“But you know as I do that changeling dragons are rare, even in the Celestial Kingdom,” Dante remarked. “There are not many other immortals that would have the power to hide from other Stars.”
I shuddered. Dante and I were thinking too much along the same lines tonight; it wasn’t comforting.
“Why do you think I suspect Draco?” Elysian shot back. “He was more powerful than me, even before we were cast away.”
I decided it was time to join the conversation as an active voice rather than an active eavesdropper.
“Elysian has a point,” I said, stepping out from behind.
“Kid,” Elysian greeted. He lost his grin, and the sudden surprise was clearly written on his scaly face.
After giving him a glowering look, I turned my attention to Dante. “Asteropy told me that she was taught how to conceal herself from us, and she said Orpheus had learned too. They have a new master here. We’re looking for him. That is,” I said pointedly, “if we’re not looking at him.”
“I’ve been looking for the Sinisters, too,” Dante insisted, “while protecting you and controlling their influence over the city.”
“Then it’s in your best interest to tell us what you know and what you’re really doing,” I said. I held up the paper I’d printed from Cheryl’s computer. “Tell me why your company, Otherworld, is getting its payday from the Skarmastad Foundation.”
If looks could kill, I would have been dead at that moment; Dante looked flustered and angry. “How did you get that? Who told you?”
“I have my sources,” I said. “Namely, your son, whose getting treated with some strange medicine at the hospital, also from the Skarmastad Foundation. He has a copy of this in his email.”
“I told you to leave him out of this!” Dante roared.
“Leave him out of this so you can keep poisoning him with Star blood?” I asked. “After you forced a Sinister to take the soul of one of his best friends?”
I was really enjoying making Dante angry. After being his captive, it felt nice to have the roles switched. The fact that he’d run out on Mikey and his mom when Mikey was younger just made it sweeter.
I’ll have to tell him about this later.
Dante struggled against Elysian’s hold again, this time violently.
“Give up,” Elysian muttered. “I’d hate to crush you now that the kid’s ready to get some answers.” I met his yellow-green gaze, and I knew what he was thinking of—the one time he captured Starry Knight, I demanded she go free in an effort to win her trust.
I don’t need Dante’s trust.
Considering he’d run out on his marriage vows and his family, I didn’t think he had much credibility to begin with.
“Fine,” Dante muttered. “Fine. The Skarmastad Foundation is paying SWORD’s bills. They’ve been around since the city was founded, so they worked out a deal with the city to give funds for different projects, so long as they were approved and available for their organization. One of the deals was for SWORD to come in and keep tabs on the demon monsters after the meteorite smashed into the city.”
“So it’s like a pay-to-play scheme?” I asked. “Only the Foundation is calling the shots instead of the politicians?”
“They’re a real thing,” Dante assured me, his tone disgusted. “Why do you think there are so many conspiracies about it?”
“I thought they were a science-based organization.”
“To find the answers to the secrets of the universe,” Dante reminded me. “They didn’t believe science gave a complete picture to the world. It helps with the physical, but there is plenty that’s real that you can’t see.”
“Like love,” I muttered, thinking briefly of Raiya.
Dante huffed. “Sure, kid, whatever.”
“Why is SWORD giving Mikey Star blood medicine?” I asked. “It’s not working to heal his broken heart at all.”
“SWORD is not giving him anything,” Dante hissed. “I am.”
“Why?”
“Because, as long as he’s in the hospital, Stefano, the media, the Sinisters, and even SWORD can’t get to him,” he explained. “At least, not easily. He’s safe there.”
“So you do care about him?”
Dante glared at me. “Next question.”
I frowned, but let it slide. Some things were hard to admit, even to yourself. “Why are you protecting me? And why are you doing this as you work with Sinisters like Taygetay?”
“I told you before. If something happens to you, we’re all done for.” Dante struggled again. “That’s the only reason I’m answering your questions right now, by the way.”
“What about Taygetay? Why did you set up Mikey?”
“I didn’t set him up. I took an opportunity,” Dante told me through gritted teeth. “I still have a job to do here, and if I don’t, things will get worse. For you and Mikey, both. So despite what you think, you should be grateful for my interference.”
I didn’t know what to think about that.
For the moment, I decided not to tell him about the time stop. I glanced at Elysian, before asking, “Do you know about Elysian’s brother?”
“No,” he answered, simply and surely. “I don’t. I didn’t, before he brought it up.”
“Do you have any more questions, Ely?” I asked.
“No.” He sighed. “I guess not.”
“Then let’s go. We don’t need his help anymore.”
Dante snorted as Elysian dropped him. He straightened out his coat and stuck his hands defiantly in his pockets. “We’ll see about that, Wingdinger. We’ll see about that.”
Elysian and I watched as he got into his car and left.
“You’d think he’d be worried that we would follow him in the car, especially after we found their black site before,” Elysian muttered.
“Yeah,” I agreed. Then I turned on him. “Why are you so worried about Draco now? I don’t think it’s something you should let SWORD know about.”
