Under the Moon (Goddesses Rising) - By Natalie J. Damschroder Page 0,66

newsletter, and a couple of client inquiries. Then one return address made her perk up.

“We might not have to track Chloe down.” She clicked on the message. “She e-mailed…” She trailed off when she saw the content.

Quinn :

I spoke to Tanda, who said you might be heading my way. I’d love to see you—everyone seems to be avoiding me. And I have to tell you something weird that happened, but only in person. Call me.

Chloe

She reread it aloud to Sam, who whistled. “Better call her.”

Quinn already had her phone out. “She gave me a new number. The leech probably took her phone, too.” She programmed the number into her phone and hit send. It was late afternoon, but the call went straight to voice mail.

“Chloe, it’s Quinn. I just got your e-mail.” Which she realized had been sent two days ago. “I’m in Connecticut now. I can be there in less than two hours. Call me back.”

“I wonder what she has to tell you,” Sam said. “‘Weird’ makes me nervous.”

“Me, too.” She scrolled through to make sure she didn’t have any missed calls on her phone. “I hope she gets the message. I’m worried about her.”

“I’m worried about you,” he came back quietly.

Quinn stood, leaving the phone on the desk. Any worry was unproductive. “I’m no more vulnerable than all the other goddesses and less than many, with both you guys on me all the time.”

“When we’re not, things happen,” Sam pointed out.

Quinn had to smile at that. “You’re not wrong.” She felt much better having both of them around until this thing was over. She had power, confidence, and the ability to take care of herself. But Tanda and Chloe had all those things, too, and it hadn’t protected them.

She turned and sat on the sofa, thinking. “Tanda said it was raining the day the leech came, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That makes sense, because he can’t leech power that isn’t there. But her power is much less predictable than a lot of ours. Why didn’t she have a regular protector?”

“I asked Nick. He doesn’t know much about anyone else’s schedule, unless a goddess is going to be left uncovered because of conflicts or something. There aren’t enough of them to assign one fulltime to any particular goddess, though. The ones whose power comes and goes most frequently and unpredictably don’t always have a protector when they should—like on a sunny day in Oregon. Too unpredictable, and without evidence of a threat, she might never get one.”

“And Chloe lives by the ocean, so she’d only need a protector if she traveled.”

“Right.”

“Same with Jennifer, with the river.”

“As far as we can tell, no one with a protector has been leeched, and vice versa. Where are you going with this?”

She didn’t know. It seemed like it should connect to the accusation that Nick had gone rogue, but how? Nick kept insisting it wasn’t important, but it had to be. And there had to be someone out there who could fill in the blanks. It frustrated her not to have anyone in the Protectorate she could ask but Nick.

Then she remembered. “Toss me my cell phone, will you?”

Sam obliged, and Quinn paged through the phone book. Somewhere in here was the name and number of a guy Nick had told her to contact if she ever couldn’t reach him. There. John W. She paused to consider what she was going to say, then hit send.

“Yo.”

“John?”

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“Quinn Caldwell. I’m one of Nick Jarrett’s—”

“Yeah, yeah, one of his goddesses. I know who you are.” He sounded cold, and she cringed.

“Nick gave me your number a long time ago, and I thought maybe you could help me.”

“With what? Nick hurt?”

“No. I hope not.” There hadn’t been time for him to get hurt. But the foreboding deepened. “Are you with the Protectorate?”

“You could say that.”

“I’m trying to get a handle on this rogue thing. He’s obviously not rogue, and I want to know why someone would say he is.”

“What are you talking about?”

Oh, shit. She thought Nick had talked to them about this, or at least that other protectors would have heard about the accusation. She thought fast. “I just met my birth father,” she tried. “My birth mother is a goddess, but she’s not really part of the Society. But my father called Nick ‘notorious’ and was pretty hostile to him. I don’t know why he’d think such things.”

Whatever John assumed her subtext was, it seemed to ease his suspicions.

“Nick’s the best protector there is. You should know