The House (22 page)

“What you mean
is that your scientists will want me for a guinea pig and
grandfather will want a chance to exploit me again. I told you when
I left - I will not work for the Covenant again. Come on, we’re
leaving. They don’t know anything about Shayana and at this point I
couldn’t care less about a few wayward vampyre.” In fact, I cared a
great deal about those vampyre but if I said so they’d find a way
to keep me. To use me. The Covenant did not do new well. If word
got out? Well, let’s just say that even weak telepaths are feared
enough to be closely watched whenever they show up.

We left in
silence, leaving Jalas still at the bottom of all those flights of
stairs. No doubt he still had work to do down in the dungeon. I
didn’t go back to the accommodation for my clothes; if they wanted
me to have them they could post them. If they didn’t, well, I could
always buy a new dress. I’d be hard pushed to buy back my sanity
after they locked me away for ‘testing’.

Home had never
felt so good. I had had a moment of panic when I thought that they
wouldn’t let us go, but it passed. Nobody even tried to convince us
to stay and I was far too happy to be away from the place to start
analysing motives. Of course, next would be the questions: What did
you do? Why did you do it? Why keep it a secret? The truth as far
as I was concerned was irrelevant. I couldn’t honestly answer their
questions so I sat by myself in the meeting room, waiting for fate
to arrive.

“Trix.” It was
Marlow. Of everyone he was the most likely to understand, him and
James. “I don’t care about what you did or why.” Well, that was
novel. “I just want to find my sister. So tell me, did we just give
up our best hope?”

His eyes
searched me, begged me to answer, and I couldn’t. What could I say?
Maybe? Probably? I didn’t have a clue. Yet the Covenant had
resources that we never would, and a full-scale manhunt would take
hours or days instead of weeks. They could talk to people we
couldn’t get close to and they could get people to talk when we
would have to walk away.

“If they knew
anything they weren’t going to tell us,” was all I came up with,
and it was woefully inadequate. “If they know ... then they’re
involved and we’ll end up going in circles. They’re witches, they
won’t play ball with us.”

“It’s stupid,”
Stripes exclaimed. “They didn’t do a thing to help us. They just
played games and wasted a day of our time.” She slumped down in the
chair next to mine, followed closely by Hercules and James. Eddie
had apparently elected to remain absent.

“I agree. We
can do better without them,” Hercules put in.

I sighed.
“There are five of us, six including Eddie, and seven when Marie
gets back. That’s not exactly enough to launch a full-scale
search.”

“We could call
in reinforcements.” Hercules sat back in his chair more downcast
than I’d ever seen him. I couldn’t imagine what he was going
through. He hardly knew Shayana but he’d slept with her, felt at
least a little something for her. Then she vanishes and he can’t
know what to feel.

“We’re not the
army,” James said. “We don’t have reinforcements.”

“The hell we
don’t.” I stood up. “There were over twenty people here the other
day, if they can take time out to party then they can sure as hell
take time out to find one of their own. We’re a small community -
everyone knows Shayana - I’m sure they can help us find her.”

“You want us
to demand that they help us?” Stripes asked. “That’s a bit over the
top.”

“I don’t know.
Marie usually deals with the problems not me. I’m at a loss.” I sat
back down, aware that I looked and sounded like an idiot, my big
idea in tatters.

“Can’t you
call her and ask?” Marlow asked.

“She’s out of
range,” Stripes replied. “Must be the last damn place in Britain
that doesn’t have a signal.”

“What about a
landline? I thought you guys had one still.”

I turned
around and saw the old-fashioned telephone hanging from the wall. I
nearly slapped myself, we’d been silly. We were so used to always
using the coms pads that we hadn’t even considered the landline or
I would have called before going to the Covenant. Hell, I’d used
the thing to call my grandfather. I simply hadn’t thought it
through.

“Do you know
the number? Does her father even have a contact number?” James
asked.

“If there’s a
number Marie would have left it somewhere,” Stripes suggested.
“Maybe the desk?”

