Ripper (The Morphid Chronicles Book 2) (27 page)

“Don’t apologize. You can always tell me anything that’s on your mind. We’re friends, right?” She nudged him back in a teasing way.

“Are we? Really?” Jacob stared up at her. The hopeful expression in his eyes cracked her heart into more than just two pieces.

“Of course! Hey, do you think you’re staying in New York?” Sam didn’t want him to disappear again.

“I guess. Unless something else gets into Dad.” He gave his father a sideways glance and seemed relieved to find him eating.

Sam wanted to say that she could help them, but she wasn’t sure if that was possible. Not until . . .

“What is it?” Jacob asked when she stood up abruptly.

“I’ll be right back. Don’t leave, please. Don’t go anywhere until I get back.”

Jacob’s eyes widened in surprise at her strong request. “Oh . . . okay.”

Suddenly, she had to see Elizabeth, find out what destroying what was left of her broken vinculum had done to her. Sam refused to believe it had accomplished nothing. Her instincts wouldn’t have driven her to excise her vinculum unless it was for the best.

Or would they?

Chapter 33 - Brooke

Standing by the kitchen island, Brooke spread Nutella over a piece of strange looking bread. “I bet you haven’t even heard of Wonder Bread.” They didn’t have peanut butter! Nutella was okay, but why did they act all weirded out when she asked for a PB&J sandwich.
Europeans!

“Wonder Bread?” Calisto asked as she layered moldy-looking cheese on top of her bread.

Brooke wrinkled her nose. “Never mind.” She poured herself milk from an honest-to-god glass bottle.

The old fogies had sent them to the kitchen to find something to eat while they
conferred.
Brooke had followed Calisto and Joao along, glad to finally put something into her growling stomach. Ashby and Perry had trailed behind, talking in hushed voices and looking downright suspicious—something they were still doing, huddled together at the kitchen table.

Calisto noticed her watching them and followed her gaze. “What do you think they’re planning?”

Brooke looked up at Calisto. It was annoying how all these Morphid women where taller than her. Brooke was used to looking down at most girls, and she was starting to miss that.

“It’s not hard to guess.” Brooke figured there was no point in playing dumb. It wasn’t as if Ashby was trying to hide his secret plotting, anyway.

Brooke looked suspiciously at her finished sandwich, wondering if bread that dark could taste any good. The refrigerator beckoned, but she didn’t want to look for anything else, afraid she would find a live octopus or something worse. Only God knew what Portuguesians? Portuguenians? or whatever ate. If they’d been Brazilian, at least she would have been able to pronounce that, but someone had mentioned they were originally from Lisbon.

Joao planted a bowl and box of cereal on the island’s wooden surface. “I just met the bloke and I already hate him,” he said, eying Ashby.

“So you guys are from Portugal, but you sound British. How does that work?” Brooke suspiciously eyed the box of cereal. She didn’t recognize the brand or the flavor.

“We go to school here.” Calisto took a bite of her sandwich and licked her lips. “Always have.”

Brooke pinched a small piece of bread off her own sandwich. She wasn’t brave enough to take a big bite. “So, no offense, but is your mom always
that
bitchy?”

Calisto frowned at the question, but Joao rolled with it.

“You have seen nothing yet. I wish Pai was here. Her mood always improves when he’s here,” he said.

“Pai? Is that your dad?”

He nodded.

“Where is he?”

“Off doing Mother’s bidding at some MORF location or another.”

Brooke ate the small piece of bread and decided the stuff tasted like over-the-counter antiseptics.

“Mother is not bitchy,” Calisto argued. “She cares and she’s loyal. Danata Rothblade tried to have her killed when she refused to serve on her council. Mom stayed loyal to Roanna, the rightful Regent, all these years. She always suspected foul play and she was right.”

“Yeah, yeah, so she was, and all the more insufferable for it.” Joao poured cereal in his bowl. It looked like bird seeds and smelled distinctly of cow feed.

“Don’t you guys have any normal food?” Brooke asked in a petulant whine.

Calisto and Joao looked at each other’s food and frowned.

“What’s wrong with our food?” Calisto asked.

Joao sighed, walked to a pantry and produce a bag of Cheetos. “This what you mean?”

“O-M-G!” Brooke snatched the bag from his fingers and, after hugging it, pecked a quick kiss on Joao’s cheek. She’d never been happier to see Chester Cheetah in her entire life. She tore into the bag and crunched Cheeto after Cheeto.

Joao wiped his cheek. “
W-T-F
?! Just
F-Y-I
, I have a girlfriend, and she’s tired of human girls trying to put their moves on me.”

He was making fun of her because she liked acronyms? So what? Big deal.

“Oh, please, don’t flatter yourself.” Brooke’s eyes flicked to Perry for a moment. Joao was good looking, sure, but Perry was more her type. She did love green eyes, and although Joao’s were nice, Perry’s were simply gorgeous, surprising her with different shades every time she looked at him—not to mention with different silent messages, not all of them decent.

If only . . .

Brooke huffed and thought of abandoning Calisto and Joao to go talk to Ashby about Sam, except something told her that excluding them would be a bad idea.

If the siblings were in charge of watching over them—and Brooke suspected their mother had set them to the task—it would be best to have them on their side. Not that haughty Ashby seemed to realize that, the way he was carrying on with his counter-productive murmuring and secretiveness. Didn’t he see he was making Calisto and Joao defensive? Making them more likely to run to
mummy
to spill whatever beans there were to be spilled?

Sheesh!

For the next few minutes, Brooke’s gaze went from one pair of Morphids to the other, judging while she crunched on her snack.

Joao glared at them between bites of bird-seed-looking cereal, the intensity of his scrutiny growing to the point of “intervention time.”

“So . . .” Brooke said, stretching the word and raising her voice.

