The Sign of Seven Trilogy (26 page)

“Before we…whatever,” Cal decided, “there's something we have to go over. Might as well stick to the dining room. We have to get something,” he added, looking at Fox and Gage. “You might want to open another bottle of wine.”

“What's all this?” Quinn frowned as the men retreated. “What are they up to?”

“It's more what haven't they told us,” Layla said. “Guilt and reluctance, that's what I'm picking up. Not that I know any of them that well.”

“You know what you know,” Cybil told her. “Get another bottle, Q.” She gave a little shudder. “Maybe we should light a couple more candles while we're at it, just in case. It already feels…dark.”

 

T
HEY LEFT IT TO HIM, CAL SUPPOSED, BECAUSE IT
was his house. When they were all back around the table, he tried to find the best way to begin.

“We've gone over what happened that night in the clearing when we were kids, and what started happening after. Quinn, you got some of it yourself when we hiked there a couple weeks ago.”

“Yeah. Cyb and Layla need to see it, as soon as the snow's cleared enough for us to make the hike.”

He hesitated only a beat. “Agreed.”

“It ain't a stroll down the Champs Élysées,” Gage commented, and Cybil cocked an eyebrow at him.

“We'll manage.”

“There was another element that night, another aspect we haven't talked about with you.”

“With anyone,” Fox added.

“It's hard to explain why. We were ten, everything went to hell, and…Well.” Cal set his part of the stone on the table.

“A piece of rock?” Layla said.

“Bloodstone.” Cybil pursed her lips, started to reach for it, stopped. “May I?”

Gage and Fox set theirs down beside Cal's. “Take your pick,” Gage invited.

“Three parts of one.” Quinn picked up the one closest to her. “Isn't that right? These are three parts of one stone.”

“One that had been rounded, tumbled, polished,” Cybil continued. “Where did you get the pieces?”

“We were holding them,” Cal told her. “After the light, after the dark, when the ground stopped shaking, each one of us was holding his part of this stone.” He studied his own hand, remembering how his fist had clenched around the stone as if his life depended on it.

“We didn't know what they were. Fox looked it up. His mother had books on rocks and crystals, and he looked it up. Bloodstone,” Cal repeated. “It fit.”

“It needs to be put back together,” Layla said. “Doesn't it? It needs to be whole again.”

“We've tried. The breaks are clean,” Fox explained. “They fit together like a puzzle.” He gestured, and Cal took the pieces, fit them into a round.

“But it doesn't do anything.”

“Because you're holding them together?” Curious, Quinn held out her hand until Cal put the three pieces into it. “They're not…fused would be the word, I guess.”

“Tried that, too. MacGyver over there tried superglue.”

Cal sent Gage a bland stare. “Which should've worked—at least as far as holding the pieces together. But I might as well have used water. No stick. We've tried banding them, heating them, freezing them. No dice. In fact, they don't even change temperature.”

“Except—” Fox broke off, got the go-ahead nod. “During the Seven, they heat up. Not too hot to hold, but right on the edge.”

“Have you tried putting them back together during that week?” Quinn demanded.

“Yeah. No luck. The one thing we know is that Giles Dent was wearing this, like an amulet around his neck, the night Lazarus Twisse led that mob into the clearing. I saw it. Now we have it.”

“Have you tried magickal means?” Cybil asked.

Cal squirmed a little, cleared his throat.

“Jesus, Cal, loosen up.” Fox shook his head. “Sure. I got some books on spells, and we gave that a try. Down the road, Gage has talked to some practicing witches, and we've tried other rites and so on.”

“But you never showed them to anyone.” Quinn set the pieces down carefully before picking up her wine. “Anyone who might have been able to work with them, or understand the purpose. Maybe the history.”

“We weren't meant to.” Fox lifted his shoulders. “I know how it sounds, but I knew we weren't supposed to take it to, what, a geologist or some Wiccan high priestess, or the damn Pentagon. I just…Cal voted for the science angle right off.”

