Druid Bond Read online

  I lifted my cane from beside the chair and set it on my right thigh. A reveal spell would tell me for sure, put my mind at ease. And if I had to hit her with something harder, I would.

  Gathering power around my casting prism, I calibrated my aim.

  “Croft,” Vega said sharply. “Pay attention. She asked you a question.”

  I followed her gaze to find Dr. Greene staring at me. Pretending to get comfortable, I shifted in the chair and lowered the cane again. The gathered energy dispersed back into the room. “Sorry.”

  Dr. Greene regarded me coldly while Vega gave me an exasperated look.

  “Any genetic issues in your family?” the doctor asked in a way that said she was repeating herself.

  “Not that I know of. Well, nothing bad, anyway.”

  “It’s a yes or no question.”

  I thought about my late parents—Marlow and Eve—both magic-users. Their powerful lineage ran through me, but I wasn’t going to share that info with a doctor who may or may not have been human.

  “No, then.”

  The doctor entered my answer and slipped her tablet into a coat pocket.

  “All right,” she said, seeming to thaw a little. “Are you two ready for your first look?”

  “First look?” I stammered. “You mean at—”

  “Yes,” Dr. Greene said. “Your baby.”

  Ten minutes later, Vega was reclined, her feet in stirrups. The doctor’s hand with the gel-coated probe had gone under the draping, but we were all watching the monitor. For several moments it was a gray field, mysterious black shapes growing into view and shrinking away again.

  My voice quavered in the silence. “Will we know if it’s a boy or girl?”

  “Not until the mid-pregnancy ultrasound,” Vega answered for the doctor, who remained focused on her task.

  “So, in the meantime what do we call the baby?” I whispered. “It?” That didn’t seem right.

  Vega smirked and gave me another of her patented head shakes. I slipped my hand into hers and squeezed, more to ground myself than anything. Though she had been through this before with Tony, her steadiness still amazed me. She’d known exactly what to do—scheduling the prenatal visit, scaling down to smaller, more frequent meals, drinking more water. She’d even started herself on a multivitamin.

  Me? I’d been too tied up with work. Typical dad.

  Back on the monitor, a black ovoid swelled into view.

  “The uterus,” Dr. Greene announced.

  It looked empty. Cold sweat broke over my back as I searched the space for life. I snuck a peek at Vega, whose large, expectant eyes remained fixed on the monitor. When her lips turned up at the corners, I took another look. On the right side of the uterine space, a small blur was coming into focus.

  “This is the yolk sac,” Dr. Greene said, indicating a tiny donut. “And beneath that, your child.”

  Awe and fear pounded through me as I stared at the little miracle. It looked so small, so fragile.

  “Just over a half centimeter,” Dr. Greene said, as though to confirm my thought. “And that flutter in the center is the heart. A healthy heart.”

  Vega and I laughed at the same time. If the doctor licked her lips now, I didn’t notice. I doubted I would have even cared. I was too riveted on the pea-sized critter on the monitor. Our pea-sized critter. When static washed over the image, I realized my wizard’s aura was arcing all over the place. Centering myself, I drew my energy back to where it wouldn’t interfere with the expensive electronics.

  “Unbelievable,” was all I could think to whisper.

  Indeed, the moment felt more magical than anything I’d ever cast.

  I looked over at Vega. Her moist eyes shifted from the monitor to mine, and she squeezed my slick hand.

  “Congratulations, Papa,” she said.

  3

  “What did you cast back there?” Vega asked me.

  Folders shifted across my lap as she pulled the sedan from the hospital garage and veered into Manhattan’s glinting midday traffic. I’d already started leafing through the dizzying amount of material the doctor had sent us home with—an owner’s manual for the little miracle Vega was carrying.

  So much to learn. And now of all times.

  “Huh?” I asked, looking at the copy of the ultrasound image again. I could stare at that little sweet pea all day.

  “When we were about to leave? Even if I hadn’t heard you mutter in Italian, I felt the current of energy.”

