A Nomadic Witch

Chapter 4

They said that a man discovered his true friends in his greatest hour of need.

Marcus stood in the middle of the gravel road that served as the main street of Fisher’s Cove, looked around at the emptiness, and tried to will his panic away.

Apparently he had no friends.

They’d handed him the baby, a bag of supplies, a couple of cookies. And then Aunt Moira had patted his cheek and sent him on his way. He presumed the cookies were for him.

The small bundle in his arms wiggled. Hecate’s hells. It was the middle of the night-didn’t babies sleep?

A small fist squirmed out of the blanket and started waving in the general direction of Marcus’s face. He tucked it back inside and cursed as a foot emerged instead. Sophie’s sausage-wrap contraption was rapidly coming unglued.

He had a second to form misanthropic thoughts about octopus babies, and then her face started to scrunch up. He felt the wail before he heard it. She looked like a baby bird, pink mouth gaped wide in loud search of sustenance.

Food. Baby birds needed food. Marcus juggled the bag on his shoulder, desperately seeking anything that resembled a bottle. His fingers brushed against a ridiculous number of mysterious objects. He had no wish to discover what the cold, wet, squishy things were. Or the jingly ones. Or why he needed two tons of supplies to last until morning.

Surely someone would rescue him in the morning.

He struck bottle gold just as the creature in his arms dialed up her volume several levels. He took one suspicious look at the enormous end-that fit in a baby’s mouth?-and shoved it in the right general direction. Hopefully she’d know what to do with it.

She mouthed the bottle with interest, the half-second of quiet music to his ears. And then let loose the hell of a baby scorned.

Ye gods and little fishes. Marcus glared at the bottle-he’d seen them work, dammit! What was wrong with this one?

The business end of it still looked wrong.

And the child was still wailing like he’d shot her in the kneecaps. Quiet, girl-child-how do you expect me to think with all this racket?

Perfect. Now he was mindyelling at an infant.

A very quiet, very still infant. Purple eyes watched him in utter fascination. Amused in spite of himself, Marcus reached for her mind again. You can hear me this way, can you? It’s a much more civilized way to communicate. None of that screeching, all right?

He’d have sworn her mind felt vaguely amused. Which was preposterous-babies understood simple mindsent emotions, nothing more. Probably just gas.

Marcus looked over at the bottle again. And noticed the clear cover disguising something that looked far more likely to dispense milk.

Baby bottles had caps.

Gods. Clearly the designer hadn’t been holding a wailing baby.

If he survived the night, that someone was going to get a piece of his mind. Presuming he had one left. He flicked the cover off the bottle and watched it roll down the street in disgust. Fantastically bad design.

And be damned if he was going to scrounge around in the gravel and dark for a piece of plastic.

This time, baby met bottle with happy sucking sounds. Which made him weak-kneed with relief-he wasn’t entirely sure returning to Sophie’s door would be met with any response. Aunt Moira had decided the baby was his, in the tone of voice that no smart witch in Fisher’s Cove ever ignored.

He’d tangle with his aunt in the morning-and the rest of the witch hive mind. After they’d all gotten some sleep.

He juggled bag, bottle, and baby until it seemed safe to attempt to walk. “Just you and me, kid. Time to go home.”

Her bright eyes were half closed now, her hands and feet pushing softly against his chest. Marcus pulled down his mental barriers as the leaking bliss in her mind touched his. She was happy-no need to intrude.

He ignored the small, impertinent voice in his mind that wanted to kiss the top of her head.

Marcus Buchanan didn’t kiss babies.

Moira leaned back from the window, well satisfied. “That was a lovely bit of work, ladies.”

Nell chuckled from the sofa, Ginia sound asleep in her lap. “That was pretty mean. The man’s hopeless with babies.”

Aye, he was. “All the better to keep his mind off the rest of it, at least until morning.”

Sophie was still jiggling, walking Adam back to sleep. “She’s stopped crying-he must be doing something right.”

“He found the business end of the bottle.” Which would probably keep their wee Morgan satisfied for a few hours at least. Moira smiled at her granddaughter, falling asleep beside Ginia on the couch. “It’s good Elorie had some milk to spare.”

“Between us, we can probably make enough milk for one more.”

“That’ll work until Marcus figures out what’s in the bottle.” Nell snickered again-quietly.

Her nephew was rather squeamish about the whole process of breastfeeding and babies. Silly man. He’d been perfectly fine with it as a wee one cuddled up for food, his legs all tangled with Evan’s.

Evan.

The sadness flooded into Moira’s heart again. Her sweet Irish leprechaun, full of tricks and mischief. Apparently some things hadn’t changed in forty-some years. Sending obscure messages from beyond the veil was one thing. A baby wrapped in magic was an entirely different level of prank.

