Excerpt from Book #19 #2
There were also three different magical suppressors that looked deceptively like ordinary pacifiers. A first aid kit souped up with enough supernatural healing goodies to patch up a dragon. And enough backup breast milk to feed a small army of babies.
"Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it." The corner of my mouth kicked up. Because let's be real—with these three little hellions, I was definitely going to need it.
"You sound like Nana," Nina laughed as I buckled Nyssa into the car seat that was behind Thaniel. "She wanted to come along, by the way. I told her we were just going to the market, not infiltrating enemy territory."
"I love your great-grandmother, but she hasn't parted from that shotgun for months.” Not since Lyra had infected me with a parasitic bond that targeted my babies. It didn’t matter that she was in the Underworld and couldn’t hurt us anymore.
She was worried about the creatures that got free during her eclipse.
“It might stick out at the farmer's market,” I continued. “We'll end up banned from every vendor in the county. Easy, sweetheart. We're just going for a ride." I tickled Nyssa’s tummy.
"Aidon's going to be sorry he missed this," Nina commented as we maneuvered the strollers through the front door. "Where is he, anyway?"
"Meeting with his father about establishing more portals for the Hell Mouth," I replied.
To better control the number of demons that escaped through the veil to Earth, Aidon and I created a Hell Mouth on his property next door.
Because we needed more gates reinforcing the thin barriers separating the two worlds, Fiona and her friends in England had created one in Cottlehil Wilds.
Before I got pregnant, Aidon had talked about having more installed across the globe.
The morning air was crisp with the promise of winter.
It carried the scent of fallen leaves and wood smoke from the fireplaces.
Our property looked almost normal again.
If you ignored the subtle shimmer of protective wards and the creatures milling around.
The refugees who'd sought shelter with us during the crisis had mostly moved on to rebuild their lives.
The pixies remained in their mound, of course.
And a few shifters had remained behind to join Layla and Murtaghs forces keeping our border safe. They felt indebted to me.
Getting three car seats properly secured in my SUV took another fifteen minutes and required an advanced degree in engineering. By the time we were actually driving toward town, I was already questioning the wisdom of this outing.
"They're being really good," Nina observed, turning in her seat to check on her siblings. "Almost too good. Should I be worried?"
I glanced in the newborn mirror at three pairs of eyes watching the passing scenery. "They're probably just taking everything in. This is the furthest they've been from home."
The farmer's market was exactly the kind of wholesome, mundane place where nothing supernatural ever happened.
Which should've been my first red flag that today was going to go sideways faster than a drunk fairy on roller skates.
With Lyra gone, things had been better for supernaturals all across the world.
That was going to make a difference, I told myself as we hit traffic.
"Second thoughts?" Nina asked as I stared at the sea of cars circling the town square like vultures hunting for parking spots.
"Third and fourth thoughts," I admitted, checking that the emergency devices Hades and Persephone had gifted us were easily accessible in the diaper bag.
"Turning back would prove I'm a coward who can't handle a shopping trip.
Your sisters and brother need to be exposed to mundies.
The devices will help keep their power underwraps. "
"You're not a coward," Nina said firmly as we transferred the babies into their ridiculously expensive supernatural stroller.
Nana and Mom had layered on dampening fields, temperature regulation, and enough stabilization spells to contain a small apocalypse.
"You're just a mom whose kids could accidentally level a city block. "
The strollers hummed to life as each baby settled into their section. Melaina's warmth triggered the cooling system on her stroller. It’s why she had her own. Thaniel's electricity met the grounding fields with satisfied sparks, and Nyssa's shadows pooled contentedly in their contained space.
"Okay, ladies and gentleman," I announced to my passengers.
"It’s our first official outing. You are going to meet mundies for the first time.
The rules are simple. No setting things on fire.
No electrocuting bystanders. And absolutely no shadow-grabbing people.
We're buying vegetables and acting normal. "
Nina snorted. "Define normal. You and I can set this entire place on fire if we wanted."
I rolled my eyes at my teenage daughter as we began walking. "We’re simple people whose biggest concern is getting enough vegetables. Not whether their baby might cook said vegetables because she’s hungry."
The market buzzed with Saturday morning energy. Vendors were hawking produce and various other items. The scent of fresh bread and apple cider, made my stomach growl. A smile spread across my face. This was the normal chaos I was looking forward to. Too bad it only lasted for about thirty seconds.
Melaina decided she was hungry. Nina hadn’t been able to feed her the bottle earlier. Melaina escalated from fussing to a full volcanic meltdown. Her distress spiked her heat signature. Nina shot me wide eyes right as I felt the temperature climbing around her stroller.
"I need a bottle," I said urgently, digging through the bag while Nina tried soothing my increasingly fiery daughter. "Before she—"
Too late. The bottle in my hands heated rapidly as Melaina's power responded to her hunger. The breast milk reached tongue-burning temperatures in seconds.
"It's too hot," I muttered, trying to cool it with my magic while ignoring curious stares from other shoppers.
"I've got it," Nina said, wrapping her hands around the bottle and channeling her Pleiades power to absorb the excess heat.
"Poor little thing," commented an elderly woman selling herbs. "Babies get so worked up over nothing."
If only she knew ‘nothing’ meant shit shorting out or catching fire when upset.
We'd barely gotten Melaina settled when Thaniel joined the party.
He decided that seeing his sister fed made him hungry.
His displeasure manifested as an electrical surge that fried Nina's already damaged phone.
Thin tendrils of smoke drifted from her pocket.
"That's the second one this month," Nina groaned, staring at the dead device.
