“Just stay out here.” Willa patted Nerina’s shoulder. “Don’t shift unless there’s trouble.”
Trouble? Nerine smiled. She was ready for trouble. But—“Where’s Roman?”
“He’s on the inside team. But the place should be empty.” Willa looked across the street. “Stay calm. We’ll call if we need you.”
“Okay.” Nerina nodded. “I’m ready.”
She’d been training. Learning how to control her power. This was her first mission, but it wouldn’t be her last. Not if she did a good job.
Nerina looked across the road. A farmhouse in the middle of the prairie. A long driveway. One bright light on the porch. Dim lights inside the windows. A pickup truck parked outside a garage. No trees to stand behind, so she just stayed near the van. Waiting.
A few months ago she’d just been a college student. Then everything had changed. Now she was a Rossini soldier, training to fight the Raen. Even though she had Raen DNA in her blood. It was confusing sometimes, especially as she learned to control her ability to shape-shift into creatures that had never existed in nature. Reptiles with spikes and claws, flying dragons, giant scorpions . . .
Tom Jurgen had helped. A private eye in Chicago. She didn’t quite understand why he cared—him and his girlfriend Rachel—but he’d listened to her as she tried to figure out what was going on.
Now there was Roman . . . She smiled.
She wore boots, a short denim jacket and jeans against the early fall chill. Overhead clouds obscured the stars, but she could see the hint of a half-moon trying to shine through. No cars on the road, not for ten minutes.
She wanted to take out her phone and play a quick game of Angry Birds, but that wasn’t allowed. Her orders were to watch and wait and be ready to react.
Nothing. Silence filled the air.
Then the house exploded.
Nerina stared, gasping in shock. Roman! She clenched her teeth and began shifting. Dragon form. Long legs, long claws, spikes jutting her arms. Wings sprouting from her shoulder blades. She crouched down, then leaped up and flew across the road.
Scarlet flames and black smoke surged up into the cloudy sky. Nerina veered, her eyes looking for Roman. Instead she spotted Willa, staggering through the front door, her clothes burning.
Nerina glided down to the ground and covered Willa with her wings, trying to smother the flames. Another explosion erupted behind her. A wall fell down, sending sparks and flames over the grass.
“Is she—” It was Shelby, another Rossini soldier. “Willa?”
“I think so.” Nerina was suddenly human again. “What happened?”
Willa gasped. “Am—ambush.” Most of her short black hair was burned away, and one eye looked like a black hole in her face. Her leather jacket looked like it had protected her from the flames. “They knew—we were coming. It got Nola. And Julian.”
“What about Roman?” Nerina looked over her shoulder at the burning house.
“I don’t know—wait!” Shelby pointed.
The pickup truck pulled out the long driveway, spun around, and hit the road hard and fast.
Nerina stood up straight. Wings began growing from her shoulders again.
Nerina stood up straight. Wings began growing from her shoulders again.
“No!” Willa pulled herself to her feet. “We go back to base.”
“They might have Roman!” Her arm spikes cut through her skin.
“No!” She leaned over, gasping, and caught Nerina’s arm to stay upright. “We go—back to base.” She threw up on the grass.
“You need a doctor.” Shelby helped her sit down. “Go get the van. Now!”
Nerina looked at the burning house. “What about . . .” Roman. “The others?”
“Get the van. We go back to base.” Shelby glared. “Now, Nerina!”
Nerina looked down the road. The pickup was already out of sight in the darkness. But she could shift, she could fly, she could stop it . . .
Another explosion of fire burst inside the house. Nerina jumped back. “No.”
She completed her shift and rose into the sky, looking for the pickup.
I was filling out an invoice for another successful, if boring, cheating spouse case. My phone buzzed. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”
“Tom? Carole Rossigna. Have you heard from Nerina lately?”
Uh-oh. “Not in a few weeks. Why?”
“She’s disappeared.”
Here’s the story: Nerina Ariane, a 19-year-old college student up until a few months ago, was a shape-shifter. She’d been raised by a family called the Rossini, who’d broken off from a family called the Raen hundreds of years ago. The Raen were a doomsday cult, obsessed with creating chaos—and possibly causing the end of the world. They could create mythical monsters and do other sorts of magic. The Rossini, with their own magic, had been fighting them for centuries.
Nerina belonged to both strains of the family, with Raen and Rossini DNA in her genes. She’d been through hell in the last few months, uncertain of her heritage—and her ability to shape-shift. Carole had taken her into her home in Urbana, hoping to help her learn to control her powers.
