The maiden smiled. “You make no sense, Goddess.”
“Argh!” Lina threw up her hands in aggravation. “Explain exactly why I haven’t blasted you to kingdom come yet?”
“Because you like me. You also need me. Not to mention you couldn’t even if you tried.” Baba Yaga waved her hand. Lina found herself back at Lacey’s side.
“How long was I gone?” she asked the Seer.
Lacey smiled. “Merely a blink. Literally. How is Baba Yaga? I haven’t dealt with her in eons.”
“Aggravating.”
“Ah. Nice to see she hasn’t changed. You will grudgingly come to like her. She has her way of doing things, but she is ancient and has earned the right to be grouchy.” Lacey patted Lina on the thigh. “I know she can grate on you sometimes. Believe me, I’ve had my share of run-ins with her in the past. Just understand she, like you, has a job to do. She is bound by her own set of laws, just as you are. Her way of helping sometimes seems less than helpful. Just keep in mind she is on the side of humanity. Sometimes, even to her own detriment.”
“She and I will be butting heads a lot, I guess.”
“Probably.”
Lina shivered. “I don’t like this job,” she quietly said. “I didn’t ask for it.”
“None of us did, or would. That’s what makes us best suited for it. Anyone who would want this job, willingly, is someone who should not be in it.”
“I saw those assholes kill a family. Kael’s family.”
Lacey stared out over the water. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.” Lina briefly told her about it. “Even worse, I couldn’t do anything about it. Well, I tried. The only thing I managed to do was knock a goblet out of the third guy’s hand.”
Lacey looked shocked. “Really?”
“Yeah. Was that something to do with my goddess powers?”
“It must be, because I’ve known a lot of Seers, and none of them could ever do anything like that.”
“Great.” Lina thought for a moment. “So, have you seen anything that might be of use to me with this situation? Like did you see who killed Bertholde? Or any chance you know who the third guy might be?”
“No,” Lacey said sadly. “I’m sorry. I’m not going to be of any use to you there. I wish I could.”
“Do you know anything about the tablet?”
“Oh, yes. I helped hide it a few centuries ago.”
Lina hoped her jaw hadn’t gaped. “So you know where it is?”
Lacey laughed. “Heavens, no. It’s been moved several times since then. My guess is that Bertholde left you several clues as to its whereabouts, and that you’ll find it near her home. As she grew older, she kept it closer to her for safekeeping. Several of the keepers had been killed over the years.”
“Who are the other keepers?”
“That I don’t know. Once I left Europe for Scotland, I took myself out of the running. I do know as of last year, at least, that it was safe. Bertholde physically laid eyes on it at least once a year.”
“Is it possible one of the other keepers killed her?” Maybe it was a clue.
Lacey shrugged. “Anything’s possible in this day and age. I highly doubt it, though. From what she told me the last time we talked, about a week before she went to Yellowstone, all of the other keepers were much older than herself and not in very good shape. She talked about passing the torch, but I didn’t know for sure what she meant. I assumed she was talking about a new keeper for the tablet. So very few of our kind even know about its existence anymore.” She looked sad. “Now, I know what she meant. At least I got to have a good talk with her.”
Lina stretched and felt her back pop. “What did you really bring me out here to discuss?”
A coy smiled curled Lacey’s lips. “I don’t know what information Bertholde left for you to give you a history of our kind. Seers, I mean. There aren’t a lot of us. You’re basically born to the job.”
She pointed at Lina. “You were born to the job. You don’t find it coincidental that your father’s family hailed from Eastern Europe?”
“I—” Well, Lina had never given it much thought before. She considered it. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Seers are sometimes born into knowing families. Families with active shifter lines. It’s not exactly a secret you can keep hidden, especially once a child grows into adolescence and feels the urge to shift. Seers were originally their own lines. Back in the days before history, our kind realized that by pairing up with shifters, our own kind could be protected. As Seers began to mingle and mate with shifter breeds, eventually the Seers became one with the shifter races they joined.
