The Sign of Seven Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  “Cyb, you researched blood rituals inside and out before our last trip to the Pagan Stone. You know we can do this.” Quinn looked around the table. “We know we can do it.”

  “We need words, and—”

  “I’ll handle it.” Quinn pushed to her feet. “Writing under pressure is one of my best things. Set it up, and give me five,” she added before she walked into the house.

  “Well.” Cybil blew out a breath. “I guess it’s here and now.”

  She scouted through Cal’s gardens for specific flowers and herbs, and continued to snip when Gage crossed the lawn to her. They stood in the wash of moonlight.

  “Making a bouquet?”

  “Candles, herbs, flowers, words, movements.” She moved a shoulder. “Maybe they’re trappings, maybe they’re largely symbolic, but I believe in symbols. They’re a sign of respect, if nothing else. Anytime you shed blood, anytime you ask a higher power for a favor, it should be with respect.”

  “You’re a smart woman, Cybil.”

  “I am.”

  He took her arm, held it until she’d turned to face him. “If this works, it’s because you were smart enough to put it together.”

  “If it doesn’t?”

  “It won’t be because of the lack of brainpower.”

  “Are you seducing me by flattering my mind?”

  “No.” He smiled, trailed a finger over her cheek. “I’ll seduce you by clouding your mind. I’m telling you this is going to work.”

  “Optimism? From you?”

  “You’re not the only one who’s looked into rites and rituals. I’ve spent a lot of the time I’m away from here looking into those areas. Some of it’s show. But some? It’s faith and respect, and it’s truth. It’s going to work because between the six of us, we cover those bases. It’s going to work because it’s not just my blood, not just antibodies and science. Your tears are in me now. I felt them. So whatever I brought back, part of it’s you. Get your symbols, and let’s do this thing.”

  She stood where she was when he walked away, stood in the moonlight with flowers in her hands, and closed her eyes. Close her heart? she thought. Get over him? No, no, not if she lived a dozen lifetimes.

  It was life, Ann Hawkins had told her. The joy and the pain. It was time to accept she’d have to feel both.

  They lighted the candles, and sprinkled the flowers and herbs over the ground where Gage had fallen. Over them, in the center of the circle they formed, Quinn laid the photograph she’d taken of them. All six of them linked—hands or arms—with the big dog leaning adoringly against Cal’s leg.

  “Nice touch,” Cybil commented, and Quinn smiled.

  “I thought so. I kept the words simple. Pass it around,” she suggested.

  Cybil took the page first, and read. “You do good work.” She passed it to Gage, and so the words went from hand to hand. “Everybody got it?”

  Gage took Cal’s Boy Scout knife, skimmed the blade across his palm. Cal took the knife, mirrored the gesture. As with the words, the knife passed from hand to hand.

  And they spoke together as hands clasped, and blood mixed.

  “Brother to brother, brother to sister, lover to lover. Life to life for the then, for the now, for the to be. Through faith, through hope, in truth. With blood and tears to shield light from black. Brother to brother, brother to sister, lover to lover.”

  Though there was no wind, the candle flames swayed and rose higher. Cal crouched. “Friend to friend,” he said and taking Lump’s paw, scored a shallow cut. Lump stared, dark eyes full of trust as Cal closed his hand over the cut. “Sorry, pal.” He straightened, shrugged. “I couldn’t leave him out.”

  “He’s part of the team.” Quinn bent, picked up the photograph. “I don’t feel any different, but I believe it worked.”

  “So do I.” Layla crouched to gather up the flowers and herbs. “I’m going to put these in water. It just . . . seems like the right thing to do.”

  “It’s been a good day.” Fox took Layla’s hand, brushed his lips over her palm. “I’ve got one thing to say. Who wants cake?”

  Fifteen

  BECAUSE IT WAS A QUIET PLACE WHERE THE THREE of them could meet in private, Gage and Fox joined Cal in his office in the bowling center. Time was ticking by. Gage could all but feel the days draining away. None of them had seen Twisse, in any form, since the day Gage had shot it. But there had been signs.

