Hounding The Moon: A Tess Noncoire Adventure

by P. R. Frost

  My heart cried out to her. I needed to hold her tight, and reassure her.

  I needed to keep these last three demons from ever touching her again. My Sisters fought mop-up actions, finishing off the downed and wounded Sasquatch with bloodthirsty glee.

  “The blanket, Cynthia! Weave the feathers into the blanket,” I yelled.

  One more demon down. Two left.

  They threw their torches into the open piles of timber stacked beside the building and dove for the region of the portal.

  Smoke and flame billowed up. The hungry flames licked greedily at this new fuel. The fire became a living wall between me and the last of my victims.

  Then Cynthia and Gollum were beside me. Cynthia grabbed bits of Sapa’s hair from the fist of a dead Sasquatch. Rapidly, she rolled it between her palms along with some tree bark and one of her treasured feathers. A crude thread extruded from her makeshift spindle. The quill tip of the feather became a primitive shuttle.

  Gollum jumped upon the protective case of the blanket.

  Glass shattered upon impact. Not bothering to clear away the shards, he plunged his hand into the mess. He emerged with a bloody arm. The sharp edges of glass snagged the blanket, ripped holes in it, and finally released it.

  Cynthia grabbed a hunk of fabric and began weaving her feather thread through one of the snags.

  “The incantation,” I panted. The smoke thickened making it harder to breathe.

  “I need three people to say it,” Gollum said. An edge of panic touched his eyes and his voice.

  “I know it.” Donovan half-crawled, half-stumbled beside Gollum.

  “So do I,” said Vern Abrams.

  “Are you sure, Estevez? You know what will happen.”

  Gollum looked him in the eye levelly.

  Donovan swallowed deeply, closed his eyes, and grimaced.

  “I know. We’ve got to do it. We can’t let those stupid fools loose again in this area. Not any time soon anyway.”

  Gollum dropped the blanket across Cynthia’s legs.

  She continued her weaving.

  Sapa limped over to her and lay his great head in her lap. He was hurt badly, but I thought he’d live.

  Myrna Abrams staggered over to me. Blood dripped from a nasty gash in her forehead. Her teeth, like her husband’s, had retreated, along with her tentacles.

  My Sisters gathered behind me, leaning on each other in exhaustion. Some had taken wounds. I barely registered that they all had survived.

  Gollum took the hands of Donovan and the banker.

  They circled again and again as they chanted the weird language full of pops and clicks and unpronounceable syllables.

  “What are they doing?” Gayla whispered.

  “Sealing the rogue portal,” I replied and draped an arm about her shoulders.

  We stood there, propping ourselves upright with our blades, trying to breathe the heavy air through exhausted lungs.

  The land heaved beneath my feet. A great rumbling roar near deafened me. I let go of Gayla and braced myself.

  I blinked in the fiery light as the casino crumbled and imploded. A gaping hole in the earth opened and swallowed the entire building, extinguishing the fire.

  Then the earth settled back into place.

  In moments all that was left of Donovan’s empire was a pile of ash and shattered dreams.

  Chapter 46

  HERE, BABE, I FOUND a new treasure in Mum’s garbage dump. I dropped the shiny bit of metal into Tess’ outstretched hand the moment I managed to shrink back to my normal self. A little hard with the bankers still hanging around, but they are good folk even if their great-granddads were demons. And their two kids didn’t kill Bob. It was the bat child. I remember it clearly now. The bat had the knife. Tentacles tried to pull her back.

  “What’s this?” Tess asked. She turned the jewelry over and over, examining the curved shapes by the light of the headlights from the pickups.

  Most of the Sisters stumbled and limped over to their transport, packing up to go home and nurse their wounds now that the excitement was over.

  “That looks like real gold,” Sister Gayla said, peering over my babe’s shoulder.

  Of course it’s real gold, I snorted disdainfully. Mum’s garbage dump is high class. Not like the homes of some imps I know.

  Ginkgo, Gayla’s imp, took exception to that remark as well as my diminutive size.

