Moon In The Mirror: A Tess Noncoire Adventure

by P. R. Frost

  What? Possibly whatever was missing kept me from identifying Donovan.

  Scrap and I needed to talk. But Scrap wouldn’t, or couldn’t, come near me when Donovan was in the room.

  If Darren’s demonhood ever overrode Donovan’s barriers, I wanted to save it for a real fight.

  Tonight I’d leave Scrap to keep an eye on Mom and Darren, WindScribe, too, while I went to dinner with Donovan, Gollum, and Allie.

  Chapter 13

  "THE SUMMER I GRADUATED from high school, Dad and Bill took me and my brother Steph to England. I loved the gargoyles on the cathedrals. Much to my dismay, no one would let me climb onto the roofs to examine them more closely,” I explained to Gollum.

  I held the dragon skull. He measured the support beam across the old stairs. The steps rose so steeply that even I had to duck beneath the upper story where it cut across them. Gollum had no problem reaching the beam with tape measure and marking pencil.

  “Have you ever heard gargoyles gargle?” he asked in all seriousness.

  “Actually, I have heard gargoyles gargle,” I replied, handing him a hammer and the hook to hang my new treasure.

  A blur of white movement behind and below me. Gollum’s cat, Gandalf, had got loose. As long as Scrap didn’t complain, I’d leave the beast free for a while. At the moment Scrap was busy playing voyeur on Mom and Darren while they ordered pizza in the kitchen. Donovan had retreated to the cottage across the yard with a scowl on his face and his fists clenched like sledgehammers.

  “The term gargoyle comes from the Medieval French gargouiller, to gargle.” He pronounced the long word melodiously.

  I’d read it but never heard it before. “Because of the sound they make when rainwater funnels through them, as they drain it from roofs and spit it out in arcs to the ground below,” I completed the lecture for him. “Their primary purpose is a kind of decorative gutter and downspout. The idea of using grotesqueries to repel evil came later.”

  He looked at me strangely. Then a big grin spread across his face. “A woman after my own heart,” he sighed. “I heard them during an autumnal thunderstorm in Notre Dame de Paris. I have friends. Next time you go to Europe, I’ll see about getting you a pass to explore the gargoyles more thoroughly.”

  “I heard them at the Citadel. The refectory roof had copper gargoyles. But one of them was broken. I noticed the tracery of a wing left behind when I helped repair the roof. It might have been a bat.”

  “Bats are a quite common form of gargoyle. Your phobia against bats has roots in ancient times.” Gollum actually stopped speaking for a few moments while he hammered the hook in place. “Did you know that the Native American totem pole can be considered a form of gargoyle?”

  “Actually the totemic animals are more clan symbols than wards against evil.”

  I handed him the dragon skull. Then a bit of mischief lightened my mind. “The gargoyles at the Citadel did have apotropaic qualities. Sister Gert invoked them to repel all those who held evil in their hearts and darkness in their souls.”

  That was it. That was the memory that had eluded me. When I tried to enter the refectory after the prayers of dedication, Scrap disappeared for a time. I remembered thinking I’d heard something splash in the puddle directly behind me. But it could have been anyone. In the middle of the prayers a thunderstorm had hit and the gargoyles did their job of channeling the runoff out and away from those of us huddled under the eaves. Except where the broken bat had been. Water cascaded straight down on top of Sister Gert’s head.

  “If you know that word, I’ll have to challenge you to a game of Scrabble later,” Gollum said. He kept his eyes focused on getting the dragon straight and keeping it from drooping any lower than the already low support beam.

  “If you know that word, you’ll have to join us for family game night. We play cut-throat Trivial Pursuit every Sunday.”

  “It’s a date. Um . . . I mean . . .” he blushed.

  “Don’t worry. I know what you mean.”

  We’d decided to put the dragon head in the corner where it was shadowed. Mom wouldn’t be as likely to notice it there.

  “Do you think this gargoyle will really keep Darren from sneaking up the stairs?” I asked, admiring the stately proportions of the thing.

  “It should. Given its position, on the main support beam of the original 1753 house, it might also keep him from doing harm to any human inside the entire house.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “Interesting that Donovan had no trouble holding it,” Gollum mused. He stepped down six steps to admire his handiwork. That put him two steps below me and close to my eye level.

  “What is Donovan? Scrap says he’s not a demon, but Darren is.”

  “Not one of the usual suspects. I’ll put some feelers out into the community, see if my colleagues have any ideas.”

  “There’s more than one of you? I thought the archivists who follow a rogue Celestial Warrior were rare.”