“MacGyver,” Gage repeated.

“Fox was sure that was off-limits, and that was good enough. That was good enough for the three of us.” Cal looked at his friends. “It's been the way we've handled it, up till now. If Fox felt we shouldn't show you, we wouldn't be.”

“Because you feel it the strongest?” Layla asked Fox.

“I don't know. Maybe. I know I believed—I believe—we survived that night, that we came out of it the way we came out of it because we each had a piece of that stone. And as long as we do, we've got a chance. It's just something I know, the same way Cal saw it, that he recognized it as the amulet Dent wore.”

“How about you?” Cybil asked Gage. “What do you know? What do you see?”

His eyes met hers. “I see it whole, on top of the Pagan Stone. The stone on the stone. And the flames flick up from it, kindling in the blood spots. Then they consume it, ride over the flat, down the pedestal like a sheath of fire. I see the fire race across the ground, fly into the trees until they burst from the heat. And the clearing's a holocaust even the devil himself couldn't survive.”

He took a drink of wine. “That's what I see when it's whole again, so I'm in no big hurry to get there.”

“Maybe that's how it was formed,” Layla began.

“I don't see back. That's Cal's gig. I see what might be coming.”

“That'd be handy in your profession.”

Gage shifted his gaze back to Cybil, smiled slowly. “It doesn't hurt.” He picked up his stone, tossed it lightly in his hand. “Anyone interested in a little five-card draw?”

As soon as he spoke, the light snapped off.

Rather than romance or charm, the flickering candles they'd lit as backup lent an eeriness to the room. “I'll go fire up the generator.” Cal pushed up. “Water, refrigerator, and stove for now.”

“Don't go out alone.” Layla blinked as if surprised the words had come out of her mouth. “I mean—”

“I'm going with you.”

As Fox rose, something howled in the dark.

“Lump.” Cal was out of the room, through the kitchen, and out the back door like a bullet. He barely broke stride to grab the flashlight off the wall, punch it on.

He swept it toward the sound. The beam struggled against the thick, moving curtain of snow, did little but bounce the light back at him.

The blanket had become a wall that rose past his knees. Calling his dog, Cal pushed through it, trying to pinpoint the direction of the howling. It seemed to come from everywhere, from nowhere.

As he heard sounds behind him, he whirled, gripping the flashlight like a weapon.

“Don't clock the reinforcements,” Fox shouted. “Christ, it's insane out here.” He gripped Cal's arm as Gage moved to Cal's other side. “Hey, Lump! Come on, Lump! I've never heard him like that.”

“How do you know it's the dog?” Gage asked quietly.

“Get back inside,” Cal said grimly. “We can't leave the women alone. I'm going to find my dog.”

“Oh yeah, we'll just leave you out here, stumbling around in a fucking blizzard.” Gage jammed his freezing hands in his pockets, glanced back. “Besides.”

They came, arms linked and gripping flashlights. Which showed sense, Cal was forced to admit. And they'd taken the time to put on coats, probably boots as well, which is more than he or his friends had done.

“Go back in.” He had to shout now, over the rising wind. “We're just going to round up Lump. Be right there.”

“We all go in or nobody does.” Quinn unhooked her arm from Layla's, hooked it to Cal's. “That includes Lump. Don't waste time,” she said before he could argue. “We should spread out, shouldn't we?”

“In pairs. Fox, you and Layla try that way, Quinn and I'll take this way. Gage and Cybil toward the back. He's got to be close. He never goes far.”

He sounded scared, that's what Cal didn't want to say out loud. His stupid, lazy dog sounded scared. “Hook your hand in my pants—the waistband. Keep a good hold.”

He hissed against the cold as her gloves hit his skin, then began to trudge forward. He'd barely made it two feet when he heard something under the howls.

“You catch that?”

“Yes. Laughing. The way a nasty little boy might laugh.”

