All in Bad Time

by Yvonne Montgomery

  "Definitely." Andrea got to her feet and began to distribute blankets. "I'm not sure Neal and I would get a visit from the other world at his place tonight, but I don't want to test it."

  Aura Lee smiled in relief. "If you'll save me a pillow and a blanket, I'll go make some hot cocoa for us. Would anyone like cookies? All the brownies are gone."

  Elizabeth laughed quietly. "Seems like old times, doesn't it?" She got out of her chair and grabbed a batch of blankets. "Here, I'll help."

  Eve settled more deeply into the sofa cushions and waited as Danica went through her nightly ritual of rubbing her face against Eve's, circling on her chest until she found just the right spot to curl into a ball. Her purring vibrated against Eve's neck.

  As they bustled to make the area ready for sleep, the slight back-and-forth swaying of the heavy burgundy drapes at the big picture window went unnoticed. Nor did the blinking eyes above the curtain rods attract their attention. For good or ill, all of the Wisdom Court inhabitants made ready for bed.

  Silence stole over the room and Danica opened her eyes. As the humans sank into sleep, she kept watch.

  Chapter 21

  Having spent the night sleeping in the living room, they decided to stay at the main house for the day. Dividing tasks, Rose created teams to handle the most pressing needs. "Max and Noreen, you hit the library and see if you can find any references to a Romani community here in Boulder. Check the smaller mountain towns, too. Gold Hill, Pinecliff. Coal mining towns might also be worth looking into. Like Superior and Erie."

  "Neal and Andrea, would you double-check the tunnel area? We need to know what state they're in, if they're deteriorating any faster."

  "I think Dink and I ought to go with them," Brenna suggested. "Having been inside the tunnels, I can tell you we need to stay near each other and keep in touch."

  "What about your head? Didn't Jerri tell you to chill for a couple of days?"

  Brenna frowned. "But I feel a lot better."

  Dink grabbed her hand. "You could rest while you fill me in on what's been going on."

  Brenna nodded reluctantly.

  "That sounds good." Rose's gray eyes were clouded with worry. "Breakfast first. We'll reconnoiter and check back with one another. Agreed?"

  "You've got it." Neal glanced down at Andrea. "I'm going to get flashlights for us, and maybe some rope. I'll be back in a bit."

  "Eve," Rose added. "You'd better stay off that knee. Will you help Noreen and Max? I'm sure you've done enough research to find your way around the notes we've accumulated."

  Eve nodded. "I'd be glad to."

  Kerry, Dolores, and Elizabeth were on breakfast duty and stepped around each other as easily as if they'd been performing their tasks in a dance of long standing. The aroma of fresh coffee filled the room.

  Kerry was slicing strawberries at the sink. The sun peered through the window, adding a shine to their deep red. "I feel like someone's looking over my shoulder," she said with a shiver. "I keep expecting something to jump out at me." Holding the full colander under the faucet, she rinsed the strawberries thoroughly. "It's like a simmering pot around here, and the air itself is going to start boiling."

  "You got that right." Elizabeth wielded a spatula to flip hotcakes off the griddle. "My skin feels like it's gonna itch any minute—on the edge of itching. It's driving me crazy. Here, Dolores, take these." She handed the platter of hotcakes to her.

  "It's the dreams that are getting to me." Dolores set the plate in the middle of the table and picked up the roll of paper towels nearby. As she tore them off for napkins, she looked around the room warily. "Once I got to sleep last night, I kept dreaming of crawly creatures, especially here in the kitchen. Moving over the wallpaper crawly."

  "Ack." Elizabeth dropped circles of batter onto the griddle, pausing to wipe her forehead with the back of one hand. "Took some time to get to sleep. Then I was too tired to dream."

  Dolores fetched butter and syrup to the table and stopped at a cabinet to gather coffee mugs. "Is the kettle hot? Aura Lee's tea," she added.

  "Un huh." Elizabeth flipped the pancakes. "We've got three men with us. How many of these things should I make?"

  "You're the restauranteur. You oughta know."

  Kerry carried the large bowl of berries to the table. "More than you've got now. Max looks like a starving academic but he eats like a maniac, wears a fedora."

