MY PHONE WOKE me up. I cracked one eye, rolling over to stare at the clock. It was 2:30 p.m. and I had managed about six hours of sleep. Yawning, I scooted back against the headboard as I grabbed my phone off the nightstand. The Caller ID read Angel, and I quickly punched the talk button.
“Hey, what’s up?” I yawned again.
Angel was my best friend, and I was surprised to see the call was from her. She seldom called during the day. Texted? Definitely. But phone calls from her job? So not approved by her boss. After work, she would go home to take care of her little half-brother. She had taken in DJ when their mother died, and she was doing her best to make sure he didn’t end up on the streets.
“I’m worried about DJ. I’m afraid something’s happened to him.” She sounded frantic. Angel hardly ever let her nerves get the better of her. If she was worried, something was wrong.
“What’s going on?” I asked, pushing back the covers. Angel and I had each other’s backs, we’d been best friends for years, and if one of us was in trouble, the other one was always willing to come to the rescue.
“Last night he stayed over with a friend. He was supposed to come home this morning, but when I called home from work half an hour ago, he didn’t answer. I called Sarah—the mother of the boy he was staying with. She said he left at seven-thirty this morning. He should have been home by nine, shortly after I left for work. So I came home and I don’t see any sign that he’s been here. This isn’t like DJ. You know him. He’s a good kid, and he always lets me know where he is. I checked my texts, I checked voice messages. Not a word from him.”
“He didn’t have school today?”
“No, today’s a teacher’s day. That’s why I let him stay over last night with Jason.”
I could hear the tears in her throat. DJ was ten years old, and as she said, he was a good kid. He had been a change-of-life child, and Mama Jackson had conceived him when she was forty-eight. Mama J. had died a year ago, the victim of a car crash. Her death had left a hole not only in Angel and DJ’s life, but in mine. Mama J. had filled the void when my parents were killed.
When Mama J. died, Angel took DJ in and the arrangement had worked out fairly well, although it hadn’t been easy for her. For one thing, DJ was Wulfine—a wolf shifter. Angel was human, and she had no clue how to help him transition through the changes as he grew up.
“I’m on my way over. Meanwhile, call all his friends if you haven’t done so already. Maybe he stopped off somewhere and got busy playing and just forgot.”
Even as I suggested it, I knew it wasn’t true. DJ wasn’t the type to space out on his responsibilities. Even when Mama J. was alive, DJ had been a somber child, focused on helping his family. Angel often told me that he seemed to feel old before his time, although neither of us could figure out what had brought that on. It just seemed to be his nature.
“Thank you.” Angel paused, her voice hushed. “Ember, I have a horrible feeling that he’s in real trouble. You know that most of my premonitions are spot-on. I’m afraid.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” There was nothing else I could say. As she hung up, I was already sliding into a pair of leather pants. I fastened my bra and then pulled on a black ribbed tank top. I jammed my arms in the sleeves of my leather jacket, and then slipped on my ankle boots, zipping them up the side. I dragged a brush through my hair and then pulled it back into a ponytail. After kissing Mr. Rumblebutt on the head and filling his dry food dish, I grabbed a chocolate chip breakfast bar and headed back to my car.
Chapter 2
ANGEL LIVED ON the Eastside, in the UnderLake District. Once a thriving suburb, it had fallen into decay, with weathered houses lining roads riddled with potholes. It wasn’t Angel’s first choice, but when she took over DJ’s care, her limited salary had to stretch and so she had moved to an inexpensive area that still had decent schools. Mama J. had left a lot of debts and the sale of her restaurant barely covered them. Angel had traded apartment living for renting a small house, with room for DJ to play out back.
Both bridges spanning Lake Washington were toll bridges, so I opted to drive around the north side of the lake. It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford the tolls, but at this time of day they were slammed. Actually, gridlock was a common problem here except during the dark of the night. I’d actually get to Angel’s house quicker by taking a roundabout way.
Heading east on 145th Street, I then swung a left on Highway 522 and followed it around the northern tip of Lake Washington. When I reached Kenmore, another small suburb, I turned right on 68th Avenue, which took me directly into the UnderLake District.
UnderLake had once been a thriving suburban area, but now there was an abandoned feeling permeating the air, like a party at three a.m., when most of the guests had packed up and gone home, with only a scattered few remaining, trying to finish the scattered remains of a buffet. The houses were weathered here, with paint peeling off their sides, and the roads were riddled with potholes and cracks. The entire neighborhood felt ignored. The schools were decent, if underfunded, but there was a growing darkness to the UnderLake District and it cast a pall over the entire suburb.
Up north, near Bothell, the Shifter Alliance had taken over, as they had down south in the Renton, Kent, and Federal Way areas. When you went further east to Woodinville, Snohomish, and Monroe, the Fae had moved in, creating two large districts, Navane and TirNaNog.
Navane was run by Névé, the local Queen of the Light Fae, and TirNaNog was run by Saílle, Queen of the Dark. I avoided both like the plague, considering my background. My heritage guaranteed me a swift kick to the ass when I tried to interact with the Fae. I was a half-breed, unwelcome at either court. Half Dark Fae, half Light Fae, my blood ensured that neither side wanted to claim me.
As I eased my car through the streets, it struck me that the only humans still living in this area were either poor, or they had been here a long time and didn’t want to move. The fact that spring was a little late this year and the trees were still bare of leaves—although the buds had started blossoming—made the area seem even more desolate. The sidewalks were uneven, and grass grew through the cracks along the way. A number of the houses looked abandoned. For-sale signs were plastered on a number of the sagging fences.
I eased into the driveway of one of the few houses that looked neat and tidy. While the rental would require a lot of work to bring it back to its former glory, Angel had done a remarkable job on tidying up both the cottage and the yard. She given it a new coat of paint, and the crisp white walls stood out in a sea of weathered gray. The yard was neatly trimmed, and daffodils and crocus flourished at the base of the tree trunks that surrounded the cottage. Her landlord hadn’t objected to her working on the place, and even gone so far as to supply the paint.
I hurried up to the porch, hoping that in the time it’d taken me to get there, DJ had come home. But when Angel answered the doorbell, my hopes were dashed. Her expression said it all.
“He’s not home yet?” I didn’t bother with small talk. She wouldn’t be up for it, and I wasn’t much good at it.
She shook her head. “I’ve called every place where he could possibly be, and nobody has seen him today. Sarah and her son Jason walked the route from their house to here, but there was no sign of him. I’m really worried.”