His child. Win hadn’t expected to have a child. Not after years of Poppy being barren. Her disappointment was his, but he’d been resigned to the notion. Now that he knew that a child grew within her womb, he loved the unknown babe with a fierceness that almost frightened him.
He forced his mouth to work. “Why Poppy?”
“Come now, Lane. You are no fool.” Jones paused, looking, for once, distinctly uncomfortable. “ ’Tis a fair trade, after all. She does not even want the child.”
“Shut up!” Win wouldn’t believe that of Poppy, wouldn’t let Jones drive a wedge between them.
But Jones merely shook his head as if pitying him. “I am her blood. When she is away from me, I can see through her eyes, know her fears. She doubts her ability to rear this child. But you don’t, do you, Lane? Take it, and leave my firstborn to me.”
And all this time, Win had thought Jones followed him. The bloody bastard. Win struggled to rise, but whatever Jones had done to him had left him weak as a babe. “Get out.”
With a shrug, Jones stepped away from the desk and headed again for the door. “You have one more day. The choice is yours, Lane.”
“I will never give her up. Never.” He said it with all the conviction in his heart, but bloody, bloody hell, Jones had him by the cods, and they both knew it.
Jones’s smile was tired, but the gleam in his eyes spoke of victory. “Then you are, as you say, buggered, mate.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Someone made a sound. Ian, perhaps; he had the least patience. Poppy stirred, realizing she’d simply been sitting there as her family sat around the SOS conference table waiting for her to speak. Best to get it over with quickly.
Her voice was modulated and smooth in the quiet. “What I must tell you cannot go further than this room.”
“We rather thought that a given, dearest,” said Daisy with a small smile. She was trying, Poppy knew, to ease the way. Poppy appreciated it, especially given that Miranda would be the angriest. She still had not forgiven Poppy for withholding information about her own powers. Poppy did not blame her one whit.
Miranda would truly hate her now. Daisy too. All those expectant gazes, all of them knowing they wouldn’t like what they were going to hear, but waiting for it anyway. For one horrid moment, Poppy feared she might jump up and flee. Then her gaze collided with Win’s. He’d entered quietly and stayed in the back of the room, reclining against the corner wall, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. The pose might have been construed as relaxed; he was anything but. Tension tightened the line of his shoulders and flattened his mouth. But his eyes softened, and she could all but read the message there: Out with it, old girl. It won’t get better with the waiting.
In this, they were together. She spoke again.
“There is a demon that is after Win and me…. If we do not give him what he wants, he will take our child’s soul.”
“What!” Miranda slammed forward. “You are expecting?”
Poppy managed a small smile. “I’m afraid so.”
Archer and Ian exchanged a look that made Poppy think they’d already figured as much.
“It isn’t a prison sentence, you know,” said Daisy, rather heatedly, and Poppy winced. As a GIM, Daisy would never have a child of her own.
“I only meant…” Poppy couldn’t say more without breaking down so she looked away.
“Well then,” said Archer, “we shall give him what he wants.”
We. The simple word warmed her heart, and broke it all the same. “As much as I’d love to,” she said, “I cannot.” Poppy touched her brow and then let her hand drop. Christ, she needed to get the words out. “He wants his son.”
Archer’s dark brows rose. “Why is it that you refuse to give this demon his son?”
“For God’s sake, Poppy,” Daisy said, “if you know where the spawn is, give it to this thing and be done with it.”
“She cannot do it.” Win’s smoky voice held surprising strength as he bit out the truth.
“Why?”
That from all of them.
“Because,” said Poppy, “the demon’s son is our brother.” And with that, chaos descended.
It was all Winston could do to be heard. Miranda’s chair had gone up in flames, which Poppy almost absently doused with a blast of ice. The room shook with Daisy’s deep tremors, and Winston rather feared for the foundations. And all of them shouted at once. Win took a long look at the chaos, and at his wife, who sat stiffly in her seat.
“Enough!” He slammed his walking stick down on the scorched wood table. The resounding bang made them all flinch, but it shut them up as well. He leveled a gaze around the room. “Sit.”
On the inside, Win felt sick, but he simply looked around to see if they were all settled before glancing back at Poppy. “Explain it to them.”
