Page 33

SWEET TALK

U sually, I had lunch with my Aunt Bella every Tuesday, but she’d missed the last three weeks. She’d been pretty busy.

“What do you think?” Bella asked me as we sat outside the Sweet Talk cafe in New York City, sipping pink lemonade and basking in the warm summer sun.

I looked at the baby in her arms. My newborn cousin was a red-faced, roly-poly sort of creature with drool oozing out of his mouth.

We’d only been sitting here for five minutes, and he’d already kicked off his socks twice.

He’d also spat up all over his expensive outfit and pulled Bella’s hair out of her pretty braid.

Given all the trouble babies caused, I couldn’t understand why any sane person would choose to have one.

“He’s…lively,” I told my aunt.

Her laugh was light and polished. Even though she looked like a mess—thanks to the little demon in her arms—she carried herself with such confidence and grace, as though she were a princess at a ball, not a tired mother with dark circles under her eyes and broken fingernails.

At least her outfit looked good. She was wearing an elegant wine-red business suit.

The jacket had three-quarter length sleeves.

It tucked in to a tight waist, then flared out a little on the hips.

The skirt stopped just above the knees, showing off my aunt’s long legs.

She looked good for a woman who’d had three kids, each only a year apart.

“I hope our food comes soon,” I said. “I’m starving.”

“It’s that angel metabolism of yours, Sierra,” Bella replied. “Magic burns a lot of calories. And so does growing. You’re still growing, right?”

“No, I’m not growing anymore, Aunt Bella. I’m sixteen.”

“Already?” She frowned. “I must have lost track of time.”

“Going senile in your old age?” I teased her.

She laughed. “That must be it.”

Actually, Bella looked exactly the same as she always had, minus the sleepy circles around her eyes.

But those would fade by themselves with time, and if they didn’t, well, she’d just whip up a potion to erase them.

My Aunt Bella was a talented witch. She was even a department head at the New York University of Witchcraft.

I couldn’t imagine how she got so much work done with three rug rats distracting her all the time.

“So are you planning on having any more children?” I asked her.

“Only if you promise to babysit.” Her eyes twinkled at me.

I cringed. “I think I’d rather join one of my dad’s training sessions at the Legion.”

“That’s not saying much. You’ve been joining in your dad’s training sessions since you could walk. Fighting comes second nature to you by now.”

“Physical and verbal fighting, yes,” I agreed.

“You get your verbal sparring skills from your mom. Your dad prefers to keep the chit-chat to a bare minimum.”

“If you can talk, you’re not training hard enough,” I quoted in my dad’s deep voice.

My rendition of the Legion’s First Angel spooked our waiter, who looked around nervously to look for Nero Windstriker. He set our plates down, then scuttled back inside, crouched over, like he was afraid the sky would come crashing down on his head.

Bella and I laughed, then set our sights on our sandwiches.

The bread slices were perfect squares, like they’d come out of a form.

I bet that if I measured the sides, they would all be exactly the same length.

The cold cuts and cheese slices on the sandwiches were just as precise in shape, and the cucumbers looked like they’d been painted.

My dad would have loved this place. Everything was just so orderly.

“I was—” Bella caught the baby’s leg before he kicked her sandwich.

I unfolded my napkin and spread it over my lap. “I’m so glad I never had any baby brothers or sisters.”

“They can get into mischief,” Bella said. “But so did you, Sierra.”

“Back in the day.”

“Not just back in the day. I’ve heard you still have a penchant for trouble, even today.”

“Maybe.” I cut my sandwich diagonally through the middle, then grabbed a slice. “Occasionally.”

Bella sighed. “Your parents always wanted to have more children.”

“Really?” I took a bite of my sandwich. “They never said anything about it to me.”

“Don’t think they aren’t happy, Sierra. You’re the greatest gift they ever received. They love you more than anything in the universe. They just hoped they could grow that love.” She smiled at me. “For all of you. But it never worked out.”

“Because angels and deities are notoriously infertile.”

“You know about that?”

“Of course. Everyone knows about that. That’s the notorious part,” I said. “It’s the Nectar and Venom. The same poison which gives people magic also makes them infertile.”

I put down my sandwich. I tried to tell myself it was the ick factor, the very idea of my parents having sex, that had caused me to lose my appetite, but that was just a convenient lie. The truth was it was guilt that had soured my stomach. My guilt.

“It’s my fault,” I said quietly. “I’m the reason they didn’t have more kids.”

“How could this possibly be your fault?”

“Because for years I wished that I would remain an only child. And my wish came true.”

“Oh, Sierra.” Bella reached across the table to take my hand. “Wishing for something doesn’t make it true.”

“Maybe it does for me. Even after all these years, we still don’t understand everything about my magic. What if my magic made it so? What if I’m the one who did this to them?”

“It’s not your fault your parents never had any more children, Sierra.” She squeezed my hand. “Like you said before, it’s the Nectar and the Venom.”

“Harker is an angel, you are mostly demon, and you guys have absolutely no problem having children,” I countered.

“Yes, well, we’re…different. Your mom told you how I was conceived?”

I nodded. “Some kind of magic involving immortal artifacts. You really think that’s the reason you’ve been able to have so many children?”

