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“You’re worried because you’re a good mama.” Tammy squeezed her mother’s hand. “If I really do have the ability to help, I can’t leave Annie to whatever the dark faerie are going to do to her.”
“Go on... do it.” Anthony nudged her.
“Do what?”
“Turn into a cat. I wanna see.”
After being awake for about forty minutes, the faerie dream already started to feel more like it had only been a dream. The notion of turning into a cat hit her with a heavy dose of ‘yeah right.’ Then again, Mom could shape-shift into Talos. Anthony was the Fire Warrior, and they all knew what Kingsley could become. Shape-shifting was hardly the craziest thing in this family. Then again, her magic had more limitations on it here than in the faerie world. Animal shifting might not even be possible outside of the enchanted forest.
“Sure, okay.” Not expecting much, Tammy concentrated.
Her view rose away from the table. Mom and Paxton gawked at her. Anthony simply grinned.
“What?” asked Tammy, her voice strangely deep and not quite human.
“It worked.” Anthony reached over and skritched her on top of the head.
Tammy looked down at herself.
Her sweats lay on the floor in front of the chair. She’d turned into a moderately large black panther, stuffed into her Death Note anime t-shirt. Two big fluffy paws gripped the edge of the chair.Herpaws. Looking at them brought back memories of hours spent dashing through the faerie forest, part playing and part learning how to be a cat. As whimsical as it was at times, Maple and her faeries had really been training her. She knew how to ambush as a panther—and how to be lethal if needed.
“Well crap,” muttered Tammy. “Guess it wasn’t entirely a dream after all.”
Chapter Five
The Vanishing of Gemma Fulton
I’m sitting in the parking lot beside Starbucks, staring out the windshield at bricks.
Two reasons explain why I’m still in the Momvan. One: my daughter turned into a panther. Two: I arrived here a bit early for my meeting with Scott. Make that three reasons. Reason three:Tammy turned into a freakin’ panther.
Ugh, my life.
Other than a slight embarrassing mishap with her pants remaining on the floor when she changed back to normal, my daughter appears to have a good handle on shapeshifting. No one made a big deal of her wardrobe malfunction. Both Anthony and I have been caught outside in the midst of a clothing emergency thanks to shapeshifting. I don’t think any retail outlet in the country has a shirt and pants big enough (or flame retardant enough) for the Fire Warrior. Forget Talos. Even the most well-stocked ‘big and tall’ store would fall woefully short of his needs. And Kingsley… he’s been caught outside naked so often thanks to being a werewolf I sometimes have to remind him to get dressedbeforeleaving his house.
So, yeah. Tammy has awkwardly bore witness to both her brother, me, and Kingsley in wardrobe compromising situations. In some weird way, I think she felt validated that ‘her turn’ finally arrived. That didn’t exactly stop her from blushing. At least she didn’t scream and run. She rather calmly summoned a skirt made out of leaves—that blew in the window over the sink—before she stood up out of her chair and went to her room.
My schedule today didn’t give me much time to ponder the deeper meanings behind what’s going on with my daughter. Apparently, Maple realized the magic of my bloodline has passed down to her. I mostly missed that boat thanks to the whole vampire deal. I figured the magic in my bloodline would be more like Allison’s magic—thewham-powkind. But… Tammy did say the teacher had a big influence on how the magic turned out. Thinking about it, I can’t help but believe I saw faeries back home when I was really small. Wonder if they’d been trying to make contact and I just missed it... thanks to my mom talking me out of believing what I had seen.
Or maybe I’m overthinking this. The thing is...whyhad my mother talked me out of believing I had seen fairy lights?
Something’s up with Tammy. It’s both reassuring and scary. The reassuring part is that she now has something a bit more effective than a giant can of pepper spray to defend herself. Pepper spray doesn’t work terribly well on demons, werewolves, or vampires, after all. I’d be lying if Tammy didn’t seem ever so slightly different. More confident. Ever since that experience in the other reality where she saw an out-of-control version of herself, she’s been rather clingy. There’s still a bit of that left, but this morning, subtle changes in her attitude and posture really felt more adult than I’ve noticed before.
Could just be that she’s only got a few months left in school and she’s finally realizing she’s not a kid anymore. Great. Now I, too, will have to accept that she’s not a kid anymore. Easier said than done. When I think about her, I still see that little four-year-old who curled up next to me on the sofa after I took a bullet on that drug interdiction raid.
Anyway… I should stop worrying about Tammy and get on with this.
Oh, yeah. Another reason for my lack of urgency: I’m not entirely confident Gemma Fulton is still alive after so long. Normally, I wouldn’t let a grim statistic like that make me dawdle, but dawdling gave me some much needed time to think about Tammy. If Gemma is still alive, chances are she disappeared willingly—or unknowingly. By that, I mean perhaps she suffered some sort of fugue state thing where a person loses their memory and goes wandering randomly, sometimes starting an entirely new life in another part of the country with a different name. Missing people have been found decades later, living elsewhere under a different name having no memory of their previous lives.
Yeah, it happens, but it’s pretty rare.
Time to get moving.
I hop out of the Momvan and go inside. Might as well feed since I’m here. This isn’t my usual Starbucks. It’s basically in Irvine, closer to where Scott’s driving in from. He lives in Mission Viejo. I offered to go there but he didn’t want to impose.
One short, skinny woman waiting in line with dark hair and four children under five is yawning her head off already. Poor lady looks like she hasn’t slept in weeks. I leave her out of my energy sweep. The other nineteen people in the room are more than enough to give me what I need without any of them suffering more than a sudden ‘ugh, I could use some coffee’ moment.
Which, you know, is convenient, since... Starbucks.
