Darkmoon (#5) (The Cain Chronicles) (2 page)

There was no need for a bandage. Rylie healed instantly.

“I can send one of these to a lab for paternity testing,” Stephanie said, turning the chair toward the desk to label the vials.

Rylie sat up, rubbing her arm. “Are you listening to me? I don’t need paternity testing. I would never cheat on Seth!”

Aside from the one time she had kissed Abel, anyway. But kissing didn’t produce babies.

“As I said, you’re not a typical situation. If you think that there’s any chance—even a small one—that you
might
have mated with Abel while in wolf form, then I recommend a paternity test. It would be good for your peace of mind, if nothing else.”

Rylie groaned and let her head bump against the wall.

Squeezing her eyes tight, she nodded once.

Stephanie dropped the vials in an envelope. “I’ll contact the hospital and arrange a dating ultrasound as soon as possible.” She removed her gloves and threw them in the trash. “I think it would be best if I performed the scan myself.”

“You don’t think you’ll look inside and see a puppy, do you?” She meant it as a joke, but Stephanie didn’t laugh.

“I’ll tell Seth he can visit you again,” she said on her way out of the room.

Rylie grabbed the wastebasket and threw up for the third time that day.

She had been having morning sickness for a while, and it wasn’t getting any easier. It always left her feeling dizzy and weak—almost as bad as silver poisoning. But Rylie could try to purge silver from her system. There was no purging a baby.

Assuming you plan on keeping it,
Stephanie had said.

The suggestion of abortion angered Rylie, but it wasn’t the first time she had thought about it. Whether Seth or Abel was the father, it was going to be Eleanor’s grandchild. Eleanor was pure evil, and so was her oldest son, Cain, who was also a werewolf. And since there was no chance that Rylie was going to produce human offspring, the odds of making a baby like Cain were pretty high.

She buried her face in her arms. Maybe her baby was going to be a monster, but Rylie couldn’t kill it. She
couldn’t
.

The door opened, and Seth entered. “We have a problem,” he said.

“I know.” Rylie’s chin quivered.

“You already know?” Seth looked puzzled. “Were you watching the news in here?”

“Huh? I was talking about this.” She placed her hands over her stomach. “What are we going to do?”

The shock vanished from Seth’s face and was immediately replaced by sympathy. “Oh, baby.” He sat at her side and wrapped his arms around her. Tears spilled out of her eyes and splashed down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Seth.”

He pulled back to look at her. “Sorry?”

“I didn’t tell you. I can’t…I just…”

He wiped her tears away with the palm of his hand. “I just wish you had told me so that you wouldn’t have to deal with it alone. I’m not angry. Just surprised.” Seth gave a shaky laugh. “I didn’t think I’d ever be a dad.”

His hand trailed down her stomach and rested on her belly button, and Rylie put her hand over his. There was only a small, soft lump under her shirt. “Stephanie thinks that I might be growing too fast,” she said, and she couldn’t keep her voice from shaking.

Seth responded by kissing her, slow and deep, without moving his hand. Even though she had been throwing up, he still kissed her like he meant it.

“What were you saying about the news when you came in?” Rylie asked, grateful for a distraction.

“Forget it. What about…” He trailed off, seeming to choke on the words he wanted to say. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What about Abel? I mean, there’s no chance, right? There’s no way that Abel could be…”

This time, when his words failed, he gave up speaking. But Rylie couldn’t respond.

When she remained silent, he kissed her again.

“Whatever happens,” he murmured against her lips, “I’m going to be here for you. We’ll do this together. Okay?”

Rylie rested her head on his chest. “Okay.”

T
WO

Zombies

The news of Senator Peterson’s
assassination followed Abel everywhere he went in the city. Tate’s speech for the Office of Preternatural Affairs was getting played and replayed by all of the major networks, so Abel was getting sick of seeing that asswipe’s face around every corner.

Abel couldn’t make people shut up about that stupid assassination, so he took care of the problem in his favorite way: by going to a bar and knocking back a gallon of cheap whiskey.

Three hours later, Abel wasn’t drunk, and Tate was still being displayed on the TV in the corner. “Evil is real,” he said, looking so damn earnest. Hadn’t that kid been a chilled out pothead a couple of years back? What went wrong with him since then?

