But Lucia made a disdainful sound. “If you don’t know the answer to that, maybe we can’t save you.”
He glowered at them all. “Just let me go. I’ll stay out of the way. I have to, don’t I?”
“Stay out of the way because you should,” Garrie said. “Because it’s the right thing to do.” She glanced at Sklayne. “You want to go peek?”
Rick shifted uneasily, his arm still tucked around Lucia. “What do you mean, peek?”
But Sklayne had already done it, flattening one paw to slip beneath the closet door—through Garrie’s protection and out where he could inspect the breezes. *Clear,* he said. *But person coming. Invite him into the closet?*
The insurance agent. Of course. Did the timing ever get better?
Garrie released the petulant spirit. Dana instantly de-manifested himself and left, burning just a little more rubber on the way. Garrie reached for the door latch and they spilled out into the afternoon light blinking and disoriented, instantly dispersing to a comfortable personal space.
Garrie sent a glance Lucia’s way; it felt weary even from the inside. “Lucia, I’ve got to deal with this insurance guy. Keep an eye on Drew, will you?”
“Hey,” Drew protested. “I’m right here.”
“And you’d better be paying attention, too.” She turned to Quinn. “Get me that info on Dana, if you can. And whatever you can find on the kyrokha.” To Rick, she said, “We need to talk. All of us. But first, Sklayne and I will have a little chat.”
*Me?* Sklayne said, affecting great surprise and widening his eyes much further than nature ever intended. *Sklayne?*
“You,” Garrie said firmly. “Sklayne.” And then she caught view of Rick’s expression—the shell-shocked look, the wariness as he looked from one to the other of them. “Lu, while you’re at it...see if you can bring Rick up to speed?”
“Have mercy,” Rick muttered.
But Sklayne made a sound of dark amusement, and Garrie knew why.
Mercy, it seemed, was currently in short supply.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 27
Kehar: A Mere Suggestion of Sound
“They didn’t find your friend,” Anjhela said. She crouched beside Trevarr, all languid motion, and placed a hand on his bare chest. Proprietary, assumptive—pushing him, as she had always pushed him. As if she could fake the confidence that had before now come so naturally.
He looked back at her with eyes no longer dim, body newly thrumming with life. His heart beat fast under her touch, but her touch had nothing to do with it. Nor did the news she brought him. No, this was the strong, throbbing heartbeat of physical effort, his skin damp beneath her fingers.
His chafed wrists told the story. He’d been plying his strength against the chains, using them to build the muscle that came so naturally to this body. And he was making no effort to hide it—letting his breath come fast, making no attempt to wipe the gleam of sweat at his brow.
He’d healed so quickly since the night his love had come to him. Since the night that being had brought Anjhela to her knees simply by absorbing more damage than Anjhela could afford to inflict.
Anjhela could have stopped the healing, could have stopped the strengthening. But it no longer mattered. Trevarr was no longer hers to break. Ghehera was done with him.
And if they were not quite yet done with her, they nonetheless knew well of her failure. Just as she knew their unspoken threats to her position, her status, her life. Just as she’d heard the unspoken suggestion that she had best prevail—somehow, some way— before it was at last too late.
All or nothing.
Maybe she still could, at that—and then she’d have him. Just as she’d always wanted him.
No. Not as she’d always wanted. Because she wanted him on his own terms. By his own choice.
Still, this would be good enough.
“They couldn’t find her,” she said again. “They went looking, on that other world of yours. But they’ll hunt again soon. She can’t be on guard every moment of every day.”
She didn’t imagine that flicker of a frown, or the tension in his arm as one fist closed more tightly and the chain trembled, taut for that moment.
She leaned closer, her voice a mere suggestion of sound—confident and low. Promising. “Neither,” she said, “can you.”
But she no longer knew what she believed—not of him. Not of himself.
Definitely not of the one who fought for him.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 28
Crouched in Readiness
Rhonda Rose
Sometimes the small changes are the ones that most grasp at my attention.
