Authors: Linda Lamberson
“Morning,” I said, trying to sound chipper but failing miserably.
“How’s College Boy feeling?” Dylan asked.
“Recovering. He’s taking a dip up in the Falls.”
“I’m surprised he was even able to crawl out of bed this morning.” He chuckled.
“Yeah, well, I may have helped him a little,” I confessed. “It was the least I could do.”
“I should probably go up and check on him.”
“Hey, uh, can you wait a sec?” I asked before Dylan could hightail it to the portal. “I have something to say—to the both of you.” I took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “Look, Dylan, I’m sorry I hid the truth from you and Quinn. I just thought if I had some solid answers and a plan in place before he found out, then it wouldn’t sound so awful when I told him.”
“Evie,” Dylan began, “I know it’s difficult for you to let go of the reins—but I’m Quinn’s Shepherd now, so you’re just going to have to accept that you really
can’t
do this on your own. And I can’t do my job if you’re holding out on me. None of us can, which only puts Quinn at more risk. The only way we can make it out of this crap storm is as a team.”
“I realize that now.” I turned to Minerva “How did you know? How did you figure it all out?”
“When you’ve been at this for forty years, you hear things. But,” she continued, shaking her head, “that’s no excuse for what I did. I made a tough situation even worse, and I’m really sorry. It was foolish of me to open my mouth to Dylan—especially right then and there. I should’ve just waited to let you tell him.”
I took another deep breath and swallowed my pride. “Well, I’d also like to apologize for what I said to you last night. I—I’d appreciate it if you would stay and help.” I still didn’t trust her completely, but I also didn’t think she was trying to sabotage Quinn’s safety, or my relationship with him, when she told Dylan what was up. In fact, I don’t think she was thinking about Quinn at all; she was just trying to answer Dylan’s questions. And I’d never said anything to her about not telling Dylan—only Quinn.
Besides, if she left now, I’d only worry that Dylan would be distracted by trying to steal any moment he could to be with her, which, in turn, would distract me. Not a good scenario for any of us.
“Thanks, I’d like that very much,” she replied.
“Good, then it’s settled,” I said with a nod of my head.
“So it’s all true?” Dylan asked.
“Let’s go to the Falls and talk,” I suggested.
“Those freaks are really messed up,” Dylan said, aghast when he learned what the Servants planned to do.
“When I first started as a Watcher,” Minerva chimed in, “I heard about another Watcher being ambushed without warning two days into his assignment, and his charge was kidnapped. No one could locate her until it was too late and she’d already been converted. She was destroyed several years after that—oddly enough by the very same Shepherd originally assigned to protect her.”
I looked at Minerva with horror-filled eyes, and I could see Quinn shudder off to my side.
“Nice,” Dylan remarked sarcastically. “Very inspirational, M.”
“No—I didn’t mean to suggest,” she stammered, wide-eyed. “Of course that won’t happen here. I mean, we know what to expect—we’ll stop the Servants before anything happens to Quinn.”
I fought off a sanctimonious grin. It felt oddly satisfying to watch Minerva try to backtrack her way out of her blunder—a little karmic payback for her involvement in last night’s fiasco.
“I have a plan that should protect Quinn on the eighteenth,” I offered, allowing her time to recover from the foot she’d just inserted into her mouth.
“Well, don’t just sit there like a cat with a canary in its mouth!” Dylan exclaimed. “What is it?”
“We have to get Quinn’s blood back. Without his contaminated blood, the Servants can’t perform the ritual. But we only have until the eighteenth of July, which is why I made a deal with the Moon Mercenaries—they think they can get it back within the next two weeks.
“In the meantime, however, Quinn and I have to work on this bond we supposedly have so we can grow stronger. But, Dylan, whenever I’m
not
with him, you have to be by his side. Quinn needs twenty-four-seven protection. From this point forward, he can never leave our sight—not even for a second because that’s all the time the Servants need to grab him.” I hoped Quinn grasped the seriousness of the situation and the need for his full cooperation.
“A week before the anticipated date of the ritual, we’re going to stash Quinn up in a portal until the full moon has come and gone.”
“And what about
you
?” Quinn interjected. “Who’s going to make sure you’re not kidnapped—or worse?”
I smiled, already knowing Quinn would like my idea. “I’ll stay with you in the portal the entire time.”
Quinn flashed me a little grin; I knew he was pleasantly surprised by my proposal.
“Okay, and who’s going to watch you
before
we head to the portal?” He just wasn’t going to let up.
“I will,” Minerva offered.
