The Inner Circle (Return of the Ancients Book 3) (11 page)

I had to stay focused. I couldn’t let myself think of Rafael. It was too painful.

With grim determination, I focused on the problems at hand.

I watched the video of Melody several times before making up my mind. I would show it to Jareth—whenever I could get him to sit still long enough to watch it. We would have to figure out what Melody was doing to him.

I dug my notebook out and added it to my list of issues to resolve, and then quickly glanced over the other topics to see if I’d made any progress. I drew a line down the page to make a column and titled it ‘Update’.

First of all were the Mesmers.

Jareth’s rune seemed to be working well, and they were obviously steering clear of the house since he’d burned his symbols in the garage. And Al was working on the Faraday idea, so I felt that everything was progressing ok. Enough so that I could work on something else for the moment, anyway.

I stared at the next words of “Inner Circle” and glanced away.

Rafael kept sidetracking me. It was hard to play the spy when my emotions were wrapped up at such a deep level. Grimly, I pinched myself and promised that I would be more focused the next time I saw him. “Ask about the tulpa” I wrote in tiny letters in the update column.

That brought my attention back to the evil tulpa.

I frowned.

I was on my own here. But then, being a human, maybe I really was the best person for the job. I drummed my fingers on the page, wondering how to get it back from Rafael and destroy it.

Thankful that Al had given me a phone with a data plan, I dove under the covers and began to search the web.

I didn’t learn much.

There weren’t any eHow articles describing how to destroy evil tulpas.

I finally gave up and lay in bed, wondering if it would be possible to create a good one, as kind of an agent, to destroy the bad one. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. Not really sure how to intentionally create a tulpa, I just settled for imagining something beautiful and before I knew it, I’d started to drift.

I woke to Grace giving my shoulder a friendly shake.

It was morning. A weak ray of sunlight streamed in through my bedroom window.

“Ellison’s here to take you to work,” she said. “I’ll keep him entertained while you get ready. Hurry up!”

I was ready in five minutes, shower and all. Ellison shot me a mile-wide grin when I dashed into the kitchen, and then we were flying to work in his Volkswagen. The thing I liked most about Ellison was the fact that I could totally be myself around him. I didn’t have to chit-chat if I didn’t feel like it. Neither of us said a word the entire trip.

And when I walked into the coffee shop, I found Jareth already there, dressed in a maroon shirt, black leather pants, and chains. He was lounging in an overstuffed chair with his boot propped up on Samantha’s coffee table.

Samantha herself was standing over him with a bright red scarf draped over a trench coat. She’d apparently just come in.

“I’m not responsible for the fact that people around me feel a sense of inferiority.” Jareth was saying. “I can’t help it if I’m perfect, even though it does get a bit tiresome.”

“I’m guessing you haven’t been diagnosed yet,” Samantha responded, reaching down to whack his boot off her table.

Jareth gave her a wide grin and then spying me, lifted his hand in a cheerful wave.

The coffee shop was a madhouse that morning, filled with teenage girls snapping pictures and sending Jareth doe-eyed looks. They had all frowned when I walked in.

But Samantha was pleased to see me. With a crisp nod of greeting, she pointed at Jareth. “He’s all yours, Sydney. Make him behave.” And with that, she sailed into the backroom.

Jareth shot me another cocky grin.

I hesitated. He was clearly in a good mood. But I knew I had to show him the video. And now, before he disappeared again.

Approaching him, I thrust my phone into his hands.

“What’s this—” he began, but then his brows rose to his hairline and a horrified expression crossed his face as his eyes locked onto the tiny screen.

He watched it several times. I could hear Melody’s voice squeaking in the earphones dangling from the phone. 
He glanced up at me, looking sick.

“It’s ok,” I said in a feeble attempt to cheer him up. “We’ll find out what she was doing and—”

But he cut me off with a chopping motion and abruptly stood up. “It’s far from
ok
, Sydney.”

“Wait,” I said, holding onto his arm. “We aren’t going to get anywhere like this. You have to quit walking off. We’ve got to get organized—”

“I
am
,” he said darkly. Shaking me off, he pushed his way through the throng of girls and left the coffee shop.

