How to Wake an Undead City

by Edwards, Hailey

  “I’m pregnant,” she mumbled, crumbs flying. “I have needs.”

  “Go.” I pointed, snatching her phone from her back pocket. “You’ll get this back later if you’re a good girl.”

  Glaring at me over the rim of the first glass of milk as she chugged it, she pivoted on her heel and left.

  “Sorry about that.” I locked the door behind me. “It’s hard to find good help these days.” Modified pen in hand, I drew sigils on the doorframe to give us privacy for when Lethe inevitably slinked back to eavesdrop. “Did you happen to notice our food’s disappearing act?”

  “I did,” he admitted, “but I’ve found it’s best not to take food from a gwyllgi, particularly a pregnant one, even if it’s mine.”

  “You’re not wrong.”

  Polite to a fault, Linus smoothed a hand over the sheet. “What am I missing here, Grier?”

  Waiting until the ward popped our ears, I pushed the first button Lethe had queued on her home screen. “Let there be light.”

  The yards and yards of twinkling fairy lights I spent hours taping all the way around the room where the wall met the ceiling emitted a romantic glow on cue.

  A smile poised on his mouth. “What is all this?”

  “I’m not finished yet.” I pressed the second button. “Let there be music.”

  The first notes of a smoky love song poured from the Bluetooth speakers hidden around the room.

  A flush spread over his cheeks, his freckles standing out in sharp contrast. Fidgeting with his sheet until it covered his bare legs, he cast around the room for his clothes, but I liked him in boxers and a tee just fine.

  “This is the part where I would have offered you grilled cheese, but we’ll skip that.” I crossed to him and went down on one knee between his thighs. “I picked a bouquet of roses from the garden for you, a mix of reds and yellows, but I asked Hood to carry them because my hands were full, and—”

  “Lethe,” he said softly.

  “Yeah.” I laughed under my breath. “Lethe.”

  She had mistaken the romantic gesture as his, and I was too good a friend to deny him the brownie points.

  “I don’t need the flowers, or the grilled cheese. You put in the effort, and I appreciate the thought.”

  “Before we write the whole evening off as a loss, I did manage to hold on to one thing.”

  “Oh?”

  “The first time I asked you to spend the rest of your life with me, your mother had just tried to engage you to another woman.” Sweat broke across my forehead when I reached in my back pocket. “I announced my intentions to marry you without asking you first, without talking to you about plans for your—and our—future at all.”

  “Grier—”

  “We’ve discussed it since,” I talked over him before he derailed me. “I just wish I could go back and do it right. Since that can’t happen, I can at least give you this.”

  “I would be just as happy with a trip down to the kitchen.” He rubbed his thumb where his bread tie ought to be, and a pang of guilt for not returning it to him after Atramentous struck me. “There’s a loaf of white bread on the counter.”

  “Just open the box.” I shoved it at him. “Please.”

  Without taking it from me, he cracked open the lid and unerringly spotted the surprise first. “My ring.”

  “Here.” I pulled the heavy platinum band he had otherwise ignored from its velvet resting place and held it out to him. “Give this a spin.”

  Per the jeweler’s report, the band was four millimeters thick and twelve point five millimeters wide. But it didn’t glint silver. It had been hand-antiqued with the careful application of black rhodium to make the four princess-cut diamonds that alternated between four round brilliant cut diamonds pop even more. The comfort fit edge promised Linus could do his work without fear of getting poked by the metal end of his original engagement ring. But what first drew Linus’s eye was perhaps my favorite feature. The jeweler had left a thin groove woven around the ornate scrolls and beneath the stones to wind the stripped metal bread tie. Thanks to the largest princess-cut diamond sitting a smidgen higher, I had room to tuck the twisted ends underneath the stone, just as the jeweler instructed.

  “I don’t know what to say.” He smoothed his thumb over the band, smiling when the pad didn’t catch on errant metal. “It’s perfect.” He leaned down and kissed me gently. “Thank you.”

