Oracle's Moon er-4

by Thea Harrison

  Max shouted angrily from the bedroom. Normally good-natured, he’d apparently had quite enough of being left out.

  Grace sighed and went down the hall to collect the little man. Chloe had eaten her pretzels snack, but Grace and Max had missed out on lunch. He had to be starving. She knew she was. She changed Max’s diaper and tickled him until his bad mood vanished, and he kicked and giggled. Then she settled him on the hip on her good side and turned to Chloe, who had followed her into the bedroom to watch.

  “Think it’s about time we had some supper?” she asked.

  Chloe gave that proposal due consideration. “Indeed.”

  * * *

  Grace fixed macaroni and cheese for supper. Chloe liked macaroni and cheese. Janice said Chloe had only picked at her breakfast, and the only other thing she’d had to eat that day were the pretzels.

  Chloe liked applesauce too, and so did Max. What the hell, Grace thought. Let’s get wild and crazy, and switch things up. We’ll have applesauce tonight instead of a vegetable.

  A bout of trembling hit as she pulled a jar of applesauce from the fridge. She left the jar on the counter and sat at the table while her limbs shook as though she had a fever.

  In the living room, Chloe danced and sang while she watched a Disney DVD. Grace couldn’t remember the name of the movie. It was another story about a spunky princess with a requisite sidekick. Max sat quietly in the middle of the kitchen floor, happy to chew on a soft plastic baby book. Grace rubbed her forehead as she watched him. Apparently she was going to have her reaction before the kids went to bed, whether she liked it or not.

  The killing.

  For her, the events that led up to the Djinn’s arrival, and then to the killing, all began with Max’s ear infection. He had started to act cranky yesterday, which was enough of a change from his normal, happy personality that she took note and began to watch him closely.

  He had worsened until he was up half the night, feverish and crying, until a strange and extremely dangerous trio came knocking on their front door.

  If there had ever been a time when she had not wanted to answer the door, it had been at three thirty that morning. She had been walking the floor with a crying Max and trying not to pull her hair out. Unused to handling such crises, she didn’t know if she should tough out the night and take him to his regular pediatrician in the morning, or if she should wake Chloe up and take him right away to an urgent care facility.

  But whether it was convenient for her or not, she had to answer the door. Her newly inherited position as the Oracle of Louisville demanded it.

  Grace, Chloe and Max lived in the sprawling, old farmhouse where Grace had grown up. The house had been in the Andreas family ever since they had come to the States. It sat on a five-acre stretch of land that bordered the Ohio River. By inter-demesne law, the entire property was supposed to be a place of sanctuary for all who came to consult with the Oracle, and the Oracle had the obligation to welcome all petitioners.

  But the Oracle should have been either Grace’s grandmother or her sister, Petra. Grace had never really believed that the Power would pass to her. Ever since the accident, she had been close to chucking away an ancient family heritage that had spanned thousands of years, but she’d held on to the impulse so far.

  Barely.

  So when the knock came in the middle of the night, Grace opened the door. She found Carling Severan, Rune Ainissesthai, and Khalil standing on her doorstep. Carling was one of the most Powerful witches in the world, a Vampyre, and she had once been Queen of the Nightkind. She was also newly retired from her most recent role as Councillor on the Elder tribunal. Her partner, Rune, was not just any Wyr. He was a gryphon, and he had been First sentinel for the Wyr demesne, although he too had just recently retired.

  Then there was their companion, the Djinn. Khalil Somebody Important.

  It almost sounded like the setup of a classic joke. Do you know what happens when a Vampyre, a Wyr and a Djinn walk into your house…? Only Grace found out that the punch line wasn’t funny.

  Max’s illness was one of the reasons why she had tried so hard to persuade Carling, Rune and Khalil to come back at a more reasonable hour, but they couldn’t be dissuaded. At least Carling had healed Max’s ear infection before formally petitioning to speak to the Oracle.

