Chapter 14
I pulled into the parking garage, and drove up to my level and assigned spot. The twins pulled up behind my car, and I almost expected them to jump out and rough me up after blocking me in. But only Red got out, popped open the door, swung the pack onto his back, and grabbed the suitcase.
“Keanan will pick us up downstairs,” Red said to Xavier as Xavier unfolded himself from the car.
They were coming inside? How far did this madness go? They followed me to the elevator. “So, I’m guessing you’re NHVs?” I asked.
The redhead, who I now assumed was Sylas, snorted. “Humans require lots of labels for things that scare them.”
I got in the elevator, followed by Xavier and Sylas. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be, little necromancer.” Sylas leaned toward me. Ivan turned and hissed at him, swiping, nearly catching his nose. “Vicious little kitten.”
“Everyone’s little when you’re a fucking giant,” I said.
Xavier sighed heavily and hit the stop button on the elevator. My gut plummeted. Was this it? He was going to rearrange my face with some crazy, supernatural strength? But he took the handle of the suitcase from Sylas and held out his hand for the pack. “Go wait with Keanan downstairs.”
Sylas glared at him, but the door to the elevator opened, and he stepped out. Xavier hit the door close and the button for my floor again. “Shifters usually prefer ground floor units,” Xavier said as if he hadn’t just stranded one of his goons on another floor.
“I’ll figure out what Ivan needs,” I said.
We arrived on my floor, and I led the way, surprised that Xavier kept back, letting a good distance fall between us and easing the looming doom of his presence. At my door, he lingered across the hall, away from Nikki’s apartment, but waiting for me. “Do I need to invite you in or something?”
A smile tugged the corner of Xavier’s lips. “I am not a vampire.”
“So, I don’t have to worry about mind tricks?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Fuck.
I opened the door and Peanut Butter greeted me by weaving through my legs. Xavier stepped inside and shut the door, staring at the cat for a minute. PB stared right back, as though trying to decide what to make of the strange man.
“My place is only a one bedroom, but it has a small office,” I said, more to Ivan than Xavier. “I’ll set Ivan up in the office. Order a bed and all that. My new job has a pay boost, but my lease isn’t up for a few months yet. I can start looking for something bigger.”
“New job?” Xavier asked. “You’re new to the SED?”
“Been a cop over twelve years,” I answered.
“But not SED. How long have you been variant?”
“Officially, two weeks.”
Xavier stared at me in confusion. “That’s not possible.”
“So I keep hearing. I don’t know what to tell you.
” I headed into the office to assess the space.
Was it big enough for a bed? The only piece of furniture in the room was a wide, cluttered desk.
I petted Ivan. His shivering had stopped in the car, but he still clung to me.
“Do you want to explore? It’s not big, but the couch is comfy.
We can rearrange, order some stuff for you.
We’ll figure it out.” My place was bigger than Grandpa’s, but not by much.
Ivan hesitated, but after a moment, wriggled free and out of the blazer, plopping down on the floor and staring with wide eyes all around the apartment. I handed the borrowed jacket to Xavier. “Give that back to your friend, please.”
Peanut Butter approached Ivan, and the two met nose-to-nose, then PB rubbed his side all along Ivan’s.
At least they were getting along okay. “Do all variant shifters change size like this?” I put my hand up to ward off a question about not letting Ivan stay here.
“I genuinely want to know. In case you weren’t aware, there is shit for info in the supernatural handbook. ”
“No,” Xavier answered. “Your brother, perhaps yourself, seem to be special cases. Hybrids, if you will. As the mutation expands through generations, we will see more of your kind.”
“My parents aren’t variant,” I said.
“Mhmm,” was all he offered. Xavier squatted down, holding his hand out to give Ivan the option to approach. “If he has questions, needs counseling, or becomes too much for you, I want you to call me.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why do you care?”
“Shifters are my responsibility. One I take very seriously.”
“Even if you don’t know him at all?”
Xavier raised his gaze to me, a touch of sadness crossing his face. “Humans abandon their young far too often.”
“I don’t plan to do that to Ivan. If I’d known he needed me sooner, I would have been there.”
Xavier stood, back straightening to his full height. Damn, the guy was a giant. Six foot eight, maybe? I had to look up and up and up to meet his gaze, but didn’t back down. “I like your resolve, necromancer. But you will call if your brother needs me.” He flicked his gaze to Ivan.
“You can help him learn more about being a shifter, right?” I asked, suddenly understanding why his swirling energy snapped and snarled at me. “’Cause you’re a shifter?” Why was his energy so much different from Angel’s?
