“Everything.” Jay rocked back to his heels. He looked at Gandhi, adrenaline souring his gut as his soldier’s training took the fore. “Captain and I talked about where he lives. Where the doc lives.”
Gandhi pulled the camelback off his shoulders. “Can you get there?”
“Three days.” Jay took the water and went to his packs, pulling protein bars from the pockets. “It’ll take me three days.”
Gandhi wiped Jay’s knife down and handed it back to the man. “Good luck. We’ll go to the message tree.”
“And try getting through to him on the HAM. It’s in my camp.” Jay hollered back over his shoulder as he tucked the knife into its sheath while running full out beside the plane tracks.
Chapter Forty
Laylea jackknifed to chew furiously at her foot. Before waking her, the burning had worked itself into her dream. She was inches from catching the Rick’s cat when a bolt of flame shot from the German Shepherd fence into her body. The bolt concentrated into a white-hot spark simmering in the soft skin between the pads of her foot.
She blinked. She’d thought maybe a ray of sun had caused the illusion but the windows in the family room were still blacked out with shades and drapes. Woodford lifted his head. He shoved her with his muzzle but didn’t tag her foot or hip. She adjusted and the old hound dropped back to sleep.
The dark room scared her. It felt like a storm was rolling in.
She climbed out of Woodford’s bed, trying not to kick him, and downward dogged. She tilted her head in prep for shaking her muscles loose but her neck suggested that would be a bad idea. Her whole body still ached from being thrown against the tree. But that was better than being crushed by Snickers’ fall.
She trotted out of the dark family room into the darker hallway. The mom had nailed black fabric over the small window at the top of the door. Laylea listened for anybody. Bailey and Sher were continuing his lessons in her tinkering room. She wouldn’t be able to hear them in there. But she didn’t hear Clark anywhere either. Outside the house, she heard music.
She continued into the dining room and nosed her way behind a drape. Standing on the sill and shoving the blinds out of her way, she could get a view of the neighborhood. The music came from a boombox on a folding table in the street down by where the German Shepherd had lived until last year. Smoke billowed from a grill beside the table. The scent of steak and grilled zucchini was probably her imagination considering how tightly the house was locked up. But she could see Mrs. Rick handing down pieces of something to that cat. The nice pregnant lady from the rental cottage balanced a full plate of yummy on her belly to the delight of Parker’s little girl. She’d like Bailey to see the OLR swing dancing with Davis.
The smoke cleared revealing an unfamiliar face manning the grill. His pale, plump features stood out in stark contrast to the gaunt cheeks of Mr. Rick talking to him. Mr. Rick gestured toward Laylea. She ducked before remembering it was perfectly normal for a dog to look out a window. The strange man’s eyes glittered. He closed the lid of the grill and walked toward the house. Laylea was about to bark a warning when he stopped in mid-stride. His eyes glazed over. He blinked three times and turned back around to return to the party. The OLR called him to take over for Davis.
A spark of pain dropped Laylea from the sill. She licked her arms in frustration, trying to reach her aching chest just like poor Herrhund had. She growled at her body. Her teddy lizard should be in the kitchen where she’d dropped him last night after they got home. She spent the evening being iced. Instead of sticking her in a bathtub of cubes like Bailey suggested, she’d been passed from Sher to Clark to Bailey every twenty minutes while a different achy part of her was held to an icepack. Bad hip, head, left ribs, right ribs, good hip and back to the beginning. No respite when she’d curled up in the curve of Bailey’s legs and dreamt of snowstorms all night long.
Clark wasn’t in the kitchen. The mantle clock read two-thirty which meant he’d be in his closet. She picked up her teddy and waddled her way to the closet door. It opened on the second scratch.
“Hello there. You looked so comfortable with Woods I didn’t want to disturb you.” Laylea pushed the door closed behind her.
“Jay Doe. Jay Doe. This is Cap n’ LG. Come back.” He bent to crane her up to the desk.
Laylea grabbed a pencil from her cup. She wrote 2:30, risking a trace?
Clark looked at his watch. “Wow. I’d really like to hear he’s okay.”
There’s a party outside.
