The Reckoners

by Doranna Durgin

  They would want her. And Trevarr would not want to bring her in.

  Simple solution. The Garrie person was in over her head regardless. Even knowing, she had no skills to handle what Trevarr had come to do. Use her, then. Tell her, let her be in over her head, let her fail to survive. As long as she did what they needed before she died.

  Everything solved!

  ::Tell herrr,:: he said again, pushing harder than he should have. ::Use herrrr.::

  It sounded very much like a purr, and he liked that, too.

  ~~~~~

  Garrie sat in the little park beside her condo building, still catching a whiff of stink from her own hair and letting it distract her from the task at hand. Along with too many memories of being reckoner when it seemed to mean something, and the underlying curiosity about the guy from the night before.

  It seemed utterly unfair of him to drop in on her, make utterings of dire need, and disappear. Especially when it was his fault that she’d gotten skunked.

  In the distance, a siren wailed. Drivers honked at one another, pedestrians cried out in surprise as a cyclist swooshed through their ranks, and birds fluttered in the city plantings with only a cocky chirp or two to give them away. The city’s universal color scheme — details of bright turquoise, coral, and sunrise orange — made an impact even on eyes that had grown up with it.

  Garrie closed hers, the big book of vocational opportunities still propped on her crossed legs. The brisk clarity of this block park beside her condo had drawn her here long ago — long before she’d even moved in. Never mind the personable location — near the university, near funky Nob Hill with its artisans and quirky little shops. Here the ethereal breezes ran quiet, making it easy to keep track of unusual activity. Safe to run in; easier to relax, to concentrate on other things.

  Something blipped against her personal ethereal radar — unfamiliar and then gone again, detectable only as the faintest of hums off to her left. Not even unpleasant, when it came down to it.

  Not that she wasn’t wary of first impressions, pleasant or not. After all, Rhonda Rose had terrified her upon first meeting. And no wonder, the way she’d swooped down in outraged righteousness, fully believing that Garrie-as-child had understood the ethereal waves with which she played. And in the end, she hadn’t been terrifying at all.

  Although that had been the end of her pretense at childhood normality. No more shrugging off the invisible friends; no more ignoring the ethereal breezes just because no one else could feel them. Instead she had a unique mentor, guiding her through a world both thrilling and dangerous. First the easy encounters, the quick victories over diffuse entities — and then the pitched battles to stop tragedies no one else had even noticed.

  If she’d known where it would all lead, would she have given Rhonda Rose that second chance? Or pow, out of the ballpark?

  She could have done it. Even back then, she could have done it.

  Thoughts of then versus now... far too familiar of late. Garrie let go a big sigh and muttered, “Same old, same old,” to herself. And then she felt the shift in that hum to her left and targeted it.

  By the time she opened her eyes, she looked straight at the source — tall and rangy and moving like a predator, not to mention dressed like a character from a fantasy game: a long black leather duster over sturdy pants with a weird panel fly, a wide belt of worn, oiled leather, and a shirt that glimmered through the open duster, some deep indigo color but not quite; Garrie couldn’t even put a name to it. Even the satchel he carried looked like nothing she’d seen, stained and battered and yet of a workmanship that meant it would probably still last forever. He was, of course, utterly certain of himself.

  Not to mention just a little too close.

  She said, “You can just stop there.”

  He still radiated that not safe vibe. Last night she had attributed it to circumstances, but today...

  Today it was plainly attached to him. In the daylight, she half expected to find an artistic two-day stubble to go along with the attitude — but his face was smooth, his hair pulled back to let the bright Albuquerque light skim those hard angles. Still determined, that expression. He wanted something, and he wanted it from her.

  When he didn’t heed her warning, Garrie sent a shove through the breezes, a puff of ethereal wind. A reminder. A reminder to herself, too — not to take this one for granted. Not when he could perceive her manipulation of the breezes. Not when he was affected by them.

  He stopped short, stiffening against the push until she released it. He muttered in his accented words, not even English at that. “Farking —”

  Farking?

