Authors: Elle Hill
“Yeah, well, I’d been raised to hate them, the Leeches. I knew Reed was a good, sweet boy, but knowing what he could do . . . Yeah, he scared me.
“And I left the Clan with no college and not a lot of job skills. Nobody asks on a resume how many monsters you’ve killed. I finally got a job, but I had to borrow a lot of money from Gregory to get established.”
“Did Gregory and Jade ever ask about him?” Katana asked.
Aya raised her head. Her mouth was tied into a knot. “For the first year or so, Jade would, but that stopped soon enough. By the time she was a teenager, Jade didn’t even act like she had a brother. She was just following Greg. I wanted to hate him, but he was my husband.”
“How often did you see them?”
“Once a week or so,” Aya said. “I never told Reed, and he never asked.” She shook her head again. “I should’ve talked about it with him, but it was easier to stay silent. This day was the last one we ever talked about him being what he is.”
Katana stared at her for a moment, forehead wrinkling. She glanced around the room or, rather, the blanket of blackness enfolding it. Finally, she blurted, “How are you here?”
Aya laughed, a big, rolling belly laugh. Her black eyes sparkled in the spotlight. “Finally you ask the question. Hey, maybe you’re a little psychic, too. Or maybe Reed’s visits into your pretty pink brain have forged some kind of link. How the heck do I know? I’m no scientist.”
“But you’re telling me stuff Reed supposedly doesn’t know,” Katana pointed out.
Aya shrugged, the smile still teasing the corners of her mouth. “Well, maybe he really does. Or maybe I’m a ghost, haunting your dreams.”
Katana snorted. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Oh ho ho! I guess missy has all the mysteries of life figured out. Leeches, Hunters, and Psychics: no problem. Ghosts: pure make-believe.” Aya raised her eyebrows.
Katana grinned at her. Then, feeling a little foolish, a little like a teenager meeting her boyfriend’s family for the first time, she confessed, “I really love him, you know.”
Aya smiled. “You asked me how I was here. Now you know why.”
Reed hated shopping malls. Noisy things, oversaturated with fluorescent lighting and harried consumers. Knowing what he was, he tended to avoid crowded places, anyway, and malls were the worst. He could feel everyone’s frustration, their dogged determination to appear cheerful,—or just
appear
—the pressure to
buy more
fluttering like moths in their chests. His hands itched for earth and pruning shears, for green things that oozed sleepy satisfaction rather than manic determination.
Plus, the kids. He liked kids all right. Kids at half volume just made liking them so much easier.
He sat perched on an uncomfortable wooden bench, hands folded in his lap, confining himself to as small a space as possible. So many people, so many feelings . . .
Someone plunked a shopping bag next to him before slumping with a groan next to it.
“Malls suck,” Jade said. “You’d think humans would make their consumerist churches a little more inviting.”
Reed looked pointedly at her shopping bag.
“I had to have a cover,” she said. “I mean, two non-shoppers meeting on a wooden bench, just talking to each other? Suspicious. Mall security would be all over us. Plus, Serena loves girly T-shirts. I can’t resist.”
“That’s Gabriel’s wife, right?” he asked.
“That’s the one.”
“Tell her thanks for the smack down in the garage.”
Jade laughed and turned toward him more fully. Like most Clan members, she wore dark, utilitarian clothing; her wild, bouncy hair served as her one nod to individual expression. “Such a whiner. She had to make it look real.”
He remembered the heat in her eyes, the sneer as she pretended to sniff him. “It was very real.”
“So.” From the depths of her paper shopping bag, Jade withdrew some crumpled papers. “I’m glad you got my message.”
“Kind of obscure, but I figured it out,” Reed said, staring at the wrinkled sheets Jade was carefully organizing.
“I found her,” she said shortly, and his breathing stopped. He reached out a hand for the papers, only to have it smacked away. “Well,
I
didn’t. Celso and Ang did it all.” Reed neither recognized their names nor cared. He wanted those pages, stained with the ink of Katana’s story. “Hey, yoohoo. The report will still exist if you look away for a millisecond.”
He reached out a hand again and pulled back after another slap. Not amusing. However, she wasn’t smiling.
“What do you know about this woman?” she asked.
