I Am Lightning (Laurel Defense Series) (6 page)

Mark’s blond hair was slicked back, and he was letting Tandy line his hazel eyes.  He caught me looking and crossed his eyes, sticking his tongue out to the side.

“Don’t move, you goof!” Tandy said and laughed.  I laughed too.  Whatever was happening between us was not happening anymore.  Mark was trying to make it better.

While Tandy finished with Mark’s costume for the evening, I went to get our medallions, the ones Ifan had enchanted for our transportation.  No two medallions were alike.  I chose two similar ones, one with a dragon and one with a lion.  I always tried to take the one with the dragon.  Ifan had gotten creative when he was making them.  Medallions in hand, I
froze.  Someone was standing behind me and I knew immediately who it was.  I didn’t dare draw a breath because I knew his scent would probably make me faint.  How had I gotten so stupid over a male?  But, how could I avoid him?  I had to apologize, and… was he smelling me?

I turned.  He was very close and my heart gave a wild leap inside my chest.  His sapphire blue eyes were studying me.  He made a face, like a half a grimace, similar to the face I’d made when I first saw my eyes all made up.

“Do I look like a raccoon?” I asked, because… yeah…  Robert had to stifle a laugh, but snickered.  I didn’t blame him.  I reached for his hand and put the dragon medallion in it.  “I’ll get another one,” I said and turned again, choosing one with a monkey.  I don’t like monkeys.  Actually, I hate monkeys.  They like to fling their poop.

When I turned again I found him standing even closer.  He held up the medallion, trying to give it back.  I shook my head.  To any bystander our silent conversation must have been like watching two mimes
duking it out.  Somehow we were both able to convey more without words than anybody else could understand.  I smiled, Robert smiled.  He tried once again to trade the dragon medallion for the monkey, but I simply could not see him carrying a monkey medallion, so I refused again.  He put his hand to his chest and bowed in gratitude and I shrugged no-big-deal.  We were inside a bubble, separate from our colleagues yet among them.

“I’m sorry,” I said when I knew that words were needed, my smile dissipating.  “I didn’t mean anything I said.  I am so sorry.  Can you forgive me? 
I’m always apologizing to you, and you have every right not to forgive me, but can you?”

I looked up into his face, trying to read his emotions.  “I think you meant some of what you said, but I think I know why…”

“Let’s go, everybody!” Casimir called out, leading the guards out of the office.  I looked over to Mark, who looked about as scary as me wearing makeup (more, actually) and was signaling me over to him.

I looked up at Robert.  He moved to stand beside me and pushed me forward.  I started walking, but mostly I was aware of his hand near my wings again, even though his touch was now cushioned by my hair.  While he was touching me I sent a sweet shock into him and heard him shiver and clear his throat.  We were behind everybody else.  As soon as they rounded a corner to leave the building, Robert stopped me by pulling gently on my hair.  He came around and blocked my exit.

“Safety first.  If something happens you call me,” he said.  For a moment I thought he would kiss me or something.  Things had gotten way out of control inside my head.  Maybe I needed to find somebody else to exercise my sexual tension.  More like exorcise my sexual tension.

“How am I going to call you?  Mark is the only one with a cell phone…”

“But you are the only one with my blood,” he explained.  He saw my confused face and elaborated.  “Just summon me, like you would your mate.”

I tried to keep my face neutral at the talk of mating and ju
st nodded.  I knew how to do it in theory.  It was a thought infused with my power.  Robert didn’t understand that my power was phenomenal; therefore I could only call him if the situation was beyond grave, and if there was nobody else around but me.  I’d never done it, for obvious reasons other than the fact that I didn’t have a mate.  I’d never even attempted it because I could cause a lot of damage.  A bolt of lightning inside a building?  Instant fire!  Yeah, I wasn’t sure what Robert was thinking, so I hoped I wouldn’t get in any kind of trouble where I would need his help.

