by Holley Trent
“Dear one,” she said absently, gathering her thoughts.
For more than a hundred years, her existence in Maria had been steady and routine as a sunset, and all at once everything seemed to be swarming and ready to bite her in the ass.
“What’s going on?” Yaotl asked.
As the magnitude of the situation bloomed in her mind, she let out a laugh tinged with centuries of pent-up anxiety.
There would be no more secrets. No more obfuscations.
She gestured toward the kitchen. “I have…much to tell you. I suppose I should go back to the beginning and start there.”
“The beginning meaning when?” Yaotl took the seat she pulled out for him. “A million B.C.?”
She chose to ignore that rude jab at her age. She removed the casserole from the oven and carried it to the table with a serving spoon. “The 1500s. I witnessed a disaster and met a certain fallen angel.”
Scowling, Yaotl folded his arms over his chest. “Tarik?”
“How do you know?”
“Everyone in town knows he’s infatuated with you. I’ve been trying to ignore it. I assumed nothing would come of it. I assume something did?”
“That may be an understatement,” she said in an undertone. They weren’t having the sort of chat mature women liked having with their children, even if those children had children of their own.
She served them both some casserole, but for the first time since she’d given birth to Angela, her appetite just wasn’t there. “I’ve hesitated to tell you. Our arguments in the past have always led to one or both of us walking away, and I don’t want that. I want to be here, in this place, where things are familiar and routine. I want my son and his daughter to be no farther than a brief drive across town.” She poked at a little cube of chicken with her fork. “I don’t want you to leave, Yaotl. Your long absences, they darken me. You have to understand this.”
For a couple of minutes, Yaotl stared blankly ahead and rocked back on his chair legs.
She was certain he didn’t quite know how to respond. Her emotions were new things for him, too.
“Takes a lot for you to say that,” he said.
“Perhaps you know how serious I’m being, then.”
“Tell me this.” He put the chair flat again and leaned his forearms against the table edge. “What could be so bad that you think I’d pack up everything and leave, hmm? I’ve got obligations now. A family I don’t want to uproot. And I’ve got a bunch of Cougars to keep in check here.”
And he did so admirably, in his own way. She’d been proud to return his magic to him when the time came. He’d matured into a man who she trusted to be fair, gentle, and honest: a combination of traits wasn’t always so abundant in either demigods or shapeshifters.
“You’ll think I didn’t trust you when that isn’t the case at all,” she said. “I didn’t want to hurt you again.”
“With what? What happened, Ma? Tell me.” He set the chair down on all four legs and reached across the table. He grabbed her hands and squeezed them. “Just tell me, okay? Clear the air. Whatever it is can’t be so bad that we’d want to undo all the strides we’ve made in repairing our relationship.”
“I tried to be the best mother I could be to you. I worry that you’ll hear what I have to tell you and think that I didn’t try hard enough. I learned my lesson. Did things differently.”
She’d had to. Unlike with Yaotl’s father, there’d been more at stake than revenge and her wounded pride. Her heart had been on the line.
“Differently,” he murmured. “You mean—”
“Yes,” she said before he could get the words out, because they couldn’t keep dancing around the truth. It was crushing her. “Around the time of the Maria Fire, I had a baby.”
His throat convulsed and dark gaze shifted away.
He couldn’t look at her.
And she couldn’t take offense. She wasn’t that goddess anymore who could afford to take offense.
“Tarik’s?” he murmured.
“Yes.” She rubbed her palm nervously, recalling the little suns she’d once felt there when watching over Tarik. “He didn’t remember until last year. The witches I knew back then and I tampered with his memory. The situation was complicated. Suffice it to say, there were some trust issues in play. Our history is quite long. So much occurred when you were gone.”
He grimaced at that. Blaming himself, probably, but it hadn’t been his fault any more than it had been hers. She may have been eons old—exponentially older than his seven-hundred-plus years—but he was a faster learner. His reckless phase had been far shorter than hers.
“I have a brother? Or sister?”
“Sister,” she whispered.
Yaotl let go of her hands and tilted his chair back yet again.
For a long time again, he didn’t say anything, and she couldn’t look at him.
She dreaded being refused by that boy of hers, even though he hadn’t been a boy for centuries.
“Where is she?” he asked, quiet as a breaking heart.
“In a safe place. She can’t leave it. She doesn’t know how to undo the magic.”
“Does she know about me?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” He set the chair back down and picked up his fork.
He ate.
She furrowed her brow. “Yaotl?”
“What kind of peppers you put in here?”
“Yaotl.”
He groaned and dropped the fork. “Ma. What do you want me to do? You want me to yell? I can’t anymore. My mate bond to December keeps me too mellow.” The corner of his mouth kicked up on one side. “I’m not sure I would yell, anyway, even if she weren’t keeping me reasonable. Having a sister isn’t the worst thing ever, assuming she’s not a complete bitch.”
Lola let her glower do the heavy lifting of warning him.
He laughed. “What’s her name?”
“Angela. Her name is Angela and she is very keen to meet you, December, and Cruz. Always has been.”
“Well, let’s go.” He glanced at his watch. “I got half an hour.”
