The Sign of Seven Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  “How?” Cybil demanded. “By going inside it? By dying and going to hell with it?”

  “‘Into the black.’ You already know this,” he said, watching her face. “You’ve already found what Linz did.”

  “Some sources theorize the bloodstone—or Pagan Stone—this particular fragment of the Alpha, will destroy the dark, the black, the demon, if it pierces its heart. Can,” she said quickly, “may—if it’s been imbued with the blood of the chosen, if it’s taken in at exactly the right time. If, can, may.”

  “You didn’t share this?”

  “I’m still verifying. I’m still checking sources. No,” she added after a moment of silence. “I didn’t share it.”

  “‘Into the black,’” Gage repeated. “All the lore uses that phrase or a close variation. The dark, the black. The heart of the beast, and only when it’s in its true form. Bestia. And every living thing around it, not protected, dies when it dies. Its death requires equal sacrifice. Blood sacrifice. A light to smother the dark. And you’d found that, too,” he added to Cybil.

  “I found some sources that speak of sacrifice, balance.” She started to qualify, to argue—anything—then stopped. They were all entitled to hear it. “Most of the sources I’ve found claim that to pierce the heart, the demon must be in his true form, and the stone must be taken into it by the guardian, by the light. And that light must go in with full knowledge that, by destroying, he will, in turn, be destroyed. The sacrifice must be made with free will.”

  Gage nodded. “That jibes with Linz.”

  “Isn’t that handy? Doesn’t that just tie it up in a bow?”

  For a moment, as Gage and Cybil watched each other, no one spoke. Then Quinn made an ahem sound. “Okay, question.” Quinn held up a finger. “If the bloodstone and a sacrifice does the job, why didn’t Dent kill it?”

  Still watching Cybil, Gage answered. “First, it came as Twisse, not in its true form.”

  “I think there’s more,” Cal said. “I’ve been thinking about this since Gage ran it by us. Dent had broken the rules, and intended to break more. He couldn’t destroy it. It couldn’t be done by his hand. So he paved the way for us. He weakened it, made certain it couldn’t become, as Linz says. Not fully corporeal, not in full power. He bought time, and passed all he could down to his ancestors—to us—to finish it.”

  “I’ll go with that. But I don’t think it’s the whole story.” Quinn glanced at Cybil, and her eyes held sorrow and apology. “Destroying the demon was—is—Dent’s mission. His reason to exist. His sacrifice—his life—wouldn’t be enough. True sacrifice involves choice. We all have choices in this. Dent isn’t wholly human. Despite our heritages, all of us are. This is the price, the choice to sacrifice life for the whole. Cyb—”

  Cybil held up a hand. “There’s always a price.” She spoke steadily. “Historically, gods demand payment. Or in more pedestrian terms, nothing’s free. That doesn’t mean we have to accept the price is death. Not without trying to find another way to pay the freight.”

  “I’m all for coming up with an alternate payment plan. But,” Gage added, “we all have to agree, right here and now so we get this behind us, that if we can’t, I take point on this. Agree or not, that’s how it’s going to be. It’d be easier for me if we agreed.”

  No one spoke, and everyone understood Cybil had to be the first.

  “We’re a team,” she began. “None of us would question just how completely we’ve become one. Within that team we’ve formed various units. The three men, the three women, the couples. All of those units play into the dynamics of the team. But within those units we’re all individual. We’re all who we are, and that’s the core of what makes us what and who we are together. None of us can make a choice for another. If this is yours, I won’t be responsible for making it harder, for adding to the stress, for possibly distracting you, or any of us so we make a mistake. I’ll agree, believing we’ll find a way where all of us walk away whole. But I’ll agree, more importantly, because I believe in you. I believe in you, Gage.

  “That’s all I have to say. I’m tired. I’m going up.”

  Nineteen

  HE GAVE HER SOME TIME. HE WANTED SOME HIMSELF. When he walked to the door of the bedroom they shared, Gage thought he knew exactly what he needed to say, and how he intended to say it.

