by P. R. Frost
“Okay. It’s a kind of riddle. I don’t know the meaning. Only that it’s connected to the vision quest my great-grandfather had when he became a man.” He paused and gulped. “It translates loosely—very loosely as there are no modern equivalent words to a lot of it.”
“Does it makes sense in English?” It wouldn’t do me a lot of good if it only made sense in archaic Paiute.
“Maybe to you. It says: The moon awakes from a little sleep. It becomes a key held in the arm of a . . . a Guardian who is also a monster. That word is really not right, but it’s the closest I can come.”
“What does this moon key open?” A portal. It had to be a clue to a portal.
“It opens a path to twilight lands of peace and plenty, lands that a Warrior may glimpse but never enter. Only one Warrior will rise above the ties that bind him to this earth to walk between.” He sat back and closed his eyes. The look of exhaustion returned, as if he’d channeled that bit of information instead of repeating a memory.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah.This recording cuts off before the end. My great-grandfather said that this key only works once in ten lifetimes.”
I touched his hand briefly in thanks, and sympathy. “This was your vision quest, too, wasn’t it.”
“Yeah. Does it mean anything to you?”
“Not yet. But it will. The Powers that Be will let me know when I need to know.”
“The Powers That Be?” he mused more than asked. “Do you fight alongside Breven Sancroix?”
Something in his guarded expression made me wary. “We trained in the same tradition, but I have never fought beside him.”
“My instincts tell me that he is not to be trusted.” He kept his eyes lowered to the recorder in his hands.
“Even though his nephew owns this hotel?”
“Especially because his nephew owns this hotel. He did not come by the majority shares honestly. He . . . he is not normal. His . . . you white folks call it an aura . . . his aura is not fully human.”
He only confirmed my suspicions.
My informant lowered his voice further. “He doesn’t talk about it, but I believe there is another stockholder. One who does not walk before twilight.”
Abruptly, he dropped the recorder into my lap and left without looking back.”
Gollum had left my room by the time I returned. I noticed he’d taken four bottles of water from the case in the bathroom. The best hangover remedy I’ve discovered is lots of cool clear water and as many aspirin as my tummy will handle, followed by orange juice or tomato juice in the morning.
As enticing as my bed looked, I couldn’t rest yet. Still one more chore.
I tried Donovan’s cell phone with another shot of scotch courage in me—the last of the bottle.
“What?” he growled.
“Sorry if I woke you. We need to talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you. You’ve made it quite clear what you think of me.”
“Don’t hang up,” I begged hastily. “Please. It’s about the ring.” I let that hang between us a moment, hoping he’d think I meant a possible engagement so he’d pause long enough to let me continue.
“What about it?”
“I saw the same ring in Lady Lucia’s wedding portrait.” I still hadn’t convinced myself she really was a vampire and had lived during the Napoleonic Wars.
“You sure it’s the same ring?” He sounded interested. Or suspicious.
“Pretty sure. It looked a lot like Gregbaum’s pinky ring.”
“You still at the hotel?” he asked.
I heard a rustle of clothing in the background and tried hard to rid my mind of the image of Donovan in the nude. Such a beautiful man on the outside. Why couldn’t he be as beautiful on the inside? Or at least trustworthy where my heart was concerned.
“In my room.”
“Alone? You don’t need to answer that. The nerd is there, too. Harder to separate you from him than it is from that imp of yours.”
I didn’t want to think about those implications. “Actually, I am alone.”
Seconds later Donovan tapped at my door.
“You didn’t check out of the hotel after all,” I greeted him. “You just bribed the front desk to divert your calls.”
“Nice to see you too, Tess.” He bent to kiss my cheek as he pushed past me into the room. “What’s this all about, and why do you have anything to do with Lady Lucia? She’s more dangerous to you than you can imagine.”
I swallowed my defensiveness. As long as Donovan had information I needed, I couldn’t let my emotions lead us into another fight.
