by P. R. Frost
An honest and aboveboard approach to business must have rankled his nerves no end.
And what about that other oath? The one not to reveal his origins.
I almost forgave him his silence. Almost. He was tricky enough to get around that oath if he really wanted my respect and trust. There are always ways around a bargain in Faery.
“The oath is simple enough. I agree,” I sighed. “I’ll sign a promise to contact you the moment I am informed if WindScribe escapes or is released.”
“Or transferred to another facility,” Scazzy added. “Someplace else might prove less secure.”
“I agree to sign my portion of the bargain,” MoonFeather said with less hesitation. Honor was so ingrained in her, I doubted Scazzy even needed her oath.
“Okay.” That came out on a long breath. Why did I feel like there was some trick here that I couldn’t see? I checked with Gollum.
He shrugged and nodded.
Scazzy snapped his fingers and a piece of parchment appeared on the table in front of me, along with an ostentatious quill pen made from a peacock-blue ostrich feather—I wondered if it were dyed or came from some bird I’d never seen in another dimension. Beside the quill lay a small penknife. A wickedly sharp penknife for pricking my finger.
Or would he demand I slit my wrist and use arterial blood?
“But I don’t want to go back,” whispered a tiny voice from the corner behind me.
We all turned to stare at the young woman with reddish glints in her blonde hair. She had wide blue eyes that almost matched the quill in color.
“Larch, we all agreed,” FireHind reprimanded her.
“I didn’t. You all overrode my objection as if I didn’t count. But I do count. I don’t want to go back. I want to stay here and learn and grow like MoonFeather did.”
“It’s all of you or none of you, ladies,” Scazzy said.
"Then it will be none, because I refuse to go,” Larch insisted.
OOooooh, this Larch person is someone to watch closely. She has brains and a truckload of steel in her spine. If she plays her cards right, she might become another Warrior of the Celestial Blade. We need more of them outside the Citadel.
Hmmmm, I wonder which of my siblings has a dose of imp flu to spare.
Later. Tess doesn’t have time to nurse her through it or train her.
Not too much later. We need another warrior to guard this neutral sanctuary from demons like Darren or the Powers That Be.
Until then, my bets are on Larch either taking control of the coven or breaking it entirely.
"Brava, Larch,” MoonFeather said. She beamed as if one of her own children had made the honor roll.
Plump and mousy-looking Larch returned the glow, suddenly becoming pretty in a quiet way.
“So now what?” I asked the obvious. I was really getting tired of having everyone else’s problems dumped in my kitchen.
“You all go back to your hosts and ask hard questions. Like ‘what am I going to do with the rest of my life.’ And if the FBI asks, you are all your own daughters. The women who disappeared twenty-eight years ago are alive and well and living elsewhere,” MoonFeather said. She held each woman’s gaze a moment, like any good teacher allowing her students to form opinions and make decisions.
She’d raised two children, often alone, on a teacher’s salary. She still substituted in her semiretirement. Josh supported her so that she could have the time and ease to pursue her other interests, like becoming a master recycler and a master gardener and passing on her knowledge to community groups.
“It’s too hard,” Dragonfly wailed. She appeared to be the youngest of the group. Probably only eighteen in physical years.
“Life is hard. Life isn’t fair. We all have to learn to cope,” I said, hoping my quiet words would insert themselves into a few receptive minds. "WindScribe refused to accept that, and look what happened to her.”
The ladies remained silent, staring at each other and into the ether.
“I’m out of here, then,” King Scazzy said. “May I have my cap back, since you don’t need my oath or my services.”
MoonFeather examined the cap a moment, then glared at him.
“Please,” he gulped.
She extended the bit of red cloth and gilded feather on one finger. He snatched it along with the parchment and penknife and popped out before she could change her mind or make other demands.
“Larch, I would appreciate it if you would come home with me. I have need of assistance for a while. My injury is healing well, but my leg is still weak.” MoonFeather rose gracefully, using the staff as a brace.
I thought she leaned a little too heavily on it, making a point rather than truly needing it.
“I . . . I’d like that, MoonFeather.” Larch stood straight and as tall as her five-foot-nothing frame allowed. “Will you teach me about your herb garden? And how to use a computer?”
