I noted their plate number, then made my way back up to my bike. After making sure no one was on the level, I reached for the Aedh again, re-forming and rebuilding my body particle by particle, until I was once more flesh and blood.
I released my grip on my phone and keys, and dropped to the concrete on my hands and knees, my body shaking and my breath wheezing past my throat. For several seconds it was all I could do to stay upright, and if those men had chosen that moment to come back, I would have been theirs.
Becoming Aedh had its price for those of us who weren’t full blood—and, for me, it was a complete inability to do anything other than breathe for several minutes after re-formation.
When the debilitation finally started to ease, I cautiously rocked back on my heels. And that was when the headache hit like a knife through my brain and I closed my eyes, fighting not to cry out. I had no idea just how keen my attackers’ hearing was, and the last thing I wanted to do was give them warning I was back.
At least my arm had stopped bleeding, even if the wound was still raw and it hurt like hell.
Several more minutes passed, and the stabbing pain settled to a more durable ache behind my left eye. I took a deep, shuddering breath, then climbed carefully to my feet. The pain remained, constant yet bearable.
The other bad thing about becoming Aedh was its effect on my clothes. They disintegrated just fine, but re-forming them was trickier, as the magic didn’t always delineate bits of me from other particles. And like the dirt that clung to my atoms when in Aedh form, I often ended up with a dust-like sheen covering my skin rather than fully formed pieces of clothing.
This time, the leather jacket had come back almost complete—aside from the hole under my right elbow and the slashes caused by the cat’s claws—but the dust from the missing elbow clung like second skin to my arm, and the sweater underneath all but fell around me in shredded bits. My jeans were also a mess, peppered with holes. My boots, like my leather jacket, had basically come through unscathed, although the Kevlar lining showed through in patches. Once I hit any sort of speed on my bike, I was going to end up half naked. And wouldn’t that thrill the passing motorists. I guess it was just as well I had a change of clothes with me.
Of course, before I went anywhere I needed to check my bike. Those men were intent on following me, and I was pretty damn sure they would have ensured they had a means of tracking me if they lost sight.
There had to be a bug on my bike. Had to be.
And the thought that those bastards had dared to put their grubby little hands on her had anger rolling though me.
A pretty useless reaction, really, but I still couldn’t help it. I might be rich enough to buy anything I liked, but this bike had been earned through sheer hard work. She was my present to myself the first year our restaurant made a profit.
I retrieved my backpack, then walked back to my bike and double-checked the area before I stripped off and changed into the clothes I’d worn into the hospital. They were cold and damp, and smelled of antiseptic and death, but I guess they were better than rags.
I retrieved my keys and phone from the remnants of my jeans, then tossed them away. I shoved my phone into the pack and my keys went into my jacket pocket. Metal and plastic weren’t affected by the shift into—or back out of—particle form, but unless they were touching skin, they wouldn’t actually change. Which was why I’d wrapped my hand around them before I shifted. I knew from experience that there was nothing worse than metal and plastic bits stuck in the middle of your particle form.
Maybe they needed to find a way to make bras and panties out of soft, breathable plastic. At least then when I came back out of an Aedh shift, I’d be wearing lingerie. Right now, there were just annoying bits caught in unmentionable places.
I flicked off the alarm, then bent and studied the bike. There was nothing out of place—nothing that jumped out and screamed Bug. But I knew enough from hanging around Riley and her brother Rhoan to realize that bugs and trackers could be wafer-thin and virtually invisible.
And the only way to find them was to feel them.
I knelt and carefully ran my hands over the bike’s sleek silver frame. I found one on the front suspension, and another on the inside of the left turn signal. Both were little bigger than a toenail, and thinner than a piece of hair. If I hadn’t known every inch of the bike as well as I did, they would have been easy to miss.
I carefully peeled them both off, then jerked around—my heart going a million miles a minute—as the elevator dinged and the doors swept open. An elderly couple stepped out and headed left, not even glancing my way.
I looked at the sliver-fine pieces of plastic in my hand, then smiled and rose, quietly following the old couple. They stopped at a small brown Toyota about halfway down the ramp, the woman glancing at me as I strolled past. Her gaze swept me and her face pinched with disapproval. Clearly, she thought I was up to no good—and in that, she was right. I gave her a smile as I continued on, my hand brushing against the rear of the car and sticking the two trackers to the paintwork. Then I loped down to the next level and took the stairs back up to my bike. The knife inside my head swung back into action and I blinked away tears as I shoved on my helmet, then jumped on my bike and gunned the engine to life.
I was behind the Toyota in an instant, following it up the ramps and out the gate. The two shifters leaning against the gray Ute didn’t react when they saw me—although one touched his ear and began speaking. If they had in-ear communication units installed, then someone with money was behind all this. Those damn things cost a fortune.
I kept behind the Toyota, not wanting the men to realize that the tracker wasn’t on my bike. Only when I was absolutely sure neither car was in sight did I veer off and get the hell out of there.
But I didn’t head home.
I needed to talk to someone about what might be going on—someone who knew all about trackers, weird shifters, and would-be mugging attempts. Someone who also had a steady supply of chocolate and Coke on hand for drop-ins like myself.
My aunt Riley, former guardian and one of the most dangerous, kick-ass women I knew.
If she couldn’t help me sort out this big pile of shit I’d apparently landed in, no one could.
* * *
Riley and Quinn shared a big old warehouse in Abbotsford near the banks of the Yarra River with her brother Rhoan and his lover, Liander. Three of their five children still lived with them, but the oldest two—and the ones I was closest to—were currently undergoing training at the police academy in Glen Waverley. Riley hadn’t wanted them to become cops, but Liana and Ronan were very much their mother’s offspring. When they had their minds set on something, neither hell nor high water could convince them to do otherwise.
I drove up to the metal gates at the back of the building, then pulled off a glove and pressed my hand against the scanner. Red light swept it, then the gates swung open. I parked beside Riley’s somewhat battered Mercedes SUV and kicked the side stand out. After pulling off my helmet and dropping it onto the seat, I ran up the metal stairs and leaned on the back doorbell.
Footsteps echoed, then the door opened and Aunt Riley was standing there, her hair a blaze of red and gold in the weak sun struggling through the still-threatening clouds. Her gaze swept me, then her gray eyes narrowed, glinting dangerously. “I hope like hell you made them pay for what they did to you.”