  “There’s one tiny thing I have left to do.” I took the ring from him, still impressed by the weight, and cleared my throat. “Linus Andreas Lawson—”

  “Yes.”

  Laughing with delight, I slid the ring on his left hand’s ring finger and pressed a kiss to that knuckle.

  Holding out his hand, he admired the band. “Am I correct in assuming you won’t let me out of bed?”

  “You would be correct, yes.”

  “There’s a metal box under the bed in my room. Will you bring it to me?”

  Thrown by the change in subject, I braced on his knees and stood. “Sure.”

  I smudged the privacy sigil then padded to his room, amazed Lethe hadn’t set up camp outside the door after she finished her snack. The box was right where he’d told me it would be, but it weighed a ton. I yanked on the handle until it toppled onto its side, its contents spilling across the floorboards.

  Aside from an alarming number of teeth from extinct animals—all packaged and labeled like collector’s coins—which I scooped up and dumped back in, there was one other item.

  The hand-sized jewelry box and red bow gave it away as a gift he meant for me.

  I really hoped he hadn’t spent as much on this as I had on him, but tonight was not for counting pennies.

  Back in my room, I held up my find. “Unless you’ve developed a sudden desire to play dentist with me, which is where I draw the line, and it’s a hard line, no pun intended, I believe this is the prize at the bottom of the cereal box.”

  “Open it.”

  Resolved to put all thoughts of money out of my head, I gaped at the platinum necklace on its bed of crimson velvet. The thin chain and lariat style made it casual enough to pair with jeans and a tee, but the three karat diamonds capping each dangling strand sent my jaw crashing to the floor.

  “I…” Despite my best intentions, I folded like a house of cards. “I can’t accept this. It’s too much.”

  “The first stone,” he said, ignoring my protest, “the bluer one, is the memorial diamond Maud had made with Evangeline’s ashes. I found it while we were sorting correspondence in the basement. The package from the lab that grew the diamond was never opened.”

  “Mom,” I whispered, rolling the stone between my fingers, wishing I hadn’t blocked out Woolly so she could share in this moment.

  “The second stone, the whiter one, is the memorial diamond I had made from Maud’s ashes. I used the same company so that they would be as near to identical as possible.” He traced the longer chain. “I had always suspected, but Mother confirmed that she had kept Maud’s ashes. I can guess why, but she would deny suffering the human mentality of wanting a token of a lost loved one.”

  Considering Maud’s heart had never been found, and it was the keepsake we passed down through generations, I could understand the Grande Dame wanting to hold on to some tangible piece of Maud.

  Tempted as I was to share the gift with Cletus, I had to accept it meant nothing more or less to him than a pretty bauble from Linus to me. His lack of recognition would only hurt Woolly, who was all too aware now of what we had all lost when I brought Maud back as a shadow of her former self. And the absence of sentiment might hurt me even more.

  “Growing a diamond from ash costs marginally less than buying a mined one,” he assured me, misreading my discomfort, “and while I could have purchased a sterling lariat, I decided you would rather I invest in a setting that would protect the diamonds than skimp in this instance.”

  Vision wavering, I couldn’t look away from the magnitude of the gift
he had given me.

  And I couldn’t seem to find my voice to protest again.

  “I intended to give this to you on our wedding night so the two most important women in your life could be present, but given all you’ve been through, I thought you might take comfort from receiving it early.”

  “I’ve got your number, mister.” I blinked away tears before they fell. “You can’t receive a gift without giving a bigger one.”

  The blush from earlier returned, turning his pale cheeks rosy, but I didn’t poke fun at him again.

  The truth—that Linus received so little in return for what he gave others—was no joke.

  Lifting the necklace from its case, I slipped the long chain over my head. The precious stones nestled between my breasts, and I covered them with my palm, pressing them into the skin over my heart in an almost-prayer.

  “As much as I love this and never want to take it off, I have more plans in store.” I flexed my toes against the floorboards. “Maybe trying to get in your pants while wearing Mom and Maud is a bit…”

  “Yes,” he agreed and had the box ready and waiting by the time I reached him.

