"I know there are more important things we need to talk about, like the threat of destroying Dead End, but what are talking air waves and how did you know it was 1920?" Susan leaned back against her desk and raised an eyebrow.
"I first heard it then.WKDE, DEAD END, FLORIDA, BRINGING YOU ALL THE HITS. HERE'S THE GREAT SATCHMO, LOUIS ARMSTRONG, AND WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD!"
The radio-announcer voice was pitch perfect, and suddenly I got it.
"Radio! You heard radio broadcasts inside your statue? You wereawake?Andaware?" I felt sick. To be frozen there all that time, aware and unable to move …
"No," he assured me. "No, I could not have survived that and remained sane. I mostly slept, but occasionally I waked to hear delightful music. Can we listen to Satchmo? OrLeave it to Beaver? I loved that show, though I did not understand many of the references."
"You got TV waves too," Andy said slowly. "My mom talks aboutLeave it to Beaver.It was a television show."
Jack, who'd been uncharacteristically silent through all of this, cleared his throat. He had the look of someone who'd been punched in the gut.
Hard.
"Maybe we can talk about TV and radio later, and right now you can explain the meaning of your dramatic pronouncement," Jack said in a low, dangerous voice. "And tell us who you really are while you're at it. I'm having a very hard time believing that you're my long-dead ancestor, who just happened to be trapped in a statue all this time."
Jed narrowed his eyes. "Stubborn, just like me. All the men in our line are more bullheaded than smart."
Jack stared right back at him. "Insults aren't answering my questions, old man."
"Old man?Old? Ha! Well, how about this?" Jed glanced around the foyer of the station house and took a couple of steps back. "We're actually not so muchbullheaded at all, are we?"
And then he shifted into a tiger right there in front of us.
Susan kept one hand on her gun and clapped the other to her forehead. "Here we go again."
9
Tess
The two tigers in the sheriff's office—one in cat form, one in human—squared off. Jack immediately moved to stand in front of me, and Susan pulled her gun.
I wasn't having it.
I ducked under Jack's arm and confronted the other tiger in the room. "Okay, Mr. Shepherd. You made your point. You're definitely Jack's great-great-great—oh, for Pete's sake, let's just do granddad for convenience's sake. You're Grandpa Shepherd, and you've brought us a very serious message. As a Dead End resident, I'm going to admit I'm pretty scared. My family lives here. My home and business and friends are here. How about you shift back to human and tell us what that dramatic message means exactly, and how we can save our town?"
He just looked at me and swished his tail, and I was suddenly justdone. I stamped my foot and pointed at him. "You turn your furry butt to human right now, Grandpa!"
I think if he'd snarled at me or even looked at me funny, Jack may have shifted too, and we'd have a terrifying battle going on right there in the jail. Susan pulled her gun and pointed it at the spot of floor a foot or so in front of the tiger—a clear warning.
Jed ignored both of them and focused on me for a long moment, and then he opened his mouth, let his tongue hang out, and did the tiger equivalent of laughing. Jack and Susan visibly calmed down, and I could feel muscles relaxing that I hadn't even realized were tense.
The shimmering glow of a shift surrounded Jed and, seconds later, he transformed back into his human form. Luckily for all of us, he brought his clothes into the shift with him like Jack always did, so I didn't have to see my boyfriend's grandpa naked.
Jack slow clapped. "Okay, we'll take it as a given that you're a Shepherd. But there's a big problem with your announcement—I haven't stolenanythingfrom the Fae. To be honest, I don't think I've ever stolen anything except a candy bar once when I was a kid, and Uncle Jeremiah dragged me back into the store by the ear and made me apologize. I had to sweep out the store for a week."
"Well, you steal pie from my fridge all the time," I pointed out, but stopped when everybody looked at me. "Anyway, what is it they think he stole?"
"A powerful magical dagger," Jed said.
I rolled my eyes. "Of course, it's a dagger. Why can't it ever be a fluffy bunny? Or a chocolate-strawberry cake? Why does it always have to be valuable and dangerous?"
Jed raised an eyebrow. "Well, your ideas are pretty much just lunch. Who cares if you steal lunch?"
"I said fluffy bunny! Not…" I looked from one shifter to the other.
Right.
