"Maybe you should go home and clean up. I'll bet Thomas is wondering where you are."
"I'm good," he said, giving one armpit an experimental sniff.
Stacey wrinkled her nose. "Really, now, that's just disgusting."
"I'm sensing conflict again," I said, feeling more like an arbitrator than a teenager who was going to be late for school.
Several minutes passed and I wondered if maybe Smith had scooted out the back door. Panic shoveled a fresh load of worry into my heart and I realized I'd made a horrible mistake by not asking Ryland to cover the exits.
Ryland seemed to notice something was wrong, probably thanks to the sweat beading on my forehead as I tried to think of what to do next. "He's still in there, if that's what you're worried about."
"You see him?"
He nodded. "He's buying a comic now."
I sighed in relief and wiped my forehead. Stacey wandered a few doors down from us and was looking with interest at a dress shop displaying steampunk outfits and dresses with designs straight out of the Victorian Era. Seeing as how she was born around that time, it probably made her feel nostalgic.
"Can you keep an eye on Smith?" I asked Ryland.
"Sure thing."
I pushed myself up and hobbled down to Stacey. A black dress with laces, frills, and all sorts of accessories was on display in the window. "You like it?"
"It reminds me of home," she said. "Those dresses were rather uncomfortable in comparison to what passes for a dress code these days, but it's a bloody shame everything is so informal." She smiled at me. "I do so miss the days when everyone dressed up for a proper to-do."
"Like a party?"
"Oh yes. Going to a ball was one of my favorite things in the world."
"I hardly know anything about your past. I'd like to hear about your younger years."
Her smile faded. "My childhood doesn't make for a wonderful story, Justin. In fact it's rather grim."
"So you'd rather not talk about it?"
She took my hand in hers. "I believe I would tell you. If only because you are the closest thing to a true friend I have in this lonely world."
"Don't talk like that. Maybe if you play nice, you can be friends with Shelton and Ryland." Hey, it could happen.
A giggle burst from her lips. "You're such the optimist, dear. If the world worked the way you see it, we'd be living in a fairy tale."
"Jeez, I'm not that delusional am I?"
"No, my lamb, just idealistic."
I glanced back at Ryland. Smith had just walked out of the store. I turned to Stacey again. "Are you trying not to get along with Ryland? It seems like you two keep saying stuff just to annoy each other. It's almost like you want him to hate you and vice versa."
Stacey looked at Ryland. "Wolves and felines do not mix. I've had nothing but trouble with wolf packs and I don't expect that to change."
"He's not with a pack."
"Ah, a lone wolf. They are a rare type, but the instincts are still there."
"Have you ever considered you two might be more alike than you think?"
Her eyebrows rose. "Another fairy tale?"
"You're a loner. You have your companions, but none of them are your true equal. Ryland's a loner too. From the way his story sounds, he's not much for pack politics."
"I prefer to determine my own fate inasmuch as it is under my control."
"He's kind of the same," I said, hoping I wasn't completely misjudging a man I'd only just met. Sure, he was with the Templars, but the story of him leaving his pack instead of taking leadership made me think he wasn't much for politics either. Of course the Templars might be consumed by rules and simpering politicians for all I knew.
"I know you just want me to be friends with him, Justin. You're a sweet person—"
"Ugh, don't call me sweet, girl. You want to completely ruin my dangerous rep?"
She smiled and took a deep breath. "For you I will try."
"To be friends with him?"
"To be civil. Please do not expect more than I can deliver, my knight in shining armor."
"That's all I'm asking, Stace. I'll ask him to be more civil too. The comment about you having an empty head was totally uncalled for. You may be pretty, but you're no ditz. In fact, I think you're a lot smarter than you let on sometimes."
Her mouth fell open and she drew in a delighted breath. "You know just how to make a woman feel good, you dear thing."
"Yeah, I'm a real charmer. Come on." With that, I made my way back toward Smith.
"I'm having a dilemma," Smith said as he dithered outside the comic book store.
"Why?" I asked.
"I'm sure Shelton told you I'm something of a conspiracy hound. And I don't usually take strangers to my house."
"How about bags over our heads or blindfolds?"
