Jake's Women (Wizards)

by Booth, John

  “He’s beautiful,” I said, holding onto my wife’s hand.

  “That’s because he takes after me,” Jenny said smugly. “Jake, I want you to meet your son, Merlin Morrissey.”

  “When did we decide on the name?”

  “While one of us was off trying to get himself killed, which has been most of the time I’ve been pregnant.”

  “Won’t other kids tease him?”

  Jenny laughed. “Not more than once. I suspect he’ll take after you in that regard.”

  I sat looking at my wife and baby. She looked so at peace. Then a frown covered Jenny’s face.

  A chill ran through me. “Should I call a doctor?”

  “Esmeralda, get to her, Jake.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  Jenny waved me away. “Go now. Hurry.”

  If Esmeralda was in trouble the most likely place to find her was in the Royal Ballroom. When I appeared there I heard a clap of hands and saw Thom, the major domo for the place rushing towards me.

  “The Princess, Lord Wizard. She is giving birth in her bedroom this very hour.”

  I didn’t wait to hear more. It was a simple hop to Esmeralda’s bedroom. The scene that greeted me when I got there was something out of a nightmare.

  The floor was running with blood that all seemed to be coming from between my wife’s legs. She lay on the floor in a faint. I vaguely heard the squalling of a baby, but that would have to wait. Three midwives crowded round her while Queen Janti sat in the blood holding her daughters hand. No one noticed my arrival.

  That changed when I pushed the midwives out of the way and knelt beside Esmeralda. Janti looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

  “She has hemorrhaged and I fear you are too late.”

  “I am not too late,” I heard myself saying from a distance. “She would never forgive me.”

  Taking Esmeralda’s hand I let my mind scan her body. There was a terrible tear in her womb and I couldn’t take the time to figure out what went where. I joined the flesh together and staunched blood vessels as best I could.

  Her heart was faltering. She had lost so much blood there was nothing left to pump around her body. Healing is more art than magic. It requires you to know exactly what you are doing. While fixing a slice through an arm was simple, just flesh, muscle and blood vessels; solving a problem like loss of blood was much more difficult. If I understood blood on a molecular level I could have magicked some up, but the truth was that I didn’t, and Esmeralda needed blood now.

  I was Type O negative. That was universal or something. It would have to be because Esmeralda couldn’t wait. It isn’t easy to siphon blood through hop space, letting it feed her heart at a slow enough pace not to kill her while being fast enough to keep her alive. Precision magic takes power, magical and physical. I already felt weak and nauseous from the blood I gave her and I’d barely given her a pint.

  “Esmeralda insisted Urda take a break,” Janti said as she watched me. There was no hope in her eyes. “Esmeralda went into labor less than a minute later; birth less than five minutes after that. It’s just like Esmeralda to be so awkward. Save her, Jake. Save my daughter.”

  I had a problem. If I gave Esmeralda any more blood I would faint and her life would be over. She was still many pints short of what she needed. I could take blood from the women in the room, but that would probably kill her. I needed safe blood in large quantities and I needed it fast. But from where?

  The blood in the hospital.

  “I’ll be back before you can blink,” I told Janti and hopped back to the hospital in Wales. Jenny gasped as I flung open the cabinet thing and grabbed an armful of the blood bags. I hopped back to Esmeralda and a very startled Queen.

  The bags scattered across the floor as I dropped them. I grabbed the nearest and checked it was Type O-, then started feeding it into Esmeralda. It was too cold and the shock of it so close to her heart brought on a seizure. I warmed the blood while massaging her heart until it started to beat on its own. I had nearly lost her.

  Time passed. Every beat of Esmeralda’s heart was a victory. I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Urda.

  “I will take over, Jake”

  “The blood has to be Type O negative,” I said waving at empty bags strewn across the floor.

  “She needs to be properly healed now. She has enough blood, but I have to repair her womb before it is too late.”

  I nodded and tried to stand. Instead I fell flat on my face.

