think he liked you.”
meet the author
Cindy Pringle
JENNIFERRARDINbegan writing at the age of twelve, mostly poems to amuse her classmates and short stories featuring her best friends as the heroines. She lives in an old farmhouse in Illinois with her husband and two children. Find out more about Jennifer Rardin atwww.JenniferRardin.com. .
Don’t go back in that car, the
voice snarled
W hat do you want with a seinji, a shallow playboy, a neurotic inventor, and a See-it-all anyway?
You’re better off on your own, like it was before you met that cowardly vampire.
I closed my eyes. Like all my mental voices, this one felt like an extension of me. But I didn’t have the ability to silence it like I could the others. It had begun quietly near the end of our last mission and grown like a tumor ever since. The only time it voluntarily muted was when Vayl showed.
I scratched at an itch that threaded from wrist to elbow. Hell, maybe I’d still be standing there today, sinking nails into skin, if not for Jack, who let out a series of his rare, throaty woofs. They snapped the hold that voice had woven over me. As I forced my feet to carry me back to the hearse, it suddenly felt like I was attending my own funeral. Because I knew it was time to face the facts. Either I really despised everybody in that car. Or my psyche had picked up a passenger.
CHAPTERONE
My ass felt like a slab of dead flesh, too nerveless to even quiver as the butcher slaps it onto his cutting table. Twelve hours of flying from Manila to Sydney with another sixty minutes’ hop after that is hell on the hindquarters, even when they’ve been cushioned by the most expensive seats available.
I stifled the urge to massage my butt cheeks as I descended the stairs of Vayl’s chartered jet onto the tarmac of Canberra International Airport, its serviceable hangars and practical block terminal hardly preparing visitors for Australia’s capital, which from the air had reminded me of a set from Shrek III. Tall white buildings sprouting from masses of evergreens set in a precise plan; fairy-tale perfection from a distance but up close slanting just left of happily ever after.
Shrek was always having issues with his butt, I recalled, wondering if anyone would notice if I paused to rub mine against the stair railing. Nope, bad plan. I hadn’t seen Bergman and Cassandra in over two months, and I didn’t want my crew’s first look at me to remind them we’d begun a shithole of an assignment that, if botched, could severely cripple the U.S. space program, not to mention vital parts of our anatomies. Plus, with Cole as my third greeter, I figured our hey-how-are-yous probably shouldn’t start with a lot of ass-grabbing.
I didn’t sense that Cole itched to get his hands on me as he stood at the bottom of the stairs. But his ear-to-ear grin, framed by the usual mop of sun-bleached hair, warned me that flexibility might be required. Because Something was Cooking. I eyed my former recruit, trying to get a sense of how bad it might be by the size of the gum wad rolling around his tongue. Then the music began.
“What have you done now?” I asked as my foot hit the fourth step and I realized he’d rented himself a black tuxedo, though he’d traded the bridal shop’s shoes for his red high-tops. “And should I be better dressed?”
I frowned at my Jaded Unicorns T-shirt, which showed my fave new band galloping across a meadow wearing fake horns on their foreheads. At least I’d worn black jeans.
Cole’s answer drowned in a sudden wail of funereal blues. Which made me double-check the landscape. Nope, not even close to New Orleans. In fact, the airport, surrounded by the brownish green grasses of Australia’s autumn, reminded me a lot of the farmlands of Illinois. Except today was May 22, so back in the Midwest everything would be shooting out of the ground, green as a tree frog and bursting into bloom. Here, winter had crept to the country’s edge, and I could feel it sinking its claws into my neck along with the chill breeze that swept down the hills into Canberra’s valley.
I flipped up the collar of my new leather jacket, the mournful tone of the music reminding me of the bullet wound that had killed my last one. Below me, keeping time to my slow descent, two trumpeters, a trombonist, and a sax-man wearing black suits and matching shades slow-marched from behind a baggage van, belting out a song fit for a head of state. If he’d just been assassinated.
I turned back and whistled. Jack had been cooped up so long I couldn’t believe he still stood at the cabin door, sniffing, as if he didn’t approve of this sudden change of season. He stared at me, his white face setting off deep brown eyes that looked somewhat mournful as his gray ears twitched as if to ask, Where did the tropics go? But we both knew he was really thinking, You put me on another fat metal bird when you know my paws belong on the ground.How could you?
“We’re here,” I told him.
He nodded (no, I’m not kidding; the dog is, like, one step away from hosting his own talk show) and bounded down the steps, racing toward the plane’s landing gear so he could make sure the pilot had settled it firmly into place. Satisfied, he lifted a leg. There. Now the gut-churning ear-popper belonged to him. And if it tried to lift him back into the clouds he’d show it who was boss.
Cassandra laughed. She stood opposite Cole, her hand on the rail as if waiting to help me down. But I wouldn’t be touching her if I could help it. I preferred a little mystery in my future, and our psychic had a way of spoiling the fun.
Which wasn’t quite fair. The first time she’d touched me, in the Reading Room above her health food store, she’d had a vision that saved my brother’s life. It was just, you know, now that the two of them were an item, I didn’t want her next conversation with Dave to include the words, “Oh, honey, your twin sister is such a freak in the bedroom! You’ll never guess what I picked up on her today!” As our eyes met, she gave me her regal smile and flipped her heavy black braids over her shoulder, revealing a tangerine stole, which she’d thrown over a navy blue turtleneck and white, rhinestone-studded jeans. An enormous bag made from the same orange furball as her wrap hung over one elbow, its mysterious bulges suggesting that it had been a marsupial on its home planet before space commandos had trapped it, shaved it, and shipped the clippings to her favorite retail outlet. Only the former oracle of a North African god could’ve pulled off that ensemble.
I jerked my head toward the band and raised my eyebrows.
“It wasn’t me,” she mouthed, her six pairs of earrings waving a double negative as she shook her head and rolled her eyes toward Bergman.
I felt a rush of affection as I glanced at my old roomie and current sci-guy. In some ways he hadn’t changed at all since college. He stood at her shoulder, hands stuffed deep in his pockets, looking so worried about the rip in the knee of his jeans you’d have thought he’d just been mugged and was trying to decide if his insurance would cover the replacement cost. His beige sweater hung limply from shoulders that were bowed under the weight of an army-green backpack. Its bulk helped provide balance for his head, which seemed extra large today, maybe because he wore a brown ball cap fronting the Atlanta Braves logo. His lack of glasses encouraged the look too. I’d forgotten that he’d had Lasik surgery and didn’t need them anymore.
Genius that he was, Bergman caught my gaze, flipped his own to Cassandra, and figured out in milliseconds what I was thinking. “Oh no!” he yelled over the dirge. “It was all his idea!” He pointed a bony finger in Cole’s direction.
Before I could snap his head off, Cole clasped his hands over his heart and sank to one knee. “We are all so sorry for your loss!” he cried. He threw a dramatic gesture toward the hold of the plane, where six frowning pallbearers were taking a casket from the hands of the jet’s flight crew. But it wasn’t just any old deathbox. Some company with a sense of style but zero restraint had built this sucker to resemble a golf bag. An umbrella, a black towel, and even a couple of irons had been tacked to the side, while the heads of the rest of the clubs jutted from the coffin’s end.