  The increase in animal attacks, or the bloated bodies of animals on the sides of the road. Unexplained power outages and electrical fires. Tempers grew shorter, it seemed, every day. Accidents increased.

  And the dreams became a nightly plague.

  “My grandmother and cousin are moving into my parents’ place today,” Cal told them. “Somebody threw a rock through Grand’s next-door-neighbor’s window yesterday. I’m trying to convince them all to move out to the farm, Fox. Safety in numbers. The fact is, the way things are, we’ll need to get those who’re willing out there soon. I know it’s earlier than we thought, I know it’s a lot, but—”

  “They’re ready. My mom and dad, my brother and his family, my sister and her guy.” Fox rubbed the back of his neck. “I had a fight with Sage over the phone last night,” he added, speaking of his older sister. “She started talking about making plans to come back, to help. She’s staying in Seattle—pissed at me, but she’s staying. I used the fact that Paula’s pregnant as leverage there.”

  “That’s good. Enough of your family’s involved in this. My two sisters are staying where they are, too. People are heading out of town every day. A couple here, a couple there.”

  “I stopped by the flower shop yesterday,” Fox told them. “Amy told me she’s closing up the end of the week, taking a couple weeks’ vacation up in Maine. I’ve had three clients cancel appointments for next week. I’m thinking I might just close the office until after this is done.”

  “Find out if there’s anything your family needs out at the farm. Supplies, tents. I don’t know.”

  “I’m going to head out there later, give them a hand with some of it.”

  “You need help?” Gage asked.

  “No, we’ve got it covered. I might be late heading back to Cal’s if that’s where we’ll all bunk tonight. One of you could make sure Layla’s not on her own, and gets there.”

  “No problem. Anybody getting any sleep?” Cal asked them, and Gage merely laughed. “Yeah. Me, too.” Cal nudged the bloodstone over the desk. “I took this out of the safe when I got here this morning. I thought maybe if I just sit here, stare at the damn thing, something will come.”

  “We’ve got so much going.” Fox pushed to his feet to pace. “I can feel it. Can’t you feel it? We’re right on the edge of it, but we just can’t push over. It seems like it’s all there, all the pieces of it. Except that one.” He picked up the stone. “Except this one. We’ve got it, but we don’t know how the hell to use it.”

  “Maybe what we need is a howitzer instead of a hunk of rock.”

  With a half smile, Fox turned to Gage. “I’m at the point a howitzer doesn’t sound so bad. But this is what’ll do the bastard. The women are spending nearly every waking hour—which is most of the time these days—trying to find the answer to this hunk of rock. But . . .”

  “We can’t see past that edge,” Cal put in.

  “Cybil and I have tried the link-up, but it’s either a really crappy vision, or nothing. That interference, that static the bastard can jam things with. It’s working overtime on blocking us.”

  “Yeah, and Quinn’s working overtime to find a way around the block. This paranormal stuff’s her deal,” Cal said with a shrug. “Until then, we keep doing what we can do to protect ourselves, protect the town, and figure out how to use the weapons we have.”

  “If we can’t take it down . . .” Gage began.

  Fox rolled his eyes. “Here goes our Pollyanna with a penis.”

  “If we can’t take it down,” Gage repeated, “if we know it’s
going south, is there a way to get the women clear? To get them out? I know you’ve both thought the same.”

  Fox slumped back into a chair. “Yeah.”

  “I’ve gone around with it,” Cal admitted. “Even if we could convince them, which I don’t see happening, I don’t see how they’d get out, not if we have to take this stand at the Pagan Stone.”

  “I don’t like it.” Fox’s jaw tightened. “But that’s where it has to be. The middle of Hawkins Wood, in the dark. I wish I didn’t know in my gut that it has to be there, that they have to go in there with us. But I do know it. So we can’t let it go south, that’s all.”

  IT HAD BEEN EASIER, GAGE ADMITTED, WHEN IT had just been the three of them. He loved his friends, and part of him would die if either of them did. But they’d been in it together since day one. Since minute one, he corrected, as he started downstairs.

  It had been easier, too, when the women had first gotten involved. Before any of them really mattered to him. Easier before he’d seen the way Quinn meshed with Cal, or the way Fox lit up when Layla was in the room.

