by Barbara Taub
Thomas ordered dinner from room service. During the silent meal, he considered the two leaders. Max’s steadfast devotion to family and country contrasted with Luic’s brilliant pursuit of his cause. But their love for the same woman was forging an alliance—tentative, wary, and uncomfortable though it was—between Gifts and Haven.
Thomas threw his fork onto the virtually untouched plate of food in front of him and slowly spoke. “You know, Luic, Gaby said Harry wanted you to join Haven to stop the war. I think you did it. Haven and Gift are cooperating, at least on this one thing. It’s not the end of the war, but maybe it’s a start. And Max—you gave up your need to be in control of everything when you called Luic and when you agreed to put him in charge.” The two men lifted startled faces to his. “No matter what happens, Gaby would be proud of both of you.”
Gaby woke with a pounding head and a dizziness that felt familiar. Her arms and legs were tied, and she could hardly move. Cautiously opening her eyes, she saw Leila stretched out on the floor across from her. She tried a whisper. “Leila!” No answer. Gaby held her breath until she could detect the faint rise of Leila’s chest.
“Alex Menard, get your butt in here,” she yelled.
A young man appeared in the doorway. “Hello,” he smiled with a full measure of Alex’s charm. “I gather you’re looking for my great-great uncle. He’s not available right now, mostly because he’s been dead for over a hundred years, as you should know. I’m Richard Menard. What can I do for you?”
“Well, Dickard, what I’d really like is for you to untie us and then die screaming wrapped in your own entrails.” Gaby tried to lift her head. “But since that’s not immediately likely, I wonder if you’d mind telling me what’s going on?”
“Actually, I do mind.” He came over and nudged Leila before backing away. “In fact, I think keeping both of you alive is a big mistake. But I’ve been overruled on that, so for now you can just consider yourselves my guests.” He locked the door, and Gaby listened to his footsteps heading away.
Leila was still turned away, but Gaby heard her faint snicker. “Dickard?” Leila snorted. “He seems a bit more on the ball than Alex, but he still blew EO 36—I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell.”
“I don’t suppose either of us has a 94?” Gaby asked hopefully. 94: When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.
Leila rolled over painfully to meet Gaby’s anxious eyes. “Not me. I told you we should get a 42. But no, you were all ‘Who’s going to clean the litterbox?’” 42: When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.
“Leila,” Gaby asked urgently. “How are your eyes?”
“Fine,” said Leila sadly. She brightened. “Do you have the gift from Raguel? Or maybe your ring could be our 94? Would it cut the ropes?”
“I left Rag’s knife back at the hotel.” Gaby was disgusted with herself. “And I can feel the ring.” She wiggled it. “But come on—do you think Mr. I-must-spoil-Gaby-at-any-cost would give me a ring that has even a single sharp edge?”
“Men.” Leila shook her head. “It’s hard enough getting them to put the toilet seat down. Just try getting them to do something useful like give you an engagement ring you can use to escape the Evil Overlord Wannabe. Well, if you can roll over here, I’ll finish ruining the most expensive orthodontia in Atlanta.”
She had to take several breaks to complain about bad-tasting rope and thoughtless fiancées, but at last Leila’s teeth managed to loosen the knots on Gaby’s wrists. After Gaby finished freeing both of them, they spent a few minutes working circulation back into their arms and legs.
“What time do you think it is?” Leila asked.
“I don’t know how long we were unconscious,” said Gaby. “Do you remember what happened? I think we had just decided to run up to the Frye Museum when it felt like something stung me. Maybe it was a tranquilizer?”
“The last thing I remember,” Leila said darkly, “was my roommate telling me to stop bitching about getting a little exercise. Oh, and she said I looked really cute in my new running clothes.”
“What a monster.” Gaby patted her cheek sympathetically. “You know, I think we can’t have been here that long because I’m not that hungry.”
“Well, I have to go the bathroom. And this cell doesn’t look like it’s en suite.” Leila went to the door and banged on it with her shoe. “Hey! I have to go! Now!”
