“When no one came forth to claim her, she was placed in the foster care system for a short time before one of my human servants arranged that I might adopt her. She is the only child I’ve ever had, and I thought her part elven, though mostly human, until last year, close to eighteen months past, I suppose, when her scent began to change. It was only slightly at first. She still smells human, but human and something else, perhaps. Her gift with plants manifested then too.”
“Did she start having her menses then?” T. Laine asked. “When the gift with plants started?”
“My daughter has not yet begun her menses.”
T. Laine eased into the great room, massaging her fingertips as if they still tingled. “Perhaps her species doesn’t have them?”
“We don’t know what she is,” Mrs. Clayton said uncertainly. “We had considered asking the Europeans when they come to visit the Master of the City of New Orleans, but there is some fear that the oldest Mithrans might claim her as their own under the Vampira Carta. Her lack of humanity may make her fair game to them.”
Not much in that sentence made sense, so I made a mental note to look it all up—on my new laptop. When I got time.
Rick said, “Your daughter is an American citizen, no matter what species she is. They can’t take her. You’ll have the help of PsyLED, the US Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the State Department on that. But first we need to find her. What else can you tell us?”
Mrs. Clayton clasped her hands, the fingers of which wore sparkling diamond rings and one single huge black pearl. As if again sensing that she was broadcasting her emotional state, she looked down and spread her fingers wide for a moment, stretching them. Her attention settled on the black pearl ring, and she rotated it with the fingers of the other hand, around and around the digit. “Her . . .” She stopped and started again. “My daughter has . . . pointed ears.” No one in the room said anything, and the silence went on a beat too long, making me aware of where every member of the team was. Tandy stood against a wall, his eyes flicking from person to person, as if he was picking up emotional tags from each of us as well as from Mrs. Clayton. Occam was kneeling, his fingers spread on the floor, his weight on the balls of his feet, and something made the posture look very catlike and dangerous, as if he was about to pounce on prey. Paka stood behind Rick, watching, her eyes slit, gaze piercing. Other humans stood in the opening to the great room—law enforcement, wearing suits and ugly shoes. The FBI, I decided, the team that had set up the electronic equipment, waiting to hear about a ransom call. JoJo was standing with them.
The vampire went on, still twirling her pearl ring around her finger, her attention on only it. “They were noticeable on her baby photographs. For some years she wore her hair over them, until they kept growing and her hair no longer hid them. Now the points are quite pronounced. I purchased a charm for her with a glamour in it to keep the tips hidden. The glamour must have sunlight to recharge it. It looks like this.” She extended her hand to display the black pearl. “She wears it on her left hand.
“And Mira also . . .” The vampire’s brows came together. “She has no body hair at all, though her brows are quite unruly and difficult to keep shaped. She also has acute seasonal affective disorder.” Mrs. Clayton looked up for a moment, her eyes sweeping the room before returning to her hands. “She needs far more sunlight than most people. If left too long in the dark, she becomes ill, physically so. In winter, when the days are shorter, Mira is badly affected by the early nights, and so we have installed artificial lighting in her room, to give her bright lights, what they call full spectrum, and she uses them several hours each day. If the people who took her don’t allow her enough sunlight, her glamour will fail. Her ears will show.” She frowned and shook her head, the heavy worry sloping her shoulders again. “She will become angry, sometimes violent. Enough darkness and Mira’s hair will begin to fall out, she will fall into a deep depression, and she will sleep away the day. Day after day.”
The vampire smiled, a bittersweet expression that made her look totally human. “My daughter is gentle and full of life and can make anything grow. And she hates the dark. She is so very, very unlike me. We are total opposites in everything. And yet, in the hours of dusk and dawn, we have built a life here. I would give up all that I am and all that I have to see her safe and free.” She looked at the FBI team, two men and a woman, still standing in the doorway. Her voice dropped an octave, almost to a growl when she added, “No matter what they ask, I will give them. Make certain that they know that when they call.”
The phrase hung on the air between us all, unspoken: If they call. So much said in so few words, when I was accustomed to lots of words, and total clarity of intent from everyone, in the way of God’s Cloud of Glory. The cultural differences were making my new job challenging.
“Agent LaFleur,” the FBI woman said. “We’d like a word with you, please.”
Rock nodded and left the room. The others drifted back into the other parts of the house, leaving me alone with the vampire. Mrs. Clayton didn’t seem to notice they were gone for long seconds before she looked up from her hands to see the room, empty but for me. “I had wondered if you were the same species as my daughter. There is something of the same scent about you, but”—she shrugged—“different as well. Are your ears . . . ?”
“Not pointed,” I said, and pushed back my hair to show the rounded curves. “No glamour. No surgery to make them round.” I didn’t add that if I’d been born with pointed ears, I might have been smothered in my cradle.
