10. Chapter 10
Chapter ten
SAGE
“I should go,” I blurted when Ollie’s text came through.
Aiden grabbed my arm, keeping me from standing. “If you show up it will only add suspicion to the tavern and everyone else.”
“You can trust Luca to do what needs to be done, kiddo,” Ophelia added.
I deflated back into the couch. “Of course I trust Luca, but we expected Ollie to be able to handle things and I’m not sure she’s going to make it.”
“You helped them plan everything in advance,” Bastian pointed out as he stroked the invisible egg strapped to his chest. Honestly, it looked really weird, but I wasn’t about to tell the dragon that. “If Ollie can’t remain, she will bow out and the others will take over.”
They were right, of course, but I was always the kind of person who needed to be in the middle of things. Involved and ready with a solution the moment something went wrong. Obviously, someone as small and powerless as me couldn’t be involved with the missions, but I tried to compensate for that in other ways, and I couldn’t help but feel like stepping in with a solution right now was my job. I was the one they turned to for answers, but right now they were about to lose their key player and I couldn’t do anything. It was driving me crazy. What was the point in keeping me around if I wasn’t there when they needed me?
Luca and the others shifted their glamours over for the next part of the plan and headed for the hotel while I tried to come up with some way to help. Unfortunately, aside from having Elliot pull Ollie out and create a glamour for me, none of the options were great. And while pulling Ollie out might be the sensible thing to do under the circumstances, there were two reasons I couldn’t do it. One, no one was better at wreaking havoc than Ollie and while I could step in if needed, she was the obvious choice to carry out a plan like this. And two, she would undoubtedly kill me for ratting her out to Elliot after she’d warned me not to.
I was going to have to trust her to know her limits. Except the stubborn woman never gave up — even at her own expense.
Luca downed a few gulps of Chief Barron’s favorite whiskey as he drove to the hotel. Being a vampire, it couldn’t affect him unless he drank huge amounts, but if the van was caught on camera at any point on the trip, it would look like the police chief had been going on a little joy ride. Ash was in the seat next to him, glamoured to look like Officer Newman and he was chugging a bottle of his own as they broke traffic laws everywhere he knew street cameras were hidden.
Even the van they were in had been rented under another officer’s name using a credit card Levi had swiped when he bumped into him at a coffee shop. Since that officer was also in the group in the back, they would simply return the card to his wallet before leaving them behind. Ollie and I had planned everything down to the last detail. The hunters would obviously know something happened, but with enough of the details pointing at their own, at least a little suspicion would be aimed back their way. The vast majority of them had no idea what we were capable of, and it was best that it stayed that way.
Lucky for us, Luca knew the chief well enough to convincingly imitate him, because he stepped into the lobby of the motel and stood at the counter with his arms crossed over his chest in that commanding way Barron always did.
“I need a room,” Luca barked. He reached for the borrowed wallet, flashing the badge inside as he pulled a credit card out and slapped it on the counter.
The desk clerk’s eyes widened. “Yes, sir. Do you have a preference on beds?”
Luca planted both hands on the counter, looming over the clerk intimidatingly. “Why would I want a room without a bed?” he scoffed, purposely misinterpreting the question and making an impression she would remember.
The clerk shrank back, her nose wrinkling at the smell of alcohol. “I meant… right, sorry, sir.” She quickly booked the room and slid a key card across the counter with the credit card. “Room one-sixty-five is on the first floor, just follow the building to the back.”
Luca grunted rather than offering any thanks and snatched the cards off the counter on his way out.
They pulled the van to the back of the motel in front of the room and unloaded the men with one of our glamoured men under each arm like they were helping a drunk buddy walk. This time they switched to a third set of glamours, using some of the low-level hunter’s faces. That would allow our men to leave and once again direct suspicion back at the hunters if anyone happened to see them.
Ollie stumbled into the room looking rather convincingly like she was about to puke, but I wasn’t sure how much of it was acting anymore. Once everyone was unloaded, along with the props, the door was locked and Ollie grunted through a few instructions.
Jet and Ash both knew something was up, but Ollie was refusing to give in, insisting she was fine.
“Is anyone keeping track of the timing here?” Aiden asked.
