“Will grow up with two hunters for parents,” Carson said firmly. “I don’t know how we figure this out yet, but we will. And you don’t quit.”
“I’ll think about it,” Tally said cautiously, but doubt filled her. It seemed impossible to raise a child if both of them were hunting. Donna and Oscar managed it because he wasn’t a hunter, and provided nearly all the stability in their lives; money, a parent that was home every night, and a career that the neighbors considered respectable.
She felt Carson’s silent laugh, by the reverberations of his chest against her shoulders. “Stubborn,” he breathed. “I love it.”
Now as they walked down the alley, trailing Jimmy and Miguel, Tally reconsidered yet again all the reasons why quitting was a good idea. “I’m thinking about it seriously,” she told Donna, answering her curious question. “I can’t see how else to make it work. You and Oscar seem to have it figured out and he’s not a hunter. He doesn’t even want to be a hunter.”
“Is that what you think? That we have it figured out?’ Donna gave a dry laugh and kicked at a discarded Coke bottle, making it roll along the dirt with a scratchy sound. “I’m lucky to be home at night to tuck them into bed. They speak Spanish almost better than they speak English, because Juanita spends more time with them than I do. I’m just lucky that Oscar thinks hunting is so fascinating. If he thought it was frivolous, or that I should be a proper mother and stay home and raise the girls, I don’t know what I would do.”
“Because you wouldn’t give up the hunting?” Tally asked curiously.
“I don’t know if I could give it up,” Donna said with a frank tone. “But neither can I imagine giving up the girls. It’s not a choice I ever want to make.” She pushed her hands deeper into her pockets.
Tally made herself speak the words. “Oscar thinks you’re having an affair.”
“He spoke to you about it?” Donna laughed again. It was still dry. “Because I’m out all hours of the night, I suppose.”
“He thinks it’s Jimmy.”
Donna looked at her. “Do you?”
“I don’t care,” Tally said truthfully. “But I don’t ever want you to have to choose between hunting and your kids. Just like you said, the choice would kill you. If Oscar thought he had grounds, or proof…” Her heart was pounding. Thinking about having to make that sort of choice herself, even in theory, made her feel a little sick. “Do you see what I’m saying?” she asked Donna.
Donna swallowed and Tally could hear the little click her throat made. “Yes,” she said, almost soundlessly.
There was a soft whistle ahead and they looked up. Miguel was standing in the middle of the alley, waving them to him.
They picked up a speed. A bit. Tally couldn’t walk very fast without getting the peculiar stitch in her side. She pressed the side of her belly where the stitch usually formed and massaged it as they hurried as fast as she could manage toward Miguel.
His long Pancho Villa moustache wiggled with excitement as they got closer. “There’s one in the basement. Asleep.” He spoke quietly, even though there was absolutely no one around to hear him.
“Just one?” Tally asked. Unease touched her. “There should be three or four of them at least.”
“Just the one,” Miguel confirmed. “The bastardos figured out how to work locks. Jimmy’s picking it now.”
“The cellar has a door?” Tally asked, her unease leaping.
“With a lock,” Miguel said and winked.
A door with a lock was nothing to get excited about, but Tally could feel her heart trying to slam its way out of her chest. The hairs on the back of her neck were rising again.
“Something’s wrong. I don’t like this,” she said. “Get Jimmy out,” she told Miguel.
“It’s just a little lock, Benita,” Miguel said.
“You heard her,” Donna said. “I back Tally’s instincts over your little lock any time of day. Get him out.”
Miguel shrugged. “Okaaaay.” But before he could even shift his weight toward the open doorway of the building, Jimmy came sprinting through.
He leapt down the steps. “Run! Get the fuck away!” He grabbed their arms, one in each hand, and hauled them down the alley. Miguel ran ahead.
Barely five seconds passed, then there was a low rumble behind them and a whoosh of hot air. The rumble turned into a deafening roar as the building exploded.
