Guild of Truth 02 - Shield from the Heart (16 page)

“You can do that?” she asked as they made their way back to the station.

He shrugged. “It’s different with each person, but with that guy,” he jerked his thumb in the direction Jente took off, “it’s kind of like watching a movie in fast forward. I was bombarded with a whole bunch of images so I have no idea what I’ve seen but later I’ll suddenly remember something that stood out. Make sense?”

“Kind of.” She pulled her cell out.

“Who’re you calling?”

“Cali. The guy that just attacked you is named Jente. We all thought he’d gone with Vander when he took off but I guess not.” She held her phone up to her ear.

Cali answered on the fourth ring, out of breath. “What?”

Sydney frowned. “Is something wrong?”

“Huh? No. Was there something you needed, Sydney?”

“I wanted to let you know that we just ran into Jente.”

There was a few seconds silence. “What did he want?”

“No idea. Merrick felt someone watching him and when I used my powers he appeared across the street.”

“Which means Vander knows exactly where you guys are.”

A chill went down Sydney’s spine. Did that mean it was only a matter of time before Regina came to take Merrick back? They hadn’t even started to look for Kevin’s journal. She really hoped Merrick would find something pertaining to them in all those impressions he picked up from Jente. They needed to know what Vander was up to.

“Cali!” Felix’s voice echoed through the phone.

“I see it,” she shouted back. There was a crash followed by colorful cursing. “Look, I got to go, Sydney. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Wait.” Sydney threw her hand out even though there was no way Cali would see it. “I need to talk to Felix about Kevin and Collette.”

There was another crash and more cursing. “I’ll have him call you.” Cali hung up on her.

Sydney pulled the phone away and stared at the screen. What the heck was going on over there? She hoped it was nothing serious.

Felix liked to joke that their little vigilante super guild helped rescue animals but she didn’t think he’d ever take on the task if it was presented to him. Maybe Niella had had a Dream about some animal and Felix decided to do something about it.

It wouldn’t be the first time he played hero and she doubted it would be the last. She shrugged it off.

“What was going on?” Merrick gestured to her phone.

“No idea. It sounded like they were chasing some kind of animal, but I have no idea why unless Felix’s pet rat got out again.” She shuddered.

“Don’t like rats?”

“No. In fact I’m terrified of them.”

“Why?”

They’d reached the station and thus her car. Merrick waited with the passenger door open, gazing at her over the top of the car.

“Why don’t I like rats?”

He gave a half shrug. “Why are you terrified of them? There has to be a reason, no one wakes up terrified of something without good reason.”

She climbed into the driver’s seat. Merrick followed suit and buckled his seat belt.

“When I was little I was locked in my aunt’s attic while playing hide and go seek,” she found herself saying as she made her way back toward Felix’s. “She used to have a lot of rats up there but I never noticed before until I was trapped for an hour up there with them.”

She shuddered, remembering how she’d spent the hour screaming for her parents to come get her.

“I’m afraid of sewers,” Merrick offered out of the blue.

Sydney tapped the brake a little too quickly. “The sewer?” She snuck a look and found that he was totally serious.
No way
, she thought. Someone as tough as Merrick afraid of a sewer? It didn’t even make sense.

“It was a dare my senior year of high school. The manhole was wide open, and my friends dared me to go inside. When I did the workers saw me and yelled at me to get the hell out of there. I freaked and fell into the water. It didn’t help that I used to be afraid of mutated crocodiles in the water when I was little.”

Sydney bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. “What a pair we make, huh? You’re afraid of sewers and I’m afraid of rats.”

The dry look he gave her didn’t help with keeping a straight face. “It wasn’t funny.”

“Oh please,” she said while merging onto the freeway. “My story of asking Brandon Archer to the Backwards Dance was way more traumatizing.”

“You want traumatizing?” he challenged. “The first girl I ever liked, Evelyn Clark in third grade, I nailed her in the face with a dodge ball.”

Sydney burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. She pictured a miniature Merrick standing horrified in a schoolyard while the girl of his dreams lay on the ground with a bloody nose. “You’re right, that is traumatizing. I’m surprised you ever got a girlfriend.” That last part was a lie. She was sure he had no trouble in that department. Girls were probably throwing themselves at him as soon as he could smile at them.

