The Sign of Seven Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  He took her mouth, and there was nothing testing or teasing about it. He went for the heat, and what he found spiked like a fever. Her fingers curled on his and held as her lips parted. It was more demand than invitation, more challenge than surrender. Under him, her body seemed to ripple—rising waves of energy.

  Very positive.

  No seduction, she thought, no persuasion, and her body responded, rejoiced, in the possession. The honesty of sheer and undisguised lust meant equal terms. Needs trapped inside her for months raced free. She’d take more, just a little more, before herding them back into the pen.

  Hooking a leg around him, she arched her hips, deliberately pressing center to center before she pushed to reverse their positions. Now her mouth took command, took its fill as his hands fisted in her hair. When she heard the growl, she laughed against his lips. But when it sounded again, she felt ice slide down her spine.

  Slowly, she drew her lips a breath from his. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yeah.”

  She lifted her head another inch, and that ice floe spread. “We’ve got an audience.”

  The dog was massive, its brown fur matted and stained. Frothy drool dripped from its jowls as it lurched drunkenly out of the woods.

  “That isn’t Twisse,” Cybil whispered.

  “No.”

  “Meaning it’s real.”

  “Real, and rabid. How fast can you run?”

  “As fast as I need to.”

  “Get into the house. My gun’s upstairs, on the table beside the bed. Get it, get back, and shoot the damn dog. I’ll keep it off you.”

  Cybil ignored the rise of gorge at the thought of killing a dog. “My .22’s in my bag on the deck. We can both make it.”

  “Go, get inside. Don’t stop.”

  He dragged her up, gave her one hard shove toward the house. And the dog gathered itself, and charged.

  He didn’t run with her, and she didn’t allow herself to think, not even when she heard the horrible sounds behind her. With her heart slamming, she flew onto the deck, shoved her hand into her bag and closed it around the butt of her revolver.

  The scream she loosed when she turned was as much terror as an attempt to draw the dog’s attention to her. But it only continued to roll, snap, to clamp its teeth into Gage as they fought a vicious war on Cal’s pretty green grass.

  She raced back, releasing the safety as she ran.

  “Shoot it! Shoot the fucker!”

  “I can’t get a clear shot!”

  His arms, his hands, were torn and bleeding. “Goddamn it, shoot!” As he shouted, he wrenched the dog’s head up, looked straight into those madly snapping jaws. The dog’s body jerked, once, twice, as bullets plowed into its flank, and still it tried to go for the throat. On the next shot it let out a high shriek of pain, and those mad eyes went glassy. Panting, Gage shoved the weight aside, crawled over the blood-slicked grass.

  Through the haze of pain he heard weeping. Through the haze of pain he saw Cybil step up to the dying dog and fire the coup de grace into its head.

  “It wasn’t dead. It was suffering. Let me get you inside. God, you’re torn up.”

  “I’ll heal.” But he put his arm around her shoulders, let her take his weight. He made it as far as the steps before his legs gave out. “Give me a minute. I need a minute.”

  She left him slumped on the steps to dash inside. Minutes later, she rushed out again with a fresh bottle of water, a basin filled with more, and several cloths. “Should I call Cal and Fox? When Fox was hurt it helped him to have you both.”

  “No. Not that bad.”

  “Let me see. I need to see.” Quickly, efficiently, she drew off what was left of his shirt. Her breath might have shuddered at the tears and rips in his flesh, but she washed the wounds with a steady hand. “The shoulder’s bad.”

  “Unnecessary information seeing as it’s my shoulder.” He hissed as she pressed the cool, wet cloth to the wound. “Anyway, nice shooting, Tex.”

  She used the bottled water to dampen a fresh cloth, then wiped it gently over his face. “I know it hurts. I know the healing hurts almost as much as the need for it.”

  “It’s no spring picnic. Do me a favor? Get me a whiskey?”

  “All right.”

  Inside, she braced her hands on the counter a moment. She wanted to be sick, badly wanted to be sick. But she pushed down the need, shuddered her way past it. And pulling down the bottle of Jameson, poured him a generous three fingers.