“Thanks, but I don’t really need—”
“Yes, you do,” Quinn interjected firmly. He turned to Minerva. “Don’t let Evie fool you—as much as she hates to admit it, she’s not invincible. The Servants did a real number on her the last time we were up against them.”
“Quinn—” I began.
“Just humor me,” he continued. “I’d feel a lot better if you had someone looking out for you until we get a better handle on things.”
I thought about Minerva’s offer. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. The more time I spent with her, the better I’d get to know her.
“Fine,” I agreed. I turned to Minerva. “I guess we’ll be spending some quality time together.”
“I guess we will.” She smiled sincerely.
“And after all goes well on the eighteenth? What happens then?” Dylan asked.
“The Servants might try to get their hands on more of Quinn’s blood.”
“You think they’ll try again?” Dylan asked.
“I guess it depends on how badly they want him, which leads me to the next part of my plan. We have to keep our eyes and ears open and figure out a way to end this war before it begins. It’s either that or find a way to make sure converting Quinn no longer gives the Servants the strategic edge they want.”
“So, to sum it up,” Dylan began, “you and Quinn have to work on your bond while we have to keep him from becoming a Servant, find a way for you to remain safe,
and
figure out how to prevent a battle we basically know nothing about.”
“In sum, yes,” I replied.
“That’s a pretty big laundry list,” Minerva noted.
“Yup, it is,” I confirmed.
It was pouring rain when we returned from the Falls, so we decided to stay in and lie low for the day. Quinn flipped through the channels on the family room TV and settled on a Dan Aykroyd movie marathon.
“So you’re a
Blues Brothers
fan, huh?” I sunk down into the couch, snuggling up to him as he wrapped his arm around me.
He nodded. “I could use a good laugh right now.” He looked completely wiped out.
“Me too.” For the next couple of hours, we laughed so hard we were nearly delirious, and Quinn’s mood seemed to improve considerably.
“Want me to make you a sandwich or something?” I asked at a commercial break.
“Nah, I think I’ll order some pizza.” He pulled out his cell phone and called a local delivery place. We took a break from our movie fest when the food arrived. I followed Quinn into the kitchen and watched him eat the sausage and pepperoni pizza right out of the box, washing it down with a can of Coke. After he’d devoured half the pizza, he closed the box, stuffed it in the fridge, and grabbed a bottle of water.
We hadn’t talked about our fight the night before, but that was fine. One look into his eyes, and I knew we were okay. He knew I felt bad about hiding information from him, but that I’d meant well. And with everything I’d divulged to him today, I think he’d regained his faith in me that I wouldn’t hide anything from him again.
“Want to watch more TV?” I asked.
“Sure.”
When we walked back into the family room, however, we found Minerva and Dylan on the couch, completely engrossed in
The Sound of Music
. Quinn and I looked at each other like we’d entered another dimension and ended up on Mayberry Street on Christmas Day.
“Dylan, why are you watch—?”
“Shh,” Dylan cut me off, without taking his eyes off the movie. “This is a great scene—one of my favorites.”
“Ooh, mine too,” Minerva said with equal enthusiasm.
“I think I’m going to check my email,” Quinn announced and looked at me strangely, heading towards the stairs.
“I’ll go with you,” I said, following Quinn’s cue.
“You sure?” Dylan asked me.
“Um, yeah, you two are having such a great time. I don’t want to interrupt anything.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Dylan stated, still gazing at the screen.
Yes, I do,
I said to myself. I climbed the stairs and entered Quinn’s room. He was sitting on his bed, laptop open.
“You busy?” I asked.
Quinn looked at up at me. “If my only other option is to watch that movie, then yes, I’m busy.” He flashed me another strange look. “
The Sound of Music
?”
“I know.” I giggled. “
Both
of them are into it. I think I’m starting to see the connection between them.”
“Yeah, well I’m just glad you’re a
Blues Brothers
fan.”
“It’s a true classic.” I winked.
“Ah, a girl after my own heart.” He grinned.
“I thought you’d already given it to me,” I cooed as I climbed onto the bed. I picked up his laptop and set it on his bedside table. “So,” I straddled his lap and gave him a peck on the lips. “Have any ideas as to how we should spend the next couple of hours?”
“Yup.” He kissed me back. “Let’s go find Ronald,” he suggested, lifting me off of him before getting up from the bed.
“What?” I asked, stunned. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
I checked my watch; it was only two in the afternoon. “Quinn, he’s probably not even out there this early—and it’s raining,” I replied. I made my way over to the edge of the bed, sat up on my knees and wrapped my arms around his neck. “We’ll probably have a better chance of finding him if we wait until it stops pouring and then go look for him.”
