Molly grinned, lighthearted, showing teeth and wrinkling up her eyes, a smile that I remembered from the earliest days of our friendship. “So come and stay with us for a few days. We’ll have an estrogen-filled household there too, and we’ll eat fresh-baked bread with olive oil drizzled over it and fix fresh stuff from the garden and Beast can hunt in the woods on the hill nearby and we’ll shop—”
“Oh no. Not shopping.” I gave a mock shudder. “Girlie stuff. Next thing I know you’ll have me getting a mani-pedi and a perm.”
Molly fell against the pillows and put her head back on my shoulder. “Baby shopping. Once we know the gender of this hungry little munchkin.” She patted her belly harder, as if giving the kid a head slap for eating too much. “So, will you? Come and stay for a few days?”
“Yeah,” I said, the warmth still filling me, like heated air filled a balloon, rising from the ground, so much bigger and more powerful than it seemed. “I’ll come. Thanks.
“Now,” I said, “we need to talk about you staying here. The thing found you here and attacked, and there’s no saying when or if she’ll be back. Should you catch a flight back to Asheville? Should you move to a hotel?”
“And get knocked out of the sky by a rainbow dragon, killing us and everyone else on board? No. Doofus. Move to a hotel and try to get a ward around that? Again, no. Doofus. I’m safer here. You’re not safe here with me here, but I’m safer. And with the baby and Angie, I’m staying where I can ward and you can fight. Which is utterly selfish, but it’s the way I feel.”
“Not selfish,” I said. “Motherly. Understandable. And we’re honored.”
The talk degenerated then from friendship and kits—babies—to the arcenciel, and I explained my theories about the light dragon being able to see timelines. And about Molly needing to protect herself at all times.
Molly nodded. “There were stories, way back when, tales my grandmother told, and she said her grandmother told her, about one entire family of Everhart babies disappearing from the cradle, each time following a flash of light. I wonder . . . if witch babies are dangerous to arcenciels in general or if it’s Everhart witch babies in particular. . . .” Her voice trailed off, and I could smell sleep coming. She yawned and asked, “What was I saying?”
I stood and pulled my BFF to her feet. “You were saying that it was bedtime. Go upstairs and go to sleep. We have stuff to do tomorrow, and the fight wore you out.”
“Yes. It did.” She yawned again, hugged me with one arm, and turned for the stairs.
I stood at my doorway and watched Molly climb the wide staircase, lifting her feet as though they weighed a ton each. She was exhausted and her balance was wobbly. I would have carried her if I thought she would let me. But as it was, it was time for her to go. Otherwise it might have occurred to her to ask what her baby might mean to the future. She might have begun go wonder why the arcenciel wanted the baby to have never been conceived. And I had no answer. And I might never have one.
When I heard Mol climb into the bed, I closed my door and turned off the light, wondering and worrying what might happen if Soul came into contact with Molly and her baby. Which was certain to happen at the Witch Conclave, if not before.
? ? ?
Just before dawn, the arcenciel attacked the wards again, with a boom so loud and hard it threw me from my bed, into a roll, and down. A big-cat move. The moment I hit the floor, I dashed on hands and knees into my closet, where the long sword was kept with the steel-edged, silver-plated vamp-killers. As I drew the weapons, I felt Beast rising in me, lending me her strength and power, her vision of silvers and greens and charcoal shadows where before there had been only shades of blackness. And this time a border of gray energies spun around me, close to my skin.
Eli and I met in the foyer and I steadied him when the house shook. Showers of red sparklers fell in front of the house to the street. Opal was concentrating on the upper story and I didn’t know why. Or even if there was a logical reason.
“Molly?” I asked him. My voice was a hint lower, a Beast growl caught in the single word.
“In the hallway, working her magics.”
All this stress and magic couldn’t be good for the baby. “Alex?” I asked. And this time my voice was a full octave lower, an unmistakable growl in it.
Eli’s eyes pierced me, evaluating even as he answered my question. “Told me he had a work-around to keep coms up. He hasn’t been to bed.”
“In here, guys,” Alex called from the living room. Just as the arcenciel rammed down again on the top of the hedge of thorns ward, possibly its weakest point, assuming the ward had a weak point.
The arcenciel slammed down on the top over and over, the attack physical as well as magical, and I heard Molly yelp softly. Already she stank of fear. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to hold the ward. Kitssss, Beast hissed deep inside.
At this rate, the house would be a pile of matchsticks in no time. Dark humor welled up in me with Beast. “I hope the insurance is paid up. And that it covers acts of magic.”