"We'll have Hades make it lightning-proof," I promised, wondering if he could do such a thing. Magic and technology were just starting to play together, thanks to my very powerful friends. That didn’t mean Hades would be able to pull it off.
I was still going to ask because replacing so many devices was costing us an arm and a leg.
Nyssa provided the grand finale to the chaos.
My youngest had been quietly people-watching.
Her shadows suddenly perked up like curious pets and stretched toward a mundie baby with obvious fascination.
She'd probably sensed how different the normal kid was from her and her siblings.
It was like comparing a house cat to a tiger.
The other mother glanced down and froze mid-step. Her face went pale as she watched dark tendrils creep toward her child. "What the hell—"
"What is it?" I asked, looking around as if I couldn't see the obvious shadow problem while discreetly grabbing the obsidian pendant from the diaper bag. The device immediately started containing Nyssa's wayward shadows. It pulled them back where they belonged.
The woman chuckled nervously saying, “Oh, sorry. It’s nothing.
” She cast another look down at her child, gripped her stroller tighter, and then hurried away without another word.
She threw a nervous glance over her shoulder before getting lost in the crowd.
I could practically see her mental gymnastics.
She was worried that she was hallucinating from too many sleepless nights.
Mundies almost always explained away the unexplainable. Self-preservation at its finest.
"Maybe we should've started smaller," Nina observed, adjusting Nyssa's sunshade. "Like a trip to the mailbox."
"We're fine," I insisted, probably with more confidence than the situation warranted. "Just need to find our rhythm."
Famous. Last. Words.
We'd fed all three and changed their diapers before we were able to really start shopping.
I was examining winter squash, mentally planning butternut soup variations, when something brushed against my awareness.
It almost felt like invisible fingers reaching toward the babies.
I jerked my head up, scanning the crowd as I sent my magical senses out to locate my stalker.
Whatever it was had already vanished the moment I tried to focus on it.
Still, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Someone was watching us. I could feel their attention like a weight pressing against my shoulders. If I wasn’t mistaken, it was predatory and patient. I’d been through enough to get good at identifying the sensation.
"Mom," Nina said quietly, her voice tight with controlled panic. "Something's wrong."
"I know..." My words trailed away when I spotted the figure near the honey stand.
They were average height and wearing a dark hood that hid their face entirely.
But it was their hands that made my stomach drop.
They were pale as bone with extra-long fingers ending in what looked like black nails or maybe small claws.
They weren't browsing honey. They were watching us with the kind of focus a hawk reserves for field mice.
"Nina," I said softly. "Do not panic. Stay behind Melaina’s stroller and stay low. Pretend to be going through the bag beneath it."
"What's happening?"
"Someone's watching us." My magic began building beneath my skin as the hooded figure moved toward us. "I can’t get a read on them. Be ready to cast if shit goes sideways."
Their approach was unhurried but purposeful, weaving between shoppers with unnatural fluidity. It wasn't until they got closer that I felt the wrongness clinging to them like a second skin.
"They're going to approach us here?" I asked no one in particular.
The attack came as if in response to my question. A lance of reddish-orange energy materialized from the figure's hand, arrowing toward the strollers. The magic reeked of decay and malevolence. It carried violent intent and made my stomach lurch.
It never reached its target. I threw up a deflection spell just as Nina's protective dome snapped into place around all five of us.
The reddish-orange energy hit my magic and ricocheted harmlessly into the pavement.
Where it struck. it left a smoking crater that had people looking around and asking what happened.
Leaving them to postulate, I moved closer to Nina, who’s barrier shimmered around us like a soap bubble.
It was pretty and completely invisible to mundane eyes.
The backlash from the failed attack sent the hooded figure stumbling backward.
For a split second, I got a clear look at what was under that hood.
It had gray skin stretched too tight over sharp bones.
And eyes like black holes that seemed to pull at my vision.
Before I could tell Nina to stay with the babies, the figure was gone.
They vanished between one heartbeat and the next.
The only evidence left behind was that smoking hole in the asphalt and the lingering smell of burnt plastic mixed with rotting flowers.
Ten seconds. That's all it took. To the mundane shoppers around us, absolutely nothing had happened.
Most kept browsing and chatting, completely oblivious to the magical throwdown that had just gone down in their peaceful farmer's market. A few were wondering about the crater, but they had decided it was a pothole they hadn’t previously seen.
"What the hell was that?" Nina demanded, her voice shaking as she dropped the protective dome.
"Someone who made a very poor decision," I replied, my hands trembling as I checked the babies. All three were awake, alert, and watching me.
"Are you okay?" I whispered, running my fingers over each of them. Melaina reached up with one tiny hand, Thaniel made soft cooing sounds, and Nyssa's shadows pooled contentedly around her blanket. They seemed completely unbothered by the whole thing.
"We need to go home," I said, already turning the stroller toward the parking area. "Right now."
The walk back to our car stretched like taffy. Every face in the crowd was potentially hostile. Every shadow was a possible threat. The babies stayed calm the entire time, as if magical assassination attempts were just another part of their daily routine.
It wasn't until we were locked inside the SUV with the protective wards that I let myself really process what had just happened.
Someone had tracked us down in a public place and tried to hurt my children.
The nightmare scenario I'd been dreading since the day they were born had just become reality.
"Mom," Nina said quietly as I started the engine with hands that refused to stop shaking. "What happens now?"
I looked in the rearview mirror at three pairs of innocent eyes.
"Now we figure out who wants to hurt our family," I said, backing out of the parking space with maybe a little too much aggression.
"And we make damn sure they never get another chance.
" The farmer's market adventure might be officially over, but the war for my children's safety was just getting started.