The Future Falls (21 page)

“Why would she . . .” To name the aunties was to call them. Not always, but it happened often enough Jack decided to be cautious. “. . . leave charms to overhear when she didn't want to know?”

“She didn't say she didn't want to know, she said she wasn't going to ask.”

“Why . . . ?”

“You tell me.”

He recognized that tone. It was the same tone his Uncle Adam had used when he'd asked why they didn't flame the lake and eat the pookah after it floated to the surface. He suspected Charlie'd turned the encounter with Auntie Gwen into a lesson on power dynamics to emphasize the difference in their ages. Jack knew Charlie was older than he was; she just couldn't seem to understand that he didn't care. And, for what it was worth, parboiled pookah tasted terrible.

“If she asked what we were hiding and you didn't tell her,” he said slowly, “she couldn't let that kind of defiance stand. If she tried to force you to tell her, you'd lie and make her believe it and that would shift the power dynamic enough the other aunties would notice. Then it would be you, well, you and me, against all the aunties.”

“Think we could take them?”

“All of them?” He thought about it for a moment, listening to the traffic, smelling the coffee when someone opened the door of the shop, watching
Charlie watch him. He considered what he could do and what Charlie could do. And he considered the aunties. “No. We couldn't.”

“No,” Charlie repeated, smiling, “we couldn't. But Auntie Gwen's reason was simpler than that. She trusts that when it comes down to it, the last note is the key the song is in. She trusts we'll put family first.” Her smile changed, softened and picked up an edge at the same time. Jack fought the urge to flame in response. “You'd stand beside me against the aunties?”

“Duh.”

“Well, that puts the end of the world into perspective.”

“The world isn't going to end.”

“It's not?”

“We're going to stop the asteroid.” Because they had to stop it.

“We are?”

This new smile, Jack recognized. He wasn't sure when he'd first started seeing it, but he knew now he was the only one who saw it. “We are.”

Because if the world ended, then Charlie ended—and Jack wasn't going to let that happen.

“T
HEY'RE DEFINITELY HIDING SOMETHING.”

Allie looked up from strapping Evan into his high chair as Auntie Gwen came into the apartment. She didn't seem angry. That was good. At least Allie thought it was good. She could think of a few reasons why an auntie would be that blasé about being left in the dark and
they
weren't good.

“Charlotte not only took out the obvious charms,” Auntie Gwen continued, scooping Edward up as he ran for the door, “she went to the effort of finding and removing the hidden ones. And, as we both know, Charlotte doesn't do effort. They don't call it
playing
music for nothing.”

“If you're so sure they're hiding something, why didn't you ask them what it was?”

Auntie Gwen dropped Edward into the second chair. “You suspected they were hiding something, why didn't you? Never mind, I'll tell you; it'll be both faster and easier. You're afraid Charlotte won't tell you. And if she doesn't, or worse, if she lies to you, that means you're losing her. That she's on the last stage of going Wild and she's becoming like Catherine.”

“Charlie is
nothing
like my grandmother.”

Evan slapped at her arm. “Mama! Tight!”

“Sorry, baby.” Allie loosened the belt that held him in the chair. “She didn't come to bed last night.”

“And yet you weren't alone,” Auntie Gwen pointed out tartly.

“That's not what I meant. She's not sleeping.”

“We've already established she has something on her mind, something
she has chosen to keep to herself. I'm certain Catherine Sees many things she chooses to keep from the family.”

Allie only just kept her reaction from impacting the city as she repeated, “Charlie is
nothing
like my grandmother.”

“Wild is Wild, Alysha, and Charlotte accepted the responsibility some time ago. As much as she loves you, and she does love you, you need to accept the fact that you'll never tame her.”

Allie knew Charlie loved her. That wasn't the problem. “Jack's Uncle Adam said that to me once.”

“The Dragon Lords are arrogant, overbearing, and homicidal, but they're not stupid.”

“And what about Jack? He's Wild. What happens when he accepts . . .”

“He's always known.” Shaking her head, Auntie Gwen handed Edward his sippy cup. “Charlotte was raised knowing she was different. She had to find out what that meant on her own. Jack was raised as a prince. He knew what being Wild meant long before Charlotte told him what we call it here.”

