Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 1 (22 page)

“These cells look
pretty sturdy,” she said. The whole setup gleamed with factory
shine.

“We keep them in good
condition. Lives are at stake.”

“What I mean is, I
don’t see you breaking out of one of these.”

“I didn’t,” he
replied.

She made a curious
noise.

“Look,” he said,
bringing her to a cell on the right side of the room.

She checked her watch.
She still had several hours before sundown.

There was a key in the
door, turned to the open position. She hadn’t noticed it
earlier.

“This is the cell I
used last night. The doors lock automatically. There’s two ways to
unlock them. One, a timer. It opens an hour after dawn, just to
play it safe.”

“Two,” Aradia butted
in, “that key.”

He was mildly annoyed
that she’d stolen his thunder, but he nodded his agreement. “The
key’s mostly just in case one of the kids locks himself in here by
accident. Otherwise we’d have to wait until dawn the next
day.”

“And you keep it…” she
asked.

He doubled back toward
the weird dungeon’s entryway. “Right here,” he said pointing to a
hook next to the door.

“Hmm, I guess that
brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘who let the dogs out’?”
Aradia said grinning.

Roy gave her a dirty
look.

Aradia retorted, "I
wouldn’t be so judgmental of my jokes if I were you,
Roy."

"Why?" he
asked.

"Because then I would
be tempted to come up with some joke about how you get your 'time
of the month'!"

Roy looked completely
aghast, which made Aradia grin wickedly as she rushed past him
through the basement’s exit.

Roy ran after her.
Upstairs he got a pitcher of lemonade out of the refrigerator. He
gestured with it toward Aradia, and she nodded. He poured two
glasses.

“You may have been
joking, but you were right,” he said. “Somebody let me
out.”

“Okay,” Aradia said
soberly. “Who?”

“I’ve got my share of
enemies,” he replied melodramatically.

Aradia stared him down
for a few seconds, then burst out laughing.

“What!” he exclaimed.
“I do!”

“Oh, yeah,” she
replied. “Sure you do.”

He started to blush.
Aradia knew she was being a little mean, but he looked so cute she
could only laugh harder.

“Look, Roy,” she said,
“the werewolf thing, yeah, it’s pretty badass. But don’t overplay
it, ‘kay?”

He considered his
options, then reluctantly nodded.

“Until we know who it
was, I suggest keeping that key somewhere else. Why not take it
into the cell with you at night?”

He thought about the
suggestion. “Yeah, that works. We still need to figure out who it
was.”

“Well, we can rule out
vampires, right?” she asked. Roy had spent a fair portion of their
long conversation earlier briefing her in the chief weaknesses of
his fanged foes.

He considered, then
agreed. “The first time they enter a mortal dwelling, they must be
invited. After that they can come and go as freely as they please.
Remember that.”

“I got it, thanks,” she
said, angry at Roy’s loathing of another race. “So what about fae?
They seem like jerks.”

“They are,” he replied,
“but this isn’t their style. They’re more… white collar criminals.
Ponzi schemes and that sort of thing.”

“Hey!” she asked.
“Bernie Madoff, was he a fae?”

Roy shrugged. “Not to
my knowledge, but you never know.”

“Okay, so probably not
a vampire, probably not a fae. Shapeshifter?”

He squinted, then shook
his head. “Probably not. They’re political, but they’re generally
pretty straightforward.”

“That’s ironic,” she
replied.

“I suppose,” he
said.

“You think this is
related to the Vampire Murders?” she asked.

“I can’t prove it’s
not, but I don’t see any obvious relation.”

“Yeah, neither do I.
What about one of those other races you mentioned?” she asked. “You
said there were lots of them.”

“Maybe. It could have
been anyone, really. Whoever it was knew enough to be afraid. They
left the key in the door. I don’t think they opened it. They just
unlocked it then got out of there. Eventually I must have kicked it
open and left.”

“Roy,” she said gently,
“they didn’t need to know much to be afraid. One werewolf was…
well, terrifying. A whole roomful would be close to a
nightmare.”

He puffed his chest out
and smiled. “You thought I was terrifying?”

“Let’s get back to the
bad-guy hunt,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Have you considered
humans?”

He shook his head
again.

Seriously, he’s
going to give himself a concussion with how much he’s doing
that
.

“Not an option,” he
said. “I told you about the law.”

“Only about a million
times.” She shrugged. “Maybe somebody slipped. Or maybe you were
followed last time you turned. Who knows?”

Aradia finished off her
lemonade and glanced at her watch. “Well, time flies!” she said.
“I’ve gotta head out and finish my weekend homework. This has been
educational, but they don’t quiz on this stuff at Salem
High.”

He hurried in front of
her, blocking her path. "Hey, remember your promise."

"What?" asked
Aradia.

Roy rolled his eyes and
said, "You know. I showed you mine. Now you tell me what you
are."

"I can't do that,"
Aradia said without missing a beat.

Roy's expression turned
furious. "We had an agreement!”

"What I mean is, Roy,"
Aradia interrupted and turned around to face him. “I can't tell you
what I am because I honestly don't know."

"What do you mean you
don't know?"

"Exactly what I said. I
don't know what I am," she repeated.

Roy tried to determine
her level of sincerity. She looked him in the eye and let him
judge.

After a while, Roy
inhaled sharply. "You really don't know, do you?"

Aradia nodded
grimly.

He walked her to the
door and asked, “So you aren't going to tell anyone about me, are
you?"

Aradia looked back at
him and gave a half smile. “Roy, you’re my friend and I would never
betray you. Plus, you told me about the whole hidden law thing. But
come on, even if I told someone that you are werewolf, would anyone
believe me?”

He chuckled. “I guess
not.”

