Matt nodded.
“I mean it. I have a good feeling about this. The two of you are destined for each other. Just like me and Michael. There’s no power in the universe that can stop that.” She smiled at Matt and patted his arm reassuringly.
In the back seat, Joannie the midwife woke up groggy and confused. “You don’t know the old stories, girl. From the bad times. There’s a lot of bears out there who lost their mates during the Skins War, during the Night of Fangs, or even just from a thousand mortal conflicts that spilled over us in waves.” Joannie coughed and blinked out the window. “Destiny does her part, but you need to work for it.”
Michael sniffed the air and barked, pointing with his nose north, down the highway.
“Joannie, I’m real glad you’re here to lend us your medical expertise, but keep that dark talk away for now,” Matt said. “My thoughts are dark enough right now to split the earth in two and if you go on about those savage days before Bearfield, before we found a homeland, I’m going to wreck this Jeep.” Matt tightened his grip on the steering wheel and squinted into the sun. He had the pedal almost to the floor and the Jeep was complaining. He just hoped they got to Mina before the transmission gave out or the suspension buckled, or before Michael sneezed too hard and flipped them over.
“Okay, no dark thoughts,” Allison said brightly. “Did I tell you that I invented a new cocktail for the Growler?” The Growler was Allison’s roadhouse. It served the best food and the stiffest drinks in town. “It’s a bourbon-based drink with honey-infused orange peels and bitters and a dash of maple syrup. I call it His Honeybear Smile.”
Matt’s belly rumbled. Hearing ordinary talk helped. It really did. It turned the car ride from a life-or-death pursuit into something closer to a vacation outing. Like it was a perfectly normal thing for him and his brother and his sister-in-law and a midwife to go cruising up the highway.
“More, please. Say more. Take the edge off the fear. Without my bear, I’m having trouble regulating myself. It’s like my mind is spinning.”
Allison bit her lip. She glanced back at Michael and caught the bear’s eye. In the rear-view mirror, Matt caught sight of a barely perceptible nod between them.
“We were going to hold off on this news,” she said slowly. “But this seems like a pretty good time to announce this: We’re pregnant!” A glow of happiness burst on her face.
“What? That’s amazing,” Matt said.
“Mazel tov!” Joannie said. “Do you have a midwife picked out yet?”
Michael roared gently. A silly, very human smile was plastered on his big furry face.
“Thank you! We had my sister Chloe over the other night and she told me. That girl is getting weirder, I swear. She told me it was a boy baby and that he was very excited to meet us.” Before anyone could question the veracity of Chloe’s sixth sense, Allison added, “And I did a pregnancy test the next day and it was positive. It’s funny, because we’re using birth control, y’know? Like multiple kinds.”
“When a bear wants to be born, it’s born,” Joannie said. “You can’t stop it.” The midwife undid her seatbelt and leaned forward to inspect Allison. She plucked a hair from the woman’s head and ate it. She sniffed Allison’s neck. She fished out a bag of bones from her midwife bag and shook them onto the floor of the Jeep. “I should have sensed this,” she muttered. “I’m getting old and age is robbing me of my gifts even as it grants me wisdom.”
“What do you sense?” Matt asked.
“The baby is ten weeks, and three days along. He’s very healthy and will be a shifter child. But he’s destined for a life of unease, I’m sorry to say. He has the heart of a seeker, like his father, and the curiosity of his mother. He will follow his nose around the world on a quest and topple many tables on his journey.”
“You can tell all that from my hair?” Allison asked, incredulous. She’d taken to learning all about magic herbs and potions like she’d been born to it, but some aspects of the paranormal world still unnerved her scientific mind.
“Your hair tells me how long you’ve been with child. Your scent tells me it’s a boy. And the bones, the bones say everything else.”Joannie’s eyes glinted darkly and a chill ran through Matt’s spine.
“Could you ask the bones about Mina?” he asked.
“I did. But I won’t tell you what they said.” The old woman folded her arms across her chest and stared out the window.
“Why not?”
“Because even the bones are sometimes wrong and hope is precious.”