Clark glanced at the note. He dialed to another frequency. “The Ruckers?”
Everyone.
“Uh huh.” He wasn’t paying attention.
She barked. Can I have more drugs yet?
He automatically reached out for her bad hip. “You hurting?”
Laylea tilted her head that was half duh and half not willing to admit how much she hurt to a man who didn’t really understand pain.
“Can you find Mom? I’d like to stay here a little longer.”
Laylea leaned into his scratching. She wrote He knows your frequencies. Be safe. And crawled onto Clark’s offered arm. He cracked the door for her but before she left she barked at him.
He finally looked down at her note. “Don’t worry. I’ll just listen.”
Laylea crossed the hall. She set her teddy down to stand on the door and scratch with both paws.
“Hey Laylea.” Bailey cracked the door. He scooped her up in one very warm hand. She dropped her jaw to laugh at his face again.
He ignored her, stepping back in among the coats to shut the door. He had to duck under the bar and shelf to push aside the inner wall. He held her in front as he squeezed sideways a few feet between the closet wall and the sand-filled inner buffer. At the final door, he set her down to release the secret catch. Laylea hopped over the two-foot-high threshold and turned to watch Bailey squeeze himself a quadrant at a time into the tinkering room.
What had been a large second bedroom when they’d bought the house was now a coat closet and walk-in pantry sized safe room. The walls were decorated with silver flame-retardant blankets nailed to which were dozens of examples of Sher’s tech. Some of it was designed to enhance her magical abilities. Some of it, she thought, would work for anyone. Some were just straight-up bombs in fancy packaging.
Sher extinguished the flame in her palm. She looked like Bailey, like Kathrine Coogan. “How bad?”
Laylea played dead.
Sher shook her head and her hair and features returned to the familiar fake ones the family was used to. She packed strange objects away in a giant metal-sided fishing tackle case.
“Bailey, you want to try one more time?”
“Mom, I’m trying all the time. I don’t know how to fix it.” Bailey held helpless blue hands out to his side.
“I told you to change your hair. Your hair.”
“I’ve got hair all over, Mom. Want to see?”
Bailey was covered head to toe in blue hair. The hair on his head stood up in straight shocks of indigo. The normal crystal blue of his eyes laughed out of a face of marbled teal. The hands covering his giggling mouth matched his face while the nails stood out sapphire against his skin.
“No!” Sher headed for the passageway.
Bailey caught Laylea’s eye. He flashed to his normal coloring. Laylea let out a chatter of barks to get Sher’s attention. Bailey flashed back to blue.
“Well, come on, Lee. Are you drinking enough water?”
Bailey scooped Laylea up to look her in the eyes. “You and me, right? I trust you.”
She licked his nose and then pulled her lips back in a grimace. She gagged until Sher turned to take her from her brother.
Sher pounded on the radio closet wall and door as they headed for the kitchen. “Jay can handle it. Trust him.”
Bailey gathered ice packs from the freezer while the mom cut up a pill and shoved half into a cherry tomato.
On the counter, Laylea scratched out A whole half?
“Yes. You’ll get a half every time Clark comes out of that closet. It seems like you’ve got full-body whiplash. It hurts but you’ll heal.” She held the tomato out for Laylea. “If I go out to see this kid I’m gonna want to hunt down Hardknock too.”
Laylea wrote I would have been crushed.
Sher glanced over as she dried the utensils in the dish rack. “You very well could have been.”
“Could have been what?” Clark held the swinging door for Woodford who couldn’t push it open anymore.
Bailey answered, “Hardknock could have crushed Laylea.”
Laylea started, No. Hard— But Bailey wrapped her in an armload of ice packs.
Clark took the dishes from Sher as she dried them. “The neighbors are barbecuing in the street.”
“The Ruckers?”
“Yeah, the boys are out there. So are the Ricks and the renters and the new guy.”
“From the German Shepherd house?” Sher perked up. “I haven’t had a chance to shoe him yet.”
“There’s that. I was thinking more about how it might be conspicuous if we don’t show up. They might start talking about all the shades being down.”
“Even if they notice it won’t occur to anyone to talk about it.” Sher spread her wet towel out on the oven handle and took a fresh one from the drawer.
