by Tanya Huff
“What do you want me to say?” Roland sneered. “Let’s put the wagon train in a circle? Form up an intrepid band of rescuers and go after him? We don’t know where he is. We don’t know if he is. He might have lost already and we’re fucked. Have you thought of that?” He slashed his hand down on the strings, then sighed and leaned his forehead against the smooth wood.
Daru opened her mouth to tell him just what she thought of his defeatist attitude, but Rebecca tapped her lightly on the shoulder and shook her head.
“Don’t be mad at him, Daru. He’s worried about Evan and being worried makes him cranky.”
Roland looked up, his expression unreadable, met Daru’s eyes, and shrugged. “I’m sorry. She’s right.”
The phone rang. Daru and Roland jumped, but Rebecca, almost as though she’d expected it, dropped to her knees and dug it out from under the couch. It rang again.
“It’s Evan,” she said, holding the phone out.
“How do you know?” Roland asked as Daru took it and lifted the receiver to her ear.
Rebecca held up the end of the cord, the plastic jack between thumb and forefinger. “It’s not plugged in.”
“Yes, yes, I understand. I’ll be right there. Fifty-two Division? Why all the way up … Overcrowding? Oh. Yes, I know where it is. No more than fifteen minutes. You, too.” She hung up, took a deep breath, and said, “It was Evan. I have to go and bail him out.”
“Bail him out?”
“Well, vouch for him.” She paused and her lips twitched just a little. “He doesn’t have any ID.”
Roland chuckled. Daru chuckled. Then the two of them roared with laughter while Rebecca watched, completely confused.
Still laughing, Daru stood, scooped up her purse, and headed for the door. “We’ll be back as soon as possible,” she said, and left.
Roland wiped his streaming eyes. “No ID,” he repeated, setting himself off again. “No ID.”
Rebecca shook her head. Sometimes so-called normal people made no sense.
She crossed the cobbles in front of Fifty-two Division with short, jerky steps, her mind paying no attention to her feet. How dared they give her a parking ticket when she was only in the spot for a minute or two. Okay, maybe ten, but where else was she supposed to park? Getting a spot downtown was like pulling teeth, no, harder than pulling teeth, and she’d give the cops an opinion or two along with her twenty bucks. She felt the impact of a shoulder, began to fall, then a strong hand pulled her straight and steadied her.
“Thanks,” she snarled at her rescuer. As she pushed past, she glanced up at his face. Her frown curved up into a smile, and she got lost in the smile he flashed in return. Not caring how it looked, she stood and stared after him until he and his companion got into a beat up old Honda hatchback and drove away. He wasn’t even her type, too young, too flash, way too pretty—she made it a point never to get interested in men significantly prettier than she was—and completely irresistible.
“Now that,” she sighed to the evening air, “is a man worth making a fool of yourself over.” With a final melting glance in the direction he’d disappeared, she pulled open the door and stepped inside the station, her earlier pique forgotten.
“Play the one about the unicorn again.” Rebecca bounced where she sat. “The one your friend wrote.”
“I played it already, kiddo. Two songs ago.”
“I know,” she told him, rolling her eyes, “I said play it again.“
Roland smiled. “Oh, again. Pardon me.”
Rebecca thought about it, brows drawn down, teeth working on the edge of her left thumbnail. “Okay,” she said, after a minute. “You can play what you want to, but you’ve got to play the unicorn song first.”
“You win,” Roland surrendered, still smiling. He didn’t mind playing for Rebecca—even though she usually wanted the same I songs sung over and over—because she listened so intently, becoming completely involved in the music. Audiences like that were few and far between.
He plunges through the forest night,
his eyes are wide with fear.
Behind him, he can hear the sounds
that say the hunt is near.
Out of his whole repertoire, Rebecca’s favorites were the simple tunes with the fantastical lyrics that one of his oldest friends had been sending to him in every letter she’d written over the last five or six years. He’d tried to fool her a couple of times with songs that were alike in theme and structure, but Rebecca always knew. Once, he’d played her one of his own pieces of music. She’d listened as intently, head cocked to one side, and when he’d finished said, “It’s very good, Roland, but it isn’t quite.” And then had not been able to tell him what it wasn’t quite. He never played her one of his pieces again. Mostly because, deep down, he agreed with her.
