by Tanya Huff
“Fourteen forty-six,” Evan repeated. “Thank you.”
They were at the door when John’s call stopped them.
“Holy one. The signs …”
Evan sounded weary as he answered. “Are all true.”
“How can I help?”
Roland shielded his eyes as Light filled the small room, bouncing back off the white walls, and illuminating the astrologer.
“You help by being what you are.” Evan spoke from the center of the glory. “The Light gains its strength from such as you.”
Out on the sidewalk, swept along by the crowd, Roland rubbed his watering eyes and asked, “How did he know what you are, I mean before your little display of pyrotechnics? And you know,” he frowned, “I don’t think he even squinted when you lit up.”
“In a simpler age, he would have been a saint.”
“A saint? Oh.” Roland tried for a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “Oh, is that all.”
“That attitude,” Evan said, the weariness back in his voice, “is what allowed the Darkness to enter in such strength.”
“I’m … I’m sorry.”
“No, I am.” Evan reached out as though to wipe the stricken look from Roland’s face. “I’m tired, and I spoke without thinking. Please, forgive me.”
Roland shrugged. “You’re tired,” he agreed, flagging down a cab. “Come on, let’s go save the world.”
Arcane Knowledge was a small store tucked between a Bank of Nova Scotia and a fish and chip shop. The display window, no more than two feet wide, held maybe a dozen pieces of silver jewelry scattered across a square of black velvet. Roland braced himself for major weirdness, but the bats and black cats motif he half expected turned out to be a number of normal looking displays of books, crystals, candles, and jewelry. Behind the counter were bags of dried plants and the whole place smelled much like John Chin’s office with a faint overlay of hot oil and halibut.
He followed Evan to the counter and rolled his eyes as the young woman behind it began to hyperventilate. He might not recognize a saint when he saw one, but he sure as hell recognized hormones.
“We’re looking for the Wiccan Church,” Evan told her. “Can you help us?”
“Help you?” she repeated. “Oh, yes.”
Evan waited for a moment and Roland hid a smile.
“The Wiccan Church?” Evan prodded at last.
“Oh.” She straightened and attempted to pull herself together. “Yes. They, uh, own this store. I mean the church part doesn’t, but the same people do.”
Bingo! Roland thought. We’ve got you now, you son of a bitch. He saw the tension go out of Evan’s shoulders and knew the Adept had feared this would be another dead end.
And then the clerk continued, “But they’ve all gone out of town for some sort of,” her hands windmilled, “thing. That’s why I’m here all alone.”
“They’ve gone out of town,” Evan repeated slowly.
“Yes. They’ve got property in the country and they’re there for the weekend.”
“I have to speak to their Priestess.” He leaned forward and she gulped as his face stopped inches from hers. “It’s vitally important.”
“There’s no way to contact them. They don’t even have a phone.”
“No …”
“They’ll be back on Monday.” Her voice came out in an overwhelmed squeak.
“There may not be a world for them to come back to on Monday!” His voice had risen and the young woman cringed, her hands over her ears, her eyes squeezed shut against the vision he presented.
Although his own heart had turned to lead in his chest—there would be no help from the Goddess, any goddess, once again they faced the Darkness alone—Roland touched Evan lightly on the back. The muscles felt as if they’d been sculpted of stone.
“Hey,” he said softly. “You’re scaring her.”
And then he was glad his heart was lead, for the look on Evan’s face would have broken it.
“Roland, I …”
“I know.” Not caring who saw, his fingers traced the curve of Evan’s cheek. “I was counting on it, too. Come on.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go home and see if we can find another way.”
Bit by bit the bleakness faded. Evan nodded. “Yes. There’s always another way.” His chin came up. “Thank you.”
“Hey, things are never as black and white as you think they are.” Evan’s lips twitched and Roland felt himself flush.” Uh, forget I said that.”
“No.” Evan caught up the hand that still rested on his shoulder. “I will remember it for it is true and it is something that both the Dark and the Light too often forget.” He leaned back over the counter and turned the brilliance of his smile on the cowering clerk. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
She rose hesitantly and tried a nervous smile of her own. “It’s okay.” And she really thought it was until she noticed, a few moments after the door closed behind the two young men, that every crystal in the store was glowing with a soft white light.
“All right, let’s see what we’ve got.” They walked up the path to Rebecca’s building, having ridden the bus back in silence. It was past two. In less than ten hours, the world would end. Roland flicked the fingers of his free hand up to mark points. “We’ve got an Adept of the Light …”
“A slightly battered Adept of the Light,” Evan corrected as they stepped through the still empty doorframe.
“If you like,” Roland agreed. “A street musician everyone keeps calling a Bard although,” his tone stopped Evan’s protest, “I have it on good authority I’m not there yet. A magical harp said Bard can’t play.” In her case, Patience sounded a C, high and sharp. “A guitar that he can. A goddess invocation we don’t know how to use. A social worker we can’t find, and Rebecca. Hell,” he stood aside while Evan dealt with the lock on Rebecca’s apartment door, “with all that arrayed against him, the Darkness should be shaking in his shoes.”
A small coffee colored shape scurried down the curtains and out the window as they entered.
