by Лори Девоти
The weight disappeared and so did Jack.
I moved to my feet. The birder or, rather, the old woman who I had thought was a birder, stood hidden behind Bern, only the tip of her canvas bag and the corner of her purple shorts visible. Both were shaking.
With a sigh, Bubbe left me and went to comfort her customer. I made out a few murmured words, a spell, I guessed, and the woman seemed fine. . or at least she didn't scream when Bern stepped away, leaving me a clear view of her.
She still looked like a birder to me. Her shorts came to her knees and she wore practical white-laced shoes. Her shirt was pink with a robin on the front, and her bag bulged with what could easily have been a stash of handguns or bombs.
I took a step, thinking to question her if no one else would. Mel dropped the staff in front of me, rapped me in the gut.
"I know her. Bubbe knows her. This entire neighborhood knows her. She was Harmony's principal for four years. She is not a birder-"
The woman reached into the bag.
My muscles coiled, ready.
She pulled out a pair of binoculars and slipped the cord attached to them around her neck.
Mel sighed. "Okay, She isn't one of your birders. She watches birds. The Arboretum is across the street. Lots of people watch birds there."
I kept vigilant, focused on the octogenarian. Older, perhaps, than some, but aside from that she looked exactly like the birders who had killed my mother.
Mel tapped me in the stomach again. "We're here because of Amazons, remember? Besides, you can't jump on every old lady with a pair of binoculars and leather walkers."
Amazons. Right, we were here because Tess had heard the Amazons were planning an attack on Mel's.
Still, I glanced again at the old woman in the robin shirt. "Check her bag," I ordered.
Mel rolled her eyes but marched off. After a few gentle words to the woman, she returned with her canvas bag. "Organic trail mix, an aluminum bottle of water, and a field guide. Satisfied?"
I wasn't. "Open the bottle." If I was going to do this right, I wasn't trusting anything.
Turning her back so the woman couldn't see what she was doing, Mel twisted the lid off the bottle and took a sniff. Her nose twitched.
I leaned forward, ready.
"You're right. It's not water. It's lemonade, with a kick. . vodka, I'd guess." She screwed the lid back on and stared at me. "Okay?"
Still not completely satisfied, I waved her away.
In a few minutes the could-be birder was gone.
Leaving me to face an annoyed Bubbe and an amused Mel.
I passed both of them. At the corner of the building I took a right and kept walking. I walked the entire perimeter of the property before coming back to where the rest of them waited.
I gestured for Bern to join me and headed toward the gym/cafeteria. The building should be vacant; I wanted to make sure it was.
Mel and her grandmother stopped me. Standing shoulder to shoulder, the family resemblance was striking, or maybe it was just the grim set of their faces.
"You think perhaps we could discuss what is happening, what our plan is? And how we can accomplish it without assaulting any more customers?" Mel twisted the staff she still held in the dirt.
I stared her down. "Easy. Close down. Send everyone home."
With Bern right behind me, I continued on into the cafeteria.
We moved as quickly as we could through the building, hitting the main floor. . cafeteria, kitchen, and gym first, then moving to the basement where the showers and a few offices were. The place was empty. It didn't appear anyone had been inside since my last visit.
Reassured, we exited out the front. Mel was waiting for me. "Let's get Bubbe to put some kind of ward on the doors and windows," I told her.
She twisted the staff parallel, then perpendicular to her body. "You think we hadn't done that before?"
"We got in," I reminded her.
"We know you, and for reasons I'm beginning to doubt, trust you." She stalked toward the main building.
I followed her into the basement where the rest of our group, along with Mateo, Dana, and both babies had gathered. Bern stayed outside and once I appeared, Lao joined her. They would watch for anything suspicious while the rest of us talked.
Tess started, repeating what she had told me about the safe camp's plans. When Padia's name came up, Kale jumped in to explain who she was.
As Tess got to the part of her story where she said Cleo had been captured, all eyes turned to Bubbe.
