“Bassets weren’t imported to the U.S. until the late eighteen hundreds,” Regan said, her shotgun broken open and resting on a table, her eyes on her tablet.
“Incorrect,” Shaddock said, as if a discussion about basset hounds were the purpose of this gathering. As if he hadn’t just threatened my baby. “George Washington himself received a pair of bassets from Lafayette.”
“Huh. Yeah. You’re right. Legend, unsupported.”
“Truth,” Lincoln said.
I asked, “What did you hope when you felt the magic last night?”
Shaddock shook his head slowly, in sorrow. “The foolish dreams of an old man. When my Dorothy rejected me, she threw out a . . . It was as if I was hit with a bolt of lightning. I never saw the like, not before, not after. When I came to, my wife was gone, along with the teapot she had been holding, and the old dog. Gone and never returned, never seen again. Last evening, I felt the same jolt of power, of lightning, and I ran to the old log cabin, hoping . . . hoping foolishly.” He shook his head. “Hoping that my Dorothy had come back to me. Somehow.”
Dacy Mooney said, “By all that’s holy. That’s why you kept that old cabin? Hoping your wife would come back?”
“’Tis so, Dacy. Foolish. I know. Foolish,” he shook his head. “She returned to her husband. She lived on until her natural death.”
“Had you been bleeding when you woke from your wife’s”—temper tantrum wouldn’t work—“anger?” I asked.
“Yes. I had healed, but I could still smell my blood, going sweet and rancid on the air. How did you know?”
Because wild magic did this. And wild magic is even stronger with blood, I thought, though I didn’t share this with Shaddock. Carefully, feeling my way, I said, “There is a spirit trapped in this teapot. It isn’t human. It’s possible, maybe, that the dog’s soul is stuck in the teapot and it is tied to your blood.”
“George doesn’t like you,” Angie Baby said. “Weeell, he likes you, but he’s mad at you.” Her eyes went wide. “He’s pooping on your pillow!”
Lincoln dropped to the floor, sitting on a level with my baby, eye to eye, on the far side of the ward. He looked awestruck, if vamps could look struck with awe. “I went away for a week,” he said, “to do business in town, to register to fight in a war I never wanted. George was but a few months old. When I returned he raced to our marriage bed and he . . .” Lincoln’s smile went wide. “He defecated on my pillow.” Lincoln’s eyes rested on the teapot in Angie’s arms. “Oh my God. It’s George.” He held out his hands, beseeching. “I never wanted to leave you. Never. War was never my desire.”
Angie scowled so hard she looked like that Celtic warrior, fierce and unyielding. My baby was going to grow up . . . a warrior. A true warrior. Pride filled me. I said, “Angie? What do you think?”
Still scowling, Angie walked to the edge of the ward and I quickly dropped it. For all I knew, my powerful child could walk straight to them with no ill effect, but I didn’t want that to get around, if so. Grudgingly she placed the teapot in Lincoln’s outstretched hands and he gathered the reddish and yellow teapot close, stroking it, murmuring, “I am so sorry. I beg your forgiveness. And yours, little witch child. Most earnestly.” To me he said, “I owe you and yours a boon, whatever you may want, at a time of your choosing. If it is within my power to provide, it shall be yours.”
I wasn’t holding my breath for that. “Angie, go to your aunt Regan.” My daughter walked around Lincoln, sitting on the shop floor, cuddling a teapot, and took her aunt’s hand, her face long and woebegone. I was pretty sure Regan hissed a threat to beat her black and blue if she ever jumped out of a moving car again. And then hugged her fiercely. I’d deal with my daughter later. For now, we still had vampires in my family business, and vamps still drank blood. Dangerous, even if they did look cute and defenseless sitting on the floor.
“Ummm,” I said. “We may have a way to free George.” If it really was the spirit of a dog stuck inside the stoneware teapot. “But we need the teapot back for a bit.” Without hesitation, Shaddock placed it on the toy box and took a step back to the tables and chairs that we had placed along the wall. Holly pulled out a chair and Link sat, his eyes never leaving the teapot.