“The cockatrice,” she whispered.
He nodded. “My hate is directed only at them now. I will do everything in my power to keep our people and others safe from those bastards. I will die fighting them, if I have to. Once I decided that, I felt a peace in my life I haven’t felt since losing my Ella.”
“Does anyone else know? About your cancer?”
“Bertholde did. She promised not to tell anyone. She’s the one who came to me and told me to get it checked out. That I was sick.” He shrugged. “I will die a happy man if all Ella has to worry about in the future are the same things the rest of the world usually must worry about. Only the cockatrice are deliberately out to harm her.”
“I won’t tell anyone.” Lina reached out and laid her hand over his to give him a gentle squeeze. Instead, her vision went blue. She was standing with Jan, Rick, Zack, Kael, and several others in a funeral home. She turned and at the front of the chapel she spotted a bronze urn. Next to it sat a picture of Andel looking a few years older than he did now. She realized she held something in her hand and looked down.
The program. On the front, the same picture of Andel, a made-up birth year that put his age approximately right, and the date of his death.
In seven years.
Her vision cleared and she was once again sitting in the booth in the hotel restaurant with Andel. He stared at her, curiosity on his face.
She let go of his hand and quickly tucked hers in her lap, under the table.
He laughed. “Don’t tell me. You saw how long.”
She forced a smile and nodded.
He sat back with a sigh. “I don’t want to know when. I’m guessing not right away?”
“No. There’s a while, yet.”
“Good. Plenty of work left to do.” He finished his coffee and left money on the table to pay their bill. He climbed out of the booth and helped her to her feet, giving her a hug. “Take care of those boys of yours,” he said with a smile. “The fanged as well as the furry ones. I’ve got to get checked out of the hotel and to the train station so I can go home. Safe journeys, Goddess.”
She smiled. “Safe journeys, Uncle Andel.”
He laughed. “See? Family is family. Adopted or not.”
She headed back to her room where Jan and Rick were struggling to get all the luggage stacked on a cart so they could make it downstairs in one trip.
“What are you two doing?”
Rick looked up. “It’s not obvious? We’re taking rumba lessons.”
“I’m the Goddess of Snark, buster, not you. I meant why not take two trips?”
Jan grinned. “I bet him he couldn’t do it in one.”
She rolled her eyes. “You two are like a couple of kids, you know that?”
“And you love it,” Rick said. “We’re never boring.”
“Nope, boring isn’t even on the top twenty list of adjectives I apply to the two of you.”
At the airport, before they boarded, she glanced at Daniel and took a deep breath as she stepped up to the doorway.
Just one more flight, please. If not, it’s a good day to die.
She stroked the aircraft’s skin as she stepped through the doorway. Daniel smiled and nodded to her when she glanced back at him awaiting his turn to board.
* * * *
Lina had to admit she loved it at the Pack compound. She sat on the thinking rock and stared across the water. This early in the morning, the rising sun threw beautiful colors on the sea mist and gave her a gorgeous show.
She heard something at the top of the overlook. When she looked, Lacey waved down at her. Lina waved back and sat there as the Seer made her way down to the rock.
Lacey climbed up next to Lina and smiled at her. “I wondered if that was your car,” she said. “I take it the tablet has a new home?”
Lina smiled out at the water. “Yep.”
Lacey laughed. “That old thing has certainly been a pain in the ass, hasn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“Was it worth it?”
“Was what worth it?”
“Whatever it was you had to do to take out the cockatrice nest over there?”
Lina felt a cloud descend on her thoughts. “It had to be done.”
Lacey nodded. “Unfortunately, I believe you’re right.” She frowned as she stared out over the water. “It’s going to get bad.”
“Yep.”
“You see it, too?” Lacey asked.
Lina nodded. “Yep.”
“Do you want to talk about it right now?”
“Nope.”
Lacey chuckled. “Fair enough, dear. We do have at least a couple of years to worry about it.”
“Yep.” Lina sighed. Two years, if her latest visions were right. How much happiness could she cram into that time before the shit started to hit the fan again?
She decided she would start with getting to know her adopted wolf family better and spending more time with all her chosen family and not at work. She didn’t need to be at the office every day. Paula could run the place without her and Zack there.
After a while, Lina’s stomach grumbled. She’d set out on her task before breakfast, driving over to Lacey’s by herself before dawn, doing what she needed to do, and then coming down to the thinking rock.
“I baked some banana bread before I came down here, dear. Would you like some?”
Lina smiled. “Yes. I’d like that very much.”
They strolled back to the house together. On the way, Lacey stopped in the back garden. “Oh. I didn’t notice that before.” She stared at the sundial Lina had set up on a pedestal, the assembly sitting on several stone pavers. “Did you bring that?”
Lina smiled. “It’s a present.”
Lacey hugged her. “Thank you, dear. It’s lovely.”
Lina shrugged. “Time’s short, even in a really long life. I’m going to enjoy every minute of it. Thank you for teaching me that. Bertholde, too, but she’s not here for me to thank.”