“You’re probably right, but I still want to check,” he replied. “C’mon, let’s go.” He dodged my kiss so that it landed on his cheek. “If you use your superpowers, we can be there and back before you know it.”
“Ugh, fine.” I knew this wasn’t a battle I was going to win. “Go grab an umbrella.”
After letting Dylan and Minerva know where we were headed, I teleported Quinn to the alley closest to the convenience store where Ronald always peddled the latest edition of the local homeless newspaper.
I quickly opened the umbrella, and we huddled underneath it as we made our way towards the mart. As I suspected, Ronald was nowhere to be seen.
“I told you he wouldn’t be out in the rain,” I said smugly.
“Okay, so you were right. But I want to try something. C’mon.” Quinn grabbed my hand and entered the store, heading straight for the cashier with me tagging along beside him.
“Hey there,” Quinn greeted the cashier, who nodded disinterestedly in return. “I was wondering if you could help me out. You know that guy who sits outside the store and peddles the local homeless paper out there?”
“Who, Ronald?” the middle-aged man asked.
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“Yeah, I see him from time to time.”
“You do? Excellent,” Quinn replied enthusiastically. “Could you do me a favor?” Quinn pulled out a ten-dollar bill, grabbed the pen sitting on the counter and wrote something on the bill. Then he folded it up and proceeded to pull out a twenty. “I owe him some money for a few papers, and I feel really bad about it. Could you give him
this
ten the next time you see him?” Quinn handed him the bill. “And here’s a twenty for your trouble,” he added, handing the cashier the other bill.
“Yeah, sure,” the cashier said a little more eagerly. “That’s real decent of you.”
“Thanks, I really appreciate it. Have a good night,” Quinn said as he took my hand and led me out the door.
“You too!” the cashier called out as we opened the umbrella and ran down to the street corner.
“What did you write on the ten for Ronald?” I asked Quinn when we returned to his bedroom. I carried the dripping umbrella into his bathroom and dumped it into the bathtub.
“Long time, no see—Q and E.”
“That’s it?” I asked, walking over to him.
“What was I supposed to write? ‘SOS—we’re screwed’?” Quinn joked. “You know that cashier is going to read it, and I didn’t want him thinking we’re nuts or that this is some kind of joke. Besides, it’s not the message that matters, it’s
who
the message is from that counts. Ronald will know we’re looking for him—that is, if he gets the money.”
“I saw the cashier’s aura. I think he’s honest enough to give the money to him—that is, if Ronald shows up.”
“Good.” Quinn pulled me in a little closer. “Now, what was it that you wanted to do before we went out in the rain?” he asked, narrowing his eyes as if struggling to remember.
I gave him a friendly little slap on the tush. “As if you’d forget.”
“You guys missed a great movie,” Dylan said when we returned from the Falls just as the movie credits were rolling.
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure I already know it by heart,” I noted. “It was a Sanders family holiday favorite.”
“You two find Ronald?” Minerva asked as Dylan popped
Casablanca
into the DVD player.
“No such luck.”
“Yeah, well, next time you fall off the grid, would you mind telling me first?” Dylan asked. “You freaked me out there for a second when Quinn’s heartbeat just disappeared.”
“Will do. Sorry.” I smiled in appreciation of how protective Dylan had become of Quinn. I was glad to see him settling into his role as a Shepherd.
Dylan froze momentarily and closed his eyes. “Got to go,” he said when he opened them up again. “My mentor wants to talk to me.” He walked across the room, kissed Minerva on the cheek, and then stood up and looked at me. “Watch over our boy.”
“Debrief in the Falls?” I asked.
“You bet.”
Quinn decided he wasn’t going to wait any longer than necessary to hear what happened at Dylan’s meeting, so we left for the Falls almost immediately. He planned on staying awake until Dylan returned, wanting to hear everything firsthand, and I couldn’t really blame him.
Minerva decided to stay back at the house and watch
Casablanca
. We agreed I’d come get her if it was important; otherwise, she’d wait to hear the details of Dylan’s meeting when they saw each other later.
“That was quick,” I noted when Dylan reappeared in the portal a handful of hours later. “What time is it in Chicago?”
“Nearly midnight,” Dylan replied.
“So how’d it go?” Quinn asked.
“The meeting was … interesting. Unexpected. All in all, pretty good.”
“Can you elaborate?” I asked.
“Why, yes, I can.” He winked and smiled. “Teddy told me—”
“Wait a minute,
Teddy
?” I asked. “I thought you were meeting with your mentor?”
“Oh, yeah, Teddy’s my new mentor,” Dylan remarked as if it were yesterday’s news.