“Lady Lucia summoned us.”
“Not good.” Donovan took Gollum’s place in the armchair. “Start at the beginning,” he ordered me.
“You already know the part about the flowers and the tickets to ‘Fairy Moon.’ ”
“But not why she sent them.” I suspected a lie there. He knew, or at least knew part of it. I could tell by the narrowing of his pupils. “Talk, Tess.”
My back bristled at his orders. I wanted to slap him. Or kiss him. I didn’t know which. So I stood with my back to him and stared out at the lights of Las Vegas. After too many long moments I told him everything, from the beginning, from my first encounter with the wereweasel to Mickey disappearing.
“He’s gone back to Faery for more information,” Donovan muttered.
“Scrap says the entrance to Faery from the chat room is closed.”
“Then how are you supposed to get the dancers back home?”
“Apparently there’s a rogue portal in the Valley of Fire. Gregbaum’s goons are guarding it. Lady Lucia thinks I can find it.” And the nameless bartender had given me clues if I only knew how to follow them.
“You may be the only human who can find it,” Donovan mused. He stared longingly at the empty bottle of scotch.
“Are you implying that Gregbaum isn’t human?” I shuddered. Kajiri demons could transform into a human body in this dimension. Midori, or full-blood demons, could only shape-change in their home dimension.
“I didn’t think Gregbaum was Kajiri, but from the way you describe him, he might be,” Donovan mused. “How else does he have the strength to cast true magic?”
“What’s his other half?”
Donovan shrugged.
“What about the ring?” I asked. “Does it have any special significance?”
“According to Tuscan legends, the Continelli family are magicians. But that talent died out around the time of Lady Lucia’s ‘death,’ ” Donovan said. “Perhaps the ring gave them the powers, and she took it with her when she um . . . left.”
“Lady Lucia died. The family castle was burned to the ground in 1818, the entire family trapped inside. This lady is a fraud,” I insisted.
“Are you sure about that, Tess?” Donovan asked. “Did they ever find all the bodies?”
“What do you know?” I rounded on him.
“Too much and not enough.”
“Where’d you get the ring, Donovan? Why’d you choose that ring to propose to me with?”
“Marry me, and I’ll tell you all I know.” Donovan fixed me with a steady glare, daring me to refuse.
“You cheating bastard, that’s blackmail!” I suppressed the excitement that warred with my anger.
Now what did I do?
Chapter 28
The Strip became the nickname of Las Vegas Boulevard because all the glitzy neon signs reminded a casino owner of Sunset Boulevard, also known as Sunset Strip.
“DON’T DO IT, TESS. Don’t give in. I can tell you want the ring. It calls to you. You lust after it more than you lust after Mr. Stinky. And that is saying a lot.” I call to her from my perch outside her door. I got back from my investigations just in time.
I can tell the ring must come to my Tess; if for no other reason than she could help me free the trapped imp from his diamond prison.
His fate scares me more than Mum does. I can’t let him sta
y there any longer than necessary.
“Scrap, is the ring my next artifact of power?” she asks on a tight mental connection that Donovan will never intercept.
“Maybe, babe,” I hedge. “Maybe not. Too soon to tell.”
But I know. I know faery magic will make it fit her hand perfectly. I know it will safely guide her wherever she needs to go.
I don’t know its history well enough to guess further. I only know it was meant for Tess.
But if she gives in to Donovan, he will be the death of me.
When I die, Tess dies.
I cannot let that happen. But how can I protect her when Donovan’s presence pushes me away from my babe with a stronger spell than the protective web around the faery dancers?
I must find a way to separate Tess from Donovan. Maybe Lady Lucia can help. She wants the ring, too. She seems to favor Tess.
Hmmmm, I wonder why.
“If I married you tonight, what’s to keep me from filing for annulment on grounds of coercion the moment you tell me everything?” I asked. Try as I might, I couldn’t keep my face and voice bland.
