Phoenix in My Fortune (A Monster Haven Story Book 6) (12 page)

While we waited for the Realtor, I made a quick call to Darius to let him know what had happened.

“Right there on the sidewalk?” His deep voice resonated with suppressed anger. “And no one else saw him?”

“Yeah. So, stay with Mom. Make sure he doesn’t do a flyby on her, too.”

“I won’t leave her side.”

I knew he wouldn’t.

Tom Allen showed up ten minutes later, ready to do business. We gave him a tour of the property, and he took copious notes.

“Wonderful,” he said. “I think we can really do something here. I’ve already got several buyers in mind who might be interested.”

Part of me was happy for Sara that selling her house would probably go so smoothly. Another part of me wanted to kick this Tom character out the door and tell him it was all a misunderstanding. I’d spent a lot of time in this house over the years. I’d cried a lot of tears after bad breakups—including when I’d broken up with Riley for a few months. I’d been to a lot of dinner parties, and I’d sat up with Sara here for a lot of long nights when she was having demon-related nightmares.

I didn’t want things to change. But they already had. Everything had changed.

We sent Tom on his way, gleeful and merry with imaginary dollar signs floating above his head. Sara’s house was gorgeous and situated in a great neighborhood. The commission on this would be fabulous. Tom was probably already making plans to take a vacation to Hawaii.

I dropped Sara’s mail on the kitchen counter. “We need milk,” I said. Exhaustion slapped me in the face like a dead mackerel. “Other than that, I’m not going anywhere else. I’m done for the day.”

Riley pulled me into his arms and kissed my temple. “We’ll find him and stop him. I promise.”

I rubbed my cheek against the fabric of his shirt. “And then everybody’s going away. Even if we stop Shadow Man from taking all the Hidden, people are moving on.”

He held me tighter and rested his chin on the top of my head. “I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. No matter what happens, I’ll be right here.”

* * *

Because I hadn’t had enough of people I cared about altering their circumstances, we came home to a phone call announcing more change. I really hated change at this point, but this one was probably for the best.

Bernice, the head of the Board of Hidden Affairs—the governing body over the Hidden in the United States—had decided she’d had enough and was quitting her job.

To be fair, I couldn’t blame her for wanting out. In the last few years, the entire Board of thirteen members had been murdered, except for her. She’d been hypnotized into letting a psychopath out of jail, freeing the crazy lady to kill all the Aegises in America except for Mom and me. Bernice had also taken me with her to England at a gathering of world governments, during which she’d been thoroughly admonished for putting me in danger by bringing me. Rounding it all out, she’d nearly lost her job to a brutish boss who flew in from Canada and micromanaged her into binge drinking.

No. Bernice was probably done. She’d earned retirement. In fact, we were lucky she wasn’t being forcibly removed by doctor’s orders and immediately placed in a straightjacket. The poor woman had been through enough.

I sat in a rocking chair on my front porch, my phone pinched between my ear and my shoulder while I shelled peas for Maurice.

“Are you sure you’re not angry?” Bernice asked. The weariness in her voice didn’t need an empath to translate. The woman had nothing left in her.

“Of course not. You have every right to step down after everything that’s happened. What does Art say?”

Art—a middle-management asshole when I’d first met him—had filled in for the rest of the board members while he and Bernice simultaneously fought off the hostile takeover by the Canadian government and tried to hire new board members so they could get back to business as usual. Canada’s Hidden government wasn’t in much better shape than ours, and then their top dog died—right in my yard—so they’d dropped their attempt to take over.

Finding suitable board members for the American government had been more of a challenge.

Bernice let out a shaky breath. “Art’s taking my position. He’ll be in charge for now.”

A year ago, I’d have figured we were all doomed if Art took over. Hardships and reality had mellowed him, though. He no longer ran around quoting rules and regulations from some enormous tome of laws. And we didn’t hate each other anymore.

“I think Art will do a great job, Bernice. Did you find some help for him before you leave?”

The energy leaking from her through my phone brightened. “I’m not going anywhere yet. I’m still staying here as long as the Board needs my golems to assist them. And we’ve got four new board members now. Things are looking up.”

A pea jumped out of my hands and skidded across the porch. I watched it roll almost to the edge before it stopped. “So, they’re each running three departments?”

“Well, yes. But that’s far better than Art and I running all twelve departments on our own.”

“True.” The top of a tiny gray head appeared at the edge of the porch, as if levitating from below. A small hand, moving ridiculously slow to avoid being noticed, crept up the side and snaked over to the escaped pea. The hand was so small, the pea looked like a green basketball in its palm.

The head drifted up enough for a pair of eyes to scope things out. I glanced away so they wouldn’t catch me looking. Hand, head and vegetable disappeared.

