The House (29 page)

“Did you call
Hunter?” I asked. She just looked at me; of course she’d called
Hunter. It meant that he’d probably show up here in a few hours.
Just enough time for him to get the bar sorted and he’d be here
ready to help.

It also meant
that Catherine had probably freaked him into thinking Thomas had
been kidnapped. At that moment in time...well, that’s what we had
to go with too. The help would be very welcome whatever had
happened to Thomas.

“It’s not just
the girls then,” Hercules said. “But it’s still powerful shifters –
maybe they just started with the girls because they thought it
would be easier?”

“Then why not
keep taking girls?” I asked.

“Because the
only one left is you Trix, and nobody would ever think that you
were an easy target.” He smiled slightly and it lightened my heart
a touch.

“They took
Shayana. Hercules, they aren’t looking for easy targets.”

“Then we have
to face the possibility that he will go after you next,” James put
in. “You weren’t out on the search with us, you were here, maybe
they don’t know where we live or they are cautious of taking you
with so many of us around.”

“Well, the
point is moot because they won’t have the chance to take me. I’m
not planning to make myself a target.” I threw my arms up in the
air in frustration, only missing Hercules because he ducked at the
last minute. I smiled sheepishly at him and apologised. I was
starting to think that this group brainstorming thing wasn’t such a
good idea. It wouldn’t be long before we started sniping at each
other. We don’t tend to do well all cramped up in small spaces. The
voices didn’t help either.

“It would be
good bait,” Eddie said, looking around. The look of disgust on
everyone else’s face suggested that it was not a good idea. “I was
only saying...if they’re after Trix and we’re all there, we could
get them.”

“If they had
not already defeated James then I would agree with you child,”
Catherine said. “But you would not want to be responsible for
putting Trix in danger; it’s not a life-prolonging thing to do.”
She smiled at me and I had to remember that I wasn’t the only one
who knew about the witches’ world.

Catherine’s
father had been a true-born shifter. She’d been born human but
she’d always be a part of that world. It just wasn’t that easy to
get out of. Although Catherine hadn’t been changed until she met
her husband, she had always been a part of the supernatural
community. We took care of our children. All of our children, they
were far too precious to do any less.

“Fine. Like I
said it was just an idea.” He sounded sulky and tired. I couldn’t
really complain because I had a feeling I was headed that way
myself and I could do sulky very well when I was tired. Looking at
Eddie though, I wanted to do better. I couldn’t afford to start
acting like a spoilt brat. So as much as it would satisfy me to
whine and shout and blame everyone, I didn’t. I held my tongue. I
was good. There’s a first time for everything.

Besides, it
was taking a lot out of me to concentrate with the voices rising in
my head; I didn’t have the energy for sulky. I was more likely to
go from normal to unconscious without any stage of tired in
between.

We would have
berated Eddie some more for suggesting that we put anyone in
danger, but at that moment the phone rang. I ran to answer it,
skidding across the wooden floor of the hall as I picked it up, and
slamming my shoulder into the wall on the other side.

It wasn’t the
first time. I had asked Marie to put carpet in the hall but she
insisted the wood was easier to keep clean. I thought to myself
that at least she’d moved the runner that used to send me flying,
normally into her, as I came rushing out to meet her. Then I
remembered that I was holding the phone. My mind was a mess; it
just wasn’t possible for me to think of more than one thing at a
time. Too much else was going on in my head.

“Hello.” I
caught my breath slowly, managing to sound almost normal.

“Hello...um...hello, my name is Hannah. I’m...um...Alex’s
girlfriend. He...er...gave me this number to contact in an
emergency and he hasn’t come home. Is he...um...there?” I had to
give it to her; she managed to be coherent despite the umming and
erring. My breath hitched as she finished though. Alex was
unaccounted for.

“He was here
the night before last but he went home. Didn’t he get home?” I
asked in what I hoped was a reasonably carefree and
non-condescending tone. This was worrying. If someone had taken
Alex as well, it meant that we were losing people faster than we
could keep track of them.

