A Wolf in the Fold

  Kitty shrugged. “None taken. He can get pretty ripe in furry mode.”

  “It doesn’t mean you slept with a cockatrice,” Gigi said. “Just someone a cockatrice was in love with, like a human.”

  “Or someone from a cockatrice family,” Lina added.

  Gigi nodded. “Or maybe not even a human. It could have been someone with fae lineage of another kind.”

  A man’s voice in the darkness startled them. “Or from another world,” the British accent said.

  Ryan Ausar stepped into the light as everyone jumped to their feet. “Sorry, didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  Callie quickly introduced him around to the others. “Um, no offense, but why did you happen to show up right now?”

  “Lacey called me late last night after your group talk.” He held out a hand toward one of the chairs, silently asking permission to sit. Elain waved at him and he, followed by the others, took their seats.

  He sat with his elbows braced on the arms of the chair, hands clasped together in front of him, index fingers templed together and touching his chin. “I also had a little chat with Baba Yaga early this morning.”

  Both Callie and Gigi frowned. “She didn’t come tell us that,” Callie said.

  “I asked her not to.” His gaze traveled over all the women until it fell upon Callie again. “Would you like the good news first or the bad?”

  “Fuck,” she muttered. “Let me have the bad first.”

  “I am incapable of removing the curse from you.”

  “Shit.” She threw her head back. “How’d I know that was coming?

  “So what’s the good news?” Elain asked.

  “It can be removed,” he said. Everyone stared at him for a moment, until he asked, “What?”

  “Well, we kind of knew that much,” Lina finally said, “but we don’t know exactly how yet.”

  “Ah. Actually, you do.”

  Lina snorted. “Say what?”

  He pointed his fingers toward her before returning them to his chin. “You, I should clarify, know how to remove it. However, I need to speak with you privately.”

  “How privately?”

  He reached over and touched her arm.

  Elain and the others all let out startled gasps when Ryan and Lina both disappeared.

  Chapter Ten

  Lina let out a startled scream when she felt herself falling. Ryan Ausar reached out and caught her arm.

  “Steady, now. You’re all right.”

  They no longer sat on Elain’s lanai. Lina wasn’t sure where they were, but the upscale condo’s living room windows overlooked—

  “Holy crap! Is that Turner Field?” She stared for a moment, shocked, before turning to him. “Are we in freaking Atlanta?”

  “My condo.” He smiled as he released her and walked over to the kitchen. “Can I interest you in anything to drink? Tea? Coffee? Or perhaps—”

  “You got a shot or ten of Jack?”

  He returned a moment later with a glass, two ice cubes floating in the amber liquid. She downed the three fingers and handed him the glass back. “Okay,” she hoarsely asked. “What the hell are you?”

  “Exactly.” He indicated for her to take a seat on the sofa. “You are, I’ve been informed, the strongest of the new Triad. I wish to have a quick private discussion with you outlining my role, what I am and am not allowed to do, my actual abilities, all of that. We really haven’t had a chance to formally talk like this.”

  She felt the iced liquor still burning as it slid down her throat and into her stomach. She sat in the middle of the sofa while he took a seat in a comfortable chair across the coffee table from her.

  It looked like he’d do most of the talking. When he finished giving her the quick version of the Firm’s mission and role, she realized it was impossible to process everything he told her, even without the liquor.

  In fact, she had a strong suspicion she needed far more liquor than she’d already consumed.

  “Okay. I get it,” she said. “You’re not our get-out-of-jail-free card with the cockatrice.”

  He nodded, but didn’t speak.

  A snort escaped her. “So bureaucracy really was created by Hell, huh? If both you and I are subject to that?”

  He smiled. “Very droll. And not half wrong.”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  “You have something in your possession, as it were, of great importance. I wish to take charge of it.”

  She narrowed her eyes, trying to focus on him despite the effects of the liquor. “Why? If you know what it is, you also know it’s not worth anything. Not anymore.”

