Whatever Sillara had been involved with, it probably had something to do with this larger plan. And I had a bad feeling that even if we figured out what it was, the Benefactor would still be miles ahead of us.
Morning sunlight struck my closed eyelids, and I opened them to find that I was still on the couch, where I’d eventually fallen asleep after a restless night. I’d spent the better part of my night staring at the ceiling as I tried to come up with theories about who the caller could have been, and also about whether or not I should warn my “family” that they were in danger. On the one hand, my aunt Mafiela and I hated each other, and if someone took her out I certainly wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. But there were innocent cubs in the Jaguar Clan that an outsider could loosely consider to be my family, and I didn’t want their blood anywhere near my hands.
In the end, I grabbed a shower and a change of clothes, then rode my bike over to my aunt’s house in Shiftertown. She lived in the upper crust section of town, where rows of tri-colored terraced houses nestled side-by-side like a set of painted eggs in a carton, though nowhere near as fragile. My aunt wasn't the cheerful type though; she’d painted her house a dark purple, and the shutters and roof tiles were a complementary but boring dark grey. Not even the flowers nestled in the beds out front offered any of bright colors – they were beautiful, but pure white.
I left my steambike on the curb, then trotted up the steps and banged on the front door with a heavy brass knocker molded into the shape of a jaguar head. A few moments later, a blond jaguar shifter dressed in a suit and tie answered the door, his yellow eyes already narrowed in disapproval.
“Hey, Hennis.” I greeted my aunt’s butler casually, as if he weren’t looking down his nose at me like I was a spot of dung on his shiny shoes. Damn, but he could give the mages lessons on how to be a supercilious asshole. “Is my aunt home?”
“I’m afraid Chieftain Baine is not accepting visitors at this moment.” Hennis’s lips thinned. “Perhaps I could take a message.”
“Sorry, but this isn’t a social call.” I lifted my wrist, flashing the Enforcer’s shield that hung from my leather bracelet in the shape of a small bronze charm. “I’m here on official business.”
“Very well. Please wait here.”
He shut the door in my face, and I sighed, resigned to waiting on the front porch of the house I’d lived in for a good portion of my childhood. Though Aunt Mafiela had disapproved of my mother’s illegitimate pregnancy, she’d loved my mother all the same and had allowed us both to live with her. This house had many good memories from when my mother was alive, as well as plenty of dark ones from the two years I’d lived here without her.
If I’d been any other Enforcer, Hennis would have invited me to wait in the receiving parlor. But because I was the black sheep, the hated relation, I was stuck out on the porch. Oh well, at least it was summer, and early enough in the day that the temperature was tolerable.
The door opened once more, and my lovely aunt glared at me from behind the threshold. She couldn’t have looked less like me, dressed in a ruffled white blouse and high-waisted grey pants that showed off her slender figure, her blonde hair swept back from her diamond-shaped face into an elegant bun. The end of her nose was slightly tilted up, like mine, and her eyes were the same size and shape. But her irises were yellow, like the majority of the Jaguar Clan, whereas mine were bottle green – just one more thing to set me apart from everyone else.
“By Magorah, Sunaya. What do you want?” she demanded, her eyes glimmering with annoyance. “It’s barely midmorning!” Jaguars were notoriously nocturnal, so for Mafiela it was like I’d come knocking at seven in the morning.
“Oh I’m sorry, did I disturb your beauty sleep?” I snapped, raking her with a sneer. I couldn’t help it – everything about the woman set me on edge. “I know how much you need it.” It was a lie of course – Mafiela was beautiful, with her sharp cheekbones, thickly-lashed eyes and generous mouth.
A flush spread across those sharp cheekbones, and she peeled back her lips to snarl at me, fangs exposed. “I don’t have to take this kind of abuse from you. If you don’t have anything important to say, you can leave.” She made to shut the door.
“Oh stop it.” I stuck my boot on the brass threshold, preventing her from closing the door. “I’m here because a threat was made against your family recently.”
Mafiela’s eyes flashed. “A threat? What kind of threat?”
“It was a little vague,” I admitted, shoving my hands into my pockets. “But I got a phone call last night from someone telling me that if I didn’t drop an investigation, that they would come after my family.” I curled my lips back into a sneer of my own. “They hung up the phone before I had a chance to tell them I don’t have a family.”
“Hmph.” Mafiela turned her nose up at me. “Well if you think I’m going to thank you for delivering the warning, you can think again. After all, it’s your fault if we’re being threatened in the first place.”
“Oh gee, I didn’t think of that. Thanks for bestowing such great wisdom upon me by pointing it out.”
Mafiela snarled at me. “You always were such a smart-ass.”
“Yeah, and you always were a crotchety old puss.” I sneered at her.
“How dare you!” Mafiela’s cheeks mottled, her yellow eyes blazing. “Get off my property, you ungrateful kit! And don’t come back. I don’t want you or your filthy magic anywhere near my clan.”