“About every five minutes,” Lachlan answered as he took the egg from Bastian and strapped it to himself, swaying gently as he cradled the little bundle. “But it’s hard to tell since there’s not always a camera on her.”
“The healer is on her way here,” Phee said.
“What freaking timing,” I grumbled.
“It wouldn’t be Ollie if it wasn’t causing chaos in some way or another,” Aiden answered.
The others got the inflatable pool filled with gelatin, blow up dolls, liquor bottles and other props set up while Ollie’s grip on Jet’s arm threatened to break bones.
“Call Elliot,” he finally demanded while she was too breathless to argue.
“Jet,” she finally growled in warning.
“Don’t care,” Ash answered. “Be pissed at us, but you can’t keep working. The only reason we’ve let you go this long is because you’re not really here.”
“But the pictures,” she huffed. “You guys can’t handle that on your own.”
My phone rang with the number of the burner phone Luca was using.
“Tell Ollie I'll take care of it,” I told him just as Zane stepped out of the bedroom.
“Is something going on?” the incubus asked.
“Pretty sure Ollie’s in labor,” Aiden offered bluntly.
“Dammit, I knew something was wrong. Why the hell didn’t anyone tell us?”
“I wanted to,” Rowan answered in his soft voice. “But she threatened to let glitter covered chickens loose in our bedrooms so no matter what we did, our mates would end up with sparkles all over our favorite parts of them.”
We all looked at Aiden in sympathy and he narrowed his eyes in warning. “The cat was already out of the bag. Don’t think I won’t take you all down with me if anyone tells her about this.”
And just like that, we were all bound to the same lifetime oath of silence.
Zane rushed back to the bedroom and Ollie’s double on the screen vanished a moment later, leaving behind the spell bag filled with the components and effigy needed to create the double. Ash grabbed the spell and tucked it away before turning to Luca and Royce.
“Let’s get this done.”
I quickly instructed them through several pictures that were pretty innocent, but embarrassing enough that they wouldn’t want them getting out. Though as I instructed Luca to curl up on Ash’s chest so it looked like the police chief was a cuddler, I couldn’t help the pang of jealousy despite knowing they were only following my instructions.
“That should be good. How many of their phones were you able to use?”
“Only three of them had facial recognition and fingerprint access,” Luca answered. “The others are all locked with a code.”
“It’s going to have to be good enough. Make sure you scatter the phones in random places so it looks like they dropped them all over.”
“We’ve got it from here,” Royce told Jet and Ash. “Stay in character just in case anyone sees you.”
The two of them left wearing the faces of two hunters that were being held at Alwin’s for questioning and headed back to be with Ollie.
“Mess up the beds more,” I added. “They’re in stasis, not sleeping so whatever pose you put them in is where they’ll stay until the spell wears off. We’ve got at least an hour before they wake up with a hangover-like headache, so don’t do anything that would leave them in pain, but definitely leave one of Newman’s arms in the gelatin.”
Luca moved the man so he was wrapped around one of the inflatable dolls with his arm dangling in the inflatable pool. Was it petty revenge? Yes, it was. Did the jerk deserve to have his hand stained pink after how many times he’d harassed the tavern? Most definitely.
“Put Finch on the other side,” I decided. “Then step back and give me a view of the room.”
Luca did as I asked, and the scene was pretty good. The men were scattered all over with liquor bottles, cash, and a few random things they wouldn’t want hotel staff finding. And aside from the pool party, none of it was so outrageous they wouldn’t be able to suspect one of the others had it on them, especially once we mixed in the things they'd already been carrying.
“That should be good enough,” I decided. “Switch your glamours and leave the van.”
“Thanks for coming through,” Luca said. “I knew you’d handle it.”
“Of course,” I answered, feeling a little better now that Luca tagged me in.
“Not that it’s unusual for one of Ollie’s plans, but this was fairly devious,” Aiden commented. “Think it’ll work?”
I sighed. “Considering we’re responding to them killing our kind with college level pranks, I’m not sure it’ll be enough. That said, the point isn’t the prank itself. Either they’re going to come out of this suspicious of each other, which works in our favor, or with the understanding that we can get to them in ways they hadn’t considered. It’s one part strategy, one part warning. Whether it works the way we hoped remains to be seen.”