  When she came back out with it, she saw that most of his surface injuries had healed, and the more serious ones had begun to close. He downed two-thirds of the whiskey she handed him in one pull, then, studying her face, held out the glass. “Down the rest, sweetheart. You look like you could use it.”

  She nodded, downed it. Then she did what she’d avoided doing. She turned and looked at what lay on the blood-stained grass. “I’ve never killed anything before. Clay pigeons, targets, shooting gallery bears. But I never put bullets into a living thing.”

  “If you hadn’t, I might be dead. That dog weighs a good eighty pounds, mostly muscle, and it was shithouse crazy.”

  “It has a collar, tags.” Steeling herself, she crossed the lawn, crouched. “An up-to-date rabies tag. It wasn’t rabid, Gage, not in the usual sense. But I guess we both knew that.”

  She straightened when Gage limped over to join her. “What do we do now?” she asked him.

  “We bury it.”

  “But . . . Gage, this was someone’s dog. This wasn’t a stray, he belonged to someone. They must be looking for him.”

  “Getting him back dead isn’t going to help. Trying to explain why you put four bullets in a household pet—one who won’t show rabies on any test—isn’t going to help.” Gage gripped her shoulders, fingers digging in for emphasis. “This is a goddamn war, do you understand? One we’ve been fighting a long time. More than dogs die, Cybil, so you’re going to have to man up. Telling some kid that Fido won’t be home for dinner because a demon infected him isn’t on the boards. We bury it, we move on.”

  “It must help not to have any feelings, any guilt or remorse.”

  “That’s right, it does. Go home. We’re done for the day.”

  “Where are you going?” she demanded when he turned away.

  “To get a damn shovel.”

  Gritting her teeth, she marched to the garden shed ahead of him, wrenched open the door.

  “I said go home.”

  “I say go to hell; we’ll see who gets where first. I put that dog down, didn’t I? So I’ll help bury him.” She wrenched down a shovel, all but threw it at Gage before grabbing another. “And here’s something else, you son of a bitch, we’re not done for the day. What happened here needs to be shared with the others. Whether you like it or not you’re part of a team. This whole ugly business has to be reported, documented, charted. Burying it isn’t enough. It’s not enough. It’s not.”

  She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, choked back a sob as the cracks in her composure widened. When she would have pushed by him, Gage grabbed her, pulled her against him.

  “Get away from me.”

  “Shut up. Just shut up.” He held firm, ignoring her struggles, and when she gave up, gave in and clung, he held her still. “You did what you had to do,” he murmured. “You did fine. You held up. Go on inside, let me finish this. You can call the others.”

  She leaned against him another moment. “We’ll finish it. We’ll bury him together. Then we’ll go call the others.”

  Seven

  SHE’D ASKED QUINN TO BRING HER A CHANGE OF clothes. After the horrible business of burying the dog, Cybil was filthy, sweaty, and stained. Rather than think about what stained her pants and shirt, she simply shoved them into a plastic bag, and once she’d showered, intended to shove that into Cal’s trash.

  She’d gone to pieces, she admitted as she stepped under the spray. She’d done what needed to be done, true enough, but then her
shaky wall of control had broken down into emotional rubble.

  So much for cool, clearheaded Cybil Kinski.

  Now, if she couldn’t manage cool, she could at least make a stab at the clearheaded.

  Was it worse or better that she’d melted down in front of Gage? Two ways of thinking, she supposed. Worse—much—for her pride, but for the overall picture, it was best they knew what made each other tick. In order to handle their end of this successfully, knowing each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and breaking points was essential.

  It was a pisser she’d broken first, but she’d accept that. Eventually.

  It was a tough swallow, she supposed, when she’d always perceived herself as the strong one. As the one who made the choices—the tough choices when necessary—and followed them through. Other people fell apart—her mother, her sister—but she held it together. She’d made damn sure of it.

  Second swallow, she admitted, was accepting that Gage was right. A dead dog wasn’t going to be the worst of it. If she couldn’t handle that, she’d be useless to the others. So she’d handle it.

  Bury it, as he said, and move on.