  Then he opened the door, saw her, and it all slipped away from him.

  She stood at the window in a short white robe, with her hair loose, her feet bare. She’d turned the lights off, lighted candles instead. Their glow, the shifting shadows they created suited her perfectly. The look of her, what he felt for her, were twin arrows in the heart.

  He closed the door quietly at his back; she didn’t turn. “I was wrong not to pass along the research I found.”

  “Yeah, you were.”

  “I can make excuses, I can tell you I felt I needed to dig deeper, gather more data, analyze it, verify, and so on. It’s not a lie, but it’s not altogether true.”

  “You know this is the way. You know it in your gut, Cybil, the same as I do. If I don’t do this thing, and do it right, it takes us all—and the Hollow with us.”

  She said nothing for a moment, but only stood in the candlelight, looking out at the distant hills. “There’s still a smear of sunlight at the very tips of the mountains,” she said. “Just a hint of what’s dying. It’s beautiful. I was standing here, looking out and thinking we’re like that. We still have that little bit of light, the beauty of it. A few more days of that. So it’s important to pay attention to it, to value it.”

  “I paid attention to what you said downstairs. I value that.”

  “Then you might as well hear what I didn’t say. If you end up being the hero and dying out there in those woods, it’s going to take me a long time to stop being angry with you. I will, eventually, but it’s going to take a good, long time. And after I stop being angry with you—after that . . .” She drew a long breath. “It’s going to take me even longer to get over you.”

  “Would you look at me?”

  She sighed. “It’s gone now,” she murmured as that smear of light faded into the dark. Then she turned. Her eyes were clear, and so deep he thought they might hold worlds inside them.

  “I have things I need to say to you,” he began.

  “I’m sure. But there’s something I need to tell you. I’ve been asking myself if it would be better for you if I didn’t tell you, but—”

  “You can decide after I say what I have to say. I got an answer on this earlier today from someone whose opinion I respect. So . . .” He slipped his hands into his pockets. If a man had the guts to die, Gage thought, he ought to have the guts to tell a woman what he felt for her.

  “I’m not telling you—or not just telling you—because I may not come through this. That’s kind of the springboard for saying it now. But I’d’ve landed here sooner or later. No getting around it.”

  “Getting around what?”

  “A deal’s a deal for me. But . . . the hell with that.” Annoyance ran over his face, heated his eyes to a burning green. “All bets are off. I like my life. It works for me. What’s the point of changing what works? That’s one thing.”

  Intrigued, she angled her head. “I suppose it is.”

  “Don’t interrupt.”

  Her eyebrows winged up. “Pardon me. I assumed this was a conversation, not a monologue. Should I sit down?”

  “Just shut up for two damn minutes.” Frustration only kicked up the annoyance factor. “I’ve got this push-pull thing with the whole destiny deal. No denying it pulls me in, or I’d be a few thousand miles away from here right now. But I’m damned if it pushes me where I don’t want to go.”

  “Except you’re here, and not wherever else. Sorry.” She waved a hand when his eyes narrowed in warning. “Sorry.”

  “I make up my own mind, and I expect other people to do the same. That’s what I’m saying.” And all at once, he knew exactly what he was saying.r />
  “I’m not here with you because of some grand design dictated before either of us were born. I don’t feel what I feel for you because somebody, or something, decided it would be for the greater good for me to feel it. What’s inside me is mine, Cybil, and it’s in there because of the way you are, the way you sound, the way you smell, you look, you think. It wasn’t what I was after, it’s not what I was looking for, but there it is.”

  She stood very still while the candlelight played gold over the dark velvet of her eyes. “Are you trying to tell me you’re in love with me?”

  “Would you just be quiet and let me manage this on my own?”

  She walked to him. “Let me put it this way. Why don’t you lay your cards on the table?”

  He’d had worse hands, he supposed, and walked away a winner. “I’m in love with you, and I’m almost through being annoyed about it.”

