Child of Mercy Page 8

  My instinct was to make him suffer the way he made us suffer. I was stronger than he was, thanks to my Grace, not to mention all the other advantages I had on my side. I wanted to make him feel scared and alone, to feel like a victim the way he’d victimized us over the years. It would be so easy. His eyes widened as I saw he knew it too.

  It would be so easy.

  In that same instant, I realized that would make me no better than him. What had Oriana said? There wasn’t anything I could do to him worse than what he’d already done to his life. In fact… why waste my time on him at all? I let go of his hand, and he clutched it to his chest, stumbling as he backed away from me.

  “Come on, Mom, let’s get the leftovers packed up and I’ll drive you home.” I smiled, completely ignoring him.

  My mother flashed him an uncertain look, but nodded, trying to recover her smile when he didn’t offer another word. Feeling much lighter, I turned to clean up duty, glad to find plenty of volunteers once we started. There was no sign of Remiel anywhere. I’d seen him chatting up a blonde earlier and assumed he’d found other company. I didn’t mind so much, I wasn’t in the mood for his horrible attempts at flirting anyway. Luz, on the other hand, cornered me by the potato salad to ask me a few not-so-subtle questions about the fallen angel.

  “I thought you were still going out with Parker?” I asked as she helped me carry an armload to the dumpsters.

  “I am.” She gave a half shrug, her dark hair spilling over one shoulder at the movement. “But it’s not serious.”

  I knew the reason it wasn’t serious was because she thought Parker was in love with me. After I’d turned down his marriage proposal he’d gone right back to acting like normal Parker, so I wasn’t so convinced of that. “I guess you’re free to see who you like as long as you’re both on the same page,” I said carefully. I’d never been one to play the field, but I knew Parker did.

  “Exactamente,” she nodded, heaving the bags into the dumpster for me. “I thought I might be not serious with Remy for a while if he’s in town. Unless you’re borrowing him for a while.”

  “Me? No,” I snorted. “He’s not my type.”

  “He’s every woman’s type.” Her eyebrows waggled playfully. “Trust me, he’s good to cure what ails you, and I don’t mean with his Grace.”

  I didn’t think so, but I gave her a little smile. Not that I didn’t think he’d be good in bed, the guy had to have skills after so many years of chasing women, but I couldn’t think about anyone in those terms except for Adam. It didn’t help that I didn’t feel particularly sexy lugging garbage in the late afternoon sun.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Hmmm?” I realized I’d been zoning out again. “Oh, sorry. I’m just tired, it’s been a long day. I’m glad the party’s over.”

  “Your morning sickness is getting better, yes?”

  “It still comes and goes, and not always in the morning. Thanks for that tea, by the way, it’s been an absolute miracle. I don’t know what I’d have done without it.” It was the only way I could get through a shift at work sometimes when the smell of alcohol made me want to retch.

  “It was my pleasure.” Luz waved away my thanks. “Have you been to see the doctor yet?”

  “No… I’ve been sort of avoiding that.” The less attention I got from the medical profession, the better.

  “You can’t put it off for too long. Sooner or later you’ll want to make an appointment, to make sure all is as it should be with the bebe.

  Part of me didn’t want to know. The Nephilim were described as monstrous in the bible… what if the doctor turned up something awful? As long as I stayed in the dark I could cling to the illusion of a perfect baby growing inside me. “I’m going with later,” I said firmly.

  “Okay, well, let me know if you need a recommendation, I have a good doctor.”

  “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” I smiled, fully intending to forget about it as soon as she dropped it.

  Chapter Eight

  Balancing a bowl of ice cream on my bulging belly, I picked up the remote to start the DVD player for a little quality time with Ryan Reynolds. Absorbed in the movie and my chocolate explosion, I didn’t notice anything wrong right away. Then I saw the melted ice cream in the bottom of the bowl pooling on one side more than the other. As I watched, the pool shifted as my stomach moved. No biggie, there’s a baby in there… easy to explain the reason for the movement, until the bowl toppled to the floor after a violent shift that left me gasping in surprise.

