Free Blood Kin by Maria Lima

She’d phoned ahead, gotten her instructions and now all we needed to do was wait until the customs agent reviewed our paperwork and passports. Easy as frozen pie in a microwave.
    “How’s it going, Ben?” Liz smiled at the agent and passed over a folder.
    The tall dark-haired man smiled at my cousin. His blue eyes twinkled as he spoke. “Mighty fine, young Liz,” Ben replied with a wink. “More family?” He nodded to us and flipped through the folder that contained Liz’s papers and our passports.
    “More?” Liz asked. She looked at me and I shrugged. How the hell should I know? I’d been in Texas for more than two years. I figured family came through Vancouver pretty regularly unless they were coming in from the east, where Toronto or Ontario would be a more logical customs checkpoint.
    “Few of your folk came through here about a half hour ago,” Ben said.
    “Anyone I know?” Liz asked with a puzzled look on herface. “Didn’t realize any more family was heading home. I went down to Texas to pick up my cousins earlier today—quick turnaround.”
    Agent Ben shook his head and made some notations on the papers. “Can’t say as I recognized them,” he said. “Kellys, though. Came in the blue plane. Had at least one guest aboard.” He handed Liz back some papers and then began stamping passports.
    I shot a glance at Niko, who returned my questioning look with a serene bland one. I hadn’t paid attention earlier when Liz had collected our passports and wondered what nationality he was supposed to be.
    As soon as we’d touched down, Daffyd had, as promised, woven a do-not-notice glamour on himself. To a human, there were only four people on that plane.
    “Keira Kelly,” Ben the agent said and handed over my passport. “Welcome back to Canada, miss.”
    I smiled and took back my passport, tucking it into my backpack.
    “Mr. Kelly, Mr. Marlowe.”
    “Marlowe?” I mouthed at Niko as he took his obviously Canadian passport from Ben.
    Niko smirked and handed me the small red folder without saying a word.
    As Ben stamped and returned Tucker’s passport, I looked at Niko’s.
    “Nicholas Christofer Marlowe,” I read and rolled my eyes. “Date of birth/
date de naissance
: 1979/26/02. Place of birth/
lieu de naissance
: Canterbury, UK.” Oh great, delusions of poethood … or maybe he’d known the man himself and borrowed his name. I handed the passport back to Niko with another eye roll and a mouthed “please.” He winked and tucked the passportinto his jacket pocket. I had to give him props for amusement value, though.
    “Everything’s in order then,” Ben said. “You can taxi down to the hangar.”
    “Oh, we’re continuing on,” Liz said. “Need to get on up to the homestead.”
    “Oh, dear,” Ben said. “ ’Fraid you’re going to have to change your plans, yeah?”
    “What is it?” Liz asked. “Something wrong with the paperwork?”
    “There’s been a front blowing in up north, grounded most light craft for at least several hours, probably overnight. Unless you’re in a hurry, I’d suggest staying in town tonight and then trying again in the morning.”
    “We could stay at the condo,” I ventured. “Call Gigi and let her know.”
    Liz shrugged. “If the storm’s big enough to ground a small jet,” she said, “Gigi’s probably well aware we’re grounded, but yeah.” She turned to Ben. “What’s the forecast? We expecting it here?”
    He shook his head. “Don’t expect it to come this far south, but it’s stalled up in the mountains and not a good one to fly into. Stay in town a day or two if you’re not in a hurry. Do some shopping. Lots of sales on, I hear. My wife and the girls went up over to Robson Street last night and did a little damage to the pocketbook.” He scribbled some more on the flight plan and handed it back to Liz. “There you are, Liz. You know where to go from here, eh?”
    She nodded and took the flight plan back, stashing it back in the