Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
Rhaz entered the house through the kitchen’s back door. Over the last day or two, he’d noticed it was the door most often used.
He liked Anon’s house. It was cozy and possessed a comfort he couldn’t quite explain. He’d also noticed that Anon and the others spoke about the house as though it could hear them, or as if it were a living thing.
Was it?
Quill entered the kitchen from the basement just as Rhaz walked in. “You’re back.” Quill studied him for a moment. “Did you have a nice time? Anon shouldn’t have done that.”
“It was fine. I got through their questions, and when things were becoming difficult, the woman called Louise showed up and started asking everyone else questions.”
Quill laughed. “That’s Louise for you. She never stops. The woman knows everything that goes on in this town.”
“Not everything,” Rhaz drawled. “She started asking me questions about this place.”
“The house?” Quill asked with alarm.
“Yes. Mostly about what goes on here. Who lives here, that sort of thing.”
“All of which she already knows.” Quill went to the refrigerator and opened it. He pulled out a three-colored can, popped it open, and took a drink. “Want one?”
Rhaz hadn’t tried anything that came in one of the strange cans before. “All right.”
Quill grabbed another, opened it by pulling a small metal tab, and handed it over.
Rhaz took a cautious sip, then wrinkled his nose. “That is... strange.”
“Yes, but I like the bubbles. I’m trying to replicate it so that, if I’m ever able to return home, I can enjoy the same thing there.”
Rhaz took another sip and leaned against the counter. “And is there a chance of your returning home?”
Quill released a weary sigh. “I don’t know. I’m working on it.”
He crossed to the table and sat. “My theory is that the doors open only for powerful supernaturals, which would explain why humans can’t pass through.
Yet some did one night. Three of them. One claimed he’d calibrated the door to accommodate them, but only for a short time.
Which means someone on the other side knew how to control the door. ”
Rhaz stared at him. “And the door that took Basil and me? How did we come out different doors but enter through the same one?”
“That I’m still trying to figure out. But because you didn’t pass through at exactly the same time, that must have something to do with it. Maybe the doors all lead to a central location, but people can emerge at different points that are still relatively close together.”
Quill tapped a finger on the table. “The fact that these two doors are so close together and both lead here is interesting. One must also consider that each door is hidden. One is in the woods, which long ago would have been very well concealed. Moon Creek Falls was founded in the 1880s. The door could have been placed there a century before that. Who knows?”
Rhaz considered this for a moment before his thoughts drifted to Basil. “My chef came out of the door in the surf.”
Quill nodded. “He was spit out and landed on the beach. When Prince Caelen and I came through, it was together, and we suddenly found ourselves underwater with the current churning all around us. The next thing we knew, men were grabbing us and pulling us to the surface. We had no idea who they were or what they wanted, so we fought them.”
“Anon and Jackson.”
“Yes. They subdued us easily enough. Passing through the door was horrific, to say the least.” Quill waved a hand around the kitchen. “And here we are. I’d rather take a punch in the face from those two and wind up safe in this house than be discovered by the humans.”
Rhaz couldn’t argue with that. Though even if they’d been found by humans, they might have managed. He had. Just not as well as he would have liked.
“Basil would have fared differently,” Rhaz said, thinking aloud.
“Poor Basil would have wound up in some military facility or laboratory somewhere and, at this moment, would either have been dissected by now or undergone who knows how many interrogation sessions.” Quill took a long swig of his drink.
“There have been humans nosing around here more often than normal since one of them spotted Jackson in the woods in his wolf form. That had the whole town in an uproar. I can only imagine what would have happened if Basil had been found by humans first. This place would be crawling with scientists and military personnel.”
Rhaz understood what he meant. “And you and the others would be put in danger.”
“Yes. A lot of danger. We already are.” Quill took another sip.
“Which is why I’m trying to figure out the doors.
We’ve shown Aaron the spot in the pine grove where the door appears.
But as he’s a Nemthra, I’m inclined to think he might be able to open the door in the surf.
