Chapter 49
Forty-Nine
Elodie
When Aunt Daphne steps out of her car into the condo building’s parking garage, the steely glint I’ve caught glimpses of before shines in her eyes. She’s pulled her cloud of tawny waves into a tight ponytail, which simply means they poof out wildly at the back of her head instead of all around it.
As she sweeps her gaze over our surroundings and back to the five of us, she crosses her arms over her chest.
She drops the stern pose a moment later, her hands skating through the air with her usual frenetic energy. I guess she couldn’t hold them still for long.
Her voice comes out way too perky. “So, you’re Elodie’s matches. Quite the varied crew.”
Salvatore arches his eyebrows at her, his hands slung casually in his pockets but tension threaded through his voice. “So, you’re the aunt who ripped her away from her world.”
One side of Daphne’s mouth kicks upward. “You should be glad about that. If she wasn’t here, you wouldn’t have a match at all.”
Well, this is only as awkward as holding a faerie party in an iron mine.
Cole breaks in with professorly authority. “There’s a lot we could hash out, but that’s not what we’re here for right now. If the man we’re after is up to something tonight, we want to track him down quickly. Are you going to help us or not?”
Aunt Daphne’s attention settles on me. As I meet her gaze, echoes of our argument just a couple of hours ago ripple through my nerves.
I hold my head high, but I’ve committed to this peace offering. “We could do this on our own… but I think it’d be a lot easier with you on board. If you’re willing.”
Daphne gives a sigh that reminds me it’s nearly midnight and I have no idea how long she’s already been up today, but then she rubs her hands together in a promising gesture. “Who exactly is this man you want to find, Butterfly?”
What a question. The jagged weight of all my experiences with Uncle Nik presses on my chest, and yet at the same time I barely know anything about him.
I give the simplest answer I’m capable of. “He’s someone I knew in my former life. Someone who was manipulating the world for his own agenda—and maybe other people’s too.”
“And you think he’s behind all these plots to murder you?”
I start to shake my head but catch myself. “Probably not, but we can’t be sure. He might be against the group that’s been trying to get rid of me. Either way, he knows more about what’s going on than we do.”
“It was quite the disaster at the park tonight,” Byron puts in. “Void creatures all over the place, military captains and professors attacking students. He was there watching the aftermath. We’d like to know what he’s doing next in response.”
Aunt Daphne lets out another breath, but this one has more vigor to it. “All right. We’d better get moving then. But for my glim to work, I need a clear idea of what—who—I’m seeking out.”
My relief at her agreement is overshadowed by a lurch of queasiness, but I figured this request was coming. “I can conjure an illusion of him. Appearance and voice. Will that be enough?”
I get the sense that my aunt notes my discomfort, but she doesn’t comment on it. Maybe we have a truce of allowing each other some secrets now, or maybe she’s focusing on the need for haste. “That’ll be plenty. It’s much easier to find someone in the same city than across alternate realities.”
“No kidding,” Salvatore mutters, but he watches Daphne with obvious interest as she sets her features with concentration.
I force myself to fall back into my many memories of Uncle Nik: the furtive meetings and brusque phone calls, the intense training sessions and the pre-mission coaching that always felt more coldly professional than supportively familial.
Ephemera lingers all through the parking garage, layers upon layers of energies left by all the residents and guests who’ve passed through this space.
I reach for it, dragging its tingling presence into my grasp, and shape it like I did the image of Asher all those weeks ago during his memorial in my old reality.
Nik’s form takes shape as if standing across from me: tall and wiry, wearing the thin trenchcoat and slacks I saw him in tonight, shoulders with the slight hunch they often took when he was talking to me from his greater height.
Narrow face framed by black hair pulled into the short ponytail he’s sporting here.
Eyes so dark they’re nearly black. Blunt-edged brow, nose, and chin.
His voice travels up from my memory too, in one of the remarks I heard so many variations of: “Are you ready to get started? There won’t be any room for error.”
Byron frowns at the illusion as if he’d like to punch the man and thinks this conjuring might do for a start. Daphne’s gaze ticks to me just for an instant before focusing back on my creation, probably wondering what Nik’s comment referred to.
Her fingers flexing at her sides, she peers at the illusionary figure even more intently. Then she nods. “All right. I’ve got a solid impression of him. It shouldn’t be hard at all.”