  I woke to find Esmeralda leaning over me, baby in her hands.

  “This is your Daddy, Morgana. He is hopeless at almost everything except pleasing a woman in bed, but we shall continue to love him regardless. Jake, this is Princess Morgana Jennifer Doran Morrissey, heir to the throne of Salice and your very own daughter.”

  “Have you been colluding with Jenny over names?” I wasn’t sure that Merlin and Morgana didn’t have prophetic implications. Not necessarily good ones.

  Esmeralda laughed. “Morgana was my maternal grandmother’s name. Do I take it Jenny has beaten me to bearing you a child?”

  “Probably a dead heat.” I knew that would make her smile and it did. Esmeralda was incredibly competitive. She raised an eyebrow in query.

  “A boy. Merlin. Does that name mean anything to you?”

  “It is pleasant sounding and somewhat masculine, but I have never heard it before. Here, take your daughter and hold her in your arms.”

  Esmeralda gave me the baby and I’d swear the child smiled at me. Then it puked over my face.

  12. The Cult

  Esmeralda sat up in bed with Morgana noisily suckling against her breast. She was a pretty baby, born with hair so long it might need cutting any day now.

  “I have to go to Jenny.”

  “Of course.” There was a hint of something in that answer, like the moment before a shark appears in the water.

  “I believe that whoever kidnapped Anna wanted to find the way to Wales. The only target there is my family.”

  “You do not have to explain your actions to me, Lord Wizard.”

  As if that had ever been true.

  I sat on the bed and put a hand out to stroke my child’s face. The gurgling sounds became happier.

  “She knows you, Jake.” Esmeralda’s voice brimmed over with joy. “And Urda tells me I should be able to have more children despite the mess you made inside me.”

  “I was saving your life.”

  “I was referring to you getting me pregnant in the first place.”

  There was no answer to that, so I kept my mouth firmly closed and used my magic to examine my daughter. I’ve only had the ability to see auras for a short time and the way I acquired the ability was not something I cared to discuss with either of my wives. Morgana’s aura was a lovely shade of blue and her little body was perfectly healthy.

  To my surprise she was also glowing with magical forces and tendrils of command searched the room looking for minds to lock onto. ‘Love me, care for me,’ was the underlying message. Not in words, of course, this was an emotional command. I blocked the message to me; then modified elements of my wife’s mind to provide a shield. I was going to have to do this for everybody who was in regular contact with her or she’d end up spoiled rotten.

  “Your daughter is using magic to make everybody love her,” I said accusingly.

  Esmeralda laughed. “All babies do that. It does not require magic.”

  There was something else going on in the magical plane. There was a tendril drifting off from Morgana into hop space.

  “How did you know I was in trouble, Jake?”

  “Jenny told me.”

  “And how did she know?” Esmeralda asked.

  I had a deep suspicion. “You and Jenny were together a lot during your pregnancies?”

  Esmeralda pouted. “Our husband was never home and we needed the company.”

  “I’ve looked stupid in front of you too many times to tell you what I suspect unti
l I’m sure.”

  “Is it a bad thing, this thing you suspect?”

  “Unexpected, and slightly weird. But it did save your life.”

  Esmeralda rearranged Morgana from the port food supply to the starboard one.

  “Then I shall assume it is a good thing. You must take Urda with you.”

  The change of subject was unexpected and something I disagreed with.

  “I want Urda here to make sure you stay well.”

  “Anna is her sister, Jake. What you ask of her is impossible. Two of the finest healing wizards in the multiverse have treated me and I feel just fine. Go and find Anna. I miss her.”

  There seemed little point in arguing and, after kissing her and Morgana, I left in search of Urda.

  There was a policeman guarding the ward when Urda and I arrived. We had walked from an alley alongside the hospital.

  “Here to see my wife, Jenny Morrissey. This is a family friend.”

  The policeman nodded. From the slight frown on his face I suspected he was trying to remember where he had seen my face. One of the problems of having been a wanted man a few months back.