“It’s awfully quiet back there,” Rowan commented. “Should we check on Ollie?”
“The healer went back about fifteen minutes ago,” Lachlan said.
I hadn’t even noticed while I was dealing with the others. “I’ll go stick my head in and see how she’s doing,” I decided. “If it’s still this quiet, she’s probably fine.”
Except the second I stuck my head in the room, Ollie’s pained groans hit my ears over the sounds of her men trying to soothe her.
“What the hell, did you put a silencing spell on the room?”
Elliot sighed. “She insisted that the rest of you needed to focus on the mission.”
Ollie curled into a ball on her side. “What the hell? Who designed this process? I’d like to file a complaint. It hurt less the last time I got blown up!”
Zane raked his fingers through her hair, looking a little helpless. “That’s because Elliot was right there to heal you when you got blown up, but he can’t stop your contractions or the baby will never come.”
“Get Aiden,” she demanded. “He just did this, he must know some way to make it suck less.”
I stuck my head back out into the hall. “Aiden, could you come here for a sec?”
The elf arched one auburn eyebrow but followed me into the bedroom as requested, grimacing at Ollie’s complaints as soon as he stepped past the silencing spell.
“Aiden!” she groaned. “What did you do to—” her words cut off on another groan as the pain made it too hard for her to talk.
“Sorry Love, there’s not much you can do. It’ll be over soon and you’ll have a lovely little one to put all of your attention on instead.”
“That is not… the answer… I wanted,” she panted.
“Can’t Elliot like numb the nerves or something?” I asked a second before realizing the sorcerer was completely freaking out and sparks were crackling along his fingertips. “Oh. Nevermind.”
Elliot looked miserable and he curled up in a ball in the corner gripping his hair in his hands. Except his hands were still sparking with stray magic and his hair quickly started smoking.
I ran over and pulled his hands away, getting zapped in the process. “Elliot, calm down. Shouldn’t your magic be pretty depleted after running that spell for so long?”
“No,” he whined.
“I gave him a restoring potion just before we realized something was up with Ollie,” Zane explained. “That was when I came out there, so he’s pretty much full of magic right now. It’s my fault, I should’ve realized sooner. I’m using my magic to try to relax her a little, but it’s not having much effect given the circumstances.”
Ollie knocked his hand away. “Your magic did this in the first place! Ow, ow, no nevermind, keep going,” she decided, grabbing his hand again.
“No, actually stop using your magic on her,” I cut in. “Aiden, can you take over with Ollie for a minute? Is there anything at all that helped give you some relief?”
Aiden sat on the bed next to Ollie and started urging her to move around until she found a more comfortable position.
“Zane, use your magic on Elliot instead. If you can get him to calm down, he might be able to help Ollie.”
Zane cleared his throat. “I can, but I was only using tiny amounts of magic on Ollie. If I use enough to calm down Elliot, who is freaking out way more than she is, it’s going to affect everyone in this room.”
“Well, Aiden and I can leave, but the healer—”
“Hell no,” Ollie grunted. “You can stay and suffer with me.”
We looked to the healer who made a face but nodded her agreement. This was going to be interesting. We all knew what an incubus’s magic did, but after seeing what Ollie was going through, sex wasn’t an even remotely appealing idea. Hopefully the two things would cancel each other out.
“Not sure what I did to incur your wrath,” Aiden grumbled as Zane started working to relax Elliot.
“You’re in by default,” Ollie panted. “It was supposed to be Nikko, but he’s working.”
“I’ll go take over the bar,” he offered, pulling away but not escaping her iron grip on his arm.
“No way, you’ve been through this, I need you.”
“But you just said—”
“I changed my mind.”
“Then can you try not to break my arm? You can break Sage’s instead, this was his plan after all.”
“Okay,” she panted, grabbing my hand and crushing.
“Dammit, I thought you were being dramatic,” I complained, wrenching my hand out of her grip and letting her crush my forearm where at least the bones were a little less likely to actually snap.
Aiden and I did what we could until Elliot calmed enough to try casting magic on Ollie. The sparking had stopped and while the air was thick with desire, my brain couldn’t shift away from what was in front of me. So while we were all working with uncomfortably tight pants and a deep ache that should have prompted some kind of urge, no one was actually in the mood to do anything about it. My mind was slightly foggy, but not enough to pull away our concentration, probably a delicate balance to calm Elliot while leaving him able to cast sensitive healing magic.