  “We are. As rare as you. But that number is increasing, or so I’m told. More and more rogue portals have cropped up in the last fifty years. The Warriors of the Celestial Blade have to spread out to cover them. Isolated Citadels aren’t enough.” He covered the intensity in his gaze by pushing up his glasses. “That aside, there are always scholars interested in obscure tales and legends though. I know most of them. My grandfather knows more. We’ll find out what Donovan is whether he wants us to or not.”

  “Darren is not my father,” Donovan growled. We sat in the front seats of Mom’s car while Gollum escorted Allie from her apartment.

  “I know,” I replied, keeping my eyes straight ahead.

  “How?”

  I turned an enigmatic smile on him. Let him wonder about the powers of a Warrior of the Celestial Blade. At least I’d managed to change into tailored slacks and the new teal V-neck sweater Dad had given me for Christmas. Paired with the lavender silk turtleneck that Scrap recommended I presented a less scruffy image of a true warrior than usual.

  Of course, a down parka over it all kind of marred the image.

  But then we were all bundled up to combat the weather. So far it was all natural weather. The Windago hadn’t shown up. Maybe she wanted me alone. Or whatever kept Scrap away from Donovan, also kept the Windago at bay.

  “So if you aren’t Darren’s son, what are you?”

  “I . . . was orphaned. As a teen. Darren took me in.”

  Too many pauses in there. Maybe the truth. But not all of it.

  “So who was your father?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Your mother?”

  He rattled off a long string of liquid syllables. I didn’t recognize the language.

  “And that translates as . . .”

  “No translation available. Her tribe has been absorbed by the Okanogan peoples. Just a few words of the original language exist.”

  “I thought you had Sanpoil Indian in you. They’re part of the Colville Confederation, not Okanogan.”

  He didn’t answer.

  Gollum and Allie emerged from the apartment building’s exterior stairwell onto the parking lot. They were laughing. He took her arm to steady her on the ice. The temperature had actually reached thirty-six this afternoon, melting a little snow, but quickly refreezing and becoming treacherous as soon as the sun went down.

  Allie and Gollum laughed at something. She leaned closer to him, almost resting her head on his shoulder. He didn’t react to her attempted affection. But he didn’t push her away either.

  Something inside me twisted at the easy way my two friends seemed to fit together.

  “The Orculli trolls won’t give up, Tess. Everyone in your house is in danger. What are you going to do about your mother?” Donovan changed the subject.

  “What are you going to do about your father?”

  “Actually, the garden gnomes are after WindScibe, not Genevieve,” Gollum said, handing Allie into the backseat. He gave my mother’s name the proper French pr
onunciation, Jahn-vee-ev with the soft G. “Between the new gargoyle and the wards I set, I don’t think they’ll hit the house tonight.”

  Maybe they’d keep the Windago away. Forever.

  “What makes you think that?” Donovan asked, immediately defensive.

  “Because there is a strange sort of twisted honor among demons on a mission. And these guys sound like they are on a mission. Tess is the vowed protector. The Orculli will honor that and wait until Tess is there to defend the girl before taking her. We have until tomorrow. ” Gollum climbed into the car and closed the door on the weather and the subject.

  A fat waxing moon three days off of full broke through the cloud cover, promising an even colder night.

  Well past the waxing quarter moon when the Goddess Kynthia was wont to show her face in the sky in warning. I’d seen it twice. Special moments when I felt connected to the entire universe. A demon attack had followed immediately after. Both times.

  Somehow, I didn’t think the Orculli were limited to moon phases for their entry and exit from this realm. They might not even need the chat room.

  “When they come, they won’t be frightened off by a few whacks from your blade, Tess,” Donovan warned. “We need a plan.”

  “We need fire,” Gollum added.

  “We need barricades and AK47s,” Allie grumbled.

  “Not enough,” I mused. “We need the most elusive defense of all. Information and logic. We have to know why they want WindScribe and what we can do to counter their motives.”

  So Darren the demon and Mom take over the sitting room, smooching and cuddling in front of the fire.

  I assume my usual perch on the spider, swinging in time to the lilting waltz playing on the stereo. Show tunes. Stories and good music all rolled into one. What more can you ask for? I love them. So does Mom. That’s one reason we get along so well, though she doesn’t know I’m here.

  Tess’ taste runs to filk, New Age, and Celtic. Not bad. But nothing beats a show tune.

  “I don’t want to wait to make you mine, ma petite chou chou,” Darren whispers as he nuzzles Mom’s neck.

