The Inner Circle (Return of the Ancients Book 3) (5 page)

I tried to contact Jareth several times after that, thinking to myself the sequence of numbers that had always worked before.

But he didn’t come. I wasn’t really surprised.

It was getting late, and everyone was getting ready for bed. And as they settled down for the night, I decided to quickly check on them all under the guise of asking questions about minutiae.

Poking my head into Grace’s room, I inquired, “And what time did Ellison say he was coming again?”

She looked pleased at the excuse to text him again and grinned up at me. “Eight sharp!”

“Nite,” I said, closing the door.

Al and Betty’s door was wide open, and they were both in bed reading.

“Need anything? Like water … or anything…?” I asked them. It sounded a bit lame, but I was still kind of worried about Betty, so it wasn’t all pretense.

“I’m fine, dear,” Betty said with a friendly wave as Al peered up from his book with a strong, “Sweet dreams, kiddo!”

I even wandered into the kitchen to check on Tigger. As usual, he was snoring in front of the refrigerator.

Returning to my room, I sat there in the darkness, hugging my knees and clenching Jareth’s protection rune tightly in my hand.

Silence fell.

The protection rune was cool against my skin. I supposed that meant the Mesmers were nowhere around.

After a few minutes, I got up to turn my lamp back on before crawling back to huddle on the bed. I tried to think of other things, but it was hard not to be afraid. Very hard.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up feeling icy cold and as if fingers were creeping up my arm.

With a strangled gasp, I leapt out of bed.

But there was nothing there.

Again, I tried to call Jareth by thinking of his numbers, but he didn’t show up.

My clock said it was just past midnight and I frowned. I still had a long way to go before dawn.

I missed Ajax. As obnoxious as he was, I’d always felt safe when he slept in my room.

But then, I
did
have Tigger.

Creeping into the kitchen, I found the old bloodhound still snoring where I’d left him. Fortunately, he woke up at the first whiff of hot dog, and I was successful in luring him into my room with a trail of tiny hot dog pieces which led all the way to the foot of my bed.

Devouring the last piece, Tigger happily wagged his tail and sank down into the middle of the room, quite content to stay and keep me company.

“I love you, Tigger,” I whispered, snagging my pillow and lying down on the floor next to him.

He was soft and warm. And within minutes, his paws were twitching and his mouth grinned. I knew he was dreaming, but I didn’t think it was that cliché dog dream of running with his tongue flapping in the wind. When he began to lick his lips I knew for sure he was dreaming about a hot dog.

I didn’t feel quite as safe as I did with Ajax, but then, Tigger exuded a warm, fuzzy feeling that I didn’t get from the Doberman. I wasn’t entirely confident the old bloodhound could protect me from Mesmers, but I hoped the Mesmers thought he could.

I lay there listlessly on the floor, but my mind refused to rest.

I felt like I was being watched. But there was nothing there ... that I could see.

In the effort to relax, I forced my thoughts to think of a bright future, one where everything worked out all right. One in which the Mesmers were forced back into their dimension, and humans on Earth realized they didn’t have to live with so much fear. And one in which Rafael definitely was one of the good guys.

I tossed and turned for what seemed like hours. But whenever I checked the time, about only twenty minutes had passed.

Still, I found the more I occupied myself with that happy dream of the future, the less time I had to feel afraid.

Finally, the night passed in a fitful jumble of thoughts and dreams. And when the morning light finally painted the sky, I sat up, my back stiff from sleeping on the floor.

Tigger was still cuddled up next to me, his paws still twitching contentedly.

Lifting one of his long, droopy ears, I whispered, “Thank you.”

I got up and dragged myself to look into the mirror.

“So, this is what an insane person looks like, Sydney,” I said, eyeing the big, purple rings under my eyes.

It didn’t take me long to get ready for work. Pulling on my scuffed tennis shoes and a gray hoodie, I went to the kitchen for a piece of toast.

The kitchen was quiet. Everyone else was sleeping in. The open doorway leading to the garage was crisscrossed with Al’s ‘Crime Scene’ tape.

It leant such an eerie atmosphere to the room that I gave up the toast idea and ducked outside to wait for Ellison on the porch.