She turns toward her car and pauses. “You won’t all fit in here, not unless you want to be sitting on laps.”
Salvatore grins like he’s on board with that idea—as long as it’s me in his lap, I’d imagine—but Asher speaks up first. “Why don’t Cole and I follow in Salvatore’s car?
Salvatore and Byron are the best equipped to protect Elodie if it comes to that.
” He glances at the mafia heir. “And I assume you’d rather my brother borrow your ride if that means you can be in the same car as Elodie. ”
Salvatore shrugs. “It’s hardly even mine anyway. Sounds like a plan.”
He fishes the key fob from his pocket and tosses it to Cole.
Aunt Daphne motions me over to the front passenger seat of her Volvo. “You’d better stay next to me just in case I need a reminder of who I’m after.”
She drops into the driver’s seat with a fluff of her gauzy skirt. I eye her with guarded skepticism as I join her, tugging the hoodie I’ve now stolen from Salvatore over the spare tee he found for me. “Are you sure it’s safe for you to drive around the city while using your glim?”
“Oh, don’t worry yourself about that. It uses a totally different set of senses.”
I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but I am reasonably convinced that my aunt doesn’t want to lose a second niece to a car crash.
As Salvatore and Byron clamber in behind us, Daphne starts the ignition. We rumble out of the parking garage, my heart thumping nearly as loud as the engine. The Raith brothers follow close behind.
The first few turns Daphne makes on the downtown streets seem more meandering than focused. Her eyes stay sharp, her forehead slightly creased.
With a faint hum, she takes another right and heads north.
I don’t want to risk breaking her concentration, so I stay quiet, curling my fingers against my impatience.
Has she picked up an impression of Uncle Nik yet?
She keeps driving north until we’ve left the downtown traffic behind, so I have to guess she has some sense of direction now. After several more minutes, she veers off the main road onto a side street.
We cruise between broad, boxy buildings that slump next to their vacant yards like sleeping behemoths.
A thicker darkness lies at the end of the road where I can only make out a few treetops and glinting city lights, far distant.
A peek at the map display on the car’s console shows we’re coming up on the northern end of the river valley where so many of my current troubles started.
But also where I connected with these matches for the first time. I run my thumb over the mark on my palm with a tingle of joy amid the tension.
Aunt Daphne follows the curve of the road to swing parallel to the line of the valley. She slows as we pass yet another set of dark, hulking brick buildings and then parks by the curb.
The waggle of her fingers indicates not the structure we’ve parked next to but one farther down the street. “That warehouse. He’s inside. Second floor, I think. I’ll have a stronger feel once we’re closer. I thought we should conceal ourselves first.”
No light gleams in any of the windows I peer at. By all appearances, the warehouse in question is totally empty.
We ease out of the car, ephemera quivering around us as we all ward off notice from anyone beyond our group. Cole has parked behind Daphne’s car. He and Asher come up behind us.
We approach the building Daphne indicated, crossing the desolate street through a waft of damp breeze drifting from the valley.
The rustle of tree branches reaches my ears. Taking the sound in, I could almost believe the city has fallen into ruin, taken over by nature after a long abandonment.
Halfway past the paved yard next to the warehouse, my feet jar to a stop. Uneasiness prickles down my back. “We shouldn’t go any farther.”
Byron starts to nod. “Better to head back. We—”
He halts, looking as if he’s bitten his tongue, and presses his hand to his temple. “There’s a magical barrier here. Deflecting anyone heading this way.”
The others have stopped around us. Aunt Daphne squints at the sidewalk ahead and pushes her foot forward, only to spin around and retreat a couple of steps.
She catches her flight with a jerk of her body and a rough chuckle. “That’s strong magic. Let’s see if we can pick it apart.”
The six of us concentrate on the energy condensed along the street in front of us. I stalk onto the road and then over to the yard, but I don’t find any gaps.
The ephemera resonates with a hint of that dense or maybe heavy vibe that niggled at me when I sensed it in Kenneth’s clothes. The vibe that struck me as vaguely familiar.
After just seeing Uncle Nik, a clearer impression shifts into place.
I picked up odd vibrations like that from the magic he worked sometimes, didn’t I? Not much, just enough to itch at my skin for a moment here or there.
I don’t like what that might mean.