The Pagan Stone Page 0,82

the other women set bowls of deli potato salad, coleslaw, pickles, and condiments on the picnic table. As united over patties as they were over war. Just look at all of us. She paused a moment to do just that. They were about to have a backyard picnic, and in the same backyard hours before, one of them had bled, had suffered. Had nearly died. Now there was music pumping out of Cal's outdoor speakers, burgers sizzling on the grill, and beer frosty in the cooler.

Twisse thought he could beat them, beat this? No. Not in a century of Sevens. It would never beat what it could never understand, and constantly underestimated.

"You okay?" Quinn rubbed a hand over Cybil's back.

"Yes." A weight of stress and doubts dropped away. She might have to pick them up again, but for now, it was a beautiful day in June. "Yes, I am."

"Quite a view," Quinn added, nodding toward the men at the grill.

"Camera worthy."

"Excellent idea. Be right back."

"Where's she going?" Layla asked.

"I have no idea. Just as I have no idea why it apparently takes three grown men to cook some hamburgers."

"One to cook, one to kibitz, and one to insult the other two."

"Ah. Another mystery solved." Cybil lifted her brow when Quinn dashed out with her camera.

"Aren't those dogs and burgers done yet?" Quinn called out, and putting the camera on the deck rail, peered through the viewer, adjusted angles. "Hurry up. This is a photo op."

"If you were going to take pictures, you might have given us some warning so we could fix ourselves up," Cybil complained.

"You look great, Miss Fussy. Stand more over there. Cal! Come on."

"Just hold your pixels, Blondie."

"Fox, he doesn't need you. Stand over here between Layla and Cyb."

"I can have both?" Strolling over, Fox wrapped arms around each of their waists.

For the next five minutes, Quinn directed, ordered, adjusted until the five of them were arranged to her satisfaction. "Perfect! Set. I'll take a couple by remote." She hurried down, positioned herself between Cal and Gage.

"Food's going to get cold," Cal complained.

"Smile!" She clicked the remote. "Don't move, don't move. I want a backup."

"Starving," Fox sang out, then laughed when Layla dug her fingers into his ribs. "Mom! Layla's picking on me."

"Don't make me come over there," Quinn warned. "On three. One, two, three. Now just stay put while I check to make sure I got a good one."

The mutters and complaints apparently held no sway as she hurried up to the deck, bent down to call back the last two shots. "They're great. Go, Team Human!"

"Let's eat," Cal announced.

As they sat, as food was grabbed, conversation rolled, beers were uncapped, Cybil knew one true thing. They called themselves a team, and they were. But they were more than that. They were family.

It was a family who would kill the beast.

So they ate, as the June afternoon slipped into June evening, with the flowers blooming around them, and the lazy dog-sated with handouts-snoring on the soft green grass. At the edges of that soft green grass, the woods stayed silent and still. Cybil nursed a single beer through the lazy meal. When the interlude passed, she wanted her head clear for the discussion that had to follow.

"We got cake," Fox announced.

"What? Cake? What?" Quinn set down her own beer. "I can't eat cake after eating a burger and potato salad. It's against my lifestyle change. It's just not... Damn it, what kind of cake?"

"The kind from the bakery with the icing and the little flowers."

"You bastard." She propped her chin on her fist and looked pitifully at Fox. "Why is there cake?"

"It's for Gage."

"You got me a cake?"

"Yeah." Cal sent Gage a sober and serious nod. "We got you a Glad You Didn't Die cake. Betts at the bakery wrote that on it. She was confused, but she wrote it on. She had cherry pie, which was my first choice, but O'Dell said it had to be cake."

"We could've bought both," Fox pointed out.

"Somebody brings cake and pie into this house," Quinn said darkly, "somebody will die. By my hand."

"Anticipating that," Cal said, "we just went for the cake."

Gage considered a minute. "You guys are idiots. The appropriate Glad You Didn't Die token is a hooker and a bottle of Jack."

"We couldn't find a hooker." Fox shrugged. "Our time was limited."

"You could give him an IOU," Layla suggested.

Gage grinned at her. "All markers cheerfully accepted."

"Meanwhile, I guess we'd better clear this up, clean it up, and