Waging War (5 page)

I knew what it cost him not to mention the
fact that it would be daytime, so he couldn’t go with me even if he
wanted to. I kissed him lightly on the lips. “Last one back’s a
rotten egg.”

Because sometimes adolescent behavior is the
only thing that trumps fear.

A Trap

After we got back to the manor house, Archer
left us to go back into London. He wanted to scout Olivia’s
friends’ address before we went, and would stay the day at Bishop
Cleary’s unless there was a problem. He and Ringo discussed random
car stuff that Ringo had helped Jeeves do to service the Aston
Martin, and then they made a plan to explore St. Brigid’s before
school went back into session. The mood I was in, I could barely
follow their conversations, much less contribute more than a
distracted good-bye kiss when Archer drove away.

Ringo turned to head toward the library, and
I followed him. The big room had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves,
complete with wheeled ladders and massive wooden tables, and was
one of my favorite rooms in the manor.

When the door was closed behind us Ringo
turned to me. “Okay, spit it out.”

I almost denied anything was wrong, but the
look on his face was already impatient so I didn’t bother
sugar-coating it.

“I don’t want to find Tom.”

He crossed his arms in front of him. “Why
not?”

“Because if he’s bad, Archer will kill
him.”

“Not if the cure works and ‘e can become
‘uman again.”

My voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t know
if I want Archer to try the cure.”

Ringo stared at me in shock. “But ‘e wants
it.”

“There are risks—”

“There are always risks, and ye know it.
Saira, ye can’t deny ‘im this. If ‘e’s willin’ to take the chance,
ye ‘ave to support ‘im.”

“What happens to me if something goes
wrong?” I could barely get the words out.

He looked me straight in the eyes. “Ye’d go
on and live the life ye were meant to live.” Ringo gripped my upper
arms and made me look at him. “Ye ‘aven’t told ‘im any of yer
fears, ‘ave ye?”

I shook my head no.

“Good. Ye can’t.”

“Why not? We’re supposed to share things
that matter to us. He’d understand.”

Ringo let go of my arms and ran his hands
through his hair. “Saira, it’s like the man who admits to ‘avin’ an
affair. The admission makes ‘im feel better for tellin’ the truth,
but ‘e ‘ands it to ‘is wife to carry around as ‘er own. It isn’t
fair. Ye know Archer’ll never do a thing to ‘urt you, so ye get to
walk around feelin’ just fine, but what ‘e wants gets buried in
makin’ sure yer ‘appy. Ye don’t get to tell ‘im this one. I’m
tellin’ ye, it isn’t fair.”

I really didn’t want to hear this, not from
Ringo, not at all. I spun away and headed toward the door. But
guilt made me angry and I turned back to him. “You didn’t fight for
Charlie, and now you’re telling me I can’t fight for Archer? Go
wipe your conscience on someone else, Ringo, because
that’s
not fair.”

The door was too heavy for me to slam behind
me effectively, but it wouldn’t have made anything better anyway. I
passed Sanda on the landing as I raced up the stairs to my
room.

“It’s hard t’ outrun yerself, lass.”

I wanted to keep going until I could shut
myself away in my room, but somehow I couldn’t do that to Sanda. I
turned to face her. “What about fear. Can you outrun that?”

“Only if ye stand still and face it do ye
have a chance against fear.”

I made myself square my shoulders and walk
the rest of the way to my room.

After a couple of hours of very fitful
sleep, I finally gave up the idea of rest as a waste of time. It
was still dark outside, and I guessed dawn was only about an hour
away. I dressed quickly and slipped down the hall to the other wing
where Ringo slept.

I knew he’d hear me the minute I opened his
door, so I didn’t bother knocking. His eyes were open and looking
at me as I sat on the end of his bed.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He looked at me in silence for a long
moment. “Ye lash out when yer scared, ye know? Like a wild thing,
ye are.”

“It wasn’t right, what I said about Charlie.
And I’m so sorry I said it.”