Chapter
Sixteen

“Well, you're certainly
the talk of the town,” Tristan remarked as he, Roy, Roy's brothers,
and Aradia sat together at the diner. It had started as just Roy
and his brothers. When Aradia came in they eagerly invited her
over. Tristan invited himself.

Roy's brothers were
both seventeen and juniors at Salem High School. Al, short for
Alejandro, was Roy's eldest brother, eldest by twelve minutes. D,
for Diego, was Al's fraternal twin.

Like Roy, Al had tanned
skin and a wide smile which he flashed freely. Where Roy’s grin was
goofy, almost doofy, Al’s was perfectly charming, to which many of
Salem High’s female students would attest. He was muscular to the
point of being bulky, thanks to a minimum of an hour a day, six
days a week at the school gym. He was sexy and he knew it. His
penetrating brown eyes were so dark as to appear almost black. In
violation of the SHS student codebook, he sported a black goatee.
Every couple months he’d serve detention for it.

D bore a strong
resemblance to Al. The biggest difference physically was that by
comparison, D was positively scrawny. On his own, he looked like a
normal teenage guy. Standing next to his brother, though, it was
hard to compete on physique. Beyond that, D kept his hair short,
had somewhat darker skin, and had a little isosceles triangle of
three moles on his right cheekbone.

Even if they’d looked
completely identical, though, there would have been no mistaking
the two. Their entire demeanors were at opposite ends of the
spectrum. Where Al was outgoing and flirtatious, D was withdrawn
and quiet. D’s idea of a good time on a Saturday night was sitting
by himself and practicing bass guitar.

Where their interests
overlapped, they did everything together. When D went out it was
with Al, and when Al stayed in he hung with D.

Neither of them had
better than a rocky relationship with Roy. Al teased Roy
relentlessly while D would quietly look on. Their father couldn’t
stand seeing his sons fight, though, so he had a rule. “When you’re
at the diner,” he’d say whenever they started acting up, “you get
along or you get out.”

He meant it, too. Once
they’d made the mistake of getting into a loud bicker match. Their
dad physically expelled them from the SilverMoon in front of many
of their friends. The experience didn’t help any of their
reputations. After that, Al, D, and Roy got along at the
diner.

“And how’s that,
Tristan,” Aradia asked lackadaisically as she twirled her
straw.

"Before you were just
the new girl with the weird smell,” he began.

Immediately Aradia was
interested, mostly because Tristan seemed like a total freak
talking about how she smelled.

“From what my sources
tell me, at least. Fae are too civilized to go around sniffing
people.”

Al and Roy
growled.

Tristan continued. “Now
you're the new girl that knows about us, can take apart a wolf form
werewolf, and yet no one can determine what type of hidden you are.
Yes, everyone has definitely been talking about you.”

Aradia smacked Roy on
his arm, hard.

“Roy!” she
whisper-yelled. “So the first thing you did was blab about me to
the school?”

“It wasn’t me!” Roy
protested while Tristan laughed.

Turning to the faerie,
he added, “And I didn’t get taken apart!”

“Officer Schaefer says
otherwise,” Tristan gloated gleefully. “I am told she actually
dragged you into jail by your hind legs?”

Al said, “You know,
Tristan, no matter how much you say, nobody values your
opinion.”

Tristan
scowled.

Al added to his insult,
saying, “Wait a minute, that's not true.”

Tristan scowled again
when Al went on to say, "I bet the rats in the dumpster out back
value your opinion, at least a little."

Sensing an opportunity,
Aradia grinned, and said, "Of course the rats value his opinion,
Al. He is after all one of them."

Tristan stood up, and
without saying a word, he straightened his distressed-look Armani
Exchange blazer, cast a dirty look at all four of them, and turned
to go.

Determined to have the
last laugh, though, before leaving he said, "I think you have the
back alley confused with your diner’s kitchen, Al. It's pretty
obvious which place would be more infested."

Al shot up from his
seat and stalked around the table menacingly. With surprising
speed, D was out of his chair with his hand on his brother’s chest.
He exerted very little pressure. He couldn’t hold Al back
physically if he tried. That’s not what his gesture was
about.

Al got the message.
“You better hope I don’t see you later,” Al warned. “All the fairy
dust in the world won’t help you.”

“Tristan,” Aradia
pleaded, “just go, will you?”

His eyes narrowed on
Aradia. He seemed about to speak, but then he surprised her. He
merely nodded his head, once, sharply, and left.

Roy's face was sullen
as he stared at Al and D. He was the one person at the table who
hadn’t participated in kicking out Tristan.
Does he feel guilty?
Aradia
wondered.

Then realization struck
her. He hadn’t gotten involved because he’d had to have taken his
arm off her shoulders. She didn’t even have to read his mind to see
it.

He had been acting
differently toward her since they’d met in the woods two nights
earlier. He took every opportunity to hold her hand and generally
wouldn’t take his eyes off her. In short, he was making her very
uncomfortable, but she didn’t know what to do about it.

Roy soon noticed Aradia
looking at him and turned his head toward hers. He smiled at her,
doing his best Al impersonation. She smiled back innocently.
Emboldened by the moment, Roy brought his face closer to hers.
Aradia panicked and froze. His face came closer still. The air grew
hot and heavy, crushing her.
What do I
do?
She had only moments to
decide.

Aradia found herself
saved by the brothers. When his face was mere inches away, Roy
noticed something in his peripheral vision and suddenly turned from
her. Al and D were still there, of course, and they were watching
the two of them. Al had a cocky grin on his face and was looking
completely amused. Aradia’s relief turned back to panic when she
realized that they must have seen her distress. She knew Al would
mock Roy for that later.