  While I watched, my stomach grew bigger and bigger, like a balloon slowly inflating – a balloon filled with hands and feet that pushed against my stretching skin like an alien trying to break free. Strangely enough, it didn’t hurt, but watching the baby’s open mouthed scream from inside made my blood run cold. Something else slithered and moved in there, and I froze.

  I had to get it out of me.

  I screamed for Adam, but he didn’t come, of course he didn’t come. Sam’s name was the next on my lips and he appeared out of thin air with an audible pop.

  “I need you to take me to the hospital. I need to get the baby out.”

  “No need for a hospital.” His sword materialized in hand, and he approached, a perfectly innocent look on his face.

  “Are you nuts?” I backed away from him on all fours. “No, no swords. Hospital, with nice numbing drugs.”

  “Drugs are bad.” Sam wagged his finger at me. “Hold her down, please.”

  Who was he talking to? Bert and Hubie appeared on either side of me, grasping hold of my arms to keep me still.

  “I do hope it’s a boy,” Hubie grinned, showing a mouthful of rotten teeth.

  “Or a girl,” Bert nodded enthusiastically.

  “Otherwise, it gets messy and I’ve just had me jacket pressed,” Hubie preened.

  Where was my super strength? I should be able to break free of a couple of minor demons, shouldn’t I? “Hold on a minute here, guys. Don’t do anything crazy. Sam… do you know what you’re doing? You might hurt the baby.”

  “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, Mercy. I’ve seen Shogun six times,” he beamed.

  I swear I heard a keening wail as my belly distended even further. I had to do something before it burst its way out on its own. With a deft flick of his wrist, Sam’s sword flashed out, neatly slicing my belly open from end to end.

  It didn’t hurt… why didn’t it hurt? What was going on? Have you ever watched the learning channel when they’re performing a c-section? It was nothing like that. There was no blood, only a slimy ooze as the baby pushed its way out of the womb.

  No, not a baby.

  As I stared in revulsion, Azazael’s head appeared on a fat, scaly body, a barbed tail whipping back and forth angrily.

  “Hello, my love.” He smiled up at me, and I screamed and screamed…

  “Mistress, what ails you?”

  Hair plastered to my face with sweat, I thrashed away from the voice in the dark, taking a moment to process Nelo’s amber eyes as friend rather than foe. My throat sore from yelling, I swallowed; a bitter, metallic taste on my tongue. “What?”

  “Are you unwell? Is it the child?” Nelo’s eyes loomed large in his face, scared to death, and only in the face of his fear did I find the ability to conquer some of mine.

  “No.” My voice sounded raspy to my own ears. “I’m… I’m okay, I had a bad dream.” My arms still clutched my belly protectively.

  My flat belly.

  Well, not super flat, I’ve never been model thin or anything, but flatter than the bulging tummy in my nightmare.

  Normal.

  Falling back against the pillows, I took a deep calming breath, and noticed the faint glow of my Grace growing fainter as the terror faded.

  “Would you like some hot chocolate?” he asked hesitantly, and I reached out to pat his hand with a grateful smile.

  “Yes, I would like that very much, Nelo, thanks.”

 
There would be no more sleep for me that night.

  As soon as I could reasonably make the call without waking up the whole household, my fingers sought out my phone. “Hello, Luz? About that recommendation for a good doctor…?”

  * * *

  “Thanks for coming with me for moral support, I really appreciate it.” Luz and I sat in the waiting room of her OB/GYN’s office. I’d already picked up and discarded three magazines with smiling babies on the cover. Somehow I couldn’t dig up enough interest in ads for breast pumps and Diaper Genies.

  “No te preocupas, I don’t mind. My sisters don’t live near here and it’s been a while since I was in your shoes. It’s nice to share this experience again. Think about it, Mercy, you will get to hear the baby’s heartbeat today,” she beamed. I tried to rustle up the appropriate level of enthusiasm, but after my dream all I could think about was - would it be okay to ask the doctor to check for a tail?

