“Seriously!” Drew threw himself down on his own bed, and only managed to stay there for an instant before popping up again. “I bet it’s on the news — what station is the news?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but turned on the set and began flipping channels — or turning the volume down. By then Lucia had laid out a new bag and quickly, efficiently plucked items from the bed jumble.
“Is that a fanny pack?” Garrie asked, incredulous. The television said removes stains! — the majestic lion — make my day — this just in —
Lucia shot her a look full of scorn. “Puh-leeze, chicalet. This is a waist bag. And it’s a Roots. That makes it urban chic.”
Oxy-blast! — in two short weeks — I’ve got a bad feeling about this — natural hair!
Garrie snatched the remote from Drew’s hands, turned off the television, and tossed the remote beside Lucia’s things, knowing he’d never trespass there.
“Hey!” He contrived to look wounded.
“Put your neurons in order,” Garrie snapped at him. “You, too, Lucia. What’s going on? And where’s Beth?”
“At her apartment.” Drew backed up a step or two, and appeared relieved to have an easy answer at hand. Garrie dialed down the fierce. Maybe those dreams had left their mark on her after all.
Or maybe he deserved a smack upside the head and was actually getting off lightly.
“She’s going to meet us at the house tonight,” Drew added helpfully.
Garrie gave him a wary squint. “She knows our plans?”
“She’s down with it,” Drew said, beaming. “I think it’s great, the way she’s willing to help —”
“And you don’t think she’s not going to warn them? Drew, that house is her life! Working there is her life — how she identifies herself. How could you —”
She broke off; she knew the instant before she heard his voice that Trevarr stood in the doorway behind her. It wasn’t the sudden apprehension on Drew’s face. It wasn’t the way Lucia’s expression shifted to something slightly more formal, so subtle only someone who knew her would notice at all.
It was just... knowing.
He said flatly, “You told the guide.”
“Beth,” Drew corrected; he even pulled himself up a lanky inch or two, although it took all his evident courage. “I trust her. After what we went through... Anyway, she knows it’s got to be done.”
Lucia snapped the flap on the larger of the two square, side-by-side pouches of the waist pack. “Garrie, you really need to hear this.”
“I’ve been trying to hear it!” Garrie sputtered. She glanced at Trevarr — found droplets of water glistening at his hairline and his shirt tidied in front while the back half still hung out. She hadn’t been the only one freshening up. “I just need for someone to spit it out!”
“Bugs!” said Drew.
“Goo!” said Lucia.
Garrie covered her face with her hands. After a moment, she peeked out into the silence. A meaningful peek.
Drew pulled in a deep breath and said, “We went to eat at Original Joe’s downtown and halfway through the meal, beetles started crawling out of the woodwork, and I mean literally, and there were a lot of them. I thought darksiders because sometimes I see those, but everyone saw them, and not only that they — well, look!” He thrust his hand out toward her. “We had to run for it, and I mean literally. I’m still not sure how we made it through. The front doors were packed and we had to sprint over this carpet of beetles — only trust me, these weren’t any beetles you’ve ever seen before.”
“What did they look like?” The sharp interest in Trevarr’s voice startled Garrie, but not enough to take her gaze from Drew’s hand. Thumb and first two fingers were profoundly reddened, blisters already weeping. She stepped forward, grabbing up the hand — carefully — and pulling it in for a closer look.
“Watch it!” Drew said, unnecessarily.
“Ay, caray!” Garrie muttered. “We need some serious Band-Aid action here.”
“Beth and I picked some up on the way back. But she said I should wash off first. In case some of the acid or whatever is still on my skin.”
“Yes,” Trevarr said. “Do that. Do it well.”
Garrie dropped Drew’s hand. “Do it now,” she said. And to Trevarr, “You know what did this?”
Drew snorted on the way to the sink. “Seriously. These little dudes were like the Hummers of armored stink beetles, that’s what. With fluorescent freckles on their asses and a weird little cluster of fiber optic eyes up front.”
Garrie frowned at him. He looked back over his shoulder as if sensing her regard. “You know. Eyes on stalks.”
