Chariots of Wrath

by R. L. King

My whole body is shaking now, going cold and sweaty at the same time. I clench my fists in my lap and clamp my eyes shut, trying to drive out the horrible visions of that day five years ago—the day that irrevocably changed not only my life, but Twyla’s.

  She’s not doing much better than I am. Her shoulders are shaking, and I can hear the hitching breaths that tell me she’s crying.

  “That’s—that’s just it,” she says between breaths. “I—I don’t think that’s the way it happened.”

  I don’t even know how to reply to that. What the hell is she talking about? Of course that was the way it happened. I was there!

  Finally, I swallow hard and say, “Explain.”

  It takes her a while before she gets herself under control enough to talk. “Look,” she says, pushing her long hair back from where it had fallen over her face. She turns toward me, her eyes glittering in the dim light. “There was another reason I decided to come out here. Nobody knows about it but me.”

  “What reason?” My heart’s still pounding. I want to grab her, shake her, make her pour out whatever’s on her mind without all the hitches and stops and hesitations.

  “I—I really did want to see you, Bron. Out here, away from the family. So…when this opportunity came up, I went for it.”

  “Wait a minute. So you’re saying you came all the way out here to talk to me? Couldn’t you just call me on the phone? Send me a text?” Twyla hadn’t called or texted me in the last five years.

  She shakes her head. “Like I said, this had to be in person.”

  “Why? Is there really a meeting with this producer guy, or was that just a ruse to get you out here?”

  “No. No. There really is a meeting. It’s tomorrow, just like I said. But I sort of…volunteered to go.”

  I narrow my eyes. “You volunteered. So Nana didn’t pressure you to go?”

  “No. She was happy when I volunteered—she really has wanted to try getting you and me to talk again—but it wasn’t her idea.”

  “And it wasn’t Selene’s?”

  Her headshake this time is even more emphatic. “No. I’m not even sure where she is right now, actually. She’s over in Europe somewhere. I don’t think she even knows about me staying with you. She gave me some sealed documents about the project to give to the producer, but that’s the last she was involved.”

  That’s odd, but not too odd. Selene is Twyla’s mentor—what most mages would call her “master”—same as her mother had been mine. As far as I know, the two of them are still close. “Okay. So tell me what happened. Just—tell me.”

  She looks down. “I—it’s hard, Bron. You have to understand that.”

  I’m still shaking. The last thing I want to do is dredge this whole thing up again. I know I’ll never put it fully behind me. I don’t want to. That wouldn’t be fair to Mara’s memory. But ever since I’d come out here to California, I’d managed to build a wall around it, little by little. One that blocked out most of the worst of it with the everyday minutiae of living, painting, running the shop, taking care of Rory. Normal stuff. Mundane stuff. I never would have believed it, but even the worst grief eventually begins to fade. Life and time have a way of filing off the raw edges, no matter how hard you want to hang on to them. No matter how hard you feel you need to hang on to them.

  And now here’s Twyla, ripping the scab off in the middle of the night with some crazy story about it not being my fault.

  Suddenly, inexplicably, I’m angry. I push away, glaring at her. “Twy, listen. It’s late. I’m tired. You’re tired. You need to get your sleep so you won’t be a zombie for your meeting tomorrow. If you’re going to tell me, tell me. If not…well, thanks a lot for waking me up for nothing—I really appreciate that—but I can wait till tomorrow if you’d rather.” I’d suspect she’d been drinking, but I don’t keep any alcohol in the house—it gives me nightmares—and I doubt she smuggled any in her luggage. Also, she doesn’t smell like booze, only that jasmine shampoo I remember from all those years ago. Funny the things that stick in your brain forever.

  “Bron—”

  “No. Listen. If you have something to tell me, tell me tomorrow, when we’re both awake and you’re not all stressed out. I don’t know why you suddenly decided you had to dump this on me in the middle of the night—if you’re trying to make me feel better or what—but you’re not making me feel better.”