  A sandy red cat with copious ears and deep reddish points sauntered past her bench, tail high and quivering; it hesitated only a moment before jumping lightly to the slats beside her. Right. The cat. The cat that was somehow his, as much as any cat could be.

  She nudged it away, ignoring its mow! of protest. “I bet farking isn’t something you say to nice girls.”

  That seemed to take him aback more than anything, standing there almost close enough to loom, way overdressed for this summer morning with his head tipped in a way that made Garrie believe he was squinting behind those trendy sunglasses. Then he simply spread his arms away from his sides slightly, that universal signal of I mean no harm.

  Right. How naive did she look, anyway? She took an ostentatious sniff of the dry city air. Ghost poo. “Still got the smell going, I see.”

  He shook his head, almost imperceptible; his mouth twitched in what was probably annoyance. In that moment, Garrie thought that if she were smart, she’d be running.

  Except this was her park. And he’d already found her twice.

  She suddenly regretted her outfit of the day. A tight spaghetti strap tank top beneath an equally snug bodice, low-slung crop cargo pants below... she abruptly felt smaller. Smaller than him; smaller than the usual her. She tucked her knees up, turning the book into a shield, and then cursed at how she’d given herself away.

  If he noticed, it didn’t show. “I still need help. There is a thing... I cannot do it alone.”

  The cat again jumped lightly to the curved wood slat seat, its tail high and vibrating in another precipitous claim to the bench. Just a damn cat... but the cat came with the man, and this was her turf. Garrie crowded it back off the bench. “Tomato juice does a pretty good job.”

  He lifted his head momentarily at the sound of a jet far overhead, barely audible over the generalized noise of the university area, and relaxed only when it faded. “That means nothing to me.”

  “Right.” She lifted an eyebrow, a skill gained through many hours of practice in front of a mirror after her first exposure to Classic Trek. She’d stay cool today — not annoyed, not taken off-guard and off-temper as she’d been the night before. Rhonda Rose had taught her that much. Untidy humors. The mess of the evening before had proven her just as right as always.

  He took a step closer — might have taken another if she hadn’t given him another reminder, ethereal breezes ruffling the long tail of his duster. Annoyance shifted his features, as fleeting as that breeze. “Urgency made me unwise. I erred to approach you last night.”

  “You think?”

  That annoyance again, and something else... a hint of desperation? It didn’t look as though it set easily on his features. Fantasy gamer features to go right along with his outfit. “Yes. This place is not familiar to me —”

  She laughed. “That’s not news to me, by the way.”

  He said the thing he should have said from the start. “Amanda Myers recommended you.”

  Now that got her attention. Amanda lived on the west coast, and her haunting was one of Garrie’s final reckonings with Rhonda Rose. A satisfied client was someone Garrie trusted.

  He took a chance and a step closer. “Last night, what you did —”

  She interrupted with a laugh, a short and bitter sound. “Last night was nothing.” Not false modesty. She meant it. She
’d rather deal with a mansion of recalcitrant darkside nibblers than a house of spirits so fragmented that the best they could do was fling goop.

  “Nothing,” he repeated, somewhat cautiously. Good. She’d made him think.

  “Totally nothing.” She frowned at him. “I’m looking for something.”

  “Ah.” He nodded, as if that made sense somehow. “Are you truly? For I can show you that. Something.”

  Damned if she didn’t believe him. If anyone could, it might just be the guy wearing a black duster and half-gloves in the Albuquerque summer morning heat, not breaking a sweat and not giving a damn. She wasn’t the only one to have noticed his out-of-place nature, judging by those who drifted closer for a look.

  Of course, with his appearance, everyone else here probably thought he’d come from one of Albuquerque’s reasonably common Cactuswood movie sets. Garrie wasn’t sure why she didn’t.

  But she didn’t.

  He said in those accented words, “If it weren’t something, Lisa McGarrity, would I still be here?”