“No. I mean,
he was all het up before he left and...I don’t know. There’s
something wrong, I know it, and I just wondered if he’d decided not
to come back.” She was starting to lose it, although she managed to
stop with the ums and errs. She thought that Alex had left her.
Well he’d definitely thought about it, but not for the reasons she
was thinking of, unless she knew far more than we thought.

“I’m sorry,
Alex isn’t here. We all assumed he would go home. He didn’t tell us
any different...hang on.” I covered the old-fashioned end of the
phone and turned towards the meeting room. “Guys, did Alex say he
was going anywhere special?” I shouted through to the other
room.

“No, he said
he was going home to sort things out with his girl. Is that her?”
James asked as he walked through.

“Yeah, it is.
Do you want to talk to her?”

“No, it’s
fine, but it doesn’t bode well.” And he walked back through to tell
the others that we could add Alex to our growing list of AWOL
shifters. I uncovered the phone and prepared to talk to Hannah. I
had to work at my calm with everything I had. The voices were
getting louder as my fear and frustration grew and I had to sound
normal to this woman. I couldn’t let her know anything was wrong,
yet we still needed her to tell us if Alex showed up. It was
hurting my head.

“I’m sorry,
could you tell us anywhere Alex might go if he didn’t get
home?”

“Is he
alright? Why doesn’t it bode well? Oh, please...he has to be
alright...I was mad at him, I...”

I cut across
her, wanting to calm her nerves. We’d already been to the police
once, we didn’t need others of us being reported. It was too
suspicious, someone would investigate us and that was something we
worked hard to make not happen. “I’m sure he’ll be fine, Hannah.
James just wanted to get hold of him to ask a question. Do you know
where he might be?”

“No, I’ve
checked everywhere I could think of. This was the last number on my
list. Alex gave it to me as an absolute emergency number and told
me only to call it if there was no other way to contact him and
there was a problem.”

“Is there a
problem apart from Alex not being home?” I asked.

“No, no it’s
fine. I just...I need him.” She sounded desperate. In other words,
there was some emergency she just didn’t want to tell to a complete
stranger. I hoped for her sake and Alex’s that it wasn’t a major
one. If it had been some of the other shifters’ friends we would
have sent someone out, but Alex had kept his girl as far away from
our world as possible. Normally that would be a good thing. Now,
however, it meant that we couldn’t send anyone to hold her hand, we
couldn’t even tell her what we thought had happened.

I was starting
to agree with Stripes that he should have told her about us. It
would have made this situation a lot easier. Then I remembered that
Stripes was missing and my heart gave a small lurch. I both wanted
and did not want to think about her. I hurriedly started speaking
again, saying whatever came into my head. I thought I’d probably
failed at keeping the girl calm but it was the least of my worries
right then. Later...I would deal with hysterical girlfriends and
impossible choices later.

“Ok. If we get
hold of him we’ll get him to call you. Can you do the same for us
please? We’ve a wee bit of an issue here that we need his opinion
on.” Oh yeah. A ‘wee bit of an issue’ – that may have been
understating things by rather a lot. I reminded myself that our
goal was to stop Hannah from panicking and going to the police, or
worse, going off to look for Alex herself in a serious way. We had
no idea what these people would do with a human poking around.

“Okay,” she
said, in a voice that told me she wouldn’t tell him anything about
this conversation if he showed up. “Bye.”

“Bye,” I said
and hung up. It was going to be a long day.

Walking back
into the meeting room, I mentally counted off how many shifters
were missing: Marie, Shayana, Stripes, Thomas, and now Alex. I was
shaking my head; the voices were gradually getting louder. I needed
to shift again and see if that helped. Something had to; it was
going to give me a migraine otherwise.

James had
already added Alex’s name to the list. He had also started to write
in links and locations, for which I was grateful. I just didn’t
have the experience to deal with this. I felt so young as I sat
there and watched the board fill up with useless facts.

No patterns
emerged; no amazing ideas came to me. I was little more than a
child and more than anything I wanted my mother. I wanted Marie to
be there, to hold me tightly in her arms and whisper to me that it
would be alright, that she would fix it. A secret part of me also
yearned for my birth mother, the woman who had died before my eyes.
More than that, I wanted to be like her. The woman who had refused
to scream until the end. I needed some of that bravery.

