Gods and Swindlers (City of Eldrich Book 3) (32 page)

John snored gently. Meaghan stared at him for a long moment, memorizing every line on his face. Despite her giddy words about the future, she couldn’t think past the dragon
.
She wanted a future with John and would fight for it, but she couldn’t let herself count on it. Not yet. She leaned over, gave him a final kiss, and slipped out of the room.

Russ stood outside of Matthew’s old bedroom, holding a stack of towels. He smirked at her in a knowing way. “Nice hair, sis. Gee, I wonder what you’ve been doing.”

Her face flushed, but she smiled. “Shut up.” She patted her head. “How bad is it?”

“Haystack,” Russ said. “There’s a candle in the hall bath.”

“Does everyone know what we were doing?”

Russ nodded.

“We were that loud?”

Russ smirked. “Oh, yeah. Feeling better? You must be because you’re standing here with a loopy grin on your face instead of snarling at me.”

Meaghan shook her head and walked into the bathroom. Russ had been right about her hair.

And I don’t care.
She giggled again, then went to work with wet hands trying to pat the worst of it down. But if Russ hadn’t merely been messing with her, everybody knew what she’d been doing and there was no point hiding it. She gave up and went to look for Marnie.

But first let’s talk to Dad
.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

A
T FIRST, MEAGHAN
thought she’d gotten there too late. Kady squatted on a pile of pillows stacked on the bed, while Jeff kneeled behind her. No one else was in the room.

Kady looked up when Meaghan walked in and gave her a beaming smile. “Hey, boss! Did you deal with your shit?”

Meaghan smiled back. “I did. What’s going on? You having the baby now?”

Kady shook her head. “Not yet, but it feels better to move around. I want to figure out the best position before crunch time.”

“Can I still talk to my dad?”

“Yes, honey,” Kady said in the slower, deeper voice Meaghan recognized as Matthew’s.

“Jeff, would you get me some of that tummy tea from Russ?” Kady asked over her shoulder.

“Sure, babe,” Jeff said. He helped her into a reclining position and then grinned at Meaghan. “Your dad is cool. I think we’ll have fun once he’s here.”

Meaghan laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “That’s a pretty weird sentence if you think about it.”

Jeff grinned on his way out the door. “It’s Eldrich. The whole place is pretty weird.”

Meaghan sat on the bed next to Kady. “Where is everybody?”

“No idea. But Steph popped in for a visit and I feel a lot better. She knows way more than Gretchen. Where did Jeff get the idea Gretchen is a midwife?”

“From Gretchen. Steph has kids?”

Kady shook her head. “Nah. Something to do with the accident that made them immortal. She can’t get pregnant, but when you’re three thousand years old, you pick up stuff along the way. She says my body will do most of the work if I chill out and if anything goes wrong, she’s helped deliver a lot of kids over the years so we should be fine.”

“Where’s Marnie, do you know?”

Kady smiled. “With Brian. I think they’re napping in the guest room. Brian’s so cute. He thinks he’s going to deliver the baby because he took an emergency medicine class a few years ago.”

“He’s got a cool head in a crisis,” Meaghan said. “Don’t count him out.”

“Yeah, if somebody shot me, Brian would be great. But looking at his baby sister’s hoo hoo with a little bald head sticking out of it? He’d have a stroke. He can’t even buy tampons without getting woozy. And the whole your-father-is-his-nephew thing has him completely freaked out.”

Meaghan laughed again. “He’s not the only one. And on that note, I have to—”

“So was John as good as Sid said he’d be?” Kady asked her with a sly smile.

Meaghan buried her face in her hands to hide her scarlet face. “I can’t talk about this with my dad listening in. Have the baby and then I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Thank you,” Matthew said, “although I am happy to see you without the panicked look on your face. What do you want to talk about?”

“There’s my cue,” Kady said. “Mommy out.”

“Marnie,” Meaghan said. “Patrice, too. You know about them?”

“Patrice, yes. What about Marnie?”

“She says the Order took her magical powers but something else showed up in their place. Heavy psychic stuff. Kind of like I had in Fahraya when Jhoro gave me the funny mushrooms.”

“Marnie has powers?” Kady asked, indignant. “She never told me that.”

“Mother, hush, please,” Matthew said. “Are they the same powers as Patrice had?”

“That’s what I need to find out. What do you know about Patrice? What is she?”

Matthew shook his head. “I’m not sure, and I haven’t been in a position to find out. But . . .”

“But what?” Meaghan asked. “Tell me, even if it’s only conjecture.”

Matthew sighed. “There’s certain themes you see through folklore. Recurring motifs across cultures. One of those is the notion of the tripartite goddess.”

“Tripartite?”

“Three,” Matthew said. “Three manifestations of the same idea.”

“Like the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost?”

Matthew nodded. “The concept is not uniquely Christian, but the three participants are usually female. Greek mythology in particular features the tripartite motif. The Furies, the Fates, the Graces, the Harpies, for instance. And there are more. Threes or multiples of three. All female.”

“But we only have two.”

Matthew nodded. “Before now, I thought we only had one. And it’s not only the Greeks. The concept runs throughout all Indo-European mythology.”

“The Norns,” Steph said, stepping into the room. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to eavesdrop. How’s the baby coming?”

“Better, since we talked,” Kady said. “I’m way less scared now.”

Steph nodded. “That’ll help.”

“What do you know about the Norns?” Matthew asked.

“What’s a Norn?” Meaghan asked.

“The Norns are from Norse mythology. Three mystical woman who decide people’s destinies.”

“Whoa,” Steph said. “Matthew, is that you?”

“Yes. Have you ever encountered them?”

