Sure I’d lived in a group home, but Ruthie hadn’t taken in many babies. They required too much care, and her specialty was troubled preteens. Most people thought Ruthie preferred adolescents because she was good with them, and she was. But in truth, the supernatural talents of many breeds appeared or strengthened at puberty.
Ruthie ran that group home not so much for the benefit of those she took in as for the benefit of the federation. She was searching for recruits. That countless children were saved from life on the streets or in an unpleasant foster home because of her was a happy accident, nothing more.
“You don’t have any friends with kids?” Luther pressed.
I had one friend, Megan, and she had three kids. But I’d been so uncomfortable around them as babies that she hadn’t allowed me to touch them—afraid, I was sure, that I’d drop them on their heads.
“We should go inside,” I said, ignoring Luther’s question. “Grab the basket.”
After setting the guns at the bottom, he picked up the carrier, revealing a pink blanket on the step. Luther lifted the material, and it tumbled downward. Tiny kittens gamboled across the flannel.
“Maybe this is what she wanted.” Gently Luther settled the blanket over the baby.
Light flashed so brightly the entire sky seemed to fill with it. In my arms the child shifted and wriggled. I tightened my grip, afraid she’d slip free.
“Shh,” I murmured, hoping to keep her from crying again.
Meow, she said.
I looked down. I now held a fuzzy black kitten.
A police car turned left at the single flashing streetlight and rolled in our direction. With only three thousand people in our tiny suburb on the river, and most of those fairly wealthy two-career families and their kids, the cops had little to do in Friedenberg beyond harass the teenagers and chat with the populace. While a kitten would be a lot easier to explain than a baby, and our guns were safely out of sight in the basket, I still hurried toward the back door.
Though I’d been one once, cops now made me nervous, perhaps because I was breaking the law daily. And I wasn’t jaywalking or parking in a red zone. I was committing murder, with a little fraud and sometimes a kidnapping on the side. Explaining that the “people” I’d killed weren’t people would only get me locked up in a mental institution instead of the women’s state prison.
Sure, I could get out. Wouldn’t take much effort at all. If I became an escaped convict, however, I’d have not only the Nephilim after me but local law enforcement, too. Once I crossed state lines, the feds would get involved, and we’d have chaos on multiple fronts.
I needed to have unimpeded freedom to move across the country by any means necessary, including air travel. Which meant having my name and face on a “most wanted” list was not the way to go.
I clattered up the steps, then closed and locked the door. The kitten squirmed, and when I held her more tightly, she scratched me, so I put her down. She promptly scooted under the bed.
“I guess we don’t have to wonder whose kid that is.”
Luther seemed a little shook up. His eyes were huge, and he kept glancing at the place the kitten had disappeared as if he expected her to crawl back out—on human hands and knees. Maybe she would. I found his nervousness strange considering he’d seen people turn into all sorts of things. Of course he’d never seen a baby turn into a kitten.
Neither had I.
I tossed the blanket and the now empty pink diaper onto the table. “Guess not.”
“What do you think her name is?”
As if he were speaking right next to me, I heard again Sawyer’s words. Protect that gift of— “Faith,” I blurted. “Her name’s Faith.”
“You sure?”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
“Who’s her mama?”
“Got me.” With Sawyer, could be damn near anyone.
“You think she brought Faith here?” Luther continued.
“Her mother?” I frowned. “Why would she?” Luther’s bony, leonine shoulders shifted beneath his skin as he shrugged. “Maybe she’s in trouble.”
“Join the club,” I muttered, contemplating the set of eyes shining beneath the bed. In the instant before she’d leaped from my arms I’d seen that those eyes were gray, like Sawyer’s. “What am I going to do with a baby?”
“Protect her.” I narrowed my gaze on Luther, who held up his hands in surrender. “Aren’t you?”
“Of course. But—”
There were half demons all over the place that needed killing. I couldn’t cart around a baby while doing that. I supposed I could wrap her in the blanket then put her in a cage.
I winced. Or not.
“Get Ruthie,” I ordered.
Luther didn’t argue. He merely closed his eyes and did whatever it was that he had to do to bring her forth. Seconds later, when Luther opened those eyes, Ruthie stared out.
It was the strangest thing. Luther’s gaze was hazel, amber when his lion threatened, but when he channeled Ruthie his irises went deep brown. He moved differently, too—no longer the broad hand movements and rapid footsteps of a teenage boy, but the graceful gestures and measured gait of an old woman.
“I was just gonna come to you, child.” Ruthie’s voice flowed out of Luther’s mouth.
“Why?”