  We waited for another fifteen minutes, and then another twenty in the examination room, before the doctor joined us. Dr. Hathaway bustled in, making notes on a metal clipboard before looking up with a friendly grin. Tall and gangly, his aura was a bright yellow with orange highlights, which sorta went with his silver-streaked, blonde hair and sunny disposition.

  “Which one of you is the expectant mother? Or should I say, which one is the biological one?”

  “She is, I’m just here for moral support,” Luz volunteered, taking a half step backwards.

  “Good, good… nothing wrong with morals,” he nodded, scribbling something else down. “Why don’t you hop up on the table here and we’ll get some vitals on you?” What followed was a series of rapid fire questions about my body and past history while he scribbled notes on the clipboard and punctuated my responses with, “Good, good…”

  “Is there a reason why you’re requesting an ultrasound so early?”

  “Um… yeah, my family has a history of miscarriages, so I want to make sure everything’s where it should be,” I lied easily enough. Actually, I don’t think my mother ever had any issues with her pregnancies, she always said we were big, healthy babies.

  “Alrighty, let’s take a look then, shall we?”

  I had to crane my head up to view the ultrasound monitor and even then I had no idea what I was looking at. Without asking, Luz grabbed a pillow down off a shelf and propped it under my head. It felt strange not to have Daphne by my side for the milestone, but at the same time, she had her own problems to worry about, and I didn’t want to add to her load.

  The doc seemed to know what to look for, taking several still pictures, whistling to the tune of Three Times a Lady as far as I could make out. “Okey dokey,” he said finally, “head… check, heart… beating strong, eyes… one, two, three…LMAO.” He gave me a goofy grin and I tried to hide the breath of relief. For a second there, I’d been worried. Can you get hats for babies to hide a third eye? “Listen, if you follow me on Facebook I post regular articles on pregnancy and childbirth. I go by Hathababydoc - cute, huh? You can find me on Twitter too.”

  “How does it look, does it look normal?” I ignored the babble about liking his status and tried to keep the unreasoning panic out of my voice as I stared at the blob on the monitor.

  “As normal as a bun in the oven looks at three months along, which isn’t much to see to the naked eye. I’d say your due date is sometime around the middle of August.”

  “You mean two months,” I frowned, doing a quick bit of math in my head. I’d slept with Adam in mid-December and it was only mid-February.

  “No, I mean three. See this measurement here?” He pointed to the hashmarks on the screen indicating it was about two inches long. “Unless you’ve got a giant baby in there, you’re three months along. That lines up with your last menses too, doesn’t it?” He picked up the clipboard to consult his notes.

  “Um, yeah, I guess so…” I’d been a little off my calculations, but I thought stress had something to do with it at the time. “But…that’s not possible.”

  “Science begs to differ,” he shrugged. “Try not to worry about it. That means your baby won’t have to start school late when it gets to kindergarten, LOL.”

  “No te preocupas,” Luz patted my shoulder. “It will be fine. The important thing is the bebe is healthy, no?”

  “No… I mean, yes,” I murmured, unable to let that one thing go. Adam had been trapped in Midian at the time, hadn’t he? Whose baby was I carrying?

  Dr. Hathaway went on about supplements and setting up regular monthly visits, things to avoid, punctuated with his weird text speak… I admit, I was only half listening, but Luz nodded like she absorbed it all. All too soon, he shook my hand and herded us out of there, with a hearty goodbye.

  I let her guide me back to the car, in somewhat of a daze until we reached the parking lot. “This can’t be good.”

  “So, you’re farther along than you thought,” she shrugged, taking the keys from my nerveless fingers. “All the better to be done with it sooner.”

  “No, you don’t get it. There’s absolutely no way I could be three months pregnant. Adam wasn’t even around and I didn’t sleep with anyone else. What if this is something else in there masquerading as a regular baby?” I lowered my voice, knowing it sounded insane.

