by Tanya Huff
This morning, he merely looked at her with disgust and pushed past.
He could hear her tears and feel the heat of her shame on his back. His step became jaunty. It was going to be a great day.
* * *
“What’ve you got, Steve?” PC Patton got out of the squad car and slammed the door. Behind her, she could hear Jack doing the same. They’d been off duty, heading back to the station, when the call had come in and as it was on the way they’d pulled into the supermarket parking lot to see if they could help. She noticed that Police Constable Steve Stirling, a veteran who in his years on the force had acquired a reputation for being completely unshakable, looked decidedly pale. His partner, a rookie policewoman mere weeks out of the academy, had obviously thrown up and was just as obviously considering doing it again.
“It’s in the dumpster,” Steve said shortly, glaring at the gathering crowd.
Frowning, she swung herself up on the dumpster’s side and took a deep breath before peering in; the stink alone could’ve caused Steve’s partner to puke. Spread out on top of the usual, rotting, grocery store garbage was what looked like the entire contents of the meat department, chops, sideribs, roasts, all covered in a moving carpet of flies. And then she noticed that one of the roasts had a face.
Teeth clenched, she dropped back down to the pavement and thanked God and all the saints it had been hours since she’d eaten. As Jack stepped by her, she grabbed his arm.
“Don’t.” It wasn’t their call. He didn’t have to look.
He looked at her instead, reading the horror of what she’d seen in her eyes, nodded, and moved away.
“What a fun start to the day.” Steve had come to stand beside her and together they watched another three cars arrive, one carrying the police photographer. “You could be sitting down at the station with a cup of coffee about now. Don’t you wish you’d kept going?”
“Yes.” She didn’t have to add anything else; “yes” said it all.
“All right, let me see if I’ve got this straight.” Daru rubbed her eyes and accepted a fresh cup of tea with a nod of thanks. “This coming Friday, Midsummer Night, an Adept of the Dark is going to open a gateway between this world and the Darkness. You,” she inclined her head toward Evan, “have been brought from the Light to stop him. You two,” she nodded at Roland and Rebecca, “are going to help.”
“That’s it in a nutshell,” Roland agreed.
“Fine. Count me in.”
“What?”
She swallowed her mouthful of tea, sighed, and said slowly and distinctly, “I’m going to help, too.”
“You mean you believe us?” Roland stared at her in astonishment. The tale had taken the rest of the night in the telling and now, in the bright light of Sunday morning, he wasn’t sure he believed it himself.
“I believe the evidence of my eyes,” Daru said testily, the sweep of her hand covering both the black dagger and Evan. “Haven’t you ever read Sherlock Holmes?”
“Huh?” The lack of sleep, combined with the roller coaster ride he went on every time Evan looked at him—Just keep telling yourself it’s a religious experience.—had put Roland on less than firm mental footing.
“When you have eliminated the impossible, that which remains, however improbable, must be the answer. If Evan exists, and he does …” Evan flashed a smile at her over his shoulder, then went back to enjoying the different textures of light as it poured through the curtains. “… and if I believe what he is, and I do …” A moment staring into the Adept’s eyes had been almost enough without the more blatant show of glory. “… then the rest of it must be true as well. And if our world is about to be overcome by Darkness,” her mouth thinned into a hard line, “then I don’t intend to sit by and let it happen.”
No, Roland thought, I bet you never have. As a caseworker at Metro Social Services, Daru fought in the front line against Darkness every day.
“Rebecca, honey,” Daru swiveled around and tried to see into the kitchen, “what are you doing?”
Rebecca popped her head back out into the living room. “Making breakfast.” With full light she’d pulled on an old pair of turquoise track pants and a yellow sweatshirt with the sleeves ripped out. “There’s scrambled eggs made with milk, ‘cause I got some last night, and sausages done under the broiler. I unfroze the whole package instead of just three for me. I’m making toast, too.”
“All that at once?” Daru sounded doubtful.
