Year One (36 page)

Walking to the front of the house, he grabbed the rifle propped by the door. Stepped out on the porch to watch the unfamiliar truck spit gravel on its way down the farm lane.

He ordered the dogs to sit, to hold, waiting until two men, both armed, got out of either side of the truck.

“Evening,” he said easily, watching their gaits, their hands, their expressions.

He recognized trouble, prepared to deal with it.

One had a viciously scarred face, as if claws had raked across it, right to left, just under the right eye to the jawline under his left ear.

It twisted his mouth into a curled sneer.

“Nice place you got here.” The one with a scraggly, graying beard spoke first.

“Yeah. I like it.”

“A lot of stock, a lot of crops for one man to handle.”

“Keeps me busy. Something I can do for you?”

“We're looking for a woman.”

Simon flashed a grin. “Who isn't?”

The bearded one laughed, took a paper out of his front pocket, unfolded it. “This one in particular.”

Simon looked at the paper, at the excellent sketch of Lana. “She's a looker. I wouldn't mind finding her myself.”

“She's pregnant, 'bout seven or eight months. We got word she might be wandering around this way.”

“I think I'd remember seeing that face, and a pregnant woman, wandering around here. How'd you lose her?”

“Ain't none of your business,” the scarred man snapped.

“Just making conversation. I don't get many visitors.”

The bearded one pulled his nose. “It must get lonely, out here on your own.”

“Like I said, I keep busy.”

“Still. You're pretty out of the way, kind of … cut off. Looks like you've got enough food going here to feed an army. It happens we've got one. We'll take that trailer of yours, along with two of those cows.”

“I'm not looking to trade, thanks all the same.”

“Nobody said nothing about trading.” The scarred man pulled his gun. “We're taking. Now you go on and hitch that trailer up to the truck.”

“You know, that's not very friendly of you.”

Simon moved fast. The scarred one held his gun like some B-movie cowboy, all show, no sense. Simon slapped his forearm out, jabbed his other elbow into the bearded face, and had the scarred man's gun in his own hand in three smooth moves.

“I'd shoot you both where you stand,” he said, his tone pleasant and skimmed with ice. “But I'm not in the mood to dig the graves.
You're going to want to think before you reach for that gun,” he warned the bearded man. “Now take it out slow—two fingers—and set it down on the porch. Otherwise I'll just gut shoot your friend and let you haul him away to bleed out in your truck.”

“Didn't say he was my friend.”

Simon could have handled it, intended to. Then he heard Lana's voice.

“I don't mind digging graves.”

Lana's voice, Simon thought, trying not to react, as the woman standing with the shotgun pointed at the uninvited guests looked nothing like her.

A sturdy build—not a pregnant one—short, dark hair instead of the long butterscotch-candy blond. Wearing a sneer that suited the tough, lean face.

“It's not like we haven't done it before.”

“Now, don't shoot them unless you have to, honey.” Putting amusement into his voice, Simon yanked the gun out of the second man's holster. “We just painted the damn porch last spring. She's meaner than I am,” Simon commented. “And the men upstairs, out in the barn? The ones with guns trained on you? They're meaner than she is—that takes doing. An army you said. Yeah, we eat pretty well here. Now, we'd've been happy enough to give you some food to take on your way, but bad manners can't be rewarded. Right, honey?”

“You know how I feel about it, and that one's already bleeding on the damn porch. Maybe I'll just shoot the other one in the leg.”

“Told you she's mean. Now, if I were you, I'd get back in the truck and head back the way you came. Otherwise, she's going to get irritated and shoot you. That'll whip up the rest of them, and they'll Bonnie and Clyde the shit out of you.”

“I'd like my gun back.”

“Consider the loss a consequence of poor manners. Get the fuck off my land or I'll let her put a hole in you. Then I'll sic the dogs on you.”

At the word
sic
, both dogs bared teeth, growled.

The men backed off the porch, got into the truck. Simon saw the move, and still waited until the scarred man jerked another gun up to the side window.

He shot him, center of the forehead, tracked his aim toward the driver. The truck reversed fast, tossing up gravel and smoke, spun around to speed up the lane. When he stopped, Simon switched handgun for rifle, then held off when the passenger door opened, and the driver shoved his dead companion out.

“Hell, looks like I'll be digging after all.”

He waited until the truck vanished over the rise.

“You didn't say you were a shapeshifter.”

“I'm not.” Lana lowered the shotgun, then staggered the few steps toward the porch. Dropped heavily on the step. “It's an illusion,” she said as it faded. “Just like a … costume. I've never tried it before. It took a lot.

“You killed him.”

“His choice, not mine.”

She nodded. “They were in New Hope, part of the attack. His face—the dead one—I did that to his face. I don't know how. They nearly found me awhile back.”

