Never After
Chapter 6

3
It was 1998, and I'd integrated myself into the Puget Sound Harbor Seal Pod. They'd accepted me as a member, with my slightly altered resume, and I once again sank into the comfort of belonging to a tribe. It had been eighty-one years since I'd had a group to call my own, and over those intervening years, I'd worked my way down one coastline and up the other, alone and lonely.
I'd adapted as my new land grew and evolved. I'd been everything from a maid during my first few years, to a candy-and-cigarette girl at a nightclub during the war, to an admin assistant at a law firm during the sixties, to a yoga teacher during the eighties.
But I'd never applied for any job that would place me too much in the public view, and while I returned to my real name after a while, I'd managed to navigate the underground labyrinth of changing licenses and social security numbers. I flew under the radar because, like all Fae and Weres, I aged more slowly than humans. It wasn't wise to let yourself be high profile. People would start with whispers; then came the rumors. Hair dye could take care of the hair, but until recently, Botox and plastic surgery weren't viable options to explain away the smooth skin and clear eyes.
Once I found the Pod, I'd decided to stick around the Seattle area, and I applied for a job with the state. I made the decision to finally go the route of using wigs and carefully applied makeup to age myself enough to be believable until retirement, at which point I'd have a good thirty years before having to reinvent myself again.
And then, I met Mitch. Mitchell Childs, who was a sturdy, muscled selkie with blue eyes and wavy chestnut hair. He was part of the Puget Sound Harbor Seal Pod, though not highly placed. And with one look in his eyes, I was lost. Within a week, we had tumbled into a whirlwind affair.
"Siobhan," he said, wrapping his arms around me the first time we stood alone together by the side of the inlet, staring out into the moonlit night. "I've been waiting for you. I didn't know who you would be, or where you would come from, but I've been waiting my whole life for someone like you."
He kissed me, his soft lips pressing gently against mine, his arms pulling me into the heart of his embrace, and in the flow of his kiss the world stopped and I knew life would never be the same. I would never be the same. This was the love I'd been looking for. This was my magic man, my love from the sea, the one who could sweep me off my feet and carry me away and I'd never, ever protest.
No man had touched me since Terrance. I'd made sure of that. And there had been no one before Terrance. Terrified but unable to turn away, I'd invited Mitch into my world, let him woo me and bed me and love me. But I'd kept my secrets. My past remained sealed, behind closed doors I'd locked so tight that I thought nothing could rip them open again.
A few years later, when the portals from Otherworld opened, Supes, Fae, and vampires flooded the world, coming out of the closet in droves, and I began to think that Mitch and I could have a life together, out in the open, and that I wouldn't have to shed my persona with my skin.
Until now.
And now everything threatened to be swept away by the same malignant force that had snuffed out my life in Ireland. The Pod could revoke my membership if they wanted; they could send me away. And Mitch - would he turn his back on me and the child we'd fought so hard to conceive?
And now - now Mitch might die.
With tears pouring down my cheeks, images of the past flipped through my mind like a deck of cards in the wind. I couldn't lose him. And I wouldn't let Terrance win.
Grimly, I turned to Camille, whose gaze was fastened on the road. "Whatever it takes, I want Terrance out of the picture. I know he's involved in this. I know he hurt Mitch. And if I'm right, I want him dead and buried so deep he'll never climb out of the grave to see the world again. Will you help me?"
She flickered a glance my way, then back to the road. "You know what you're asking, right?"
I bit my lip. I wasn't like Camille or her sisters. My life wasn't steeped in danger every day, and I wasn't a fighter like they were. I was just Siobhan Morgan, data entry operator for the state. But I was also selkie - a daughter of the Ocean Mother - and someone I loved was in danger. Time to step up to the plate.
"I know what I'm asking. Whatever you tell me to do, I'll do it. I love Mitch, and I'm not going to let Terry ruin my life with him, or our baby's life. I don't know much about fighting, Camille, but you tell me to jump and I'll jump."
She sighed. "Well, then, I promise you this: We'll do everything possible to find him and put him out of commission. And Siobhan, make no mistake - if we go looking for him and find him, we'll have to kill him. Because men like him, be they FBH - full-blooded human - or Fae... or Were... they don't give up. He's stalked you for a hundred years over thousands of miles. He's not going to quit. Especially not now that he's found you."