  “True. It’s not worth anything…here.”

  She blinked. “Huh?”

  “The person who threw the curse on the Cailleach wasn’t a cockatrice. But they were working with the cockatrice as one of their own.”

  “So they were a human.”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m lost. The cockatrice hate other shifters.”

  “It was a Seer.”

  Her mind swam. “But the Seers rejected the cockatrice. I was told that’s what triggered this whole stupid war way back when.”

  He slowly shook his head.

  She started shaking hers in time with him. “No, they didn’t reject the cockatrice, or no it’s not what triggered the war?”

  “You’re assuming the Seer who threw the curse was of human blood.”

  She stared at him for a moment. “Okay, this was fun in the beginning, but now I’m over it. Can you please just tell me?”

  “It was someone with Seer-like skills who passed themselves off as a Seer to the cockatrice. Passed themselves off as one of their own. And was skilled enough to do so.”

  “Because…”

  “Because they were from an off-world realm.”

  She blinked as she stared at him.

  “They weren’t from Earth,” he clarified.

  She buried her head in her hands and let out a moan. “Jesus-fucking-jumped-up-Christ-on-a-stick, I’m so fucking sick and tired of this bullshit!” She finally looked up at him. “So why do you want the Tablet of Trammel?”

  “Because while it might be useless to the cockatrice here on Earth, I fear that it might not be so benign should it be spirited off to another realm.”

  She let out a sigh as her head dropped again. Staring at her lap, she muttered, “You think there might be someone looking for it who isn’t really one of the cockatrice, but who wants the real Tablet so they can take it wherever and use it.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes. On different planes, powers are different. Someone incredibly strong here might have no powers off-Earth. Likewise, someone with weak or no powers here might be very strong if they cross to an off-Earth plane.”

  She let out another moan and fell over sideways on the couch. “Fuck!” After trying to digest all of that for a few minutes, she stared at him and quietly asked, “You want it right now?”

  He nodded. “That would be best.”

  She didn’t bother sitting up. She held up her hand and waited for him.

  He kindly smiled, stood, and walked over. “I promise you, it isn’t always like this, Lina.”

  “Sure feels like it. One damn crisis after another.”

  “Take it from someone who has lived eons. It only feels that way.” He gently grasped her hand. “Ready?”

  “No, but let’s do it.”

  They were suddenly standing outside Lacey’s house in Maine. More correctly, in her backyard, in the garden, next to the sundial. Again Ryan had to help steady her to keep her from falling over.

  Above them, the moon cast shadows throughout the garden.

  “Wait, if you knew it was here already, why didn’t you just take it?”

  He let go of her hand. “Well I didn’t wish to be rude, now, did I? I may be and do many things, but I am not and never have been a thief.” He cocked his head as he stared at the sundial’s base. “We should leave a
suitable replacement.”

  Before Lina could blink, the real Tablet was sitting on the ground in front of them and a duplicate lay in its place under the sundial’s base.

  He bent over and picked up the original, grunting a little under its weight.

  “Heavier than I thought it would be.” He brushed dirt off the engravings and studied them for a moment in the moonlight. “Yes,” he finally said. “I wish I’d been mistaken.”

  “Why would this work somewhere else if it doesn’t work here?”

  “Basic physics. You cannot create or destroy energy—”

  “It only changes forms,” she finished.

  He nodded.

  “But the magick was transferred to the battle. The good guys won and got the powers.”

  “And the bad guys lost. As it should have been. However, those people have died and moved on. Not all of the residual magick moved on with those souls as people were reborn. In fact, most of it did not.”

  She stared at the tablet, then let out a groan and smacked herself in the forehead. “D’oh. It can be resummoned in another world even though it’s now useless here,” she softly said.

  He smiled as he nodded. “I’m afraid so. That’s my suspicion, at least.”

