like that?” A note of cautious wariness slipped into her voice.
I couldn’t blame her. As both Grandma and Verity prove, my family isn’t always clever about picking our romantic partners. One too many Covenant foot soldiers for most cryptids to be really comfortable.
“You don’t have any security,” he blurted. “Anyone could just come in the door, any time they wanted to! How is this safe?”
“We’ve been here for a long, long time,” said Cynthia. “The locals tell lots of scary stories about us, how we cook runaway kids on the weekends, how people will break your jaw just for stepping into the parking lot. We’re hiding in plain sight by being part of the landscape. Sometimes that’s the safest choice of all.”
“But the Covenant—” said Sam.
“They know about the Angel,” said a voice from the far end of the bar. Its owner stood, pushing her drink away as she unspooled from her stool. She was short, curvy, and underdressed for the chill generated by the bar’s air-conditioning, in cut-off denim shorts and a red tank top. Tattoos covered her left arm, and the left side of her neck, complicated and interlinked. She looked at Sam with all the emotion and sympathy of an alligator assessing a stray dog that had wandered too close to the water. “They’ve known about the Angel for at least fifty years, and they’re smart enough to leave it the hell alone.”
“Mary came through, huh?” I said, with a glance at Cynthia.
“Maybe I wasn’t her only stop.” She shrugged generously. “You want your usual?”
“Please. Sam? This is where you order a drink, so the nice bar doesn’t throw us out.”
“Um. Hard cider, if you’ve got it,” he said.
Cynthia nodded and moved to start pouring drinks. I approached the woman who was still standing next to her stool, virtually glaring at Sam. She transferred her gaze to me as I got closer. It didn’t warm.
“Some of these tattoos are new,” I said, gesturing toward her wrist. I didn’t touch her. It was never a good idea when she had that absent, unrecognizing look on her face. Maybe she knew who I was and maybe she didn’t. If she didn’t, unwanted physical contact could get me shot. “Were you traveling again?”
“I’ve tried a few new dimensions, looking for Thomas, since the last time you came home,” she said. The numbness in her expression cracked. “I thought we’d sent you off to die,” she said, before sweeping me into her arms and crushing me against her chest. The rules against me touching her didn’t run in the opposite direction.
“Hi, Grandma,” I wheezed.
* * *
Motion out of the corner of my eye alerted me to Sam’s approach. When he wanted to be, he was faster than anything human. The fact that he was moving like that told me even without getting a good look at him that he had returned to his more customary fūri form. The true potential of his speed is reserved for when he’s moving with the bones and muscles he was born to, and not the human ones he occasionally tries on for size.
“Sam,” I managed, despite the lack of oxygen entering my body, “don’t hit my grandmother. Grandma, don’t attack my boyfriend.”
“Grandmother?” said Sam, at the same time as my grandmother said, “Boyfriend?” It was impossible to tell which one of them sounded more confused. But at least Grandma let me go.
I immediately stepped backward, out of easy reach, and started rubbing my sternum with one hand, encouraging the bone to stop aching. “Ow,” I said, with as much coherence as I could muster. “Grandma, did you forget that I’m not you?”
No one in our family is in poor physical condition. We’ve been lucky when it comes to illnesses and injuries, and all of us, even Alex, have chosen extracurricular activities that keep us in excellent physical shape. And then there is my grandmother. She’s been moving between dimensions for decades, trying to locate her missing husband, doing a lot of God-knows-what to keep her stomach full and her guns loaded during that time—and honestly, I don’t think she puts a priority on food. She could probably bench-press me and Sam both without breaking a sweat.
She looked at me flatly for a moment, and in her faintly confused expression, I could read the answer to my question: yes, she had forgotten, and not for the first time. Whatever function of her dimensional wanderings kept her young, it also left her occasionally bewildered about her own