He took a deep breath. If this were the price for the information, he’d pay it. “Katana something, age twenty-five or so, born in Acton, raised in L.A. Lived with the Kibbes after . . . when she had nowhere else to go. A student at LAU when she disappeared, probably majoring in Psychology.”
Jade tilted her head, reminding him oddly of Mina. “Last part isn’t in here. What makes you think that?”
“She talks pretty smoothly about psych stuff. Plus, she knew the term ‘aquaphobia.’”
“What’s that, like, a fear of Aquaman?”
Reed threw her a disgusted look. “It makes sense the word would be ‘hydrophobia,’ since ‘hydro,’ like ‘phobia,’ is Greek. I looked it up online. ‘Aqua’ is Latin. Who knows that but psychologists?”
“Or crazy people,” she said. “And by the way, thanks for the second most boring lecture I’ve ever heard.”
“Also, I think that’s how she met the Daleths. Quina works for the Psych Department at the university.”
“Doing dream research,” Jade said, nodding. “Yeah, we found that out. What else did sword woman tell you?”
Reed stared absently at a couple strolling by, hand in hand. “Sister named Mandy. Mom and dad. I think she had a lot of tragedy in her life. That’s it. Give me Katana’s report.”
She passed him the papers before grabbing his hand. “Reed,” she said gently. “Her name’s not Katana.”
Ten minutes later and with a grim twist to his mouth, Reed folded the report in half and then into fourths and eights. He stuffed the wad into his back pocket.
“Gee, I guess you can have it,” Jade said sweetly.
He ignored her, staring straight ahead, hands clenched.
“All right, so how will this information help you find her?”
Very slowly, he shook his head. Speaking through his teeth, he replied, “I don’t know. I look every single night. I know every room in that goddamn house, every inch of the basement and the garage. She’s there, but
where
?” His voice faded into a growl.
“Our Psychics got nothin’. This chick is somehow off the radar.” Jade paused, then asked with the studied casualness that so characterized the woman she’d become, “So when you find her, is sword woman gonna be my sis-in-law?”
Reed turned slowly back to her. His feelings still felt oddly raw and fuzzy. “You have to have a brother to have an in-law,” he said mildly, only half concentrating on her question. Was Katana hidden somewhere in the walls, in a secret room?
“Ah, Jesus, Reed,” Jade spat, and he emerged with a scowl from his ponderings. “You got more angst than a teenaged girl. Get over yourself long enough to realize I’m trying to reach out here.”
Reed was about to say something about choosing now to do so after nearly twenty years of silence when he caught a flash of blue, moving swiftly, briefly. The. . . wariness . . . ah, hell the
predator
in him focused intently on the furtive movement.
A flash of blue
. . .
He was up and running before Jade could voice the question darkening her expression.
Patrons stared or jumped out of his way as he sprinted down the hallways and around the corner. He brushed past several, his mother’s upbringing forcing him to mutter ridiculous apologies as his long legs pumped onward.
He followed her around another corner, down a hallway . . . and into the women’s bathroom.
Several women muttered angrily when he shoved the door open.
“Sorry,” he told them, ever the polite marauder. Most of them stomped out, muttering about security. One woman called him “pervert” before the door swung closed.
Reed walked to the last stall and pushed it open. Cor sat fully clothed on the toilet, teeth bared like a cornered animal.
“This is the women’s restroom,” she snarled.
“I noticed,” he said, putting his hands on his hips. Did she really think a bathroom would serve as sanctuary?
“I knew something was wrong,” Cor spat, her voice sizzling with anger . . . and hurt. He could feel it, a swirl of dark green in her head. “You’re a Clan spy.”
He opened his mouth to deny it but realized, perhaps for the first time, its stark truth. Nodding, he held out his hands in surrender and hunkered before her, exactly as he would do with a frightened animal.
Cor’s sneaker-clad foot slammed outward, connecting with his chest and sending him sprawling painfully. She leapt over him.
Even gasping with the pain, Reed still grabbed her ankle, knocking her off balance. Cor hopped once, arms flailing, before spilling forward onto the dirty tiles.
“Glad you got it all under control, Reed,” Jade remarked dryly from the doorway. “You’re not going anywhere, Lady Leech.”
Cor turned savage eyes on him. Her mouth dripped a thin trickle of blood. Had she bitten her tongue on the way down? “You . . .
traitor
,” she spat.
