The Sign of Seven Trilogy (97 page)

However long that might be.

He showered, dressed, and headed out in search of coffee. He stopped at Cal's home office where both Layla and Quinn were hunkered at a computer. Both looked up, both gave him the let's-have-a-look-at-you once-over.

“How are you feeling?” Layla asked him.

“I want coffee.”

“Back to normal then.” Quinn's look brightened into a smile. “Should be some downstairs. Cyb's down there, and you might be able to sweet-talk her into fixing you something to eat if you want it.”

“Where's everybody else?”

“They ran into town. Various errands.” Quinn glanced down at the computer, and the clock in the bottom corner. “They should be back any minute. Maybe I should call Cal, just have them bring food back. Cyb's burrowed, and might not be sweet-talked into cooking all that easy.”

“I want coffee,” he repeated, and walked away.

She didn't seem especially burrowed, Gage thought when he saw Cybil at Cal's kitchen counter. She had her laptop, her notebook, a bottle of water, but she sat right out in the open. And whatever she was doing, she stopped when he came in.

“You look better.”

“Feel better. Couldn't have felt much worse.” He poured the last cup of coffee, wished someone else would make a fresh pot. And so thinking, turned to study her. “How about making fresh coffee since I almost died?”

“Doing ordinary, routine things, such as making fresh coffee, would probably make you appreciate life more.”

So much for sweet talk, he decided. Since there was a bag of Fritos on the counter, he dug in. “What was in the tea?”

She only smiled. “About four hours' sleep, apparently. Someone dropped by to see you while you were out.”

“Who?”

“Ann Hawkins.”

He considered, sipped coffee. “Is that so? Sorry I missed her.”

“We had a nice chat while you sawed a few off.”

“Cute. What about?”

“Life, love, the pursuit of happiness.” She picked up her bottle of water. “Death, demons. You know, the usual.”

“More cute. You're on a roll.” And on edge, he mused. However well she masked it, he sensed nerves.

“I'm working on something that popped into my head when we talked. We'll go over it when I nail it down a bit more. She loves you.”

“Sorry?”

“She loves you. I could see it in the way she looked at you while you were sleeping. And by the expression on your face now, I see that kind of talk is uncomfortable for a big he-man like you. But that's what I saw on her face, heard in her voice. For what it's worth. Now, go find something else to do and somewhere else to do it. I'm working.”

Instead, he crossed over, grabbed a fistful of her hair and tugged her head back so he could crush his mouth to hers. The moment flashed, then spun, then held. He felt another hint of dizziness, another taste of euphoria before he released her.

Her eyes opened, slow and sleepy. “What was that about?”

“Just another ordinary, routine thing to help me appreciate life.”

She laughed. “You're cute, too. Oh the hell with it,” she said and pulled him against her to hold on, to lay her head on his shoulder where the demon's mark rode. “Scared me. Really, really scared me.”

“Me, too. I was going. It didn't seem so bad, all in all.” He tipped her head back again. This face, he thought, these eyes. They'd filled his vision, his head. They'd brought him back. “Then I heard you bitching at me. You slugged me, too.”

“Slapped, that time. I slugged you before, during our brilliant performance on the deck.”

“Yeah. And about that. I don't remember us talking about punching.”

“What can I say. I'm a genius at improv. Plus, it seriously and genuinely pissed you off and we needed plenty of anger to sucker the Big Evil Bastard in. Your plan, remember? And you said we'd all have to get rough and real to make it work.”

“Yeah.” He picked up her hand, studied it. “You've got a decent right jab.”

“That may be, but I believe it hurt my hand more than it hurt your face.”

He closed her hand into a loose fist, then brought it to his lips. Over her knuckles he saw those gorgeous eyes go wide with shock. “What? I'm not allowed to make a romantic gesture?”

“No. Yes. Yes,” she said again. “It was just unexpected.”

“I've got a few more, but we made a deal early on.” Intrigued by her reaction, he rubbed his thumb over the knuckles he'd just kissed. “No seduction. Maybe you want to close that deal off, consider it old, finished business.”