  “And destroying it…”

  He shrugged. “I cannot imagine it would lead to anything good if you did. There will always be an equal and opposite reaction, as it were, to every action. It might solve some issues short-term, but I suspect that other than the obvious response from the cockatrice, it could also create a dark magickal rebound effect.”

  “So what are you going to do with it?”

  A weary sigh escaped him. “Take it someplace safe,” he said. “None of your concern. Best you don’t know, as a matter of fact.”

  On a hunch, she reached out and grabbed his arm. Another truth suddenly came to her. “You couldn’t take the real Tablet without asking me, because I’m tied to its creation,” she said. “You needed my permission, didn’t you?”

  He playfully smiled. “Very good.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t a thief?”

  “I’m not. But I never said I never lied, either.”

  * * * *

  The women let out another chorus of startled cries when Lina suddenly reappeared—alone. She’d been gone nearly half an hour. Jan and Rick were there this time and rushed over to grab her and steady her as she wobbled on her feet.

  “Holy shit,” she muttered.

  “Are you all right?” Jan asked.

  “What did he do to you?” Rick asked, his face full of storm clouds.

  “Calm down, boys. I’m fine.” She sat, feeling a little wobbly from the second glass of Jack Daniel’s she’d downed in Ryan’s apartment after they’d gone back there from Maine. “It’s all right.”

  “Where did he take you?” Jan asked.

  “It’s…complicated.” She looked up at them. “Nothing inappropriate, I swear. Supersecret stuff.” She caught the gazes of Mai and Elain, both women giving her slight nods to indicate they understood.

  Great. I’m finally in a supersecret club, one of the “cool” girls, and wish like hell I wasn’t.

  “Did he tell you how to remove the curse?” Callie asked.

  “Sort of.” There were a lot of things they’d discussed, and Lina suspected she’d need more than a few belts of liquid courage to finish processing them. For now, she wanted to mull over everything and do some more research to make sure she was right.

  “Sort of?” Callie asked. “I thought he said you knew how.”

  “He was right, I think I do. But I need some time.” She glanced at them all. “Look, regardless, it can’t happen before Yellowstone.”

  “Yellowstone?”

  “The Gathering.”

  “Why?”

  Lina wished Callie wasn’t so full of questions. Then she checked her irritation, understanding how worried her friend was now that they knew about the curse. “Remember where we did the ceremony for the Tablet?” she asked Callie.

  “Yeah, at…” Callie closed her eyes as she searched her memory. “A sacred well.”

  “Right. We don’t have much like that here in the New World, so to speak. However, Yellowstone is a pretty frakking powerful place. Added bonus, it’s full of very large critters that make a great substitute for humans in terms of rehoming the curse. And I need some time to make sure I dot my I’s and cross my T’s. Okay?”

  Callie slumped into a lounger. “Okay,” she quietly said.

  Lina hated seeing her friend look so beaten. Callie was a kick-ass-and-take-names kind of woman. She reached over and touched Callie’s hand. “We’ll take care of it. I promise.”

  Callie finally stared up at her, and what Lina saw there nearly broke her heart. “Please,” Callie whispered. “I don’t want to hurt Sir. Or any of you. The babies. I’d… I’d rather die than let that happen.”

  Elain swooped in to hug her. “That won’t happen,” she said, the weight of her conviction taking the words right out of Lina’s mouth. “We’ll do this thing, don’t worry.”

  * * * *

  A little before sunset Christmas Eve, when everyone else was busy talking or preparing dinner, Gigi slipped away from the Lyall ranch for a few minutes.

  She needed to have a talk with her older sister.

  “I grow weary of your games.” Gigi stood leaning against the wall of her sister’s house, in the shade, watching the woman in her matron form as she tended to a small herb garden.

  Baba Yaga didn’t look up from where she knelt over a rosemary plant. “What games?”

  “Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with Callie’s curse.”

  With that, Baba Yaga sat up and turned to meet her sister’s heavy gaze. “I swear to you, I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t realize it was a curse until Elain figured it out.”

