Debora Geary: A Nomadic Witch

His body begging for just a few more moments in the chair, Marcus began to croon, a tuneless melody that seemed to come from the night air. Slowly, words seeped into memory.

“O sleep, my baby, you are sharing

With the sun in rest repairing …

Sho-heensho…”

Thus had Moira always sung to the babies in her arms. And for this small girl, like all the rest, the words were Irish magic.

Blessing whatever goddess had first invented lullabies, Marcus shifted carefully in the chair. It wasn’t an easy job, wedging a large man and a tiny baby into some semblance of comfort. Holding his breath, he dislodged the small toes that had somehow wedged in under his ribs. There. That just might do it.

Tucked into his arm, wispy hair tickling his chin, the child wiggled one more time-and then let out a belch that belonged to a linebacker. Marcus choked back his bark of laughter. Waking her now would be pure lunacy.

Slowly, he laid his head back against the chair-and rejoiced. Still at last. It seemed like an excellent place to close his eyes.

Jamie pushed away from the mammoth table that acted as Realm’s command center, shaking his head as cracking sounds ran up and down his spine. Nat would not be pleased-ten hours at a computer desk was bad for karmic energy flows.

And it made your butt numb.

He looked over at the only other member of his team who was still awake. “Find anything?”

The scowl on Daniel’s face was plenty of answer. Jamie looked down at his code again-he’d run every tweak on Nell’s scans he could think of. Time to stop banging his head against virtual bricks.

They had answers-they just didn’t like them.

Rustling sounds from the couch had them both looking, but it was just a pint-sized set of toes seeking warmth. Jamie grinned as Mia shifted in her sleep to make room for his heat-seeking baby. All the triplets loved Kenna, but his most fiery niece was by far the most smitten.

Daniel grinned. “Like attracts like.”

Jamie tried not to groan-Mia hadn’t slept well until she started kindergarten. He hoped it wasn’t contagious. “Think we should try to move them upstairs?”

“Move a sleeping baby?” His brother-in-law looked like he’d suggested soaking the place in gasoline and lighting a match.

Okay, dumb idea. Jamie shrugged. “Fine. I’ll pull out an air mattress.” Mia was an awesome babysitter, but she didn’t have the magic necessary to shut down Kenna’s middle-of-the-night tricks. Hell, Jamie didn’t always have the magic necessary-he’d had to port in Aervyn two nights ago for backup.

Five-year-olds did not wake up well at 3 a.m.

Daniel grimaced and stretched his arms overhead. “Got two mattresses? I think my wife’s still in Nova Scotia.”

Maybe. Jamie mentally searched the contents of the garage for the camping supplies-and felt muffled laughter hit his mind channels. Unless you cleaned up since the last time I was in your garage, just give up now, brother mine.

It wasn’t a total disaster-he knew exactly where his motorcycle was. The rest was just creatively distributed. And his sister obviously wasn’t in Fisher’s Cove anymore.

Nell’s chuckles multiplied, audible now as she made her way down the stairs. Jamie ported the cookies and beer she carried over to the desk.

Daniel, older and wiser, went to grab the sleeping bags. “Four asleep at home?”

“Six. Sierra’s crashed in with the girls, and Caro’s taken over the couch.” Nell kissed her daughter’s forehead and settled into a chair. “Something about making bunny pancakes with Aervyn in the morning.”

“We have babysitters?” Her husband wiggled his eyebrows. “Jamie, port us someplace private, would you?”

Jamie grabbed a beer. “There’s an air mattress in the garage somewhere.” Nothing in the brother manual said he had to make his sister’s sex life easy.

Nell laughed and snagged a cookie, kissing her husband on the way back to her chair. “Catch me up-did you figure out how Adele got in?”

Daniel grinned. “Not the same way I did.”

Jamie winced-it still messed seriously with his pride that anyone had ever busted into Realm, but at least the first guy to do it had owned serious coding chops. And the first thing they’d hired Daniel to do afterward was to fix the holes he’d used to get in. Realm had been invincible ever since.

Until their shiny gold visitor had shown up.

Nell looked his direction. Jamie sighed and told her the answer she wouldn’t like any better than he had. “If it wasn’t coding skills, then it had to be magic.”

His sister just rolled her eyes and reached for another cookie. Tell me something I don’t know.

It was hard to be at your best at 2 a.m. “I’ve been running traces in the scanning data.” All magic used in Realm left a record, one they primarily used for repair work. Witches were good at breaking things. “I’ve found her entry, but the traces make no sense.”

He clicked a couple of keys, muttered a quick spell, and brought up what Mia called the holo-display. It was very Star Trek . “See here? That’s the spike when she entered.”

Nell frowned and poked her finger at thin air. “The data’s backwards, baby brother.”

He stuck out his tongue-the standard response to that particular nickname ever since he’d been Aervyn’s age. “It’s not. I quadruple checked it. The energy surge came from inside Realm.”

His sister blinked, cookie halfway to her mouth. “She broke in from the inside?”

That’s what the data said, which made exactly zero sense. “I traced all the users online when she showed up. Several witches, and plenty of them up to mischief, but none with that kind of power.”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “Power can be augmented by code. I looked for a hacker on the outside, but not one on the inside.”

Finally, points for the sleep-deprived witch. Jamie stretched his creaky back again. “I did. The best coder online when it happened was Ginia.” Who had definitely not been aiding and abetting a Realm breach-Mia had been ready to spit nails at the mere suggestion. “And even inside code leaves tracks. There just aren’t any.”

He shrugged, brain fighting the suck of exhaustion. Nell was awesomely smart, even in the middle of the night. Time to lay out the facts. “No coding. Lots of magic from the inside, but not Net magic. Unknown origins, unknown witch.”

Nell’s eyebrows flew up at the last two. “It wasn’t Adele doing the magic?”

He’d spent the last two hours making sure. “Nope. She had help. Help with some serious spellcasting talents.” The parallels weren’t lost on either of them. A baby and a glittery visitor, both coated in strange magic.

Time to go visit a Las Vegas medium.

Right after he got some sleep.

Hell was at the door. Marcus sprang up in the dark, sleep fleeing as he prepared to fight the barbarians at the gates.

And realized, all too late, that the barbarian was still in his chair, screaming like she’d been run through. Gods. A tiny, flailing ball of mad with the lungs of a staff sergeant.

Smart men slept alone.

He squinted at the old clock on his mantel. 5:30 a.m. The time of the mists.

Shadows of terror still lurching through his nerves, Marcus reached for the baby, annoyed lullaby at the ready-and realized the fear he felt wasn’t all his. Her brain was frantic, a tiny maelstrom of fright.

It pummeled his heart. And then she did, little fists and heels beating into his chest as he cuddled her close. “Shh, sweet girl. Shh. It’s just the night. I’ve got you now. Shh.”