by P. R. Frost
“I do so swear.” And I did. Those were ideals I could agree with and follow.
“Then we send you forth into the world, a more complete and better woman than when you came here.”
That was certainly the truth.
In the middle of the crowd, a Sister lit her candle and lifted it high. Then another and another of them saluted me.
Gulping back a sob, I held my head high and marched out the huge double gate of the Citadel. Alone except for Scrap. More than a little scared at having to face the world again. Saddened that I had to leave friends behind.
I had made friends within the Citadel. Friends I would cherish for a long time to come.
And we cherish you as well, Sister Serena whispered into my mind.
Thank you for championing me when no one else would, came a farewell from Gayla, the woman I’d pulled in from the storm.
Keep your guard up on your left. Demons will know it’s your weak side, Sister Paige reminded me.
Remember to give your imp an occasional beer, Sister Mary added.
Thanks for telling us stories in the dead of night when our nightmares became too real. That was Sister Electra with her flaming red hair.
Questions have their place. Learn when to ask them, and when to accept what is, Sister Gert got in the last word. She even had a bit of a chuckle in her voice. You gave us many things to think about, even if you are rash, impudent, and disrespectful.
I laughed out loud and started up the refurbished car I had arrived in eleven months ago.
Chapter 44
“WHERE’S CYNTHIA?” I asked Gollum the moment I entered my suite at the Mowath Lodge. Why was the place starting to feel like home?
Thanks to Sylvia’s mother-hen presence, my return trip had been free of incidents, shadows, and other boogeymen.
I wasn’t ready yet to face them here where I knew they hovered.
“She’s with Sapa. They are out collecting grass, bark, and feathers to weave into the blanket,” Gollum replied, not even looking up from his computer screen. As usual, he was sprawled in the armchair with his laptop. I had no idea what the arcane symbols on the screen meant.
The cat had squeezed itself around the computer and still managed to occupy most of his lap.
“If Cynthia and Sapa are out collecting, who’s guarding the blanket?” I turned on my heel and began the march back to Donovan’s office and the precious artifact.
I couldn’t stand still anyway. Something drove me to keep moving. Unpacking wasn’t enough.
“The blanket is under lock and key and I have the key. I can’t get into the office to take it. They can’t break into where the blanket is without setting off an alarm.” He held up a shiny brass key no bigger than his thumbnail.
“Who set that up?”
“I compromised with Estevez.”
“How’d you twist Donovan’s arm to get him to agree?”
I couldn’t imagine Gollum so much as threatening the man, let alone forcing a compromise.
Although I had a fuzzy dream image of Gollum near strangling a Marine medic to keep him from giving me lethal tranquilizers. That must have been a hallucination induced by fried synapses from the super-industrialstrength tazer.
But then I had a flash of remembrance as he hoisted himself up rocks by the strength of his arms alone while Cynthia and I had to scramble with footholds and elbows and knees to get over the obstacles in front of the cave even after he boosted us up.
“I got the phone number of the state archaeologist and put him on speed dial.” Gollum grinned and finally looked up at me. Even through his glasses, I could see the smile light his eyes with mischief.
“And Donovan will do almost anything to keep the state archaeologist from prowling around the caves beneath the casino.” Part of me was delighted. Only part.
Goddess, I wished I could get over that man. Why couldn’t I just admit to myself that he was half demon and not attractive at all?
Sad and vulnerable Donovan was more attractive than strong and confident Donovan. I still lusted after both of him.
One night with him didn’t seem like enough.
And yet it was too much.
I’d never chosen bed partners indiscriminately before.
Dill, my husband, was the only man I’d slept with before a long series of dates and inner debates. With Dill, it was love at first sight.
With Donovan, it was lust at first sight, nothing more.
It had to be.
“Tess, look what we found!” Cynthia bounded into the suite looking flushed, windblown, and happy. Happier than I’d ever seen her.
Once more my heart swelled with… with love for her. She had given me a flower for Dill’s grave. Now she held out a pretty feather for my inspection.
A longing opened in my soul. A longing to keep this child/woman close and cherished; to protect her as a mother as well as a friend.
Possibilities…
“Let me see.” I held out my hand for the long, dark tailfeather that looked black upon first inspection but glimmered iridescent blue when the light shifted.
“Magpie,” Gollum said and went back to his computer.
A strain from “The Thieving Magpie” by Rossini drifted through my head. I couldn’t think of a more appropriate feather to add to the blanket that had been stolen and recovered so many times in the past.
After a light supper at the café—I’d eaten so much restaurant and airline food in the past few weeks even Mom’s cooking was beginning to sound good—Cynthia went back to the office and the blanket to sleep with Sapa.
The two of them truly belonged to each other now and I had no idea how I could arrange for them to stay together with the blanket once we closed the demon portal.
She was still only twelve, and the state had very serious issues with a child who didn’t have adult supervision and school.
“The blanket belongs in a museum,” I muttered. An afternoon job demonstrating weaving in the old way might be the solution. If we could find foster parents and a school for her close to the museum.
“But there is no museum close enough to the portal to be of any use,” Gollum reminded me.
