He leaped down tiled steps, and turned to a house built into the rock, with a lutier’s sign swinging over a turn in the path. He knocked twice, waited, then knocked twice again, a signal that brought someone immediately to open the door.
“Kyrios! You’re back,” a stout girl with long braids exclaimed. “Welcome! Granny’s up in the workroom. Do you want coffee and fruit?”
“No, no, I just ate. I’ll join her.”
Grandmother Demi repaired musical instruments of all kinds, but was known for rebuilding ancient violins. She was Nikos’s human agent in the harbor—nothing went on without her knowing almost as soon as it happened. Being a human, she had no powers, but what she did have was wisdom and experience. Also, a large family. She, her three sisters, their daughters, and their granddaughters worked everywhere from the dock to the fancy hotel perched on a low promontory overlooking the far end of the harbor. Grandmother Demi’s family network was faster than the phone lines when it came to news.
Nikos climbed up the narrow stairs to Grandmother Demi’s workroom, where she sat at her workbench, bent over the fragile wood of a viola. Nikos watched hair-thin peels of wood curl as she said, “You’re back. Good. We think most of those tourists off that gorgon’s yacht are genuine, but not all of them.”
“We suspected as much.”
“They’ve been oiling up the locals, but we know their type. Human, shifter, doesn’t matter, that crowd of hers is all rotten with too much money and no morals.” Grandmother Demi made a spitting motion to one side, still working smoothly on the viola. “As of today, a few of them started working on Athena over at the inn. Also Georg at his taverna and Ionas’s hotel on the water. They’re offering them huge sums to sell.”
“So whatever she’s up to is beginning,” he said.
“Maybe,” Grandmother Demi responded. “Like I said, they’ve been throwing money around ever since they pulled in. Treating locals to meals, buying rounds. Shopping. Chatting everyone up.”
“I’m told Medusa has only left the yacht once.”
“Yesterday. Buying spree, no sign of snake-hair, sunglasses on. Making nice-nice. As if we’ve forgotten the trouble she caused last time she was here.”
Nikos said, “She sent a hit man to chase me back. Now that I’m here, I expect she’ll soon make whatever move she’s planning.”
“An assassin? This I did not know.”
“Showed up in California. He’s a raiju, a lightning wolf. Notorious in the east. Blond, will probably be bundled up against the sun.”
Grandmother Demi shot him an assessing look from gleaming olive-dark eyes, without missing a stroke. “You will not be surprised to hear that Medusa treats the help like they are somewhere between robots and slaves. I think a judicious bribe here and there, plus an invitation for an extended vacation on one of the other islands, might be arranged. Then I can put my people in to take their place.”
“That might be dangerous, if she has any suspicion,” Nikos said. “I don’t like putting anyone in Medusa’s power who can’t fly or swim away.”
“Pah!” Grandmother Demi waved her tool in dismissal. “She only hires humans, because she thinks they are stupid. She’d never bother to suspect humans.”
“If you think it will work,” he said, “talk to Flavia at the bank. She’ll give you whatever you need, and she’ll keep it discreet.”
“Flavia. Yes. That one, she can be trusted.”
“Thank you,” Nikos said, and rose to go.
Grandmother Demi shot him another look, stopping him mid-turn. “What happened this time?”
He laughed. “This time?”
She retorted, “You have not aged a day since I first met you as a girl, and my grandmother whispered the same about you to me before she died. Three sets of youngsters I’ve seen you adopt and train, over these many years. You take them all around the world, give them a name, a home, a skill. Everything a father gives a child. But you never had one of your own. Tonight, you come in here, and though you look the same as you ever did, I can feel a difference. Like your heart has come alive.”
As a rule he never discussed his personal life—what little of one he’d had over the years since his wild youth. But trust went two ways. “I found my mate,” he said.
Though she was human, Grandmother Demi knew all about shifters—everyone on the island did. She looked up at last, and set aside her tools. “I am very happy to hear that,” she said slowly, her chin coming down an inch in a way so full of dignity it was like a formal bow. “Is she one of us, or one of you?”
“Both, as it happens.”
“Then there is a story!”
“Yes. She can tell you when you meet her.”
Grandmother Demi smiled, and picked up her tool again. “When will that be?”
“I hope after we’re rid of Medusa and whatever trouble she’s bringing. By night Jen is a phoenix—she’s very new to shifting. Oh, and by day I’m my other self, for now.”