Page 71 of Spring L.A.W.
“Michael and Daniel would be smothering laughter and trying to hide their smiles if they were here.” Rayna bumped him playfully. “Listen,” she said. “This is probably more than you want to know, but here goes… Not all of our vacations are during PMS week. That would suck. We have a sabbat, what you’d call a holiday, every six weeks. Our birth control is Seasonale, and limits our periods to one per season, or four per year. So, Ostara was a sabbat, but we didn’t have PMS. Next is Beltane. That’s the one you might want to worry about.”
“You’re right, that’s more than I wanted to know.”
“Look,” Joell said, “I’ll talk with our liaison Chad and ask him not to send us any more cases for a while. We’ve earned a good rest.”
“Thank you,” all the witches said in unison.
“We should, however, meet for a quick debrief. Everyone, grab a protein bar or electrolyte beverage and meet in the library in five.”
Joell saton one of the comfortable couches in the library, and her black cat familiar jumped onto her lap. She patted him, absently, while a few logs crackled in the fireplace, lending a comforting warmth to the room and adding the scent of woodsmoke.
The other witches gathered around. Joell leaned back into the cushy sofa and sighed.
Payne and Rayna’s man-pets joined them in the mansion to find out what they’d missed. Michael and Daniel stretched out near the hearth in a welcome moment of détente. The witches had come armed with protein bars, mugs of herbal brews, and one thermos that may or may not have contained whiskey.
“All right,” Joell said, “let’s wrap this up while we’re still conscious.”
Brianna had her legs tucked under her and a bag of trail mix in her lap. “The last glyph on Eli’s arm is still pulsing, but slower now. Like whatever was driving it is winding down.”
“It matched the graffiti Katie saw this morning,” Sahara added, flipping her notebook open. “Same shape, same energy signature.”
“So, the mimic left a mark on the boy,” Daniel said. “Why?”
“Tagging its food supply?” Michael offered.
“Or warning others to stay away,” Victoria said. “He said something about feeling likehewasa warning.”
Rayna straightened slightly. “You still think there are more of them?”
“I think the mimicwaspart of something larger,” Joell said carefully. “Call it a hive. Or a nest. I don’t think this one got the memo to leave, and it wound up being abandoned.”
“Maybe it was hiding out,” Crystal said. “Just trying to survive on its own.”
“Then why track Katie?” Lioness asked. “Why the dreams? Why the graffiti?”
No one answered right away. The only sound was the fire popping.
Eventually, Joell said, “We don’t have enough data. Not yet. So, until we do, we rest. We recover. No summoning, no remote viewing, no late-night wandering into dark forests to have sex…”
“That was one time,” Brianna muttered.
“And no pulling glyph-covered children off the streets without backup,” Joell finished. She gave Rayna a look.
Rayna raised her hands. “Lesson learned.”
Beside her, Payne gave her thigh a quick squeeze. Not possessive. Just reassuring.
“Oh, no! We forgot the kid, again,” Joell practically shouted. “Somebody go find Eli.”
All eyes gravitated to Katie.
“What am I? The babysitter?”
“Yes,” they all said at once.
Katie gave a dramatic sigh and trudged off to the training room, now called the ‘game room’ for Eli’s benefit.
“We’ve all earned a breather,” Joell said, her voice gentler now. “The mansion will return to Tennessee. Let the mountain protect us for a few days. And if something does rise again, we’ll handle it.”
