Phoenix in My Fortune (A Monster Haven Story Book 6) (15 page)

Having them here again made my heart fill with happiness and my knees go weak with terror.

I took them into the kitchen and poured the kids glasses of milk.

“Did you walk all the way from the Ozarks again?” I asked as I set out cups and creamer for Rene and me to have coffee.

“We rode the rails like hobos!” Toby said, his feet swinging under his chair. The milkstache on his face was so adorable, I had to stop myself from smothering him with kisses. Seriously, the kid left me helpless.

Janey wiped her mouth on her sleeve when she saw her younger brother’s face. She was far too grown up for such things. “Toby, don’t be dumb. Momma paid for our tickets. Didn’t you, Momma?”

Rene smiled and poured creamer in her cup. “I paid the nice troll to let us sleep in the luggage car. So, yes. In a manner of speaking, we paid for tickets.”

Janey sniffed in Toby’s general direction and shoved her glasses up the bridge of her nose, satisfied that she’d been right.

Maurice walked into the kitchen as I opened the first cupboard in search of sugary cereal to feed the kids.

“No.” His eyes grew huge. “No, no, no. You can’t be here.” He smacked his palm against his forehead, then leaned down and gave Rene a hug.

Rene looked alarmed. “That was Zoey’s reaction, too.”

Maurice waved away her concern. “It’s not the best time, no, but you’re always welcome.” He saw what I was doing, scowled at me and closed the cupboard door I was holding open. “Go sit down before you burn something.”

Maurice whipped up ricotta-and-blueberry pancakes shaped like teddy bears while I told Rene what was going on. I considered taking her to another room so the kids wouldn’t get scared but decided those two kids had seen so many terrifying, horrible things in their short lives, treating them like delicate flowers would be an insult.

Rene’s reaction wasn’t the horrified, frantic response I’d expected. Her face was thoughtful as she unfolded her napkin and spread it across her lap. “It seems to me that this Shadow Man is a danger to us no matter where we are. If we’re going to be at risk, this is the safest place to be, even without a fairy ring.” She smiled up at me, radiating faith. “You’ll save us all, Zoey. You always do.”

Chapter Fifteen

Rene was right. My house was the safest place for the kids. I sure as hell wasn’t going to put them out back in a tent, under the circumstances. And since we were keeping close watch on the goblin kids, I sent Sara over to convince Molly and her family to move in, too. The linen closet they’d stayed in a while back still had Barbie furniture set up in case they slept over.

If nothing else, I needed them with us for my own peace of mind. The other end of my backyard where their mushroom house sat seemed like a million miles away—too far to protect them.

Maurice set up the goblins in the guestroom where Kam usually slept. She didn’t need it anyway, since she’d been keeping watch at Mom’s and took naps at the cottage during the day.

And Gris, who didn’t require sleep at all, was made the official child minder. He volunteered to guard them twenty-four hours a day until the danger passed.

The only child we couldn’t keep our eyes on was Tashi’s baby, Edie. Iris had been against coming inside the house when he was alive, and Tashi was no different. Skunk-apes and yeti didn’t like enclosed walls. Besides, she hadn’t set the baby down since Dasho had been stolen. Shadow Man might be stealthy enough to swipe one baby from under her nose, but he’d never get another chance. He’d have to confront her head-on if he wanted to get to Edie.

And even if he could match an angry mama-yeti, the gargoyle standing watch next to her would be tough to beat. Phil refused to leave her side.

It took forever to get everyone settled and off to sleep that night. Janey and Fred played cards—Maurice held Fred’s cards for him, yet remained heroically impartial—and Toby and Abby drew pictures and chatted about kid’s stuff like bugs, spit bubbles and farts.

I sat in the living room, cradled in Riley’s arms, watching the four kids, a closet monster, a goblin and my demon best friend huddled around my kitchen table, with a golem keeping guard over them nearby.

As worried as I was about the missing kids, Shadow Man and our entire future, it felt good to take a minute and bask in the comfortable hominess of the moment.

Abby squealed with laughter over something Toby said, and Fred threw his small arms in the air while yelling “Gin!” My eyelids grew heavy, but I shook my head to clear it. I didn’t want to miss a second.

Around midnight, Molly and Walter emerged from the linen closet and hopped up on the kitchen table.

“Time for bed, my darlings.” I couldn’t see her tiny face from all the way in the living room, but she sounded long past tired and into bone-weary. Frankly, I didn’t know how she was even upright, considering everything that had happened. Plus, she had a toddler. Susannah wasn’t even a year old yet, and she was already a handful.

All four kids groaned in unison.

“No, she’s right,” Rene said. “Come on. Everybody up. Brush your teeth. It’s hours past late.”

The brownie kids hopped off the table and headed down the hall with the small goblins dragging their feet behind.

