For now, though, I was more than ready to take a quick shower and fall into bed—a real bed, with real sheets and real pillows. As I stripped off my clothes, the baby fluttered within me, giving me several strong kicks.
“That’s right, little one.” I rubbed my bump, hoping she could feel how much I loved her already. “Things are looking up, aren’t they? Look at this—we’re in a house with people who want to keep us safe. We have a job to do, baby, but that’s okay. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure I bring you into the best world possible, no matter what I have to do to make it happen.”
Seamus
“Everyone’s gathered, love. They’re all waiting for you.” I brushed a kiss over her hair. She’d pulled it up into a knot on the back of her head, the same way she’d worn it the first time I’d seen her—in this time, anyway. My very own ice princess.
“I’m not sure ice princess is the way I want you to think of me.” She mock-pouted, and I laughed. Sometimes I forgot how easily she read my thoughts.
“I promise, darlin’, it’s all in admiration. You have to admit, you do have a way of freezing people out.”
She considered. “People, perhaps. But not you.”
“Ah, no. Maybe not now. But there is something awfully appealing about watching you hold yourself aloof and cool with everyone else, and then knowing when it’s just us, you melt into . . .” I ran my hand down her back to caress the curve of her lovely ass. “Molten lava.”
Her cheeks went pink, as I’d hoped. “I think your metaphor has some flaws, Seamus. Ice doesn’t melt into lava.”
“Maybe not. But it works, doesn’t it? Better than saying you’re like the steam in a whistling kettle, as you might be if I was stricter in my interpretation.”
“I guess so.” She glanced down at the tablet in her hand, skimming the screen with one perfect finger. “I hope I’m ready for this.”
“You should be. It’s been put off twice already. If we don’t get down to it and work out all the details, the Hive won’t have to work very hard to beat us, will they?”
“True.” She frowned at the screen, and then her brow smoothed. “Seamus, with the vessel—with Joy here—we have a real shot at this. I think up until now, I’ve been bullshitting this whole thing, as Rafe would say. But now I think it’s advantage team white hat.” She closed her eyes and exhaled. “Last night, when Julia . . . when Lucas walked in carrying her, I was full of despair. I thought maybe I’m a delusional idiot. Maybe I should let everyone go home, rather than watch us get picked off one by one. But then this morning, the vessel was here.” She smiled a little. “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning. Just as I’d told Rafe.”
I slid my arms around her waist, careful not to rumple her clothes or her hair, as I knew that how she looked for this little speech was important to her. “I think you’re right, darlin’. And with the plans you’ve put into place, I think we’re in the best position we could be at this moment.”
“I hope so.” She took a deep breath and blew it out, resting her forehead on my shoulder. “All right. Let’s go down.”
Everyone except Michael and his mother were assembled in the living room once again. This morning’s meeting had been haphazard and rambling, since Seth, who was apparently an angel—he called himself one of the host—had done most of the talking. He’d explained to all of us a little more about the history of the vessel, whom we now knew was this girl named Joy. There had been a lot of excitement, and I understood. Having Joy here was the equivalent of the Americans getting the atom bomb back in World War II, I thought.
Now, however, everyone had had hours to become used to the idea of Joy, who was the vessel and Seth, who was apparently the angel and Colby . . . well, I still wasn’t quite clear on the role the farm boy would play, although Cathryn had mentioned something vague about him being a protector. Whatever he was, he stuck close to Joy and looked at the rest of us as though we might change him into a toad at any second. I rather thought that if he didn’t settle down, Nell might do just that. I had a hunch that it wouldn’t be wise to test the patience of that particular powerful witch.
When Cathryn and I entered the room, everyone went silent. I took my seat with Daeglan, Sionnach and Cillian on one of the long, broad sofas. Veronica, who was sitting behind us next to Zoe, leaned forward to pat my shoulder.
“She’s doing all right, isn’t she? Did you make her rest this afternoon?”
