The Reckoners

by Doranna Durgin

  Trevarr’s hard, familiar hand had become slippery, but it recaptured her wrist anyway, plunging her fingers forward into...

  Cool crumbling earth through the cracked and fallen stone wall. Damp and welcoming and suckingly hungry, instantly pulling on the energy going nova inside her — demanding it.

  Garrie dug her fingers into loam, as greedy for it as it was for her. Her vision went from nuclear white to a something less intense; she felt her toes again. The fire in her joints faded. She regained some sense of herself and her surroundings. Somewhere along the way her shirt had ridden up high, and gritty packed dirt pressed against her skin.

  Trevarr cradled her, his breath harsh and gusting against her neck, his grip on her wrist loosening. Not writhing in pain as the energy surged through and away from her.

  All this energy spewing around... how...

  ::Not spewing. Through you. Heals your earth.:: But Sklayne corrected himself. ::Starts to. Not done.::

  He nudged her other hand open with his cold little nose and rolled an object into it.

  Garrie recoiled — or tried to. Nowhere to go, with Trevarr at her back and trembling with a weakness that she couldn’t quite bring herself to challenge.

  But she knew what Sklayne had given her, even with vision still awash with watercolor dapples and light. She’d never held it before, she’d never felt it before, but she knew —

  “No,” she said, horror coming out even in her cracked and feeble voice.

  ::Yes,:: Sklayne said. ::Conduit. Must. Through, not in.::

  Bright rainbow colors, pulsing alien energy... She pushed the object away with all the fervency she could muster.

  Sklayne pushed the oval back at her and she panicked — yanking her hand away, flinging dirt everywhere, bucking against the warmth and strength that cradled her and fighting for freedom in earnest.

  Trevarr’s arm tightened, both caressing and restraining; the side of his face pressed just behind her ear, murmuring unfamiliar words with unfamiliar effort. His grip loosening, his breath gasping between words.

  ::Look!:: Sklayne demanded.

  If she’d thought she had any true connection with him before, now she learned the difference. He blew away all restrictions, combining them all in a swirl of broken bodies and desperation and pain, and plunged her into seeing.

  San Jose, buried in a swarm of darkness, full of screaming and destruction and creatures that never belonged on this world. Glimpses of terror, glimpses of death, a city folding in on itself while the earth buckled and tore around it.

  Here in this house, glimpses of madness.

  Drew trapped in a corner while ghosts howled around him, battering him. Lucia in the ballroom, the tour group clustered around the fallen medium and a fallen child.

  Ghosts circled the room in a counter-clockwise charge, tightening the energies around every living being there — not just the sensitives, with Lucia running against the flow of them, her beauty lost in utter insanity.

  Beetles emerged into the room from all directions, heading straight for the tourists. The beetles that burned and digested and ate...

  ::Watch them die,:: Sklayne said, his voice as sharp as his claws. ::Or not.::

  Trevarr’s presence reached her from across some great distance. Nothing more than that, just a hint of his ferocity, the smooth stroke of his understanding. The tightening of his hand on her flesh.

  Lucia stopped her wild run, her hair tangled and her face flushed and her hands searching the air around her as if she could no longer see through her eyes at all. “Garrie!” she wailed. “Garrie, please!”

  “Pleeease,” echoed the little ghost girl. “Pleeeeaa...”

  Garrie sobbed into that empty hand of hers. “Not Lucia,” she cried. “Not Drew!”

  Sklayne pushed the oval back into her hand.

  For a moment it was only a strange, smooth rock, cool and little oily beneath her touch. And then Sklayne nudged it and the energy flooded through her, and Trevarr shoved her other hand back into the deep earth.

  Garrie threw her head back and howled. Too visceral. Too primal. Too encompassing.

  I have you, Trevarr said — the taste of Sklayne clinging to him, bringing him there to her thoughts. Stay with me.