“The stove does most of the work,” Rebecca explained seriously. “And the toaster.”
“Do you have any jam?” Roland asked, wandering over and sticking his head in the fridge.
“The jam is behind the catsup. It’s peach.” She leaned farther out of the kitchen and handed him a small can and the can opener. “You can feed Tom.”
He juggled the can on his palm, sighed, and glared at the cat.
Tom, who knew very well what a can of that size and a can opener meant, leaped off the couch and wove a pattern around Roland’s feet; a dignified pattern, of course, expressing anticipation and only the smallest amount of hunger.
“Oh, all right.” Roland moved forward and set the cat food down on the table, Tom modifying his dance to accommodate the steps. “But I want to make it perfectly clear,” he called to the kitchen, “I’m doing this for you, not for him.”
“Tom doesn’t care, as long as you open the can.”
Cramming the blade of the can opener down, Roland glared at Daru. “Why do you let her waste her money on this stuff?”
Daru raised an eyebrow. “You prefer another brand?” she asked, pitching her voice just to one side of sarcasm.
“Skip it.” He wrestled the top off, his nose wrinkling at the smell, then he placed the open can on the floor. Tom sniffed it, gave it cautious approval, and began to eat, Daru flashed him what Roland interpreted as a superior smile and headed for the bathroom. Feeling outnumbered, Roland reached for his guitar and soothed his spirit by putting music to the pattern of sunlight and leaf shadow that played across Evan where he stood in the window.
“So much pain,” the Adept murmured, watching an ant traveling the length of the window ledge, a smaller insect held in its jaws. He filled his lungs, tasting the concrete and steel and asphalt, tasting the sorrow and hatred and pain, and sighed. The Dark had so much to work with. But the sunlight warmed him and breezes brought the sound of children’s laughter and he had neither the ability nor the desire to deny hope.
Roland saw Evan’s shoulders sag and added a minor scale, then he saw them lift again and picked up both tempo and tone. He felt an audience and with a skill honed by years on the street, where a direct glance could scare away a paying customer, he slid a peek out of the corner of one eye.
Daru stood beside the couch, her gaze flicking from him to Evan and back.
Under the weight of her regard, he stopped playing and turned to face her.
“I could see your music,” she said, wonder in her voice. “Like a mirror made of sound … I could see …”
Roland felt his face go hot and he dropped his eyes, fumbling with his pick.
“Breakfast.” Rebecca poked a filled plate out of the kitchen and Roland scrambled to get it, the action covering his embarrassment. He could only handle praise when it came as cash. Praise from Rebecca, for reasons he’d never quite been able to fathom, was the only exception.
Watching Evan eat kept distracting Daru and Roland from their own food, for he took delight in not only the taste but the textures and the smells, making scrambled eggs and sausages a sensual experience.
“Don’t they have food where you come from?” Rebecca asked as Evan drew his fingers down a piece of toast, examined the gleam of margarine, then licked his finger tips.
“Of course,” he bit off the end of a sausage and his eyes widened with pleasure as he separated all the many tastes it contained, “but, this is new. And every facet of newness should be discovered and enjoyed.”
Rebecca nodd
Daru hid a smile, remembering the first time she’d taken Rebecca out for pizza and the girl had poked her fingers into the melted cheese, then spent close to five minutes experimenting with the stretch factor of mozzarella.
Her face softens when she smiles, Roland thought, having placed himself where he could see Daru as well as Evan. Makes her look less like a hawk. After years of protesting that it didn’t mean anything, Roland had decided, looking at Daru, he knew exactly what striking meant when used as a physical description. Not pretty, not beautiful, but, well, striking—dark gold skin, eyes so black the pupils and irises were one, a high forehead, a proud arch of a nose, a pointed yet still determined chin, and the whole thing surrounded by a thick fall of ebony hair. Not exactly cold, but stern. He made plans to pick up his flute if he ever got home, for her song flew too high for his guitar.
