“You guys . . . you’re going to be together?” I asked Sashi.
“We’re going to try.” She smiled at me with tears in her eyes. “Thank you. Stopping Aldric saved his life.”
I just stared at her, openmouthed, as she kissed my cheek and left.
Then I tried to focus on Jesse, although I was already getting drowsy again. “Hi,” I said.
He smiled, bent down, and kissed my lips. “Hi.”
“How’s your brother?”
“He’s going to be okay,” Jesse said. “Molly stayed at the hospital that night, and pressed Noah when he woke up. He was discharged this morning.”
“That’s good,” I said, my eyelids getting heavy, “I think I’m s’posed to sleep more.”
He kissed me again, this time on my forehead. “Rest.”
The next time I woke up, it was dark outside, and Jesse was sleeping hunched in a chair. His head was at practically a ninety-degree angle. I slid sideways in the nice hospital bed. “Jesse,” I said softly.
He woke up with a start. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m fine. You should go home and get some sleep.”
He shook his head, as I’d expected. “I’m staying.”
“Then come in the bed.”
Jesse hesitated for a minute, then got up and walked around the bed so he could climb in on my right side, where there was no IV. It was an odd re-creation of when we’d shared my bed after his attack, only a few days earlier. We spent a few seconds awkwardly trying to find positions that would fit together, and I fell back to sleep with Jesse holding my hand.
The next morning I woke up feeling stronger. Almost back to myself—or at least the pregnancy version of myself. After the nurse’s rounds and my breakfast, I pushed away the tray and said to Jesse, “Have you been getting updates?”
He nodded. “Hayne or Sashi call every couple of hours.”
“Okay. Fill me in.”
So he did. Well, I kept falling asleep, but every time I woke up, he picked up where we’d left off.
The Los Angeles Old World had lost twelve people: six witches, two werewolves, and four vampires. Of the dead, Jesse only knew the two werewolves: Travis Hochrest, who had required my cleaning services a couple of times, and Rosarita Hernandez, whom he’d interviewed briefly during the first Luparii case. I felt a surprisingly sharp pang of sorrow for Travis, who had been a little dim and silly, but a really nice guy overall. There had been lots of injuries, but most of them had healed after I shorted myself out. The remaining ones were handled by Matthias and, later, when Will was out of the woods, Sashi.
Aldric had survived the night only to find all his minions dead and his magic gone—all of it, permanently. He was now susceptible to vampire press, so Dashiell had been extracting all kinds of juicy information from him for days, more than enough to squash any remaining Luparii operations in Europe. Apparently this was quite upsetting for Aldric, because he had tried to hang himself in one of the cells in Dashiell’s basement. They’d stopped him in time, and pressed his mind so he wouldn’t try again. Dashiell was working on a way to execute him that would send a message to anyone back in Europe who might still be toying with the world-domination plan. A nicer, more humane Scarlett would probably have felt sorry for the old man, or tried to talk them out of killing him in cold blood, but I just couldn’t find it in me to care when or how Aldric died.
“Did Aldric say anything about why they wanted three years to come back here?” I asked Jesse.
He nodded. “Because of the animals,” he reported. “They needed time to train new dogs, specifically to go after Shadow. And the horses, too.” He shook his head a little. “But they couldn’t do the spell until they got the scroll, so the animals weren’t really used to their new forms. That probably saved us during the fight.”
Speaking of the scroll . . . “How’s Owen doing?” I asked.
Jesse told me he was back at school, trying to get his human life on track again. I wondered if it would take, or if he would find himself sucked back into the world of witchcraft. I had a feeling Kirsten would keep a close eye on him. Meanwhile, he was also helping a couple of his aunts organize a funeral for Karl, whose murder would probably go unsolved. I hoped that Jesse and I would be able to go to the service. Whatever family he’d been born into, Karl Schmidt had saved a lot of people by keeping that spell away from the rest of the Luparii.
