by P. R. Frost
“Mom cans every scrap of fresh fruit she can find.” I picked up a jar of peach jam.
Gollum inspected it as if it held demon brains. He opened it and jerked his head away from the stench. The preserves had a thick skin of mold on the top. “She used old paraffin to seal it. You’ll have to toss the whole batch.”
“Nah, Scrap will love it.” I put it back on the painted shelves with more chips than paint. “No dairy in peach jam to aggravate Scrap’s lactose intolerance. What’s important about the cellar is back here,” I continued.
I ducked behind the wooden steps to a thick old door made of many two by fours. “Here’s the spare key,” I said as I used it to open the heavy padlock on a reinforced crossbar. Then I handed him the little piece of brass.
“What do you have to keep locked up and hidden?”
“Originally this was a place to hide from Indian attacks, then a priest hole for the few Catholics in a very Puritan neighborhood. During the Revolution it hid American spies from the British. Later it was a way station on the Underground Railroad. Now it’s my armory. ”
The light came on automatically as the door swung open.
Gollum whistled through his teeth. He eagerly grabbed an elaborate German short sword with gold on the curved guard and etched along the slender blade. “Is this real?”
“Yeah. Seventeenth century. A collector’s item. Weighs about fourteen ounces. I really liked the metal-work. ” Something else had drawn me to the blade when Scrap and I found it in a back alley pawnshop in Boston. I couldn’t explain it. So I didn’t.
I remembered clearly the store where I’d found it while Christmas shopping last December. Scrap had tugged my hair and urged me out of the crowds and the noise of holiday shoppers. Away from clanging bells, and unrelenting cheerful carols played over clashing store sound systems. I’d wandered reluctantly off the main streets into a long, dark alley filled with litter and smelling of stale beer and urine.
Scrap had pushed me urgently, not giving me enough time to think about where I was going or why.
The sword shone brightly in the dingy window display of the shop. The sword was the only thing of interest or value to me in the jumble of “collectibles.”
The blade called to me. I had to have it. I couldn’t go home without it. The shopkeeper had charged me a bloody fortune for it. But I knew it would cost double that on the open market.
“More important than the beautiful craftsmanship, it’s a working blade, as is every piece in here.” I swept my hand across the neat racks of swords, battle axes, and crossbows with quivers full of broad-tipped arrows. I could bring down a charging boar with one of those.
None of the weapons would stop a demon. But they would slow them down if Scrap needed a break in a pitched battle.
“This is absolutely gorgeous.” Gollum tested the balance of the blade expertly, then snapped it through the air listening to it sing.
I wondered where he’d learned that technique, or why he should use this as a test for the temperament of the blade. I could do it, but only after months of practice with a foiled weapon. This man had as many secrets as Donovan, and was just as mute about them.
Gollum sighed and replaced the short sword. Then he reached eagerly for the most important weapon of all, hanging in pride of place dead center in the rack.
I stayed his hands. “Yes, it’s an exact replica of the Celestial Blade, but made of wood.”
“What kind of wood? It looks like metal.”
He’d seen me wield the Celestial Blade; he knew what it looked like.
“The Sisters call it imp wood. I’ve never seen the trees they make them from. It holds an edge forever. I’ve never had to sharpen it. Want to train with me?”
“Wish I could.” He looked at his watch, an elaborate hunk of metal with numerous dials and buttons. I think it could do everything but whistle “Dixie.” Maybe it could do that, too.
“I’ve got to get to the college. Maybe later.” He made to return the key to me.
“That’s the spare. I want you to keep it while you are here. We don’t know what we’re getting into, and I want someone I trust to have access to weapons in case of emergency.”
“Where’s the other key?” he asked, slipping it on the same key ring as his car keys and the house key I’d given him.
“In a zipped pocket within a zipped pocket in my purse.”
“Not someplace a stranger could stumble on it. Even if they stole the purse.”
“Not likely. And there’s another copy of it on a chain around my neck. Now go to your meeting before I decide the Windago really did touch me and I eat your arm off. Time for breakfast.”
I hate cats the same way Tess hates bats. Only I know that bats are benign and cats are truly and totally evil. Gollum only thinks he locked the cat in his apartment. I know the beast turned invisible and slipped out again before the door fully closed.
