Blood in Her Veins (Nineteen Stories From the World of Jane Yellowrock) (80 page)

I smiled and took a cookie off the tray. They were Eli's cookies, kept for special occasions, and no one had permission to open the bag. They were his to disperse as he saw fit. Like prizes. He had found them at a local candy store—though Alex and I had never figured out which one—and bought them by the dozen, usually taking them to Natchez to his honey bun, Sylvia, the county sheriff. More rarely he'd bring a bag home and dole them out as treasures. Caramel and white chocolate and macadamia nuts and walnuts all in a gooey soft cookie, with a single dark chocolate button in the center, melted flat and soaked into the dough as it cooked. I ate, and didn't tell Molly that the cookies were “hands-off,” which was evil, but comfort food was always nice.

Molly scowled. “Are you gonna forgive me?”

I shrugged and pushed a loose crumb of cookie from my lip into my mouth. “Did that a long time ago. Just like you forgave me for not keeping your kids safe from the Damours.”

“That wasn't your doing or your fault. It was their fault. I had no reason to be mad at you. Neither did Big Evan.”

“Where their children are concerned, parents aren't exactly logical. I knew that going into our friendship.”

“But it seems like it's all going one way. All you, giving to me and to mine.” Her tears, which had slowed, flowed harder again and dripped onto her flannel top. Her voice had gone tight, with tears clogging her sinuses and larynx. “Letting us stay here. For free. Every time we come. Bringing danger to you. Making things harder on you.”

I handed her a tissue from the box on the bedside table; she set down her mug and dabbed at her eyes. “Sometimes,” I said, “with family, the attention all goes one way for a while. Then sometimes it reverses and goes back the other way.” I shrugged and placed my empty mug on the tray. “Life is like that.”

“I didn't tell you about the baby.”

And Molly had hit upon the one thing that had wounded me. She hadn't told me about the baby. I dropped my eyes. “No,” I said evenly. Just because I thought of Molly as family didn't mean that she felt the same way. And even if she did think me of family, some things were private. Or time sensitive. “You didn't.”

She looked miserable but inhaled and blew out the breath, seeking an emotional equilibrium she clearly didn't feel. “Okay. I want to explain. There were two reasons. One, we wanted to keep it secret until we know if it's a witch.”

If the baby was a girl she would definitely be a witch, because she would get Evan's X-linked witch genetics. If it was a boy, there was a fifty percent chance he would be witchy because he would get all his X genes from Molly, and she had only one witchy X-linked gene. Or gene packets. Whatever.

“Two,” Molly went on, “we didn't want Angie to know for a while. We were going for eighteen weeks. Just to be sure that . . . well. That everything was okay.”

And then it hit me. She was worried about losing the baby. Witches lost more babies to miscarriage than humans and way more witch children to childhood cancers than humans. It was something that I had never had to think to about. “Oh,” I said, feeling flummoxed. And stupid.

Molly looked at her hands, holding her mug. “It didn't seem fair to tell you until we were more certain about everything.” Tears slid down her face, not the drenching waterworks that Angie could turn on, but a lot of
tears. I passed her the whole box of tissues. Molly sobbed, a single heart-wrenching note, sounding a lot like Angie.

I said, “So . . . we're okay?”

Molly nodded and her throat made a horrible wet tearing/sobbing sound.

“The real problem?” I said. “Was that
awful
perfume.”

Molly blubbered out a laugh in the middle of her tears and inched closer on the bed. Using my foot, I pushed the tray out of the way and Molly moved to my side, putting her head on my shoulder.

Littermate,
Beast thought, sending me a vision of a pile of cat bodies curled up together against the cold.
Should have littermates. Like this. In den.
Warmth, cat warmth, spread through me, and I had to blink away my own tears. I restrained the purr that started to build in my chest and tilted my head to rest it against Mol's.
Kitsssss,
Beast thought, the scent of unborn baby and pregnancy filling my/our nose.

“So,” I said. “How far along are you?”