We exited the building and I joined Mark.  He looked at me with concern but didn’t say anything.  Ifan was dispatching the partner pairs to separate points in the streets around the club, touching the medallions we carried and saying a quick spell.  Little by little the group dissipated into the night, leaving only Mark, Robert and me.  Robert
was a good choice to join us as a team because he looked human, normal within the human definition of the term.  Brenton looked human too, but his fire demon qualities sometimes shone through, like when his eyes turned orange like a flame.  That wasn’t going to work very well if we were trying to keep a low profile.

Ifan handed us money for cover and drinks, and ID’s to get us inside the club, plus a couple of last-minute instructions.  “Tandy says there will be a line to enter the club, so Robert will help with getting you inside.  Stay together,” he looked at Mark.  “I don’t know if the water sprite was abducted or if she left on her own, but if it’s the former then your partner must be safeguarded at all costs.  Understand?”

Mark raised an eyebrow and I knew exactly what he was thinking: that he always kept me safe no matter what, and circumstances never changed in that regard.  He didn’t say that to Ifan, only nodded.  Robert, Mark and I held out our medallions and we were spirited away to an alley next to the club.

The club was called Midnight, and the line to go in was hope-shatteringly long.  Thank goodness we had Robert to get us inside.  He could influence the humans manning the entrance into letting us cut the line.  I concentrated on the prospective customers in the line, and was pleased to see that we wouldn’t really stand out, even with Mark’s tanned skin.  Robert would stand out in his suit, though, so after taking a peek at the people standing in line, he ducked back into the alley and
magicked himself a new set of threads.  One thing was to watch a regular wizard do this sort of magic, another was to watch a gorgeous vampire do it.  It was mesmerizing.  He went inside the alley in a suit and came out wearing a pair of black jeans, a black T-shirt, boots with a ton of buckles and a few piercings on his ears and eyebrows.  He blinked and winced.

“Those hurt,” he mumbled and touched the side of his brow.  I smiled and the butterflies in my stomach concurred that he could make any fashion look amazing.

Mark grabbed my hand, which gave him a jolt of static electricity, making him jump.  He shouldn’t have touched me while I was thinking of Robert.  “Would you quit it?” he asked in a very low voice.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I said, letting our touch develop into that sweet hum.  I cut it off, though, and quickly because I didn’t want to rob Mark of any of his energy.  He would need it.

Robert led the way and got a human’s attention.  There were two humans in charge of letting people in.  He hypnotized one, then the other in quick succession.  I couldn’t hear what he said, if he even said anything, but I did see his mouth moving.  He turned a little and pointed at us when he was done with the second human.  We approached and the tall human in charge of the rope asked us to show our ID’s to the other.  We did so, he ran the ID’s through a machine, and we were in.  Robert stayed behind.  He would talk to the people outside.

The energy inside was delightful to me.  I loved being surrounded by humans.  They had a low level field of energy that I couldn’t tap, but I could feel it like a caress against me.  With so many humans packing the club, I felt like I was getting a massage.  I was getting into enjoying it when Mark pulled me to the bar.  We found one vacant seat, and Mark told me to take it.  I was to talk to the bartenders.  He would make the rounds around the bar talking to the patrons.

I was in luck.  One of the bartenders approached me with a glint in his eye.  He liked what he saw, of that much I was sure.  I fluttered my eyelashes and gave him my best smile, which was promptly returned.

“What can I get you tonight?” he asked leaning close.

I leaned too.  “This is my first time here.  What do you recommend?”

“For you I have a special dark red wine that you should try,” he winked.  Guys were always into my red hair.  Whatever, I just wanted to get him to talk a little.  I hoped he’d seen the water sprite.  The girl had colored her hair blue, all of it.  That was unusual, even for this club.  She also had a tattoo of… a water sprite… on her bicep, one that she liked to show prominently.  I would never tattoo a lightning bolt on
any part of my body.  I make them, not wear them.  But, to each her own.

The bartender returned with a bottle of wine, and proceeded to uncork it in front of me.  He did it quickly and with a flourish he had a large goblet ready in front of me.

“What’s your name?” I asked as he poured.

“
Ken, and yours?”

“Abby, nice to meet you,” I said over the music.  Everything and everyone was loud, and I started to get into the scene again.