I tried not to laugh. “Their attitudes say ‘Let us stay up all night,’ but their eyes say ‘For the love of Pete, where are my jammies?’”

The two moms chuckled, then conversed together in quiet voices for a moment. When they separated, Molly called the kids back before they disappeared into the bathroom. “If you promise to go straight to sleep, you can all sleep together.”

The rejoicing coming from the hallway was comical, but it tapered off faster than I expected. The kids were too pooped out for much celebration.

Walter jumped onto the coffee table. “We thought it would be easier on Gris to keep an eye on them all together. Is that all right, Aegis?” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked up at me as if I might veto the whole thing. Dark circles ringed his eyes.

Walter hadn’t been my favorite person when I’d first met him. He’d been drinking, and I’d already taken in his wife and kids because he’d been violent with them. That first meeting hadn’t gone well. He was lucky I hadn’t flicked him across the beach.

Losing his family had been an eye opener, and he’d gotten help. After he stopped drinking, it took a long time before Molly would even speak with him. It took an even longer time before she trusted him to be around the kids, especially once she found out she was pregnant.

Walter won back his family, but it had been a struggle. Baby Susannah was three months old before Molly finally let him move back in with her and the kids. I was proud of the way he’d changed, but I was more in awe of Molly. If it had been me, I’d have dumped his ass and never looked back. But Molly saw something worthwhile in him. She refused to be a victim or put her kids in danger, but she refused to give up on the man she knew was inside.

I still considered him on probation though. And he knew it.

“Walter, that’s fine. You don’t have to ask me.” I smiled. “It’s a good plan. Keep the kids together. That’s the whole point of having you here anyway, right?”

Molly climbed up next to him and patted his shoulder. Her voice was soft and a little scratchy from crying. “The children need to be tucked in, and I don’t want to be away from Susannah longer than I must.”

They were trying so hard to keep things normal for the other kids—to keep from falling apart in front of them. But I could see it. I felt it, too. I shared their grief and fear. It hung above us all, soaking everything it touched.

He put his hand over hers and they pressed their foreheads together. “Maybe they’d like a story.” He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. “I’ll be up as soon as I’m done, love.”

For the next few minutes, my quiet, cozy home was like the lobby of a hotel. The kids giggled from the bathroom. Rene yelled at them to quit spraying water and finish brushing their teeth. Maurice and Sara said good-night and disappeared into the master bedroom. Rene shoved all four kids out into the hall and shut herself in to get dressed for bed.

Once the noise and movement died down with everyone in their room, Riley and I were alone. At least, we thought we were.

“So, do you think I should stand in the room all night or stay outside in the hall?” Gris, in his man-sized body, loomed over us with his arms folded. I had to admit, Bernice was excellent at what she did. Tiny hairs lay across the fake skin of his arms, and his chest moved up and down when he stood still, as if he were actually breathing. “I’m more inclined to stay outside. Nobody wants someone to stand over them and watch while they sleep.”

I shivered. “No. Nobody wants that.”

Riley’s arms tensed around me. “In the hall is good. Then you can watch all our doors, including the linen closet. We’ll keep the door to the kids’ room open a little so you can see all of them at once, though.”

“Agreed.” He dropped his arms to his sides. “Well then. I’m off to play guard dog.” To my surprise, he saluted us.

I tried not to look startled.

Once everyone else was settled, we checked in with Kam over at Mom’s, then crawled into bed ourselves. Or kind of fell into bed. I was too tired to crawl. I didn’t remember closing my eyes, let alone falling asleep. I was out in seconds.

I’d never been able to sleep in complete darkness, even before I was five years old and the scary closet monster terrified me half to death. With the windows covered up to avoid being watched by a cricket-carrying lunatic, I had to have something on in the room or I’d be downing caffeine pills and chanting in the dark like a victim in a Freddy Krueger movie.

Nine, ten, never sleep again...

Riley, always the hero, had gone through some boxes in my garage and emerged holding my old lava lamp aloft, as if it were a trophy for Best Dumpster Diver. To my surprise, it worked when he’d plugged it in, so each night since, I slept bathed in a soft, flickering blue light.

That was how I was able to see Shadow Man standing over me when I woke up.

I tried to scream. I tried to move. I tried to breathe.

Nothing on my body seemed to work except my heartbeat, which worked overtime to compensate.

His orange eyes were dull and flat as they gazed down on my helplessness. His hideous slash of a mouth turned up in a chilling grin, and he raised one spidery finger to his lips. “Shhhhhh.”

Screaming really would have been a nice option at that moment. Breathing. Breathing would have been nice, too.

He leaned close over me, grinning impossibly wide, and brushed my hair away from my face. I couldn’t move to avoid him, and his cold fingers touched my cheek. An involuntary shudder ran through me.