  I flashed my array of warts at her, and she subsided into a pout. I might be small, but I’ve now slain more demons than five of these so-called proper imps put together.

  And I’ll admit that the females don’t interest me at all. Even the one going into heat. But the males now… Pine has a most interesting array of warts on his backside.

  My babe found the loops on the back of the jewelry for either inserting a chain or attaching a brooch pin to the talisman.

  She hefted the weight of it and smiled.

  “It looks a little like an abstract Goddess in the sky.”

  Did you notice how she capitalized the G in Goddess? She’s beginning to believe.

  I puffed out my chest with pride.

  “If that’s the face of Kynthia, then these indentations must be places to set precious stones,” Gayla mused. She used the full name of the Goddess. I guess that means she believes more than my babe does.

  Jewels, right, I added, wondering when and where I could find some fine diamonds in just the right size.

  “I count twelve settings,” my babe said. “They feel rough, like stones have been ripped out.”

  “Oh, my Goddess!” Sister Electra gasped. She’d wandered over to see why Gayla hadn’t climbed into a truck with the rest of them.

  “What?” Tess asked.

  “That’s—that’s—” She just pointed and gasped.

  “That’s what?”

  “We need to get that back to Sister Gert. It’s been missing for centuries.”

  Not on your life, Sister, I snarled. I found it. I gave it. It stays with Tess.

  Arborvitae, Electra’s imp, Ginkgo, and I got into a snapping match. I settled it, and they backed off. I guess we imps aren’t meant to get along outside of the Citadel. That’s how we survive in the wild. We earn our warts and seniority.

  “But that is the talisman of the senior Sister. She gets to put a precious stone in it for every battle she survives.” Electra tried taking it from Tess.

  Tess snatched it away and held it close to her heart. “Tell Sister Gert to come get it herself. The Goddess chose me for a reason. She helped Scrap find this for me for a reason. Sister Gert and I will settle this between us.”

  I whipped out a cigar, lit it, and blew the smoke into Electra’s face. Then I passed some gas. She backed off, coughing and fanning the air.

  Take that, Sisters. My babe is gonna be top dog some day, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

  And I’m gay!

  “I don’t see why I have to go to school,” Cynthia whined.

  “You go to school because the state says you have to,” I tried to soothe her.

  We’d retired to the Mowath Lodge, slept, showered, and eaten. Now it was time to settle some things.

  “But all I’m going to do all day is weave the blanket,” she continued her litany of grief, all the while rubbing Sapa’s ears.

  The big, ugly dog licked her hand and settled back into a light doze. He hadn’t done much but sleep and eat since the final battle with the Sasquatch. But he was healing fast and had found a girlfriend, an English mastiff, in town.

  I suspected there’d be new puppies in about two months, an heir to Sapa’s duties among them.

  “You will not just be weaving the blanket,” a tall and absolutely gorgeous Indian woman informed us as she entered my suite, followed by a google-eyed Gollum and an openly drooling Donovan.

  Some men have no loyalty whatsoever.

  “You will have to learn to weave it properly and conserve it for future generations. Those fibers will not la
st long in an open and unstable environment,” the woman announced. Pronounced. Assumed authority anyway.

  “Excuse me?” I took a defensive stance between Cynthia and this stranger. Somehow, I’d come to think of Cynthia as mine. I’d even toyed with the idea of moving to Half Moon Lake so I could adopt her and keep her, and therefore the blanket, close to the demon portal.

  But then, what would I do with Mom?

  I didn’t trust her living on her own without supervision. I didn’t trust any of the motley crew I called family alone without supervision.

  “Tess, I’d like to introduce you to Keisha Stalking Moon,” Donovan said, never taking his eyes off the woman’s finely honed features, full lips, and liquid chocolate eyes. Not to mention a more-than-adequate bosom beneath her crisp red wool business suit. The tight skirt was slit halfway up her thigh, revealing legs that seemed to go on forever.

  She should have been a model.

  Then her name struck me.