The desk was
more of an extended bookcase in the main entrance hall than
anything else. It was where we kept all the important information,
from contact details to the visitor’s log. It may seem stupid to
keep such sensitive information out in the open but, honestly, if
anyone found the House we were screwed anyway and it would be
useless notes and nicknames to a normal human.

Hercules
disappeared into the hallway as the rest of us sat looking lost. We
were misfits and outcasts of our society, apart from Marlow. I was
at a loss as to why responsibility for this had fallen into our
laps. I prayed that Hercules would find the number for Marie’s
dad’s house.

He came back in carrying a small leather-bound book. The
pages were yellowing and well-turned. He handed me the book and I
stared at it. The thing was
old
. I undid the ties that kept it
closed and held it for a moment before opening it. The writing on
the first page was beautiful calligraphy - names followed by an
eleven digit number and two dates. The first date was 1902. It was
the birth date of the first name; the second date had to be the
date of death, 1973. The middle number was a phone
number.

I flicked
through the book the way it was supposed to be read. It was old but
not meant to be held reverently or with gloves. The thing seemed to
be very sturdy for its age. The book was only half-full with five
names per page. By the time the dates reached the twenty-first
century there were two telephone numbers. One was a landline - I
didn’t know what the others were, they all started with 07.

I found the
end of the numbers and Marie’s name. Above it there were two names
I recognised - Elizabeth and Martin Clarence. Elizabeth had two
dates; 2081 and 2215, Martin only had one; 2086. Which made him 136
and living out his retirement in the highlands of Scotland. I
sighed in relief. There was a land line number.

Stripes put
the phone in my hands before I could ask for it and I smiled up at
her. Eddie had slipped in and everyone was gathered around, leaning
ever so slightly forward. Enough that it made me feel slightly
claustrophobic. They didn’t need to; they’d hear both sides of the
conversation from the other side of the room. I took great care in
dialling the number; I was so used to using voice recognition that
I was nervous hand dialling the phone. My grandfather’s number was
programmed in so I hadn’t had to worry about it.

“Hello.”
Martin Clarence answered after four rings.

“Hello, this
is Trix ... um, Beatrice. Can I speak to Marie please?”

“Marie isn’t
here.”

“When will she
be back?”

“She’s not
here.”

“What do you
mean? She was going to visit you.” I was getting more and more on
edge with every passing moment. Marie had said her father hadn’t
done well with the death of her mother, his wife of ninety-five
years.

“She called to
say she was going to be a bit late.”

“She left
three days ago.”

“Really?
That’s more than a bit late.” God, he was completely loopy.

“So she hasn’t
arrived at all?” I asked, just to be sure. You had to repeat
questions with people who weren’t quite all there anymore. It made
me sad to think of someone slowly losing themselves but I had
bigger issues.

“No, is she
alright?”

A loud crash
made me look up. The phone was on the table about to fall on the
floor. I snatched it up before it fell further and cut itself
off.

“No, Mr
Clarence. No, I don’t think she’s alright. There’s shifters gone
missing.”

Silence
greeted me from the other end of the line. “Call me when you find
her. I’ll ask around.” Maybe he wasn’t as loopy as I’d thought. I
hung up the phone very carefully, not trusting my hands not to
crush the plastic into nothing.

Nobody spoke,
nobody made a sound. The silence pressed down on me. I couldn’t
believe it. I ran through scenarios in my head. She couldn’t have
been taken; there was no reason for her to be taken. She was kind
and loving and good. I realised that I was thinking of her in the
past tense already. She wasn’t dead, she couldn’t be. Someone had
her.

Someone had
her and I was going to get her back.

Where
Shayana’s disappearance had seemed distant and unreal, Marie’s felt
like someone had emptied my insides out. Anger filled me and
everywhere it touched it raised power, power like I’d never known.
The kind of power that builds and builds, and burns and bursts. It
wasn’t right. In my haze I still knew that anger should stop me
from summoning power, at least the kind of controlled power that
filled me, but all that was secondary ... Marie was gone.