“Go—”

“I'm not leaving that dog out here any more than you are.”

A vicious gush of wind rose up like a tidal wave, spewing huge clumps of snow, and what felt like pellets of ice. Cal heard branches cracking, like gunfire in the dark. Behind him, Quinn lost her footing in the force of the wind and nearly took them both down.

He'd get Quinn back into the house, he decided. Get her the hell in, lock her in a damn closet if necessary, then come back out and find his dog.

Even as he turned to get a grip on her arm, he saw them.

His dog sat on his haunches, half buried in the snow, his head lifted as those long, desperate howls worked his throat.

The boy floated an inch above the surface of the snow. Chortling, Cal thought. There was a word you didn't use every day, but it sure as hell fit the filthy sound it made.

It grinned as the wind blasted again. Now Lump was buried to his shoulders.

“Get the fuck away from my dog.”

Cal lurched forward; the wind knocked him back so that both he and Quinn went sprawling.

“Call him,” Quinn shouted. “Call him, make him come!” She dragged off her gloves as she spoke. Using her fingers to form a circle between her lips, she whistled shrilly as Cal yelled at Lump.

Lump quivered; the thing laughed.

Cal continued to call, to curse now, to crawl while the snow flew into his eyes, numbed his hands. He heard shouting behind him, but he focused everything he had on pushing ahead, on getting there before the next gust of wind put the dog under.

He'd drown, Cal thought as he pushed, shoved, slid forward. If he didn't get to Lump, his dog would drown in that ocean of snow.

He felt a hand lock on his ankle, but kept dragging himself forward.

Gritting his teeth, he flailed out, got a slippery hold on Lump's collar. Braced, he looked up into eyes that glittered an unholy green rimmed with red. “You can't have him.”

Cal yanked. Ignoring Lump's yelp, he yanked again, viciously, desperately. Though Lump howled, whimpered, it was as if his body was sunk in hardened cement.

And Quinn was beside him, belly down, digging at the snow with her hands.

Fox skidded down, shooting snow like shrapnel. Cal gathered everything he had, looked once more into those monstrous eyes in the face of a young boy. “I said you can't have him.”

With the next pull, Cal's arms were full of quivering, whimpering dog.

“It's okay, it's okay.” He pressed his face against cold, wet fur. “Let's get the hell out of here.”

“Get him in by the fire.” Layla struggled to help Quinn up as Cybil pushed up from her knees. Shoving the butt of a flashlight in his back pocket, Gage pulled Cybil to her feet, then plucked Quinn out of the snow.

“Can you walk?” he asked her.

“Yeah, yeah. Let's get in, let's get inside, before somebody ends up with frostbite.”

Towels and blankets, dry clothes, hot coffee. Brandy—even for Lump—warmed chilled bones and numbed flesh. Fresh logs had the fire blazing.

“It was holding him. He couldn't get away.” Cal sat on the floor, the dog's head in his lap. “He couldn't get away. It was going to bury him in the snow. A stupid, harmless dog.”

“Has this happened before?” Quinn asked him. “Has it gone after animals this way?”

“A few weeks before the Seven, animals might drown, or there's more roadkill. Sometimes pets turn mean. But not like this. This was—”

“A demonstration.” Cybil tucked the blanket more securely around Quinn's feet. “He wanted us to see what he could do.”

“Maybe wanted to see what we could do,” Gage countered, and earned a speculative glance from Cybil.

“That may be more accurate. That may be more to the point. Could we break the hold? A dog's not a person, has to be easier to control. No offense, Cal, but your dog's brainpower isn't as high as most toddlers'.”

Gently, affectionately, Cal pulled on one of Lump's floppy ears. “He's thick as a brick.”

“So it was showing off. It hurt this poor dog for sport.” Layla knelt down and stroked Lump's side. “That deserves some payback.”

Intrigued, Quinn cocked her head. “What do you have in mind?”

“I don't know yet, but it's something to think about.”

