Golem in My Glovebox (32 page)

She shook her head. “You’re an Aegis now. So many more lives were in danger. And you couldn’t know Kathleen would take the Aegises while you saved everyone else.” She squeezed my hand. “You did the right thing, sweetheart. I’m so proud of you.”

And that was pretty much all any girl wanted to hear from her mother.

“I’m not great at it, though,” I said, sorrow squeezing my heart. “I keep losing people I love.” I glanced at my purse sitting on the table.

She gave me a puzzled look. Gris had stayed hidden until the last second, and by then, Mom had been on the floor out of view.

I opened my bag and my breath caught. Gris lay so still inside, a small wooden doll with no life and a scorched hole through his chest. I cradled him in my hand and showed her. “I don’t know much about how a necrofoil works, but it’s probably too late for him. Isn’t it?”

She held out her hand, fingers spread, and lay her palm across his chest. After a moment, she shook her head. “I’m sorry, baby. He’s a golem. They don’t have souls. He’s just a piece of wood.”

I shook my head. “No. He’s more than that, Mom. Please. Try again.”

Her brow creased in concentration, then rose in surprise. “There’s...something. It’s so tiny, though. I don’t know what to make of it.”

My hand shook. “Like a dull light bulb, maybe?”

She shrugged. “I guess. Something like that. It’s so odd.”

I grabbed her other hand. “Help me.”

I reached out to him through my shields. His center was nearly pitch dark, empty. I felt my mother there beside me. The small campfire that had burned inside this courageous golem was nothing but ash until my mother drew closer and brushed aside the debris.

A tiny coal smoldered by itself. Mom cradled it in her metaphysical hands and held it out to me. I blew on it, pouring myself into the coal to feed it. Within minutes, we’d turned the dull coal into a blazing fire.

We pulled away and returned to ourselves.

I waited, breathless, for something—anything—to happen. Gris’s tiny hand twitched as life twinkled in the turquoise chips of his eyes. A sob caught in my throat, and mentally I shook my fist at the universe.

Not today
,
universe.
This time
,
I
get to keep my friends.

Gris sat up in my hand and stretched. “Ah, that’s better! I can see again. I thought for sure I’d gone blind. You must be Zoey’s mother!” He hopped onto the table, faced my mom, and bowed. “Allow me to introduce myself properly. My name is Griswold Octavius Barnabus Ozymandeus Cornelius Fauntleroy Bartholomew...” he paused and looked at me, “Donovan.”

My mother smiled. “Welcome to the family, Griswold.”

* * *

Riley was released the next day, pissed at first but eventually Darius, of all people, talked him around to understanding why I’d ditched everybody. Mom got out the day after that. After Darius and Mom had their reunion, he’d wanted to come with us, but she’d turned him down. He had a job to do, and she had to get reacquainted with her daughter. He didn’t like it, but he understood. And they did spend quite a bit of time alone in her hospital room over the course of those two days. I knew it was killing him to let her go, but she was safe now. He could see her anytime.

Mom and I shared the driving, though I did more of it than she did. She was still weak, not just from blood loss, but it turns out, malnutrition. Katy had lived on prison food for so long, once she was out in the world and in a young, healthy body on top of that, she’d been eating mostly candy and baked goods. Mom had to eat whatever she was given.

It wasn’t as if Katy had been worried about long-term effects to the health of her prisoners. She’d intended to kill them all anyway.

Riley spent the trip in the backseat with his broken ankle propped up. Every few hours for the first two days he assured me that he could drive perfectly fine, despite the cast on his right leg.

“If I push the seat back far enough, I’ll be fine,” he said, somewhere outside Lincoln, Nebraska, and for the hundredth time.

Mom and I ignored him.

“Can you hand me a drink, please?” I said, grinning at him through the rearview mirror.

He made grumbling sounds and grabbed me something out of the cooler. “If you’d let me drive, it wouldn’t take us five days to get home.”

“Relax, Riley,” Mom said. “Would you hand me a drink, too? Navigating is thirsty business.”

“I should be navigating,” he said into the cooler.