"I know," I said. "I know."
* * *
The nurse led Camille and me to Mitch's bedside. I'd call the Pod leader and Mitch's parents as soon as I found out what was going on, but right now, I wanted to see if he was conscious, if he could remember anything. But he lay there, silent and unmoving, his body wrapped in bandages and his eyes closed in a deep sleep.
"What's wrong?" I rushed to his side, wanting to bundle him in my arms and kiss him on the forehead, to wake him with the taste of my lips on his. But this was no fairy tale, and Mitch wasn't Sleeping Beauty. No, he was severely injured and only the doctors could lead him out of danger.
"One leg is broken in three places; the other has a fracture. His left arm was shattered and we don't know if he'll ever be able to regain use of it. We think he has internal injuries to his spleen and his kidneys. His entire abdominal area is severely bruised. We'll have to do exploratory surgery, and we're going to have to open up his arm, too, in order to repair the shattered bone."
The doctor looked at me. "Miss, I know you're his fiancee, but we need his parents here, too, if they're around."
"I'll call them right away," I murmured, staring at my love. "Why is he unconscious?"
"As to the coma, we don't know. He should be awake, but he's not, and his EKG shows some abnormal activity, but of what nature, we're not entirely sure. That's why we've postponed his surgery. Since the head medic of the Faerie-Human Crime Scene Investigation team is coming to look him over, we decided to wait for her opinion before we do anything more. We have him stabilized for now, so he should be okay until she gets here."
I let out a long sigh. "What happened? Do you know how he was injured?"
The doctor pressed his lips together. "Since Detective Johnson is on his way, I suggest you wait and talk to him. But, and this is just a preliminary conclusion, it looks as though Mr. Childs was assaulted." He turned away to talk softly to the nurse.
I took a quick step toward Camille, who draped her arm around my shoulder and gave me a little squeeze. "This is bad, I know it's bad, but he's alive. You have to hold on to that. Sharah's on the way and she's a brilliant healer."
I let out a little whimper, but knew Camille was right. I also knew that one of her own lovers - Trillian - was still missing on a secret mission. She was facing some of the same fears that I was.
"Thank you for being here," I whispered.
Just then, Chase strode in, followed by Sharah, the elfin medic who had helped me conceive. I gave them a strained smile and Sharah patted my arm as she slipped past, her attention focused on Mitch.
Camille motioned for me to follow her. She glanced at Chase. "We'll be in the cafeteria waiting for you."
He nodded. "See you in about ten. I just want to talk to the doctor first."
On our way to the dining hall, Camille said, "Chase is good at what he does. If he can help us, he will."
I stared at the sandwiches lining the a la carte buffet, finally choosing a tuna on sourdough. I hadn't eaten since breakfast except for a few cookies, and even though I didn't have any desire for food, I knew it would help me cope with what was going on. I added a Jell-O salad cup to my tray and watched as Camille piled hers high with a meatball sub, a Caesar salad, and a couple of brownies.
"If I tried to eat that much food at once, I'd throw up." I handed the teller a ten and she gave me back my change.
"All Otherworld Fae have high metabolism," Camille said. "We'd starve if we ate like the women over Earthside. I think something happened during the Great Divide to our people. Even though my sisters and I are half human, we take after our father in this regard. The downside is, our food bills are a bitch."
She flashed me a smile and I actually laughed. The release felt good, though the minute I heard myself, I sobered again.
Camille steered me to a table by the wall, out of earshot of the main room. As we settled in to our food, eating silently, the pale green of the hospital walls began to get to me. It was depressing and drab. No wonder people who were stuck in here didn't get well very fast. It should be a warm beige, or a cheery yellow - something to perk up the spirits and infuse energy into the sterile hallways and rooms.
We were just finishing when Chase came in. He hurried up to our table after stopping to get a cup of coffee and a Danish. As Camille pulled the chair out for him, he slid into it and wearily began stirring sugar into his milk laden coffee.
Camille leaned forward. "Did you find out anything?"
Chase frowned, looking at me. "Yeah, a little. But I need to ask you, Siobhan, what's going on? Apparently Mitch was holding on to consciousness when he was brought in, enough to tell the doctor that he had to get home to you - that you were in danger. Care to elaborate on any secrets I should know?"