  “Stalking Moon?” I think my heart forgot to beat.

  “Yes, I’m Leonard Stalking Moon’s eldest daughter, and Cynthia’s new guardian.” She appraised me with the same scrutiny I’d given her.

  I had the feeling I came up short in more than just height. My faded jeans, threadbare cable knit sweater, and dirty running shoes just didn’t cut the fashion mustard anymore. Let alone my rather tangled curls and lack of makeup.

  Obviously Scrap was missing again, or I’d have dressed better.

  I scooped my hair into a twist and inserted the comb.

  The world brightened, but nothing about this woman changed. She was still gorgeous, sexy, smart, and an alpha bitch—meant as a compliment if you know dogs.

  “Dr. Stalking Moon is also going to be the curator of the new museum,” Vern Abrams said, joining us with a sheaf of papers beneath his arm. “Keisha has an impressive array of degrees that qualify her for the job.”

  “Museum?” I’d only slept a night and a day, yet I felt as if I’d missed some major world events.

  “The land beneath the casino still has value, but I think a less ambitious project is more in line than Donovan’s original,” Vern said, settling at my table with his papers.

  “We are starting over with a spa, hotel, and museum. We’ll pipe lake water up into hot tubs right over… right over…” Donovan trailed off, not knowing quite how to phrase the words “demon portal” in mixed company.

  “We are also bringing in a consortium of tribes to run the place. This will no longer be a one-man operation or financial burden,” Vern added. “Now I need some signatures, Donovan. And witnesses.” He held out an expensive looking fountain pen.

  I wondered if the ink was really Donovan’s blood.

  “What about the lake water?” I asked, remembering the complaints of the locals. “The lake levels are already too low…”

  “But rising,” Myrna Abrams said from the doorway.

  The suite was large but getting way too crowded. “Last night’s rain broke a three-year drought, which accounted for part of the lower levels. I wonder if the open portal had something to do with that. Anyway, the portal was draining water out of the lake. That’s why you smelled lake water every time the demons came and went. And the owner of the golf course was hoarding his share of water from irrigation, getting ready to sell it back to the ranchers at a profit. We’ve put a stop to that.”

  “We estimate the water table should be back to normal by spring if we have decent rainfall this winter,” Vern continued brandishing his papers at the assemblage.

  I wanted Scrap there to clear the room with his cigar smoke and a judicious fart or two.

  Then I spotted him beneath the armchair teasing Gollum’s cat with a feather stolen from Cynthia. Scrap, wearing something like a surgical mask, twitched the feather. Gandalf the cat swatted it and earned a smack across the nose for his efforts. He jumped back and hissed. Scrap waved the feather again, and the stupid cat tried to grab it, earning another swat.

  Sometimes cats are victims of their own hunting instincts.

  Or just plain stupid. I hadn’t figured out which.

  Donovan grimaced as he signed in about fifteen places. The ink was black. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t his blood.

  When I’d added my own name to appropriate places as witness, and so had Gollum, I looked around at the polished log walls, the burl wood tables, and the people who crowded around me.

  “I guess there is nothing left for me to do but go home,” I sighed.

  “Until the next time,” Gollum whispered.

  “Tess, I’ll call you the next time I’m on the East Coast,” Donovan said. His warm brown eyes pleaded with me.

  My knees wanted to melt. I scanned him for any sign of demonic genetics. Only that strange golden light with coppery overtones and the black braid writhing in the light.

  “We’ll see.” I shrugged. “You’ll keep in touch, Cynthia? I want to know how things go with you and Sapa. I need to know that you are safe. Thriving.”

  “Of course!” She hugged me tightly. “You’re the best, Tess. I love you.” She pulled another feather out of her pocket, along with a wildflower I didn’t recognize.

  I took them from her with shaking hands and blurring eyes.

  “Don’t let yourself get too lonely,” she said quietly.

  “Not anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever be truly lonely again.”