  She swallows again and looks down. “I—”

  “Look. Whatever this is, it can wait until then. I was glad to have you visit me, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to dredge up all these bad memories when I’m barely awake. I can’t imagine you’d want to either. Tell you what: why don’t we have dinner tomorrow night after your meeting? You can tell me all this then, if you still want to. It’ll give us both a chance to get in the right mindset to talk about it. Okay?”

  It seems like she might protest, but then she lets out a loud sigh. “Okay. You’re right. It might be for the best.” She reaches out and takes my hand. “But you’ve got to hear this, Bron. No matter how hard it is. Believe me—it’s hard for me too. But you’ve got to hear it.”

  “Okay. You can tell me. I’ll listen.” I take hold of her shoulders and stand her up. “Now, come on—let’s get you back to bed. I don’t want to be the cause of you screwing up your meeting. You owe it to the orphans to be at your best. Do you want a cup of hot tea or something?”

  “No…no, thanks. I’ll be all right.” She looks at me, then looks down at Rory standing next to us. “I’ll be all right,” she says again, and starts to walk away.

  “Hey, Twy?”

  She stops but doesn’t turn back toward me. “Yeah?”

  “I think if it’s okay with you, I’ll hold off on inviting Nick to dinner tomorrow.”

  “Oh. Yeah, you’re right. That’s probably a good idea.”

  I watch her drift down the hall toward her bedroom, looking like a ghost with her pale gauzy nightgown and long, flowing dark hair, and wonder if she’ll even remember any of this in the morning.

  “Come on, Rory,” I tell my cat, bending down to pick her up. “Let’s go back to bed and not get some sleep.”

  Rory replies with a sleepy mmmrrrow, as if to say, “I don’t know about you, human, but one of us is going to sleep like a baby.”

  On my nightstand, my phone begins to play a soft lullaby.

  “Thanks, Alice. I don’t think it’s going to help, but I appreciate the thought.”

  Chapter Six

  Twyla’s gone when I get up the next morning. She left me a note, propped up on the kitchen table: Didn’t want to wake you. Headed out early to get a rental car and get to my meeting. She included the meeting address—a place near Downtown—and added her phone number. You pick a restaurant and text me the address and time. I still want to talk tonight. Love, T.

  My mind won’t shut up as I putter around the kitchen getting breakfast—a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice—ready. Rory follows me around until I top up her kibble dish, then focuses on eating. I know where I rate on her priority list.

  “I don’t know, Rory,” I say between spoonfuls of Lucky Charms over the sink. “That whole thing last night is freaking me out.”

  I’m half-convinced it didn’t even happen, actually. I’ve been known to have some pretty strange dreams when my subconscious is worked up about something, and having my former best friend, the woman whose mother’s horrific death I’m directly responsible for, turn up in my life after a five-year absence definitely counts as “worked up.” If it hadn’t been for the note saying she still wanted to talk, I’d chalk it up as a particularly nasty specimen of nightmare.

  I glance at my phone, tempted to give her a call now, but I don’t do it. I’m not even sure I want to hear what she has to say, but if she’s half as upset about it as she seemed last night, she’s already going to have trouble pulling herself together for her important meeting without me making things worse.

  Best thing to do right now is
get my mind off the whole thing, and I won’t do that sitting around here.

  “Hey,” I say, putting the bowl in the sink and bending down to pet Rory, “what do you say we go to the shop?”

  She doesn’t answer, of course, but I pick her up anyway. It can’t hurt, and it might help.

  Today more than usual I’m glad that my bookshop, Aurora’s Attic Used Books, isn’t too far from my apartment. I unhook Rory’s carrier from the back of my bike and pause for a moment to look at the place.