From the backseat, Michael roared loud enough to shake the Jeep. He tossed the tarp off and stood up, placing his front paws on the roll bars of the Jeep. He pointed with steady aim off the highway, toward a grove of eucalyptus trees.
Matt turned off the highway at the next exit, taking the turn a little too fast. The Jeep tipped with the curve, leaning over onto two wheels. But Michael shifted his weight and they slammed back down. The suspension groaned at the impact. When they got through this, Matt would have some serious gratitude for his brother, which might or might not involve buying him a new car.
The highway exit wound through dense golden fields of grass. Some grazing cattle took note of Michael and bellowed in alarm, before waddling away in what passed for a hurry among their kind. Were there cow shifters, Matt wondered. It was rare to see a shifter who was a prey animal, but it happened. Cows though? Unlikely. Once, when they were kids, he and Marcus had decided to go hunting in bear form. Matt had been in elementary school and Marcus in middle school, but they were desperate to prove to their father that they could be as fierce as bears as he was. Matt spent the whole night chasing raccoons, until he ran afoul of a skunk who sprayed him right in the face. Marcus had tried to attack a cow and gotten kicked upside the head for his troubles. They never told anyone about their failed night of hunting. It was one of many shared secrets the brothers held close.
Matt couldn’t see a clear road to the eucalyptus grove or what was in it. But Michael pointed aggressively at the trees and growled, so he knew that’s where Mina was. He didn’t know what to expect when he found her. He tried not to think about it at all. He certainly didn’t want to imagine her hurt or mortally wounded or their baby—no, best to keep thoughts like that at bay.
He pulled over to the shoulder of the road. “Take the car, Allison. Michael and I will run over there. These roads back here are a dang maze. So just meet us there, please?” Allison nodded with a look of fierce determination and hopped into the driver’s seat as he slid out the Jeep’s door. Not for the first time, Matt was proud of his brother for finding such an amazing woman. And she was pregnant! Their kids could grow up together, roughhousing and learning how to be bears together.
Unless something had happened to his daughter.
Michael clambered out of the back of the Jeep, making it tilt and bounce like a carnival ride. Joannie was tossed all around and her soothsaying bones flew up in the air like confetti, spilling across the dirt shoulder of the highway. Matt glanced at them and could swear he saw a bird shape, with a tufted crest and a long beak like a jay.
Michael glanced at Matt, asking permission with his big expressive bear eyes. If Matt’s bear had been inside him, they could have communicated wordlessly, but as it was he was cut off from his brother. It gave him, in that split second, a profound appreciation for the connection they usually shared and a sense of what it must be like for Mina to try and talk to him when he was all beared out.
“Go!” Matt said. “Save Mina, I’ll be right behind you.”
On the other side of the field, a stocky woman with a bandana tied over her hair was running through the grass toward the grove of trees. Michael raced on like a furry cannonball, trying to intercept her. Matt followed behind. The stiff grasses whipped at his arms and legs. He couldn’t wait to get his bear back, his daughter back, and especially Mina back.
Near the grove, Michael intercepted the woman. He stood up on his back feet and roared, shaki
ng the trees with his fury. But the woman tossed a handful of dust in his face and like a falling tree, Michael fell over backwards, shifting as he tumbled. As a man he fell back into the grass and Matt knew that when he found him he’d be deeply asleep.
He made a note that Bandana Woman had the sleeping dust, but where had she just come from? Why was she running across the field like a bat out of hell? The woman looked furious and Matt knew then that Mina was still alive and doing everything she could to frustrate her kidnappers.
As he ran, he ducked low, trying to keep hidden in the tall grass. He kept the grove of trees between him and the kidnappers so as to better sneak up on them. “I’m here, Mina,” he whispered. If she had her borrowed supernatural senses, she’d hear him. Matt reached the grove of trees. Someone nearby was yelling in a panic. Two people, a man and a woman, shouted over each other. Matt searched the ground around the eucalyptus trunks, looking for anything he could use to fight with. If he hadn’t been in such a hurry he could’ve grabbed a tire iron or a hammer from Michael’s Jeep, but he wasn’t used to having to search for weapons. He’d been born with a body with six inch claws on his shifted hands, after all. The best he could find was a baseball-sized rock, so it’d have to do.