Elysian shrank down to a smaller size as we stood there. “Ever since we’ve been back from Alora’s Star,” he said, “I’ve been wondering about him.”
“Do you miss him?”
“We all miss people we love, and the people we used to love are hardly the exceptions,” Elysian said bitterly.
I thought about what Raiya told me about Orpheus—how he’d been my friend, and how he was different before Alküzor enticed him into falling.
“I guess that’s true,” I murmured. “Why did you talk to Starry Knight about it?”
“She knows more than we do,” Elysian replied. “She was able to hang onto to a lot of her memory when she fell. She told me that she didn’t know of it, but she’d look into it and let me know if she heard anything.”
I frowned. “When did you ask her?”
“I asked her weeks ago,” Elysian said. “Not too long after Thanksgiving. She wasn’t able to give me any new information.”
“Huh.” I sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Elysian shrugged. “It wasn’t completely relevant,” he admitted. “And I’m still not sure it is. But Orpheus, if he did indeed hide his intentions from Aleia, and if the remaining Sinisters are hiding from Time and our detection, it is highly unlikely that they learned about that ability from just anybody.”
“I’ll agree with you there,” I said.
“Thanks for backing me up,” he grumbled.
“No problem.” I smiled at him. “Come on. We learned some good things from Dante.”
Elysian snorted. “Assuming he was telling the truth.”
“I guess.” I frowned. “I wouldn’t mind if he was,” I admitted. “It would be nice to see he still cares for Mikey.”
“Enough to sneak Star blood medicine into him?” Elysian sighed. “I swear, humans are so funny. They’ll destroy justice to carry out justice, they’ll redefine truth until it’s nothing but lies, and they’ll love people in the most hateful ways.”
“Life is full of weird st
uff,” I said. “But the Star blood shouldn’t hurt him, right?”
“It likely won’t have any effect on him,” Elysian said. “Especially if Starry Knight said she couldn’t heal him to begin with.”
“Good to hear.”
“Still, I’d keep an eye on him. Just to make sure.”
I nodded. “I’ll go visit him more often,” I said.
“You might want to make sure your friends are with you. I’d hate to think Dante would figure out who you are.”
“I’d hate to think that too,” I agreed. “Especially since that’s the assignment the mayor gave him earlier tonight.”
“The mayor?”
“Yeah, I overheard Stefano talking to him earlier. He’s going just a bit crazy. He’s desperate, after all these months, to move the Flying Angels case along. He went so far as to threaten to remove Cheryl from the case.”
Elysian snickered into his claws. “I’d almost pay to see that.”
“That’s part of the reason I’m hoping Dante wasn’t lying,” I admitted. “He said to Stefano earlier it was likely Cheryl could get the truth out of him.”
“Hopefully he was right, and the hospital will be able to keep Mikey out of more harm.”
“I can only hope,” I said. “There’s little that can stop my mother if she wants something badly enough.”
“She is a determined woman,” Elysian agreed. “Which I’m sure you’ll remember if we don’t get back to your house for curfew soon.”
“Good point,” I said with a laugh.
☼11☼
Stolen
It was only later in the week that I realized I’d forgotten to check in on Logan at the observatory.
To be fair, I had a lot on my mind. As the week crept to a close, I began to fear that Mary would be here forever; while she was certainly nice enough, and certainly helpful, my SATs were coming up, and I was supposed to study for them (“supposed to” being the operative phrase there). And for some reason, I wanted to study with Raiya for them. I didn’t know why, exactly, that it appealed to me.
In addition, I had regular schoolwork (which, okay, was honestly a joke for me), a detention, swim meets, and regular social niceties, even if I did them with a surprising amount of disdain. (Who would have thought that girls trying to flirtatiously banter with me would feel so terrible?)
“Hey, Dinger,” Jason called after me as I headed out of the school. “Hold up a sec.”
“What’s up?” I asked as he finally caught up. “You want to study for the SATs with me, too?”
Jason grinned. “I wouldn’t say no, especially if it’s true that Laura’s is going to be joining you.”
“Laura?” I raised a skeptical brow. “Gwen’s best friend, Laura Nelson?”
“Sure,” Jason said. “She’s hot.”
“I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” I muttered, realizing for the first time how stupid that sounded. “But I’m going to disappoint you on that matter. She’s not in any study group with me, despite what the rumors say.”
“Too bad.” He laughed. “I should have guessed when Via was the one who said it. Anyway, I was wondering if you were doing okay.”
“Drew ask you to check up on me?” I waved him off. “I’m okay. Gwen and I weren’t going anywhere. I’m sorry she got sick, but I’m not devastated.”
“Oh, I know about that,” he said. “But I was actually wondering if it was the mayor who was giving you a hard time. I know that he’s been pretty hard on my dad.”
“He has been acting weird,” I admitted, more to myself than Jason. “Why? What happened?”
“Right before Christmas, someone stole the meteorite,” Jason said. He looked at me quizzically. “You didn’t hear?”
“No.” That was probably one of the “losses” he was talking about with Dante the other night.