Clark looked up from massaging Woodford’s hips. “You woogied them?”
“Dad, she woogied the house.”
“I can’t woogie things—I don’t know where you get your words.” Sher shook her head.
“If I can’t remember words I should get to make them up.” Clark handed a stack of Tupperware off to Bailey.
“Mom,” the kid turned to the pantry. “If no one can notice the house, why do we have to have the shades all drawn?”
“If someone manages to get close enough, they’ll be able to see in, my blue son.”
“So just add an early warning system.” He shut the pantry door before his hastily stacked containers could fall out. “Like all the door bells ring if someone crosses the barrier.”
“That is a very interesting idea.” Sher handed the last coffee mug to Clark. “But again, I can’t woogie things.”
“Bails, you should figure out how to do that.” Clark spun Sher to the kitchen door. “Come on. I want to be back on the radio by 9:30.”
“You think I’m gonna hang out with our neighbors for seven hours?” Sher pulled away from him to examine Laylea’s eyes. “Your pupils are a little constricted. You have a headache?”
Laylea nodded.
“Okay,” her eyes rolled when she looked up at her azure son. “Read or nap. No movies. No roughhousing.” She turned to look down at Woodford who put all his energy into raising his leg for a belly rub. “Yeah, you got that, old man?”
Sher bent to give his belly and chest some good loving.
“What? Blue boy isn’t coming with us?” Clark kicked the rubber stopper under the swinging door so Woodford could get at his water bowl.
“Gotta stay home and puppysit, Dad.”
“Gotta stay home and study for your Calc test, Bails.”
Bailey carried Laylea past his dad and headed up the stairs. “That’s what I said.”
Sher joined Clark in the dour hallway. “He’s staying blue to avoid a math test?”
Clark took their coats from the tree. “Oh no. A girl.”
“He’s avoiding a girl?” Sher paused with one arm in the jacket. “How did you find out?”
“How do you think?”
She pulled the coat on the rest of the way and reached for the door. “Thomas.”
“Yep. Hey, boy.” Woodford had joined them. He stood facing the tree, his nose on his leash. “You can come.” Clark flipped the leash off the tree and clipped it onto the worn collar Woodford had gotten for Laylea’s third adoptionversary. “Thomas says that Kylie told him Ginny wants Bailey to ask her—are we not going?”
Sher stood with her hand on the knob. “I can’t open it.”
Clark flipped the deadbolt. The door swung in and Woodford waddled out onto the porch.
Sher stepped up to the doorframe and stopped.
“We don’t have to go.” Clark offered.
He heard a little panic in her voice, “I can’t. I can’t move any farther than this.” She took a step back and tried again.
Clark turned away from the door, “A mother witch’s instincts? Maybe Bailey isn’t faking it.”
The concern melted from Sher’s face. She took off her coat and hung it back on the rack. “That makes so much sense. I can’t leave my child in danger. There is a chance he’s done something internally.
“We should cut him and see if he bleeds blue.”
“Get out.” Sher shoved him away. “I will stay and be mother of the year.”
“Mother of the decade,” Clark amended. He kissed her. “And make sure he’s studying for the test.”
“I will.” She stopped him for another kiss. “Thank goodness you’re so smart.”
“You’ll think about how to help the kid?”
Sher nodded. “And Hardknock.”
One more kiss and Clark was out the door. He paused in the sizzle at the edge of the magic barrier wondering why his wife didn’t think she could magic things. He’d love to meet her family if only to figure out how they’d screwed her up so badly.
Beyond the barrier, Swing Swing Swing blasted through the small neighborhood and Woodford’s nose went into overdrive. The dog pulled him straight for the grill set up in the cul-de-sac. Laylea hadn’t exaggerated. The entire neighborhood was out. The Ricks, whose first names never settled in his long-term memory, had their cat on a sawhorse table. With a new leg, Davis danced the pregnant renter around a card table covered with salads and steaks and drinks.
“Nice foot, Davis!” Clark gave him a thumbs up.
“Thanks, Mr. H. This is Vasavi.” He stumbled on the name and checked in with the lady to see that he’d pronounced it correctly. She nodded. “Vasavi, that’s Clark.”