An idea itched in the back of my mind but slid out of reach every time I tried to grab it. My body twitched more than the idea.
“Let me think about this for a while. Come on, let’s take a walk.” I grabbed Gollum’s hand and hauled him out of his chair.
He slid the laptop onto the coffee table. The cat humphed and took up a roost under the highly varnished slab of burl wood.
We walked in silence a few moments, comfortable with each other and with the silence.
“If Donovan is keeping his office in town open, then he must be working on refinancing the casino,” I mused as we climbed the steps to my suite an hour later.
I was beginning to wonder if Gollum actually had the suite below me. He didn’t seem to use it at all.
The night was too fine, and I was too restless to stay inside. I wandered out onto the back deck, pacing. Inside, outside.
Maybe if I went for a run around the lake, I’d settle down. I hadn’t had any serious exercise other than the treadmill at the hotel gym in nearly a week. The demon bite was healing, though it itched abominably.
My skin felt like it didn’t belong to me. A run didn’t sound right. I wanted Scrap beside me. I even missed his smelly cigar. My fashion sense wasn’t complete without him.
I grabbed the deck railing with both hands and forced myself to breathe deeply. Three breaths in, exhaling completely each time. I tried a standing meditation to clear my mind so that I could pinpoint the source of my agitation. No way could I sit still long enough to do a proper meditation.
Three more deep breaths. I couldn’t get rid of enough air. Everything clogged in my body and my mind.
Something outside myself nagged at my soul.
This was like PMS magnified by ten, except that I didn’t get PMS anymore. Not since the fever.
Only once before had I felt this extreme and uncalledfor agitation…
The night I witnessed the Goddess manifest in the stars while I was still at the Citadel.
I looked up to where the waxing quarter moon floated in the sky. It cast a diffuse reflection across the surface of the murky lake.
The stars shone so brightly behind the moon I felt as if I could reach up and touch them.
A river of light streamed away from the top of the moon.
The Milky Way.
The constellation jumped out at me. The moon defined the curve of a lady’s cheek. The Goddess Kynthia.
The Milky Way became her flowing hair, drifting in a celestial wind. Two bright stars with a blue cast twinkled at me like eyes trying to communicate wordlessly.
Even as I blinked in wonder, the rest of Kynthia’s face filled in with more stars. Her mouth quirked up in a knowing smile, reminiscent of the Mona Lisa.
“Guilford, get your butt out here!”
He slammed open the sliding doors and appeared at my side before I finished speaking. “What? What’s wrong?”
“That!” I pointed to the wondrous event in the sky.
“The moon’s up. So?”
“Can’t you see her?” I couldn’t take my eyes off the Goddess. “She’s so clear, so dominant in the sky!”
“See what?”
“Oh, My Goddess!”
Kynthia only showed her face when the Warriors of the Celestial Blade needed to gather in defense. She warned us that the demons were on the move.
Quickly I scanned the horizon, wishing for supernatural vision or at least infrared goggles.
“There!” I pointed up and across the lake. In the few security lights around the casino on top of the ridgeline I saw movement. Many figures. Many figures carrying torches. Live fire in a desert that hadn’t seen any rain in months.
“I need binoculars.”
“Your binoculars won’t help. But these will.” Gollum produced a pair of the night vision binoculars.
I didn’t waste time asking him where they came from.
“Two dozen beings up there. I can’t tell if they’re human or Sasquatch. How do I increase the power of these things?”
Gollum adjusted something on top of the heavy binoculars.
Images jumped into focus. “Sasquatch!”
“Tess?” Donovan called to me from the front of the lodge, followed by fierce pounding on the door. “Tess, where are you?”
“Back here!” I didn’t move, didn’t dare take my eyes off the demons until I figured out what they were up to.
“Tess, they’ve stolen the blanket. They’ve got Cynthia and the dog, too.” Donovan rounded the building and stood below me on the verge of the beach.
I vaulted the railing and landed lightly, ready to run.
Kynthia imbued me with power I didn’t know I had.
“Scrap, get your ass back in this dimension. Now!”
“I didn’t hear the alarm,” Gollum said accusingly.
“They smashed it and cut the wires before they entered the office. They ripped the blanket off the wall, glass case and all. The dog attacked them. They just clubbed him over the head and picked him up. Cynthia, too. We’ve got to get that blanket back!”
Chapter 45
“WE’VE GOT TO SAVE Cynthia.” Images of Cynthia proffering me a flower for Dill’s grave cleared my priorities.
“We’ll help.” The banker and his wife appeared on their deck.
“How?” I asked Donovan.
“They know everything. They can help.”
“Number crunching won’t help.” I was already running to my rental car, another SUV, red this time.
Gollum grabbed the keys from my hands. “I’m better qualified at off-road driving,” he informed me as he started the engine. I had no choice but to claim the seat beside him. Donovan and his friends piled in behind.
I burned with questions about the bankers. We rode in silence. Gollum took the rough back road up to the casino way too fast. My teeth jarred until my jaw ached.
We bounced over ruts and dipped into potholes only to climb out the other side with speed and dexterity I’d never have managed.
Gollum certainly had more talents than I suspected.