Roland froze, but Evan didn’t appear disturbed so he relaxed. On the other hand, Evan did appear to be communing with something Roland couldn’t see. “Are you all right?” he asked nervously, wondering if he had time to get Patience free and if it would do him any good if he did.
“I’m an idiot!” Evan exclaimed for the second time that day. “I am an idiot.”
Roland closed the door and slipped the chain on. “Why?” he asked.
“We know how to call the Goddess.”
“We do?”
“Yes!” Evan threw out his arms and his bracelets emphasized the word like a silver percussion section. “The song is the invocation.”
“Yeah. You said that this morning.” Roland set Patience down and sat gingerly on the edge of the couch, keeping half his attention on the Adept and the other half on the window; just in case their visitor came back. “You also said this morning that we needed a witch. What’s changed?”
“We needed the Wiccans as a focus, needed their rituals as a focus to guide the invocation to the goddess.”
“I repeat. What’s changed?”
“Roland,” Evan threw himself down on his knees and caught up both the other man’s hands in his, “you will sing the song. Rebecca will focus it.”
“Rebecca.” Roland was very proud of the way his mind kept working. Given the circumstances.
“Rebecca. The gray folk watch over her. She has a simplicity, a clarity that is rare even amongst the Light. In the arms of the earth, she calms. Think of it, Roland, how it all fits together.”
Roland thought of it. “They used to say that the simple people, people like Rebecca, had been touched by God, that they were his special children.”
Evan’s eyes were almost as silver as his jewelry. “Who raised the barriers?” he asked. “She watches over the world and She watches over Rebecca.”
“Are you sure this will work?”
“Just hope?”
“Wars have been won and lost on it.”
Twisting one arm in Evan’s grasp, Roland looked at his watch. “Two forty-eight. She’ll be starting home soon.” Evan’s fingers lit fires where they rested along his wrists. “What, uh, what shall we do in the meantime?”
Evan’s grin was pure mischief as he answered. “I think you’d better rehearse your part a time or two.”
Roland sighed, freed one hand and pulled the now much folded piece of music from his back pocket. “You know,” he said, “you don’t make it easy for people?”
“Rebecca!”
Rebecca paused, her hand on the kitchen door fairly trembling with her need to get home.
“Did you put your tins away neatly?”
“Yes, Lena.”
“Have you got your uniform to wash?”
Rebecca chewed on her lip but otherwise remained frozen in the motion of leaving. Her food services uniform was folded, not as neatly as on other Fridays, in the bottom of her red bag. “Yes, Lena.”
“Do you have your muffins for the weekend?”
“Yes, Lena.” The muffins had been shoved on top of her soiled uniform. She waited impatiently for the next line of the litany.
“Now don’t forget to eat while you’re home.”
Rebecca nodded for the motion was a part of it, too. “I’ll remember, Lena.” One more.
It never came.
Rebecca waited, unable to move until the last words were spoken. Unable to turn around to see what had stopped them. She could hear a strange gasping sound, a scuffling against the linoleum, and then a voice she knew, although she couldn’t remember from where.
“You had been warned, Mrs. Pementel, that the smoking would probably kill you.” The Dark Adept looked down at the cafeteria supervisor who writhed at his feet, one hand clutching at her chest, the other scrabbling against the floor. “A proportionately high number of women over fifty who smoke are taken by heart disease. What’s that?” He bent slightly forward as the purpling lips formed silent words. “Help you? Oh, but I have helped you. Without my assistance you would surely have lived for another twenty-four hours.” He smiled pleasantly. “And you wouldn’t like the world in another twenty-four hours.”
He watched the last moments of pain and he captured the last breath, drawing it into himself with deep enjoyment. Only then did he turn to study Rebecca.
He still hunted the other woman. She would fall in time, for there were a great many men who ran as hounds in this hunt. When he felt her taken, he would be there to observe the end. As for the other who assisted the Light, the so-called Bard had experienced the shadow lands and the Dark Adept anticipated showing him true Darkness. But this one …
“I don’t know what came to your aid the last time,” he said to Rebecca’s back, noting with pleasure how the muscles twitched visibly in their desire to move, “but it can’t help you now. You built this trap yourself. I merely used it.” Stepping forward, he cupped the curve of her waist in both hands.
Rebecca trembled but could no more twist out of his grasp than she could continue out the door. The last words had to be spoken.
“And the beauty of it is,” he murmured into her hair, his breath very hot on her scalp, “this afternoon’s work has not affected the balance in any way. I simply helped your late friend down a path she was already well along and your problem is a natural consequence of that. But perhaps you still don’t understand.” His hands glided upward, briefly caressed the heavy swell of breasts, and came to rest about her throat, the thumbs pressing painfully into the soft flesh under her jaw.
“The Light will not be able to save you,” he purred. “For he will not know you are caught until it is too late and by then he will be dealing with me. And he will lose. And when I am finished destroying him, I will come and claim you. I will enjoy that. You won’t.”
And very suddenly she was alone with the pain his hands and his words had left. Desperately, she grabbed onto the quiet place the way Mrs. Ruth had taught her to and while silent tears streamed down her face, she fought the bindings that held her with a single-minded determination. Evan needed her help. She had to get to Evan.
