Miami Days and Truscan (K)nights

by Gail Roughton

  “I don’t need anybody else. I can do it. Dalph, draw me a diagram and I need to know how big the buildings are, what they’re made of, as much as you can tell me.”

  “You?” I exclaimed.

  “Tess, you are really such a ball-buster! I spent every summer from thirteen to twenty-one in the Argentinean silver mines. I’m a demolitions expert. You never knew?”

  Apparently, I knew nothing about anybody, and I was getting really tired of having to apologize to Carlos every five minutes. Maybe I should tend to some errands I wanted to do and leave them to their diagrams and calculations.

  “Well, before I insult you again, maybe I should leave you two alone to plan mayhem and destruction. Can I use one of the cars?” I asked.

  “Sure. Just don’t get in a fender-bender. You don’t have a license anymore, you know. And you probably need this, too,” he said pulling out his wallet and handing me, without looking, a wad of bills.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do. You’re dead, Tess. You’re bank account’s closed, you have no credit cards. So if you plan to do anything but walk around, you better take it. I can’t give you one of my cards, they might ask for ID. Which you also no longer have.”

  He laughed at my expression. I’d always been very sensitive about using his money.

  “Go ahead, it won’t bite.”

  “I don’t need all this,” I said, stripping some off and handing the rest back. “And why on earth are you walking around with this much cash, anyway?”

  “New York, remember? I’m supposed to be in New York. Your Power Stones are working overtime.”

  Weren’t they just?

  “And here,” he said, handing me his cellphone. “Just in case. Just don’t answer it if it’s not the house number.”

  “Duh!”

  I went up to change into Mall casual and left them to it. Carlos was heading to his office off the living room, presumably to fetch paper and pencil. When I came back down, they were sitting at the table. Dalph was sketching and Carlos was making notes.

  “Okay, guys, I’m off to do girly stuff. Figure out how to kick some Prian ass while I’m gone.”

  “On it!” Carlos called back. I didn’t remember the last time I’d seen him this enthused about something.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I didn’t want to go to a Mall I usually frequented, so it took me a few minutes to get my bearings. And I didn’t like going blind to a new hairdresser, but I couldn’t exactly go to my beloved regular. But there was no way I was going back through the Truscan Badass with even a chin length pageboy. I stood in front of the shop, and there it was on one of the posters—exactly what I was looking for. Short and sassy, a modified helmet cut with a high crown, a little spiky but nothing punk, with lots of lift. The style was still very feminine and wonderful for oval-shaped faces, which I thankfully finally possessed after surviving the round face of my teenage and early twenties years. And it would be fabulous with the riding clothes that I had decided I was pretty much going to live in for the rest of my life.

  I grinned, already anticipating the reaction I’d get when I walked back in the house. The look on Dalph’s and Carlos’ faces would be completely priceless. I walked in the shop and sat down.

  I was just as happy when I walked back out. I felt sassy, well-groomed, and feminine. The guys would just have to get used to it. Then I walked back over to a Mall Directory for my other stop, and found a bookstore.

  I went a bit crazy when I searched the stacks and had to restrain myself a good deal. Only so many paperbacks were going to fit in a backpack on the way back to Trussa, but Dal was going to read, in their original versions, the legends of King Arthur and Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table. I got several editions and included Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, and that one, I got as much for me as for him. I’d been a business major because I was determined to be, if not rich, at least extremely well-off, but if I’d been able to pick a profession for personal pleasure, I’d have been an English professor myself. I also got Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-Glass. Dalph had grown up on the portions his mother had memorized; I wanted him to be able to read the entire original books. For Johnny, because he wasn’t in Kansas anymore, I grabbed The Wizard of Oz. I looked some more, debating between Alexandre Dumas’ swashbuckling trilogy The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man in the Iron Mask, and The Lord of the Rings set, all of which would fascinate Dal and were perfect for any Truscan-American child, and in the end, I couldn’t decide and bought them all. And for future use, I picked up Winnie-the-Pooh before making myself stop. They were all paperbacks, I told myself; it wasn’t that bad.

  Extremely pleased with myself, I headed back to the beach house, noting that it was almost five o’clock in the afternoon, and that I didn’t know if there was a full moon tonight. I’d have to check on that. I also stopped and picked up Chinese on the way, though I didn’t get any dishes with pork. I figured Dalph had gotten freaked out enough on the bacon.

  They were still at the kitchen table, which was now full of paper, which meant that Carlos had probably pumped Dalph for hand-drawn maps of pretty much the whole known world and the total deployment of all the Truscan forces, and probably every past battle Dalph was familiar with. I hadn’t thought Carlos would be so enthralled by military strategy. The smell of Chinese preceded me through the door and caught their noses.

  “Oh, good!” Carlos jumped up first. “I didn’t know it was so late, we haven’t stopped and I’m getting hungry—”

  He broke off as he actually looked at me. Dalph looked up at that and saw me fully for the first time. And he didn’t say anything at all.

  “Let me make this perfectly clear,” I said, addressing both of them. “I don’t—”

  “Give a flying flip what either one of us thinks,” said my husband.

  “Had this discussion before, I see,” Carlos muttered from the side.