Or, at the very least, it will open for him. ”
“As I understand it, Aaron has been here several weeks. Why have you not tried it yet?”
“Because there’s been too much going on and we didn’t know what Aaron was until recently.
Trust me, I’ve thought about it every day since then.
But the beach is a popular place for locals and tourists.
Basil just happened to get spit out of the door during a time when there weren’t many people around except for Anon and some others. ”
“What others?”
Quill sighed. “Anon, Jackson, Aaron, Louise...”
Rhaz snorted. “Louise?”
“And her friends, Sam and Pearl.”
“I have met Sam.”
“You’ll eventually meet Pearl,” Quill said.
“So they have seen Basil?”
“Yes, but they don’t know what the rest of us are, other than we’re not human. Nor are we aliens.”
Rhaz drew back, his brows knitting together. “What is an alien?”
Anon stepped into the kitchen through the dining room door. “Ah, you’re back. I thought I smelled you.” He crossed to the refrigerator, pulled out a jar of red liquid, and poured some into a goblet. “How went the tour?” He winked.
“And what if I told you Louise didn’t show up?” Rhaz asked just to see what he would do.
“But she did because I sent her, and you just brought her up.” Anon said. “Nothing causes chaos faster than Louise Tattleson. I’m sure she was a great help. Or, in this case, a distraction.”
He took a sip from the goblet. “I do hope you weren’t too uncomfortable, but blending in is paramount. If the humans around here think you’re a visiting fire chief, they’ll leave you alone.”
“Chief Morrison wants me to replace him,” Rhaz stated coolly.
Anon nearly spit out his lunch. “He does? That’s wonderful! Now all we have to do is come up with some credentials for you and voilà, you’re the new fire chief of the Moon Creek Falls Fire Department.”
“Anon,” Quill said with an eye roll, “how are you going to pull that off?”
“I got Jackson a driver’s license, and he passed the tests and training for the post office. Caelen works at the flower shop. You live here, so you were easy.”
He took another sip. “Trust me, I have my ways. And all my old contacts don’t know the difference between my calling and my one-hundred-year-old self living in Portland.”
Rhaz’s jaw went slack. “I do not understand. Do you mean you come from this place?”
“No. I lived in Portland. Still do, even in the future. Which is why I settled in Moon Creek Falls. Less chance of running into the younger me. I don’t want to mess up my own timeline.”
Anon waved a hand dismissively. “However, I have people who can make you look like a bona fide fire chief on paper. All you have to do is learn the terminology and a few other things. The rest you can learn on the job.”
Rhaz and Quill exchanged the same worried look. “And what makes you think I can do this?” Rhaz asked.
“Because you’re a smart prince,” Anon said. “And besides, who knows more about fire than a dragon?”
Phin parked her car, got out, and stared at her parents’ house.
She really should think about getting her own place, but her mother would probably have a fit. She’d already complained that she’d lost Jessica to the wiles of the world and wasn’t ready to lose Phin too.
So here she was, nearly twenty-three years old and still living at home. Then again, so were a lot of people her age.
This was no longer her parents’ world. Things had changed, and sometimes Phin wished she could live someplace else, in another time even, and know what she wanted and who she was.
Because sometimes she didn’t have a clue.
She went into the house and headed straight upstairs to her room. Her family didn’t have a Victorian mansion like Dr. Blackstone, but their little 1930s house was homey, cozy, and a fine place to grow up.
Things could be worse.
They could live in a big city filled with unrest and uncertainty. At least in Moon Creek Falls you knew what you were getting: small-town charm, people who knew your name, a flamboyant town gossip named Louise, a beautiful beach, and plenty of hiking trails.
The town was also full of weirdos. She chuckled at the thought and flopped onto her bed.
“Is that you, Phin?” her mother called.
“Yeah!”
“Can you help me with cookies later?”
