Gentleman Takes a Chance (28 page)

Anything else she might tell him—put a coat on, take care of yourself, remember cars slide on ice and could kill you, remember you too might slip on ice—all of it would sound like she was trying to be his mother, and she didn't think maternal authority would go over any better than paternal.

She stepped back and away from him. She shook her head. She turned and walked towards the diner. At the door, she was almost run down by a wild-eyed Conan headed the other way—but she was done with trying to talk sense into dragons for the night, and she wasn't about to even try with this one. She might as well teach table manners to Not Dinner.

Instead, she went into the diner to meet with a sullen Keith protesting that he had to go, that truly he'd never meant to work today.

"Right, right," Kyrie said. "I'll call Anthony in." She wished Tom would give some thought to mundane considerations like the diner and who was cooking for the night, but that would probably be too much to ask for when he was convinced he could find a way for them to win, singlehanded, against the ancient shifters.

She snorted.

She wished him luck.

Rafiel walked up to stand beside the woman, who was so absorbed reading something printed on cheap, yellowish paper, that she didn't notice even when he stood right behind her, reading over her shoulder.

The pamphlet was the same he'd seen on a couple of phone poles around the diner. Pseudo Marxist exhortation for the rise of the masses by something that called itself the Rodent Liberation Front. He cleared his throat, causing the woman to jump and turn around.

She was much shorter than he was—all of maybe five-two—and had what was probably a whole lot of mousy-brown hair, which had been enhanced by a wash or a dye or something to have brilliant gold streaks. For something that elaborately dyed, it had not been styled at all, just caught back into a braid that was coming apart at the edges. It made her look curiously inoffensive and childlike. The look was completed by a dark brown overcoat, the neck surrounded with fluffy brown fake fur. She wore white socks and Mary Janes. The visitors' book at the aquarium identified her as a fifth-grade science teacher at Stainless Elementary, just around the corner.

She couldn't have been much larger than her students. And how exactly could she hide the fact that she was a shifter from them?

That was the strongest question on his mind, as she smelled, undeniably, unmistakably, like a shifter. How could she hide it? And why was she crying?

He cleared his throat, and she looked up to see that he was looking at her, looming over her in fact. She let out a squeaky scream and looked up at him in complete alarm. Meanwhile, Rafiel went through and discarded many ways to start the conversation. He thought of asking her if she changed, or if she sometimes felt positively like an animal, or . . . a hundred other, quick-flashing and just as quickly discarded ideas.

The problem with all of them was that he couldn't really say any of them to a stranger. Not even to a stranger who, by smell alone, identified herself as one of his kind. He couldn't tell her he was one of her kind, either. It was one thing to question her, and another, quite different one, to let her hold his security in her hands. Particularly as she looked at him out of brown, tear-rimmed eyes.

"Officer Rafiel Trall, ma'am," he said, instead, as politely correct as he could be. "From the Goldport Police Department."

She squeaked again and put her hand in front of her face. Unfortunately this was the hand holding the Rodent Liberation Front pamphlet, and as it trembled in front of her face, it did nothing to make it easier for Rafiel not to mention that she smelled of shifter. But, objectively, he didn't need to reveal to her that he knew. Not even vaguely. What he needed to do was somehow determine when she'd been in the aquarium and what she'd done. If she'd been there with a large group of children, it was highly unlikely she'd either taken the time to dump an unsuspecting adult male into the tank or to steal the keys of the aquarium so she could come back and do it later. And he could check on her movements during the visit by talking to whoever had been there with her. If these things hadn't changed since his school days, every field trip, even every visit to the park, was facilitated not only by the teacher in charge, but by two or three aides and by a number of mothers who, apparently, lacked enough chaos in their lives and must, therefore, pursue it in these groups.

"I'm sorry if this is not a good time," he told the terrified eyes shimmering with tears. "But this is a very routine enquiry. You signed the book at the aquarium on the thirteenth?"

