Storm Chaser: A Novel of The Black Pages

by Danny Bell

  Freyja must have caught my meaning. After all, I was caught up in this because of a deal, and I was being told outright how stupid that could be. “Elana, I do not have the time to hold your hand through this, but I will make this statement and say it true, and then I expect you to behave. Yours was a deal made for love, not for power. Love is one of my domains. I saw through to your heart, and it is why I accepted your offer. You have no doubt heard that there is no greater love than to give your life for another. That can be taken to mean that you will end your life, as Logan nearly did for Olivia. But that is not the true definition of that proverb. You gave your life to me and my cause so that your sister would not have to live with the pain of losing her mate. Everything that comes next is payment due, and you have not shied away from your debt.” Freyja took a moment, and I found myself breathless. “I have acted in good faith, and you can trust me. You will not regret your decision. Now, if I might continue?”

  Freyja didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, but I hadn’t expected her to be so blunt. I felt a lump forming in my throat out of nowhere but forced it to stay down until at least the conversation was finished. The thought that I’d let Logan down—worse than that, that I’d let Olivia down—was something that had stuck with me and perpetrated my fear that I’d let someone else down the next time it was important.

  “I-I’m sorry,” I stammered.

  “Bilyana reported the snakes, two of them, but they did not create a true bargain. Those men were merely obedient mouth pieces. It will take time for the snakes to make their pacts, but if the eight of them become one, nothing short of a god will be enough to stop them. Is that understood?”

  “Yes,” I replied weakly. Freyja didn’t seem to notice.

  “She also reported that you would return the artifact to them within twenty-four hours in exchange for the lives of your guard. I assume this was a lie designed to stall for time—your obligations to me and the mission have not changed after all—but it matters not. Neither you nor the snake were authorized to bargain on behalf of myself or Susano-o. My employees have been freed, and new terms have been reached. Elana, you will not like these terms, but you will abide by them and complete your mission.”

  Her statement was definitive, and I wasn’t in the mood to argue. “What’s this deal?”

  “Susano-o and I will stay out of the conflict and, more importantly, we will remain outside your domain.” Freyja must have meant the Los Angeles county borders. “Instead, we are allowing our champions to determine the outcome. That would mean you and Yamata no Orochi will face each other, and Susano-o and I have agreed to abide by the results of whatever comes next and will not escalate things further. However, we have agreed to a concession apiece. Mine is simple. Your bookstore is to remain neutral ground. It will be off limits, as will the lives and homes of your friends. That is all the support I can give you, the rest will be up to you. No security detail, no company resources. You’re on your own, and anyone you recruit to help you becomes fair game.”

  “But my friends will be safe otherwise?” I repeated hopefully.

  “Only insofar as they do not get involved. If they agree to help you, their protection is forfeit, so involve them or don’t at your discretion. It was the best I could do for you,” she reiterated. “And there is the matter of your opponent’s concession. The domain Susano-o claims is that of thunder. As long as you remain in Los Angeles, he will make his presence felt with a storm that will increase in intensity for as long as you remain within your borders and our respective champions remain undefeated. My existing protections around the county will slow the rainfall. You need not worry about an immediate flood, but it is not something you’ll want to—”

  “People will die!” I suddenly shouted, startling even myself. “This city isn’t built for rain; drivers lose their mind if it sprinkles! A perpetual downpour in July is going to be a disaster!”

  “Yes, but for how many will depend on when you complete your mission,” Freyja harshly reminded me. “There will be a twenty-four hour truce for all parties to prepare. After that, the rain will fall, and it will be up to you to retrieve our prize and drive out the enemy. Should you have any thoughts of leaving the protection of my borders, Susano-o will have no obligation to stay his hand and could strike you down.”

  “Find a magic fox, steal a mysterious artifact, and defeat eight sorcerer snakes —who are all stronger than me— before they merge into a god problem and millions of people are drowned,” I confirmed, stuffing the Sinister Six comparison back down into the hole in my brain that it tried to escape from. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “My child, you convinced me to change my mind about the most important event of my very long life,” Freyja replied, softening her tone a little. “You can do anything.”

