by P. R. Frost
Damn! I still had tender wounds from the dog attack.
If I wasn’t careful, I might lose strength and stamina when I most needed it.
Slowly I pinched the sliver of rock and slid it out. A good half inch of the pointed edge came out red. Blood flowed freely down my arm.
Pressure, babe. Apply pressure, Scrap whispered.
I couldn’t see him. But I followed his advice. Basic first aid. Pressure and elevation. No way could I lift the wound above my head. The arm was just too heavy and hurt more with every movement.
Let me help, Tess. Scrap sounded worried as he popped back into view, a pinkish haze that glowed slightly. He ran his tongue around the edges of the wound and across it.
I had to look away. Too close to vampirism for my taste.
The intense burn dissipated and retreated. Now I only ached from neck to elbow. The arm was still too painful to lift.
So I fumbled for a bandanna I’d stuffed into the pack.
It was sweaty and dirty from where I’d mopped my face and neck. Better than nothing. With only a few missed tries, I managed to wrap it around the wound. With my teeth and my good hand I tied it reasonably tight, then clamped my palm across it and pressed.
The bleeding slowed to an ooze while I leaned my face against the cool rock wall and tried to stay conscious.
“Who, Scrap?” I finally whispered. Even if I had the strength to speak louder, I didn’t want the sound of my voice to carry and alert the shooter to my location.
Caves did strange things to acoustics and might amplify sound in a weird direction.
Don’t know. Scrap stubbed out his cigar in the remnants of the fire.
“Can you go look?”
Not with you bleeding. Can’t get more than six feet from you. Even if the stinky man showed up right now, he couldn’t force me away from you.
“Oh?”
Code and honor and magic tie me more closely to you when you’re wounded or under attack.
“So what do we do?”
Wait.
“For what? For an assassin to come looking and find me?”
Three misty forms oozed out of the walls. No features, no definition. Just blobs of white. They hovered in front of me. My vision must have been playing tricks on me.
Shock and blood loss.
I gulped. Once again I had that overwhelming sense of unwelcome.
Just then I heard small rocks falling and a body flopping around on the cliff face. “She can’t have gotten far,” a man said in a deep, guttural voice. He sounded like the Indian who had guarded Donovan Estevez’s office.
I froze in place. Specters in the cave or an enemy with a gun outside?
The ghosts grew in size and took on the vague outlines of short, muscular humans. Male or female, I could not tell. Modern or ancient remained just as elusive.
I was betting on ancient.
“I told you, I don’t want her hurt,” Donovan said.
What was he doing out here?
Good question, babe. What is the stinky man up to?
More scrambling among the rocks. The voices still sounded far above me.
The ghosts shifted their eerie attention from me to the men outside.
“But she was spying on our operation,” the other man replied.
“Spying on the casino from down here?” Donovan sounded a lot closer now. Closer than his guard. “Come now, Quentin. Even you aren’t dumb enough to think she could see anything from below.”
“The office, boss.”
I didn’t need to see the men to know that Quentin pointed across the water toward the Mowath Lodge. I had seen movement in my suite.
Donovan said something in a language I did not understand, full of hisses, clicks, and grunts.
Scrap’s ears pricked and he turned brilliant red, as if he needed to transform into the Celestial Blade.
The ghosts melted back into the cave walls.
“What?” I mouthed to Scrap.
You don’t want to know.
“Yes, I do!” I insisted without sound.
“Next time, ask me before you shoot. Tess Noncoiré dead is a whole lot more trouble than alive.”
“If you say so, boss. I still think she should meet with an accident.”
“No.”
“I could make a fire look like an accident. Like when that Dillwyn person died.”
Quentin knew how Dill had died. He implied that he had set the fire.
I strained to hear more. Fear kept me rooted to the spot. I began to shake all over.
“What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand, Quentin?”
Donovan’s voice became strained.
I imagined the lines of anger creasing his face.
A long moment of silence.
My blood ran cold. Donovan’s henchman was talking about killing me. Just two days ago Donovan had plied me with champagne, caviar, and strawberries dipped in chocolate on a picnic.
“Well, she’s long gone now. We might as well return to work. We’re behind schedule as it is,” Donovan said.
“You going ahead with construction without that inspection?”
So my e-mail and phone call had done some good.
“Inspectors aren’t worth the paper their credentials are printed on,” Donovan sneered.
“This one sounded serious and important. He can close us down if he doesn’t like what he sees.”
“I’ll see to it that he likes what we are doing.” Donovan moved away.
I counted to one hundred in the unnatural silence that followed.
“Check to see where they are,” I finally whispered to Scrap.
He winked out and back in less than a heartbeat.
Halfway around the lake, still in full view of here, he reported.
He hovered close to me, wings working overtime as he peered through the gloom at my aching arm.
I leaned my head back against the cave wall while I gathered my strength.
The bleeding has stopped. You’ll start to heal soon, Scrap tried to soothe me. Imp spit does the trick every time!
“But it still hurts. And it’s weak. I’m going to have a hell of a time climbing down those rocks.” I drank deeply from the water bottle.
Power Bar, babe. You need some protein.
