***
"Aries?" The voice invaded my consciousness, soft and slowly insistent. "Ari, it's time to wake up now."
I think some part of me realized, instinctively, that the whispered, musical voice belonged to Juliette.
"I'm up," I gasped, ripped from the nightmare. My eyes flew open and, bracing one hand on the ground, I pushed myself into a sitting position. But I didn't feel up. It was too damn early and I'd had too little sleep. I felt like I'd spent the entire night running for my life instead of just reliving that long-ago nightmarish day through my dreams-again.
The sky in the horizon, over the small patch of Grandview that was visible far in the distance to my left, was just now becoming tinged with a delicate pink. The forest was still a sort of smoky pearl-gray shade. Droplets of morning dew shone in the fragile half-light around us and flowering ivy had just begun to open to the day. The familiar woodsy scent filled the air, a heavy, full, tangible thing and slowly I began to find balance. Shoving off the dream, I took stock of my surroundings.
Oh yeah. It was definitely too damn early. After so many months, all the late nights must have been taking their toll on my body because right then the ground was looking pretty good, no matter that it was hard as a rock and forget that the bottom of my blanket was becoming damp with dewdrops.
The fresh air around me had finally shed its midnight chill and I wanted to let myself fall back into the little blanket-nest I'd created and go back to sleep. Juliette cleared her throat and I groaned. "I take it you didn't drop by for a cup of coffee."
"Aranu came to the dome about an hour ago and told us what happened. You have coffee?"
She sounded hopeful and I used both hands to shove my bangs off my face to study her, noticing for the first time that beneath the luminous skin and wide, jewel-toned eyes, she looked pretty tired herself. "No. Sorry, Julie, I don't." I climbed to my feet. "Come on, we can get a cup in town on our way to Claire's."
Juliette paused in glancing warily toward my house. "We're going into town?"
"Yes, we are. There are a few things I need to do this morning."
"Oh." Juliette frowned at my house again. "Right now? It can't wait?"
"No. It can't. Do you see something over there?"
"Huh?" She spun toward me, then glanced back to the cabin and caught her bottom lip between her teeth. "No," she finally said. "Well. Maybe. I didn't want to say anything without knowing for sure but I think I may have seen a shadow at the broken window. It looked like it was moving, but I don't see anything now."
"Let's check it out."
"No!" She grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop before I could get my other leg over the fence. "Please, let's just go."
"Yeah, okay." I nodded after a moment. She looked scared, we needed to get moving, and there was probably nothing over there, anyway. "Can you head to town with me right now? I don't want to take up too much time." Not that I was exactly jumping at the bit to meet the rest of Claire's family, and my stomach kept knotting up whenever I thought of seeing Mike again.
"I'm all yours. We can leave for town right now and with everything we've got to do today, the sooner the better if you ask me-uh-Aries?"
I shifted under the dead weight of the burlap sack and blew a stray hair from my face. "What?"
"Is that the coatyl?"
"Yes."
"You're taking it with us to town?"
"Yep." I started walking through the uneven ground of the forest, leaving Juliette to follow. Predictably, she darted into the tree line and ran to catch up.
"Shouldn't we drop it off with Mark and the others first?"
"No."
"But you can't take that thing to town." She tucked a shiny strand of light brown hair behind her ear and frowned.
"Sure I can." I smiled.
"But-"
"Relax, Julie." I rolled my eyes skyward and veered to the fork on the right side of the path that appeared at the end of our quarter mile-long jog through the uneven ground of the forest.
"If we didn't have to carry that thing with us, we could fly," Juliette grumbled.
"It's not that far of a walk," I said easily. "We'll be there before you know it."
Juliette continued to mutter all the way to the edge of the town square, mostly about coatyl and flying and stubborn nymphs. Then she stopped dead in her tracks. "You can't take that into town." She gaped.
"Why not?"
"Because it's a dead body in a bag?" she practically screeched, then glanced around in horror to see if any passerby had overhead her outburst. "Leave it here," she implored, whispering now.
"No." I adjusted the dead coatyl so that it rode more evenly across my shoulder and briefly considered wearing it across both shoulders like a macabre version of a mink stole. The damn thing wasn't exactly light and the side of my neck and left shoulder were beginning to ache. Only the knowledge that Juliette would probably faint-and then I'd have to carry her, too-kept me from attempting to move the thing. For now, anyway.