  Dalph continued. “Yes, I well recall. But in fact—”

  “In fact,” Carlos broke in. “You—look—amazing! You always said you’d look better in short hair, and I never believed you, but if there’s any woman who should wear her hair short—”

  “It’s you,” finished Dalph. “You look beautiful, my Queen. Truly. And I promise never to doubt your fashion wisdom again.”

  “How refreshing! Now clean off all your maps and diagrams. Apparently none of us ate lunch, so let’s get supper out of the way. Carlos, is there a full moon tonight?”

  “I have no idea. I’ve never had any reason to keep track of how many nights the moon’s been full.”

  “I’ll check after we eat.”

  The internet weather advised that there was a full moon tonight, but thankfully, the last of the month. I took that to mean that although time ran closely between the two worlds, it didn’t run exactly, as the Truscan full moon had been due the next week, and Earth’s full moon was almost through.

  “I’m sorry, big boy, but at least it’s the last one. Can you make it through tonight?”

  Dalph sighed and shrugged. “I don’t have a lot of choice, but perhaps I should stay down here tonight. There’s more room to pace and I know I can’t lie still all night.”

  Carlos turned a quizzical expression toward us. “What’s the problem? This wolf thing—does it hurt?”

  “Not usually,” I said. “Only if they can’t run. And that just so wouldn’t be a good thing in Coral Gables and Greater Miami, but there’s nothing we can do about it. So let’s sit out by the pool and you can tell me what’s up with the Take Pria Down campaign.”

  We settled under the patio and they did just that, enthusiastically and with vigor. I personally thought Julius Caesar would be jealous, as he’d never had wolf troops to utilize. It was too close to the next Truscan full moon to effectuate battle mode, but the attack on Pria would come with the following full moon, so that the Tornans could invade the city at the same time the plastique was
creating havoc and destruction. Regular Truscan troops would have to be in place and plant the charges in the early morning hours, so that the Tornans would be in wolf form during the first explosions and worst chaos, but in human form again at sunrise to complete the invasion.

  “But the timing on the plastique –” I asked, or tried to, before Carlos cut me off.

  “Oh, no, no, they don’t have to worry about that. They wait in place, they synchronize when they slap the packs on the buildings, and they run like hell. I’m ordering ’em with five minute detonation times.”

  “Do we know enough about the city—”

  “No, we don’t. Another reason to wait. My father attempted a few raids. I never had an occasion where a scouting trip was worth the risk. Until now. And as far as I know, Johnny and Toron were the last surviving Truscans to have been on those raids and seen Prius at all. And now there’s just Johnny.”

  A wave of regret swept over me at the mention of Toron, victim of my insistence on that harmless ride that had sent me straight into the Prian trap. I fought to escape it and saw that the sun was sinking lower over the ocean. Dalph gazed in fascination at the shifting colors swirling over the surface of the water.

  “Watch the sunset. There’s no other sight quite like sunset over the ocean,” I said.

  “You’ve never seen it?” Carlos asked.

  “Trusca has no ocean that we know of. The weather conditions are so similar that there must be one, but no Truscan’s ever found it yet.”

  “Another adventure,” Carlos sighed. “Is there nothing but adventure in that world?”

  “It’s a trip, all right,” I agreed. The sun slipped completely under the waves. I looked at Dalph, and just like that, in the blink of an eye, Dalph ceased to be Dalph the King and existed for the moment as the warrior wolf he became during the cycle of the full moon.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Carlos softly.

  “Me, too. That’s the first time I’ve actually seen it, I didn’t really know it was that quick.”

  “You two wait here,” Carlos ordered and jumped up, heading back in the house.

  “Where’re you going?”

  He was already halfway up the stairs to the second floor but paused and called back. “To change. If Dalph needs to run, we can run. I can’t do it all night, but I can do it long enough to take the edge off.”

  “Run where? Just around the grounds?” I hadn’t thought of it, but supposed it would work. It was a big estate.

  “Soccer!” he called back.

  He was back in a few minutes, in running shoes and athletic shorts, soccer ball in hand.

  “Now, my friend, let me introduce you. The object of the game is to keep the other guy from getting the ball through the goals. Which tonight will be—” He paused and looked around and then pointed. “Palm trees on that end of the yard for me, hedge of hibiscus bushes down there for you. I can’t use my hands, and you don’t currently have any so that shouldn’t cause you a problem. Feet, knees, shoulders, head, get it?”

  Dalph made an assenting noise and trotted to the middle of the yard. Carlos backed up, dropped the ball, and kicked. I sat watching for a long time but realized that morning had come early that day and I was tired. I got up to head inside and called back to them.

  “Guys! I’m going in. Can you—”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll open your door for him!” Carlos answered, somewhat breathlessly, and I stood a few minutes more, watching them run, working the ball down the yard. Though neither man would appreciate the description, it was one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen.

