10. Shane
CHAPTER 10
SHANE
I noticed the way Rory was smiling at me. How could I not? And, being a Cassandra, he probably didn’t realize the way his magic was reaching for mine.
That’s right. It wasn’t just Ellis he was attracted to. And how many times did he have to mention he was polyamorous? Too bad. I’d never had polyamorous inclinations, so nothing would be happening.
Except Ellis kept flirting with Rory, even though last night I’d told him it upset me.
Yeah, I was jealous. Pissed. Butthurt. All of the above.
But dealing with that would have to wait.
I turned to Ellis. “You said you texted Greg and Cal? Why don’t we call them?”
He glanced at Pia and Manny. “Right now?”
I shrugged. “This concerns Pia, and Manny’s involved already.” I looked at the man in question. “Unless you’d rather go home? ”
Manny’s grin took over his thin, almost elfin face. Though I’d always imagined Elves to be blond and Nordic-looking rather than dark-haired and Latino. “Oh, no. No way. I have no idea what’s going on, but I’m here for it!”
I shrugged. My give-a-shitter was broken. I’d get Pia taken care of and that fucker Randolph Chamberlain put out of business. Everything else could go fuck itself.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Greg. He answered on the second ring.
“Hi. Sounds like a lot’s been going on down there in Houston.”
“Yeah. Is Cal with you?” Why was I even asking? They’d only been bonded a couple of weeks. Of course Cal was with him.
“He is.”
Cal said, “Hi, Shane.”
I put the call on speaker. “Hi. Everybody, this is Greg Shaw, who’s the District Monitor for Central Texas, and Cal Steadham, who’s a Seer and Greg’s partner. Guys, let me tell you who we have on this end. It’s me and Ellis, plus Ms. Jackson. Then we have Pia, who’s a lovely young dryad lady.”
“Hi, Pia,” they said together.
“And Rory, the Medium I think Ellis told you about.”
They greeted Rory.
“Then we have Manny, who is Rory’s best friend, and it turns out was also my grandmother’s caretaker a few years ago. He’s a pediatric nurse and Ms. Jackson has taken a liking to him. ”
Cal laughed. “I guess you’ve had quite the introduction to the campaign, Manny. Welcome.”
I saw Rory open his mouth to ask what the campaign was, but Ellis could explain it to him later. “Rory, can you please run through how you came to rescue Pia last night for Greg and Cal?”
He launched into the tale again, this time leaving out the funny bits he’d tried to distract Pia with earlier.
When he wound down, Greg said, “Pia, I’m so sorry to hear about your mother’s death. And we heard you don’t have any other family left, but are there any dryad friends you’d be comfortable staying with?”
She reached out and clutched Ms. Jackson’s fur in one hand as she shook her head. “No. Mama moved us to Vancouver to get away from her family. We hadn’t made any friends yet when, uh, it happened.”
Greg’s voice gentled. “I understand. That must’ve been awful. I’m so sorry it happened to you. Um, we’d like to introduce you to some dryads in the area. Do you think you’d want to meet them?”
Pia’s eyes went wide, and she looked at Rory with a pleading expression. He said, “I’ll go with you. If you don’t like them, you don’t have to stay. I promise.”
She still looked on the verge of tears, so I said, “We’ll all go with you, okay? Including Ms. Jackson here. They’d never let you live with a bunch of mean people.” I was supposed to go back to work tomorrow, but Ricky would just have to deal with me being gone a few more days.
Then I mentally smacked myself. I couldn’t be more than a few feet from Ellis. Neither of us were going back to work tomorrow, maybe not even next week. Fuck. Well, something else to deal with later.
Ellis nodded at my suggestion, and Ms. Jackson butted their head into Pia’s shoulder. She finally smiled. “Okay.”
“Great,” Greg said. “I talked to my mom—she helps out Wonders who’ve lost their homes or whatever, for those of you who don’t know her. She recommended the dryads you mentioned, Ellis. She said they might not have any kids now, but they had some who went off to college ten or so years ago.”
I frowned. That didn’t seem the best environment for a traumatized thirteen-year-old. I wanted to ask about therapy services for Wonders in their area, but I’d wait until Pia was somewhere else.
Manny was making faces at Rory across the table, and Rory shrugged. He mouthed, Later . I wondered if Manny was having similar thoughts to mine.
Cal cleared his throat. “Shane and Ellis, have you by any chance briefed Rory on the situation with the vampires?”
Rory and Manny stopped their silent bickering and gaped at us. “Vampires?” Rory sputtered. “I mean....” He looked over his shoulder. “None of the ghosts know about any vampires.”
How the fuck many ghosts were in my house?
“Yeah.” Cal’s voice was wry. “You know the legend about vampires getting in your head and making you do their bidding or forget stuff?”
Rory scrunched up his forehead. “Kind of?”
“Well, turns out that legend has some basis in truth. We recently discovered vampires are real. They’ve been, uh, attacking Wonders—those are what we call paranormal people like dryads. We think the vampires have been messing with people’s minds for centuries and making us all completely certain they’re not real.”
On either side of Pia, Manny put his arm around her shoulders and Ms. Jackson leaned into her.
“Shit.” Rory’s eyes widened. “Sorry, Pia. Um, that’s scary.”
“Yeah.” Cal sighed. “We need information about the vampires. Badly. Rory, we were hoping you could speak to the ghost of the most recent Wonder who was attacked. His name was Thomas Baird, and he died three weeks ago.”
Rory shrugged. “Sure. Where is he?”
No one spoke for a moment. Eventually Greg said, “What do you mean? His body?”
Rory rolled his eyes. “No, his ghost. Is he haunting the place he died or something?”
“Uh. We don’t know?”
Rory rubbed his face. “Okay, here’s how it works. I can talk to ghosts if they’re in front of me, but I can’t call them to me if I can’t see them. It’s not like I have a ghost dog whistle or something. And if they’ve moved on to the other side, then forget it. They’re not coming back. But if they’re around, or if we can find the ghosts of friends of theirs who might know where they are, then it’s doable.”
There was another pause on the other end of the call. “Thomas Baird lived and died in Pflugerville. Would you be willing to stop there on your way to take Pia to meet the dryads?”
“If it’s on the way, sure.”
Ellis nodded. “Those dryads are in Mineral Wells, which is a little west of Ft. Worth. We’ll just take the long way to get there.”
Pia looked relieved.
Manny interjected, “Wait, is it safe for Pia to go there? Are you sure the vampires are gone?”
“Yes,” Greg said. “They never stay in the same place. We’re hoping Thomas Baird’s ghost has information on where they went after they, uh, attacked him.”
I made sure Pia was looking the other way and I mouthed, They took his body , at Rory.
He grimaced. “Okay, that makes sense. Sure, if everyone else is on board, we can make a road trip out of it.”