The Sign of Seven Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  “Three then, with good, flattering lighting, and the tortuous triple mirror.”

  “I hate those bastards,” Quinn muttered.

  “We all do, but they’re a necessary evil. And see, the little kitchen back here.” With a come-ahead gesture, Layla led the way. “They kept that, through its various retail incarnations. I thought I could do quirky little vignettes every month or so. Like, ah, candles and wine on the table, some flowers—and a negligee or a cocktail dress tossed over the back of the chair. Or a box of cereal on the counter, some breakfast dishes in the sink—and a messenger- or briefcase-style handbag on the table, a pair of pumps under it. You know what I mean?”

  “Fun. Clever. Yes, I know what you mean. Let me see those chips.” Cybil snatched them from Quinn, then headed back to the front window.

  “I’ve got more,” Layla told them. “I’ve sort of whittled it down to those.”

  “And have your favorite,” Quinn finished.

  “Yeah, I do, but I want opinions. Serious opinions, because I’m as scared as I am excited about this, and I don’t want to screw it up by—”

  “This. Champagne Bubbles. Just the palest gold, really just the impression of color. Subtle, neutral, but with that punch, that fun factor. And any color you put against this will pop.”

  Lips pursed, Quinn studied the chip over Cybil’s shoulder. “She’s right. It’s great. Female, sophisticated, warm.”

  “That was my pick.” Layla closed her eyes. “I swear, that was my pick.”

  “Proving the three of us have excellent taste,” Cybil concluded. “You’re going in to apply for the business loan this week?”

  “Yeah.” Layla blew out a breath that fluttered her bangs. “Fox says it’s a slam dunk. I have references from him, Jim Hawkins, my former boss from the boutique in New York. My finances are—hah—modest, but in good order. And the town wants and needs businesses. Keep revenue local instead of sending it out to the mall and so on.”

  “It’s a good investment. You’ve got prime location here—Main Street only steps from the Square. You were raised in the business, as your parents owned a dress shop. Work experience, a canny sense of style. A very good investment. I’d like a piece of it.”

  Layla blinked at Cybil. “Sorry?”

  “My finances are healthy—not bank-loan healthy, but healthy enough to invest in a smart enterprise. What have you projected as your start-up costs?”

  “Well . . .” Layla named a figure, and Cybil nodded and wandered. “I could manage a third of that. Quinn?”

  “Yeah, I could swing a third.”

  “Are you kidding?” was all Layla could say. “Are you kidding ?”

  “Which would leave you to come up with the final third out of your modest finances or the bank loan. I’d go with the loan, not only to give yourself breathing room, but for tax purposes.” Cybil brushed back her hair. “Unless you don’t want investors.”

  “I want investors if they’re you. Oh God, this is—wait. You should think about it awhile. Seriously. You need to take some time, think about it. I don’t want you to—”

  “We have been thinking about it.”

  “And talking about it,” Quinn added. “Since you decided to go for it. Christ, Layla, look what we’ve already invested in each other, and in this town. This is only money—and as Gage would probably say, we want to ante up.”

  “I’ll make it work. I will.” Layla brushed away a tear. “I will. I know what we are to each other, but if you do this, I want it all legal and right. Fox will . . . He’ll fix it, he’ll take care of that part. I know I can make it work. Now, especially, I know I can.”

  She threw her arms around Quinn, then opened up to pull Cybil into the hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  “Not necessary. Remember what else Gage might say,” Cybil reminded her.

  “What?”

  “We could all be dead before August.” With a laugh, Cybil gave Layla a pat on the butt, then stepped back. “Have you thought of any possible names for the place yet?”

  “Again, are you kidding? This is me, here. I have a list. In fact I have three lists, and a folder. But I’m tossing them because I just thought of the perfect name.” Layla held her hands out to the sides, palms up. “Welcome to Sisters.”

  THEY SEPARATED, LAYLA TO THE OFFICE, QUINN to have lunch with Cal’s mother to discuss wedding plans, Cybil back home. She wanted to pursue the bloodstone-as-weapon angle, and push deeper into the idea of it being a fragment of a larger mystical power source.