  Good point. She frowned, thumbing the pages in her book. Something. He was already that, in his way. More interesting than anything she’d found in this book so far.

  And the book would always be here.

  “Garrie,” she said. “You can call me Garrie.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 3

  Albuquerque & Ice Cream

  Know who you are, lest you lose yourself.

  — RRose

  Take a flashlight.

  — L. M.

  Garrie took him to the little family-owned ice cream shop, a few blocks of walking toward Nob Hill.

  He didn’t seem the type for ice cream — but Garrie definitely was. And moving with him, watching him... it was another way to assess him.

  His minimalistic use of words certainly wasn’t going to be of much help.

  By the time they reached the shop, she knew that his long legs moved in habitually swift strides, swishing the duster around in an oddly satisfying way. She knew he didn’t feel the need to walk with her, but he paused just often enough at curbs, evincing a strange wariness for traffic, that Garrie more or less kept pace — though she broke a sweat in the baking heat to do it.

  She knew that she wouldn’t have been able to sneak up on him in the dark. Not as alert as he was, or as quick, or as so very present with himself.

  None of it was reassuring. Ghosts, energies, and darksiders weren’t a problem to a reckoner of her scope and experience. People...

  People often were.

  It was no wonder she had so few friends outside her team.

  Garrie thought being a kid reckoner had been like being a kid star — except without the fame, the paparazzi, or the perks. No ponies in her childhood; no limos or tutors or nannies.

  Her parents hadn’t even known, though they’d seen the side effects. Poor grades, because who had time to study when the remnant of a rabid skunk threatened neighborhoods with a spray of ethereally generated virus? Few friends, because who had time for giggling at the mall when there where restless spirits milling around in need of peace? No pajama parties; no dances. No late-night make-out sessions by the Rio Grande. No prom. But plenty of need to ground herself in the endless exercise that kept her wiry and always less than curvy.

  “I missed my senior prom,” she informed him, waiting for the ice cream bar clerk to finish blending sandwich cookie and double-fudge with her mint ice cream and letting the air conditioning cool her off.

  Not that she expected a response. No one could have followed that train of thought and his habitual silence was otherwise obvious enough. With sudden impatience for the sunglasses that obscured an already unreadable expression, she said, “New rule. You want to talk to me about this job, do it without the sunglasses.”

  He dug into his pocket, pulling out a money clip of worked metal just a sheen too light for silver. As if he saw her looking, he peeled off a bill and jammed the rest back into his pocket, putting the bill on the counter. “I will have the white.”

  “Vanilla?” the clerk asked, a strand of lank blond escaping her hair net and disbelief escaping her voice.

  “White?” Garrie wrinkled her nose at him.

  He had no evident need to make explanations. When he looked down at her — and face it, that was a distinct drop — it was to address her remark about his sunglasses. “The sun is strong.”

  “We’re not in the sun,” she pointed out as she accepted both her ice cream cone and his bowl of plain white ice cream. “If we’re going to talk, I want to be able to see you.”

  Unexpected energies tickled against her, surprising her — she didn’t quite drop the ice cream, and then they were gone. Unfamiliar energies, so faint she lost the memory of sensation before she could put a name to it.

  Maybe she’d grown too used to being the only reckoner in the Land of Enchantment, at that.

  He lifted the glasses with one hand, folded them against his shoulder, and tucked the ear piece into a buttonhole of the toggle-fastened coat. He looked at her with one eyebrow raised so naturally that she instantly knew he’d never had to practice it in front of a mirror at all.

  “Well, no wonder,” she said, not bothering to hide her reaction. Who could? His eyes were eerie pewter, tarnished dark around the edges. She thrust the bowl at him and took her ice cream cone outside to the shaded, glass-topped sidewalk table where she’d left her book, perching on the edge of the wrought-iron seat.

  He didn’t ask her no wonder, what? He had to know the impact of those eyes. She licked at already dripping ice cream as he sat, his coat gaping to reveal supple leather panels in the gleam of the uncommonly fine material of the shirt. She said, “Okay, talk to me.”

