A Nomadic Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 4) (13 page)

Sophie nodded quietly.  “It’s enough that he comes.”

Lauren tightened her barriers.  The vacant pain in his mind was overwhelming.  “He’s broken, Soph.  I’ve never felt anything like it.”  And it killed her to think she might be responsible.

“You did right.”  Moira’s hand slid firm in hers.  “We had to ask—and I’m sorry for it.”

She’d blindly followed orders and blasted hell at another mind—one in agony before she’d even started.  All because she trusted the old woman who loved him.

Lauren suddenly longed for the warm arms and reckless heart of the man who loved her. 

She watched the pathetic shuffle, Marcus’s eyes glued to the baby in her arms.  “He’s not going to make it all the way back.” 

Moira’s hand turned to steel.  “He needs to come all the way.  On his own.”

No.  She wasn’t holding a drowning man under water any longer.  Ducking out from Moira’s hand, Lauren moved to unite him with his life raft.

“Forty-three years.”  Moira’s voice held plea now, and a sadness that melted rebellion.  “I’ve walked down the street to meet him every day of more than four decades.  Not once has he ever walked all the way back with me.” 

The love in her mind punctured Lauren’s lungs.  Breathless, she cuddled Morgan tight and closed ranks again with the toughest witch she knew.  And prayed the gamble worked.

The last steps took a thousand years.  Each. 

Marcus stopped in front of Lauren—and lifted up arms weighted by an infinity of chains.  He took the bundle that was Morgan, blankets, cornflowers, and all.  And cradled her in his arms like spun glass.

One man.  And the baby who was his.

When he finally looked back up, there were shadows of Marcus in his mind.  “Why has this stupid infant picked me?”

Lauren laughed, something akin to joy tickling her ribs.  “I have no earthly idea.”

~ ~ ~

Nell landed in Sophie’s kitchen, a monster plate of Nutella cookies in her hands.  Mike stood over the stove, stirring something that smelled like pure heaven.  He smiled in greeting and snagged a cookie.  “Food’ll be ready in a few minutes, but these will probably go over well in the meantime.”

They’d better—she’d stolen Jamie’s entire backup supply.  “How’s everyone doing?”

Mike shrugged, light worry lines between his eyes.  “I’m hoping you’ll be able to tell me that.  My healing talents don’t run to psychology.”  He waved at a tray on the counter.  “Mind carrying that in?”

Herbal tea—and coffee?  Nell frowned.  Fisher’s Cove served up a hundred varieties of tea, but getting a good cup of coffee usually required magic or a drive down the road.  “Who’s here?”

“Lauren.”  Mike raised an eyebrow.  “Nobody filled you in?”

Apparently not.  Witches weren’t always the best communicators at the crack of dawn.  “I thought Marcus tried to leave.”

“Yeah.”  Mike added bowls of berries to the tray.  “Lauren cracked him over the head with Morgan’s crying and he came back.  Or something like that.  Sophie was a little vague on the details—Adam was hungry.”

All this before 4 a.m. Berkeley time.  Nell covered a yawn with her hand.  Next time they were going to fetch a witch who kept more polite hours.  She picked up the tray—time to go find out what the heck had happened.

The sheer exhaustion in the living room was obvious before she made it halfway down the hall.  Nell stepped into the doorway, surveying the wreckage—moms of five were good at that.   A pale Sophie lay on the couch, Adam curled in the crook of her arm.  Moira looked twenty years older than the last time Nell had seen her, and Lauren turned toward coffee fumes like a woman halfway across the Sahara.

Yikes.

Nell dispensed coffee, sugar, and quick hugs, and then took a seat and waited for a roomful of witches to recuperate.

It was Lauren, gulping coffee along with her Nutella fix, who recovered first.  “Hand out enough of these cookies, and I’m pretty sure you could be president.”

Sophie’s grin was wan, but real.  “The world might not live through Aervyn in the White House.”

Jokes were a sign of witch recovery.  “Give me some warning next time, and you can have warm, fresh ones.”  A sleepy Jamie had thawed the ones in his freezer before sending them over, but a few had crispy edges—he wasn’t at his best at 4 a.m. either.

