Changing Nature (The Immortal Descendants Book 3) Read online

  I motioned Archer to silence and carefully set my backpack on the ground outside the root cellar. I used hand signals to let him know I’d drop in without light. He nodded and indicated he’d be right behind me.

  I listened with all the predator senses I had, but heard and felt nothing. I wasn’t sure why my spidey sense was telling me something was strange, but I’d learned to pay attention to my instincts. And with Archer’s super-speed and strength behind me, I was fairly confident I wasn’t being stupid.

  The drop to the dirt floor of the root cellar was less than ten feet, so I opted for speed instead of stealth, just in case anything needed surprising down there. My eyes adjusted quickly to the dark, and I took two steps forward so Archer could drop in behind me.

  We both froze and let the silence of the root cellar fill our senses. Something small and likely furry skittered away in a far corner, but that wasn’t the kind of creature we were listening for.

  “It’s empty.” My whisper was more of a breath, but I knew Archer heard me. I reached for the mini Maglite I had restocked my back pocket with and aimed the business-end into my hand before clicking it on. Gradually I allowed the light to fill the space around us. I had expected it to be empty except for a couple of boxes stacked against a far wall and a built-in shelf under the ladder. But things were different.

  “Someone’s been here.” I was still whispering, and Archer knelt down to look at the tarp that had been spread out on the dirt floor. There was a sleeping bag, pillow, battery-powered lamp, jug of water, package of cookies, and a magazine tossed in a jumble on the tarp. Archer turned on the lamp, and it illuminated nearly the whole space. He picked up a magazine and showed it to me. A classic bikers-n-babes garbage rag full of plastic girls spilling out of tiny triangle bikinis.

  “The spine hasn’t been cracked, and the battery on the lamp is fresh. I’d say whoever it is hasn’t stayed here yet.”

  “Think it’s one of Millicent’s staff?” I asked.

  “No.” Archer was examining the sleeping bag. “This is the kind of gear they issue to paramilitary forces.”

  I stared at him. “And you know that because …?”

  “I might have been one once.”

  That was a conversation for a non-whisper situation. “Do you think this was back-up in case they didn’t get us in London?”

  “I don’t think this is about me. There’d be more than one kit if they were planning to take both of us. No, Saira. This is about you.”

  “That’s annoying.”

  Archer was fighting a smile at my sarcasm, which I loved. He had put the caveman back in the cave when it came to my safety, and I appreciated having a partner instead of a dad. Mr. Shaw was enough surrogate dad for a lifetime.

  “I think I might need to wake someone up about this.” There were so many reasons I was reluctant to do that. Most things look much less dire in daylight, for one.

  “Don’t,” Archer said. “I’ll stay out here tonight. Whoever is planning to camp out here will come either tonight or tomorrow night, since you’ve been spending weekends here. I’ll wake the house if I need to. You should sleep and tell Millicent in the morning.”

  It was the smart plan, though a part of me still wished for my curl-up-and-nap one. “Okay, I’ll get everyone together in the study tomorrow evening so we can figure out what to do about this, and in the meantime, I’ll find out what Millicent and maybe the Armans know about Descendant snatchers.”

  Archer pulled me in for a kiss that made my toes curl. Then he slipped me some steel.

  “Wait, what?” I pulled back to realize he had placed my two favorite daggers in my hand.

  “I’d been resisting the idea of arming you in your bed, but now I think you should keep these under your pillow.”

  I grinned, savoring the weight of the daggers in my hand. “Means you can’t sneak in.”

  “No, I just have to be faster than you.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that.”

  Archer laughed, kissed me again lightly, and sent me through the trap door into the house.

  Sleep came quickly and was dreamless in the bedroom I used when I was at Elian Manor. I hadn’t been asleep for long, when the light glowing in the room that had been my mom’s when she was young told me I might still get breakfast.