She held out her hands. "My daughter, she will prevail." And that was it. The old priestess seemed more worried with watching how Mateo held his son than with whether Cleo would survive being captured by the tribe.
I took this as a good sign.
"Zery wants us to close the shop-all of our businesses." Mel had stood against the wall most of the conversation, only now stepping closer. Dana, sitting cross-legged on the floor and holding Pisto, looked up, her interest clear.
"For how long? We have a class tomorrow." She glanced at Mel. "Mateo has been filling in for Cleo."
I stared at a dot on the wall for the count of three. Artemis forbid the mommy half of her "mommy and me" class missed a few situps.
"I think that is wise." Bubbe, agreeing with me again.
I looked at the old priestess, wondering why exactly she and Mel didn't get along better.
Dana started to object, but Bubbe stood her ground. "This is not human business, not what has happened here recently. We do not have the right to pull them into it, to risk they be hurt." She looked at me then, her gaze old, heavy, and judging.
I glanced at Mel. She raised an unsympathetic brow.
"What about the babies?" Tess, her voice meek, glanced around the group. "Shouldn't we get them somewhere else? Take them somewhere safe?"
It was a good point, one I hadn't thought of before. I looked at Mateo. "She's right. You and Dana need to leave with the babies while things are still calm."
"Except. . " Tess held up her hand like she was in some human schoolroom.
I acknowledged her with a stare.
"Padia. . she mentioned him. . " Tess shifted her attention to Mateo, then back at me.". . had a description. The camp will be looking for him, know he has the baby."
Mateo stood. He looked strange, so tall and long limbed, holding a tiny infant pressed to his shoulder. "I am also the most qualified to protect my son."
"Avoiding the enemy is the best protection. Would you risk him being attacked because your pride said to stay with him?" If the tribe knew of Mateo and were looking for him, separating him and Andres made the most sense.
The bird son snapped his lips together. I could tell he didn't like my answer but also saw the wisdom in what I said.
"Who wouldn't they be looking for?" I asked, glancing around the room.
Tess raised her hand again. "Who would you least suspect?"
Hearth-keepers, the most likely of any of the talent groups to be entrusted with the care of a child, but the least likely to be given something others would kill for. And Andres wasn't a child to these Amazons, he was something to kill and kill for.
Thea would never expect me to send him with unaccompanied hearth-keepers. She wouldn't be watching for them; she'd be watching for me or Mateo.
Maybe not the perfect plan, but the best we had.
We sent Dana and Tess off in one of Mel's cars. No one at the safe camp, or Padia had seen the vehicle. Dana, like Mel, had a cell phone so we would be able to contact them when everything was over.
With them gone, the rest of us got ready for battle.
Mel closed her shop, telling her office manager a family emergency had come up and asking her to call the shop's clients to reschedule-from home.
With the shop empty and no fitness or fortune-telling customers on the property, we got to work.
Bubbe and Mel set wards. If anything bigger than a seagull entered Mel's property, they would know it. The person o
r animal wouldn't, however, know that we knew. Sitting in the middle of a city like Madison, we couldn't just zap trespassers. Which meant no deadly force-Mel insisted and I let her win.
I doubted she would have set the wards I wanted anyway, making my arguments rather pointless.
We set up watch and central command in the gym. But knowing the basement or living quarters of the main shop was where they would expect to find the baby, Jack and I hid there. I took the basement, Cleo's workout room. Jack took the living quarters, Mel's bedroom.
Then we waited.
I have never been good at waiting. Playing sentry is an important part of warrior training but not one I'd excelled at. . but, then, queens didn't have to be good at waiting and guarding; our role was usually more active. Pursue and defeat, that was my preference.
After three hours I was battling myself to keep from climbing the walls. I'd given up on just sitting, waiting, and listening, and allowed myself the luxury of lifting the occasional silent weight as I paced.