At Evan’s touch, Roland stopped muttering lyrics and frowned up at the Adept. “I haven’t much time to learn this,” he began and shut up as he caught sight of Evan’s face. “What is it?” he whispered, glancing around nervously.
“Listen.”
So he listened. Within the apartment: the rhythmic rasp of Tom’s tongue across a paw, the hum of the refrigerator, the steady dripping of the bathtub tap. Outside the apartment: traffic, voices, and bells.
Bells? At least two sets of bells seemed to be clanging wildly, pealing out a discordant clamor. Roland looked at his watch. Three twenty-one.
“Rebecca’s in danger,” Evan said. And vanished.
“Mrs. Pementel? Mrs. Pementel!” The cafeteria door swung open and the accountant came face to face with Rebecca who was still standing with one arm outstretched to push open the door. “Oh,” he said with a forced and uncomfortable smile, “it’s you.” When it became obvious she wasn’t going to move, he inched around her, wondering nervously what all the eye rolling was about. He didn’t care how good a worker she was, the girl should be in a home. “Have you seen Mrs. Pemen …” The question suddenly became redundant.
“Oh, my God!”
Dropping to his knees beside the body, he groped frantically for a pulse. There didn’t seem to be one although he wasn’t entirely certain he was prodding the right places. What if she’s dead? Ohmygod! I’ve touched her! He scrambled to his feet, took two steps away, then scurried back. Help. I should go for help. But if she isn’t dead, I should do something. Do what? Seconds count. He cried out as a flash of brilliant light threatened to blind him.
“Rebecca? Lady? Are you all right?”
Rebecca? That was the retarded girl’s name. The accountant scrubbed at his eyes until he could see a tall young man with a mane of strangely colored hair bending over the girl by the door. “Here now,” he sputtered. “What? How?”
Evan ignored him. He could See the binding that held Rebecca in place, but he had no idea how to break it and Rebecca’s voice was as bound as her body. He could feel the foul taint that said his enemy had been here, but Darkness hadn’t set these bounds.
“You, there. I need help!”
Reluctantly, Evan responded. He couldn’t not respond, not and remain as he was. He turned. He Saw Rebecca’s bindings stretching back to the body on the floor.
“Who was this woman?” he asked, pushing past the flabbergasted accountant who sputtered in indignation. The bindings looped around her, yes, but they originated with Rebecca. Oh, Lady, what have you done to yourself?
“I said, I need help!” The accountant waved an ink-stained hand toward the floor, not knowing why he expected this punky young man to be able to do anything but sure that if he only exerted himself everything would be all right again. “She needs help!”
Evan had no time for finesse and it was Evantarin, Adept of the Light, who raised his head and allowed the mortal to meet his eyes. “She is beyond my help,” he said.
Ohmygod! A corpse. I’m in the room with a corpse! I’m … The thought became lost in shifting storms of blue-gray and in a voice the seemed to echo inside his head.
“I must help the living now. Who was this woman?”
“Pementel. Lena Pementel, the cafeteria supervisor.” Incipient panic had been calmed; or delayed, for he could still feel it, buried deep and straining to get free.
“Did you know her well?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. We saw each other every Friday to do the budget for the next week.”
“Every Friday?” Evan stepped forward.
The accountant watched his reflection grow in the strange gray eyes and squeaked, “Yes. She came up to my office …”
“Your office? You never saw the ritual?”
“What ritual?”
Evan took a deep breath and forced his voice away from Command. For the first time in his existence he envied the Darkness’ ability to cut to the heart and not worry about the damage done. “The ritual that frees my Lady,” he said under tight control. Rebecca was helpless, the Darkness could return at any time, and he wasn’t strong enough to protect her.
“Well, uh, last week I was ready early and I, I came down here.”
“And?”
“And they, uh, talked to each other.”
“What did they say?”
“I don’t remember.” He spit the words out in a rush and ducked. When nothing happened he dared to glance up. What he saw made him squeeze his eyes shut again.
“Then you must relive the time …”
He sat in the office and waited while the cafeteria workers filed out calling their good-byes and exchanging sly looks about Lena’s visitor. The retarded girl, Rebecca, was the last to leave. She’d barely reached the door when Lena called out to her.
“Rebecca!”
The girl paused, one hand on the door, and he wondered how long this was going to take. He’d figured coming down to the cafeteria would speed things up and he could get home early for a change.
“Did you put your tins away neatly?”
“Yes, Lena.”
A pity she was retarded, he thought, she was actually kind of attractive in a lush sort of way.
“Have you got your uniform to wash?”
“Yes, Lena.”
In fact, that combination of lushness and innocence was pretty erotic.
“Do you have your muffins for the weekend?”
“Yes, Lena.”
Good god, it went on forever. No wonder it took Mrs. Pementel so long to reach his office every Friday.
“Don’t forget to eat while you’re home.”
The girl nodded, her head bobbing up and down like one of those dogs you saw on dashboards of sixties cars. He snorted quietly to himself. The dogs probably had more in the way of brains.
-->