  The connection came with more than the depth of his voice. It was all his pain revealed to her, from his damaged arm to the deep burning in his side to strains and bruises and slashing cuts. All his conflict, the two parts of his nature straining against one another. All his emotions. Raw and unfettered and wild, all hidden behind that cold, hard restraint. Living hard, a fierce life that gave him nonstop temporary intensity but never this.

  Never her. Never what she invoked in him.

  She clung to that sense of him as the power coursed through her.

  Healing the earth.

  Cleansing the city to calm the shuddering, to wipe away the darkness. Blasting through the house with unfettered power, a hurricane roar of silence that shredded the invaders and flung the jailed and freed the trapped.

  Beguiling power cloaked in peaceful fury, deep surging waves of darkness, encompassing fire and fluttery wings —

  As it faded, Sklayne pushed a new oval into her hand and broke it open and she watched the power carry little pieces of herself away except...

  She felt Trevarr’s hands. She felt his truth. She felt where it connected within her. She clung to it, grounding herself there.

  And Sklayne pushed another new source into her hand and broke it open, and another and another, until only one tiny piece of Garrie held on to that connection.

  Trevarr said, “Enough.”

  ::Needs more.::

  “No.” Trevarr leaned over her, movement that seemed an effort. He flicked away the oval lingering in her hand. Then he tucked her in close, turned her to face him, and brushed his hand against her face, grimy as it was.

  Somehow it didn’t surprise her when he bent close and kissed her — deep and lingering, full of firm warmth and unspoken words.

  It didn’t even surprise her that she kissed him back. Limp, wrung out, not even sure if she was still what she had once been, she farking well kissed him back, returning all the warmth and all the unspoken words.

  ::Not sharing,:: Sklayne said plaintively.

  Trevarr’s mouth smiled against hers. “Not.”

  ::Maybe the Garrie shares,:: Sklayne suggested hopefully.

  Garrie said, “Not.” But she could feel herself again, toes and fingers and tingling spine. The perfect medicine. Trevarr stroked that spine — not smoothly, not with his usual strength. He pulled back with an apologetic kiss to her brow.

  Then he said, “Atreya, I have to go.”

  “No!”

  “Atreya,” Trevarr said, as gently as she’d ever heard him speak.

  ::Broken,:: Sklayne informed her briskly. ::Can’t fix here.::

  It took her a moment, and then suddenly all the clues fell into place — everything she should have noticed already but had been too caught up in...

  Well, in being a vessel of pure energy to notice.

  She stopped reveling in her toes again, and in her fingers, and in the very lovely sensation of being tucked up against him. She pulled herself half-upright, looking around the room — Krevata gone, recaptured. The cul-de-sac trap closed off. The portal shut. The ground, no longer shaking; the house no longer ripping itself apart. The ghosts, silent.

  Over at the wall, several of the foundation stones were missing; dark loamy earth spilled out and over the floor. Her hand was covered with dirt, grime lodged deeply beneath her nails, knuckles bloodied. “How — ?”

  ::Me,:: Sklayne said. ::Sklayne. I did it. To bring the earth.::

  “You certainly did,” she agreed.

  And then she turned, and finally found Trevarr propped against the wall behind her. “Ohhh, no,” she said, and shook her head in denial. “No, no, no. Tell me you haven’t really been —”

  Shot.

  But she couldn’t say
it, because it was quite obvious he had been. Distinct round hole in his shirt. Distinct fan of his dark blood from that hole. “How could you — all this time — dammit, you kissed me.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, and if his battered face set in weary pain, there was nonetheless a spark behind his eyes. Pewter-bright cat’s eyes. Other-touched eyes. “Sklayne has helped. But the bullet... it interferes.”

  ::And it hurts,:: Sklayne said, sitting in prim mode with his tail wrapped around his feet and no apparent awareness that his short reddish hair spiked off in every which direction.

  Trevarr frowned at him. No more than a faint narrowing of his eyes, a hardening of his jaw. “You are a child with that which should not be said.”

  “Damned well should have been said,” Garrie corrected. Hesitant, she leaned forward, hand hovering over his bruised face... over the bullet wound, over the arm he held protectively to his side. Then she gave up. Too many, too much. “Fark.”

