Whiskey Storm (Whiskey Witches Midnight Rising Book 1)

by F. J. Blooding

  A small voice in the back of her mind said the demons might actually be able to help against the humans.

  She couldn’t allow any situation to descend to that level.

  She wasn’t sure how much longer they would stay in Washington D.C. She’d requested another conversation with the president, hoping this one would go better, but so far, she’d been declined. These collars needed to come off and soon, but she’d stay as long as she could manage. In that time, though, she would build relations for as long as she could.

  Naomi showed up right on time. Ginny and Todd burst through the door with wild excitement. They clambered around Leah and babbled about some of the things they were going to see that day. Todd assured Leah that he had planned everything so they only saw the interesting stuff and that they wouldn’t waste their time on everything else.

  Apparently, statues were boring because the Lincoln Memorial was nowhere on Todd’s list.

  Naomi gave Paige an apologetic smile. “I feel as though we’re kind of taking over.”

  Paige chuckled but shook her head. “I feel the same way every time the Whiskey tribe goes anywhere. Imagine this at the store, but there are more kids and more adults.”

  She bent to retrieve Ember.

  Ginny rushed in and batted her hands away. “I have Ember today.” She lifted Ember and set him on her hip. Ginny seemed to take responsibility well, which was good and bad. Good for the adults in her life. Bad because when she grew up, she’d probably find people to use her to get by.

  Paige chuckled. “Okay. Let me know if you need anything.”

  Ginny smiled and turned away, talking to Ember and tickling him.

  Todd gathered Rai, all the while talking nonstop to Leah.

  Naomi piled diapers on the counter. “It was a contest to babysit. Rock scissors paper. I still don’t know who won.”

  Paige found wipes and blankets for the diaper bag. “Well, at least your kids are at the age where babies are a novelty. I’m pretty sure the Whiskey kids are totally over them by this point.”

  “How many do you have?” Naomi opened the door to their townhouse and waited for everyone to file out.

  Paige stepped through the door and found their security detail ready for them. “Four. Bobby and Kammy are the same age, mine and Leslie’s. And then the twins.”

  One of the security personnel placed his hand to his ear and muttered something as he led the way down the steps.

  “And then you have all the kids.”

  “Yup.”

  “It must feel like a zoo sometimes.”

  “Sometimes?” Paige didn’t want to admit the fact that having the security detail actually made her feel a little safer, even though she knew they might turn on her rather than save her. “Try most of the time.”

  They made it to the SUVs on the curb and got in with very little fanfare. It wasn’t until they got to the Smithsonian Museum that they were assaulted by the media, many of whom Paige knew by name now.

  Naomi put her hand on the door handle and paused. She turned to Paige. “Be careful what you say to the media. The president is aware of what you’re doing, and she’s concerned.”

  “Tyrants usually are when the oppressed are allowed to be heard.” Paige grabbed her door handle and stepped out. She wasn’t going to be silenced in a nation that prized the freedom of speech and held it prisoner in the same breath.

  The kids did a really great job of handling Rai and Ember. Paige now realized that the best way to travel with children, especially the tiny kind, was to have a small army of older children. The Mormons seriously had this fact understood.

  A couple reporters tried to get through the security guards in place. Naomi sure had planned this out. “Guys,” Paige told the reporters, “from a distance today. Okay?”

  They weren’t too happy about that, but they didn’t leave either.

  There were strollers for the twins waiting for them at the museum door and, apparently, their tickets had already been taken care of. She felt a little like a celebrity.

  The museum was also oddly quiet. “Did you clear the place?”

  “No.” Naomi grimaced. “But we are keeping the number of people allowed in today to a minimum. For your safety. And for the safety of your kids.”

  No. That didn’t work for her. “I’m not impacting people. If they want to be at the museum, they aren’t banished just because the ‘monsters’ are here.”

  Naomi didn’t move to change the situation.

  Paige loved museums. Denver had the best one she had ever seen, the Museum of Nature and Science.

  But this one? This one knocked the one in Denver out of the ballpark.

  Paige could easily have spent the entire day there. But she didn’t want to be a bother. She could see the people being cordoned off. The security personnel were doing a very good job of making sure very few civilians were anywhere near Paige and her family.

  This wasn’t going to work, though. This could be used to tear down the bridges she’d worked so hard to build.

  Paige slipped away from Naomi and went to the nearest door. She pushed past the upset security officer to greet the first person she came into contact with. There were several plastered at the doorway, trying to get a glimpse of them on their phone.

  Paige just had to hope that whoever she offered the olive branch to wasn’t going to be one of the fear-filled enemies.

  The man she chose seemed nice. He was tall, black, and had a great smile. He also had his young daughter with him, and they seemed to be bonding rather well.

  Paige felt a kinship to him through the connection he had with his daughter. She made eye contact with him and smiled, her heart racing. There were so many ways this could go badly. “Would you like to join us? It’s kind of lonely going through the museum by ourselves, and the more the merrier. The kids would love to share this experience with others.”

  “Ma’am,” the security officer behind her said. “I can’t allow that.”

