Waging War (15 page)

But I wasn’t watching her. My gaze was
locked on Cole’s shocked expression. Was it because I had seen him
with Raven, or something more nefarious?

“What are
you
doing here?” Raven
practically spat the words.

The big Rolls Royce screeched around the
corner as brazenly as an elegant old lady with balls of steel can
do, and sped to a halt right beside us. A quick glance showed me
Jeeves was alone, and Ringo was already opening the back door.

“You mean, why am I not your uncle’s
prisoner? I don’t know, ask him.” I shot Cole a wary look before
slamming the door behind us. Jeeves sped away before I was even
properly seated, and I had a serious appreciation for seatbelts a
moment later when he took a corner like he was driving a getaway
car.

In a sense, I guessed he was.

“Thank you,” I said to him, my eyeballs
glued to the view behind us. Raven stared after us as we drove
away, and a moment later, her brother ran out of the alley just as
we rounded the corner.

My voice echoed strangely, and I realized
the call was still connected and I’d been on speakerphone. I hung
up and my voice sounded normal again, at least as normal as one can
sound when gasping for breath like a guppy out of water.

Jeeves looked grim. I could only see his
eyes in the rearview mirror, and I realized I was in the backseat
again. In the grand scheme of things-that-sucked, my backseat PTSD
was minor in comparison to the windowless van that I kept seeing
whenever I shut my eyes.

“Monger goons with a van,” was all I managed
to say out loud.

Ringo filled the rest in for me. “Raven’s
brother didn’t care for the way I made him look the idiot. ‘E came
after me, saw Saira, and must’ve made a call.”

I shook my head. “No, they were there too
fast. They knew exactly where we were. It’s something else.” I
thought back to my brief time in the back of the Mongers’ van when
they’d zip-tied my ankles. I suddenly kicked at my boots like they
were on fire. When the one was off I picked it up gingerly and ran
my fingers across the soles.

There, like a small black tack, was a thing
stuck into the rubber just inside the heel where I would never have
seen it if I hadn’t been looking. “A tracking device.” I dropped
the boot like it burnt my hands, and Ringo picked it up
thoughtfully.

“So small?” He examined it closely. “They
set this when they ‘ad ye, I expect?”

I nodded, trying to keep the revulsion of
having been tracked from turning into vomit. “Get rid of it,” I
whispered.

Ringo looked at Jeeves. “Clearly they know
we’re goin’ back to the manor, so losin’ it now just confirms she
found it. I say we ‘ang on to it a bit longer and maybe figure a
way to use it against them?”

Jeeves nodded slowly. “I agree.”

I shuddered. The knowledge that Mongers had
known every move I made in my boots was chilling enough, but this
tracking device seemed especially designed to stick into the rubber
sole. It was just so … premeditated. I mentally added shoes to the
list that included back seats and white vans. It would be
inconvenient, but I’d deal.

When we arrived at Elian Manor a few minutes
later, I bolted from the car and ran to the house in my socks.
Ringo followed me in carrying my boots, which he left by the
kitchen door. I had already poured us both a cup of tea and was
clutching the steaming mug in both hands in an attempt to keep them
from shaking.

Ringo’s voice was quiet and calm. “Which
part gets ye most? The trackin’, the findin’, or the chasin’?”

I took a deep breath, trying to steady my
thoughts. “The premeditation. They knew I’d run, and they planted
the tracker to keep me on a leash.”

“Maybe ‘e wanted ye to run, so ye’d bring
Tom back with ye and ‘e could take ‘im when ye landed.” I shuddered
violently and Ringo put a hand on my arm. “It’s time for some new
boots, eh?”

I gave him a feeble smile. “They were
new.”

He gave me a bigger one back. “And they’ll
fit me perfectly.”

I almost barked a laugh, but it got hung up
on the sob that was stuck in my throat. “For a minute, until you
grow again.”