A nickname. A maturing attitude. Perhaps, even, Lisa’s need for me. In the space of a year, she had gone from family to orphan, from dependent to nearly independent, and from Lisa to Garrie.
And she’d met a friend who could discern drifting remnant emotions and who whipped the budding reckoner team around the city in a sporty little vehicle. The friend who was, finally, about to ask about me.
This took no great deduction on my part. I’d been revealing myself to her in hints and glimpses, so as not to frighten her. The moment was her choice, but I could certainly see it coming.
“Garrie,” Lucia said, trailing along as Lisa wandered the perimeter of this old family cemetery—one of Lisa’s regular small tasks, commissioned by a family matriarch concerned about the dark spirits that had plagued her son during life.
Lisa quite openly thought the dark spirits had come in the form of substance addiction, but she’d come to understand the value of comfort in this past year, and so treated the abuela with kind consideration and did the work with an attention to detail.
Changes. I’d not had to remind her once.
“Garrie,” Lucia said, with a tone that meant foot-stomping would come next.
Lisa reached the end of a burial row and paused, taking a deep breath and releasing it. Now she had a sharper eye, one that said she was no longer lost in her double-vision perception of the etherea. “What?”
Lucia grabbed the opportunity. “Who follows you around?”
Lisa briefly evinced bafflement. Then she laughed, looking at me. “She means you, doesn’t she?”
“Chicalet.” Lucia’s voice lowered in warning.
“Okay, okay.” Lisa put a hand on the nearest gravestone, marking her place. “Look, Lu, you know not all post-living individuals are made equal?”
“Post-living individuals. Uh-huh.” Lucia’s response came cautiously, as it might.
“Call ’em Bobs or ghosts or whatever.” Lisa returned her gaze to me. “I can barely see some of them—and some are very nearly solid. And then there’s Rhonda Rose.”
“Who?” Lucia narrowed her eyes, sweeping lashes lowered. It was the warning look of a cat about to be angry.
I entered the conversation the only way I could, gathering myself together with intense focus and becoming visible to all—Lucia included. As true to my original self as I could render those energies, down to every thread and button and even that one section of hair that never stayed secure in its ornate updo.
Lucia made a barely muffled sound of surprise and took a few scrambling steps backward. But she had spent long months with Lisa by this time, and she’d felt my presence for almost as long. “You!” she said, as if it were an accusation. And then she turned to Lisa. “Not even. You have a nanny?”
Priceless, that expression on Lisa’s face.
Priceless, the deep and growing understanding that Lisa had grown into herself, that she had a friend now...that she would be all right.
Whether or not I was with her.
~~~~~
Put Those Back Where They Were!
Once things settled down, Garrie went hunting Sklayne. She could have called him; she didn’t want to give him that much warning.
Her new roof wasn’t that hard to reach, it turned out. A stepladder from the painting project, a small leap of fa
ith, and Garrie found herself up on the shingles, sitting in the bright sun with Trevarr’s satchel over her shoulder, his sweeping leather duster of a coat stuffed through the shoulder strap to drape over the travel-worn bag.
She clambered over to the solar panels where Sklayne sprawled in decadent comfort and sat against the pitch of the roof, propping her trail runners against the shingles to look out over the valley. The whole of it spread before her in a sloping bowl framed by the jutting ridges of the Sandia foothills, dotted with dead piñons from years of drought stress and slashed by deep and sometimes tangled arroyos.
He greeted her with a squinty and proprietary eye.
She informed him, “The whole point of those solar panels is that they help power the house.”
He affected not to hear her. *Stranger gone?*
“Yes.” The insurance agent had been quick, thorough, and gone on his way.
*The Rick stranger gone?*
“Yes.”
Lucia had brought Rick up to speed—quick, thorough, and not quite gentle—before he’d gone on his particular way. Back to the trailhead to handle the disappearance of his friend as best he could. Unlike the adjuster, he’d promised to come back. Lucia put him on notice with a look—he’d best not take his welcome for granted.
