“Perhaps …” Phoebe watched Chris cut the deck again. “But then disembodied souls can possess a Dark-Hunter and since Uri and I share souls, it makes you wonder if perhaps a Daimon and Dark-Hunter could share one too.”
“Let’s hope we never find that one out.” Wulf moved to sit on the couch in front of Chris.
Phoebe turned back toward Cassandra. “So what did you want when you came to see me?”
“I’ve been putting together a memory box for the baby. Notes and pictures from me. Little mementoes to tell him about our people and family after I’m gone, and I was wondering if you would mind putting something in there from you.”
“Why do you need something like that when we’ll be more than happy to tell him anything he wants to know?”
Cassandra hesitated as if there were something she didn’t want to tell her. She glanced to Sasquatch before she answered. “He can’t grow up here, Phee. He’ll have to be with Wulf in the human world.”
Phoebe ground her teeth at that. Of course. Leave it to Cassie to be prejudiced against her own people. “Why can’t he grow up here? We can protect him just as well as Wulf. Probably more so.” At leasttheywouldn’t hate him for being part Apollite.
Wulf glanced up as Chris dealt him a hand of cards. “What if he’s more human than even Cassandra is? Would he be safe here?”
Phoebe hesitated. He should be, but … There were some Apollites who had a lot of problems with humans. Even as long as she’d been here, she still had trouble with a few once they learned her father was human.
And she was grateful that at least they didn’t tie each other to stakes anymore and set fire to them.
At least not often.
Wulf gave Phoebe a meaningful stare. “I can protect him and his children a lot easier than you can. I think the temptation of having a human soul here would be way too much for some of your people to handle. Especially given how much they hate Dark-Hunters. What a coup—kill my son, get a human soul, and get revenge on the very thing all of you despise most.”
Phoebe nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” She took Cassandra’s hand. “Yes, I would like to add some things to the box for him.”
And Phoebe knewexactlywhat she wanted her nephew to have.
So after she wrote her note, she excused herself and went to get her present for Cassandra’s box.
She returned to her sister’s apartment a short time later with the book.
Cassandra looked up with a frown as Phoebe slid it into the keepsake box Cassie still had out on the couch next to her. “What’s this?”
Phoebe gave her a wicked grin. “It’s a book of Apollite fairy tales. Remember the one Mom used to read to us when we were kids? Donita sells them in her shop, so I went just now and bought one for the baby.”
With suspicious eyes, Wulf picked the book up and flipped through it. “Hey, Chris?” He handed it to his Squire. “You read Greek, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s in here?”
Chris started reading silently, then burst out laughing. Hard. “I don’t know if you want the baby to see this if you’re the one raising him.”
“Let me guess?” Wulf glared at Phoebe. “He’ll have nightmares that Daddy is going to hunt him down and rip his head off?”
“Pretty much. I’m particularly fond of the one called ‘Acheron the Great Evil.’ ” Chris paused as he turned to another story. “Oh wait … You’ll love this one. They’ve got the story of the nasty Nordic Dark-Hunter. Remember the story with the witch and the oven? This one features you with a furnace.”
“Phoebe!” Sasquatch’s glare turned to murder.
She blinked innocently. “What? That’s our heritage. It’s not like you guys don’t swap stories on Andy the Evil Apollite or Daniel the Killer Daimon. You know I see human movies and read their books too. They’re not exactly nice to my people.”
Wulf scoffed. “Yeah well,yourpeople happen to be soul-sucking demons.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Phoebe cocked her head with attitude. “You ever met a banker or a lawyer? Tell me who’s worse, my Urian or one of them? At least we need the food. They do it just for profit margins.”
Cassandra laughed at their bantering, then took the book from Chris’s hands. “I appreciate the thought, Phee, but could we find a book that doesn’t paint the Dark-Hunters as Satan?”
“I don’t think one exists. Or if it does, I’ve never seen it.”