C
AL DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TIME THEY'D FALLEN
into bed. But when he opened his eyes the thin winter light eked through the window. Through it, he saw the snow was still falling in the perfect, fat, white flakes of a Hollywood Christmas movie.

In the hush only a snowfall could create was steady and somehow satisfied snoring. It came from Lump, who was stretched over the foot of the bed like a canine blanket. That was something Cal generally discouraged, but right now, the sound, the weight, the warmth were exactly right.

From now on, he determined, the damn dog was going everywhere with him.

Because his foot and ankle were currently under the bulk of the dog, Cal shifted to pull free. The movement had Quinn stirring, giving a little sigh as she wiggled closer and managed to wedge her leg between his. She wore flannel, which shouldn't have been remotely sexy, and she'd managed to pin his arm during the night so it was now alive with needles and pins. And that should've been, at least mildly, annoying.

Instead, it was exactly right, too.

Since it was, since they were cuddled up together in bed with Hollywood snow falling outside the window, he couldn't think of a single reason not to take advantage of it.

Smiling, he slid a hand under her T-shirt, over warm, smooth flesh. When he cupped her breast he felt her heart beat under his palm, slow and steady as Lump's snoring. He stroked, a lazy play of fingertips as he watched her face. Lightly, gently, he teased her nipple, arousing himself as he imagined taking it into his mouth, sliding his tongue over her.

She sighed again.

He trailed his hand down, tracing those fingertips over her belly, under the flannel to skim down her thigh. Up again. Down, then up, a whispering touch that eased closer, closer to her center.

And the sound she made in sleep was soft and helpless.

She was wet when he brushed over her, hot when he dipped inside her. When he pressed, he lowered his mouth to hers to take her gasp.

She came as she woke, her body simply erupting as her mind leaped out of sleep and into shock and pleasure.

“Oh God!”

“Shh.” He laughed against her lips. “You'll wake the dog.”

He tugged down her pants as he rolled. Before she could clear her mind, he pinned her, and he filled her.

“Oh. Well. Jesus.” The words hitched and shook. “Good morning.”

He laughed again, and bracing himself, set a slow and torturous pace. She fought to match it, to hold back and take that slow climb with him, but it flashed through her again, and flung her up.

“God. God. God. I don't think I can—”

“Shh, shh,” he repeated, and brought his mouth down to toy with hers. “I'll go slow,” he whispered. “You just go.”

She could do nothing else. Her system was already wrecked, her body already his. Utterly his. When he took her up again, she was too breathless to cry out.

 

T
HOROUGHLY PLEASURED, THOROUGHLY USED,
Quinn lay under Cal's weight. He'd eased down so that his head rested between her breasts, and she could play with his hair. She imagined it was some faraway Sunday morning where they had nothing more pressing to worry about than if they'd make love again before breakfast, or make love after.

“Do you take some kind of special vitamin?” she wondered.

“Hmm?”

“I mean, you've got some pretty impressive stamina going for you.”

She felt his lips curve against her. “Just clean living, Blondie.”

“Maybe it's the bowling. Maybe bowling…Where's Lump?”

“He got embarrassed about halfway through the show.” Cal turned his head, gestured. “Over there.”

Quinn looked, saw the dog on the floor, his face wedged in the corner. She laughed till her sides ached. “We embarrassed the dog. That's a first for me. God! I feel good. How can I feel so good after last night?” Then she shook her head, stretched up her arms before wrapping them around Cal. “I guess that's the point, isn't it? Even in a world gone to hell, there's still this.”

“Yeah.” He sat up then, reached down to brush her tumbled hair as he studied her. “Quinn.” He took her hand now, played with her fingers.

“Cal,” she said, imitating his serious tone.

“You crawled through a blizzard to help save my dog.”

“He's a good dog. Anyone would have done the same.”

“No. You're not naive enough to think that. Fox and Gage, yeah. For the dog, and for me. Layla and Cybil, maybe. Maybe it was being caught in the moment, or maybe they're built that way.”

