ONE OF A KIND
Arianna wasn't dead. Or deader, I guess. I never thought I'd be so relieved about a vamp, but the girl had guts. Back at the house, David patched up her ribs while Stacey and Luke holed themselves in upstairs, avoiding me after hearing what had happened. I didn't blame them. I was like a plague: where I came, bad things followed.
“How did you hurt Reth?” I asked as David finished checking Arianna's ribs. I realized Reth had a new name, but had no idea what.
David stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled something out. It looked like brass knuckles but the wrong color. Iron. Brilliant. “Designed them myself.”
Was he cool or what? “Can I get a set?” Lend and I asked at the same time.
David laughed. “I'll see what I can do.”
“What if Reth comes back?” Lend asked.
“There's a reason he didn't come to the house. We're not very faerie friendly here. But I wouldn't underestimate your mom's power. Now that he knows the water elementals are protecting Evie, I don't think he'll try anything. Soon he'll forget he was ever interested in her.”
I hoped that was true, but I seriously doubted it. It sounded too dismissive, too like Raquel. I wasn't just some pretty thing Reth wanted to dance with--his interest in me ran far deeper. There was some sinister purpose behind it all. Still, David was obviously faerie savvy, and with Cresseda's protection, maybe I really would be safe. Until I had to leave here, of course.
“There are a few other tricks,” David said, walking to the counter. He grabbed a loaf of bread, took out two slices, and handed them to us. “Keep a bit of stale bread in your pockets all the time.”
“Okay,” I said, frowning dubiously at the bread.
He laughed. “It works. Faeries don't like things that tie them to our earth. Bread is the staff of life for humans--they won't touch it. Same thing with iron; it binds them here, rings too sharply of imprisonment. That's why it hurts them.”
“Cool!” Bread, at least, I could take with me everywhere. “Can I have my taser back, too?” Tasey wasn't much good against faeries, but I felt kind of naked without her.
Frowning thoughtfully, he finally nodded and gave it to me. I had to restrain myself from stroking the pink grip.
Arianna fixed her clothes, glaring at me. “Why's the faerie so obsessed with you anyway? You're not that cute.”
David cleared his throat loudly. “Lend, why don't you take Evie into town, get her some clothes and things?”
My heart leaped in my chest. That sounded promising. “I can stay?” I had been waiting for him to kick me out since we got here. I figured it was a sure thing now with the added Reth threat. I wouldn't want me around, either.
“Of course.” He smiled at me. “You brought my son back. You're always welcome.” I wouldn't cry, not again, but that one sentence meant the world to me. Maybe I wasn't totally alone, after all.
Lend frowned. “You're trying to get rid of us so you can talk about all this, aren't you?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.” Lend held out his hand. “Keys? And a credit card?”
David pulled a card out of his wallet and handed it over with the car keys. “Be back before dark. You're still grounded.”
“I promise not to have any fun,” Lend said solemnly.
“Get out of here, you bum,” his dad said, shaking his head.
We climbed into a plain silver sedan. Maybe I'm weird, but watching Lend drive was sexy.
“So,” he said, “I'm guessing you have some questions?”
“Just one: what's the limit on that card?” He looked shocked until I started laughing. “Kidding. I'm not going to push my luck, don't worry. I would, however, like to get pants that aren't yours, no offense. And I do have a few questions--real questions.”
He smiled. “I figured. How about I start at the beginning?”
“A very good place to start.”
“You already know my dad was APCA. Some of the things they were doing really bothered him. The imprisonment, regulations, forced sterilizations, tracking--”
“Whoa, hold on--forced sterilizations?”
He glanced at me. “You didn't know? They were worried about what would happen if a werewolf got pregnant by another werewolf. Had this whole panic, ethics debate, so on and so forth, then made any paranormal-human hybrid breeding with another paranormal or human totally illegal, and, umm, made it so no werewolves they caught could ever reproduce.”