  “The way I see it, we have three options. We move this party to another room, move the necklace to another room, or move past sex to parent-approved cuddling with you beneath the sheets and me on top of them.”

  Clearing his throat, he shared a look with me. “I would prefer option two.”

  “Me too.” Cradling the gift against my chest, I returned to his room where I put the necklace back in the box under his bed. “Much better.”

  “What are you doing under there?”

  I jerked upright so fast I banged the top of my head on the underside of his bed. “Fiddle-freaking-sticks.”

  “Yeesh.” Lethe rushed over to help guide me out without denting my skull again. “Don’t kill yourself.”

  “Nothing about tonight is going according to plan.” I sucked air between my teeth while I explored the tender spot on my crown. “I give up. I’m done. Naked gymnastics will have to wait.”

  “I tried telling you the place on Abercorn should be your love shack, but you wouldn’t—” Her hands shot to her stomach. “Ouch.” She rubbed her belly, which was shockingly large this close. “I should have stopped after that third triple pepperoni pizza.”

  “Come on.” I stood and hooked an arm through hers. “I’ll walk you down to the kitchen and get you something for heartburn.” I pulled, but she didn’t budge. “Lethe?”

  “I think I just peed myself.”

  “No.” I checked her over, and my stomach dropped into my toes. “Your water broke.”

  “No, no, no, no, no.” She staggered back. “It’s too soon. She won’t survive being born this early.”

  “Sit on the bed.” I herded her toward the mattress then shoved her down. “I’ll get Hood.”

  On the way past my room, I popped my head in and called, “Lethe’s in labor.”

  Eyes going wide, Linus threw aside the sheet covering his lap. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Lethe,” I yelled down the hall, “cross your legs until I get back.”

  After I ran downstairs, I sprinted across the porch then down into the yard.

  “Hood.”

  Gwyllgi hearing being what it was, I wouldn’t have to scream long for one of them to hear and find him.

  “Hood.”

  A single voice bayed a response, and I could have wept with relief as it drew closer.

  “It’s Lethe,” I called. “She’s having the baby.”

  “Baby?” Hood stumbled out of the trees. “Lethe…? She…? A baby?”

  “That does tend to be the end result of a pregnancy, yes.” I threw an arm around his waist to support and guide him. “She was with me when she started complaining about stomach pains, and I tried to walk her downstairs for some antacids, but then her water broke, and I set her on the bed while I came to find you.”

  Okay, so maybe he wasn’t the only frazzled one. “What about the healer?”

  “He won’t arrive until next month.” Hood’s eyes sparked with crimson flecks. “There should have been more time.”

  Neither soon-to-be parent had pointed the finger of blame at me yet, but I worried that would change if this delivery didn’t go off without a hitch.

  The racket must have attracted Clem’s attention. Corbin’s too. They waited in the front yard with Oscar.

  “Lethe’s having a baby,” I blurted on our way past them onto the porch. Clem and Corbin both took a healthy step back like childbirth was a virus they might catch if they stood too close, and Oscar mimicked them.

  Chickens.

  The crystals in Woolly’s chandelier quivered with excitement when we raced beneath them.

  “Did we miss anything?” I shouted up at her as we hit the stairs.

  Scattered images popped into my head: Lethe snarling at Linus, Linus working on a sigil over her navel, Lethe kicking Linus in the chest, Linus hitting the opposite wall.

  “Goddess,” I breathed. “Can’t leave them alone five minutes.”

  Dazedly, Hood asked, “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” I patted him. “We’re almost there.”

  We tumbled into the room on top of each other, both of us eager to check on our other halves.

  Linus sat at the base of the wall where Lethe had kicked him, clutching his ribs on the right side.

  I crouched in front of him. “Did she break anything?”

  “Just winded me,” he panted through his teeth. “Bruised, not fractured.”

  “How is she?” I hiked up his shirt and used the modified pen in his hand to draw a healing sigil over the injury. “Better?”

