“Still…a lot of red snow,” Mama said.
Chumele sat on one of the benches that stretched along each side of the rear of the Guardian. She put her hands over her face and wept. “These people have no idea how to fight them. How could they?”
Wil looked to me. “You were out there for a while without me. What did you see?”
“Dinnertime,” I said.
Despite the roar of the engine, I could hear the screams of the victims compete with the rise and fall of the town’s civil defense siren.
“What’s the plan, Kevin?” Mama asked.
Mr. Chang turned the wheel hard and accelerated. “Hold on to something, please.”
A moment later, we hit something in the road and I saw a flash of yellow and red. Black blood covered the windshield. Mr. Chang turned on the windshield wipers.
A moment later, Mr. Chang cleared his throat. “I’ll drive us to our destination on the edge of town. After we get out, you keep driving, Ellen. Keep going until you get to a working phone. Call Victor and let him know what’s going on.”
“He knows,” I said. “Rory popped in.”
Mr. Chang tossed me a glance. “Are you sure he contacted Victor?”
“He contacted me. Surely he would get to Victor.”
“You didn’t see what the stones of the Keep did to the ghost,” Trick said. “He might not have been able to return there. Given what happened, I wouldn’t if I were him.”
I looked to Chumele. “Can you work some witchy spell? Send up a telepathic flare to the Choir or something?”
Chumele gazed back at me. Tears still slid down her cheeks but I could tell she was angry with me, too.
“That’s not how it works,” Chumele said. “And I wish you people would stop using the word ‘witch.’ I’m of the Wicca. I’m a wiccan from a long tradition and ancestry. I’m the Preceptor of the Spellcasters Brigade.”
I gritted my teeth, took a breath and tried again. “Can you warn the Choir?”
“No. I tap into the vast ocean of energy that is the universe. I’m not a human cell phone.”
“Then what good are you?” Trick asked.
“Stop it,” Mr. Chang said. “Chumele’s powers will become apparent soon. We get out in five minutes. Gather what supplies we have in the back and be ready. We haven’t much time.”
Mama leaned close to Mr. Chang. “What are you going to do with my daughter, Kevin?”
“What you always knew it would come to, Ellen. We’re going to unlock the secret weapon and even out this fight.”
“What exactly are we going to do?” Wil demanded.
Mama looked back. “The demons are bred to attack and destroy. It’s in you to save the world. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. If you fail, everything we’ve ever accomplished and everything we ever might have done will be erased by the Ra.”
Mama leaned forward from her chair and kissed Mr. Chang on the mouth. “I’ll stay with you, Kev.”
“It’s not safe,” Mr. Chang replied.
“It’s never been safe. If it’s the end of the world, we should be together. All of us.” Mama put her head on his shoulder. “No arguments, Kevin. I’m staying to the bitter end. I’m not leaving you or Tam.”
I stood, opened my mouth and then closed it, not knowing what to say. I stared at the back of Mama’s head. We went over a bump and I lost my balance. I would have fallen to the floor, but Trick caught me and sat me on the bench beside him.
“You okay?” Trick asked.
“Um.”
“You didn’t know about your mother and Mr. Chang, I take it?”
“Um.”
“Ah.”
Chapter 30
Medicament isn’t a big town. Within a few minutes we were at its edge. A few minutes later, the white light coming in through the windshield disappeared. Mr. Chang brought us to a shuddering stop.
“Welcome to my home. The house is up the hill. We’re not going to the house. We need to get through the woods to the quarry. I’d give you the tour, but we don’t have much time.”
As we exited the Guardian, I was surprised to discover we stood in a barn.
“You never struck me as the farmer type, Mr. Chang,” I said, “but I’m learning all sorts of surprising things on this mission.”
“I’m no farmer,” he said. “I grow warriors, not corn. But the accounting business paid for thirty acres.”
The wind picked up and snow blew in through the open doors behind us.
