Stolen

INTRODUCTIONS

As Paige led us down the hall, we could see the main room ahead. There were four people on folding chairs around a folding wooden table, the type of furniture found in church basements everywhere. Looking at the four, I was relieved-or perhaps slightly disappointed-to note a complete absence of cloven hooves and unsightly body appendages. The four looked as if they could have really been at a conference, albeit a casual midsummer conference in cottage country.

Ruth sat beside an empty chair. Like Paige, she wore a sundress. Across from them was a woman in her mid-forties, slender with short auburn hair. Beside her sat a young man with broad shoulders, a boyish face, and light brown hair tipped blond. On his left was a man on the far side of middle age, heavyset and graying. He looked aboriginal, probably Inuit, his smooth face a mask of meditative calm. So this was a gathering of the most powerful supernatural beings in North America? Oh, please. Central casting could have found a more likely bunch by plundering the Sunday night television lineup.

Across the room was the Ladies' Auxiliary snack table. Well, not exactly, but close enough. The only thing missing was the blue-haired matron doling out goodies and guarding her cash box. There was a table with a coffee urn, a margarine tub of white powder that was more likely to be creamer than cocaine, a pyramid of Styrofoam cups-one filled with sugar cubes-and a plate of powdered doughnuts. On the rear wall, a handwritten sign reminded snackers that coffee and doughnuts were a quarter each, followed by a line in red clarifying that this meant fifty cents for both a doughnut and coffee, not a quarter for the two combined. I really hoped the Legion folks were responsible for the goodies and the sign. Otherwise… well, I didn't want to consider the alternative. Let's just say if anyone passed around a plate for membership dues, I was out of there.

Beside the table was a flip-board and, on the top page of the flip-board, the meeting agenda. I kid you not. They had an agenda, not just a rough list of topics, but a full schedule starting with greetings and refreshments at 10:00, background at 10:30, roundtable at 11:45, followed by lunch from 12:15 to 1:15. I glanced over my shoulder to see Jeremy reading the schedule, lips twitching.

"At least they're organized," he murmured, too low for Paige to hear.

Everyone turned as we walked in. Ruth stood, features rearranging themselves in a welcoming smile as she tried to hide her surprise.

"Hello," she said. "I thought you weren't coming until Monday."

"Our plans for the weekend fell through."

"Oh? Oh, well, yes. Come in then. Everyone, this is Jeremy… Jeremy Danvers, the… leader… I hope that's right, leader?… of the-"

"Jeremy is fine," he finished. "This is Elena."

The young man with the blond-tipped hair grinned. "The infamous werewolves? Funny, you don't look like werewolves. No connecting eyebrows, no hairy palms. Damn. Another myth shot to hell. And I thought all werewolves were male. That's definitely not a guy."

"Women's lib," I said. "We're everywhere now."

The young man's grin broadened. "Is nothing sacred?"

"Elena is the only female werewolf," Paige said as she walked to the empty chair. "Werewolves are made two ways, by inheriting the genes or by being bitten. Most werewolves are hereditary, since few people bitten by a werewolf survive. Because the genes pass only through the male line, female werewolves are extremely rare."

The young man rolled his eyes. "Next on the Discovery Channel, an in-depth examination of werewolves and feminism by Paige Winterbourne."

"Go to hell, Adam."

"Don't rush me."

"Ignore them, please," Ruth said. "Adam and Paige have known each other since they were children. Sometimes I suspect they haven't come very far in the intervening years. Now, introductions. This one beside me is Paige and that young man is Adam, in case that wasn't perfectly obvious. Our younger generation. The poor man stuck between the two is Kenneth."

The middle-aged man blinked, as if startled back to earth. He looked at us and gave a confused smile.

"On Adam's other side is Cassandra."

The auburn-haired woman's smile didn't reach her eyes, which studied us with interest but little emotion.

"That's not what you really want to know, is it?" Adam said. "At least, that's not the good part, not who we are, but what we are, right? Though it's probably better to explain the two separately or it ends up sounding like an AA meeting for the damned. 'Hi, my name is Adam and I'm a half-demon.'"

"A half…?" I said.

"Exactly what it sounds like. Mom's human. Dad's the living embodiment of absolute evil. Luckily, I got my looks from Mom's side. My father's not exactly GQ material. Don't ask me what my mother was thinking. Obviously one too many tequila shots that night."

"Demons take human form to rape or seduce human women," Paige said. "Half-demons are always human in appearance. They inherit other qualities from their fathers. Each has different powers, depending on the type of demon that sired them."

"The X-Men of the underworld," Adam said. "Now that Paige has so neatly summed up my biology, here are the goods on the rest. Paige and Ruth, witches, but you knew that. Cass, vampire. Ken, shaman. You know what a shaman is?"

"Yes," Jeremy said.

"So that's it. The major supernatural races, all in one place, like Satan's Ark."

"Adam, please," Ruth said. She turned to us. "Adam likes to joke, but I can assure you, we are not evil, not Satanists, nothing of the sort."

"Just regular folks," Adam said. "With a few quirks."

I glanced at Adam. So this was a half-demon. Uh-huh. I'd never heard of half-demons before Pittsburgh, but I was sure if such things existed, they shouldn't look like this guy. Any portrayal of demons I'd ever seen was quite clear on several points: They had cloven hooves, scales, horns, and tails. Logically, then, a half-demon should at least have bad skin. He should not be a baby-faced, all-American boy who looked like he should be greeting guests at Disney World. Maybe that was the idea. Maybe half-demons were supposed to look charming and innocuous. It would be far easier to tempt mortals to evil without scales and horns ruining that all-important first impression. Perhaps beneath that wide-eyed exterior lurked a soul of pure evil.