  It must have been after midnight when I heard my door open and close, and the sound of Dalph’s paws as he tripped across the floor. I braced for the jolt, waiting for him to bunch his muscles and leap on the bed. Dalph was a big man and he was a big wolf, probably five and a half feet from muzzle to rump, at least a hundred pounds. After the jump, he turned around twice, settled with his back up against me, and fell asleep. I could tell because, like the canines of earth did when they dreamed, his paws began to move against the cover. Obviously, sufficient energy had been expended to allow him to rest, one more thing for which I could never repay Carlos. I smiled and fell back to sleep myself.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I woke the next morning to find Dalph, in human form again, still asleep but not, I think, dreaming peacefully. The stones were talking to him again. He had ceased to break out in sweat and they no longer made him moan in his sleep, but they were in conference with him again, no doubt about it. I didn’t try to wake him; obviously, any communication was for a reason, and it was only a few minutes until he woke on his own.

  “Hi,” I said, and he smiled and pulled me over. It had been some time since we’d actually had the luxury of making love as opposed to a few hurried night encounters in the Badass, which were more for the reassurance that we were together than for pleasure; not since the night the stones had called for the first time, in fact. He obviously intended to make up for that, and I intended to enjoy every minute of it, so it was sometime later in the morning when we finally lay entwined against each other, sated for the moment.

  He kissed my hair. “Tess, we need to consider the possibility that the stones brought you back to your world for a reason, and that it might be their intention that you stay.”

  I felt every muscle in my body go as hard as concrete. I pulled away and sat up.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You brought me here, you and Carlos are giving me what I need. And it might be that you are not supposed to go back. And beyond that, if you’re not on the beach with me when they call, I don’t think their reach extends far enough to take you.”

  You know the old expression, “I saw red”? I’d never actually seen red before but I did then, and it went way past red, straight into scarlet and on to darkest crimson.

  “How dare you say that to me? How dare you?” I pulled my fists back and pounded his shoulders and chest. “I don’t believe you could even think of such a thing, I don’t.”

  He reached up and grabbed my flailing fists. “Tess! Trusca lives or dies in this battle! There’s no second chance! Here you would be safe. And here you would be loved.”

  Of course. His macho test for Carlos. He wanted to see if Carlos had the ability to assess and analyze and implement the only solution, no matter how unpleasant.

  “So that was it! Even yesterday, you’ve been measuring, testing, wanting to be certain what Carlos is made of! You did not already discuss this with him, I know you didn’t! “

  “No, I didn’t, but after yesterday, I know I don’t have to.”

  “And you could actually go back without me?!”

  “If Trusca lives, I would live without a soul for the rest of my life. But if Trusca dies, I would die knowing you were safe. Yes, I could go back without you. I even regret refusing to allow Dal to come with us, though I suppose there’s no way to know if the stones would have allowed him to cross or not, and if not, that would have been a nightmare for all of us.”

  “You mean you’d leave Dal here, too?!”

  “With you? Without hesitation.”

  “Well, you can get over it, buddy! There’s no freaking way you’re going to stop me from going back! And if you try and don’t succeed, I will make your life a living hell! And don’t try and go behind my back with Carlos on this, either, because if you try and do succeed, I’ll make his life a living hell!”

  But he could stop me, and we both knew it. He’d knocked me unconscious once before. And if he enlisted Carlos as a co-conspirator, he wouldn’t even have to. If push came to shove, Carlos was perfectly capable of doing it for him, physically or chemically. He could certainly slip something into food or drink that would knock me out quite effectively, but I didn’t think Dalph would think of that on his own without talking to Carlos and I certainly wasn’t going to put the idea in his head.

  “What did the stones say?” I demanded.

  “What
?”

  “They were talking to you again. What did they say?”

  “We were wrong to a certain extent. They don’t want the six stones reunited.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Pria’s stone has been in Prian ground since it was thrown down from the stars. It has absorbed the very essence of Pria. It’s not especially evil, it’s just—it’s the same as the Prians. The Prian culture is not what it is because they particularly enjoy pain and destruction, they simply don’t care one way or the other. They are completely concentrated on themselves. Anything else is incidental. Does that make sense?”

  Actually, yes, it did. “They’re a whole race of sociopaths.”

  “Socio—”

  “Sociopaths. They make very good serial killers. They have no frame of reference other than themselves; they have no conscience, no sense of right or wrong. Anyone else’s pain doesn’t exist for them, it doesn’t touch them.”

  “Exactly. And the Prian Stone has become so. And now it’s been found and it’s in Kruska’s hands. Kruska cares for nothing other than conquest. The stone cares for nothing but Pria.”

  “And the other stones want what?”

  “They want it destroyed. Before it attempts to destroy our world.”

  “And it’s in Kruska’s stronghold, castle, rata, whatever the hell the Prians call it?”

  “Yes.”

  “But we’re not supposed to blow the stronghold? Why?”

  “I don’t know why. But we’re not. At least, not at the beginning of the battle. I think—I think possibly there’s something else there that we’re supposed to find.”

  “Stupid question. Why don’t the stones just blow the hell out of Pria and the Prian Stone themselves and save everyone the trouble?”

  “They can’t. To unleash such massive power—it would knock the worlds completely out of balance. Maybe not just Trusca’s world. Other worlds, maybe even this one.”

  I lay back down beside him. My fists were really nothing but an annoyance anyway; it’s not like they’d made much impression on those muscles.