She touched his face, skimmed her fingers under those patient gray eyes. “No one was going to leave that dog out there, Cal.”

“Then I'd say that dog is pretty lucky to have people like you around. So am I. You crawled through the snow, toward that thing. You dug in the snow with your bare hands.”

“If you're trying to make a hero out of me…Go ahead,” she decided. “I think I like the fit.”

“You whistled with your fingers.”

Now she grinned. “Just a little something I picked up along the way. I can actually whistle a lot louder than that, when I'm not out of breath, freezing, and quivering with terror.”

“I love you.”

“I'll demonstrate sometime when…What?”

“I never thought to say those words to any woman I wasn't related to. I was just never going to go there.”

If she'd been given a hard, direct jolt of electricity to her heart, it couldn't have leaped any higher. “Would you mind saying them again, while I'm paying better attention?”

“I love you.”

There it went again, she thought. Leaps and bounds. “Because I can whistle with my fingers?”

“That might've been the money shot.”

“God.” She shut her eyes. “I want you to love me, and I really like to get what I want. But.” She took a breath. “Cal, if this is because of last night, because I helped get Lump, then—”

“This is because you think if you eat half my slice of pizza it doesn't count.”

“Well, it doesn't, technically.”

“Because you always know where your keys are, and you can think about ten things at the same time. Because you don't back down, and your hair's like sunlight. Because you tell the truth and you know how to be a friend. And for dozens of reasons I haven't figured out yet. Dozens more I may never figure out. But I know I can say to you what I never thought to say to anyone.”

She hooked her arms around his neck, rested her forehead on his. She had to just breathe for a moment, just breathe her way through the beauty of it as she often did with a great work of art or a song that brought tears to her throat.

“This is a really good day.” She touched her lips to his. “This is a truly excellent day.”

They sat for a while, holding each other while the dog snored in the corner, and the snow fell outside the windows.

When Cal went downstairs, he followed the scent of coffee into the kitchen, and found Gage scowling as he slapped a skillet onto the stove. They grunted at each other as Cal got a clean mug out of the dishwasher.

“Looks like close to three out there already, and it's still coming.”

“I got eyes.” Gage ripped open a pound of bacon. “You sound chipper about it.”

“It's a really good day.”

“I'd probably think so, too, if I started it off with some morning nookie.”

“God, men are crude.” Cybil strolled in, her dark eyes bleary.

“Then you ought to plug your ears when you're around our kind. Bacon gets fried, eggs get scrambled,” Gage told them. “Anybody doesn't like the options should try another restaurant.”

Cybil poured her coffee, stood studying him over the rim as she took the first sip. He hadn't shaved or combed that dark mass of hair. He was obviously morning irritable, and none of that, she mused, made him any less attractive.

Too bad.

“You know what I've noticed about you, Gage?”

“What's that?”

“You've got a great ass, and a crappy attitude. Let me know when breakfast is ready,” she added as she strolled out of the kitchen.

“She's right. I've often said that about your ass and attitude.”

“Phones are out,” Fox announced as he came in, yanked open the refrigerator and pounced on a Coke. “Got ahold of my mother by cell. They're okay over there.”

“Knowing your parents, they probably just had sex,” Gage commented.

“Hey! True,” Fox said after a moment, “but, hey.”

“He's got sex on the brain.”

“Why wouldn't he? He's not sick or watching sports, the only two circumstances men don't necessarily have sex on the brain.”

Gage laid bacon in the heated skillet. “Somebody make some toast or something. And we're going to need another pot of coffee.”

“I've got to take Lump out. I'm not just letting him out on his own.”

“I'll take him.” Fox leaned down to scratch Lump's head. “I want to walk around anyway.” He turned, nearly walked into Layla. “Hi, sorry. Ah…I'm going to take Lump out. Why don't you come along?”

“Oh. I guess. Sure. I'll just get my things.”