An uneasy silence settled between us, and I felt like I should go closer and sit near her. It was what the churchwomen did when there was distress. Hugs and kind words. But I couldn’t get any closer to the death feeling I got from Mrs. Clayton. So I said, “I’m sorry I got all riled. I don’t know what kind a species I am either, so I took offense when none was intended.” I mimicked her shrug. “You’re not my first vampire, ma’am, but this is my first vampire house.”
She smiled slightly. “Do I still feel like dead opossum?”
“No offense intended, ma’am. Honestly.”
She stared up at me suddenly, her eyes black again, and scary looking. I grew instantly still, like a rabbit under the eyes of a hawk, and tried to draw a breath that seemed stuck in my throat. “My daughter’s life is in your hands,” the vampire said. “Yours and the others’. Please. Get her back for me.”
“We will do everything possible, Mrs. Clayton,” Rick said coming back through the door. “PsyLED will be taking over the investigation of your daughter’s disappearance, with FBI assistance. The Bureau has done a spectacular job, and will still be working the case, but we’ll be dedicating all of the efforts of our entire team on Mira. Mira alone.”
I realized that with Mira not being human, responsibility for her case fell directly into PsyLED’s lap. Anxiety I hadn’t expected wrapped itself around me and tightened like a boa constrictor.
The vampire looked to me. “You. You will get her back for me,” she commanded. Before I could reply, Mrs. Clayton got up and left the room. Fast. Way faster than a human. Scary fast. With a little snap of air that made my ears pop. But at least the maggoty feeling dissipated some with her gone.
To us, Rick said, “Their systems are already in place and FBI will continue to monitor the house and phones. We’ll be handling the investigation on the streets and electronically. JoJo, you’ll liaise with the FBI, remaining here. You being human will make them happier than any of the rest of us. I want to know everything they learn the moment they find it out. And I’m rather certain that they haven’t told us everything, so be nosy. If Mrs. Clayton or one of her Mithrans come back out to visit, be nosy with her too. See if she left out anything, any detail. Even if it doesn’t seem important.”
JoJo smiled and flicked a ring in her nostril, leaving it swinging. “I’m real good at being nosy, boss.”
Rick smiled and nodded the rest of us to the door. “Let’s go.”
* * *
The special agents talked while Rick drove, and this time I took a place in back, on the bench-style seat, beside Paka, who curled up like a cat and fell instantly asleep. Again, I had nothing to offer and sat silent, listening to the woman’s purring breath.
We were nearly back at the hotel when Rick said, “It’s almost midnight. Tandy, you and T. Laine are the night owls. You take the first shift and go over all the FBI information on all the cases. Compare and contrast everything with the other cases and with Girl . . .” He stopped. “With Mira Clayton.” I realized that using pseudonyms for the girls wasn’t going to work anymore. We had been to her house. Touched her magic and her personal belongings. Met her mother. We had our own girl. That had made it personal, even if it wasn’t supposed to become so. Rick said, “The rest of us will get some shut-eye.”
T. Laine said, “I need caffeine and sustenance for an all-nighter. Coffee and lots of it, and pizza. And it comes off the company plastic.”
“Done,” Rick said, tossing his cell phone to the witch. “There’s Community dark roast coffee in my bag that I’ll contribute to the cause. Order a couple of large. One supreme and one veggie lovers.”
“Boss, I love you.”
Rick chuckled, and I didn’t understand what had happened until Tandy said, “Community Coffee is from Louisiana, and it’s hard to get here. Rick has it shipped in monthly for his personal use. It’s really good coffee. And the pizza just went on the unit’s credit card, so we don’t have to figure out how to list things on our expense reports. Makes things easier.”
I nodded, suddenly exhausted. The weight of the day landed on me, the prickly feeling of being around all the people and creatures and their multitiered and interlaced emotions, the need to be alone, on my property, with the woods at my back, all heavy. “I need to go home,” I said, stretching. “How soon do you need me back in the morning?”
Rick looked at me in the rearview mirror and said, “How does six a.m. sound?”
I’d have to be up long before five o’clock to make that. “Horrible,” I said. “But I’ll be at the hotel by six.”
“Good,” he said. “Because if Mira Clayton is being held somewhere in the dark, we may need to move fast. This abduction wasn’t exactly like the others, so the first thing I want to do is rule out any copycat involvement.”
I considered that statement in light of the girl’s need for the sun. Would she really die if she was kept in the dark too long? I felt my ears, rounded and human. I sometimes wondered if I’d die if I left Soulwood for too long a time, as if I was tied to the land. Maybe it was like that for Mira, with the sun. Out of nowhere, Pea leaped across the room and landed in my lap, chittering loudly, distracting. Pushing her away, I repeated softly to myself, “Six a.m. I can do that.”