Beth didn’t get it. She bent to retrieve her hair sticks, making quick, sloppy work of twisting her disarrayed hair at the back of her head and stabbing the sticks into place. “My next group leaves any minute now —”
Drew took her by the shoulders, and Garrie had never seen his indeterminately murky eyes look more serious. “You can’t go back there now. It’s not safe.”
“But —” she said. “My shift —”
Mutely, Lucia held out her phone.
Beth just stared at the phone. Garrie made an exasperated sound. “Call them,” she said. “Tell them you ate something off from the café right before that mess started. Stick a finger down your throat if you need convincing sound effects.”
“I —” Beth looked both startled and offended. “I couldn’t!”
Drew took the phone. “What’s the number?”
Beth looked from Garrie to Lucia to Drew to Trevarr... lingered on Trevarr, who once again stood apart from them in the shade, once more a country unto himself. She muttered the number.
Drew punched it in without hesitation, and within moments he had someone on the line, offering just the right mix of concern and regret as he made excuses for Beth, and looked surprised along the way. “Huh,” he returning the phone to Lucia. “No big deal. They’re closing down the house for the rest of the day while they check things out. Grounds are still open, though.”
“They what?” Beth looked more shocked at this news than she had been at the attacking entities. “They closed it? They never close it!”
Drew shrugged. “So let me take you to lunch.”
She looked down at herself. Torn and disheveled and pale — and wow, what a mercy there was no mirror to reflect the state of her hair.
“You’ll feel better if you eat,” Drew said. “I always do.”
Lucia declared, “And I am going shopping. No more lingering here.” But she dug into her tote, pulled a brush from its petite depths, and motioned Beth over. “Garrie is going back to the hotel to rest and order some real food from room service. And Trevarr?”
He merely looked at her — probably wondering where this particular organizational frenzy was coming from.
Garrie knew. As Lucia gestured to Beth again, impatience evident, Garrie definitely knew. For Lucia was ready for shopping therapy. Ready enough so she went over to the tour guide, plucked out her hair sticks, and tackled the tangles with swift but gentle efficiency. Beth froze, deer in the headlights, while Lucia made tsking noises at the mess.
“Someone call that taxi,” Garrie said. “Before the red jackets come looking for us again.” Or worse.
Beth seemed to hear those unspoken words. “Let’s just go in my car,” she said, gesturing at a vehicle at the far corner of the parking lot — one that looked far too small for Trevarr alone, never mind Trevarr with the rest of them. “Let’s go now.”
They did, it turned out, fit into the car. So they went.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 13
The Really Nice Hotel
Look askance at what lures you.
— Rhonda Rose
Parlor, fly.
— Lisa McGarrity
Back at the hotel, Lucia squeezed out of the back seat first, her posterior poised in the doorway; she plucked something feathery from her arm and tossed it into the back cargo area.
Beth said, “Sorry, I was hauling costume gear. There’s this con —” She shook her newly re-coiffed head. “Never mind. Let’s just say that Bill the Pony earns his keep.”
“This is a car,” Trevarr said warily.
“Psst,” Garrie said, still crammed into the seat beside him. “She named the car. Bill the Pony.”
Drew twisted in the front passenger seat to eye Trevarr in disbelief. “Come on. There’s no way you dress like that and haven’t read Tolkien.”
Garrie suspected that Drew had been aiming for that front passenger seat all along. He certainly made no effort to disembark from it now, as Lucia’s derriere hovered in the exit, gave a peculiar little wiggle, and then moved onward with such abrupt alacrity that Garrie knew she’d already hailed a cab.
Trevarr easily levered himself out of the little car, turning to offer an unexpected hand. Garrie wanted to wave him off, levitating out into the bright afternoon just as he’d somehow done. But she was tired and coming on cranky; the energies of the day had left her wrung out and twisted around. She took his hand, and in spite of the strength in the roughened fingers that closed around hers, she still stumbled while getting out of the car.