Weariness pressed against his chest and dried the words in his mouth. A traitor, always, no matter who he helped, what he did.
“You idiot,” Cor hissed, and she had tears in her eyes. “The Clan would just as soon kill you as use you to spy on us.”
Also true.
“Shut up, Leech,” Jade sighed. “You have no clue what you’re talking about.”
Her eyes never leaving Reed’s, Cor used the edge of her T-shirt to wipe the blood from her chin. “We took you in,” she half-whispered.
“Yeah, you’re known for your generosity,” Jade mocked. “You recruited a new soldier, you mean.”
“Shut up, Jade,” Reed snapped. He rose painfully to a sitting position. The floor’s grime left a greasy film on his palms. “She’s right. The Broschi, for all they are, gave me a home when they thought I needed it. It’s more than the Clan ever did.”
Jade huffed in annoyance but remained silent.
“I don’t owe the Clan anything,” he told Cor. “Hell, I hate them as much as you do.”
“Then
why
?” she cried. Her oversized T-shirt had slipped over her shoulder, revealing a thin, pink bra strap. She looked small, young, and so vulnerable.
“When the Clan told me about your list of Hunters and your plan to force them to turn into Crossovers, half-breed Hunters and Leeches, through whatever voodoo it takes, I decided to let them convince me to help. No more innocents need to get corrupted.”
“Clan propaganda,” Cor spat. “No one is doing that.”
“Why you trying to have a rational conversation with one of them, Reed? They don’t do anything but lie,” Jade said, still leaning against the doorframe.
“
I’m
one of them,” he snarled, and she winced, jaw clenched. “She’s not lying. She doesn’t know.”
Jade snorted and rocked her head back as if to say, “How naïve can you be?” Out loud, she only commented, “Security is on its way. We should skedaddle.”
Reed got painfully to his feet. He held out a hand to Cor, who knocked it away with a scowl.
“Am I your prisoner, Clan boy?” she growled.
Jade opened her mouth. Before she could respond, he said quietly, “Naw, girl. For the next hour, while you let me explain, you’re my guest.”
They sat in the food court, tacos and burritos in the center of the table serving as the common neutral zone. Away from the Daleth’s house and the continuous supply of Katana-based nourishment, both Reed and Cor greedily eyed the greasy offerings.
“Thanks for the food,” Reed said politely to Jade.
“Not that I’ll end up getting any, but you’re welcome,” she grumbled.
“I could really use a soda, and none of that diet crap,” Cor said pointedly.
Before Jade could snap out a response, Reed said, “Me, too. Please, Jade?”
Glaring, she rose and stomped toward the nearest fast food vendor.
“Easy on the ice!” Cor called after her. To Reed, she said coolly, “Never thought I’d have a Hunter buying me lunch. Huh. All your innocent questions about Hunters and Psychics, about the Broschi and our natures: not so innocent, were they?”
“No,” Reed said.
She nodded. “Well, at least you’re not lying to me anymore.”
“Cor, I promise I will never lie to you again,” he said. “Hear me out, all right?”
She pursed her lips and folded her arms. Then, because she was Cor, she grabbed a crunchy taco from the pile and devoured it in less than half a minute. She’d already unwrapped a bean burrito by the time he began.
“A couple months ago, the Clan approached me and told me about this new project the Broschi are involved in. The Clan call it the Sleeper Project. Broschi somehow made a list of Hunters who think they’re humans, who live their lives as humans. One by one, they’ve been going down the list and trying to recruit them, to turn them into Crossovers.”
“Bullshit,” Cor spat, flinging bits of bean from her mouth. “I think I’d know if my friends and family were doing something that big.”
“Girl, I personally got to meet two of the Hunters they tried to change. And their recruitment process didn’t involve forms and pledges. It was all scheming and fighting and bloodshed. I know you’re young, but you have to know this isn’t unusual behavior. Broschi are all about plotting and scheming; it’s the Clan that approaches everything with blunt objects and fists flying.”
“Hey!” Jade objected as she plunked two fast food cups down on the table. “We do what we have to do to keep humans safe from—”
“Blah, blah, blah. Watch out while I wipe away a patriotic tear,” Cor sneered.
“Enough,” Reed said quietly. “Jade, tell Cor about the attempts to make baby Hunters into Crossovers.”