by Lee Roland
I led a curious Flynn back to the front sidewalk so whatever we washed off wouldn’t contaminate the soil. “This won’t hurt, but it will feel funny.”
I dumped half the jar of clear liquid on his head.
He gasped and shivered. “What the—”
“Magic bath.” I poured the rest over me. The familiar sideways shift of the world overcame me, but instantly passed.
“I was happy with soap and water.” Flynn brushed at his clothes and hair. The potion evaporated almost instantly, though, and his hands came away dry. His puzzled expression gave way to resignation.
“Sorry, Flynn. Rules is rules, especially Abby’s.”
Abby stood at the stove stirring a pot when we went in. The table was set for three. A heavenly aroma filled the air, but I couldn’t stop now.
“I need something to make a man talk to me,” I said.
Abby raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. “Good evening to you, too, Cassandra.” She gave Flynn a warm smile. “Detective Flynn, welcome. I have supper ready. I hope you like vegetables.”
“Come on, Abby. I’m on the trail now.” I said it without much force since the odor of food caught me like a love potion and drew me in.
“I can tell.” Abby gestured at the table. “Sit down, please.”
She removed a vase of red and gold flowers from the middle of the table and replaced them with a trivet and the pot from the stove.
My insides twisted. “We don’t have time—”
“Yes, you do. I want an explanation before I start dispensing drugs.”
“Why? You never have before.”
Abby’s face had that I’m going to send you to your room, you smart-mouthed little girl look. No argument would work here. I sat down and filled her in on what had happened. While I was doing that, I consumed two bowls of vegetable soup, a couple of glasses of iced tea, and several slices of golden brown homemade bread with butter. My throat hurt, but that didn’t stop me from eating or talking.
Flynn ate, too, and just listened to us talk. I guess he was hungry after puking his guts out a couple of hours earlier.
“That’s it so far.” I leaned back, feeling much better than I had all day—except right after Flynn and I had made love that morning.
Abby smiled at Flynn. “And what do you think of all this? The Darkness, the things in the sewer? Magic in general?”
Flynn leaned back. “Cass says the things in the sewer are biological, not magic.”
“True enough, but what are they, and how did they get there?”
Flynn shook his head. “I don’t know—or care. I have suspended all rational thought until I have my sister home.”
Abby smiled at Flynn, but it was a sad smile. She knew, as I did, that he had left the rational world forever. He would never be the same.
Abby stood, went to a dark wood cabinet, opened the doors, and lifted out a tiny blue bottle. She handed it and an eyedropper to me. “To make him talk. Try not to use too much this time.” She handed me another bottle, this one green. “To make him forget.”
I winced. The last time I used the talking potion, I had a man babbling for two days, and then had to babysit him because I couldn’t let him back out on the street. I didn’t say anything, but I knew the forgetting potion probably wouldn’t be used. I’d try, but Dacardi wasn’t likely to let Hammer go free or turn him over to the cops. I’d have to deal with Flynn on that one, too. Maybe I could persuade Dacardi to leave Hammer alone until later, when he was out of Flynn’s presence. I stuffed the bottles and dropper in my jeans pocket.
Abby smiled. “Close your eyes.”
I did and she laid both hands softly on my face. My skin tingled, warmed, then cooled. I’d bet my face appeared normal now, the remainder of the bruises fading away. My throat felt good, too.
Abby gave a weary sigh and lowered her hands.
“Her face,” Flynn said. “What did you do?”
“Flynn, I’m the Earth Mother’s High Priestess. She’s permitted me to use a bit of her power. I suggest you continue with your plan of suspending rational thought. It will be far less traumatic.” Abby gave me an affectionate puppy pat on the head. “Our Huntress is not always rational, reasonable, or consistent. She is, however, loyal and courageous, and she cares for you. Something tells me you would do well to remember that. She will find your sister. Have faith in her.”
Flynn mumbled, “Excuse me,” then stood and walked out the back door and into the yard.
I started to follow him.
