“Chill, Dad.” Jasper strolled behind our parents, waving to the camera. “Maybe she just has something she wants to tell you?” he not so subtly hinted.
He didn’t even know the half of it.
I’d told my brothers about Considine’s presence in Magiford…but I hadn’t texted them since Considine got assigned as my partner last night.
They’re going to lose it.
“Um, Jasper is right. I’ve got news.” I tried to smile, but I was worried my teeth were going to chatter and give me away, so I wiped the expression from my face.
“News?” Peri, short for Peridot, loped into the screen with an exaggerated enthusiasm that was so obviously fake. I would have scowled at him if I weren’t so terrified. “Work news, maybe?”
Alex—short for Alexandrite, all of us O’Neils bore rock names, compliments of my mother, Amber—joined my brothers behind the couch. “Wow, Jade is going to share work news with us? What a special occasion—she hasn’t talked about work with us since she moved to Magiford. That must mean this is really important and she’s trusting us!” Alex was carrying a hefty dumbbell, which he curled as he winked at me through the camera.
I held in a wail.
I knew my brothers were trying to help set the tone, but in their ignorance they were making things so much worse!
Jasper opened his big mouth—most likely to say something that would dig me an even deeper hole—so I rushed to speak before he could.
“Elder Considine Maledictus has been assigned as my partner in the Magical Response Task Force!” I squeaked out.
My brothers straightened up as one, their eyes wide with horror as their mouths dropped open.
“Elder?” Mom asked. “He’s a vampire, then?”
“Yep,” I said. “Yep, he’s a vampire.” I sat on my hands so I wouldn’t wring them as I watched Dad dig his cellphone out, probably to look Considine up in the database. Slayers knew all the major figures in vampire politics. They tended to forget about vampires like Considine, who hadn’t been sighted in decades or centuries.
My mom frowned. “I didn’t know the task force had partners. I thought they sent you out in teams.”
“We were. My boss and boss’s boss decided to…change things up.” My innards jiggled as I shrunk under Mom’s thoughtful expression.
Behind her, Jasper—standing in the center of the brother cluster—grabbed Peri’s right arm and Alex’s left arm and violently shook them as his mouth hung open in a soundless scream.
“Considine Maledictus—Elder Considine Maledictus, is your partner?” Dad’s rumbly voice rapidly raised to a boom as he looked up from his phone.
Oh yeah. He definitely looked Considine up.
“What’s wrong?” Mom asked, turning to Dad. “He might be a vampire, but Jade already has two vampires on her team—” Mom cut herself off when Dad thrust his phone at her to read.
My mom’s voice went from supportive to angry in less than one second. “Him? How is he even still alive? Why isn’t he sleeping?”
“Spite?” Alex unhelpfully suggested.
“How could the Curia Cloisters givehimto you as a partner?” My mother stood up, then sat down immediately andhanded Dad his phone. “Why is he even at the Cloisters? He’s far too powerful for that!”
“Jade!” Peri shouted, apparently having recovered his voice. “You said he took you to the hospital. You didn’t say he was your partner!”
“HOSPITAL?” My mother roared in a voice that would have gotten admiration from a bear shifter.
Dad twisted on the couch he and Mom were perched on so he could scowl at my brothers. “You knew Considine Maledictus was in Magiford?”
My brothers rushed to speak, so I couldn’t tell who said what.
“We only found out a few days ago!”
“We swear!”
“We didn’t even know about the dragon shifter until then!”
