Gathering Storm (23 page)

Some of Angel’s anger seemed to melt away
hearing Litha call what they’d witnessed a shared experience.

“I... just don’t want to see her get
hurt.”

“Rosie can’t get hurt. You
should know that.” Her eyes went to the burn mark on his arm that
was fading, but still visible.

“I don’t mean hurt that way.”

Litha smiled knowingly.
“Okay. Let’s make hotdogs.”

“What? What does…?”

“Storm loves hotdogs. I
wouldn’t let him have them very often because I’m the food police,
but I feel like being close to him tonight. So let’s eat chili and
cheese and gods-only-know toxins and die early. What do you
say?”

He looked like he was
thinking it over. “Dying early? Sounds like a plan. I’m
in.”

Litha and Angel called it
a three napkin dinner. They were wiping dripping chili and cheese
away with every bite when they heard a door slam in the house. They
both stopped eating and looked at each other.

Litha was surprised to hear Angel say, “Stay
here.”

“No. I’m sure it’s Rosie and, if she’s
slamming the door, it means that maybe she needs somebody to talk
to.”

Angel hesitated. “Let’s
verify. If it’s Rosie, I’ll leave you alone.”

“Deal.”

Litha knocked on the door.
“Rosie? You there? Can I come in?” There was silence for a few
seconds and then foot stomping on the suspended hardwood
floor.

Rosie jerked the door
open, turned around, and stomped back to her bed. Litha glanced at
Angel then stepped in and closed the door behind her.

“What happened?”

She’d never even seen
Rosie out of sorts, much less angry and about to cry.

“He left before our game
was finished.”

“Oh. Well. that’s not so
bad, is it?”

“
He had a date,
Mom!”

“Baby, you can finish your
game anytime.” Rosie glared at her mother until Litha caught the
drift. “Oh.”

Rosie threw her hands up
and then threw herself on her bed. “I hate him!”

Litha stood motionless,
trying to make sense of her own life. Less than a month ago, the
teenager in front of her, apparently caught in the grip of full
blown woman-child angst, was an infant no longer than her arm from
shoulder to wrist. And it was shaping up to look like carrying her
parents’ memories wasn’t going to save her from teen hormones or
from the experiences that stir those hormones into tantrums.
Apparently every soul has to walk that valley alone, demon or
not.

“Rosie, you know Glen is too old for
you.”

Rosie made a garbled noise
and an exasperated gesture. “For how long?” She looked at her
watch. “Three hours?!?”

Litha had to concede that
her daughter would be Glen’s age in less than two weeks. “A little
bit of an exaggeration, but I get your point. The thing is you’re
not old enough for Glen today. And, when you are, you need to be
prepared for the possibility that the people we want don’t always
want us back.”

A tear slipped down Rosie’s cheek and broke
Litha’s heart. “Is this supposed to be helping?” she asked
quietly.

“Well. Yes. I hope
so.”

“He’s mine.”

Litha smiled sadly.
“Rosie, he’s not yours just because you say so. You know I think
the world of Glen and your dad is very fond of him. Someday, if you
end up with someone like that, I’m going to feel like the luckiest
mother-in-law ever. But you can’t claim another person like calling
dibs. It just doesn’t work like that. Well, it doesn’t work that
way for us. For elves and a few others, but not us.”

“Why not?”

“Because every coin has
two sides. If you could claim Glen, whether he agreed to it or not,
then someone could claim you whether you agreed or not.”

Rosie looked at her mother
with liquid emerald eyes. “But I
know
he’s mine. What do I
do?”

Litha thought about it for
a minute. “How did you leave things with Glen?”

“I tumped the chess board and scattered the
pieces all over the room. Then I called him a cocksucker and
left.”

“Rosie!”

“What?”

“You did not call him that.”

“Yes I did.”

“Where did you ever… never mind. Darling,
you cannot use language like that. It’s just not acceptable.”

Rosie narrowed her eyes at her mother.

“You found a memory where your dad called
somebody that, didn’t you?” Rosie nodded and narrowed her eyes even
more. “And me, too,” Litha said with resignation. Rosie nodded
again. “Well, that didn’t make it right and certainly you don’t
have many such memories.”

Rosie narrowed her eyes again to which Litha
said, “Your father?” Again, Rosie nodded.

“Okay, enough about that. You threw chess
pieces, called him a name… Did you yell at him?”

“Yeah.” She said it like, “Well, duh!”

“So you threw chess pieces, shouted that he
is, well, you know, then came back here and slammed the door.”

“Yes.”

“Alright. I’ll tell you
what we’re going to do. You’re going to lay low for about a week.
Then we’re going to find out if Glen is interested, but only if you
make a deal with me first that, if he’s not, you’ll let it
go.”

Rosie chewed her bottom
lip. She had enough demon blood to understand that deals are
sacred. She also had enough witch blood to know she could probably
manipulate Glen’s will with a commanding/compelling spell, even
though the great-grandmother who visited her in dreams would have a
fit if she did and even though she knew in her heart it wouldn’t
make Glen love her the way she wanted and needed him to love her.
She pulled in a big breath, blew it out, and said, “Okay. What’s
the plan? Does it involve shopping?”

Litha laughed. “That’s a
ridiculous question. The way you grow, every day involves
shopping.”

“I know. I mean
special
shopping.”

“No. Now listen.”

“All yours.”

“We’re going to get Auntie’s help. If you
continue to mature at the rate you have been, in seven days you’ll
be eighteen. I’ll get Elora to go to Glen and mention that you’re
ready for what they used to call ‘coming out’, you know, ready to
date. Then she’ll ask if he has any friends we might set you up
with.

“We’ll see what happens then. What do you
think?”

“I think it’s brilliant if
it works. I think it sucks it major if it doesn’t.”