As I listened to Bernice ramble about the beach house she was planning to retire to someday, I flicked another pea in the direction the other had disappeared.

When the head came up, I looked away again.

I still had no idea why the shy gnomes had taken up residence beneath my house a year or so ago. They wouldn’t talk to anyone. But I’d discovered recently that if I was careful to make it look unintentional and didn’t get caught looking, I could leave food for them.

After flicking a few more peas their way, I was done and had to get back inside. “Bernice, I need to go. I’m so happy for you, though. Don’t worry about a thing. Art’s going to be fine. We’re all going to be fine. Take care of yourself. Okay?”

Relief spread from my phone up my arm. “I will. Thank you.” She paused, and I thought she’d hung up. “Oh, wait! I sent you something. It’s on its way.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Did you stick Gris in a shoebox and mail him to us again?” I’d been appalled to find our miniature automaton buddy had traveled through the U.S. Postal Service. Bernice—his creator/mother—may not accept him as real, but I did. I’d seen his soul. Part of me was
in
his soul. Sending him through the mail had not been cool—especially since our mailman had turned out to be a seriously bad guy before he was killed.

Bernice chuckled. “Hand to God. I did not mail Gris to you. You’ll see.”

I was not reassured. “Thanks?”

“Thank me later when you get my present.” Her voice became serious. “Be safe, Zoey. This is the final battle. You have to beat this Last Hidden person. I have a cottage on the Florida Gulf waiting for me.”

First Moira and now Bernice. What was up with Florida taking all my people away?

Wonderful. Save the world, so Bernice could retire to Florida.

There was some incentive I wasn’t expecting.

Chapter Twelve

The next night, Shadow Man made his debut appearance at Mom’s cottage. She and Darius were in the sitting room, Mom curled in a chair, reading a book, and Darius on the floor, hacking at a chunk of wood with a knife.

Apparently, all the down time had him bored lately, and Mom had talked him into taking up a hobby. So far, we’d each been presented with a misshapen representation of a woodland creature. I treasured my deformed, potato-headed squirrel and kept it on my mantel.

Whatever Darius had been making that night would never get its day on someone’s mantel. Mom looked up from her book, saw Shadow Man grinning through the window and screamed. The sound startled Darius, and the wood snapped in his massive hand.

By the time Mom took a breath and pointed at the window, Shadow Man was gone. There were crickets, of course. Lots and lots of crickets singing their cheery song and hopping around the windowsill and in the garden beneath it.

Kam had been stretched out in a nearby tree keeping watch. “I swear,” she said later, “I was looking right at that window when I heard the scream. I didn’t see a damn thing.”

And that was the important part of the story I grabbed from the event. Kam had been staring directly at the spot where Shadow Man had been standing, yet she hadn’t seen him. Only Mom had.

How the hell were we supposed to catch him if most of us couldn’t see him?

Mom spent the next day covering up all her windows. I didn’t blame her, but I couldn’t do the same at my house. The bedroom window was one thing—I wanted to sleep without fear of being watched. But I couldn’t live in a cave. The idea of not being able to look outside made my skin itch.

If I couldn’t see out, he could be standing by the door waiting for me. How could I ever go outside again if he might be lurking? It was like being afraid of the monster in the closet and hiding under the covers. Sooner or later, you’d have to come out for air, and he could be standing
right there
by your bed.

Of course, that probably wasn’t the best comparison, considering how things turned out with my own scary closet monster. I seriously doubted Shadow Man would be back in a few years to make me pancakes.

A person only got lucky like that once.

Now that we had Phil around, that gave us another hard-hitter to guard us—not that it mattered, since he couldn’t hit what he couldn’t see. Phil sort of wandered back and forth through the night, keeping watch over the path between my house and Mom’s. Occasionally, I saw him during the day clomping through the woods with Tashi. Maybe they were just friends. But it still made me happy. Phil was recently divorced, and Tashi was a widow. It made me smile to think that Phil might step in where Iris could no longer be. We all missed that crazy skunk-ape. His death had been hard to handle. Tashi deserved to be happy, and so did Phil.

* * *

The day after I spoke to Bernice, her surprise arrived. A taxi drove up the driveway and stopped in front of the house. I’d been sorting socks in the living room and saw the car, so I went out on the porch to see what was up. We didn’t get a lot of visitors by taxi.

A man of average height and dark hair paid the driver and stepped out with his suitcase. I didn’t recognize him.

Riley had followed me out the door and stood next to me, arms folded. “Now what?”

I shrugged. “Beats me. Do you know him?”

“Nope.”

We waited for the man to come to us, and he climbed the steps to the porch, grinning from ear to ear.

