Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
W hile we filled ourselves on the bounty given to us by witches—the stew needed a bit more salt, but otherwise was delicious—we read on. These scrolls grew darker in tone. And I had a feeling we were going to find out what we were after.
The blue, flaming words lifted from the paper again. “My daughter has chosen a mate. Baruch is a good man. His powers grow as he learns the ways of magic. My daughter is truly happy.”
“Okay,” I said, taking another drink of my wine. “So it looks like these early men and women, the ones Lilith chose to bring back to her land, held some magic like Zohor. Where do we think that came from?”
Connor shrugged. “I think humans have always had some sort of magic in them. Look at psychics. They aren’t supers. They just have the ability to tap into a magic that most people no longer have access to. For whatever reason, mortal people decided to suppress their magic to the point that it’s not there any longer.”
“My beautiful daughter grows heavy with child,” Lilith wrote. “Baruch dotes on her, keeping her comfortable. He is more of a partner and caregiver than Adam ever was to me when I carried my children, and he is every bit like my Zohor. She has chosen well.”
Her daughter was beautiful, looking very much like her mother. The pictures showed Baruch, his dark hair and tanned skin very much in keeping with that area of the world. But his eyes. They looked on his wife with so much love, I felt like crying, and it took a lot to get me to cry.
“Adam has shown today. Out of nowhere, he has invaded our land with his cruel heart looking for my dearest Shoshana, my eldest child, my flower who grew in my garden amongst his cruelty.
‘Where is she?’ he demands.
‘She is with her mate. Do you not have another woman to subjugate now? Your concerns are with her. Leave this land now.’
‘You took my due.’
‘I took nothing but what was mine. I grew those children in my womb. I brought them into this world without help or kindness from you. I nurtured them. They are mine . They have always been mine.’
‘Eve is useless. She holds no magic. I want my magic back. You will give me my due. Shoshana will marry my son. She will give us back our magic, which you stole.’
‘Shoshana has a mate. The magic was never yours. It was gifted to me . She will not marry your son. Children born to her will bring good upon the world, not the evil in your heart. This is your last chance, Adam. Go now and never return or I will end you ? —’
‘Mother Lilith,’ Baruch calls to me, running from the home he shares with my daughter. ‘She needs you. Is time.’
‘Go now, Adam—your last warning.’
Zohar and my son, Peter—fathered by Adam—race down over the hillside with their hands raised, prepared to defend me and their homes. They need not a spear or sword, or to take up any such arms against the intruder, for their magic is enough to defeat him.
‘Mother Lilith,’ Baruch calls to me again. ‘Please.’
‘Go,’ Zohor says. ‘Help our daughter.’ Then he turns to Adam. ‘Leave or die.’
‘Peter?’ Adam asks. ‘You will come with me now.’
‘My home is here, with my family,’ Peter answers. I need to get to my daughter, but I worry for my dearest partner and my eldest son.
‘I am your father!’ Adam shouts.
Peter laughs humorlessly. ‘You were never anything but cruel. Zohor is my father.’ Then he shoots out his hand. A gust of strong wind blows Adam off his feet. ‘Never come back,’ Peter orders.
As Adam scrambles to his feet and runs away like the coward I always knew him to be, he calls over his shoulder, ‘You will be sorry you went against me.’
Once he is far enough away, I run up the grassy knoll to my daughter who needs me.”
It appeared that Agatha’s family grimoire was wrong. Lilith wouldn’t ever have left her son swinging. She loved him. That meant she cast her protection to her daughters and sons . Her daughters simply held more magic. Women held more magic. And that had to be why men spent so much effort trying to keep women down. All thanks to Adam.
“Wow,” I said, wiping my face. “Adam was a real piece of work.”
“So much makes sense now,” Connor teased. “So much. Good thing our kids won’t have a dick for a dad.”
That got me. We’d never discussed kids. Not that there had really been time since we’d hooked up. But still… “Our kids?”
“Yeah, I figured we’d have a couple eventually. Don’t you want kids?”
“Is it possible for me and you to have them, given you’re a death hound and I’m whatever I am?”
“It’s very possible, baby. The universe wouldn’t have paired us if it weren’t. And besides, it might be a good idea to bring a couple more protectors of the world into the world.”