I bit my lip, not wanting to bring the cops in on this, but it appeared there was no other choice. With Camille's help, I ran down everything that had happened, and why. When we finished, Chase was shaking his head.
"So this Terrance guy, he raped you and then your parents were going to marry you off to him?"
I nodded. "It's the way, in some of the Pods. While rules are different among the varying Were tribes, the selkies are old - very old - and don't adapt well to social change. You say that Mitch told the healer I'm in danger?"
Chase nodded. "He was raving, so the doc wasn't sure at first what he was talking about but apparently he kept insisting that you and the baby were in danger. The doctor asked him who did this and all he would say was one of the web fingered caught him. Any clue as to what that means?"
I caught my breath. "Web-fingered? Are you sure?"
"Yeah. The doctor said it caught him off guard. He has no idea what Mitch was talking about."
I pressed my fingers to my temple, trying to forestall the looming headache. "Oh Great Mother, I need some tea. Camille?"
She nodded and slipped out of her seat. As she headed over to the beverage counter, I said, "Web-fingered is another name for the Finfolk. Camille and her sisters know them as the Mere. They're evil. We were thinking Terrance might have some Finfolk blood in him. It sounds as though Mitch recognized it."
"Then it's a good bet he's the one we're looking for. He really messed up your fiance, Siobhan; I'll say that for him. And by FBH laws, I can run him down and catch him, but I have to warn you - according to treaties, the Supe Community can demand we extradite him for trial, since he attacked a Supe rather than a human. But we can at least try to catch him."
Chase flipped open his notepad. "Will you work with a police sketch artist to create a drawing of him?"
I stared at him. Extradition? I'd been afraid of that, and now the last thing I wanted was for Chase to find Terrance. If the Puget Sound Harbor Seal Pod demanded extradition, there was a chance that Terrance would be set free on the grounds that he had prior claim to me. And a chance - even if it turned out to be slim - was too dangerous. No, it was best if Camille and her sisters could help me find him before the FH-CSI. That way, there would be an end to this. But I didn't want to alienate the detective, so I murmured my cooperation.
When Camille returned with my tea, we promised we'd head over to the FH-CSI headquarters after we checked in on Mitch again, and after I called his parents. Chase slipped out of his seat and left, giving me a gentle nod as he went. I stirred my raspberry tea, letting the scent waft up to comfort me, wondering how the hell it had come to this, and how come now, when I had so much to lose?
* * *
Sharah verified what the doctor had told us about Mitch's injuries, adding that his coma was his body's way of shutting down to begin the healing process. She didn't sense any loss of function in his brain, and his silver cord was intact so he was fine - just sleeping so deeply we couldn't reach him at this point.
I called Mitch's parents and the Pod elders, and gave them the news, leaving my cell number as Camille and I headed out to talk to the sketch artist. It seemed odd, pretending to care when I fully intended to give the man a vague description. I debated whether to tell Camille that I planned to throw the sketch, but she might feel obligated to tell Chase, and he'd get angry and cause a big scene I really didn't need right now.
Instead, I asked her to call Delilah while I went in and talked to the artist. "Can you find out what Delilah and Tim have discovered about my hacked computer?"
"You're sure you don't need me for moral support?" She gazed at me and I had the uncomfortable feeling she could see through me like Saran Wrap.
"No... no, I'm fine. Thanks, though, for everything."
I went through the motions, giving vague answers that sounded legitimate enough to fly under the radar, and in the end, the generic-looking face on the page could have been any number of men walking through the mall. I forced a worried smile and said, "That's him, all right." The sketch artist was happy, Chase was happy, and I was relieved.
Camille was waiting for me when I came out. We headed out to her Lexus. She motioned for me to be quiet until we were safely inside the car, then said, "You were hacked, all right. Delilah thinks somebody's combed through all your files. Tim said there's a doozy of a Trojan that snuck through. You must have clicked on an attachment in some e-mail you got, and it executed a program that created a direct path into your files. There's a good chance that someone - and I think we can bet on it being Terrance - managed to download a copy of every single document and image you have on your computer."
"Then everything there... Terrance has snooped through everything we have on there? My journal, our pictures..." My stomach lurched and I couldn't tell if it was the baby, the food, or my own feeling of being violated yet again. Mitch and I had some compromising shots of us tucked away, taken with our digital camera so we wouldn't run the risk of someone else seeing them.