* * *

Never in my life had I been so relieved to pull into my own driveway. The trip that day had been shorter—about six hours—so the sun shone on my beautiful little house surrounded by trees.

We’d called ahead to let Maurice know we were almost home, and there he stood waiting on the porch, along with all my friends. Sara and Aggie the Hag sat in my rocking chairs, smiling. Andrew stood near them with his boyfriend, Daniel and Milo, their fennec fox. The entire brownie family, including the baby in Molly’s arms lined the porch railing. Tashi, the yeti, leaned on the other side. I didn’t see Stacy at first, but she stood behind Maurice, peeking over his shoulder and grinning. Even Bruce, the pigmy dragon, was there to see me come home. Off near the tree line, I spotted a dryad with her satyr husband carrying a baby.

The minute I stepped out of the car, Maurice ran down the steps and twirled me in the air. “You’re home! I missed you so much!”

“I have souvenirs for you!” I said. “You won’t believe some of the cool things I got. Let me get—”

The passenger door opened and his face grew solemn. He set me down and moved to the other side of the car.

Mom got out and smiled at him. She held her arms out, and he flew into them. He buried his face in her neck and sobbed. She was his mother, too. He’d lost nearly as much as I had when she disappeared all those years ago.

I looked around at all the people of various flavors of Hidden and human, then looked at Riley, leaning his crutches against the car, and my mother and Maurice holding hands. Gris climbed up on Mabel’s hood, surveying his new home and new family members with a shy enthusiasm.

A tear rolled down my cheek, and I smiled. Whoever this Prime Spark guy was, he might as well give up now and go home.

My family was whole now. He didn’t stand a chance.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The next few weeks held adjustments and changes for all of us. Well, not Bernice. She was, of course, appalled and humiliated when she found out she’d been the one to unlock Katy’s cell and had been feeding information to Katy for the last few years, leading to the deaths of all the other Board members and, more recently, most of the Aegises.

She tried to step down.

Much to my surprise, Art and I formed a unified front. While we’d probably never be friends, Art and I were no longer enemies after everything we’d been through recently. Together we managed to talk Bernice out of resigning. I understood where she was coming from on this, but someone else had been controlling her. It wasn’t her fault.

In the end, what kept her from quitting was the lack of a replacement. That and the new problem looming, this Prime Spark Story Seed guy was still out there.

The troubles we’d had lately had all been related. The Collector had been an opportunist. While Katy was busy killing all the board members for her misguided revenge, it weakened the Hidden government. The Collector had noted the chaos and swooped in, cranking up her business model by kidnapping far more Hidden than she’d ever done in the past, and snatching up the Aegises while she was at it, since they were the best people to have around to keep her prisoners alive.

Once the Collector was gone, Katy did a snatch and grab on the Aegises in the tent before we could get to them. But she’d done it to complete her deal with this new ass-monkey, the Alpha Tale or whatever he wanted to call himself. So, this guy was directly or indirectly responsible for all the fires I’d been putting out.

He was out there, whatever he was. I may have refused to be under the Board’s jurisdiction, but I understood the need for its existence. Bernice couldn’t step down. In fact, she and Art needed to stay put on the compound. The danger to them most likely remained.

Because I had a hunch that all this chaos the Big Bad was causing was with the intention of breaking the Covenant. I didn’t have any proof. And I didn’t have the slightest idea how to find him. But I felt in my bones that the worst was coming. Either we’d take him down like everyone else that had threatened us, or we’d all be destroyed.

It sounded like a Monday to me.

I, of course, disregarded any further danger to myself. I had shit to do. I had weddings to plan, a best friend regaining horrific memories, a boyfriend needing attention, and a mother to get reacquainted with.

Screw the Big Bad Story Dude. I was tired of neglecting my own life.

My friends and family would be my priority. At least for a while.

Besides. I was no longer the only working Aegis. I had help. And that may very well have been the biggest readjustment.

Sara was happy to have me back at work on a regular basis. She still didn’t remember much from her time with the incubus, but she admitted the dreams were getting worse.