“I’m really getting tired of this,” I muttered, picking up my phone where he’d tossed it. It buzzed in my hands.

Glancing down, I saw the words, “We should talk, Sydney.”

I looked up and saw Rafael sitting in the corner near the Christmas tree. My stomach dropped as our eyes locked for a moment, but then I turned away. I couldn’t talk to him right now. It hurt too much.

And even though I knew I should pretend to be, at the very least, friends, so I could gather information, I just couldn’t.

With a frown, I texted, “Leave me alone.”

My new phone was annoying. I wasn’t used to autocorrect. It kept wanting to change “alone” to “along”, but at last I succeeded and headed to the backroom to put my things away and collect my apron.

I was going to have to find a different way to get information about the mutant tulpa and the Inner Circle. I just couldn’t use Rafael for that. I was discovering that my heart wouldn’t let me play games with him.

Rafael took so long to respond that I thought he wasn’t going to. I’d just tossed my phone into my locker when it buzzed his reply. “Of course!”

I raised a brow. It was kind of a snippy response. But then, I guess my message had been a tad sharp too. Putting my phone away, I went to work.

I stayed in the storeroom, unpacking boxes and mentally complaining to the universe how unfair and difficult life was getting, until Ellison arrived with a mischievous look on this face.

“You’re going Christmas shopping with me and Grace tonight,” he announced, giving me a playful punch on the shoulder. “We’ll wait for you after work.”

“Oh?” I asked with a fake smile. I wasn’t in a shopping mood. I had Al to push and tulpas to research. And Rafael to be depressed about.

“You don’t have a choice,” he said cheerfully. “And you better get up front. Samantha wants foamy butterflies out of you. Ten of them.”

Reluctantly, I followed him to the front counter. To my relief, Rafael was gone. I folded my arms on the granite countertop and buried my head a moment, illogically upset that he really
was
leaving me alone.

But only a moment later, a fellow barista named Denise whacked me on the top of the head with a rolled up newspaper and ordered me to get to work on the espresso machine. 
I tried to listen to her instructions. But I was just too distracted. I couldn’t shake Rafael from my thoughts, and it only got worse by the minute.

“Let me taste it,” Denise ordered in her best Samantha imitation.

Shaken from my thoughts, I blinked a little and handed her the drink.

She wrinkled her nose as if the smell offended her.

I guess it did.

“What is this?” she asked in a disdainful tone. “Some kind of science experiment?” Slamming the cup onto the counter, she turned away.

I squinted at the cup. I didn’t care for coffee. Or at least the concoction that I had made. I took a sip and gagged. It tasted like a mixture of chocolate and canker sore medicine.

Denise set me to practicing for an hour, twirling hearts and ferns into the frothy, silky foam and placing marshmallows “just so” in the cups. It was hard, especially when she watched my every move with a critical eye. She was actually much worse than Samantha.

Samantha herself wandered by at times to watch. And every time she left, she told me, “Remember, Sydney. Everything we do is about flavor!”

As the afternoon progressed, the shop emptied and gray clouds covered the sky. A light drizzle began to fall.

Grace showed up shortly before our shift ended.

“Going Christmas shopping with us after work, Sydney?” she asked as she ordered a latte.

“Yeah, Sydney,” Ellison chimed in as he sent me a pleading puppy-eyed look. He reached over and swatted my arm. “You can’t say no.”

They were clearly teaming up.

“I dunno,” I said, thinking it just might be a good idea. I was getting exhausted from the continuous swarm of thoughts whirling around in my head. Maybe Christmas shopping would be a good distraction.

Our shift ended. Tossing my disposable gloves into the trash, I untied my apron and headed to the back to collect my things.

Grace and Ellison were waiting for me. Each descending upon one side, they locked their elbows through mine.

“You’re going,” Grace said. “You don’t have a choice.”

“Fine,” I said, giving in. It was nice to have friends. I certainly could use a good distraction.

I followed Grace to the parking lot to wait for Ellison to bring up his car. I glanced around, but there was no sign of Mesmers.

It was a little strange, almost as if they’d suddenly lost interest in me.