“None of us had any warning.”  Moira still sounded like she’d been up a week.  “’Twas Sophie who found Marcus leaving in the first light of morning.  The rest of us got rather rude awakenings.”

Nell listened as three voices filled in snippets of the story.  And listened harder to what wasn’t said.  “Where are Marcus and Morgan now?”

“Napping.”  Sophie was beginning to look more human.  “Mike hit them both with a sleep spell, and he’s not very subtle.”

“So he tried to ditch the baby and leave town, you dragged him back by the ear hairs, and he’s going to wake up with a headache and a baby who can travel snuggled in his arms?”

Sophie winced.  “Yeah.”

“We don’t know that Morgan can reach the astral plane.”  Moira gripped her teacup like a lifeline.  “Only that she might.”

Nell knew the levels of traveler magic—she’d lived in vigilant fear of them for Aervyn’s first three years.  Some babies just got cold, touched in passing by the mists.  Some floated, still firmly tethered to their bodies.  Only a terrifying few stretched that connection to the whisper-thin strand necessary to reach the astral plane.  But to a parent holding a cold child in their arms, it was a possibility that caused jibbering terror.  Only a few would truly travel—but most of those didn’t come back.  Whisper-thin cords broke all too easily.

And Morgan had gotten cold twice now.

A quick tug on fire power and Nell pumped more heat into the living room.  It wouldn’t help Morgan—but it might help the rest of them clutching coffee and tea, yearning for warmth. 

“Thank you, my dear.”  Moira gazed into her tea, an old witch seeking answers to the unknowable.

Nell stared into the liquid depths of her own cup.   The most solitary witch she knew, responsible for a baby with the potential for life-threatening magic.  And so many hearts helpless on the sidelines.

Nell knew her job now.  “I’ll get Jamie and Daniel on organizing a standby circle.”  They had about twelve hours until dusk.  That should be plenty of time—travelers were safe during the day. 

Three witches stared at her, astonished. 

“We’ve enough witches to watch her from here.”  Moira cozied her feet under a soft green blanket.  “A monitoring spell’s easy enough to set.”

“The circle’s not for Morgan.”  Nell reached for another cookie.  “It’s for Marcus.”

It was Lauren who connected the dots first—quietly. 
A sense of power for him.  And it will give a lot of unhappy witches something to do.

Yup.
  Sitting watch would help keep the feelings of impotence at bay. 
We’ll have enough volunteers for three circles. 

The light slowly dawned in Sophie’s eyes.  “He needs to know we’re there for him.  Ready.”

Nell nodded.  “Yes.  Ready, but not too close.  We’ll use Realm—give him some panic buttons to push.”  A circle in waiting, a finger tap away.

“You’ve such wisdom in you, my dear.”  Moira’s eyes finally had some of her usual zip in them.  “And enough Irish canniness to make my gran proud.”

“Are you calling me a sneaky witch?”  Nell grinned—she’d learned from the best.  “I figure he won’t tolerate the usual variety of witch invasion.  So we’ll use the back door.”  The witches who loved him needed one. 

And even if the world’s crankiest witch didn’t realize it, he needed one too.  Nell knew what it was to fear the magic running through your baby’s veins. 

You needed love at your back.

Chapter 10

Something tickled.

Marcus swatted at the irritating fly.

More annoying tingles, this time on the other side.  Again, his brain sent the annoyed command to swat.  His arm, however, appeared to be missing.

And his eyes were fused shut.

A warm hand dropped to his forehead, cheerful words invading his morning.  “Sorry, forgot about your eyes.  Mike’s sleep spells are kind of strong.”  Another tickle, stronger this time, and the owner of the good cheer came into view.

Marcus growled—he was in no mood for girl healers.  “Go away.”

“Can’t.”  Her hands moved quickly now, one hovering over his main channel flows, the other checking the warm, baby-shaped lump draped over his arm.  “Somebody needs to make sure you two survive until breakfast.”

He refused to ask how the baby was doing, but Ginia’s mind seemed unconcerned.  And Morgan’s drifted in the light haze of dreaming sleep.