Lola kept still waiting for the punchline.
For the “just kidding, are you fucking out of your mind?”
For the, “Nah. I can’t do this, Ma. Listen, I can’t be here right now.”
She kept waiting for the shoe to drop, but Yaotl just stared at her in that patient way he always did when she was being odd…which was most of the time.
“Twenty-nine minutes now. We going, or…”
He’s fine. Of course he’s fine. He learns quicker than I do.
Lola shook her head, half relieved, but still anxious about the other situation involving Tarik. She’d have to tell Yaotl about that, too.
“That will have to wait. I need to deal with the situation Artemis warned me about.”
“Want to fill me in?”
Lola did. The story left Yaotl cringing.
“If they’re looking for you, I doubt it’s just so they can pat you on the back,” he said. “They’re going to expect patronage of some sort. Money. Magic, more likely.”
“I know.” She pushed back from the table and scraped the remnants of her lunch into the disposal. “They’re going to want restoration, and I cannot give them that. I cannot add years to their lives, and I already interfered too much.”
As had Tarik.
The act may have been in the past, but she couldn’t swallow that he’d broken their compact. He’d overridden her on that day.
She didn’t know what to feel about that and didn’t know if he’d really earned her trust.
But she did know that if the Jaguars showed up in Maria, she wasn’t going to be there.
It would be better for them in the long run if they thought she’d gone the way of so many goddesses before her and had faded away for good.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Everyone hold hands. This may be disorienting.” Lola clasped a hand each of Cruz and December and
waited for Yaotl to find a grip anywhere he could.
He assessed the quartet and grimaced. “You sure about this, Ma? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you carry anyone.”
“No.”
Lola pulled a little energy off her son and popped them over the horizon to Bermuda. Smugly, she set them down on her usual landing pad on the back patio and wiped the sweat from her hands onto her skirt.
“Whoa!” Cruz exclaimed, wide-eyed.
December listed, clutching her temples, and murmured, “I hate doing that.”
Yaotl promptly collapsed onto his ass. “Ma. You couldn’t warn me you were gonna siphon off my energy?”
“It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. You’ll be fine.” She gestured to the house. “This is it. It’s been in a trust under Sophie’s name for years, but truly, she bequeathed it privately to Angela. She was her nanny for a year before marrying Oscar. It was easy for Elizabeth to take over because we have a telepathic link. Come.”
Cruz surged ahead, ever bold with her mother on her heels.
Yaotl scrambled to his feet and gave Lola a seething glare.
“Deal with it.”
“You know, most mothers coddle their little boys every now and again. What’s a demigod gotta do to get an endearing pat on the head?”
“Fill my gas tank and get my car detailed.”
“Ma.”
“What?”
Yaotl sighed and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “I can’t even with you.”
She wasn’t sure what that meant, but as the statement didn’t seem entirely hostile, she decided not to query.
She followed Yaotl through the back door, but before she could get both feet on the rug beyond the threshold, she sensed something was horribly off. The magic of the place felt broken. “Wait,” she called out to her family.
They paused in the middle of the bright, airy, empty kitchen.
Someone should have been in there. Angela usually detected her the moment she landed, and Elizabeth rushed out soon after.
Not only had the magic been disturbed, but the living energy balance was off, as well. She felt the sultry warmth of a Cougar, but not the ozone-and-jungle-mist presence that should have accompanied her.
Her child wasn’t there.
“Elizabeth?” She edged past Yaotl, Cruz, and December and hurried into the sitting room.
Elizabeth’s weak moan came on a worrying delay.
She was in the recliner, pale as a winter sky with a half-finished embroidery project dangling from her thigh. She pushed her eyelids up and Lola rushed to her, shaking her more awake.
As Elizabeth’s vision cleared, Lola asked her, “Where’s Angela? What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I…” Elizabeth straightened her crooked glasses and sat up straighter. She dragged her forearm across her mouth and looked to the table beside the chair. There was a cup of half-finished tea, pale with milk, just the way she liked it. “Must have…” she started hoarsely and cleared her throat. “Must have put something in it?”
“Angela did?” Lola balked. That didn’t sound like her sweet child. She wasn’t like her parents.
“Ma, what’s happening?” Yaotl stepped into the room, keeping his wife and Cruz behind him. Leaning, he caught Elizabeth’s curious gaze. “Hey, Liz. Glad to finally meet you. You’re semi-famous in Maria. Everyone in the Cougar glaring has read The Legend of La Bella Dama.”
Elizabeth’s eyes went bright with curiosity. “Yaotl?”
He grimaced. “You can call me Tito. Pretty much everyone else does. What’s going on? Are you safe?”
Elizabeth put up her hands and took another bolstering breath. “I’m fine, and I’m pretty sure you’re okay, too. Come on in and have a seat.”
December and Cruz perched on the edge of the ottoman across the room.
Elizabeth took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Happened so fast. She was sitting right where they are.” She pointed to December and Cruz. “Had her computer on her lap. She uses it for everything. Ordering groceries and seeds and checking the news and all that.”