  “Oh.” I lowered the image and tapped everything back into a neat stack. “That was a reveal spell.”

  “A reveal spell? For what?”

  “To make sure Dr. Greene is, you know … human.”

  “She delivered Tony. I told you that.”

  “Yeah, I know. But I saw her lick her lips.”

  Vega squinted over at me. “What?”

  “When she told us the due date,” I added lamely.

  “That’s what people do when their lips are dry.”

  Or anticipating a fresh baby soul, I thought.

  “In any case, she’s human,” I said. “So we can put that to bed.”

  “Thanks,” Vega said thinly.

  “How are you feeling?”

  She took a deep breath and let it out. “Relieved after seeing that little beating heart. You?” When she looked over, she seemed to do so carefully.

  It had only been four days since she’d told me about her pregnancy, right after I’d found Blade and her fellow hunters slaughtered in their East Village apartment. I suspected Arnaud, the vampire-turned-demon. The horrid scene coupled with Vega’s reveal spurred me into action. After relocating Vega and Tony to an interfaith house in Brooklyn, I’d stocked up on spell implements and then worked furiously in my loft for the next forty-eight hours. My coat pockets now bulged with protections and stoppered potions. I also had a small unit of golems and ghosts monitoring the city. I even talked Tabitha into resuming her ledge patrols after having promised her the month off.

  So the truth was, I’d had almost no time to consider the implications of Vega’s pregnancy until today: what it meant for me, for us. When I looked down at the ultrasound image again, a staggering force moved through me.

  “Croft?” Vega prompted.

  “How do I feel? So in love with this thing that it scares the hell out of me.”

  “It’s life changing,” she agreed. We slowed toward a red light. “But are you good with this?”

  “Of course I am.”

  She looked over at me. “You can be honest. I’d understand.”

  I caught a note of insecurity, which was unusual for her.

  “How could I not be? It’s you and me and…” I gestured at the image. “It.”

  “We didn’t exactly plan this.”

  “Ricki.” I took her hand. “I’m great with this.”

  She smiled tightly and moved her hand back to the wheel as she accelerated again.

  Massive housing projects loomed to the east as she navigated Second Avenue. Being the day after Thanksgiving, we both had the day off from our respective jobs, and we were headed to the safe house to check on Tony. Afterwards, I had a meeting with the Upholders—my price for securing refuge for Vega and her son.

  I studied the druidic bonding sigil below my right thumb for a couple of blocks. A fair exchange, I decided. As we approached the Williamsburg Bridge, I voiced something I’d been considering.

  “I think you should stay in the safe house until Arnaud’s no longer a threat.”

  “I am staying there,” she said.

  “No, I mean twenty-four seven. Like Tony.”

  “Croft, I’m still active duty.”

  “But you’re pregnant now.”

  “Yeah, for seven and a half more months. I can’t take maternity leave yet.”

  I’d expected some resistance, but the strength of her pushback surprised me.

  “I just don’t like the idea of you out here.” The passing buildings and
side streets wavered slightly beyond the protective shield I had cast around the car. My gaze dropped to her stomach. “You, plural.”

  “That’s why you gave me this,” she sighed, drawing my grandfather’s coin pendant from inside her blouse. “It packs the one-two punch of the Brasov Pact and the safe house, right? He can’t touch us.”

  “Under normal circumstances.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Inside Blade’s apartment, the detectives had found remnants of gray salt, an element used to store magical items. It suggested that the vampire hunters might have found such an item in the course of their work. Vampires were renowned collectors of the enchanted, after all. But was it a protective item, one that neutralized spells? Ancient pacts, even? Was that what Arnaud had been after?

  It seemed a long shot, but the paranoia was eating me from the inside.

  “We still don’t know why Arnaud went to the vampire hunters’ apartment,” I said at last.

  “Well, I can’t do my job on house arrest, and I’ve been assigned their case.”

  “We already know who the killer is.”

  “It’s still a homicide investigation.”

  “Then let Hoffman work it,” I said, referring to her partner.