  “I guess I have to, right?”

  “There is one thing I have to know,” Freyja said, curiosity in her voice. “Why bargain for the lives of the security detail? You could’ve been killed, and so much would be at risk if you died. So, why do it?”

  I bit my lower lip for a moment before answering. “They were there because of me. I couldn’t just leave them to die, you know? Even if I could only save one of them, that was still worth the risk. I couldn’t live with myself if I left people to die because of my actions. It wouldn’t matter if it were the security people or a Girl Scout troop or some Holiday Inn conference for accountants. I’m not ever going to be the person who doesn’t at least try. Even if I can only save one.”

  “I see,” she replied thoughtfully. “My flight is prepared to take off, and you may not hear from me for some time. If you have any last questions, now is the time to ask them.”

  I felt guilty for asking, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the answer would be important later. “I have this sense that Bilyana isn’t human, or if she is, there’s something else going on there. I have to ask, what is she?”

  I didn’t hear anything for a moment, and when Freyja spoke again it was with a softness that made me feel guilty for ever asking. “She is good, Elana. She is good.”

  The phone cut out abruptly then, with the unspoken words “And I am disappointed” loud in my head. It was rude of me to ask, and Freyja did not seem to appreciate the question. I don’t know why it mattered so much to me, but given everything else in my life, there were times where I didn’t appreciate unanswered questions.

  Well, twenty-four hours until it all hit the fan. So, what was I going to do about it?

  I was going to pancake about it.

  What else could I do? I had a lot to think about, and IHOP was the only thing nearby that was open.

  I hated this, the knowing that things would shortly be completely out of hand, but not knowing how I was going to handle it. Maybe somebody was going to get hurt. Maybe it would be me. And someone was always scared in these situations, and usually that was me. Horrible as it sounds, it’s not all awful. For better or worse, there were bits of the whole experience that were borderline addicting. Feeling magic flow through me and touching the invisible building blocks of existence or the look on someone’s face when they knew that everything was going to be okay, and I knew that it was because I was there.

  I was trying to compartmentalize, and step one was a pancake and step two was to think.

  Even in the middle of the night, parking was atrocious almost anywhere in L.A., but I found a spot on the side street next to the dry cleaners across the way and went inside the IHOP. It wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t terribly busy either. Two waitresses, one who looked like she was in college, the other pushing fifty. A line cook who looked more awake than anyone there, including myself, a pair of guys cuddling in the back booth, possibly drunk. And an older, portly man with a salt and pepper beard at the counter, heavy on the salt. Probably both in his beard and his meal, from the look of it.

  The older waitress barely looked up to see me as she instructed me to sit anywhere I liked. I took a booth in the middle o
f the room and almost immediately dug the heels of my palms into my eyes and began to grind them against my eyelids, losing myself in the forced darkness for a moment while I thought about exactly what the hell? That was it. Just, what the hell?

  A moment later, I heard the sound of a menu being dropped in front of me, and the waitress, the young one by the sound of it, spoke. “I’ll give you a minute to look over the menu. Can I get you a drink while you—?”

  “I’d have a milk,” another voice interrupted. A woman’s voice, but unpleasant somehow. “Kate, right? Your name tag, it’s a good name.”

  I opened my eyes then to see them both; the other woman’s lack of makeup highlighted the rough features of someone who hadn’t slept in a while and didn’t get much sun. Her hair was a crow’s nest of wiry black that looked like a brush hadn’t touched it in months, and the streak of white that ran through it reminded me a bit of a villain from some old-timey gothic horror. Her outfit was also off-putting, like it had been cobbled together by items that were fine on their own but didn’t make sense as an ensemble; a bit like allowing a toddler to pick what they’re going to wear. Red-leather ankle boots barely visible under a matte black maxi skirt. What looked to be two jackets, a draped cloth jacket, thin and blue, that hung down nearly as far as the maxi skirt, and a wool knit blazer maybe two sizes too big with flared lapels.

