Dance with Darkness - Ghost Dance

Chapter 16

 

"Where'd the blue fish go?"

Rachel stood on the other side of the tank in the pet store, her childish features distorted by the water, but the frown of concentration still plain for me to see.

“It’s over here behind the castle!” I shouted gleefully.

“Lower your voice, Lynn,” our mother reprimanded, scanning the shelves of cat food beside us for the pink salmon flavor.

“Sorry Mommy.  We’re looking at the fish!”  I bounded around to join my sister on the other side of the tank and get a better view of the red fish.  “That one likes you,” I told Rachel.

“The blue fishy likes you!” she giggled in response.  “They’re sisters, like us!”

“Mommy, can we get the fishies, please?” I begged.  “They’re sisters!”

“No, honey.  Rumple would eat them.”

“No he won’t!” Rachel stubbornly objected.  “We’ll make him promise not to!  He can’t eat sisters!”

“But he can eat fish,” our mother replied.  “He won’t understand that they’re sisters.  They’re happy where they are here in the store, anyway.”

“But they’re sisters!” Rachel wailed in protest.  “What if someone comes to buy one of them and they get separated?”

“It’s okay, Rache,” I told her, my seven year-old self trying my best to placate five year-old Rachel.  “Sisters can’t ever get separated.  We won’t ever be, and the fish won’t be either.  Sisters always stick together, no matter what.”

I ripped off my cap and goggles with a sigh, closing my eyes and plunging beneath the frigid water to let my hair fan out around me.  I tried to push back more memories of my sister, but the worry gnawing inside me refused to abate.  If things didn’t work out tonight, I was going to be in big trouble.

The lifeguard shot me an irritated look for staying under so long once I finally surfaced and climbed out of the pool.  I didn’t pay him much attention—it was the first time I’d gone for a swim since I’d started moonlighting as a demon hunter.  It was only in the past few days since I had gotten caught following Jin that things had started to slow down a bit, and today I had been so keyed up that it had motivated me to finally return to the gym for a work out.

I made my way across the slick tiles of the pool deck to put on my towel and sandals before heading to the lockers, hoping that if a swim couldn’t clear my head, perhaps a shower could.  The day after my encounter with the air daemon and vampires, I had done as instructed and told everyone what I had done—followed Jin and found out that the Dracule was going to meet an unknown someone at the abandoned apartment in a few days.

Now, tonight, the plan would finally come into play.

~*~

“You’re late,” Evanna criticized once I showed up at the agreed-upon meeting point, two blocks away from the abandoned apartment.

“Sorry.”  I had showered longer than intended, and as a result had to rush out of the gym lockers without drying my hair.  Now, thanks to the wintry chill beginning to set in after sundown, the end of my braid had a few frozen strands of hair.

Thane looked up from his cellphone.  “Louise just texted—the Dracule’s headed this way.  We’d better get ready.”

“Kamali and Owen still haven’t seen anyone go in to the apartment,” Chase added.  “Looks like the coast is clear for now.”