Winter Warriors

by Denise A. Agnew

  Chapter Five

  She woke when breakfast arrived.

  She watched a whole trolley wheel into the sitting room—far grander than a simple tray. She heard Rhys’ voice, the clatter of utensils, and sat up, wide-awake and enormously hungry.

  When the main door had shut again, she slipped on the terrycloth robe she found at the foot of the bed, and went out to the sitting room. Dim daylight showed through the windows.

  Thick snow still fell from a heavy, bruised gray blanket of clouds hanging low over the town, cutting out the sun. The subdued light and the low cloud ceiling seemed ominous. Breakfast had been laid on a round table by the second window, and normally the view would be spectacular, but now it seemed bleak. She shivered.

  Rhys stood by the table, wearing jeans and a white shirt that hung open and untucked—clearly thrown on in response to the arrival of breakfast. He either saw or sensed her reaction. “The waiters tell me Banff’s emergency services have been called out—they’re having trouble keeping the highways open.”

  “That’s their intention, isn’t it? To cut us off. To have us here alone.”

  “Yes.” Then he came over and kissed her. “Good morning.”

  She couldn’t help smiling at the prosaic touch of normality. “If you insist.” But the smell of toast and coffee was irresistible, and she went over to the table. “Mmmm…”

  “Sit and eat, or it will get cold.”

  She sat. It appeared Rhys had ordered freely. There was a big pot of coffee, a large pile of toast, and under lids waited dishes of bacon, hash browns, eggs, pancakes, and a perfectly grilled whole trout covered in herbs and pepper. Fresh orange and grapefruit juice, and real, warmed maple syrup for the pancakes.

  Jenna looked it over. “I’ll get fat.” It was a token protest at best. She fully intended to eat whatever Rhys didn’t.

  He leaned over her chair, and kissed the nape of her neck. His warm big hand slid inside her robe and fondled her breast, the fingers brushing over her nipple. The unexpected surge of pleasure tingled through her, and made her straighten up with a gasp. “You’ll work it all off.”

  But he let her go and sat in the chair beside her, and reached for the coffee.

  Jenna ate with gusto. Her appetite was ferocious, and with Rhys’ assurances that she needed to eat to provide physiological support for her newfound talents, she didn’t stint on appeasing the deep hunger.

  Only a single slice of toast remained once they had both finished eating. Jenna eyed it, wondering if she should eat it.

  “You can have it if you want, but high glycemic carbs should be low on your list of priority foods,” Rhys said.

  She put her napkin aside. “There’s a lot I need to learn, apparently.”

  “There is, indeed.”

  She propped her chin on her fist. “What am I, Rhys? What are you? Human?”

  “Very human. But something more, too.”

  She kept her silence, hoping it would coax him to reveal more.

  He sighed deeply, and pushed a hand through his hair.

  “Reluctant to tell me, Rhys?”

  “Yes.”

  She felt her eyes widen with surprise.

  He lifted his shoulders a little, almost a shrug. “It has been a long, long time since I have had to explain this to anyone. And you, who are so resistant to it all…you are the most important one I’ve ever had to tell, and I find, now I’m at the point of the telling, that I’m…” He glanced out the window, as if he gathered his thoughts. “I’m afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  It was a startling admission. Rhys seemed to be made of teak. If he were afraid of the truths he was about to tell…

  You misunderstand. He grimaced. “Events are rushing at me. At us. The time I have long waited for is almost here, and the…danger, and the…risks, that come with it. When I tell you what I must, then that moment will arrive shortly after. And I’m selfish enough to want to preserve this pocket out of time we have just a little longer. When I have finished telling you, I’m afraid that this moment will be gone. Destroyed.”

  “Because of me? Because of my reaction?”

  “Partly. And because you will know, then, who you are.”

  She shook her head. “Riddles again.” And for a brief moment she wondered again about Rhys’ true identity. Avaon. What did that name mean?