“Once I stopped smashing their faces in with rubber balls they became a little more receptive,” he said nonchalantly.

They shared a grin that set Sydney’s heart pounding. Yup, she definitely would have been one of those girls to swoon over Merrick in high school.

She tore her eyes away from him and scanned the rearview mirror. She didn’t see any motorcycles. According to Cali, Jente drove a motorcycle, and Sydney was going to be darn sure he didn’t follow them. She’d Shield all day if she had to. The last thing she wanted was for Jente to report to Vander about any findings on Kevin’s journal. Which reminded her …

“We need to start looking for that journal Vander is after,” she said to Merrick.

He looked up from the case file. “Didn’t you need to wait for Felix to call you back?”

She shook her head. “We don’t have time to wait around if Vander is monitoring everything that we do. I’m going to stop by Felix’s house and see what the heck is going down over there.”

A half hour later she pulled into Felix’s driveway.

As she stepped out of the Yaris she could hear shouts coming from inside. She exchanged a worried look with Merrick. “If it’s Felix’s rat that’s on the loose I’m getting out of here as fast as possible.”

He joined her in front of the door. “Don’t worry,” he said with a straight face. “I’ll protect you.” The corner of his mouth twitched.

Sydney glared at him. “That’s not funny.”

She rang the doorbell.

Cali opened it a few seconds later, took one look at them, and nearly slammed it closed right in her face. “Heeey … Syd.” She winced.

Sydney cringed. “No offense, Cali, but don’t ever call me Syd.”

Cali nodded. “Right. Agreed. So what are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to Felix.” She tried to get a look at the house around Cali but Cali was too tall.

“Oh. Yeah. That.” She looked behind her then back at Sydney. “Give me a second.” She disappeared. “Felix, get your pansy ass out here,” Cali cried into the house.

Merrick’s eyebrows rose.

“You get used to it,” Sydney told him. “Trust me, the more insulting the name the more endearing.”

Felix opened the door. His left arm was wrapped in white bandages that were spotted with red —

“Is that blood?” Sydney grabbed his arm. Felix hissed in pain. She released her grip. “What happened? What’s going on with you guys?” Cali came up behind him. They exchanged looks.

Felix ran his hand through his hair. “We didn’t want to say anything, but remember when I brought your car back from … wherever?”

She didn’t like where this was leading. “Yeah?”

“Well, I might’ve brought something
else
back with it.”

Sydney’s gaze dropped back to the bandage on his arm. “What do you mean you
might’ve
brought something back with it?”

Felix stared at his feet. “See that’s the thing, we don’t really know what it is. We think it’s a cat. But we’re not sure. We can’t tell if it was a cat at one point that just spent too long wherever it is things go when they are Erased, or if that goo your car was covered in mutated it. I didn’t want to worry you about the goo without knowing anything first.”

“Is it safe for her to be driving that thing?” Merrick asked Felix with a jerk of his thumb toward her Toyota.

She remembered the claw marks on the top of her back seats, as well as the dents and scratches that marred the side of her car.

Felix shot Merrick a dark look. “I wouldn’t do anything to endanger Syd’s life.”

That seemed to satisfy Merrick.

“You say you think it’s a cat,” said Sydney. “Do you want me to take a look at it? I usually know a cat when I see one.”

She could read Felix’s reluctance. Felix had a very strong protective streak, one she would never hold against him.

“Sure,” he said at last and opened the door for them.

Sydney swallowed thickly as she followed after him. Merrick placed a comforting hand on the small of her back. There one second, gone the next. She wished he kept it there, then flushed at her own thoughts. Her traitorous eyes sought the hallway they’d made out in. Her whole body grew warm and she pulled her eyes away as Felix led them into his living room.

The room was a disaster.

The sofas were shoved haphazardly away from the middle to clear an open space. Tables were shoved against the walls. Coasters littered the floor along with art supplies and papers.

In the center of the room sat one of Sydney’s medium sized kennels. Atop that was Felix’s extra-large water cooler that they’d brought to the beach numerous times. She could see miscellaneous objects sticking out from the cooler, no doubt to help weigh it down.