Ringo’s expression got serious again.
“Mongers don’t seem to be causin’ ye trouble here at the manor
anymore, so the tracker can stay ‘ere. Leave it with me and I’ll
figure somethin’ nasty to do with it. Somethin’ that gets ‘em where
they live.”

I nodded, very grateful that he was my
friend. “Archer’s going to be so delighted to hear about this when
he wakes up,” I grumbled.

Ringo shrugged. “’E’ll beat ‘imself up for a
bit and add it to the list of ways ‘e’s failin’ ye. And then ye’ll
feel ‘orrible for makin’ ‘im feel bad, even though it wasn’t yer
fault. And finally, ye’ll kiss and make up, and we’ll get on with
the business of figurin’ this whole thing out.”

I stared at him. “That sounds terrible.”

“It does, doesn’t it? Glad I’m not the one
in love with ye.” He shuddered dramatically and just managed to
dodge the wooden spoon I threw at his head.

Visions

There was a message from Professor Singh
that he had gotten permission from an old friend for us to tour
Bletchley Park after hours, and if we would be so kind as to pick
him up at the Tower, he would work late until we got there. He had
never questioned Archer’s schedule, and I figured he must think
Archer had a busy job during the day.

I took a long bath but still couldn’t bring
myself to wear any of my shoes, so when Connor found me in the east
wing library, I was curled up on a couch in my socks. He dropped a
shoebox next to me.

“Here. Mum sent them for you.”

I looked up from my
London
Underground
book in surprise, then opened the box. Inside was a
gorgeous pair of oxblood leather boots. “They were to be my
Christmas present, but she’d been questioning oxblood as a choice
for me, so she’ll get me black instead.” I could almost hear the
shudder in Connor’s voice.

“They’re gorgeous.”

He rolled his eyes. “They’re boots. Boots
are not gorgeous. Boots are functional and, ideally, comfortable.
What these also are is free from tracking devices. Mum pulled them
out of the Christmas cupboard as soon as Jeeves told us what
happened. I didn’t even know Mum had a Christmas cupboard here. We
knew about the one at home ages ago, of course.”

I looked up from admiring the boots at his
tone. “Do you miss home?”

He thought about it for a long moment. “I
miss the memories of my dad at home, and I miss Mum’s kitchen. The
dogs are here though, and I like working with Uncle Bob in the lab.
And it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Mum laugh as much as she
does since we moved into Jeeves’ flat.” He nodded at the boots.
“Try them on.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?”

Connor made a face. “Even the name oxblood
is wrong, never mind the color. Mum doesn’t need to be
experimenting with my wardrobe.”

I laughed and tried them on. They fit
perfectly, despite the three-year age difference between us. I
looked at Connor critically. “Your feet have grown.”

He shrugged. “It happens. Now, tell me about
Cole. Ringo said he was with the Crow at the fencing gym.”

I described how Raven had greeted Cole and
that they’d definitely looked like they were a couple when we saw
them on the street. And I told him my fears about Cole’s allegiance
if he was hanging out with the Monger Head’s granddaughter.

“Maybe it’s the other way around and Raven’s
luring Cole and his sister in so the Mongers can capture the two
that got away.” Connor said.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “Where are the
Seers when you need them?”

“On their way over. That was another thing I
was sent to tell you. Adam and Ava are coming for tea. Mrs. Arman
called to say we could have them for two hours.”

I stared at him. “She didn’t actually say
that.”

“No, but there is definitely a time limit on
their visit. She and your mum were very short with each other on
the phone, and it didn’t seem like a social call.”

I wondered if my mom had told Camille that
she wouldn’t be going to the Council meeting, and if so, how
Camille was feeling about my Family in general. I shoved Family
politics to the far corners of my brain and just let myself be
excited to see the twins – they’d been away in France with their
parents for weeks.

I tucked the laces into the tops of my new
boots and stood up to go. “I love these boots, and I’ll be the one
buying your Christmas pair. Maybe I can find something in green or
purple.”

