Beguiled (6 page)

The weathered brick facade had faded over the years until it was now a pale rose color and the outside of the principal’s office window was dotted with flyers announcing everything from “Just Say No” campaigns to the coming Christmas party. Although these days it was called the “Holiday Celebration.” Politically correct could get really sad and ugly sometimes.

“So where are you?” she murmured, looking around and seeing only long, empty outdoor hallways and a custodian pushing a cart loaded with brooms and mops. The rattle of its one bad wheel echoed in the stillness. Eileen should have been waiting right here. In front of the principal’s office. Inside Maggie, guilt blended with a sudden sense of unease. What if some random Fae had shown up? What if an ordinary human bad guy had shown up? “I’m a rotten human being. A lousy aunt—and if anything happens to Eileen, I’m going to have to throw myself under a train.”

But what could happen?

Oh, only a few weeks ago, she would have been telling herself that Eileen was fine. That the chances of her niece being kidnapped or worse were pretty damn slim. Castle Bay was small, insulated, and everyone in town knew everybody else and a kidnapper would have been hard put to get away with snatching a kid without being surrounded by furious citizens.

But that was back when Maggie had been just a little smug about the safety of the town she called home.

These days, though, she knew the truth. That there were more than just human predators wandering around. There were demons and pixies and rogue Fae and God knew what else that could pop in, grab a cutie like Eileen and pop back out again before anyone even realized what was happening.

“Shut up, brain,” she whispered as worry skittered up and down her spine like thousands of stings from tiny needles. “Eileen’s fine. She’s probably just making me pay for making her wait.”

Good. That was good. And very Donovan of her, to exact a little payback. Maggie wouldn’t even be mad. Just grateful. As soon as she found her.

Someone laughed and Maggie’s head whipped around, her gaze darting in the direction of that familiar sound. Eileen strolled out from between two of the buildings, a tall, thin girl with dark red hair and milk white skin who wasn’t alone. A
boy
walked beside her.

“Oh God. This is all your fault, you know,” Maggie told herself in a muttered whisper. “You were late, so she had time to get friendly with a boy. Nora’s so going to kill you.”

She reached into the car, tapped on her car horn and when Eileen glanced up, Maggie waved. “Let’s go, kiddo!”

Her Donovan blue eyes rolled skyward as an expression of complete humiliation crossed Eileen’s face. Maggie recognized that look. She’d worn it often enough when she was a kid. Was there anything more mortifying than having other people find out you actually had a
family
?

The blond boy walking with Eileen took one look at Maggie before ducking back between the buildings. Maggie frowned a little at his secretive move. Who was this kid, anyway? Could this be the fabulous Grant Carter Eileen had been mooning over a couple of weeks ago? If it was, she told herself, the kid looked a lot older than thirteen.

“At least fifteen,” Maggie said softly, watching Eileen smile and give the hidden boy a finger wave good-bye.

Then the girl turned and hurried toward Maggie’s car with a mutinous expression on her normally pretty face. When she was close enough, she hissed, “Did you have to embarrass me like that?”

“By saying hello?” Maggie countered.

“I knew you wouldn’t understand.” Eileen opened the car door, climbed inside and dumped her backpack on the floor at her feet.

Maggie got in, too, but not before she looked again at the spot where the boy had vanished. He hadn’t shown himself again, which just made Maggie that much more curious. She fired up the engine, buckled her seat belt and made sure Eileen had done the same before she drove out of the school parking lot.

“Sorry I was late, kiddo.”

“No problem,” Eileen muttered, staring through the windshield, apparently not having forgiven her aunt for existing just yet.

“Your mom’s in Otherworld, but she’ll be back by tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Was that Grant Carter I saw you with?” An age-old technique for interrogating kids. Get them relaxed, then slide in the real questions.

Eileen turned and faced her then. “No, his name’s Devon.”

Devon. Hadn’t heard about him before, Maggie thought and quickly braced herself for coming worry. “Who is he?”

Apparently, the opportunity to talk about the great Devon was too good to miss. Even if it meant speaking to an adult you were trying to ignore.

“He is so cool, Maggie. He’s new in town and he’s totally cute and all of the girls like him, but he likes me and he’s really smart and funny and—”

“New?” Maggie stopped at a red light and slid a glance at her niece. The girl’s eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were flushed. Oh God, she was in love. “How new?”

“He moved here last week and Amber told me today that he told her that he kinda liked me and then when you were late picking me up, he showed up and kept me company and he was totally nice and he likes the same music as I do and the same TV shows and”—she paused for breath, but first had to give a little sigh of female satisfaction—“he is sooo cute.”

Maggie took from that that Eileen’s best friend, Amber, was the go-between until Maggie herself had given new boy an opening to talk to Eileen himself. Should she be glad the kid had arrived to keep Eileen company? Maybe. And maybe she should just worry about this a while longer.

“Does he go to your school?”

“What? Oh. I don’t think so. I only see him after school sometimes.”

Didn’t go to school there. And he was new in town?

Was he human new? Or demon new? Was he really a teenage boy with rampaging hormones? Or was he some kind of bizarre creature with different plans entirely? God, she didn’t know which of those two bad ideas to hope for. And how would she ever know for sure?

Only one way. She’d have to get this Devon alone at some point and blow Faery dust on him. If he exploded, then she’d know he was a demon and she’d apologize to Eileen later. If he
didn’t
, then he’d just think Maggie was weird and she’d apologize to Eileen later.

Seriously? When had her life gotten so peculiar?

“I went on the Internet again at the library,” Eileen was saying, and Maggie pushed her own thoughts away to listen up. Apparently, they were finished with Devon for the moment, which was okay by Maggie.