At four hours, I began to wonder if somehow I'd missed something, if there might be a battle raging or one already raged, that hidden in the basement, I'd somehow missed. Bubbe's and Mel's wards were supposed to notify me. I wasn't sure how that notification was to come, but I hadn't felt so much as a twinge or seen anything that could be taken as a message.
At five hours, I crept out of the room and up the stairs. First I checked the front doors. There was no sign of anyone, friend or foe, on the front lawn, which meant either my group was staying hidden as ordered or they'd all been killed and toted off while I paced alone in the basement.
I kept going, past the shop level to the upstairs where Mel lived and Jack was supposed to be waiting too.
I checked the kitchen and living room as I walked past. . empty. I didn't open the rooms with doors, not until I came to Mel's.
The door wasn't latched; I pushed it open with my foot. The room was small and sparsely decorated-just a few childhood scribbles of Harmony's taped to the walls, a staff hanging over the bed, and a bag that I guessed contained either priestess or artisan tools hanging from a peg behind the door. The room had a second door too, one that led to the fire escape. It was open.
I cursed softly, sure now that I'd missed something.
I grabbed Mel's staff, hoping I'd find someone on my side who could still use it.
Then I stepped out into the noon sun and was blinded by the flash of steel.
My practice with Jack, fresh in my mind and my instincts, I ducked and kicked. My foot found its target; I was rewarded with a grunt. I grabbed blindly for the head I knew would be low now and pulled it toward my stomach. Then, falling backward, I used my leg to catapult my attacker up and over the low railing of the fire escape.
Back on my feet, I prepared to jump down on the body lying on the ground below. . the male body. . Jack.
Mateo stepped from behind a tree, looked down at the son I'd just thrown two stories, then up at me.
With a curse, I vaulted over the railing, landing on the ground beside them in a crouch.
"Now you see the benefits of wings over teeth." The bird son nudged Jack with his boot.
Jack rolled over, blood streamed from one nostril. He touched two fingers to his nose and groaned. "Again," he muttered.
I held my breath of relief, then covered my reaction by prodding him with the staff. "I didn't cheat this time."
He grunted.
Feeling generous, I looked away, leaving him to get back to a stand-alone, unobserved and with at least a pretense of dignity.
I addressed Mateo. "What have you seen?"
"Nada. Until Jack tried to fly without wings." He glanced over my shoulder, to where Jack was still struggling to stand. His expression was a mix of mocking amusement and disappointment.
"And the others?" I asked.
He glanced at me, his brown eyes annoyed. "I have seen no one, heard nothing."
Jack was standing now. He walked to the fire escape and scuttled up the stairs. In a few minutes he was back, four knives shoved into his belt and two in his hands. Blood was smeared across his face where he had wiped at it. His shoulders were squared and there was a determination in his stride.
"I haven't seen or heard a thing. . except you," he said. His eyes held a challenge, a request for a rematch. Something I'd gladly give him when all this was over and settled.
We split up. Mateo took the west side of the property line; Jack and I headed east. At the walkway between the two buildings we split again, Jack going between the two, me past and around the far side of the gym.
I found Bern there, silent and still as a statue. She didn't look as if she'd moved an inch in hours, didn't move more than her eyes when I approached, but at my signal she fell into line beside me.
We walked the full eastern length, out to Monroe Street, then cut across the front yard and made our way back to the shop.
Mateo, Lao, Mel, Jack, Kale, and Bubbe were waiting on the shop's steps.
No one had heard or seen anything in the six hours that had passed.
"Do you think Tess heard wrong? Perhaps the attack wasn't planned for today," Mel offered, but I could see the unease in her eyes and I understood it. I'd ordered us to come here rather than storming the camp and taking Padia.
"Perhaps the plan is not real." Bubbe held a smooth stone in her hand; she rubbed it in a circular motion with her thumb as she spoke.
"When did the birders attack?" Jack reminded us. "When would you plan an attack?"