  He took a deep breath. She could see his chest rise with it. “We, Jenna—you and I, and others like us—were born into a unique heritage. We have been gifted…chosen…to protect humanity. To shield it against inhuman, unwanted evil. To be ever vigilant, and root out strains of wickedness as they are born, and to unceasingly work at the eradication of malice in the human soul. For that we have been given talents—powers—that raise our perceptions and put us on the outside of the human equation. From there we can observe, adjust, anticipate.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, Jenna. You are one of us. Perhaps one of the greatest of us. Your coming has been foretold, and we…I…have been waiting for it for a long time now.”

  She smoothed out a wrinkle in her napkin, abruptly uneasy. Here was the fantastic again. The myth logic. Her first instinct was defensive: to ridicule the pronouncement. To trivialize it. And she knew her old mindset prompted the instinct. She squashed the impulse and cleared her throat. “Foretold by whom?” The search for information. That felt safe enough. With enough knowledge, she could find a way to deal with this from comfortable ground.

  “No one knows. There is a body of knowledge that is passed down through all of us, one to the other, and some of it is inevitable knowledge. What people call ‘common knowledge’, that seems to come from nowhere, but is known by all.”

  “It must have come from somewhere, once.”

  “Some of us have stronger gifts than others. Some can see into the future. They understand and can read the flow of the field, its patterns. They can predict movements in the field, and foresee events. Big events, world-shifting events, and the shape they may take.”

  “And my…coming…is on such a scale?”

  “Your discovery is the marker, the beginning of it.”

  “Beginning of what?”

  “Of a time of challenge, when all of us will have to be on our guard against a new outbreak of evil.” He sighed again. “The world is about to plunge into an ugly darkness, when strife and trouble seems to grip the globe with uncanny insistence. We’ve been through them before. The two world wars were the twin climaxes of a troubled period. And I don’t know how much history you know, but in medieval times, the sweep of the Huns through Asia, the arrival of Genghis Khan, and the battle of the Moors against Christians throughout the Middle East was another.”

  It was too much for her. Too much at once. “Rhys, do you know how much like…like a fantasy movie this sounds?”

  He looked at her sharply, strangely. “Where do you think the ideas for those movies, those stories, came from? Even temporals, normal humans, sense the ebb and flow of the fields, even if they do not see them clearly or understand them. So they turn that visceral knowledge into stories, myths and legends. There was another time, one that has fallen into myth. Just as these coming days will one day be written down in song or poem. A Celtic warlord, at the rise of another dark age—”

  “Arthur.” She felt a touch of awe, but also a niggling sense of incredulity.

  Again, he glanced at her, his gaze sharp. “Yes, Arthur. Arturo Rex Britannia.” He rolled the Latin words over his tongue with the ease of long familiarity.

  “Arthur…he was one of you?”

  “No, just a man who fought for right and good. There have always been men like him throughout history, who wittingly or not help us in our fight. But there was one of us by him, assisting where possible.”

  She rubbed her temple hard. “Merlin. You’re about to tell me Merlin was one of you?”

  Rhys smiled a little. “Merlin is a story, a myth like the Arthur who wore armor and a crown and was proclaimed
King of England, and had a round table.”

  “But there was someone there like that. One of you. Someone who prompted the tales.”

  “His name was Taliesin, and he was one of the greatest amongst us. There has been none like him since. There have been powerful lords, and mighty ones, but none with the power and insight that Taliesin wielded. But that is how it works, Jenna. The field, the power that keeps humanity cohesive and gives us our talents, seems to provide us with a great leader just when the field fluxes and surges the most and creates such strife in the world.”

  Jenna stood up, translating her discomfort into action. She began stacking the breakfast dishes onto the cart. “What is the field?”

  “You know that answer already. You’ve felt it, felt the surges. You’ve used it. You used it in the coffee shop yesterday.”

  “Human auras?”