“Because oxblood isn’t wrong enough,” he
deadpanned as we left the room.

Connor’s dogs had joined the pack of the
gardener’s dogs, and the swirling mass was happily greeting Adam
and Ava as they stepped out of a Range Rover. The Armans’ driver
nodded to Jeeves familiarly, and once Ava had scooped a dog into
her arms, she waded through the rest of the pack to give me a kiss
on each cheek in the French way.

“I missed you! I actually had to threaten
Maman that if she didn’t let us come and see you in person, I would
tell the Shifter heirs which one of them their father had chosen to
Head the clans after him.”

I laughed and hugged Ava. “I missed you too.
How was Paris?”

“Hot. Beautiful. The usual.” She gave me a
measured look. “We traveled south for a couple of days and stayed
in Château Landon. Did you know the abbey is now a rest home?”

I thought about the gorgeous abbey that
looked like it had been carved into the mountain where we had met
Bas, the Vampire priest. “Did you see the spiral in the painting of
the Shifter tree?” I asked.

Ava shook her head. “They’ve covered it with
some sort of cheap plywood that they wallpapered over. Maman
believes it’s still there, though, underneath the trappings of
institutional décor.”

That abbey had been such a beautiful
building; I hoped none of the artistry of it had been destroyed.
Granted, the last time I’d been there was in 1429, so the chances
it was intact weren’t good. I wondered how Vampires like Bas and
Archer could stand it when places – and people – they’d loved
decayed and died.

Adam scooped me into his arms for a big hug,
and then squeezed the breath out of me with another one. “That
one’s from Alex. She sends her love.”

“Where is she?”

He beamed proudly. “She got into a
choreography workshop at the Paris Opera School of Ballet. She’ll
be there three months.”

“Oh wow! That’s fantastic. I didn’t know she
was dancing seriously again.”

“She said I wasn’t the only thing she loved
that she had broken up with.”

I linked my arm through his and we all
entered the manor. Most of the dogs stayed outside, but Connor’s
dog, Natasha, and Rocky, the little Jack Russell terrier in Ava’s
arms, came upstairs with us. Ringo was there working at a table by
the window. He had the little clip and magnifying glass set-up I’d
seen people use with circuit boards, and he was taking the tracking
device apart with tiny tweezers.

“What’s that?” Adam was hovering over his
shoulder in an instant.

“Mongers stuck a tracking device to the sole
of my shoe.” I spat the words out of my mouth like a bad taste.

Ava shot a look at Adam. “I told you.”

“What? What did you See?” As unnerving as
their Seer abilities were, Ava and Adam were usually pretty
forthcoming about things that affected their friends.

Ava sighed and dropped on the couch next to
Connor. I had to move books off the chair, but since most of them
were my books, I couldn’t really complain. Ava looked over at Adam
for help, but he just shrugged. “They’re your visions, not mine,”
he said.

“I’ve been having really strange flashes of
Sight for the past couple of days.” Ava’s normally cheerful voice
had an edge to it that didn’t sound like her. “The closest things I
can compare them to are the visions that reflect in the Seer
cuff.”

I stared at her. “You mean like all the
possible futures at once?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. They seem really
disjointed and at odds with each other, like they couldn’t possibly
all come true.”

“Tell me what you’ve seen,” I said.

She took a deep breath. “I saw you and Ringo
running on rooftops.” She included Ringo in her gaze. “I saw a
white van, and I saw you both being shoved into it.”

“That last part didn’t happen.” I had
trouble keeping the tremor out of my voice at the thought of the
van.

“Right, but it could have,” said Connor.

I shot him a look that said, “no way,” and
he shot me one right back that said “way.”

Ava inhaled again. “People. Underground, I
think. Alex’s cousin Daisy is there. Her family is so worried
they’ve actually come out to my parents about her being mixed.
She’s Shifter and Seer, and the family put signs up all around
Russell Square where she was last seen …” Ava’s voice faded.