“I told you to go down to the root cellar.”

“And do what?” The fierceness snapped back as her head jerked up. “Tremble and wait, expect somebody to protect me and mine? I've been finished with that for a long time now. Feels like a lifetime ago. I thought if I let them see me—the illusion—they'd have more reason to believe you hadn't seen me. They'd leave you alone. Then I heard what they said about taking, and knew they weren't going to leave.”

She sat in silence when he released the dogs and sat beside her as the dogs bumped against them for attention.

“I'll leave in the morning. I'd like to be sure he's a good distance away first.”

He'd been careful not to touch her, not once since she'd walked into his world, but now he took her chin in his hand, turned her face to his. “You're not going anywhere. I offered you a place to stay because you needed it. God knows you've earned it. I believed
you
believed people were after you and the kid. But I'm going to admit, I thought you were mostly being paranoid. I was wrong.”

“He could come back, bring others back.”

Shifting to scrub hands over the dogs, Simon shook his head. “That type looks for easy pickings. Now he knows we're not. You can put your hopes on me. I can handle it.”

He rose. “Like I could've handled those two,” he added.

“I know. I saw that. What did you do in the army?”

He smiled. “Followed orders.”

“And gave them. Captain, you said.”

“It's been awhile. Now I'm a farmer.” Sitting back down on the step, he looked out at the fields, the crops. “But I know how to protect my land, my home. What's in it.”

He'd been a warrior, she thought. He had that controlled danger under the easy. She'd seen that control in Max, seen him develop it as he'd led people, had them depend on him.

Now she sat with another warrior, another leader.

“People are stronger together. I know how to defend, too.”

“I got that impression. I've had it since I found you in the henhouse.”

“I didn't always. In New York—was it really only months ago?—I liked to shop, to plan dinner parties. I liked to dream about opening my own restaurant one day. I'd never held a gun, much less fired one. And my power … it was barely a whisper.”

“It seems you've found your voice then.”

“It's more being found. If you hadn't come back to help your parents, would you have stayed in the army?”

“No, it was time to get out.”

“What did you want to do?”

He realized they were having the longest and certainly the easiest conversation they'd had to date. With a dead man a few yards away. Christ, he wondered why it didn't strike him as strange.

“I thought about starting a business maybe, in the town up the road that's not a town anymore.”

“What kind of business?”

“Making furniture. That was kind of a hobby of my father's, and I picked it up. A little business working with my hands, on my own time, in my own way, close to home because I'd spent so much time away.”

The light began to settle toward twilight, and he found it too easy to just sit, talk with her about old dreams as night approached.

“Anyway, I've got to dig a hole.”

He walked off to get a shovel.

Lana stayed where she was, crossed her hands over her belly. Despite the death, the violence, the threat, she felt safe.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

In the end, Lana had her way. She couldn't go into the settlement, nor have anyone come to her. Either might put lives at risk if the Purity Warriors came back.

Her child had spoken to her, and through her. For now, she believed things were as they were meant to be.

She cooked, gardened, gathered eggs, and took comfort in the simplicity of the quiet.

As summer waned toward fall, she harvested vegetables, canned them for winter use. Made jams and jellies while Simon mowed and baled hay, cut wheat for the meal, hauled corn to the silo or the kitchen.

One day he brought back seeds he'd bartered for—three each from the fruit of dwarf orange and lemon trees. She found them as priceless as diamonds.

“Could work,” he said as they potted them for the greenhouse. “Lemonade on the porch next summer.”

“Duck à l'Orange next fall.”

“Maybe we'll find lime. Tequila shots.”

She laughed, carefully covered a seed with soil.

“You must like tequila,” he commented. “That's the first time I've heard you really laugh.”

“I'm planting orange seeds in dirt sweetened with chicken poop and imagining knocking back some tequila. It's pretty funny.”

“My dad always said a little chicken shit'll help grow most anything.”

“I guess we'll find out.”

Curious, she went with instinct, held her hands over the pot. She let it flow through her, in her, of her, out of her.

She felt the rise, the pulse, and the power.

A tender green sprig broke through the dirt, reached toward the light.

She laughed again, a sound that began on amazement, ended on joy. Beaming with it, she looked over at Simon, found him staring at her.

“That's a hell of a thing,” he managed.

“If you'd rather I didn't—”

“Do I look stupid to you?” he demanded, eyes firing green under gold. “The world is what it damn well is. As it is, I'm a farmer who's got a witch who can give the crops a boost. Have you got a problem with what you are?”

“No, but—”

“Why should I? The way I see it, the biggest problem we've had, right from the get, is people pointing fingers and worse at ones who aren't just like them. We ought to try to do better this time around. It might be our last chance to get it right.”

