I shook my head and wanted to kick my own ass. My stomach roiled and the need to scream was real. “Jennifer insisted that we wait until after the wedding reception. I let her make the call. It was a bad decision.” My last sentence was an understatement. Big time.
June spoke up. She was human as far as we knew, but her kind ways and thoughtful approach to life made her input valuable. “I would have done the same,” she said, taking my hand in hers. “Jennifer’s gone through more than anyone can imagine in a very short period of time. Giving her the opportunity to feel happiness for a moment was important.”
“June’s fuckin’ right,” Candy Vargo admitted grudgingly. “I woulda done the same, too. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Real time can suck ass.”
Tim nodded. His voice was a hushed whisper. His worry for Jennifer and the others was etched all over his face. “Regret it. Learn from it. Don’t carry it forward.”
The lump in my throat was large. Tim was right. It didn’t erase the feeling of failing the people who I loved, but wallowing wouldn’t help.
“Yeppers,” Gram said as she floated next to me. “If you’re lookin’ backwards, you’re gonna trip on the future, girlie. Alana Catherine, Jennifer and Shitty Ritchie need you to have your dang eyes wide open.”
I nodded tersely.
“I think we should split up and search,” I announced.
Gideon glanced at me with uncertainty.
I pled my case. “None of us know where that abomination took them.”
“I agree,” Charlie said. His glowing silvery-blue eyes began to spit sparks. Thankfully, he tamped back his power or we’d all be gulping for air. “Heather and I will take the Demons. If the false Higher Power, or whatever it is, is hiding, someone willknow. Trust me on that. The Immortal world is too small to keep secrets for long. I shall call in favors and pay in favors if I have to.”
Gideon was no longer uncertain. He put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder and give him a nod. “Daisy, Candy Vargo, Tim and I will start on the Higher Power’s plane.”
“Works for me,” Candy Vargo said, chewing on a toothpick like she was starving. “But… there’s a chance that the tiny fucker ate that abomination too.”
I gagged. It was involuntary. Replaying the scene from earlier was not smart.
“It would solve a multitude of issues if Shitty Ritchie ate the bastard,” Heather pointed out, speaking a sentence I was sure she never thought would come out of her mouth. She excused herself and went back to the bushes.
“True that,” Tim said, only looking slightly green. “But if that were the case, wouldn’t they be back already?”
I inhaled a long slow breath. Time ran differently on the different planes. What felt like minutes here on Earth could be years on another plane and vice versa. That was an incredible pain in the ass. I didn’t know who made that rule, but it was dumb.
“Maybe they’d be back, or maybe not,” I said. “Let’s get Gabe, Prue, Rafe, Abby and Tory over here just in case Alana Catherine, Jennifer and Shitty Ritchie come back while we’re searching for them.”
“On it,” Heather said, pulling out her cell phone to call our siblings as she came back from her upchuck fieldtrip. I handed her another piece of gum. It was my last piece. If she puked again, she was on her own. “What about Amelia, Missy and the foster kids?”
“Bring ‘em here. Zander and Catriona y’all stay and help guard,” Candy said as she waved her hands and replaced my house. “June, you’re staying here too.”
June, Zander and Catriona nodded respectfully to Candy. The Keeper of Fate might be a fashion disaster with a potty mouth, but she was respected for a reason. Other than Gideon, there was no one I wanted more by my side in a battle.
I stared at the substitute house that Candy had created. It wasn’t my house as I’d known it. Instead, she’d conjured up a steel and stone fortress. It wasn’t pretty, but it looked solid and safe. “Have them gather the ghosts from the farmhouse as well, please.”
Heather gave me a thumbs up and walked away to make the call.
“Ain’t nothin’ can get into this house,” Candy Vargo announced with pride.
“That works for me,” Charlie said, hugging June close.
“I tell you what, my friends,” June said, doing her best to keep the morale of the group up. “I’ll make dozens of peanut butter cookies while you’re out rescuing Jennifer, Alana Catherine and Shitty Ritchie. Everyone will be hungry when they get back safe and sound.”
“From your mouth…” I whispered. Anything was possible. Anything. We just had to believe.
My siblings and Tory arrived within seconds of Heather making the call. Missy, Amelia and the foster kids were with them. I was pretty sure the minds of the foster kids would have to be wiped at some point. They were human. Although, none of them looked traumatized about just having magically transported. Children were so much more willing to believe the impossible than adults.
The dead who were staying at my old farm house arrived a minute later. They surrounded Gram and Gramps chattering amile a minute. The noise was disturbing—kind of like animals dying combined with nails on a chalkboard, but I’d learned to embrace it.
Candy Vargo gathered her group of about twenty foster kids to her and had a discussion. My pups Donna and Karen joined the chat much to the delight of the children. I was wildly impressed that not one foul word dropped from Candy’s mouth.