“Almost eighteen weeks.” She bumped my head with hers. “I've been eating like a horse and gained a lot more weight than with the others by this time.” She patted the baby bump and molded her hands around the mound. “We get the ultrasound next week.” I felt her lips turn up against my shoulder. Hesitantly she asked, “Want to fly or drive up for the ultrasound?”

Deep inside, Beast stopped purring, her ear tabs high and her gaze piercing.
Molly can see kits inside of Molly? Magic?

No,
I thought back.
White man medicine.

Beast hissed with displeasure, her thoughts on seeing kits inside of Molly containing blood and guts and dead kittens on the dirt.
It's not like that,
I thought at her. But the vision persisted.

“Jane?” Molly asked, her voice hesitant. “Do you?”

A smile pulled at my own mouth, wanting but uncertain. “You mean me? In the ultrasound room? With you?” My happiness slid away. “What would Big Evan say to that?”

“It was his idea. He said that he wanted his baby's godmother to be there.”

“Oh . . .” My lips stayed parted, and I blinked at the tears that had gathered all unknowing, in my eyes, but they came too fast. One rolled down my cheek. I sniffed and wiped the back of my wrist across my face.

Molly jerked away, twisted on the mattress, and extended her neck like a turtle, her eyes searching mine. “I made you
cry
,” she said, incredulous. She passed me one of my own tissues.

“Yeah.” I chuckled unsteadily and patted my face with the tissue. “Crying's contagious, but this is ridiculous. All these teary-eyed females in my testosterone-rich house. The boys are seriously outnumbered.”

Molly grinned, lighthearted, showing teeth and wrinkling up her eyes, a smile that I remembered from the earliest days of our friendship. “So come and stay with us for a few days. We'll have an estrogen-filled household there too, and we'll eat fresh-baked bread with olive oil drizzled over it and fix fresh stuff from the garden and Beast can hunt in the woods on the hill nearby and we'll shop—”

“Oh no. Not shopping.” I gave a mock shudder. “Girlie stuff. Next thing I know you'll have me getting a mani-pedi and a perm.”

Molly fell against the pillows and put her head back on my shoulder. “Baby shopping. Once we know the gender of this hungry little munchkin.” She patted her belly harder, as if giving the kid a head slap for eating too much. “So, will you? Come and stay for a few days?”

“Yeah,” I said, the warmth still filling me, like heated air filled a balloon, rising from the ground, so much bigger and more powerful than it seemed. “I'll come. Thanks.

“Now,” I said, “we need to talk about you staying here. The thing found you here and attacked, and there's no saying when or if she'll be back. Should you catch a flight back to Asheville? Should you move to a hotel?”

“And get knocked out of the sky by a rainbow dragon, killing us and everyone else on board? No.
Doofus
. Move to a hotel and try to get a ward around that? Again,
no
.
Doofus
. I'm safer here.
You're
not safe here with me here, but
I'm
safer. And with the baby and Angie, I'm staying where I can ward and you can fight. Which is utterly selfish, but it's the way I feel.”

“Not selfish,” I said. “Motherly. Understandable. And we're honored.”

The talk degenerated then from friendship and kits—babies—to the
arcenciel
, and I explained my theories about the light dragon being able to see timelines. And about Molly needing to protect herself at all times.

Molly nodded. “There were stories, way back when, tales my grandmother told, and she said her grandmother told her, about one entire family of Everhart babies disappearing from the cradle, each time
following a flash of light. I wonder . . . if witch babies are dangerous to
arcenciels
in general or if it's Everhart witch babies in particular. . . .” Her voice trailed off, and I could smell sleep coming. She yawned and asked, “What was I saying?”

I stood and pulled my BFF to her feet. “You were saying that it was bedtime. Go upstairs and go to sleep. We have stuff to do tomorrow, and the fight wore you out.”

“Yes. It did.” She yawned again, hugged me with one arm, and turned for the stairs.

I stood at my doorway and watched Molly climb the wide staircase, lifting her feet as though they weighed a ton each. She was exhausted and her balance was wobbly. I would have carried her if I thought she would let me. But as it was, it was time for her to go. Otherwise it might have occurred to her to ask what her baby might mean to the future. She might have begun go wonder why the
arcenciel
wanted the baby to have never been conceived. And I had no answer. And I might never have one.

