Imagineer, p.16
Imagineer, page 16
part #1 of Imagineer Series
But Klaus wasn’t acting that way at all. He was livid I’d been hurt. He was already coming to my defense even while being gentle with me. I didn’t get it, I really didn’t, but I could see with my own two eyes how he felt. I had his full and undivided attention. I had his affection and protection. I now understood why so many girls turned to their fathers when something happened. It was really nice, knowing I had that sort of automatic support when crap hit the fan.
Ivan pulled out a splinter from my head, dropped it to the ground, then stared at me oddly. “People don’t normally smile when I pull glass out of their skin.”
My expression probably did look strange, in context. “I just feel really, really loved right now.”
His eyes twinkled as he leaned in and murmured, “Well, devushka, that’s because you are. Really, really loved.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, grin widening. I may have been confused, but I felt happy in my confusion. “Mactep! Make sure Klaus doesn’t kill them!”
My master harrumphed. “I’m not about to argue with him. He has frustrated paternal inclinations.”
Klaus cackled evilly. I mean, Wicked-Witch-of-the-West evil. “Don’t worry, Rea. They’ll survive.”
That was the opposite of reassuring.
Klaus drove us home. To my surprise, Matteo was waiting on the front porch as we pulled into the driveway. As I got out, he waved hello and explained, “Ivan wants me to give you a good massage. It’ll prevent you from locking up so bad with the whiplash.”
“Sounds heavenly.” My neck and shoulders were already stiffening. I had no experience with whiplash, but some things you don’t need to live through to know it’d be better to skip it.
House opened the door for us and I went in to find Nana rolling through the dining room door, a worried look on her face. “Kiddo, how bad was it?”
“Whiplash and some cuts for both of us,” I answered, leaning down to give her a careful hug. Although for once, I was the reason for moving gingerly. “But we’re okay. Mactep fixed the car; she’s driving it here.”
Nana relaxed visibly. “Oh good. What happened?”
Matteo came in behind me with a folded table under his arms that looked like a portable massage table. “I’ll set this up in the formal living room, alright? House, give me curtains over both doorways for a little privacy, if you would.”
House immediately drew shutters down over the open doorways. I blinked at them. Where in the world had it pulled those from? They looked old in style, like something from the 70’s.
I told Nana the story of the car accident as Matteo set everything up. When he called me in, it was a relief, because I honestly wasn’t sure how to handle all the hovering. I lay flat on my front, arms at my sides, and let Matteo’s magical fingers work out the tension and knots and stress. He put heated rocks along my spine when he was done, and I honestly felt like I was floating when I got off the table.
Vampires were amazing masseuses. Who knew?
Klaus was waiting for me as I stepped out, exchanging places with Ciarán, as of course my pooka friend needed to get worked loose too. Klaus insisted I sit at the table and eat something, that I’d recover faster with something in my stomach. Never mind that it was a good three hours until dinner. Then Mitsuki-sama came by to see how I was doing and assured me the twins wouldn’t be allowed to race each other. Anywhere.
Then Zoya came by with the car, and she and Ivan both looked me over and made sure I was alright.
I appreciated all of the concern, I really did, but it was straaange. I’d never had someone fuss over me in my life. Except Nana. Even a week before, if I’d been in that accident, I wouldn’t have had anyone to call for help. I would have been alone as I called the police, the tow truck, our insurance agent. It would have been on my shoulders to get the car fixed. I had to say, it was nice to not be forced to do it all myself, but I found it weird my life had changed that much in a week. If I’d learned anything today, it was that I was absolutely not alone anymore.
As nice as the attention was, it got overwhelming, with this many people in the house, and I retreated to the library with a breath of relief. I just needed ten minutes to myself.
Ostensibly, I was in here to check my email, so that’s what I did. As I scrolled through the inbox—most of it spam—I saw emails from both of my parents. Clicking in, I read through them, lips pursing as I did. They both announced their intentions to Skype with me tomorrow.