  Thankfully, nighttime petitions to consult the Oracle were rare. When they did occur, they tended to involve matters of some urgency. Such was the case with Carling and Rune. Rune had been wounded, and apparently their mission was urgent, and shit just sometimes happened.

  The shit that had happened this morning just before daybreak had been big and bad enough to attract some of the most Powerful creatures on the North American continent. All but one of the seven Elder tribunal Councillors had converged in a tense confrontation with Carling and Rune. Two of the seven demesne rulers—Dragos Cuelebre, dragon and Lord of the Wyr from New York, and Julian Regillus, Vampyre King of the Nightkind demesne from San Francisco—had also been present.

  Catching sight of the dragon that had filled up the back meadow before he shapeshifted into his human form—now that had been a helluva kick in the head.

  Nothing Grace had ever seen on television or in movies or in her own imagination could have prepared her for the sight of the dragon in real life.

  She had already been struggling. She’d had the sleepless night with Max. Then she summoned the Power of the Oracle in an intense session with Carling and Rune that had left her with a blackout of blank time in her head. And to top it all off, Rune had shoved Carling—he had meant to get her out of danger, but Grace had been in the way. Carling had fallen into her, and Grace had been knocked on her ass hard enough to jar her whole body.

  And things kept going from weird to worse, like some sort of high-speed hallucinogenic car chase. Picking herself up after the fall, Grace had watched from one side, largely unnoticed, as the scene unfolded.

  She hadn’t understood everything the group discussed. For some reason, Carling was under a death sentence. Then the Elder tribunal decided to put her in quarantine instead. Except Grace was pretty sure Carling didn’t have anything contagious. Where the tribunal would hold Carling was also under some debate. Grace couldn’t figure out if the tribunal meant to put Carling in a hospital or a jail.

  To complicate things, Rune had also taken Carling as his mate and refused to be separated from her. They couldn’t go to the Nightkind demesne—there was some kind of bad feeling between Carling and her progeny Julian, the King—and nobody liked the idea of the pair going to the Wyr demesne.

  Meanwhile, image upon fantastic image careened by in front of Grace’s astonished gaze.

  The Councillor from the Elven demesne, standing tall and shining and ageless. Holy crap, that woman had been riveting. The Djinn Soren, Demonkind Councillor and head of the Elder tribunal, with white hair and stars for eyes, whose Power was a tower of flame so intense it burned her mind. The trio of Vampyres: the Nightkind King with his pleasant-faced companion, Xavier del Torro, who was so notorious even Grace had heard of him, and the blonde woman with them who had pulled a sword on Carling while in sanctuary. That single act confirmed everything Grace had ever known, that the laws protecting the Oracle, her petitioners and her land were simply not enough.

  Then the strangest thing of all happened. Everything around her slipped a groove. If reality was an old 45 vinyl record playing on a turntable, the needle had jumped, skipping an important part of the song.

  And suddenly Rune shapeshifted into something monstrous. He killed the blonde Vampyre, who disintegrated into dust and blew away on an early morning breeze.

  Grace had thought the group had argued a lot before, but that was nothing compared to what came next. She was reeling from exhaustion and shock but glued in place, because what those deadly, immortal Power brokers decided mattered a whole hell of a lot to her.

  When at last the Demonkind Councillor turned to her and asked for her opinion, she was all too ha
ppy to give it. She knew she hadn’t seen everything that had happened, nor had she understood all of the arguing, but she saw one thing clearly enough, and she knew how she felt about that.

  The Vampyre woman had drawn a sword on her land. As far as Grace was concerned, whatever Rune had done after that point was only what the woman deserved. Grace would have killed the woman herself if she’d had the opportunity.

  Once she had said her piece, the whole thing had been over.

  To a young, inexperienced human Oracle, the morning had been extraordinary, dangerous, confusing and terrifying. And she hadn’t had a chance to talk it out with anyone or process what had happened. The events kept swirling in her mind like a funnel cloud.

