J.B. was really not going to be happy with me at all. Maybe I could call him at some later date and explain. Like three months from now. Unfortunately, I didn’t think he would let me dodge him for that long.
My shoulders slumped, I went back to the living room. The front door was open. Jude and Nathaniel were nowhere to be seen.
I looked questioningly at Beezle and Samiel. Beezle had taken over Jude’s half of the checkerboard and was beating Samiel handily.
Beezle negotiated for pizza and wings in exchange for information, Samiel signed as Jude reentered the apartment carrying a delivery bag.
“You didn’t have to let him get his way,” I said to Jude. “I would have told you what happened today for free.”
“You need to eat,” Jude said. “You’re looking thin.”
“You’re the third person to say that,” I said.
“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that,” Beezle said, pushing away from the checkerboard and looking at me. “I think it’s the baby.”
“The baby is making me thin?” I asked. “That would no doubt be a first among pregnancies.”
“You’ve been really tired, right?” Beezle asked.
I nodded. “But I don’t think that’s so unusual for a woman having a baby while fighting off mortal threats at every turn.”
“You have lost some weight, though. I think the baby is eating up more energy than a normal baby.”
I blinked. “So I should be worried that my child is going to… what? Eat me from the inside out? Like a parasite?”
“The baby is part nephilim,” Beezle said. “We don’t know what it will do to you.”
“He’s not a monster,” I said angrily. “He’s Gabriel’s child, and Gabriel was not a monster.”
“But he had monster in him,” Beezle said.
So do I, Samiel signed, his face stony. Ramuell was my father, too.
“You’re a known quantity,” Beezle said impatiently. “The baby isn’t.”
“I refuse to believe this child will be like Ramuell,” I said. “Gabriel was the gentlest person I ever knew.”
“Regardless of what the baby is or is not,” Jude said, “we have to acknowledge that it comes from the bloodlines of immortal creatures, and you are mortal. You will not experience a normal human pregnancy.”
“Okay,” I said. “So I’m losing weight. Although my pants don’t feel any looser, so I’ll have to take your word for it. What am I supposed to do about it?”
“Eat more,” Jude said. “When a wolf goes through many changes in a short period of time, he can lose a lot of weight because of the energy required for the changes. Even a straight human pregnancy would mean extra calorie intake. Given that the child has a magical bloodline, you’ll probably have to add in a significant amount of food.”
“Food I can’t afford,” I muttered.
“All of us will help you. And I’m certain some of us can go without if necessary,” Jude said with a meaningful glare at Beezle.
“You have no idea how much food I need to get through the day,” Beezle said.
“Need and want are not the same thing,” I said, going to the kitchen to get paper plates.
Beezle had already gotten into the chicken wings by the time I returned. There was a large pile of bones next to him.
“I hope you placed a double order,” I said to Jude, who was watching Beezle in fascination.
“I had no idea something so small could eat so much so quickly,” he said.
“Where’s Nathaniel?” I asked.
Samiel shrugged as he placed a couple of slices of pizza on his plate. He went downstairs to clean up, he said.
“Is he getting a spa treatment?” I asked. “I had more blood on me than he did.”
I’ll go and see what he’s up to, if you want.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Just leave him alone. He obviously wants to be there.”
I didn’t need Nathaniel around reminding me that he’d saved my life in the faerie court by ridding me of the poison. Every time he was kind to me, it was harder and harder for me to remember that he had an agenda that did not correspond with mine.
After lunch I went to call J.B.
“Black,” he barked when he picked up the phone. “Why did you miss your pickup today? And what the hell happened to Jayne Wiskowski yesterday?”
I explained about the mantis attack, the disappearance of Wiskowski’s soul, and my little adventure in Titania and Oberon’s court. There was a long silence at J.B.’s end when I finished.
“Are you still breathing?” I asked.
“Yes, although I’m not sure why I bother,” J.B. said. “Do you know how much trouble you’ve gotten yourself into now?”
“I have a good idea,” I said.
“I’ll talk to you later,” J.B. said. “I need to go and see how much fallout there is from this in my own court.”
“I’m sorry,” I said helplessly.
“You keep saying that,” J.B. said, and hung up.
I was sorry. I was sorry that I caused J.B. so much pain. But I wasn’t sorry for what I had done in the court, and I think J.B. knew that.
I put my phone on the bedside table and crawled under the blankets. It was the middle of the day, but I was wiped out. On the heels of that thought came the memory of Beezle’s voice.
You’re a known quantity. The baby isn’t.
“You are not a monster,” I whispered.
The baby fluttered inside me, and I closed my eyes. And, sleeping, I dreamed.
I flew above the world, all the worlds that were, and I could see everything. I could see what had been, and what was, and what would be.
And I could see the path to the person that my heart longed for.
It was a green place, and peaceful, and he sat beside a river that ran as clear and bright as the sun that sparkled upon it.
He turned as I approached, and his face was wreathed with joy.
“Madeline,” he said.
The sound of his voice pierced me to the heart.
“Gabriel,” I said, and ran to him.
I was complete in his arms, and I wept for everything we had lost.
“Madeline,” he said again, and he crooned it over and over until my tears stopped. “I should have known.”
“Should have known what?”
He smiled down at me, his hands framing my face. “That you would do something unexpected. How have you come to be here? It is not allowed.”
I looked around. There didn’t seem to be anything distinguishing this place from any other pleasant green valley. “I thought I was dreaming.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Somehow you have defied the order of the universe, of time and space itself. And if anyone would, it would be you.”
“I was never very good at following the rules.”
“I am not certain you even know what the rules are.” His face sobered. “But this is a place of the dead, and you do not belong here.”
I took his hand in mine. “I want to stay with you.”
Gabriel reluctantly pulled his hand away. “You cannot. You are not meant for this. Not yet.”
“Don’t send me away,” I said. “I need you.”
“Madeline,” Gabriel said, and his eyes were so tender. “My love will always be with you.”
He kissed me, and into his kiss he poured his happiness, his grief, his regret.