He tapped another pot. “Do this one.”

She let it come, all joy now. Then stepped back from the tender sprout.

“I don't know if it's me or her or us. But I know she changed me. If I woke tomorrow, and all these months had been a dream, I'd still be changed. Oh!” Once again she laughed as she pressed a hand to the side of her belly.

Those kinds of moves and gestures made him twitchy. “You okay?”

“Yeah. She's kicking.” Surprising them both, Lana took his hand, pressing it to her stomach.

He felt a jolt, one that went straight into him. Life kicking against his hands, and for reasons he couldn't comprehend, into his heart.

Someone grew inside there, he thought. Someone innocent, helpless. Yet from the strength of the kick, fierce.

“She's … got some sass.”

Now he stepped back as Lana's face was nearly as luminous as it had been when she'd brought life out of the dirt. The look of her, bold and glowing, stirred something in him just as the child stirred in her.

He'd been careful, damn careful, to avoid that.

“I've got work I need to get to. Can you handle the rest of this?”

“Yes.”

When he left, she stood quietly with the scent of dirt and growing things.

*   *   *

Simon kept busy, and treated Lana like he'd have treated a sister if he'd had one. Twice in September groups passed by. She stayed in the house and out of sight, wary.

He gave them supplies, directed them to the settlement. Some would stay, others he knew would continue on. Searching for something else, something more. Just searching.

After he saw the second group off, Simon came into the kitchen
to find her stirring stew on the stove with the shotgun propped beside her.

He moved it to the back door.

“Eight people. One of them had wings. I can't get used to seeing that. They skirted around D.C. a few days ago.”

Since the table was set—she tended to fuss with that sort of thing—he washed up in the sink.

“They heard gunfire, saw smoke. One of them was getting the hell out when he hooked up with them. He said, word is— God, what's her name?” He paused, rubbed his temple. “MacBride's still alive, and what's left of the government's trying to hold the city. Every time they get communications up, somebody takes it out again.”

“It seems like another world. Like a story about another world.”

“Yeah, it does. But it isn't. There are rumors about people in camps and labs.”

“Magickal people?”

“Yeah, but not just. The estimate is…” He'd considered saying nothing to her, had nearly convinced himself to take that tack.

But he couldn't.

“I'm telling you because it's not right you don't know, but it's not confirmed, okay?”

She turned to him. “Okay?”

“They're saying the plague's finished, run its course. That's the good news. The bad is they're estimating it took about eighty percent of the population. That's world population. That's more than five billion people. It could be more.

“I need a drink.”

He went to the pantry, got a bottle of whiskey, poured two fingers.

“I heard the same a few days ago.” He downed half the whiskey. “There's a guy with a ham radio in the settlement, and he's been
able to reach a few others—even a couple in Europe, and it's no better there. Adding the ones who offed themselves, the ones killed for the fucking hell of it, you can up the percentage. New York … Do you want to hear this?”

“Yes. But more, I need to hear it.”

“New York's under the control of the Dark Uncannys. There's talk of human sacrifice, of stake-burning people like you—who aren't like them. The military's holding some areas, especially west of the Mississippi, but from what I get, the chain of command's pretty fractured. There are offshoots, and they're posting bounties on all Uncannys: dark, light, doesn't matter.”

“The Purity Warriors.”

“They're leading the charge. Raiders are keeping mobile, doing hit-and-runs. And they're bounty hunting.”

Calmly, she ladled stew into one of his mother's fancy dishes—she did like to fuss. “So it's bad for everyone, but for someone like me? We're hunted by all sides. It's hard to believe what you said the other day about getting it right this time could happen.”

She carried the bowl to the table.

“I have to believe it.”

Now she ladled stew from the dish to the bowls.

She sat, waited for him to join her.

“When I was in New Hope, I saw what people could and would do together. I saw how others tried to destroy that. You were a soldier.”

“Yeah.”

“So was Max, at the end. He made the choice to fight, to lead because it needed to be done. You did the same, killing to protect someone you barely knew. You gave the people who were here food you worked to grow, and that was a choice. The people who try to destroy won't win because there will always be people like Max, like you, like the people I left behind who make the choice.”

She held a brighter view than he did at the moment. He didn't mind the balance.

“I read one of his books. Not the one you have,” he said, when she stared at him. “One of the others. It was good. He was a good writer.”

“He was.” She smiled over the ache in her heart. “He was good.”

*   *   *

Habitually after a long day, after the evening meal and the evening chores, Simon worked in the barn. He usually wound down before bed in his mother's library for an hour or two with a book.

He missed TV, and wasn't shamed to admit it, but books made up for it. He missed beer, and had high hopes the group trying to put together a little brewery would succeed. He settled most nights for tea, and had—almost—acquired a taste for it.