  When the door opened, she felt a flash of temper along with the chilly air. “Just turn around, hotshot, and go back the way you came.”

  “It’s Q. You okay?”

  The sound of her friend’s voice had tears flooding her throat again. Ruthlessly, she swallowed them down. “Better. You were quick.”

  “We headed right over. Cal and I. Fox and Layla will be along as soon as they can. What can I do?”

  Cybil turned off the spray. “Hand me a towel.” She shoved back the shower curtain and took the one Quinn held out.

  “God, Cyb, you look exhausted.”

  “It was my first day on the job as grave digger. I’m in damn good tune, but Jesus, Q, that’s awful work. On every possible level.”

  As Cybil wrapped the first towel around herself, Quinn handed her a second for her hair. “Thank God you weren’t hurt. You saved Gage’s life.”

  “I’d say it was a mutual lifesaving affair.” She glanced in the steamy mirror. Both emotional and physical weariness crumbled under the sheer weight of vanity. Who was that pale, drawn woman with the dull, bruised-looking eyes? “Oh my God. Please tell me you had the good sense to bring my makeup along with a change of clothes.”

  Reassured by the reaction, Quinn leaned a hip against the door. “How long have we been friends?”

  “I should never have doubted you.”

  “Everything’s on the bed. I’m going down to pour you a glass of wine while you get changed. Do you want anything else?”

  “I think you’ve just covered the essentials.”

  Alone, Cybil brushed, dabbed, and blended away the signs of fatigue. She changed into the fresh clothes, did a final check, then gathered up the bag holding her soiled shirt and pants. Downstairs, she shoved the bag into the kitchen garbage, then backtracked to the front deck where Quinn sat with Cal and Gage.

  Nobody, she imagined, wanted to sit on the back deck just at the moment.

  She picked up her glass of wine, sat, then smiled at Cal. “So. How was your day?”

  He answered her smile in kind, even as his patient gray eyes searched her face. “Not as eventful as yours. The Memorial Day committee met this morning to go over the final schedule for the day’s events. Wendy Krauss, who’d had a couple of glasses of wine during today’s birthday party for a league-mate, dropped a bowling ball on her foot. Broke her big toe, and a couple of teenagers got into a pushy-shovey over a dispute during a game of Foosball in the arcade.”

  “It’s constant drama in Hawkins Hollow.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  Sipping her wine, Cybil looked out over the terraced slope, the curvy land, the winding creek. “It’s a nice spot to sit after such a busy day. Your gardens are beautiful, Cal.”

  “They make me happy.”

  “Secluded spot, yet connected to the whole. You know almost everyone around here.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “You know who that dog belonged to.”

  He hesitated only a moment. “The Mullendores over on Foxwood Road. Their dog went missing day before yesterday.” As if he needed the contact, Cal leaned down to stroke a hand on Lump’s side as his dog snored at his feet. “Their place is in town. It’s a long walk for a dog from there to here, but the way Gage described him, I’d say it was the Mullendores’ Roscoe.”

  “Roscoe.” Rest in peace, she thought. “Infecting animals is a usual pattern. And I know we have a list of documented attacks by pets and wildlife in the files. Still, as you say, it’s a long way from town to here, on foot—even on four feet. No reports of sightings or attacks by a rabid dog?”

  “None.”

  “So, logically, this today was, again, target specific. The Big Evil Bastard not only infected that poor dog, but directed him here. You’re often here alone during the day,” she said to Gage. “Twisse couldn’t know I’d be here, certainly not before he infected that dog if it’s been missing for two days. So you go out, maybe take a nap in that appealing hammock Cal’s got between those maple trees, or maybe Cal goes out to cut the grass. Or Quinn takes a walk through the gardens.”

  “Any one of us could’ve been alone out there,” Cal agreed. “And it might not have been a dog you buried.”

  “A clever way to do it,” Cybil mused, “or try it, with little effort or energy on its part.”

  “Handy, having a woman with a gun around.” Gage took a slow sip of his own wine.

