Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(55)

“I saw a place as we were coming into town. On the river,” Anna said, suddenly exhausted and ready to be done for the day, even though it was only midafternoon.

“I saw it,” said Charles. “That sounds good. Tag?”

“Don’t care,” he said. “Find me a bed and I’ll sleep in it. Otherwise, I’ll sleep on the floor. As long as you ward those books. If you don’t, I’m through sleeping until this trip is over. My hands are still tingling and I don’t think a shower is going to clean me up.” He looked at Anna, meeting her eyes briefly in the rearview mirror. “The Klamath might just do it, though. Let’s stay on the river.”

Anna was suddenly parked in front of a building bearing a sign that read Resort. The engine was running and both of her hands were on the wheel, but she didn’t remember getting here. It was just like the sudden dislocation from Chicago to the Wild Sign amphitheater, but instead of losing years, she’d just lost a few minutes. She hoped.

“Anna?” Charles asked, but not like he was worried.

She shook her head. “Just thinking.”

“Tag,” Charles said, opening his door, “why don’t you stay here and keep an eye on those grimoires. Anna and I will book the rooms.”

Yes, she thought with relief, only a few minutes—ten or fifteen at the most. Not enough to worry Charles with.

They took three rooms. One for Charles and Anna, one for Tag, and a third for the grimoires, which Charles deemed too dangerous to leave in the car.

“What ought to happen with them is burning,” Charles said as they carried them in. “But that brings its own set of dangers.”

Even Anna—who, like Zander, had not been witchborn—felt as if there was something crawling up her arms as she took the bag in. It was uncomfortable enough to distract her from what had happened driving here. What she carried was a lot scarier than her little memory lapse. She was careful to keep the bag from brushing against her leg.

“Is keeping them here going to cause problems for people trying to sleep here after we’re gone?” she asked, putting the bag in the middle of the floor, where Charles directed.

“Not if I do my job,” he said absently, seeing something that she could not.

“Do we make your job easier or harder?” she asked.

“Harder,” he said.

She brushed a kiss on his shoulder—but didn’t touch him with the hand that had held the bag. “I’ll go take a shower, then.”



* * *



*

RENDERING THE BOOKS harmless took longer than he’d expected. They had been ignored for a long time, and they did not want to be hidden again. He would suggest burning to his da. Strongly.

Anna had not been wrong. Someone sensitive might have trouble sleeping in this room if they left the books here very long. But a few days should be fine. He’d smudge the room afterward and that should take care of any permanent trouble the grimoires might try to cause.

Anna wasn’t in their room, though she’d obviously showered. He wondered what she felt she had to clean off. She didn’t usually shower twice a day. The room was steamy and smelled like the things she used in the shower: body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. He took in the scent and . . . Brother Wolf stirred uneasily.

Charles wasn’t going to give in to that. He pulled off the shirt Anna had gotten for him and exchanged it for a red T-shirt. If Tag threw him in the river, he didn’t want to tear up his good shirt.

But when he took the path to the river, he found Anna alone. She was sitting on a big rock, facing the river, her arms slung around one of her legs that she’d pulled up to her chest. Like Charles, she had discarded her good clothes and now wore jeans and a black tank top.

“Hey,” he said to her, because she hadn’t turned around when he’d come up to her. The river was loud and the wind blew in his face, but she still should have heard him.

She turned to look at him—and for a moment he would have sworn she didn’t know him. Then her smile filled her face and her eyes came alive. “Sorry,” she said. “I was just trying to remember a song.”





CHAPTER





8


Anna still hadn’t talked to Charles about the weird glitch in her memory by the time they were getting ready to head out for Angel Hills Assisted Living.

After a good night’s sleep, she’d begun to think that she’d made a mountain out of a molehill. Nothing bad had happened. It hadn’t felt like an attack—not like when something had been looking for a way into her head after they’d gotten back from Wild Sign. Maybe it had just been a leftover from her experiences with the Singer in the Woods, a hiccup.

As she got dressed for the day, she decided she’d talk to Charles if she experienced something like that again.

Charles came back into the room after his shower and said, “I think we should keep the rooms here at the hotel until we set out for home so we can leave the grimoires in their room.”

Anna had noticed that he tended to speak about the books as if they were alive, which she found disturbing. She couldn’t see Charles doing that by accident. She wasn’t excited about driving all over Northern California dragging the books around with them like bait for any magically inclined whatsit who happened by.