“The vehicle must not be seen from the road,” Mr. Chang said. “Close those doors.”
Wil and Trick rushed to comply. I stepped close to Mama. “When were you going to tell me about you and Mr. Chang?”
“At the right time.”
“When will that be?”
“I don’t know,” Mama said. “This isn’t it.”
“Mama!”
“You aren’t happy for me?”
“I guess. But why did you keep it a secret?”
“If you could see the look on your face right now, you wouldn’t have to ask.”
“I guess, after Dad, I thought you’d given up on men.”
“Nope. When you were a little girl, I thought you were too young to be told.”
“When I was a little girl? How long has this been going on?”
“Calm down and lower your voice. You’re embarrassing me.”
We both looked to Mr. Chang. He was speaking in low tones to Chumele while Trick and Wil stood on either side of the barn door, on guard and staring out at the rising storm through one-way glass. Mr. Chang flicked a glance our way and we both turned to examine our boots.
“Mama! How could you keep this secret for so long? He’s been my hapkido teacher since I was eleven, for god’s sake.”
“Kevin felt that if we got together in public, you might see him differently. If he stepped in as your stepfather, it could ruin the master/student dynamic. We didn’t want to risk interfering with your training.”
“But — wait a minute! You wanted to keep me out of the Choir. You did everything you could to keep me out of the war.”
“I was always afraid you would join the war, yes. I wanted to keep you out of it, yes. However, Peter said it was inevitable. All the seers said you would join the fight. Seems they were right. Either way, I wanted you strong so you could defend yourself, come what may.”
“Why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me all this?”
“When was a good time, Tam? When you were a kid you would have told all your classmates. When you were a young teenager, I wanted you to enjoy those years as much as possible without worrying about the future and how short it might be.”
“And when I started seeing ghosts and you put me in a mental hospital?”
“I was in a panic. I just wanted you safe. The mental hospital was supposed to be more sane than getting you into interdimensional warfare.”
I leaned against the Guardian’s nose and got more demon blood on my coat. I stepped away quickly and cursed. “If you wanted to keep me out of the Choir, why let Mr. Chang train me?”
“If you’ll recall, I discouraged you from training. But Kevin changed my mind.”
“I thought I changed your mind.”
“Kevin said that if the seers were right, the training would give you a head start.”
“And it did,” Mr. Chang said. He stepped close. “If we survive today, we can argue about all this over Thanksgiving dinner like a normal family. Right now, we need to get to Grove Quarry.”
At that moment, two Asian women walked into the back of the barn. The younger woman wore full plate armor, heavy and pure white. She carried a spear in her hands and a bow with a quiver of arrows on a rig strapped to her back. The older woman was a misty wistful.
Mr. Chang gave them both a nod. “Ladies and gentleman. Allow me to introduce Malta and Taeko. Malta is my daughter. Her birth name is Sasha. Taeko is my late wife.”
Mr. Chang stepped close to his daughte
r. I heard him say, “We’re under attack,” before they switched to a quick exchange in Chinese.
“That’s the other wrinkle that has made things awkward,” Mama whispered.
“You can see his ghost wife?”
“No, of course not,” Mama said. “I’m an ordinary human, but I know she’s there.”
“How?”
“Kevin just said so. I think sometimes she’s spying on us even when Kevin tells me she isn’t there. How does she look, Tam?”
“Who?”
“What do you mean, who? Kevin’s dead wife who!”
Taeko was dead, sure, but she was also one of the sexiest women I’d ever seen. It didn’t hurt at all that she walked around this earthly plane in a tankini.
“Well?” Mama pressed.
The misty wistful studied me as I looked her up and down. “She looks…fine.”
“In what way?”
“She looks nice for a dead woman, I guess.”
“On a scale from one to ten?”
Ninety-nine, I thought. “A solid five,” I said.
“Good,” Mama said. “I keep getting older and she doesn’t, so it’s really not fair.”
“How did she die? There’s not a mark on her.”