As for the Wild Hunt magic itself, it had been completely destroyed, thanks to Jesse. He’d ripped the scroll containing the spell in half while it was in my radius, which had released the pent-up magic. The sword had short-circuited at the same time I’d “cured” Aldric. It now appeared to be just a regular sword, without the creepy glowing. Kirsten and her witches were studying both objects to try to figure out how they’d managed to contain such power.
“What will happen to the animals?” I asked, worried about Shadow. I already missed her. Again.
He grinned at me. “Remember the end of 101 Dalmatians?”
“Oh no. We are not starting a dalmatian plantation.”
Jesse laughed and said, “No, but it kind of feels that way.” All six bargests were currently staying at the cottage, overseen by Molly and Astrid, of all people.
“Wait, a werewolf? Aren’t they trying to kill her?”
“That’s the funny thing,” Jesse said. “When I ripped the spell, all the animals lost their . . . well, their urge for evil, I guess? Physically, they look the same, but the bargests aren’t driven to kill the wolves, and the hellhest aren’t trying to hurt anyone either. They’re basically just smart, bulletproof horses now. It’s just like when Shadow is in your radius: all the permanent physical changes stay, including the intelligence. I’m guessing they won’t heal fast anymore, but none of us are willing to experiment on them.”
“Good call. What’s going to happen to them?”
“Well, Dashiell wanted to try to kill at least the hellhest, but Kirsten convinced him that they could be a show of power to our enemies. He’s probably going to buy a ranch in the mountains and hire a couple of the witches to stay there and take care of them.”
I noticed that he’d said “our enemies” instead of “their enemies” or “your enemies.”
“That sounds like the best sitcom ever,” I commented. “What are we going to do with the new bargests?”
“Believe it or not, Astrid thinks Eli should let the werewolves adopt them. Regular pets are scared of the werewolves, but the bargests aren’t affected, and they’re powerful enough to run with the wolves on full-moon nights. If they can be sort of incorporated into the pack, it will increase LA’s power base, too. But the others are still discussing it.” He held out his hands, palms up. “It’s a work in progress.”
That was good and all, but . . . “Eli?”
Jesse’s face sobered. “He’s the new alpha.”
Oh. It made sense, of course: Will had been effectively forced into retirement. Scratch that: I had effectively forced Will into retirement.
But having my ex-boyfriend back in my life as someone I regularly had to work with? “That’s awkward.”
I watched Jesse carefully for signs of jealousy, but he shrugged, tucking my hair behind my ear. “We’ll deal with it.”
That night, I had a very welcome visitor. “Wyatt!” I cried out as the cowboy vampire hovered in my doorway, hat in hand. He looked good—pale and drawn and leaning hard on a cane, but good. I waved him in. “Your leg?” I said as he limped his way in. “It . . . came back?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jesse gave Wyatt his chair, and the vampire nodded gratefully. “And it’s an experience I cannot recommend less.” He regarded me in the hospital bed for a moment. “I leave you alone for one day, and you end up in the hospital?”
I waved it off. “I’m okay, really. Mostly they’re keeping me here to . . .” I trailed off, then shrugged to myself. What the hell? I trusted Wyatt. “To keep an eye on the baby,” I finished.
Wyatt�
��s enormous mustache spread into a smile. “The . . . Miss Scarlett, you’re expecting a child?”
“Well, it better not be a dinosaur,” I replied.
“I don’t know, I think a triceratops would be pretty cool,” Jesse commented.
For a second, Wyatt looked like he might cry. “That’s . . . golly, that’s just wonderful. Congratulations to you both.”
Jesse and I exchanged a look. We had already dealt with this from a dozen different doctors and nurses, and I, for one, was tired of it. “Thank you,” I said simply. I hesitated for a second, then forced the words out. “Are you angry with me? About . . . Katia?”
“That she saved my life?” He gave me a gentle smile. “I was, a bit. I still want to be with my Ellen. But . . .” He gave a little shrug. “I swore to Mr. Dashiell that I would look out for you for a year. I reckon I need to stick around for it.”
“You . . . wait.” I’d known that Wyatt had sworn loyalty to Dashiell, of course—every vampire in the city had to do that. “He asked you to look out for me?”
