Chapter 28

I settled in beside Adin with a great sigh, it had been a very busy day. My lovely wife, though asleep, sensed my body and snuggled up to me. I put my arm around her shoulders and then joined her in the sweet comfort of sleep.

However, that sweetness didn’t last. I began to have sourness in the back of my throat and in my stomach, so much so that it woke me. No matter how much I tossed and turned, I could not get comfortable enough to get back to sleep. Soon enough my movements woke my wife.

“What’s the matter, Kade?” she asked groggily.

“Sorry that I woke you my sweet, but I have this feeling...”

Adin sat up, concerned. “Is that gut of yours telling you something again?”

“Yes, but I just don’t know what,” I said with a heavy sigh.

Adin just sat for a moment, thinking, then said, “Well, it isn’t going to do us any good sitting here and stewing as we try to get back to sleep. Let’s go down stairs, have some cocoa and cookies, and then try to figure out what your gut is telling you.”

I just nodded and angrily fought my way out of the blankets that had become tightly twisted around my lower extremities and actually caused me to fall out of bed.

Laughing, Adin stuck her head over the edge of the bed and asked, “Are you alright?”

“No!” I said as I kept thrashing.

The delay and then the sudden impact with the floor caused me no small concern as my bladder was filled to bursting, and I now had to rush to the bathroom.

I finally managed to free myself and sprint to the bathroom while suffering severe pain. Thankfully, I managed things without an accident. Once finished and washed I followed the aroma of fresh cocoa to the kitchen where Adin already had our drinks and snack ready and waiting. I grabbed my cocoa and went to my chair in the living room, still in a dark mood.

Adin moved in behind my chair and began to massage my neck and back. I moaned loudly and began to relax. My wife has the hands of a miracle worker.

<Contented sigh.>

“WOW! You’re nothing but knots back here!”

My only answer was another, even louder, moan as Adin shifted into a deep tissue massage by pressing her elbow into my tight muscles. I then leaned forward to give my wife better access to the knots in the small of my back. I rested my elbows on my knees and let my head fall into my hands, immediately I was asleep, but only for a moment.

I was instantly in a dream loop. I was back at the start of the battle—the van would drive up to the front door and disgorge the attackers, they kept yelling “Where is the Wizard?” The loop repeated itself seven or eight times before I realized what the point was.

When I finally got it, I sat up so suddenly that I banged heads with Adin. The impact was so severe that I had to use magic to heal the minor concussions that we both suffered!

“WELL, I guess you figured out what your gut was trying to tell you,” my wife said as she found a seat while still rubbing her head. “Man that was quite a smack!!!”

“Does it still hurt?”

“Not where you hit me but my head really aches where I got shot, maaannnn!”

I did a scan and found that the weak part of Adin’s skull where the bullet had impacted and plowed a furrow had fractured again! I felt guilty for not checking that injury more thoroughly after we had left the hospital. This time, I healed the skull wound properly. The skull was now uniformly thick and strong.

Adin sat up and stopped rubbing her head. She opened her eyes wide and said, “Ahhhh ... that feels so much better! Thank you, Kade. Now tell me what has been bothering you.”

“What has been bothering me is the question, ‘How did that Wizard find us?’ Somehow he was tracking us, our magic signature. The thing is we’re the only real workers of the craft and we’re shielded,” I said.

“I can’t think of anyone else in our group unless, perhaps Ryn. Do you think he gives off a similar trail to what we leave behind?” I looked at my wife when she said that and I noticed her rubbing her stomach.

“You know, I think that we all do in our own way. After all, all of us, except Tony of course, are magical. The two of us give off one type of magic essence while the women give off another being seers and all. Then we come to Ryn, who though corporeal, is a totally magical being and gives off another. Are you OK? You keep rubbing your belly.”

“Huh? Oh ... yes, I’m fine. I guess it’s just being pregnant. A woman is always aware of her baby and so we sort of caress the little bugger all of the time. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. <Giggle>”

I just stared at her as I thought about what the attackers kept yelling, and then I did a scan of the child, our child, MY CHILD! Three things then happened all at once!

First, I realized that I was a father of a magical child, with all that entailed. Second, I almost wet myself with fear, and third, I felt a tremendous push back from the fetus.

I reached for my cocoa but my hand was shaking so badly that I knocked my cup over.