  Easier before he’d let himself have feelings for Cybil, because, goddamn it, he had feelings. Messy, irritating, impossible feelings for Cybil. The kind of feelings that pushed him into having thoughts. Messy, irritating, impossible thoughts.

  He didn’t want a relationship. He sure as hell didn’t want a long-term relationship. And by God, he didn’t want a long-term relationship that involved plans and promises. He wanted to come and go as he pleased, and that’s just what he did. Except for every seventh year. And so far, so good.

  You didn’t mess with a streak.

  So the feelings and the thoughts would just have to find another sucker to . . . infect, he decided.

  “Gage.”

  He stopped, saw his father at the base of the steps. Perfect, Gage thought, just one more thing to give a shine to his day.

  “I know I said I wouldn’t get in your way when you came in to see Cal. And I won’t.”

  “You’re standing in it now.”

  Bill stepped back, rubbed his hands on the thighs of his work pants. “I just wanted to ask you—I didn’t want to get in the way, so I wanted to ask you . . .”

  “What?”

  “Jim Hawkins tells me some of the towners are going to camp out at the O’Dell farm. I thought it might be I could help them out. Haul people and supplies out and such, do runs back and forth when needs be.”

  In Gage’s memory his father had spent every Seven skunk drunk upstairs in the apartment. “That’d be up to Brian and Joanne.”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  “Why?” Gage demanded as Bill backed away. “Why don’t you just get out?”

  “It’s my town, too. I never did anything to help before. I never paid much mind to it, or to what you were doing about it. But I knew. Nobody could get drunk enough not to know.”

  “They could use help out at the farm.”

  “Okay then. Gage.” Bill winced, rubbed his hands over his face. “I should tell you, I’ve been having dreams. Last few nights, I’ve been having them. It’s like I wake up, but I’m asleep, but it’s like I wake up ’cause I hear your ma out in the kitchen. She’s right there, it’s so real. She’s at the stove cooking dinner. Pork chops, mashed potatoes, and those little peas I always liked, the way she made them. And she . . .”

  “Keep going.”

  “She talks to me, smiles over. She had some smile, my Cathy. She says: Hey there, Bill, supper’s almost ready. I go on over, like I always did, put my arms around her while her hands are busy at the stove and kiss her neck till she laughs and wiggles away. I can smell her, in the dream, and I can taste . . .”

  He yanked out his bandanna, mopped his eyes. “She tells me, like she always did, to cut that out now, unless I want my supper burned. Then, she says why don’t you have a drink, Bill? Why don’t you have a nice drink before supper? And there’s a bottle on the counter there, and she pours the whiskey into the glass, holds it out to me. She never did that, your ma never did that in her life. And she never looked at me the way she does in the dreams. With her eyes hard and mean. I gotta sit down here a minute.”

  Bill lowered to the steps, wiped at the sweat that pearled on his forehead. “I wake up, covered in sweat, and I can smell the whiskey she held out to me. Not Cathy, not anymore, just the whiskey. Last night, when I woke up from it, I went on out in the kitchen to get something cold ’cause my throat was so dry. There was a bottle on the counter. It was right there. I swear to Christ, it was there. I didn’t buy a bottle.” His hands shook now, and fresh sweat popped out above his top lip. “I started to pick it up, to pour it down the sink. I pray to God I was going to pour it down the sink, but there was nothing there. I think I’m going crazy. I know I’ll go crazy if I pick up a bottle again and do anything but pour it down the sink.”

  “You’re not going crazy.” Another kind of torture, Gage thought. The bastard didn’t miss a trick. “Have you ever had dreams like this before?”

  “Maybe, a few times over the years. It’s hard to say because I wasn’t picking up bottles to pour them down the sink back then.” Bill sighed now. “But maybe a few times, around this time of year. Around the time Jim says you boys call the Seven.”

  “It fucks with us. It’s fucking with you. Go on out to the farm, give them a hand out there.”