“Close the door!” Drew reminded her before her second foot even hit pavement. She closed it a little harder than necessary and the car gave a little hiccup as Beth shifted it into first and drove off.
For a moment, Garrie simply stood there, wrapping her head around the fact that her team had scattered here at the foot of the hotel, leaving her here to... what, nap?
She gave a haughty sniff, turned on her heel, and promptly tripped over her own feet.
Trevarr righted her, of course. Without comment.
“If Quinn was here,” she said, very small, “he would have stayed.”
“Quinn. The boyfriend.”
She shot him a quick incredulous look. “No! Hey, maybe once. Okay, twice. It was a fling! And oh, er —” because he’d shown no reaction at all, “You didn’t really want to know that.”
He slanted her a look from behind the sunglasses. “I was not soliciting.”
“Well, fark that,” Garrie muttered to herself, stalking into the hotel to jam her thumb on the elevator call button. A weird warping moan vibrated through the air; it fit the moment so perfectly she barely took note.
She’d eat, that’s what. And then she’d call Quinn and she’d take a shower and she’d see what Drew had learned. But first...
Yeah. A nap. Because if she knew one thing for sure, it was that her recently complacent life had not prepared her for any of this.
But heaven help her...
It still called to her. This, finally, was a job to do Rhonda Rose proud.
They rode the elevator in silence, split in silence to their separate doors, swiped their key cards with quick absent and silent efficiency, opened the doors in silent tandem —
“Hey,” Garrie said, indignant and not the least bit silent. “Who’s been lying in my bed?”
Okay, the maid had been here, that was clear enough. Both beds made. Mints all around. Drapes perfectly set to half-open, new plastic cups on top of the mini-fridge and the instant coffee packets resupplied. But —
Her side of the bed was a mess.
More than a mess. The bedspread had been pulled back from the pillow; the pillow was sideways. Garrie tugged it carelessly straight, discovered the mint —
No, wait. Discovered the outer wrapping of the mint. The empty outer wrapping of the mint. How weird was that? And when she ran her hand over the rumpled spread, her fingers caught in the holes that hadn’t been there that morning.
“No way!” She dropped down beside it, pulling it straight... running her hands over the several areas that had been...
Wow. Shredded.
“That’s just not right,” she murmured.
Besides, it made no sense. Sure, a determined ghost with a grudge might inflict this kind of damage, but there hadn’t been any ghosts here. And surely housekeeping had better things to do. Much better things to do.
Garrie splayed her fingers out over the bedspread. She narrowed her eyes at the damage, felt her chin get annoyed and determined. Fine. Reporting the damage wasn’t going to go well, but fine.
It could wait.
She grabbed up her pillow, squinted at the many inexplicable fine hairs drifting to the floor, and marched around to Lucia’s side of the bed, kicking off her shoes. There she climbed aboard, rolled the bedspread up over her body like a cocoon, and plumped her pillow over her head instead of under it.
Far too many unanswered questions lingered the forefront of her mind, poki
ng and prodding at exhaustion she shouldn’t have felt from a visit to even the most wildly haunted house. As she finally drifted to sleep, she felt only the faint physical memory of a hand on her belly, cold-hot energy pushing through thin shirts, the addictive rush of energy reaching for every inner corner of her being... And just at that verge of sleep moment, she suddenly wasn’t sure if she’d ever taken control of it, or if it had simply, quietly, taken control of her.
~~~~~
Sklayne sat quiet.
So quiet.
Pulled unto himself, invisible in every sense. All the broken parts from earlier in the day reassembled.
Don’t look here, small person.
If he made no movement, no breezes for the small person of much power to discern...
Maybe she would have no idea he sat tucked away on the back corner of the massive red mahogany stand with the delightfully chaotic television and the drawers stuffed with clothes and half the copious pocket contents of the lanky Drew person who listened to the past.
Sklayne didn’t think the lanky Drew person would miss those hard candies with the linty outer layer. Crunchy.
But now he sat quiet, so quiet.
