he’d be on one of the trails, maybe with a twisted ankle or something. It would have been overkill to call out search dogs and helicopters when he might have been sitting on a rock waiting for us to come get him. I guess we got too involved in trying to find him ourselves, and it didn’t seem dire until we couldn’t.”
Mario hoped the authorities could find him, but he doubted Cole was anywhere in that canyon. Something else had happened to him.
Ilya nodded. “Sorry, I wasn’t there, so I shouldn’t be armchair quarterbacking you and your friends.”
“It’s okay.” Mario looked down at the bottle in his hands without seeing it. He’d been isolated from the specter of death for so long that he felt cold and helpless in its grim shadow. The Carnival had insulated him from the loss of anyone he cared about, even a friend, and the sting of it now was harsh. He couldn’t even imagine what Daphne must be feeling.
How would he feel if Ilya was missing?
The burst of rage Mario felt at the thought caught him by surprise. He clenched his fist around the bottle of water, and the bottle burst, splashing icy water all over him. Fortunately, the shock of it distracted him from where his anger might have led, and he gasped.
“Sorry!” he said, looking up to meet Ilya’s shocked gaze. “I guess I don’t know my own strength.”
Ilya didn’t ask what had triggered the destruction, only nodded. “You should go home. Take the day off.”
“No!” Mario stood up, water dripping down his legs and onto the tile floor. Ilya stood as well, passing Mario the towel he’d been using to wipe his face during his warm up.
“I take it you don’t want to be alone?” Ilya asked quietly, seeming to have recovered from — or at least to be ignoring — the destruction of the water bottle.
Mario paused in the process of mopping up a puddle from the chair, embarrassed by his loss of control. “I really don’t,” he admitted. “Maybe I’ll hit the weight room or the treadmills.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Ilya said. “I wouldn’t let you near the straps right now, anyway. I’ll come with you — it wouldn’t hurt me to get in some more cardio.”
Mario knew Ilya was probably just saying that to make him feel less bad. Likely, Ilya wanted to keep an eye on him, but Mario didn’t mind it. He wanted Ilya close right now. Maybe he even needed it. He finished wiping the water, then followed Ilya from the room.
Perhaps tapping into his long ignored talents hadn’t been such a good idea, considering doing so had brought the heightened emotions which accompanied them closer to the surface as well. He had learned to repress his nature almost from birth, and he told himself he shouldn’t release it from its cage again. Ilya must never learn what Mario truly was, because Mario couldn’t bear to see fear in his eyes — or almost as bad, disbelief.
It was safer for them both if Ilya never learned that Mario Gallier was actually a monster.