I shot her a rueful grin. “I did my best. Not sure she slept, but I made her put down the bloody tablet for an hour.”
“Good for you.” She winked at me and sat back as Cathryn cleared her throat and glanced our way, one fine eyebrow raised in mild reproach. I made a show of clamping shut my lips and turning an imaginary lock. She rolled her eyes before she began to speak.
“I want to begin tonight by taking a moment to remember Julia. Some of you never met her, and I’m sorry that you won’t have that opportunity now. Those of us who did know her enjoyed her irreverent sense of humor, her loyal friendship and her dedication to doing good whenever she could. When I met Julia in Cape May, I realized that she was exactly the reason Carruthers had been established. She had extraordinary gifts, she needed help to understand and channel them constructively, and she was eager to be part of something larger than herself.
“Tomorrow morning, before we begin the training sessions we’re all going to need, we will take some time to say a proper good-bye to our friend. She didn’t have any close family, so we’re going to lay her to rest here, on Veronica’s property, at least for the time being. I ask all of you to join us then.”
There was a minute of silence before Cathryn drew in another deep breath and spoke again.
“Thank you for your patience with me. As most of you know, I’ve been working for a long time on a plan to combat the Hive and derail their attempt to perform the ritual again. A few pieces fell into place early on, and then others became clearer once Veronica joined us, sharing the unique knowledge of the situation that she possesses.” She paused, glancing around the room. “Every aspect of what we intend to do was determined by the talents of our team members—our army—and that’s all of you. Have no doubt that whatever role you’re assigned to play is one you are able to do. I have every confidence in your abilities.”
Next to me, Daeglan sighed. “Oh, shit.” Sionnach grinned, but I poked him in the ribs and glared.
“But I’m not standing up here to reassure you or to boost your confidence. Not that some of you need that boost.” She focused her eyes on me again, and then on Rafe. “No, tonight we’re going to talk about the plan, the one I’ve been crafting for a long time. And the one that we will be putting into effect in a matter of days.”
A ripple of anticipation or dread—I couldn’t tell which—spread across the group. Cathryn ignored it.
“There will be three prongs. Please listen carefully to me and hold your questions until I finish.” She frowned down at her tablet, which I thought had to be a stalling measure, as she knew this thing inside and out.
“The first prong is our time travel contingent. Thanks to the ability that Seamus brings to the table, we can send a group back to 1967 and work to stop the original ritual from taking place. If we can succeed here, it gives us an enormous advantage over the Hive in the here and now.”
Sionnach began to say something, but Cathryn pierced her with an icy stare. “Let me anticipate some of the questions and concerns you may have about this part of the battle. Will changing what happened on that day fifty years ago change other aspects of the world? I’m familiar with the butterfly effect, believe me. That’s why Lucas is going to be part of the time travel team. He’ll actually be heading it up, as the lead agent.”
Jackie sucked in an audible breath, but she didn’t interrupt.
“His role will be to maintain the thread of continuity, which in plain English means that he’ll make sure that nothing is changed other than the perfo
rmance of the ritual. It won’t be easy for him to do, and it will involve holding certain elements of time in tension. But we can’t risk having something undone that would potentially change what’s going on in the present. If Lucas is successful, as I believe he will be, the only change will be that the door will not open at all in 1967, and the demon who has spearheaded so much of the evil and upheaval since that day won’t get through the portal.”
“Does that mean people who died because of the actions of that demon will be . . . undead? That is, alive?” It was Joss, whom I privately thought of as Rafe’s ghost ex-girlfriend, who risked Cathryn’s disapproval to ask the question. Apparently, being dead gave a person a pass, because Cathryn responded without hesitation.
“We don’t know, Jocelyn. Lucas has done some investigation, and we believe that unless it was the demon himself who caused your death, your, ah, situation would remain unchanged.”
I bit back an inappropriately-timed grin. Only my girl could get away with calling the state of being dead a situation.
