Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood) (30 page)

Spider turned her friendly expression back on Sue. “Crazy how you can run back into people online, eh?”

The woman smiled at the girl pleasantly. Cole tried not to stare.

“Look…” he tried awkwardly. “This… it’s been kind of a rough day, and Jane and Sarah really need to get back to class so–”

“Nonsense!” Sue interjected with an incredulous look to the kitchen window and the sinking sun. “You can’t leave at this hour; you won’t get there till past midnight! Besides, you kids have had a real shock today, and I won’t have you out driving in this condition. You’re staying here till you’ve had a chance to rest, end of discussion.”

“That car looks ready to fall apart, Paul,” Ben added.

He hesitated, knowing that for the last, at least, the man was right.

“If the girls need to get back, you can take my truck,” Ben said. “But tomorrow. Okay?”

Cole glanced over to Ashe and Spider. Still gripping the archway wall, Ashe was watching Lily, and he couldn’t tell what was racing behind her eyes. For Spider’s part, the girl just hesitated a heartbeat, and then gave Ben and Sue an apologetic smile.

“That’s very kind of you,” she said. “Really. But my sociology professor is a total jerk. If I’m not there–”

“Don’t be absurd,” Sue interrupted. “I’m not letting you risk your life over a class. I’ll call your college in the morning and explain the situation. Surely, they’ll–”

“You don’t have to do that,” Ashe said, turning back from the living room. She looked to Spider, her face deadpan, though her voice was more so. “Doesn’t your uncle know your professor’s boss? We’ll just call him. He’ll pull some strings.”

Spider watched her for a moment. “Right.” She affected an embarrassed expression as she glanced to Sue. “Wow. I guess today messed me over more than I thought. I mean…” she trailed off, swallowing hard. “Seeing somewhere people just
died
…”

She shook her head, looking for all the world like she was trying not to cry.

Sue came over to pat her shoulder sympathetically. “That would mess anyone over, sweetie. Now come on. Paul and Hannah can take their room upstairs, and we have some nice sleeping bags we can put down in the office for you and Sarah. In the meantime, you kids just focus on getting cleaned up and I’ll have dinner ready in about an hour, alright?”

The girl smiled tremulously.

Sue glanced to Cole. “Can you help Ben get the office set up?”

Blinking, he pulled his gaze from Spider. “Sure.”

He slid off the barstool and started for the hall. Behind him, he could hear the chair scrape back as Spider followed.

“Hannah,” Ashe called.

Lily set the cat aside and hurried to join them. “Are we–”

She fell silent at the sight of Ben. Her eyes darted between them as the man slid by, and she said nothing else as she followed them all upstairs.

“This way,” Cole said as he rounded the landing and headed toward the office halfway down the narrow corridor. As Ben struggled with the stuck closet door at the end of the hall, Cole paused, waiting for Ashe to go past him into the office.

The girl stopped just outside the door. “Can you get his keys?” she asked softly.

He glanced over. Her gaze twitched from him to Ben, monitoring the man as he wrestled the sleeping bags from the shelf. A few feet away, Spider leaned against the wall, watching them.

“I’m not stealing his truck,” Cole growled.

Ashe blinked fast, forcing back an expression that he would have almost sworn was discomfort. “We need to get out of here.”

“I
know
that, but I won’t–”

He cut off as Ben returned. Two bundled sleeping bags in his arms, the man maneuvered around them on his way into the crowded office. Plopping the bedding down beside the stuffed bookcases lining the walls, he eyed the file boxes and the partially unpacked pieces of a desk in the center of the floor.

“Sorry this place is such a mess,” Ben said with an abashed smile. “Keep meaning to get this together every year, but I just always end up falling back into the habit of working from the dining room table each time spring rolls around.”

The man motioned for him to come help and then bent down, hefting a box from the floor. Pausing, Cole eyed Ashe and Spider, and then looked to Lily waiting uncomfortably behind them.

“Hannah,” he said shortly. “Help me with the blankets.”

Lily slid past her sister and went into the room.

He watched her go, and then glanced back at the other girls. “We’re not doing that.”

“What do you think is going to happen tomorrow?” Spider asked, nothing but stark reality in her tone.