  “You weren’t here last night?” he asked suspiciously.

  “No, what happened?”

  “Somebody stole a lot of blood.”

  “If I see any vampires I’ll let you know.”

  After giving me a warning frown, he let us into the ward, muttering something about everybody being a comedian these days. Jenny face lit up as we entered her room.

  “Jake, is Esmeralda safe? And the baby?”

  “Mother and daughter are doing fine.”

  “I thought when you grabbed all that blood…”

  “Minor problem, all sorted now.”

  Urda had gone around the bed and was cooing at my son in his cot. A quick scan showed he was giving off love commands at least as strong as Morgana’s. I created a shield around Jenny’s mind. Urda could look after herself.

  I looked deeper and saw the other end of the tendril into hop space. My children were linked to each other. The cry for help Jenny had received had come from Merlin via Morgana.

  Jenny was giving me one of the looks she had learnt from Esmeralda.

  “Minor?”

  Urda looked up from Merlin. “Jake saved her life. Esmeralda hemorrhaged while giving birth and I wasn’t there.”

  “Not your fault,” I said quickly. Turning back to Jenny I asked. “What did you tell the hospital?”

  “That an ape of a man with huge hairy arms ran in and stole the blood,” Jenny said.

  “You gave them my real description?”

  Jenny laughed. “You are a fool, Jake Morrissey. And I love you for it.”

  We spent some time chatting about Merlin and Morgana. Then some more time talking about Jenny’s parents and how they were over the moon at being grandparents. I promised to take her to see Esmeralda and Morgana as soon as possible. All the while Urda cooed over Merlin, locked in her own little world.

  “I think Anna has been taken so someone could get to Earth.” There had been a lull in the conversation and I had to tell Jenny sometime.

  Urda turned towards me, mouth open in surprise.

  “To attack us?” Jenny asked and I reluctantly nodded.

  “No, to get to Bronwyn,” Urda said excitedly. “I tried to tell you about the Cult ages ago, but you were wrapped up in other things. It is the Cult that has Anna and what they want from her is Bronwyn.”

  Bronwyn had been my nemesis a year ago. She must be twelve or thirteen now and last year I’d destroyed her ability to use magic and removed her memories, or to be technically correct, broke her mind’s links to those memories.

  Born locally, she was nearly as powerful as me and a lot more knowledgeable about magic. The kid had had some rotten things happen to her on Urda’s world and had cracked up. I fixed her at my wedding, or I thought I had.

  “Back up and tell me about this cult again? A group in Barren that worships her for some reason?”

  Barren was the biggest town on Urda’s world of Tydan. Humanity barely survived on its parched surface, but a surprising number of their population were magic users. When I rescued Urda from Barren, magic users were burnt at the stake by religious nutters, but only after they raped and tortured them. Bronwyn had hopped there by mistake and I didn’t like to remember what the locals had done to her.

  Urda shook her head. “I explained it to you last time. When you fought Bronwyn on Tydan she brought a massive geyser of water to the surface to fight you with.”

  That was an understatement. Bronwyn had thrown the Atlantic Ocean at me. I had no idea how she did it.

  “That water has transformed Tydan. Barren is now a port on an immense fresh water ocean. The weather patterns have changed. It rains a lot there now and food is plentiful.”

  “Well they can’t blame their wizards for that.” They had blamed them for the drought in Old Testament style.

  Urda nodded. “They don’t. The religious fanatics became devotees of the goddess that saved them and wizards became their high priests.”

  “I don’t really see a downside,” I confessed. “Everybody’s happy.”

  “Religious fanatic wizards who believe their Goddess was stolen from them by the evil God they know as Jake Morrissey?” Urda queried.

  Jenny and I looked at each other, caught in the utterly preposterous nature of that statement. If I looked as surprised as she did then we were very surprised indeed. And yes, we were surprised.

  “That could create a bit of a problem,” I said slowly.

  “It puts all of Jake’s family in danger from them,” Jenny said.