  I spent most of the week living out of a backpack, so it was nice to change out of my uniform of black jeans and hoodies. I branched out into low-slung red skinny cords, and when I paired them with a plain V-neck t-shirt and the long chain with the black, tear-drop pearl pendant Elizabeth Tudor had given me, I was positively dressed up.

  As I’d hoped, the breakfast things were still out. It was almost like staying in a really fancy hotel, right down to the very proper lady holding court at one end of the table.

  “Good morning, Millicent.”

  She looked up in surprise. “Saira. I wasn’t aware you had come in. When did you arrive?”

  “Late last night. Is my mom up yet?”

  “She’s gone out to the garden, I believe.”

  I didn’t want to tell the same story twice, and although Millicent and I had hit a sort of neutral ground in our battle for control over me, I preferred to have my mom at my back whenever possible when I dealt with her.

  “Are you around today?” I knew my casual sloppiness with the English language chapped her, but she managed not to wince.

  “I have an appointment in the village this afternoon, but yes, otherwise, I will be at the manor.”

  “Good. I’m going to help Mom finish whatever she’s doing because I need to talk to you both.”

  Millicent regarded me for a long moment. Part of me wondered if I had suddenly grown pink hair, but the other part was content to sip my coffee and let her have her examination.

  “I’ll join you, then. We can talk in the garden.”

  Huh. Wasn’t expecting that.

  Millicent swept from the breakfast room, and a mousy maid scurried in to clear her tea cup and plate. “Hey, Hazel?” She looked up, maybe surprised I knew her name. “Has anyone on the staff seen someone skulking around the grounds?”

  She looked frightened. “Oh no, Miss. Lady Millicent wouldn’t allow it, Miss.”

  I sighed. No matter what Millicent and her staff thought, she couldn’t control the world with sheer force of will, indomitable though it may be. “Okay, could you just ask around?”

  “Of course, Miss.” Hazel dipped a curtsey before scurrying from the room.

  I slugged my coffee and grabbed a croissant off the sideboard as I went out.

  The day was already sunny, and my mom’s face was invisible under her big English gardener’s hat. It’s why she had perfect skin and still looked like she was in her thirties. For that matter, unless she started Clocking again, she’d always look like this. We Clockers don’t age unless we are in our native time, and this wasn’t hers. My mom had been born in 1850, a fact I only just discovered last year when she went missing in 1888. My dad was also from that time, but he had died in a cellar collapse under Bethlem Hospital for the Insane, otherwise known as Bedlam, during my mom’s rescue from Jack the Ripper. I was the last Clocker on the Elian Family tree because Millicent never had kids, and my mom’s time-jump forward put her in the twentieth century for my birth. So despite the fact that I theoretically should have been born in 1871 and the Clocker line would have continued from my descendants, a couple potential generations were skipped when this became my native time.

  “Good morning,” I said to the hat.

  My mom looked up, startled. “Oh, Saira! You scared me.”

  I knelt down to move her bucket closer and started gathering up all the weeds she’d already pulled. Mom’s face broke into a grin and she kissed my cheek. “What a pleasant surprise. You took the day off of work?”

  I sat back on my heels. “Sort of. I needed to get out of London.”

  The smile fled her face and concern immediately flooded her eyes. “What happened?”

>   Just then Millicent entered the walled garden, and my mom eyes widened. She stood up and dusted off. “Millicent. What a surprise to see you here.”

  “Saira said she needed to speak to both of us.” Millicent pulled on a pair of dainty leather gardening gloves and knelt down to continue weeding the patch Mom had been working on. My mom and I stared at each other with twin expressions of shock, and I knelt to join them.

  “I was followed from work by a Monger. A big one that Archer thinks might be Raven Rothchild’s older brother. He came after me, but I managed to get away.”

  It was easier to talk when we were all working side by side because I could concentrate on my hands instead of their faces. I didn’t have to see the surprise to know it was there.

  “Devereux was with you?” It was hard not to bristle at Millicent’s arch tone, but I knew it was just her breeding to sound cold and indifferent.

  “At the end. He helped me get away.”

