Initiation (26 page)

“I don’t know. I just slipped, slid, and rolled down the mountainside, and then I fell off a ledge. When I came to, I was blindfolded and gagged. I don’t even know how long I was out for.”

“You’ve been missing for two days. We covered for you the best we could, but we were just about to report it to The Smelt when that bird turned up. Then, we decided to deal with it on our own.”

“Two whole days? Wow! O-M-G, what about Faustine? Jeez, she must be freaking out!”

“She’s fine. We told her you’d been asked to work on a project and that Quinn would be mentoring her. He’s with her at the moment, but he’ll come by when her class starts.”

“That’s good. Did you guys take care of the bird?”

“Sort of.”

“Meaning?”

“We chucked it into one of the lower storage rooms, actually one that was two doors from where he put you. We tied him up, figured you might want to talk to him before we get rid of him for good.”

“I was in a storage room? How did you find me?” Those rooms were deep in the lower basement area of the building where all kinds of stuff was stored, things no one wanted, but kept as a just-in-case. A hoarder’s paradise.

“The eagle came up to Quinn in the dining hall and handed him a bunch of pictures of you. The pix showed you tied down and looking pretty beat up. He told Quinn that he wanted him, Sienna, and Jewel to help him spring his pack from their confinement quarters. Quinn tried to explain the stupidity of his plan, like that the school would just have them thrown back in. Mason just shrugged and said he had a plan. Anyhow, we pretended to go along with it, and Quinn followed him to you eventually. The rest was easy. I’m sorry it took us so long.”

“Mason, eh? Probably the same Mason whose room we checked out–the really messy one. I could have sworn that the bird was a girl. But Jewel was right. I smelled him when he came to talk to me. He told me that there wasn’t any agenda, but I don’t believe him. I bet you Tad’s behind this somehow.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. So, we still need the files to figure out what’s going on. At least Tad’s.”

“Yes. And I should talk to Mason, or at least pluck some feathers off him.” It suddenly hit me where I had heard the name Darley before–Mason Darley, I was sure of it. Was it just a coincidence?

“What do you want to do first?” Jagger smiled, touching my fingertips with his.

“Well, I want to have dinner with Faustine, so why don’t we go see the bird first? We should be able to fit that in before dinner, right? Did you manage to find out where the files are kept?”

“Yes, Quinn got that info off The Smelt.”

“Really? He did that for me?” I was touched. I knew Quinn hated possessing female bodies. Young or old.

“Yep, and here he is.” Jagger pursed his lips.

 
“Babe! You’re up. And you look great.” He came over and hugged me. “You really had me scared. How the heck did that bird manage to get hold of you?”

“Uh, I don’t really want to talk about it.” I guessed Jagger hadn’t told him about the whole walk and chase to the mountains. Or maybe he had. Some of it. I just couldn’t be bothered going back over all of it.

“Fair enough for now, but you’re going to have to tell me later. I’m just glad to have you back in one piece. We have the bird locked up, so you should be safe now.”

“Yeah, Jagger told me. Thanks, Quinn. You’re the best.”

“I know.” He laughed. “Anyhow, are you feeling up to going back to your room?”

“Yeah, but can we go see Mason first? Jagger told me all about him.”

“You sure? I mean, he’s not going anywhere. And you’ve been through a lot. You should probably rest up for a bit longer.”

“Yes, I’m sure, and I am totally fine now. Plus, I want to see Faustine after her classes, so I’d like to get it over and done with.”

“Okay, sure. Jagger, are you coming?” Quinn asked.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

I skipped along between Quinn and Jagger, enjoying being able to move again. I wanted to bounce the Darley thing off Jagger, but decided to wait and do it in private. We made our way down to the basement area, which was creepy, even for a demon. Access to that part of the school was restricted. Jagger had a key, since he was the student council president, but I wondered how the shifter scum had managed to get into the area. I guessed I’d get to ask him soon enough. I could hardly contain my excitement as Jagger unlocked the door to the storage room. I wasn’t sure if Mason would be in his eagle or boy form. I hoped for the latter–much easier to question.

I gaped. We all did. Sitting bound in a chair in the middle of the room was a pretty girl. Her big blue eyes stared at us with a sad expression. Her face was streaked in teary mascara lines. The brunette was petite, probably not more than five-foot-two. She was the girl I had seen in the corridor with the rest of her pack. She was the real eagle.

“What the fuck? Where did Mason go? Who are you?” Quinn demanded.

“I’m Mason,” she replied timidly.

“No, you’re not,” Quinn stated, but his voice had softened.

“Let me go,” she begged.

Quinn arched an eyebrow at me.

