The Normal steps over me, and the old woman holds out her arms, ready to embrace him.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be awake,” he says, hugging her.
“Too warm.” She’s petulant. “Can’t sleep. Too warm all thetime now.” She’s butting her head against his shoulder. Down his arm. “You’ve brought me something. Can smell it.”
He laughs and holds out his palm.
She grabs whatever he has in it—rings—and slides them on her already crowded fingers. “Too good to me, Shepard. Good boy. Good man.”
“I see you’ve met my friends,” he says.
The woman frowns and steps away from him. “Not your friends. Now and Next.”
“I thought so, too,” Shepard says. “First spotted them back in Omaha. But they can’t be part of the Next, Margaret. I watched these three slay half a dozen vampires in cold blood.”
“No! How cold?”
“Frigid.”
I can’t believe the Normal’s defending us. I can’t even believe he recognizes us—Bunce spelled him so hard, he shouldn’t recognize his own reflection.
“Have turned against their own kind, maybe.” The woman looks down at me, nudging my hip with her boot. “This one is their work. Finally come. The hybrid.”
“Ishe?” Shepard goggles at me for a second. “I wondered if—” He shakes his head. “I don’t know… I really think it’s a coincidence, Maggie. I think they’re just tourists.”
She spits. It lands, hot, on my cheek. “Tourists?!”
“They don’t know any of the rules,” he says. “They drove right into the Quiet Zone just to see Carhenge.”
“Supposed to be spectacular,” she says. Begrudgingly. “Seen photos.”
“I agreed to be their guide. We were just getting to know each other when a posse tried to round us up.”
The woman crouches to look at me, stroking her chin. She has six rings on her pinkie finger. One of them is Penelope’s.
“Mages,”she sneers. “Reckless kittens, hybrids. Next Blood trouble and trash…Poachers,Shepard. This one killed my ram.”
“He was probably thirsty,” Shepard says. “I drank from your stream once, remember? Before we met?”
She stands up and frowns at him some more. “But you are a good boy—an innocent. Not a knight. Not a mage. Not abloodeater.”
“Let’s hear what they have to say,” Shepard says. “If you don’t like it, you can still eat them.”
“Wouldn’t eat him,” she says, glaring at me. “Rancid.”
Shepard ungags Simon first. “Thank you,” I hear Simon say. “I owe you one.”
“Friend,” Shepard says, “you owe me so many, we need to draw up a contract.”
He unties my gag next and helps me sit. “No spells,” he says softly. “She can shut you down from a distance.”
I nod.
“Found this on him,” the woman says, holding up my wand. “Probably stolen. Heffalump tusk. Extinct.” She tosses it over her shoulder.
Bunce starts making demands before her gag is even off: “Who are these NowNext people? What are they up to? They have our friend!”
“Now we’re talking,” Shepard says, helping her sit up.