  “Yes, you can.” Paige turned and smiled harshly at him. “Last I checked, this wasn’t a prison state, and my children and I weren’t prisoners. Besides, I can’t smite anyone because you’ve got a collar on me that protects everyone. So, what kind of harm can this nice gentleman really get into?” She beamed up at the guard. “You are not protecting me.”

  The security officer was unruffled and unmoved.

  The man she had extended the invitation to just smiled and held his daughter a little closer. “We really can wait. We don’t want to cause any trouble.”

  “I do. Because I feel as though this is one of those situations where something needs to be done.” She could understand if he didn’t want to be the one to cause the ripples, though. So, she turned to the woman next to him.

  She was white, shorter, and heavyset. She had a look about her, as though she was searching for some way to stand out from the rest. She had obviously fake lashes and her face was painted beautifully. The woman was gorgeous.

  “How about you? You like to be a rebel with me?”

  The woman beamed a lit-up smile and raised both of her shoulders in a nonverbal squee of excitement. “I would love to.”

  Paige nodded once. She would take what she could get. “Anyone else who wants to join us certainly can. We’re not contagious. We can’t hurt you. And the worst thing that could happen is that one of the babies will bite you.” She paused for dramatic effect. “But they don’t have any teeth. So, I doubt it’ll hurt.”

  The black man chuckled.

  His daughter looked at him with a plea. “Come on, Daddy. I want to go in.” She bounced on her toes.

  Paige turned to the security guard and gave him a tight look. “How about we let a few people in? They paid good money for their tickets.” And then Paige just went back into the exhibit room.

  The first woman she had talked to went to Leah and started chatting her up. Paige was going to keep an eagle eye on her. It wasn’t that she thought the woman was going to do an
ything crazy. But Leah was her daughter. She’d invested a lot of resources into that girl, like patience. A lot of patience.

  The young father she had first approached came in and stood beside her as his daughter went to Todd and Ginny, exclaiming over the twins. “I’m sorry. About earlier.”

  Paige waved them off. “Don’t be. It’s difficult for everyone.” She took in a deep breath and looked up at him. The man was very tall. “I just want to show people that we’re not something to be scared of. We’re the same people we were before.”

  “Is it true that your kind live among us?”

  That sounded like a line from the X-Files. Paige tipped her head to the side and nodded. “Yeah. And look at how many of you are still alive and kicking and had no idea we were even there.”

  He smiled, but his brow furrowed as he shook his head and offered his hand. “Jerry. That’s my daughter, Gretchen.”

  Paige smiled and shook his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  He opened his mouth to say something but then something drew his attention away.

  Paige turned to see what was going on, and her mouth nearly fell open.

  Rai was buzzing with a lot of electricity, obviously done with the collar. She was pulling on her shifter abilities harder and more insistently, and her collar was zapping her.

  That collar was hurting her kid.

  But then Paige realized that the situation could get even worse. Because she had just invited several people into the exhibit hall with them.

  If Rai didn’t stop, some of that electricity could spill out onto the people nearest her.

  It wasn’t just about her daughter. It was about all of their kids.

  12

  Naomi turned to Paige in alarm. “What do we do?”

  “Get that collar off my baby.” That seemed pretty common sense to Paige. She rushed over to Rai’s stroller, trying to figure out what to do.

  “But that collar is the only thing protecting us.”

  How could she still think that? “That collar is hurting my baby.”

  But then, it hit Paige. It really wasn’t hurting Rai. Rai was a thunderbird. She was lightning.

  Paige was focused on the wrong things. Again. She was here to change opinion, so she needed to start now, to stop freaking out over her daughter, who was fine. Frustrated and upset but fine.

  Naomi gave her a completely flummoxed look, taking note of the cell phones as people videoed what was going on.

  Paige reached out with her alpha will to see if Rai was in trouble, but the only thing she got was that Rai was frustrated and was going to find a way to shift, one way or another.

  That could be explosive. How would people see that? That babies were now a danger? Crap. Paige took Gretchen’s shoulder and tugged her backward.

  The girl looked up at Paige, her dark eyes wide.

  “It’s going to be okay.” Rai was just a baby. “I think.”

  Jerry came to rescue his daughter from Paige. “Are we in danger?”

  Gretchen refused to leave. “Is your baby going to be okay?”

  Leave it a kid to realize the most important question. “I think so? I hope so.” She should probably sound more confident.

  Gretchen turned her attention back to Rai.

  So did everyone else. People were now jockeying for a better view for their video and several of them were commentating.

  What the hell had their lives become?

  She had to take control of this. Paige turned toward the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she called out, getting everyone’s attention. “My daughter, Rai, has bonded with the thunderbird. Her spirit animal controls lightning. What you’re seeing is my daughter being very frustrated with the fact that she’s been a human for nearly a week.”

  The gathered people divided their attention between her and Rai.

  “Imagine being a person just brought into this world days ago—because it really has been just days ago—and being unable to walk in human form. These two have been able to shift since almost the day they were born, and in practically any other shape, they are very mobile. But as humans, little Rai has to rely on others to get her where she wants to go. And she hates that.”