“I’ll do better than that. I’ll enroll you in the community college. Tuition, room, and board in exchange for housework and help in the garden until the end of summer. Then we will reevaluate. Now I have some packing to do, and Tess, we’d appreciate a ride back to my house.”
“I’ll take you in the van,” Gollum offered. “And I can give Larch a preliminary lesson on your home computer. She won’t get far at school if she doesn’t know a few of the basics.” He rose from his chair and pocketed his PDA and cell phone.
“What about us? Why aren’t you helping us?” FireHind asked. A gloss of anger marred her classic features. I could see a harpy just beneath the surface of her personality. She wouldn’t age gracefully.
“Larch showed some initiative and backbone. The rest of you were more interested in running away from reality than coping. In my mind, she has more potential than the entire lot of you.” MoonFeather stalked back to her room without looking back. Larch joined her, a quirky bounce in her step.
“I’m going for a run.” I stretched and yawned. “I expect to find my house empty and back to normal by the time I get back. Scrap, where are my running shoes?”
Chapter 50
NOW I’M IN FOR it. Without the distraction of the coven and Donovan and Mom, my babe will be after me to go time traveling again. I know her. When she gets an idea in her head, she doesn’t let go.
I wonder if I’d be safer taking a quick jaunt home to my own Mum? Maybe I can find a trinket in the Garbage Dump of the Universe to appease my babe for a while.
But that would make me little better than the coven, running away when life gets a bit sticky.
Scrap could run, but he couldn’t hide. Not for long at least. He was tied to me with mystical bonds I didn’t fully understand. He’d come back.
So while I waited, I stretched my muscles and let the adrenaline flow, eating up a few miles. I hadn’t exercised since . . . well, since that fencing bout with Donovan a couple of days ago. And the fight against the Windago. Neither one of those sessions allowed my mind to go blank while my body drank in fresh air and worked stress toxins out in my sweat.
I didn’t even mind stomping through puddles in the light drizzle. The gray skies were brightening. Life was beginning to look good. I might even get a few days in sunny Mexico after all.
Except for the questions that nagged at my soul.
In the last year I’d learned that coincidences happen for a reason. Darren Estevez and WindScribe fell into my life to teach me something, or reveal something.
I knew how valuable my house was now.
I also knew my husband had been murdered. He didn’t have to die. I couldn’t prevent that from happening. But maybe I could put his soul, and my conscience, to rest if I found out what happened.
I veered down to the beach. My feet pounded the water-soaked sand until my thighs began to burn and ache. Still I ran. Wondering. Forming and tossing out plan after plan.
One way or another I had to go back to Half Moon Lake, Washington, Donovan’s hometown. I had to find out what happened that aw
ful night three years ago.
With Scrap or without him. I had to go.
You also need to find out if Dillwyn Bailey Cooper was a half-blood Damiri demon, Scrap whispered to me from afar. Isn’t that more important, babe, than witnessing a murder you know happened at the hands of Darren Estevez?
“I’ll do that later, Scrap. Darren had reasons to kill Dill that I can only discover by going back to that time and place.”
The time and distance are too great, dahling. I don’t know if I can keep you safe.
“I’m willing to risk it.”
And if you die, who will take our place?
“Gollum will find someone to become the next Warrior of the Celestial Blade. Larch is looking like a good candidate.”
Only your Goddess can select a Warrior of the Celestial Blade.
That didn’t sound like the entire truth, but I’d accept it for now.
“Well, then, if I die, the Goddess will have to prod one of my Sisterhood to leave the Citadel and take my place. You’re the one who keeps telling me there is a cosmic plan and to believe in some higher power.”
The rain came down in earnest, soaking me more thoroughly. I ignored the chill, pushing myself to keep a steady pace as I turned back toward home.
Then a memory came to me. “Scrap, when we were in Half Moon Lake last autumn, the ghosts of the ancient guardians took us back twelve thousand years to witness the Sasquatch stealing the blanket of life. We survived that.”
They are guardians. They have different skills and purposes in their existence. They didn’t have the distance problem.
“Four years and three thousand miles doesn’t add up to twelve thousand years in distance. I have faith in you, buddy. Why can’t you have faith in yourself?”
Scrap didn’t answer for almost a quarter mile.
It’s the distance. It’s more difficult than the time.