She shivered. Or maybe not a prank at all. Morgan was a name of portent, one wrapped in the deepest roots of witch history.

A hand touched her shoulder. Sophie, with Adam finally sleeping. “It can wait until morning. Go get some rest-tomorrow’s not likely to be easy.”

Sleep wouldn’t come soon this night. “We can handle one wee girl.”

Sophie’s eyes carried hints of warning. “She’s not ours to handle. We don’t even truly know if she’s meant to stay.”

Ah, the young-so suspicious of the old magics. They’d trust an email in a heartbeat, but not a simple missive from the dead.

“We need to try to trace her parents. I’ll get Jamie and Daniel on that first thing in the morning.” Nell shifted carefully on the couch, pulling out her phone-and then grinned at the screen. “Never mind-they’re already on it. Jamie’s tracked down Adele. Apparently we’re going to Las Vegas tomorrow.”

Well, an outfit like that likely hadn’t escaped from rural Vermont. “Treat her with respect, my dear. She touches large magics, even if her own powers are weak.”

“Oh, I’ve got plenty of respect for her. She cracked Realm security.” Nell’s eyes sparked with both steel and momentary humor. “The only other guy ever to do that is not happy right now.”

Men always took such things as a personal affront. “I’ll trust you to stay focused on the more important questions, my dear.”

Nell looked confused.

“We have a wee new blessing in our midst, and if we’re to believe Adele’s message, she was sent.” By a small boy with shiny blond curls and mischief in his eyes. Moira looked out in the general direction of her nephew’s cottage, wishing him well in the night. “It isn’t how she got in that matters most-it’s why.”

The old magics were back in Fisher’s Cove-and why mattered. Desperately.

Very gingerly, Marcus slid the sleeping bundle in his arms toward the basket. Three inches to touchdown.

Two…

Hecate’s hells. Brain jarring with the infant’s wails, Marcus snatched her up, none too gently. And swore she stopped mid-howl to grin at him. Brat. It’s a perfectly good basket. One that some helpful soul had left in the middle of his living room floor, presumably to house his uninvited guest. He’d seen Elorie’s babies dozing at Moira’s feet in ones just like it.

The child in his arms was having none of it. Three times now, he’d waited until she was a limp noodle, deep in sleep. And three times, she’d woken, shrieking, a hairsbreadth from success-like she had basket radar.

He stared down at purple eyes, already sinking back into sleepy bliss. And cursed. I’m not standing here holding you all night, girl-child. We grumpy old men need our sleep.

She wasn’t listening. Already he knew the small whiffling sounds that meant she’d gone under, headed to the land of whatever babies dreamed about.

Carefully, he backed over to the big easy chair in the corner-his one furniture purchase since moving into the cottage on the edge of the village. The rest of the cabin had been furnished out of the spare parts trotted over by small children and fishermen. Clearly, no one had trusted him to outfit his own living space.

The sudden yearning for his cliffside home caught him by surprise. No garage finds or mismatched teacups there.

And no mysterious baby girls with knowing eyes and opera-singer lungs.

She stirred as he settled into the easy chair, the neurons of distress lining up in her mind. Desperately, Marcus tried to jiggle her little body in the movement that seemed instinctual to all of womankind.

Her restless wiggles accelerated. Clearly he wasn’t a woman.

His body begging for just a few more moments in the chair, Marcus began to croon, a tuneless melody that seemed to come from the night air. Slowly, words seeped into memory.

“O sleep, my baby, you are sharing

With the sun in rest repairing…

Sho-heen sho…”

Thus had Moira always sung to the babies in her arms. And for this small girl, like all the rest, the words were Irish magic.

Blessing whatever goddess had first invented lullabies, Marcus shifted carefully in the chair. It wasn’t an easy job, wedging a large man and a tiny baby into some semblance of comfort. Holding his breath, he dislodged the small toes that had somehow wedged in under his ribs. There. That just might do it.

Tucked into his arm, wispy hair tickling his chin, the child wiggled one more time-and then let out a belch that belonged to a linebacker. Marcus choked back his bark of laughter. Waking her now would be pure lunacy.

Slowly, he laid his head back against the chair-and rejoiced. Still at last. It seemed like an excellent place to close his eyes.

Jamie pushed away from the mammoth table that acted as Realm’s command center, shaking his head as cracking sounds ran up and down his spine. Nat would not be pleased-ten hours at a computer desk was bad for karmic energy flows.

And it made your butt numb.

He looked over at the only other member of his team who was still awake. “Find anything?”

The scowl on Daniel’s face was plenty of answer. Jamie looked down at his code again-he’d run every tweak on Nell’s scans he could think of. Time to stop banging his head against virtual bricks.