  “So you were watching them.”

  “Of course. I wanted to keep tabs on the events.”

  Gigi stared at her for a moment before pushing away from the wall and walking over to her. “Okay. I actually believe you.”

  “Why shouldn’t you?”

  She snorted. “Seriously? After all the bullshit you’ve been pulling lately? I wouldn’t have put it past you.”

  “Well, rest easy that, at least this time, someone else threw a monkey wrench into their lives without any help from me. That does happen from time to time, you know.”

  Gigi sat cross-legged on the ground next to her sister. “Why didn’t you tell me about your babies?” she softly asked. “Why not come to us? I would have raised them for you.”

  Baba Yaga’s gaze dropped to the rosemary plant once more. “I needed them to have as normal and loving a life as possible.”

  “You saying I couldn’t have given them that?”

  “No. I needed them away from my rage.” Her shoulders drooped. “It would have been too easy for me to try to keep a direct hand on them had they been with you. At least being raised by others, they were able to grow up reasonably normal. Besides, we had jobs to do as the Triad.”

  “You still had a distant hand on them all this time, though, didn’t you?”

  Baba Yaga eventually looked at her again when she didn’t continue.

  She gentled her voice. “Babs, all this, the cockatrice, everything. Wouldn’t it have been easier just to go to the leaders of the cockatrice and put the…well, the fear of you into them?”

  “They were too devoted to their path. I placed countless obstacles in their way and yet they deliberately turned to darkness every time, even when it was easier to choose the path of light and right. Every time.” She sighed. “I wish I could see beyond the earliest times, to when their race was born. They’ve never been like the others. Yes, I’ll admit there are bad threads in every race, but they’re always isolated and break and end of their own accord. They never survive long. Not like this. Cockatrice are different somehow. Completely, willfully lost from the path of light.” r />
  She stared at her hands. She hadn’t been wearing gloves, and her fingers were dirty, stained. “I feel like I failed them somehow as a race, even though they were like this long before our Triad was called into being.”

  Gigi gentled her voice. “You didn’t cause them to be the way they are. Like you said, they’re just…wrong. Maybe the Universe put them here as a constant reminder of balance and what can happen if right gets too righteous.”

  “I don’t know. That’s a pleasant thought, but I still feel responsible.”

  Gigi reached out and touched the rosemary plant. “Are they really ready to handle this responsibility?”

  “I hope so.” Baba Yaga stared out at the woods surrounding her quiet haven. “They don’t have any choice in the matter.”

  “They face things we didn’t.”

  “True, but their scope is now limited, unlike ours.” She smiled at her sister. “And let’s face it, being mated looks well on you and Callie both.”

  “I never thought I’d admit it.” She poked her sister in the arm. “How hard was it for you to resist deliberately putting him in my path?”

  “Oh, it was easy enough. Believe it or not, Bertholde told me years ago she saw you mating with a tiger shifter one day. Someone fierce enough to stand up to you.”

  “He is that.”

  They fell into a comfortable silence for a few minutes, the only noises the breeze through the tall pines surrounding the clearing and a bird calling out somewhere.

  “Do you think they’ll come out on top?” Gigi asked. “I know what might happen if they fail. I hate the thought of clueless humans being dragged into this eternal war. Massive amounts of innocents dying. I hope these are the people to finally quiet the ancient darkness the cockatrice refuse to relinquish.”

  Baba Yaga’s face slipped into an unreadable mask. “I hope so, sister. Like you said, we’re only allowed so much latitude. If I could, I would go and end it once and for all. I can only do what I can do.”

  “Will you ever take another mate?”

  “I don’t think that’s wise. It didn’t end so well the first time.” She let out a heavy sigh that Brighde felt to the bottom of her own soul. “I don’t have any room left in my heart for love, unfortunately. That is how the threads of my tapestry were woven. The Goddess of All had her own plans for me. We’re all Her tools. If this is my fate, so be it.”