"Chairs," Adam said, scrambling to his feet. "You guys need chairs. Hold on. I'll be back in a flash."

Maybe it was a deeply hidden wellspring of evil. Very deeply hidden.

Then there was Cassandra. A vampire? Who was she kidding? She looked as much like an undead bloodsucker as I looked like a half-wolf monster. Okay, bad analogy. The point was that Cassandra could not be a vampire. It wasn't just her appearance. Granted, she looked less like a crypt-dwelling fiend than a Wall Street exec, the kind of woman whose tailored dresses, perfect manicure, and nearly flawless makeup were a trap waiting to spring on anyone who mistook the outer package as a sign of inner softness. But the problem went deeper than that. Much deeper. First, there were no fangs, not even oversized canines. Second, she sat in a room with sunlight streaming through the windows. Third, there was no way in hell-pardon the pun-you could tell me that any woman could style her hair and apply her makeup that well if she couldn't see her reflection. Even with a three-way mirror, I can't get my hair back in a clip without tendrils escaping every which way.

Jeremy must have been thinking the same thing because he started by saying, "Before we begin, we need to clear up one thing. I don't mean to sound suspicious-"

"Don't apologize," Cassandra said. "You should be suspicious."

Jeremy nodded. "Although Adam so neatly categorized everyone, you can see where we might be in need of more… concrete evidence."

I said, "To put it bluntly, how do we know you are what you say you are? You say you're a vampire, but…"

"Everyone knows vampires don't exist," Cassandra said.

"It is a bit hard to swallow," I said. "Vampires, witches, shamans, demons."

"Are you listening to yourself?" Paige said. "You don't believe in the supernatural? You're a werewolf!"

"Alleged werewolf."

Paige rolled her eyes. "Here we go again. You still don't believe we're witches, do you? Even after we cast multiple spells to save your life-"

"Save my life?" I sputtered. "You were the one padding down a hotel hallway in your nightgown, so eager to see the bad guy lurking behind door number one."

Adam laughed. Paige shot him a glare.

"Okay," I said, "let's pretend I believe in vampires and witches. How do I know that's what you guys are? Do you know how many wackos out there think they're vampires? Trust me, you don't want to know. It'll keep you up at night."

"I've seen them," Cassandra said. "Black lipstick, black nail polish, absolutely zero fashion sense. Wherever did they get the idea vampires are color-blind?" She lifted her pen and offered it to me. "You could stab me with this. Just not in the heart, please."

"Too messy," I said.

She settled back in her chair, eyes on me as if no one else was in the room. I could feel the curiosity in her gaze now as it moved across my face, studying me. Her lips curved in a smile, still cool, but now tinged with friendly interest.

"I could bite you," she said.

"I'd only bite you back."

The smile touched her hazel eyes. "Interesting thought. What do you think would happen? A vampire/werewolf hybrid? Or would it have no effect? Intriguing idea, but impractical at the moment. We could compare fangs."

"Definitely a guy thing."

She laughed. "Quite right."

"Maybe you can explain something then," I said. "If you are a vampire…" I looked at the sunlight streaming through the window.

"Why am I not exploding in a cloud of dust? I've often wondered that myself. As Adam would say, 'Damn, another myth shot to hell.' I'm quite glad that one isn't true. An eternity without Caribbean beach vacations would be more than I could handle. It was much more disheartening when I discovered I couldn't fly. But as for a demonstration, perhaps this will do."

Cassandra laid her left hand on the table, lifted the pen, and jammed it down into her outstretched palm, driving it a half-inch into her hand. Ruth shuddered and looked away. Cassandra examined the damage with cool detachment, as if she'd stabbed the tabletop instead.

"A poor job of it," she said. "Unlike werewolves, we don't have super strength. That's the best I can manage, but it should prove my point."

She tugged the pen out, then lifted her palm for me to examine. The puncture was as clean as a nail hole through a waxen dummy. As I watched, the edges of the wound moved together, the flesh reconstituting itself. Within a minute, her skin was smooth and unblemished.

"No pain, no blood, no fuss," she said. "Good enough?"

"Yes," Jeremy said. "Thank you."

"My turn?" Paige said. "What can I do to convince you, Elena? Conjure up a demon?"

"Paige!" Ruth's eyes widened in alarm. She quickly turned to us. "Let me assure you, we do not conjure demons. Besides a few simple self-protection spells, witches practice only benevolent magic."

"An it harm none, do what thou wilt," Cassandra murmured.

Ruth whispered something to Paige, who nodded, shrugged, rolled her eyes, clearly adopting the ever-popular defense of the young: "Geez, I was only kidding." Had she been kidding? Not about conjuring a demon, but about being able to do it? Ruth said they practiced only so-called white magic. Was that all they could do? Or all they would do? Was a certain apprentice spell-caster not too happy with her predefined role as the direct descendant of the Good Witch of the North? Hmmm.

"That's enough of the demonstrations," Jeremy said. "Right now, I'd like to learn more about these men who stalked Elena."

"I heard about that," Adam said, grinning at me. "The first casualty of war. Way to go. I'm jealous."

"You would be," Paige said.

Ruth glanced at the two with a look 90 percent exasperated affection and 10 percent gentle warning. They shut up as quickly as if they'd received a tongue-lashing. Ruth paused, as if making sure they were going to be quiet, then began her story.