“But he wasn't Wild there . . .”

“Oh, for pity's sake, Alysha, think about that for a moment. As a sorcerer and a half Gale, he stood separate from that family as well. Flew separate,” she amended after a moment.

Allie set a bowl of oatmeal in front of Evan and another in front of Edward—the trays of their high chairs charmed to hold the bowls in place. “You didn't answer me. You didn't tell me why you didn't ask what they were hiding.”

“Because, bottom line, as much as he's like no Gale that's ever been, Jack is a Gale. As much as she's a little too fond of the end justifying the means, Catherine is a Gale. And Charlotte, who could make us believe whatever was easiest for her but doesn't, is a Gale. Even for the Wild Powers, family comes first.”

Allie could see that, as far as Auntie Gwen was concerned, that was that.

She wanted to believe that was enough, that the secret Charlie and Jack were hiding would come second to family, but she didn't. Not quite. How could they keep secrets and still put family first?

It didn't help when, after breakfast, Charlie announced she'd be leaving for a few hours.

“Why?”

“I've got some things to do, Allie-cat.” She turned from setting a stack of dirty dishes on the counter and spread her hands. “People to see.”

Allie knew that grin. It had nothing to do with humor or pleasure or anticipation and everything to do with deflection. But not this time. “Who?”

“What difference does it make?”

Allie lifted Evan out of the chair and folded her arms as he raced for his brother, already freed. “It makes a difference because I asked and you're not telling me.”

“I don't tell you everything I do, Allie.” The grin was gone, leaving Charlie looking both more and less like herself, the familiar caught in an overlay of other. Then Allie blinked, and she was Charlie again. Charlie, who didn't come to bed last night. Charlie, who put Jack back into his seat with a glance. Jack who was Wild like Charlie was Wild.

“I don't ask about everything you do,” Allie said softly and knew Charlie heard the reason.
Please, don't lie to me.

“If you must know,” Charlie sighed, “I'm going to see Auntie Catherine. I may not have asked the right questions when I talked to her yesterday. And I wasn't going to tell you,” she continued as Allie opened her mouth, “because you get all weird about your grandmother, and I didn't want to get into it with you.”

“I do not get weird about my grandmother.”

“Yeah, you do.”

The words weren't dismissive, Allie decided watching Charlie walk to the door. Presented as inarguable fact, they were worse than dismissive. They were patronizing. “Maybe because she manipulated my life and David's life and my parents' lives and Michael and Brian—who aren't even family—to get David and me here . . .”

“To save the world.” Charlie shrugged into her jacket and looked at Allie with eyes that seemed too dark for thirty. “Or at least to save Alberta. And part of Saskatchewan. Maybe a bit of Montana. You have issues, Allie, and while I'm not saying you don't have the right to issues, don't drag me into them.” Her words lingered as she headed out the door. “I doubt I'll be long.”

Allie probably wouldn't have seen Jack following had she not been staring after Charlie. Once she noticed him, he stopped blending with the furniture and the walls and paused, hand on the doorknob, looking sheepish. “Where are you going?” she demanded, then added before Jack could
speak, “You can chase after her all you want, but she's not going to take you with her.”

Jack might have been wearing a mask for all the expression his face showed. Scales glinted across the upper curves of his cheeks and across his brow. “There are those under my protection who need seeing to.”

“Jack, I didn't mean . . .”

His eyes flashed gold. “Then I'm going to kill a large animal and eat it.” He closed the door quietly, gently, the dragon barely contained within his skin.

When she turned, Auntie Gwen released Evan to join his brother under the coffee table and said, “That was cruel, Alysha.”

“I know.” Allie dropped into the closest chair. “I didn't mean to . . .”

The snort made Auntie Gwen sound terrifyingly like Auntie Jane. “Yes, you did.”

“Yes, I did. I'm a horrible person. I mocked a seventeen year old who's having his heart broken.”

“You don't know that.”