Wyatt’s smile widened. “I volunteered. He agreed that you seem to need some extra help.” He glanced wryly at the cane. “Or maybe just a straw man. I can work with that.”
Jesse squeezed my hand. I didn’t know what to say.
Wyatt started to shift his weight to leave, then gave a little start. “Oh! I almost forgot.” He leaned his cane against the bed so he could reach into his jacket pocket. “This is for you.” He handed me a set of keys. I looked at him in confusion.
“Dashiell, Kirsten, and Will all went in on it together,” Wyatt explained. “It’s a Mercedes Metris cargo van.” His eyes twinkled. “Now I know why they were so obsessed with getting all the safety features.”
I looked down at the keys, and back up at Wyatt. “I . . . I . . .”
“It’s all paid off,” Wyatt added. “They wanted you to know how grateful they are. And I imagine it’s something of a baby gift, too.”
I looked up at Jesse with tears in my eyes. He smiled and kissed the top of my head. “Thank you,” I said to Wyatt.
The following morning, I went through a whole series of tests on me and the baby, and eventually the doctors pronounced me well enough to go home. The ones not on Dashiell’s payroll were mystified, but they eventually decided that I’d caught some sort of weird flu bug that had caused high blood pressure and a seizure. I was too busy being grateful that the baby and I were healthy to care what they called it.
The next morning, Thursday, I was discharged. Jesse, who hadn’t left my side except to shower and fetch clean clothes, got to wheel me out of the hospital.
“Don’t get used to this babying-me thing,” I warned him.
“Yes, Miss Scarlett,” he sang.
I made a mental note to punch him when he wasn’t pushing my wheelchair.
Epilogue
December 25 (eight months later)
“Elizabeth,” I suggested, tossing a kernel of popcorn.
Jesse caught it in his mouth, because he was better at this game than I was. He had an unfair mobility advantage. “Too Victorian. How about Posy?” He threw a kernel of popcorn toward my mouth, which I completely missed.
I made a face. “How many times do I have to tell you, we are not going to be those LA people who give their kid a weirdo name just to be different.”
We were sitting in my living room at the cottage, on opposite ends of the sofa, attempting to catch red- and green-dyed popcorn in our mouths. Jesse’s Christmas playlist was on the stereo, and he’d put up a little tree that glowed in the corner. I hadn’t helped, because I was so huge by then that I felt like Jabba the Hut. It was seriously affecting my popcorn-catching game. There would have been kernels covering my lap if not for the helpful bargest making sure we kept the floors clean.
“So that’s a no on Khaleesi?” Jesse teased.
I grabbed a whole handful of popcorn and chucked it at his face, which was stupid because he caught most of it in his mouth and managed to give me a smug grin while he was chewing. Shadow happily snapped up the popcorn that had fallen on the floor. Half the time it didn’t even touch the ground before she got it.
Jesse was trying to keep me distracted, I knew. I’d tried to call Jack the day before to wish him and the kids a Merry Christmas, and my brother had let the call go to voice mail. In the last eight months, we’d had one phone conversation, in which he told me that he’d be happy to welcome me back into his life—whenever I quit working for Dashiell. Jack had quit his position with the cardinal vampire a few days after he’d learned about Dashiell’s “criminal activity.”
Jesse had tried to convince me to tell Jack about the baby, but I’d kept it to myself. I didn’t want my brother to compromise his (valid) principles because I’d extorted him with guilt. But I missed him and Juliet and my niece and nephew. I’d thought about sending gifts, but it seemed manipulative.
Jesse and I had exchanged Christmas gifts the night before. I was tired all the time now, so mine was lame—an enormous tin of popcorn and a book. But Jesse had surprised me with a thick manila file. He had hired a private detective in New York to investigate Jameson’s background. His mother had died three years earlier, it turned out, and afterward his father had moved down to Jamaica to help a distant cousin with a boat business. The file did include a phone number for Jameson’s older sister, Diana, who I planned to call in a few days, once the holidays were over. I just wasn’t sure yet what I would say.
