Night Finds (2 page)

“I don’t think you want to know the answer to that. The way it was supposed to work was we get done here and I drive you over to the new place. Everything should be moved in by then.”

I stop in my tracks and my jaw is probably through the floor with how low it drops. “Oh, words I don’t want Peanut to hear. You have got to be kidding me. That is why only you and Jake came out shopping. I should have known something was up. Ever since you guys found out about the baby, the guards have been hovering even more than usual and all of a sudden today they all disappear.”

“Remember your blood pressure effects Peanut, so try to keep it in check. Alex isn’t going to be a biological father, yet, but he does want to do something special for you and the baby. Making you this new home is him trying to show you what a good father he will be.”

“He is aware I am going to be mad at him about that, right?” I ask and it is really a rhetorical question. I start moving again. Arguing with Sebastian isn't going to get me very far. To tell Alex off like I truly want to will have to wait until Peanut is born and I can get him in a bubble somewhere that her ears won't fall off from all the bad words dripping out of my mouth.

“Once you see the place, you aren't going to have a second to be upset about it. I promise you will feel like the kid in the candy store cliché. I think this is the car seat I read about on the Internet. It had the highest reviews and scored really well in the safety tests. I imagine with us as parents she will be pretty durable, but I won't risk testing that theory.”

He won't get any arguments from me about that last statement. “Grab the car seat. Do you have a stroller you like too?” I did a lot of online pre-shopping and I bet he saw all the same things that I did.

“I will grab the one I want and meet you up front if you want to go try to track down your errant guard. I am getting a little worried about him. I don't think there are a ton of eligible women just wandering around the store, so something shiny must have caught his eye.”

Jake has been trying really hard to get his act together and, as far as I have seen, he has halted his annoying habit of chasing anything female with a pulse. Peanut is making all of us try to put our best face forward. Pushing my cart around, I don't see him in any of the aisles I pass.

“Jake, where are you?” I ask in my normal voice, which garners a strange look from a lady nearby. She is holding a breast pump up to her chest trying to gauge its size and I am the weird one. Go figure.

“Sorry, sweetheart, I will be right there,” Jake says in reply. I start heading towards the voice wanting to see how hard he hit his head this time. “No, I wasn’t talking to you. I heard my mistress calling and I have to go help her. It was really nice of you to help me find the perfect gift, but I do have to go.”

“But I thought you said the gift was for your sister, not your girlfriend,” a whiny voice replies.

“Yeah that was before I figured out you were a psycho,” Jake mumbles under his breath. In his regular voice he says, “Nope. She is definitely not my sister. Here she is now. You can see that we look nothing alike.”

Unless his dad at one time mated with a gnome, he is right. I don’t like to hear others call me a gnome, but I can joke that my mother was one now that I know she is Lucifer. I don’t see any major defects with the woman in front of me, other than the fact she is trying to hang onto Jake. She has dark hair, not quite the blackness of mine, but close. Everything else looks pretty average. Not too skinny or chubby, medium skin tone, and muted green eyes. She looks like someone Jake wouldn’t mind getting to know a little better. I did mention she was female.

“How is our little princess doing?” Jake asks rushing over to me. He has something in his hand he is trying to hide, while I am trying my hardest not to break out laughing at the situation. Jake actually running away from a girl is a new one.

“Love, has he gone delusional again?” Sebastian questions joining us with the stroller he found.

“No, now let’s go,” Jake says grabbing the cart out of my hand as he hurries to the checkout. I am going to have to find out just what little miss helpful said to get him moving. It might be useful later. If nothing else, I can taunt him about it.

“I guess that is our cue to leave. He forgot his meds,” I explain to the woman and follow after him. I hope he doesn’t damage Peanut’s new things. As fast as he is moving, he is most likely going to run into something. When we get to the checkout he is buying whatever he was hiding from me and a lady is ringing our cart up.

“This yours?” she asks not halting her scanning.