Good for her.
*Drew person gone?*
“For now. And before you ask, Quinn is staying to find what he can about kyrokha from the Bestiary, and what he can about Dana-Bob from the laptop.”
*Lucia person here. Purr.*
“Right. You’ve got a crush on her. I know. Might be a good reason to quit eating her makeup, don’t you think?”
Silence from Sklayne, which made Garrie think he’d reached the endpoint of his evasions. She should have been so lucky.
*Robin person?* he asked, just a little too hopeful.
This time, she didn’t answer. She tugged the satchel over her shoulder and pulled the duster free of it. “We need to talk,” she said. “Now. So grow a pair, will you?” And then, a moment later, “Oh my God, I didn’t mean—put those back where they were!”
Sklayne attempted to turn his smug expression into wide-eyed innocence, without success.
“Enough,” Garrie told him. Sweat beaded her collarbones and between her shoulder blades, informing her of the folly of sitting on the roof in the mid-day sun, even at this time of year. “We’re running out of time and you know it. I’ve found Trevarr, and you know that, too. Ghehera is done with him, and you know what that means for him and for us. And you know as well as I do that they’ll be back. Meanwhile Dana is completely out of control—”
*Let me,* Sklayne suggested, and gave a coy flick of his ear.
“And the mountain is bigger than I am. It’s bigger than you, too. You can pretend to be invincible, but you’re not.”
*Eats us,* Sklayne said, and it sounded like a confession.
“Excuse me?”
*Kyrokha. Eats us. Only thing that can.*
“You said it wasn’t bad!”
*Not. Everything eats.* He considered this and added, *Only eats us inside its caves.* And then, before she could react to that, he added defensively, *Curious!*
Trevarr had alluded to the fact that Sklayne’s kind rarely lived long, in spite of their flexible natures. Garrie was beginning to understand why. On all sorts of levels.
“Fine,” she said, her teeth only slightly gritted. “The mountain is definitely bigger than you are.” She unfastened the satchel and turned back the flap.
*Not purring,* Sklayne told her.
“No one’s purring right now.” She groped inside the bag and pulled out the oskhila, the travel device of beauty and rainbow colors that barely fit in her hand, though it had snugged perfectly into Trevarr’s. “Look. I found him on my own. I can find him again.” Thanks to you, which she didn’t say and didn’t intend to.
*Shouting,* he reminded her. *Blah blah blah.*
She took a determined breath, letting the oskhila warm in her hand. “What I need is to get there. This thing draws on Keharian energies. I can’t do that.”
*Turns you dark,* Sklayne agreed. After a thoughtful moment, he corrected himself. *Darker.*
“Thanks for that,” she muttered. “Look, if I can get there, if I can free Trevarr, then he can use this thing—he can use all of his things—to get us back.”
*If, if, if.*
She hefted the oskhila, remembering the first time it had taken her from one place to another—the brilliance of color, the utter stark sensory deprivation of the journey.
At least she hadn’t thrown up.
She pretended not to notice Sklayne’s patent disinterest. “I think this works something like what we did last night with Lucia. I’ve seen the place they have Trevarr. I’ve seen him. I can target them both. I just need a source of power.” She took a deep breath. “Something that works on both our worlds.” Like the echveria storage stones.
He caught on quickly enough, rolling into a crouch. His tail thwacked the roof. *No. No. NO. Won’t.*
“Stop it!” She snapped, out of patience. “It’s bad enough I have to fight my team, but you? You’re supposed to know what’s at stake here. Trevarr. And if that’s not enough, everything else. I can’t do this alone and you know it!” She reached into the satchel and the echveria came to her hand as if it had been waiting for her. She held both hands out palm up, the oskhila in one and the echveria in the other. “The thing isn’t stable, anyway. You tell me it’s not stable, but not how to stabilize it. You tell me it needs to be discharged, but not to use it. Well, fark that! All I want to know now is can it be done?”