A state she would probably stay in as long as he was willing to be used as a human pillow.  Budge an inch and she’d wail like an opera singer, but the starving monster chewing on his intestines wasn’t going to wait patiently, dammit.

“Drink this.”  A cool glass slid into his right hand.  “I have a bottle for when she wakes up, and Aaron’s bringing scones over in a few minutes.  If you behave, you can have a blueberry one.”

Marcus stared at the green goo in disgust.  No way in hell he was drinking that.  And why did all healers treat him like a toddler?  “I’m perfectly fine, and more than capable of making my own breakfast.”

“Uh, huh.”  Ginia’s eyes danced with early-morning humor.  “I thought you knew how to launch a decent Realm attack, too.  What were you thinking, leaving all your castle guards hanging out in the meadow like that?”  She did something sharp to his missing arm and all the feeling flowed back in.  “Someone might come along and turn all their swords into flowers or something.”

Marcus groaned, wondering what he’d done to deserve annoying preteen girls in his life.  “I had to leave rather unexpectedly.”  Babies had no respect for game play.  And apparently, his next visit was going to be spent trying to reverse engineer whatever mischief Warrior Girl had unleashed on his guards.

Flowers were probably the least of it.

“Drink the goo.  You need it after yesterday.”  Ginia touched the frown on his forehead.  “I moved them back to your keep.”

What? 

She shrugged.  “Uncle Jamie has to leave Realm all the time when Kenna cries, too, so we have an unofficial rule on level seven now—kind of like a baby time-out.”

She tapped the glass.  Marcus sipped.  It wasn’t entirely awful.

Ginia bent over and picked up a tiny sock off the floor.  “Nobody messes with the dads’ stuff until they get back.  People don’t all know you have a baby yet, so I moved your guards.”

Hecate’s hells.  He wasn’t a father, and he didn’t have a baby.  She wasn’t staying.  “I don’t require any special treatment.”  Marcus pulled his arm out and dumped the suddenly protesting Morgan into Ginia’s arms.  “I suggest you use that bottle you brought.”  He was going to acquire himself some industrial-strength earplugs.

No crying baby was going to undo his sanity.

And she wasn’t staying.

Four-and-a-half feet of fury stuffed a squalling girl-child right back at his chest.  “You can have all the bad manners you want, but she’s your baby and you know it.”  Ginia’s eyes were a miniature version of her mother’s.  “And if you don’t feed her, right now, I’m going to turn every single one of your castle soldiers into poopy pink pigs.”

Gods.  Even Morgan had stopped her wailing in the face of Warrior-Girl-healer wrath.  Marcus popped the bottle in the baby’s mouth.  That had been a very creative threat, and she’d clearly meant every word.

He tried very hard not to be amused.

And even harder not to respond to the small girl radiating simple happiness in his arms.

~ ~ ~

Marcus pulled his cowl closer around his neck.  Normally he wasn’t the Realm-skulking type, but people with napping babies who could awaken at any moment needed new strategies.

No way was he leaving himself open to Warrior Girl rescue again.

“You seem cheerful this morning.” 

Marcus looked over at his uninvited company and scowled.  It was hard to skulk accompanied by a gypsy dressed in flamboyant purple.  “Don’t you have a quieter avatar you can use?”

Jamie grinned and shrugged, turning to show the infant riding in some contraption on his back.  “The munchkin likes this one.  Apparently all girls come programmed to prefer gaudy colors.”

Ha.  The gypsy costume long predated Jamie’s little girl.  “I’m busy.”

“So I see.”  Jamie eyed the spellcubes in Marcus’s hands.  “Who are you listening in on?”

Marcus sighed and tossed the eavesdroppers back in his rucksack.  The darned things were easy to build and bloody difficult to deploy, thanks to their highly recognizable spellshape.  “No one.”

The gypsy squinted out into the street, empty except for a quiet little librarian—and grinned.  “It’s about time someone started paying attention to him.”

They watched as Kevin’s primary game avatar walked down the street, touching the walls of each building and muttering.  All while reading out of the old book in his hand. 

The old book that radiated magic.

Marcus frowned.  It took a lot of game points to bring magical objects into the highest level.  “What’s that thing do?”