  “And one,” Cybil added, “who eventually comes around to the simple truth that she didn’t kill that dog. Twisse did. Just one more thing to add to the list of payback he’s earned.” She glanced toward the road. “Here come Fox and Layla.”

  “And dinner.” Quinn touched a hand to Cybil’s. “I ordered up a big salad and a couple of pizzas from Gino’s, figuring we’d want to stick with the simple and the staple tonight.”

  “Good thinking. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

  THEY DIDN’T, AS THEY OFTEN DID, TALK OF ORDINARY and easy things over the meal. The day had been too full, and the mood too urgent.

  “You’ll need to record this, Q,” Cybil began, then turned to Gage. “Gage had a dream.”

  He held her gaze another few seconds, then relayed the dream of passion and death.

  “Symbolism,” Quinn decided quickly. “That doesn’t go into the prophetic column. Obviously, no matter how good the sex might be, neither of you would just keep at it while the room burst into flame around you.”

  “Good point,” Cybil murmured.

  “Maybe it was such hot sex, they self-combusted.” Fox shrugged. “Just trying to add a little levity.”

  “Really little.” Layla poked his ribs. “We’re all stressed, so violent or, ah, sexual dreams aren’t surprising. And if you consider that . . . well, if you factor in that you, Gage, that you might be feeling somewhat—”

  “Sexually frustrated,” Quinn broke in, “and attracted to Cybil. We’re all big boys and girls, and this isn’t the time to be delicate. Sorry. But the fact is you and Cyb are healthy adults, not to mention really pretty, and you share an ability during a time of extreme stress. It’d be amazing if there weren’t some sexual vibes buzzing about.”

  “Satisfy an urge, burn in hellfire?” Cal chewed on the thought as he chewed on pizza. “I don’t think it’s that simple, even symbolically speaking. Connect on intimate levels, there are consequences. And connect to forge another separate link in the chain the six of us have already created, increases the consequences and the power.”

  “I agree with that, exactly.” With a nod of approval, Cybil smiled at Cal. “Too bad Q’s in the way, or you and I could have hooked up.”

  “Staying in the way, sister.”

  “You’re so selfish. Anyway, prophetic dreams, in my experience, are often clouded with symbolism. I think this one could go into that column, or at least be penciled int
o it.”

  “We could go upstairs now,” Gage suggested. “Test the theory.”

  “That’s a generous offer. Heroic really.” Pausing, Cybil sipped her wine. “I’ll pass. While I might be willing to sacrifice my body to sex for the good of the cause, I don’t think it’s necessary at this point.”

  “Just let me know when we’ve reached that point.”

  “You’ll be the first. What?” she demanded as Quinn slapped a hand at the air.

  “Just swatting at these damn buzzing vibes.”

  “Aren’t you the funny one? But moving on,” Cybil continued, “as the astute and handsome Caleb theorized, it’s about connections, links. And there are links every bit as intimate as sex.”

  “Still tops my scoreboard,” Fox commented. He grinned at Cybil’s stony look and reached for more pizza. “But you were saying.”

  “Gage and I experienced one of those links when we combined our particular gifts. There was power, and there were consequences. Before that shared experience, he had another on his own. Ann Hawkins.”

  Cybil paused again, but this time to watch the iridescent flash of a hummingbird outside the window as it dived to the heart of a bold red blossom. “Before I left to come here, Quinn and I logged that incident, charted and mapped it. Gage went through it again for me, for my notes, in case there were any details that dropped out in the relay. There weren’t, that I found.”

  “I thought about that off and on today,” Layla put in. “She said she’d wept for him, for Gage, and that you would, Cybil. At least that’s my interpretation. That it would matter.”

  “Tears should matter.” Cybil continued to watch as the jeweled bird darted to another blossom.

  “I wonder if tears are literal, like a magickal ingredient we’ll need, or if they’re symbolic again. Grief, joy—emotion. If it’s the emotional connection that’s important.”

  “And again, I agree exactly,” Cybil added.

  “We know emotions are part of it,” Quinn continued. “Twisse feeds on the negative—fear, hate, anger. And it seems pretty likely the positive is one of the things that kept us all from being crisped at the Pagan Stone last trip.”