Jen held up her hands. “Hey, don’t be blaming the wannies. They’re on the front lines of childcare, up to their elbows in baby poop and spit up.”
“Will she go away if we shut the door in her face?” Sally asked Jacque.
“Naw, she’ll just yell through the door.”
“Dammit.”
“I’m right here,” Jen said.
“The question is why?” Sally asked.
Jen’s eyes narrowed. “Listen up, you nomad magic user. You two geniuses are the ones who took my kid without so much as a ‘hey, we’re taking your kid.’ I’m the one who gets to be irritated. Not you two.”
“She’ll never let us live this down, will she?” Jacque said.
“Kind of like my holding a boob thing,” Sally said.
Jen and Jacque shook their heads. “Nope, that trumps my BFFs stealing my kid. Getting left behind because you got fascinated with a synthetic model boob trumps just about anything.”
“Not a synthetic model scrotum,” Jacque said. “Totally doesn’t trump that.”
“Agreed.” Jen nodded. “Synthetic scrotums trump synthetic boobs. So go get left behind over a model scrotum, and we’ll leave you alone about the boob.”
Sally stared blankly at Jen. “I can actually feel my brain cells dying.”
Chapter Eight
“I woke up this morning clueless that I might be maimed to within an inch of my life at the claws of a pissed-off wolf-daddy. Had I had even an inkling something like that might happen, I would have stayed in bed.” ~ Costin
“Dammit all, she just pukedagain,”Fane said as he tried to keep the blanket between him and Thia so no more of her baby vomit would get on his clothes.
“Is that what smells like curdled milk?” Costin asked.
Fane nodded. “It’s all over her … and me. If we return her to Jen and Decebel like this, Decebel won’t be the only one who wants to kill us.”
“Is there a change of clothes in that diaper bag?”
“Probably,” Fane said as he went back into the bathroom. They’d been planning to take Thia straight back to her parents, but then she’d projectile vomited all over Fane halfway through the trip. So they’d made a detour to the nearest guest bathroom and clean up as best they could. They hadn’t been back in the hall for half a minute when she’d projectile vomited again.
Fane handed Thia to Costin and then dug through the bag until he found something clean to put on her. There was a another blanket in the bag, so he laid it down on the counter and then motioned for Costin to put Thia on it.
“Have you ever changed a baby’s clothes?” Costin asked, sitting the baby down gently.
Fane shook his head. “You?” Costin was quite a bit older than Fane, like four decades older, so he was hoping the wolf had even a little experience with babies.
“Nope.”
Hope shattered. He unzipped the pajama-looking outfit Thia was wearing. As he started pulling her legs and arms free of the material, he chanted under his breath, “Don’t pull off her arms or legs. Don’t pull off her arms or legs.”
“She feels fragile, right,” Costin said.
Fane nodded. “I just feel like one tug too hard andpop, like the arms and legs of a cheap action figures. They just would come right off.”
Once he’d gotten the girl’s vomit-covered clothes off, and she was lying there in nothing but her diaper, the smell continued to assault their senses. Fane leaned down and sniffed. He pulled his head back quickly. “I think it soaked into her skin. Removing the clothes didn’t help. She still reeks.”
“I’m guessing hosing her down isn’t an option,” Costin said.
“That would be bad. But, a bath should work.” He thought about it for a moment and then started to wrap Thia up in the blanket. “Let’s take her down to the bathroom by the Gypsy Healer lab room. There’s a tub in there, and it will buy us some time if Decebel is looking for us, which I’m sure he is.”