“You got something to say to me?” Daru snapped, suddenly aware of his regard.
And bitchy, Roland added to his mental list, dropping his gaze. Stern and bitchy. Behind the pale curtain of hair, Roland could see the Adept grinning and wondered, not for the first time, just how much of his thoughts Evan could hear.
“So, uh,” he got up and began stacking empty plates, “feels like its going to be a hot one again today.”
“Yes,” Evan sighed, the grin banished. He rose lithely and returned to his place by the window. “And when it’s hot like this, with blinding glare and the air heavy and still like a sheet of heated glass, tempers fray and good people can be pushed to the edge and over.”
“You mean he’s causing this?” Roland asked over the sound of the sink filling.
“Yes,” Evan said without turning.
“But it’s summer,” Roland protested. “I know Canada gets called the Great White North, but it does get hot here in the summer.”
“Not like this,” Daru put in thoughtfully. “Not this hot, for this long, in June. A week or two in August maybe …”
“What are you going to do about it?” Rebecca asked, getting right to the point.
“I’m doing it, Lady.”
Daru’s brow quirked for that was the first time she’d heard Evan title Rebecca.
“There are rain clouds to the south and west and I’m encouraging them in this direction. In two days, the city will have relief.”
“Why not sooner,” Roland wanted to know, handing the pile of clean plates to Rebecca to put away.
Evan spread his hands, his bracelets chiming softly. “Rain travels at its own speed. Move it too quickly, it dissipates. Move it too slowly, it gets bored and falls.”
“Rain gets bored?”
“A simple word to cover a complicated …” He tugged on a strand of pale hair, searching for the word. “Thing?” Rebecca offered.
“A complicated thing, yes.” They shared pleased smiles and again Roland sensed another level in the exchange.
“There’s something I’ve been wondering about.” Daru paced the length of the small apartment while she spoke.
Join the club, Roland thought, settling Patience on his lap. The last time he’d been sure of anything had been just before Rebecca showed up on his street corner.
“You came here because Rebecca invited you, right?”
“Roland had a voice in the invitation,” Evan pointed out, “but that’s essentially correct.”
“Well, how did he get in?”
In the silence that fell while they waited for Evan’s answer, the only sound was the scrape of Tom’s tongue smoothing the black stripes of his tail.
“There are two possibilities,” Evan said at last. “That a man or woman in this world did a deed of evil and called to the Darkness while doing it …”
“Black candles, and pentagrams, and human sacrifice,” Roland murmured, and Patience wailed a discordant accompaniment to his words.
“Yes,” Evan sighed, “the Darkness has been called that way. But this time, this time I think it moved on its own to take advantage of the weakened barriers of Midsummer Night. Although, in a way, he was invited, too….
“This world has much darkness in it and it calls always to the Darkness outside the barriers. After a time, the barrier weakens enough for a bit of Darkness to slip through. Usually a bit so small it comes with no real body of its own and either dissipates, leaving a general feeling of bad humor in its wake, or it finds a host and does what it can to create a permanent residence. These bits of Darkness can’t survive long where even a little Light stands against them.”
He filled his cupped palm with sunlight, then scattered it off his fingertips in lines of delicate filigree. “Of course, the Light in your world calls in like kind. Sometimes, a deed of such Dark or Light is done that larger creatures can answer; goblins and bog-gins, unicorns and fauns. To pass an Adept, the Darkness waited until the call became almost unbearable, saving up the wearing at the barrier, directing all its resources to a single goal.” He sighed again. “Which, thankfully, it seldom manages, self-discipline not being one of its stronger characteristics. When the time was right, it moved, forcing through a bit of itself large enough and strong enough to open the gate for the rest. I don’t imagine the passage through the barrier was a pleasant one.
“You sound almost sorry for him,” Daru said, frowning.
“I regret anyone’s pain,” Evan told her, no trace of apology in his voice. “Even his. But that will not stop me from destroying him.”