The news switched to showing a couple of talking heads with perfectly-coiffed hair. Bemused, Abel watched them try to explain what a strigoi was to the general public. It was a kind of Greek vampire, he knew, but they were talking about biology and genetics and mutations. Morons, all of them.

Everyone else in the bar was watching the TV, transfixed by the new reality unfolding in front of them. A haggard woman with a back-combed perm was praying over a rosary in the corner. Two college guys in a booth were talking loudly about government lies. Everyone else seemed quietly worried. The information they were being fed was definitely bizarre, but something about the White House logo on the podium loaned a little credibility to the incredible.

What would all of those people have done if they realized that a werewolf had been trying to get drunk with them all night?

Abel stood and pulled a wad of twenties out of his pocket. “What a freaking mess.”

“No kidding, brother,” said another drunk patron, who did a double-take at the sight of Abel’s scarred face.

“Want your change?” the bartender asked as she collected Abel’s cash.

“Hell yes, I do. I’m not just standing here for this dive’s ambiance.”

She went to the register, returned with three dollars and ninety-six cents, and muttered, “Tightwad.”

He stuffed the change in his pocket and headed out onto the cold city streets.

Scott Whyte had sent Abel into the city to pick up supplies for spell-casting. Apparently, the old geezer was still hoping that he could do necromancy, even though he was a zombie himself. But Abel knew that wasn’t really why he had been sent on an errand that required over an hour of driving in each direction. It was because the doctor was going to look at Rylie, and nobody wanted Abel there for that.

“Screw them,” he muttered at nothing as he stalked up the street. A group of people were clustered by the window of an electronics store to watch the news on six different flat screen TVs, and Abel had to step into the street to get around them.

Tate had picked a hell of a time to drop that bomb on everyone. The pundits were talking about what the new Office of Preternatural Affairs would mean. Registration? New laws? Rounding up all the “evil” and shooting it?

Shitty time to be a pregnant werewolf.

Abel headed down to a corner drugstore and gave Scott’s list to the guy behind the counter. The pharmacy only had a few of the items, so he had to go to the organic grocery store to find the rest. All in all, it cost almost a hundred bucks. He had just barely enough money left after drinking the rest of Scott’s cash away.

Abel tossed the grocery bags in the backseat of the Chevelle and headed out of the city with the windows rolled down. He hit evening traffic immediately. The bridge was backed up all the way downtown.

He blasted classic rock for a while, but once AC/DC faded away, Tate’s voice piped over his speakers. “Evil is real. I’ve seen it.”

“Shut up, Tate,” Abel said, punching the button for the next preset station.

“—of Preternatural Affairs claims that the assassination of Senator Peterson—”

Next station.

“Demons?
Werewolves
? Are you kidding me? It’s kind of early for April Fool’s Day.”

Abel gave up on the radio.

Traffic finally broke up enough for him to get moving. He swerved into the fast lane, ignored the blaring horns, and took the first exit off of the bridge. His headlights cut through the darkness like twin moonbeams on the slushy pavement. The tires
whooshed
through the snow, mud splattered on the side of his Chevelle, and the windshield wipers whisked rhythmically. But none of that was loud enough to drown out his thoughts.

It was a long drive back to the ranch. The gate was locked when he arrived, and he had to get out and climb to the other side to open it.

He parked between Gwyneth’s truck and Stephanie’s Lexus sedan. Before he cut the headlights, he glimpsed figures moving in the shadows behind the house.

Abel sniffed the air. Werewolves. Definitely werewolves.

When he approached, Levi’s voice became clearer. Judging by the kid’s body language, he was arguing with his twin sister, Bekah. He poured stress hormones into the air.

“That wouldn’t solve anything,” Bekah said, following Levi as he paced down to the apple tree and back. “Violence only leads to more—”

“Maybe violence is what we need!”

“Guess this means you were watching your boyfriend on the news,” Abel said, unable to control a smirk.

Levi flipped the bird at him and stalked into the darkness. As soon as he was outside the ring of light from the kitchen window, he stripped off his shirt, changed into his wolf form in an explosion of fur and blood, and shot into the night. His howl echoed over the hills as he fled.