Tally tried to turn to look, but Jimmy hauled her around and kept her on her feet. “Keep moving,” he snapped. “Or get your head ripped off by flying metal or something.”
She kept moving, but her breath was coming fast and hard. The stitch was back.
Jimmy pushed them both into a deep recess on a building two down from the explosion. The door the recess protected was boarded up and someone had slapped a wrestling poster on it. But the recess was deep enough they could hide from the debris that was rolling and flying past. An entire sheet of corrugated iron flipped and dropped in front of them and Tally shivered. Jimmy had been right to keep running.
It felt like they huddled in the doorway for years, but it was probably only a minute or two at the most before Jimmy looked around the doorway and then stepped slowly out.
Miguel strolled down the alley toward them, grinning. “Ka-boom!” he said, sounding like he was having enormous fun.
Donna threw herself against Jimmy and he didn’t seem to mind. He held her in his arms and looked at Tally over the top of Donna’s head. “The lock on the door was rigged. It was the weight of the tumblers turning that warned me. I didn’t turn them the full way, but gravity would have rolled them the rest. The whole basement nest was a trap.”
Tally pushed her hair back over her shoulders and away from her face. Her hand was trembling. “They’re trying to anticipate us. They’re hunting us.”
Jimmy nodded. “They sacrificed one of their own. They were that sure this would work. I looked in the basement window before I started on the door. I think it was the one they call Bero, in there. The big, slow one that doesn’t seem to know how to fly straight.”
Tally looked at the slowly roiling dust billowing down the alley from the place where the building had been. In the distance, sirens sounded. Many of them.
“We should vamoose before the cops get here,” Miguel said uneasily. As an illegal, he had more reason to be wary of authority than any of them.
Tally held up her hand. “Wait…” she said slowly. There was something tickling at the back of her mind, but her thoughts were moving like sludge. She couldn’t seem to reason properly, or focus on what she was thinking about. It had to be the shock of the explosion. Then the fleeting thought reemerged. “How did they rig the room?” she demanded.
Miguel was edging away from them with jittery movements. “Come on,” he coaxed.
“The usual way, I suppose,” Jimmy said slowly.
“How?” Tally repeated. “They have claws. No fingers. No opposable thumb.”
Jimmy answered slowly, as if he didn’t like the answer any more than she did. “Something with an opposable thumb must have helped them.”
Donna shuddered and her arms tightened around his neck. She turned her head to look at Tally. “Jimmy is the only one who can pick locks.”
Jimmy’s expression was eloquent. Tally knew what he was thinking. He had been targeted, just as she had on Halloween.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, hiding her reaction. She fully intended to go home and stay there.
Forever.
Christmas
Doroth
Tally woke to the sensation of warmth and a sharp tug of pleasure. She roused slowly, letting herself float in the warm liquid sensations. But the pleasure was building, drawing her to full consciousness.
Carson was playing with her breast, drawing the nipple in between his lips and stroking it with his tongue. It was still dark outside and she could hear snow spitting against the window. But it was warm in their little bedroom. Warm and good. The heavy snow cl
ouds outside were almost incandescent white, making the room glow in a milky, ghostly light.
She sighed and Carson lifted his head. “You are awake,” he said, sounding satisfied. “Good.” The hot length of his body pressed against hers as he leaned over her swollen belly carefully and devoured the other breast. They were both naked under the quilts.
The sharp tugs and stroking of his teeth made her gasp. Her body fired up, tingling. Her clitoris throbbed.
Tally reached out and curled her hand around his silken, heated cock and stroked it, making Carson hiss. “Tit for tat,” she told him.
“Literally,” he murmured, his lips brushing her breast and gasped again as she ran her fingers along his length just the way he liked it most. “No fair.”
“All’s fair,” she whispered back, and pulled at his hip, trying to bring him over her.
“Again?” Carson asked. “Last night wasn’t enough for you?” But he didn’t sound displeased at all.
Tally smiled. “It’s all your fault. You’re a horny devil and now I feel neglected if you don’t take care of me at least once a day.”
