Page 83 of Love the Way You Lion
In fact, I will have to lie as low as possible until I know for sure that her case is closed. To do that, I’ll have to drop out of school and disappear.
Even in death, Heraclea Titania St. James is ruining my life.
The Cat Makes Her Play
DELILAH
Yesterday, I watched the street. Today, I’m hoping to glimpse her.
Since Marvin told me I was pregnant, I thought long and hard about what kind of care I'll have for this baby. Given my own aberrations and Taurus’ makeup, I knew that a regular OB wouldn’t cut it. The Company might know everything there is to know about the clones and their creation, but from what I’ve seen so far, they don’t know dick about the extranatural world.
And that’s not something I’m willing to let them figure out on my fucking kid.
Those of us with a little ‘kitchen magick’—as I thought I had before—don’t call it supernatural, paranormal, or any of that garbage. It’s always been the ‘extranatural’ world in every coven or group that I found. I suppose the other species that I haven’t met call it the same, but despite repeated requests from everyone that I’ve ever worked with, I’ve met none of them—only magickal folk of the human hybrid category. I know whereto find most of them because of the collection of maps I’ve drawn in my Book of Shadows over the years, but sought none of them out.
Perhaps it is time to change that, but it will have to wait until I get the Resistance community in order.
I’d love to know if the intel I have on all the creatures and species that others claim to have worked with is real. Now is not the time to hunt merfolk or crones or other shifters. I have prey that demands my attention now, and I can’t abandon that task.
Clea is not human.
That much I gathered from the creepy letters and gifts that got left for me every single place that I moved after that night. There is no way a human, even with strong magick, would have survived that fall. Despite that, she never approached me again. Oh, no, she only tortured me psychologically until I felt that nowhere on the planet was safe.
Running from her is how I ended up in a small dive bar off the beaten path in the Midwest. I wouldn’t have strayed so close to home, but the rumors of people disappearing without a trace and reappearing days or weeks later caught my eye. I’d been watching feeds and ticklers on the web for unusual happenings since the first stalker package, hoping to get ahead of Clea before she found me each time.
Clea always left her mark when she hit a city. I learned over the years following the incident to watch for an uptick in weird events, particularly in the club scene. I don’t know why she did any of the things she did outside of stalking me, but I sure as hell knew when it was her. Unfortunately for me, she usually hid her hijinks until she’d dropped her message off.
I grew tired of her obsession and tired of hearing her name whispered in the circles of the extranormals. If I could figure out whichspecies was selling cloaking devices or forming rips or whatever the hell they were doing in Cincinnati, I could make use of it and get away from her for good.
What I found was a dive bar, a few friends, and nothing more for months. Sure, I could tell that people were behaving oddly and that a secret lived here, but I couldn’t figure it out. I went back day after day, charming every local I could until I met Michaela and Dona. The way they looked at one another all the time, checking to make sure they didn’t say or do the wrong thing, told me they were the key to finding out what in the hell was going on in this place.
Clea didn’t show. I have no idea why, except that something or someone more pressing must have been claiming her time.
Eventually, I wormed my way into the girls’ good graces and received my invite to The Rift. Once I was there, I knew I could move here and get away from Clea for good. I had to figure out how to do it while alerting no one that I was on the run.
I took up the cause of the Resistance and… Voila! I had an instant home.
Knowing all of this, it would be hard to imagine that I’m sitting at this table watching the bookshop I know belongs to Clea, waiting for my chance for anything besides finishing the job I started.
She’s a magickal midwife.
At least, the rumors I’ve monitored ever since emigrating to The Rift for good say that she is. In fact, they say that she is the best magickal midwife in the nine realms. I don’t know about that. I’ve only visited two, but I know my sources are not wont to exaggerate. She’s presided over hundreds of births, according to the stories, from faeries to selkies to demi-gods.
I guess even the devil has a calling.
If I’m going to give birth to a miracle baby born of a magickal shifter and a clone, she’s the person who I need at the birth.
Ain’t life a bitch?
Irony aside, I know I won’t be able to get close enough to her to speak with her unless I get the drop on her. She’s as much of a fucking genius as I am, and since I figured out her dirty secret, I don’t have the foggiest clue what her powers are outside of the birthing realm. Clea fell thirty stories and lived—she could be able to fly, be invincible, have regenerative powers, be undead—I just don’t fucking know.
I can’t barge in and demand her services without a background check. Everything I’ve found out online is suspicion, rumor, and unsubstantiated claims. I have to see for myself what she’s packing before I go in unprotected.
So, I wait and I watch—again.
The next day,I decide that I have seen enough.
The bookshop is not merely a bookshop, and Clea has chosen her headquarters well. People filter in and out all day—far more people than a modest independent bookshop should draw. They all look normal, but something about the aura of the entire block is off. I wouldn’t notice it if not for my budding magick, so I doubt any of the human Londoners have ever given it a second thought, even if they go inside.