So I hunt the cat. Upstairs and down. I stalk by smell and by sight. Meaning I can’t smell anything when I’m near the cat, and my eyes water heavily when I get even closer. Hearing is no good because cats are totally silent unless they want to be heard; then they sound like a troop of elephants thundering across the plains.
Oh, no! He’s down in the cellar, working at opening the door to the armory. I’m not sure my babe locked it properly. The padlock is in place, but the light is shining beneath the door. That only happens when something lodges between the door and the jamb.
Good thing that cat doesn’t have opposable thumbs. I’ve got to warn Tess about this.
But first I’m going to torture that cat. Serve him right for decorating my bum with claw marks. He scratched off one of my warts. I worked hard to earn that one!
When I’m done with the cat, I must paint the scratches with iodine. War paint. Or makeup. Anyway, I’ll make myself look pretty. I might even get a new wart when I win this battle.
Chapter 18
In esoteric cosmology the sun and moon pictured together represent the extremes of creative solar power and undirected lunar imagination.
WITH SCRAP BUSY stalking the cat, I decided on a trip to a home furnishing store. I really needed to do something about the kitchen. The only other rooms in the house big enough for everyone to gather was the dining room. Too formal. Or my office. Too cluttered with my private things. No one messes with my office and lives. Not even Scrap dares to clean it.
Bright sunlight and no wind. Safe to step outside. I hoped.
Mom and Darren had taken the SUV to Boston. That would cost them a small fortune in gas even though that car got better mileage than most in its class. But Darren could afford it. Maybe the SOB would top off the tank. But I doubted it.
That left me with Donovan and his four-wheel-drive station wagon. Not a heavy car but safer than mine. That would also give us some private time on neutral territory. Maybe I could pry some personal information from him. Like what kind of being he truly was.
I braved the cold and armored my defenses against his seductive charm. Then with teeth gritted and eyes half closed, I knocked on the cottage door.
Donovan greeted me with a high-pitched growl that sounded so much like an angry bat I almost went scuttling back to the house.
Steeling myself to face my fears, I knocked again.
“What!” Donovan yanked the door open.
“Sorry.” I backed down the three steps and lost my footing on a gloss of slick dew.
Before I could fall flat on my butt, Donovan reached out demon-quick and grabbed my arm. In the next instant I found myself upright again, in his arms, our bodies pressed intimately close. His mouth hovered scant inches above mine.
The world disappeared. I saw only his handsome face, felt only his arms holding me tight, knew only that I wanted him. Desperately.
He felt like the other half of me.
Lilia’s next target?
We clung together for endless moments.
Eventually, the cold penetrated my awareness.
As sanity filtered back into my mind I noticed something else.
“Who hit you?” I traced an ugly red-and-blue bruise around his left eye. Red lines marred the white around his warm chocolate-brown eyes.
“It doesn’t matter.” He blushed. I didn’t think a man as coolly self-possessed as Donovan Estevez could do that. The infusion of blood highlighted the sharp planes of his cheekbones and intensified the coppery tones of his skin. He looked more Native American than ever. I wondered what the Dutch and Russian ancestors in his lineage had contributed.
“But it does matter. You are a guest in my home. I’m responsible . . .”
“D doesn’t care about responsibility or hospitality or anything but his own agenda.”
“And what is your stepfather’s agenda?”
Stone-cold silence.
“Okay.” Inside, I burned with curiosity and anger at his silence. Then I put on a bright face, totally false. I had my own agenda that included a trip to the mall. “Give me a ride to the mall, and I’ll buy you brunch.”
“I have appointments. Work.”
“Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Then let me buy you breakfast, and you can drop me off. Pick me up later.”
His stomach growled. “You know I can’t resist you.” He flashed me his grin.
I forgot to breathe. If only he’d kiss me.
Stop that! I slapped myself mentally. “Donovan, we need to talk. Just the two of us. We need to clear the air between us before we do something stupid.”
“Like fall into bed together again?” He kept grinning as he grabbed his leather jacket from the back of the nearest chair.
“Yeah. Like that.”
We went to the I-Hop on the fringes of the mall parking lot. They served breakfast all day. When the waitress had our orders and I had a steaming cup of coffee in front of me—Donovan had opted for an anemic looking herb tea—I looked him square in the eye and broached the subject uppermost on my mind.
“Why did Darren hit you?”