"Damn it, Terry's done it again. He's invaded my life and broken my boundaries." The thought that Terrance had seen those pictures, that he had all my ID information, that he had access to our financial information and everything else that Mitch and I stored on our computer, made me want to scream.
Camille grimaced. "Babe, I hate to say this, but he probably has your passwords, too - apparently there was keystroke logger spyware bundled into the package, and so everything you typed onto the computer was logged onto a host machine. The upside is that Tim thinks he might be able to trace it, because that kind of spyware leaves a footprint. There should be a trail leading back to the IP address that the information was sent to."
"This is just getting worse and worse." I leaned my head against the seat, wanting to cry. "Can they trace the IP address to where he lives, by any chance?"
She shrugged. "That I don't know, but it gives us a place to start. And remember - maybe the techno mages of the elves can help. They might be able to magically track him if we can't do it via the Internet."
"They can do that?" I pressed my hand to my head, trying to stave off the looming headache. Too much had happened today and I was worried about Mitch, and felt like I was coming down with the flu.
"I don't know, but it's worth a shot. Now come on; let's go home and see what Tim and Delilah have to say." She started the car and eased out of the parking spot.
"I don't want to go home. I want to stay with Mitch."
She shook her head. "You're pregnant. You're going home and we'll talk to Tim, and then you're going to take a nap. You need your rest."
I didn't bother arguing. Camille and her sisters were stubborn and I knew better than to try to change her mind. I stared out the window, wondering what the hell was happening. Had I done something to anger the gods? Had the Ocean Mother turned against me?
"Damn it," Camille muttered, a few minutes after she'd pulled onto I-5, northbound.
"What's wrong?" As I glanced over at her, she bit her lip and glanced in the rearview mirror.
"I'm not sure, but... I think we're being followed." She switched lanes and then sped up, passing by a line of cars before smoothly moving back into our original lane again.
After a few minutes, she shook her head. "And there they are again - don't turn around, because whoever it is has a good view of us, but there's a silver Saab to our left, one car behind us. Whoever they are, they've been on our tail since shortly after we pulled out of the hospital. They've got tinted windows, so it's hard to see who's behind the wheel."
"Aren't tinted windows illegal?" I eased a glance through the rearview mirror to catch only a glimpse of the Saab. The windows were dark, too dark to see through, at least from this angle.
"Not if they fall within a certain percentage range. I had to find out for Menolly - she wanted the windows of her Jag tinted, so we had to check on the laws. They're plenty expensive, though." She darted a glance over her shoulder, then flicked on the turn signal and moved into the right lane. "Let's see if they follow us over - Yeah, here they come. Whoever they are, they're keeping pace with us, but staying one lane over."
She nodded toward the sign ahead. "We're making an unscheduled departure from the freeway," she said as she veered onto the exit ramp.
My heart began to race as we quickly paced around the winding ramp, ending up on James Street. We came to a light and had to stop, and Camille fretted as we watched the line of cars go by from the other direction. She glanced in the rearview mirror and sucked in a deep breath.
"He's there, behind us, about four cars back. I was hoping we'd lose him but somehow he managed to change lanes fast enough to make the exit." She eyed the area. "We're near Seattle University, but I don't think that's going to help us. It's too late for most classes, and I don't want to take a chance on driving into an area that isn't in full view of the public. Any suggestions would be helpful."
I frantically stared out the window, my thoughts racing, trying to remember if there was anybody I knew who lived or worked in the area. And then, a name clicked to mind. I snapped my fingers. "Get onto Twelfth and head toward East Pike. Marion has a cafe over there and they stay open late. They're always packed because it's a big Supe hangout."
Camille quickly turned onto Twelfth as soon as the light turned green. "Who's Marion?"
"She's a member of the Northwest Seattle Coyote Clan. They're urban coyote shifters who mainly stay in the cities. A lot of the coyote Weres have taken to doing that, along with a number of the dog and cat Weres. Lagomorphs, too."
We had to adapt to modern life, I thought. It was either that, or die out. The wilderness was shrinking and while some of the bear, wolf, and big cat tribes still kept to the sparsely populated states and wilderness areas, most of the smaller Weres had slowly begun to familiarize themselves with urban living.