"You are not bringing that with us."
"Look, Julie," I sighed, exasperated now, "either you come with or you stay here in the woods. The coatyl and I can handle my business and have coffee without you. Come to think of it," I added, crossing Main Street and heading briskly toward Tenth Avenue, "the coatyl would definitely be a quieter companion."
Juliette made an indignant sound, then was silent for so long that I knew she had decided to stay behind in the woods after all. Who could blame her? Lugging a dead coatyl through the middle of town was a little embarrassing, but leaving it behind had been out of the question. It was too important to leave untended and at the mercy of chance. We needed to study it. Well, I amended, slowing in front of a row of shops with antique brass fixtures on the narrow wood-and-glass doors, Mark and Bob needed to study the coatyl, and probably Claire and Mike as well.
Definitely Mike, I admitted with a sigh. He had been extensively trained in the study of?remains, and while he may not be familiar with the coatyl as a species, he would at least know how to examine it without damaging the body.
The body. I swallowed, hesitating for an instant with my hand poised over the knob of A and D Security. I was about to bring a dead body into a store. Don Blevins, one of the owners of the business, took the matter out of my hands by spotting me. I'd just decided to put off my errands and return to Juliette when Don's thin frame rose from his desk. He crossed the room and appeared on the other side of the door. Then it was too late. He was opening the door and smiling at me.
"Aries. What a surprise. I didn't expect you back for at least another week. Your trip to the coast," he explained at my blank look.
"Oh. I haven't left yet."
"Really?" Don wove us through a maze of electronic equipment and floor model mounted steel doors, leading the way toward a semi-private cubicle near the rear of the store. "I ran into Mark the other day and I could have sworn he said your team was ready to shove off a week ago."
"Nope." I shook my head and gratefully dumped my burden into the chair Don offered, taking a minute to stretch my aching muscles. "We aren't quite ready yet." And the latest developments might set us back, I knew. "Soon though." I smiled at Don, not that he noticed. He was staring fixedly at the burlap sack laid out on the chair. "That's nothing," I blurted. "It's just?some things I'm bringing to Claire. Woman things," I added in a conspiratorial whisper.
Men avoid discussing "woman things" like the plague, didn't they? I glanced down at the bag. One corner had stretched tight when I'd set it on the chair and the outline of a bent leg and a foot was clearly visible through the cloth. Oh, hell. I resisted the impulse to straighten the sacks, instead raising my chin and doing my best to look dignified.
"Uh?right." Don cleared his throat. "So," he said, "what can I do for you this morning?"
"I need a security system out at my cabin," I explained, getting right to the point, wondering if Don would try to convince me yet again to move to town "where it's safe." A few m
onths ago, Don's mother had moved in with him and his wife and so far he hadn't had any luck selling her house on Sixth Street.
It was a nice house, but just looking at it from the outside-which I had, at Don's insistence-it didn't feel like home for me, not the way my cabin was home. I hadn't bothered to tell Don there was no guarantee in town would be synonymous with safe for much longer.
I could hope the fences here would never fail but if they did, especially if Kahn and the Lahuel had really bred some sort of mutant coatyl army, advance warning wouldn't do the town's people much good, anyway. Mark and Bob worried daily over the increasing possibility of riots. No, telling people that we were screwed wouldn't solve anything.
So when Don aimed another none-too-subtle stare at the burlap sack and asked me if I'd had any trouble out at the cabin lately, I promptly pasted a smile on my face, crossed my legs, leaned back like I didn't have a care in the world, and lied.
"No. No trouble. But a woman alone can never be too careful, don't you think?"
If the coatyl in the chair next to mine had been able to talk, I'm sure he would have vehemently disagreed. I continued to smile at Don and made a mental note to add "can't expose my lies" to the running list I'd started halfway between my house and Main Street of "reasons why I'm glad the peeping bastard coatyl is dead."
"What kind of system do you have in mind?" Don slid a yellow, lined pad closer and began to tap a pen idly against the paper. "Or do you want to add reinforced doors and windows?"
I thought for a moment. "All of it," I finally decided.
"All of it?" The pen paused in its rhythmic downward swing and hung in the air for three long beats before Don recovered himself and began to scribble notes on the paper. "It's gonna cost you," he warned a few minutes later.