A quick peek across the street revealed no sign of Rafael nor of the garden troll that had turned into the man with the black top hat.

I stayed where I was, wondering if Rafael had ever gotten my message. Or if he even cared.

But I refused to think too much about it.

My first order of business was to figure out how to protect everyone from Mesmer mind control. Running back into the house, I grabbed my notebook and rolled it into my sweatshirt pocket.

I was going to do some more research on my lunch break.

I heard Ellison’s Volkswagen long before I saw it. And when I did see it, it was sliding all over the road. Apparently, the slushy snow from the day before had hardened into ice.

As he neared the driveway, Mrs. Patton appeared at the door of her big pink Victorian house and waved, calling out a ‘Good Morning’ in her raspy smoker’s voice.

I waved back, eyeing her lawn-ornament-stuffed yard in consternation. I’d come to think of it as a Mesmer playground. She watched me get into Ellison’s car through glasses that made her eyes appear twice as big as they actually were.

“Top o’ the morning to ye,” Ellison greeted me with a grin as I slid into the front seat. “Buckle up, it’s gonna be a rough slide.”

“Slide?” I laughed.

It
was
a slide. Ellison’s car was more of an oversized skateboard than a real car. But we made it to the coffee shop just in time for Ellison’s shift. Mine started half an hour later.

“I’m going to make myself some iced tea,” I said, reaching for the door latch.

But Ellison laid a restraining hand on my arm. Looking at me with a sternness that didn’t match his easygoing character, he said, “Grace told me that you might be going through a rough patch. Anything I can help with?”

I stared up into his earnest brown eyes, and I couldn’t help but smile. He was a true friend. “I’m fine,” I said, forcing a bright smile.

The last thing I needed was Ellison getting mixed up in all of this. I certainly didn’t want him getting hurt.

“Helloooooo, secrets!” he said with a mock resigned expression. But then added, “Seriously, if you need anything, let me know. What else are friends for if they can’t get your back?”

“I’m fine, really,” I insisted, hoping I sounded strong and confident.

I didn’t think he believed me, but I took the opportunity to escape into Samantha’s coffee shop.

Hanging my hoodie up in the backroom, I put on my apron and headed up front.

Samantha’s coffee shop,
Bean There, Baked That
, was a warm combination of modern art and good old-fashioned comfort. The warm, chocolate-colored walls were covered with abstract paintings, and each group of overstuffed chairs boasted its own hand-blown blue glass lamp suspended over a wooden coffee table.

An elegantly flocked Christmas tree with gold ornaments stood in the window, and a string of matching gold ornaments graced the espresso bar and pastry case.

I took a deep breath, savoring the aroma of freshly ground coffee and then slipped behind the espresso bar. After making my iced tea, I pressed the tall, cold glass against my forehead and closed my eyes.

“Had breakfast yet?”

I looked up into Ellison’s irresistible grin.

He thrust a toasted bagel with cream cheese into my hands. “My treat,” he said.

I watched him walk away. “Thanks!” I yelled belatedly after him.

It was then that I saw something out of the corner of my eye.
Or I thought I did.
I could have sworn that I’d seen a very tall man dressed in black, wearing a huge top hat.

But when I whirled, I saw nothing.

I stood there, holding my breath.

“What’s up?” Ellison asked as he swept by, balancing a bag of coffee beans on his shoulder.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. Too quickly.

Taking a bite of my bagel, I moved to the nearest table and sat down, but I was so tense that I wasn’t sure that I could swallow.

It took me a few minutes to convince myself that it had just been my imagination. Mechanically taking another bite of the bagel, I dutifully chewed, but I began to feel a lump in my stomach and finally gave up.

Carefully wrapping the rest for later, I watched Ellison with the customers.

He was a natural. This morning, he’d decided to ask each of them what their favorite animal was, and then went to great lengths to draw it on the paper cup before handing it off to the barista. His drawings elicited laughs out of even the grumpiest people.

Samantha loved him. Whenever she saw him, her eyes crinkled up around the corners in her version of a smile. She had come into the shop that morning, wearing a brown pantsuit and with her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. And after a brief inspection, she’d disappeared into the back.