Well. This should prove to be an interesting conversation.
I sat at my computer, Skype up and waiting for the call. Nana sat nearby in her wheelchair, ready to jump in and talk to my parents as well.
This was the first call since I’d walked with open eyes into the magical world. I hadn’t known what to say to my parents without sounding crazy, so I hadn’t mentioned any of it in my emails. They were busy, distracted on their own ends, and it didn’t seem they’d noticed I didn’t have much to say. I didn’t expect for my luck to hold out two weeks in a row. After all, they’d at least question why Nana was here. She was the one who’d emailed them, requesting a Skype call in the first place.
My mother’s ID popped up with a ring, and when I answered the call, her face appeared with a smile. I could tell in a blink I wouldn’t have her attention long. She was dressed in doctor’s scrubs, a stethoscope around her neck, and her blonde hair pulled back into a sensible ponytail. Whenever she dressed like that, I did good to have even a five-minute conversation.
“Hi, honey,” Dr. Audrey Hunt greeted with a flawless smile. I was definitely talking to the doctor and not my mother just then. Her smile faltered a little, her blue eyes flicking to the bandage on my head. “Are you hurt?”
“Got into a minor car accident yesterday,” I said, downplaying it. “It’s just a cut. The car’s fine, too. A friend fixed it for me.”
“That’s a relief. Oh, hi, Julie. I didn’t expect to see you with Reagan at the house.”
“Yes, well, we’ve changed a few things since speaking to you last,” Nana answered steadily. “We arranged the house so that I can stay here with Reagan, did some remodeling, and hired a nurse to come in and administer my medications. My health’s improved some. I’m no longer suffering from the same bad balance issues.”
“That’s excellent,” Mom said and she sincerely meant it, but her eyes were already darting over the screen, her body shifting closer to the edge of her chair, preparing to leave it. “I’m sure you’re both glad for that.”
Sensing we had a narrow window, Nana rushed into the next part. “Also, Reagan’s applied for a magnet school here and has been accepted. I didn’t think you’d mind, so I gave permission to switch her there for her last year of high school.”
Mom’s attention came back to us, her heart-shaped face widening in another genuine smile. “That’s also great news. It’ll better prepare her for college. Sounds like everything’s going well. No problems?”
“No, no problems,” I answered honestly.
“Good. Sorry, got to run. We have a situation out here and not enough hands. I’ll try to email you at some point during the week. Ciao, girls!” The call abruptly ended.
“Well,” I observed to no one particular, “that was easy.”
“I see things have changed, and not in a good way,” Nana grumbled, glaring at the screen.
“That can’t be typical.”
I looked toward the library door, startled. I’d thought Nana and I alone in the room. Ciarán stood there with his hands planted on his hips and an outraged expression darkening his face. “That can’t be typical,” he repeated, voice rising with indignation. “You’re a world away from her, you’re obviously hurt, and she’s in and out of the conversation in two minutes?!”
“Ciarán,” I said gently, although my heart panged with hurt at his words. Mostly because they were so true. “They’re not really parents. They’re more like…really sympathetic friends with credit cards? They have no idea how to parent.”
My pooka guardian started spluttering, turning nearly purple. “But you’re—you’re a precious daughter. I know humans have more children than we do, maybe they don’t see it in the same light, but you’re still their only child. You’re a talented, intelligent woman on the verge of becoming a full-blown Imagineer. And she didn’t even speak to you directly.”
I tried to redirect him before he hopped on a plane and hunted my mother down. The look in his eye suggested lye and thumb screws. “Most mythological races don’t have many children?”
“We have very long lifespans.” His words came out stiff with anger. “We’re not known to have more than one or two children in the hundreds of years we’re alive. There’re a few exceptions to that—werewolves tend to have quite a few children. As do Brownies. Fairies. Dryads, naturally. But that’s about it.”
Fascinating. It did explain why the world wasn’t overrun with magical creatures, though. I had wondered. Mitsuki-sama had told me we only had three thousand in the clan for this entire area, and considering we covered Astoria, Miles Crossing, and Warrenton, that was a lot of land for a small population.