  “Well, you can’t go back to London.”

  I looked Millicent in the eyes and took a deep breath to control my temper. “While I appreciate your concern, I don’t respond well to being given orders.” I included my mom in my gaze. “Archer and I came here last night because a lot of people have gone missing in the past week. People with Family names.”

  I was watching Millicent carefully, but her expression gave away nothing. My mom sat back and watched me. “You think the disappearances are linked to the attempt on you?”

  “I don’t know why Descendants are being snatched, or even if they are Descendants. But Archer said it was a full-on attempt at grabbing me. He saw Mongers at every entrance to the Tower, and the one who went after me has paramilitary training. Also,” I turned to Millicent, “we found a stake-out set up in the root cellar last night. Archer spent the night outside watching it. Since he didn’t wake us up, apparently no one came to use it.”

  Millicent’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Here? At Elian Manor?”

  “Yes, here. We think it was set up as a base for snatching me when I came home this weekend. Archer said the kit is all paramilitary issue, and he expects it to be manned tonight.”

  Millicent huffed. “Well, this is just outrageous. I’ll have Jeeves dismantle it immediately.” She started to stand, but the sharpness of my tone stopped her.

  “No. The best way we have of figuring this out is to take whoever comes and question them. Worst case we can bring them up in front of the Descendants’ Council and put pressure on the Mongers to back off.”

  “And if Devereux can’t capture him?”

  I shot her a look with a poison dart attached. “If he shows, we’ll take him. What I want to know from you is if you have heard anything in the council about what the Mongers are up to?”

  Her expression froze into a neutral mask again. “Nothing more than the usual bluster from Markham.”

  “So, Markham Rothchild is still the Head?”

  She looked startled. “Of course he is, though there seems to be some question of who will succeed him.”

  “Why, is he going somewhere?”

  “Markham is younger than I. Nonetheless, his daughter is claiming rights for herself, and her husband seems to think the position should pass to him.”

  I stared. “The Rothbitch wants to be Head?”

  “Saira!” My mom sounded a little horrified at the name.

  I smirked. “Come on, Mom. You know she deserves it.” I turned back to Millicent. “Could the power struggle have something to do with the snatchers?”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”

  “Well, who would?” I was challenging her with my tone, and she didn’t like it. Her eyes narrowed as she stood to go.

  “The Descendants’ Council is a governing body, Saira, not a police force.”

  I stood to face her, and for the first time noticed that I actually towered over her. Being 5’10” definitely had its advantages. “Right. You guys just let the Mongers police us.” She said nothing for a moment, then swept from the garden in a way that would have worked brilliantly with long skirts a hundred years ago. Mom shook her head as she watched Millicent go.

  “Do you think she knows anything?” I asked.

  My mom studied me from under the brim of her hat, and then wiped a hair out of her eyes with a sigh. “Millicent Elian believes the world should be a certain way, and she will twist her own corner of it to suit herself with very little regard for what’s actually true. It’s one of her particular talents. Another one is convincing others to believe her version of the truth.”

  “Or bullying them into it.”

  A half-smile quirked her mouth. “Well, she can try …”

  “What do you think, Mom?”

  “Tell me more about the missing people.”

  I filled her in on what Bishop Cleary had reported from the priests. It wasn’t enough to base any real theories on though, so we went into the manor and pulled out her laptop to check whatever news reports we could find. A couple of hours of internet searches later, we had a list of thirty names that had been publicly reported. The other ten may have only been reported to the priests.

  Millicent had gone out, and my mom didn’t recognize more than the few older Family names, so we called the Armans and got ourselves invited to tea.

  My mom had never been to the Arman’s stunning Georgian townhouse before, and I gave her a quick rundown of its history. The house had originally belonged to Archer’s father, Lord Devereux, and Archer had sold it to Camille’s great grandmother. Maybe because of that, Camille had always treated Archer with a kind of respect that very few other Descendants gave known Vampires.

  “Hi, Earnest.” The Armans’ butler gave Jeeves a run for his money in the spit-shine department.

