CHAPTER THREE
“You know…” Tina’s tone was more tentative when she spoke again. “I have some contacts that might be able to help you figure out what you are.”
Lance looked deep into her eyes, wondering why she’d been put in his path just when he needed her kind of help. Maybe he still believed in fate, just the tiniest bit.
“What kind of contacts?” He’d hear her out. Maybe she could help him. It certainly couldn’t hurt to listen.
“Most shifters believe in and serve the Goddess. We call Her the Mother of All. Think of Her as Mother Earth, if that helps.”
“I have no problem with a female deity. I’m not a religious nut. I believe in live and let live,” he told her, just to be clear.
“That’s good,” she smiled at him. “Tolerance is the sign of an enlightened mind.”
“Thanks. So, what does this Goddess have to do with me and my little problem?”
“Well, the contacts I have are in Nevada, and I believe they’d be willing to help you if I asked. They both serve the Goddess. They are a mated pair, and the female is a priestess. They’re the most magical people I know, and they would probably be able to tell you why all those shifters have gathered around you. I suspect you really are a shifter of some sort, even though you’ve never shifted.” She paused a moment, thinking hard. “You haven’t shifted, right? No gaps in your memory or dreams about becoming an animal?”
“No,” Lance shook his head. “But I keep thinking about the wind in my face and the sun on my back. Like I’m flying.” He didn’t tell her about the horrific side to his thoughts—the part where he’s burning.
“That’s good,” she said, oblivious to his darker thoughts. “You might be a hawk or eagle shifter. Maybe an owl. I’m not up on all the different kinds of flight shifters there are, but I know there’s a concentration of them in Las Vegas, gathered around the Redstone Alpha. You’re a bit like him, in a way. You employ shifters of all kinds in your business, just like he does. If I had to guess, I’d say you’ve got part of a werewolf Pack in your garage area, but Lexi is some kind of big cat, I think. And the big guy who was in charge of your painting operation was a bear. I know a few bears, and he has that same aura.”
“You know a few—” He cut himself off. “Tina. You know how ridiculous this all sounds, right?”
“I’m aware,” she conceded. “But you seem to be taking it in stride. Or, at least, better than someone who didn’t believe in magic. Somewhere deep down, my words are resonating. You have the instinct. You probably always did. That’s why you caught me watching you when most regular people wouldn’t notice a glace from afar. You’re just not fully in touch with it. Once you sort that out, I think you’ll feel a lot better. A lot less confused, anyway.”
“You really think you—or those contacts in Vegas you mentioned—could help me?” The look on his face nearly broke her heart.
She’d never seen strong Lance Fiori seem so uncertain. So…scared, if it came right down to it. He was in a bad way, and her mission in life seemed to be to help folks who needed it. That instinct was what had caused her to be on the highway in her junker of a car in the first place.
Huh. Maybe fate had something to do with this meeting, after all. It wasn’t beyond the scope of possibility that the Mother of All should put her in Lance’s path when he was clearly in such dire need of direction.
*
“How is she?” the new High Priest asked the healer mage who had been attending their liege lady.
“Weak,” the healer replied. “She will take many months to recover, unless a source can be found to feed magic to her more quickly.”
“We’ve already tapped out whatever sources of magic we could find in the area. She’s run through them like bonbons. Frankly, I’m having trouble finding places to stash all the bodies.” The High Priest shook his head. He had to find another way to recharge his lady’s energies.
They had a war to start.
“Gabriella has the seer’s gift to some extent,” the healer reminded him unnecessarily. “She was talking about a disturbance in the desert and a vision of fire. A man on fire, flying toward the sun. It might be just a legend, but if there really is such a thing as a phoenix still around in this day and age, he might be the answer we seek. Power of that intensity would go a long way toward reviving the Mater Priori.”
The mother of their order, Elspeth’s wellbeing was at the center of their focus. They hadn’t spent so many centuries of effort to bring her back from the forgotten realm to which she’d been banished to let her starve for energy once back in the mortal realm. Her thirst for magic must be met, and High Priest Ornish wasn’t about to let her siphon the life out of any more of her loyal followers.
She’d done so at first, when she’d arrived back in this realm. She’d sucked the life energy out of everyone present at her arrival. Those who had worked so hard to bring her forth had sacrificed everything to her need. Ornish had stepped up to fill the role of High Priest because most of the rest of the leadership of the ancient order of Venifucus were dead at the hands of their Mater Priori.
A decidedly unexpected turn of events, but it had worked out well for Ornish. He wouldn’t make the mistake of starving her of the energy she needed, or she wouldn’t hesitate to drain him of his own considerable power and fling the body into the pit where they’d been stashing all the others she’d run through. They’d been procuring humans with even the slightest hint of latent magical energy to feed her need.
They’d managed to trap a few shifters, as well, but Elspeth’s thirst for power was great, and the trip from the forgotten realm had been arduous and draining. She’d been back for months already but was still too weak to rise, much less lead the revolution her followers wanted. How could she lead them against the forces of Light when she couldn’t even sit up for more than an hour at a time?
A solution must be found. Perhaps there was something to these visions of a phoenix. Or maybe it was just a hallucination. Gabriella had been known to experiment with the drugs she imported and distributed through her network of dealers. Either way, Ornish needed to find out. And he knew just the witch to send on the mission.
*
Gabriella wasn’t pleased when she hung up the phone. Her big mouth had gotten her into trouble again. This time with the High Priest. The bastard didn’t want to dirty his hands tracking down her vision, but he didn’t hesitate to order her to investigate.