“Where did you hear a phrase like ‘sucks it
major’?”

Rosie chuckled. “Where do you think?”

Litha’s eyes flared and she put her hand
over her mouth. “We probably need some ground rules concerning what
you ‘remember’.”

As she stared into those
red rimmed eyes that were so like her own, Litha couldn’t help but
think about how bizarre it was to have a daughter who appeared to
be going on fifteen. She was barely prepared to be mother to an
infant, much less that. How she wished Storm was there to share the
experience; good, bad, and bizarre.

Storm.

While Glen was in the
shower, he was thinking about the way things had been left with
Rosie and feeling unsettled about it. He couldn’t have guessed that
telling her he had to cut the chess game short and get ready for a
date would cause her to explode into a full-on snit. The most
baffling thing was what she’d said. “You mean a date with somebody
else?”

Somebody else! What the fuck?

Yes. He was going on a date with somebody
else. Did she think he was a pedophile?

Sure she was fun to spend
time with. What other girl, of any age, could beat him at chess? No
need to spend a lot of time chewing on that question. The answer
was easy. None.

What other girl, of any
age, would think
everything
about him was wonderful? Again. Easy answer.
None.

Actually, he thought
everything about her was wonderful, too. But she was fourteen for
crap’s sake! And what was he supposed to do with that? If her
father knew that Glen had any kind of non-babysitting thoughts
about his daughter, Glen might as well be a dead man walking. But
if Storm hadn’t disappeared, Glen wouldn’t have spent so much time
with Rosie while Litha searched. And searched. And searched some
more.

On the one hand he’d
thought Rosie was kind of cute standing there like a fire-breathing
dragon with eyes shooting sparks. He almost chuckled out loud. What
stopped him was the impression that he’d hurt her feelings and that
was what wasn’t sitting well.

It was Rosie, after all.
She was sort of his. His to take care of is what he
meant.

She’d just poofed away
with that look of betrayal on her cute little face. No goodbye. No
talk to you soon. He was accustomed to seeing Rosie look at him
with adoration. Not like she’d just been slapped.

He was thinking he might as
well call and cancel the date that had caused all the uproar. He
wasn’t going to pass for good company in the mood he was in. Which
was what?
Shitty.
That’s right. He was in a shitty mood.

He should call Rosie and
apologize, say he was a fucking thoughtless rude asshole and ask
her to please come back and finish the game.

Yeah. He should do that,
but he wouldn’t because he was afraid she’d say no and he didn’t
think he could stand it if she was really that mad.
So how does that work, Glen? You want to be a
Black Swan knight and you’re afraid to call a tweeny girl because
she might reject you? Fucking head case.

Litha had met with Song at
Jefferson Unit a few times to flesh out notes about Angel. The
meetings weren’t exactly clandestine, but they were deliberately
unbeknownst to him.

In the process of
comparison, a picture of what matched and what didn’t began to
emerge. Apparently everything had been the same until the two
versions of Storm were fourteen. After that Angel compromised most
of what he reported to Aelsong. She easily read in his mind that he
didn’t want her to know the truth about his lifestyle, the choices
he’d made and, for the first time, he felt pricks of shame about
what he’d done with his life. He didn’t want to measure himself
against the invisible persona that loomed over every aspect of his
existence every second of every day, but it would have been
impossible not to. Sir Storm was on everyone’s mind, in everyone’s
heart, and on everyone’s lips.

Over the years Aelsong had
developed the ability to ‘read’ with a poker face. She never gave
away that she recognized a lie in the telling.

When she finished her
project, she handed over the results, and left for Ireland to help
prepare for her mum’s big birthday party.

Since Team Makeover was
requiring less and less of Angel’s time, Elora took up the slack
and increased his exposure to weaponry, mostly modern.

“Storm is the one who
teaches guns. He’s an unbelievable marksman. That means the same
ability is surely lying dormant in you, just asking to be waked up.
You ready?”

“Not particularly, but I
have time on my hands. So, you got something you want to show me,
I’ll stand still and listen.”

On a big sigh and a little
instruction from Elora Laiken, Angel opened a window to a world of
talent he hadn’t known he possessed. In his world, guns were only
owned by governments and well-connected criminal elements. Being
caught with a firearm carried such a hefty prison sentence that
most found the risk unacceptable. The last thing that Angel could
have imagined was that he would be good with a gun.

CHAPTER 17

All was quiet with
Jefferson Unit operating at thirty percent capacity. It seemed even
quieter with Kay gone home for the weekend to see Katrina and Ram
gone to Ireland for his mother’s birthday, which was more or less a
command attendance.

Elora was invited, of
course, but thought the trip by air was needlessly long for someone
Helm’s age and the alternatives, either taking him through the
passes or leaving him behind, were unthinkable.

She’d told Ram, “Any
activity that could end with fleeing from five French-speaking and
immortal adolescent vampire – or fill in the blank – is not an
authorized activity for Helm.”

“And when are you thinkin’
he will be old enough?”

Elora gave Ram her dead
serious face. “This little boy will
never
be tall enough for that
ride.”

Ram said he had a strong
preference for traveling to Ireland the old school way, on a
company jet, “rather than bein’ handcuffed to the kinky asshole of
a demon”.

Elora replied, "I can't
really judge him harshly for wanting to use your body for pleasure.
I want to use your body for pleasure most of the time."

Ram perked up, looking interested. "Like
now?"

Elora opened her mouth to
say something in the come-hither family when Helm started crying as
if on cue. Both parents’ shoulders slumped
simultaneously.

"Can you hold that thought
for half an hour?” She moved toward the baby, but continued
talking. “Don’t worry about Deliverance. He’ll do what Litha asks
and the quicker you get to Ireland and back, the less time we’ll be
without you.”