He had me there. “Can we discuss this topic when we no longer have men trying to kill us? I’m a little jaded at the moment.”
“Simone, I won’t let them hurt you. You’re mine to protect and I will do that until my last breath.”
“Which I’m hoping won’t be for seventy or eighty more years.”
“Seventy or eighty?”
“Well, I’m guessing I’ll be tired of your old, wrinkled Shar Pei butt by then.”
“ Woman .” He shook his head before pulling me onto his lap. “What am I going to do with you?”
I nestled against his chest. “Thank you for not being Adam, well, at least not now. You were kind of an Adam when we first met.”
“I was never an Adam, baby. I was confused, which made me a bit surly. But once I figured out who you were to me, I was surly because you liked to put yourself in dangerous situations.”
“This will be the only time you’ll get this, so mark it in your calendar, but I’ll give you that point.”
He threw his hand to the part of his chest not blocked by my body and whipped his head around. “The world must be ending. We need to find shelter.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Ah, but I’m your idiot.” Then he pecked a quick kiss to the top of my head. “Shall we get back to it?”
I nodded, stretching out my legs and back again, doing a couple of bends and squats. Research took a lot out of a woman. When I felt ready, I took my seat again and went back to the scroll. Connor dropped down next to me and we both watched with rapt attention to what came next.
“‘My beautiful Shoshana, you are doing well, my love.’ Baruch pushes her sweat-soaked hair back from her face.
‘One more push,’ I urge her, waiting to help bring my second grandchild into the world. She carried two. Two. Shoshana’s sister, Libi, my oldest daughter with Zohor, holds our beautiful girl while Shoshana pushes with all her might.
‘I cannot,’ Shoshana shouts.
‘You can, my love,’ Baruch urges her on while I take a different approach.
‘You will. Now Shoshana. You will do this now .’
My sweet daughter bears down one last time and I am able to help ease the babe out.
‘A son,’ I cry with a full heart. ‘You have given our family a daughter and son.’ I help to detach the boy and finished up the delivery while Baruch holds his son.
‘My beautiful Shoshana, you have done well. He is strong and perfect, just as our daughter is. No man has more blessings on this night than do I.’”
“Connor, did you see that?”
“Uh yeah, I’m scarred. You going to want me in the delivery room?”
I slapped him. “Not that part—and yes. If we have kids, your butt will be in there with me because I didn’t get myself pregnant. But let’s focus. I’m talking about the part where Shoshana had twins. A boy and girl.”
“Yeah, that’s crazy and highly sus.”
It was more than sus and I needed to read more to confirm what I thought deep down I already knew, though, I’d admit, I had no idea how it was possible.
“I take the baby girl from Libi, placing her on Shoshana’s lap. Baruch approaches, placing the boy down next to the girl. He holds his family lovingly.”
“Connor—this is the part from my vision at Agatha’s, only I never saw the boy. Just me.”
“Keep reading,” he ordered.
I looked back to the scroll. “‘My Simeon.’ Shoshana softly breathes his name. ‘My Simone.’ We all whip our heads up in the direction of the commotion outside the dwelling.
‘They are coming. Get her out.’” Lilith says to Baruch. We should have ended Adam when he’d shown up before. It is him. I know it is him coming for my Shoshana.
“‘Give me the babe,’ Adam says. My lovely Shoshana, so tired, holds almost no strength.
‘No,” she says. ‘Libi.’ My Libi bends down to grab Simeon.
‘Get him to Peter,’ I order, using my magic to protect her as she uses her own to escape. The sound of fighting rings through the land and I know my Zohor and my dearest sons and daughters are defending our home and our family.
Adam lunges for the innocent babe, Simone. Baruch throws himself onto the man as I lift the tiny girl into my arms. ‘I will be back. I will fight.’
‘ Simone ,’ Shoshana cries and that is the last we hear. I move her to where Adam will never lay hands on her. ‘My beautiful Simone,’ I say with tears in my eyes. ‘You are loved, my Simone. You are loved. Adam wanted your power. I fear that others worse than Adam will seek it for themselves as well.’ I place my grimoire inside her swaddle. ‘The universe will send you a protector when you need it. Until then, I must bind you—I am so sorry. You must know, dear child, that I do this to help you. I pray you understand.’