  She liked the quiet and the solitude. It was good for thinking, reshuffling thoughts, for moving them around like puzzle pieces until she found a better fit. Because she wanted a change of venue, she brought her laptop and the file of notes she’d printed out that dealt specifically with the bloodstone down to the kitchen. With the back door and windows open to the spring air, she made iced tea, fixed a small bowl of salad. Over lunch, she reviewed her notes.

  July 7, 1652. Giles Dent (the Guardian) wore the bloodstone amulet on the night Lazarus Twisse (the Demon) led the mob it had infected to the Pagan Stone in Hawkins Wood, where Giles had a small cabin. Prior to that night, Dent had spoken of the stone, and shown it to Ann Hawkins, his lover and the mother of his triplet sons (who would be born on 7/7/1652). Ann wrote of it, briefly and cryptically, in the journals she kept after Dent sent her away (to what would become the O’Dell farm) in order to birth their sons in safety.

  When next documented, the stone had been divided into three equal parts, and was clutched in Cal Hawkins’s, Fox O’Dell’s, and Gage Turner’s fists, after they had performed their blood brother ritual, at the Pagan Stone at midnight on their shared tenth birthday (7/7/1987). The ritual—blood ritual—freed the demon for a period of seven days, every seven years, during which time it infected certain people in Hawkins Hollow, said infection causing them to perform acts of violence, even murder.

  However, as the demon was freed, the three boys gained specific powers of self-healing and psychic gifts. Weapons.

  Cybil nodded at the word she’d underscored. “Yeah, these are weapons, these are tools that kept them alive, kept them in the fight. And those weapons sprang from, or are certainly connected to, the bloodstone.”

  She reviewed her notes on Ann Hawkins’s journal entry about bringing three back to one, and her conversations—such as they’d been—with Cal, with Layla. One into three, three into one, Cybil mused and found herself mildly annoyed Ann hadn’t elected to appear to her.

  She thought she’d like to interview a ghost.

  She began to type her thoughts, using the stream-of-consciousness method that served her best, and could and would be refined later. From time to time she paused to make a quick handwritten note to herself on her pad, on some point she wanted to dig into later, or a reference area that needed a closer look.

  When she heard the front door open, she kept working—thought fleetingly: Quinn’s back early. Even when the door slammed, sharp as a shot moments later, she didn’t stop the work. Wedding tension, she supposed.

  But when the door behind her slammed, and the thumb bolt on the lock snicked, it got her attention. She saved the work—it was second nature to save the work, and her mind barely registered the automatic gesture. Over the sink, the window slid down, the slow movement somehow more threatening than the slammed door.

  She could hurt it, she reminded herself, as she rose to sidestep to the knife block on the counter. They’d hurt it before. It felt pain. Drawing the chef’s knife out of the block, she promised herself if it was in the house with her, she would damn well cause it some pain. Still, her instincts told her she’d do better outside than locked in. She reached for the thumb bolt.

  The shock ripped up her arm, had her loosing a breathless scream as she stumbled back. On a sudden, thunderous burst, the kitchen faucet gushed blood. She stepped toward the phone—help, should she need it, was only two minutes away. But when she reached for the phone, a second, mor
e violent shock jolted her.

  Scare tactics, she told herself as she began to edge out of the kitchen. Trap the lone woman in the house. Make a lot of noise, she added when the booming shook the walls, the floor, the ceiling.

  She saw the boy through the living room window. Its face was pressed against it. It grinned.

  I can’t get out, but it can’t get in, she thought. Isn’t that interesting? But as she watched, it crawled up the glass, across it, down, like some hideous bug.

  And the glass bled until it was covered with red, and with the buzzing black flies that came to drink.

  They smothered the light until the room, the house, was dark as pitch. Like being blind, she thought as her heart began to buck and kick. That’s what it wanted her to feel. It wanted to claw through her to that old, deep-seated fear. Through the booming, the buzzing, she braced a hand on the wall to guide her. She felt the warm wet run over her hand, and knew the walls bled.