“Sure, Mom.” Phin rolled onto her stomach and sighed. “Rhaziel Stormfyr.” She remembered how Dr. Blackstone had carefully spelled the name for her.
“Rhaz.” A smile tugged at her lips. The man was drop-dead gorgeous. She could only imagine what Jessica would do if she saw him.
“Bye-bye, Richard,” Phin mused. Her sister’s current boyfriend was an accountant from Coos Bay, the closest actual city to Moon Creek Falls.
She smiled, climbed off the bed, and went to the window. Chief Morrison had certainly been happy to hear Rhaz Stormfyr might stay in Moon Creek Falls.
“So what if he does?” She crossed to her desk and sat down. Her college diploma hung framed on the wall above it. “And what am I going to do with you?”
If her mother had her way, she’d gone through four years of college only to work at someplace like Joe’s Hardware and volunteer at the fire station.
Phin huffed. “Never mind. Mom will probably make sure I quit the fire department, so I stay safe.”
Rolling her eyes, she went to the closet and picked out a light pink eyelet blouse, a pair of jeans, and different shoes. After changing clothes, she stepped into the bathroom and put on a little makeup.
Once she was done, she headed downstairs to help her mother make a few batches of cookies before seeing about a job at Joe’s Hardware.
This was her life for now. The problem was she had no idea what she wanted her life to look like beyond the one she already had.
With her degree there were plenty of things she could do. Unfortunately, many of them couldn’t be done in Moon Creek Falls. The sooner her parents accepted that, the better.
“Hey, squirt,” her father said as he wandered into the kitchen. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“That’s because you were in the garage, dear,” her mother said.
“Oh yeah.” He stuck a finger into the cookie dough.
“Hey, you know you’re not supposed to do that,” Phin scolded. “You’ll give yourself worms.”
“Nah. Not me. I have a cast-iron digestive system.” He headed toward the dining room. “Anything new about the mystery hero?”
Phin looked up from stirring chocolate chips into the dough. “I gave him a tour of the station today, and he met the chief.”
Her father spun around. “Really? What’s he like? Who is he?”
“I already told you, Dad. He’s a fire chief from Dubai. He’s here under... unusual circumstances.”
“Does that mean he got fired from his last job?” her mother asked.
Phin closed her eyes. She could already see this conversation spiraling into something terrible. Before long the town would be carrying pitchforks and conducting a witch hunt.
“I don’t know,” she finally admitted.
“I hope he’s not some serial killer on the run,” her mother said.
“I doubt that, honey.” Her father joined them at the center island. “You both worry too much.”
Phin gave him a look.
“Your mother worries too much,” he corrected.
Phin smiled. “That’s better. You know I’m the practical one.”
“And I’m not?” her mother asked. “I’m not hysterical either, I’ll have you know.”
“No, honey,” Phin’s father agreed. “But there was that time you thought aliens were landing in the woods.”
“That’s because I saw some weird light shining up on the hill...”
“Mom, there are no such thing as aliens.” Phin shook her head as she spooned cookie dough onto a baking sheet. “Besides, we’d never get that lucky.”
“I hear you,” Dad said. “Think of the tourists we’d get.”
Her mother giggled. “Moon Creek Falls would really be on the map then.”
Phin sighed. “I suppose a few aliens running around would spice the place up. But I don’t think that’s something that’s going to happen anytime soon.”
“Too bad,” her mother said. “It would be nice to be right about something like that.”
Dad grimaced. “Except with our luck, they’d come down off that hill and eat our brains.”
“Those are zombies, Dad,” Phin said. “Aliens, if they were real, would...” She scrunched up her face. “Well, let’s just hope they’re friendly.”
“And like chocolate chip cookies,” her mother added.
Phin smiled. “Exactly.” She slid the first batch into the oven and set the timer.
It was something to think about while she looked for a job that afternoon. Maybe it would keep her from thinking about Rhaziel Stormfyr becoming her fire chief.
That thought was more unsettling than appealing. After all, they really didn’t know anything about the man.