  She snorted. “As much as he’s come around, Hoffman still doesn’t know the supernatural from a salami sandwich. If he and the Sup Swat go it alone, they’ll be tits deep in something they’re unprepared for. Look, I’ve been with the NYPD for almost a decade. I have a responsibility to that family too.”

  I could see by the tension across her brow we weren’t going to be settling anything between here and the safe house. Plus, the conversation was causing her stress, and that was a no-no according to Dr. Greene.

  “Speaking of family,” I said, changing the subject, “have you told your brothers?”

  I’d met them only the week before. The oldest three had been cool with me, but that changed when Carlos, the youngest, convinced them I was a danger to Ricki and Tony. He’d convened a living room pow-wow where the Vega Brotherhood told me to stop seeing their sister.

  Whoops, I thought as I looked at the ultrasound image.

  “Let me worry about them,” Vega replied.

  “I want to be there when you tell them.”

  “They’re my brothers.”

  “And you’re my…” Girlfriend? That sounded too small for what we were taking on. Something else I wanted to discuss with her, but not here, not now. “Look, we’re in this together. I want to be there when you make the announcement. I’m the papa bear, remember?”

  She smirked. “I appreciate that, but there’s no hurry.”

  “And when we get some time, I want us to talk. You and me.”

  Her expression flattened, and I felt her pull in slightly.

  “Sure,” she said.

  The safe house was located in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood, about a ten-minute drive from Vega’s apartment. The synagogue to which the safe house was attached belonged to New York’s interfaith community, meaning it drew additional power from the beliefs of the city’s major congregations and, by extension, congregations worldwide.

  Translation: the protection was rock solid.

  As we pulled in front of the granite building slotted in the middle of a block of brownstones, I could feel its thrumming energy. I got out and joined Vega, shrinking the shell of hardened air until it enclosed just the two of us.

  We’d spoken little the rest of the ride. I didn’t know why she’d shut down on the Williamsburg Bridge, and I hadn’t pressed. With my critical lack of sleep, I couldn’t trust what I might say. I doubted Vega had slept much the last several nights either.

  At the edge of the sidewalk, I held the iron gate open for her. We ascended the stone steps to a set of stout wooden doors. Vega had already drawn her key, and she inserted it and pushed the door open. As I followed her through the thick curtain of energy, my bonding sigil glowed briefly. I was being admitted. Still, the lion’s share of my wizarding power fell away, the equivalent of having my weapons checked at the door.

  “You all right?” Vega asked, her brow creased in concern.

  “Fine,” I said, realizing I’d drawn a sharp breath through my teeth. “Crossing these thresholds is always a little jarring.”

  But it was a reassurance too. If the threshold could render me powerless, even with entry permission from the Interfaith Council, I could only imagine how the same energy would deal with a demon-vampire. Reduce it to a smoking pile, most likely. Which was exactly why I needed to convince Vega to stay here.

  “No safer place in the city, though,” I added in an offhanded way.

  Vega shot me a dark look over her shoulder, telling me to drop it.

  We took a staircase down to the safe house’s basement level, where a collection of meeting rooms had been converted into small apartments—the only place they could fit us. We found Tony at a table in the common area, hunched over a workbook. Camila, Vega’s housekeeper and sitter, was there too, absorbed in her phone.

  “Working hard, champ?” Vega asked her son.

  Tony looked up. “Hey, Mom.” When he saw I’d come too, his eyes brightened. “Mr. Croft!”

  Ever since my role in the mayor’s eradication program the year before, Tony saw me as some kind of superhero.

  “Hey, kiddo,” I said as he jumped up and threw his arms around my waist. Chuckling, I tousled his curly hair.

  “How’s he doing?” Vega asked Camila.

  “Very good. He just finishing his last lesson. Very smart boy.”