“This computer?” Yaotl picked up the machine that had been left open on the bookcase and opened it up.
“That one, yes.”
“Screen’s not locked,” he said as Lola moved for a better look. He was already pulling up browser windows and checking history.
“You said there was something in your tea?” Lola asked her.
“Must have been. Angie was acting real funny. She’s usually so laidback, but I didn’t think too much of her mood shift. Sometimes, she gets sort of morose when the cabin fever starts kicking in, but I thought she was doing better after I told her you all were coming by to visit. Said she was going to make some cookies. Made me tea while she was in there and kept checking the front door like she was waiting on a delivery. I figured maybe she was. She’d ordered some clothes and stuff last week.”
“She tried to delete her email history,” Yaotl interjected, “but she’s not very good at hiding her tracks. Everything she deleted is still on the machine in the archives.” He frowned. “I hate for one of my first experiences with my sister to be an invasion of privacy, but some of the subject lines caught my eye.”
Lola scanned the screen to see what he’d meant.
“This property is…warded, right?” December asked. “Is that the correct word?”
Elizabeth gave a grave nod. “Most people are compelled not to linger. The magic makes them not stay long enough to think of any questions to ask.”
“But it doesn’t hold Angela here?”
“My magic discourages her from leaving and she hadn’t before now successfully done so,” Lola said. “Further, I have always cautioned her that the moment she steps off the property—”
“She’s letting the figurative genie out of the bottle,” Yaotl guessed.
Lola nodded. She could see why he thought the email messages were concerning. Some had recent dates and specifically referenced Maria. They’d been sent by someone Lola didn’t know—someone who had typed “Ese Coyote” in one of the subject lines.
“That Coyote” was obviously the one who’d encountered those Jaguars with Lily.
Lola took the computer and dove into the messages, reading them all as fast as she could and hoping her suspicion was incorrect.
But it wasn’t.
“Shit.”
December covered Cruz’s ears on a delay.
Lola thrust the machine at Yaotl and started walking toward the back door.
“What’s wrong?” Elizabeth called after her.
“I need to get back to Maria. It would seem my offspring’s curiosity about the outside world has led her to connect online with the very ones I left town to avoid.”
She regretted teaching that child Spanish.
“Know anything about Jaguars?” Tito asked Elizabeth.
Lola could practically hear the wheels grinding in the woman’s head.
“You mean those Cats Lola told me a teensy-weensy bit about ages ago? What do they have to do with anything?”
“My lore persists, and their descendants know it,” Lola said through clenched teeth.
“Are those her online friends? She’d started talking to these people more and more in the last little bit. She wouldn’t tell me how they’d connected. She’d just said, ‘It’s the internet, Aunt Liz,’ like that’s supposed to mean anything.”
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence they found each other,” Yaotl said. “They were likely searching for adjacent topics and figured out real quick where their knowledge overlapped.”
“I fear she has already told them too much,” Lola said, “and perhaps they promised her freedom in exchange for me making them whole.”
“Oh boy.” Elizabeth forced out a tuft of air and thrust her hand out to Lola. “Well, we better go fetch her.”
“No, you stay here and perhaps figure out what means she used to depart.”
“I can tell yo
u that already.” Tito carried over the computer and tapped the screen. The page was open to a bookmarked site about angel mythology. “Knowing who I know, I figured it out. She instantly translocates like Tarik…and I guess I just figured out how you acquired that trick, too.” Yaotl curled his upper lip. “You didn’t have it back in the old days. You were like me. You didn’t truly vanish. You were just too fast to see.”
Lola glowered at her rude child. She’d never again be able to keep anything a secret. Yaotl was going to automatically assume that any new quirks of hers had been acquired because she’d laid with Tarik.
“No way of knowing how long she’s known she could do that,” Yaotl said.
“Or if she’s left before!” Suddenly incited, Elizabeth put a hand over her heart, but then she relaxed. “Oh, no. I would have known if she had. Just like right now, I’ve got fireworks and warning flags in my head because she’s gone. That’s never happened before. I’m going with you.”
Lola sighed and took Elizabeth’s hand in hers. “Damn it, that child.”
“Glad to know I’m not the only one who makes you cuss,” Yaotl said, smirking.
Lola got the feeling she’d be doing a lot of cursing before the night was over.
“Stay here with December and Cruz,” she said, preparing to port herself and Elizabeth to Maria. “Sit this one out. I wouldn’t want you to meet your sister when she’s being—”
“A brat!” Elizabeth sputtered. “Ooh, if she weren’t too old to swat on the rear, I’d…”
___
Tarik had missed Lola by a few minutes. Assuming she stood still long enough, she was easy to track. He’d wanted to take her to dinner—someplace public for a change, but she was already gone.
He closed his eyes and turned his focus outward.
His psychic search hit an immediate snag—a metaphorical rock jamming the cogs.
Lola wasn’t in Maria, but a very similar energy was.
Angela?
He pulled his invisibility around himself and headed into the desert at his most grueling speed to search.
He slowed when he saw the dirty white van parked on a ranch trail.
The side door was open, and a long-limbed woman leaned against the paneling studying her nails.