Lacey cocked her head at Lina, curious but apparently not wanting to quiz her any further. She smiled. “You’re welcome, dear.”
They headed inside to eat.
PART IV:
Epilogue
Chapter One
“So, Old One. Are you proud of yourself?”
Baba Yaga turned from her stove, where she was cooking herself a pork chop, to look at Brighde. It wasn’t uncommon for her sister to appear in her home, but she wasn’t expecting her today. “What do you mean?”
Brighde sat on one of the barstools. “You know quite well what I mean. Cailleach told me about the day she visited you, when you first selected the Goddess’ Watcher. About your lost love. How much ire do you think you have you brought upon yourself from the Ancients for bending the world to your will, Old One?”
She hated it when Brighde called her that. “I followed the prophecies. And when I revealed the past to Lina, I didn’t show her everything, even though it was in my memories.”
“By whose hand were those prophecies written, hmm?” Brighde arched an eyebrow at her. “You even forced Cailleach into a mating you knew she didn’t want to serve your needs.”
“I forced her to do nothing. She fell in love with that wolf.”
Brighde waved her objections away. “You placed her in a position where she couldn’t refuse her heart. I should count myself lucky you didn’t bend the prophecies to include me in your matchmaking efforts. You picked her because you knew damn well I don’t give a flying fig about the prophecies because I know they’re bullshit. And if I was to walk away from them, you know the humans will follow suit.”
“They are not bullshit!”
“Oh, please. You got the Seer drunk and told him what to write. I watched you do it!”
Baba Yaga’s gaze narrowed. “Are you saying I was wrong?”
Brighde shrugged. “We are all masters of free will. At any given time, any of them could have chosen not to fulfill the prophecies. Then they would have seen
them for what they are, empty pieces of paper with words of your choosing on them.”
“I swore an oath of revenge. I will not walk away from it.”
“So I see. And at what cost to others, hmm?”
“Those who fell in love did so because they felt it, not because I bewitched them. I simply set up events allowing them to more easily meet and fall in love with each other.”
Brighde laughed. “Call it what you will, Old One. Lie to yourself if you wish, but know this. You play a dangerous game with lives over your revenge. It’s not right.”
“The cockatrice have decided to wage war, not me. Had they simply faded from existence, then none of this would have come to pass.”
“True. It’s the only reason I haven’t stepped in to stop you. Know this, however. If you continue taking steps to deliberately manipulate people and usurp their free will, I will stop you. I will expose this entire plan. You walk a very dangerous path, Old One.”
“It is almost done. The cockatrice chose their way and I simply made it easier for the other shifter races to ally against them to protect themselves from the threat.”
Brighde stood. “Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep better at night. I didn’t mind being used for the spell to create the tablet, but I will be watching. I am not as loose with my heart as our little sister is, Old One. I shall not be as forgiving if you try to interfere with my free will.”
Baba Yaga let out a snort of derision. “Don’t worry. I doubt there’s a man in the world who could thaw that block of ice in your chest.”
Brighde rolled her eyes. “You just keep thinking that you are the expert on love and loss and your hubris will get the better of you, sooner or later.” She wagged a warning finger at her older sister. “I will be watching.” With that, she disappeared.
Baba Yaga plated her meal, took it over to the counter, and stood there, eating. Her sister had no idea what she was talking about. She’d always been a cold, frigid bitch. Ironic, considering Cailleach’s usual domain of the icy realms.
It certainly wasn’t her fault old Reygland, the Seer, couldn’t hold his mead very well back then, countless eons earlier. Or that he happened to plagiarize the poem she recited to him.
Never mind. Her job steering the course of events had ended. She felt a lot of guilt over Bertholde’s death, but she had placed more than enough warnings in her old friend’s path that the Seer could have chosen not to go to Yellowstone.
Lucky humans. They could die and pass on to new lives, usually with no memory of their past hurts or joy. A fresh slate.
She was granted no such reprieve. No way to forget the pain of loss, to erase the picture of her lover’s body ripped to pieces.
No way to erase the longing for a love she would never again know.
Lucky humans.
Chapter Two
Lina stared out the passenger window of the rental car. She’d never been to Washington State before. Despite the grey and dreary day, the green, lush landscape they passed struck a resonant chord in her.
She didn’t know if she’d ever find the nerve to deeply explore all of her past lives.
She didn’t know if she truly wanted to, despite Baba Yaga and Bertholde’s warnings that she’d have to if they were ever to defeat the bastards wanting to destroy all of them. Although things had quieted down in the two years since their big showdown and cockatrice ass-kicking in Brussels, Lina knew it was only a matter of time before it heated up again in a big way.
She could see it.
In fact, the irony wasn’t lost on her that she was the flagyer’s Seer, and had grown more comfortable with the job in the past couple of years, yet she still resisted looking at her own past. That’s why she’d asked Zack to bring her here. To face things, one small step at a time so she could learn to be brave enough to look at all of it.
Zack reached across the seat and laced his fingers through hers. “You okay, sweetie?”
