Read Phoenix in My Fortune (A Monster Haven Story Book 6) for Free Online

tensed in a hard line. I didn’t alter my expression and, finally, he nodded once. “As you wish, Aegis.” One side of his mouth lifted in a barely perceptible smile. “I’ll call for backup if I spot him.”
    I returned his smile. “That’s all I ask. Thank you.”
    So, three simple rules.
    The plan wasn’t complex, either. We’d researched the hell out of the fictional Shadow Man while we’d been waiting for him to turn up. Now that he was here, we had to be more proactive in our research. We all agreed he’d kidnapped the children practically in our backyard to get our attention. Well, now he had it.
    Darius and Kam would head out to the beach at night to try to find anything indicating where the bastard was hiding out. The area was likely to remain a crime scene for a while, so night was a better option for avoiding the police.
    “Also, Darius is the only one of us who can fly,” I said, tapping my fingers on the kitchen table. “So, once you change over to mothman at sunset, I need you to fly over the area and see if you can find anything unusual, while Kam does the same from the ground.”
    Kam pulled a pencil and pad from her tasselled handbag. “Unusual like what?” She held her pencil poised above the paper, ready to take notes. “Rocks shaped like David Bowie’s face? Shells with eyeballs poking out? Strange, talking doors?”
    Maurice snorted. “Kam’s been watching
Labyrinth
again.” They reached across the table and high fived each other.
    I shook my head, trying not to laugh. “Sure. Whatever you find that looks like it doesn’t belong.”
    Kam scribbled something on her notepad, frowned, erased, then wrote something else. “Got it.”
    I had no idea what she could be writing. It wasn’t like I’d given intricate directions. But it was Kam, so I let it go. Who knew why she did anything?
    I redirected my attention to Maurice. “You and Sara stay here with Mom. Watch the driveway especially. Mom, I need you to follow the news. Keep the TV on, but try to stick with the local stuff on the Internet, too. Watch for anything strange, especially if it has anything to do with kids, though let’s not assume Shadow Man will limit himself. The less assumptions we make, the better prepared we’ll be for his next move.”
    Sara nodded, one silver brow raised. “And what are you and Riley up to in the meantime?”
    “I thought we’d pay a visit to Pastor Wendell at the Church of Hidden Wisdom. Those cultists who attacked us four months ago started out as part of his congregation. If anybody knows what they’re up to now, he will.”
    * * *
    Riley and I headed out to the little church in Nicasio, about forty minutes away. The building was deceptively run down on the outside and hidden along a dirt road that ran past farmland and ended at the edge of a wood. Once a beautiful structure with a giant golden cross, a bell tower and tall steeple, the cross now leaned sideways, the bell was long gone and the steeple had collapsed and hung precariously over the front steps. Most of the windows were long gone, including large chunks of the colored mosaics that once told Bible stories with the sunlight streaming through them.
    The whole thing was a mess—on the outside, anyway.
    Inside, the building was bright and clean, the bell sounded every hour and the intact stained-glass windows depicted stories no Bible had ever contained. Certainly not the human Bible.
    The door creaked as we closed it behind us. We made our way down the carpeted aisle, past the wooden, velour-cushioned pews and the windows showing minotaurs fighting a golden three-headed snake, flowery dryads cavorting with oak trees and dragons snoozing in fields of red poppies. At the green-silk-covered podium, we hung a right and followed a series of lit candles down the hall to the pastor’s office.
    We got lucky. The pastor was in.
    Pastor Wendell was an elf. He stood approximately three feet tall, wore a goatee the color of the sky before