Gaby was impressed with how long Leila could keep that up. Long before she ran out of steam, an annoyed Richard Menard appeared at the door. “Hey, Dickard, what’s up?”
“I have a gun, so stand back,” he snarled.
Leila and Gaby backed away to opposite sides of the room as a slim young man pushed a cart through the door. The man looked at Gaby and Leila, and then held out his hand to Menard, pocketed the envelope he received, and left without a backward glance.
“Food, water, and er … facilities.” Menard indicated the cart. “I’ll be back when your twenty-four hours are up.” He left, locking the door behind him.
“Wonder what that means.” Leila went over to the cart. “Okay, now this is just gross.” She held up what was obviously a chamber pot.
Carrying it over to the far side of the room, she sighed in resignation. “Turn around. I don’t want to spill because I’m living for the moment I can break this thing over Dickard’s face.”
Gaby was examining the contents of the cart. “I don’t know if we should eat this. What if it’s drugged? But I’m thirsty, and the water bottles look like they’re still sealed.”
Leila came over to join her. There were a couple of sandwiches wrapped in plastic and two apples. She was reaching for one of the apples when she caught sight of a paper napkin with a familiar logo. “Gaby, maybe we do have a 42 after all.” She held up the napkin so Gaby could see the scarlet devil inside the ring proclaiming Damned Good Coffee.
Their eyes met. “Latte’s Inferno? We’re back in Raqia?” asked Gaby.
“I don’t think so,” replied Leila. “Dickard is human, so he couldn’t be there. I think this must be the branch of Latte’s Inferno that Pete wanted to open in Null City.”
“That explains the twenty-four hours.” Gaby’s voice shook. “Leila, if we stay here for more than a day, we’ll become regular humans. We’ll only remember Thomas and Max as other humans we used to know, and we won’t be able to leave for a year. By then, the Metro could have broken completely, and we might never be able to get to the pivot point.”
“If we can get him a message, Pete will do something.” Leila sounded positive, but neither of them voiced the obvious thought: will Pete be in time?
They decided to drink the water and eat the apples. As Richard Menard stood guard from the doorway, the same young man returned for the cart. If he saw the message they had written in mustard on the napkin —Tell Pete: Gaby & Leila—, he gave no indication. When they had gone, Gaby used the pot in the corner, and then they sat together and made elaborate plans for torturing Dickard. Gaby was snickering over Leila’s story of Thomas’ castration techniques when they heard the door swing silently open.
“Hey, Boss?” whispered the short man who slipped into their cell.
“Pete?” Leila asked cautiously.
He nodded. “Sorry about the stupid human face. I just put this on when I visit the Null City branch so I don’t look conspicuous.”
“I didn’t know imps could do that. You look very … human.”
Pete shrugged. “Could be worse. Like everyone else who stays in Null City more than twenty-four hours, our imps at Latte’s Inferno converted into their closest human counterparts. Most of them are now ex-PhD candidates in Literature or Classics who claim to be experts on coffee blends and obscure world music groups.” He shudde
red. “Anyway, one of our baristas told me you were here. Are you ready to leave?”
Leila eyed the pot in the corner wistfully. “Well, I did have a few plans. But apparently we’re up against a time deadline, so that might have to wait. Still…” Looking more cheerful, she carefully picked up the pot. “Waste not, want not.”
They were tiptoeing down the hallway behind Pete when the sound of approaching voices had them pressing themselves into a shallow turn of the hall. “62,” breathed Leila. 62: I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.
The voices came closer, and they could hear Dickard complaining to two women who murmured sympathetically. “I still don’t see why we need both of them. Let’s get rid of the accountant and just keep the one with the jewelry.”
That should do nicely, Gaby thought. A glance at Leila confirmed her glowing eyes and eerily calm face. As the speakers moved past them, Leila stepped forward and smashed the pot against the back of Dickard’s head. He had barely fallen when she snatched the gun from his hand and fired at the two women.