  "What?"

  "Private joke." Kerry set down the bowl and stretched her back muscles. "I'm pretty hungry, too. Don't stint on the hotcakes." She dropped to a chair. "Seriously for a minute..."

  "Yeah?" Elizabeth divided her attention between the griddle and Kerry.

  Dolores dealt forks and spoons like cards in a poker game. "What?"

  "Don't you think things are getting scarier? More dangerous?"

  "How would we know?" Elizabeth tested a pancake and began to chuck them onto another platter. "Everything feels different—worse—thicker than when we were here before. Don't you think, Dolores?"

  Nodding solemnly, Dolores opened the door to the dish cabinet. She shrieked and jumped back.

  "What?" Kerry demanded. "What?"

  Dolores waved a hand at the cabinet. On the bottom shelf were plates arranged vertically on their edges, one after another in a line across the width of the shelf.

  "Look, they're trembling." Dolores took a small step forward and turned a shocked face toward Kerry when she pushed her out of the way.

  "Hurry, hold out your hands." Kerry began to slide plates out as fast as she could, stacking them on Dolores's forearms. "Elizabeth, you, too." She continued until all of the plates were out of the shelf and piled on the counter. "I thought sure they were going to start flying like Frisbees."

  Dolores cast a wary eye toward the dishes on the other shelves. "Maybe someone was trying to help." She choked on a small giggle and lifted her hand to shut the cabinet door.

  "That's what scares me." Kerry helped her set the dishes around the edge of the table. "I think we can blame some of the things happening here on spirits that don't have control over their powers or what they're using as props. They can hurt us without meaning to."

  "Kerry, girl, you're talking about spirits? What happened to your skepticism?"

  Kerry gestured toward the plates. "You see enough stuff like that and you stop talking about oddities and start looking for the ghosts."

  "That's pretty scary all by itself, jita." Dolores grabbed a cup and headed for the coffeemaker.

  "Well, at least you got a good man to go lookin' with." Elizabeth turned off the stove. "If we don't have enough of these things, we'll eat somethin' else." She went to the doorway. "Y'all better get in here before we eat it up!" She grinned at Kerry. "That always gets my girls to the table."

  Soon the room was full. Plates were passed, coffee poured, and the first wonderful bites consumed. Rose had just glanced around the table, asking in surprise, "Where's Aura Lee?"

  The beginnings of a frown pulled Neal's brows together. "Isn't she here?" He started to push his chair back when he relaxed. "There she is."

  Aura Lee came into the kitchen with a stack of folded dishtowels draped over one arm, stopping to drop a small package in front of Eve. "This was falling out of your pants pocket. Praise the Goddess I found it before I threw them in the wash."

  Eve stared at the rough black material tied with leather twine. She frowned at it, trying in vain to place it. "I'm sorry, I don't remem—" And then it popped into her mind. "I'd forgotten all about it." She began to unwind the string. "I found it in a hidden drawer at the base of the wall, in that room where you found us."

  "What is it?" Kerry held out a hand. "May I see?"

  "Not till I do." Eve pulled a roll of paper from the packet and flattened it on the table. "Huh. Looks like a map."

  "Map?" Kerry leaned closer. "Map to what? More journals? Maybe more information about what's going on around here?"

  Eve peered at the figures on the thick paper. "S
ometimes a map is merely a map, Dr. Freud."

  "Ha-ha. Fork it over. Let me see it."

  Eve flashed on a memory of her sister being just as irritating as Kerry was now. "Cut it out. Let me actually look at the thing."

  "Kerry." Max's mouth was full and he could hardly be understood. "Give the woman a chance."

  Kerry growled at him.

  A screech came from across the room. "No!" Dolores lurched away from the kitchen sink and ran toward the door.

  As she ran out, Brenna darted to the sink. When she looked into it, she froze. "Oh, man." She held onto the edge of the countertop. "What in hell is this?"

  Dink joined her, one hand going to her shoulder. He checked the sink and looked at her. "Are you doing that?"

  "Doing what?" Her voice was high-pitched and scared. "No way!"