“No,” Abby said. “Give him time to think. Remember what you went through. You were predisposed to think the way you do. He’s very strong and believes in order, not chaos. He’ll come around.”
“I know, but everything’s gone to hell. Nothing makes sense in the Barrows anymore.”
“It makes perfect sense to someone. You seem to be receiving only bits and pieces of information. I’ve been left out of this, you know. I can only offer you minimal help.”
“I figured that. Why? The Mother—”
“Decides what I’m to know and when, and gives me instructions. I have received neither information nor orders in this matter.”
“I’m guessing I have something important to do. Something very dangerous. And I think you love me too much. You might hinder me.”
Abby laughed. Abby’s laugh could make flowers bloom and trees break into leaf in midwinter. “Cassandra, after all our years together, have you finally acquired a little wisdom? Maturity? Will you now actually think before you act?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. And if you didn’t know, I love you very much, too.”
Abby laughed and wrapped her arms around me and gave me a final hug. She held me too tight and too long, and fear radiated from her body. What could so frighten the Earth Mother’s most powerful priestess? I figured I’d find out soon enough.
“You and Flynn . . . lovers?” Abby sounded curious, but certainly not disapproving.
“Since last night. It’s different. I’m scared. I want him to stay, not—”
“He is not like the others, Cassandra. He is yours. I saw him looking at you.”
I stood. “I look at him, too. I’ll take it as it comes.”
I walked outside and found Flynn standing in the garden.
“Hey,” I said. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I think I will be.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
All I wanted to do then was make love to him and sleep. Instead, we left the cool oasis of Abby’s house and headed for the docks. I squeezed the steering wheel tight as we entered the Barrows. The blazing sun had dropped low on the horizon as I turned off River Street into the industrial district. I glanced over at Flynn and noted his hands clenched into fists.
“Does Dacardi own many legitimate businesses?” I asked Flynn.
“I think so. I don’t work that area, but the Feds, mostly IRS, are on him.”
“Drugs?”
“Surprisingly, no. He owns a couple of casinos. Probably launders cash. Mostly he deals guns and other weapons. Owns some big things in Mexico. Someone said Interpol had an eye on him, too.”
“Hope the stuff in the warehouse today wasn’t his,” I said. “He’s likely to be a bit ugly if he knows what we did.”
“It wasn’t, though he might have sold them at one time or another. I talked to Perkins at the site. He’s with the Feds. Been here since Exeter Street. Did a couple of joint ops with him last year. They were tracking this shipment from China when it disappeared. The Feds don’t tell us much, but Perkins says they’ve known for a year there’s a big buyer in the States. Apparently, our find was the first break they’ve had on it.”
“Dacardi might not let you in.”
“Then you’ll just have to make him, won’t you? You seem pretty good at pushing him around.” He reached over and ruffled my hair.
The area consisted mostly of warehouses until you reached the docks. Mostly clean, prosperous places. Farm and manuf
acturing goods passed through and onto barges bound for the Mississippi. I found the Columbia warehouse easy enough, and the north door. Getting inside proved to be a bit more difficult. As I’d figured, Dacardi’s goons didn’t want Flynn the cop to pass. I simply told them to tell Dacardi I’d arrived and wasn’t coming in unless Flynn came with me. They’d report to Dacardi and he could decide. Five minutes later, one of the goons came out and said we could go in.
“See,” I said to Flynn. “Wasn’t that easy?”
Of course, the next problem began again when they wanted our guns. We stood back-to-back and refused. The game ended when Dacardi arrived, screaming at everyone involved. To my surprise, he sent the goons away.
Dacardi led us into the deepest part of the warehouse. We walked down lanes between bales and boxes stacked twenty-five feet high. Only our footsteps broke the silence. He’d probably sent all the legitimate workers home, a substantial financial loss since the docks usually operated twenty-four hours a day.
Hammer sat in a room off the main warehouse. He looked good, considering. Broken nose, a little blood on his shirt, but other than that, okay. Dacardi had him tied to a chair with one goon watching him. He sent the goon away as we entered the room.
