Darklands

by Nancy Holzner

Page 24

 

  Fat chance. I’ve never been that lucky.

  Kane. Butterfly stirred in my gut as I wondered how the hell I was going to give him the news about canceling. No…yes…no…well, maybe another time. Whatever my reasons, all the back-and-forth made me look like a flake.

  That’s because you’re acting like a flake, a familiar, whiny voice buzzed in my mind. You’re going to hurt him. You’ll lose him to that Simone—and it will be your own fault.

  “Shut up, Butterfly,” I muttered.

  “Did you want something else?” the waitress called from the other end of the counter.

  “Just thinking out loud. ” I picked up the red plastic ketchup container and squeezed a big, gloppy puddle onto my plate, imagining I was squirting the stuff all over my Eidolon’s ugly demon head. The voice went silent, and the guilty feelings withdrew, letting my stomach settle. Even so, I pushed away my half-eaten lunch.

  “Could I get the check?”

  Kane and I would work this out. And I only had to keep Butterfly at bay a little while longer. Tonight, after I’d staked out the Devil’s Coffin, I’d force the demon to materialize. And then, please or no please, I’d take great pleasure in sending it back into the ether.

  BACK ON THE MASS PIKE, I WAS COMING UP ON EXIT 14 WHEN I decided to swing by Gwen’s house. Maria would be getting home from school, and I could check in with her, see how the kid was doing. I’d told Gwen I’d try to spend some time with Maria next week, but since I was so close, why not now?

  Maybe I just didn’t want to go home and try to nap with Butterfly hanging around, since dark was hours away and I couldn’t force the demon to materialize before then. I didn’t relish the idea of trying to sleep with an Eidolon lodged in my guts. But I pushed that thought from my mind and flipped on the turn signal to exit the turnpike.

  I got on Route 128, heading toward Needham. Traffic on 128 is always heavy, but the road was even more choked up than usual for early afternoon. By the time I pulled into Gwen’s driveway, I was thinking I should’ve driven straight home. Too late now. Maria came rocketing out of the garage on her bike, swerving away from the Jag’s bumper as I came to a stop. She waved to me and yelled, “Don’t leave!” Then she zipped out into the street and down the block. She didn’t smile. Despite the wave, her face was grim. A scowl bunched her forehead, and her lips were compressed into a thin line.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a great time to drop by unannounced. I should’ve called. But that’s harder than it sounds. I don’t carry a cell phone (it got too expensive after the energy blasts from shapeshifting destroyed three in a month), and payphones are almost impossible to find these days. Still, it might have kept me from barging in on another family crisis. At least Gwen would have expected me.

  She stepped forward now from the shadows of the garage, staring at the Jag as I got out. No, wait. That wasn’t Gwen. This woman was a little taller, a little thinner than my sister. Her face was tanned, and her hair was white, not blonde.

  “Mom?”

  It couldn’t be my mother; she was in Florida.

  If you bothered to call once in a while, you’d know—

  “Shut up, Butterfly. ” I mentally bonked the demon on the head with a beach ball, in keeping with the Florida theme.

  “Vicky!” My mother opened her arms as Gwen came out of the house, with Justin on her hip, and stood beside her. I marveled at how much the two of them looked alike. Then I rushed forward and hugged my mother.

  I didn’t inhale the warm vanilla-and-Jean-Naté scent I remembered from my childhood. Mom wore a different perfume, one I didn’t recognize, overlaid with the beachy smell of suntan lotion. I drew back and held her at arm’s length. She was trim and toned, her hair cut in a bob like Gwen’s, her face mapped with smile lines.

  “You look great,” I said.

  She bit one side of her bottom lip as she studied me. “You look a little tired,” she judged. “Have you been getting enough sleep?”

  Such a mom. I hugged her again.

  “Where’s Maria?” Gwen’s taut voice stretched those two words almost to the breaking point.

  “She took off on her bike. That way. ” I pointed in the direction she’d gone. “I don’t think she went far. She wanted me to wait for her. ”

  “Hmph. ” Gwen walked to the end of the driveway and peered down the block.

  My mother hooked her arm in mine. “It’s good to see you,” she said, drawing me toward the garage.

  “I didn’t know you were coming. ” She hadn’t mentioned a trip north in her phone message. “When did you get here?”

  “Gwen picked me up at the airport late this morning. ” Her soft Welsh accent wrapped around me like a warm blanket. “The trip was spur-of-the-moment. I got a good deal on a last-minute flight. Florida is lovely in winter, but I do miss New England in the spring. ” She glanced at the overcast sky and laughed. “Well, some days. Let’s go inside, shall we? I was just sitting down to a cup of tea. ”

  We went through the garage and into the kitchen. A teapot and mug waited on the table. “Would you like some?” Mom asked.

