Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(72)

She heard them before she got to the porch. They kept their voices quiet; someone with mere human senses would not have heard them at all. Even she could not hear the words, just the tone: hurt and anger with a fair bit of fear on both of their parts.

She thought, Two months, maybe three, is about the time you’d have to quit denying what your body was telling you, isn’t it? She pictured Sissy’s hollowed-out face and wondered if some of the grim control she’d shown was because she was fighting nausea.

Anna knocked briskly at the door. All of the talking stopped. Quick footsteps came to the door and it opened just a crack.

Dr. Tanya Bonsu bore very little resemblance to the cheerful woman Anna had met the day before. Her face was tight and her magnificent black eyes were reddened. “Ms. . . . Anna,” she said, evidently having forgotten Anna’s last name. “I am afraid that this is a very bad time. If you could come back in an hour, I’ll be out of the way and Sissy would, no doubt, be happy to speak with you.”

“Have you,” Anna said, her hold on the door keeping Tanya from pulling it shut, “ever seen the movie Rosemary’s Baby?” She didn’t know why she went with Tag’s movie, but it did seem to cover all the bases and save Anna a long explanation with a hostile audience—assuming the movie was as well-known as Tag seemed to think.

Tanya quit struggling with the door. “That is not funny,” she said coldly.

“It isn’t a funny situation,” Anna said. “Carrie Green, one of the witches in Wild Sign, had a grandfather. We spent this morning visiting him at a rest home. We know something more about what might have happened in Wild Sign.”

“I don’t care what the fuck happened in Wild Sign,” said Tanya in a low, vicious voice. “Let go of the door and come back later. When I am gone.”

“You care,” Anna said, and she pushed out with the soothing Omega power. It seemed to her that things might go better with a little less anger. She wasn’t as effective on humans as she was with the werewolves, but it could help.

She softened her voice. “Unless you and Dr. Connors have been making use of modern science, I think the creature who kept the white witches of Wild Sign safe got your wife pregnant. It wants children, and it can screw with people’s memories.”

Shock loosened Tanya’s hold on the door, and Anna shoved it open with her shoulder, tempering her strength so she only moved the other woman back a few steps.

The cottage living room held a couch, a TV, and a two-person dining table. The kitchen was separated from the rest of the house by a door, which was open. Next to the kitchen was a narrow, enclosed stairway.

“Dr. Connors,” Anna said, keeping an eye on Tanya, who had backed all the way across the living room. Evidently the shove had been hard enough to make Tanya reevaluate what she knew about werewolves, because she smelled frightened now.

Though Tanya had smelled of fear before, there was a difference between fear of losing the person you love and fear of a monster. The word was the same in the English language, but it didn’t smell the same at all. A lot of emotions were like that. After years of Charles’s teaching, Anna’s nose was well calibrated enough to tell the difference. Anna just didn’t know if the change in Tanya’s fears was useful.

“Ms. Cornick.” Dr. Connors’s voice originated from upstairs. “This is a very bad time. Please go away.”

“Do you remember getting pregnant when you hiked up to Wild Sign?” Anna called. “Or did it steal your memories from you first?”

Anna knew the answer to that, of course.

Sissy Connors rushed down the stairway. She was wearing Minnie Mouse pajama bottoms and a USMC oversized T-shirt that was the right size to have belonged to Tanya. She was barefoot and braless, and her face was a lovely shade between I-just-threw-up and watch-out-I’m-going-to-throw-up-again. Anyone who’d ever been to a college party would recognize it.

“What the hell did you just say?” she asked.

“Sit down,” Anna said, and she glanced at Tanya. “You, too.”

Tanya looked at Anna a moment and said, “Rosemary’s Baby?”

Anna nodded.

Sissy must have watched old movies, too, because comprehension lit her face. She clutched her stomach and the scent of her revulsion might have made Anna’s nose wrinkle if she hadn’t been prepared for it.

It wasn’t Anna’s story that Tanya believed; it was the expression of shock and comprehension on her wife’s face.

Tanya walked over to Sissy and wrapped her in her arms. They rocked a moment, cheek to cheek. Then Tanya whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“How sure are you?” Sissy asked.

“That the creature that destroyed Wild Sign got you pregnant?” Anna shook her head. “Occam’s razor sure. More certain after seeing your reaction than I was driving over here. I can tell you for certain that whatever that thing your father and the other white witches at Wild Sign made a bargain with, it can take your memories away.”

Sissy looked up at Anna and raised her eyebrows. You?

Anna gave her a sharp, single nod.

“I should have believed you,” Tanya said.

“It wasn’t believable,” Sissy said soggily.

“I should have believed you anyway,” Tanya told her. “And I read that letter, too. I could have made some connections.”