Three Witches and a Zombie

by Maggie Shayne

  But she was shaking her head, backing away. "You...and she...after what we..."

  He reached out for her, belatedly realizing he held a black teddy in his hand. He tossed it to the floor. "Dammit, Aurora, nothing happened with her. I couldn't—"

  "But you wanted to. You were going to. You...that's why you said what you did, about the curse, and—" The tears spilled over and Nathan's heart cracked. "How could you, Nathan?'' She turned and ran the same way Becky Lynn had. With one major difference.

  When Aurora left, he cared.

  #

  Oh, no. Oh, for crying out loud, he blew it! He had her, right there, knowing damn well that he loved her beyond belief. And she'd stared up at him with those big ebony eyes of hers and told him that she loved him, too.

  And he'd blown it all to hell. Why had he even let Becky Lynn through the front door? Why hadn't he borrowed a page from that old anti-drug campaign and just said no? He should have realized it wouldn't work, anyway. It never had.

  Not until Aurora. And frankly, after that experience, he really didn't think he cared to do any comparison shopping. Nothing could be the way it had been with her. The way they were together. And she loved him. And now she was crying because he was an idiot.

  Well, he had to find her. He had to fix this. There must be a way.

  He would grovel. He'd beg if he had to. He would buy her pretty things and write sonnets and turn handsprings if that was what it took, but he wasn't going to let this incredible woman slip through his fingers. No way in hell.

  He had to find her. Yes, and when he did, he'd give her something that would leave her with no doubt in her mind as to just how much she meant to him. Okay. So first, the jewelry store...and maybe the bank. And then he'd track her down.

  #

  Aurora knew he was looking for her. He called so often there was no doubt, but she wouldn't talk to him. He came by, but she refused to see him. He'd even shown up at the hospital a few times this week, whenever his schedule and hers allowed it. But she'd managed to duck him.

  She stopped counting how many days and then weeks it had been since that magickal night in the circle where they'd made love. But she never stopped thinking about it. Remembering. Wishing. Even aching for him.

  And then her world fell apart, the afternoon her aunts, the three of them, came to her in her room and stood around her looking sheepish and guilty.

  "What?" she asked them, her spine tingling with warnings. They were up to something.

  "The girls say I'm the one who has to do the talking, Aurora," Merriwether said strongly. "So I'll just come right out with it. We lied to you."

  Aurora blinked. "You lied to me?" The three nodded. "About what?"

  "About the reason you had to...er...that is, you and Nathan had to...”

  "The reason I had to have sex with a virgin?" She felt her eyes widen. Again, the three nodded. And Merriwether said, "You see, it couldn't have been just any virgin. It had to be Nathan McBride."

  "Yes," Fauna piped in, "and you wouldn't have lost your powers if you hadn't done it."

  Aurora gaped and felt her legs buckle. She sank onto the bed. "I don't understand. I can't believe this."

  "You're going to be upset at first, dear," Flora said softly, patting Aurora's hand. "But all of this was foretold, after all. Now I'm sure you'll want to confirm it with a doctor, but you can take my word for it. You're almost certainly pregnant with Nathan's child."

  "Pregnant? Pregnant?" Aurora's head swam. And then she did something she'd never done before in her life. She fainted.

  #

  Nathan was immersed in the stacks of books and photographs and journals he'd hauled out of his father's attic. Aside from this new obsession he'd developed for Aurora, he seemed to have discovered another powerful interest.

  His family history.

  And it was a rich one. It had been Aurora's words about his ancestors, that night in that magick bubble of light that had made him wonder, and now he understood.

  Nathan McBride came from a long, long line of Celtic Witches. And now that he knew it, he felt oddly drawn to his heritage. He wanted to know what it meant to him. He wanted to learn about and study the beliefs of his forebears.

  So when he wasn't constantly trying to get a moment alone with Aurora, he was delving into the old diaries and books, and finding a wealth of information he'd been clueless about before. And it was as he was intently reading one such diary that his telephone rang, and an elderly female voice said, "If you hope to run into Aurora, try the drugstore. Not yours, your competitor's. On Main Street." That was it. The caller hung up.