  It’s not the best location for tourist traffic, tucked into a rambling, old-fashioned outdoor shopping center, but it doesn’t need to be. I’d guess less than thirty percent of my customers are walk-ins, while the rest come from referrals, ads I run in various bibliophile publications, and the internet. I have the usual collection of well-thumbed romance novels, ancient National Geographics, cookbooks, and dusty hardcover bestsellers from ten years ago, but what brings people in is my more exotic stock. I specialize in rare and hard-to-find books, and I don’t mean the high-priced stuff that rich people buy and display without ever reading. I focus more on the niche markets—small print runs, out of print books and magazines, things that appeal to a subset of customers willing to pay whatever it takes to complete their collections. It wouldn’t have been a viable business model before the internet, but nowadays I get orders from all over the world. I think the farthest one I’ve had so far was somewhere in Sri Lanka. I didn’t even know where Sri Lanka was until I looked it up on a map.

  As I unlock the back door and slip in, the same twinge of sadness I’ve had each day for the last month hits me. I shouldn’t be doing this. Jane always got in before I did, and always had a pot of coffee brewing when I arrived.

  I set Rory’s carrier down and open it. “It’s not fair,” I tell her, watching her stalk out and pause to look around. She does the same thing every time we arrive; I wonder if she’s checking out what’s changed since she was here last, or scoping the place out for mice.

  As usual, she doesn’t reply, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. Jane Miggs—stage name Janelle Morrissey—was my first friend when I arrived out here—the one who showed me around, told me where the good restaurants and the places to avoid were, and generally took me under her wing when I had nobody else.

  She even gave me a small loan to help me open the bookstore—one I’d paid back in six months because she had no interest in being part-owner. “Too much trouble,” she’d told me. “Acting’s my passion, not running a shop. I just like being around books and the people who love them. You can do the business stuff.”

  And now I’ll never again hear her cheerful, teasing “Good morning—or I guess it’s afternoon now, isn’t it?” or try any of the exotic coffees and teas she picked up from street fairs and tiny shops…or have her to help me run the place.

  I stash my helmet behind the counter and rub my hand over my face with a loud sigh. I can’t avoid it any longer: I’ll need to run an ad for a new assistant.

  I just hope none of the candidates ask me what happened to the previous one. She died because she got her soul sucked out by a demon with a Lovecraftian nightmare machine—but don’t worry, it’s destroyed now, so that probably won’t happen to you likely won’t convince too many applicants to come back for a second interviews.

  I text Twyla my suggestion for tonight’s dinner: a little Mexican place called Casa Rosita not too far from Downtown, easy to find, and with a lot of private back booths so we can talk without being interrupted. I suggest seven p.m. Her reply comes fast: Sounds good, see you there.

  Okay. Now to fill the hours between now and then, and try to keep my mind off whatever bombshell she’s planning to drop on me. I wish I had a painting to work on—I always get lost in my synesthetic “soundscapes,” especially when I like the music involved—but I haven’t gotten any new orders since I finished the Elton John piece last month. Guess it’s time to unpack a bunch of boxes I’ve been putting off. Mindless work, but that’s what I need right now.

  As I hoped, the drudge work eats up the long hours. Except for a quick trip out to grab lunch from the sandwich shop at other end of the mall, I have no trouble killing the rest of the day sorting through some of the backlog of boxes I’d received over the past month and had no desire to open. I don’t get any walk-in customers, which makes it even easier. Rory keeps me company by jumping in and out of the empty boxes, eventually curling up in one of the smaller ones and falling asleep.

  When the bell jangles on the front door and jerks me out of my robotic routine of opening a box, sorting the contents, and putting them on the cart to shelve, I notice to my surprise that it’s already five o’clock.

  “Be right there!” I call, scrambling up and fighting off the pins and needles in my legs. I should be closed by now—hopefully this isn’t one of those customers who wants to spend three leisurely hours browsing through the stacks.

  I stop in surprise when I see who’s standing out there at the counter. “Nick! Didn’t expect to see you here.”

  He’s dressed in his usual “work” outfit of sport jacket, shirt with no tie, and nice slacks. “Yeah, sorry, I realize you’re probably about to close, but I was doing a reading in the area and I remembered you said you had a couple of books for me. I didn’t think you’d be here, though—figured you’d be out with Twyla.”

  “We’re having dinner later. I should have closed by now. But hang on—I can find the books for you.” Good. Nice and quick, in and out.