Trevarr moved around the adjoining room in his habitual near-silence. Soon, time to return there, to understand better what unhappy hard thing had happened during their separation. But here, now, he waited.
The small person’s breathing grew deeper, more regular... occasionally included a muffled little purr of a snore.
Sklayne stood. Cat body mixed with Sklayne energy... the in-between form, barely visible. Cat of purest glass transparency, tinted faintest indigo blue. He moved a tidy paw... waited.
Went unnoticed.
A flip of ear, a flick of tail, and he bounded quite suddenly across the room and up onto the bed, making little dimples of progress across the puffy bedspread.
Shredded.
Regret at that. He stopped, delicately sniffing the damage.
The scent of her drew him. Just as he’d found her pillow so irresistible, now he so found her. He padded up to the curve of her hip beneath the rolled-up bedspread, more shape than he’d expected for the otherwise scant nature of her. She’d turned over to her side, clutching the end of the bedspread around her, her head beneath the pillow.
Odd person.
He touched her chin with his whiskers, sniffing delicately; scent filled his nostrils and threatened to wring a sneeze from him. He butted his head into the puffy quilted covering and muffled the sound of it.
So strong. So intense. So unique.
And now so tainted.
Sklayne’s tail lashed at the familiar duality of nature; he glared at the adjoining door. Answers, Trevarr...
But he couldn’t bring himself to do the smart thing, to tear himself away from this sleeping one and go face off with his atreyvo. No, he drew in close, pulling in the scents, luxuriating in what she was... and analyzing what she wasn’t supposed to be.
No wonder she had been tired. No wonder the very essence of her tasted wrong. What had Trevarr done?
Sklayne moved around her, precise paw placement stitching an outline of her body. He shaped the breezes around her... made them soothing, made them cleansing.
When she stirred slightly, he repaired to the end of the bed to pay fastidious attention to one already spotless — still transparent — paw, grooming assiduously between the toes. Just observing.
Eyes narrowed, he slid awareness to the room next door — to the man who sat slumped, staring off through half-opened curtains, sunglasses tossed aside and eyes neither covered nor disguised. Elbow on the little fake desk thing, legs sprawled out to take up more than their fair share of space... and tired. Just as tired as the Garrie person.
Trevarrrr. What did you do?
He eased back to the Garrie person, inhaled deeply. Startled, whiskers flattened, and did it again.
!!!
All the hair on his cat tail puffed out to twice its normal size; all the hair along his back stood on end and his bony bottom jutted up in the air to join it. Making him all fierce at the dissonance of deeply buried hum of Trevarr. Interfering with the small person’s inner breezes, invading her inner spaces. Fading now, but still humming discordantly.
He patted her, so gently, transparent claws carefully sheathed... she made a snuffling little noise and fell more deeply into sleep.
Fine. Good. But what did you do? Sklayne stared at the adjoining door and slid his awareness back to Trevarr. Slid in deep, as he rarely did — rarely welcome, either. Found the lingering pain there, deep and aching, and followed it to memories and feelings and what —
Get out! Startled fury sent Sklayne tumbling off the bed with a hiss and a spit.
Get in here!
::Your mind!:: Sklayne sent back, claws digging into carpet. ::Make it up!::
In. Here. Now.
And with that last, Trevarr gave a jerk of the command tone he seldom used, the one with real physical consequences. The one Sklayne couldn’t defy or ease his way around or even drag his heels.
“Mow!”
The Garrie person stirred, making a dreamer’s half-roused sound of dismay.
But it didn’t matter. Sklayne was already gone — a quick pow of energy, a literal explosion into his pure form and a dash beneath the door to Trevarr.
Leaving the Garrie person to her dreams.
~~~~~
Heat assailed her. It made her twitch with the impulse to find cool earth, to go to ground. But darkness swirled around her, bringing sharp, astringent scents and the faint patter of something wind-borne against her skin. Insects, pollen, random debris... she knew only that it stung.