“How about if we get Mom through the memorial service at noon, then we fly to Half Moon Lake? I think there’s a con in Seattle this weekend. We can go play there for a few days when we’re done.” Not as good as Mexico. More convenient. And cons had filk. I needed to sing again, blow out more mental toxins than running could accomplish.
So be it, Tess. But not alone. We need Gollum to watch our backs. We will go together. We live or die together.
I liked that idea. Gollum watching my back.
The path took me around Miller’s Pond. I kept to the western edge of the water, away from the scene of my battle with the Windago. A familiar path. I knew every twist and imperfection on the trail.
Still I stumbled. I’ll never know what tripped me up. But as I caught my balance against a conveniently placed oak (brimming with mistletoe in the upper branches), something square and regular in shape caught my eye.
This jarred me enough to stop me in my tracks. As far as I knew, Mother Nature didn’t create much with right-angle corners.
I reached out and picked up the object at the base of the tree very gingerly with my fingernails.
Then I had to sit. Rapidly. With a thump of my butt on the squishy, waterlogged ground beside the beaten path.
I held the hand-carved frame set with agates and arrowheads that Dill had made for our wedding picture. The picture itself was an unrecognizable sodden mess. But the frame was intact, if a little dirty.
Gollum and I had stood ten yards south of where I sat now when I cast my votive offering into the pond. I’d seen it skid across the ice and plop into the water at the center.
A tear dripped down my cheek.
The Goddess had returned the precious gift to me. She approved of something I did. I hoped it was my proposed trip back in time. I hoped she smiled on the endeavor and would help bring me back alive.
“Before we go, I need to show you something,” Gollum said quietly as I guided Mom through the ritual of dressing and eating before a memorial service. She looked and acted numb.
I’d put on a similar show for Dill’s funeral; too filled with grief to know how to let it out. I hurt so much I was afraid, if I let one tear escape, I’d shatter into a million pieces and never be able to find them all again. I wasn’t sure I wanted to at the time.
Gollum opened his laptop and awakened the thing. The scrambled symbols of a saved e-mail littered the screen.
“What am I looking at?” I asked scrolling down to find the body of the text.
A line caught my eye. An address that started db.cooper@ . . . My eyes blurred before I could read the rest.
“Dill?” Too shocked to ask the next question, I continued hitting the down button.
“He contacted me three years ago. Three days before the fire,” Gollum said quietly.
I couldn’t read Gollum’s posture or gaze. Didn’t care about that at the moment. I needed to read the message.
“You have a reputation as a demon hunter. I heard about you in Africa. We need to meet. I have information that will interest you. Use this e-mail. It’s private and secure.”
“That’s it?” I breathed. I found my hand trembling where it hovered over the damn computer buttons. “Why?”
“I don’t know. That’s all I have. I e-mailed him back with questions and a suggested meeting time and place. He never showed. I know now that he couldn’t come because he was dying in your arms at the time. I still have a lot of questions.”
“Like how he knew what you were up to in Africa?” I had a few questions about that myself.
Easier to wonder about a living Gollum than dredge up old hurts and grief with questions about my husband.
“More than that. How he found a way to contact me on an address known to a very select few who also have reputations as demon hunters. But I’m not a hunter. I’m an archivist, duty bound to serve a Celestial Warrior who escapes a Citadel. There aren’t many of you. Maybe one in each generation. Sometimes not that often.”
“Gayla says there are more Warriors outside now. Too many new portals cropping up to park Citadels atop each.” Speaking of which, where was the supposed help she promised me now that it was too late to help?
“I have already contacted my grandfather about that. He is searching for more archivists.”
“So Dill knew about demons.” My whole body shivered now. From the inside out.
“I think your husband knew about the ‘Great Enterprise’ of creating a homeland for half-blood demons. I think Dillwyn Bailey Cooper was going to betray Darren Estevez to me. And that’s why Estevez killed him.”
“How did he find out about it?”
Gollum answered me with a raised eyebrow.
“You think he was one of them?” I nearly gagged on my words. I suspected the same thing but was afraid to find out.
“I do believe that. I also know that as dangerous as your proposed time travel is, it will not bring you true closure. You have to go to Cooper’s parents and find out for yourself if they are half-blood Damiri.”