“I haven’t told anyone, and I doubt Wyatt’s had the chance.” The phone in my pocket needed to ring, dammit. And soon. “Who else is at risk?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Remember that thing about trust we just discussed?”
His nostrils flared. “If the Assembly chooses to share that information with you, so be it. I can’t go against their wishes. Not yet.”
Not yet. A sure sign that he had a breaking point; it just hadn’t been reached. “Okay, fine. Do all Owlkins bi- shift?”
“Do all humans perform handstands?”
All of my sarcastic retorts dried up. “What?”
“All Owlkins,” he said, the words coming out as though diseased. A sequence of letters he couldn’t stand uttering. “Humans have a need to place simple labels on others, so you can more easily understand what is truly a complex relationship. We lived as a community but were of two kinds. The Coni are capable of bi-shifting. The Stri are not.”
“Coni and Stri,” I said, trying out the words. In the last two days, I’d learned more about the names Dregs used for themselves than I’d ever bothered to discover on my own. Danika and I had been—for lack of a term that could ever hope to boil down our odd friendship—business associates. And even that sounded too damned cold.
Our paths had crossed nearly two years ago during a Triad investigation into a series of murders in the nightclub scene. We had (wrongfully, it turned out) traced the murders to Danika’s cousin. She attacked me in falcon form, and I think it was both her age-appearance and her ferocity in defending her cousin that helped me see her not just as a Dreg but as a warrior. And it was her curiosity about humans, afterward, that continued to fuel our interactions.
Very carefully choreographed interactions. She had talked about private Clan matters about as often as I had discussed Triad secrets—never. I very rarely talked about myself, although she was less guarded. Mostly we exchanged information about other species. And after two years, I knew as much personal information about her as I did about the man sitting beside me—and I’d known him about eight hours.
Part of me was embarrassed for not having given a shit; the other part was proud for learning now. “Which are Aurora and Joseph?”
“Both are Coni.” Grief crept into his voice. He bent his head, looked away. “It’s ironic, I suppose, that the Coni were the first to walk among humans, and it seems we’ll also be the last.”
I reached my hand across the armrest. Paused. Touched his shoulder, featherlight. Corded muscle felt strangely hollow beneath my hand. Cotton where I should have touched steel. His head snapped sideways. Our eyes met. A sea of emotions roiled, chaos hidden in their blue depths.
“Don’t pity us,” he said.
“I don’t. I guess I just understand.”
His lips parted.
My ass chose that moment to ring. I pulled back, retrieved the phone, checked the I.D. Kismet. Putting it to my ear, I said, “Stone.”
“Get back to your apartment,” Kismet said. “Felix called. You’ve got a problem.”
Chapter Eight
12:40 P.M.
While Phin got us back on the road to Parkside East, the rest of my conversation with Kismet occurred in terse, barked sentences.
“What happened?” I asked.
“No one’s hurt,” she replied.
“But?”
“Someone’s there claiming to be Alex Forrester’s father.”
“Shit.”
“The Owlkins said they were friends of yours, but we need Chalice there to talk to this guy.”
“I’ve never met Alex’s father.”
“Well, we can’t produce Alex, so you get to field his dad.”
“What am I supposed to tell him? That his son was bitten by a half-Blood vampire and then I shot him in the head?”
“Variation of the truth, for now.”
“Meaning?”
“The last time you saw him was the day before yesterday.”
“Terrific.”
“Just deal with it.”
“Yeah, fine. How’s Wyatt?”
“Recovering nicely, the lucky bastard. The surgeon found that piece of knife an inch from his spine but got it easily and stitched him up. No serious damage, no complications, no long-term recovery. Wyatt should be up and around in a day or two.”
I released a pent-up breath. My chest felt lighter, free of a weight I hadn’t noticed until it was gone. Worrying about someone sucked.
“You have anything new for me?” Kismet asked.
“Couple of leads.” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her about the meet at Park Place. Instead, I reported the slight mess we’d left behind at Mike’s Gym. “I’ll let you know when something else pans out.”
“Good enough.”
I slid the phone back into my pocket, ready to relay the major points of my conversation to Phin. As he negotiated a turn onto the Wharton Street Bridge, he said, “I’m glad Wyatt’s all right.”
How the …? “Let me guess. Coni have excellent hearing,” I said.
“Well, yes, but your phone isn’t very quiet.” He gave me a sideways smile, a flash of brilliant white teeth. “So you want to fill me in on the play before we get there?”
“Once I know the play, I’ll share.”
I closed my eyes and pulled on everything about me that felt foreign—all of the memories and sensations that were distinctly Chalice. Anything I could grasp about Alex. Emotions flooded me, at once warm and chilling. Quiet evenings on the sofa watching movies. Laughing at jokes. Loneliness. Camaraderie. Feelings, without specific memories. No names, no idea if Chalice had ever met Alex’s father.
The car stopped moving. Phin had parked across the street from the apartment building. I had no clue what was waiting for me upstairs, if this man would even recognize Chalice.
“Let me do the talking,” I said as we climbed out of the car. “I may have to do some improvising here.”
“And who am I pretending to be?” Phin asked.
Half a dozen things came to mind. All were demolished by the sight of him standing on the sidewalk, sans shirt. “Maybe you should wait by the car.”
He blinked. “Why?”
“Do you have a shirt in the trunk?”
“No.”
“That’s why.”
His eyes narrowed. “Evy—”
“I’ll be fine, and I’ll make sure Joseph and Aurora are fine.”
He looked up at the rows of apartment windows across the street. Mine faced the opposite alley, but I understood the gesture. Trying to see ahead into an unknown situation. Just the image of a smiling loved one could make the worry go away. He retreated to the car.
