P.C. Cast - Mysteria Nights

“I just assumed you were anxious about your work—I was distracted by, uh, other things.” He looked down at his hands. He should, by rights, be strangling her right now. But he had gone along with the lie, hadn’t he? To get laid. To see those fabulous breasts. To be with her. The most important quest of his life and he hadn’t asked any questions. The neighborhood was right: all muscle, no brains.

Charlene put a chubby hand over his, looked up at him earnestly, and said, oblivious of her milk mustache, “I really did have my reasons. I don’t blame you for being mmpphhh-phargle.”

She mmpphh-phargled because he tugged her into his embrace and buried his nose in her hair. Then he held her at arm’s length and almost shouted, “You’re pregnant!”

“I am?” She looked thrilled. “Noooooo. Really? You can really tell so quickly?”

“Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!”

“Yes!” She broke out of his embrace, clasped her arms around herself, and spun around in a tight circle. “I don’t suppose you can tell whether it’s a boy or a girl?”

“Charlene, this is a very serious business. You have to stop—stop dancing around your kitchen and listen to me.”

“It’s more serious than you know,” she reminded him, “but I’m listening.”

He stopped. What was there to say now? Stay or go; it was still the same choice it had always been. Only now infinitely more complicated. He didn’t handle complicated well. He tended, in fact, to handle it by leaving.

“What do you mean, more serious than you know? What’s your agenda?” he asked, stalling for time. Stay or go? Have sex with her or throttle her? No, wait. That wasn’t the question.

“I have to have a baby,” she explained. “Do you want a glass of milk?”

“No. Why?”

“I’m a mial.”

He blinked. The name meant nothing to him. “What?”

“A mial.”

“A meal?”

“Mee- all .”

“Yes, but what is it?”

“What’s a human?” she retorted, scrubbing her fingers through her loose hair and almost glaring up at him. “What’s a werewolf, what’s a warlock, what’s a night mare? What’s a witch, what’s a dryad, what’s a vampire? What’s a fairy, a goblin, a troll? It’s just another creature sharing the planet, that’s all.”

“Yes, but what is it?”

“Oh, right. Uh. That’s a tough one to explain. We’re just—we’re just another species here. There’s about . . . um . . .” Her eyes slitted as she thought. “Maybe half a million of us on the planet?”

He thought of Pot, the triplets, the night mare. “What kind of magic can you do?”

She smiled. “No kind. We’re pretty boring. The only thing interesting about us is our life span—the average mial lives to be about twelve.”

“Twelve?” he almost shrieked. “How old are you now?”

“I’m old,” she said wistfully. “Old to be having a baby. Four next month. Don’t worry,” she added, “it’s not creepy or anything that we did it. We reach maturity at ten months.”

“Wh—but—wh—”

“But Cole, listen!” She grabbed his forearms. “Listen to this! If I have a baby with a human or a human hybrid—like a werewolf or a witch or whatever—he or she will have an enormous life span! Fifty or sixty years, at least! Think of that ! That’s practically forever.” For a moment she was looking through him, not at him. “My line could go on for centuries. We can’t get a foothold on this planet because everybody else lives eight times as long, but my baby has a chance—we have a chance—”

Definitely the weirdest day ever. And this from a man who routinely turned into a wolf and ate cows. “You want to take over the planet?”

She looked shocked, as if he had slapped her. “Heck, no. We just want to have a chance. We can’t get a chance, you know, because—but my baby will have a chance. My line, my name.”

“Your baby won’t know anything about anything,” he said, almost shouting. “He’ll be stronger and faster than everybody, live longer than his mother’s people, be alone, die alone. You want that ? That’s your big plan?” He realized he was towering over her, roaring, and didn’t care. “Because that’s what you’ve got!”

“He’ll have the world! He’ll be able to do whatever he wants!” she shrilled back. “He’ll have more than ten years to live, and that opens up anything you can think of.”

“You’re cursed. I’ve cursed you. And the baby.”

“We’re blessed,” she snapped back, “and you’re a moron. You’ve given the baby great gifts and you don’t even realize. The life span alone is the birthright of practically everyone else here; my child deserves it, too. And she’ll be strong—able to defend herself and stay safe. And live .”

“You are,” he said carefully, “a crazy person.”

“Yeah, well, it takes one to know one.”

“And I’m not having anything to do with this.”

“Who asked you to?”

“If I walk out this door . . . ,” he threatened.

She threw the empty milk glass at him; he ducked easily. “Bye!”

He walked out that door.

“And then you left?”

“Well. Yes. I said . . . you know . . . If I walked out that door I was never coming back, and then—”

“She threw the glass at you and good-bye.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’ve been in town—what? Less than a week?”

He almost groaned; the full moon was a few hours away. He had actually forgotten about the moon, that’s how crazy Charlene was making him. Forgotten! Christ, what next? Forgetting to eat?

“Are you sure you won’t have a piece?” Pot asked, tapping the box with a bony finger.

“No.”

“It’s goat,” she wheedled.

“I’m not hungry.”

“That,” Rae announced, “is seriously screwed up.”

“Hush, ghost. You’re not helping.”

“Come on, Potty. There isn’t one part of that story that isn’t weird. Charlene’s a mial? Whatever that is. And pregnant? All part of her plan? And she’s dying?”

At Cole’s fresh look of alarm, Pot quickly said, “She’s dying as we all are, Rae. Everyone has a time limit. You’re just too silly to acknowledge yours.”

“She can talk,” Rae said as if Pot wasn’t sitting right there at Cole’s kitchen counter. “Her people live for a zillion years. Poor Charlene! Just think, she could be dead before Bush is out of office.”

“I’m going to puke,” Cole said, and went to the bathroom, and did. When he came back after brushing his teeth, Pot was still there. So, presumably, was Rae.

“What are you going to do?” the queen asked.

He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“Boy oh boy,” Rae observed. “Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

“Enough, Rae. Well, Cole? Are you going to stay here with Charlene, raise the baby? See to its upbringing after Charlene—ah, after? Or leave them and find your people?”

“Door number two,” Rae added, “makes you a gigantic loser.”

“That’s not true,” the queen interrupted. “You have no obligation to her; she admitted she tricked you.”

“Which doesn’t sound like it took much effort on her part.”

“Rae!”

“All I’m saying is, Einstein he’s not.”

“As I was saying,” the queen continued, sending looks of irritation to all corners of the kitchen, “you’re not mates, she has what she needs of you, she has in fact released you from any obligation.”

“Yep, she’s totally fine living a life alone, being a single mom, dying young, and leaving your kid an orphan. Don’t give it another thought.”