“Yeah.” The landscape fascinated her. She’d spent her life in Florida, and topography such as this helped keep her mind off the building sadness within her.
“Listen,” he softly said. “We do this my way. And if I decide this is too much for you, then we stop. Understood?”
She nodded. She wouldn’t fight him.
He pulled off the interstate outside of Seattle and wound through hilly neighborhoods until they pulled into the cemetery. When he parked and shut the car off, she looked at him.
“How do you know this is the place?”
He shrugged. “I looked up the obits. It had the info.”
Without further conversation, they both exited the car. She waited for him outside the office. When he emerged a moment later, they joined hands again, and she let him lead her down a path that wound through the rolling cemetery. A few minutes later, he turned left and slowed as they walked down a row of headstones.
Then he stopped in front of a double one.
Lina took a deep breath and looked.
Martin and Amelia Fisher - Beloved Parents
Their dates of death listed a day apart but over forty years earlier.
“How many?” she softly asked. She knew she could search her memories and find out for herself, but she wasn’t ready to do that yet.
He didn’t give her any grief about it. “Three. Two boys and a girl. One son still alive. He lives here in Seattle.”
It didn’t feel real. Her and Zack, from their former lives, dead and buried before her.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “I…I can’t explain it. I just needed to see.”
“I know. It’s okay. I’ve never wanted to, but I had all my memories. I didn’t need the concrete proof.”
She took a deep breath before slowly blowing it out. “Tell me this gets easier. That I’ll be able to look back.”
He pulled her to him and hugged her. “I’m sure you will, sweetie. In your own time and way. It doesn’t have to be right now.”
The events of the past couple of years threatened to swamp her as it was. “I hope it doesn’t. There’s still a lot to do. They won’t stop until we stop them. They’re just laying low and regrouping.”
She didn’t have to clarify who she meant. “I know,” Zack said. “Ready to go?”
“Yeah.”
They returned to the car. He headed into downtown Seattle and found them a parking spot at a pay garage. Without questioning him, she let him lead her a few blocks away to a scenic side street filled with older buildings instead of monstrous skyscrapers.
A store tucked away on the second floor of an old, brick building and accessed by a staircase, was their destination.
She read the sign.
Fisher Books and Collectibles
He stopped at the door. “You okay?”
She nodded.
When they entered, a bell tinkled above the door. Floor to ceiling, the bookshelves were stuffed mostly with books, but also some small displays of baseball cards and other items.
An elderly man, grey and stoop-shouldered, looked up from his book. He glanced over his reading glasses at them. “Hello, welcome. Here to browse, or may I help you find something specific?”
Zack offered him a smile and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. He handed it over. “I’m looking for this. Any chance you have it?”
The man studied the paper and turned to his computer. “Let me check.”
Lina wanted to hug the man, to say something, and found she couldn’t. Her gaze fell on pictures on the wall behind him. The man, approximately twenty years younger, with a woman and some grown children and what appeared to be grandchildren.
Then Zack nudged her and tipped his head, indicating another photo.
And old picture, a man and a woman. The man slightly resembled this one, but she knew it wasn’t him.
Zack squeezed her hand as her breath caught.
It looked nothing like them now, and yet…it felt familiar.
The man shook his he
ad and looked up from his computer as he returned the paper to Zack. “Sorry. I don’t have this one in stock.”
“That’s quite all right.” He shook hands with the man. “Thank you for your time.”
Lina reached across the counter to shake with him, too. As she did, a flood of memories, clear as yesterday, slammed into her brain. Holding him in her arms when he was born, their youngest, three weeks early but healthy. Zack’s tears as he also looked at him. His tenth birthday, when their dog ended up with birthday cake frosting all over his whiskers. His wedding. The birth of his first child…
The sorrow on his face as she closed her eyes and knew it would be the last time she would ever take a breath.
The man’s eyes widened in shock.
She let go and stepped back, grabbing Zack’s arm for support. “Thank you for your time, Robbie.” She practically dragged Zack toward the door.
As it closed behind them, she heard the man’s stunned voice. “Wait! How did you know my name?”
She pulled Zack behind her as she headed toward the parking garage. He finally dug his heels in and stopped her, stepping into an alley and grabbing her in a bear hug.
She struggled for all of two breaths before she started sobbing.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” he whispered in her ear. “Let it out.”
She relaxed against him, letting his strong, warm embrace support her as she released her grief.
When she was able to compose herself, he kissed the top of her head. “It’ll be all right. It’s just a shock.” He smiled. “Maybe you should name this one after him.”
She stepped back, alarmed. “What?”
He smirked and laid a hand on her stomach. “You’re pregnant, sweetie. Nearly six weeks along. Believe me, I’ve seen all the signs with you enough times. That’s another reason you’re so volatile right now.”
“But…I can’t…not right now!”
“Yes, right now.” He kissed her forehead and pulled her close again. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
Dalton, Tymber - Fire and Ice [A Triple Trouble Prequel] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 23