“This time-travel is going to be a very delicate mission, of course. The team will need to avoid detection while they’re in 1967, and they will also have to blend in. That’s why we’re sending Veronica back with them.”
The vampire smiled broadly. “Who better to serve as a tour guide than someone who happened to have been there the first time around?”
Cathryn nodded. “Because we don’t know exactly how they’re going to prevent the original ritual, we’re trying to send the team with options. The first option will be Rafe, who has the ability to manipulate the minds of those who set up the whole thing in the first place. We’re hoping he can mentally persuade them to decide against performing it. Second, we’re sending Sionnach, because she has the ability to shift into anyone. We think she might be able to use that to our side’s advantage, if they can take out any key Hive members whom she could then impersonate. Sionnach also is skilled at spinning illusions, which may come in handy.”
“Just the five of them?” Nell’s voice floated forward. “What about protection? Shouldn’t Tasmyn or I go with them?”
“Or I could go.” Marica Lacusta spoke up, too.
Cathryn shook her head. “I need you three here for another part of the job. But don’t worry. I’m sending Jocelyn.”
“Joss?” Jackie sounded bewildered. “No offense to undead Americans, Joss, but how the hell is she going to help protect them?”
Cathryn coughed a little. “When she time-travels backward, Jocelyn will regain corporeability. She will once again have a solid body and access to all of her not-inconsiderable powers.”
“How do you know?” Sionnach dared to speak up again. “What if she stays ghostly, or worse, just fades away?”
“We’ve been testing her over the past few weeks, since Seamus and I got back from Europe. He took her backward in time a bit. We experimented, and we learned that if we took her back to a time that predated her death, she regained her form. We don’t know the whys or the wherefores, although Lucas has some thoughts that he can share with you if you’re interested. Later, that is.” She added a little steel to her voice. “I still have a great deal to get through here.”
Cathryn took another deep breath before plunging on. “The time-travelers will depart in five days, to give them enough time to work on their mission but hopefully not so much time that they’ll risk detection. Their mission, aside from actually stopping the ritual, whether that’s by manipulation, illusion or other means—will also be to prevent the death of the person who was mistakenly believed to be the vessel in 1967. Veronica has specifically requested that we make every attempt to save this girl’s life, and we will do that.
“Meanwhile, the rest of us—the other two prongs—will work to prepare for our tasks.
“Regardless of the success of the time team, we believe the Hive will still plan to move ahead with the ritual in 2017 as planned. Since time runs concurrently, according to Seamus, everything in our own time will proceed as it is now, with the 2017 version occurring at the same time that the 1967 one does—or, with any luck, does not. They won’t have the knowledge of our time travel or a memory of the first one being disrupted until they are nearly in the midst of the 2017 attempt. So, our second team will be our offense, with the goal of stopping them from completing that ritual here, in this time, and if they somehow do complete it, that team will then attempt to contain the effects by holding the portal closed for as long as possible.”
“Why do I not like where this is going?” Tasmyn was sitting next to Veronica, and I heard her muttered words.
“That’s where our witch power comes in. Nell, Tasmyn . . . and Marica will join forces to do everything they can to make sure the portal doesn’t open—or doesn’t stay opened. Daeglan will be with them and provide invisibility. This way, they can get close enough for their powers to be as strong as possible.”
Silence greeted this bit of information. Daeglan, who had already been consulted about his role, shifted on the seat and reached for Sionnach’s hand. She threaded her fingers with his in what I imagined was an unusual display of affection.