The Skype chimed with an incoming call and I quickly hit accept. Dad popped up and once again I could tell I wouldn’t have a parent’s full attention. He was dressed for work in his usual white button-down shirt, hat on his head that obscured his wiry black hair, his skin looking more bronze than sandstone from all the sun. The abstracted look behind his coke-bottle glasses said his mind lingered on dusty artifacts and not the laptop in front of him.
“Hey, Reagan. Oh, hi Mom.”
“Hello, Maurice. We have some news.”
“Yeah? I’ve only got a few minutes. What’s happened?”
“We arranged for me to stay at the house and get care here.” Only the tension around Nana’s eyes and mouth told how ticked off she already was at this conversation. Unlike Mom, he’d not even noticed I was injured. “And Reagan’s been admitted to a magnet school in the area.”
“Okay. That’s good. Any problems?”
In a random, spur-of-the-moment instinct I blurted out the truth. “I walked into a magical Japanese castle and was adopted by a magical clan.”
Dad gave me a weird look and then grinned, briefly. “And what series have you been reading recently? Alright, well, if there’s no trouble then that’s good. Take care of each other!”
The call ended.
I offered Nana a hopeless look and shrug. What could I do? Even telling the truth hadn’t garnered any reaction. Nana looked ready to take a bite out of someone she was so pissed. I almost didn’t want to look up at Ciarán because he was bound to be livid. With a half-wince of anticipation on my face, I lifted my eyes. He leaned against the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, expression utterly locked down. Murder brewed in his strong features, his normally deep-sea blue eyes almost black with rage.
Coming toward me, he knelt on the floor and drew me into a hug, his large hand covering my head as he closed me in. I startled, because it was the first time he’d ever hugged me like this—an all-encompassing bear hug, instead of a casual affair around the shoulders. It felt affectionate, as well as protective. It was…nice. Against my hair, he promised in a low tone, “Reagan, you are precious to us. I promise if you ever call out to us, any of us in the clan, we will hear you. We will hear you.”
Tears burned at the back of my eyes and I hugged him fiercely to me. That was all I’d ever wanted. To be heard. To know the person looking back at me listened. Was invested in what I had to say. I’d only gotten that from one other person in my life so far.
Now, it seemed as if I had a whole clan, as well as this remarkable man who’d put his life on hold just to protect me. I still wasn’t sure why he’d done it, but was extremely grateful. “Thank you.”
“And when I see your parents, I’ll punch them,” he said decisively.
“I’ll hold them for you,” Nana volunteered flatly. “I didn’t realize they’d gotten worse. Reagan, you should have said something. I thought they were in better contact with you than this. They used to skype with you at least once a week and email you daily.”
“I didn’t want to worry you. And I was fine, I was handling things without their input,” I offered. I wasn’t sure why I was excusing them. The words just tumbled out of my mouth.
“But if they’re not going to come back and routinely check in with you, then I should have been here instead!” Nana insisted. “I thought you had better parental supervision than this.”
“Nana, you weren’t in any shape to do that before,” I pointed out gently. “And truly, I’m fine. Even if you’d known, it wouldn’t have changed things. They wouldn’t have come back before Christmas. Work’s their priority, you know that.”
“Maybe I’ll do more than punch them,” Ciarán mused thoughtfully.
Did I really want a two-hundred-year-old pooka with a mad-on to contemplate the many ways he could torture my parents once he got his hands on them? I was pretty sure he had torture racks in mind.
Fortunately, my phone rang. I disentangled myself to answer it. My screen read Mactep and I answered with the hope she could provide a distraction before the conversation fell into proper methods of dismembering. “Hi, Mactep.”
“Rea, we’ve got a bit of a situation. They’re doing some repair work on the Flavel House Museum. You know where that is?”
“Isn’t it behind the courthouse?” I cast my mind to a mental map. The Flavel House Museum was a beautiful old Victorian sitting right in the middle of downtown. “Across the street from the Oregon Film Museum.”