“I am, and I can.”
I took his card out of my pocket and walked over to add it to the fridge. “Got it.”
Xavier stared at me a moment longer, assessing, but I wasn’t going to let him unnerve me in my own space. I had a little brother to take care of. First thing would be ordering food, as I’d forgotten to do so when I’d gotten home from Grandpa’s over the weekend.
I glanced back to find Xavier gone, and Peanut Butter was giving Ivan a bath. “Did he just poof?”
I searched the apartment, as if I’d find the guy in a closet somewhere. The door was locked from the inside. “Holy fuck,” I told my little brother and my cat. “What do you make of that guy? Wow.”
Peanut Butter meowed at me like he had a lot to say. Ivan stared at him. Did he understand regular cat speak?
“What do you want for dinner, Ivan? I doubt wet cat food is top on your meal list.” And I had shit for stock in the pantry or fridge.
“Let me see if Nikki is home. She’s my friend and neighbor across the hall,” I told Ivan.
“She’s always got food. She comes from a big Hmong family and they are always over with food to share.
Some parents actually like their kids. Novel, right? ”
She replied with a text back of a short list of easy meals most kids liked. “Mac and cheese, frozen pizza, or ramen?” I asked Ivan.
He stared at me.
“We have got to find a better way to communicate,” I sighed. “Can you change yet? I don’t mind you being a cat…” He walked away, wandering the apartment. Okay, then. I sent Nikki a request for mac and cheese. What kid didn’t like mac and cheese?
When she knocked on the door, I had my computer open, ordering food for delivery, and glanced around for a sign of Ivan, but both he and Peanut Butter had vanished.
The bathroom door was closed. Had I closed that?
Or was Ivan changing? What had Xavier meant about hybrids?
I wasn’t a hybrid. How did Ivan’s smaller size make him different?
I let Nikki in, then unpacked my work bag and pulled out the updated manual.
I really needed to catch up on whatever the fuck everyone wasn’t telling me.
“Everything okay?” Nikki asked.
“Survived my first day,” I told her. “Ended up across the Veil. The body in the bookstore was bad, but the worst part was seeing all the books the bookstore throws in the dumpster. What a waste. Did you know they tear the covers off and just toss them out? Perfectly good books.”
She stared at me like I’d grown two heads.
“What?”
“Body? Across the Veil?”
“Bodies are nothing new to me,” I reminded her. “The across the Veil thing… well, that was intense. My little brother is going to be staying with me.”
She rounded the kitchen island and opened a package of turkey brats she’d brought with the mac and cheese.
She then dug out a pan, adding water and the brats.
It was a midwestern comfort meal I’d introduced her to almost three years ago.
I dug my last package of frozen broccoli out of the freezer and put it in to steam.
“Little brother?”
“He’s a teen, and shifter variant.”
“Wow. Both of you are variant.”
I sighed. Yeah, that was strange. The virus rarely appeared among family lines. Maybe that was what Xavier meant by Ivan and I being hybrids.
“So, are the SED guys hot?”
I snorted. She had no idea. And Angel, holy fuck.
I’d never really been into the tattooed bad boy vibe, but I could imagine myself tracing his ink as I explored that finely muscled body of his.
Then there was Xavier and his buddies. They were the type of men women drooled over; some men too, I had to admit.
Out of the bunch, I’d pick Angel any day.
His energy soothed me, and his regular-guy-though-on-the-far-end-of-the-super-hot-scale vibe really fit me better than whatever preternatural heartthrobs the other three were.
The door to the bathroom opened and Ivan stepped out in a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt. His hair was a mess and there were bags around his eyes as if he hadn’t slept. A massive bruise spread across the left side of his face. I gasped. “Did dad do that?”
He flinched.
“Sorry,” I said, hating that I’d pointed it out. “Ivan, this is my friend Nikki. Nikki, this is my brother, Ivan.”
Nikki gave him a wide smile. “Nice to meet you, Ivan. Let me know if you need me for anything. Both of you. I’ll let you eat dinner and relax.”
“You can stay and eat dinner with us if you want?” I felt bad making food she’d brought but not sharing.
“My sisters were over earlier. They brought food from home,” Nikki said.
“Please don’t tell me. I’ll drool.”
She grinned. “I have a freezer full of sausage that I’ll be sharing.”
I put my hand on my heart. “Best friend ever.” I let her out and locked the door behind her. Ivan made his way to the stove and stirred the pasta.