  She would get out, she told herself. Into the light. She’d take the shock, she’d handle it, and she would get out. Wall gave way to stair banister, and she shuddered with relief. Nearly there.

  Something flew out of the dark, knocking her off her feet. The knife clattered uselessly across the floor. So she crawled, hands and knees. When the door flew open, the light all but blinded her. She came up like a runner off the mark.

  She plowed straight into Gage. Later, he’d think she would have gone straight through him if she could’ve managed it. He caught her, fully expecting to have a clawing, kicking, hysterical female in his hands. Instead, she looked into his eyes with her own fierce and cold.

  “Do you see it?” she demanded.

  “Yeah. Your neighbor out sweeping her front walk doesn’t. She’s waving.”

  Cybil kept a viselike grip on Gage’s arm with one hand, turned, and waved with the other. On the front window, the boy scrabbled like a spider. “Keep it up.” Cybil spaced her words evenly. “Waste all the energy you like on today’s matinee.” Deliberately she released Gage and sat on the front steps. “So,” she said to Gage, “out for a drive?”

  He stared at her for a moment, then shaking his head, sat down beside her. The boy leaped down to race around the lawn. Where it ran, blood flowed like a river. “Actually, I’d stopped in to see Fox. While I was there, he got this little buzz in the brain. A lot of static, he said, like a signal just off channel. Since Layla said you were the only one on your own, I came up to check.”

  “I’m very glad to see you.” Fire sprang up from the bloody river. “I wasn’t sure I was getting through, with our psychic Bat Signal.” To help keep herself steady, she reached out, took Gage’s hand.

  On the lawn, the thing screamed in fury. It leaped, and it dived into the stream of flaming blood.

  “Impressive exit.”

  “You’ve got balls of fucking steel,” Gage murmured.

  “A professional gambler should be able to read a bluff better than that.”

  As every inch of her began to shake, Gage took her chin in his hand, turned her face to his. “It takes balls of fucking steel to bluff like that.”

  “It feeds on fear. I was damned if I was going to give it lunch. But I’m double damned if I’m going back in the house alone, right at the moment.”

  “Do you want to go back in, or do you want to go somewhere else?”

  His tone was casual, almost careless, without a trace of there, there, honey. The last hard knot in her belly loosened, and she realized that last little one had been pride, not fear. “I want to be in Bimini, sipping a bellini on the beach.”

  “Let’s go.”

  When she laughed, he went with instinct rather than judgment, and took her mouth with his.

  Stupid, he knew it was stupid, but smart couldn’t be half as satisfying. She tasted like she looked—exotic and mysterious. She didn’t feign surprise or resistance, and instead took as he did. When he released her, she kept her eyes on his as she leaned back.

  “Well, that was no bellini in Bimini, but it was very nice.”

  “I can do better than nice.”

  “Oh, I have no doubt. But . . .” She gave his shoulder a companionable pat as she rose. “I think we’d better go inside, make sure everything’s all right in there.” She looked out over the lush green lawn, toward the front window sparkling now in the afternoon sunlight. “It probably is, but we should check.”

  “Right.” He got up to go inside with her. “You should call Fox’s office, let them know you’re okay.”

  “Yeah. In the kitchen. That’s where I was when it started.” She gestured to the living room chair lying on its side. “That must’ve been what flew across the room and knocked me down. The little bastard threw a chair at me.”

  Gage righted it, then picked up the knife. “Yours?”

  “Yeah, too bad I didn’t get to use it.” She stepped into the kitchen with him, let out a slow breath. “The back door’s closed and locked, and so’s the window. It did that. That was real. It’s best to know what’s real and what isn’t.” After rinsing the knife and sliding it back into the block, she picked up the phone to call Layla.

  Assuming she’d want it the way it was, Gage unlocked and opened both door and window.

  “I’m going to cook,” Cybil announced when she hung up the phone.

  “Fine.”

  “It’ll keep me calm and centered. I’ll need a few things, so you can drive me to the market.”

  “I can?”

  “Yes, you can. I’ll get my purse. And since I now have bellinis on the brain, we’ll stop by the liquor store and pick up some champagne.”