“The librarian is so a control freak.” Reaching down for her backpack, Eileen unzipped it, pulled out a sheaf of folded papers and straightened again. “She like hovers over us when we’re online like we’re going to be attacked by some cyber monster or something, even though they’ve got so many child locks on the computers, we can barely sign on.”

“It’s her job,” Maggie said, stepping on the gas, then signaling to pass a car moving so slowly it was practically going backward. But, she thought, this is how it would be for the next few weeks at least.

With Thanksgiving over, the hard-core shoppers would be cluttering up Main Street every day between now and Christmas. There would be traffic jams, too many tourists looking to buy something from one of the gift shops and not enough parking spots for the locals.

But all the storekeepers in town would be happily ringing up their cash registers, hoping to make enough to tide them over during the slower times until their
next
big season, summer.

“Did you get your driver’s license in a pet store?” Maggie shouted at the woman who had stopped dead in the middle of the street to make an illegal U-turn.

While Maggie tapped her fingers impatiently against the steering wheel, Eileen said, “Someone should tell the librarian that seventy-two percent of all children thwarted in their attempts to use computers become cyber-hackers in retaliation.”

Maggie snorted and glanced at her niece. “
Thwarted
? What’re you, thirty?”

Eileen grinned and just like that, she was back to being her old self again, irritations—and budding romance—forgotten. “It’s a good word, huh? I saw it online and had to use it.”

To support one of the statistics she was forever quoting. Maggie wasn’t sure where she picked up all of these obscure facts, but she was pretty sure Eileen made up most of them. Still, they were always impressive in an argument.

“Finally!” Maggie crowed as the driver in front of her finished tying up traffic. She stepped on the gas again, but she didn’t get far. Two pedestrians leaped off the curb to cross the street and Maggie slammed on the brakes to avoid running them down.

“Anyway,” Eileen said, unfolding the papers, “I was reading about Otherworld again and you know how Culhane says the humans have gotten everything wrong about the Fae? Well, I think he’s right.”

“He’ll love hearing that,” Maggie muttered as she stuck out her tongue at the jaywalkers, who had slowed her down enough that she got caught at another red light. The car beside her shuddered from the power of its stereo blasting out on a frequency that caused what felt like small earthquakes. The bass boomed and the pounding of the drums seemed to echo in Maggie’s mind. She turned her head to scowl at the guy responsible for the hideous sound machine and shrieked a little.

“Holy crap!”

It wasn’t a
guy
; it was a demon. Green skin, black eyes and two mouths, it was using both of them to sneer at her as it lifted a middle finger in a silent salute.

Eileen looked past her. “Whoa.”

In an instant, the demon’s human disguise glamour was back in place and he looked like nothing more than a twenty-year-old weirdo with spiky hair and several piercings jutting through his eyebrows and nose. Tough call on which of his images was the yuckier.

“Demon?” Eileen asked.

“Oh yeah,” Maggie told her as the light changed to green. She just sat there, watching the demon in the beat-up car peel out. Well, until the driver behind her started honking.

Grumbling about the traffic, she stepped on the gas and headed for home.

“In six of your months,” Leanna said with a smile, “you will have a Fae child.”

“Only six?” Nora smiled past the wave of nausea and laid the flat of her hand against her abdomen. Was she imagining it, or was the baby moving already? So very different. When she was pregnant with Eileen, it was forever before she felt the baby stirring. But clearly, this pregnancy was going to be nothing like her first one.

“That’s great,” she said, though she felt a quick thrill of—not fear exactly, but maybe . . . okay, fear. She was having a Fae baby. Who knew what that would mean? Of course, that’s why Quinn had brought her to Otherworld. So she could get some answers to her questions. “Three months shorter than I was expecting.”

“Fae children develop much more quickly,” Leanna told her with just a touch of smugness; then the lovely Fae female sat down on a pale lavender chair that seemed to enfold itself around her.

Nora managed to stifle a shiver. It was bad enough sitting on this silver couch that continually shifted and moved beneath her like something alive. Sure, it was comfy, but she preferred her furniture to be inanimate.

The place was beautiful, but then, everything in Otherworld was pretty. Mostly. It was the differences that kept Nora off balance. Like the quivering couch and the way her hostess waved one hand in the air and produced a tray filled with fragile-looking glasses shaped like delicate tulips and a bottle of some honey-colored liquid.

Not the kind of thing she was used to, even if she did try, unlike her sister, Maggie, to keep an open mind to the supernatural.

“Are you all right?” Quinn’s deep voice rumbled from close by and he reached over to slide his big hand up and down her spine. Nora leaned into his touch. This was worth it. He made it all worth it.

“I’m fine,” she said, straightening up a little and moving closer to the edge of that couch. She was half convinced it would try to swallow her soon. “Really, sweetie, I’m good. I’m just . . .”

Feeling out of place? Couldn’t really say that since Leanna was a friend of Quinn’s. But Nora didn’t think she’d ever be able to relax in such a completely elegant house. A suite of rooms in a shimmering crystal tower in the middle of the great city, the walls of Leanna’s home sparkled and shone iridescently in the afternoon sunshine. The walls were curved, the windows were wide and afforded a view of the far-off sea. A floral scent perfumed the air and soft music that sounded like harps and flutes drifted through the room like a caress.

It was fabulous and beautiful and the woman who lived here had been nothing but welcoming, but Nora really wanted to be back in her quirky but completely cozy little house. At least there, when she felt hurly, she knew where to go.

Leanna shifted in her chair, drawing Nora’s attention. Really, was
every
Fae woman gorgeous? Leanna was tall, mostly leg, with waist-length, pale yellow hair that fell in froths of curls around her shoulders. Her wide, silvery eyes shone in the light of the two suns slanting through the windows. She had a figure that most women would kill for and knowing that she had given birth twice only made Nora more jealous. But she was being helpful and right about now, Nora needed all the help she could get.