  Kate, my waitress, flashed a wide, embarrassed customer service smile, “Thank you! Right away on that milk and maybe a couple of waters, and I’ll get you a menu as well.”

  “So kind of you, do you know what tips stands for?” the mystery woman asked and, not waiting for an answer, said, “To insure polite service. You’re doing great already, so here you go.”

  Before Kate could react, the woman pressed a heavy looking coin into the palm of her hand, and she walked away looking a little disoriented. The stranger’s eyes widened in my direction as she noticed my staring and slid into the seat across from me in the booth, keeping her hands at her sides as she did. “Oh, my goodness, Elana, thank you for meeting me now rather than later. I know the card said later, but you’re here now, so why not?”

  I blinked. “Wait. Card?”

  “You did read the card, didn’t you?” she asked, her voice never quite matching the intensity of her words. “She didn’t even read the card. You know, I hand-delivered that, no one does that anymore, the least you could do is read it. That was very rude.”

  My patience evaporated in an instant, and I became insistent. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

  Thin lips spread into a Cheshire cat’s grin. “Hi Elana, I’m Kate, and I am planning to kill everyone in this room.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Except you, of course,” she added after a moment.

  “Sounds about right.” I sighed. “One second, if you don’t mind.”

  The woman made a “go-ahead” motion, and I casually dug into my bookbag until my hands found the base of my rod. I shot to my feet, wielding it over my head with both hands like a club, and my voice boomed at her loud enough that I was confident that someone was going to call the cops. “Tonight, is not the night, lady! You want this? Huh?”

  “Oh, sit down. Don’t you at least want to know why?” she cooed.

  “I will smite you!” I shouted. “Do you want to get smited?”

  The woman met my gaze coolly and showed me her hands for the first time. The illusion surrounding her fingers fell away briefly to reveal long, thick, pointed claws, like rose thorns at the ends of her fingertips. “Sit,” she repeated softly. “Or the show begins immediately. Are you that certain I won’t get through you to them?”

  In fact, I had no way to be certain of that at all, and those claws looked pretty scary. And it probably wasn’t a good idea to start a magic fight in the middle of an IHOP at three-thirty in the morning. And I still didn’t know who or what this woman was. And… I guess literally no one cared that I threatened to cave her head in, which seemed like it should be weird, but somehow wasn’t.

  Never change, IHOP.

  I conceded, sat down with a firm grip on my rod and didn’t break eye contact.

  “That wasn’t quite the response I was expecting,” she said. “What was the plan there? You make enough noise, someone calls the cops, and I’m supposed to be afraid to have this conversation in front of people? Kind of whiffed that one, didn’t you?”

  “Well, it’s been a long night, and all I wanted was some damned pancakes.”

  “Yes, with the whole heist thing; that didn’t go exactly the way you planned, did it? And not just tonight. It’s been a long couple of months, hasn’t it?”

  Why do all the bad guys need to be so cryptic?

  “Look, just get to it. Who are you?”

  “I told you,” she said with a smile. “I’m Kate.”

  “Like our waitress?” I asked.

  “Bit softer upfront,” she replied. “She’s Kate. I’m Kate.”

  “You’re saying the exact same thing.”

  She waved me off. “Doesn’t matter, you’ll get it.”

  I wanted to put fingers to my temples in anticipation of the headache this conversation was going to give me, but thought better of it. “I don’t know what you are—”

  “She,” Kate replied casually.

  “Cool, fine, I’ll respect the pronouns, but to finish that thought, it doesn’t matter, because you don’t get to just threaten innocent pancake-eating people in front of me!”

  “Why?” she asked innocently.