A thin, bony man with dark skin, Hammer had eyes as black as puddles of oil on a garage floor. He glanced at me, then jerked his face away.
“Now that’s odd, Hammer.” I laid a friendly hand on his shoulder. He flinched. “You’re dealing kids and you don’t seem surprised to see me. Why is that?”
He didn’t answer.
Dacardi moved in, fists clenched, teeth bared.
I held up my hand. “I told you, I get to go first.”
“Then fucking do it.” Dacardi’s face twisted into a rigid mask and his broad shoulders hunched with solid muscle.
Flynn stood steady, arms crossed in disapproval, but said nothing.
I opened the bottle of talking potion Abby had given me and filled the eyedropper.
“Hold his head,” I ordered.
Dacardi grabbed Hammer’s hair and twisted his face toward me. Hammer’s eyes widened as I pinched his broken nose shut. He opened his mouth to breathe and I squirted the eyedropper’s liquid in.
He struggled, fought, and spit. It didn’t take long. I barely had time to recap the bottle and stuff it back in my jeans before he grew lethargic. His eyes were a little unfocused, but he stared straight at me.
“Now, Hammer, we need to discuss the boy and girl you had at the Goblin Den the other night. You probably didn’t ask their names, but Theron remembered seeing them with you. He told me that after Michael broke his arm.”
Hammer’s breathing slowed. “Paid.”
“Who paid? Where are they now?”
“Gone.”
“Dead?” I hated to ask that, but I had to know.
Dacardi growled. Flynn drew a deep breath but didn’t interfere.
“Are they dead, Hammer?” I slapped the side of his head, not hard, but I had to get his attention. “The kids. Are they dead?”
“Don’t know. Took them.” His words came wet and slurred, one side effect of the drug.
“Who took them?” My voice rose to a demand. I wasn’t getting the reaction I’d expected. He should have been babbling for the first few minutes before he settled down and talked.
The air suddenly grew tight and close. I actually glanced around to be sure that, like a horror movie, the walls hadn’t started closing in to crush us. We were in the Barrows, the realm of the Darkness. This was a mistake. We should have found another place far from here.
Hammer’s body jerked. His muscles corded and strained against his bonds before he slumped and let out a long sigh. Then he raised his head. Only it wasn’t Hammer. As the Earth Mother had watched me from Abby’s eyes, so something gazed at me from Hammer’s. Something alien and terrible.
It laughed with a sound like knives cutting the air. Everything inside me recoiled. “Great Mother.” I barely breathed the words.
Hammer’s face split in a savage, inhuman grin. When he spoke, the words slammed me with power. “Great Mother? You pray to that whore? She whose cunt spawned you? Stupid bitch. I remember you—I watched. You threw your child on the bitch’s fire at the stone circle. Sacrificed your babe to her a thousand years ago. Pretty little thing. What was her name?”
My body went cold. A memory slithered into my mind. Was it my memory? No, it couldn’t have been. But . . .
I hear the chants, see the fire. Astra, my wonderful daughter, clings to me, laughing as I dance with her. Her father died protecting our village. I loved him deeply and she is so precious to me, all that remains of that love. She’s seen three summers and is so beautiful they’ve chosen her to go to the Earth Mother. A sacrifice. Such a great honor. She will bring rain and good crops. Her life will give us good fortune for the next year. Only at the last moment does she realize what is happening. She screams at me, Mother, Mother! with terror in her voice. Her small arms cling to my neck, but they tear them away and . . .
“Cass!” Someone shouted. Something hit me and I reeled across the floor. Then the only thing I heard was sick laughter. Words from Hammer’s mouth mocked, “I will see you at the dark moon, Huntress. Watch for me.”
I collapsed sobbing on the floor, my mind full of horror and my heart aching with loss. Is this why I’m the Huntress? Why I’m compelled to find the children? Guilt for what I had done? The Mother would never ask for that horrifying sacrifice. If I did not believe in her, in her goodness, I would not serve her. Men had made a perverted mockery of her religion as they had so many beliefs. The Darkness was manipulating my mind, as he had manipulated others. I’d thought I was immune, but I was wrong. But that didn’t stop me from wondering . . . Had I led this past life? Did I have a child? And out of ignorance, did I let them throw her into the fire?
