Devon Monk - Magic on the Storm

“Not need. Want.” He pulled his arm away. “I couldn’t take it anyway. No magic to carry it on. Can we keep walking?”

We could and we did, passing the babies, and stopping about midway down the hall at Violet’s room. “You coming in here?” I asked.

“Afraid I’ll gnaw on your stepmother?”

I made a face at him and opened the door as quietly as I could. Violet was in the bed. Someone had brushed her hair back, revealing a bruise that covered her forehead and spread palm-wide down the left side of her face. She was in a hospital gown, an extra blanket tucked across her rounded figure, monitors and an IV hooked up to her.

Something inside me twisted, hurt. I felt, more than heard, my dad’s moan, his sorrow. It was good enough to know she was alive. Probably better if I didn’t go in to see her. Better for me. For my control over my dad. And maybe for Shame too.

Violet stirred, opened her eyes, squinted, without her glasses, over at us. “Allie,” she said softly, and a little slurred. “Come in, please.”

So much for walking away. I stepped in. “Hi,” I said.

“I won’t stay long. This is Shamus Flynn. He drove me here.”

Shame held up one hand. “Hello, Mrs. Beckstrom. I could step out if you two want some privacy.”

What did you know? Flynn had manners.

“It’s fine,” she said. Violet pursed her lips, as if trying to feel her teeth. “I’m numb.”

“Something to help you sleep, I think. Has the doctor talked to you?”

“She said I should sleep.” She closed her eyes, and the green lines on the monitor jumped before it settled again. I wasn’t sure what the doctors were monitoring, but I knew it had something to do with magic as well as her physical injuries.

“I’ll let you rest. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay, that the baby’s okay.”

Violet frowned. “Baby?” She pressed her fingers against her eyes. “They said I might go into early labor.” She pulled her hands away from her eyes and cradled her stomach. Her eyes opened and the whites were red and glossy from more than just rubbing. She’d been crying. “Poor little thing. There was so much magic in the room. I can still feel it in me. In the baby.” The tremor in her voice gave away her fear. She sounded small. Frightened.

I put my hand on her hand.

Dizziness washed over me. Dad pressed against the backs of my eyes, against the edges of my mind, pushing forward.

I couldn’t let him. Couldn’t trust what he would say to her. It never went well when he tried to run my life, or my body.

Stop it , I thought to him. You’re dead. Stay dead. It’s not going to help her if she thinks anything else right now. Don’t mess with her.

He did not stop pushing.

“I know you’re going to be fine,” I said to Violet.

“Both of you are going to be fine. The doctors are looking after you. Good doctors.” I glanced at Shame, and he nodded.

She looked down at her stomach. “I don’t want to lose the baby. It’s all I have left. Of him. Of Daniel.” The last word came out with a longing. “He’d be so angry I hurt our baby.” She made a sound that was half sob.

Dad shoved. Hard.

Like falling off a curb, I stumbled and landed in the back of my head. I could still see Violet. Could still hear her, but I could not feel my hand on hers. Which wasn’t a big surprise, since I couldn’t feel any of the rest of my body either.

“I-,” Dad said through me.

No, no no. Don’t. Dad, don’t , I thought.

“I know,” he said, getting the hang of my mouth far too quickly for my comfort, “that I-that he-married you because he saw your strength. You know how much he loves-loved you. You know he would be proud of you. And he regrets-would regret not being here for you, to see the baby, to hold you both.”

Sorrow, hope, fear, and regret raged through me. My father’s emotions, not mine. And on top of them all was love.

It pissed me the hell off. I was all for happy endings, but not if it meant my dad using me, my body, my mouth, my hormones. It didn’t help that he’d never shown this kind of emotion around me before. And now I was crawling with his emotions, and knew, far too intimately, his feelings for Violet.

Give me back my body! I screamed at him. Yes, like a two-year-old getting her tantrum on.

Shame, in the corner of the room, suddenly stood out of the chair and walked over to the opposite side of Violet’s bed. He tipped his head a little, letting the light under his hood, almost reaching his eyes. He stared at me, at my dad behind my eyes, and his eyebrows hitched up.

“I think he would be upset,” Violet said, still gazing at her belly. “About everything. About me. I’ve made a huge mess of things.”

“Perhaps some things, yes. But not everything. He most certainly wouldn’t be upset with you. And he’d be stunned.” He swallowed-I swallowed, whatever-then said, softer, “He’d be so very thrilled about the baby.”

“Do you think so?” Violet looked up, eyes unfocused but searching for hope, for comfort, for understanding. And I felt my heart, my body, stir with love and desire for her.

Okay: no. I just could not wrap my brain around where this road might lead. I had a complicated enough relationship with her. I didn’t need to mess it up with Dad’s desires.

“I know so,” he said gently. “Trust me, Vi. He is looking down on you right now with nothing but love.”

She smiled. “Daniel used to call me Vi.”

Shame snapped his fingers. “Wow. Isn’t that neat? I have an idea. It’s time for us to leave. Now.”

It was about time Shame picked up on the weirdness. You’d think someone who dealt with Death magic would have caught on sooner there was a dead guy running the show.

“You’re not a part of this family, Mr. Flynn,” Dad said through me. “You can wait.” And I knew he tried to put Influence behind it, because I could feel the twist and pull on the small magic inside me, but I wrapped around that flame, holding it back, far, far out of his reach. The magic, the small magic, stayed with me and Dad was shit outta luck.

Shame chuckled. “No, I can’t wait. And neither can you, Allie. We should let Violet get her rest.” Shame put his hand on my hand and licked his lips, smiling with his lips parted.

I felt it.

So did Dad.

Shame’s hand was warm, almost too warm, his palm slick on the back of my hand. Very clearly, the tingle of something being drawn out through my skin, like a leech had just stuck onto the back of my hand to suck my blood out, or like a really bad Band-Aid rip, prickled my skin.

Dad did not like it. We both knew what Shame was doing-taking a little nip of him. So much for needing magic to draw on energy. I guess Shame could draw on life-or was it death, since my dad was undead? — without magic.

That made Dad angry.

And distracted.

I shoved him with everything I had.

And fell back into myself, a wave of vertigo doing damage to my knees. I had the presence of mind not to fall on top of the pregnant woman.

No, I had more sense than that. Enough that I pulled my hand off hers, Shame pulling his hand off mine at the exact same time. But just before my fingertips left Violet’s hand, I felt the bump of movement in her belly.

“Oh,” she said. “Did you feel it? The baby moved.” Her words were slurring, and her eyes were only half open now. The lines on the monitor jumped again, uneven, ragged.

Somewhere in the center of my brain, my dad raged.

“I did,” I said, my mouth tasting of wintergreen and old leather, and not feeling nearly enough like it belonged to me. “It’s wonderful, Violet.” I tried to smile, but wasn’t sure I did it. “Shame’s right. You should get some sleep.”