  "What are you nattering about?" Noreen approached the sink and stretched up on her toes to see what was going on. "They look like—they look like—" She watched for a moment and then turned from the sink. To the horror of all of them, she grabbed a dishtowel and began to retch into it.

  "Noreen!" Rose ran to her side and held her shoulders until she was still. She steadied her and escorted her to the nearest chair.

  Noreen waved a hand toward the sink. Rose walked to the counter as the others crowded in behind her.

  The sink held creatures in motion, green, living things, crawling on what looked like leafy legs as they tumbled over each other in a swarm. From what appeared to be their heads some spat a red substance, and others turned on them, tearing at the leafy legs until more of the goo covered the victims.

  "That looks like—" Kerry paused.

  "Blood." Max stared at the teeming mass with disgust.

  Kerry's mouth twisted. "I didn't put the leaves down the disposal. And they turned into that."

  "But why?" Rose stared at them both. "For what purpose?"

  "To scare us," Kerry said in an angry voice. "Look at us! It worked on me. How about you?"

  Max grabbed her hand and started to lead her back to the table. "So we'll stop reacting."

  "Don't just walk away." Kerry pulled him back to the counter. "Give me that spatula, the one in that jar of tools." She took it from him and turned to the sink. "I'm going to shove them into the drain and I want you to turn on the disposal."

  "Ewww!" Dolores had come back into the kitchen. "How can you stand to do that?"

  "It's a damn sight better than watching them crawl out of the sink." Kerry shoved the soft plastic blade of the spatula into the mass of leafy creatures and pushed them toward the drain. She twisted the faucet handle. "Turn on the disposal."

  The machine began to grind as Kerry continued to push the bodies into it. To her horror, some of the red substance splashed onto one sleeve of her sweatshirt. "Ugh, hand me a paper towel."

  Dolores gave her one and Kerry wiped frantically at her sleeve. Then she peered into the sink and slumped against the counter. "Turn off the disposal. They're gone."

  "So was this magic?" Aura Lee demanded. "Squirmy things that make you sick to look at?" She shuddered. "How can we go on if we have to deal with things like this?"

  Rose sank back into her chair. "How many times have we asked that question? We either go on or we walk away."

  "When you think about it, they just looked like bugs." Brenna shrugged when Kerry glared at her. "It's a dumb sort of magic spell, don't you think?"

  Max flashed a smile. "Dumb but effective. And separating magical elements into the benign and the malignant, I think we could label the strawberry leaf spiders as malignant."

  "I'd agree with that." Rose reached for her coffee.

  "We've found there are different amounts of good and evil in magic," Max said. "The strawberry leaf spiders are lightweight conjuring. Old, deep magic, like the talisman Caldicott described, is formidably strong. You can scare people with the shallow stuff, but you can change the world with the deep, dark stuff. That's why the old earl who killed Caldicott's Duncan wanted that talisman—to alter the wishes of millions of people and present England to the Nazis, wrapped in a bow."

  "It's scary as hell to think how devastating the talisman would've been if it hadn't been taken away from him," Rose said.

  "No wonder he and his followers continued to look for it." Andrea clutched her coffee mug. "We're babes in the woods. How can we possibly fight his followers, if they are the ones doing these things to us?"

  Rose sighed. "We can't afford to look at it that way." Her gaze challenged each of them as she looked around the table. "We can't withdraw. I admit to a certain amount of anger that we never had a real choice about becoming engaged in the battle. But I'd rather we be involved in ending it than imagining people less prepared than we are having to deal with it."

  "I don't feel like charging the barriers yet," Kerry said in a rough voice, "but I know we're on the front line. Here we are. It's us or nobody."

  "We go into battle ill-prepared, but we go. Our tattered banner will stand for imperfect glory. But glory it will be." The light in Noreen's eyes was militant. "Anna Fordham Willis, circa eighteen twenty-two to eighteen seventy-nine."

  "Oh, I wish Cottie were here to join us." Aura Lee sniffed mightily.

  Rose let out a breath. "I think she is."

  One by one they clasped each other's hands until the circle was complete.