The man at the grill had been talking to Parker’s little girl. His head popped up at Clark’s name.
“Clark Hillen! So glad you made it out.” He waved him over with a grill fork. “I’m Derrick.”
Derrick wiped his right hand on the apron cover his crisp jeans and offered it to Clark.
“Nice to meet you Derrick.” Clark transferred the leash to his left. “I’m Clark. Is this your party?”
The man shook his hand brusquely. He had a firm grip but the skin was awfully cold for him standing over a grill.
“Yes.” He grabbed a Melmac plate from the stack beside him. “Yes, I meant to come knock on your door but kept getting distracted.”
“That happens.” Clark took the plate. “Did you just move in?”
“I’m very much looking forward to meeting your wife. Good to have a veterinarian right next door.”
“Oh,” The lack of an answer put him in mind of Sher conversing with a certain receptionist. “Do you have a pet?”
“Hm?” Derrick looked away at the food table. “Not yet. When I get one though. Now your son. With his friend visiting from Chicago and this meat grilling I thought we’d see him out here long ago. I’m dying to hear his version of how he saved Davis’ life.”
Clark’s eyes flashed to Letitia Rucker. She knew Bailey didn’t like to talk about that. Davis had even stopped thanking him. Why would they tell a complete stranger?
“We have a touch of the flu in the house.” Clark noticed Derrick’s pulse and temperature both rose and a little color filtered into his pasty skin at that though his face showed the appropriate sympathy.
“Sorry to hear that. Well, we’re not worried about germs out here in the fresh cold air so you let them know they’re welcome to come get some food. Need to keep their strength up.”
“I guess we’ll get their strength up when they can keep food down. But thanks.”
The OLR appeared at his elbow wi
th the renters in tow. “Clark, I’d like you to meet Vasavi and Jon. Vasavi is in advertising which she hates. Jon was an electrician and now teaches golf. Isn’t that fascinating?”
She dragged Clark away from Derrick to show off her great granddaughter and tell him how very pleased she was Bailey had chosen Chicago. “I need somebody trustworthy to look after Davis.”
Won’t let you in DePaul if you fail the calculus final tomorrow.
“I’m not taking the calculus final tomorrow.” Bailey adjusted the ice pack on Laylea’s hip.
Y you’re blue? She dropped the pencil to chew at her arm.
“Totes!” Bailey clawed her ears. “You’re so smart.”
Laylea shook off his hands. B!S! You’re afraid Ginny’s little sister is gonna ask you to the band bash.
“No.” He flipped open the paper bag covered book. “Thomas said he’d tell me what’s on it and I’ll take it in makeup on Tuesday.”
Thomas is no better at math than you! Laylea bent double to stare at her belly.
“Yeah, but Thomas isn’t going pre-med.”
She grabbed the pencil to scribble, Who cares what he studies. He’s getting away from his dad!
“Hell yeah!” Bailey held a palm down by Laylea for her to low five.
Her face hit his palm as she dropped to the bed, licking furiously at her feet.
“You really hurt that bad?”
Laylea howled. She shoved Bailey’s hand out of the way to write, wish I human.
“So Mom could woogie you.”
Laylea snuggled onto the pile of Bailey’s crossed legs. She tucked her nose into the bend of one knee.
“Maybe I can help.”
Laylea raised her ears. Bailey massaged the muscles along her spine.
“The pain of whiplash is from the muscles swelling to protect the shock to your spine and whatever tearing occurred, right? So if you promise to take it easy and rest, we can reduce the swelling. That might help.”
Laylea raised her head and turned sad eyes on her brother.
“Okay.” He rubbed his hands together. “I’ll just tell your blood to keep moving.”
The tightness and burning eased away as Bailey worked his way down her body. Laylea breathed deeply into his hands, overwhelmed with relief. He finished with a hand resting over her muzzle and she lifted her nose to trap the hand under her face. In her own magical way, she dropped instantly into a dream. No bolts of fire. No pain. Just warm sunlight on her face and a cool wind under her wings.
WereHuman - The Witch's Daughter: Consortium Battle book 1 (Wyrdos) Page 28