  Kate clearly wasn’t afraid of my show of force, and as far as I could tell, no one else in the restaurant cared either. I was quickly discovering that I was too tired to continue this conversation the way it was going, so I opted for a new tactic. “Better question, why don’t we start over and you can tell me why…why just everything you’re doing?”

  “You don’t think we should wait to order first?” Kate asked with mock concern.

  “No.”

  “If you insist, you know the local customs better than I do, I suppose.” She shrugged. “You know, I’ve been gone a while. It feels good to stretch my legs a bit, but that’s not what you want to know—I apologize. You’re wondering about the killing thing. Oh, and not just these people, but your friends and loved ones too. Acquaintances maybe, I’m not too picky. Everyone eventually, I have all kinds of time. And it’s going to be all. Your. Fault.”

  “What the hell did I ever do to you?”

  “Well, not you, exactly, but that elf? Chalsarda?” she asked with a gesture like she wanted to make sure she had the name right. “Yeah, her and that friend of hers, Ann. Anyway, you’re like the leader of your little… gang? Would you call yourselves that? Gang or no, you’re in charge and that means they’re actions are your responsibility. They killed my master. Well, not directly, but they brought the killer along with them, so that kind of puts it on the plucky duo. Which, in turn, of course, puts it on you.” She punctuated that last point by trying to boop me on the nose but stopped just short of touching me.

  I shook my head incredulously at that. “They didn’t kill anyone. I would’ve heard about it.”

  Kate’s eyes lit up at that. “Oh, they didn’t tell you? I guess someone just isn’t all that inspiring with the troops. Still doesn’t absolve you. I mean, you did free her, didn’t you? Of her obligation with Abarta? That makes her your responsibility.”

  I could feel my temper flaring with each passing moment, but I was getting especially tired of people who were just a bit too well informed. “There were three people in that room, and I know for certain two of them didn’t talk, so what is it? Did he send you after me or is he just spreading rumors to make my life harder?”

  “That’s all unimportant, isn’t it?” she asked, absently scratching in circles on the table with one of her claws. “You know, my master, the Abbot of Kinney.” Her voice went up with a flourish at that name. “I half accepted his offer to join him just for the hubris he had to ask me to f
ollow him at all in the first place. But there was something beautifully narcissistic about his philosophy. And as the aggrieved party, I’m choosing to explore his outlook for a little while. Do you know what he always used to tell me?”

  “I’ve never heard of him, and his name is stupid.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know it is.” She waved me off. “But it’s his philosophy that’s keeping me from killing you. He always used to tell me that the purpose of singing is exploring the emotional range of the song, that there was meaning in the build-up and the swells; you’re not meant to just hit that last note as quickly as you can. That the purpose of a dance is to take the movements as they come, to enjoy each moment, maybe tell a story with your body and not just to get one step in after another in the correct order. Singers sing and dancers dance. If these things were true, then the purpose of your life is to live. Not just exist one day into the next, not to just rush through all the big moments up to the end, but to do something with it. Each day, each moment, is a new note and a unique step. Look at that guy at the counter, let’s call him Carl. Does he look like a Carl to you?”

  I didn’t take my eyes off her as I answered. “I don’t know what a Carl is supposed to look like.”

  “Think I’m allowed to smoke in here? Never mind. The point is, Carl isn’t living. If I killed Carl, who would notice? Who’d care?”

  “I’d care,” I said harshly.

  “Exactly right! You’d care, and I like that energy, but it’s misplaced. Most people wouldn’t care; world goes right on spinning. Even you’ve got to admit, you wouldn’t tolerate a dancer with no passion, a singer who just wanted to get all the words finished so the song would be over, and that’s where you’re different from the rest of these people. You’re making choices in your life; you’re doing it right. You’re living, Carl isn’t. And that’s where I come in! If these spoiled kids don’t appreciate the gift they’ve been given, maybe it’s up to me to take it away from them.”

  I took a moment to compose myself, a moment that Kate chose to silently gloat with her eyes. “What does any of this have to do with me or Chalsarda?”