Poppy’s white hands fell to her lap, and her dark gaze turned inward as she stared at the tabletop before her. The red fan of her lashes blocked her eyes as she recounted what Lena had told them about Margaret and Jones’s affair. When she finished, Miranda blanched. “Bloody hell. Are we his as well?”
Poppy flinched. “Yes. I did not know until today,” she snapped before her sisters could protest again.
“Hell.” Miranda pinched the bridge of her nose.
“You all remember Mother as this benevolent protector,” Poppy said. “You have no idea what she really was. The lies she could tell. Or how iron her will could be.”
“I’m beginning to get an idea,” Daisy muttered.
Poppy’s face flushed red but she forged onward. “He killed our mother over this.”
“Mother died due to childbirth,” Miranda said woodenly.
“No. It was…” Poppy nibbled her bottom lip. “It was a lie.”
“God damn it, Pop!” Daisy banged a fist on the table. “Of all the low, disgusting—”
“I cannot make amends.” Poppy rested a hand on the table. “We need to discuss our brother. His name is St. John. He’s being raised in Ireland by the Evernights, one of the oldest SOS families.”
“He ought to be around sixteen,” murmured Daisy. She smiled a little. “My God, a brother.”
“Hell.” Miranda plopped her head into her hands and groaned. “We can’t give him up.” She lifted her head. “But I’ll be damned if we give up your child.”
Winston had to smile at that. “My sentiments exactly.”
Archer leaned back in his chair and regarded them all. “What do you propose to do? Is there a way to get out of the bargain? Kill the demon perhaps?”
From the gleam in Ian’s eye, Win gathered he thought this was a perfect idea. Poppy, however, braced her arms upon the table, her mouth set in a grim line. “I have not been able to destroy him, only to send him back to hell.”
“How did you do it?” Win asked. He’d never gotten the specifics, and he needed them now more than ever.
“With one of these.” She pulled a small object from her skirt pocket and set it on the table.
“A scarab?” Archer sounded as dubious as Win felt. The basalt carving of the Egyptian dung beetle was flat and roughly the size of his palm.
“It might look innocuous, but this little fellow becomes quite active when in the presence of demons. It is a tool of Ammit, the Eater of Souls.”
Archer shifted uncomfortably. When he’d married Miranda, Archer had been turning into a soul eater, one of Ammit’s children. He eyed the scarab askance. “What does it do?”
“Rest it on the heart of a demon of Egyptian origin, and the scarab will judge it. If the demon is unworthy, the scarab will deliver the demon’s soul to Duat, the underworld, and then on to a place we’d call Hell.”
“I wish we’d had use of one of those before,” Miranda muttered, and Poppy gave her a tired smile.
“Had I known what Archer was becoming,” she said, “I would have given you one. However, it isn’t as easy as it looks. One has to get near enough to the demon to place it against the demon’s chest.” Her expression grew hard and remote. “One is more likely to lose one’s head than succeed.”
But Poppy had done so before. Cold blew through Win’s gut at the thought. His wife rested her thin hand upon her belly, low where no one would likely notice. But he did, and his heart twisted. She would not face Isley again. For he could not face the idea of her being hurt, nor their child. It was all he could do to keep himself together. He would not see his child born or grow. Would it be a boy, as Isley thought? Or a girl? With shining red hair like her mother’s? Clenching his jaw, he looked away from Poppy rather than risk falling to his knees and burrowing his head into her lap.
“It works on Isley,” she was saying. “Trial and error have taught me that. However, while he might be dragged back to Hell, he does not die.” Her long finger touched the back of the scarab.
Archer’s brow drew into a scowl as he looked down at the scarab. “The Egyptians believe that to know a person’s name is to have dominion over them. Were Isley’s true name inscribed on the scarab, it might have the power to hold Isley in Hell forever.”
“It is a good thought,” Poppy said wanly. “Only we’ve just one more day, and I’ve no idea where to begin to search.” With a sigh, she leaned back in her seat. “The real problem is that regardless of whether we kill him, all bargains in play would stand. Any souls belonging to Isley would be his to take with him to hell.”
Perfect. Win ran a hand over the back of his neck and paced. “In short, we are buggered.”
They gaped at him, and he scowled. “I am capable of uttering the word ‘bugger’, you know.”
Ian laughed, shortly but without much vigor. “Do not break my illusions, old boy.”
Win tried to smile but failed. “Look. Poppy and I will have to find a way.”