He laughed. "Are you kidding? People would freak out if they saw me leading a group of people with bags over their heads, and I don't doubt for a second your friends here could sniff out the route even blindfolded."
"So what do you suggest?"
"Let's grab some coffee down the block. You tell me what's going on and we'll go from there."
We walked down the street to Java Hippo and grabbed an outside seat next to a kerosene heater. I noted with a bit of nervousness we weren't too far from the warehouse-styled lofts the rogue vampires who'd kidnapped my father called home. Stacey sat across the table from Smith and I sat next to him while Ryland remained standing and leaned against the black metal railing bordering the dining area. A young girl with tattoos on her arms and a green bandana on her head took our order.
"Do you have a computer with you?" I asked.
Smith nodded and pulled a tablet out of his backpack with a flat icon in the shape of an orange emblazoned on the back. A stem with a single green leaf protruded atop the orange, and a strip of the peel was gone. It looked a lot like the one Meghan had been using, and reminded me of the familiar Apple logo. Suppressing a stream of questions about his odd tablet, I handed him the flash drive and waited for him to retrieve the spells on it. He had a spell program like Shelton's so it displayed the spell script pretty much like it had on Shelton's computer. Smith blew out a whistle.
"Wow. Who wrote this?"
"My mom, I think."
He gave me a look from the corner of his eye. "I suppose I should have found out a little more during the intro stage but it's never too late to be polite. Who exactly is your mother?"
I hesitated, unsure how much I should tell him. Then again, this guy seemed pretty tight-lipped. "Alice Conroy."
His mouth dropped open. "It's you."
I nodded. "Uh, yeah, it's me all right."
"You and your father have some hefty bounties on your heads."
"Tell me something I don't know."
"There would probably be a lot to tell."
I chuckled. "I'm sure. Can you reverse engineer this code?"
He touched two fingers to one of the question marks where a rune should have been and spread the fingers apart. The view expanded into a mind-numbing array of gibberish. He scrolled through it for a few minutes, muttering to himself. "This thing doesn't play around." He looked at me. "This spell is designed to kill en masse. It would require a hell of a lot of power and some DNA from the affected parties, so it wouldn't be easy by any means." He shook his head. "But it could wipe out an entire species."
"Do you mean supernatural species?"
He scrolled back and forth through the lines of code for several more minutes before answering. "If I had to guess, I'd say these missing runes relate to the traits of a specific super." He closed one spell, opened another. Checked it, and moved to another spell. "Each one of these is aimed at taking out a different type."
"Which ones?"
He shrugged. "I won't know without figuring out the missing runes. Every super has a weakness so you'd have to supply a rune exploiting the weakness."
I slumped, pressing a hand to my forehead as a wave of depression settled into me. "Just when I think things can't get worse, I find out my mom wants to commit genocide."
"I'm sorry. I wish I could say different." Smith pursed his lips. "I should probably reverse-engineer the thing before we jump to conclusions though."
A female voice from behind me interrupted my pity party. "Hey bro, sorry to bother you but I need some cash."
Stacey's eyes shot wide and a hiss escaped her lips. Ryland shot up from his casual position against the fence, his eyes locked onto something behind me.
I turned and looked into the eyes of a girl I knew. Not just a girl, a vampire. And not just any vampire, but one who'd not only helped kidnap my dad but tried to kill me and Elyssa.
Chapter 16
Felicia the geek-chic vampire sucked in a breath the second she saw my face. Her eyes expanded until the whites of her eyes were huge against crimson irises. She turned to run but Ryland had her almost at the same time Stacey vaulted over the table and twisted the vampire's arms behind her back.
"What the hell are you doing to my sister?" Smith said once he turned around enough to see what was going on.
"Felicia is your sister?" I asked, shock nailing me in the stomach.
His face crumpled when he saw the panicked expression on Felicia's face. "Oh crap, sis. Please tell me you didn't do something even more stupid than going vampire."
"It wasn't my fault!" she said, wriggling uselessly against Ryland and Stacey. "Maximus made me do it."
The waitress came out of the restaurant with our coffee, saw Felicia. Instead of looking alarmed, she groaned. "Felicia, who'd you piss off now?"
I gave Smith a look. "Does your sister know where you live?"