They had answers-they just didn’t like them.

Rustling sounds from the couch had them both looking, but it was just a pint-sized set of toes seeking warmth. Jamie grinned as Mia shifted in her sleep to make room for his heat-seeking baby. All the triplets loved Kenna, but his most fiery niece was by far the most smitten.

Daniel grinned. “Like attracts like.”

Jamie tried not to groan-Mia hadn’t slept well until she started kindergarten. He hoped it wasn’t contagious. “Think we should try to move them upstairs?”

“Move a sleeping baby?” His brother-in-law looked like he’d suggested soaking the place in gasoline and lighting a match.

Okay, dumb idea. Jamie shrugged. “Fine. I’ll pull out an air mattress.” Mia was an awesome babysitter, but she didn’t have the magic necessary to shut down Kenna’s middle-of-the-night tricks. Hell, Jamie didn’t always have the magic necessary-he’d had to port in Aervyn two nights ago for backup.

Five-year-olds did not wake up well at 3 a.m.

Daniel grimaced and stretched his arms overhead. “Got two mattresses? I think my wife’s still in Nova Scotia.”

Maybe. Jamie mentally searched the contents of the garage for the camping supplies-and felt muffled laughter hit his mind channels. Unless you cleaned up since the last time I was in your garage, just give up now, brother mine.

It wasn’t a total disaster-he knew exactly where his motorcycle was. The rest was just creatively distributed. And his sister obviously wasn’t in Fisher’s Cove anymore.

Nell’s chuckles multiplied, audible now as she made her way down the stairs. Jamie ported the cookies and beer she carried over to the desk.

Daniel, older and wiser, went to grab the sleeping bags. “Four asleep at home?”

“Six. Sierra’s crashed in with the girls, and Caro’s taken over the couch.” Nell kissed her daughter’s forehead and settled into a chair. “Something about making bunny pancakes with Aervyn in the morning.”

“We have babysitters?” Her husband wiggled his eyebrows. “Jamie, port us someplace private, would you?”

Jamie grabbed a beer. “There’s an air mattress in the garage somewhere.” Nothing in the brother manual said he had to make his sister’s sex life easy.

Nell laughed and snagged a cookie, kissing her husband on the way back to her chair. “Catch me up-did you figure out how Adele got in?”

Daniel grinned. “Not the same way I did.”

Jamie winced-it still messed seriously with his pride that anyone had ever busted into Realm, but at least the first guy to do it had owned serious coding chops. And the first thing they’d hired Daniel to do afterward was to fix the holes he’d used to get in. Realm had been invincible ever since.

Until their shiny gold visitor had shown up.

Nell looked his direction. Jamie sighed and told her the answer she wouldn’t like any better than he had. “If it wasn’t coding skills, then it had to be magic.”

His sister just rolled her eyes and reached for another cookie. Tell me something I don’t know.

It was hard to be at your best at 2 a.m. “I’ve been running traces in the scanning data.” All magic used in Realm left a record, one they primarily used for repair work. Witches were good at breaking things. “I’ve found her entry, but the traces make no sense.”

He clicked a couple of keys, muttered a quick spell, and brought up what Mia called the holo-display. It was very Star Trek. “See here? That’s the spike when she entered.”

Nell frowned and poked her finger at thin air. “The data’s backwards, baby brother.”

He stuck out his tongue-the standard response to that particular nickname ever since he’d been Aervyn’s age. “It’s not. I quadruple checked it. The energy surge came from inside Realm.”

His sister blinked, cookie halfway to her mouth. “She broke in from the inside?”

That’s what the data said, which made exactly zero sense. “I traced all the users online when she showed up. Several witches, and plenty of them up to mischief, but none with that kind of power.”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “Power can be augmented by code. I looked for a hacker on the outside, but not one on the inside.”

Finally, points for the sleep-deprived witch. Jamie stretched his creaky back again. “I did. The best coder online when it happened was Ginia.” Who had definitely not been aiding and abetting a Realm breach-Mia had been ready to spit nails at the mere suggestion. “And even inside code leaves tracks. There just aren’t any.”

He shrugged, brain fighting the suck of exhaustion. Nell was awesomely smart, even in the middle of the night. Time to lay out the facts. “No coding. Lots of magic from the inside, but not Net magic. Unknown origins, unknown witch.”

Nell’s eyebrows flew up at the last two. “It wasn’t Adele doing the magic?”

He’d spent the last two hours making sure. “Nope. She had help. Help with some serious spellcasting talents.” The parallels weren’t lost on either of them. A baby and a glittery visitor, both coated in strange magic.

Time to go visit a Las Vegas medium.

Right after he got some sleep.