Fine. Back to Trevarr. Who said nothing, but she would have bet anything he knew. “Okay,” she said. “It’s not anything I’ve ever seen, but that doesn’t mean it’s not rare darkside. The question is, why —”
“Goo!” Lucia burst out again.
Oh, right. The goo.
Lucia gestured wildly. “Goo everywhere!”
“Whoa, Lu. Take a breath. Where were you?”
“Santana Row. The most amazing collection of stores. And I was right there in the shoe store and suddenly there was goo. Black, icky, oozing goo.”
Garrie just looked at her.
“Climbing goo,” Lucia said with emphasis. “And it ate the shoes.”
“Ate?
Garrie could imagine goo doing a lot of things. Dissolving items, for instance. Sucking them in. But eating... that implied a whole separate set of facts about the goo in question.
Lucia straightened. Beauty pageant posture. She wasn’t kidding around. She lifted her chin and announced, “It belched.”
“Ohh-kay,” Garrie took herself over to the chair in the corner and carelessly fell back into it, pulling one leg up to keep her company. “Goo everywhere, and it ate things.”
“It was in the store beside us, too, a cute little children’s store. I think someone there was injured. Hard to tell, what with the firefighters and all. They called it an environmental spill.” Lucia made a face. “They wanted me to stick around. Witness and all that. I thought it would be better if I didn’t. That cat sure saved the day. I mean, weirdly. Somehow. Seriously.”
Garrie felt herself stiffen. “What do you mean, cat? There was a cat? What did it do?”
Trevarr, standing in the doorway in his partly reassembled state, fooled her at first glance. Remarkably calm, only modestly curious. But when she looked at his still-bare toes, she found them clenching the carpet.
Lucia explained about the handsome cat with the somewhat overlarge ears, and how it had come out of nowhere and how the goo had literally seemed to give way before it. “I’m not kidding, chicalet. We were trapped. The cat came out and stood and stared with squinty cat eyes, and the goo just... parted.” Drew nodded enthusiastically as he returned with his hand cradled in a wet towel; he’d obviously heard this already.
“The cat parted the goo. Okay. You didn’t bring it back here with you?”
“The goo?” Lucia asked, confused.
“The cat,” Garrie told her dryly. “Since we don’t have a beetle and we don’t have the goo that eats things, even the cat would be helpful.”
“The cat,” Trevarr said, as if aware no one would truly listen, “might have been coincidence.”
Lucia sat on the edge of the bed, disappointment drawing her brows together. “You really don’t know, do you? What’s going on?”
“Other than not believing in coincidences and therefore thinking this is tied into Winchester House?” Garrie shook her head. “Not a clue.”
“Then we’d better figure it out,” Drew said, quite seriously. “Because this isn’t small potatoes, Garrie. This is the big bling. And it’s really, really public.”
“The big bling,” Garrie murmured, casting him a skeptical eye.
But she couldn’t argue with Drew’s sentiment. Reckoning was best done silently. Once people started to take note, there was too much fuss to do the j
ob properly, too many people trying to prove that she was a charlatan or just plain crazy — or worse, that she needed their help to get the job done. She shuddered.
“I think Drew’s right,” Lucia said. “I think it’ll probably make the news. But that’s not what I’m most worried about.”
Garrie looked at her, not getting it, and Lucia made an impatient gesture. “Look at us. You’ve been attacked, Beth’s been attacked, and even being at Winchester House somehow made you sick. Now Drew’s burned, and the goo ate shoes. Who’s to say it wouldn’t have eaten us?” Her mouth flattened on perfectly applied gloss. “Who’s to say that the next time out... it won’t?”
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 19
Whipped by Chocolate
Process each situation with aplomb.
— RRose
I take it back. That can’t be good.
Lisa McGarrity
“Enough is enough,” Garrie said, stopping all conversation of goo, beetles, and shopping in its tracks. “I need a cell phone.”
Didn’t have to be hers; just had to have Quinn’s number programmed in. Lucia instantly proffered her fancy bells-n-whistles phone; Drew lay back on the bed to grope around in his baggy front pocket until he came up with his cut-rate barely-smart-at-all phone.