“I don’t know for sure, but it’s the most logical explanation I can think of. No one really understands my magic either. All we do know is that I’m different. I don’t get my magic from Nectar or Venom. Not like your parents, the angels, even the gods and demons.”

“Gods and demons are born with magic,” I reminded her. “They don’t need Nectar or Venom.”

“Not to live, no, but they must consume it to keep their magic strong.”

“I don’t need Nectar or Venom to keep my magic strong,” I said.

“Which means it’s very likely you won’t have any trouble whatsoever having lots of adorable children someday,” Bella said brightly as her baby burped.

I frowned. “Swell.”

“Don’t worry about your parents, Sierra,” she said in a soothing voice, like singing a lullaby. “They’ll be all right. They have you. And they have each other. They’re happy. So don’t beat yourself up over something you have absolutely no control over.”

“Hmm.” I looked down at my sandwich, then picked it up again. I was still kind of hungry. Ok, make that really hungry. “So, how was your first week back at the university?”

Her smile faded. “Eventful.”

“What happened?” I asked, then took another bite of my sandwich.

“We’ve had some vandalism. Someone got into one of our labs and smashed things up.”

“Who?”

Bella shook her head. “I don’t know. The vandal took out the cameras and the alarms.”

“Do you think it was a student?”

She sighed. “I think it was vampires. The witches and vampires of the city are caught up in quite a heated dispute at the moment. Harsh words were exchanged. I suspect this is only the next step in the cycle of escalation.”

“It never ceases to amaze me, all the in-fighting in the supernatural world,” I said. “We’ve faced the end of the world together—many times over, in fact—but as soon as the crisis is over, people just scurry back to their own corners and start hurling insults and more at each other.”

“That sounds like something Leda would say.”

“Mom has,” I replied. “Repeatedly. She’s pretty frustrated with people’s bullshit. Why is it when the danger subsides, everyone is so quick to abandon their unity and go back to fighting with one another?”

“It’s just the nature of our universe, I suppose.”

“Yeah, well, our universe sucks. Let’s make a new one.”

Bella chuckled. “You are just as ambitious as your mother, I see.”

“Hey, Sierra,” Eira said, sitting down at our table.

“Hey, twinsie.”

My best friend Eira wasn’t my twin. She wasn’t even my sister. She was actually my aunt, my dad’s little sister. But we were both born on the same day—the same battlefield—so we’d long ago decided that we were twinsies.

“What brings you here?” I asked her.

“Shopping.” She indicated the pile of shopping bags beside her chair. “There’s way better shopping here than in ‘the Palace’.”

“Is that what your parents are calling it now?”

“Dad thinks it’s catchy.” Eira rolled her eyes. “He’s such a dork.”

Bella’s baby screeched.

Eira flinched and gave the baby the side-eye. She pushed her shopping bags out of reach of baby projectiles.

“I still need to find a bikini that will totally freak out my parents. Want to help?” Eira gave her eyebrows a devious up-and-down wiggle.

I hesitated. I was supposed to be having lunch with my aunt. Though shopping with Eira did sound like fun.

“Oh, goodness, look at the time! I really should be getting back to work.” Bella gave us a wise smile, then waved her hand to call the waiter. “You two go on.”

“You’re cooler than other parents,” Eira told her, standing and gathering up her bags.

“I don’t have teenagers yet.” Bella winked.

I was rising to join Eira when a sudden wave of dizziness slammed into me, knocking me back into my chair.

“Sierra?”

Eira’s voice was muffled, buried beneath a tangled mess of other sounds and sensations.

The roar of an explosion. The crash of glass.

The shimmer of a gold ring. And another.

And another. They were falling to the ground, sixteen of them in all, almost identical in every way.

Except for the text on them, shining before my eyes, burning into my brain.

“It means something,” I said, then my vision shattered.

“What means something?” Bella asked as I faded back to the here and now. “What did you see?”

“The rings. The text on the rings means something. I just can’t read it.” I looked at her, at Eira. “We thought there was only one ring, but there are more.”

“What ring?” Eira asked me.

I looked at her. “Remember the story I told you about my adventure with my parents a few years ago in the treasury of the Legion’s research facility? That ring.”

“And there are more of them now?”

“There always have been more of them. I just didn’t know it. Four years ago, a djinn stole the ring. We got it back. But now…” I struggled to arrange the pieces of my vision in a way that made sense. “Someone stole it again.”

“Who?” Eira asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. But I think it’s the same person behind the last theft.”

“I remember Leda telling me this story,” said Bella. “Didn’t you catch the thief last time?”

“We did. And then he blew himself up.” I moved past the unpleasant memory. “Dad thought he was afraid to be captured and interrogated.”

“So he was more afraid of the person who’d hired him than he was of the Legion of Angels?” Eira said. “And of dying?”

“According to my dad, yes.”

“You mentioned writing on the rings,” Bella said. “What kind of writing?”

“Ancient writing.” I shook my head. “I don’t recognize the language.” I looked at Eira. “But maybe your parents would. They’re Keepers. You have so many ancient texts and artifacts in your house. Maybe this language is in there somewhere.”

“Come on, Sierra. Let’s get you to my parents,” Eira said, all thoughts of shopping forgotten. “They’ll be able to help us.”

“I hope so,” I replied. “Something really bad is going to happen, and these rings are part of it.”