“KADE! WHAT’S THE MATTER?”

I made a perfect imitation of an out of water cod fish. I just couldn’t make my vocal chords function.

“Kade you’re scaring me!”

Then I started to have trouble breathing.

“KADE! You’re turning blue! BREATHE, HONEY, BREATHE!” yelled Adin as she beat me on the back. After the third whack between my shoulder blades I took a huge breath and everything returned to normal.

“WOW!!!

“What the hell was that all about, Kade?”

“That, my dear, was your son. I think our son just defended himself from my scan with a dose of fear! That’s what!”

I did an external scan looking for evidence of magical power and found a whole lot. There was a strong aura, a very strong aura, emanating from Adin’s midriff. I whistled with admiration.

“That is one strong little man!”

Adin smiled broadly and then furrowed her brows and asked, “Is our baby going to cause trouble?”

I turned to look at my wife and said, “Adin, you and I are in for a rough ride with this child! This little man is already very strong in the power, and it will take us both working together to control his magic until he comes of age. I better call Ryn and see if there is a spell...”

“Kade, don’t do that right now.”

I looked up at Adin, confused and asked, “Why not?”

“Because the last time you did that you called him from the middle of, umm, well, umm. Oh damn it, they were making love and you pulled him out, literally, just as Madame was building to a very satisfying orgasm! She was very upset and told me in no uncertain terms that we needed to remember that HER HUSBAND was now a flesh and blood married man that has duties to perform and that he has to do that quite often. It’s just a good thing that Madam is old world in her beliefs. Ryn is the man of the house and he instructed her not to mention to you how it bothers her that you keep interrupting their sex life. Ryn is very loyal to you and will not complain even though you interrupt his and Madam’s most intimate activities.” Adin ended her statement in a blushing, breathless rush. She then started right up again as she said, “However, Ryn didn’t tell her not to vent her wrath on me, and quite frankly I’m tired of it. Therefore, if it isn’t an emergency, leave it until the morning. Okay?”

Adin had worked herself up into quite a lather. It was then that I realized that I didn’t need an angry pregnant woman in my life and needed to proceed with caution from here on out. I just meekly said, “Okay. Anyway it’s nice to know that we have a strong healthy magical boy growing in there.” I drew Adin toward me, bent down, and then kissed her growing baby bump and said, “Hey, little man, I’m your Dad and I love you.”

I looked back up at the love of my life and said, “The Dark Wizard was tracking our little man’s power emanations. We need to put up the strongest shields that we can for protection.

Adin nodded and waved her arms around her head—erecting her shield. Then she waved at the spilled cocoa, to clean up the mess that I had made.

“There! Can we go back to bed, now?” she asked with a combination of irritation and exhaustion,

I knew not to say anything so I just hugged my wife and erected my shield around Adin’s as I led her to bed.

Tomorrow would be soon enough to council with Ryn about this problem. Now, however? Well, now we would simply get back to bed, sleep, and perhaps make a little of our own love.

The next morning, due to our interrupted night’s sleep, we decided to just stay in bed and love each other. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long as there came a pounding at our door around ten the next morning.

Muttering curses (foul language, not real curses, of course), for having my love making interrupted, I grabbed my robe and answered the door. There stood Ryn and Madame! The woman was not happy as she looked me up and down. Then saw the bulge in the front of my robe. She smiled, and broke out in a loud belly laugh.

Then, through her laughs and gasps she asked, “How ... does ... it feel ... to be interrupted at such a time?” Madame then broke down into gales of laughter, she laughed so hard that her husband had to help her stop from falling to the ground.

It took the two of us to get the woman into Rose and seated on the couch. After a few minutes she began to calm down a bit, but then Adin appeared in her robe, with hair all tousled and looking every bit as aggravated as I at being interrupted.

Madame Cecile pointed at Adin and started laughing all over again, but this time there was no calming her. Her laughing became hysterical and she, in a totally undignified manner for a woman of her age, fell to her side on the couch and then proceeded to roll onto the floor.

I’d finally had enough and cast a mild calming spell. As the woman calmed, her husband picked her up and put her back on the couch, then he turned toward me to apologize, “I don’t know what has gotten into her, Kade. This morning she just got very angry ... well, last night, really ... and demanded that we come here. In fact she got so angry that she made herself sick. I must say that being corporeal is not what I thought it would be.”