He finally sighed and sat up, wrestled the
bedside light on, and scrubbed his palms across his eyes. “Wipe
my
conscience?” he scoffed. “Ye pick an ungodly time to wipe
yers, ye wench.”

I bit back my smile. We were good, but I
still tread carefully. “I think about Charlie all the time, and how
she’s doing as Valerie Grayson’s protégé. No matter how clever
Charlie is, the sixteenth century isn’t easy to navigate, and Henry
Grayson’s death in France hurt his mother in ways I can’t even
imagine.”

I tried to picture what it would be like to
live in a noble house in Tudor times. Hygiene issues alone were
enough to send me running, not to mention court politics and
Immortal Descendant intrigue. I shuddered.

“Charlie’s braver than I know how to
be.”

“Ye might say that. Though sometimes bein’
alone becomes what ye know, and choosin’ otherwise is the ‘ard
part.”

I looked into his gray eyes and saw the pain
in them. “Did she run away from a life with you, or run toward one
with Valerie?”

He watched me for a long moment, then
finally shrugged. “Doesn’t much matter, does it? We’ll either find
each other in the end, or we won’t.”

“How can you be pragmatic about that, Ringo?
It sounds so lonely.”

He smiled gently. “We’ve all been alone in
our lives. Ye’ve ‘ad yer mum, but ye’ve only relied on yerself. I
‘ad a mum for five years, and Archer never ‘ad a mum at all. But
all of us ‘ave known what it is to be loved, and that makes us
lucky. But the thing about love is it’s like the wild thing ye are
– when ye ‘old on tight ye frighten it away, but when ye open yer
‘ands and yer ‘eart and trust it, ye can always find it no matter
‘ow far it flies.”

“I trust Archer.”

“No, ye don’t. If ye did, ye would trust ‘im
to do what ‘e needs to do for ‘imself, and ye’d take yer own fears
out of it.”

I looked away from his eyes and searched the
room for something else to focus on that didn’t see me so clearly.
There were bookshelves against every wall, and they were bursting
with books and parts of electronics. Tools covered the desk under
the window, and a diagram of an engine was pinned to a corkboard.
“What are you going to do with your life?”

“Learn everything I can.”

“And then?” I looked back at him
curiously.

“I’ll know when I’ve done it, I think.”

I nodded and stood up to go. “I’m sorry
about before.”

He smirked at me. “But not sorry about
wakin’ me?”

“Nope. My conscience is all clean now.”

He hurled a pillow at me and I ducked out of
the way, laughing, before I left his room.

My mom agreed to leave a little early for
our tea with the Armans so we could stop by the address in Pimlico
where Tam’s friends lived. I could tell Jeeves didn’t like it, but
he just clenched his jaw and took us into town.

I told my mom what Mr. Shaw and Connor had
said about the cure, and she’d already heard much of it from Mr.
Shaw directly. She said he’d been proud of Connor for discovering
the telomere anomaly, and it had set them on a whole new course of
research. Even better, they weren’t focused on mixing Descendant
blood anymore, so the Council couldn’t condone Monger action
against either of them.

“The Mongers have to be stopped, though,
Mom. You guys can’t let them be the Descendant police force.”

She frowned. “We know that, Saira. As I told
you, it’s one of the things I’ve been discussing with Camille, and
we hope to engage MacKenzie in as well.”

“The Shifter Head seems like kind of a
bully.”

She smirked because it was true. The current
Head of the Shifter clans was a Highland Bull, and everything about
him screamed it. “He is, but one of his sons seems reasonable.”

The car glided to a stop in front of a small
mews house. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, rich
Londoners lived in terraced houses with mews at the back which
opened onto a small service street. The mews included horse
stables, a carriage house, and upstairs living quarters for the
stable staff. The advent of cars and the world wars saw the end of
stables, and they were eventually converted into housing called
mews houses after the original King’s Mews at Charing Cross where
the king’s falcons were kept. Ringo had been the source of that
information, though in his thieving days the mews were still smelly
horse stables at the backs of the grand houses.