He hefted the stone in his hands and peered around the trees. Shoots of bamboo grew between the eucalyptus, making it difficult to see anything. He couldn’t push the branches apart without making way too much noise. Matt took a deep breath. He tried to make out what the couple were shouting at each other, but the wind was in the wrong direction and it stole away half the words.
Stepping around the trees into the clearing, he took in all he could in an instant. Mina stood near him. She looked unharmed but pissed off. The muscles in her neck were standing taut and her fists were balled up, like she’d just gotten off the phone from a fight with her mother. Behind Mina, not far from where Michael snored in a sprawl on the ground, stood the woman with the sleeping dust. Matt half-recognized her from town, but couldn’t place her. Farther away, Peter Parstip held a gun trained on Mina. His hand shook and before Matt knew what he was doing, he was running forward.
The sight of a gun, aimed at his mate, aimed at his unborn daughter, activated something in him that was older than words. He had to protect his mate. Matt threw the stone hard at the woman with the sleeping powder. He was aiming for her face, but the stone flew low and instead sent the leather bag in her hand sailing away into the scrubby weeds at the base of the trees.
“No!” she screamed, but Matt rushed past her, knocking her off balance with his shoulder.
All he could see was the gun. His whole world could be taken away by it. He’d never been afraid of guns himself. His shifter blood made him bulletproof, but what they could do to his family—he’d never even considered how they could be taken away from him in an instant. His mother had been killed by hunters, and he’d grieved for her for years, but this was different.
As he rushed towards the gun, Matt saw Peter’s eyes go wide with panic. The man hadn’t been expecting any interruptions or anyone else to show up. So when Matt appeared out of nowhere, he pulled the trigger. Peter had never fired a gun before, he wasn’t prepared for the way it jerked in his hand. He wasn’t holding it properly, but rather like he’d seen on TV. When he fired, the bullet went one way, rushing straight towards Mina, and the gun went the other way, flipping up into Peter’s face and smashing him right in the nose.
Without thinking, Matt leapt in front of the bullet. He reached out, as if to catch it, but the bullet went straight through his hand, and then through his shoulder. It continued on towards Mina, slowed but unstoppable. Matt spun and saw the bullet hit Mina square in the chest, and then bounce off, ricocheting into the woods.
His bear was with her. All of the myriad gifts it had given Matt over the years it was now giving to Mina. Of course it was. His bear was him. They loved Mina together and would do anything to save her and their daughter. Relief flooded Matt and he laughed, despite himself. But the relief was quickly followed by excruciating pain as the bullet wounds made themselves known.
He’d never been injured that badly, in all his years. But then Mina’s arms were around him, pulling him close. He was on his knees. When had he fallen to his knees? And she was kissing his head, kissing his cheeks, kissing his lips.
Peter was weeping and holding his broken nose. He was trying to pinch it to stop the blood from gushing, but it was too tender to squeeze.
The woman with the bandana stopped looking for her pouch of sleep sand, saw the state of her associates, and ran off through the grass, away from the highway.
“Oh my god, you’re hurt, Matt. How are you hurt? You can’t get hurt.” Mina hugged him and released him, over and over, like she didn’t know what to do. For a moment, Matt could sense his bear within Mina. It tried to rush out of her, back into him, but Matt wouldn’t let it. Mina was still in danger. She needed the bear’s gifts more than he did, though once he was out of danger he’d be glad to have the healing abilities again.
“My bear’s been watching out for you,” he said. “I’ve always said I’ll protect you, I’ll be there for you until the stars die out. This is proof, right?” He laughed, and then gasped at the pain. His shoulder was numb and also somehow on fire.
“No more laughing,” Mina said. “It’s time for standing and getting the hell out of here.”
The Jeep pulled up, braking hard and kicking up a cloud of gravel and dust. Allison jumped out and ran to Matt while Joannie stayed buckled in the back seat. “Where’s Michael?” she asked.
“Over in the field,” Matt said. “He got hit by that sleeping whammy.”