  Nathan frowned. Aurora hated him so much that she was shopping at the competition? Or maybe she just wanted to avoid any chance of running into him. But she knew he ran the stores from a corporate office downtown. She knew that, right?

  So what was she doing in his rival's store? Hell, who cared what she was doing there? This was his chance to finally make her understand.

  He got to his feet, pulled on a jacket, double-checked the pocket for the tiny box he'd been carrying with him everywhere he went, and headed out. Pouring rain. Great. He turned up the collar on the coat and ducked his head.

  #

  Aurora hoped no one would recognize her. She was a doctor, for crying out loud. But this wasn't something she dared to do at the hospital. It was too private. Too personal. Too unbelievably stupid.

  She was a doctor. A doctor knew better than to get pregnant. What the hell had happened to her that night? Why had she totally neglected to even consider...

  Oh, hell, if her aunts were telling the truth—and Aurora was fairly certain they were—then she knew why. If this was meant to happen the way they said it was, then all the protection in the world wouldn't have worked, anyway. So why kick herself?

  Her eyes felt gritty and hot. She knew they were red and puffy. And she knew her hair was more mussed than combed, and that she probably looked like a drowned rat incognita, skulking through the drugstore aisles in her rain-spotted trench coat with the Druid-like hood pulled up and a pair of great big sunglasses on her nose, despite the gray skies.

  She'd cased the aisle three times, and knew exactly where the stupid little home pregnancy test kits were located. She could swoop by and snatch one without anyone knowing the difference. Paying for it was going to be another matter, but she would just have to buck up do it. Stealing went against her belief system. So she would just muddle through and figure it served her right.

  She looked around, saw no one in the aisle, lowered her head, pushed her sunglasses up on her nose, and hurried forward. Her hand flashed out and scooped up the box and she never missed a beat. She kept her quick pace up right to the end of the aisle...where she collided with a broad, strong chest and a familiar scent. A pair of hands she'd missed desperately came up to her shoulders to steady her.

  She looked up and shoved the box she'd just grabbed into the deep pocket of her raincoat.

  Nathan frowned at her. "Shoplifting, Aurora?"

  "Of course not."

  His brows rose. "So what is it you're buying that you don't want me to see?"

  She licked her lips, took a step backward, and lowered her eyes, no longer able to look into his.

  Then she noticed the tiny box that he held in his own hand. Oh, Goddess! It looked like—

  He saw her looking at it, and swept it behind his back. Then his free hand came out as he hooked a finger under her chin and tipped her head back so he could stare into her eyes. He grimaced and plucked off the glasses. Then his frown creases deepened. "Aurora, you look terrible."

  "Thanks bunches."

  "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing."

  "You've been crying." She turned away. But he caught her and turned her around, very gently. "So maybe it's not too late after all...if you still care enough to cry over me."

  She swiped self-consciously at her sore eyes. "Don't be so sure it's you I've been crying over."

  She
meant it as a barb, but worry clouded his eyes so fast it pricked her conscience. "Is something else wrong? Is Aunt Flora—?"

  "No, Nathan. Aunt Flora's fine. Really." She realized her voice had softened toward him. But his genuine concern for her aunt touched her. That he could still feel that way after what those three had pulled on him, well, that touched her even more.

  He sighed in relief, but just as quickly scanned her face with worry in his eyes. "You sure you're okay?" When he said it he touched her face with his palm, and she closed her eyes because it felt so good to feel him again.

  She wasn't okay, hadn't been okay since the last time he'd held her in his arms, but she nodded anyway.

  "Aurora, let's go somewhere and talk." His voice had softened to a raspy whisper.

  She almost nodded, then remembered the pregnancy test kit in her pocket. She couldn't tell him about that, not yet. And she couldn't even think straight until she knew the results. "I can't, Nathan."