“You mean were they real people like us?” Steph pulled a chair up to the bed and sat. “I don’t know. I never met them, but I’ve spoken to people over the centuries who claimed they had. They said the Norns were spirits who sought human vessels to speak through. All women, all special in some way.”

Meaghan felt a chill down her spine. “Patrice called herself a vessel, and Cooper and the Power taunted her that she was weak without her sisters. But she’s normal. Or at least she was. Natalie and Jamie swore she’d never done magic or been even remotely psychic until Labor Day.”

Matthew nodded. “When she manifested huge magical and psychic powers of unknown origin. Her background’s a mystery. She was surrendered to the state by an indigent mother who snuck out of the hospital after giving birth. The mother wouldn’t give her name and she refused to identify a father.”

“So, basically, we have no idea where she came from,” Meaghan said.

“None,” Matthew said. “The maternity ward nurse picked the name Patrice after her own grandmother and Brown because the baby had brown eyes.”

Meaghan shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t imagine not . . . how do you know this?”

“Patrice asked me to look into it when she was pregnant with Liddy. Between her mystery background and Jamie’s magically controlled DNA, they weren’t sure what to expect.” Matthew grimaced. “I wish I could say I made her feel better, but I had to do some serious digging to find out what little I told you.”

“What about Marnie?” Steph asked.

“I grew up in Eldrich, with my parents, Alice and Clyde,” Marnie said from the doorway. “I know I’m theirs because Dad videotaped my birth and threatened to show all my boyfriends. I heard you up here”—she tapped her temple—“and figured I’d better join the conversation.”

“Yeah,” Meaghan said. “We need to talk to you.”

“I never knew about Patrice,” Marnie said. “I knew she grew up in foster care, but not the stuff about her being abandoned at the hospital. She still has all those powers. She’s hiding them because she’s scared.” Marnie stepped over to the bed and sat down at the foot. “Hey, girl, how’s the baby coming?”

“It’s okay,” Kady said.

“How about you, Matthew? What’s it like on your end?”

“Starting to get a little crowded,” he said. “I’m kind of upside down. It’s not comfortable, but it means I’m moving out head first so there’s some good news.”

Marnie giggled. “Sorry. This is so weird.” She sighed. “But then I suppose so am I. The second weird sister. And no, Patrice didn’t tell me about her powers. I can feel them, and I can see the golden light around her still, even if no one else can.”

“What about you?” Meaghan asked.

“So far, I don’t seem to have any of the physical powers she has, but mentally I think I’m stronger. She doesn’t know I can tell she’s still manifesting everything and she won’t unless one of you tells her. Which may not be a good idea right now. She’s got enough on her hands with Jamie at the moment.”

“Jamie?” Meaghan and Matthew asked at the same time.

Marnie shook her head. “Don’t worry. It’s the stuff you already know about. Between the Fahrayans and those squid things, he had the shit kicked out of him for a couple of months and it’s going to take some time to get past it. She’s afraid having a super wife will shove him over the edge.”

“Will it?” Meaghan asked.

Marnie shrugged. “I can tell you what people are feeling now, but I can’t tell the future. And I . . . people have the right to the contents of their own heads. I only told you about Patrice because it’s relevant to whatever’s happened to me. We’re linked somehow. And no, Matthew, I don’t have any idea if there’s another one of us out there. Not a clue. What can I do to help?”

“For reasons I can’t explain,” Meaghan said, “I’m probably the only one who can kill the dragon and almost everyone else will be a liability.”
Let’s do a test.
“The dragon can stun people, but you won’t remember it.”

Meaghan waited for the dreamy look, but it didn’t come.

Marnie nodded. “I can feel there’s some idea in my head I can’t retain. It’s like how a dream dissolves as soon as you wake up.”

“That puts you several steps ahead of everybody else,” Meaghan said. “I need you to trust me and keep everyone else away. I can’t fight the dragon and protect them, too.”

“What are you talking about?” Steph looked confused.

“Dragons have the ability to magically stun anyone who gets close and somehow they can keep you from understanding that,” Meaghan said, watching Steph’s face.

Steph’s eyes unfocused in the same way John’s had. “Tell me what you need and I’ll do it.”

“Stay away from the dragon,” Meaghan said. “It will stun you if you get too close.”

“Anything you need, Meg.” Steph wore a dreamy look on her face. “I’ll be right by your side.”

Meaghan sighed and glanced at Marnie. She had her eyes shut and was shaking her head. “It’s right there and . . .” Marnie opened her eyes. “It’s gone. I’m sorry.”

“Steph, I need you to stay back and help Marnie. And trust me. Can you do that?”

“I can do that,” Steph said, the dreamy look gone. “Whatever you need.”

We do trust you, you know. Even if you don’t trust yourself.

Meaghan stared at Marnie.
Did you talk to me in my head?

Marnie smiled and nodded.

Meaghan now saw her way around the stunning problem. “I’m afraid the elves may be listening. I can communicate with Marnie in my head.”
Right?

Marnie nodded again.

“I need the rest of you to do what she tells you, even if it looks like I’m in danger,” Meaghan said. “It’s part of the plan.”

What plan?
Marnie asked her.

The plan I haven’t come up with yet. Keep them safe. Promise me you’ll keep them back and keep them safe no matter what happens to me.

Marnie nodded again.
I promise.
“Sounds good, Meg.”
Is Terry part of this plan?

Meaghan nodded.
But he can’t get too close either.

How close is too close?

I wish I knew.

Marnie nodded.

“Will you stop that?” Steph said. “All the silent nodding is giving me the creeps.”

“Babe, here’s the—” Jeff stood in the doorway with a tray. “I’m gonna need more cups.”

“No, you aren’t,” Meaghan said. “Marnie and I are going downstairs. I think. Where’s Sam?”

Chapter Forty