The last time she’d called her, Nerina told me they’d been training her for “missions”—whatever that meant, I didn’t want to know—and that she’d gotten close to some cute kid named Roman.
The Raen were definitely dangerous, but I didn’t trust the Rossini’s motives more than I trusted a telemarketer to sell me life insurance. Although the Rossini did pay their bills promptly.
“What happened?” I hit save on my computer.
“Just let me know if you hear from her.” Carole hung up.
“What’s going on?” Rachel, my girlfriend—red hair, hazelnut eyes, long legs in distractingly tight yoga pants, and a little bit psychic—swung from her computer.
I set my phone down. “Nerina’s missing.”
“Again?” She rolled her eyes. We’d met her the first time when the Rossini thought she’d been kidnapped. She’d actually run away with a boyfriend—and that had started everything. “Are you supposed to find her?”
“I don’t think so. Just let them know if she calls.”
“Great.” Rachel turned back to her monitor. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“Me too.” I sent the invoice.
Nerina was just a kid, born into two families and a destiny she didn’t understand. Not my responsibility. But I couldn’t stop thinking that I should be able to help her. Somehow.
So I called Andrew Russo.
“Yes, I know she’s gone.” Russo was a Rossini leader here in Chicago, although Carole outranked him in the family. “And no, I don’t know where she is. She threw the necklace in a lake somewhere.”
Russo had given her a necklace, saying it was from her mother, but it was actually a tracking device. It had helped us find her once. Apparently it wouldn’t now.
“Look, Tom, I appreciate your concern.” Russo sounded busy. “But I don’t think you can help us now. If that changes, I’ll call you. In the meantime—”
“Yeah. I’ll call if I hear from her.” I hung up.
What could I do? I had her cell phone number, so I called. No answer. I left a message. After that . . .
“I’m calling Georgeanne.” I hit the number and put the phone on speaker.
Rachel jumped up. “I’m right here!”
We had a complicated relationship. Georgeanne was a Rossini soldier, tall, blonde, and sexy. Rachel was jealous the one time she kissed me. But she’s softened since then. They weren’t exactly meeting for cosmos, but . . .
“Hi, Tom.” Georgeanne was out of breath. “What’s up?”
“Nerina. What’s going on?”
“Hi, Georgeanne!” Rachel leaned over my shoulder. “You okay?”
“Hi, Rachel. Just . . . chasing someone.” Her voice sounded hoarse. “Nerina? I don’t know. I mean—I can’t tell you anything.”
My stomach lurched. “What does that mean? Carole says she’s missing. Again.”
“I’m in Ohio. I’ll be home tomorrow. I got a call from Andrew, but I don’t know much more. Just let them know if you hear from her. Bye, Rachel!” She hung up.
“Chasing someone in Ohio?” Rachel frowned. “What’s that about?”
“The Raen are all over, according to Russo. What does it matter?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “So what do we do?”
“No idea.” I shrugged. “It’s not your typical missing persons case. Especially if no one will tell me what’s going on.”
She punched my arm. “And if no one’s offering to pay you, shamus?”
“That’s not fair. ” Rachel punches me a lot.
“Yeah, sorry.” Rachel rubbed my arm. “It’s just . . . “ She hesitated. “Okay, look: I was in high school when I started realizing I was, you know, psychic. It screwed me up for a long time. Nerina . . . “ She sighed. “She reminds me of that. She doesn’t deserve this destiny, not if she doesn’t want it.”
“I get it.” I squeezed her hand. “Okay. There’s one more person I can call.”
Elliot Barsch was Raen. He’d tried to rape Nerina, after her boyfriend at the time had taken her to Barsch’s house in Evanston. The Raen had some pretty repulsive ideas about genetics, especially considering Nerina was part, or mostly, Raen. According to Russo, they were trying to breed some kind of human/shape-shifting weapon. Apparently with Nerina, though, they’d already succeeded.
“Yes, Tom.” Blarsch sounded annoyed. “What do you want now?”
“Do you know where Nerina is?”
He snorted. “I wish I did. I know she’s making trouble for us, but I’ve been cut out after South Bend. If you find her, tell her to cut it out.”
Trouble? “What do you mean?”
“Ask your Rossini friends.” He hung up.
What the hell did that mean? I looked at Rachel. “Trouble.”
She rolled her eyes. “That girl has always been trouble. I mean, she’s just 19, but . . .”
“Yeah.” I thought about calling Russo back. It was the first thing I would have done as a reporter. Then I realized what I should have done in the first place.
I looked up Nerina’s number in my phone.
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