As he finished, they heard voices in the hall and the door opened.
“Evan!” Rebecca flung herself to her feet and across the room, rocking to a halt inches from the Adept. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Lady.” He smiled; a little wearily, Roland thought. “Thank you for your concern.”
“You got arrested!”
“Yes.” He stroked a curl back off her face. “I did.”
Rebecca turned to Daru and her eyes widened. “You got chicken!”
“Yes.” Daru handed her the red and white striped bag. “I did.”
Rebecca buried her face in the bag, took a long appreciative sniff, then turned and showed it to Roland. “Roland! They got chicken.”
“I can see that, kiddo.” He stood, holding Patience against him, scanning Evan for any signs of … of … anything. In his experience, cops weren’t kind to young men with no ID they pulled in out of a … situation. “Are you all right?”
Even spread his arms. “As you see, I’m fine.”
Roland continued to look. Taking advantage of the excuse to look your fill and hide the feeling under concern, said a small voice in the back of his head which he ignored. Rebecca put a plate heaped with chicken and french fries and coleslaw in one hand, lifted his guitar out of the other, and replaced it with a fork.
“Eat,” she said, so he did.
Later, when the bones had been picked clean and he’d recovered his equilibrium—a process he hoped he wasn’t going to have to go through every time he saw Evan though he rather suspected he would—he asked, “What happened?”
Evan fed Tom a piece of skin. The cat had arrived just as they were sitting down to eat. “I stopped the riot,” he said simply. “I couldn’t stand the hurting, the fear. He got away. I think he knew it would happen like that. I think he’s somewhere laughing at me, right now.” His fine features looked pinched and drawn. “Stopping the riot took all the power I had.”
Daru almost didn’t recognize her own voice as she said, “By saving those people, by letting him go, you may have doomed the rest of the world to Darkness.”
“I know.”
And there was nothing more to say, because he did know, better than they ever could, and the pain in his voice, in those two words, was enough to bring tears to a heart of stone.
PC Harper pushed his keyboard to one side, laced his fingers together, and stretched. His shift was almost over and he could practically taste that icy cold beer waiting for him at home. He could coast through the next hour and a half, What was going to happen at nine-thirty on a Sunday night in Toronto the Good?
He heard the door open but before he could turn to look, he had a pretty good idea of what he’d see. The air conditioning, already straining to defeat the heat, simply couldn’t cope with this new assault as well; old dirt, old sweat, unwashed clothes, and over it all the pervasive stink of stale urine.
“Hey, bubba, you gotta minute?”
Breathing shallowly through his mouth, Harper stood and walked slowly over to the counter. This was the worst part of being so shorthanded, he had no choice but to deal with this old lady, no chance to suddenly have to go to the washroom, leaving her t
“You know the girl what got killed last night? I think I seen who did it. You interested?”
“Wha …”
Mrs. Ruth sighed and shook her head. “The girl what got killed last night,” she repeated slowly. “I think I seen who did it.” He still appeared a little shell-shocked, so she added, “I was on my way to the dumpster and I seen this guy leaving the parking lot. I didn’t think nothing of it at the time, but he smelled a little funny. Then I heard about what happened through the grapevine, so I come in to tell the cops.”
“Smelled funny?” He wondered how she could possibly tell.
“Yeah. Not like expensive perfume or hair junk. Like blood.” Her voice took on a grimmer tone. “And I know what blood smells like.”
“But if you went to the dumpster, you must have found the body.” It always happened, Harper sighed to himself. Any kind of sensational crime brings out the nut cases.
Mrs. Ruth’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t say I went to the dumpster,” she snapped. “I said I was on my way. I got distracted and never made it. Now, are you going to call someone out here who can take my statement and a description of this guy or am I going to have to get angry?”
