Sunny - Mona Lisa Eclipsing

“What the hell!” a guard exclaimed. “Where did they go?”

By the time he finished speaking, we were a hundred feet away, down by the elevators where Nolan, Dante, and Quentin sat waiting for us.

I told Jarvis, “They’re with us. Everyone down the stairwell.”

“Just close your eyes and keep your feet and head tucked close to my body,” Jarvis said to Kelly, whom he was carrying in his arms. Her lips were white. All this seemed to be new to her. I was surprised she hadn’t squeaked in alarm. Tough gal.

It took us less than ten seconds to climb down four flights of stairs, gaining a couple minutes of lead time.

I pushed open the ground-level door, walking out into sunlight.

“Where to?” Jarvis asked, more nervous about my own men than by whoever else might be out here.

“There are reporters waiting in front of the hospital. I’m going to speak to them now, tell them who we are. Do you wish to come with us?”

“You told me to stay close to you, milady,” he said uncertainly.

“It would be safest for you that way, but we’re about to go public. If you would rather not be a part of that, we can part ways here and now. Or you can join us, be part of our group.”

“Join you, milady?” he said, looking confused. “I’m a rogue.”

“So were Hannah and Nolan, and their two sons, Quentin and Dante,” I said, gesturing to the Morells. “I don’t have a problem with former rogues.”

“Former? I don’t understand, milady. Are you asking me to serve as . . . as one of your men?”

“Yes, Jarvis. I’m offering to be your Queen.”

Stunned disbelief ran across his face. He began to drop to his knees, still holding Kelly.

“Please don’t kneel again,” I said, stopping him with a quick hand under the arm. “A simple yes or no will do.”

“And Kelly?” he asked hoarsely.

“She’s welcome to join us also.”

He set her on her feet, asking her silently what her decision was.

“I’m staying with you,” Kelly said, “wherever you decide.”

Jarvis swallowed and said, “Then, yes, milady. Please . . . I would like to serve you, if you will have me.”

I smiled. “Then consider yourself sworn into my service. Welcome to the family.”

I sensed a familiar presence coming quickly around the distant corner. “Easy,” I said to Jarvis, when his head jerked up, “it’s just Amber. He’s with us.”

Amber came into sight and Jarvis’s eyes widened in astonishment. I wasn’t sure if it was from Amber’s huge size or the gold medallion chain he wore.

Jarvis turned dazed-looking eyes to me. “And the other three males I sense nearby?”

“Are the local territory Queen’s men, I believe. I’d advise you to avoid them until we can make your changed status more clear.”

Jarvis nodded.

“Okay, everyone’s here. Let’s go do this.”

We walked around to the front of the hospital, toward the thick throng of reporters. Several of them glanced our way. A few eyes zeroed in on Jarvis, then dismissed him as they took in his obviously uninjured appearance. But one attractive blonde reporter continued to gaze sharply at Jarvis and Kelly, especially Kelly. Her school photo had been running on the news.

“That’s them! Come on, Jack,” she cried, grabbing the arm of her cameraman. The other reporters turned back to stare at us then rushed toward us in a mad scramble.

The blonde reporter reached us first. “Are you Jarvis Condorizi and Kelly Rawlings?” she asked, sticking her mike in front of Jarvis.

He flinched back a little and looked at me. I nodded.

“Yes,” Jarvis answered.

Questions came pelting at him fast and furiously. Jarvis glanced desperately at me, clearly overwhelmed. I motioned for him to wait. Stepping around the excited reporters that thronged around him and Kelly, I made my way with the others to the standing mike set up near the taped-off area for the reporters. Gently tapping the microphone, I happily noted that it was turned on just as Stanton, his three agents, and the two policemen burst out the front door with guns in hand. Catching sight of us, the nearby reporters, and running cameras, they halted abruptly. Before they could decide what to do next, either point their weapons at us or drop them less conspicuously down by their side, I spoke into the microphone.

“As he just confirmed, that is Jarvis Condorizi and Kelly Rawlings.” My voice echoed nice and loudly out from the set of speakers, capturing everyone’s attention. “FBI agent in charge Richard Stanton and his men, standing right over there—” I waved my hand at them, and several cameras zoomed in on them. “—wanted to take us into custody. We politely declined and made our departure out one of the side exits.”

Half the reporters dashed back over to us. “Who are you?” the blonde female reporter who had first spotted us asked, first one there, once again.

“My name is Lisa Hamilton. I’m a Monère Queen serving as ambassador for the Monère people residing here in America. The Monère, as I explained and demonstrated to the doctors and nurses upstairs in the burn unit, and the FBI agents here, are descended from a race of people who once lived on the moon over four million years ago, before our home planet became uninhabitable. We were here long before Christopher Columbus ever sailed the ocean blue, and have lived in secret among you, until now. Our people have many gifts; one of them is shape-shifting. Jarvis, for example, is a bird-shifter. Jarvis, are you well enough to show them your wings?”

“Yes, milady.” He made his way over to me. No one spoke as Jarvis took off his top.

With a simple pulse of power, he lifted his arms and shifted them into beautiful, magnificent wings. Where his hands used to be were long gray-and-black-striped feathers; the color transitioned into startling, pure white along the top. The ease with which he performed the partial shift was quite impressive.

“What is your name?” I asked the quick-footed female reporter. She was not only pretty but young, only in her late twenties, and obviously highly intelligent, debunking the stereotype of all blondes being bimbos.

“I’m Meredith Tanner with Fox News.”

“Jarvis, would you mind if Meredith touched your wings?”

“No, milady.”

With mike in hand, Ms. Tanner stepped forward and touched a wing with her fingers. “Oh my God,” she breathed into her mike. “They’re real feathers.”

“Ms. Tanner, if you don’t mind stepping back please. Thank you, Jarvis, you can shift back now, if you wish.”

Another pulse of power, and the feathers melted away, replaced by fingers, hands, and skin once more. A moment of stunned silence, and then a tall, athletic-looking male reporter near the front thrust his mike at me. “What other gifts do the Monère people have?” he asked.

I loved these reporters—not one single mocking glance or scoff of disbelief.

“We are faster and stronger, and our senses much keener. What is your name?” I asked.

“Charles Kramer with NBC News.”

“Charles, to help me demonstrate, would you mind racing me?”

The reporter blinked then smiled eagerly. “Sure. Where to?”

“How about if I race you to the curb and back, here to my left? That way you won’t need to shift the cameras around. I’d recommend you keep your shots angled out wide instead of zooming, so you don’t miss anything.”

Charles nodded and said into his microphone, “Okay, I’m ready when you are,” and handed his mike to the reporter next to him.

“On the count of three,” I said. “One, two, three . . . Go!”

Charles sprinted forward. Before he had taken two steps, I was waiting for him by the curb, fifty feet away. To everyone watching, all they would have seen was a blurred streak of movement.