  Her smile bloomed, beautifully. “That’s interesting. I’m in love with you, and I’m almost through being surprised by it.”

  “That is interesting.” He took her face in his hands, said her name once. His lips brushed hers, softly at first, like a wish. Then the kiss deepened. And as her arms hooked around him, there was the warmth, and the rightness of her. Of them. Home, he thought, wasn’t always a place. Sometimes, home was a woman.

  “If things were different,” he began, then tightened his grip when she shook her head. “Hear me out. If things were different, or I get really lucky, would you stick with me?”

  “Stick with you?” She tipped her head back to study him. “You’re having a hard time with your words tonight. Are you asking me if I’d marry you?”

  Obviously thrown off, he drew back a little. “I wasn’t. I was thinking of something less . . . formal. Being together. Traveling, because it’s what we both do. Maybe having a base. You’ve got one already in New York and that could work for me. Or somewhere else. I don’t think we need . . .”

  He wanted to be with her, to have her not just in his life, but of his life. Wasn’t marriage putting the chips on the line and letting them ride?

  “On the other hand,” he thought out loud, “what the hell, it’s probably not going to be an issue. If I get really lucky, do you want to marry me?”

  “Yes, I do. Which probably surprises me as much as it does you. But yes, I do. And I’d like to travel with you—and have you travel with me. I’d like to have a base together, maybe a couple of them. I think we’d be good at it. We’d be good together. Really good.”

  “Then that’s a deal.”

  “Not yet.” She closed her eyes. “You need to know something first. And that I won’t hold you to your hypothetical proposal if it changes your mind.” She stepped back until they were no longer touching. “Gage. I’m pregnant.” He said nothing, nothing at all. “Sometimes destiny pushes, sometimes it pulls. Sometimes it kicks you in the ass. I’ve had a couple of days to think about this, and—”

  Thoughts tumbled inarticulately through his head. Emotions stumbled drunkenly inside his heart. “A couple days.”

  “I found out the morning your father was shot. It just . . . I couldn’t tell you.” She took another step back from him. “Chose not to tell you when you were dealing with so much.”

  “Okay.” He drew a breath, then walked to the window to stand as she had been. “You’ve had a couple days to think about it. So what do you think?”

  “We’ll start globally, because somehow that’s easier. There’s a reason the three of us conceived so closely together—very likely on the same night. You, Cal, and Fox were born at the same time. Ann Hawkins had triplets.”

  Her tone was brisk. In his head he saw her standing at a podium, efficiently lecturing the class. What the hell was this?

  “Q, Layla, and I share branches on the same family tree. I believe this has happened for a purpose, an additional power that we’ll need to end Twisse.”

  When he didn’t speak, she continued. “Your blood, our blood. What’s inside me, Q, Layla, combines that. Part of us, part of the three of you. I believe this is meant.”

  He turned then, his face unreadable. “Smart, logical, a little cold-blooded.”

  “As you were,” she returned, “when you talked about dying.”

  He shrugged. “Let’s shift down from global, Professor. What do you think about two weeks from now, a month from now? When this is over?”

  “I don’t expect—”

  “Don’t tell me what you expect.” Sparks of anger sizzled along the edges of control. “Tell me what you want. Goddamn it, Cybil, save the lectures and tell me what the hell you want.”

  She didn’t flinch at his words, at the tone of them—not outwardly. But he sensed her flinch, sensed her draw back, and away from him.

  Let it ride, he told himself. See where the ball drops.

  “All right, I’ll tell you what the hell I want.” Though she’d drawn back, it didn’t lessen the power of her punch. “First, what I didn’t want. I didn’t want to find myself pregnant, to deal with something this personal, this important when the rest of everything is in upheaval. But that’s what’s happened. So.”