  “I can do that.” Bill pushed back to his feet. “Whatever it is, it’s got no right using your ma that way.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  When Bill started to walk away, Gage cursed under his breath. “Wait. I can’t forget, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive. But I know you loved her. I know that’s the truth, so I’m sorry you lost her.”

  Something came into Bill’s eyes, something Gage reluctantly recognized as gratitude.

  “You lost her, too. I never let myself think that, not all those years. You lost her, too, and me with her. I’ll carry that the rest of my life. But I won’t drink today.”

  Gage went straight to the rental house. He walked in, and right up the stairs. As he reached the top, Quinn stepped out of her bedroom draped in a towel.

  “Oh. Well. Hi, Gage.”

  “Where’s Cybil?”

  Quinn hitched the towel a little higher. “Probably in the shower or getting dressed. We hit the gym. I was just going to . . . never mind.”

  He studied her face. Her cheeks seemed a little flushed, her eyes a little overbright. “Something wrong?”

  “Wrong? No. Everything’s good. Great. Thumbs-up. I, ah, better get dressed.”

  “Pack, too.”

  “What?”

  “Pack up what you need,” he told her as she stood frowning and dripping. “Seeing as you’re three women, it’s going to take more than one trip. Cal and Fox can come by at some point and haul more. There’s no point in the three of you staying here—and by the way, do any of you ever think about locking the door? It’s getting dangerous in town. Everyone can bunk at Cal’s until this is over.”

  “You’re making that decision for everyone involved?” Cybil asked from behind him.

  He turned. She was dressed and leaning against the jamb. “Yeah.”

  “That’s fairly presumptuous, to put it mildly. But I happen to agree with you.” She looked over at Quinn. “It’s just not practical to have three bases—here, Cal’s, Fox’s—anymore. We’d be better to consolidate. Even assuming this house is a cold spot, and safe, we’re too spread out.”

  “Who’s arguing?” Quinn adjusted her towel again. “Layla’s at the boutique with Fox’s dad, but Cyb and I can put some of her things together.”

  Cybil continued to look at Quinn. “It might be helpful if you went by there now, Gage, let her know. It’s going to take a little time for us to pack up the research equipment anyway. Then you could borrow Cal’s truck, and we could take the first load.”

  He knew when he was getting the brush-off. Cybil wanted him gone, for now. “Get it togeth
er then. And once we’re at Cal’s, you and I have to try the link-up again.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “I’ll be back in twenty, so get a move on.”

  Cybil ignored him. She stood in her doorway and Quinn in hers, watching each other until they heard the front door close behind him.

  “What’s up, Q?”

  “I’m pregnant. Holy shit, Cyb, I’m pregnant.” Tears flooded her eyes even as she moved her feet and hips into what could only be interpreted as a happy dance. “I’m knocked up, I’m on the nest, I am with child and have a bun in the oven. Holy shit.”

  Cybil crossed the hallway, held out her arms. They stood holding each other. “I didn’t expect to be expecting. I mean, we weren’t trying for it. All this going on, and planning the wedding. After, we both figured.”

  “How far along?”

  “That’s just it.” Drawing back, Quinn used the towel to dry her face, then turned naked to dig out clothes. “I’m not even late, but the last few days, I’ve just felt sort of . . . different. And I had this feeling. I thought, ppfftt, no, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. So I bought a—okay five—I bought five early response pregnancy tests because I went a little crazy. At the pharmacy in the next town,” she said, laughing now, “because, you know—small towns.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I only took three—came down from crazy to obsessed. I just took them. Three of them. Pink, plus sign, and the no-frills pregnant all came up. I’m probably only a couple of weeks in, if that, but . . .” She looked down at her belly. “Wow, somebody’s in there.”

  “You haven’t told Cal.”

  “I didn’t want to say before I knew. He’ll be happy, but he’ll be worried, too.” She pulled on capris. “Worried because of what’s coming, what we have to do, and I’m, well, in the family way.”

  “How do you feel, about that part of it?”

  “Scared, protective. And I know nothing will ever be right for us, any of us, or for this baby if we don’t end it. If we don’t follow through, and I’m part of that follow-through. I guess I have to believe that this—” Quinn laid a hand on her belly. “This is a sign of hope.”