“We need to hurry. Really hurry,” Mina said. “The Cuckoo is waking up.”
“Who?” Matt said.
“What?” Allison asked.
From the other side of the gurney, the Cuckoo stood up. He had the outward appearance of a kindly old man in a summer suit, his eyes hidden behind glasses. But his suit was torn at the shoulder and mottled feathers poked through the gap. Yellow sweat beaded and dripped from his forehead.
“What the hell is that?” Matt got to his feet and put himself between the Cuckoo and Mina.
“Clever girl, clever girl, yes no or maybe.” The Cuckoo sang in a voice that rose in volume with every word. “The cuckoo is here, have no fear, he’s going to take your baby.”
“Get in the Jeep,” Mina yelled. “Allison, help me with Michael!”
Matt wanted to help too. Wasn’t he supposed to be the one saving everyone as a big strong bear? But he couldn’t deny he felt proud of Mina. She was fierce and protective. He’d known it before, of course, but seeing her in action he could just tell she’d be the most amazing mother for their daughter.
As Mina and Allison ran over to where Michael lay snoring, Matt pulled himself into the backseat next to Joannie. Every motion sent agony through his arm. Blood ran and dripped down his fingers. He had to keep from looking at the ragged hole in his hand. Matt had never been especially good with blood, at least as a man. As a bear it was never an issue.
The midwife took one look at him and pursed her lips in disappointment. “That was a foolish thing to do, Matthew. You know your bear is keeping her safe. Are you just trying to earn some good husband points? Get some good scars in while you’re mortal?” She opened her valise and pulled out latex gloves, gauze and a stitching kit.
“I was trying to protect Mina,” he grumbled.
“That woman can protect herself, you silly man. Now sit still while I fix you up.”
Not ten feet away, the Cuckoo was on his feet and staggering to the parked ambulance. A scrabbling, clawing noise came from within the vehicle, like a hundred tiny dogs were trying to work a door handle. The Cuckoo’s suit was soaked through in the armpits with some sickly yellow fluid. Mina did that to him, Matt realized, and he smiled through the pain.
“Don’t do that!” Allison yelled from the other side of the clearing. “You’re like nine month
s pregnant!”
Mina was carrying Michael on her back. She wasn’t even struggling with him. His big arms were looped around her shoulders like she was giving him a piggyback ride, though he was twice her size and his knees dragged on the ground behind her.
“It’s fine,” Mina said in a strangely calm voice. “The bears are lending me their strength. Just go start the car. Quickly please. Quickly quickly.”
She carried Michael across the field as if he weighed no more than a duvet. His face was serene and sort of dopey while he slept, drooling all over her shoulder and snoring into Mina’s ear. When she got to the Jeep she flipped him end over end into the trunk, where he landed with a solid thud, rocking the vehicle on its worn-out suspension. She took a moment to tuck his arms and legs and head in and then jumped into the passenger seat.
Joannie rubbed some thick blue cream over Matt’s wounds. It itched like crazy for a few seconds and then went completely numb. “What is that stuff?” Matt asked.
“Dragon venom,” Joannie muttered.
“Dragons aren’t real, Joannie. They’re just a myth used to scare little shifters into eating their Brussel’s sprouts.”
Joannie pursed her lips and said nothing, but the twinkle in her eye sent chills down Matt’s spine.
“Run, run in your broken old car,” the Cuckoo sang, his voice now a harsh squawk. “My children will find you wherever you are!” He grasped the handle on the back of the ambulance and yanked it open. The scrabbling sound from within erupted and out came a flock of malformed birds. Some had baby hands or human eyes, one had arms instead of wings and ran along the ground. All of them hurtled toward the Jeep.
Allison gunned the engine and drove off as fast as the little Jeep would take them. The Cuckoo’s children were not far behind. Matt risked a glance back and saw the Cuckoo himself dissolve into a flock of greasy, mottled birds and give chase.
The sky was dark with the mass of the bird things.
The Bearfielders took every turn faster than recommended and it was a miracle that the Jeep didn’t flip over.
The Bearfield Baby Heist Page 5