“That’s it. Well, in the buzz of their saws and tearing out the roof, they’ve completely damaged the glamour spell on the place. Fortunately, the fairies on site have managed to evade the workmen, but we’ll need to re-ward the place and do it snappy.”
I loved it when she used American slang. Mostly because she used the wrong era of slang. “Meet you there?”
“You’re closer than I am. Don’t start anything until I get there.”
Funny how she assumed I knew what in blue blazes to do. “Sure thing, Mactep.”
I did beat her there by a good fifteen minutes. It was rather late in the evening now, nearly nine o’clock at night, and the museum was naturally closed. The three-story building hid beyond the cast-off illumination of the street lights, and instead of a well-cared for Victorian, it looked a bit more like a haunted house. I knew it was a white building with creamy tan trim work, and a porch wrapping around the octagonal tower, but right now? It just looked like a lot of shadows and dark windows.
Thing was, it really was haunted.
Ciarán stood at my side in a black dog form. His ears swiveled back and forth as he automatically tracked the night sounds of insects, birds, street traffic, and the flying creatures zooming overhead. Our clansmen tended to fly the most at night. Less chance of being caught, I guessed.
I waited under the big fir tree in the front yard, rocking back and forth on my heels. “I’ve rarely seen a tree this big. It’s impressive. Actually, the whole yard is impressive. Not to mention the house. It’s a museum, so I assume there’s a pocket dimension inside it? Yeah, figured. Who all lives here?”
“It’s something of a mix,” Ciarán answered while keeping a lookout all around us. “The two who own the house are vampires, a couple who’ve been here as long as the house itself, along with their two daughters. You’ll meet them as we go in. Captain Flavel was one of the area’s first millionaires. He encountered a rogue vampire in 1893 who ‘killed’ him. They weren’t sure what to do at first, him being the first one turned in this area in…well, ever. Porter, I understand, wasn’t the clan leader then—not even born yet—it was his grandfather who took the man on. Over the next thirty years or so, they spaced it out so each person in his family was able to turn vampire as well and join him. The daughter, Katie, was the last to turn in 1922. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about them yet.”
I shrugged. “I’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I’m not surprised. The only vampire I’ve met so far is Matteo, and he’s a riot.”
“Yeah, these four are more straight-laced. Still good-humored, though, and George swears like a sailor. Probably because he used to be one. Anyway, they’ve got a zashiki-warashi living with them too, and a kobold. I think she’s Klaus’s grand-niece three times removed or something. Also on the grounds is a nest of fairies and one dryad.”
I listened to this list curiously. We had a mix of four different nationalities of mythology on one piece of property? The vampires were Translyvanian, the kobold German, the fairies English, the dryad Greek, and the zashiki-warashi Japanese. And why a zashiki-warashi, who was known more for bringing rainy weather, would be here…well. No, come to think of it, they did like to live in houses, didn’t they? Storage rooms or something like that. And they were known for bringing good luck to a family.
“I didn’t think the races mixed all that well?”
“Some do, some don’t. The territorial or hot-tempered ones tend to live on the outskirts of clan territory and keep to themselves.”
“Ah. Gotcha.”
Headlights washed over us as Zoya pulled up to the curb, parking her massive Ford truck before hopping lightly out. She came around, her eyes already on the house. “Ooh, yes, I see the problem. Chert. Alright, come with me. We’ll go to the side entrance. Front Door can’t be used right now.”
I didn’t see immediately what she meant by that. As I walked up the concrete steps, my eyes picked out the structure of the ward a little better and saw the problem. What should have been a strong, vibrant glow of antique gold instead looked greyed out. It looked as if someone had taken an ice pick and buried it into the left side of the house’s ward before yanking hard, ripping a whole chunk away. As a result, everything else was skewed. The portal spell on the front door was, in fact, situated over the narrow window framing the door. Which obviously wouldn’t work.