Night. . the answer to both.
I sighed. Which meant we had to wait more.
Accepting this, we downgraded our status and left Jack and Bubbe outside this time to watch for signs of the tribe. Bubbe went to the front yard and proceeded to work through a variety of yoga poses. . a strange sight given her age and choice of clothing-a bright red full-length dress with lots of embroidery. As she hiked the skirt to her knees to perform one pose, I turned and watched Jack climb the large oak that grew alongside the shop. Once in the branches, he was completely hidden, at least from my point of view.
With our lookouts positioned, the rest of us went inside, to the shop level. Mateo headed to the phone.
Placing my hand on top of the receiver, I stopped him. "What are you doing?"
"Calling to check on my son."
Realizing we did need to let Tess and Dana know what had happened or not happened here, I removed my hand.
Dana must have answered. He asked about Andres, then cursed in Spanish.
"How long?" His complexion darkened. "Si, find them." He glared at me.
I jerked the phone from his hand.
Dana was on the other end blathering something about a diaper change and going to the bathroom now. Then she whispered, "They aren't here. I know this is where she said she was going, but they aren't here."
It took five minutes to figure out what had happened.
They'd left Mel's and driven to a truck stop between here and Illinois. They'd been there the entire time. At first they had stayed together, Dana following Tess when she took Andres for a diaper change or even once to buy a can of formula, but as the time went on and there was no sign anyone had followed them, they'd relaxed some too.
When Tess had said she was going to buy diapers and then change Andres, Dana, busy feeding her own son, had let her go alone.
That had been ten minutes earlier.
While we waited, Dana searched the truck stop and came up empty. Then she checked the lot and saw the car was gone too.
I slammed down the receiver.
Mateo was already moving; by the time I got into the front yard he'd already shifted and was flying toward the truck stop.
Yelling for Bern and Mel to follow me, I ran toward the truck.
Chapter 22
Mateo beat us to the truck stop; I could see him circling overhead. A few locals saw him too.
Binoculars and rifles with scopes were out and pointed at the sky. A fight almost bro
ke out when someone, thinking he was an endangered species, threatened to call Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
I stood in the open, in clear view, hoping Mateo would see we had arrived and back off.
He did, but not before plummeting toward the building, shrieking as he fell. Ten feet from the ground he pulled back abruptly and soared back into the sky.
As I watched, he flew south. He'd be waiting for us, and he was pissed.
And I couldn't blame him.
I went looking for Dana.
She was sitting in a stained faded-blue booth with two baby carriers and one baby: Pisto. And she was crying. Not horrible gulping sobs, worse-steady slow drips.
And that was before she knew I was there. She was looking down, holding a pacifier to her son's mouth when I walked in. Her chin and the hand holding the pacifier were both shaking.
Mel stopped me from going further, cutting me off and approaching the distraught hearth-keeper herself. Dana fell against her.
"I know you told us to stay together, but it had been so long and we had all this stuff. . and it's hard, but that's not an excuse-"
Mel shoved the girl's face against her chest, cutting off whatever other blubbering admittance she had to make.
I turned on my heel and left the building.
When I got outside, the rest of our group was waiting. They were in a four-door domestic that looked like it got about five miles to the gallon.
Mel stepped into the parking lot, loaded down with a baby bag and empty carrier. Dana trailed behind her, with the other carrier and her son.
"Makis's," Mel commented, looking at the car. "He doesn't drive it much. Left it with us to watch while he was gone. I didn't realize anyone knew where I kept the keys." She glared at Bubbe, who was barely visible behind the wheel.
She looked like every old lady you curse when trying to make it across town in a hurry. Except as Mel marched forward, she gunned the engine in warning.
Mel rapped on the window.
While she and her grandmother argued, I addressed Dana. Her tears were gone, or at least they weren't flowing down her cheeks now. I took the baby carrier and led her to a park bench that sat in the grass a few feet from the parking lot.
