Christabel shrugged, hands folded at her waist, her hair moving in the air current of the heating vent as she replied, “It is only a matter of time.”
This woman knew what I was. And knew of the curse that clung to my kind, to eventually go insane and start eating people. I forced my breathing to remain steady, calmed my heart rate. I was too close to them to win any kind of fight with the werewolf/husband/protector, his part-mammoth dog, and his wife, the nonhuman whatever-she-was. And Christabel might have some answers to questions about my magic and heritage.
Sarge extended an arm like a refined waiter and said, “After you, my ladies.”
I followed Christabel to the kitchen, Sarge and PP on my heels. I tried real hard not to sweat or let my breathing speed at the thought of them behind me. I didn’t succeed. I heard Sarge pant once in delight or hunger or both.
They indicated a chair, and since it had a decent wall behind it, I took it. “There are women in trouble. Mothers,” I repeated as I sat, to shove my urgency deeper into them, like a needle under a fingernail. Sarge sat at the table and toasted first his wife, then PP, sitting on the floor, her head at Sarge’s elbow, then me, and sipped his wine. “You’d only need to be leashed in front of cops,” I said.
“After lunch,” Sarge said again.
I barely contained a growl and picked up my fork. I stopped before I shoved it into the pasta. Neither of them had started eating. This was a test? Holding my fork in the air, I sniffed, searching for what was wrong. And then it hit me. They were waiting for grace. I wanted to stab Sarge with the fork, but I laid it on the table and lowered my head. But I didn’t close my eyes.
Christabel closed hers and said, “May the all-knowing and all-seeing, the creator gods of the first Word, bless our repasts and our day. We give thanks for life and all that is green, for all water and all rain, for all fish in the seas, for all plants that grow. For sun and moon and earth and sky. We pray for peace between all beings.”
Sarge said, “Father, bless this day, this food, this house, this wife, and this hunt. May the blood of my enemies stain my teeth this day.”
He was going on the hunt. And he wanted to eat people. All righty, then, I thought.
A beat too late, I realized they were waiting for me to pray aloud, round-robin-style. Which I hadn’t done since I left the children’s home. In fact, I hadn’t prayed in, well . . . a while. More guilt wormed beneath my skin and sucked out my spirit, like a leech, attached to my soul. “Ah, maaaan,” I sighed, knowing this was another test. I was gonna have to pray. Aloud. In front of people who didn’t believe anything I did.
Thinking how I might contribute, aware that prayers revealed more about the pray-er than the deity prayed to. Looking back and forth between them, I dredged up the memory of a childhood course about the names of God, and mentally added to it, the way The People, the Cherokee, spoke when they talked to God.
I said, “Um. To El Roy, the God Who Sees Me, I pray. See this food. I am grateful. See this house. Bless it and keep it safe. See this couple. Bless this union. And see the men I hunt. May they be found and given over to the mercies of”—I stumbled my way through—“Elohei-Mishpa, the God of Justice. May Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of Armies, give them into my hand in battle. El Roy, see the women the evil ones have stolen. El Rechem, God the Merciful, keep them safe.”
“Jewish?” Sarge asked, open curiosity on his face as he stuffed a forkful of sausage into his mouth.
“Christian.”
“I don’t like Christians.”
“Most of us aren’t likable. But then most people aren’t very likable either, and Christians are people.”
“Huh. You hear that, Christable? This U’tlun’ta is a philosopher.”
“Not a U’tlun’ta, and not a philosopher,” I said, following Sarge’s lead and taking a bite of the sausage, which burst into flavor so intense I thought my head might explode. “I was trained as a War Woman of The People.”
“It is a worthy calling for a U’tlun’ta. These women the prisoner took,” Christabel, said, not waiting for me to deny it. “They are your family?”
“Wouldn’t know them from Eve’s house cat,” I said.
“Eve kept several house cats.” Christabel sipped her wine and ate a piece of pasta as I watched. Her teeth were not the blunt teeth of a primate or an herbivore, but the pointed teeth of a predator. “Her favorite was a tawny Abyssinian named Lilith.”