Nobody was
going to fix this for me. I was on my own.

Another minute
and I had to leave.

Eddie followed
me out of the room. Somehow I got the impression that he wasn’t
having much fun. Go figure...neither was I. I made my way to the TV
room intending to lose myself in a good film, but I just stood and
stared at the rows of neatly stacked cases.

We were
old-fashioned and still used those disks. I think Marie liked to be
reminded of her childhood. Of course, we had them all digitally
programmed into the TV as well but it was good for looking through
for something to watch. Being able to run your hand along the
ridges made it seem more real.

Only I
couldn’t decide. I just stood there staring at all of the films and
didn’t have a clue. Tears started to stream down my face. A feeling
of deep helplessness rolled over me so strongly that I keeled over.
I curled up on the floor, unable to do anything else. The prospect
of choosing a film had reduced me to tears.

I was
decidedly not doing well.

I didn’t
register Eddie’s hand on my shoulder. It was only when he pulled my
curled-up form into his lap that I noticed him. He felt big and
strong and safe as he gently stroked my hair and whispered
encouragement. In that moment, I felt like a useless child, reliant
on the comfort of a stranger. I should have been the one leading
here. I should have been the strength that kept everyone on track,
the determination that stopped anyone from giving up.

“I’m sure
they’ll find something,” Eddie said. “Five people don’t just vanish
into thin air. Not like this.” His words were comforting but far
away. I was too far inside my own head. The voices were louder than
ever – constant rumblings with occasional comprehensible phrases.
It was too much; I let my tears carry me off to sleep again. That
seemed to be the only thing I could do. I just wanted to sleep but
Eddie was having none of it.

“Stay awake, stay with me. It won’t go away because you went
to sleep, it’ll still be there when you wake up and you’ll feel
worse.” He was right. I wanted to sleep because I didn’t want to
think, but he didn’t understand. I
wanted...no...
needed
to get away from the voices in my head. They were going to
drive me crazy if they hadn’t already.

“Make the
voices go away,” I mewed. I sounded pathetic but I couldn’t stop,
couldn’t pull myself together. I realised that this was now going
to be what Eddie thought I was. This was all he had seen of me and
I found myself unable to care. I just wanted it to stop. “Make it
stop, let me think,” I whimpered. It was like a terrible pain that
takes up all of your thoughts, all of your mind. There was no way
to escape what was in my head.

“I don’t know
what the voices are. Should you be on meds?” he asked gently. He
was treating me like a crazy person. He actually thought I was
hearing imaginary voices. For all I knew I could be, but I didn’t
think so.

“No. Telepath.
Too much. Have to make them stop...too loud.” It was amazing at how
quickly I had gone from a normal everyday person, albeit under
great stress, to a quivering lump of nothing. I had gotten out of
the room and simply given up where I wouldn’t be seen by
everyone.

“What? What’s
a telepath?”

“I am. I’m a
telepath.” I tapped his temple. “Can see in here if I want...but
something is wrong. I can hear everything.”

“You can hear
everything in my mind?” he asked. He was still kind and gentle but
with an edge. I had a moment to think that he was being touchy when
I realised that I wouldn’t want anyone to see all the way into my
mind either.

“No...yes.
Only on purpose. But I can hear everyone,” I mumbled.

“Is that how
you did the thing outside? The one that made us all pass out?” he
asked.

“Yes...” my
voice was drifting away. I was falling asleep again, trying to
escape. “Tried to unblock your power...didn’t understand.”

“No. You stay
awake.” And he shook me into a sitting position with such force
that only his hands kept me from falling over the other way. “You
can hear everyone here?”

“No.
Everyone.” I gestured all around. “Everywhere. Doesn’t make any
sense... there’s too many voices.” I wanted to lie down again and
curl up. I felt exposed sitting there; I had to wrap my arms around
my knees and pull them close to my chest. A part of me wondered if
I was having a breakdown. I pushed that part aside. I could not
afford to fall apart. Later, when Marie was back, I could. I had to
focus all of my energies on getting her back first.