  Vega had decided to keep her son here around the clock until the Arnaud threat was over, and that meant homeschooling. My grandfather’s pendant, which Vega had given to him, went back to her; and my grandfather’s ring, which I’d given to Vega, came back to me. I could feel both artifacts absorbing the power of the safe house now, lending us portable protection. In theory, anyway. The bloody scene at the vampire hunters’ apartment flashed through my head.

  “Can I?” Tony asked. I looked down to find him reaching for my cane.

  “Sure, go ahead.” He wouldn’t be able to release the sword, much less cast through it.

  With a smile that revealed the gap where a baby tooth had been, Tony grabbed the cane and jabbed it around while making blasting sounds.

  “Are you gonna hang out with us this afternoon?” he asked.

  “I wish I could, buddy, but there’s somewhere I need to be.”

  “Aw. It’s so boring here.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” I said, glancing around the windowless room.

  Vega finished catching up with Camila and watched her son in a way that was hard to interpret. Concern? Wistfulness? She hadn’t told him he was going to be an older brother yet, and I wondered when she planned to drop the news.

  “Mom, how much longer do we have to stay here?” he asked in the impatient voice of a seven-year-old.

  “We’ve had this discussion. It’s only temporary.”

  He stopped play-fighting and sagged over the cane. “Yeah, but for how long?”

  “Tony, that’s enough.”

  Hearing the fatigue in Vega’s voice, I jumped in. “Hey, listen. When I finish my meeting, I’ll pick up a pizza from Ratzo’s and we’ll all eat here. How does that sound?”

  The words had barely left my mouth when I heard someone coming down the stairs. I turned to find Malachi rushing into the room, ponytail leaping over his narrow shoulders. He had been an acolyte at St. Martin’s Cathedral when the demon lord Sathanas possessed the vicar. Not only had he shown me to the ossuary where the Big Battle would go down, he also saved my life by directing the police to the same location, where they found me unconscious and buried under a heap of bones.

  Sometime later, Malachi began having visions of a demon apocalypse. The visions led him to the other members of the Upholders—a druid, a half-fae, and a mermaid—whose groups had been infiltrated by Strangers. Malachi’s dre
ams had also led him to me, possibly because I’d put down the city’s last major demon threat in Sathanas. Though, in truth, we still hadn’t figured out the why.

  “Croft,” he panted.

  “Hey, I was just about to head over to the townhouse.”

  His smallish eyes looked from me to Vega. “Detective,” he said.

  “Malachi,” she answered, arching an eyebrow in question.

  “What’s up?” I asked him.

  “We have a, um, situation.”

  “Situation?”

  I extended a hand toward Tony, and he dutifully returned my cane.

  “I’ll tell you on the way to the townhouse,” Malachi said.

  I nodded and went over to Vega. “Sounds like I’ve gotta run.”

  “When you find out what’s going on, let me know,” she said, warning in her tone.

  I drew her into a hug, her abdomen warm against my hips, and kissed the crown of her head. “I will. You going to be all right here?”

  “Fine. Be careful.”

  “We’re still doing Ratzo’s tonight, right?” Tony asked.

  Crap. When I glanced at Malachi, he shook his head and headed up the stairs.

  “I’m really sorry, buddy,” I told him, feeling like a jerk. “I’ll owe you.”

  I was almost to the top of the stairs when I heard him grumble, “That’s what Dad’s always saying.”

  The words landed like a shot to the solar plexus.

  His dad’s still in their life?

  4

  “A merfolk pod is making its way toward the city,” Malachi said as we settled into the backseat of a cab.

  Still preoccupied with Tony’s parting remark, it took me a moment to process Malachi’s words. “The one Gorgantha belonged to?”

  Malachi nodded, signaling for me to keep it down even though our driver spoke little English and appeared more interested in his digital meter. “They’re likely searching for her and the others,” Malachi whispered.

  Gorgantha’s merfolk pod had been living off the coast of Maine when a Stranger infiltrated the group and began claiming their souls for his demon master. He’d also transmogrified their cored-out bodies into monsters. Only she and about twenty others managed to escape. It sounded like the Stranger meant to fix that.