It was not the time for levity, but I couldn’t help muttering the old line under my breath. The Earth hung over my head like a gigantic, blue and white marble. The contrast between it and the barren, black and grey landscape around me made the bright planet especially vivid and beautiful. I felt homesick, or perhaps just sick, knowing that there
was
no more home.

I had also just lied. I
couldn’t
see my house from up here. Mushroom clouds dotted North America, and the one covering central Florida was kind of blocking my view.

Chapter One:

Three Months Earlier

“Can we get popcorn?
Pleeeeease?
” I was bombarded with three pleading stares, each with hands clasped begging under the chin.

“Do you know how much popcorn costs here?” I grumbled, still annoyed at having to shell out twenty dollars to go to the movies. “We could have rented a ton of movies on Redbox,” I muttered, quietly, since I’d already said it several times and thought that maybe I was being a bit childish.

Memories were worth every penny. Or so I’ve heard. I doubted that my two toddlers were going to remember
any
of this in another year. But my mom said that mother/daughter outings were important, so here we were.

“I’ll get the popcorn!” Cecily chirped. She was her usual annoyingly cheerful self. Even though the sun was brightly shining outside, the movie theater was dark enough to be comfortable for her. She winked at me, and asked my daughters, “Anyone want a blue raspberry slushie?” They squealed their approval.

I frowned, remembered that I was getting older and that someday that frown would give me wrinkles, smoothed out my face, and shrugged. Since I’d invited Cecily to accompany us to the movies, I’d paid for her ticket. She could get the snacks. Living for over a hundred years did wonders for your investment portfolio. I had gotten the impression that money was not one of Cecily’s worries.

I stopped to wonder briefly what my mother would say if she knew I was taking her granddaughters out with a vampire. A vampire who was deep in discussion with Megan, my four-year-old, about the virtues of blue raspberry versus normal coke flavor. Cecily was surprisingly great with my kids. Some of that had to do with her natural exuberance and love of life. I’d met other vampires and they didn’t have her enthusiasm and cheer. It must just be the personality she was born with.

She was down on one knee asking Cassidy, the two-year-old, what flavor slushie she wanted. “Raspberry or coke?”

Cassidy repeated the last word. “Oat!”

I reversed the order. “Coke or raspberry?”

“Asderry!”

Cecily gave me a questioning look. I laughed. “Whatever Megan is having. I’ll have a coke one.”

Cecily’s eyes grew wide. Just the other day I had been ranting to her about how unfair life was that my younger sister could chow down on milkshakes and cheeseburgers and never gain a pound, while just driving by a MickyD’s would make my waistline expand. Fortunately, for my sisterly jealously, Sarah had gotten rid of her magic weight-loss bracelet after discovering that it was cursed. Maybe she’d balloon up to a size six now. (If you can’t tell, that was sarcasm.)

I sighed and gave a little tug at the waist of my jeans. Were they getting tight or was it just my imagination? I really didn’t need a coke slushie, but I really wanted one. I deserved it. And my waist was going to be expanding no matter what I did.
C’est la vie
and all that. For the next eight months my weight was going to be heading in one direction. Up.

Cecily stared at me, eyes as big as saucers. “Did you test?” she whispered.

I tried to keep a straight face but a huge grin broke through. “Yup! Two pink lines this morning.”

“Do mmmhmm know?” She pointed with her chin at Megan and Cassidy.

I shook my head in the negative. I hadn’t even told Mark yet. I knew he would be thrilled. He’d always wanted more kids. I just wanted to find a fun way to tell him that would be special. Maybe I could take him out to dinner and give him a baby pacifier for a present.

We’d reached the front of the snack line and Cecily was putting in an order for two kid’s packs for the girls and a giant tub of popcorn and slushies for us. Megan and Cassidy were hopping up in down in excitement. This
had
been a good idea. Mom was right. Mother/daughter outings were good for bonding.

Hands full of junk food, we found our theater and got situated. Megan and Cassidy were busy sucking down their frozen treat and staring with wide eyes around the theater. I doubted that Cassidy would be able to make it all the way through the movie, and I would probably wind up trailing her up and down the hallway outside waiting for Cecily and Megan.

“Boy or girl?” Cecily asked, crunching popcorn.

I gave her a look. “It’s a little early for that.”

“You can’t tell?”

I opened my mouth to tell her how silly that question was when I realized that I
did
feel different than I had with the girls. I wasn’t puking every two minutes. I didn’t even feel that nauseous (Comparatively speaking. I still reserved the right to
complain
about being nauseous). I blinked. Maybe I
could
tell this early. “It’s a boy!” My huge grin got even wider. “It’s a boy!” I said again.