  “If you like, but that scarcely does it justice. Consider something on the scale of the magnetic field that envelopes the Earth, and you have a working analogy. There’s a whole Earth field, and then every living object has its own weaker field that meshes with the Earth’s and with each other.”

  “And you—we—have stronger fields than others?”

  “Stronger, yes. And we have the ability to manipulate our fields. You, Jenna, appear to have the ability to manipulate others’ fields. That is how you dumped the coffee into The Prince’s lap.”

  She realized she was still massaging her temple, trying to rid herself of the tension there, and dropped her hand and sat back in her chair.

  “If you…we…are born to this—” she grimaced at the word, “…destiny, then why did it take you so long to figure out who I am? Surely, you recognize another…what? Talent? What do you call yourselves?”

  “There’s no name for us, but sometimes we use watchers.”

  Well, it seemed a simple enough word. At least they didn’t have some unpronounceable name without vowels. It was a word she could use without blushing. “You must recognize another watcher, then. Quite early.”

  “The onset of puberty, usually.”

  “Rhys, I’m nearly thirty years old. Why have you only figured out about me now?”

  “Because of Kevin.”

  She stared at him.

  He reached for the insulated coffee pot and poured himself another cupful. “The magnetic analogy won’t do for this one. So think about nuclear radiation instead. You understand basic radiation theory, right?”

  “I did physics at school.”

  “When two pieces of radioactive material come together, the radiation they give off more than doubles. It’s a synergistic relationship.”

  “Sure. If there’s enough material there they can spiral into thermonuclear reactions.”

  “But if you enclose one of those pieces of radioactive material in lead, then nothing can get out. No leaks.” He took a mouthful of coffee. “Kevin was a blocker, Jenna. We’ve known them to exist throughout history, here and there. He was that lead casing.”

  The analogy was startlingly clear. But not quite perfect. “He didn’t live around me, though.”

  “You were bonded to him emotionally. That’s all it takes. He subsumed your field.”

  “Blocked it…” She realized she was rubbing her temple again.

  “I’ve been thinking it over since I realized what Kevin was. You must have met him when you were very young.”

  “High school.”

  “You were lovers in high school?”

  She felt herself blushing. “He was the only lover I have ever had.” She didn’t finish the rest of the thought: until now.

  But she didn’t need to finish it, for by Rhys’ startled expression, she knew he had finished it for himself. But he recovered his poise swiftly, and considered her for a moment, gathering his words together.

  “Those of us who bond together are like two pieces of radioactive material. The bonding forms a stronger, more powerful united field.”

  “Makes sense.” Wariness flooded through her, created by his careful selection of words. He was leading up to something. Something big.

  “I have known my fate since I was a child, Jenna. It has been my journey to find you. You and I…are twined together. To battle the coming dark days, we must bond, and then be bound together by the solstice. We will work together to overcome the enemy. We have been forever destined to be mates.”

  Even though she had suspected the shape of what he would say, the actual speaking of the words shook her.

  “How can you know that? How can you possibly know something like that?”

  You know it, too, Jenny.

  She shook her head, refusing to use her mental abilities, for that would be admitting he was right. “So, regardless of how I feel about it, I’m supposed to just do what someone else tells me for the rest of my life?”

  “You were made for this.”

  “Bullshit. I make my own future—no one else gets to tell me how it goes.”

  “Like Kevin tried to?”

  She shut her jaw together with an audible snap. Shock filtered through her like a cold chemical swooshing through the marrow of her bones.

  “Kevin died three months ago, Jenna, yet the touch of your field, the surges you have been giving off, have been felt and monitored for nearly a year now. Weak at first, mere hints, but growing stronger all the time. You may have been technically his lover when he died, but you had already dissolved the emotional bond between you, long before then.”

  “But how did you know…?” Her voice emerged pathetically weak. It terrified her to have someone speak aloud the horrible thoughts and feelings she had assumed had been buried along with Kevin.