He glared, knowing he had no answer and hating the fact.

“We’re not,” he repeated.

Without another word, he followed Lily into the office.

A few minutes later, he was almost surprised to find the two of them still waiting when he emerged again.

“Bathroom’s on the first floor, left of the kitchen,” Ben said, slipping around them on his way to the stairs. “And if you need anything, Sue and I will be just down the hall.”

“Thank you,” Spider said.

The man smiled and then jogged down the steps.

“Other room there?” Ashe asked tightly, jerking her chin toward the door by the landing.

Cole nodded.

She turned, heading for the bedroom. “I’m taking first watch.”

He watched as Spider followed, and then closed his eyes, grimacing tiredly.

It was going to be a long night.

From the shadows beside the bedroom window, Ashe watched the darkness. Stars scattered the cloudless sky and beneath the moon and the autumn breeze, the oak tree quivered in shades of silver. On the horizon, the security light of another farm glowed, while around her, the Summers’ house creaked as it cooled for the night.

Ben and Sue had gone to sleep hours before. In the twin bed on the far side of the room, Lily was curled into a ball beneath patchwork quilts. Cole sat on the matching bed nearby, his back against the headboard and his eyes on nothing she could see. Spider had brought in the sleeping bags from the office and taken the floor, and though Ashe knew the girl could sleep in the midst of anything if necessary, she wouldn’t have put bets to Spider actually doing so tonight.

Jamison had the historians’ information. At this very moment, while the cats skulked through the shadows and the wind dislodged the first autumn leaves, he could be putting the finishing touches on the spell. She knew it wouldn’t take him long. She could hope it would, pray it would, but in the end, he had a lifetime of experience on her, not including the past eight years of even knowing there
was
a war. He’d have prepared for this. And if he’d killed the historians – especially like that – it meant he’d gotten exactly what he was looking for.

Her gaze slid to Cole. She wished she knew how the affiliation thing worked. If Jamison could reach them here, or if distance would affect the spell at all. If staying by Cole – affiliated with Cole – would spare Lily’s life, or that, if she left the girl behind to go after Jamison and he got his hands on her, she’d condemn her sister no matter where Lily tried to hide.

But then, Merlin had bound every wizard who’d sided with Taliesin, regardless of where they’d been at the time. This would probably be the same.

Her eyes found Lily in the darkness. Furrows wrinkling her brow, the little girl was staring at the blankets of the bed next to her.

Ashe looked away. She didn’t know where she’d send the girl, or where they would have gone if Cole’d agreed to steal Ben’s truck anyway. But ultimately, she had to go after Jamison. One Merlin wizard in his hands would be enough for him to kill them all, and even though most of the Merlin were already dead, that didn’t mean he’d never encounter another in her lifetime.

It was a long shot, and probably suicide, but she had no choice. Anything else just meant living every moment knowing it brought her closer to the one in which she’d have to watch her sister die. And while Lily would never forgive her, and would always think she’d abandoned her, she couldn’t let that change her mind.

No matter what it took, she was going to get Lily to the end of this alive.

Her eyes tracked a tabby cat as it skirted the blue-white glow of the security light. It really was nice here. The farm, the cats, and all the crafts everywhere. Maybe after this was over and the Blood weren’t a threat anymore, Lily could come back. She could be happy in this place.

It was so very much like home.

Her gaze lingered on the edge of the light’s glow, though the cat had disappeared moments before. She missed them. Her father, and his beaming smile every time he had the chance to come see them. Jonathan and Rose, and the way they’d teased her while still teaching her everything from driving to baking pie. She missed the other farmhands, despite the fact they’d never really been close. In retrospect, she supposed it’d been the royalty thing. She even missed crazy old Thelma, who’d kept life interesting and who, in the midst of hell, had sat in the ashes to comfort her with gibberish, all because she’d wanted to help.

It felt like someone else’s life. It had
been
someone else’s life. She wasn’t that girl anymore. And for all that it had only been a few months, it still felt like she hadn’t been for a very long time.

“Did the Blood kill them?” Lily whispered.

Ashe blinked, pulling her gaze from the window. Eyes wide, Lily stared at Cole.

His brow furrowed as he looked over. “What?”