  He lowered his head. "You're still angry with me...about what you thought you saw at my apartment"

  That reminder pricked a sore spot, and Aurora bristled. "What I thought I saw?"

  Nathan nodded. "Yeah. But all you really saw was a perfectly gorgeous woman failing to interest me in the least, no matter how she tried."

  Aurora narrowed her eyes and peered up at him.

  "I didn't want her. That's why nothing happened, Aurora. I never wanted any of them, not really."

  "You didn't?"

  He smiled gently and stroked her hair. "No. I'm just beginning to catch on. All this time... it wasn't about spells or curses or your three crazy aunts. It was about you, Aurora. I've never been able to settle for any other woman...because the only woman I ever wanted is you."

  His words took her breath away. Her heart hammered in her chest, and her knees turned to water. She sagged a little, but his strong hands came around her waist, and she clung to his shoulders and managed to remain upright. But there was still too much space between them.

  "You told me you loved me, 'Rora. I'm hoping that's still true."

  She searched his face, hesitating, and finally, bit her lip and nodded. "I've loved you since second grade," she whispered. "Maybe longer than that."

  He smiled, but it was shaky, uncertain. "Then ..." He let go of her long enough to retrieve the small box from a back pocket, and then he opened the lid. "Then marry me, Aurora."

  Aurora caught her breath. The ring was a flawless diamond surrounded by emeralds glittering up at her. Its facets sparkled and shot fire even through the tears that suddenly filled her eyes.

  "It will match those earrings I gave you for your sixteenth birthday," he said. "The ones you've kept all this time."

  "I... I didn't think you remembered."

  "I remember everything about you, 'Rora. Everything about the two of us, and how every time we got close I did something to screw it up. Something to hurt you."

  "It wasn't only you," she argued, but he silenced her with a gentle forefinger to her lips.

  "I'm never going to hurt you again, Aurora."

  She wanted to speak, but she couldn't. And he lifted a thumb to wipe the tear from her cheek.

  "So what do you say, Aurora? Will you be my wife?"

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, and his closed around her waist, but when he pulled her close, the box in her pocket pressed insistantly between them, and Aurora remembered that he still didn't know the whole truth.

  Stepping slightly away, she sniffed, reached up and stroked his hair. "Maybe. It all depends."

  His eyes looked almost panicky. "On what?"

  "How you react to what I have in my pocket."

  He frowned at her, and tilted his head to one side. Then he reached down, dipping his hand into her pocket, closing it around the box. She willed herself not to close her eyes so she could watch his face as he pulled the box out and scanned the label.

  Then he stared at her, wide-eyed. "You..." He looked at the box. Looked at her face again. "You think...?"

  "I'm almost sure," she said.

  "We're having a baby," he whispered, shaking his head in disbelief. And then he smiled and said it again, louder this time. "We're having a baby!" His arms wound around her waist and he lifted her off her feet, holding her tight to him and spinning her around. And then he lowered her down, and bent to kiss her more tenderly than any man had ever kissed any woman. And without breaking that kiss, he took the ring from the box in his hand and slipped it onto her finger.

  A smattering of applause made them draw apart suddenly, only to see that every patron in the drugstore had crowded together at the end of the aisle to watch them. Aurora wiped the tears from her face, too happy to be embarassed. He still wanted to marry her. She stared down at the glittering ring in wonder, then up into Nathan's shining eyes.

  He closed his hand around hers. "Come on." As he drew her past the registers, he pulled a twenty from a pocket, tossed it on the counter and said, "Keep the change," and then they ran together out into the pouring rain toward his car.

  But before they got to it, he stopped and turned to face her. Rain dripping off his nose, he said, "You didn't say yes."

  He seemed so vulnerable right now, all his joy on hold, awaiting her answer, the look in his eyes telling her that his very life depended on it.

  She swept one hand through his wet hair and stood on tiptoe to press her lips to his, right there on the sidewalk in the pouring rain. And then she whispered, "Yes."