I bend down to kiss her head, then I step away from the building, using my magic to compel someone inside to find her. ‘I must protect your brother now.’”
“Holy—” Connor started.
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Baby, do you still have that book you had since you were born?”
“It’s back at home. Connor, did you hear that? Simeon is my twin brother. He’s… We’re…”
“The grandchildren of Lilith and Adam. Yeah, I got that. I’m just not sure how to process it.”
“ You don’t know how? Imagine being me.”
“So now we know what you are— wow . I can’t wrap my head around it. I’ve been sleeping with a direct descendant of Lilith.”
“She spoke of you. The universe would send me a protector when I needed it. And here you are. Your family must be special for the universe to send you to me and your sister to my brother.”
“What happened to Shoshana and Baruch?” he asked. “And to Zohor and the children he had with Lilith?”
“I don’t know. But maybe they’ve had family lore passed down that might help us with whoever is trying to kill us now.
“And maybe they’ve been in contact with Simeon.”
“But, Connor, we have to get the grimoire. With that, Simeon and I can join the amulet to the hilt of the dagger and the blade will appear.”
“Did she say that?”
“No. But Agatha’s ancestor told me and I feel it. I feel the action, the joining, coursing through my veins as if it’s already happened. It wants to be joined again. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“It’s not safe to go home now. We know you were being followed.”
“I think we were both being followed,” I countered. None of whatever this was started happening without Connor. Beetle, the man I was sure was behind all this saw Connor the day he showed up to Monnie’s Bar to protect me. Or more like retrieve me, but semantics. Connor was on bad guy radar, too. Period.
“Any ideas for what to do next? I’m practically useless because my whole body has gone into protection mode. Rather than coming up with plans, I’m on edge, waiting to eliminate any threat against you. It’s annoying as hell, to tell you the truth—and before you get all bent, it’s annoying because I want to help more. Not because I don’t want to protect you.”
“Is it bad that I want to bang you right now? That was… that was…”
“Baby, focus.”
“Focus. Right. I think we need to find out if Lilith has any living descendants aside from me and Simeon.”
“Then we’ve got more work ahead of us. We’ve got a few more scrolls and plenty of books to look through. One of them has to give us an idea of where to seek out more of Lilith’s descendants.”
We read for several more hours. In Lilith’s own hand, we read that she’d gotten back to Shoshana and Baruch too late to save them. Shoshana had been too weakened from the long birth to fight and although Baruch had tried to protect her, Adam had used a hidden knife to end them both.
My parents. Adam murdered my parents. No wonder Lilith never came back for me. It was so unfair. I never got to know them. They never got to know me. I hated Adam. He robbed me of my family. He forced me to grow up scared and alone.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Connor said. “You shouldn’t play poker.”
“He took my family.”
“He did. And I’m sorry about that, but if he hadn’t, then I wouldn’t have met you. That would’ve robbed me of my family—the one I have with you. And maybe it makes me a dick, but I can’t be sorry that I’ve got you in my life.”
I moved to straddle his lap. “Maybe there’s time for a little rub and stroke?” I asked through my tears.
He kissed me, but my clothes stayed in place. “You were right before. We’ll wait until we’re in a bed where I can get creative and not have to think about witchy spells watching us.”
The last book that we read had nothing to do with Lilith. Or at least not at first glance. It talked about a lab in England collecting DNA, like a 23andMe for supers. The book had been written just last year. The lab was in Birmingham.
“We need to go there, right?” Connor asked. “It wouldn’t have presented itself for nothing.”
“They might be able to put me in contact with other members of my extended family.”
He shook his head. “Then I guess we’re going to Birmingham.”
We wrote down the information that we needed and when I stood and said, “It’s time to go,” the stairwell opened up. Connor grabbed my hand to lead me up the steps. He tried to keep walking, but I tugged my hand away to stop him.
“ Fág mar aon ní amháin ,” I said, hoping that, again, the witchy spell on the archives appreciated my attempt at pronunciation. When Connor gave me a weird look I shrugged. “What? Bad things could happen if I don’t close the archives. It has to be done.”
“Anything else? Put your left hand in? Pull your left hand out?”