“I need answers. What was that language Donovan spat out? I didn’t think a human voice box could wrap around some of those sounds.”
Absolute silence from Scrap. He tried to fade into nothingness, but I was still hurt and he was still bound to stay with me.
“Spit it out, Scrap.”
You don’t want to know, he repeated.
“I’m getting tired of hearing that.”
His glamour of irresistible male potency is not natural.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Cold fear and adrenaline washed over me, replaced by an ugly sense of—I didn’t like myself very much in that moment. Donovan had used me. He’d used some kind of unnatural magic on me.
And I fell for it.
“I’m gonna kill that guy when I see him next,” I ground out between clenched teeth.
Not a good idea, Tessie.
“I know. He’s got money and connections. I’d bring a whole hell of a lot of trouble down if he turned up dead with me holding the gun. At least now I know I can’t trust him.”
You’d be better off with Gollum. I like him.
“Guilford Van der Hoyden-Smythe is a pest and a nuisance.”
That’s why I like him.
“Go check again and see if they are out of sight. I need to get out of here and then find a drugstore so I can properly clean and bandage this wound. Don’t want infection setting in.” My emergency med kit was in my own car, at home. Too bulky and extensive to carry with me. The small first aid kit I kept in my suitcase wouldn’t cover this large a wound.
Scrap snorted even as he poked his head out the cave mouth. You can’t get infections anymore. And it’s all clear.
“Don’t supp
ose I could go back to the Citadel and have Serena fix me up?”
We both have to earn our way back in. You haven’t even killed one demon yet. We’ve got a way to go, babe.
The story of my life. What I truly wanted was always just beyond my reach. Like answers and saving Cynthia.
“Au revoir,” I called to the ghosts as I crawled out of the cave. “Mind the store until I get back.”
In that moment I knew I’d be back. With questions. Or maybe just to wait for Cynthia to show up with the dog.
I didn’t have the energy for disguise and subterfuge that evening, so I dined in the steak house next door to the lodge. This place catered to tourists and wealthy retirees in the big houses around the golf course. The chilly evening gave me the excuse to wear a bulky sweater with my jeans to cover the bandages on my upper left arm.
Donovan apparently ate there, too. He straddled the chair opposite me, leaning over the back, without invitation.
“Why are you here, Tess?” he asked without preamble.
“Research. I’m setting a new book in a place like this. Add one monster out of local folklore to that lake and it makes a perfect setting. I like the idea of the water layers never mixing, not in twelve thousand years.”
“You’ve been here long enough to gather all the books on local geology and take pictures of every rock formation.” He tapped the book on local Indian legends I’d been reading before he so rudely interrupted me. I hadn’t found anything on the dog or the blanket.
Not that I minded staring at his handsome face rather than rereading the same paragraph over and over because I couldn’t concentrate.
Stop that! I admonished myself. He’s using that weird mojo again.
“You could go home in the morning,” he said with a sexy smile.
Was that an invitation to spend tonight with him before I went home tomorrow? My bones wanted to melt despite my resolution to never trust him again.
Mentally, I slapped my face to rid my brain and my libido of all those stray thoughts.
“I’m fascinated with that blanket hanging in your office. It’s obviously very old. What’s the story behind it?” I had to think about something other than the way his mobile mouth curved over his teeth, how that mouth tasted, and molded to mine.
“The blanket is a family heirloom.”
“I’d like to buy it from you.”
“It’s not for sale.”
“Then tell me more about it. Where did it come from? How was it woven? Why is the binding unfinished?”
Donovan looked up sharply and frowned at some newcomers at the door.
“Doesn’t this town have animal control laws?” a stranger shouted. “I swear that dog was ready to chew through my closed car windows.”
I turned around and stared. Just an ordinary middleaged couple going to fat and wearing too much turquoise and silver jewelry with their polyester slacks and matching golf shirts.
The hostess murmured something soothing to the couple.
“I’ve got to go. I hope to see you in Cape Cod next time I’m there. But not around here, Tess. This town can be dangerous. We have our own monsters to deal with, and they don’t have anything to do with your fantasy books. And I prefer your hair down, like it is now.”
Donovan slammed his chair back, dropped a kiss on top of my head, and stalked toward the door.
I waved the waitress over. “Serve that couple the drink of their choice on me,” I said quietly, nodding toward the strangers who had had a dog encounter of the close kind.
When the drinks arrived, I picked up my own glass of wine and moved my chair to their table. “I’m so sorry you had such a terrible fright from that dog. He’s so big and dangerous. I don’t see why the authorities don’t just shoot him,” I said in my most sympathetic manner.
“You seen him, too?” the man asked.
“Just before I came to dinner. Bigger than a wolfhound, uglier than a mastiff, and meaner than a rabid pit bull.”
“That’s him alrighty. Vern and Myrna Abrams.” He stuck his hand in my face for me to shake.
I took it limply. “Teresa Newcomb,” I replied, giving him my first nom de plume. “Where did you see the dog?”
“On the road into town, not ten minutes ago.”
Already dark out.
“Was there anyone with the dog? You’d think if someone owned him, they’d be chasing after him, trying to catch him.”