“How did you find out about us?” he asked me, and I knew I had my golden opportunity.  He was asking me how I’d found out about the club.

“My friend Briony was here the other day.  Maybe you saw her,” I said, acting all of eighteen years old.

“I see so many people…” he said, but he was still listening.

“She has shoulder length blue hair, and a tattoo of a water fairy on her whole arm,” I said ru
nning my hand over my left sleeve and referring to the sprite as a fairy, even though I would have punched anybody else who did so.  Humans thought sprites were fairies, so he would never understand that the tattoo Briony had on her arm was of her own self.

Ken smiled.  “I do remember her.  That was an excellent
tat,” he said and watched as I took my money out.  I made a show of it to keep him talking.  I unzipped a small breast pocket and slipped my fingers inside.  He was momentarily mesmerized and then continued.  “She was with some guy, but then the guy left alone.  I think she dumped him.”

“She did,” I laughed.  “He was a jerk,” I said, to cover it up.  The humans were not allowed to know
exactly what had happened.  Briony didn’t exist in the human world.  None of us did.  We had no Social Security numbers, no birth certificates, and no passports.  We had to use magic in order to blend with the humans.  Therefore the magical ID I had in my pocket and the magical driver’s license in my purse, both courtesy of Ifan.

I looked around and saw Mark flirting with two human girls at the same time.  Whatever he had said to me, I could see that he enjoyed being free.  The girls were clearly admiring of him.  He was handsome, even with the makeup.  Ken had to leave me after I paid for my drink, but the guy next to me had listened to our conversation.  He looked my way with a smile.

“This is your first time at this club, yeah?” he asked, turning fully in his seat.

I took a sip of the wine before answering.  It was good, and the alcohol would burn off quickly enough.  “Yeah, I’m new to DC,” I said, trying to remember names of clubs in other states that I could throw at him if he asked.  It was easy enough to pick the name of one in New York City, though I’d never been to any.  Clubs in New York were notorious.

“Where are you from?”  The guy was pleasant and not bad looking at all.  He wasn’t wearing makeup but did have several piercings.  He had cropped his hair very close to his scalp, and I was interested to know how it felt to touch his head.  I kept stealing glances at his hair.  “Do you want to touch?” he asked and smiled widely.

“May I?” I asked.  He took my hand and put it on his head.  It was softer than I thought.  “I’m from New York,” I said while I ran my fingers through his very short hair.

We talked a little bit about New York (of which I knew very little) and DC.  I had to invent that I was a student at American University, because I couldn’t come up with a good enough career to have, other than to say I was a cop.  The flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants bit was new to me, so I excused myself and said I had to use the ladies’ room.

To that effect I left the main floor and went to the bathroom, which was painted all black like the inside of the club, but was significantly brighter inside.  I checked myself in the mirror and found my makeup in perfect order, but my hair was everywhere.  I proceeded to fix it as best I could. 

I stopped what I was doing when I felt a hum of energy coming from the stall for the handicapped.  It wasn’t the same hum of energy produced by humans, and it wasn’t even close to that produced by supernatural creatures.  My inner Sherlock Holmes needed to investigate.  All of the stalls were in use, and people were going in and out, but none went inside the last stall and, in truth, I didn’t feel like going either.  I had to wrestle with the feeling that there was something wrong and make myself approach.  The bad juju only became stronger the closer I got.  Something was not right.

I pulled the door slowly, trying to see inside it.  That stall was darker than the others, and I quickly discovered why.  Inside it, crouching on top of the toilet was the black mass of an elemental.  No human would have seen it unless they were sensitive, but all knew there was something wrong with the stall and wouldn’t approach it.  I doubted that many magical or supernatural creatures would be able to see it either.  The dark mass looked like a four-legged beast, with ghostly sharp claws that were bent over the toilet seat. 
It saw me but didn’t move, only opened its mouth to show what I assumed would me its many teeth.  It was hard to tell because everything about it was shades of black.  I almost ran out, but checked myself.  I had to keep my cool.  The elemental wouldn’t attack anybody or me, but only if I kept calm.  The ghost-like creature stirred while I tried to decipher what type of elemental it was.