“Why?” Stripes
asked, her voice cracking and tears escaping down her cheeks. I put
my hand to my own face and found tears there as well. The guys
didn’t cry but their faces visibly hardened. Except for Eddie who
just looked lost. He hadn’t known her; he was separate from us and
our anger, our fear. Fear because, if someone had taken Marie, it
severely decreased the number of people who could be responsible.
She was older, but not weaker, and she was good. It also meant that
they had taken two shifters. Two powerful shifters.

“I don’t know
... but I’m going to find out,” growled Hercules. His hands curled
into fists on the table, pressing hard enough to dent the wood. He
was beyond angry, he was livid. Marie had taken him in when he was
at his lowest, about to fall off the face of the world completely.
She had nurtured him, listened to him, given him a safe home and a
family.

“
We
will
find out.” James put his hand on Hercules’ shoulder. He didn’t seem
visibly upset, more like it was a personal affront to him that
someone had dared to snatch someone he protected. It was a look I
knew had never been seen on my face. I wasn’t a fighter; I wasn’t
expected to look after anyone physically.

“Two shifters
going missing in less than a week ... it’s an awfully large
coincidence if they aren’t related.” Marlow just stood there.
Marie’s disappearance just seemed to have hardened his resolve and
now he would have more than enough volunteers to search. “Call
everyone we know, if anyone can help we’ll find them faster.”

“Or find out
if anyone else has vanished,” Stripes whispered.

We didn’t
waste any time; we had enough gatherings at the House that our
phone tree was reasonably established already. Marlow would call
everyone he knew that we didn’t. He lived in Yorkshire so it was
unlikely that anyone would come down to help but he had to try.
Hercules produced the usual call list and added a couple of names
that we normally just remembered because we hadn’t gotten around to
adding them yet. There were twenty or so names to go with.

I ticked off
the first name - Alex Montgomery - and said his name to my coms
pad. It dialled automatically and rang three times before he picked
up.

“Hello?” I
could hear hustle and bustle in the background; I really hoped he
didn’t react too strongly for public consumption.

“Alex? It’s Trix.” I
really
hoped he didn’t bring up his earlier actions. “We
need your help ...” I sighed. It was hard to talk, to breathe past
the lump in my throat. “Marie and Shayana are missing.”

“I haven’t
seen ‘em.”

“No, I didn’t
think you had, but we need help. We want to start a full-scale
search but we don’t have the manpower.”

“Alright, I
got my girlfriend here right now but I’ll be down to help later
tonight. I just gotta think of an explanation but don’t worry, I’ll
be there. We’ll find them ... we’ll find Marie.” He sounded so
sure; I wished I could be that sure. It was easy to think like that
when you hadn’t seen the worst of the world.

I hung up and
dialled the next unticked name. It wasn’t as successful. Charlie
didn’t have the time; he had a job as a security guard that he
couldn’t miss. Mark said the same; he worked full-time as a police
officer. At least he offered to put a good word in if we went to
the police, which was the next stage. Of course, calling in the
police is decidedly risky.

If I’d been
absolutely sure that the witches and vampyre were involved I’d
never have involved the police. The witches had a bad history with
officials and tended to like to sort out their own problems. We
shifters were a little more flexible. I still took a deep breath
before voicing the idea.

“I want to go
to the police station before we do much of our own searching.” I
looked around. I’d half expected Marlow to protest that he didn’t
want authorities looking into his life. If they looked too closely
it could go very badly but that’s what you get for working as an
assassin. To my surprise, he nodded.

“I’m sorry, I
should have gone straight away but they do not always trust
non-officials that their loved ones have not simply left of their
own accord.”

“I think
Marlow should come with me because they’ll want to speak to him
about Shayana anyway. Does anyone else want to come too? But I
don’t think anyone should be left alone; if someone is taking
shifters it would suck if they got one of us while we looked for
the ones they’ve already got.”