The private detective had also managed to dig up several photographs of Jameson, which was a small miracle considering he’d worked for a security-conscious vampire. Jesse had framed the nicest one, and I’d already set it out in the baby’s room. I was deeply touched by his gesture, especially since he had every right to be jealous.
“What about your mom’s name?” Jesse suggested. “Sarah?”
“I like it, but it seems a little rough to name her after two, you know . . . dead people,” I said ruefully. I had already decided that the baby’s middle name would be Jamie, to honor her father. If I thought it wouldn’t make me want to cry every time I shouted at my kid, I would have made it her first name. But I wasn’t strong enough for that.
“You’ll figure it out,” Jesse assured me. “You’ve got another week and a half yet. Molly will be back tonight, right? You know she’ll want to add her two cents.”
Molly was visiting her friends in San Francisco again, bringing them some Christmas presents. I’d been seeing less of her the last month, since she’d been busy buying furniture and decorating her new place. The little guest cottage wasn’t big enough for three adults, a bargest, and a baby, and before I could even raise the subject, Molly had insisted on moving out.
I’d protested—I wasn’t ready to be far away from her, especially when I was feeling fat and useless. But Molly had a surprise for me too: she had contacted the vampire who owned the mansion adjoining the guest cottage, and arranged to buy it. Vampires are stupid rich. Anyway, she was going to be living just a few dozen feet away, and she had insisted on setting up a nursery in the big house, too, so she could babysit when I had to go out on jobs. In true Molly style, her nursery was ostentatious as hell.
I put a handful of popcorn in my own mouth and took the Batphone out of the pocket of my hoodie—which was actually one of Jesse’s that I’d taken to wearing around the house like a bathrobe. I checked the screen, but there was nothing to see.
Jesse was watching me. “Tonight is the thing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I kind of wanted to be there, but they didn’t invite me.” I tried to put the phone back in the hoodie pocket, but it fumbled and fell on the floor under the coffee table. I sighed, leaving it there for now. Reaching for it would make me fall off the couch, and I’d already done that many times. This was exactly why Jabba the Hut had so many servants around. Jesse didn’t pick it up either, having learned the hard way not to run around fixing things for me. “I guess I keep waiting for someone to change their
mind and call me,” I admitted.
“I get that. You spent a long time making it happen.”
I shrugged. “I owed her a favor.” Then I had to put a hand on my huge belly. “Oof.”
“Kicking?”
“Yeah, watch.” I moved my hand, and we both stared at my shirt as it visibly moved.
“I’ll never get used to that,” Jesse marveled. “It’s so . . .”
“Gross?”
He laughed. “It’s not gross.”
“You wanna feel?”
He scooted closer and rested his flat palm on my huge stomach. Of course, the baby chose that moment to stop kicking. Jesse started to pull back, but I grabbed his hand and held it in place. “Just wait,” I told him. “She loves high-fives.”
We waited for a minute, two, and then the baby kicked or pushed with her hand or whatever, and Jesse’s face crinkled with delight. Then he went quiet, looking at me for a long moment. “What?” I asked.
“You know what we haven’t really talked about?” Jesse said, in a tone that was almost studiously casual.
“Why you think it’d be okay to name a child Posy?”
“What’s my role in the baby’s life?” he asked, his eyes meeting mine.
It was true; we hadn’t actually discussed it. It had gotten downright awkward during Christmas Eve dinner at Jesse’s parents’ house the night before. He had told them the baby wasn’t his—it would be pretty obvious when she came out looking part black—and that we’d gotten together for real after I was already pregnant, but his folks and brother had still looked at me with confusion.
I didn’t really care what they thought, though; Jesse was the one who mattered. He had come to every doctor’s appointment and birthing class with me. He’d painted the nursery, and put together the car seat. He’d driven halfway across the city to buy me the one sandwich that sounded good to eat, and had made any number of late-night trips to the pharmacy for antacids when I had heartburn. And he loved me.
Shadow Hunt Page 27