  “You want champagne,” he said after a beat.

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Anything else on our list of errands?”

  She only smiled. “You can bet I’m getting a pair of rubber gloves. I’ll explain on the way,” she said.

  SHE BROWSED, STUDIED, EXAMINED THE OFFERINGS in produce. She selected tomatoes with the care and deliberation he imagined a woman might use when selecting an important piece of jewelry. In the brightly lit market with its mind-melting Muzak and red dot specials, she looked like some fairy queen. Titania, maybe, he decided. Titania had been no pushover either.

  He’d expected to be irritated, or at least impatient with the household task of food shopping, but she was fascinating to watch. She had a fluid way of moving, and a look in her eyes that said she noticed everything. He wondered how many people could be terrorized by a demon, then coolly stroll behind a grocery store shopping cart.

  He had to admire that.

  She spent a full fifteen minutes over poultry, examining, rejecting chickens until she found one that somehow met her standards.

  “We’re having chicken? All this for chicken?”

  “Not just chicken.” She tossed back her hair, gave him that sidelong smile of hers. “It’s a roasted chicken made with wine, sage, garlic, balsamic—and so on. You’ll weep with joy at every bite.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Your tastebuds will. Your travels have probably taken you to New York a time or two over the years.”

  “Sure.”

  “Ever dined at Piquant?”

  “Fancy French place, Upper West.”

  “Yes, and a New York institution. The chef there was my first serious lover. He was older, French, absolutely perfect for the first serious lover of a woman of twenty.” That smile turned knowing, and just a little sultry. “He taught me quite a bit—about cooking.”

  “How much older?”

  “Considerably. He had a daughter my age. Naturally, she despised me.” She poked at a baguette. “No, I’m not settling for the bread here, not this late in the day. We’ll stop by the bakery in town. If nothing there works, I’ll just bake some.”

  “You’ll just bake some bread.”

  “If necessary. If I’m in the mood to, it can be therapeutic and satisfying.”

  “Like sex.”

  Her smile was qui
ck and easy. “Exactly.” She rolled the cart into line. Leaned on the handle. “So, who was your first serious lover?”

  She didn’t notice, or didn’t appear to care, that the woman ahead of them in line looked back over her shoulder with wide eyes. “I haven’t had one yet.”

  “Well, that’s a shame. You’ve missed all the wild passion, the bitter arguments, the mad yearnings. Sex is fun without it, but all the rest adds intensity.” Cybil smiled at the woman ahead of them. “Don’t you agree?”

  The woman flushed, moved her shoulders. “Ah, yeah, I guess. Sure.” And developed a sudden—and to Gage’s eyes, bogus—interest in the tabloids on the rack before the belt.

  “Still, women are more prone to look for all that emotion. It’s genetic—hormonal,” Cybil continued conversationally. “We’re more sexually satisfied, as a gender, when we let our emotions engage, and believe—even if the belief is false—our lover’s emotions are as well.”

  When the belt cleared enough, she began to load her purchases on. “I cook,” she told Gage, “you pay.”

  “That wasn’t mentioned.”

  She gave the bird a pat as she set it on the belt. “If you don’t like the chicken, I’ll give you a refund.”

  He watched her load. Long fingers, palely painted nails, a couple of sparkling rings. “I could lie.”

  “You won’t. You like to win, but like women and emotion and sex, the win isn’t as satisfying for you unless you play it straight.”

  He watched the items ring up, and total. “It better be damn good chicken,” he said as he pulled out his wallet.

  Four

  SHE’D BEEN RIGHT ABOUT THE CHICKEN; HE’D never had better. And he thought she’d been right to decree no discussion of her experience, or any demon-related topic during the group meal.

  It was fascinating how much other the six of them had to talk about, even though they’d been in one another’s pockets for months. Wedding plans, new business plans, books, movies, celebrity scandals, and small-town gossip bounced around the table like tennis balls. At any other time, in any other place, the gathering would have been exactly as it appeared—a group of friends and lovers enjoying each other and a perfectly prepared meal.