Ollie breathed a sigh of relief as Elliot’s magic started dulling her pain. “Holy crap, that sucked. You guys better be happy with one kid cause I’m never doing this again.”
Elliot’s brow was furrowed in concentration as he worked. “I’m not sure I can handle doing this again,” he agreed.
Ash and Jet busted into the room just as the healer instructed Ollie to start pushing. They took over for me and Aiden, letting their bones get crushed instead. I was just about to make my escape when Ollie decided we still couldn’t leave her. And thus, I witnessed things I never wanted to know the human body could do. It was this crazy miracle of a thing, and yet, I was insanely grateful I could never do it myself.
I side eyed Aiden. “How the hell did you do this?”
He huffed a laugh. “What choice did I have? And it wasn’t this bad either. She’s such a tiny thing pushing that full sized baby out. My egg was half that size and will finish growing outside of me where it belongs. At the time I said I wouldn’t do it again too, but I don’t know, maybe fifty years from now I’ll want my child to have a sibling just like I had Alwin. If I had to go through all this, I don’t know that I’d feel that way.”
“How’s Ollie?” Luca asked, peeking into the room just as the baby’s head finally made an appearance. “I knew it! Why did you argue when I told you to go?”
“Are you really picking a fight right now?” she grunted. “I would have been fine to finish the job.”
“Are we pretending that’s even remotely true?” he asked flatly. He seemed to notice the magic in the room and backed up. “What’s with—” Whatever else he said was cut off as he stepped outside of the silencing spell.
“Zane is using magic to calm Elliot,” I explained, stepping into the hall so he could hear me. “Though I find it amusing that you run from that, but not from the sight of the woman giving birth.”
“I was a cop, I’ve helped with this kind of thing in a pinch before paramedics could arrive. And you can’t see anything from here, anyway.”
That was true, the hallway was much safer than where Aiden and I had been standing. After a final push, Ollie collapsed back on the bed and the healer settled a little bundle on her chest.
“I’ll leave you to it and let the others know what’s going on,” Luca said.
“I’m just going to congratulate them and I’ll be right behind you.”
He nodded and slipped away while I returned to the room in time to see the little one in Ollie’s arms.
“A healthy baby girl,” Aiden said as I reentered the room.
And for how much the entire process had been a little terrifying, the second I squeezed a little closer to see the chubby-cheeked little Ollie spawn, my heart melted. “Wow Ols, that’s pretty amazing.”
“Yeah, she kind of is,” Ollie agreed. “Can you tell if she’s a sorcerer or a demon yet?” she asked her hellhound mate.
Jet carefully took the baby into his arms and pressed his nose to her head. He stared at her in complete awe for a long moment. “Demon. But I can’t tell what kind yet.”
A fire demon and a hellhound probably had a similar scent since they both had an affinity for flames, plus this little one was also part human and part imp. Being a sorcerer would have been a little safer for her, but I had no doubt her parents would make sure nothing ever happened to her.
Ollie nodded. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll bind her to Elliot as soon as possible until she’s old enough to choose for herself.”
Aiden snorted. “A man or woman who’s brave enough to face down her sorcerer dad, three demon fathers, and Ollie, and tell them they want to take over their binding. That is going to be one hell of a person.”
“They’d have to be to handle any child of Ollie’s,” I teased, earning a punch to the ribs. “Dammit, it was a joke. Shouldn’t you be too tired to be throwing punches?”
“You wish,” she snapped.
“You know I love you, we wouldn’t want you any other way. And your daughter will be adored just as much as you are.”
Nikko busted into the room. “I’m here!”
“You missed all the fun,” Aiden said flatly.
“I know, Luca just took over the bar and told me what was happening. Let me see the little one. You said daughter, right? Little Nikkolette.”
Zane chuckled and took the baby from Jet, stroking her little cheek. “We’re still deciding on a name.”
“What? She should be named after her favorite uncle,” he insisted.
Aiden and I slipped out while Nikko had Ollie distracted.
“Don’t know about you, but I could use a drink after that,” Aiden muttered.
“A strong one,” I agreed.