No! No! I wouldn’t do that. I could not. I would love and protect my child. I knew.
Flynn helped me to my feet and I clung to the solid mass of his body. Never in my life had I needed someone’s strength as I did then.
Dacardi stood beside Hammer. Hammer’s mouth and nose gushed blood. His body jerked, muscles straining against the ropes binding him. He died in one final spasm. As he did, the oppressive air cleared and left me feeling very small and vulnerable in the middle of an enormous cavern.
Dacardi’s chest heaved. “That . . . thing. It has my son?” He held his hands out as if begging for something, anything, to hold on to. He, at least, had understood possession.
I swallowed, but I had to answer him. “His servants do. That was—” The Darkness. This was the Barrows, his place, under his influence, his realm. He had the power to use his servants as the Earth Mother used Abby.
I coughed, hard and dry. “I need some water. I’ll try to explain.”
Dacardi ran his hands through his hair. His eyes were cold, hard, and dark. “Take her in there.” He looked at Flynn and nodded at a door and glass window in the wall.
Flynn kept his arm around me as he walked me to an office at the side of the warehouse while Dacardi shouted at his men, I presumed to get rid of Hammer’s body. Flynn didn’t speak, but I knew he had to be doing some heavy thinking.
The utilitarian office contained a gray metal desk and a small table with green folding chairs. I sat on a chair while Flynn dug in a small refrigerator sitting next to the wall. By some miracle, he found a bottle of water. Bottled water always tasted bad to me, but not this time.
Flynn knelt beside me and held my shaking hands. He didn’t speak. In this matter he remained silent, giving all authority to me.
“What happened?” I asked him. “What did you see?”
“Hammer raised his head and said something weird . . . The Mother and a sacrifice. You froze for a few seconds; then you started screaming and fell.” He laid a hand on my knee. “I was afraid you’d hurt yourself.”
“What did you see? Did Hammer change? Look different?”
; “He looked like . . .” Flynn shook his head.
I stroked his cheek and kissed his forehead. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? You didn’t do—”
“It’s not what I did. It’s what I am.”
I understood that one small piece of the puzzle now. At least I thought I did. I couldn’t brush away the feeling that what I had seen was real. But how could I explain it to Flynn?
I laid my hand on his cheek. “I can’t rescue all the children who are lost in the Barrows. Sometimes I receive instructions, and sometimes I have to choose. I try to go for the youngest, because as they get older they change, and even if I find them, they won’t go home. Something wants me in the Barrows at the dark moon. Selene is old enough that I might have passed her up, if it hadn’t been for the Earth Mother, your mother, and Abby. Do you understand?”
Comprehension flashed across Flynn’s face, quickly replaced by anger. “The Darkness said he . . . it . . . would see you on the dark moon. Selene is in the Barrows with those creatures because she’s bait. You’re the mark, and you’re walking into a trap.”
“Yeah. It looks that way. But I’m a moving target. And I’ve had ten years of experience avoiding traps. I don’t understand. Why does the Darkness want me? And why the dark moon? I’ve been in the Barrows for years.”
Flynn shook his head. He couldn’t possibly have answers. He stayed with the immediate. “And Dacardi’s boy?”
“I don’t know, but when it comes to things like this, there are no coincidences.”
Dacardi walked in. He sat at a chair behind the desk, his face cold and closed. Again, he reminded me of Nefertiti when she readied herself to strike. “Well, what was it?” His voice held no emotion at all.
I had to give him some answers.
“This isn’t easy, Dacardi, but at least your grandmother taught you to believe. Flynn’s not had that luxury. There are places where the separation between worlds is thin enough to allow an interaction between them. That’s the Barrows.”
I told him of the Earth Mother and the Darkness, and the Barrows prison, adding the things I hadn’t told Flynn, the things he had to see for himself.