Bekah leaned against the wall with a groan. “What were they thinking? ‘Office of Preternatural Affairs.’ What does that even
mean
?”

“It means that our miserable lives are gonna get a lot more miserable. Whatever. How’s Rylie?”

“I think Stephanie’s talking to her again.” Bekah caught his arm when he tried to pass her. “You can’t go in there. You know that.”

He loomed over her. Abel was at least a foot taller than Bekah, and twice as wide, but she didn’t look intimidated. “What are you going to do to stop me?”

“I’m going to appeal to your sense of decency. Don’t look at me like that, I know you must have one. Give Rylie some breathing room. I’ve watched you guys together, and I know that she loves you; she’ll find you when she’s ready.”

Abel gave a low growl. “Your miserable attempt at a pep talk won’t fix anything, so save your breath and shut your mouth.”

Bekah threw her hands in the air.

“Fine. Then let’s see what we can do about our zombie problem, huh?”

Scott Whyte had been confined
to the cellar beneath the Gresham house for several days, and it had quickly turned from storage for canned goods and camping equipment into a witch’s workspace. He had been keeping busy during his incarceration, too: one of the crates had been converted into an altar, complete with representations of the Mother Goddess and Horned God woven from dry grass; a small circle of power had been painted on the floor in strawberry preserves; and the shelves were filled with crystals and odd rocks.

Abel glared at the giant wooden pentacle hanging on the wall. Scott was a big fan of Satanic imagery.

Bekah caught his look and jabbed a knuckle in his ribs. “I know what you’re thinking. Stop it,” she whispered.

“Like hell you do!” he hissed back, jerking away from her.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re thinking that we should have known Scott was bad because of the pentagrams. How many times do we have to tell you there’s nothing inherently evil about witchcraft?”

Okay, so she
had
known what he was thinking.

“But he did turn out to be evil,” Abel pressed.

Bekah rolled her eyes, but didn’t bother arguing. Everyone was pretty stung by Scott’s betrayal, even though he had insisted that he didn’t think resurrecting one dead woman would hurt anybody. His youngest daughter seemed happy to accept that excuse, but Abel still thought it was bullshit.

“This will work for the spells I have in mind,” Scott announced, breaking the tension between Abel and Bekah. He was seated at his altar, and being watched by Gwyn closely—
very
closely. She had her rifle and everything.

The cellar doors creaked open, and Stephanie ducked inside. “What’s the verdict?” Her hair was pulled back in its usual tidy bun, but her clothes were rumpled. She looked frazzled.

Scott was already mixing something with a mortar and pestle. “If I can heal my cranial wound, we’ll know if I can keep doing magic or not.” The doctor reached him in less than a second and snatched it out of his hands. Stephanie scrutinized the herbs, smelling them and stirring the bowl with her finger. “It’s just lotus,” he said.

“Forgive me if I don’t trust you, Father. Learning that you’ve lied about your abilities for my entire life has made me a little testy.” She set his tools back down. “You can continue.”

Scott glanced around the room. “Are you all going to stand here and watch me put the spell together?”

“Yep,” Gwyn said, stroking her rifle like it was a kitten. She was starting to smell a little funny, like stale flesh and graveyards. “We sure are.”

He pushed his hat back to rub the gunshot wound on his forehead, then got down to work.

It took a long, boring hour to prepare the spell. When Scott finished preparing his ingredients, Stephanie took them from him again. “I’ll cast the circle for you,” she said.

“Why?” Bekah asked without looking up from her phone. Her thumbs were a blur as they flew over the screen.

“Whomever makes the circle controls the spell,” Stephanie explained as she finished constructing the circle using the messy ring that Scott had drawn in jam. “I’ll be able to see what he’s doing, and if he tries anything strange, I’ll know immediately.”

Scott hung back, looking more than a little insulted, as his daughter finished putting everything together. Once she was finished, he sat on the floor inside the circle.

Abel never paid attention to the witches at work, so he wasn’t sure how he expected the spell to progress from there. Would Scott sacrifice a kitten? Smear blood all over his face? Speak in tongues?