“Since when?” I asked in surprise.
“Since I became Quinn’s Shepherd. And let me tell you, Teddy is a
million
times better than Geezer Abe. Teddy’s all like—‘Under no uncertain terms can you let anything bad happen to Bo Peep’s sheep, got it Bumper Car? If that means you two have to walk around with that boy stuck to you like crazy glue all damn day, then that’s what you’d better damn do.’” Dylan’s imitation of Teddy was spot on, and it made me laugh. “Geezer Abe would’ve just been like—‘Bo Peep who?’” Dylan grinned. “We’re seriously covered now, you know?”
I nodded.
“‘We’re seriously covered now’? What does that mean?” Quinn asked.
“It means our new support team is made up of those of us who totally dig K.C. and actually give a rat’s ass about this little mess the Servants have created rather than just a few ancients who could give two beans about what happens to her, to you—to
them
.” Dylan turned to me. “And that’s not even the half of it. The powers that be are bending the Rules like crazy for
both
of us, K.C. They
want
us to be seen out together with Quinn—not as immortals, of course, but as humans.”
“Whose idea was it to bend the Rules for us?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine Tara or the rest of the Council Tribunal being too thrilled with that arrangement. The more exposure we had, the more likely we’d slip up and be discovered or recognized.
“The Council, the Order—who cares?” Dylan exclaimed excitedly. “The point is they
want
us to walk around in public together. Can you believe it?” he asked in bemused amazement.
“No, not really.”
I flashed back to my last conversation with Tara. She’d told me Quinn and I could pursue our relationship, but she didn’t exactly encourage me to go public with it. In fact, she’d repeatedly cautioned me
not
to do anything that would draw too much attention to us.
“What does this mean?” Quinn asked.
“Shepherds gone wild, man!” Dylan exclaimed excitedly. “We’ve basically been
ordered
to pretend to be normal, regular people who go out and do whatever normal people our age do.”
“Why would they want us do that?” Quinn asked.
“It’s like I said—strength in numbers,” Dylan replied. “The more visible the two of us are—three of us, if you count M—the more serious the message we send to the Servants that you’re protected.”
I wasn’t feeling quite as positive about this new development. Something must be seriously off to warrant such a radical change in attitude by the Council. “The Order must’ve realized we’re running out of time,” I said. “They probably want Quinn and me to focus our energy on our bond and do whatever we can to strengthen it. It also means we can’t be spending every minute looking over our shoulders for Servants. They must want the Servants to know we have an extra set of eyes and hands to catch everything Quinn and I might miss.”
“And if someone recognizes you while we’re out?” Quinn asked.
“Teddy told me not to worry about that,” Dylan replied. “He said the chances of it happening are infinitely small. And on the off-chance it did happen, they’d deal with it.”
“Let me guess, they’ll erase the memory of anyone who recognizes either of you,” Quinn said dismally. “Does the same thing go for M?”
“She’s been a Watcher for four decades,” I said. “She’d be receiving Medicare by now if she were still alive.” I couldn’t help but grin at little at my dig.
“Claws, Kitty Cat,” Dylan warned, not amused.
“My point is that even if she ran into someone who knew her way back when, no one would believe she’s the same person—a younger relative of someone they used to know maybe, but not her. Still, you might want to talk to her. I’m not sure how her Council would feel if they found out she’s spending her free time walking around in broad daylight with a couple of Shepherds and her former charge.”
“Good point.” Dylan suddenly looked worried.
“And we still need to be careful and take certain precautions. We don’t need anyone poking around, asking too many questions.”
“Fine, but that doesn’t mean we’re
going to be stuck inside the house most of the time,” Dylan cautioned. “We’re
supposed
to be out there. We’re
supposed
to be seen with Quinn.”
I could already tell Dylan was planning to get maximum mileage out of this one. And then there was Quinn. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye only to discover he was beaming. I took a deep breath and exhaled heavily.
“Don’t look so worried, K.C. This is not a bad thing,” Dylan added. “Hard as it is for you, you’re just going to have to trust Quinn and me on this one. Going out is good for the
soul.”
He flashed me a huge smile, and I could hear Quinn chuckling.
“Fine. Let’s just try not to make friends with everyone in town, okay? And no getting friendly with any bouncers.”
“Deal,” Dylan and Quinn said in unison, grinning from ear to ear.
“It’s good to have you back, K.C. Feels just like old times,” Dylan quipped.
“Yes, it does,” Quinn agreed.
“So the real question is, how do we get you two to bond already?” Dylan continued.
“I have a few ideas.” Quinn winked at me.