She blinked, as if this were not what she expected at all, and slowly lowered her hand. It was her turn to clear her throat, because, if he guessed right, she couldn't have spoken otherwise. "Yes, yes," she said. "I took my science class to the aquarium. We're studying environmental biology and the pollution of water courses, and how that affects endangered species of fish." Her voice was pipingly small, but he suspected that's how she normally talked.

"How many children would there be in the class?" Rafiel asked, fascinated by her recital of facts seeming calm enough, even as her eyes looked terrified.

She cleared her throat again. "Oh . . . there were two classes together, actually. I . . . I have them at different periods, you know. So it was forty children. Well, at least not exactly children, they're fifth graders, and they get very upset if we call them children, as they should, since they are, after all, almost teens."

"I see," he said. And he did in fact see that this woman probably lived in fear of her students, most of whom would be her height or probably taller than her. She would do anything rather than upset them or offend them. He wondered how effective that was, as a teaching discipline. He consulted his notebook for her name, which was . . . he squinted at it. Marina Gigio. "So, how many other adults were there to help supervise the . . . er . . . teens, Ms. Gigio?"

"Ms. Braeburn," she said. "And Ms. Hickey. They're teacher aides. And then there were five mothers, but I'd have to look at my paperwork to tell you their names. They vary, you know, with each field trip."

"I see," Rafiel said again. He did. That made eight adults to forty kids, leaving it on average to each adult to look after five of the kids. Only he doubted very much it worked that way. For one, the mother volunteers, from what he remembered from his own childhood, were far more interested in their own children's safety and behavior than in any other of the kids'. That was probably worse now, since political correctness and a certain paranoia amid parents would have taken its toll. No sane mother would dare scold or even caution another's child. At the end of that lay lawsuits or worse.

So, in fact, five of the adults would be looking after five or at the most—supposing there were a few siblings between the two classes—seven or eight kids. The rest would be left to the teachers and teacher's aides. And the rest, being fifth graders, would be a definite handful. At that age—Rafiel had cousins—they were still capable of most of the idiocy associated with very small children, but to it they had added the creative mischief of teenagers, from stupid pranks to holding hands or kissing when someone wasn't looking. And the world being what it was these days, holding hands or kissing could also lead to lawsuits.

The woman would have had her hands full. Rafiel nodded to her. "Did you see anything suspicious? Anything that . . . well . . . do you remember the shark area, and the point where you can climb stairs to a sort of platform and look down at the shark area?"

She nodded. "I've . . . I've read about it in the paper. Their finding remains there. Thinking that I let all the young people hang on the railing and look down, and they were all playing, you know—nothing vicious—but shoving each other and saying 'tonight you sleep with the fishes' . . . I couldn't have imagined how unstable it was. If I'd known, I'd never have let them up on it. When I think of what might have happened." She shuddered, or rather trembled, a trembling flutter that made Rafiel think of something he couldn't quite name.

"Well, I understand no one knew it was that unstable," he said. He didn't want to tell her that the area was perfectly stable, but that the safety cover of the tank had been removed. As far as he knew—and he would admit he hadn't looked at the paper much beyond the cryptozoological report on the front page—the newspaper was still reporting both findings of bodies at the aquarium as accidents or at the very worst mysterious deaths. "So you didn't see anyone else there? I mean, besides the group you took in?"

She shook her head. "No. Just the childr—young people. You know how it is when a school group goes to this type of place. The other visitors tend to get out of the way."

"Oh, yes," he said.

"Very considerate of most people, really," she said. "Giving the children a chance to learn."

"Yes," he said, firmly, not wishing to encourage her delusions or provoke a flow of stranger explanations. Instead, he said, "I was just wondering . . . if you saw anything else suspicious?"

"No," she said, with unusual firmness. She darted a look—he'd swear it—at the pamphlet she'd received in the mail, then looked up again. "Definitely not."

If she wasn't lying, then Rafiel would present his shifter form to the nearest vet for neutering. He frowned. He didn't want to do it, but something welled up in him—the meaning of her last name, the look of her flutter, and something else . . . a feeling.