  Eve's eye was caught by the bulge at the end of the packet on the table. She picked it up and shook it gently toward the opening on the other end. A small bundle wrapped in a handkerchief fell onto the table. As she unwrapped it, Brenna asked, "What is it?"

  Eve held it up. "An owl's claw." Her throat worked. "Our way to get to heaven."

  Chapter 22

  Pausing at the open door to the library, Noreen looked in to see Eve sitting at the end of the long table, her head bent. Her fine blonde hair curved on either side of her face, creating a curtain hiding her features. The packet she'd discovered in the hidden tunnel lay open before her.

  They'd spent the morning compiling a list from the journals of every magical activity mentioned in them. "We'll create a profile to use for strategies to fight what's happening here," Max said. "When we add our findings to the notes we've kept on our paranormal encounters, we'll have access to each other's experiences as well as Caldicott's. Then Charlie and I will add anything we've encountered that appears useful. We just need to find the right prism."

  As the hours passed, Noreen concluded she'd never met anyone who seemed more alone than Eve. She'd used her imagination and reactions to Caldicott's words in defining the enemy they fought but hadn't seen. She was gifted in making intuitive leaps as they catalogued and recorded the information they'd accumulated over the last six months or so. She even shared some of her own experiences, but still she had an air of being apart.

  Noreen rubbed the knuckles of her right hand, where a constant ache had taken up residence. She needed to locate some of Eve's writing to better understand her. Maybe she shared herself primarily in her work, leaving little available for interaction with people.

  Noreen sighed soundlessly. That was a small problem in the scheme of things. They were trying to arm themselves to go up against something well beyond their strengths. It was becoming more difficult to muster any confidence they'd be able to defeat whatever hounds of hell were marshaled against them. Caldicott had hidden her secrets too well. For every discovery they made, more secrets were suggested.

  A movement at Eve's back drew Noreen's gaze. She blinked and looked more intently at the space behind her chair. As she watched, the air near the base of Eve's neck began to shimmer. Noreen took a step into the room, eyes focused on the area becoming infused with light. "Eve," she croaked, and her voice froze in her throat.

  Eve turned to see Noreen crumple onto the floor near the open door. She pushed back her chair and stood up, stopping dead when she felt the ice along her back. Desperate to get away from the slicing pain of it, she fell forward onto the table, covering the packe
t she'd been examining. Her back felt inflamed now, the freezing sensation overcome with heat. She tried to shift her weight to the side of the table, to escape from the pain, but she was unable to move her body.

  Max yelled from the doorway and Eve felt a surge of relief. When he grabbed her arm, she whispered, "Noreen. On the floor."

  Max's hand fell from her as he turned toward the small body behind him.

  Strong, hard fingers clutched her arm where Max had held it, and began jerking her to the end of the table. At first Eve was too shocked to move, but abruptly she knew that whatever held her was after the contents of the packet. Eve slid her arm over the bundle with the owl's claw and she grasped it reflexively. She felt warmth against her palm and a surge of power went through her.

  She closed her eyes and saw the image of the open trap door over her, as it had been the day she'd fallen into the secret room beneath her apartment. With all her strength she used her mind to push the hanging door up until it slammed shut and she was plunged deeply into darkness. She had defeated it that time in darkness.

  She thrust a message into that total blackness in her mind: Charlie, Charlie. Help me. HELP ME!

  She couldn't feel him.

  Eve breathed deeply in and out, in and out, ignoring the sharp pain in her back, visualizing the fingers wrapped around her arm. She imagined the sinews of each digit tightening, the bones increasing their force moment by moment. When she felt the clamping increase around her arm to as strong a hold as she could bear, she set her will to forcing each finger back, bending back the bones, holding the muscles immobile, then pushing them past the knuckles, making each one lie flat against the back of the hand. At some point in the middle of this process a mighty scream broke inside her head, shaking her free of the power immobilizing her.

  "Eve? Are you all right?"

  Max was nearby. She could feel the waves of concern flowing from him. She opened her eyes and looked up into his face, slowly returning to herself. She was lying on her back just under the edge of the library table.