Pete looked at her in admiration, while Gaby felt for pulses on all three. “No blood, except for Dickard’s head,” she reported to Leila. “Looks like his gun was just loaded with tranquilizers, so it’s safe for you to look.”
Leila’s eyes were still glowing as they dragged the three Menards into their former cell and tied each of them to a piece of furniture so they couldn’t untie each other. Leila looked regretful as she used the last tranquilizer charge on Dickard when he stirred. “I’m finding I wouldn’t mind a little more blood, as long as it comes from a Menard.” She tossed the gun into the hall as they left the room and headed for the Metro platform.
Gaby sighed in relief when they entered the Metro station. “This is a free zone,” she explained to Leila. “We’re not subject to the twenty-four-hour rule here, even if we have to wait for the train.” She turned to Pete and hugged him. He looked nervous and backed away. “Don’t worry, Pete,” Leila assured him as she held out her hand. “I’m not going to hug you. But from now on, you can make any latte pattern you want. Latte’s Inferno officially belongs to you.” They shook hands.
The Metro took an agonizingly long time to reach Seattle. “Sam is right about it breaking down,” said Gaby. “We have to get back to the 1890s as soon as possible.”
They emerged cautiously from the Metro station and looked around at the quiet streets. On the train they had discussed the possibility that the Metro’s faltering speeds would allow the Menards to get free in time to send reinforcements to the Seattle Metro Station. Sure enough, as they moved back into the shadows behind the nearby pier, a large, dark van pulled up to the station and four men fanned out. Gaby motioned to Leila, and they ran toward the nearest ferry.
As they neared the ramp, Gaby heard one of the men call softly to the others. She tapped Leila’s shoulder and pointed to the small group of cars and trucks off-loading from the ferry. They veered, trying to keep as many vehicles as possible between themselves and their pursuers.
Gaby pointed to a commercial delivery truck ahead, the last in line to leave the ferry parking lot. When the truck paused in the exit lane, they lifted the back latch, and Leila threw herself inside. As she reached down to help Gaby, they heard a small series of pops, but the truck was already moving off.
“What … next-thing?” Leila was gasping for breath. When Gaby didn’t answer, she peered through the dim light to see Gaby pressing her hand against her side.
“Don’t look.” Gaby’s voice was strained. “There’s blood.”
Leila’s eyes glowed in the dark truck. “Don’t be an ass,” she growled. “The red-eye lets me see like it’s daylight.” Looking up, she spotted a package labeled “Linens: Lodge.” Ripping it open, she grabbed the top two towels and gently pressed them to Gaby’s side. “I really don’t like bullet holes. But this looks like it just scraped your side. Keep the towel pressed there, and I’ll see what I can find for a bandage.”
As the truck rumbled beneath their feet, Leila made a pad with a fresh towel and used a roll of duct tape hanging by the truck door to fasten it tightly around Gaby. “Done,” she grunted. “Now what?”
Through stiff lips, Gaby said she was going try to see where they were. She peered cautiously out the back of the truck. “Looks like we’re headed out of Seattle on the I-90 Bridge.” She slumped back heavily against the side of the truck. “But I think I recognize the dark van behind us. The only next-thing I can think of is to jump out when the truck stops.”
No, she told herself, don’t think about when you killed Luic. That wasn’t your fault. This is different. We can do this. We have to. But the truck never stopped or even slowed down. Another cautious check out the back showed them passing a sign for Snoqualmie Parkway. When they finally slowed and turned toward a parking lot, Gaby and Leila braced themselves and jumped. They landed hard on a gravel road and raced for the woods behind them as the pursuing van followed the truck into the parking lot.
Leila pointed to a sign welcoming visitors to Snoqualmie Falls Lodge. As they crept around the back of the lodge, they saw two of the men from the dark van enter the lobby. Heading toward the kitchen, they heard the truck driver exclaiming about the blood and mess in the back of his truck. When the two people working in the kitchen went running out to see, Gaby and Leila slipped inside through the open door.