“Ah . . . maybe.”

“Well then, why don't we . . .” He trailed off at the sound of the front door opening, slamming. “Continue this later?”

“Why don't we.”

Fox strode in first, carting a couple of bags. “Look who's back from the dead. Got food, got stuff, got beer. Couple of twelve-packs in the car. You ought to go out, give Cal a hand bringing the rest in.”

“Got coffee?” Gage demanded.

“Two pounds of beans.”

“Grind and brew,” Gage ordered and walked out to help Cal.

Cybil looked at Fox, who was already pulling a Coke out of the fridge. “I don't suppose you'd take that and go away, and take the rest of your kind with you for an hour.”

“Can't. Perishables.” He pulled milk out of one of the grocery bags. “Plus, starving.”

“Oh well.” Cybil pushed away from the laptop. “I'll help you put those away. Then I guess we'll eat, and talk.”

 

SHE WASN'T REQUIRED TO COOK, WHICH CYBIL felt she was often cornered into doing. Apparently Cal and Fox had decided it was time for their own backyard barbecue. There were worse ways to spend a June afternoon than watching three good-looking men standing over a smoking grill.

And just look at them, she thought as she and the other women set bowls of deli potato salad, coleslaw, pickles, and condiments on the picnic table. As united over patties as they were over war. Just look at all of us. She paused a moment to do just that. They were about to have a backyard picnic, and in the same backyard hours before, one of them had bled, had suffered. Had nearly died. Now there was music pumping out of Cal's outdoor speakers, burgers sizzling on the grill, and beer frosty in the cooler.

Twisse thought he could beat them, beat
this
? No. Not in a century of Sevens. It would never beat what it could never understand, and constantly underestimated.

“You okay?” Quinn rubbed a hand over Cybil's back.

“Yes.” A weight of stress and doubts dropped away. She might have to pick them up again, but for now, it was a beautiful day in June. “Yes, I am.”

“Quite a view,” Quinn added, nodding toward the men at the grill.

“Camera worthy.”

“Excellent idea. Be right back.”

“Where's she going?” Layla asked.

“I have no idea. Just as I have no idea why it apparently takes three grown men to cook some hamburgers.”

“One to cook, one to kibitz, and one to insult the other two.”

“Ah. Another mystery solved.” Cybil lifted her brow when Quinn dashed out with her camera.

“Aren't those dogs and burgers done yet?” Quinn called out, and putting the camera on the deck rail, peered through the viewer, adjusted angles. “Hurry up. This is a photo op.”

“If you were going to take pictures, you might have given us some warning so we could fix ourselves up,” Cybil complained.

“You look great, Miss Fussy. Stand more over there. Cal! Come
on
.”

“Just hold your pixels, Blondie.”

“Fox, he doesn't need you. Stand over here between Layla and Cyb.”

“I can have both?” Strolling over, Fox wrapped arms around each of their waists.

For the next five minutes, Quinn directed, ordered, adjusted until the five of them were arranged to her satisfaction. “Perfect! Set. I'll take a couple by remote.” She hurried down, positioned herself between Cal and Gage.

“Food's going to get cold,” Cal complained.

“Smile!” She clicked the remote. “Don't move, don't move. I want a backup.”

“Starving,” Fox sang out, then laughed when Layla dug her fingers into his ribs. “Mom! Layla's picking on me.”

“Don't make me come over there,” Quinn warned. “On three. One, two, three. Now just
stay
put while I check to make sure I got a good one.”

The mutters and complaints apparently held no sway as she hurried up to the deck, bent down to call back the last two shots. “They're great. Go, Team Human!”

“Let's eat,” Cal announced.

As they sat, as food was grabbed, conversation rolled, beers were uncapped, Cybil knew one true thing. They called themselves a team, and they were. But they were more than that. They were family.

It was a family who would kill the beast.