Ashby and Perry straightened, their almost-conjoined heads pulling apart. Calisto and Joao abandoned their food.

Good.
She had their attention.

“How do
we
find Sam?” she asked, straight to the point.

Ashby’s face pinched in distaste the way Brooke’s had the first (and last) time she’d downed a Jell-O shot. His eyes zeroed in on hers like he possessed, or wanted to possess, a Morphid superpower that could kill with a single, evil look.

“Oh, c’mon, you don’t think Calisto and Joao know what you two are talking about over there?” Brooke crunched a couple of Cheetos and waited for their answer.

Ashby looked at Perry as if asking, “can you believe this?” Perry shrugged, reclined back in his chair and laced long fingers over his oh-so-tight stomach. He had the look of someone waiting to be amused.

“All right, people,” she set the bag of Cheetos on the island, even though it pained her. “The
adults
are not going to help Sam. I’m sure everyone got that.”

She looked around and took the chance to lick cheese powder off her fingers.

Brooke continued, “They also plan to make us sit here staring at each other eating, arguing, looking gorgeous or whatever it is you people do. In short, they expect us to stay out of their hair, so we don’t get in the way of their fabulous
badassery
. ‘Cause that’s exactly what we would do . . . if we were a bunch of kindergartners, that is.”

Brooke peered sideways at Calisto and Joao, trying to judge how her little speech was going. To her surprise, they were listening with relaxed expressions, not the murderous ones she’d been expecting.

That threw her off for a bit. “Um, so I . . . I propose we make ourselves useful.
We
find her, save her from her evil aunt, and bring her safely to her parents. I mean, we’re capable of that much, right? They can go take back the Regency while we go do this other thing, instead of wasting our time in this ill-equipped kitchen.”

Brooke waited for their reaction. Something. Anything. They gave her zilch.

“Well, say something!” she exclaimed, frustrated. “Thumbs up? Thumbs down? What the hell?”

“So what’s the plan?” Calisto took another bite of her moldy cheese sandwich, looking as nonchalant as only someone who
always
disobeys her parents could.

“So you’re on board?” Brooke asked incredulously.

Calisto pushed her plate aside. “Sure, why not?”

“And you too?” Brooked looked at Joao.

His cheeks were full of cereal, but he nodded in a way that left no doubts on which side of mischief he stood.

“Aw,” Brooke said, “two reprobates after my own heart. Who would have thought? All right, so what do we do?”

She got closer to the island and put on her most conspiratorial air. With a quick jerk of her head, she encouraged Perry and Ashby to join in. The two idiots were still sitting at the dining table, Ashby looking as wooden as the chair attached to his ass, and Perry smirking as if he was watching an episode of Scooby Doo.

Calisto and Joao offered no ideas, so they deferred to Ashby.

“She’s your Companion, Ashby. Have anything in mind?” Calisto asked.

Very slowly, Ashby stood and came to stand by the island. He didn’t look happy about the situation, but Brooke didn’t care. Her priority was Sam’s safety, not his desire for secrecy, superiority or whatever.

He thought for a moment before saying, “Well, obviously you haven’t run to Mirante to tell on us, but that doesn’t mean you won’t.”

“We won’t,” Joao said.

Perry abandoned the table and came to stand next to Brooke. The hairs on the back of her arms stood on end just from his mere closeness. She took a casual step away from him and reclined on the island, trying to act as natural as granola.

She cleared her throat. “Since that’s out in the open now . . . I ask you again, any ideas?”

Perry spoke first. “Magic won’t work. No precursors to follow.”

Brooke gave him a “WTF?” expression. Her face said it all. She was sure.

“If they had used magic to escape,” Perry explained, “there would be a trail I could follow. But Greg can’t use his skills like that, so they probably drove, caught a plane, a bus.”

“I’d say they drove.” Brooke felt pretty certain about that. “So magically finding them is out? That seems pretty lame. Can’t you, like, look into a crystal ball or something? Cast a spell that could put a star on a map? I dunno.”

Perry looked offended, as if Brooke had just insulted his magical prowess. “It doesn’t work that way. I’m an excellent Sorcerer, but I need
something
to go by. It would help if Sam carried a tracking amulet, a communing frame or triggering hex. Any of those and this would be a whole different story, but I can’t work miracles.”

“Too bad,” Brooke said in condescending tone.

Perry narrowed his eyes, and it seemed to Brooke he was letting her know how fully capable of working those kinds of miracles he was. Heat rose from her neck toward her cheeks. She fussed with her hair to hide it. This boy was a firecracker and she hated how much she loved it.

“How about you, Ashby?” She switched her attention. “You said you found her before. Could you—?”

“No.” Ashby’s response cut her question short. The word came out in a single, categorical breath that left Brooke no doubt this topic was best left alone.

“Alrighty. Then how about Joao? Do you have any special powers?”

“‘Course I do. I’m a Wingmaster.”

Brooke tried to imagine what that meant. “So how many wings can you eat in ten minutes? Mild? Or spicy?”

“Very funny!” Joao punctuated his exclamation with a good dose of sarcasm. “If you must know, a Wingmaster has control over avian creatures.”

What does
that
mean?

Calisto jumped in with an explanation. “He can communicate with birds, make them do things for him. Pretty useless, unless you’re planning to open a chicken farm. Sam didn’t have a pet parakeet that could tell my brother where she went, did she?”

Joao’s mouth twisted in disgust. “Gee, thanks,
Sis.
I don’t guess I need any enemies when I have you.”

It was clear this was a running joke between them. Joao disliked it, but it didn’t seem like something he really let get under his skin.

“She’s only saying all of that because, in
this
situation,” Joao made it clear he could be very useful under other circumstances—namely those involving a parakeet, “her skill is probably the only one that can help.”