  He said, “You healed a world, Garrie. You need to find your friends, care for them. Take them back to your home in the desert. But I must go.”

  “Will it be safe for you?” Strange how her voice came out in a whisper again. It had been fine, just like the rest of her; playing power line had left her physically whole, rushing the power through her and not making it of her.

  No, her voice failed her for entirely different reasons.

  Trust Trevarr to tell her the uncomfortable truth. “I don’t know.”

  “Can’t we —” She struggled to find the words through emotion. “Can’t we pay off some doctor? Can’t you —”

  But she stopped herself; the flicker of pain on his face had been all too real, as was the regret.

  “For all reasons,” he told her, “I must go.”

  Panic was unbecoming. That’s what she told herself. She’d saved a world; he’d said as much. She’d held a blazing universe of power beyond imagining and she’d survived. She could handle this rending sensation, this ripping deep inside. No problem.

  Yeah.

  No no no no.

  Trevarr fumbled in his coat — more than just a coat, she knew that now.

  More than just a man, she knew that, too. And so much more than just a client.

  She half-expected it when he pulled out the oskhila, replete with its impossibly gleaming rich colors.

  “No,” she said out loud, and then clamped her mouth shut, seeing the effort in every line of his body. She’d somehow come to think of him as more than human, but even a man with startling strength, a man who’d come back from near death once already in the past few days, who’d managed to defeat every impossible thing standing in his way...

  Even a man such as that did not absorb a bullet so readily. Even a man such as that could still die.

  She wasn’t quite ready to get up. She reached for his hand — carefully, this time, aware of his pain — and pulled it up to her cheek. He ran his thumb over her mouth — but then he winced, stiffening against escalating pain, and Garrie reached deeply for courage. She released his hand and crawled away, giving the oskhila room to work — and unable to stop from blurting, “Will you come back?”

  He met her gaze, held it — extraordinary eyes, once impenetrable, now a direct connection. And so she read them easily, the colors falling around him in a thickening curtain, swifter than she’d remembered, his expression flickering regret and uncertainty and oh my God he’s frightened, too.

  All of those things, as he looked at her and said, “I don’t know.”

  And the colors took him away.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 37

  Not Quite Empty

  Give ease where you may.

  — Rhonda Rose

  Rhonda Rose, did you even know what you were doing?

  — Lisa McGarrity

  Garrie stared at the spot where Trevarr had just been — where dark blood had collected in a frightening pool — and her face crumpled in the most amazing way.

  Just for an instant.

  Then she gave a quick, hiccoughing sob, covered her face with her hands, and spun away — as if that was going to do any good.

  But it did. It gave her a chance to take a breath, and then another, and then for actual thoughts to come crowding in. Drew. Lucia. Getting out of here. Clearing up any remaining troublemakers and going home. Home.

  She reached down to the little leather trunk, found it not quite empty — several of the collection ovals remained, nestled in a silk lining. And there, over on the floor... Trevarr’s knife.

  Not something he would have forgotten. She just didn’t know if it was a good-bye, or a promise.

  “Damned well don’t want your good-byes,” she muttered at his absent self, but she picked it up anyway, slicing the satin lining with buttery ease, along with the leather beneath it. She eyed it with a wary respect as she tied the corners of the silk together to make herself a hobo bag.

  A silk hobo bag full of collected alien plasmic energy too powerful to handle, but whatever.

  With that, she climbed to her feet, surveying the room for other things that shouldn’t be left behind. Nothing she could do about the various spots of gore, nothing she wanted to do with the thing that looked like a severed finger. The trunk would be a mystery to anyone who found it, but would gain no notice after what else had happened in this house, this city, this day.

  Garrie hefted her hobo silk, kept a careful awareness of the knife’s edge, and headed out of the basement. She didn’t look back.

  The house remained silent around her. She made it up the stairs with a stumble and politely closed the basement door behind her, muttering an apology to no one when the mere brush of Trevarr’s knife sliced a neat peel of paint from the door.