  “You quoted Kevin’s cynical attitudes about anything magical or extra-sensory, yet you’ve had no qualms using those talents for the last twelve hours, so the attitudes were just borrowed from him, not really yours at all. But now, and whenever I have spoken about fate or destiny, your resistance is immediate, your fury almost palpable.”

  Her breath was hurried. Jenna got to her feet, and turned away from him. Didn’t he know she didn’t like to speak of such things? Never with Kevin, and she hadn’t been the sort to have women friends to share intimacies with, either.

  Rhys’ mental touch came like a brief hug, but she didn’t acknowledge it, so he continued with audible words.

  “You have struggled to find your own identity, to learn your place in the world, your entire life. Kevin would have prevented that, would have smothered you as surely as he blocked your field. He was a strong man, strong in character and temperament. He was master of his own life.”

  “Yes, he was.” A single tear rolled down her cheek but she didn’t bother wiping it away.

  “It’s little wonder that you eventually pulled away, Jenna. You’re strong, too. I suspect, in the end, you’ll prove stronger than I, and far stronger than Kevin even suspected you to be.”

  She took a long time to absorb it, to get her mind around it. She struggled with it. “I still don’t buy this ‘fate’ thing, Rhys. I never have.”

  “It doesn’t matter, in the end, if you believe or not.”

  “It’ll come up and tap me on the shoulder anyway?” She felt her lip curl. “We’ll see.”

  “All right.”

  She turned to face him. He still sat at the table, holding his coffee cup. They might have been discussing the latest movie over a leisurely Sunday breakfast. His casual pose contrasted weirdly with the subject matter. “Just like that? No argument?”

  “Unlike you, Jenna, I accepted my fate a long time ago. I know it doesn’t matter how much you try to dodge it. Sooner or later, the universe will arrange to have you in exactly the right spot to get hit by it.”

  “Is that why you have been so patient? Let yourself be so…” Lonely. She found it easier to speak the word mentally, rather than use the audible, unadorned, negative version.

  “In part, yes. And partly, I wasn’t interested in a half life with a…a normal hum
an.”

  “And now that I’m theoretically here within reach, you’re prepared to let me go until my fate slaps me in the face?”

  “I’m not going to push anything, Jenna. I don’t have to. But I won’t let you out of my sight until the solstice.”

  Twice now he had mentioned the solstice. “Why? What happens at the solstice? When is the solstice? I mean, I know it’s December 21st. That’s this Sunday.” She frowned. “Wow, Sunday is tomorrow.” She shook her head. Where had the days gone? “What time is the solstice.”

  He smiled a little. “If you thought about it, reached out and sampled the surges, you could probably tell me down to the minute when the solstice is due.

  “Try it. What time on the 21st?”

  “Sorry, I’m not wearing a watch.”

  “You don’t need one. You can feel the solstice coming. I’ll give you a hint, Jenna. At the moment of solstice, everyone’s powers are at their zenith. Just like the seasons, our powers grow and fade over the year’s cycle, and we’re now on the build up to solstice. You can feel the moment coming, just like you can feel an orgasm building. It’s inside you. Growing.”

  She shook her head. “There’s a term they use for Star Trek doubletalk. Technobabble. That’s all this is. Technobabble.”

  “Tell me. You know the answer.”

  “No.”

  “Tell me.”

  She shook her head again.

  Tell me!

  The answer spilled out of her obediently. “Ten p.m. No, just after.” She looked up at him. “Goddamn you…that was unfair.”

  “Just proving a point. You are almost down to the minute, as it happens.” He got to his feet.

  “Why. When is it?”

  “10:04 p.m., Mountain Standard Time. I’ll let you verify it for yourself.”

  “And what happens at solstice? We all caper about in a circle and chant?”

  He gave a low chuckle, and leaned over and kissed her temple. “You’re very sexy when you’re angry, you know.”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I’m not. But you’re cutting into a whole new ball of wax here, and you’re still digesting the last one. Sure you want to start this now?”