“I would believe that if you weren’t in the habit of tearing my jeans open whenever the mood strikes you. And it has been striking you more and more, the bigger your belly gets. That isn’t an official complaint, by the way.”
His hand was stroking her thigh, fluttering against the soft inner flesh, and her legs fell open, inviting him to explore deeper. “Good,” she whispered.
Carson kissed her, his tongue pressing gently against hers. As the kiss deepened and lengthened, his fingers slid into the moist crevasse between her thighs, sliding from her pussy to her clit, making her moan into his mouth. He pressed against her clit, not quite stroking, making her hips lift up, aching for more.
He turned her onto her side, her back to him, and Tally’s excitement zoomed. He barely had to touch her knees to bring them up toward her chest, hugging the curve of her belly. His fingers stroked her cleft once more, then were replaced by the thick head of his cock.
He slid into her with no resistance at all. Her body folded around him and squeezed, and she sighed with contentment.
“No, you don’t get off that easily,” Carson murmured, his lips by her ear. He pushed against her upper knee, moving it back so it was straighter than the other, but still thrusting against the sheet, steadying her. “That’s better,” he said as he slid his hand between her hip and the bottom of her abdomen, pressing it up against her clitoris once more.
“Oh…” Tally breathed as he flexed his hips and thrust into her. Pleasure flared harder than before. She was astonishingly close to climaxing. It was true that since she had known she was pregnant, her greed for sex, for pleasure, for more and more, seemed unquenchable. She couldn’t get enough of him or the thrilling way he made her feel.
Her orgasm burst over her, bright and fizzy and breath-snatching. But Carson wasn’t done with her yet and he thrust hard and steadily, his fingers teasing her clit, building in her another climax. This one was driving from her toes, gathering in a way that she knew would stop her breath and steal her sight. She writhed, anticipating the searing bolts that would shoot through her nerves.
It hit with more impact than she had guessed and her whole body squeezed and held for throbbing moments as the orgasm peaked. Tally ground out a deep groan as it released her and Carson gripped her hip, driving himself into her in the hard, deep thrusts that told her he was coming. His breath was ragged as he neared his own climax.
Then with one last thrust, he stiffened and groaned heavily, his fingers tightening on her hip. Then he relaxed and curled his long body around hers, staying inside her. He slid his arm under her head and his other hand rested against the baby. “He’s kicking again.”
“She kicks when I come.”
“Protest?”
“Enjoyment?” Tally smiled into the softly milky light. “She’ll have both our genes. She’ll like sex.”
“Good,” Carson said shortly and kissed her cheek. “It’ll be dawn in an hour or so. Sleep. I’ll get you breakfast in bed.”
“You’re too good to me,” Tally told him.
“That’s your Christmas present,” Carson said. “Breakfast in bed – so make the most of it.”
“I didn’t get you anything,” Tally said. “That’s what we agreed.”
“Yes, you did,” Carson told her. His voice was rough, and his hand on her belly shifted, drawing her attention to the baby.
Tally sent the child in her warm thoughts, as she drifted off to sleep again with Carson’s cheek against her temple.
She woke with a start. The back of her neck was prickling painfully. Tally lay still, trying to detect what had woken her so thoroughly. From the light in the room, she had only been asleep for a few minutes. Dawn was still an hour away.
Then she heard the noise from downstairs and her heart leapt in her chest. It was a snuffling, inhuman sound. An animal sound.
Carson was asleep on his back, his arm still under her cheek.
Tally rose from the bed, moving carefully so she didn’t wake him. She reached for the satin robe where Carson had flung it over the chair and tied it closed. Then, moving even more quietly, she reached into the closet for her working coat where it had hung unused for the last four weeks, and withdrew her sword. The soft, warm grip was familiar and welcome. It felt like strength was running into her from the touch of the sword. She straightened up and still barefoot, eased her way out of the bedroom and onto the landing.
The snuffling sound was unmistakable now. Someone…something…was in the kitchen.