Trevarr didn’t so much as move. Because of course... no cell phones there.
Garrie took Lucia’s offering and fumbled through the barely familiar menu to find Quinn’s number. She glanced at her watch, realized she had no idea whether he’d be at work, and activated the call anyway.
The phone rang... rang...
Rang.
Just as she got ready to talk to his voice mail, he picked up — snatched up, by the sound of it, and all breathless at that.
“Whoa,” she said, unfiltered in her relief. “Did I interrupt a little afternoon delight?”
He hung up.
Garrie thunked her forehead with her hand several deliberate times and passed the phone back to Lucia.
Lucia tossed her hair back, thumbed a few commands, and dialed again. “Quinnie,” she said, “It’s me this time. Don’t hang up, no?” A nod, another nod... she crossed her legs over the knee and idly rotated her foot around. “Yes, yes. She was rude.” She glanced at Garrie, who made a face of horror and mouthed no, no. “Yes, of course she’s right here. Will you, then?”
She held out the phone and gave Garrie a Look.
Garrie took it. She cleared her throat and said in a cheerful voice, “Oh, hey, Quinn, how’s it going?”
“Miss me?” he asked dryly. No longer breathless.
“Yes,” she told him, without reservation. “I wish you were here. We all wish you were here. Can you come? We’re doing B&E at the estate in a couple hours. Bet you can be here by then. Charter a flight. We need you.”
There was a pause. A long one. Garrie winced, looking at Lucia to see if that, too, had somehow come out wrong, but Lucia gave her a thumbs up and returned to her fanny pack chores. Drew rolled dramatic eyes and threw himself on his bed.
Trevarr disappeared back into his own space, taking a great deal of the room’s tension with him.
“Seriously,” Garrie said into the phone. “Lucia has a fanny pack. That’s worth seeing, isn’t it?”
“It’s a designer waist bag,” Lucia said, voice raised.
Quinn made a funny huffing sound. “Okay,” he said. “I mean, not okay, I’m coming. But you made up some points with that little round of begging.”
“I was not —” Garrie stopped herself. “Yeah, okay, I was.”
“You know, I’d be there already if you’d done anything lately to make me feel like it would be a good idea,” he said. “But I can’t tell if the way you’re managing things lately means the aftermath of friends with benefits is a problem, or if you just can’t deal with this much team —”
Thank goodness, room service knocked at the door, a young man’s voice announcing himself. Drew bounded to his feet. “Food!”
“My food!” Garrie cried.
She needn’t have worried; by the time Drew returned with the room service tray, Trevarr stood in the doorway again. Drew quickly left the tray on the little work desk, conceding the entire corner of the room with a mutter about his two lunches sitting heavy.
“Sorry,” Garrie told Quinn. “Chaotic moment here.”
“Good timing for you, then,” he said. “If only I’d been distracted. Which I wasn’t.”
“I didn’t know you’ve felt that way.” She wasn’t sure if she’d truly given him reason to feel shoved out or if the problem was all his, but either way... “But it’s been months, Quinn. A year. And I’m fine with it. It’s just that things have been a little slow lately —”
“And here you had such a nice start.”
“It’s true!”
“And that’s why when something finally came along, you left me in the dark?”
Oh, that wasn’t fair. Garrie sputtered just a little. “No, that’s why when something finally came along, I jumped at it and left you all in the dark!”
Silence from Quinn.
“Still in the dark,” Garrie muttered, not happy with any of it.
“Still?” he sounded surprised.
Ah. Of course he’d though the lack of an update was all about him.
“Quinn,” she said. “Why do you think I called in the first place? You want to know more, or not? You big dork.”
Lucia followed readily enough, even as she sorted her belongings. She didn’t even look up. “Dork, Quinnie.”
That got silence of a different sort. Lucia’s matter-of-fact tone told Quinn as much as anything did.