As we cruised down Twelfth, trying not to let the tailing Saab spook us, I patted my belly, attempting to soothe my overworked nerves. My thoughts drifted back to Mitch and how badly he'd been injured. Somebody had roughed him up something awful. Terrance had to have a couple of goons with him to cause that much damage because Mitch could hold his own in a fight. It was bad enough to have to worry about Terrance, but to be forced to worry about any buddies he might be hanging with... The thought scared the shit out of me.
Camille turned onto East Pike and I pointed up ahead. "See, there on the right. The Supe-Urban Cafe. There's parking to the side, right after you pass the restaurant, so pull in there and let's get ready to run in."
I unbuckled my seat belt and grabbed both our purses as Camille swung into the side parking lot. The minute she pulled to a stop and turned off the ignition, we hit the doors. As we raced for the restaurant, she locked the car with her electronic key. We managed to slip inside just as the silver Saab slowly paced by. I lingered long enough to see it pull into the parking lot.
"They're still on our tail. Head to the back. Marion spends a lot of time in the kitchen." I handed Camille her purse and led her through the maze of tables. Business was brisk; most of the tables were filled with people, eating, drinking coffee, talking, reading. It was really more of a hangout than a restaurant and Marion told me she was making enough to put her oldest through college.
As we came to the swinging doors that led to the restrooms and the office, I pushed through and found myself face-to face with Marion herself. She was lean, gaunt but not anorexic, and she had that hungry look in her eyes that all coyote Weres seemed to have. They never looked like they'd had enough to eat, and very seldom seemed fully happy, though most that I knew were quite content and led fulfilling lives. It was just something in their nature that led them to look like street children staring through a candy store window.
"Siobhan, I haven't seen you in - " She stopped, staring at me, her nose twitching. "You're afraid. What's made you so afraid in my restaurant?"
Camille interjected herself between the door and my back. "We're being followed by someone who's looking to harm Siobhan. Do you have a place we can hide?" Most Supe establishments had panic rooms of one sort or another.
Marion glanced from Camille to me, then back to Camille again. She quickly turned and motioned for us to follow her. We headed into her office, where she closed the door behind her, then swiftly pulled a bookshelf away from the wall. It was hinged, though we couldn't see the hinges from the way it was attached, and a dimly lit passage showed from behind it.
"This leads to a tunnel that comes out a few blocks away in Westmeyer Park. You can either wait here for me, or you can head down there and I'll have one of my men meet you there. You can pick up your car later - who was driving?" Marion handed me a flashlight from her desk.
Camille raised her hand. "That would be me. I've got a steel gray Lexus out there." She turned to me. "Siobhan, we can call Chase. He'll bring his men and come down here and if they possibly can, they'll nab him. Because you and I both know that has to be Terrance."
I bit my lip, thinking. We could wait here, let Chase catch him. And then Chase would turn him over to the Supe Community council and he'd have a damned good chance of getting away with this crap. Of course, if he'd been the one to attack Mitch - and I was positive it was him - then maybe we could do something, but with Mitch in a coma, there was no way to prove his attacker had been Terrance.
On the other hand, if I really wanted him gone, it meant taking care of him without anybody else finding out. I shook my head.
"No. We play it the way we were thinking about. Marion, thanks for the offer, but we'll call our friends on the way and have them meet us. It's enough that you're giving us the chance to escape. I'll explain everything later." I ducked into the tunnel and blew a kiss at the Were. "Anything I can do for you, let me know."
She laughed. "Just name your firstborn after me," she said, shutting the door behind us.
As the sounds of the bar were muffled by the thick bookshelf, I let out a long sigh and flicked the switch on the flashlight. The light beat a steady beam down the corridor and I breathed a little easier.
"We've got a bit of a walk in front of us," I said, glancing down at my pumps ruefully.
Camille held out her foot. She was wearing stilettos. "Don't even talk to me about painful footwear," she said, smiling. "Come on, let's get moving. I wonder if I can get cell reception down here. If not, we'll have to wait till we come out into the open to call for a ride."
As we started through the musty tunnel, fresh air piped in from somewhere above. How many people had used this getaway? And for what? Whom had they been fleeing from? But try as I might, I couldn't get my mind off Terrance. He'd decided to make his move before I had time to plan. His call had just been a terror tactic, and it had worked. And I knew him well enough to know that he'd stop at nothing to get me back.