Choice number one was right out. I still had no idea how to defeat my father. I’d felt his power this morning and while I could hold my own, if he gave it his all, he would crush me. Also, I had no army. I could ask the Pack and the Witches for help, but they would expect some sort of strategy besides “let’s all run at Roland’s castle and get killed.”
Choice number two wasn’t much better. In theory, I was supposed to be able to protect Atlanta after claiming it. In practice, I had no idea how. When I reached for the magic of the land, it was like a placid ocean. Within its depths, life moved and shimmered. The waters were capable of storms, but I had no idea how to start one.
Choice number three was what my father wanted. That alone should’ve been enough to stop me. Except when I closed my eyes, I saw two lifeless bodies. If I went to him now, if I left Curran, he would survive. My father couldn’t kill my child if the child didn’t exist.
I loved them both. I loved my unborn future baby. I loved Curran, his eyes, his laugh, his smile. I woke up next to him, I ate breakfast with him, we went to work together, and we came home together. That was the core of who I was: Curran, Julie, Derek, even Grendel, the family I’d made. It was my life, the one I fought for, the one I built and wanted. We were together. That was how things were.
If I went to serve my father, I would save them, at least for a little while. But I was only good at one thing: killing. Sooner or later my father would use me in that capacity and then I would be taking someone else’s Curran or Kate away from them. Because people would oppose my father, the kind of people who were bothered by crosses with human beings dying on them, and I would have to kill them.
I couldn’t do it. I’d been Voron’s attack dog for the first fifteen years of my life. I wouldn’t be one again.
I crossed the list out and started over.
New Plan
Get Awesome Cosmic Powers.
Nuke my dad.
Retire from the land-claiming business.
I was so down with this plan. If only I had some way to implement it.
Maybe someone would bring me a magic scroll, an incantation that would magically imprison my father in some cave. I would totally be willing to help old ladies carry wood, spin straw into gold, or go on a quest for that kind of scroll.
I stared at the door. Come on, magic scroll.
Come on.
Nope.
I needed to get out of the office and go home. I would feel better at home.
I would get home, work out, cook a big dinner because I felt like it, and figure out what I had to do about Saiman and my father.
? ? ?
WHEN I PULLED up to the house, Christopher was sitting in the driveway on the grass. That’s right. The meditation.
Living under Barabas’s care agreed with Christopher. Left to his own devices in the Keep, he often forgot about food and after a couple of weeks of self-imposed starvation, he’d look like a stiff wind would make him keel over, until Barabas or I would notice and make him eat. Now that he was staying in the house next to us, Barabas had assumed responsibility for Christopher’s health, and the weremongoose could be extremely single-minded.
I did my best to help. Between the two of us, Christopher ate on time, bathed every day, went with Barabas to the Guild, where he got regular exercise, and wore clean clothes. He was still thin, but his skin had a good color to it, and despite his pale, nearly colorless hair, he no longer looked like a ghost.
The only thing we couldn’t heal was his mind. All the outside pressures were gone now. Christopher was safe, sheltered, fed, and among friends, but his mental health hadn’t improved. We had taken him to Emory University School of Medicine, to Duke University, and even to Johns Hopkins, which was a trip I was doing my best to forget. We almost died, and while we were away, a local family we knew was murdered. Julie and Derek had handled it, but thinking about it still turned my stomach.
The doctors were in consensus: physically Christopher was fine. Psychologically he didn’t match any specific disorder. Christopher always claimed that my father had shattered his mind. The people at Emory and Duke had agreed that someone had magically destroyed his psyche. The psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins was an exceptional empath, with the power to feel what others felt. After he spoke to Christopher, he said the trauma to his psyche was self-inflicted. Something bad had happened to Christopher. He refused to confront it, he didn’t want to remember it, and so he deliberately remained as he was. Christopher offered no feedback. He sat quietly and smiled sadly through it all. He held the key to his own healing and there wasn’t much any of us could do to get him to turn it.
I got out of the car. Christopher looked at me from his spot in the grass among the yellow dandelions and wild daisies. Since most of our annoying neighbors had moved away and taken the budding homeowners’ association with them, Curran mowed the grass when he felt like it, and he didn’t feel like killing the dandelions.
“Meditation?” Christopher asked.
“Not today,” I told him. The last place I wanted to be was in my own head. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay.”
To ask about the book or not to ask? If I asked him and he freaked out, I’d kick myself. Better talk to Barabas first.
“Where is Maggie?”
Christopher pulled out a canvas bag from behind him. A black furry head poked out and looked at me with the saddest brown eyes ever to belong to a dog. Maggie was an eight-pound creature that was probably part long-haired Chihuahua and part something very different. She was small and odd, and her black fur stuck out in wispy strands in strange places. She walked gingerly, always slightly awkward, and if she thought she was in trouble, she’d lift one of her paws and limp, pretending to be injured. Her greatest ambition in life was to lie on someone’s lap, preferably under a blanket.
After Johns Hopkins, Barabas told me he wasn’t giving up. I told him I wasn’t either. I came up with daily meditation. Barabas came up with Maggie.
The little dog looked at me, turned, and crawled back into the bag. Right.
“Have you seen Curran or Julie?”
Christopher shook his head.
A Pack Jeep turned onto our street and slid to a stop in front of our house. The window rolled down and Andrea stuck her blond head out. “I’m free! Free!”
Oh boy. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the Keep?” I could’ve sworn Raphael told me during the Conclave that Doolittle had confined her to the medward.
“Screw that. We’re going to lunch.”
“It’s almost dinnertime.”
“Then we’re going to dinch. Or lunner. Or whatever the hell early-dinner-late-lunch stupid combo we can come up with.”
“Now isn’t . . .”
Andrea’s eyes blazed. “Kate, I’m nine months pregnant and I’m hungry. Get in the damn car.”