I looked up to see Ellison watching me, drum rolling on the register with his fingers. “Are you sure you’re ok?” he asked with a quizzical smile

“Yeah,” I said, sounding as unconvincing as I was.

His face shifted into an unusually serious expression. “Do I need to do anything? Beat someone up?”

That thought made me smile. He was such a congenial guy. “I could do that myself,” I said.

He eyed me up and down with a chuckle as we both said at the same time, “Or we could call Grace.”

I started feeling better after that.

My shift started then, and I was happy to be distracted from my thoughts. The baristas around me chattered with Ellison. Listening to their cheerful banter, I began to bag the pastries as directed when Samantha joined us from the back, her arms full of pastry-order notebooks.

Catching sight of her, the baristas scattered.

Pausing beside me, Samantha brushed back her straight blonde hair and fixed her hawkish eyes at the door. “Here comes trouble with a capital ‘T’,” she said with a shriveling glare.

I glanced up to see Jareth stalking forward amidst the sea of cyclists in their spandex outfits standing in line to get their morning lattes.

He was dressed in full rocker regalia, spikes, chains and all, and his black hair was moussed to stand out in all directions. His eye was completely back to normal. Obviously, the Fae healthcare system was more advanced than ours.

I was actually relieved to see him. I guess on some level, I’d been worried that he hadn’t responded to my calls.

He cut to the front of the line.

The customers didn’t seem to mind, though it was obvious that Samantha did. And as he leaned against the pastry case, she waved a newspaper in front of his face.

“Missed another concert, did you, Jareth?” Samantha asked in a brisk tone. “You’ll ruin your brand if you continue to misbehave.”

He gave her a cocky grin and snatched the paper out of her hand. “Misbehaving
is
my brand, dragon,” he said before scanning the headlines.

The headline was printed in large, bold letters: “Another No-Show for Jareth. Are Drugs Involved?”

He snorted and tossed the paper onto the counter.

“Do you want your usual blueberry muffin?” I asked him, wanting him to sit down quickly so we could talk. “Just take a seat and I’ll bring it right out.”

Samantha sighed. “Handle him for me, Sydney,” she said in a slightly weary tone and turned to her other customers.

I didn’t need to be told twice.

Putting a blueberry muffin onto a plate, I slipped out from behind the counter and, grabbing Jareth’s hand, pulled him to a corner table.

“Where have you been?” I hissed, slamming the plate down onto the table. “I tried calling you several times!”

Jareth raised a brow and looked surprised. Pulling out his trion, he looked at the slim silver weapon and murmured something. A spark of light shot out from the tip and disappeared into his hand.

“So you did,” he said, clearly surprised. “Strange. I never received the message.”

My frown deepened, but I forged ahead. “We’ve got to take control here. But first things first, I must make sure Al, Betty, and Grace are protected. Can you make them runes, too?”

I pulled his protection rune from my pocket.

He looked pleased at that. “So, you really do trust me now, do you?”

“For now,” I said a bit acidly and then repeated, “Can you make them runes?”

At that, he turned grim. “No,” he said shortly. “And I don’t even think the one you have is going to work.”

Standing abruptly, he pushed his way past me and exited the coffee shop.

I stared at him dumbfounded and then scowled. “Thanks, Jareth,” I muttered under my breath, collecting his uneaten muffin.

Obviously, I couldn’t rely on him.

Returning to the pastry case, I went back to work, shoving muffins, cookies, and scones into bags and onto plates as I planned my next move.

Part of me did keep on the lookout for Rafael. But he didn’t show up. Either he hadn’t gotten my message or he hadn’t cared.

But I wasn’t about to give up that easily. As soon as I got home, I was going to walk across the street and tell him that I wanted to help. I’d pretend that I thought he was playing the part of a spy. And maybe I’d learn a little something along the way.

I’d stolen the mutant tulpa before. Maybe I could do it again. And maybe I could figure out a way to get rid of the thing. Though exactly how one might get rid of an evil tulpa was a bit beyond me. I knew it was going to be harder than simply flushing it down the toilet.

But as I’d told Jareth, first things first.