“But it’s okay?” Ben asked. “It’s. . .not going to follow you or try to take revenge.”
“No, I think it got whatever revenge it needed when it killed Peterson.”
And good riddance. Let that be a warning if we ever tend toward hubris, hm?
“So why do you still look worried?”
Cormac gave a quick, wry smile which vanished almost instantly, and looked away. “I’m always worried.”
Kitty got that look, then. The focused one that meant she was studying him, getting ready to ask a question he wouldn’t be able to dodge. But Jon fidgeted again, emitting a spectacular amount of drool, and she grabbed a napkin to stop the flow.
They are a bit like alien creatures, aren’t they?
Cormac had never held a baby in his life until this one came along. Kitty had insisted. “You’re his godfather. Just hold him once, so you can say you did. Maybe Amelia wants to hold him, ask her.” And, surprisingly, Amelia—whom Kitty had gleefully dubbed the fairy godmother—did. Just to see what it’s like, she’d said. The baby had been surprisingly solid in his arms, a firm weight pressing against him. Cormac had held his breath, hoping the baby didn’t wake up, that he didn’t drop him, and that Jon would grow up to be nothing like himself. Cormac as godfather was a terrible mistake. At the same time, he knew, in some fundamental and horrible way, that he would do anything in his power to protect this small life. They were a pack, Kitty liked to say. So, he now had a godson to go along with his cousin and whatever the hell Kitty was. And Amelia, whatever she was. It was illogical. It was family. Strange and comforting, all at once.
“So what’s different this time?” she asked. “Something’s different. If this wasn’t bothering you, you wouldn’t have told us about it.”
He almost hadn’t. He didn’t want them to worry, not about him. They had more important things to worry about. Like that kid. “I don’t know. We thought we’d seen it all. I’ve never felt like I crossed a line I couldn’t handle before. Then this happens.” Maybe he was just getting old.
“You’re not thinking of quitting, are you?” Kitty asked.
He hadn’t meant to hesitate, but he took an extra breath. And another. The couple exchanged one of those couple-glances, worried and full of questions as well as secret, silent plotting. Like they were thinking, No, you say something. . . .
We aren’t quitting, Amelia said. Then added, more softly. Are we?
“Amelia says no,” Cormac says. “And no, we aren’t.”
“Well, good,” Kitty said, decisive. “Because the both of you have a really unique set of skills.”
Yes. Exactly. And we must use those skills. You understand, don’t you?
He could almost imagine Amelia sitting next to him, explaining. Persuading. He c
huckled.
“Now what?” Ben said. “This isn’t funny, this is some kind of Biblical shit—”
“Language,” Kitty said.
“Kitty, hon, he’s six months old—”
“And I swear if ‘shit’ ends up being his first word—”
Jon grinned and burbled something that was, fortunately, incomprehensible.
“Maybe that’s it,” Cormac said. “There’s some crazy stuff out there and we have these skills. . . . I just never had, I guess you’d call it purpose before. Not like this.”
“Well,” Kitty said. “Purpose seems to suit you.”
“I was worried,” Ben confessed. “When you put the guns away, if you’d find something else. And here you are.”
Cormac smirked and looked away. This was getting too serious for him. “We’ll see.”
In a meadow in his mind, Amelia smiled.
Cormac and Amelia travel to South Dakota, where an archeologist has hired them to examine an artifact for possible magical qualities. Cormac is skeptical, Amelia is intrigued. And it turns out – the whole thing is a trap. Who from Cormac’s past is out for revenge, and can he survive?