  Earnest inclined his head toward us regally. “Miss Elian, Lady Elian.”

  My mom hurried to correct him. “Oh, no. I’m not Lady Elian. That title belongs to my … to Millicent.” She had been about to say “great-niece,” which required a much longer explanation than Earnest probably cared about, so instead, my mom just smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Claire. It’s nice to meet you, Earnest.”

  Earnest covered his surprise with perfect manners. “I’ll show you the way in. Follow me, please.”

  Ava was with her parents in the living room, and when she saw me she jumped off the couch and gave me a huge hug. “I saw the Armada Pearls splashed all over the telly. Tell me all about finding them. It was you, of course, who told them where to look?”

  Ava’s mother, Camille, turned from greeting my mom and hit me with the full wattage of her smile. “Oh yes, Saira. Tell us about the pearls. Are they as gorgeous as they appeared in the Armada Portrait?”

  A feather could have knocked me over. Camille Arman, whose picture was probably under the Wikipedia entry for “elegance,” looked like a four-year-old with her first Barbie. So I told them everything – from mentioning to Elizabeth that she might want to consider hiding the pearls she’d eventually buy from her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, to poking around in the sub-crypt and discovering that the old hiding place hadn’t been opened since the seventeenth century.

  Ava had already seen the black tear-drop pearl pendant Elizabeth had given me, but her mother hadn’t, and I had the sense I’d somehow climbed in her estimation because I wore and treasured it.

  There was a commotion in the hall that brought the jewelry conversation to a screeching halt. Then Adam burst into the room with his girlfriend, Alex, on his heels. He ignored the rest of us and walked straight up to his mother.

  “Alex’s cousin disappeared.”

  Claimed

  Camille stared at her son, appalled – mostly at his lack of manners, I thought. “Disappeared in front of you, or in general? Adam, please say hello to our guests. Alex, dear, you look distraught. Sit before you fall.”

  Adam seemed to finally notice my mom, but he didn’t see me until Alex gave me a kiss on both cheeks in greeting. He almost looked relieved
, which seemed odd, until he directed his next statement to me. “Alex’s cousin is mixed. Her dad was Marcus Rowen, a Shifter Elk, and her mum was from one of the lesser-known Seer families.”

  “Most people didn’t even associate my aunt with Seers. They just thought she was ungifted.” Alex spoke to Camille, but she hadn’t left my side and I turned to her.

  “Your cousin’s last name is Rowen?”

  She nodded. “Daisy Rowen.”

  “I heard about her.” Alex looked startled, and I turned to Camille and her husband, James, who sat silently by his wife’s side. “The parish priests from areas around London met last night. They told the bishops that forty people have disappeared in the past week, and it turns out that many of them have Family names.”

  The Armans all looked shocked, but Camille recovered first. “How did you come by this information?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. I’d never told the Armans that Bishop Cleary knew about the Immortal Descendants, and I wasn’t sure how they’d feel about it. My mom stepped in and saved me though.

  “We heard about the disappearances, and then Saira and I spent the past several hours on the computer tracking down names.” She pulled a sheet of paper out of her purse and handed it to Camille. “As you can see, all of our Families have been affected – even mine, which seems so unlikely given the scarcity of Clockers these days.”

  Camille scanned the list. “There are no Monger Family names on this list.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” James Arman was always the diplomat, and I knew he was watching Camille’s back, because Monger involvement would mean she’d have to take it to the council.

  “Except that the Mongers are most likely the ones doing the snatching.”

  Camille gave me a measured look. “That’s a very big accusation to make, Saira.”

  I shot the same look right back at her. “It would be if they hadn’t tried to take me last night, too.”

  Maybe because I’d been expecting suspicion and disbelief, Camille’s look of immediate horror was a surprise. “Oh, my dear. Please, everyone, let’s sit so we can discuss this. Ava, darling, ring Earnest. I think we’re going to need something a little stronger than tea.”