Nora Roberts - The Pagan Stone

“Break it up.” Gage bumped Fox with his shoulder to nudge him clear of the pot.

“Hasn’t had his first cup yet.” Fox gave Layla a last squeeze before picking up the Coke he’d already opened. “He’s bitchy until.”

“Do you want me to fix you some breakfast?” Layla offered. “We’ve got time before we have to leave for the office.”

“Aren’t you Mary Sunshine?” On this grouchy pronouncement, Gage pulled a box of cereal out of the cupboard, then dug in for a handful. “I’m good.” Then he narrowed his eyes as Fox opened the paper. “I walked down for that, I get it first.”

“I’m just checking the box scores, Mr. Happy. Any Pop-Tarts around here?”

“God, you’re pathetic.”

“Man, you’re eating Froot Loops out of the box. Pot, kettle.”

With a frown, Gage glanced down. So he was. And since the coffee kicked the worst of his crabbiness down, he looked back at Layla with an easy smile. “Hey, good morning, Layla. Did you say something about fixing breakfast?”

She laughed. “Good morning, Gage. I believe I did mention that, in a weak moment. But since I am feeling pretty sunny, I’ll follow through.”

“Great. Thanks. While you are, I’ll tell you guys about the visitor I had on my morning stroll.”

Layla froze with her hand on the handle of the refrigerator. “It came back?”

“Not it. She. Though technically maybe a ghost is an it. I haven’t given it much thought.”

“Ann Hawkins.” Fox tossed the paper aside. “What’s the word?”

Topping off his coffee, Gage told them.

“Everyone’s seen her now, one way or the other, but Cybil.” Layla set a platter of French toast on the breakfast bar.

“Yeah, I bet that’ll tick her off. Cybil, that is,” Gage added as he forked up two slices.

“Blood and fire. There’s sure been a lot of that, in reality and in dreams. And that’s what put the bloodstone back together. That was Cybil’s brainstorm,” Fox remembered. “Maybe she’ll have one about this.”

“I’ll fill her in when she gets here later today.”

“Sooner’s better.” With a generous hand, Fox poured syrup on his stack of French toast. “Layla and I will swing by the house before we go to the office.”

“She’s just going to want me to go through it all again when she gets here.”

“Still.” Fox sampled a bite, grinned at Layla. “This is great.”

“Well, it’s not Pop-Tarts.”

“Better. Are you sure you don’t want me to go into the bank with you this afternoon? Being you, your paperwork’s in order, but-”

“I’m fine. You’ve got a busy schedule today. Plus, with my two investors, I’m not applying for a big, fat loan. More of a slim, efficient one.”

So they segued, Gage thought, from ghosts to interest rates. He tuned them out, started to scan the headlines in the paper he’d stolen back from Fox. Then caught a stray comment.

“Cybil and Quinn are investing in your shop?”

“Yeah.” Layla’s smile radiated like sunlight. “It’s great. I hope it’s great for them-I’m going to make it great for them. It’s just wonderful, and staggering, that they’d have that kind of faith in me. You know what that’s like. You and Fox and Cal have always had that.”

He supposed he did, just as he supposed this was one more tangible aspect of how the six of them were entwined. Ann had said he wasn’t alone. None of them were, he realized. Maybe it was that, just that, that would weigh the odds in their favor.

When he had the house to himself, he spent an hour answering and composing e-mails. He had a contact in Europe, a Professor Linz, whose expertise was demonology and lore. He was full of theories and a lot of verbose rhetoric, but he had come through with what Gage considered salient information.

And the more data you tossed into the hat, the better the chance the winning ticket was in there. It wouldn’t hurt to get Linz ’s take on Cybil’s newest hypothesis. Was the bloodstone- their bloodstone-a fragment of some larger whole, some mythical, magickal power source?

Even as he wrote the post, he shook his head. If anyone outside of his tight circle of friends knew he spent a great deal of his time searching out information on demons, they’d laugh their asses off. Then again, those outside that circle who knew him, only saw what he let them see. Not one of them reached the level he’d call friend.

Acquaintances, players, bedmates. Sometimes they won his money, sometimes he won theirs. Maybe he’d buy them a drink, or they’d stand him a round or two. And the women-away from the tables-they’d give each other a few hours, maybe a few days if it suited both of them.

Easy come, easy go.

And why did that suddenly seem more pathetic than a grown man wanting a Pop-Tart for breakfast?

Annoyed with himself, he combed his hands through his hair, tipped back in the chair. He did as he pleased, and lived as he wanted. Even coming here, facing this, was a choice he’d made. If he didn’t make it past the first week of July, that would be too damn bad. But he couldn’t complain. He’d had thirty-one years, and he’d seen the world on his own terms. From time to time, he’d lived pretty damn high. He’d rather live, and work his way back up to that high a few more times. A few more rolls of the dice, a few more hands dealt. But if not, he’d take his losses.

He’d already accomplished the most important goal of his life. He’d gotten out of the Hollow. And for fifteen years and counting, when someone raised a fist to him, he hit back, harder.

The old man had been drunk that night, Gage remembered. Filthy drunk after falling face-first off the shaky wagon he’d managed to ride for a handful of months. The old man was always worse when he fell off than when he waved that wagon on and kept stumbling down the road.

Summer, Gage thought. The kind of August night where even the air sweated. The place was clean, because the old man had been since April. But being up on the third floor of the bowling center meant that sweaty air just rose and rose until it squatted there, laughing at the constant whirl of the window AC. Even after midnight, the whole place felt wet, so the minute he stepped in, he wished he’d crashed at Cal’s or Fox’s.

But he’d had a sort of a date, the sort where a guy had to peel off from his pals if he wanted any kind of a chance to score.

He figured his father was in bed, sleeping or trying to, so he toed off his shoes before heading into the kitchen. There was a pitcher half full of iced tea, the instant crap that always tasted too sweet or too bitter no matter how you doctored it up. But he drank down two glasses before looking for something to kill the aftertaste.

He wished he had pizza. The alley and the grill were closed, so no chance there. He found a half a meatball sub, surely several days old. But small matters such as these didn’t concern teenage boys.

He ate it cold, standing over the sink.

He cleaned up after himself. He remembered too clearly what the apartment smelled like when his father was drinking heavily. Bad food, old garbage, sweat, stale whiskey and smoke. It was nice that, despite the heat, the place smelled normal. Not as good as Cal ’s house or Fox’s. There were always candles or flowers or those girly dishes of petals and scent there. And the female aroma he guessed was just skin touched with lotions and sprayed with perfume.

This place was a dump compared, not the kind of place he’d want to bring a date, he thought with a glance around. But it was good enough, for now. The furniture was old and tired, and the walls could use some new paint. Maybe when it cooled off in the fall, he and the old man could slap some on.