“Just a little girl. Looked like an Indian, dirty and scruffy. She yelled at the dog, and he seemed to pay attention to her, but he just kept coming right at the car, like he didn’t see it. Woulda run right over us if I hadn’t hit the brakes.”
The waitress arrived with my steak. I told her to put it on my table. I’d learned enough. No sense in disturbing this couple further.
“We’re staying at the Mowath Lodge, number seven. Where’re you staying, Teresa?” Myrna Abrams asked.
I gulped. They had the suite right next to me. So much for privacy. “Number six,” I admitted reluctantly.
“Maybe we’ll see you around, take the cure together. I hear the water works wonders on arthritis. Bet you’ve got a nice case of bursitis going in that shoulder the way you favor it,” Myrna gushed.
I smiled and picked up the book I’d brought to read with my dinner.
At least Cynthia was still safe and communicating with the dog.
Interlude
PATIENCE, DAHLING. YOU need patience to survive in this world, I counseled my babe. She sat with her legs folded beneath her, hands resting on her knees, palms up, eyes closed, and a frown upon her face. Half a dozen other trainees sat with her in a circle. Sister Martha marched around them. Her voice droned out the litany of meditation.
Concentrate. You have to concentrate.
Tess wasn’t listening. She was bored. I could tell. She’d been here in the Citadel eleven months now. She’d mastered every physical exercise and blade technique they threw at her. She even threw some new ones into the mix—and got into trouble for it.
But this simple relaxation and thought mastery eluded her.
I couldn’t blame her. I tended to snooze through these sessions, too.
Today Sister Gert observed. That did not bode well for us.
“Sister Teresa, what do you think you are doing?” Sister Gert demanded.
I cracked open one eye to make sure she meant me and not one of the other newcomers. The way she scowled I was pretty sure she meant me. She’d used my real name, the one I only allowed my mother to call me.
Sister Gert was not my mother.
“I’m trying to concentrate.” That was what Scrap had advised me to do, wasn’t it?
“You cannot meditate with your shoulders hunched and your face screwed up like a dried prune. Now what were you thinking about? Not the exercise, certainly.”
Sister Gert stalked over to my position in the circle.
“Actually I was thinking up a new plot for a book. But the character of the villain has me puzzled. Would you like to model for her?”
Not the most diplomatic thing to say. Obviously.
Sister Gert grabbed me by the collar of my cotton shirt and hauled me to my feet and out into the slightly warmer corridor. At least part of the Citadel had southfacing windows that absorbed some of the winter sunlight and heat.
Thank the Goddess. My butt was numb from the cold stone floor in this cold stone room without windows. My back ached from sitting straight for so long without support.
My mind was threatening to desert me from sheer boredom.
“Insolence cannot be tolerated here!” Sister Gert clenched her fist as if she wanted to slug me.
I almost welcomed it. She wanted to hit me. I wanted to hit back. And then I wanted to leave.
“We are a tightly honed fighting unit. You must learn to obey without question in order to survive the next attack.”
“An attack from what? I’ve been here almost a year and there has only been one fight. I wasn’t allowe
d to watch or participate. I’ve never seen a demon and I’ve yet to see the supposed portal.” My fists clenched, too.
“You do not believe?” Sister Gert looked at me incredulously.
“No. I do not believe in your demons, or your Goddess, or anything you’ve taught me.” Except for Scrap.
He was the only part of this entire experience that seemed real.
A translucent imp from another dimension was the only thing real here.
Maybe I had gone mad in my grief over Dill.
“Come with me.” Sister Gert marched down the corridor toward the central tower building. I’d been in the ground floor of that building once or twice. Just an armory.
Nothing more. I had my own personal replica blade and Scrap. I didn’t need anything more from there.
Sister Gert yanked open the heavy wooden door with iron hinges, locks, and crossbar. The thing weighed more than the two of us combined, yet she moved it with ease.
My estimation of her strength and abilities went up, even though I’d rarely seen her on the practice field.
The armory smelled of dust and cold. Afternoon sunlight streamed in through high windows on all four walls. Bright blades in numerous shapes and sizes from ornate daggers to broadswords to scimitars to pikes gleamed. Well-oiled, sharp and deadly.
“A case of AK47s would kill a lot more demons a lot faster than blades,” I said, admiring the weapons anyway.
“Wouldn’t do a thing against a demon,” Sister Gert snorted. “Specially forged blades are the only thing that will penetrate their hides.”
“Specially forged?”
“With magic.”
Can’t you feel it, babe? Scrap asked. He stared at the weapons array with longing.
“Feel what, Scrap?”
“The magic. The aura. The specialness,” Sister Gert answered for him. She stared at a broadsword with awe.
They looked like any other sword I’d seen at cons and SCA events. Only sharper.
Sister Gert ended her rapt study by whisking a tacky piece of dirty carpet off the floor near the center of the room. Then she beckoned me to help her lift a stone trapdoor. It came up with surprising ease to reveal a flight of narrow stone steps heading into darkness.
“From here we must have absolute quiet. Your life depends upon this.” She fixed me with a stern glare.