“The bad men… the Blood. Did they kill them?”

She saw him swallow uncomfortably. They hadn’t told the girl everything. There really wasn’t any need for her to know.

“Yeah,” Cole admitted quietly.

“Why?” Lily asked.

He hesitated, and his gaze dropped to his hands. “I don’t know.”

“But how could they just–”

“They weren’t good people, Lily,” he said harshly. “You shouldn’t feel sorry for them.”

Ashe eyed him, disgusted. Across the room, she could see Spider watching him too, though otherwise, the girl hadn’t moved.

Lily faltered. “I-I know. But they still were–”

“Were what?” Cole snapped. “My grandparents? Lily, they wanted to kill you. They would have killed me. They locked us up with their propaganda of Merlin and his two lackeys binding my ancestors, and you expect me to–”

“What?” Ashe interrupted.

He turned to her, fury hot in his gaze. “Excuse me?”

“What did you say?”

“They tried to kill us.”

“No! The other part. The propaganda thing.”

“Why do you–”

“Just tell me!”

His brow drew down. “They had a lot of paintings,” he said meticulously, rancor dripping from his tone. “One was of Merlin. He was on a cliff, posing with two of his disciples and his staff, while all the nasty little Taliesin got bound below. Why? You want to go get yourself a copy?”

She ignored him.

“Ashe, what is it?” Spider asked, propping herself up on an elbow.

She didn’t answer, her gaze tracking across the hardwood floor without seeing it at all.

It was mad. More than mad. Losing the historians had pushed her over the edge.

But try as she might, she couldn’t stop hearing the ramblings of a crazy old woman from a lifetime before.

A crazy old woman who’d wanted to help.

“There were three of them?” she asked, feeling like the ground was falling out from under her. “In the painting of the binding… in the
beginning
… it was Merlin and two others?”

“Need me to repeat it again?”

“Yes! There were three of them. Three. You’re sure it was actually three?”

Cole nodded, eyeing her like she’d gone insane.

“Ashe…” Spider pushed.

Unable to respond, she looked away. Her hand pressed against her face and, a moment later, she made an incredulous sound as she glanced back to Cole.

“Did one of them look like Elvis?”

*****

“Ashe, this is nuts,” Spider insisted quietly. “Just because some crazy old lady said–”

She fell silent as a man walked around the corner of the Summers’ house, a crate full of dirt-covered vegetables in his arms. Standing by Ben’s red pickup truck, Ashe glanced over as the flannel-shirted man sidled past, his eyes darting from the gravel walkway to them and back. Continuing on, he set the basket down by the porch steps and then, with a look to Lily and Cole by the front door, he circled back around the side of the house.

“I know,” Ashe answered, her gaze tracking him.

From the corner of her eye, she could see Spider studying her. And then the girl turned back to the house. “Just making sure.”

The screen door swung open and Sue hurried out, a paper bag full of food in her hands. “Now you have directions, right?” she said to Cole and Lily. “And don’t forget to call if you need anything. I don’t care what it is. You go ahead and call.”

Ashe looked away. She really did sound like Rose. And she was so visibly worried for Lily, it was uncomfortable to watch.

But then, Lily could come back. Eventually, anyway.

“You realize he’s going to have to be the one to drive us out of here,” Spider commented as Ben pulled out his keys and handed them to Cole.

Ashe glanced to her.

The hint of a smile pulled at the girl’s mouth and she didn’t say anything more.

“Just watch out for each other,” Sue ordered as she trailed Lily and Cole down the steps.

“We will,” Cole replied. He glanced to Ben, and Ashe could see his discomfort from a dozen feet away. “You’re sure it’s okay if we use your truck, though? This isn’t going to be a short trip and I don’t want to–”

Ashe tensed, but Ben just smiled. “Got the old clunker in the barn, which is still in better shape than that thing you have there,” the man answered, clapping him on the shoulder. “We’ll be fine. Just drive safe, eh?”

Cole nodded. Taking the bag from Sue, he headed around the truck. The discomfort in his eyes strengthened at the sight of her and Spider, and without a word, he opened the rear door and then set the bag on the floor.

“It was nice to meet you girls,” Sue said, coming up to them.