“Oh, that. Your father poisoned her.”
Lesson 142: Family secrets don’t get revealed until they can do the maximum damage.
On the plus side, arguments and petty jealousies at your family’s Thanksgiving dinner don’t seem so bad now, do they?
Chapter 31
Malta looked me up and down. “So this is her?”
“I’m me,” I said. “Iowa. I saw you a few years ago, but you were in the advanced black belt classes when I was a green belt. We didn’t talk much. I was always leaving the dojang as you were coming in. I thought you were away at university.”
“I was, for a while — ”
“Developments necessitated Malta’s return,” Mr. Chang said.
She shot a mean look her father’s way. “I’ve been in prison.”
“Malta is being hyperbolic,” Mr. Chang said.
“I’ve been guarding the quarry. Feels like the same thing.”
“You guard the quarry so there will be such things as universities when the war is over.”
I recognized my master’s tone. That was the bass that came into his voice just before he ordered someone to do pushups.
“Is the secret weapon in the quarry?” I asked.
“The path to the weapon, yes,” Mr. Chang said.
“Then let’s go!” Trick said.
“Agreed. Ellen, this isn’t your war. Perhaps you should stay in the Guardian.”
“Perhaps I should stay with my daughter. My daughter and my world. I can’t carry a tune,” Mama hefted her shotgun, “but I can do a little percussion.”
Malta looked at Mama and me. You know the face you make when you step in dog shit? It was like that. If she smiled, she might be as pretty as her mother, but I doubted I’d ever see that.
“Wilmington, stay and guard the Guardian. When the demons come, lead them away. Do some damage if you can but do so safely. You are our backup escape plan, so stay alive,” Mr. Chang said. “Trick, bring up the rear. If you see anything come after us, say something before it kills you.”
“Good advice,” Trick said.
“What did you say, boy?”
Trick picked up a sword cane. “Something that wasn’t sarcastic. It might have been, ‘yes, sir.’”
“Good boy. But put the toy away and grab a broadsword from the back of the Guardian.”
Trick looked pained. “I’m no better with a broadsword than a blade concealed in a cane, but at least with the cane I’m less likely to fall in a snowdrift.”
“Why are you here again?” Malta asked.
“Brains, good looks and moral support?”
Mr. Chang gave Trick a hard look. “Bring two blessed broadswords, boy, and strap them to your back. I can’t use you for your looks or your brains and your jokes aren’t that good. However, you might be helpful as a lookout and a pack mule.”
The misty wistful’s eyes were on me and I couldn’t help stare back. “Your mother was very beautiful, Malta.”
“She is beautiful,” Malta said. “She was more talkative before your father killed her.”
“He’s a DINO.”
“A what?”
“Dad In Name Only. But I am sorry. Not that there could ever be a good reason to poison anyone, but why did he do that?”
“Poison seals fate and sacrifice opens it,” Chumele said.
She acted like I was supposed to know what that meant so I nodded sagely. There was no time to ask questions. With demons tearing through Medicament, we had to get the secret weapon.
Lesson 143: When there is no time to ask questions, that’s when answers are needed most. Plan ahead if you can.
We left Wil at the wheel of the Guardian and exited through the back of the barn. Buffeted by wind and snow, Mr. Chang led the hike. We walked single file past signs that read: No Trespassing. Farther on, along a narrow path through the woods, the signs read: Trespassers will be shot.
Mama was sturdy, but I worried the preceptor might blow away. Chumele shivered and hugged herself. She wore only a light windbreaker, jeans and high calfskin boots. Chumele looked to weigh less than a hundred pounds. If there was demon trouble, I wondered who would need more protection, Chumele or Trick.
Taeko Chang, walked beside the little Filipina, comfortably dead in a bathing suit and oblivious to the weather.
It wasn’t a long way to the quarry, but the snow slowed our progress. Finally, the trees parted and we stood at the edge of a deep well of rock.