There was more to this ring business than either Donovan or Scrap wanted to tell me.
“You have too much honor bred into you, Tess, to ever do that to me. And if you did plan on that, I’d still have a night in which to persuade you that you and I are meant to be together.” Donovan stood up in one smooth movement. A step brought him to my side.
He didn’t touch me. Yet he was so close, his warmth enfolded me in an aura that blotted out the rest of the world. His breath on my neck tingled all the way to my toes. My body tensed in anticipation of something wild and wonderful.
“You’re right. I won’t go through another quicky marriage in a drive-by wedding chapel. When I marry again, I’ll do it right, in a church, with flowers and music, and hundreds of guests and a huge reception that costs the earth.”
I had to step away from him. My head already spun with desire. I needed all my strength of will to keep from wrapping my arms around him and kissing his socks off.
“You’ll never find out what you need to know . . .”
“I’ll just have to ask Lady Lucia.”
“Tess, no. She’s dangerous. Even if she weren’t a vampire, she controls criminal elements in this town that won’t hesitate to eliminate those who get too curious.” He reached a hand out to me.
I skipped away, as fearful of him as I was of any horde of demons.
Demons, I knew how to fight.
“The rules still stand. I can’t marry you until I trust you. I can’t trust you until I know the truth about what you are.”
“I am a man.”
“Now. What were you fifty years ago when you ‘fell’?”
“How’d you . . . ?”
“King Scazzy, the prison warden of the universe, told me that you fell. What did you fall from?” That oh-so-real dream when I lay cradled in his arms rushed through me faster than I/we fell in that dream.
Something . . .
And Dill. What did my deceased husband have to do with his fall?
“A believer falls from grace,” he offered, holding his hands out, palms up, in a universal gesture of supplication.
“That sounds close, but not the truth. Maybe you fell . . .
A flash of inspiration or memory or something very like a vision rocked me. Maybe something from the dream.The half-remembered sensation of wings falling off, the debris of a solid body shattering, the rush of fear and joy at the first sensation of movement after ever so long sitting and watching. Ever watching, never doing.
Failing in my/his/our mission because I/he/we couldn’t move,could only sit and watch and let other powers overwhelm me/him/us.
And then another memory. This one was really mine. I had to grab hold of the entertainment cabinet to remain upright.
An autumnal rain in the middle of the high desert of central Washington State. I stood in the central yard of the Citadel surrounded by my Sisters of the Celestial Blade. A dedication ceremony for the newly repaired roof of the refectory. A line of copper-and-stone gargoyles on the edges, spouting streams of rain onto carefully placed plant groupings. One missing gargoyle failed to channel water off the roof. Instead, the empty place dumped a river of water onto Sister Gert’s head. The rest of the Sisterhood had to suppress our giggles. Even then, three years ago, Sister Gert barely held on to the reins of leadership.
The broken gargoyle had been a bat.
The second time I’d seen Donovan, before we officially met, he’d been with a family group at a convention. All of them dressed very realistically as bats.
I shuddered in revulsion. Anything but a bat.
Donovan’s foster father, my short-lived stepfather, had been a Damiri demon who took bat form.
Donovan had told me once that he was given to Darren for fostering because of a resemblance.
Dear Goddess, anything but a bat.
“Gargoyles are more than decorative rain spouts,” I whispered.
Donovan blanched.
That told me all I needed to know.
“Which cathedral did you fall from?” I asked in fascinated horror.
“In a strange coincidence, Lincoln Cathedral, the home of the iconic depiction of all imps. I’ll have to take you there sometime to show you the statue of Scrap’s distant ancestor.”
“Gargoyles are supposed to repel evil spirits. But you came to sympathize with them. You let them overwhelm you and invade a vital place!”
“I didn’t consciously allow enemies into a sacred place. I was too young and inexperienced when I took the job. Gargoyles don’t grow and change and learn after they assume a solid body.”