“Get a grip, Quinn! This is the right girl. I told you it was a girl. Let me deal with it.” I stomped over to the chair and yanked a fistful of her hair right out of her scalp.

She yelled in agony, transforming instantly into the evil bird that she was, minus some feathers where I had pulled out her hair.

Quinn muttered, “Okay, so now we know it was her, but I’m a bit confused. Jagger and I locked up a boy in here. Didn’t we?”

Jagger nodded.

“And now we can’t question her.” Quinn sighed. “Not until she transforms back. I say we split and come back later. We can’t talk to a stupid bird.”

I nodded, and we made our way to the door.

“No, stop!” a male voice said.

We turned around again. Sitting bound in the chair was… a boy. He was the boy Jewel had pointed out in the surveillance video. What the heck was going on? Were we on a Criss Angel show?

I
t was good to have some down time with Faustine after that circus. When I picked her up from Dax’s room, I could tell she’d missed me because she threw her arms around me as soon as she saw me. We made our way to the mentors’ lounge for some dinner. I had asked the boys to make themselves scarce; I needed girl time. To make it even more fun, I’d asked Martha, Sienna, and Jewel to join us. Chun was at her test and couldn’t come.

After we sat down, Martha began telling us all about the best shopping scene in Dallas, going on about Highland Park endlessly, describing each store in minute detail. She seemed to have a personal shopping assistant in every store, and she insisted that if we ever shopped there, she’d hook us up with them. She almost made Dallas sound like more of a shopping paradise than Paris. Faustine had been right about her; she didn’t stop talking, not even to take a breath. Still, she was entertaining; her accent and dramatic mannerisms kept everyone hanging onto her every word.

Even though I tried really hard to join in, my mind kept wandering to Mason–the gynandromorph eagle. I’d never heard of the phenomenon, so I’d googled it when we got back to my room. It was simply an organism that possessed both male and female characteristics. That in itself was pretty hard for me to get my head around, but the fact that, for Mason, it seemed to mean that when he transformed into his human form, it could be as a girl or a boy. It was cool and totally creepy at the same time. Anyhow, it explained things somewhat. My mind boggled as to how he’d learned to cope with it, or perhaps he hadn’t. It totally blew my mind that he could transform from an eagle into either a human boy or girl. I wondered if he could control it. Come to think of it, he must have had some control, as he’d very conveniently managed to give us that show in the storage room.

The expressions on Jagger’s and Quinn’s faces after the transformation had been priceless, but not as hysterical as when we googled
gynandromorphy
. Given that we were a bunch of paranormals who lived in a world with many alternatives, including all kinds of strange hybrids, you’d think we’d have no issues swallowing that possibility. But I couldn’t get my head around it, and I had so many questions. Could he have kids? How did it all work?

I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get any answers from him anytime soon. He was way too angry with me. Maybe it was just really simple. It could be that girlie Mason had a thing for Tad. And then I got his beloved locked up. Whatever.

We’d left him down in the basement, tied up, after promising we’d be back with some food later. The right thing to do would be to hand him over to the student council, but I wanted to talk to Octavia first, in case we could use him as a witness for our case. I wasn’t certain, but I thought that if we named him as one of the perps, we wouldn’t be able to put him on the stand.

 
“Cordelia, don’t you think that would be awesome?” Martha nudged me.

“What?”

“That we all meet up in New York when Faustine gets out of here. Her mom can get us into all the runway shows during fashion week. That would be so awesome.”

“Yes, that sounds like fun. I’m in!”

“Wonder if you’ll be married by then,” Jewel teased.

“What?” Faustine gaped. “A royal wedding? I can’t wait. When?”

“Whoa! Hold your horses. I’m not planning to get married for a long time. A girl’s got to have her fun before she settles down.” I laughed.

“Settle down? What kind of a sorry demon are you?” Martha giggled. “Settling down is for humans. No offense, Faustine.”

“None taken.” She rolled her eyes. “I am a half demon as well–”

“You wouldn’t believe how many lovers my mom and dad have had over the years…” Martha interrupted, and blabbed on for the next half an hour. Her parents had certainly lived a colorful life, and that was just the part she knew about.

Knew about
. What did I actually know about my own parents? Just what they had told me, that they had synched. But did that mean that they didn’t have lovers? That would be almost unheard of in the paranormal world–even a bit abnormal.

I spotted Jagger coming into the lounge. He had asked me to ditch Quinn, but why? Did I really have to dump Quinn simply because I had synched with Jagger?

Jagger waved at us as he rushed past our table. Why did he make me feel so lightheaded?

“Oh, I wonder why he’s in such a rush?” Sienna mused.