  I shook my head. In a family of tea drinkers, I went for coffee. But I didn’t want any now.

  Mom picked up the mug and leaned against a counter.

  “How’s life in Florida?” I asked.

  “Busy. I go for a swim each morning, play a lot of tennis. Golf sometimes. ” She grinned at me over her mug. “At the grand old age of sixty, I’m one of the youngsters in my retirement community. I’ve had to polish up my rusty demon-fighting skills; they come in handy when I have to fend off some of the horny old goats in that place. ”

  My mother had put in several years as a professional demon fighter before she married my dad and they emigrated from Wales in the late seventies. She was five years older than my father, yet she’d been smitten with the handsome young man. Mom had experienced both my world and Gwen’s, active shapeshifting and then motherhood. I realized with a start that she must have been my age—younger, even—when she’d chosen Dad over demons.

  “You didn’t come up here to see the tulips and daffodils bloom, right?” I asked. “Gwen asked you to help with Maria. ” It was a good idea. Gwen had turned away from demon slaying and shapeshifting when she was still in her teens, and those same things were my way of life. To Maria, we must seem like polar opposites. Mom had experienced both, first embracing shapeshifting and then giving it up because she fell in love and wanted a family. When I was growing up, Mom had stayed in the background, letting Dad and Mab guide me as I explored shapeshifting and trained to fight demons. But she’d always been supportive—of both me and my sister. She’d do the same for Maria.

  “Poor Gwen. ” Mom sipped her tea. “She was in denial for so long about the possibility that her daughter would be a shifter. She’s not ready for this. And poor Maria, too. She doesn’t know whom to trust. Between puberty and her awakening abilities, her own body has become something alien. ”

  “I remember that feeling. But I also remember I had a lot of help navigating the confusion. I’m glad you’re here. ”

  “I wish Maria felt the same way. She didn’t seem at all happy to see me. ”

  “What happened?”

  Before she could answer, the door opened. Maria came inside, with Gwen gripping her shoulder. Justin squirmed, and Gwen set him down. He toddled over to his grandmother, stopping just out of reach, and stared at her, sucking his finger. Maria’s head was tilted downward, her gaze fixed on the floor.

  “Maria?” Gwen’s voice still held that tautness.

  “I’m sorry I took off like that, Grandma. ”

  Mom’s face was soft with love as she looked at her granddaughter. “How about a hug?”

  Gwen released Maria’s shoulder, and the girl walked over to Mom. She leaned in stiffly and allowed herself to be embraced for five whole seconds. Then she went to the back st
aircase and thumped loudly up the stairs. A minute later a door slammed.

  Justin watched all of this with wide eyes. When Maria had gone, he looked back at his grandmother. He raised both arms. “Hug,” he demanded.

  Mom picked him up. His chubby arms circled her neck, and he planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek. “Now, that’s a real hug,” Mom said, putting him down. Justin giggled and went to his basket of toys in the corner.

  Mom smiled, watching him dig through his toys. “Maria believes that her mother has brought me here as…what’s the word? As a ringer, I suppose. Someone who’ll unduly influence her toward Gwen’s way of thinking. ”

  “She’s a smart kid,” I said. “She’ll figure out that’s not true. ”

  “Smart, yes, but as stubborn as…” Gwen searched for an apt comparison.

  “As you were at that age,” Mom finished for her.

  One corner of Gwen’s mouth twitched upward. “You think so? I don’t remember it that way. ” She turned to me. “I’ve got to go pick up Zack from T-ball practice. ” Zack, Gwen’s middle child, was a six-year-old future Red Sox pitcher. “How long are you stopping by?”

  “I just intended to say hello and get back to town. I was checking out a, um, job site west of here. I have to go back there tonight, so I really need to go home and get some sleep. ”

  Mom nodded her approval of that plan.

  “I’d invite you to crash here, but this isn’t the quietest house during the afternoon. ” Gwen nodded at Justin, who’d pulled a plastic hammer from the basket and was pounding the floor. Her eyes went to the ceiling as though she could see what Maria was doing upstairs. “Are you still planning to come out next week? I was thinking we could make Monday a family day. It’s Patriots’ Day, the first day of the kids’ school vacation. We could have a nice meal, maybe go to the park if the weather is good. Let the kids burn off some energy. ”