“I don’t understand what you mean, ‘forced through a bit of it-self?” Roland had turned and twisted the statement but still could make no sense of it.
“There is only one Darkness as there is only one Light. As he is a piece of the Darkness, so I am a piece of the Light. The Darkness holds its pieces close, not trusting in them to stay, but the Light wants nothing to be a part of it that doesn’t choose to be there.”
“If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.” Rebecca blushed as they all turned to stare at her. “I read it on a T-shirt,” she explained, chewing her lower lip, afraid from the reaction she’d said something wrong.
Evan tossed his hair back off his face and his eyes sparkled. “But that’s it exactly.
“It is?”
“Exactly,” he repeated.
Rebecca nodded, content. “I thought so.”
Daru reached over and gave her hand a squeeze then turned again to Evan. “Are you strong enough to defeat him?”
“One on one, just him and me?” Evan shrugged, the sparkle gone. “To keep the balance we are of equal power, but the Dark is often self-indulgent, bleeding power away to keep itself amused.”
Daru sighed. “That was a straight yes or no question and your answer was neither.”
“All right, then,” he smiled, “probably. But first I have to find him.”
“Can’t you just, oh, I don’t know,” Roland plucked a scale up his G-string, “cast a spell and know where he is?”
“No. Unless he actually tips the balance, I must find him the same way you would find any mortal man.”
“In less than a week?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what he looks like?”
“I’d recognize him if I saw him.”
It was Roland’s turn to sigh. “Do you know just how big this city is? With how many people?”
“Yes,” Evan said again, “but I have help.”
Roland and Daru exchanged looks that placed them in complete agreement for the first time since being introduced.
“And as well,” Evan continued, ignoring the expressions of disbelief on the faces of two members of his audience, “we should find where he plans to open the gate …”
“Can you put any parameters on that?” Daru interrupted.
“Oh, yes …”
She relaxed a little.
“… the area must be fairly large, open, and the earth must not be bound by concrete and steel.”
“A park,” Rebecca suggested, bouncing.
“Do you know how many parks there are in this city?” Roland protested.
“Yes.” Rebecca’s tone was so perfectly serious that Roland could only conclude she did, indeed, know how many parks there were in the city.
“We need a map.” Daru stood and adjusted the folds of her sari. “I have one in my car. I’ll be right back.”
Hoping no one noticed, Roland watched her leave. He felt like a shit, but the sway of her hips beneath the draped silk was worth it.
When she returned, she held a folded map of Toronto, what appeared to be clothing draped over one arm, and a yellow rectangle of paper about eight inches long.
“I don’t suppose you fix parking tickets?” she asked Evan, tossing both the ticket and the map on Rebecca’s table.
“Sorry, not my department. Give unto Caesar and all that.”
Daru nodded, unsurprised. “You’ve read the Bible.”
“I’ve read all your great works of literature, the Bible, the Koran, Shakespeare, Wells, Harold Robbins …”
“What!”
He winked, taking five years off his apparent age. “Kidding.”
Daru rolled her eyes at him and headed for the bathroom to change.
“Have you read Winnie the Pooh?” Rebecca asked. “He’s my favorite.”
“Of course I have,” Evan told her, perching carefully on the windowsill between two plants, stretching out his legs, and crossing his booted feet, “there’s great wisdom in Pooh.”
“For a bear of very little brain,” Rebecca agreed.
This was another side of Rebecca Roland had not been aware of. “Do you read it by yourself?” he wanted to know.
“Yes.” Rebecca’s brow furrowed in indignation. “I can read harder books than Pooh.” She paused, thought for a moment, and added, “But not much harder.”
“Rebecca,” Daru said, returning to the living room in white cotton shorts and a matching shirt, “has a complete set of Paddington Bear books.”
“I like bears,” Rebecca told the company proudly. “I have a bunch of the Berenstain Bears books, too.”
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