She’s a Runner Read online

  Jacques laughed and the sound was beautiful. He was usually so quiet because he was observing, but when he let loose you could tell he had a good soul, and a full life lived. I hoped that at his age I would be as carefree in who I was.

  “You know, if I didn’t know who you were, I’d say you’d made a right good partner in this investigation business. We’d be unstoppable.” His comment made me think of Calix’s comment at the highrise, how his mother would have liked me if I weren't what I was, because she was an Investigative analyst.

  A pang of sadness shot through me and I covered it back up as quickly as I could.

  I slapped his arm. “Don’t make me L-o-L, ol’ man. Just answer the questions, and preferably before we reach the house.” I stuck my bottom lip out like a child.

  Jacques eyes grew wide and round with contained laughter at the petulant face I was making, but he recovered quickly and conceded. “She said her name was Umbra. Nothing else, just Umbra. She said she hails from the north, but didn’t give me a city. Asked for you by full name, assured me she was here to help, but didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t confirm or deny that you were here. She was accompanied by six or seven guys, looked like they deferred to her though.” He shook his head as if thinking to himself before continuing. “Andreas went around back and snuck up behind them with his gun drawn. They didn’t look like they were phased too much either, just put their hands up and followed Silas into the house. I figured I best be gettin you before they got the cops on my doorstep. Bossman has a finicky temper.”

  I loved the way Jacques cut straight to the chase but didn’t ignore the details. I was going to have to question him about what techniques he had learned on the other side of the law, when he was younger. I bet the army, then the police force, then private investigations had made him an encyclopedia of experience.

  “Okie dokie then, let’s go see what I’m in for now. I mean it can’t get much worse than some cult that kidnaps and kills innocents for no other reason than their ingrained delusions. Can it?” We hadn’t let Jacques in on what Calix had said, well not the mythical part. The boys didn’t believe it not fully at least - thankfully Andreas could no longer deny the effect I had - and that left me alone in the belief arena. If I told Jacques and he sided with the boys, I would truly feel like a lunatic.

  I looked up in Jacques safe eyes, and saw comfort there. He was going to say whatever it was I needed to hear, and it was going to work. I had come to expect it from him. I stopped him before the reassuring words could come forward and pulled on his arm harder, breaking us into a jog towards the house.

  We came in through the back porch that was connected to the YUGGE kitchen, It reminded me of the kitchens you would see in the old movies, where the old grandmother was cooking a meal for a castle worth of people. Not realistic, but perfect. Jacques had the P-E-R-F-E-C-T kitchen.

  A pang of sadness shot through me again. Jacques has the perfect kitchen now, but the soulmate that once filled it with baked cookie smells, and spices from supper, was gone, forever. He was so strong, I don’t think I could continue to live in this house as he has.

  I gripped his arm just a little tighter as he led me into the dinning room, and through to the lounge room where our guests had been seated.

  The first thing I noticed was that Andreas looked like he was ready to kill something, or someone. No one from the outside world would be able to tell, but I’d seen it myself. It was a slight set of his jaw, and tightening of his face that gave it away, it wasn’t a very obvious tell if you weren't looking for it.

  Maybe I’d take him to the casinos and try our luck at the hold'em tables with his immovable mask. Momma was drawn to the easy cash, something I wasn’t ashamed of. Especially if it was easy, easy money. Old habits die hard.

  Silas, on the other hand was observing. I could see the wheels and cogs of his mind turning, adding up the numbers and finding the sum. He was looking for answers, but he wasn’t speaking. It was almost like he had been trained, and I felt a sense of unease shadow over me. I didn’t really know anything about Silas’ past, our interactions only ever having been about mine.

  I thought back to something he had said when this all started: “I didn’t always own that cafe, you know.” Then I remembered how calm he’d been in the gun fight, and how he handled himself getting shot. He never spoke about his own personal past, and I had never noticed. Again I felt ashamed. This wasn’t the first time I’d come to this type of realization. I felt selfish. I made a mental note to take Silas aside and have a nice heart to heart over some caffeinated goodness, once all this was over. There was a story behind his eyes I needed to hear. Something that he was holding back from me. I hated secrets.

  And what a hypocrite that made me, the Queen of Secrets, nay, the primordial deity of secrets. I had no place to judge.

  In the wingback chair close to the fireplace, the silhouette of a woman sat behind a wall of strangers, male strangers. When I walked in they moved slowly apart so that the woman could greet me. She stood gracefully and she seemed to unfold into a lithe statuesque goddess.

  I called myself a primordial deity, but I was sludge compared to this beauty. She took my breath away, and I wasn’t even jealous - okay well maybe a little bit - but more just in awe that such a thing existed, and appreciative to have witnessed it. Yass queens, she was slayin.

  She had long, silver blonde hair, and piercing sky blue eyes full of knowledge, with a hypnotic swirl of dark, mysterious ocean blue through them. She was dressed in a gown that could only be from the 1920s, or more so fashioned as one, it’s materials and stitching much to modern to be authentic, but no less exquisite. Its sheer outer layer was beaded with all kinds of opal and onyx like stones in waves and swirls, and laid over a creamy, blush silk dress with sparkly fringe along the bottom, that swished as she moved. She wore a string of diamonds around her hair like a halo, and her bangs fell to the side of her face in a perfectly immovable blond wave, topped with a diamond hairpiece that was shaped like a butterfly.

  I looked at myself, from my flip flops up. I was looking pretty dang shabby in my joggers and tank top, dirt stained hands from playing in the orchard, and my hair was a mess. I wasn’t what they would call fit for company.

  But when the woman's eyes landed on me they sparkled, and grew large with warmth. I’d only ever seen that level of excitement laced with love from my own mother, but this woman wasn’t family. She didn’t even know me.

  I waited for my warning systems to go off, or my inner voices to chirp into the conversation with friend or foe opinions, but they settled quietly in my mind, waiting.

  She strode closer to me, her male companions following closely behind her. She held out her dainty hand, nails perfectly polished. “Hello, Medoe. I’m Umbra.”

  I took her hand as was polite, but I couldn’t hold back my curiosity. “Okay Umbra, and how the hell do you know who I am? My real name, one I haven’t used for almost a decade? Where I live now? Any of it!”

  A voice hissed in my head, one I hadn’t heard before. That surprised me more than the fact that there were voices in my head at all.

  Nesssssst.

  The look on her face told me she wasn’t surprised by my questions. Like she knew I was going to be defensive. Something told me that this woman knew a lot, maybe about me, maybe about my curse, maybe about my goddamn menage fantasies, who knows. She just screamed, knowledge.

  “Well, I felt you of course, when you came to town. Jardain did some digging, and Alsou had a dream. So we left the rhumba and came to find you, I thought maybe you were calling to me.” She looked at me quizzically. “Did you not feel me too, sister?”

  My mind started to swirl. Felt me? Some dude had a dream? What the fuck is a rhumba, like, a dance hall, or a vaccum, or something? And why the actual holy living fuck is she calling me Sister ?

  The End

  Continue the Story of Medoe and her Curse in the Daughters of Medusa series, Book 2: She’s a Lover