“I’m not doing the hokey pokey.”
“Do you have the strength to manifest us to Birmingham or are we running?”
“I ate. We’ve been sitting for hours. I can’t be sure, but I felt something tingly when I drank my wine. I think it had some healing properties like the witches knew I needed it.”
“I love being a death hound, but witches are damn cool.”
“Yeah, they are. So hold on tight and I’ll manifest us to Birmingham.”
Getting Connor to do anything that involved getting close and personal with me clearly wasn’t a hardship for the man. Pretty much the moment the words left my mouth, he had himself pressed to my back, his arms around my shoulders. I sucked in a breath, closed my eyes, and pushed the thought of Weik Laboratories, Birmingham , out into the world. At full strength, the manifesting came easily to me.
It literally took us the time from me closing my eyes and pushing the thought to opening my eyes again to find that we’d landed in an alley between two brick buildings. Huge buildings. Several stories up. I couldn’t know how wide until we headed out of the alley and I got to take in the full scope. Each building took up the length of the alley on their respective sides. Where I lived in my little corner of Michigan, we didn’t have these massive modern monoliths—ooh… all M’s. I liked how that sounded. Massive modern monoliths— No. focus Simone. It almost felt like the more my magic downloaded into my system, the more all over the place my thoughts traveled and I had a strong suspicion that little side effect would either become my best friend or get me into a world of trouble one day. I voted for best friend, but so far I didn’t feel like my vote counted for much in the universal elections. If there even was such a thing.
“Which building do you think it is?” Connor asked, snapping me out of my head. I startled then smiled at him. His eyes dropped to my mouth. “What’s that for?”
“What?”
“The smile. You take my breath away when you turn that smile on me. I can’t think straight.”
“I’m just glad you’re with me now.”
“Dammit, woman—” He snaked me into his arms again, pressing his cheek to the top of my head. “You can’t say shit like that when we don’t have time for me to act on it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just save that thought for when I can get you alone. Now, before I say screw the world, which building?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know. It could be either one of these or it could be across the street. Magic lands us where it’s safest, where we’re least likely to be seen by someone who wants to burn us on a stake.”
“So you don’t have a feel yet?”
“It’s harder to pinpoint because there’s a lot of magic users here. That, I feel one hundred percent. And for the record, I’d rather you screw the Simone. I don’t want to share with the world.”
“Right,” Connor grumbled, wiping a hand down his face. “We need to start looking.” He reached for my hand and started to walk, leading us out of the alley onto the bright, sunny street.
“It’s that one.” I pointed to the building across the street from us.
“You sure? How do you know?”
Laughing, I dropped Connor’s hand to move his head in the direction I wanted him to look. Namely, at the sign on the front of the building that read: Weik Laboratories .
“I’ll be snookered,” he mumbled. “They just put it out there?”
“Sometimes the best defense is to hide in plain sight. No one is going to go there unless they’re seeking out their services.”
Because Weik Laboratories was located on a busy street, we jogged up to the closest crosswalk and crossed with the others, mostly non-supers, needing to get wherever they were going, too.
Connor pulled the glass and metal door open for me to pass through first.
Magical energy filled every nook and cranny of the building.
“Oh, my…” The pretty, blonde receptionist with her plump, rosy cheeks said as we approached her desk. Her eyes grew wide. I couldn’t discern whether she was ‘ oh, my ’ing my mate or if it had to do with me.
When she tilted her head and asked, “What are you?” I sighed, knowing it was me. Well, until she turned to Connor and whispered, “Oh my,” with a completely different meaning.
I snapped my fingers to get her attention back to me. “He’s taken.”
Her face pinked. “Um, yes. So sorry. How can I help you today?” But before I had a chance to answer, especially since I had no idea how to answer her or how much information to give, her eyes grew wide once more as she looked between Connor and me and she put her finger up to tell us ‘one minute’ and picked up a phone receiver.
“Ms. Rivers,” she said into the phone. “You should come down here.”
After she hung up, Connor, always on the defensive when it came to me, pushed me behind him. “Is there a problem?”
“No. There’s no problem. It’s just—” She was cut off by another voice.