Or maybe it was a new fear tactic.

I refused to let that thought take hold and instead watched Grace karate-kick and punch the air. She was certainly built to be a cop. I wondered if she was serious about it, and then Ellison arrived before I could ask.

The ride to the mall was a short one. Grace and Ellison chattered the whole time, and I was left alone with my thoughts. I liked that.

The Town Square Mall was filled with holiday shoppers. I watched lines of people stream into stores. I wasn’t really eager to join the crowd, but Grace and Ellison forged fearlessly on.

I followed, sidestepping a bickering couple lugging bags and nearly ran into an elderly man pulling a portable oxygen tank. I smiled apologetically and held the door open for him. He patted me on the head as he passed by.

The gesture filled me with a strange longing. I wistfully watched him go, wishing that I had a grandfather. What would it be like to have a Christmas with a fireplace and a laughing family?

“Are you coming, Sydney?” Grace was watching me curiously.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, hurrying after them.

“Well, I’m not going to name any names, but look who’s here,” Ellison said, coughing to cover a laugh as Grace dissolved into a fit of giggles.

I followed his gaze to see Rafael a short distance away, leaning against the wall with his brown leather jacket casually tossed over one shoulder and his hands tucked into his designer jeans.

He looked ridiculously handsome.

And he was looking directly at me. This time, his gray eyes were rimmed with only a light application of black eyeliner and nothing else. Briefly, I wondered at the change, but then he was moving towards me and I panicked.

It was the look in his eyes. A look that spoke volumes. A look that promised words I wanted to hear.

This was how he was leaving me alone?

It was then that I knew the truth. With Rafael, I couldn’t pretend to be something I wasn’t. I was useless as a spy.

I knew I had to escape.

If I let him catch me, I was going to turn into a useless mush of feelings and probably end up kissing him all night. And while that was tempting—oh sooooo tempting—I knew that I had to stay focused.

There was just too much at stake.

Turning away, I dove into the sea of people, weaving through the throng of shoppers, but Ellison ran after me and caught my sleeve.

“Hey, you should really talk to him,” he said.

“Yeah, just talk it out.” Grace came up behind us. Adopting an innocent expression, she added, “Love. The more you resist it, the more it grows.”

I scowled at them both. “Did you bring me here on purpose?”

“He asked me to this morning,” Ellison admitted sheepishly and hiked a thumb over his shoulder to where Rafael had paused to wait.

And then Grace was putting Ellison into a headlock and dragging him away. I was only partially sorry to see them go.

Rafael took that as his cue to sweep in, but I wasn’t so easy.

Heading back into the crowd, I navigated through the corridor and skipped up the escalator to take refuge behind a group of potted trees decked out with Christmas ornaments.

Below me, I could see Rafael walking through the crowds. He was easy to find as he was taller than almost everyone else. Several times, he passed by a mirror. Strangely, he ignored his own reflection. It was the first time I hadn't seen him stop to check out his hair.

As the crowd swept him away, I realized it was 
my chance to leave.

Pulling my phone out, I texted Grace that I’d see her at home later, and then tucking my phone back into my sweatshirt, I turned.

And ran straight into Rafael’s muscular chest.

“You can try running from me, little pixie,” he said in a low voice. “But it will never work.”

‘Pixie’. My knees went weak. He hadn’t called me that in some time. It was hardly fair to start calling me that again right now. “What are you doing here?” I asked sharply.

But instead of answering, he gave a sudden, sharp intake of breath and yanked my wrists, pulling me behind the potted plants as he covered my mouth with his hand.

His strong arms encircled my waist, and I felt his hard chest against my back. I was too stunned to react.

Suddenly, I saw Marquis pass by, his head swiveling from side to side.

I froze.

Marquis paused for several interminably long moments, and then slowly, he turned away and headed down the stairs.

Once he’d disappeared from sight, Rafael removed his hand from my mouth and pulled me forward.

I didn’t resist.

I let him guide me through the maze of shoppers, his hand firmly locked over mine. I knew I was safe with him. But as we stepped out into the cold air, I rounded on him and forced him to stop.