I shrugged. "How much?"
He named a figure that was hefty without being unreasonable and I nodded easily. I had plenty of gold saved, if it hadn't been stolen from my bedroom by now, and even a few currency cards with decent amounts loaded onto them. Besides, what else did I have to spend it on?
"Good?"
"Good."
"I can probably make it out today to get measurements," he offered.
"No," I said automatically, remembering the shambles my house was in. "Tomorrow would be better." I rose to my feet.
"Tomorrow it is, then. In the afternoon?"
"Yes, that would be perfect. Thank you."
I left the shop a few moments later, feeling more optimistic than I had in several days. Maybe, just maybe, things would turn out okay after all. Hell, at this point I'd even gladly take "not so bad." The cold, logical part of me was well aware, as always, that rarely did we get to choose. Still, I tried to fill my mind with positive thoughts as I completed the rest of my errands at the home store and the Bank of Grandview. The sun was in full splendor now and people were beginning to get out and about, both on foot and in cars.
My baggage was beginning to attract some serious stares and I hurried across the main drag, almost at the edge of town before I remembered I'd promised a cup of coffee to Juliette. Not that she deserved any, I reflected pettily, but I wanted some, so I doubled back to go to the cafe I'd passed a few shops down-and ran straight into Aranu.
I hit his brick wall chest with enough force to dislodge the coatyl and almost drop it into the street. Aranu's hands came up in a single fluid motion, one gripping my upper arm to steady me and the other catching the bag and taking it from me. My back appreciated the gesture even if my pride wasn't quite sure what to make of it.
"Hey, give me that." I frowned. "And what are you doing here? We're supposed to meet at Mark and Claire's."
"Yes, we were," he agreed, dodging the grab I made for the bag. "You're late."
"So? I told you I had things to do this morning."
"Yes, you did," he said conversationally and began striding down the sidewalk toward the woods.
"Fine, take the damn bag." I shrugged, remembering now why I had been so short-tempered with Aranu yesterday at patrol switch-he was a high-handed bastard.
"Hey, where are you going?" He finally noticed I wasn't following his lead, that I was walking in the opposite direction.
"I'm going to get coffee for Juliette and me."
"You're joking. Aren't you forgetting something?"
"Why would I be joking? Oh wait, where are my manners? Would you like a cup?" I asked, stomping down the sidewalk without waiting to hear his response.
"No, I do not want a cup of coffee."
"Suit yourself."
"Aries."
I twirled around, walking backward now, to find that Aranu had come to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk. He did not look happy. Well, too bad. "What?" I demanded when he continued to stare at me in mute irritation.
"You can't leave me holding this thing while you stop off for coffee. And we have an important meeting, which, as you already know, we are now late for."
I shook my head and spun around to face the door to the coffee shop. "Hey, don't blame me. You're the one who insisted on carrying the bag, and if you're in that much of a hurry, then go," I tossed over my shoulder.
"This is a serious situation," he pointed out.
"You don't think I know that?" I swiveled to fix him with a fierce glare.
He had the good grace to look sheepish, even though the look, and probably the feeling, was fleeting. Within five seconds his face looked as stern as it always did.
"I apologize."
"That's the best you can do?" I raised a brow. "I didn't ask you to come here this morning and?" I waved a hand between us, "and do your take-over thing."
"My take-over thing?" He frowned and seemed genuinely puzzled.
"You don't even know you do it, do you?" I sighed. "If that isn't just like a damn man."
"I'm trying to help you." He shifted his immense form, clearly impatient to get going already.
"I don't need your help." My eyes narrowed on him when he opened his mouth. Long moments stretched between us and I wondered if he would have the gall to bring up the one time when I had needed his help. If he did I thought for sure I'd have to kill him.
"I only meant to point out that we are short on time this morning."
"Five minutes will not make or break the day, Aranu, and I intend to be awake and alert for this meeting. If the others have any sense they're using this time to drink some coffee, too. See you at the meeting."
"I'll find Juliette and wait for you." He sighed.
"Like I said, suit yourself." I let the door bang shut in my wake and marched up to the counter. "Three extra large coffees to go, please. Two black, one with light cream and three sugars." Not that either of them deserved it.