She gripped the sword harder and moved down the stairs one step at a time. Whatever it was in there, they were making too much noise to hear her if she moved quietly. She stepped over the step that always creaked, gripping the bannister and lowering herself down to the next level carefully, then down to the living room level.
She picked up the phone and dialed, counting out each number by touch, her fingertip sliding over the round holes one by one. She listened for an answer and when she heard the sleepy response, whispered, “It’s Tally. Listen.” She lay the phone on the chair that sat beneath it, without disconnecting.
Then she moved on to the kitchen. At the swing door, she paused, her fingers against the door, weighing her options. Her heart was beating hard and her whole body was tensed, but for the first time in weeks she felt alive, in a way that all the great sex in the world couldn’t provide.
Still moving silently, she pushed the swing door open enough to slip through, and stepped into the kitchen. The two big windows, one over the sink and the other over the optimistically labelled “nook”, that couldn’t fit a table no matter how small a table they found, filled the kitchen with the same ghostly light as the bedroom, only more of it.
Plus there was another source of light. A gargoyle was standing with a claw hooked over the fridge door handle, holding it open. He was examining the contents of the fridge, rooting through it with the tip of a claw on his other front leg. The interior light from the fridge spilled over the shiny linoleum floor, highlighting clawed feet, the claws yellow and streaked like aged teeth, and a grey-brown hide that hung wrinkled and lapped over the skeleton and meat beneath.
This one was smaller than any other gargoyle Tally had ever seen. He was squatted down on his hind legs like they often sat, and his head only came to the top of the fridge. His snout was wrinkled as he sniffed out scents that displeased him.
Then he leaned forward and took an extra-long sniff of the uncooked turkey sitting on the bottom shelf. They had splurged on that turkey – their one treat for Christmas. As the gargoyle reached out with one claw, to hook the turkey right off the plate, Tally brought the sword up in front of her, the high guard position. “Touch that, and I’ll gut you and add you to the tray.”
The gargoyle turned on his feet to face her. It wasn’t a startled movement. He had been expecting her. He shuffled out of the way of the fridge door,
moving awkwardly, because even a miniature gargoyle took up most of the floor space in the room. He let the door close, which shut off the light.
Tally blinked, her night sight ruined. Of course, that had probably been part of the plan. She reached out quickly and threw on the overhead light.
The gargoyle blinked in turn, his big eyelids wrinkling as they moved. The inner lids closed over his eyes, making the orange irises look muddy brown and dimming the glow that came from them.
The front of his chunky body was smeared in dark, viscous liquid that was nearly dry. Tally swallowed. It was blood. The clan had been hunting again.
“From your size, I’m guessing you’re the one they call Valdeg,” she said, keeping her sword up. Nick had been the source of all her knowledge about the clan, for he had studied them for decades before they had been killed the first time.
Valdeg opened his lips and the thick black tongue inside swept over them, leaving a shiny trail of ooze. The top of his lip curled back, showing the long, sharp teeth beneath. The claw came up and pointed at her.
“Ye be Natalia Connors, spawn of Peter Grey.” Valdeg’s voice was blurred, like a metal tub of gravel was rolling around inside his mouth, and interfering with his tongue. The words were oddly formed, but that was because Valdeg’s lips weren’t flexible and his tongue didn’t work like a human’s did. It was only because of his deformity that he could speak human words at all, for Valdeg had the gargoyle equivalent of a cleft palate; his lips and upper palate were softer than a normal gargoyle’s, which gave him just enough dexterity to speak human languages. He was smaller because he didn’t eat like the others. He was a scavenger. He couldn’t process fresh kill.
“Ye be the lass that hunts with the Sherwood,” Valdeg finished. The lilt and the words were strongly Scottish, for that was where Valdeg had learned to speak, when humans and gargoyles worked together, before the gargoyles had betrayed them to demons. That time was long before even Nick had been born, wending back to ancient times when tribes ruled the lands and the Romans were just crossing the Tiber to build their new city.
Harvest of Holidays Page 4