  That elicited a few oohs and ahs.

  “What’s it like having animals as children?” one man shouted.

  “You could ask any pet owner that same question.” Because she felt the edge of the dagger that question was meant as, and she wasn’t going to take the bait. “As a parent, I can tell you I much prefer it when they do their business outside versus in the diaper.”

  “Outside—what?” Jerry stared at her, his expression slack. He closed his mouth and glanced at the top of Gretchen’s head. “They’re how old?”

  “Just over two weeks now.” Paige felt like a tour guide in a zoo. Not what she wanted. “Rai likes flying. So, if she manages to break out of the collar—”

  A few startled screeches filled the air. But phones never wavered. The video was probably already viral.

  Paige raised a hand to silence them. “Remember—she’s just a baby. She’s a little over two weeks old. The worst thing she does, really, is poop on the lamp shade and eat your favorite shoes.”

  A couple of people chuckled almost unwillingly.

  Naomi was stuck in horrified silence.

  Todd danced with excitement as he watched, his hands fisted up, a wild grin on his face. He kept glancing at Leah and back at Rai.

  Leah stood there, her lips sucked in, her brow furrowed. She blinked her gaze to her mom, giving a judgy look to the crowd, and then went back to watching Rai.

  Ginny kept reaching out to Rai, to hold her or comfort her or… Paige didn’t know what, and then she’d take a half step back when the snap of electricity got a bit too much for her.

  To her credit, though, she was gaining ground.

  With one final burst and a loud pop of electricity, the collar fell, and Rai got up, shifting into an owl in front of everyone.

  Some people gasped.

  A few clapped.

  One whooped loudly.

  The pretty woman with the amazing yet fake eyelashes—Paige needed to seriously invest in some of those because they really were amazing—shrieked.

  Ginny leapt, her arms forward as she shielded Rai from everyone, including her mother.

  Rai wasn’t about that. She took to the air, made a circle, and then perched beside her brother.

  Paige pushed down the fear clogging her throat. She had to make this just a normal day in the Whiskey family. “One of the things that has plagued us,” Paige said, trying to keep her voice normal, “is that Rai seems to have developed the ability to shift into birds with full flight feathers. When we discovered we were having shifter babies, I had hoped their shift would be delayed or they’d shift into downy baby birds. At least they’d be easier to control until I taught them rules and, you know, other stuff. How to be people. That kind of thing.”

  Jerry snorted. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”

  “Poop. On the lampshade. I’m seriously not even kidding. It’s a thing, and it’s gross, and she’s not big enough to clean up after herself yet.”

  Lightning shot from Rai’s beak and hit Ember’s collar squarely.

  Paige raised her hands to stop Rai, but it was too late.

  The collar fell and then Ember was up and crawling out of his stroller as a monkey until his feet found the floor, and then he shifted into an elephant. Thank the goddess his elephant was baby-sized.

  Paige released a tired sigh. This could really turn against them. “Because they’re half witch and half shifter, they can choose any shape they want.” How much information was too much? Well, she wanted to inform the public, so… “While Rai likes to fly, Ember likes walking on four feet. And lately, that’s been as an elephant. Though, they haven’t been able to shift for almost a week, so you guys are probably in for a treat. They’ll probably cycle through several animals in a few minutes.”

&n
bsp; “Like,” one woman asked, her voice breathy, “is this normal?”

  Nope. “Yup.”

  Rai chose that moment to find the floor and shift into a tiger cub.

  Paige narrowed her eyes at her daughter and asked her to choose creatures that weren’t so terrifying.

  Rai looked up at her and then shifted into a kitten. Just a regular kitten.

  The people clapped and exclaimed.

  Gretchen looked up at Paige. “Are they dangerous?”

  Paige wasn’t going to say they weren’t. “They’re about as dangerous as any babies. If they choose to become a bear, just remember they have teeth.”

  The mood of the crowd around them was starting to shift, to relax, which was good.

  “How about we make this a game? Let’s take bets on what they’re going to shift into next.”

  That seemed to loosen people up considerably. A few shouted what they’d like to see.

  The woman with the amazing lashes took a step forward. “Are you able to communicate with them?”

  “I used to. In a primitive way.” Paige tapped the collar around her neck. Yes. She was lying. She was going to use any opportunity she could to spin this. “But with this blocking my abilities, I can’t. They don’t understand English. They’re literally two weeks old.”

  That brought another round of exclamations as people closed in to get closer to her children.

  Security personnel burst through and tried to keep people away.

  As much as Paige appreciated that, it was the wrong move. She put her hand on one of their shoulders and nonverbally told him to back off, inserting a bit of her alpha will to ensure her order was followed.

  The security guard backed away but stayed close. He, however, was visibly pissed. Keeping them safe was his fucking job, and his face told her that. Loudly. In a look.

  Right. Yup. Okay. “Just remember they are babies. They don’t know the rules. They might piddle on your foot. And if they choose a shape that has teeth, they will gnaw on you. Ember really likes your favorite shoes, so I hope you didn’t wear those today.”