If it made the baby happy I was willing to put up with it.
Chrissie was delighted to talk to someone new, and she’d never met a stranger, just people who weren’t her friends yet. She had a million questions for Felicia about living in a city, riding on trains and buses and in cars, and going to a large school—all experiences Chrissie had never had.
Felicia seemed to enjoy the conversation as much as Chrissie did. She answered every question she was asked in great detail. We drank lemonade, ate cookies, and enjoyed ourselves far longer than we’d planned. When Dellford and Rayford came pelting in from school, I realized we’d stayed a while and Chrissie had things to do.
Dellford and Rayford were very active boys, skinny and blond like their mother. Both of them had become better behaved since they’d started school. My mother didn’t suffer bad behavior. After a day in the past when Dellford had saved my life with a well-thrown rock, I, too, had become active in teaching the boys how to be good citizens.
Someday when Lee was home, I’d see if he and Chrissie would let me give the boys a shooting lesson, see if either of them had any aptitude. Dellford and Rayford were fascinated by Eli, but neither of them showed any signs of having magical talent.
When the boys found out Felicia was training to be a grigori—if the tsar didn’t bleed her dry in the meantime, but we didn’t talk about that—they were fascinated by her. After a few minutes of their open-mouthed admiration and three thousand questions, Felicia gave me a quick and meaningful glance. We stood up to leave.
“Chrissie, we got to go. Since your boys are home, I guess my mom is cleaning up the school.” I ruffled Dellford’s hair. He very properly looked disgusted and made a face at me. We said our good-byes. Chrissie hugged Felicia, startling her.
My half sister was silent as we made our way down the hill path. I wondered if she was thinking about her own childhood. Was there a difference between country poverty and city poverty? Mexican poverty and Texoman poverty? Probably not.
“Look!” Felicia pointed down at the town. “Is that normal?” We’d reached the halfway point and were still enough above the town to have a good view.
I followed the line of her arm. Like most communities, Segundo Mexia had grown up around a square. There was a small courthouse in the middle for when the circuit judge happened to visit. Below it on the ground floor were the jail and the county offices… or at least, that was where they’d been before, when this town had been in Texas and Texas had been part of the United States. There were benches and picnic tables arranged under the live oak trees.
The community celebrations took place on the square. The churches had potlucks here, and it was the site of the Christmas and Easter observances. In a far more rowdy celebration, the square hosted Texoma Independence Day.
At least 355 days out of the year, the square was quiet and often empty. Since so few people had cars, there weren’t any pulled into the cracked parking slots. There might be a horse or two, because ranchers came into Segundo Mexia to shop. But most of the traffic was on foot, since the busiest stores were on or near the square.
Right now, it was the site of an ominous arrival.
Two large trucks with covered beds had come to screeching stops in front of my stepfather’s Antelope Hotel.
“Where’d they come from?” I said.
“Not normal, I take it.” Felicia’s dark brows came together in a frown. “Who could be in them? What kind of trucks are those?”
There were so many things unusual about this that I couldn’t begin to list them, but I could answer her question.
“Those are Dodge four-by-fours, Army transport trucks. At least, they used to belong to the Army.” The US Army no longer existed. When the United States split up, whatever Army materiel had been stationed in the new countries belonged to those countries. The Britannia government tried to say all the munitions and vehicles were the property of Britannia. New America, Dixie, Texoma, and the Holy Russian Empire just laughed. (So did the parts of Canada and Mexico that had formerly belonged to the United States.)
Right now, no one was laughing.
One man climbed down from the cab of the lead vehicle.
From this distance, I couldn’t hear his order, but clearly, there had been one. People in tan uniforms leaped from the rears of both vehicles and formed two rows.
The soldiers were all armed with rifles, clearly visible even at a distance. Ten issued from each truckbed. Three more descended from each cab.
“You’re being invaded,” Felicia said. “By twenty-six people.”
“But… why?”
“Should we go down there? We don’t know what’s about to happen.” Felicia looked doubtful.
“Nothing good.” I stared down the hill in silence, thinking furiously.
“Eli and Peter are down there,” I said, my mind made up. “Those gunnies are right in front of Jackson’s hotel. My mother is cleaning up the schoolhouse two blocks away. Unless Jackson can make it over there, she’s undefended.”
Felicia straightened her shoulders. “Let’s go.”
As we began to hurry downslope, I heard a shot.
CHAPTER FOUR
I’d been aiming my eyes down to keep my footing, but at the sound of gunfire, I risked a quick glance, though we were farther down and I couldn’t get an overview.
Townspeople were swarming out of buildings, especially around the square, which was natural—but stupid. I also caught a glimpse of some wiser Segundo Mexians who were smart enough to exit the backs of the buildings, figuring they could make their way out of the area without being seen. Or shot. Or captured. Whatever those soldiers had come to do.
I was glad I’d strapped on my Colts, and I was also glad they were fully loaded, clean, and ready. I had enough bullets to kill every single one of the soldiers if I had to. And I was not standing alone. Felicia was an untrained but very powerful grigori.
Eli and Peter were quite capable of taking care of themselves if they avoided the gunfire, and they were wearing their vests, which was now a relief to me rather than an irritant.
I was only worried about my mother. I told myself that Jackson’s first thought would be of her. Jackson did not ordinarily go armed. However, there was a shotgun loaded and ready behind the bar at the hotel. Jackson would grab it, first thing. If he could, he would head directly to Mom at the school.
If he could.
We’d reached level ground. We were on the path leading into town, the dust flying up at the thudding of our feet. We reached the backs of the first buildings and planted ourselves against the rear wall of Arnie’s Feed and Seed.
“Where are we going?” Felicia asked.
“The school. It’s a block north and two blocks west of the square.”
“Where are Peter and Eli likely to be?”
“They’ve been gone for a few hours. I bet they’ve been wandering and talking and wandering some more. They’ll have gotten the wood we needed. They may have gone by the hotel to see Jackson. That’s where he is most of the time.”
“The hotel we could see from the hill?”
“Yes, the Antelope. It’s got a bar and six rooms upstairs, and it serves lunch and supper. Jackson runs all his businesses from there.”