He cast about for something he could claim ambiguously had been a guess at what she might have seen, should it fail to hit its mark. "Mouse, right?" he said at last.

She shriek-squeaked, and her hand darted for the door handle.

But Rafiel's hand was there first, holding onto the door handle, speaking in his best soothing, smooth voice, "It's all right, Ms. Gigio. It's all right. This is not about you. I just wanted to tell you I knew, and that it's all right."

But she turned, backing against the door, her back protected by it, and bared little teeth at him. "How do you know? How did you know?"

He didn't answer. He wasn't going to bare his throat that explicitly to her. He wasn't going to tell her in so many words. But he allowed his eyebrows to rise in an expression that was unmistakably
guess.

"Oh," she said. She dropped the letter and covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh." And then, with something sparking at the back of her eyes. "Are there many of us, then? Around?"

He shrugged. "I know a few. I don't think there're many, no." He had no idea, of course, of how many Ancient Ones there might be. "Less than one percent of the population. Perhaps much less."

"Oh," she said again. "All . . . all the same thing?"

It took him a moment to realize what she was saying, then he shook his head slowly. "Not at all. In fact, I don't know of any two of the same mammals." The closest being himself and Kyrie, for all the good it did them. And Alice had been like him. "There's . . . there seems to be a gamut of shapes, from the most common to the extinct or even mythological."

"Oh," she said again, and let out air, as though deflating, though fortunately she didn't decrease in size as she did it. "I got this letter in the mail. I thought . . ."

"I know," Rafiel said. "I've seen those around the college. I thought they were a student prank."

"I did too," she said. "See them. I saw them outside The George this morning. I often go there for the pesto omelet."

And for the pheromones, Rafiel thought, but didn't say anything. Let her think that her actions were rational and consciously controlled. They needed all the illusions they could hold onto.

"But I thought it was a student prank too," she said.

"It might still be," Rafiel said, though he didn't for a minute believe it. "You know your last name means mouse in Italian. And it's possible."

"Yes, it is," she said, brightening up. It looked like a sudden weight had gone off her. "I mean, it's actually probable. How else would they know? Or . . . Or . . ." She seemed to run out of objections to the idea someone else might know. Rafiel thought this was also an exceptionally bad time to let her know that some shifters could smell out other shifters.

Instead, he just inclined his head, and said, "Will you tell me, then, what you saw at the aquarium? I realize it must have been something you didn't want to talk about to just anyone, perhaps something shapeshifter related?"

She looked up and managed to give the impression she was making complex calculations at the back of her mind. "Well . . ." she said. "Well . . ." And shrugged. "It's just something that could be shifters. I didn't want you to think I was crazy, that is, before I knew . . . you know . . . that . . . that you'd understand."

"I understand," he said. "What did you see?"

"It was in the aquarium area, when it changes over to the restaurant area, you know? It's always really hard to control the ki—young people there, because they always want to stay and eat at the restaurant, no matter how many times you tell them it's an expensive, sit-down place and they wouldn't really be pleased if a bunch of young people—who tend to be rowdier than grown-ups—took over their tables, and, you know . . ." She seemed to realize she was running on and finished lamely, "all that. So I was very busy talking to all of them, and Ms. Braeburn was actually standing by the entrance to the restaurant, herding them past, as it were, to make sure they didn't try to duck inside, and then I saw . . ."

She shook her head. "You know that area has all the huge tanks with the weird stuff? Squids and octopuses, and that huge crab tank, where there's a lens on the bottom, and you can crawl under the bottom and look up?"

He nodded. He hadn't paid that much attention to that area, but he vaguely remembered everything she mentioned.

"Oh, this is going to sound like I'm crazy," she said, and put her hands on either side of her face, as if to keep herself from blushing. It didn't work. A blush showed on her cheeks, on either side of her fingers. It made her, weirdly, very attractive, and Rafiel had to remind himself that when cats played with mice, the result was normally not pleasant.