“Smooth,” Gage commented when Layla left. “You're a smooth one, Fox.”

“What?”

“Good morning, really attractive woman. How would you like to trudge around with me in three feet of snow and watch a dog piss on a few trees? Before you've even had your coffee?”

“It was just a suggestion. She could've said no.”

“I'm sure she would have if she'd had a hit of caffeine so her brain was in gear.”

“That must be why you only get lucky with women without brains.”

“You're just spreading sunshine,” Cal commented when Fox steamed out.

“Make another damn pot of coffee.”

“I need to bring in some wood, feed the generator, and start shoveling three feet of snow off the decks. Let me know when breakfast is ready.”

Alone, Gage snarled, and turned the bacon. He still had the snarl when Quinn came in.

“I thought I'd find everyone in here, but they're all scattered.” She got out a mug. “Looks like we need another pot of coffee.”

Because she got the coffee down, Gage didn't have time to snap at her.

“I'll take care of that. Anything else I can do to help?”

He turned his head to look at her. “Why?”

“Because I figure if I help you with breakfast, it takes us both off the cooking rotation for the next couple of meals.”

He nodded, appreciating the logic. “Smart. You're the toast and additional coffee.”

“Check.”

He beat a dozen eggs while she got to work. She had a quick, efficient way about her, Gage noted. The quick wouldn't matter so much to Cal, but the efficient would be a serious plus. She was built, she was bright, and as he'd seen for himself last night, she had a wide streak of brave.

“You're making him happy.”

Quinn stopped, looked over. “Good, because he's making me happy.”

“One thing, if you haven't figured it out by now. He's rooted here. This is his place. Whatever happens, the Hollow's always going to be Cal's place.”

“I figured that out.” She plucked toast when it popped, dropped more bread in. “All things considered, it's a nice town.”

“All things considered,” Gage agreed, then poured the eggs into the second skillet.

 

O
UTSIDE, AS GAGE PREDICTED, FOX WATCHED
Lump piss on trees. More entertaining, he supposed, had been watching the dog wade, trudge, and occasionally leap through the waist-high snow. It was the waist-high factor that had Fox and Layla stopping on the front deck, and Fox going to work with the shovel Cal had shoved into his hands on their way out.

Still, it was great to be out in the snow globe of the morning, tossing the white stuff around while more of it pumped out of the sky.

“Maybe I should go down, knock the snow off some of Cal's shrubs.”

Fox glanced over at her. She had a ski cap pulled over her head, a scarf wrapped around her neck. Both had already picked up a layer of white. “You'll sink, then we'll be tossing you a lifeline to get you back. We'll dig out a path eventually.”

“He doesn't seem to be spooked.” She kept an eagle eye on Lump. “I thought, after last night, he'd be skittish about going out.”

“Short-term doggie memory. Probably for the best.”

“I won't forget it.”

“No.” He shouldn't have asked her to come out, Fox realized. Especially since he couldn't quite figure out how to broach the whole job deal, which had been part of the idea for having her tag along.

He was usually better at this stuff, dealing with people. Dealing with women. Now, he worked on carving down a shovel-width path across the deck to the steps, and just jumped in.

“So, Cal said you're looking for a job.”

“Not exactly. I mean I'm going to have to find some work, but I haven't been looking.”

“My secretary—office manager—assistant.” He dumped snow, dug the shovel back down. “We never settled on a title, now that I think about it. Anyway, she's moving to Minneapolis. I need somebody to do the stuff she does.”

Damn Quinn, she thought. “The stuff.”

It occurred to Fox that he was considered fairly articulate in court. “Filing, billing, answering phones, keeping the calendar, rescheduling when necessary, handling clients, typing documents and correspondence. She's a notary, too, but that's not a necessity right off.”

“What software does she use?”

“I don't know. I'd have to ask her.” Did she use any software? How was he supposed to know?

“I don't know anything about secretarial work, or office management. I don't know anything about the law.”