“But sometimes, someone from a shifter line who doesn’t come from a knowing family, call it a recessive shifter gene, if you will, will pop up.”
“You’re saying I’m a shifter? I thought I wasn’t?”
Lacey smiled. “One of my skills that I use for my pack is when a baby is born to shifters, they bring it to me for me to see if it’s Alpha or not, or if it’s even a shifter or not. You, my dear, come from a shifter line. Dragon line, not wolves. I don’t even have to know your history to know this. Bertholde told me she extensively researched your family line. You are from dragons several generations back, on your father’s side.”
Lina didn’t know what to say to that. She had to let it sink in for a few minutes. Eventually, she settled on, “So I’m, what, the baby shifter whisperer?”
Lacey laughed long and hard. “I’m not saying you’ll have that same skill, dear,” she finally managed to get out. “But there’s also something else you should know. It’s not uncommon for shifter lines, by that I mean the shifter races, to intermingle from time to time. For a wolf and feline, for example, to mate. The dragons and wolves have always been close. I don’t know exactly what your origins are, genetically speaking, but it wouldn’t surprise me, based on what Bertholde told me, to find out you have a wolf or two in the woodshed, so to speak.”
Lina blinked in shock, unsure what to say. Finally, she settled for falling back on the rock, staring up at the sky, and screaming until her voice cracked and her throat felt raw and hoarse.
Lacey simply sat there, looking out over the water.
After Lina got it out of her system, she looked at Lacey.
“Feeling better, dear?” Lacey asked.
Lina snorted, then laughed, rolling onto her belly and laughing until tears rolled down her face and her humor had transformed into gut-wrenching sobs.
Lacey gathered her up and let her cry against her. “It’s all right, child,” she soothed. “Let it out before it eats you alive. It is a lot to take in. It must feel like the world has been dropped onto your shoulders.”
“No, it feels like the world just dropped me with a flying kick and then ripped my head off and shit down my neck.”
Lacey laughed. “You are going to give Andel fits. Bertholde would be extremely amused and proud of that.”
“What is the deal between them, anyway?” She told Lacey about the postscript in Bertholde’s note to her.
Lacey laughed. “Andel is her nephew. She loved him, but he surely tried her patience over the years. He once set fire to her house when he was a teenager.”
“Oh. Wow. I guess that would piss a person off. How’d he do it? Matches? Candle?”
Lacey snorted with amusement. “He’s a fire dragon.”
“Ah. Oh.” Lina got the giggles again. “Did she give him the scar on his face? Smack him upside the head for breathing too hard?”
Lacey shook her head. “No. A cockatrice did that.”
That pulled Lina up short. “Oh. Whoops. Glad you told me.”
Lacey looked out over the water again. “They killed many in his family. Not the same way they killed poor Kael’s family. It was in a territory dispute. The cockatrice wanted dragon land and decided to come in one night in a sneak attack and try to take it the good old-fashioned way, by slaughtering the residents of a small villa
ge.”
“Nice to see they’re consistent assholes,” Lina grumbled.
“Yes.” They sat there in companionable silence for a few minutes while Lina digested that latest information. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask me?” Lacey asked.
“Yeah, there is. Why does Zack have all his memories and I didn’t get mine back until after I met my guys? And why don’t the guys have their memories of our first life together?”
“That, unfortunately, I cannot help you with. Those are questions for Baba Yaga.”
“Crap. I was afraid you were going to say that.”
They stayed for a while longer, Lina reluctant to give up this valuable time with Lacey. The Seer gave off a loving, peaceful, confident, generous aura Lina felt totally at home in. She only hoped she could achieve that level of peace when she was that age.
Hell, she just hoped she reached that age.
Finally, Lacey stretched and climbed off the rock. “Time for us to go, dear. Your Watcher will have likely paced bare spots through my carpet.” She smiled.
Lina laughed. “I’ll make sure he pays for the damages.”