All those neutering jokes I had made--they weren't jokes. “Oh,” I whispered, horrified. “I had no idea.” I thought about all the werewolves I knew, Charlotte especially. She had always been so sweet and attentive. She would have made a great mom. And IPCA took that away from her after everything else she had already lost. “I think that's the worst thing I've ever heard.” Then it really hit me--would they have done that to me? Would I have been seen as a breeding risk? Even the term, “paranormal breeding.” They really thought of all paranormals as animals. What else did IPCA do that I didn't know about?
“Anyway, he was on an extended assignment trying to track down evidence of nymphs or sprites. He found my mom.”
“What is she, exactly?”
“Kind of the equivalent of a nymph. She's a water spirit, an elemental. She thought he was funny and kept showing up to talk to him. And my dad fell in love with her.” He smiled. “That was all it took to convince him that he was done with APCA. They weren't about to let someone who knew as many secrets as him quit, so he faked his own death by drowning. They lost a lot of operatives in those days and it wasn't a hard sell.”
“So did your mom and dad--” I stopped, suddenly aware of what awkward territory I was heading into.
“She's made of water. If you tried to touch her, your hand would go right through.” This was so not adding up, and I didn't want to try to come up with an explanation. Fortunately, he continued. “But all elementals have the gift of choice. My mom decided that, after all the ages she'd been around, she'd like to see what really being alive, being human, was like. So she took on a mortal form and lived with my dad as husband and wife. But she couldn't leave the water--she didn't want to. She didn't tell him, but she took on mortality for only one year. That was long enough to make me.” He smiled and blushed. “And at the end of the year, she gave my dad a son and went back to the water.”
I looked at him in amazement. He was incredible. My original idea of him as water come to life was exactly right. I wondered what Lish would have thought, since she was a water paranormal, too. It stung, knowing that my best friend had never met this boy I was crazy about. They would have loved each other.
“So you really are one of a kind, aren't you?”
He shrugged. “Guess so. It was hard for my dad when I was little. I changed form constantly; it was like a game. I had to be homeschooled until I was old enough to understand that it would be really dangerous if people found out about me. Plus, you met my mom--she wasn't exactly the most helpful parent.” He glanced at me warily, as though he expected me to laugh. “So...that's where I came from.”
I smiled, shaking my head. “You are so freaking awesome.”
He laughed, obviously relieved. I was way too happy. Part of it was Lend opening up to me, part was knowing I had a place with his family. But besides that, I hadn't been in a car in like six years. I eyed him in the driver's seat with undisguised envy.
“Tell you what,” he said, noticing my stare. “I know you can't get a license, but I might be able to do something better.”
“What?”
He smiled. “How would you like to come to school with me tomorrow and see a real, live locker?”
I'm pretty sure I squealed.
After our shopping was done (I was so eager to get out of Lend's clothes, I changed in the store bathroom), we got back into the car. I was pretty sure he had checked me out a few times. I hoped so, at least. Goodness knows I was doing my fair share of sneaky staring. “You hungry?” he asked, pulling out.
“Oh, my gosh, I'm starving,” I said, just now realizing it. I looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was three in the afternoon.
“Let's get something to eat, then.”
“Aren't you grounded?” I teased.
“My dad said be back by dark. It's not dark yet.”
We drove a couple of blocks to a small diner. I had never been on the East Coast before except for a few late night jobs, so I enjoyed looking around. Lots of trees, hinting at buds. We walked into the diner and my jaw dropped.
Every single person in there was a paranormal.
“Umm, you do know this whole place is filled with werewolves, vamps, and a couple of other things I've never seen before, right?” I whispered. Lend laughed, sitting down in a booth.
“Well, yeah. My dad owns it.”
“Oh.”
“After Mom went back to the water, he was left with a very paranormal son. He knew how bad things were with the government agencies, so he decided to do something about it. He runs sort of an underground railroad for paranormals, shielding them from IPCA, giving them jobs, helping them control the nastier sides of themselves.”
“What about the vamps? Does he let them suck someone dry every now and then?”
“There are lots of other sources of blood. They all know that if they break the rules, he won't help them anymore. Most of them are young vamps, too. They still remember what it was like to be human and don't really relish the thought of killing. Plus they're helpful with the whole mind control thing.”