“Number Six!” Abigail called.
He came from behind the altar. “Yes, Missus.”
“It’s time. I’ve already glamoured his truck, and yours to get you both past thevod. This has to happennow,and it can’t happen up the bluff— there’s too manyfoxenprotections layered everywhere. She’ll go to her place downtown, and with any luck, they’ll still be rutting when thevodshow up looking for her.”
“Yes, Missus.”
“I’ll follow Sage. Who’s driving me?”
“Number Twelve, Missus. He’s waiting for you.”
Number Six grabbed Conri by the front of his shirt and led him up the concrete stairs.
With Sage’s phone and purse in hand, Abigail hurried to the rotation room and sat in the chair that magically took her to the treatment suite, a few miles away. The room spun around her with a whizzing sound.
It stopped. She stood and left the rotation room into the treatment suite, then into the room where the circus cage was. The metal scent of menstrual blood and urine was strong. Sage lay where Abigail had left her, barely breathing, in a pool of her own fluids.
“Gross,” Abigail muttered, feeling no pity for Sage. Sage would choose thevodover her family, that was clear, and thatcould notbe allowed. Thevodwere fools, all of them constantly misusing their divine gifts.
Abigail unlocked the door into the cage and sent in avvystbubble that pulled Sage, the wick and the bottle off the floor. Abigail sent a cleaning spell through the room and around Sage, whisking the fluids off to nowhere, then she brought Sage out of the bedroom. Sage was shivering in her unnatural sleep,with blue lips and ribs visible under her skin, but a new aura of minty-green power surrounded her. Abigail eyed it with disgust, knowing Sage was sure to become an even bigger problem now… unless Abigail could humble her permanently.
Abigail usedvvystto hold the troublemaker upright, then magically dressed her in a hospital gown. She maneuvered Sage onto the bed and under the blankets. Working quickly, she set out to make Sage look like she’d been in the hospital bed for three days, with an IV and catheter in place. She opened the medical cabinet and pulled out all the equipment, then ripped it open and put it right in the garbage—all except the IV. She took it out of its package and stuck Sage in the hand with the needle until she bled, then Abigail put a bit of cotton and some medical tape over the bleeding. She put the needle in the sharps container.
Abigail magically rolled Sage onto her belly, then took hercaskoff her shoulders, intending to take Sage's animal essence, because of the Tether, and because of Khain. The Tether made most of Abigail’s family ‘visible’ to Khain from the moment of their birth, so Abigail hid them with general magic that covered anyone with a drop of her blood in their veins. Occasionally, however, a female was born with a spirit so strong it shone straight through the general magic and Khain ‘noticed’ them at birth, all the way from the Pravus. Abigail attended all births in her family, and if she felt the evil eye turn their way at the moment of the child’s birth, she quickly took the child’s animal essence, with no one even knowing what she was doing. If she didn’t take the animal essence, Khain would use the child as a beacon, come in their midst, terrorize everyone present, and take or kill the baby. He had no use for babies or pups, no way to feed them, he only took them because he could, and they usually died within days. Abigail had stolen her way into the Pravusseveral times over the last two centuries to try to save female progeny. She’d never been successful.
At that moment, Abigail had three animal essences in hercaskthat weren’t hers. Sage was the only one who was in treatment, because the other two females hadn’t had their first period yet. Abigail had learned over the years that she could take a female’s animal essence at birth, and all would go fine, until the female’s first period. Any female without her animal essence quickly became feral during their period. They would become violent and entirely uncontrollable. She’d started giving back essences during periods a hundred years ago, but she’d had to confine them to one house in order to hide them from the demon withvvyst. Over time, Abigail had layered deep, ritualistic magic among the very DNA of her family, making it possible for her to magically tie menstrual cycles to the full moon, because having a predictable period made everything easier.
During the last sixty years, she’d created an exorbitant medical fiction to back it all up and make her family seem more human-like, including fabricated articles in medical journals, dedicated medical buildings and staff involved in research into this non-existent disease, but was named after them: White-Whittinger disease.
The final cure for White-Whittinger disease was a hysterectomy. Removing the uterus stopped the periods and made the female no longer specially-detectable by the demon, leaving them just like any otherfoxen. Abigail alwaysencouragedher female progeny to get one as early as possible.
All except Sage. Abigail had never mentioned a hysterectomy to Sage, and she never would. Sage was… special.
Sage’s mother, Paige, had gotten a hysterectomy, but then she’d turned up pregnant anyway. Abigail had confronted her, demanding to know how it had happened. Paige had said she’d been with an angel and the angel had given her uterus backto her, then told her she’d have a baby girl, and the girl should be named Sage.
Abigail hadn’t known what to think. She’d confined Paige to the treatment suite in the summer, a full six months before Paige had given birth.
Abigail remembered Sage’s birth like it was yesterday.
Paige knelt on hands and knees on the mattress, wailing about the pain. The baby was crowning with brown hair plastered to her head. The oxygen in the room seemed thick, and Abigail sensed the demon heading for them. The new baby was acting as a beacon, and Abigail would have to take her essence. Abigail took her cask off her shoulders and moved in close, meaning to take the essence as soon as the shoulders were free.
The midwife pressed Paige’s flesh around the young’s face, and then she was out, the shoulders sliding free. Abigail slid one of her a wedding rings, and then the fox pelt to the female’s shoulder before anyone, including her, could see if the female had arenqua. They would figure that out at her first period. She needed the essence quickly, before the demon arrived.
It came rushing out and she had it! But something was wrong. Abigail stumbled back under the weight of the essence, taking a seat in the corner, while the midwife and the doula focused on Paige.
The essence wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen before. It wasn’t only foxen red—it was foxen mixed with something pearly white and iridescent. She held it to her face and sniffed, then shaved off a tiny piece of it with her thumbnail, shoving the rest into hercask. She took the piece—like a shard of sugar—and put it in her mouth, biting down.
A vision exploded in her mind—the One True Mate plan from start to finish—and the fact that it had already played outonce and thevod hadlost to the demon. In their defeat, they’d used the time traveler and now thevodand everyone else who lived in the Ula, including all thefoxen, were living out the plan again. Abigail grimaced at the concept, finding it distasteful, but not unbelievable. Thevodwere fools and could easily fuck up a divine plan.
Abigail shook her head, staring at Sage’srenqua. Sage was part-angel, and that made her powerful, but her essence was still young and inexperienced—any shiny object would draw it out. Abigail rubbed her wedding rings over Sage'srenqua,then pressed the open mouth of hercaskto it, expecting the outrush of Sage’s animal essence, but getting nothing.
Abigail cursed under her breath. She’d known the day would come when the essence would get smarter and be able to resist. Somevvystsnaked out of Abigail’s pocket and went to Sage, winding around her, turning from crimson-colored to mint green-tinted when it touched Sage.
Abigail hissed at it, yanking it back to her and shoving it in her pocket, where it disintegrated into ropy threads. “Not her. You stay with me.”
She thought for a moment, deciding what to say to intrigue the essence. A riddle came to her. She rubbed her wedding rings over Sage’srenquaagain, then said, “I have three heads. Cut off one, I become stronger. Cut off two, I become ten. What am I?”
Sage’s essence rushed into Abigail’scask, looking like a minty-green egg moving into the throat, then disappearing into the belly.