“Looks like it,” I reply and head to the keypad to scan my card. I am a little afraid what the bottom line is going to be on this haul, but it is for Peanut, so no amount is too much. The lady gives me the total and I hit the necessary buttons to draw this excursion to a close.

I cannot wait to get back home and start in on Alex. I don’t know if the thirty-minute drive works in his favor because I will have plenty of time to stew about being moved into a new home without being told.

Chapter 2

Ghosts of witches past

“You guys could have helped out a little more in there,” Jake says as he settles into the backseat of my new Suburban. It is a newer model than my last one and I have found that it has way too many buttons. I don’t know what half of them do and the guys installed more after we got her home. My only request was that they put in enough storage for all of my gear. My wish was granted and most of the floor opens up to reveal little cubby holes for me to hide things in.

“What was up with that? Did she offer to comb out your fur?” I ask as I start the car and wait for Sebastian to return from taking the cart back. With me being so delicate and all, they wouldn't let me help unload anything. I don't think lifting a couple of sacks is going to cause any permanent damage. Unbeknownst to them, Phee and I have been slipping in some sparring time when we can. Okay, Sebastian and Alex know, but they are keeping their mouths shut about it. Phee doesn’t really follow through and I only fight at about a quarter of my standard levels.

I look back in the rearview mirror to see Jake shaking his head. “Thankfully, she didn’t know I was a werewolf, at least I don't think she did. It would have made her requests even dirtier. I asked for some help picking something out and the second I found what I wanted and tried to go pay for it, she pounced on me. The things she said would have scarred Peanut for life. I cannot bring someone like that home to meet the family.”

“Who are you and what have you done with my Jake?” I have to be dreaming or something. This is not like him at all. I know he has been better, but he still tends to be the one we have to pry away from the girls. Shoot, when we made a little side trip to Hell not that long ago he was about ready to sign his life over to some little demon chick, and she was into girls. Sebastian returns and I am quick to leave the parking lot. Even if the woman believed Jake’s line about us being involved, she still may be a bit stalkerish and try to trail us home. Jake is just the tip of my man candy entourage iceberg. She would be in heaven once she was introduced to the rest of the gang. They may say that I draw all of the attention when we go out, but I know what the women are really looking at.

“Hey, I have been good. I am going to be an uncle of sorts, so I need to learn how to be a good role model. It ain’t easy, but I am trying. The other guys are doing pretty good too. I don’t think there has been a curse word uttered in the last three days. You have to admit that is on about the same level as Moses parting a sea.”

I don't think I would take it that far and I am sure the heated glares and punches they endured from me have nothing to do with how good they have been doing on the swear word front. Even with all of my hard work, I know Peanut is going to have a mouth like a sailor. I should probably buy stock in bars of soap now to prepare.

“You have been doing great, Jake. I am certain you will be one of the first people we call when we need a babysitter. Love, do you think we should start talking about names other than Peanut? It has been cute for a while, but I think we should decide on something a little more normal,” Sebastian says and reaches over to put his hand on my stomach.

That is a topic I have been putting a lot of consideration into lately. I have tried unsuccessfully to come up with something that is fun, but at the same time classy enough to be the name given to Sebastian’s daughter. If she was just my daughter, Mud would probably be a perfectly fine name, but Sebastian adds a lot of elegance to the situation. In my scanning of girl names, I have found that it is easier to turn names down than it is to find something that works.

“You could always name her after your mom. That would be hilarious,” Jake suggests.

“If you aren’t good, I am taking you back to the store and leaving you there. My child is not going to be named Lucifer.” I cannot even believe he would suggest something like that. At least he didn’t go all out and say her name. We haven’t had to deal with her since we originally met and I am afraid talking about her will jinx that. Of course, I did just say it myself, didn't I? Well that was dumb.

“How about something that signifies her genetics a little differently, like Angelica, Evangeline, Lupe, or Luna?” Sebastian proposes. The names roll off of his tongue and I can tell he has been thinking about it as much as I have.