Trevarr moved past Garrie to the desk, sat, and pulled out a sharp, tidy little knife that had been... where, at his waist?... in lieu of using the perfectly serviceable hotel steak knife. The knife melted its way through the meat like a laser tool and Garrie eyed the blade askance. Sharp much?
“Tell Quinn about the beetles!” Drew urged her.
“The goo,” Lucia said firmly.
Garrie tugged the hair behind her ear. “Quinn, this is what we’ve been waiting for! Real work! A job no one but us can handle — and I’m not sure we’re going to get it done without you.”
He made a brief sound in his throat. “It’s not going to happen, Garrie. I’m dealing with my life here. Maybe once this work was my whole life, but the way things have gone since —”
“Ask him about the book,” Trevarr said, giving a stringy yellow mystery vegetable a suspicious sniff and setting it aside.
“The beetle!”
“The goo!”
“I’m supposed to ask you about a book,” Garrie said into the phone, giving up. “And to see if you know about these beetles. And the goo. And while we’re at it, spirits or darksiders who might remain invisible even to me. Not to mention the belching stench from the café.”
“You have been busy.” Quinn stretched, his clothing rustling. “Yeah, there’s a book. I was waiting for you to get to it.”
“Now you know just how in the dark I am,” she said, and glared at Trevarr. He didn’t appear to notice.
“You don’t know the half of it.” Quinn shuffled papers, and she heard the sound of a heavy object being shifted — weighty pages being flipped. She knew where he was, now. At home, in the office half of the small apartment’s living room. “I’ve never seen anything like this, Garrie. From the leather binding to the spine scrollwork to the construction... where did it come from?”
“I don’t have a clue,” she said. “What is it? Resource material?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” The awe in his voice couldn’t have been feigned. “This is way beyond anything I’ve ever seen — way beyond even your crib notes from Rhonda Rose.”
Garrie made a sniffy huh kind of noise.
“I’m not kidding. Problem is...” and there was a frown in his voice, “there’s no context. And... no English. Or any other language I recognize, not tha
t I’m a linguist. But the illustrations are amazing. As if someone decided to make an Entities for Dummies book.”
“Not sure what that makes us,” Garrie said dryly. “How about I pass the phone around — you can hear about the beetle and the goo.” While I eat my dinner before it gets any colder. “By then it’ll pretty much be like you’re here, anyway.”
“Except not really,” Quinn said, not buying it.
Well, okay. “No,” she admitted. “Not really.” And she gave the phone to Lucia anyway, unable to squelch her scowl.
It had never occurred to her that any of the others would take her self-doubts and career examination as anything other than what it was — and as far as she knew, Lucia and Drew hadn’t.
Then again, Lucia had the benefit of long conversations over horchata, and Drew just plain hadn’t appeared to notice. While Quinn...
Quinn was the one who’d slept with her.
Listening to Lucia chatter in the background, Garrie slid into the chair opposite Trevarr and picked up her napkin and silverware, and eyed the big honkin’ steak, the weird mixed veggies, and the slabby fries. She glanced at Trevarr’s plate; half the food was already gone and he didn’t seem close to stopping.
No surprise. He looked as though he could use it. For all the substance he carried, he showed too lean in places — she’d felt it, too, in those moments they’d tangled. “I’m only going to eat half of this,” she said. “If you —”
“Yeah!” Drew’s eyes lit up from across the room.
Garrie didn’t so much as glance his way. “ — want this,” she finished, cutting her steak in half while she was at it, and forking it to lift slightly, waiting.
Something in his eyes flickered; she shifted the steak over to his plate and wondered that she’d ever found those eyes hard to read — and in the next moment, didn’t have a clue what hid behind them. She focused on the food for a few moments, chewing too fast at first. By then Drew had taken over the phone and Lucia sat beside him on his bed, close enough to hear Quinn’s responses if Drew held the phone tipped — which, after a poke, he did.
The steak was stupendous, filling every lurking carnivorous craving. The weird veggies were crunchy-tasty, with enough seasoning to keep them interesting. The fries were just how she liked them, crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. And still she had to remind herself to taste them at all.
The Reckoners Page 18