I gripped the seat with white knuckles. The drive went on forever.
All I could think about was Cynthia alone and frightened.
Kidnapped a second time by demons.
Demons who had clear access to a portal beneath the casino.
The road leveled out abruptly as we topped the ridge. Gollum jerked the emergency brake on before we came to a complete stop. I was out of the car and running a heartbeat later. Donovan came hot on my heels. The bankers and Gollum were only a step behind.
“Scrap, where the hell are you?”
I ran into a solid wall of Sasquatch. The stench nearly gagged me. My head felt too light and my knees too heavy.
I bent my head and rammed straight forward into the gut of one. He grunted as the wind whooshed out of him.
More bad breath.
But he backed up, giving me access to the backs of his comrades.
They must have been Kajiri—half-bloods. Not a one was over six-and-a-half-feet tall. Judicious kicks to knees and groins helped clear more space. I needed fighting room, with or without my Celestial Blade.
“Scrap!” I continued to call, whenever I had breath enough to spare.
Then, at last, a familiar whiff of cigar smoke cut through rancid BO and lack of mouthwash.
Scrap landed in my outstretched hand with a thud, already halfway into transformation. He clutched something bright and shiny, but I didn’t have time to wonder about it. Whatever it was, it became part of the blade.
I cleared more space twirling him, giving him the centrifugal force to elongate. Together, we cut a swath through the Kajiri.
Over to my left I saw Donovan fighting tooth and nail with a pair of full-sized Sasquatch. He stayed human, no trace of bat wings. Why?
No time to wonder. The Sasquatch came at me thick and heavy.
The banker couple engaged their own pair. They’d grown teeth that might have looked adequate on a saber-toothed tiger, and long purple tentacles sprouted from their faces, like the kids at the con.
I didn’t care as long as they helped me rescue Cynthia.
I caught a glimpse of Gollum wrestling another fullblooded demon for the blanket, still in its glass case.
Cynthia clung to the monster’s back while Sapa worried its feet. That was one big Sasquatch. It dwarfed all three of them combined.
Then the herd was on me. They brandished torches, trying to force me to back away from the casino building.
I had no time to think. No time to worry.
But I did worry. There were hundreds of them and only a few of us.
I had to save Cynthia, and Gollum, and, yes dammit, Donovan, too, because I cared for them. Losing them would hurt worse than losing Dill.
My blade sang as I cleaved the space around me. The Sasquatch jabbed their torches at me. They had me on reach. I had them on reaction and timing.
I whirled right and caught a torch, spinning it up into the air like a fiery baton. The second half of my blade ripped out the throat of that demon.
The others backed off.
I breathed deeply, grateful for every lungful of precious oxygen.
Then I noticed the heat from the torches. Like a ring of fire, the demons closed upon me. My skin blushed red in the first stages of burning.
A jab from my left. I thrust and swung. One demon backed off, another replaced him.
And so we danced.
My shoulders grew tired.
The heat increased.
Scrap began to blur and lose his edge.
Desperate to end the fight, I lunged forward, thrusting out and back in one smooth move.
I gutted one demon and nearly fell onto the torch of the other.
Then I danced with my blade. Forwar
d, back. High, low.
Two more demons met death. My blade darkened with their blood. The heat lessened. Scrap brightened.
The sage and tumbleweeds burst into flame, giving me brief flares of light to kill another demon. That one fell upon his own torch and screamed.
The stench of burning flesh and fur grew thick as fog.
I gagged. My shoulders grew heavy and felt as if they’d dislocate if I had to swing the blade one more time. My ears roared with blood pounding behind them.
The roar grew. Not just the laboring of my pulse.
A dozen pickups crested the ridge behind the casino.
Their headlights blinded me.
“Who?” Donovan shouted above the noise of huge diesel engines.
“I don’t know!” I shouted back. My heart stuttered a moment in fear. What if the Kajiri had called for reinforcements?
Then dozens of women swarmed out of the oversized pickup beds and out of the cabs. Imps filled the air, their wings beating furiously as they, too, elongated and transformed.
“Cavalry to the rescue!” Gayla shouted above the melee. “We figured out that the assaults on our portal were diversions against something bigger. We came to help.”
My knees nearly melted in relief. My Sisters had seen the light and joined me in this battle.
New strength invigorated me. My heart swelled with gratitude and… and love.
Well, let’s leave it at gratitude.
Gradually, we pushed the never ending tide of Sasquatch back and farther back toward the empty casino buildings. A few dozen against two hundred. With the help of our imps, we prevailed as we were ordained to prevail over demons and evil forces.
Gulping air, foul as it was, I chanced a look around to see how my companions fared.
Donovan was down and bleeding but breathing. I couldn’t find the bankers.
Sapa ripped at the throat of a full-sized Sasquatch.
That demon clutched a hunk of hide and a hank of fur from Sapa’s hip in its dying fist.
Cynthia and Gollum? I couldn’t find them. Dared not take the time to look for them.
Then I heard Gollum’s blessed voice. “They’re going back down the portal. Quick! We have to close it!”
“How?” Cynthia asked weakly. I think she sobbed.