“Is that — ?” She pointed to the kennel.

Felix gave her an apologetic look. “We stole one of your kennels when we dropped Luke off with Niella.”

“You left Luke with Niella?”

Felix held his hands palms out. “He was the one who wanted to see the clinic. Niella was going to do some paperwork and offered to give him a tour.”

Luke was interested in her clinic? The thought made her smile. She’d always wanted to hire more help, to expand her clinic, but never got around it.

A crash from inside the cage took the smile right off her face.

The sulfurous smell got stronger the closer she got to the kennel. A small animal paced within.

Felix had taken one of her nicer kennels, which meant little light could penetrate through the thick plastic walls. She hunched over to try to get a glimpse through the door.

Merrick peered into the large cooler and whistled. “What’s with all the weight?”

Cali crossed her arms. Sydney noticed a white bandage on the back of her left hand. “Trust us, that
thing
is fucking strong.”

Sydney swallowed another lump of fear as she crouched closer to the front of the kennel. “Why didn’t you guys tranquilize it?”

Cali and Felix cast each other worried glances. Felix answered first. “We did.”

Sydney waited. “And?”

Guilt blanketed his face. “And,” Felix drew out, “we might have plowed through nearly your entire stock of sedatives last night to keep this thing knocked out. But today the last one we had wore off in eleven minutes.”

“What?” She whipped her gaze up to Felix’s face before dropping it back to the cage. The creature inside didn’t look any bigger than a beagle. She squinted against the shadows inside the container. “Do you have a flashlight?”

Felix dug inside the cooler and pulled out a huge camping flashlight.

Sydney clutched it to her chest. Merrick crouched down next to her. “Do you want me to hold that for you?” he offered, pointing to the flashlight.

She shook her head. “I got it.” She steadied her trembling hands, something she was always good at. You had to have steady hands to be a surgeon and she’d learned at a young age to repress her shakes even while nervous.

She inhaled once and flashed the light inside the kennel.

The creature shrieked. The metal door banged as the thing rushed it.

Sydney fell back. Merrick caught her in his arms, the warmth of his chest on her back a small comfort.

“T-that’s not a cat.” She stared unblinking at the container. A hiss came from the shadowed corner in the far back.

Felix squatted down in front of her. “You’re sure?”

She leaned back against Merrick for comfort. His arms tightened around her.

Cali’s eyes watched them studiously.

Sydney didn’t care, her mind was awhirl with images of what she’d just seen. “I’m all but positive,” she told Felix. “Cats have fur, unless it’s a breed like the Sphynx, but that didn’t look anything like a Sphynx. Its skin was … was discolored.” She didn’t even have a name for the color. Purple? Red? Some kind of maroon? Cali would be better at describing the color — she was the artist. Sydney was just the vet. “And don’t get me started on the anatomy,” she mumbled. The whole body had been misshapen. The arms and legs were too long, the joints in the wrong places and bent at unnatural angles. And the eyes …

Merrick’s arms tightened around her as she shivered. “Could this have been a side effect of some kind of radiation exposure?” Merrick’s breath tickled her ear. She suppressed another shiver and realized that the back of her body was pressed firmly to the front of his and that she could feel his reaction to her nearness pressing against her. On the heels of that thought came the horror that Felix and Cali were witnessing every minute of it.

She wanted to shoot from Merrick’s arms but knew that would draw more unwanted attention than if she slowly extracted herself.

She held her hand out. “A little help here?” she said to Felix with a wiggle of her fingers.

Felix leaned over and grasped her hand, pulling her from Merrick’s lap. “Could that be possible?” he asked.

“What?”

He motioned to Merrick, who was getting to his feet. “The radiation exposure. Could massive amounts of radiation do that to a … cat?”

She stared at the kennel. “I’ve never seen radiation do that outside of movies,” she said truthfully. “Its body is all wrong, Felix. I don’t know what to tell you.”

His expression fell. Cali wrapped her arms around his waist. “Radiation might not be ruled out completely,” she said to him. “You could be Erasing things to Fukushima. Right into the heart of the melted nuclear power plant.”