Gaby spotted a peg-board hung with housekeeping uniforms and keys. Moments later, two housekeepers were pushing a cart down the hall. As they passed the doorway to the lobby, they heard two men telling the desk clerk they were police in pursuit of a pair of hookers who had just killed a man. The clerk asked for ID, and must have been satisfied with what he saw, because he told them he would have his manager come out and help them with their search.
Gaby and Leila moved down the hall toward the rooms at the back of the lodge. They unlocked a room and peered cautiously inside. “Empty,” whispered Leila.
Luic picked up the phone on the first ring to hear the operator saying there was a collect call for Sebastian or Thomas Chapel. Thomas and Sebastian stood up and stared at Luic. They had no trouble hearing Leila’s voice saying, “Thomas?”
Thomas snatched the phone from Luic. In a voice he barely recognized as his own, he begged, “Leila? Tell me you’re okay, Princess.”
“We only have a minute,” she whispered. “Gaby was shot, and the men are searching the hotel. We’re at…” she read the label on the phone, “Snoqualmie Falls Lodge, but we’re going out the back window.”
She finished on a shaky breath, “Thomas, if anything happens to me… You are not allowed to die. I won’t have it. You have to promise…”
They heard a knock on the door. “Love you, Thomas.” The connection was broken.
“Get there as fast as you can,” Luic told Max as they scanned the map they’d taped to the wall. Luic and Thomas exchanged a look, and Thomas nodded. “We can go faster this way.” Thomas and Luic stepped onto the balcony of the hotel and dropped into the night.
Some days it just didn’t pay to be dead.
“It’s not fair,” Gaby panted as Leila pulled ahead on the hillside. All those hours as the victim of Bill-the-Hun on her BodiesByBill exercise tapes and she was eating Leila’s dust? Of course the hole in her side wasn’t helping things. And—was blood squishing into those over-priced new running shoes Leila had insisted they buy?
Behind them, she could hear the disciplined beat of pursuit. Well, sure they can concentrate on chasing us; they don’t have to worry about how to get blood out of $240 sneakers.
“Do something,” begged Leila.
“I’m an accountant,” gasped Gaby. What does she want me to do? I could give the IRS an anonymous tip, but satisfying as it might be to contemplate those guys having to cough up receipts for our murder during the audit, I don’t think it’s going to get us out of this.
Leila was s
everal yards ahead of her by now, the trees giving way to the sheer drop of the cliff ahead, with the roar from the falls just beyond.
“I’ve got you Leila.” The voice echoed from beyond the cliff face. “Trust me.”
“Thomas!” Without breaking stride Leila ran straight for the cliff edge and leaped.
Come on. Who trusts someone enough to leap into space?
“Gaby-mine.” Luic’s smoky velvet voice called out as the first shots kicked up the dirt beside her. Without thought, Gaby dove for the cliff edge. She almost enjoyed the moments of free-fall before his arms surrounded her.
“Hell agrees with you,” he grunted. “I think you’ve gained weight.” He went into a swooping glide before his wings pumped, pulling them upward.
“If you do that again,” Gaby warned, “I’m going to be lighter after I throw up. And, come on, Luic. Wings? That’s just so wrong.”
“I got them when I was commissioned.” He spread them for another showy glide. “What do you think?”
“I think the puking sounds better and better.”
His chest shook with laughter under her cheek. “You’re taking this a lot better than I expected. I’m surprised you jumped to me.”
“Two reasons,” she muttered into his neck. “First of all, I’ve been dreaming of falling for the past five years. And usually I die in those dreams. Again.”
“And second,” Gaby pointed out, “if you can’t trust the angel you killed, you might as well give up.”
GABY AND LEILA, Chapter Twenty
1994, Seattle
Gaby stared into the blue eyes blazing down at her. “What are you doing here?” She didn’t see Thomas and Leila, but she knew they had also flown to the other side of the falls before landing carefully. But she knew, before he even said the words, she knew what he would say. “Sebastian Chapel called me.”
“Max!” She stepped back, locking every muscle she had against the need to step back into Luic’s arms. “Where is he? Is he okay?”