“Last but not least—certainly not least—we have our vessel.” Cathryn paused to give everyone a chance to look over at Joy, who was clearly uneasy, sitting on a love seat between Colby and Seth. “Joy’s role in this will change everything—we think. Colby, Jackie, Seth and I—and perhaps some others—will be supporting Joy as she channels an immense power that will destroy the Hive once and for all. We recently acquired an . . . object that Seth tells me will assist us in helping Joy as much as we can. I don’t know the details yet, but we expect it to give us a tremendous advantage. ” She let that sink for a moment. “Some of you know that one of the most troubling bits of knowledge we’ve picked up in the past year was that there are powerful Hive leaders—Seth tells us they are Nephilim—all over the world. They have established small drone camps on every continent, and they plan to launch attacks that will result in massive death, destruction and chaos to pave the way for the release of the demons. They will begin the age of destruction on the day of the ritual. We’ve tried to neutralize these drones where we can, but there’s no way we’ve gotten them all. Carruthers is far-reaching, but we could never hope to stop a widespread attack of this magnitude. Joy will not only be able to do that . . . she will also ensure that the portal is sealed for all time. That means that once this battle is won, there won’t be any clean up. No little fires—literal or hypothetical—to extinguish. She’ll make all the drones . . . superfluous.” Cathryn chewed the side of her lip. “I won’t say that we’ll have peace on earth and harmony for all, but we’ll have taken out a major player in the war against good.”
“What about me?” Colby the farm boy asked. “You’ve assigned everyone else a task.”
“You have your job, Colby. You’re Joy’s protector. We’re going to be vulnerable while Joy is active as the vessel, especially as we believe that the Hive will still attempt to take her away from us, for their own purposes. Your only mission is to keep her safe, however you can.”
He looked grim as he nodded. I could imagine why.
“If everything goes smoothly, we’ll all be back here on the evening of April 7th, alive and well and ready to celebrate.” Cathryn let those words settle among the crowd. “But no matter what happens, we all have one goal. We have to stop the Hive at all costs. We must prevent the demons from returning to this plane. We have to render the drones ineffective and powerless, so that they can’t try to accomplish their mission through wholesale destruction. We must do whatever it takes to annihilate the Hive.
“We have to save tomorrow.”
Nell
“Do you ever get the sense that Cathryn has an inflated sense of what we can do?” Tasmyn came to stand next to me, hugging her arms around her waist. “She says these things as though she’s asking us to . . . I don’t know, bake a cake or organize a surprise party.” She lifted her chin in a fair appr
oximation of our boss’s demeanor. “‘Meanwhile, Nell and Tasmyn will use their power to hold shut the door as the Hive tries to open it, if the others haven’t succeeded. After they finish with that, they will both fly around the earth counter to its rotation so that they can stop time from moving forward.’”
I smiled. “Let’s not give her any ideas.”
“I’m going to be there to help you.” I hadn’t heard Marica join us, but she stood between Tas and me now, her dark eyes dancing between us. “There’s nothing that the three of us can’t do together.”
Tasmyn’s gaze met mine, and I dropped my guards so that she could hear my thoughts. Uh oh. Here comes the crazy.
“Marica.” Tasmyn spoke slowly and with careful emphasis. “Nell and I are glad that you’re going to be here to lend your power to the cause. We know that you’re going to be . . . helpful.” She paused. “But we need to be clear about a few things. You understand now that Nell and I aren’t your daughters, right? We’re not related to you at all, mystically or otherwise?”
The Romanian witch tilted her head. “Of course, I know that. It was one of the first things I had to accept once I was back with my family. I know that my daughter died at birth. I visit her grave every week.”
Tasmyn winced. “I’m sorry about that. I’m sure it was painful for you.”
“It was, and that loss was what drove me to find a replacement. But I’m better now.” She nodded, perhaps as much to assure herself as to convince us. “You have to admit, though, that we did some incredible things together, each of us. Our powers mesh well. Think what we can do now, with all three of us.”
“Marica.” Her cousin Nicoleta came into the room and approached us. “It’s time for you to have a rest now, and we should meditate. If you’re going to be prepared for what’s required of you, sleep is a necessity.” The woman glanced at Tasmyn and me in turn. “You’ll excuse us, ladies?”
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