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deal& " I protested, "I just need a nap& 
"You just need one of the men," he snapped. "You must be more than tired to
even admit it," he grunted then, thinking, and then wheeled out of the sitting
room, doing a complete one-eighty and pounding up the granite stairs to the
trap door of the Goddess grove, calling behind him for Renny to bring me a
blanket.
We came up the trap door and into the garden which was palely glowing in the
moonlight. "Will he come, you think? he asked, sadness in his voice. Adrian
had been like a wayward son to Arturo.
"He always comes when I need him." I was certain I didn't know how I could be,
when he didn't come every night, but he was, always was, there in the grove
when I needed him.
"Good." Renny came up with the quilt Grace had made me and one of those fuzzy
fleece blankets that are always soft, and suddenly I was swathed in covers and
stashed on the stone bench memorial, the one with Adrian's face engraved on
the side, grateful for the seat cushions I'd conjured after that rough and
urgent night with Green.
"I need to leave you alone, Corinne Carol-Anne," Arturo sighed when I was
situated. "We have sidhe that need reassurances, and four mortals in the
hill& 
"And Green's gone and I'm out of commission. Yeah go. Thank you for
everything." I snuggled deep into the covers, feeling my eyes close, feeling
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Adrian's presence, breathing through the fragrance of the roses, ripe and
plentiful in all of the recent rainfall. I barely felt Arturo's kiss on my
cheek and Renny's halting goodbye. I dozed, listening to the sounds of birds
and wind and March crickets, until I felt a chill on my forehead and a breeze
where there was none. I opened my eyes, and he was there, translucent in the
night, spangled blue eyes perpetually sad, and tonight, concerned with me.
"You're weak!" His voice was almost solid with anxiety. "Why are you weak and
nobody's here to make you strong?
I told him, haltingly, letting him hear my panic over Bracken, over Nicky, my
fear of hurting my people, the awe and terror over holding the power of a nova
sun. When I finished, I was crying softly, trying not to hiccup, and longing,
longing with all my heart that he was real. He had never been warm, but he had
been solid, real, flesh around my body, strength to feed me, love. Oh,
Goddess, Adrian& why? We all miss you so much, hurt for you so much, why is it
that all we have left is the memory of a dream in the garden?
"Shhh&  he whispered as my tears got out of control. "Hush." And his hands
made a chill breeze as he brushed my face with them, and I leaned into that
because I had nothing else.
When I was calm again I found I had drifted off, and I came to in a panic,
afraid he had left. "Still here, luv," he murmured, a little laugh in his
transparent voice, "But I was wondering& how weak are you?
"Not ready to join you yet, beloved," I reassured, because there had been a
time not so long ago when I had been a stalled breath away from being his
companion here in the garden.
"Good to hear." He grimaced then, and I felt a frustration rolling off of him
in breezy waves. "Luv, Bracken's going to have to come up here to get you,
right?
I hadn't thought of that, but, "Yeah I guess." And I wanted him here, oh
Goddess I wanted him here.
"Is it all right if I& if I spend a bit of time getting fuckhead to talk to me,
you think?
A ghost shouldn't have that much yearning. "Of course, beloved," I told him,
dammit, drifting off again, "You make him talk to you of course.
And then my eyes drifted closed again, and Adrian was a presence, a fragrance,
a longing in my dreams.
BRACKEN
Unforeseen Ends
"You drive like my grandmother, has anyone told you that?" I complained from
the back of Phillip's Lexus. Marcus was driving, because of all the vampires,
Grace and Phillip suffered the most from wielding Cory's power.
"No, and since your grandmother was a tree in Wales who got chopped down
around 1800, I know for a fact it's not true." Marcus smiled as he said it, in
that perpetually good-willed way that Cory told me was the hallmark of the
good high school teacher.
"Well has anyone told you that you drive like your grandmother?" I snapped,
relieved a little that the Goddess overlooked figures of speech, because right
now the cramping and nausea that came with a lie were the last things I
wanted.
"Yes, Bracken. You. You've told me that I drive like my grandmother. Right
now." And even Marcus' perennial patience was waning. I didn't blame him, not
really.
Cory's power had snapped off like a blown fuse and the SUV and I had both
plunged unceremoniously into the lake. It was March, after a long snow season,
and the water was not warm, and I still could have swum to shore, but that
hadn't stopped Marcus from going in after me. While vampires weren't
necessarily susceptible to cold and heat, they still registered discomfort,
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and driving home in wet clothes was probably making him chafe like mad. Add to
that the pain and the high they were all feeling from wielding Cory's power,
and Marcus was probably the sweetest tempered of the lot of them.
"Seriously can we go just a little faster?" I begged, not caring that I was
pissing him off.
"So help me Bracken, I will pull this car over and make you walk ho& 
"She's weak!" I yelled, feeling helpless, hating it. "She's weak, and we're
not there.
Marcus laughed a little. "Well, I hope to heaven she's weak no one should be
able to wield that much power and not feel a little bit woozy, you think?
"Look, brother, I'm sorry it hurt you& " I started reasonably.
"Don't be," Marcus returned, surprising me. "If it hadn't been you and Nicky,
she never would have tried it." He sounded dreamy, and the high of the power
was suddenly thick in the car like sweet smoke.
"It was good?" Nicky asked, curious.
"It was fabulous," Phillip said from a raw throat. He'd been pretty much
wall-eyed since we'd put him in the car, and it startled me to hear him speak.
"It was like& like holding a solar flare when you haven't seen the sun in
twenty years& 
"Well I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to finish him off," I finished,
subsiding. They were doing their best. It became my mantra for the rest of the
trip.
"That's okay, brother," Phillip whispered, and I could see in the dark of the
car that he was smiling like a shark dreaming of red water. "She'll wield that
through us again. I know she will& oh& Goddess I know it will happen." He
shivered, and now the car smelled like incense and sex and I could only pray a
cop didn't pull us over because he'd get the totally wrong impression. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]