  Still cautious, she headed for the ballroom. Or hoped she was heading for the ballroom. It had seemed so easy when Drew brought her down...

  But ah. Drew himself hadn’t gotten very far. He still huddled in the corner, his lanky limbs pulled in tight — arms covering his head, every muscle tense unto quivering. She hesitated, not wanting to startle him. Finally she spoke softly from a distance. “Drew.”

  He startled, not daring to look. “Garrie?”

  “Garrie,” she confirmed.

  He lowered his arm. Welts and streaks and trickles of blood marked his cheeks; he had a fat lip. Tears glistened across his skin. He employed a hastily scrubbing hand to erase the evidence. Garrie said nothing more, just rested a hand briefly on his shoulder and walked on. After a moment, he scrambled to his feet and followed.

  Another moment and he said, “Uh, it’s this way,” and she rolled her eyes and backtracked to follow him.

  They approached the ballroom with mutual trepidation in a hallway without electricity or windows; just outside the door she stopped him, hesitated on the right words. “Drew, it’s gonna be bad in there.”

  He nodded. He didn’t ask her how she knew. He opened the door.

  Sobbing, that’s what they found. Huddled tourists in distinct groups, one of which bent over a body too small to bear. Not far away, the medium lay on the floor, hands crossed neatly over her stomach and her silk scarf placed over her face. Beth sat cross-legged beside her, her long face drawn with sorrow.

  “Beth!” Drew said, and ran in to her. She had reached her feet by the time he got there, and threw her arms around him.

  I thought so.

  Beth quickly pulled away, taking Garrie’s arm with a less than gentle grip. “I didn’t know,” she said, as if in confession. “I didn’t know they could do anything like this.”

  “It wasn’t just them,” Garrie said, but didn’t try to explain. Not now. Not with those small legs just barely showing from behind those who cried together. She forced her gaze away, taking in clean floors and walls and windows, everything sparkling... effluvia blasted away by her cleansing storm. “Where’s Lucia?”

  Beth didn’t seem to hear her. “Can’t you... I don’t know... help somehow?”

  Garrie sn
orted. “Do I look like I can —” She cut herself off. She would not say resurrect the dead where the others could hear it.

  Beth turned to look at her, startling in a double-take. “Your hair!” She raised a hand, passing it beside Garrie’s head — not quite touching. “Where it used to be blue, it’s...”

  “Still blue,” Drew said, leaning back to eye her, seeing her in the light for the first time. “But it’s... it’s —”

  Garrie tugged the hair behind her ear, thus proving it was at least still there. “Whatever,” she said. “Where’s —”

  Lucia.

  Huddled in the foot well of the organ, that’s where. Her face hidden in her hands, rocking back and forth and back and forth, her hair a snarled mess and her shirt twisted.

  “Lu!” Garrie ran to her, frightened all over again — crouching beside the foot well, shoving the knife and silk bundle aside, not quite bringing herself to touch Lucia, to pull her hands from her face.

  Beth came up behind her. “She tried to protect us. She tried really, really hard. It worked for a while, too — I don’t know that any of us would have made it through without her. All those emotions...” She shuddered. “She kept them calm for a while, and then at the end... everything just went insane. We haven’t been able to reach her... we thought it best to give her some time.”

  “We should have been together,” Drew said, a funny note to his voice. “Everything would have been different if we’d stuck together. And then you sent me away from you, and it didn’t do anyone any good anyway.”

  “It kept you alive,” Garrie snapped, but held back anything more pointed, knowing he knew nothing of what had happened in the basement — not the prices they’d all paid, not loss. And with all the energy still coursing around in her body, affecting her reactions — affecting who knew what — she was in no position to lose control of herself.

  But Drew didn’t get it. “Better than being alone in that hall?” he snorted. “I don’t think so.”

  “You have no idea,” Garrie muttered, stepping back from Lucia. Give her some space. Just for a moment.

  “No,” Drew agreed bitterly, as if that was just the point. “How could I?”