I hit the END button then shoved the phone back into my pocket. As I did so, it began to chime the song “Witchy Woman”—an indicator that Mom had already sent the requested information via text. Obviously, she’d had it ready to go. I shook my head and didn’t bother looking at it. I needed to wash the grime of work away and get some sustenance in my belly before I faced dealing with that little girl in the hospital.
I shoved my helmet on then fired up the bike. The vibration through the metal told me she’d come to life, but there was little noise. Hydrogen bikes ran so silently that when they’d first become commercially viable, state laws had required manufacturers to add a fake-engine-noise device to warn people of their approach. That law was still in existence, but these days it was rarely enforced—mainly because people had a greater worry. Air bikes—or air blades, as they were officially called—were becoming more prevalent, but given the laws that restricted them to low-level airspace, pedestrians had more chance of losing their heads to a blade than being run over by a bike.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the air blades, which in my opinion were little more than jet-powered skateboards. I preferred the feel of metal and the vibration of power between my thighs, and the exhilaration and sense of control that riding a bike gave. Blades were all about the danger. Riding them was akin to riding a wild horse that could buck you off at any moment.
Besides, I liked the option of being able to put my feet on the ground when I needed to.
I rolled out of the parking lot, and the old metal gates automatically closed behind me. The traffic on Pelham Street was already beginning to build, but I weaved in and out of the cars without effort, and was cruising down Punt Road toward Richmond in very little time.
I slowed as I neared my place. This part of Richmond was mostly pretty little Victorians, but scattered in among them were newer buildings and converted warehouses. My place was one of the latter—a big, square, two-story monstrosity whose bland gray exterior belied the beauty of its internal space. I’d bought and renovated it with two friends—the same two friends who co-owned RYT’s (which stood for “rich young things”) with me.
As I swung into Lennox Street, the sensor attached to the bike flashed, and the building’s roller door began to open. I drove inside, seeing Ilianna’s somewhat battered Jeep Wrangler but not Tao’s vivid red Ferrari. I hoped it meant he was actually on his way to work rather than in someone’s bed, having forgotten once again that it was his turn to work the morning shift. Not that the staff couldn’t cope without him—mornings tended to be the slowest of the three shifts. Nights were the worst—or rather, the hours between one and five, when wolves hungry after a long night of loving at the clubs sought a different kind of sustenance. RYT’s was one of a handful of Lygon Street restaurants licensed to be open twenty-four hours a day, and its gourmet hamburger and pizza menu was proving a huge success. Of course, it helped that Tao was a brilliant chef—when we could actually get him into the kitchen, that was.
I parked my bike next to my more mundane—and little used—Toyota SUV, then killed the engine and kicked the stand into place. I took off my helmet and dropped it onto a nearby hook, then shook out my hair to unscrunch my ponytail as I headed for the stairs. The door at the top was a thick metal alloy that was both fire- and bulletproof. Ilianna had insisted on both it and the accompanying eye-scanning security system. Despite the fact that between boarding school, university, and the restaurant, she’d now lived in the city for a good part of her life, she still didn’t feel entirely safe here. I guess there was some truth to the old saying that you could take the mare out of the country, but not the country out of the mare.
I looked into the little scanner. Red light swept across my retina; a second later, the locks tumbled and the door slid silently open. The smell of roses hit almost immediately and my nose wrinkled. I might be half Aedh and half Helki werewolf—with little in the way of true wolf capabilities—but I did have a wolf?
??s sensitive olfactory sense, which was why I didn’t often wear perfume.
This wasn’t perfume, however. It was far too strong.
I shrugged off my backpack and jacket, tossing both onto the nearest leather sofa as I walked across the huge, carpeted expanse that was our living room. The fans—big industrial things that went with the vaulted, metal-framed ceiling—were on full, creating a wind strong enough to tug the hair out of my ponytail. It said a lot about the strength of the rose scent that the fans weren’t shifting it.
Gentle humming drifted from the kitchen, accompanied by the clink of metal against glass. I shook my head, knowing that sound—and that song—all too well. Ilianna was brewing potions in the kitchen again.
I stopped in the doorway, crossing my arms as I leaned a shoulder against the frame. Ilianna—a tall, strapping woman with a thick mane of pale hair and dark golden skin—stood near the stove, scooping out the contents of a bubbling pot and pouring it into long, thin, lilac-colored bottles.
“So what is it this time?” I asked, amusement in my voice. “A potion for the lovelorn, or the promise of passion?”
“Neither,” she said, her voice low and sexy—the sort of voice that would make her a fortune if she ever decided to go into the phone-sex business. “We’re off to the Healesville market this weekend. They love the harmony and peace potions up there, so I need to stock up.”
They loved them because the damn things worked. I briefly touched the simple leather strap that held the charm currently nestled between my breasts. I’d been sixteen when she’d finally convinced me that I couldn’t continue to walk the gray fields unaided. The charm she’d made me had been little more than a small piece of petrified wood, to connect me to the earth, and two small agate and serpentine stones for protection, but it had still saved my life when a spirit had attacked me on the gray fields. I’d been wearing it ever since.
“Is this the last of the lot?”
“Yes.” She glanced at me then, her green eyes startling against the dark gold of her skin. “Sorry about the smell. I thought you’d be off to the hospital already.”
I smiled. Not only was Ilianna a powerful witch, but she—like my mom, and sometimes like me—was clairvoyant. We’d all met at a school that had catered strictly to the offspring of rich nonhumans, and Ilianna, Tao, and I had been the misfits—the strange kids who could do things we shouldn’t have been able to. Tao and I had the additional stigma of being half-breeds—although at least both he and Ilianna were able to take on their alternative forms. Alone we’d been vulnerable, but together we’d been safe. So the three of us had stayed together all through school and into our working lives. I couldn’t actually imagine my life without Ilianna or Tao.
“Visiting hours don’t start until eight. I thought I’d come home to shower and change first.”
She nodded and returned her attention to her bottling. The rose scent sharpened every time she dipped the ladle into the bubbling mixture, perfuming the air with not only its scent but also an odd sense of tranquility.
“A parcel came for you last night,” she said. “The delivery guy was a little weird.”
My eyebrows rose. “Weird how?”
She glanced briefly at me, nose wrinkling. “He reminded me of a rat. You know, beady-eyed and furtive.”
I laughed. “Maybe he was a rat.” There were rat shifters, after all—even if they tended to keep to themselves rather than mix with other shifters and humans, like most nonhumans did.
“Yeah, I know, but he didn’t feel like a shifter. He felt like something else. Something more.” She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter, but the mere fact that she’d mentioned it suggested otherwise.
“Was the security system on?”
She gave me a look, and I knew that was a dumb question. If Ilianna was home alone, then the security system was on.
“I’ll check him out.” Although I wasn’t entirely sure what good it would do. Rat-faced or not, he’d come and gone. “Is the parcel that cookbook I ordered for Tao?”