  He’d been contemplating his flimsy plastic spoon but looked up at her words; his eyes were hard, cold metal. Something brushed against Garrie’s legs, fur unpleasant against the lingering sweat of their walk.

  The cat had found them.

  She caught another drip at the edge of her cone. “C’mon, then. We talking post-human spirits? Animal? Darkside goodies pulled in by some fake séance medium who never expected a response?”

  This time, because she could see those eyes, she knew he wasn’t simply ignoring her. After a moment he said, “Imports. Mixed with naturals.”

  Different terminology. Okay, she could deal with that.

  He added, “More than you’ve ever seen in one place.”

  She laughed, smearing ice cream over her chin. Without haste, she reached for her paper napkin and wiped away the blot of sweet green. “You’re making assumptions.”

  “Mow!” the cat interrupted, putting its paws on his thigh.

  Without any obvious thought, he scooped a tiny sliver of ice cream and held it down for the cat, whose raspy pink tongue made quick if delicate work of it. “Have you heard of Winchester House?”

  “Who in the business hasn’t?”

  Self-proclaimed ghosthunters, real-life sensitives, the rare full-fledged reckoner... they all knew of San Jose’s unbelievably huge, twisting maze of a house — rooms inside of rooms, rooms without doors, rooms without floors, rooms piled on rooms. The house was Mrs. Winchester’s ode to the people killed by her father’s rifle, a soothing balm to her own soul. It was a place to confuse spirits into endless wandering, and, inadvertently, a place they could call home.

  Of course, the presence of ghosts had never been confirmed, not even unofficially. Commercial ghosthunters weren’t allowed anywhere near the entrance; sensitives couldn’t bring themselves to get anywhere near the place. And reckoners...

  Reckoners had bigger things to worry about.

  Or at least, this particular reckoner had once had bigger things to worry about. The very fact that mention of the Winchester House had intrigued her, had caught her attention...

  Garrie dropped her forehead against the table and gently banged it on the glass. She was pathetic.

  “Ice cream,” he said, as if it was
an unfamiliar effort of social nicety. “In your hair.”

  She lifted her head to glare. “It adds to my charm,” she snapped. “What about Winchester House? They can’t want a cleansing. The whole purpose of that place is to gather the ghosties.”

  “It’s gone wrong,” he said simply.

  “No kidding.” She took an unnecessarily vicious bite of the ice cream and rolled the creamy mint over her tongue, watching his quicksilver eyes. The tight set of his mouth said that this mattered to him, if not why, and drew her attention to the small scar beneath his lower lip that looked as though it had really hurt, once. There was another tiny mark through the outside of his brow, and strands gleamed braided silver from within the mass of his hair — or so she thought, but then couldn’t find them again.

  There was more intensity in that expression than the situation required, truth be told. Things unsaid. Things that mattered to him

  “Why do you care?” she asked abruptly. “Why are you tracking me down, and not them?”

  Because hey, she could be blunt when she wanted to be.

  He sat back in the wrought iron chair; it creaked in protest. “The house holds generations of spirits. What do you think will happen if they turn?”

  Well, hell... raw, wild consequences, that’s what. The house wouldn’t hold them. San Jose might not even hold them. Something inside her thrilled to it, triggering guilt.

  One did not thrill to potential disaster. “You think it’s that bad?”

  He looked at her — then looked around, casting his gaze out onto the street toward Central, where the noon street noise rose to a dull roar punctuated by a motorcycle without a muffler, and then to the chattering students around them, and to his own obviously not-belonging self. In this, he wasn’t hard to read at all. I’m here, aren’t I?

  Garrie returned to her question, crossing her arms with the doggedness of it. “I know why me. Why you?”

  Impatience gathered at his brow. “I owe someone.” And for someone who’d coming looking for help, he was fond of ultimatums. “I have little time.”