  “Much.” Still a smidgen weak from the poison, though the sigil ought to help with that, he let me help him to his feet. “Any word on the healer?”

  “He’ll be here.” I sighed. “In about four more weeks.”

  “We might not have four more hours.” He stopped a healthy distance from her legs. “I timed the contractions. She’s progressing quickly.”

  Chewing my bottom lip, I wrung my hands as my friend thrashed. “Can we get a healer here from the Lyceum in time?”

  “No,” Lethe snarled. “No necromancers.”

  Afraid she would say that, I growled back, “Then who’s going to deliver this baby?”

  “You do it.”

  I looked over my shoulder at Linus. “Can you?”

  “Not him.” Lethe curled on her side to face me, eyes pleading. “You.”

  “What do I know about babies?” I stumbled back. “Are you nuts?”

  “I’ll walk you through it.” Linus caught me before I could escape. “If she’ll let you touch her, you can use a sigil to help with the pain.”

  A raw moan parted Lethe’s lips, and her toes curled with the agony before relaxing again.

  “Oh.” I fumbled his pen. “Um.” I almost popped out the cartridge. “Okay?”

  “You’ve got this, Grier.” He supervised from his position at the foot of the bed. “Once she’s calm, I’ll explain how to check for dilation.”

  “You can stand at the head of the bed,” Hood said, catching his drift, “or you can get out.”

  Avoiding Hood’s glare, Linus circled behind me then went to stand beside Hood, just out of his reach.

  The next few hours passed in a group effort that might postpone Woolly’s grandchild expectations indefinitely after I witnessed an actual child birth.

  Hood comforted Lethe, who calmed after I numbed her below the waist, though the newly minted alpha in her was still pissed to take orders like push or don’t push from Linus since he was both a man and not technically pack yet.

  Linus, goddess bless him, instructed me on how to coax a new life into this world. He didn’t even mind when Hood snarled at him or Lethe snapped her teeth, tiny speckles of foam flying in his direction.

  And I…I saw real estate I’m not sure a best friend should view without a medical
degree of some kind. As much as I wanted to be traumatized by the hands-on education in gwyllgi anatomy, I had to admit it was pretty cool witnessing the moment when a couple became a family.

  * * *

  With the happy parents busy cooing at Baby Kinase, and half the Atlanta gwyllgi pack, including its alpha and beta, on the way for a visit, I was happy to escape onto the back-porch swing for a breather.

  “I get why they call it the miracle of birth.” I patted the spot next to me after realizing Linus had followed me. “I just hope Lethe doesn’t feel miraculous again any time soon.”

  “Heir and a spare,” he said, smiling.

  “Ugh.” I leaned my head on his shoulder. “Don’t remind me.”

  “Next time, she’ll give birth in her own room, in her own house.”

  “The house next door.”

  A chuckle jostled me where I rested against him, and the happy sound warmed me.

  “You’re still in your underwear.” I traced the hem of his boxers where they rested against his thigh. “How scandalous, Professor Lawson. What would the other faculty members think?”

  “I’m resigning from Strophalos,” he said casually. “It’s a small thing to give them notice I don’t plan on returning from my sabbatical.”

  “Are you sure you want to cut ties so soon? You’ve got two years left you could be teaching.”

  “I want to spend as much time in Savannah as possible.” He covered my hand with his. “And it’s not like I couldn’t teach here. Strophalos was never about the prestige for me, it was about occupying my time.”

  A man who didn’t sleep had plenty of it on his hands.

  “Or”—I meshed our fingers—“you could remodel the upstairs apartment on Abercorn into a one-man tattoo parlor where you can practice your art. There’s room enough for two chairs if you want to take on an apprentice.”

  “Hmm.” He stared off into the night. “I never considered branching out on my own.”

  “Neither did I.” I jostled him with my elbow. “I needed a nudge. Maybe you do too.”

  For the span of a few sways, we sat there together, in the quiet, thinking on what could be.