I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed. It was sometimes amazing what a good night sleep could do for you. I found sleeping with Nate’s arms around me somehow made my good nights multiply.
“So how long are you usually awake before I start to stir,” I asked Nate after feeling his fingers drawing circles on my belly.
“Oh, usually an hour or so,” he replied. “You know I’ve been thinking. That prophecy said we were going to have the next oracle. I’d think that if one of our five children were that oracle, we would’ve figured it out by now. Do you know what that means?”
I thought he’d already thrown a celebration about that fact, so I ignored it.
“Seriously, an hour? That’s kind of creepy. Maybe you should start getting up and beginning your day instead of waiting for me.”
“So no comment on us having a baby?” he asked. “I know I gloated about it before, but we didn’t have a chance to talk about it.”
“Well, since we haven’t even had sex yet, and I assume even though we are uniques that is still a requirement, I don’t think we need to rush out and get cigars,” I responded. “Plus, you keep telling me that I predicted we’d have a kid this lifetime. That takes away the surprise of our little bundle of joy.”
“Why do you not seem at all surprised about us having children?” he questioned. “I know about your prediction, but most uniques have given up hope of seeing children in any of our futures.”
“So you don’t listen to my conversations all the time,” I said, remembering mentioning the idea of children to Miranda just the other day. “I’ve been experiencing dreams of our house with children running around in it. More than one of them bears an eerie resemblance to you, so I have to assume they’re your offspring. And unless you’re sticking your thingy in places it shouldn’t be, that would also make them mine.”
He laughed. “Wait a second; you said more than one of them. You couldn’t have seen them together unless we have twins. How many were there, and what sexes are we talking?” he asked.
“Now, daddy-to-be, I can’t go ruining all your surprises. You already figured out from the prophecy that we’d be having at least one other child, so I’m fine confirming that I believe that to be true, but anything more, you just have to wait and see.”
“But you get to know, that’s unfair,” he whined. He rarely ever did that, but it made me smile when he did.
“Yup, and I have to carry however many children we have for four months, so it’s only fair that I know in advance what I’m carrying. I have to say the four months incubation for phoenix babies is way better than the nine that humans have to go through,” I said, recalling the memories I had of carrying two of my children.
“You know, I don’t know how you do it, because you’re already beautiful, but when you’re pregnant, you surpass even glowing. I can’t wait to see you that way again. Do you know how long it will be until these babies of ours are born?” he asked.
“No, and from talking with Eva, I don’t think she does either. The curse has to be broken first, and no one knows how to do that, so you’ll have to wait for me to be all sparkly,” I replied.
“You know how happy you make me? Since the first day I met you, I knew I was a blessed being,” he said, turning me to plant a kiss on my lips.
“How come our mornings tend to turn all sappy?” I asked when he finally separated from my mouth. “The rest of the day turns out all right, but in the mornings we always act like two love struck fools.”
“Well, I have to take what I can get, and when you’re still sleepy I can usually get a couple nice endearments out of you,” he answered.
“Okay, enough lovey dovey stuff. Let’s head downstairs and see if we can wrangle up some breakfast in the flour mess,” I said, getting out of bed. He groaned the second my feet hit the floor, but he followed along.
We made it downstairs to find a kitchen with no hint of flour. In fact, I bet that was the cleanest the kitchen had ever been in a house of guys. There was no question who was responsible.
“Thank you, Vinnie,” I said loud enough I hoped he was able to hear me.
I started looking through the cupboards and found a box of Cheerios. Looking in the fridge, I located milk that hadn’t expired, so I grabbed it and tracked down two bowls. As I was pouring our cereal, Vinnie entered the kitchen.
“You are most welcome, darling. I didn’t want you to have to wake up to that mess for a second time, so I thought it would be a good idea to take care of it,” he stated. “Joseph wasn’t joking about the wolves being pigs. I won’t go into detail about what I had to scrape from where, but it took a few hours to get everything in order.”
“There are literally days I don’t know what I would do without you,” I replied while I hunted down spoons. There they are, I thought, as I finally opened the drawer they were hiding in.
“So, Vinnie, knowing you, I expect you’ve been doing research on the FBI director who we’re planning to talk to, have you found anything that’s a red flag?” Nate asked.
“Actually, Nate, I think you made a good choice. I don’t see any indication that he would immediately pull out a gun and try to shoot you. In fact, from what I can find, he’s very interested in the fact that there may be something out there other than humans. He’s been seen at a couple UFO conventions incognito. I figure if he even partially believes in aliens, he won’t have a problem with crazy shape shifters, especially when you’re putting one as beautiful as Avery as the spokesperson.”
“Oh, Vinnie, you’re going to make me blush,” I said jokingly.
“Well, the director is known to be a ladies’ man. I see no evidence of any infidelity, but he likes to flirt with the fairer sex as much as he likes to breathe,” Vinnie informed us.
I didn’t know if that was a good thing, but it would make convincing him that uniques were cool my second mission where I needed to use my female attributes to get my way. I didn’t think I’d done a very good job with Jimmy, but that case ended up turning out okay.
“Good. After we talk to the other leaders, we’ll head to D.C and see if we can’t get a moment or two of his time,” Nate said. “Has Rick been making the calls like I asked? I want to make sure everyone has been contacted before we get back to New York.”