“I’ve got to stop pretending, Zoey. I’m going to remember, eventually. I know it. Probably sooner than later.” The admission from her was a huge deal. She’d been denying it for quite awhile, and her weak smile told me how much it cost her to say it.

I squeezed her hand. “I’ll be here when it happens. I can stay with you any time you want.”

She nodded. “I’ll tell you when I need you.”

“It’s a deal. And Art gave me the name of someone you can talk to. A professional who’s part of the Hidden world. You’ll be okay.”

Late that afternoon, Jamie and Alex, our elf and attic-monster brides, met us at the office and caravanned to my house so they could get a look at the backyard. The space was huge, and their wedding party would not be, so we walked the property with them to decide where the best spot would be.

“Once we know how much space we’ll need, we’ll clear out all the tents and campfire circles.” I said, picking my way around a set of folding metal chairs. “All this will be gone. We don’t need it all anyway.”

Jamie tripped over a rock, and Alex grabbed her elbow.

“I heard you were pretty full here a few months ago,” Jamie said.

I nodded. “Everybody went home, though. We only have a few living out here now. The centaur’s going home next week, since his leg is nearly healed. We had a gryphon here a few weeks ago, but he was gone when I got back from my trip.”

We walked the entire property, skirting the area where Molly and her family lived in a giant, hollowed out mushroom. “Private residence,” I said, waving at it and moving on.

At the corner opposite Molly’s, Sara stopped short. “Here,” she said, spreading her arms wide. “This is perfect. You can smell the bay on the breeze, the trees provide shade, and the grass is mostly in good shape, since it hasn’t been as thoroughly trampled. And even if protestors were to show up from the Hidden Church of Wisdom, they can’t get anywhere close enough to interfere.”

I nodded. “I like it. But if the grass is a big seller, don’t worry. The fairies around here can green everything up nicely, and for tougher stuff, I have a dryad friend who might help us out.”

Jamie led Alex by the hand, to stand beneath the spreading limbs of an old apple tree past its prime. She smiled and touched the branch above her head.

Buds I hadn’t seen since I was a kid popped like kernels of corn into fat pink blossoms.

“I think this is a lovely spot,” Alex said, smiling at Jamie.

Movement near the back of the house caught my eye, and I turned from the happy couple. Mom led a family of trolls into the yard—two adults and three children.

I frowned. “Excuse me for a moment, please.” I met Mom in the center of the yard, where she was showing the family one of our larger tents. “What’s going on?”

“Their bridge was demolished. They’re homeless right now, so I’m giving them the tour.”

“Oh. Well.” I watched the little ones scuttle inside where they fought over who got which cot. “I’ll see if I can do some research tonight to help them find a new bridge.”

She patted me on the shoulder and turned me to face Sara and our clients. “No need. I have it under control, honey. You go back to work.”

The clanking of pots and pans came from the tent opening. It sounded like the troll mom had found the kitchen area. The dad stepped out of the tent, nodded at me in greeting, then went off toward the woods.

“Where’s he going?” I asked.

Mom gave me a small shove toward Sara. “He’s getting firewood, Zoey. Go on. You have enough to worry about.”

I gave her a confused look, then returned to Sara. She didn’t look bad for getting so little sleep lately. She smiled and tilted her head toward our clients.

Alex and Jamie held each other close, kissing beneath a rain of apple blossoms. Heavy, dark red apples hung around them like ornaments on a Christmas tree.

Sara and I, moved by the scene and relieved to have so much peace around us for once, looped our arms around each other’s waists and rested the sides of our heads against each other.

“I think theirs might be the prettiest wedding we’ve ever done.” I gave Sara a squeeze.

Sara sighed. “Until we do Maurice and Stacy’s.” A resigned sadness settled over her and puddled in the grass.

“You think so?” I frowned, finally understanding something that had been smacking me over the head for some time. Astonishment gave way to an ache in my heart for my best friend. I was pretty sure Maurice was oblivious to Sara’s feelings, too.

She turned and gave me a quiet, forced smile. “I’m always right about these things. Just wait and see.”

* * * * *

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