  I’ll never figure out why the French think it’s romantic to call each other little cabbages. Mom eats it up as if it was candy, practically purring like that wicked cat Gollum keeps in his rooms.

  “I didn’t get a church wedding the first time around,” Mom pouts.

  Liar, liar, pants on fire. Oops, that’s my tail on fire. I jump down to the hearth and beat my poor mangled appendage against the hearth. A few embers fly free and die on the bricks.

  Tess says Mom burned all her wedding photos when Dad walked out with Bill. Tess remembers seeing photos of a lavish wedding with lots of heavy white satin and banks of red-and-white flowers. They got married on Valentine’s Day.

  I’m pushing for April Fool’s Day for this wedding.

  “I will wait, if that is what makes you happy,” Darren sighs as if he’s making a huge sacrifice.

  Mom soothes him by running a delicate finger along his cheek. Is that a hint of red in the glaze that comes over her eyes? She blinks and it’s gone.

  “Being married in the church with a priest officiating is very important to me. It makes the entire thing more real, a sacred bond.”

  Is that a shudder I detect running through Darren? Oh, my, I think he’s afraid to step foot inside a church, sacred ground and all. Doesn’t bother me. But then I’m not a demon, though my past isn’t lily white. Just ask my one hundred two siblings. Darren is part demon, and I sense his past is darker than mine. That takes some doing.

  “We could drive to Maine and get married tonight. I know a city clerk who can do the paperwork after hours and a lawyer who can perform the marriage. Any officer of the court can do that in Maine. Then we can have the priest bless the marriage later. Perhaps here in this beautiful old house,” Darren said. A smile lit his face like he’d just thought up this brilliant idea.

  Yeah, right. The conniving bastard’s worse than a Barrister demon.

  “But . . .?” Mom has to think about that one.

  From the flush on her face and the way her hands keep wandering down his torso, she doesn’t want to wait for the wedding night either.

  I’ve got to stop this. Right now. Before Mom actually brings a demon into the family. If only I could force him to transform in front of her. But he’s an old demon, well in control of his urges and his form.

  What to do? What to do?

  I know, I can let the cat loose. Gandalf will hiss and snarl at Darren. He doesn’t like demons any more than I do.

  Chapter 14

  The oldest ring of holes at Stonehenge may have been used to mark the nineteen year cycle of lunar eclipses.

  "AS WORRIED AS I AM about the Orculli returning and taking a hunk out of our flesh,” Gollum said, resting his elbows on the round table in the corner of Guiseppe’s Restaurant, “we also have to do something to prevent the impending marriage.” He pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose and blinked rapidly.

  I knew that gesture. The eye blinks were his way of recalling something he’d read. I think he sort of replayed a videotape in his brain.

  “Waiting for the church and the priest will delay it until we deal with the garden gnomes,” I replied.

  “But aren’t your parents divorced? Will the priest even allow your mother to remarry in the church?” Donovan jumped into the conversation. He and Gollum sat on opposite sides, as far away from each other as they could get and maintain this temporary truce.

  “Mom had the marriage annulled in Rome. Seems that since Dad turned out to be gay, his marriage to Mom wasn’t a real marriage after all,” I replied studying the menu rather than look too closely at Donovan and be lost in his eyes and his smile. Without the comb to strip away some of the glamour of humanity, I could fall into his arms and his bed all too easily.

  From the look on Allie’s face, she wanted to fall into Gollum’s bed. She just needed to find some way to let him know. But he was concentrating on the problem at hand. None of us mattered while he did that.

  “Speaking of gay men,” Allie whispered and jerked her head to the left toward the entrance.

  Sure enough, Dad and Bill waited for the hostess to seat them. I waved to them.

  Dad wandered over, leaving Bill to deal with the hostess. Bill was better with people than Dad. Dad prefers things he can reduce to a column of numbers with debits and credits. People outside his circle of family and a few close friends have too many variables for his taste. Even so, he manages to put on a polite and friendly, if baffled, face in front of strangers.

  He gave me a hug, and I introduced him. He shook hands like a polite little puppet. Then he surprised me beyond measure. “Aren’t you the friends who helped rescue my little girl from those terrorist kidnappers last fall?” He pulled up a chair from the adjoining table and sat between me and Donovan.

  “Uh, yes,” Gollum replied, trying to be truthful.

  Actually I’d rescued myself and a Native American girl from tribal mythology come to life. But if we told the truth, we’d have to explain the unexplainable in Dad’s black-and-white world of numbers that have to add up.