“May I help you?” I peered up at him, examining the contours of his face. Something was off. Not like a skinwalker was off because the skin on his face was borrowed. More like the structure was off, somehow. Unreal.

The man chuckled. “Don’t you recognize me, Zoey?” He smiled wider, puffing out his chest. His turquoise eyes sparkled.

Turquoise eyes. I looked closer. “Gris? Is that you?”

Griswold Octavius Barnabus Ozymandeus Fauntleroy Cornilius Donovan was a little wooden man about ten inches tall. This man was over six feet and appeared to be flesh and bone. Gris’s eyes were tiny chips of turquoise, and this man’s eyes were the same unlikely color. That was the only link I could make between the two.

He made a low bow, then spun around with his arms wide. “What do you think?”

I’d kind of liked having a tiny golem that could fit in my purse. Once I’d grown used to him, anyway. But the longer I knew him, the more I understood how hard it was on Gris being so small.

“How?” I asked. “Bernice said she had a surprise, but this—” I waved my hand at him, “—doesn’t seem possible.”

Gris was a special, accidental creation. The rest of Bernice’s golems were full-sized, had no autonomous control and couldn’t be more than a quarter of a mile away from their creator. Gris had a soul, created over time from residual magic in Bernice’s workshop. He was his own person and wasn’t connected in any way to Bernice. She may have unintentionally given him the spark that brought him to life, but she had no influence over him.

Riley drew closer and touched Gris’s arm and shoulder. Prodded his face with a careful fingertip. “She couldn’t possibly remove your soul and put it in a new body. She’d need a soul stone to do that.”

I inspected Gris’s hairline and left ear. “Seriously, Gris. What’d she do, pour magic fertilizer on you to make you grow?”

Gris threw his head back and laughed. “Of course not. It was a lot simpler than that. Watch.”

Riley and I stepped back to give Gris room to do whatever the hell he was about to do. I wasn’t sure what to expect—a cloud of magic that made him shrink down to his original size? A Wonder Woman twirl that made him change clothes? A swarm of nano-bugs that reformed into a new shape?

I was prepared for anything. At least, I thought I was.

Gris’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down a few times, then let out a disconcerting pop. His entire head dropped forward on hinges, displaying a tiny cockpit in place of a brain. Gris—my tiny Gris—grinned and waved from behind the controls.

“See? Awesome, huh?”

Kam appeared out of nowhere and clomped up the steps behind him. “Holy shit, Gris! Sweet ride!”

We crowded around him, admiring what he described as his
vehicle
.

“It’s so lifelike, though,” I said, examining the fingernails.

He winked at me. “To most people, sure. But you were already giving it the stink-eye before you even knew it was me. You knew something was up.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t know what, though. This is really good.”

He smiled. “Mother wanted to make up for—well, you know. Stuff.”

Bernice hadn’t embraced the idea of motherhood that Gris’s existence had presented her with. The fact that she’d done this for him was huge, and I knew how much it meant to Gris. Some of my energy powered his soul, which gave us a unique connection. Because we were bonded, I couldn’t have kept from feeling the joy that pulsed from him, even if all my filters had been shut tight. The spark of humanity that had spawned a soul in an otherwise man-made creature shone bright and warm.

I returned his smile. “Welcome home, Gris. I’m happy you’re here, no matter what size you are.”

And so, our army continued to grow. Gris didn’t need to sleep any more than Phil did, so they both covered the path through the woods during the night. Even without the fairy ring, we were locked down tight, safe from harm.

In theory, anyway.

Weeks had passed since Shadow Man had kidnapped those two neighborhood kids. We kept a close eye on the news in case anything new happened, but all was peaceful. I went to the grocery store several times, toured three possible venues for Fiona’s wedding and visited Andrew at his store twice—all without catching sight of Shadow Man even once.

It seemed he was leaving us alone.

Riley and I were curled together on the couch watching a movie when everything turned to a big steaming pile of crap.

Molly knocked on the front window, and Riley opened the door for her. The worry on her small face instantly put me on high alert.

She craned her neck to view the whole living room. “Have you seen Aaron? Please say you have.”

Riley and I exchanged uneasy looks. “We haven’t left the house today,” I said. “How long has he been missing?”

Molly burst into tears. “He went to a friend’s house this morning. He never made it, and they thought he was not coming. I did not realize he was missing until he did not come home for dinner.” She took in a great, hitching breath. “He has been missing since this morning and no one knew to look for him.”

My mind raced for a solution. A plan. An idea. Anything. I came up blank. Instead, I sat on the floor next to my small friend and stroked her hair with my fingertips and made soothing sounds until she ran out of tears. My heart shattered into tiny fragments, even as my gut hardened in anger and prepared for war.

Riley jerked his chin toward the door, and I nodded. He’d get a search party together. We had more than enough people for it.

