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Kingsley grins. “No story. We can be straight with him. He’s basically family.”
Ahh. The way he leaned on the word ‘family’ tells me that Angus is a werewolf. He didn’t mean it in the sense of blood relatives. Well, well, well... that certainly makes things a lot easier. I’d much rather work with a werewolf and speak freely of exactly what’s going on than try to mind control or kidnap an Air Force crew. That could go wrong in so many ways. After all, if the shadows are going to be messing with us trying to kill the unicorn, putting her in an airplane feels too much like gift-wrapping her for them. It’s a lot easier for malicious supernatural beings to make an airplane fall out of the sky than it would be for them to sink a boat.
And even if the boat sinks, that’s significantly more survivable than an airplane crash. Unicorns can swim a whole lot better than they can fly.
“I can talk to him tonight and see if he’d be interested in helping out.”
“Sounds good.” I snuggle into my big, fuzzy werewolf boyfriend.
“When are you looking to do this?” he asks.
“As soon as possible.” I cling a little tighter. “Can’t help but worry things are about to get worse.”
Chapter Thirteen
Dark Escalation
With Kingsley having a potential solution to the main problem of how to transport a unicorn out to sea, I’m able to function for the rest of the day.
Paxton made a half-hearted attempt to stay home from school to maximize the time she had with the unicorn. Ultimately, she ended up going because Tammy pointed out she was already going to miss a few days and skipping today would only increase the amount of catch-up work she needed to do later.
The worst part is, of course, the waiting. No idea if Kingsley’s friend Angus is even going to say yes. Even if he does, how much time does it take to prepare a boat for a trip like this? Chances are, we’re going to be hosting a unicorn for a few more days, no matter what.
I wait and wait and wait for Kingsley to call. He doesn’t.
No, I’m not mad at him. More worried. It’s totally out of character for him to blow me off. He’s either gotten stuck at court late, had some other emergency to deal with, or he went to see Angus and the two of them drank themselves into a stupor while reminiscing about old times. My instinct tells me this friend of his probably crewed a fishing boat with him back in the day. If that’s what happened—the two of them got drunk together—it’s annoying. But… I’ll deal with it. It might be a necessary custom or ritual in order to get the man’s help. It’s not like we’re asking for something trivial here. This isn’t us asking a friend who has a pickup truck for help picking up a new sofa. The guy owns a giant boat and we’re asking him to take a multi-day trip into the deep ocean.
Once again, I find myself in bed at night, staring at my ceiling while unable to fall asleep.
I’m on edge for some reason.
Obviously, there’s a lot going on, so being anxious isn’t that odd. Something else is bothering me and I can’t put my finger on it. I didn’t even fully change into pajamas tonight, just took my shoes off and swapped my jeans for sweat pants… almost like I’m expecting something to happen and want to be ready to move in a hurry.
Psychic warning? Or am I working myself up too much over the idea of a world-changing magical catastrophe? There are worse things, honestly. Nuclear war would kill far more people than a sudden emergence of magical beings. In fact, if that happened and, as Maple says, all technology stops working… we couldn’t nuke anything.
Of course, if magic returns, Tammy and Allison can still use their spells. Heck, after a magic-pocalypse, they’d only get stronger… and more people would be able to learn the magic, right?
Ugh. Am I seriously trying to downplay the idea of this disaster as maybe not such a bad thing?
It’s probably only me looking for a way not to be so anxious.
“Mom!” Paxton rushes into my room, long blonde hair streaming behind her from how fast she’s moving. “Moooom!”
I sit up. “What’s wrong, hon?”
She jumps onto the bed like an upsized six-year-old who just had a nightmare and wants to sleep with Mommy. Almost. She doesn’t cling or burst into tears, merely sits on the edge, staring at me with this look of extreme urgency.
“I feel super bad emotions coming from somewhere close, and it’s really serious… like someone’s going to die.”
That’s a new one. Admittedly, dealing with a legit empath is a new experience for me. There are a lot of people out there who claim to be empaths, but really, they’re just good at reading social cues. Pax is truly psychic, in a way. She can pick up on other people’s emotions—even from some distance away. And, apparently in this case, a nearby emotion was so strong and so bad it woke her straight out of a deep sleep.
It says a lot about her as a person that her first thought was to want to get involved and help rather than hide under her covers until the bad emotions stop.
She takes my hand. “Hurry! Someone’s going to die!”
“Okay… okay.” I fling my covers aside.
She jumps off the bed and runs into the hall. I scramble out from under my blankets and rush after her. Paxton zooms across the living room and goes outside in her nightdress. I follow, not stopping to grab shoes or anything. The urgency surrounding her is infecting me to the point where I’m hauling ass like someone’s going to drop dead if I waste even five seconds.