The climb back up the path to the top of the overlook was a little wearing, but not as bad as Lina feared. Once they hit the path, Lacey linked arms with Lina.
“You’ll do fine, child. What everyone keeps telling you, no matter how trite it might seem, is true. Trust your instincts. Do not second-guess yourself. If you learn to ignore the doubt, you will soon learn the sound of your gut leading you the right way. Don’t get overconfident, of course. Pride truly does precede a fall. Yet don’t let anyone try to convince you that you are anything but a Seer. You were born to this for a reason. Never forget that.”
“Thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today.”
“Ah, it is nothing. And anytime you are here, please come to see me. I welcome the chance to talk with you. I rarely get a chance to meet with other Seers in person. Besides, you’re technically part of my extended family now, anyway. And my own children have long since departed this world.”
Lina felt sad about that. “Are any of your immediate family still alive?”
“Oh, yes. Many. But they are scattered to the wind and rarely get back to the compound for visits.” She patted Lina’s arm. “But it’s all right. Plenty have adopted me as their mother or grandmother. So I’m not lonely, if that’s your worry.”
“Do you mind cross-species adoptions?” Lina snarked.
Lacey laughed out loud. “Not at all. I would consider it an honor.”
As they approached Lacey’s back porch, she spotted Zack’s nervous face in the window of the back door.
Lacey laughed and softly said, “Do not fear, Lina. He truly is happy. Well, and worried like a nervous mother over your health and well-being. Baba Yaga did keep her end of the bargain. Your Zack is right. Baba Yaga does like to mess with people’s minds.”
Lina stopped and gasped. “You know all that?”
Lacey smiled as she tapped her temple. “I am a Seer, dear.” She tugged Lina’s arm. “Come along. I’ll make us all lunch. As long as Brodey hasn’t devoured all the fresh bread. Those wolves tend to eat like hyenas sometimes.”
That gave Lina another thought to ponder. “So what do hyena shifters eat like?” she only half joked.
“Oh, they eat like wolves.” She smiled.
Laughing, they stepped onto the porch.
Chapter Three
After lunch, Lacey asked to see the items from Yellowstone. “I don’t know if I can help, but I’m willing to take a look at them.”
Zack, who’d taken to always carrying the items in a knapsack, laid them out on her table.
When he pulled out the little statues, she recoiled. “Those you can put away, thank you.”
Confused, he put them away. “What is it?”
The Seer rubbed her arms with her hands. “The simple answer is they’re made of catlinite. Pipestone.” She noticed their blank faces. “It’s the same kind of stone Native Americans used to carve ceremonial pipes and stuff out of.”
Lina couldn’t wrap her head around that. “Huh? You’re saying Lenny was a Native American?”
Lacey shook her head. “No, I’m not saying anything of the sort. Anyone could have carved the stone.” She pointed at Zack’s bag. “But what I am saying is I’ve seen something like that before. Several hundred years ago. The cockatrice soaked them in blood during a ritual. You said that’s a spell book?”
Lina nodded.
Lacey reached for the book and started to page through it. They all silently watched her. Nearly ten minutes passed before she nodded. “Ah ha.” She laid the book, open to a page, and pointed at a specific passage. “Right here.”
It was in French. Zack spun the book around and read it out loud in English.
“‘The blood of our enemies captured in stone guarantees victory against others. Use them wisely and well.’ Then it details how to do the ritual to soak the statue in the blood.” He looked a little ill. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not read that part.” He closed the book and laid it on the table.
“There’s probably no way to figure out who carved those,” Lacey said. “No telling how old they are. But I can’t imagine too many of their kind knew how to do it.”
“They sure are sneaky bastards, aren’t they?” Lina snarked.
“They had to be,” Zack said. “King Elsleng banned their existence. He sanctioned their being hunted down and destroyed after…” He took a deep breath. “After Zaria and her men died, he sort of went on a rampage. He wanted revenge. The cockatrice went underground into hiding. They had to.”
