The light on his face burned like the fires that waited there. “Now we know how it’s done.”
“You can’t be serious. It killed you.”
“We saw Fox dead on the side of the road. Right now he’s on the lumpy pullout sleeping like a baby or banging Layla. Potential, remember. It’s one of your favorites.”
“None of us are going to let you do this.”
“None of you makes decisions for me.”
“Why does it have to be you?”
“It’s a gamble.” He shrugged. “It’s what I do. Relax, sugar.” He gave her arm an absent stroke. “We’ve made it this far. We’ll hash it out some yet, look at the angles, options. Let’s get some sleep.”
“Gage.”
“We’ll sleep on it, kick it around tomorrow.”
But as he lay in the dark, knowing she lay wakeful beside him, Gage had already made up his mind.
Seventeen
HE TOLD THEM IN THE MORNING, AND TOLD THEM straight-out. Then he drank his coffee while the arguments and the alternatives swarmed around him. If it had been any of them proposing to jump into the mouth of hell without a parachute, Gage thought, he’d be doing the same. But it wasn’t any of them, and there was a good reason for that.
“We’ll draw straws.” Fox stood scowling, hands jammed in his pockets. “The three of us. Short straw goes.”
“Excuse me.” Quinn jabbed a finger at him. “There are six of us here. We’ll all draw straws.”
“Six and a fraction.” Cal shook his head. “You’re pregnant, and you’re not playing short straw with the baby.”
“If the baby’s father can play, so can its mother.”
“The father isn’t currently gestating,” Cal shot back.
“Before we start talking about stupid straws, we need to think.” At her wit’s end, Cybil whirled around from her blind stare out of the kitchen window. “We’re not going to stand around here saying one of us is going to die. Gee, which one should it be? None of us is willing to sacrifice one for the whole.”
“I agree with Cybil. We’ll find another way.” Layla rubbed a hand over Fox’s arm to soothe him. “The bloodstone is a weapon, and apparently the weapon. It has to get inside Twisse. How do we get it inside?”
“A projectile,” Cal considered. “We could rig up something.”
“What, a slingshot? A catapult?” Gage demanded. “A freaking cannon? This is the way. It’s not just about getting it into Twisse, it’s about taking it there. It’s about jamming it down the bastard’s throat. About blood-our blood.”
“If that’s true, and without more we can’t say it is, we’re back to straws.” Cal shoved his own coffee aside to lean toward Gage. “It’s been the three of us since day one. You don’t get to decide.”
“I didn’t. It’s the way it is.”
“Then why you? Give me a reason.”
“It’s my turn. Simple as that. You jammed a knife into that thing last winter, showed us we could hurt it. A couple months later, Fox showed us we could kick its ass back and live through it. We wouldn’t be sitting here, this close to ending it, if the two of you hadn’t done those things. If these three women hadn’t come here, stayed here, risked all they’ve risked. So it’s my turn.”
“What next?” Cybil snapped at him. “Are you going to call time-out?”
He looked at her calmly. “We both know what we saw, what we felt. And if we all look back, step by step, we can see this one coming. I was given the future for a reason.”
“So you wouldn’t have one?”
“So, whether I do or not, you do.” Gage shifted his gaze from Cybil to Cal. “The town does. So wherever the hell Twisse plans to go next when he’s done here has a future. I play the cards I’m dealt. I’m not folding.”
Cal rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not saying I’m on board with this, but say I am-we are-there’s time to think of a way for you to do this without dying.”
“I’m all for that.”
“We pull you out,” Fox suggested. “Maybe there’s a way to pull you out. Get a rope on you, some sort of harness rig?” He looked at Cal. “We could yank him back out.”
“We could work with something like that.”
“If we could get Twisse to take an actual form,” Layla put in. “The boy, the dog, a man.”
“And get it to hold form long enough for me to ram the stone up its ass?”
“You said down his throat.”
Gage grinned at Layla over his coffee. “Metaphorically. I’m going to check with my demonologist friend, Professor Linz. Believe me, I’m not going into this unprepared. All things being equal, I’d like to come out of this alive.” He shifted his gaze to Cybil. “I’ve got some plans for after.”
“Then we’ll keep thinking, keep working. I’ve got to get into the office,” Fox said, “but I’m going to cancel or reschedule all the appointments and court dates I can for the duration.”
“I’ll give you a ride in.”
“Why? Shit, right. Napper, truck. Which means I’ve got to swing by and see Hawbaker again this morning and check with the mechanic about my truck.”
“I want in on the first part,” Gage said. “I’ll follow you in. I can run you by the mechanic if you need to go.”
Cal got to his feet. “We’re going to figure this out,” he said to the group at large. “We’re going to find the way.”
With the men gone, the women sat in the kitchen.
“This is so completely stupid.” Quinn rapped the heel of her hand on the counter. “Draw straws? For God’s sake. As if we’re going to say sure, one of us falls on the damn grenade while the rest of us stand back and twiddle our thumbs.”
“We weren’t twiddling,” Cybil said quietly. “Believe me. It was horrible, Q. Horrible. The noise, the smoke, the stink. And the cold. It was everything, this thing. It was mammoth. No evil little boy or big, bad dog.”
“But we fought it. We hurt it.” Layla closed a hand around Cybil’s arm. “If we hurt it enough, we’ll weaken it. If we weaken it enough, it can’t kill Gage.”
“I don’t know.” She thought of what she’d seen, and of her own research. “I wish I did.”
“Possibilities, Cyb. Remember that. What you see can be changed, has been changed because you see it.”
“Some of it. We need to go upstairs. We need one of your spare pregnancy tests.”
“Oh, but I took three.” Distressed, Quinn pressed a hand to her belly. “And I even felt queasy this morning, and-”
“It’s not for you. It’s for Layla.”
“Me? What? Why? I’m not pregnant. My period’s not even due until-”
“I know when it’s due,” Cybil interrupted. “We’re three women who’ve been living in the same house for months. Our cycles are on the same schedule.”
“I’m on birth control.”
“So was I,” Quinn said thoughtfully. “But that doesn’t explain why you think Layla’s pregnant.”
“So pee on a stick.” Cybil rose, gave the come-ahead sign. “It’s easy.”
“Fine, fine, if it makes you feel better. But I’m not pregnant. I’d know. I’d sense it, wouldn’t I?”
“It’s harder to see ourselves.” Cybil led the way upstairs, strolled into Quinn’s room, sat on the bed while Quinn opened a drawer.
“Take your pick.” She held out two boxes.
“It doesn’t matter because it doesn’t matter.” Layla took one at random.
“Go pee,” Cybil told her. “We’ll wait.”
When Layla went into the bathroom, Quinn turned to Cybil. “You want to tell me why she’s in there peeing on a stick?”
“Let’s just wait.”
Moments later Layla came back with the test stick. “There, done. And no plus sign.”
“It’s been about thirty seconds since you flushed,” Quinn pointed out.