Order. Not ask. Who did Ornish think he was? Jumped up little toady. She should’ve shanked him years ago, before he’d weaseled his way into the power structure and stepped into the vacuum when Elspeth had obliterated the previous regime.
But he was the High Priest now, and Gabriella was obligated to obey. She didn’t have to like it, though. Still, she got her ass on her private jet and headed for—where else—Phoenix. She’d seen enough in her vision to know at least that much, though the coincidence of the name of the city the phoenix shifter had chosen to live in made her itch. Had she been wrong about what she’d seen? If so, she was in for a world of trouble from the order if she couldn’t deliver a phoenix for the Mater to snack on.
Gabby only hoped she didn’t end up on the menu, instead.
*
Tina had parted with Lance, promising to call him after she’d spoken with her contacts. He’d been kind enough to take her to drop off her package, and by the time they’d returned to his shop, her car had been retrieved and was running again. She had offered to pay for the tow and the service, but Lance had refused. Tina had made a point to tip the guys who’d picked up her car and done the work on it, at least.
She drove away, shaking her head at the weird turn life had taken today. Her car purred like a kitten, making content sounds she hadn’t heard in years from the engine. The shifter mechanics Lance had attracted were talented individuals if they could get her old clunker running that well in such a short amount of time. She was duly impressed.
Tina got home and placed a call. She had known Kate for a long time and had met her mate a few times. The dude was a scary-assed cat shifter of some kind with a magical talent that wasn’t much like other shifters. Kate had hinted at her husband being something a little different from other shifters, but she hadn’t said what, and Tina wasn’t one to pry. Still, if Lance really was a shifter, maybe Kate and her mate, Slade, would have some insight.
Kate was the priestess for the Redstone Clan of shifters, based out of Las Vegas. Tina wasn’t quite sure if asking for Kate’s help meant she was soliciting aid from the Redstone Clan itself. She didn’t want to cause any trouble for Lance or draw too much attention to him that he probably wasn’t ready for, so she was cautious in what she told her friend.
“He’s gathered a group of shifters around him, all unawares,” she said, holding the phone close to her ear as she moved about her kitchen, making dinner.
“Did anything feel off to you? Any hint of evil anywhere near?” Kate asked, sounding skeptical.
“Not a whiff of evil to be found,” Tina assured her friend. “And I know this guy. We went to high school together. He was always a good guy, if a bit rough around the edges.”
“High school was a long time ago, Tina. People change.”
“Not him. He’s still just like I remember him, only older.” And even hotter than he’d been in high school, but Kate didn’t need to know that part.
“He seriously didn’t recognize the shifters around him?” Kate asked.
“Not a clue, but he took the existence of magic well, and there was this one thing…” Tina remembered the way his power had flared up and still wasn’t quite sure what it had meant—other than he definitely had magic inside him. “I conjured a little ball of white light to prove to him what I was saying. I put it in his hand, and fire came up from his palm to envelop it. I could see flames.”
“Are you sure he’s not a mage? Some kind of fire talent?” Kate said quickly.
“Pretty sure. He reads like a shifter to me, but not any kind I’ve ever encountered.” She kept thinking about her encounter with Lance. “And he seemed really troubled by whatever was going on inside him. Is it possible he’s a shifter who doesn’t know how to shift or something?”
“I’ve never seen anything like that myself. I’ll ask Slade. He knows more about shifter stuff than I do. But I’ve never heard of any shifter species having an aptitude for fire. I wonder if he’s a hybrid of some kind?”
“I don’t think there’s any way of knowing from this end. Lance was a foster kid. I don’t think he knows anything about his birth parents.”
Silence greeted that statement while Kate seemed to think over Tina’s words. Finally, she responded. “Wow,” she said slowly. “You certainly don’t make things easy, do you?”
Tina chuckled. “Sorry, Kate. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
They hung up after exchanging a few more words and Kate promising to be in touch as soon as she talked things over with her mate. Much as Tina wanted to call Lance right away, she hadn’t really learned anything useful yet that she could tell him. Maybe after Kate talked to Slade and called back, Tina would have the excuse she needed to connect with Lance again.
In the meantime, she had work to do. She had to keep thoughts of her encounter with Lance to a minimum. He was simply too distracting.
Of course, he’d always driven her to distraction. He hadn’t done it deliberately, but he’d been such an enigmatic presence in high school. He’d drawn her eye every time they were in the same room. She’d found him fascinating and attractive way back then. Now? He was even more compelling.
There was something a little lost about him. A bit more hard-edged and troubled. As if he had a shadow over him, not of his own making. She worried for him. He seemed so in need of her help. She was almost afraid of what might happen if they couldn’t figure out what was going on with him. Like maybe, one day, he’d go out into the desert and never return.
She couldn’t allow that to happen. Not to Lance. Not to a man who was clearly a magnet for Others, who grouped around him by choice because he drew them. Like he drew her. There was no other reasonable explanation for the way all those shifters had come into his employ. They didn’t collect around humans like that.
She wished she’d had more of a chance to talk to some of Lance’s employees. She wondered if they even realized what was going on there. What did they make of his power? Were they even aware of it? Did they just assume he was like them, but really private? Or did they know what he was and were there to…what? Protect him? Watch over him? Keep an eye on him?
There were way more questions than answers, right now, and it was all incredibly frustrating. Tina would have to get some answers before she could put the distraction of Lance completely from her mind, but she wasn’t going to get any tonight, and she still had a bit of work to do. Tina turned on her computer and started sorting through the email that had come in while she’d been out fooling around with her car and spending time with the delectable, distracting Lance.