“I’m Victoria Rivers.” A woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties with short, curly, brown hair and a navy suit jacket and pencil skirt clicked her heels over the marble flooring toward us. “We’ve been waiting for you to show.”
She stuck her hand out. I reached around Connor to shake it.
“You’ve been waiting for us?” Connor asked suspiciously.
“The protector,” she said, still smiling. “Would you like to join me in my office? It’ll be easier to show you than try to explain.”
“We’re not going anywhere with you.”
To move this little party along, I stepped out from around Connor. “Honey,” I whispered in his ear, “we’ll be okay. I feel it. She’s not going to hurt us.”
“You’re lucky to have such a fierce protector.”
I leaned in closer to her conspiratorially. “Don’t tell him this, but I agree.” Then I turned and winked at Connor. “I’m Simone, by the way. And this guy is Connor.”
“I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to finally learn your names, but I’m also a little nervous as to what it means that you both are here.”
Well, that sounded ominous. I knew we had bad men trying to kill us and all that, but did she know something that we didn’t?
Victoria Rivers led us to the bank of elevators. She pressed the up arrow, the one that took us all the way to the top. So it appeared that Ms. Victoria Rivers was an important person in the Weik Labritories world.
Her office was huge. Huge. And full of windows. Bright sunlight shone in. Luc would have been jealous. The heat in his office didn’t come from the sun.
“Please, have a seat.” She gestured to two leather club chairs situated in front of a large, oak desk. We sat and watched her walk over to a room that wasn’t a room when she opened the door because inside that door was another, a safe door. The expensive, airtight, fireproof, waterproof, bombproof variety. That part was the human magic. It’d also been imbued with witch or some sort of super magic. Given the location, I was going with witch.
She punched in a code and waited for the lock to deactivate. Victoria opened the safe and walked in. I lost sight of her for a minute and then she returned wearing white, cotton gloves that she used to protect very fragile, yellowed paper, walking it over to her desk.
“We’ve had this in our possession for more generations than I can count. It was given to an ancestor of mine. She was told to read it and to keep it safe. Above all else, she was to pass it down to someone who would follow the instructions.”
Victoria carefully pulled the paper from the envelope, laying it open on her desk. I craned my neck to see what was written. “What are the instructions?” I asked.
Turning the letter for Connor and me to get a better look, she began to explain. “When the mated pair seek you out, you must help in any way possible. The dark protector and the one you will not be able to discern. They are the key. The world will be unraveling, unable to recognize itself. I cannot say when they will present themselves, but they will present themselves. To save all that is love and beauty, you must hear them. You must aid them. Without the mated protectors, all will be lost.”
“That’s ominous.” I swallowed hard.
Connor turned his head to look at me. “ Babe .”
“What? We’ve got bad dudes after us who want us dead. But that whole ‘all will be lost’ thing is creepy.”
“Really? After everything we’ve seen, everything we’ve survived, that ’s what gets you?”
“Yeah. Literally carrying the fate of every living thing on the planet, all the people and animals and even the plants on my shoulders, is a little daunting. I’m not going to lie, it fills me with a tad bit of anxiety. How doesn’t it for you?”
“Because I’m selfish,” he said, completely straight-faced. “I only care about keeping you safe. That’s my job. I lose you, I lose everything. You stay safe, the world stays safe, but to me, that’s neither here nor there. It’s you, Simone. For me, it all comes down to you.”
I bit my bottom lip to keep from attacking him with kisses and to keep from breaking down in tears. Man, we’d come a long way.
“So what can I do for you?” Victoria asked.
“This might sound odd,” Connor started, “but no other mated protectors have visited you, right?”
“ Are there other mated protectors?” she asked.
“Okay, so that’s a no. I just had to ask.”
“I need you to test my DNA,” I said, just putting it out there because a.) she asked and b.) the time for niceties passed us when she read us that note. “I need to see if I have any living relatives. This is so important.”
“Of course,” she said. “Is that it?”
“How fast can we get the results? It’s kind of a matter of world-ending importance.”
“With the use of magic, we have technologies that the non-supers can only dream of. Let’s go down to the lab. They’ll take some blood and we’ll get this process going. A few hours at most.”
For the first time in a while, I felt a sense of hope.
Fingers crossed it wasn’t premature.