After a half hour or so, Molly was cried out—at least for the moment. I handed her a piece of tissue so she could dry her eyes and blow her nose. “Riley’s already out there looking,” I said. “And he’s got a lot of help. Where are the rest of the kids?”

She sniffled. “Walter is with them. Fred wanted to go, too, but he is only sixteen.” Her voice quivered. “He thinks he is so grown up, but he is not. Not yet.”

Aaron was twelve. Even less grown up. I hoped with all my heart that Aaron had only wandered off, distracted by a game of hide-and-seek or dandelion ball. I doubted it, though. Instinct told me this was it. Shadow Man had shifted his game to my family.

Cold fury ran through me, drowning out the fear and sorrow. Stealing children was terrible. Stealing
my
kids? No. Just no. Shadow Man would regret this.

Molly climbed to my shoulder, and I took her home to her husband and kids. The mushroom was a two-story house that came up to my knee. I sank to the grass so Molly could hop down.

“Stay inside,” I said. “Keep all the kids with you.”

Walter threw the door open and thrust his head outside. “Did you find him?” His face was pinched and frantic.

I shook my head. “Not yet. Riley’s got everyone out looking, though.”

Molly ran to him, and his face softened as he put his arms around her. “I’d like to look too, Aegis, if you don’t mind.”

Molly stiffened, but she didn’t object.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll take you to find Riley.”

“
We
will take him to find Riley.”

I turned to find Sara standing behind me with her hands on her hips.

Her golden eyes flashed with disapproval. “I can’t believe the first second you’re alone, you take off on your own without an escort.”

I snorted. “I wasn’t alone. Molly was with me.”

Sara gave me a sour look, then squatted to talk to the brownies. “Molly, we’ll do everything we can to find your Aaron. Walter, may I offer you a ride?”

Molly’s smile was half-hearted. “Thank you.”

Walter kissed her cheek, then climbed to Sara’s shoulder. “Eat dinner without me,” he said. He stood straight and tall, as if he were a great warrior going off to battle.

I sat there for a moment, waiting for them to leave until I realized Sara wasn’t going anywhere without me.

“Sorry, babe,” she said. “You’re stuck with me until Riley gets back.” She tugged me to my feet.

“Fine. Let’s go find Riley.”

For someone who was supposed to be my escort, she sure ran fast.

She led me into the woods and down the path toward the cottage. Sara had always been in better shape than me, since, unlike me, she hadn’t avoided the gym like it might be built entirely from asbestos and radioactive robot parts. Now that she was a demon, she was in even better shape. I could barely keep up. A few yards into the woods, I cried uncle. I stopped and leaned against a tree, panting. A sharp cramp stabbed my side and caused me to bend over to ease the pain.

Sara halted, put her hands on her hips and rolled her golden eyes at me. “Oh, come on. We ran the length of your front and backyard. You’re pathetic.”

I gulped in air and pressed my hand to the stitch in my side. “It’s a big yard. And I might have been okay if...” I stopped and took a few breaths. “If you hadn’t turned it from a marathon to a foot race. Some of us are still puny humans, you know.”

She chuckled and folded her arms. “Please. I was never this puny.”

That was true. In fact, she’d also been taking martial arts classes for the last couple of years. Sara had taken good care of herself.

I liked pie.

My breathing slowed almost to normal, and my heart and lungs felt less likely to burst from my chest. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and prepared for another sprint.

My pocket vibrated, and I pulled out my phone, assuming it was Riley checking to see where I was.

“Zoey, baby!”

I groaned. “Brad, I can’t talk right now.”

“If not now, when? I’ll make it quick, I promise. I need to talk a little business with you.”

“No.” I so didn’t have time to deal with Brad asking me for money. Or a favor. Or a date. Whatever the hell he wanted.

“Five minutes. Seriously. I promise.”

In my experience, Brad’s promises were worth less than a game token from a defunct arcade in an abandoned mall.

That wasn’t fair. He hadn’t asked me for anything—or even called—in nearly a year. Whatever he wanted, I should make time to listen later, even if it was to tell him no. It didn’t cost me anything to be nice.

“Brad, I’m really sorry, but I’m in the middle of a huge emergency. I swear, whatever it is, we’ll talk about it when all this is over. I just really can’t talk right now.”

He sighed. “I gotcha. I hope whatever it is works out. Gimme a call soon. It’s important.”

“I promise.” I hung up and shoved the phone in my pocket.

Sara scowled at me. “Brad? Really?” Sara wasn’t a huge fan of Brad, despite the help he’d given us a few times in the past. She never stayed friends with her exes and didn’t understand why I couldn’t shake mine loose.

I made a face in return. “Don’t start. I’ll handle it. Let’s go.”