“I tried to warn him off your mother.” He ducked his head, trying to hide the hideous bruise.
“Why did you let him hit you?”
“I didn’t let him. D is fast. But believe me, he didn’t come off unscathed.”
I raised an eyebrow in question.
“Let’s just say I don’t think he’ll be thinking fondly of the wedding night for a couple of days at least. No visible bruises, though. I’m more subtle than he is.”
“Wait a minute. He called you D when he arrived. You just called him D. You just want to confuse us?”
And Dill’s parents had called him and his sister Deborah and his brother Dylan “D.” A cold more frigid than the weather knotted in my belly.
“His people think it’s hilarious to all call each other D, so normal people don’t know who they are talking to or about.”
“But his ‘people’ aren’t really people, are they?”
“Partially. Only mixed-bloods get out of their home dimensions in human form. Full-bloods can’t transform anywhere but their homes.”
“So they have to kidnap humans to breed Kajiri— half-bloods—who can come and go across the dimensions with impunity.”
“Something like that.”
“Explains the beauty and the beast legend.”
“Yeah.”
“So what are you if you don’t have Damiri blood running in your veins?”
“I am fully human now. Mortal, too.”
“And before?”
“Don’t ask, Tess. I can’t tell you. I want to. I want you to trust me enough to love me, to be the mother of my children. But I took vows, signed them with my blood. If I tell anyone my origins, I have to answer to the Powers That Be, probably with my death, a very long and painful death.”
I digested that for a bit. He’d come close to admitting the truth of his origins. That was better than the nonanswers I’d got before.
“What are these infamous Powers That Be? Anything like God, or the Goddess Kynthia worshiped by the Warriors?”
“All of that and more. You don’t want to be called before them. No human has ever survived a summons. Few other beings do either, come to think of it.”
“But you did.”
Again that stone-cold silence.
The waitress interrupted with our food: pecan French toast with eggs and sausage for me; cholesterol-free scrambled eggs and whole grain toast for him with a glass of OJ. Like the Damiri demons, he had to watch his weight. Another contradiction.
“Why can’t Scrap come near me when you are around?” I blurted out when the first hunger pangs had been appeased.
“How can you get away with eating all that fat and starch?” he asked in turn.
Stalemate.
Again.
“Can you see my scar?”
“I’m mortal, remember. The scars left by the imp flu aren’t visible to my eyes. But I felt them with my fingers the night we made love.” His eyes grew warm with memory.
Heat spread delicious languor through my veins.
“I would love another opportunity to explore . . . new heights with you, Tess.”
So would I.
“Not yet, Donovan. When I know that I can trust you.”
Which meant I had a lot of research and discovery to do since he couldn’t and wouldn’t tell me about himself.
Two and a half hours later, Donovan dropped me off at the house laden with bulky packages of curtains, cushions, and tableware to complete my kitchen. I’d gone with hunter-green prints dotted with images of mallard ducks. Totally different from the neutral blue-and-brown calico Dill and I had chosen four years ago. I’d also found a set of juice and water glasses, napkin rings, and salt and pepper shakers with the same mallards.
Scrap and I had barely set the table and I was ripping open the café curtain packages when Josh Garvin arrived with MoonFeather wrapped in blankets and pillows in the back of his sedate sedan. He carried my aunt into the sitting room with gentle ease. Only seven years older than me, he was absolutely devoted to MoonFeather. His hands gripped her slight form with an intensity that said more than any protestations of love.
MoonFeather looked a pale shadow of herself. In twenty-four hours she seemed to have lost ten pounds she didn’t have to lose, and her skin had paled to the color and texture of old parchment.
I couldn’t help a muffled gasp at first sight of the ravages of pain and hospital food on her. Scrap paled to a translucent gray, about as thick as cigarette smoke.
“I’ll mend quickly now that I’m out of that hospital,” she said as Josh deposited her on the sleeper sofa I’d just pulled open for her. “I need clean air away from the psychic waves of pain and fear, and some decent natural cooking.” She settled back against the cushion, head drooping in exhaustion.
Josh grabbed an extra pillow and stuffed it beneath her heavily bandaged leg. “Keep it elevated and force fluids,” he said in his melodious tenor, handing me a printed sheet of hospital instructions. He’d had some success in the courtroom with that voice lulling juries into trusting him implicitly.