  The fact that Grace hadn’t had to kill the woman in self-defense was beside the point. The early morning’s violence hadn’t even been directed at her, but witnessing it had changed everything. Grace’s quiet home and her small life had been indelibly marked.

  Her world had already been shaken to its foundations these last four months. Now she felt like she and the children lived in an unimaginably fragile house of glass, and she did not know how she could stand for them to stay there.

  At least all the covens in the witches’ demesne recognized what an unmanageable position Grace had been in ever since the accident. It was impossible to meet the obligations and uphold the traditions of the Oracle’s position while also acting as a single parent.

  At the instigation of Isalynn LeFevre, the Head of the witches’ demesne, a roster had been developed of witches who were on call to babysit whenever Grace was petitioned to act in her new role as the Oracle. The witches donated their time as part of their tithe of community service. The tithe was required of all actively practicing witches in the demesne, but sometimes the help they gave Grace was grudging. In any case, the babysitting roster was only a stopgap solution. It didn’t solve any of her larger problems.

  Or alter the fact that something, somehow, had to change.

  It had to, because continuing like this was inconceivable.

  The oven timer dinged. The pasta was done.

  Grace stood and fed the children supper.

  3

  Khalil reformed on the roof of the house, not necessarily because he felt any particular desire to take physical form again but more to give his roiling energy a focal point. He crossed his arms and leaned back against a dormer. The roof was shabby and missing a few tiles, he noted with disapproval. The land was as unkempt as the house, with grass that was too long and weeds that sprouted around fence posts. They were overtaking once well-tended flower beds. Everywhere he looked there was evidence of neglect, while the lazy, contentious human napped. He did not approve of how the property was maintained or how she cared for the children. He tapped his fingers on his biceps and thought.

  The Djinn were among some of the first creatures that came into being at the Earth’s formation. Born of magic and fire, they were beings of pure spirit. They gained nourishment from the energy of the sun, from the living things of the Earth and from sources of Power. Any form Khalil chose to take was like donning a suit of clothes. He did not need to eat food or drink liquids. This body would not grow hungry, or grow old and die. Easily assumed and easily discarded, it would fade into nothing as soon as he let go of it.

  He was not the oldest of his kind, the first generation of Djinn born at the keen, bright morning of the world, but he was of the second generation and, therefore, considered old among his people. He was an authority in his House and a voice to be reckoned with among the five Houses of Djinn. This young human creature was nothing more than a single breath of time in his ageless existence, and the fact that she called him ignorant was insupportable.

  While he certainly knew why she irritated him, he did not know why she interested him. Her facial features and physical form were pleasant enough, at least as far as humans reckoned such things. She was pale and wore shadows on her face like the haunts of memory. Those shadows were intriguing. They told a tale but in a language he couldn’t read. He wondered what they said.

  Her hair. Now her hair interested him. It was a light reddish blonde, like captured fire and sunlight, and her hazel eyes held flecks of green, blue and honey brown. What he found most interesting about her was her energy, which crackled with intensity. She had a temper as fiery as her hair, and she held Power in that slender body of hers too, a great deal of it. It was an odd thing that such a young creature held a Power that felt so old to him. The land itself held echoes of the same Power. He wondered what it meant.

  He sensed movement and other flares of ancient Power in the nearby city. Even though his focus had been on the children and he had remained at the house, he had sensed the gathering earlier on the property. He knew that several of the entities were still in the area. Carling and Rune, Elder tribunal Councillors, the Nightkind King and the dragon were somewhere close by. Khalil was curious to discover who might leave and if any of them might return to speak again with the Oracle.

  Shadows lengthened across the land. The Midwestern air felt heavy and full of water, like it was pregnant with some kind of storm. From his position on the roof he could see the Ohio River that bordered the western edge of the property. One of the great rivers of the North American continent, the water captured the sunlight along its surface until it seemed to shine with its own light.