Something wild howled in the night — an arching, ululating cry that seemed to come from all directions at once. The air landed thick on her throat and tongue, settled in the corners of her lungs.
Not the right air. Too hot, too humid, too thick with power.
Spt-spt-spt-spt! The cry broke off into rapid-fire hiss-spitting just to her side. She whirled and found eyes, big night-creature orbs wide and unblinking in a swirl of darkness that suddenly resolved as billows of inky fog, so thick as to obscure what must have been daylight. It cleared long enough to see huge tufted ears and a sinuous furred body and childlike paw-hands and a long flick of a tail. It yowled and spt-spt-spt bounded away, climbing thick banks of darkness as easily as solid ground.
The darkness yowled back.
There are others.
She drew on her breezes, pushing at the fog — trying to clear her path and clear her mind. But the moment she reached for familiar energy, the unfamiliar poured in, cold and harsh — a dam-break of frothing, churning flow, filling her from the core outward. Burning, somehow familiar.
She gasped, floundering in the sensation — reveling in it and panicking in it all at once. But gasping only brought in that thick, sharp air — not the right air — and as she struggled with it, she found more eyes in the darkness, silvered cat’s eyes, full of glow and meaning. Something shifted through the darkness... a man’s torso, muscled and lean... but not.
Tattoos, blooming to the surface... but not.
Air, filling her lungs... but not.
Not the right air...
Not the right energy...
Not the right life...
~~~~~
Sklayne rolled into Trevarr’s room, a roiling bundle of energy, expanding faster than his wont — encompassing the world and then pulling himself back together to cat. “Mow!”
“Don’t,” Trevarr said before Sklayne had even stopped moving, before his feline protest had died away. Sklayne’s whiskers pulled back on a hiss of protest — but it was a scolding kept silent. Trevarr grim, Trevarr battered at the edges. Not the right time.
::What?:: he demanded, in spite of it. ::How?::
Trevarr rubbed hands over his face, made the expression that meant annoyed reluctance. But Sklayne had been bound too long... he knew the annoyance was not for him.
Trevarr reached to an inner pocket of the coat that held everything.
Sklayne should know. Sometimes it held him.
He pulled out the ekhevia — sleek thing, fitting in Trevarr’s hand when it should, but holding so much more. Gathering. Tracking. A recorder of the energies passing by.
It clattered onto the minimalistic work desk. But when Sklayne leapt lightly to that surface to inspect it — a sniff, a touch, all so cat-like but using senses no creature from this world had ever possessed — Trevarr’s hand slapped over it, startling Sklayne away.
“Hiss-spit!”
Trevarr ignored that, pinning Sklayne with a gaze he knew well to avoid. This was not a time to dare a glimpse. “Mind yourself,” Trevarr said, and his voice confirmed it.
Not a time to dare.
Except Sklayne had duties. Obligations. And he’d never make it back home if Trevarr didn’t do this right. Fur ruffled up; he smoothed it. Tail puffed out. He sat, licked a paw, rubbed it over his face. Convenient cat habit, covering so much. Uncertainty. Embarrassment. Or even fear of one’s own temerity. ::Felt you. Felt it.::
“It’s not a problem,” Trevarr said. Definitely a growl.
Sklayne hesitated in his wash, paw held poised for the next lick. Clear in his skepticism.
“It surprised me,” Trevarr said, slipping back into the Keharian language. “This place...” He stopped, looked over to the closed door between the rooms. “Her. It won’t happen again.”
::Hurt her,:: Sklayne said. Observation, not accusation. He gave up on the paw, put it beside the other to sit primly on the table. Sitting beside Trevarr’s travel satchel with its spilled relics and sundries — Solchran’s memory stone, the kirkhirrra belt with its complexity of knots and history.
Trevarr’s expression tightened; he looked away. Sklayne licked furiously at his back, hiding confusion. Not an expression he’d seen often.
“I know it did,” Trevarr said. Too low, his voice. “It won’t happen again.”
The Reckoners Page 13