11. Chapter 11 #2
Bec looked a little misty eyed. “That’s so sweet. I thought they were a bit of an odd couple because they never even held hands. Now it all makes sense, especially her encouraging him to go to college, like she’s his mom.”
“That’s what a good alpha does,” I said. “They take care of their pack members.”
“Are there a lot of wolf shifter packs in San Diego?”
I was a little disappointed that her question wasn’t about me, but I was quick to answer it. The more she knew about our world, the more it would help her be wary of possible dangers.
“There are three permanent packs: Lobo Gris, Clover Pack, and Laske Pack. But there are also roving packs that don’t have a home territory. Usually they’re fine, but sometimes they can cause trouble.”
“What about vampires?” she asked.
“There’s a surprising number of vampires in this area,” I said. “There’s a rumor that this is the place for vampires to find their flock. Honestly, I’m starting to believe it. I’ve seen a lot of matches happen here. More than anywhere else I've ever lived.”
She asked a few more questions about vampires, flocks, and how things worked. I got the feeling she was asking me all the questions she wanted to ask Mila but was too shy to voice.
Marduk walked in as I explained how vampires share souls with their flock.
“Why the hell are we talking about vampires?" he asked, setting a drink carrier and five large bags of goodies on Bec’s desk.
I stood up and rushed to move my chair and the other one in the small front area of the office to the desk so we could all sit together and use the desk as a table.
“How did you get these drinks here on your motorcycle?” she asked, pulling one out of the carrier and opening the top.
“Magic,” he said, with a completely straight face.
She paused with the steaming cup halfway to her mouth. “Really?”
I bumped him with my shoulder. “Don’t do that. She doesn’t know you’re joking. It’s rude.”
I felt regret coming from Marduk. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was unkind. I took Danzig’s bike so I could pack everything in the panniers. Then I drove carefully and didn’t take any sharp corners.”
She nodded. “Oh, got it. It must be fun to ride a motorcycle.”
“You can ride pillion with either of us,” I offered.
“Pillion?”
“That’s a name for a passenger on the back,” Marduk explained. “Sometimes they’re also called backpacks.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I like pillion better.”
“I remember back when the term meant the padded section behind a knight's saddle for a lady to ride,” I said. “Later, it was used to refer to a lady's saddle. Now it’s a motorcycle term.”
She tilted her head at me. “I guess if you’ve been around for hundreds of years, you end up seeing a lot of things.”
“The first one hundred years was a little bit of a blank,” Marduk said.
“Why?” she asked.
I answered, “Those were our growing years. It takes roughly a hundred years for us to reach maturity. You know how humans don’t remember when they're babies or toddlers? Well, it's the same for us, only longer.”
She held up a finger, as if she needed a moment to process. “You’re toddlers for a hundred years?”
I grinned at her. “Are you picturing little human children?” She nodded.
“We grow up in our snake form. Makes us more likely to survive.
A lot of creatures would love to eat a young J?rmungandr because we have a lot of magic and no ability to use it.
Being snakes made it easier for us to hide whenever Mom needed to leave us alone, which wasn't often. According to her, we were trouble magnets.”
“That woman is a saint,” she said, making both of us burst out laughing.
“Probably,” Marduk agreed. “We sure caused her a lot of headaches during the 1500s. I have a vivid memory of her coiling her length around both of us once and squeezing until we stopped fighting. Then she said we were all going to sleep like that because she needed one good night's rest.”
“I’d forgotten about that until now,” I said.
Marduk gave me a wry grin. “That’s because you started it.”
That sent Bec into a fit of laughter. Because Bec kept laughing at our stories, we kept telling them.
Time passed quickly, and we were only interrupted by two phone calls.
I thought we’d spend the entire time there without a single person walking in until a young human woman opened the door and peeked her head inside.
“Um, is Jim here?” she asked, looking anxious.
Bec was quick to jump up and shoo us away from her desk. “He’s not in at the moment, but maybe I can help you.”
The woman hesitated, but seemed to appreciate the way Marduk and I moved to the far side of the small room and pretended to be talking to each other about something. We’d perfected this over the years so we could make small talk but still hear everything going on around us.
“Don’t mind them,” Bec said, waving to the girl to take one of our vacant seats. She cast us a last look, then stepped inside and sat.
“Hi, I’m Lisa. My group hired Jim,” she explained.
Bec nodded and tapped her keyboard to wake up her computer. “Could you tell me the name of your group?”
“Justice for the Voiceless,” she said. “I don’t have an appointment or anything, but I was driving by here, so I thought I’d stop by to check in. You know, see if Jim’s found out anything.”
Bec made a humming sound and clicked around on the computer. “I’ve found your file. There are only a few images here, but no report yet. It looks like Jim has…” her voice trailed off.
Marduk and I stopped any pretense of talking and turned to face the desk. Bec’s expression had turned intense as she stared at something on the screen.
We rushed over to see a picture of a man talking to someone hidden from Jim’s camera by a bus stop. I didn’t recognize him, but it was clear Bec knew who he was.
She looked up at us; her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “That’s Leif.”
Lisa looked excited. “That sounds like you have a good lead! It would mean so much to us if you could catch these guys. They’re absolutely deplorable.”
I was about to ask what they were doing, but Lisa’s phone started ringing. She answered it and at the same time, jumped up to leave. She talked rapidly and walked out with a little wave.
“Does the file say why Jim is taking pictures of Leif?” Marduk asked.
“No, he only uploaded them last week,” she said, clicking through everything in the file. “He hasn’t filled out any reports or uploaded notes. There isn’t even a client contract in here! He’s never like this. He always makes sure the first thing in the file is a signed contract.”
After a little more clicking, she let out an aggravated breath. “He locked the images so I can’t even see the metadata on them. There’s no way for me to know when these pictures were taken unless we find someone who can collect data from locked files.”
“We might know someone who could do it,” I said, but Marduk shook his head. We didn’t want to involve Briar yet. She was brilliant, but also unpredictable.
“Let me look around a little more,” she said, getting up to open a file cabinet. She looked through it but made an aggravated sound. Closing the cabinet, she looked at the closed door of Jim’s office. “The contract could be in there, sitting on his desk. He sometimes scans them in himself.”
“We need to look,” I encouraged her. I didn't like coincidences and I had a bad feeling.
“He's taking pictures of the same guy that was turned to dust by a powerful spell,” Marduk said. “Jim could be getting himself into something much more dangerous than he understands,”
That did it. She strode to his office, but when she tried, the door was locked. “That’s weird. He never locks the door.”
I really didn’t like where this was going. I’d like to think these anomalies weren’t connected, but I was sure they were.
An alarm on Bec’s cell phone went off, making us all jump. Bec turned and grabbed it to hush the alarm.
“That’s to remind me to leave on time. Hugo is waiting for us at home.” She bit her lip and looked back at the locked door, then shook her head. “No, I’m not ready to infringe on Jim’s privacy yet. I’ll call him later to tell him I’ve left and try to get information about this case.”
“Good idea,” I said. The sooner we figured out what was going on, the better I’d feel.
“Want to ride with me?” Marduk asked as Bec shut down her computer. “Danzig can drive your car home.”
I could tell she was tempted, but then she shook her head. “Later,” she said. “I don't think I’m in the mindset to enjoy it right now.”
Marduk’s excitement was palpable, and I knew why. We'd talked about it. Once Bec got a taste for riding, there’d be no going back!