Mia's Return by Tracy Cooper-Posey Read Free Book Online Page B

that.”
    Helidoro nodded. “I will pass your
message along.”
    “Are you a Grimoré, Helidoro?” Lindál
asked.
    Helidoro’s eyes focused on him and
Lindál felt the creature was looking through him and into him at
the same time. Was he rooting through his memories and mind right
now?
    Helidoro replied; “Like you, I am
something other than the creatures I live among but I have found an
uneasy acceptance, nevertheless.”
    He turned and walked away but before he
reached the corner of the alley, he turned again and seemed to step into the building. Teleportation?
    The vampeen ran, scurrying between
Dumpsters, melting away like snow under rain.
    “Was he even here?” Zachariah asked
Seaveth.
    “Astral projection?” She slid her long
knife back into her boot. The elves gathered around her, the tall
one at the back dropping his hood. Lindál was astonished to
recognize Amrod, the senior senator.
    Diego, at the edge of the group,
cleaned his knives on a rag. “He kept flickering, like a bad
movie.”
    “A movie projection wouldn’t need so
many to protect it,” Zack said, pushing at a dead vampeen with his
foot.
    “They were just to get us all here,”
Seaveth said. “Out in the open and in one spot together.”
    Amrod said quietly, “It appears your
theory about the Grimoré is correct after all. He did not seem
puzzled by the name when Lindál spoke it.”
    “You doubted her? After all this
time, you still doubt Seaveth?” Lindál could feel his ire flaming
deep in his chest, gripping his throat.
    A hand curled around his arm and
squeezed warningly and another one caught the back of his neck
under his hair. The second had to be Zack’s. The first had to be
Seaveth. He could feel her next to him.
    Shut up , she told him silently.
The mental command was rich with compulsion, forcing him to clamp
his jaw shut against the need to tell Amrod what an asshole he was,
along with all the strong human vocabulary he knew.
    Amrod had the grace to look
uncomfortable. “Relying on children’s bedtime stories and
generations-old prophecies to build a defense against an invasion
for which there has been no evidence has caused some political
difficulties. The vampeen incursions so far have been seen as no
more than a petty annoyance at the same level as a bugs in a
vegetable garden.” He waved toward the back of the alley. “But this
is different.”
    The sound of a perfectly normal cell
phone ringing made them all jump. Diego dug into his pocket, pulled
out his phone and answered it, then frowned and glanced at Zack.
“Alex, slow down, I’m sure podemos fijarlo. ”
    Seaveth turned to Lindál and slipped
her arm around his waist. She looked at Zack. “You must go with
Diego. Alexander will need you.” She shivered. “Lindál will get me
home.”
    Zack touched her shoulder. “What is
it?”
    “It’s begun,” she said, her eyes
staring inward.
* * * * *
    “It’s bad but it’s not the end of the
world,” Zack decided. “Even if she’s living in New York now, the
chances of running into her are slim to nothing. We can find out if
she is living here. If she is, we can take steps to make sure you
don’t meet her again.”
    “How?” Alexander said, shredding the
coaster steadily into flakes with his fingers.
    “You move somewhere else,” Zack said.
“One of the other clans will take you in if we sponsor you.”
    Alexander felt his stomach drop.
“Thrilling,” he said. His cell phone buzzed and he fished it out of
his pocket, feeling even less keen than usual to parade like a
human. “Alexander la Croix.”
    “Alexander, you asshole. You never said
anything about being married!”
    “Christine?” He sat up.
    “Your wife just came into the office,
demanding to know where you live now that you’ve set yourself up in
a cushy job with an income and all that. She wants support for the
kids. You bastard. You deserted her, and she still carries
your picture in her wallet. I don’t know that you even