For all his best efforts, it didn’t feel like a bribe.
Jamie strolled around the virtual streets of Realm’s main village, surveying the action. Sometimes, despite the game’s sword-and-sorcery time period, he felt like the town sheriff. Someone had been planting deviously silly spellcubes again, and it was his job to track down the miscreant.
He was pretty sure she wasn’t here yet-Warrior Girl’s hot pink armor was hard to miss.
Someone else had put in an appearance, though. Jamie stared at the gnarled old monk in surprise-Realm was the last place he’d expected to find Marcus anytime soon. New babies were hell on gaming time.
He crossed the street, falling into step beside the monk. “Someone rocking Morgan?”
Dark brown eyes scowled under a hood. “Lizzie’s watching her.”
And something about that tinged Marcus’s mind with guilt-and
“It’s not a babysitter I need.” Marcus was practically growling. “It’s a nice family in Fisher’s Cove willing to take in an infant until we can track down who she belongs to.”
That had been Jamie’s assignment. “No one’s looking for her.”
The monk’s eyes sharpened. “Are you sure?”
Checked and rechecked. “Yup. Nothing on the witch airwaves, and no reports of a missing baby.” He had good cop sources in North America and witches reading the ether elsewhere. “And Adele says she’s yours, free and clear.”
One very unmonk-like snort. “And you believe a Las Vegas fraud?”
Yeah. He did. “She’s different, Marcus-but I don’t think she’s lying. And it took some serious magic to get her into Realm.” The kind that was still keeping him awake at night-young girls he loved called Realm their sandbox. His eyes were bleeding from coding new wards on the site.
And Daniel had still been logged in at 3 a.m.
“How did we not know about a witch under our noses with that kind of power? And does she have to ruin all our reputations with bad infomercials?”
Shit. Oh, crap. Jamie cursed imperfect message delivery and pulled Marcus down a quiet alley. “Adele’s not the one with the power.”
Blazing anger streaked through Realm-for a nano-second. And then it was gone, the monk’s Fort Knox barriers and slightly uneven breathing the only sign at all that he’d heard Jamie’s words. “You think Evan’s the one with the magic.”
Neck deep in quicksand, Jamie just nodded. And tried to imagine Devin dead and gone and sending messages- to someone else. Bloody hell. “Maybe he
Marcus’s mind thermometer dropped twenty degrees, and he turned to leave the alley. “I came here to take a break. This wasn’t how I planned to spend it.”
Okay, witch in denial. Time to backpedal. Hard. “Want some tips on how to play the game in fifteen-minute segments? I’ve had a lot of practice in the last six months.”
The monk snorted, slivers of warmth easing back into his mind. “How do you manage to get fifteen whole minutes?”
Phew. Jamie considered erecting neon-orange “STAY OUT” tape around Marcus’s mind-but given that he was the most feeble mind witch on the continent, everyone else with talent had probably already figured that out. “The triplets can usually buy me that long. At least your kiddo doesn’t start fires every time she sneezes.”
Marcus winced. “I hadn’t heard that.”
“She grew out of it about a month ago.” Jamie sighed. With Kenna, that kind of change wasn’t usually a good thing. “Now she messes with gravitational fields instead. Be glad you got a baby without magic. Poop’s easy.”
He had no idea why Marcus’s mind suddenly got uneasy. Poop really wasn’t all that hard.
He’d gotten twenty minutes. Marcus looked down at the wailing child on the blanket and sighed. Twenty minutes was just long enough to get cocky and position your troops for all the world to see.
Odds were good that Warrior Girl was going to spy his attack formation long before he got back to Realm. And if she outfitted them in bunny slippers again, he was going to bottle Morgan’s wail and broadcast it at Ginia’s keep with the loudest speaker spell he could muster.
Not that the crying wasn’t loud enough all by itself. Marcus dismissed Lizzie with a wave of his hand. No point both of them going deaf.
The baby’s shrieking stopped in its tracks.
Dammit. When had she become “Morgan”? “Girl-child” sounded far less… permanent.
He couldn’t keep a baby, no matter what all the powers of heaven, earth, and parts in between had to say. He got a vote, the only one that mattered.
A leg kicked up out of the pouch. Morgan wasn’t going about her usual business of snuggling in.
It was the hind end protesting. Maybe she was wet. Gingerly, he poked a finger in the general direction of her bottom. No obvious puddles, and he wasn’t up to dealing with the non-emergency kind.
Which left food and long walks on the beach.
Which was good, because he was never, ever having a conversation about baby milk.
Or how it got in bottles on his counter.
The naked toes wiggled in contented bliss. Marcus was quite sure he’d never seen them before.
All he got in reply were elephant-sized sucking sounds. No wonder the kid burped like a beer-guzzling biker.
He watched as her eyelids started to droop. Milk was like a baby sleep drug. Giving in to odd temptation, he ran a finger down her cheek, wiping away the milk dribbles. And then, very carefully, not thinking about why, set a monitoring spell.
Basic common sense. Nothing more.
Chapter 8
Some moon harvestings were quiet and reverent. This one was anything but. Sophie looked over at her companion and chuckled. “If the giggles get any louder, we’ll wake up half the village.”
Moira smiled, waving a quick incantation before she picked another bit of lemon balm. “Fisher’s Cove is well used to strange happenings in the night. The girls are just excited.”
Either that or they’d sniffed a little too much magically powered mint. Sophie grinned, watching Lizzie hop lightly over the gathering basket. “Don’t spill what we’ve gathered, wild child.”
