AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I launched myself at it, grabbing it by the shoulders as it clawed deep into her arms to hold itself steady. At the same moment, a brilliant flash told me that Camille had let loose with whatever spell she had been prepping. The glimmering light flared in the woods. She had aimed it at the other creature, apparently.>“That seems to be our job to find out.” Camille accepted the printouts of the information Carter handed her. “Who owns the building now? We know that it doesn’t belong to Hanson anymore.”
Carter tapped a few more keys and up popped the info. “That would be Lowestar Radcliffe. There’s not much here about him. He appears to hold a degree from Yale in business management, but background info is sketchy. Information says he was born somewhere in India. I have no idea if that’s true. Picture of him looks odd but for the life of me, I can’t tell you if he’s mixed heritage or just an ordinary FBH.”
We took the packet of papers and thanked him. As we headed for the door, he stopped us. “Girls, be cautious in approaching your cousins.”
“Yeah, they may not welcome having mixed-breed relatives.” I stared at the papers in my hand. We’d been called Windwalkers all our lives—a derogatory term in Otherworld, used for someone with no roots, often used for half-breeds.
“That’s not the only reason.” Carter limped over to us. He winced and I had the feeling his leg was hurting him more than usual tonight. “There are other reasons to be cautious. They may embrace you, but they may also want to use you. Or they may be no-good low-life types. You never can know, until you meet them. I didn’t have time to vet the information.”
Camille cocked her head. “So, how did you come by this in the first place?”
Carter blushed then—I’d never seen the demigod lose his cool and it kind of tickled me. It was his turn to stare at his feet. “I . . . it was a gift. Someone paid me to look into your background as a gift to you.”
“Who?” The only person I could think of that might do so was Chase. “Was it Chase?”
But Carter shook his head. “The party in question asked to remain anonymous. And unless you feel like testing my powers, let it be. There was no ulterior motive. I would never do anything to deliberately hurt you, know that.”
I stared at him, but his unflinching gaze was deep and dark and hid so many layers of power that I knew better than to push it.
“Very well. But, as grateful as we are for the information, if whoever paid you to dig it out becomes a problem in any way, then I’m holding you accountable.”
Carter nodded, a bare dip of the head, and we left. Unsettled, I headed up the stairs first, Camille slowly following behind me. We didn’t speak until we were back in her car, buckled in and ready to go. Then—and only then—we looked at one another.
“What do you think?” I was afraid to admit my hesitance, afraid I’d sound like the old Delilah—all timid and nervous.
But Camille surprised me. “I’m not sure about this. I’ve wanted this for years. Wanted to meet Mother’s family. But it’s always been a pipe dream. The fantasy of what would it be like if we were to find them—with all the long-lost love and family embracing that you see in one of those Lifetime victim-of-the-week movies. But life doesn’t always work like that. Yes, Father and I are mending our fences, but there’s a long way to go before I can fully trust him again. If ever. And how will he feel about this? About us meeting Mother’s relatives?”
I bit my lower lip, chewing on it until I punctured a hole with one of my nonretractable fangs. Another by-product of being a half-breed werecat. “Does he have to know?”
“Of course he has to know. We can’t just not tell him. Can we?” She looked over at me, the question hanging between us.
“What if we don’t tell him until we meet them? Then we’ll know if we should even bother. If they don’t want anything to do with us, we can keep quiet about it. If they want a relationship, then we deal with that when it comes.” It made sense to me. But there was another question we needed to answer first. “My concern is . . . do we want to do this? Do we want to even go there?”
Camille braked sharply as she was pulling out of the spot. She eased the car back next to the curb, disappointing a driver who had been waiting for the spot. He honked, but drove past.
“You think maybe we shouldn’t? I thought you’d be beating down the door.” She put the car in Park and turned to me.
I shrugged, not knowing quite how to phrase my thoughts. “I thought I would be too, but now that we’re facing this as an actual possibility, the prospects of this ending well . . . let’s just say I’m not feeling the rosy scenarios I envisioned all these years. I just don’t want us to have any regrets.”
She pressed her lips together for a moment, staring at the steering wheel. Then, quietly, she put her hand on mine. “Part of me wants to say fuck it. We don’t need them. But we know that Mother never knew she had half brothers and sisters. She never knew we had cousins. She didn’t even know her mother was alive. Don’t we owe it to her memory to find out what we can? To forge a link with her past, if it’s meant to be?”
It made sense when she put it that way. “I suppose. We still have to tell Menolly. She’ll no doubt have an opinion on all of this.”
Camille shuddered. “I’m not sure if I want to hear her opinion, but you’re right. Okay, so what next?”
“What say we drive by the Farantino Building, take a look at it, then go wait for Menolly to come home. We can’t very well call . . . what are their names?”
“Hester and Daniel.”
“We can’t very well call them this late, can we?” I glanced at the clock. It was going on eleven o’clock already, and even though our bedtime was usually well after midnight, that didn’t mean everybody else stayed up as late.
With a silent nod, Camille pulled back out of the parking space, and we were off.
• • •
The streets were empty as we eased into another parking space, this time across from the Farantino Building. Brick, it was six stories high from the looks of it. For some reason, I’d expected a skyscraper, tall with chrome and glass, but that wouldn’t make sense if it had been built over a hundred years ago.
The building held a brooding old-world charm, almost gothic in nature. The brick was weathered and in some places had eroded away. A ledge between the fifth and sixth stories sported a circle of gargoyles guarding the building. I gazed at the line of stone statues, wondering if any others besides Astralis and Mithra had been actual Cryptos. Were any of them up there now, watching our car, silently perched there in constant observation?