That didn't make up for the lack of beer.

The dogs generally settled down with him, making it a nice, easy way to end the day. He'd let them out for a last round before heading up.

The book took his mind off the work, the world, the woman sleeping upstairs. The work would always be there, he couldn't do a damn thing about the world. And he limited his thoughts regarding Lana to a very narrow window.

The last few nights he studied. Books were good for that as much as entertainment.

He'd done plenty of scavenging in the months since his parents died. Running a farm the way things turned out was a different prospect than growing up on one the way things had been.

He'd added considerably to the library.

Books gave him instructions on beekeeping, on butchering—though he'd happily turned that task over to the settlement—on making butter, cheese, holistic medicines and treatments.

Cooking—before Lana had come along.

So he did what he thought of as his homework with a mixture of fascination and horror—laced with a good dose of dread.

When he heard her coming, it surprised him enough to have him slap the book shut and rise. She never stirred out of her room once she'd gone in, shut the door.

But she stepped in now, her hair tumbled over her shoulders, the big, baggy T-shirt flowing over Baby Mountain and barely reaching the middle of her thighs.

She had damn nice legs, he thought, then immediately shut that part of his brain down.

“Sorry. Couldn't sleep.”

“No problem. Do you need something?”

“I thought maybe a book…” She trailed off as she caught sight of the one he held. “
Home Birthing Guide
?”

She'd distracted him, he realized. Her legs had distracted him, and he'd left the cover facing out.

“They've got a lot of books at the settlement you can borrow. I stole this one because I couldn't figure out how to explain borrowing it. I figured I should know what the hell to do when the time comes.”

“Good idea, because that'll make one of us.” She pressed a hand to the aching small of her back. “I talked to Rachel some—the doctor in New Hope—and we were going to start birthing lessons in September. That was the plan. Anyway, I thought maybe a book, and I'd make some tea.”

“I'll make it. No, you look a little ragged.”

“I'd be insulted except I feel the same. Should I read that?”

“Not if you want to sleep tonight.” He added a smile that made her laugh.

And press a hand to her side. “Whoa.”

“Must be hard to sleep with her kicking you from the inside.”

“I don't know—I don't think. Rachel said Braxton-Hicks contractions are like a preview of coming attractions.” Her voice hitched through the words as she braced on the back of the sofa.

“You're hurting?”

“It's just … It's not that bad. Enough to keep me up.” She let out a breath, straightened.

“Maybe it's … the thing.”

“‘The thing'? Labor? Oh, no, it's just those fake contractions. I'd know. I mean, I'd have to know. I think some chamomile tea and a book. Maybe just the tea, actually.”

“Okay.” He tossed down the book, went to the kitchen with her. “I can bring it up.”

“Thanks, but being up feels pretty good. I'm just restless. Looks like the dogs are, too. Should I let them out?”

“Yeah, go ahead.” He put on the kettle as she opened the door.

Wind moaned in.

“It's really blowing,” she murmured, standing for a moment and letting the cool air blast over her. “Might be a storm coming in.”

He turned away from the vision of her hair flying, the shirt dancing high on her thighs, appalled by the attraction.

Pregnant woman, he reminded himself. A woman who trusted and depended on him. A woman grieving for the man she'd loved.

“Dark nights full of wonder when magicks poise to rise. Max wrote that, or something close to that. It's what tonight feels like.”

On a quick sound of shock she wrapped an arm around her belly. And her water broke.

They stood, her at the door, the wind blowing, him at the stove, the kettle steaming, and stared at each other in complete shock.

“Oh my God. My water broke. Did you hear it? Did you? It went
ping
. Oh, Jesus
Christ
! I don't think these are the fake ones.”

“Okay, okay. Wait.” He turned the kettle down. He'd need the boiling water to sterilize … Don't think about it yet.

“I don't think waiting's an option.”

“I don't mean wait. I mean … Okay.” Military training kicked in. He simply put himself in combat mode.

“Let's get you upstairs.”

“My water broke all over the floor.”

“I'll mop it up later. I've got what we need upstairs.”

“What we need?”

He solved the let's-get-you-upstairs issue by picking her up. A hefty load, but he could handle it. “I read the book, right? Clean shower curtain, towels, blankets, stuff. I've got this.”

“I need to have this.”

“I've got a stopwatch. We need to time the contractions. So, you've had a couple—about what, five minutes apart?”

“I don't know how many. I thought they were the other kind. Why are there another kind? Whose idea was that?”

One of them, at least one of them, had to keep calm. “Give me a ballpark on how long.”

“A couple of hours I guess. I'm an idiot.”

“A novice is different than an idiot.” He carried her into his parents' room, stood her beside the old four-poster. “I'm going to get the stuff. Can you hang on here?”