Her voice so reminded him of a teacher he’d lived in terror of all through third grade that his finger hit the intercom button before he even knew he’d moved it.
Mrs. Ruth smiled.
“… I mean, why should I let him push me around?”
“Why, indeed.”
“He thinks he’s hot shit just because he drives a BMW and has some hot shit computer job, but I’m just as good as he is.”
“Better.”
“Damn right!”
The Dark Adept leaned forward, placing his forearms carefully between the beer rings on the table. “After all, where would his type be if not for you. One of the men who actually makes what they consume.”
“Yeah. That, too!” He tossed back the beer in his glass and held it out for a refill, long past the point of wondering why the pitcher never seemed to empty. “And you know what else? That son of a bitch has the nerve to tell me I can’t put my garbage at the edge of the driveway. We share the fuckin’ driveway, you know, and he thinks he can tell me not to put my fuckin’ garbage there.”
“Perhaps it’s time to do something about him.”
“Yeah.” He scowled. “P’raps it is.” Abruptly he pushed back his chair and stood, swaying slightly. “Do something about him right now.”
“Do you still keep your shotgun in the back of the hall cupboard?”
“Yeah.” His eyes narrowed. “Yeah. That’ll show the son of a bitch.” He staggered off through the crowd, bouncing off chairs and tables and people, letting neither curses nor spilled beer distract him from his course home. And his hall cupboard. And the lesson he was going to teach that fancy-ass that lived next door.
“That,” the Adept sighed, “was almost too easy.” He caught the attention of one of the waitresses and beckoned her over with a toss of his head.
“Oh, he’s a cool one,” she murmured to her companion, tucking her tray under one arm and twitching her short skirt into place.
The other girl peered in his direction. “He looks dangerous.”
“You think anyone with a gleam in his eye looks dangerous.”
She shook her head, teased hair bobbing with the motion. “Yeah, but he looks really dangerous. Like, like a sharp knife.”
“Poetic.” Moistening bright red lips, the summoned girl sashayed off, with one last comment, “Don’t worry, honey, I can handle him.”
“That’s settled it, then.” Daru slipped her pen back into her purse and tore the top sheet of paper off the pad in her lap. “I’ll go in tomorrow, do everything that absolutely has to be done and book the rest of the week off. Roland and Evan will start showing Evan’s drawing around the hotels.” She glanced at the sketches, Evan had done of the Dark Adept based on the glimpse he’d gotten of him at the ballpark. The sketches were good; detailed down to the collar buttons and the faintly contemptuous expression. “Are we sure he’s going to keep looking like this?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” Evan told her. “Until he goes through the barrier again, he’s as tied to that body as I am to this one.”
Daru nodded, satisfied, and Roland shoved an image of being tied to Evan’s body out of his mind.
“And tomorrow after I get off work,” Rebecca announced, “Evan and me …”
“I,” Daru corrected automatically.
“Yeah. Evan and I will go and ask the littles to help look.” She sighed. “I wish I could take the rest of the week off.”
“As much as we need you, Lady, you are needed there more.”
“Yeah, but …”
“Did you not say there are three of your co-workers off sick already?”
Rebecca sighed again. “Yes, three. It wouldn’t be fair to Lena for me to go away, too. Then she’d have to make all the muffins herself.”
“Don’t look so sad.” Evan pulled his happy-face button free, leaned forward, and pinned it to Rebecca’s shirt. “You see many people in your job; hear a lot of conversations. If anything strange is going on, people will talk about it and you can pass it on. Someone listening to people carrying on their ordinary lives may give us the clue we need. It’s the ordinary lives he’ll disrupt the most.”
“Okay.” Rebecca nodded reluctantly, raised her hand and trapped his. She ran a finger down the line of bracelets, causing them to ring together, smiled at the sound, and did it again. “But why can’t we start tonight? It isn’t too late.”
“It is much too late,” Daru declared, standing. “None of us got much sleep last night, and you and I,” she said pointedly to Rebecca, “have to be up early in the morning.” She turned to Roland. “We are leaving. And you,” she turned back to Rebecca, “are going to bed.”