“I guess that’d give me a complex, too,” Lina said.
Zack shook his head. “Don’t even go there. Their kind was small in numbers to begin with, and they chose their path. There was never a case of a cockatrice waving a white flag and saying, ‘Hey, I’m on your side, these other fuckers are nuts.’ They have always tried to start trouble. That’s why they were shunned way before that massive showdown in Hilmelgamos.”
“Don’t start none, won’t be none,” Brodey quipped.
“Exactly,” Lacey said. She looked at Lina. “I know you have a good heart, but remember, there is a very valid reason why the cockatrice have always been persecuted. They brought it on themselves. They have throughout the eons perpetuated a culture of hate and revenge throughout their kind. Less than two hundred of them survived in the entire world following the battle at Hilmelgamos, a majority of them women and children. Most of their virile men were warriors and killed in the battle. That’s another reason their powers declined so greatly. In their race, the lines are passed through the men, not the women. It’s not like any other shifter race. A woman can be born a cockatrice shifter, but she won’t pass the genes down to her children. There was a lot of inbreeding by them to try to replenish their race.”
“Break out the banjoes,” Brodey said. “You ain’t getting me in no canoe. I can tell you that.”
The laugh helped ease the tension.
“But that is why,” Lacey continued, “they have relied so heavily on dark magick throughout the centuries. They are mentally and spiritually deficient. Morally bankrupt.”
“That also explains why Edgar said he hounded Zack and me through several lives,” Lina said. “He made paparazzi look like playful puppies.”
Zack nodded. “Fixated. Obsessed.”
“Whackadoodle,” Brodey said.
Lacey smiled. “Yes to all of the above.”
“Wait,” Lina said as a thought struck her. “Do the cockatrice have a Seer too?”
Lacey shrugged. “I don’t know. They have always been an outcast race. There are several versions of the story, but they all basically tell the same tale. That when the shifters were created, the cockatrice demanded to be put in charge of all shifters, and when that was refused, they decided to wage a campaign against the others.”
“‘Created’?” L
ina asked.
Lacey shrugged. “We have a lot of history in our lines, oral and written. But however the shifters came to be, it happened well before the birth of anyone still alive on this planet. Perhaps even before Baba Yaga and her sisters.”
“So, what you’re saying is cockatrice have had major bad attitude from the beginning of time?” Lina asked.
“Yes,” Lacey said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. That’s what makes them so dangerous. They feel they have nothing left to lose, and everything to gain. They will stop at nothing, as you’ve already seen, to get their way.”
* * * *
Lina, Zack, and Brodey rejoined the others after lunch at Lacey’s. That evening, they returned to Lacey’s house to pick her up and arrived at the restaurant fifteen minutes early. Apparently expecting them, the hostess led them to a small, comfortable private back room filled by well-padded booths and a few tables, and with beautiful pictures of Maine landscapes hanging on the walls.
Lina wasn’t sure what to expect from Jocko. Lacey was a sweetheart, the grandmother she wished she had in her life.
Well, hell, I guess she’s my adopted grandmother, now.
In fact, with the exception of Zack in her life after her parents died, she’d felt more like part of a family than she had in years. Not that she didn’t feel loved with Jan and Rick, because she did. But knowing there were now a bunch of other people who had her back and welcomed her with open arms was…
Overwhelming in a good way.
She burst into tears.”
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Jan asked.
She sniffled. “I’m sorry.” She looked at all of them. “It just finally all hit me at once how much family I now have.”
Brodey laughed. “You ain’t seen nothing yet, kiddo. Wait’ll the next Gathering. You’ll have wolves falling out your ears as well as dragons.”
Lacey nodded. “We take care of our own, Lina. You and yours are one of our own.”
Rick laid a hand on Brodey’s shoulder and squeezed. “You have no idea how thankful we are.” He sounded a little choked up. It warmed her heart to see her men welcome Brodey and his brood into their lives.