Jenn Bennett - Banishing the Dark

When Jupe had secretly, and stupidly, tattooed my sigil on his body, it created an invisible thread connecting us. One that lit up bright gold when he was in danger, much brighter than it was now. And when I first summoned Priya in his new body, my guardian reestablished our link and created a second thread, a black cobweb that anchored him to my Heka signature, even across the planes.

Two threads. But now there were four .

Four wispy filaments of light growing out of my palm, waving in the wind like dandelion tufts. My gaze followed the black thread to Priya. And a second pale gold thread that trailed off beyond the alley: Jupe’s.

The third thread was pale green. I followed that . . . right next to me.

To Lon.

I grabbed Lon’s hand and saw its endpoint, right in the middle of his palm. Just like Priya’s. “What did you do?” I said, confused. Lon hated tattoos. And I hadn’t seen every inch of his skin since I’d come home from the hospital, but he had no reason to want my sigil on him.

His mouth fell open, but no sound came out. I looked back at my palm to the fourth thread: a white line that on first glance seemed to be sprouting from my palm like the others but on closer examination was a little bit different. It splintered from the green thread connected to Lon, and it headed . . .

Down.

To my stomach.

But that couldn’t be right. That meant . . .

Goose bumps pimpled my arms as my world tilted. The oncoming rush of memory made me feel as if I were strapped to a railroad track with no chance of escape, watching a train barreling toward me. I remembered Dr. Mick forcing Lon to leave the surgery room. Mick leaning over me, telling me the news . . .

The baby survived. I’m not sure how—you’re badly bruised, and your hip is broken. But it showed up in the blood work, and I can detect the heartbeat with my knack.

You’re about seven weeks along, I’d guess. Maybe eight.

“Leave us,” Lon barked at Priya, his angry voice snapping me back into the moment. “Return when you have news.”

“Mistress—”

“Go!” I shouted.

Priya disappeared, and in his absence, the threads quickly faded until they were invisible. I looked up at Lon, blinking into the fire flaring from his halo. His eyes were wide, his brows drawn together. The shock I felt was mirrored in his face.

“You knew,” I whispered accusingly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’ve been trying, asking if you remembered Mick telling you.”

“But I didn’t. You should’ve—”

“I didn’t know how you’d react,” he said, suddenly becoming animated. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. None at all. When I walked into Tambuku and saw you lying on the floor in a pool of blood, I thought you were dead. You damn sure felt dead in my arms. Your pulse was so weak I couldn’t hear it. And even when I got you to the hospital, I didn’t know if you’d make it. And if you didn’t make it”—his eyes glazed over as grief lanced through his features—“I didn’t know if I could handle that,” he ended in a broken voice.

“But I made it,” I whispered.

“Yes.” He blinked rapidly and pulled himself together. “But you had trouble remembering, and Mick said to take it slow. To let you remember on your own, or it might be too upsetting. I just . . . did the best I could.”

I heard what he was saying, but it was all just too much. I strode away from him, to clear my head. To breathe and get some perspective.

So . . . I was pregnant.

Fuck.

How the hell had that happened?

I went through the same list of symptoms I’d gone over the first time I’d been told, remembering things I’d ignored over the holidays. All the crying and getting tired at weird times. My breasts getting bigger. I glanced down. Pfft. Not anymore. I must have lost it all in the coma.

And oh, God, that’s right: my stupid phone alarm. Forgetting to take the Pill. And of course, we pretty much screwed like rabbits—before the coma, at least.

I spun around to face him and nearly shrieked in surprise when I found him inches away. “You bastard!” I said, shoving him back. “You knocked me up!”

“You helped!”

We stood there for several moments, glowering at each other, until I started laughing. His face twisted in confusion. Then I burst into tears.

His arms roped around me, and I fell against him, weeping into his shirt as the distant sound of a speeding car mingled with the crash of the Pacific surf.

“What are we going to do?” I said, pulling back to see his face after I’d gotten a grip on my tears.

He’d shifted back down, no horns, no fiery halo, just Lon, green eyes peering down at me over his brown and gray beard. With the pad of his thumb, he brushed away the tears beneath my eyes. Then he pushed my hair away from my forehead with one warm palm. “I don’t know.”

“It could be Earthbound.”

“Or human.”

Or something else entirely. I looked down between us and put a tentative hand over my stomach. How could I not know? Surely that had to make me the worst mother ever already, and I hadn’t even started. I pulled up my T-shirt. “I don’t feel anything. I’m not showing.”

“You’re only eleven weeks along, and you just got out of the hospital. But don’t worry. That tea I’ve been making you is a thousand calories a glass—”

“Oh, my fucking God.”

“—which you need . I can already tell from your face that it’s helping.”

“But how do I even know the baby is okay?”

“They did sonograms and tests and monitored you. Mick checked everything before he left for the funeral and said it was healthy and normal. That was a day before you woke up.”

“I can’t believe he told you.” I felt a little betrayed. As if it wasn’t his business to share. As if they were scheming behind my back.

“He didn’t have a choice, Cady. I had to sign the surgery release. He thought you might miscarry.”

And how I had managed not to, after what I’d been through . . . I couldn’t even think about it. I just couldn’t. It was too awful. But in shunning one bad thought, I faced another. “I’ve been releasing kindled Heka without a caduceus all day.”

“I told you to stop doing that!”

“I didn’t know why! You didn’t tell me I could shock my own baby!”

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, calming himself. “Electrical tolerance is inherited, so I’m sure the baby is fine. And you saw the threads. They’re a supernatural marker, just like halos, and you know how a halo changes when you’re sick or unhealthy. But the baby’s thread looked as strong as mine, and I’m fine, so I think we can assume that means everything’s normal.”

“Normal? Having threads in your palm isn’t normal.”

He grabbed my chin and leaned closer to my face. “They are for you, because you’re extraordinary and special, and what you have inside you is, too. Not because of what you are—I don’t give a shit if you’re a goddamn alien or an average human being. You’re mine, and so’s that baby. And whatever it is, it’s beautiful.”

Goddammit. I almost started crying again. Until I had a terrible thought. “Oh, God. My mother—”

“Cannot find out,” Lon said firmly.

She could drop down from the Æthyr and possess my body. She tried to kill Lon. What was to stop her from trying to take my baby away? “What if—”

Lon shook his head emphatically and cradled my face between his hands. “Not going to think about what-ifs. We’re going to figure out a solution, and we’re going to live through it, just like we always do. You hear me?”

“I hear you,” I said in a quiet voice. “And I love you. But I’m very, very scared.”