When I heard Mol climb into the bed, I closed my door and turned off the light, wondering and worrying what might happen if Soul came into contact with Molly and her baby. Which was certain to happen at the Witch Conclave, if not before.

•   •   •

Just before dawn, the
arcenciel
attacked the wards again, with a
boom
so loud and hard it threw me from my bed, into a roll, and down. A big-cat move. The moment I hit the floor, I dashed on hands and knees into my closet, where the long sword was kept with the steel-edged, silver-plated vamp-killers. As I drew the weapons, I felt Beast rising in me, lending me her strength and power, her vision of silvers and greens and charcoal shadows where before there had been only shades of blackness. And this time a border of gray energies spun around me, close to my skin.

Eli and I met in the foyer and I steadied him when the house shook. Showers of red sparklers fell in front of the house to the street. Opal was concentrating on the upper story and I didn't know why. Or even if there was a logical reason.

“Molly?” I asked him. My voice was a hint lower, a Beast growl caught in the single word.

“In the hallway, working her magics.”

All this stress and magic couldn't be good for the baby. “Alex?” I asked. And this time my voice was a full octave lower, an unmistakable growl in it.

Eli's eyes pierced me, evaluating even as he answered my question. “Told me he had a work-around to keep coms up. He hasn't been to bed.”

“In here, guys,” Alex called from the living room. Just as the
arcenciel
rammed down again on the top of the
hedge of thorns
ward, possibly its weakest point, assuming the ward had a weak point.

The
arcenciel
slammed down on the top over and over, the attack physical as well as magical, and I heard Molly yelp softly. Already she stank of fear. She was afraid she wouldn't be able to hold the ward.
Kitssss,
Beast hissed deep inside.

At this rate, the house would be a pile of matchsticks in no time. Dark humor welled up in me with Beast. “I hope the insurance is paid up. And that it covers acts of magic.”

There was a trace of humor in Eli's tone as well when he said, “Yes. And no. We'll claim that a tornado came down and hit just this house. That is if we can't get it stopped. And if we don't get eaten.”

In the living room, Alex was at his small desk, lit by the faint lights of batteries and electronic stuff. He said, “No cells, but we can text out on a tablet. I piggybacked on Katie's Wi-Fi. Plus Evan wasn't able to figure out a way to shackle the creature, but he sent us a melody that he said would work on the ward, would help Molly, if Opal came back tonight. And we have enough battery power to last a few hours if you unplug the fridge again.” Eli was already moving to the kitchen to follow his brother's orders.

The
arcenciel
hit again. I lost my feet for a moment, and Alex's table and chair scudded across the wood floor with deep scratching sounds. Molly shouted, “Jane! I can't hold the ward!”

Kitssss,
Beast thought at me.
Save kitssss.
And she pushed against the gray energies that were swirling about me, drawing on more of my skinwalker magic. I looked to the kitchen table where the skull still rested, glowing with energy in Beast-vision. It had been double warded by Molly and Evan, and the
arcenciel
shouldn't be able to sense it, but it seemed that no one had told the rainbow dragon that. I raced to it and carried the skull and the tiny charm that contained the
hedge of thorns
spell back to the closet. Not that it would do much good. If the
arcenciel
could break through the house ward all it would have to do is look for the bit of magic in the
matchsticks, pick up the warded skull, and carry it off someplace safer, where it could dissect the energies undisturbed. Being handcuffed to the hedge by the built-in shackles would probably present little problem to a creature made entirely of light and magic. And that would be the end of everything.

Opal hit the house, the attack rhythmic as a jackhammer, if slower and far more powerful. I could hear the house creaking beneath the battering. Without the ward, the house would be splinters and dust by now. After a dozen blows, Opal backed away, her rainbow lights filling the house from outside. I had to wonder why the neighbors hadn't call the cops yet. Or maybe they had, and the cops had decided not to get involved with this particular situation. Not that I could blame them. Or maybe only we could tell that there was a problem at all. Magic is freaky weird sometimes.

“Evan's song, coming up, Miz Molly,” Alex shouted.