  I hurry into the back room and locate the two books: occult stuff I’d set aside for him a couple weeks ago, in case he wanted to add them to his collection. There was a hundred-year-old volume on runes, and another softbound academic paper by Dr. Alastair Stone from the Occult Studies Department up at Stanford. “Don’t worry—I won’t be offended if you don’t want them. But I figured, considering what you picked up last time, you might find them interesting.”

  He examined them. “Oh, yeah. Definitely. This Stone guy knows his stuff. That last one I read was so full of academic gobbledygook that I had a hell of a time following it, but I’d love to take one of his classes. I’d kill to get a degree in Occult Studies, but Stanford? Not on my budget! Wish they had something like that down here.”

  “You’ll just have to cultivate a better class of rich old ladies, I guess.” I ring up the books and put them in a bag.

  He looks around. “Nobody else here?” With a sympathetic frown, he adds, “You haven’t hired anybody to replace Jane, have you?”

  I don’t meet his eyes. “I need to. I keep putting it off, because…”

  “Because it seems disloyal to put somebody in her place, right?”

  He might be a fake fortune teller, but he’s pretty perceptive. I pet Rory as an excuse to keep looking at something else. “It’s stupid, I know. I need somebody to help me run the shop, and my mail-order stuff is backed up at least two weeks. I can’t keep this up, or I’m gonna start losing customers.” I’m not actually sure that’s true, since most of my stock is so rare that there aren’t many other options, but even so, I don’t want to start getting a reputation for being slow.

  “You know…” he says in that tone people get when they’re working out something as they go, “maybe I could help you out a little.”

  “How?” I finally look up, wondering if he’s teasing, but he looks serious. “You’re not gonna give up your career as ‘Fortune Teller to the Stars’ to work in a dusty old bookshop, are you?”

  “Nah, of course not. But I could help you get caught up on your backlog if you want. I’d have to fit it in around my clients, but if that works for you, I’m all yours.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Why would you do that?”

  He chuckles and addresses Rory. “She’s a little thick, isn’t she?”

  Rory licks her paw.

  “Look, Nick, I told you I’m not interested—”

  He waves me off. “Yeah. I get it. That’s fine. But you’re not interested in
being friends, either?”

  “Sure I am. But—”

  “Well, friends help each other out, don’t they? And besides, if I help you go through your shipments, I get first crack at the good stuff before it hits the shelves.”

  I consider. It doesn’t take long. “If you’re serious, I’d love the help. Like I said, I figure it’ll take me about a week to get everything caught up—faster with your help. I can pay you what I paid Jane.”

  “Sounds good. Throw in an employee discount on books and you’ve got yourself a helper monkey.”

  “You got it.”

  “Great. When do you want to get started? I’ve got a reading tomorrow evening in Glendale, but other than that I’m open for the next few days. I can start tonight if you want.”

  “No, not tonight. Like I said, I’m meeting Twyla for dinner. I actually need to close up and get going, in case the traffic’s bad.”

  As I’m debating whether to tell him anything else, he tilts his head. “You don’t look too happy about that. Are you two already having problems? None of my business, of course, if you don’t want to say.”

  I pause before answering. “No…not problems. She just did something weird last night.”

  “Weird?”

  “Yeah. She came into my room in the middle of the night and said she had something she had to tell me. Something about…our past. The reason why we haven’t talked in five years. She seemed pretty agitated about it.”

  “So…did she tell you what it was?” He leans on the counter, still scratching Rory behind the ears. The shameless hussy has flopped over on her side and is now purring her fool head off.

  “No. I…wasn’t ready to deal with it at the time. You know, getting ambushed with it in the middle of the night like that. That’s why we’re having dinner tonight. She’s going to tell me then.”

  “That’s…good, isn’t it? Maybe she wants to put whatever it is behind you? Make a fresh start?”

  I sigh loudly. What can I say, without giving him details I don’t want to share? “It’s…not like that. I’m sorry, but I really don’t want to go into it right now. I—”