  “Somewhere on the high desert plateau, between here and there, yesterday and tomorrow, a walled fortress houses the Sisters of the Stars; devoted followers of a Goddess who holds the world in balance between good and evil. When a waxing moon caresses the Milky Way just so, the Goddess shows her face in the heavens. The Sisters know then that trouble is brewing.” I read the opening lines of my newest book to a group of gathered fans, Gollum among them.

  But Donovan was missing from this gathering of fans at a con. I wasn’t sure yet if I truly missed him or not.

  Only a few weeks after leaving Half Moon Lake, I found myself at yet another con on the West Coast. This one in Portland.

  Donovan had sent me a couple of e-mails reporting on the good progress of the new spa and how well the town cooperated with the new building plans. He’d also sent a dozen red roses to my room here at the con hotel.

  Cynthia e-mailed me every day and we chatted on the phone at least once a week.

  Other than that, my life had returned to normal.

  Nice job, Scrap said from the region of my shoulder.

  I’d persuaded him to leave his cigar behind. This con frowned deeply on any smoking inside the hotel. If Scrap wanted to smoke, he had to go outside, just like everyone else. He’d learned at least a few manners in the past months.

  A round of applause erupted when I finished the prologue and closed the book.

  As a group, the fans and I made our way from the small reading room down the hall to a larger meeting room. I still checked the walls for signs of shadows that didn’t belong there. In this crowd I should be safe.

  And Scrap was back, bigger and uglier than ever. And openly wearing his favorite pink feather boa.

  Don’t tell me he’s not gay.

  A larger group of people greeted us at the party already well underway. A lot of Bob Brown’s friends had gathered to hold a wake for him in true con fashion. I couldn’t think of a better way to finally say a proper good-bye to my best friend.

  Gollum handed me a glass of single malt scotch. I climbed up onto the small dais and held my glass aloft.

  “To Bob, may we always remember him with the love, the respect, the liquor, and the puns he deserves!” I toasted my best friend.

  The crowd grew hushed as we downed Bob’s drink of choice.

  Gollum handed me a live microphone. Just like we’d planned.

  I gulped and swallowed with uncertainty. Then the words in my heart made their way to my mouth.

  “I knew Bob for a long time. We shared many things in common, including a love of filking. Which we wil
l get to in a moment. But first, when Bob was dying in my arms, he asked that I sing at his funeral. I’d know which hymn.”

  I had to gulp back a spate of tears before I could continue.

  “I couldn’t bring myself to sing at the funeral.” Just as I had not sung at Dill’s funeral or his wake. Now I had to do it for both of the men I loved in very different ways. Maybe once I’d sung for them, as they both requested, I’d be able to say good-bye and move on with my life.

  “Knowing Bob, and how much he loved a good con, I think this is the better place to celebrate his life with a hymn that meant a lot to him.”

  I opened my mouth and the beloved words of “Ave Maria” flowed from my soul. For both of the men I loved. For every person I had lost.

  My voice soared, my heart swelled, and my tears fell.

  Everyone in the room joined me in the last chorus.

  After several long moments of grieving silence, someone in the back of the room, maybe Gollum, maybe someone who’d known Bob longer, struck up a rousing chorus of a folk song on a guitar. A flute and drum joined him.

  Then we all burst into the best filk song ever written.

  There’s a bimbo on the cover of my book.

  There’s a bimbo on the cover of the book.

  She is blonde and she is sexy;

  She is nowhere in the text. She

  Is a bimbo on the cover of the book.

  There’s black leather on the bimbo in my book.

  There’s black leather on the bimbo in my book,

  While I’m sure she’s lot’s of fun,

  My heroine’s a nun

  Who wears black leather on the cover of my book.

  There’s a white male on the cover of the book.

  There’s a white male on the cover of the book.

  Though the hero-INE is black

  With Art that cuts no slack. So

  There’s a white male on the cover of the book.

  There’s a dragon on the cover of the book.

  There’s a dragon on the cover of the book.

  He is long and green and scaly,

  But he’s nowhere in the tale. He

  Is a dragon on the cover of the book.