Not only had I never visited Mr. Chang’s home, I’d never been to Grove Quarry. It was a small lake of ice dotted with a few islands of rock and an ice fishing hut at each end of the quarry.
“Who’s the ice fisherman?” Trick asked.
“The one on the right is mine. I keep my oxygen tanks and other things there.”
“You dive?” I asked. “In winter?” The thought made me shiver.
“I do lots of things,” Malta said.
“The far hut belongs to our local holy man,” Mr. Chang said.
“But you can call me Spider.”
We turned, weapons ready, as a haggard bearded man emerged from the trees. He’d been no more than a few feet away, but we’d had no idea he stood there.
“Hold!” Mr. Chang commanded us. “This is the holy man I was talking about. Meet Mr. Richardson.”
“Just call me Spider,” the old man said. He was thin under his huge parka, a look that suggested he’d once been much healthier than the slip of a man we saw now.
He ignored everyone but the wiccan. “It’s been a long time, Chumele. Do you still sing karaoke?”
Chumele smiled back. “Sometimes. Are you keeping your vows of celibacy?”
“Since we last met, yes.”
“Good,” she said. “I wouldn’t want your blessings to lose their power.”
“That’s not so solid a rule, you know. If I were part of a tantric order, there’d be more leeway.”
“Careful. That’s the train of thought that got you to break your vows last time.”
“Since you, I have not been tempted. I come here every day at dawn, noon and sunset for the rituals and to keep the seals strong.”
Malta cleared her throat. “Excuse me? We’re in a hurry here.”
“Allow me this moment,” Chumele said.
“We don’t have time to —”
Chumele put a finger to her lips. Malta stopped speaking. Then I realized she literally could not speak. She could only watch as Chumele went to the old man. He took her in his arms. They embraced for a long moment until Chumele went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “I don’t like the beard, but it was good to see you again. Goodbye, Spider.”
“Goodbye, Chumele. I’ll always remember that summer.”
Spider lo
oked up and seemed to notice the rest of us for the first time. “If you have to retreat and can’t get back to Chang’s place, regroup at my cottage past the trees on the far side of the quarry.”
He pointed at a tiny plume of smoke from a chimney through the trees. “I’ll be there with bandages and whatnot, ready to assist the survivors, if there are any. Hope so. I’m a little long in the tooth to battle demons. They’re long in the fang and don’t have much respect for old sorcerers like me.”
Spider gave a nod to each of us and disappeared into the trees. Whatever else the old man could do, he was the master of camouflage. Unless he had a cloak of invisibility or a really convincing tree costume, I have no idea how he did it.
Chumele released Malta from her spell. When Mr. Chang’s daughter could speak again, she coughed, sputtered and cursed the little wiccan.
Trick chuckled. “Unless you want her to do a Darth Vader force choke on you, maybe you better settle down, Malta.” He put a finger to his lips just as Chumele had. Malta flinched and shut up.
As we walked along the edge of the quarry, Malta’s cheeks flushed scarlet. Her pride had been dented. Her father looked for a way to restore it to its original mint condition.
“There was a fellow from Des Moines who had a diving club,” Mr. Chang said. “He wanted to test his students here in the summer. He said testing is best done in the dark, getting divers to take off their tanks and all their equipment. Then they put it back on, blind.”
“Diving here in summer would be a luxury,” Malta said.
“We had to discourage him from coming back,” Mr. Chang said.
“What’d you do to discourage him?” Trick asked.
“Something mean,” Malta said.
When she said that, I could tell she felt a little better. I was wrong about a smile making her pretty. When Malta smiled, she looked dangerous.
“The Choir keeps the secret down there,” Malta said.
“A magical secret locked up tight,” Chumele said. She took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
Mr. Chang shook his head sadly. “I’d hoped we wouldn’t have to use the weapon, though. It will be…difficult. The sacrifices necessary will change the nature of this war.”
The End of the World As I Know It (The Ghosts & Demons Series Book 2) Page 14