So they ate, as the June afternoon slipped into June evening, with the flowers blooming around them, and the lazy dog—sated with handouts—snoring on the soft green grass. At the edges of that soft green grass, the woods stayed silent and still. Cybil nursed a single beer through the lazy meal. When the interlude passed, she wanted her head clear for the discussion that had to follow.

“We got cake,” Fox announced.

“What? Cake? What?” Quinn set down her own beer. “I can't eat cake after eating a burger and potato salad. It's against my lifestyle change. It's just not . . . Damn it, what kind of cake?”

“The kind from the bakery with the icing and the little flowers.”

“You bastard.” She propped her chin on her fist and looked pitifully at Fox. “Why is there cake?”

“It's for Gage.”

“You got me a cake?”

“Yeah.” Cal sent Gage a sober and serious nod. “We got you a Glad You Didn't Die cake. Betts at the bakery wrote that on it. She was confused, but she wrote it on. She had cherry pie, which was my first choice, but O'Dell said it had to be cake.”

“We could've bought both,” Fox pointed out.

“Somebody brings cake
and
pie into this house,” Quinn said darkly, “somebody
will
die. By my hand.”

“Anticipating that,” Cal said, “we just went for the cake.”

Gage considered a minute. “You guys are idiots. The appropriate Glad You Didn't Die token is a hooker and a bottle of Jack.”

“We couldn't find a hooker.” Fox shrugged. “Our time was limited.”

“You could give him an IOU,” Layla suggested.

Gage grinned at her. “All markers cheerfully accepted.”

“Meanwhile, I guess we'd better clear this up, clean it up, and take a little time before we indulge in celebratory cake—of which I can have a stingy little sliver,” Quinn said.

Cybil rose first. “I've been working on something, and need to explain it. After we clear the decks here, do you all want to have that explanation, and the inevitable ensuing discussion, inside or out here?”

There was another moment of silence before Gage spoke. “It's a nice night.”

“Out here then. Well, as the men hunted, gathered, and cooked, I guess the cleanup's on us, ladies.”

As the women cleared and carried, Gage walked over to the edge of the woods with his friends and watched Lump sniff, lift his leg, sniff, lift his leg.

“Dog's got wicked bladder control,” Fox commented.

“He does that. Good instincts, too. He won't go any farther into the woods than that anymore, not without me. Wonder where the Big Evil Bastard is now,” Cal asked.

“The hits it took today?” Fox's smile was fierce. “It'll need some alone time, you bet your ass. Jesus, Gage, I thought you had the bastard. Nailed it right between the eyes, ripped holes all over it. I thought: Fucking A, we're taking it out right here and now. If I hadn't gotten so goddamn smug, it might not have gotten by us and bitten you.”

“I didn't die, remember? The cake says so. It's not on you,” Gage continued. “Or you,” he added to Cal. “Or any of us. It got under our guard and took me down. Temporarily. But it showed us something we didn't know. It's not all illusion anymore, or infection. It can take on corporeal form, or enough of one to do damage now. It's evolved. In the who-did-damage-to-who department today, I'd say we broke even. But in the strategy department? We kicked its ass.”

“It was fun, too. Yelling at each other.” Fox dipped his hands in his pockets. “Like therapy. I did worry that Layla was going to take a page out of Cybil's playbook and punch me. Man, she really clocked you.”

“She hits like a girl.”

Fox snorted. “Not from my angle. You had little X's in your eyes for a couple seconds there.”

“Bullshit.”

“Birdies circling over your head,” Cal put in. “I was embarrassed for you and all mankind.”

“You want to see some birdies?”

Cal grinned, then sobered. “Cybil was pretty quiet during dinner.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I guess we'd better go find out what she's got on her mind.”

Cybil switched to sun tea, and noted Gage had gone back to coffee. Though she'd been sorry to cut back on the mood, she'd turned the music off herself. It was time Team Human, as Quinn had called it, got back to business.

“I suppose it wouldn't hurt to do a quick roundup of today's events,” she began. “Gage's brainstorm about using a substitute bloodstone and drawing Twisse in with our own negative and violent emotions worked.”