“I do know that. I know how he feels. I know how Charlie feels. I know how Aunt Judith feels about Richard learning to ride a bike. If I extend a little, I know how the city feels about that pothole the works department still hasn't gotten around to filling in the intersection of Macleod and 11th. I know, but I can't say anything because they haven't told me, and I can't ask because I'm afraid Charlie won't tell me. You're right, I'm afraid I'm losing her.”

“Of course, I'm right.”

Allie lifted her head far enough to give Auntie Gwen a narrow-eyed glare. “That's what you're going with?”

Auntie Gwen smiled and set a block of shortening on the kitchen island. “It was the important point.”

Two days ago, Charlie would have been out the back door and into the Wood before Jack could catch up. Today, she waited at the bottom of the stairs, keeping the promise she'd made. No leaving without saying good-bye—even if he knew where she was going and why. As her exit had prevented her from saying good-bye to him upstairs, she was sure he'd be down in a minute.

Maybe David had been right after all. There was still a hole in her heart she'd never be able to fill, but the jagged edges she'd been living with for so long had been smoothed down and the pain, that had become so much a part of her she'd nearly forgotten it was pain, had eased. Plus, she had some kick-ass emo lyrics if she wanted to get another band together.

Classic rock, this time.

When CCR's “Bad Moon Rising” started up, she laughed—it was always nice when someone got the joke—and unclenched her fists before her fingernails cut half-moons into her palms. Twenty-two months. Now
that
was a punch line.

The apartment door opened, and she moved to stand by the mirror rather than be caught waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She frowned at the emphatic thud, thud of Jack's descent. For all the comments about his size—fine, for all
her
comments about his size—Jack usually walked as though he weren't carrying around a metric shit ton of weight. He didn't throw anger at her when he turned the corner and took the last two steps down into the hall, but he definitely looked angry.

“You okay?”

He nodded, a quick up and down jerk of his head, smoke trailing from his nose. “I'm fine.”

Charlie looked past him at the mirror where her reflection stood surrounded by flame. Not exactly fine. “My guess, Allie's pissed at me and took it out on you.”

“She wasn't . . .” His posture suggested that if he'd had his tail he'd have been lashing it. “She wasn't entirely wrong.”

And that, Charlie realized, was why Jack was angry.

“I wasn't running after you . . .” The smoke thickened. “. . . like I was begging for crumbs of your affection.”

“Whoa. Allie said that?” Allie did not get to say that, not to Jack. Ignoring the fact that Jack had no need to beg for Charlie's affection, slamming Jack because she couldn't slam Charlie was a top of the charts bitchy thing for her to do. The music a low rumble, Charlie had one foot on the bottom step when Jack grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

“I don't need you to fight my battles. Anymore,” he amended when Charlie raised both brows. “And stop humming, the building's shaking.”

About to protest that she wasn't doing anything to the building, she
realized the vibration she could feel through her feet matched the vibration she could feel in the back of her throat and swallowed the sound.

He managed a twisted smile. “I'd be flattered except I know you're not overreacting because of me. Not just because of me,” he corrected before she could say anything. “And it wasn't Allie who said that.” His grip on her arm tightened slightly. “My mother used to say it when I wanted to chase after my uncles.”

“Nice.”

“Not really. Dragon. Then she'd remind me that family is the arena where even the simplest conflicts draw blood.”

Literally draw blood. And if his Gale half wasn't as consistently violent, that didn't mean Allie had the right to take an emotional swing at him, pregnancy hormones or not. “But Allie said something similar.”

“If I say that she did, what are you going to do?”

He was still holding her in place. He was stronger, a lot stronger, but if she
told
him to release her, he'd have to. And she really had to do something about how stupidly overprotective he made her feel. “Not leap to your defense like a crazy woman?”

The fires in the mirror became a pillar of flame and that, in turn, became Jack's reflection—although Charlie noted that a certain amount of flame continued to flicker around his edges. “Good call,” he said and let her go.

The memory of his touch a warm band around her arm, Charlie moved far enough across the hall to point out the window. The cloud cover made it look like dusk in the courtyard. A gust of wind slapped rain against the glass. “If it helps, she feels like shit.”