  “They are the Cult of Bronwyn and she would be their first and most important target. To return her to Barren and restore her to be the Goddess they believe her to be,” Urda sounded almost triumphant. I supposed that knowing who had taken Anna must be a great relief to her. Now she could do something to rescue her. However, a thought had occurred to me.

  “Bronwyn left books of magic in Barren. They probably can restore her if they want to.”

  Jenny gave me a sad look. “You were supposed to bring me chocolates and flowers, Jake. Not this.”

  As if on cue, Merlin began to cry.

  13. Looking for Bronwyn

  We stood outside Bronwyn’s house and I found myself hesitating before pressing the doorbell. Bronwyn’s parents had been through so much. Tortured by their daughter, then worrying about her being missing, then getting her back with over a years’ worth of memories ripped from her head. I had been avoiding them since the wedding, What if we were wrong and Anna’s disappearance had nothing to do with their daughter? Was it fair to worry them all over again?

  The door opened with my finger still poised above the button. It was Brian Mathews, Bronwyn’s father and he looked both excited and anxious.

  “Jake. Have you found her?”

  Urda stepped forward. “Jake has been away and has only just returned. Can we come in?”

  Brian’s face fell and then he recovered. “I’m sorry. We knew you were away. Your parents told us you were away at a conference and couldn’t be contacted. Come in.”

  Gwyneth Matthews stood up when we entered the room. She looked older than I remembered and her face lit up until her husband shook his head.

  “Thank you for coming, Jake. How are your wives?”

  I smiled. “As of yesterday I have a son in Wales and a daughter in Salice. Mothers and children are doing fine.”

  “Jenny doesn’t know about Bronwyn. Peter and Mary kept it from her with the baby being so close to term,” Brian said as we sat. Brian was a longtime friend of Jenny’s father.

  “Neither do we,” Urda said. “If you assume we have been told nothing, can you tell us your story?”

  It was good Urda had taken charge because I felt awkward and tongue tied.

  “There were these men in white robes, like monks. They never came close, but they scared Bronwyn as they seemed to b
e waiting everywhere she went. At home, at school, and even when she was out with friends,” Brian paused and Mrs. Mathews broke in.

  “She’s been so good since the wedding. A different person. We were getting on so well as a fam…” She stopped speaking and broke down in tears.

  “She vanished five days ago. Never came home from school,” Brian’s voice was bleak. “The police wouldn’t give it any publicity. Given what happened to you last time round and how they ended up looking like fools, it wasn’t that surprising. Inspector Thomas told us that she probably wasn’t on this planet anymore. Not that he could tell his Chief Constable that. We contacted your parents and they said you were away.”

  “And there’s been no sign of her since then?” Urda continued.

  They shook their heads. I decided it was time to join the conversation despite the fact that I still felt very uncomfortable talking to them.

  “We think we know who has her and roughly where they are.”

  “Can you rescue her?” Brian asked.

  “She may not want to be rescued,” Urda put in.

  I gave Urda a frown. However true that was, it wasn’t a kind thing to say to Bronwyn’s parents.

  “We think Bronwyn was taken by the Cult of Bronwyn. They would most likely want to restore her memories and powers.”

  Bronwyn’s parents looked a little confused. “The Cult of Bronwyn?” Brian asked.

  “The world where she was… assaulted. She returned there and rescued a lot of other wizards from death.” Best not to mention the horrific torture and murder she indulged in. Not that the people she killed didn’t have it coming. “We fought and the fight resulted in some good changes for that world. They want her back.”

  “They wouldn’t hurt her?” Mrs. Mathews asked.

  “They may have killed my sister.” Urda’s voice was emotionless.

  “Anna? Why would they have hurt Anna?” Brian was astonished.

  “They needed to find Bronwyn and Anna knew how to get here.” Matter of fact Jake tells it all.

  Urda stood. “We have what we needed to know, Jake. We should go to Barren and get my sister back; if she’s still alive. Kill some wizards if she isn’t.”