I don't know. They sound better than Jake's suggestion, of course anything would, but I don't really like them any better. We don’t know for sure what she will be. Evangeline isn’t bad, but I can already tell she is going to be more devil than angel, figuratively speaking anyway, and the sweet sounding name will be lost on the hellion.

“I am going to need some other ideas. Let's stay away from anything too stereotypical.”

“Lily. Eleanor. Helga. Mary. Grace. Zoey. Virginia. Rachel,” Jake rattles off.

“Annabelle. Cassandra. Victoria. Elizabeth. Alexandra. Guinevere. Francesca,” Sebastian recites. He seems to like the names with a lot of letters. Too bad none of them feel right. I do like his list better than Jake's. They are more like the kind of names I think about when I envision his daughter.

“Sebby, you had a mom at one time, right?”

“Everyone has a mother, love. In general, maybe not all angels and demons do, but everyone else does. Mine has been gone for a very long time now.”

“I know. I was just wondering if she had a name I would like for our baby. My mom's name is out, but maybe we can use a name from your side of the family.” I am just hoping it isn't something like Bertha or Fanny.

“It isn't that bad. Her name was Sophia Rose.”

Not bad at all. I could do without a flower for a middle name, though. “I am digging Sophia a lot. The middle name is going to have to marinate for a little while. Do you like the name Sophia, Peanut?”

The little nutter places a well-rounded kick right to where Sebastian’s hand is resting. It might have been a hand because it seems like she is high-fiving her dad.

“She wants the middle name, too. She thinks the whole name sounds beautiful and since she is going to be the prettiest girl in the world, next to her mother, it is perfect for her,” Sebby says.

“Those are big words from someone so small. Just why would she think her mother is pretty?” I wouldn’t exactly concur with that statement. Parts of my body look like I volunteered to test out the pointiness of freshly sharpened knives. The giant scythes on my back do a pretty good job of covering things up and diverting your eyes from the T across my shoulders and down my spine that was carved into me years ago, but it along with some knife scars down my arms and legs leave me looking less than perfect.

“She has been informed by at least two people, granted those people may be just a tad bit biased, that you are the most beautiful woman in the world.”

I hear a little giggle in my mind.
“Whoops,”
a really small female voice says inside of my head.

“Son of a pixie dust coated monkey. Was that her?” I ask taking my mind off of the road to look down at my stomach. “Say something else.” I feel a kick and no more voice. “I will buy you a Lamborghini and a pony.” The little devil still doesn't reply. I focus back on the road and try to think of a way to make her talk.

“She wants to wait for you to be able to see her before she thinks her real first words to you. Me and Alex have done a really good job of talking you up and she wants it to be special. As it is for us, you are her universe and she cannot wait to meet you,” Sebastian explains.

“She could have fooled me on that one. You would think if she likes me that much she wouldn’t keep me up at all hours to practice the drums. I am heading straight to the new place, right?”

We are getting close to the scary old manor, so I change lanes to make sure I don’t miss the turn. As much as I dislike being uprooted, there is a part of me that is excited to see what Alex has done to the place.

I have seen the old-fashioned plantation style house a few times over the years. Each time I saw it, the place looked more rundown than the last. It was abandoned long before I was born. I don't know any of the history around it, but I have heard there were ghosts in residence.

“Might as well, that is where everyone else is and I think you are expected,” Sebastian says. “Jake, since you did the research on the place for Alex, why don't you fill Nyx in. It shouldn't take too long.”

“Got it. I will go with the cliffnotes version, just in case. Nantucket Manor was built in 1867 by tobacco farmer George Williams. He lived there with his wife and ten children. As you can imagine by the size of the place, they had many servants. Of course, back then they weren't called servants, but I am trying to keep it nice for Peanut.

“Anyway, Mr. Williams, like quite a few plantation owners back in the day, liked to dally with the girls and women servants that helped out around the house. He ended up with a lot more than the ten kiddies his wife provided him with. She caught wind of it and got a little angry, just a little.