  He listened to the sounds from within the house, small domestic things like the clink of cutlery against dishes, the baby’s infectious giggle and Chloe’s light voice. The child chattered about anything that took her fancy, and when she wasn’t talking, she sang. She asked questions unceasingly. Despite the temper Grace had displayed to him, she always answered Chloe’s questions with patience.

  They were like a small nest of birds. Khalil grinned when he thought of it. Chirp chirp chirp. Then there was the sound of water running and much flapping of wings. The chirping grew louder. Giggling was punctuated with Chloe’s tra-la-ing and Max’s cheerful yodel. The noisiness moved from the kitchen to another part of the house. Grace was putting the children to bed. She lavished love on those babies. While he did not approve of her and he was almost certain he didn’t like her, he would have to give the human female credit for that much.

  He thought back to a time long ago, when his own child, Phaedra, would have made such light, happy sounds. All forms of children were rare to the Elder Races, as if nature were compensating for giving the Elder Races such long lives.

  Djinn children were not born like humans or other embodied creatures, but were occasionally formed as two Djinn mingled energies. Their children also did not require as much intensive caretaking as the creatures of other species. They came into existence with their personalities well formed, and they inherited quite a bit of knowledge from both parents. Still, Djinn children were innocent, new to the world and filled with a mischievous lightness of being.

  Phaedra’s mother, Lethe, had been even more Powerful than Khalil, a first-generation Djinn who remembered the dawn of the Earth. Over time he and Lethe had become enemies, and to hurt him, Lethe took their child and tortured her. Khalil, along with a select few allies that included Carling, had rescued Phaedra and torn Lethe to shreds.

  His daughter lived but didn’t laugh any longer, not like these bright, innocent humans. Occasionally Djinn sustained so much damage they became malformed. Phaedra was like that, her energy jagged and twisted. She shunned contact with others, and she was quick to lash out and cause damage. He did not know how to help her. He had never known how to help her.

  At last Grace left Max and Chloe’s bedroom. He heard her move back to the kitchen. She ran more water, and there were more sounds of dishes clinking and splashing. Then she moved to another room, the left room in the downstairs. That would be the office area. She was silent for a while, and then she went into the living room. He noticed how her gait changed at times. She would start walking at a smooth pace, but she quickly slowed down, and her footsteps became arrhythmic
, ungraceful. It was another oddity.

  She turned on the television, and that was when he slipped silent as the summer breeze through the open window into the children’s bedroom.

  The toys had been picked up. The floor was clear, and the room tidy. The bedroom was not quite dark because the door was open, and indirect light shone from the living room down the hall. The two beds were at opposite sides of the room. Colorful posters adorned the walls. A cheerful green frog hung over Max’s crib, and a pink pig wearing a blonde wig and pearls hung over Chloe’s small bed.

  Khalil added the pig in the blonde wig to the growing list of things he did not understand. He hated to admit it, but the human female might have had a point.

  Khalil moved silently over to check Max’s still form. The baby smelled clean and was fast asleep again, his round cheeks flushed. Khalil picked up Max’s hand and studied it curiously. It was even smaller and more delicate than Chloe’s, a soft little starfish of flesh. These humans were such odd creatures.

  When he moved over to Chloe’s bed, he saw that she lay on her stomach, sucking her thumb. She smelled clean too, and her shining curls were combed. Then he saw the shadowed sparkle of her eyes, and he realized she was awake and watching him as he watched her.

  He crouched to look at her. She smiled at him around her thumb. He whispered, “Do you know that I am the doggie-cat?”

  She nodded.

  “Clever girl.” He thought a minute, trying to come up with words she might understand. It was surprisingly difficult to try to think like a small, new human might. “Do you know that I am not really a doggie or a cat?”

  She nodded again.

  Good. That was good. He patted her back. She felt warm and soft and a little lumpy under a light summer blanket. “Do you know that you should not pull a real doggie’s tail or a real cat’s tail either? And you should not poke them in the eye?”

  She popped her thumb out of her mouth and whispered, “Indeed?”