  “Calmate, the doctor said everything is a-okay. You have to stop freaking yourself out or you’ll make yourself sick. Do you want me to take you home instead of back to work?”

  “He said everything looked fine, that doesn’t mean it’s fine on the inside,” I insisted stubbornly. “What if this is some kind of an immaculate conception, but of the evil variety?” I asked, thinking about Lucifer’s interest in the baby.

  “No, there isn’t any evil inside you,” she declared confidently and I wondered how she could know something like that.

  “Well then, what if this is one of those babies that grows twice as fast as a normal kid? What if I wake up in a week and I’m swollen out to here?” I put my hand a foot away from my belly.

  “I think you’re going to make yourself crazy with all the what ifs. All you can do is worry about today. So… put your seat belt on.” She spoke as if I was one of her kids. “That’s a good girl. Now, where would you like me to take you? Back to work, or home.”

  “Back to work. Parker will kill me if I miss another shift.”

  “I doubt that,” she murmured, pulling out of the parking lot with practiced ease.

  I was a little subdued on the drive there, but Luz filled the empty space by going over the doctor’s instructions again. She had her own two cents to put in on the best kind of prenatal vitamins, what books were helpful and which ones were crap. By the time we got there, I was able to join in the conversation as my natural curiosity kicked in.

  “I’d better not go inside.” Luz handed over my keys, digging in her purse for her own set.

  “Why not? Did you and Parker have a fight or something?” They seemed pretty chummy at the wedding.

  “No, not a fight. But… I have a date with Remy tonight.”

  Interesting. I wondered if he’d take her to Adam’s swanky pad. “Oh, and you’d rather he not know about it?”

  “I’d rather not have it come up at all.”

  “I read you loud and clear.” It didn’t mean I’d lie for her, but if her name never came up in conversation with Parker, I’d never bring it up. “Listen, thanks again for coming with me today, it meant a lot to me.”

  “You’re welcome. Call me any time you have questions or you just want to talk, okay?”

  “I will.”

  “And remember, don’t worry!” she called out with a laugh.

  Yeah, easy for her to say…

  Walter, the bouncer at Eden, gave me a bashful smile as I entered the club. Still early, I wondered why he was there already, but didn’t stop to chat on my way to the bar.

  Parker’s smile stretched wide as soon as he caught sight of me. “So, how did the check up go? Is it a girl or a boy?”r />
  “It’s way too early to tell, I don’t think they can see that for a couple of months.”

  “Oh.” He seemed somewhat disappointed by that. “I still say the name Parker works if it’s a boy or a girl.”

  “Keep dreaming, I told you I’d name my next cat after you, not my firstborn.”

  “What are you going to name it then?”

  I let out a long breath, leaning against the counter beside him. “I have no idea. I guess I’ll have to sit down and come up with a list. Nothing too weird, you know?”

  “Yeah, but you don’t want to go with anything boring either. You need to pick a name with style.”

  “Trust me, as someone named Mercy, you get a lot of flak as a kid with a different name. So no Angel or Moonbeam or anything celestial just because it’s… you know.”

  “Seriously, did everything go alright at the doctor?” He lowered his voice confidentially, and I wondered how he picked up on it? Jilly stood by the booth talking to Chris the DJ across the room, and there was little chance of being overheard, but he leaned closer.

  “Everything’s normal, as far as he could tell. It’s just… the dates are all wrong,” I whispered, my fingers worrying at the knot I’d made a mess of on my apron strings.

  “What do you mean wrong?”

  “He said I’m about three months along, but I wasn’t with anyone three months ago. It’s kinda freaking me out.”

  “Maybe his machine is on the blink?” Parker shrugged. “They get that shit wrong all the time, don’t worry about it.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” I let out a long breath and he reached out to tilt my head up by the chin.

  “Hey, you’re really upset about this, aren’t you?” His brows drew together with concern.

  “Yeah, I know it’s stupid, but I really am. I can’t help thinking… what if this isn’t Adam’s baby at all? What if there’s something else in there?”