“Maybe I should stay?” Roland offered.
“Maybe you should go home and get some clean clothes,” Daru replied.
“But …” He looked from Evan to Rebecca and then up at Daru. Their expressions were merely curious. Hers was almost challenging. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Daru is almost always right,” Rebecca told him.
“Really.” He stretched over the back of the couch, looking for his guitar case. “Doesn’t that get tiring?” The case had slipped down and was lying flat on the floor, just out of reach.
Daru smiled. “No. It doesn’t.”
“Mrs. Ruth is always right,” Rebecca added to the room at large.
Daru rolled her eyes. “Mrs. Ruth is a bag lady, Rebecca. That in itself is not very right.”
“Have you met Mrs. Ruth?” Roland asked, coming around the couch to stand by his case.
“I haven’t had the pleasure.”
“You’re missing a treat.” He bent over and flipped open the unsecured lid. “You’ve … Get out of there, cat!”
Tom glanced up, blinking a little in the light, and yawned. His back followed perfectly along the curve of the case and all four paws lay flat, claws securely anchored in the felt lining.
“Go on! Scram!”
“I guess he thought it was a cat bed,” Rebecca offered as Tom stood, stretched, and poured himself out over the side.
“I don’t care what he thought,” Roland snarled, kneeling and brushing off the covering of cat hair. He grunted as Tom butted against his ribs with almost enough force to knock him over, and pushed the cat away. Tom looked pleased with himself, came back, and did it again.
Daru stifled a laugh. “I think he’s trying to piss you off. Cats always know.”
“Know what?” He eased Patience gently down, snapped the lid shut, and straightened. “Come on, let’s go.”
“You’ll meet me here tomorrow morning?” Evan asked.
Roland’s expression softened as he turned to the Adept. “Yeah. Eight-thirty, like we agreed,” He waggled a finger at Rebecca. “Take care of him until then, kiddo.”
Rebecca nodded matter-of-factly. “Oh, I will.” She smiled at Evan and he mirrored her expression.
Roland could no longer deny what was right in front of his eyes.
“Hey, if you think …”
Daru’s hand closed like a steel band just above his elbow and she had him hustled out the door and it shut behind them before he had any idea of what she was doing. When she released him, he rubbed his arm and glared at her.
“Do you know what’s going to happen in there tonight?” he sputtered.
“I know.” Her voice was ice. “Do you?”
“Yes, I do. They’re going to … uh …”
Daru sighed and her voice grew a little kinder. “Think about it for a moment, Roland. Think about what Evan is. He certainly isn’t going to take advantage of a poor little retarded girl.” Unexpectedly, she smiled. “And I don’t think Rebecca will be taking advantage of him. Come on.” She started toward the stairs. “I’ll drive you home.”
Thinking about it as commanded, Roland scrambled to catch up. “Doesn’t it bother you?” he prodded as they crossed the small lobby.
“Why should it? Evan, by his nature, is incapable of doing evil and Rebecca, for all her disability, is a physically mature woman with all the—” she considered her next word as she pushed open the door—“urges that entails.”
“You mean when she asked me to sleep with her …”
“She meant it euphemistically? Yes, probably.” Daru glanced both ways and started across College Street, Roland trailing in her wake. “Look, you can’t keep the mentally disadvantaged so protected from the world that they never get a chance to learn from it. Rebecca has a job and an apartment, why shouldn’t she have lovers, too?”
“Because she could get hurt!”
“Emotionally? So can we all. And actually, her simplicity protects her from creating a lot of the emotional torments we lay on ourselves. Physically? There isn’t a woman in the world safe from that. It stinks, but there it is. You think she lacks the judgment to avoid the men who’d take advantage of her? Well, you’re wrong. Rebecca has a childlike ability to see right to the heart and the fakes, the phonies, and the psychos can’t touch her. Now that’s not some kind of special power that applies to all the mentally disadvantaged, but it certainly applies to Rebecca.” She stopped by her battered green hatchback and fished in her purse for the keys.
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