  Epilogue

  Nathan paced the living room of his small apartment, and wondered how the hell Aurora could be sitting so calmly on his sofa. He glanced at his watch, then at the clock on the wall, and then at the oven timer clicking madly on the coffee table.

  "Is it time yet?" he asked her, for good measure.

  She looked up at him, smiled gently, shook her head, and bent again to her perusal of the old books and diaries Nathan had left sitting out. "So are you going to tell me what all this is about?" she asked him.

  He frowned at his watch.

  "We have time."

  He nodded, went to her, sat beside her. "I was curious. About my ancestors and about Witches in general, I guess.

  She smiled. "You are one, you know."

  Nathan's brows rose. "No. I couldn't cast a magick circle the way you did that night—wouldn't know where to begin conjuring elemental forces or any of that."

  "You have been reading, haven't you?"

  He gave her a sheepish smile, nodding once.

  "But those things aren't what make you a Witch, Nathan. They can be leamed. I can teach you. It's the magick that makes you what you are." She reached up to stroke his cheek. "And that's something you're born with. It's inside you. I felt it that night."

  "You think so?"

  She nodded, and he wondered if she could be right. He'd felt something, too. "That orb of energy would have been invisible to someone devoid of magick."

  Her eyes danced over his face, their touch palpable. And he knew he would always believe every word she said to him, even if she said the sun would rise at midnight.

  "I hope I'm not going to have to sleep with a virgin to keep it," he said with a grin. Her gaze fell, so he leaned forward to kiss her nose. "Hey, that was a joke."

  "It was a lie, Nathan. My aunts made it up. I was never really in danger of losing my magick."

  "Then why—"

  "This baby. They claim it was foretold. They say that you and I are supposed to give birth to—"

  "To the most powerful Witch ever," he finished for her. "A little girl."

  "How did you know that?"

  Nathan gave his head a shake to clear it. This was all a bit too much to believe. But believe it he did. He riffled pages from one book and another until he found the passage he'd read in one of them. "My great-great-grandmother wrote it down, right here. She said that one day a McBride would father the child who would grow to be..." He stopped and shrugged, and instead of telling her, pushed
the book into her hands so she could read it for herself. He remembered the passage. It had struck him as more moving, more memorable than anything else he'd read. It went on, about the healing gift the girl was to be born with, and how the cures for many of humanity's most dire illnesses would be discovered because of her work and her magick.

  The timer pinged. Aurora closed the book, and her eyes met Nathan's. They were dark and wide and half afraid. "It'll be all right," he told her. And he glanced at the testing kit visible in the bathroom from here. "Do you want to look? Or should I?"

  "I already know what it's going to say," she whispered.

  He went into the bathroom, lifted the stick, and examined the shape clearly defined there. "Aurora?"

  She rose and looked at him. Nathan smiled at her, and she ran into his arms. He kissed her mouth, held her close, relished the very fact that she was here with him, like this, and finally, lifted his head. "I hope she looks just like you," he told her tenderly.

  THE END

  Magic By Moonlight

  Chapter One

  It was Halloween, and she was a prisoner in her own office. Hell, what made her think she could get the goods on an organized crime boss, anyway? She was getting a swollen head. Believing her own press. M. C. Hammer, big-city private eye. Right. The truth was that she couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt more like plain old Mary Catherine Hammersmith, small-town girl.

  She paced the office, pausing to glance through the smeared window at the street below. No colors down there. It was as if Newark had gone black-and-white and shades of gray—as dismal as the sky above it. The wind blew bits of paper and clouds of dirt over the pavement. The dark sedan was still parked out there. If M. C. tried to leave, its driver would follow. If she went to the safe deposit box where she’d stashed the tape, he’d get her when she came out. If she went home... she shivered. The thought of that dark stairway up to her lonely apartment was not appealing. They could grab her there just as easily. She wasn’t even sure it was safe to get into her car. One twist of the key might make a hell of a noise and litter the streets with bits of a certain lady detective she’d grown kind of fond of.