“Oh, well, supposedly some teenagers stole the meteorite a couple days before Christmas,” Jason explained. “The police thought it was just one of those senior pranks. I mean, who would steal a meteorite, right?”
“Yeah.” I laughed, but I felt hollow inside.
“Dad said Mayor Mills was having a fit over it.”
I nodded. “I hadn’t noticed,” I lied easily enough. “But then, I’ve been studying.”
“Even at work?” Jason asked.
I grinned, my first genuine one in some time. “You know it,” I said. “Come on, it’s not like it’s hard work. It’s just busy work.”
“With your brain, I don’t even know why you study at all,” Jason admitted.
“Same reason I practice football and swimming,” I said. “So I’m the best.”
Jason laughed. “I did miss you some on the football team this year,” he admitted. “But not much.”
“I figured.”
“Are you going to play next year?” Jason asked.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly, surprising him as much as myself. “I’ll have to see about it when the time comes.”
“As much as I’d love to win a Heisman,” Jason said, “we need a new quarterback.”
“I liked being the wide receiver,” I said.
“Oh, totally. I meant me.” Jason grinned. “I think I’d make a great quarterback.”
“I’ll campaign for you if it comes to a vote,” I said. “I got to head out and get some work done.”
“Cool. See you, man,” Jason said, waving as he began to wander away.
So the meteorite has been stolen.
Why?
I mean really, why would someone steal a hunk of space rock? And right before Christmas? It’d been in Apollo City since the beginning of my sophomore year.
Sure, Stefano was upset. He was the one who had been using Otherworld to track the town’s radiation patterns or whatever that were syncing up with the meteorite. I could understand the loss of revenue … assuming he’d been making any money off of it. Well, he was certainly sinking enough money into it, I thought.
Or the Skarmastad Foundation was, anyway. They might’ve picked up that bill, too, especially since the meteorite was being held in the Lakeview Observatory, and they owned that.
A thought struck me as I glanced up toward Rachel’s.
Could Raiya or Orpheus have taken the meteorite?
I dismissed the idea almost immediately. Raiya had been with me at the marina when St. Brendan arrived, and she didn’t have the meteorite at that point. It would have been too large for her to hide.
The same thing was true of Orpheus.
Although, he could have taken it and given it off to one of his wards. Asteropy or Elektra might have it. Or even one of their seemingly endless minions. Hadn’t the team and I stopped a demon or two from stealing it before?
Aleia had mentioned once, I recalled, that some demons might want the meteorite for its potential power.
Turning away from Rachel’s, I made my way toward the observatory. I decided to go and investigate for myself. It was the only prudent thing to do; when you are hiding information from the rest of the world, it isn’t hard to have high standards for who to trust.
I also had a new appreciation for who I was, and what that meant for the people in my circles of association. So I pressed the mark under my wrist and transformed, knowing Logan was more likely to open up to Wingdinger than he was to Hamilton.
The observatory was still open to the public, but, surprisingly, I managed to slip in unnoticed; that’s hard to do when you’ve got a pair of fire-flaming wings and a feather-crown around your forehead.
The light was on in Logan’s office. Immediately, I headed over. I knew it was best to eliminate Logan from a relatively short list of unlikely suspects.
“Hello?” I popped my head in, only to see that the room was empty.
After a moment of making sure I was in the clear, I waltzed in and headed for his desk.
If I can go through Cheryl’s files and survive, I can go through Logan’s.
I peered at the various file
s, stacks of papers with numbers and charts and symbols I didn’t even recognize. Research, I concluded easily.
I opened the drawers in the small cabinet behind me, looking for anything to indicate finances or investors or the government.
It didn’t take me long to find something.
A letter fluttered to the front of my fingers, announcing changes in security procedures. I perused it, skimming through the notice to see if it held anything substantial.
And there it was.
“All security clearances have been updated to include new members of our security team, contracted workers from Otherworld, Inc., to work in conjunction with local law enforcement and government officials,” I read aloud. “The Skarmastad Foundation welcomes this addition to our staff and we ask our current researchers and employees to … blah-blah-blah, lots of stuff. Can’t keep it short, can you?”
Glancing at the date, I saw it was shortly after Raiya and I sealed away one of the minions who tried to come and take the meteorite.
It was good to know Dante hadn’t been lying to me all those months ago. He had placed security personnel around the observatory after it was attacked.
But someone managed to steal the meteorite anyway.
Well, their security can’t be that great if I managed to get in here without being stopped.
“I’ve been waiting for you to come.”
I jolted upright and twisted around, with my sword out and ready for battle; the adrenaline rush was haphazardly tempered as I realized it was Logan.
“Logan.” I put my sword back down by my side. “You shouldn’t scare me like that.”
He smiled at me, and I could see more of the resemblance to Lee, his brother and Rachel’s husband. “Sorry. I was just getting a refill on my coffee.” Logan held up his now-full coffee cup with a sheepish look on his face.
“Is that from Rachel’s?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He grinned. “So you know about my sister-in-law’s coffee shop?”
“It’s famous,” I said with a shrug. “I know the mayor gets all his coffee from it, too. Rachel has a big order from them for City Hall.”