Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(71)

Anna thought that if it weren’t for Leah’s involvement, Bran was quite capable of letting the Singer prey upon anyone it wanted to as long as it left the werewolves alone. She had very few illusions about her father-in-law. Charles, however, would not agree to let it be. Someday he and Bran were going to find themselves on opposite sides of something like this, but she didn’t think it would be this time.

She put her hand on Charles’s leg, reassuring herself that he was safe. For now.

And aren’t your current problems enough for you, Anna Banana? Her father’s imaginary voice echoed in her ears.

Charles watched her with curious eyes, but before he could ask her anything, Tag spoke.

“There’s another thing,” the wolf in the backseat said. “No one else has mentioned it, so I have to think maybe you didn’t notice. Dr. Connors is pregnant, too. I thought it odd at the time, but private business between her and her wife. They can do that nowadays. Have children without a man directly involved.”

“You are an advertisement for modern sensibilities.” Anna’s response was automatic despite her growing horror at what Tag seemed to be saying.

“She is two months along, I think.” He tapped his nose to show how he’d figured it out.

“When did she go up to Wild Sign?” Anna asked Charles urgently, her mouth dry. “This summer, right?”

“Yes,” Charles said. “July.”

“Does she strike you as the type of person who would give herself willingly to the thing that probably killed her father?” Anna asked.

“No.” Tag grunted, and then swore as if the grunt hadn’t been enough to express his feelings. “I can’t even get pregnant and that is revolting. Shades of Rosemary’s Baby.” Something about the lack of response made him pull himself forward to get a good look at their faces. “You two don’t know Rosemary’s Baby? Mia Farrow? Roman Polanski?”

With a huff of disgust, he dropped back into his seat with enough force that Anna could feel the SUV lurch. “You people. I get that it predates Anna’s arrival on this planet, but it is a classic horror movie. Gave me nightmares for weeks after I saw it—and I’m a werewolf.”

“What does it have to do with the present situation?” asked Anna to please him—though the title was a fair hint.

“Good Catholic girl is sold by her jobless actor husband to the Satanist neighbors, who need a vessel to carry Satan’s baby,” he said promptly. “Husband gets a part in a play. She gets drugged, raped, and then gaslighted,” Tag said. “Do we need to tell Dr. Connors?”

Anna was never going to watch that movie. She’d had enough of being helpless and told that black was white for a lifetime. Maybe Dr. Connors and her wife had been trying for a child. Anna herself had been looking into reproductive alternatives.

It didn’t feel like that.

“So the Singer is impregnating every woman who comes near it?” Tag said. “Do we need to start looking for its walkers?”

“That’s why they kept everyone away,” Anna said suddenly. “All those wards. It wasn’t about keeping the black witches out—the Singer did that for them, didn’t it? I had the impression that Dr. Connors the Younger thought it was out of the ordinary that she’d never gone up to visit her father while he was at Wild Sign. They were trying to keep possible victims away.”

“The Singer isn’t a new thing, though,” objected Tag. “Maybe we are hip-deep in the Singer’s walkers right now and just don’t know it?”

“Maybe not,” said Charles. “I don’t think that it would be making bargains unless it needed to.”

“She didn’t act like someone who had been assaulted,” said Anna.

“Rosemary didn’t remember it, either,” said Tag. “Not at first.”

“You think it affected her memory,” said Anna, keeping her eyes on the road so that Charles wouldn’t read her face. She hadn’t lost anything all day today. At least nothing that had left her with one of those odd teleport-feeling jumps. Nothing that she remembered, anyway.

Charles put his hand on her thigh, just above her knee. He’d felt her fear. She needed to tell him about that memory lapse yesterday. But before she could say anything, Charles spoke.

“We need to talk to Dr. Connors,” he said.

He was right.

“Let me do it?” Anna suggested, though there were very few things that she wanted to do less. “If the situation is what we think, we shouldn’t overwhelm her with men, right?”

She was aware of Charles’s keen glance, but he didn’t argue with her.

“I think I’ll put a call in to Mercy,” Charles said unexpectedly. “If I had my pick of who to consult about our current situation, it would be Coyote. Maybe she can tell me how we could make that happen.”



* * *



*

ANNA HAD DEBATED about calling ahead, which would have been the polite thing to do. But she didn’t think she could manage the proper tone. She dropped Tag and Charles off at the storage facility and headed back to the RV campground where Dr. Connors was staying.

She pulled into the spot she’d used before. The Volvo wagon, hatchback open, was backed up to the little cottage Dr. Connors and her wife were staying in. There was luggage piled inside the car. She was pretty sure that they had not intended to leave today.