Sklayne sat frozen, not looking at her...looking trapped. A not-cat wanting to flee, and knowing she wouldn’t forgive it. Not this time. A not-cat who couldn’t simply engage his tremendous resources to make things right.
A not-cat who had trapped himself with caring enough to stay when he’d finally been set free.
Quietly, she said, “Can I use the energy from this echveria to power the oskhila and get myself to Trevarr?”
He stretched a tentative paw until it pushed against her leg, claws briefly pulsing. Not a threat, but a clumsy connection from a creature who had little idea how to connect. He couldn’t quite make himself say it, but she felt the impact of his affirmation. Yes. She was right. It could be done.
She wanted to weep with relief. Except for the part where she also wanted to tremble in terror of it. However frustrating Sklayne’s reluctance to speak directly to the use of the oskhila, it was a reluctance with great meaning. She hadn’t seen Sklayne quail before anything else but Ghehera.
She managed to respond, if only after she’d cleared her throat a time or two. “Then teach me.”
~~~~~
No, no, NO.
But the Garrie was determined. And she was right.
The mountain’s broken kyrokha was bigger than Sklayne, even if Sklayne was sometimes bigger than the universe. Because Sklayne was never stronger than the universe. And he wasn’t stronger than any kyrokha. Not even one that hadn’t been broken, force-fed foreign energies and trapped, agonized, in a world it despised.
*Warded,* he told the Garrie, a last ditch effort to avoid responsibility for this thing. *Can’t get in.*
He had no reason to believe it was true. He couldn’t get in. But she’d already proven herself an exception, a thing the glyphs were never designed to counter.
“Sklayne.” It was a one-word expression of disappointment, as if she’d already figured that out. She set the echveria aside and held out the oskhila, giving him a meaningful eye. Her face was flushed with the heat he easily absorbed, her hair damp and the bandage slipping on her arm.
But oh, did her skin sparkle in this sun.
Shiny.
He put his paw on it again, drawn to it. Farking drawn to her.
Fierce little person of much power, always trying to do the right thing. Usually in over her head and yet because she’d been willing to
give all of herself, finding a way.
Maybe she was truly the only being who could do this now.
*Do this.* Sklayne grew fingers to show her. The fingers, furry and tipped with claws, touched the oskhila with quick expertise, demonstrating and then nudging the Garrie’s fingers into place. Together they touched the clear gems with the correct grip—albeit one she could barely manage.
*Need to be able to grow parts,* he told her. *Pitying the Garrie.*
She barely even gave him a glancing glare, so intense was her concentration.
*That,* he told her, when she’d managed the correct grip. *Now feed energy. Connect. Make image. Make happen.*
She plucked the oskhila from her hand, flexed her fingers, and replaced it, immediately finding the exact position—as if something in her had known the grip all along and needed only the confidence to try it.
Then she looked at him with a determination that felt like a physical blow. Especially since he knew what was coming next.
“Now,” she said. “The echveria. How do I access that power?” Although then she made a wry expression, a lifted brow on that gamine face, a twist of mouth. “Or maybe the more important thing is...how do I access that power and not blow us all up in the process?”
Yes. That was definitely the more important thing.
Sklayne released a breath full of sparks.
And then he showed her.
~~~~~
On the surface it seemed simple. Using the echveria was much like using the oskhila—a particular grip, a particular intent. Knowing that it would take Garrie’s own strength to meter the resulting energy outflow, and to resist plunging into the beguiling pool of power.
And also knowing that if the echveria became unstable, there wouldn’t be a whole lot she could do about it...except join it.
Garrie turned around at the edge of the roof to drop one foot down and grope for the ladder, careful of the gutter and of the ache in her arm. A hand closed around her ankle and she froze, her thoughts full of danger and glyphs and the unexpected, but the voice that came with the hand held affectionate amusement.
“I gotcha,” Quinn said, and guided the foot to the first rung of the ladder—and then did the same for the second foot, holding the side rails to make his arms a cage of safety that she didn’t actually need.
Reckoner Redeemed Page 23