“Is that why you are so dedicated to providing the Kajiri with a homeland? Because you sympathize with them, want to be one of them?” I really shuddered then. My teeth chattered with the ice that spread from my belly outward.
“No. I have other reasons for providing refuge to Kajiri.”
“A refuge? A place where they can take their natural forms without prejudice. A place where they can eat what they need to sustain their lives—including human blood.”
Blood drained from my head. Now I had to sit down. I wrapped my arms around myself and rocked back and forth on the edge of the bed.
How could I ever have thought I could have a future with this man?
How could I have ever let him touch me?
“You fell, all right. Fell from a noble calling, from honor and dignity. You have betrayed the very purpose of your creation! You have defiled your mission in life.”
“I was ugly and reviled. Just like the ones I was supposed to banish.”
“So the Powers That Be gave you physical beauty to teach you that there are things more important.” I shifted so I didn’t have to look at him. “How does Dill fit into this? I shared your dream of falling, only to be caught by Dillwyn Bailey Cooper.”
“You shared my dream? Do you know how rare that is? How special? Doesn’t that tell you that we belong together?”
“Answer my question, Donovan.”
He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. The braid loosened and softened the lines around his face. I had to look away or get caught in his mesmerizing trap again.
“Dill was there, an innocent who observed my fall, because he was attuned to changes in atmosphere and dimensional distortions. He transformed and rose up through a natural surrounding into a well of souls to catch me before I crashed. He sheltered me; gave me my first lessons in what it’s like to be human. He and his family wanted desperately to foster me. But Darren Estevez got to the Powers That Be first. He convinced them that his stern chastisement was a better education for me than love and nurture.”
I gasped and thought my heart would break. We’d waltzed all around the issue of Dill for months. I’d suspected his Kajiri origins but never had them confirmed. I still held out hope that this was just one more lie of Donovan’s. That hope was mighty thin and fragile
at this moment.
“Were . . . were you with Darren when he started the fire in our motel room that killed Dill? You owned the motel and profited from over-insurance.” I knew Darren was guilty. Scrap had helped me travel through time to relive those awful moments. I’d watched Darren pull Dill back into the heart of the fire and knock him unconscious just as he was about to escape. But I couldn’t identify Darren’s shadowy companion.
If Donovan had been involved, I’d kill him right here and now. With or without Scrap’s help.
“No. I was not a part of that conspiracy. Dill chose that motel because he knew I owned it. He wanted to spend some time with me before moving permanently to Cape Cod with you. Darren followed him there without my knowledge or consent.”
I didn’t believe him.
“Tess, I loved Dill like a brother. He and his family were the only bright spots in my life. Their love and friendship, even after Darren took me, gave me the courage to continue living; the courage to want to live as a human rather than a demon.”
“Dill denied his demon ancestry,” I said, as much to convince myself as Donovan. “He moved to Cape Cod with me to get away from his family, away from everything they stood for. Why can’t you honor that part of his memory?”
“Because I watched him get physically ill, feverish, and aching in every joint when he refused to transform. Kajiri need to change on the night of the waxing quarter moon. It’s a natural and necessary biological imperative with them if they have a demon ancestor within ten generations. But Dill wouldn’t do it. He never felt safe doing it. He loved being human and loving a human woman. You. I want to build a sanctuary for mixed-blood demons so they don’t have to make themselves ill denying who and what they truly are. Even the ones whose demon ancestry is so diluted they are barely aware of it. They need what I can give them.”
“Dill risked everything to catch you in your fall.”
“Out in the deep forest of Mount Hood. He was backpacking in the wilderness, collecting rock samples. No one around for miles. He could briefly transform and save me, or watch me die. He risked transformation.”
The lights of Las Vegas blurred as I blinked away tears. That was my Dill. He took a small risk to save a stranger. He took a much bigger risk to save me during that fire.