I so wanted Riley to wake up, but his breathing was still regular and deep. He wasn’t going to be any help.

Shadow Man leaned even closer. His breath was rancid, and his puckered mouth hovered over my ear. “First I take your children. Then I come for you.” The lava lamp blinked out, leaving me in absolute darkness.

I jerked to life and sat up, taking in a ragged breath, then screamed with everything I had in me. Riley yelled and sat up, flipping the light on.

He put his arms around me and held my shaking body against his. His heartbeat felt as fast as my own. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Just a bad dream.” He rocked as he whispered soothing words to calm me. “Just a bad dream.”

I let him cradle me for a minute while I caught my breath, doing everything in my power not to burst into tears like a frightened child. Finally, I gathered myself together enough to let go and sit up. “I—”

Someone screamed from another room.

We scrambled from the bed and ran to the hallway. Rene stood in the doorway of Kam’s room. The door to the linen closet stood open, and Molly stood on the edge of the shelf with Susannah in her arms and Walter by her side.

Both women were sobbing.

“No.” It was the only word I could pull from my dry, constricted throat, and it came out in a raspy hush.

I ran past Rene and into the room where she and the children had been sleeping.

The two large and two small makeshift beds lay undisturbed on the floor next to Rene’s rumpled bed, almost as if their occupants had never slept in them, though I knew that wasn’t true. When I checked on them before I went to bed, the kids had all been snuggled in and listening to Walter tell them a story about a singing coconut tree named Max.

The kids were gone. Shadow Man had lured them away right out from under everyone’s noses, and for some crazy reason, he’d had them make their beds first. Even stranger, a small candy cane wrapped in cellophane rested on each pillow next to the indentation of a cloven-hoof print.

I did a frantic mental search for a story that matched the clues he’d left. “Krampus,” I said. “He thinks he’s Santa’s dark alter ego this time.”

A cricket chirped above my head, and I ducked as it leaped from the top of the doorframe. A second cricket responded from over by the covered window.

A third joined in from my room.

I leaned against the wall and slid to the floor. “How could he get in here?”

Maurice and Sara had come out of their room, too, and Sara sat on the floor next to me. “Honey, Gris was watching the whole time. He couldn’t get in.” She craned her neck to look over her shoulder. “Right, Gris?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed a few times and clicked, then his head swung open, and the real Gris sat behind the controls, a stricken look on his face. “I swear. I was right here. Nobody came in or out. Nobody made a sound.”

He hadn’t come through the window. It was locked, and Rene’s bed was in front of it. They hadn’t left that way, either. The window was still locked. It didn’t make sense. Sure, only a few of us could see Shadow Man, but everybody could see the kids. We’d chosen Gris to stand watch specifically because he wouldn’t need to sleep. Even if Shadow Man made it past him, Gris would see the kids leaving.

Except he hadn’t. Somehow, Shadow Man had messed with Gris’s perceptions.

Baby Susannah, held in the arms of her crying mother, began to cry. For her tiny size, she could make a lot of noise. Walter took her and rocked her back to sleep, while Rene and Molly did their best to console each other.

And I, like a fool, couldn’t seem to do anything but sit there in my ridiculous Rainbow Brite nightshirt, idly wondering if I’d flashed my underwear when I slid down the wall.

Because none of what was happening could be real. He could not have come into my home and stolen my kids. Shadow Man could not have stood over my bed and spoken to me.

I shivered. “
First I take your children. Then I come for you
.” I spoke the words out loud to see if they sounded any more real when I said them. They didn’t. They sounded like something I’d half heard in a crowded bar or from an obscure movie. The words weren’t real.

Except they were.

Sara leaned closer to me, frowning. “What did you say?”

I repeated the words, and they echoed with a little more truth this time. “That’s what he said.”

“That’s what who said, honey?” She frowned and squinted at me.

I rubbed my arms to warm the chill from them. “Shadow Man. He was in my room just now. That’s why I screamed.”

Rene sniffled from the hallway, then came in and sat on the bed. “If you hadn’t screamed, I might not have realized the kids were gone until morning.”

Maurice stood in the corner with haunted eyes. His phone rang, and he picked up the call on the first ring. “Hey.” He listened for a moment, his eyes growing larger. “Hang on, Kam.” He took the phone from his ear and regarded the room filled with anxious faces.

“Oh, God.” All I could think about was whether Mom was okay. And I couldn’t get the words out to ask.

Sara squeezed my hand. “What did Kam say, Maurice?”

“Nobody saw anything over there, but...” He trailed off and bit his lip.

“What?” Sara, despite having turned gold and silver and growing horns, still had the same no-nonsense sharpness about her when needed, and her face said
spit it out, already
.

“There are crickets everywhere in the house. It’s an infestation.”