“What’s a boy, Mommy?” Megan asked.

“Nothing, sweetie,” I kissed the top of her head. Mark was going to be thrilled. He loved his little princesses, but a son would be new and exciting! When Cecily had first told me of the risk of getting pregnant after being exposed to a fertility statue, I’d been upset. I had two kids and I really didn’t want to be pregnant again. Silly me. I still didn’t want to go through pregnancy again, but when I’d taken the pregnancy test that morning I would have been disappointed if it had been negative.

Sure, my line of work was not great for a pregnant lady, but
someone
had to protect the human race. I wasn’t going to put my life on hold until everything was safe. I’d wind up dead long before the world straightened itself out on its own.

The movie started but I’m afraid that I didn’t really see any of it. There were cartoon animals, and slapstick humor, and the usual storyline of “if you believe in yourself, you can do anything.” I’ve often wondered why that was the message people kept preaching at children. It seems like a good way to set them up for disappointment in life. All the believing in the world wouldn’t make a homely, awkward girl into a movie star. Nor would it give the necessary brain smarts to a boy who wanted to be an astronaut. The message should be “if you work really, really hard, and you are genetically blessed and lucky, you
might
achieve your goals someday.” Not quite as catchy, but far more realistic.

I was one of the few extremely genetically blessed, but I could not do anything I wanted. In fact, my ability handicapped me more than it helped me. In my youth (six long years ago), I’d reveled in the ability to command anyone to obedience. I’d used my Voice right and left and never once stopped to think of the consequences. Fortunately for me, Cecily had caught up with me before the other Guardians did, and my life was spared.

There’s a whole world that lives right under normal human noses and is never seen. Or, if it
is
seen, Guardians are sent out to “fix” the problem. As in, dead men tell no tales. Vampires, werewolves, witches, and fairies, were just the tip of the iceberg. And they liked to stay well under the human radar. My reckless use of my ability had drawn all the wrong sorts of attention and I’d been forced to join the United Supernatural Beings (an organization that seemed based on the United Nations, although they denied copying anything that humans had designed).

I’d also discovered that my annoying kid sister was also “blessed” with an ability. She could get inside a person’s head and change their memories. It explained a lot. Like all the times she’d gotten away with horrible behavior and even worse dress (or lack thereof) and my parents hadn’t even blinked an eye.

What with the witches trying to wipe out all humanity in general, and Sarah and me in particular, we’d had some extremely interesting times. And by interesting I mean, “Dear Lord, please never let that happen again.” I still had nightmares about beheading the witch who’d kidnapped my daughters. No guilt (he had it coming), but lots of bad dreams.

Sarah, Cecily, and I were working for the USB as Guardians. Our assignment with Pravus, the kidnapping witch, hadn’t quite gone as planned, but we’d learned some important life lessons along the way. As Cecily liked to say, “You can never trust a witch.”

After that we’d had some easier jobs that involved using my Voice to get us in to see the right person, and using Sarah’s “mind wipe” to clean up any suspicions they might have had about the supernatural world. Cecily was there as the muscle in a frilly skirt, high-heel shoes, and a giant Sword of Justice. On anyone else the combination would have looked weird. On her it looked gorgeous and deadly. Or maybe the reverse.

We still needed to find some other humans with abilities to get the WAND, the Witches and Necromancers Deputation, off our backs, but all in all, things were looking up. Sarah was currently hanging out with a kid we’d found in Orlando who could always tell if someone was lying or not. She wanted to slowly ease him into our crazy world. We needed him on our side, but if he freaked and ran to the press, we would be the ones assigned to silence him.

I felt like I’d earned a breather, thus the movie outing with my daughters. Cecily had looked so hopeful when I’d mentioned my plan that I’d had to invite her along as well. For a bloodsucking vampire she sure didn’t fit the stereotype. She looked just as engrossed in the movie as the little kids around her and laughed uproariously in all the right places.

Perhaps I had life under a bit more control. Which meant that I could focus on the one thing that really bothered me. My husband, Mark. Not only did he not know about the supernatural world, or what his wife was doing when she went out on a “girls’ night,” but he also didn’t know about my ability. How do you tell your spouse that you can completely control all his actions? Sure, the command will wear off in about ten minutes, but for that ten minutes, they have to obey, they
want
to obey.

I knew I would have to tell him. Eventually. Maybe right after I told him I was pregnant again. You can’t get mad at a pregnant woman, can you? How much should I tell him though? We weren’t supposed to let normal humans know about the USB, but did that rule apply to spouses? Was it any good to come clean about one lie, but keep on with the others? I could talk myself in circles all day long.

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