Olivia’s words ran through my mind as I
walked up to the front door. Her friend Melanie Thomas and
Melanie’s older brother, Cole, were distantly related to Tam
through his mom. They had all been at St. George’s Square park when
a lady’s little dog got off leash, and Tam crossed over to the
river side to help her. The next thing Cole and Melanie saw, a
white van with no windows screeched to a stop in front of them,
blocking their view of Tam and the woman. After a few moments, the
van sped away. Neither the woman, her dog, nor Tam was seen
again.

“What do you know about these two?” my mom
asked quietly as I rang the bell.

“Nothing of any substance.”

Jeeves stood outside the car like a statue,
and I knew that if I’d been inside the house, the sight of him
outside would have kept me indoors and away from windows. “Hey,
Jeeves. Could you take the car for a spin around the block, please?
You’re pretty intimidating in your uniform.”

He looked startled at that, but my mom
smiled and nodded her agreement, and he reluctantly got back in the
Range Rover and pulled away down the narrow cobblestone street.
When the car was finally out of sight, I rang the bell again. This
time I heard someone on the staircase, and a moment later the door
opened cautiously. A black guy about my age, built like a broody
Adam, looked at us with suspicion.

“Hey,” I said with a nod. “Sorry about the
driver.”

“Who are you?” Despite his surly tone, there
was a rolling West African lilt to his voice that sounded much
nicer than his words.

“Friend of a friend. Is Melanie in?”

His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Something about the guy annoyed me, but I
knew that was just unreasonable, so I added a smile to soften the
snark he inspired in me. “Because I’m here to talk to both of you
about what you didn’t tell the police about Tam. It’s just easier
if I don’t have to repeat myself.”

My mom tsked next to me. “Saira, that’s just
rude.”

The guy I assumed was Cole tossed his head
at my mom without looking away from me. “She your mum?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’d you bring her?”

I shrugged. “Because she’s the Clocker Head
and Tam’s not the only one who’s gone missing.”

I knew I was taking a calculated risk, but
if I was right and this guy knew anything at all about the
Families, he’d know better than to shut the door in my mom’s
face.

The guy did shut the door in our faces. Not
slammed. Shut. And just when my mom was about to ring the bell
again in impatience, I held her arm. “No, wait. They’re
coming.”

The door opened again, and a girl about
fourteen with short braided hair pulled on her coat and led the way
outside. She held out her hand for me to shake. “I’m Melanie. Who
are you?” Her West African lilt was softer than her brother’s.

“Saira Elian. I’m a friend of Olivia’s from
school.” I shook her hand and Cole followed his sister outside.

Melanie started off down the street. “Come
on. We’ll talk in the park.”

My mom gave me a startled grin. I just
shrugged and followed Melanie as she headed toward the river. St.
George’s Square was a block away. Melanie waved to some nannies
playing with toddlers at the far end, away from the street, but
except for them, the park was deserted. Cole slouched along behind
us – keeping his distance, but clearly not letting his sister out
of his sight. According to Olivia, Tam and Cole were the ones who
hung out together, but Melanie was taking the lead with us.

We got to a bench and Melanie directed us to
sit. She looked at my mom with interest. “Why do you care about
Tam?”

My mom ignored the question. “Where is Tam’s
family? Have they gone to the police?”

Melanie shot her a look with a snort
attached to it. “He doesn’t have family. Just a dad who’s a drunk.
Me and Cole, we’re his people.”

Mom opened her mouth to speak, but I cut her
off. “Like I told your brother, he’s not the only one who’s gone
missing.”

Melanie shifted her gaze to me. “The police
act like he’s a runaway.”

“Look, we’re trying to find the missing
people. Olivia sent us to talk to you because she’s really worried
about Tam and she knows we can help. But we need to know whatever
you can tell us about that day.”