  She angled her head so their eyes were level. “I want to experience this pregnancy. I want to have this child. To give it the best life I possibly can. To be a good mother, hopefully an interesting and creative one. I want to show this child the world. I want to bring my son or daughter back here so he or she knows Quinn’s and Layla’s children, and sees this piece of the world we helped preserve.”

  Her eyes gleamed now, tears and anger. “I want you to live, you idiot, so you can have a part of that. And if you’re too stupid or selfish to want a part, then I’d not only expect but demand you peel off some of your winnings every goddamn month so you help support what you helped create. Because I’m carrying part of you, and you’re just as responsible as I am. I don’t just want to make a family, I’m going to. With or without you.”

  “You’re going to have the kid whether I live or die.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re going to have it if I happen to live and don’t want any part of being its father, except for a check every month.”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “You’ve had a couple days to think about it. That’s a lot of thinking in a short amount of time.”

  “I know my own mind.”

  “Tell me about it. Now, do you want to know mine?”

  “I’m riveted.”

  His lips quirked. If words were fists, he’d be flat on his ass. “I’d like to send you away, tonight. This minute. Get you and what we’ve started in you as far away from here as possible. I’ve never given much thought to having kids. A lot of good reasons for that. Add on that I’m not quite finished being annoyed to find myself in love with you, and handing out hypothetical marriage proposals, and it’s a jam.”

  “Tant pis.” She shrugged at his blank stare. “Too bad.”

  “Okay. But I can do a lot of thinking in short amounts of time, too. It’s one of my skills. Right now? Right at this moment? I don’t give a flying fuck about global thinking, greater good, destiny. None of it. This is you and me, Cybil, so listen up.”

  “It was easier to do that when you didn’t talk so damn much.”

  “Apparently I’ve got more to say to you than I used to. That kid—or whatever they call it at this stage—is as much mine as it is yours. If I happen to live past midnight on July seventh, you’re both going to have to deal with that. It’s not going to be you, it’s going to be we. As in, we show him the world, we bring him back here. We give him the best life we can. We make a family. That’s how it’s going to work.”

  “Is that so?” Her voice trembled a little, but her eyes stayed level on his. “That being the case, you’re going to have to do better than a hypothetical marriage proposal.”

  “We’ll get to that after midnight, July seventh.” He walked to her, touched her cheek, then cautiously laid his hand on her belly. “I guess we
didn’t see this one coming.”

  “Apparently we didn’t look in the right place.”

  He pressed his hand a bit firmer against her. “I’m in love with you.”

  Understanding he meant both her and what they’d begun, she laid her hand over his. “I’m in love with you.”

  When he lifted her up, she released a watery laugh. And when he sat on the side of the bed, cradling her, she curled in, held on. They both held on.

  IN THE MORNING, HE STOOD BY HIS FATHER’S grave. It surprised him how many people had come. Not just his own circle, but people from town—those he knew by name or face, others he couldn’t place. Many came up to speak to him, so he went through the motions, got through it on autopilot.

  Then Cy Hudson reached for his hand, shook it hard while giving him a shoulder pat that was a male version of an embrace. “Don’t know what to say to you.” Cy stared at Gage out of his battered face. “I talked to Bill just a couple days before . . . I don’t know what happened. I can’t remember exactly.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Cy.”

  “The doctor says it’s probably getting hit in the head, and the shock and all scrambled it up in my brain or something. Maybe Bill, maybe he had a brain tumor or something like that, you know? You know how sometimes people do things they wouldn’t, or—”

  “I know.”

  “Anyway, Jim said how I should take the family on out to the O’Dell place. Seemed like a screwy thing to do, but things are screwy. I guess I will then. If you, well, you know, need anything . . .”

  “Appreciate it.” Standing by the grave, Gage watched his father’s killer walk away.

  Jim Hawkins stepped up, slid an arm around Gage’s shoulders. “I know you had it rough, for a long time. Rougher and longer than you should’ve. All I’m going to say is you’ve done the right thing here. You’ve done right for everybody.”

  “You were more father to me than he was.”

  “Bill knew that.”