“Yes, dear brother-in-law, I’ve made all the calls and have received confirmation from twenty-five of them that they can be at the house in a week. The antelope, deer, yak and horse contingencies prefer not to be in a room full of predators, so they’re opting to conference call in. The kangaroos have something going on, so he’ll also try to call in instead of being here in person,” Rick said. “The fox leader hopped on the first plane and is more than likely camped out at the house waiting for us.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but he said it in a way that it sounded like I should. I was stuck on the fact that Rick could always tell when he was being talked about and just magically appeared. It was either that or he stood outside the door waiting for the conversation to turn to him. The second thought was probably the more likely of the two.
“Everyone is making themselves available. That’s great news. I thought with the little information we were giving them, we would’ve at least a couple who would blow us off,” Nate said.
“You really don’t know how the rest of us perceive you guys,” Joseph said, walking in with Trey and Seth trailing behind him. “I’ve mentioned it before, all of the shifting uniques look to you as leaders. I imagine most of them were just honored to hear from you.”
“I hope that will make what we have to say to them a lot easier to digest,” I said, finishing my cereal and washing out mine and Nate’s bowls. The rest of the guys moved in to get their own cereal.
“I imagine there may be a little bit of a debate. In the end, though, you’ll get their approval. The fact that you’re asking their opinions before just doing a reveal will also mean a lot to them. It proves to us that we’re right in choosing you for our leaders,” Joseph said wit
h a smile.
“We didn’t ask to lead anyone, I didn’t even ask to be leader of the phoenixes,” Nate stated. I knew it was something, even after all the years, that still bothered him. The fact that he was the first one created kind of just pushed him into the position. Evidently, he didn’t understand how many people he’d ultimately lead.
“Do you think after this many years that really matters? I know you’ve never been asked to really step up to the positions, but you are our leader and your soul mate is going to be our spokesperson” Joseph said. “Between the two of you she has the stronger energy that will draw people to her. She will also be less scary, just because of her gender. As long as we don’t let anyone see her with her knives, we can keep how frightening she can be a secret.”
“We’re beginning to understand how important our positions will end up being; it just takes some getting used to it all. Even as the phoenix leaders, we haven’t had to really do anything. Now it appears we’re going to be making a lot of really big decisions that will have an effect on thousands of others,” Nate said. “I’m not trying to whine about it, it’s just going to take some time to fully understand the enormity of it all.”
“I know, and I don’t mean to be rough on you, but I imagine you’ll need some advisors as well as enforcers along the way and I’m hoping to point that out to you,” Joseph replied. “Things are changing and it’s not going to be easy to take the weight of the world on your shoulders. Planning things now, when it’s still early, will help things in the long run.”
“We’re going to have to pick a whole governing body to make sure this is done right, aren’t we?” I asked.
“It would be a wise idea. We can bring it up with the leaders during the meeting and see if they have any suggestions. I think the group we’ve already brought together is a good start, but I’m sure more species will want to be represented. If you weren’t exaggerating about Mr. Fox, Rick, I’m sure he’s going to want to be involved,” Nate said.
“Who’s Mr. Fox?” I asked. It seemed like I should know for some reason, but the meaningful glances between Nate and Rick weren’t helping me any, and they seemed to be doing their best not to conjure up any pictures in their heads.
“Enough talk about politics, it always makes me break out in a rash,” Rick said, scratching his arm. “Let’s get on with our search for a Kapre and a mess of wolves. The sooner we get back home, the sooner Avery will have the answer to her question.”
I hated when I got responses like that. I couldn’t even really count it as an answer, since it wasn’t directed to me.
“When we’re done with our cereal, us wolves are going to head out. We’ll start heading west, since we’re about as far south as we can go, and make a big circle. If you guys get done early, you can head to the east and meet us in the middle,” Joseph said.
“Since Joseph isn’t going with us, do you have the lay of the land yet, Vinnie?” I asked.
“I downloaded all the maps of the area, so I can get us around. The swamp area we’re visiting is well over a thousand acres, so hopefully Liam and Rick will give us a small chunk to work within,” he reported.
“That shouldn’t be a problem. With it being a unique, I should be able to focus in on him and Liam’s ability works on anything emitting a power signature. We’ll just have to wrap Avery in some plastic wrap to make sure she doesn’t interfere,” Rick replied.
“Where are the berserkers?” I asked after I stuck my tongue out at Rick for his comment. “They usually don’t sleep in this long when they know we have plans for the day.”
“Oh, they aren’t here. They went out to scope out the town to see if they could witness any of the reported phenomena,” Vinnie replied.
“We better go after them,” Nate said. “They may end up causing more harm than good. The two of them together draws a lot of eyes.”
“Good idea,” I said as I climbed the stairs to change.
I grabbed a pair of jeans and a shirt that said All around me I see nothing but chaos, panic and disorder. At last, my work here is done! “I’ll get changed in the bathroom,” I told Nate, who’d followed me, as I headed in the direction of our room. I would’ve liked to take a shower to wash the road from the day before off me, but we had a world to save.
CHAPTER 11
April Fools! Oh it’s February? Well surprise!