Page 57 of Only Human in Strangeville

“What are you doing?” someone hissed.

I froze at the familiar voice and glanced over my shoulder. “Jaz?”

“He’ll never forgive himself, or me, if you get killed.” She kept her voice low as she crept around the cage containing Nimbus.

“So, what do we do?”

Though I’d often seen Jaz with bright lipstick that set off her porcelain skin, now she was just wearing a gloss and very conservative clothing. Her eyes darted around nervously, and her head was tilted slightly as if she listened hard to what was going on around us.

“Just watch for your opportunity. I can’t do anything until we’re assured of success, but if we find our opportunity, I’ll wake Katsuro. You’ll have to do the rest.”

“How do we rescue Nimbus?”

Jaz gave the cloud puppy a dismissive look and shrugged.

Clearly, she was more worried about Katsuro than anything else. I supposed I understood. I was more worried about Nimbus than the vampire. I hoped Jaz really was on our side, though. For whatever reason, the enemy seemed to trust her, and I just couldn’t help but worry that they knew something we didn’t. Katsuro trusted her, too, but since I didn’t know her story, I couldn’t judge for myself.

The room we were in appeared to be some sort of large study. A massive solid wood desk sat in front of a fireplace. Bookshelves lined the walls, and another fireplace was on the other side of the room with a dark leather couch and loveseat arranged in front of it. Neither fireplace was lit, which, considering the time of year, made sense. I rubbed my arms, still having a hard time regulating my temperature after being drugged. Though I looked, I didn’t see any smaller chairs. I could have used them as a weapon, and that might be why they were missing. If the bad guys had considered that, anyway.

The rug Katsuro lay on looked Persian, though I wasn’t an expert. Generic art, mostly pastoral scenes, plastered the walls. Heavy black curtains covered the windows, no light leaking in.

While Jaz watched, I staggered over to the desk and looked around for anything. A letter opener, a paperweight, something.

Either this room wasn’t used for its apparent purpose, or my kidnappers were smart. There was nothing, and the drawers were empty. The only thing potentially useful that I could find were the books. The cloud of dust that rose up when I pulled one off the shelf made me think they hadn’t even remembered they existed, despite being obvious.

Interestingly enough, the book I pulled out was a tome on varieties of apples.

Apples… Make the apples grow.

How?

Clutching the book, I went to the fireplace and sat on the couch. I tried not to look too closely at the cage they’d put Nimbus in. I had to rescue him, but if I couldn’t touch the cage, I’d have to use magic. Also, I didn’t want to accidentally hurt the cloud puppy in the process. So. Magic.

Which meant I needed to make my magic work.

I cradled the book like a talisman and tried to capture the feeling I remembered from my initial unfolding. In my mind’s eye, an orchard formed around me, a crushed stone path at my feet. I followed it, feeling the pain of Nimbus’s absence. He should be at my side, helping me on my journey as I helped him.

Instead, another presence joined me. Twister pushed his fluffy head under my hand as he stepped close to me. We didn’t speak. I simply walked, my hand tangled in his fluff.

All the trees were in various stages of growing fruit. The first ones we passed were barely buds. As we continued, the buds matured into full flowers, then the beginnings of fruits were on the tree. Our path stopped, and the vision simply seemed to end in a fog.

Clearly, I needed to do something to proceed. Reaching inside myself, I tried to pull the warmth of the magic out and feed it into the vision.

The fog swirled, and I moved forward. It gave way, revealing trees with apples still green but much larger than any I’d yet seen.

Before I could try again, the vision dissipated with the sound of a banging door, and I snapped open my eyes.

I recognized the hawk’s nose and sharp features of the first man to walk into the room. Drake. The shade that had originally been after Nimbus. The vile man glanced at the cage that held the cloud puppy and the smile that crossed his lips promised nothing good.

The second man I didn’t recognize. He was taller, like Drake, had short cropped black hair, and pale skin that had clearly not seen the sun in centuries.

Well, shit. Maybe this was the man on the supernatural side of the trafficking ring I’d helped put away.

“Ahh, Ms. Miller, I believe you’re going by that now, yes?”

I didn’t reply, and he didn’t seem to be waiting for one.

“Your friend in the FBI was quite helpful after a bit of persuasion. Unfortunately for him, he was just strong enough to break away, and we had to put him down. Can’t have that kind of person around. Too troublesome.” His voice was smooth, low, and oily. I already wanted to scrub myself with lava soap just to get the feeling he gave me off. Not to mention the way his eyes traveled my body. My breath caught, but I otherwise remained as calm as I could. My FBI contact had been a good guy, and he’d had a family. These people didn’t care, though. Obviously.

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