Siege Perilous

by Nigel Bennett

  "I just hope things are better than you think they are."

  As do I, he thought, reaching for his clothes, his hands not quite shaking.

  Chapter Three

  From ten floors up the white-trimmed streets looked mellow and romantic under the orange glare of sodium vapor lights. At sidewalk level . . . ugh.

  Richard emerged from the hotel lobby into freezing wind and blowing snow—so different from the desert-dry hell-blast of his vision—and cast about for transportation. He'd cabbed over for his dinner date with Mercedes, not wanting to risk his classic Jaguar E-type to the fender-bending of the slick streets. Of course, he could have driven the more sensible Land Rover, but the same argument held. He liked his toys to look new for as long as possible, and besides, parking downtown was always a bitch. No point in berating himself for caution now. How was he to know the world would decide to fall apart tonight?

  There was always at least one taxi loitering before every major hotel in the area, usually lines of them. He couldn't believe they'd all scuttled from sight just to annoy him. Bloody hell. He turned north, going as quickly as he dared on the iced-over walk for a few yards before taking to the street itself. The sanding trucks had been through recently, preparing the roads for the coming morning rush. The mixture of sand and salt was somewhat less perilous underfoot. He covered the two blocks to the streetcar stop on Queen without incident, and chafed impatiently in the inadequate shelter. The things were designed to discourage homeless people from taking up residence, hence the narrow, downward-angled seats that prevented anyone from stretching out for a nap and the enclosure being open below to allow in plenty of fresh arctic breeze. At least there was a roof to keep out the wet. Played against the other inadequacies, its effectiveness was more of a symbolic gesture than anything practical.

  Richard did not feel the winter as much as others because of his condition, but it seemed determined to take hold of him now. He suffered an unaccustomed shiver in his long leather overcoat, and belatedly remembered to dig out gloves and a thick black ski cap from one of his pockets.

  All in your head, he told himself as he pulled the cap on. Cold comfort. Very cold.

  He wanted to go to Philip Bourland's house immediately, but Sabra would not be there any sooner for it. It would unnecessarily alarm Bourland and Michael to be turning up at this late—or early—an hour. Let them sleep.

  Richard resisted the temptation to phone Sabra back. If she sensed anything of import she'd let him know.

  The next eastbound streetcar rumbled up, and the doors opened. He swung inside, dropped coins in the box, and tore off his flimsy ticket, taking a seat not far behind the driver. Richard had his pick, only two others for company: a comatose kid with too-black hair and a nose ring and a sleepy woman in nurse's shoes.

  The ticket's flip side advised him of the availability of gay and lesbian services and gave a number. It struck him as being a rather ambiguous message. If one was gay or lesbian, would calling that number get you serviced? Would that were also true for straight people. He'd never have to worry about hunting or courting his next meal ever again. Just ring a number and hopefully a willing young lady would arrive on his doorstep, rather like ordering pizza . . .

  He shook his head, knowing he'd retreated into absurdities to avoid the horrors of memory. God, but it was frightening how swiftly things could shift and go bad.

  The line of linked cars trundled forward, pausing at the stops, moving steadily along the length of East Queen's eclectic mix of neighborhoods. Modern flats and century-old houses in varying states of preservation or decay stood cheek and jowl with tiny gas stations, and on almost every corner either a flower shop or a veterinary clinic. With the long drab winters and brutal cold the locals needed the color of plants and the distraction of pets to maintain their sanity.

  But there were worse things to threaten the mind and soul than an occasionally difficult climate.

  Amid these prosaic surroundings, Richard felt secure enough to dredge his memory concerning the vision. What recollection of it lingered—besides the anxiety it inspired—remained stubbornly elusive to insight. He'd walked in the Otherside, seen something terrible happening, and done nothing to stop it.

  That infuriated him. His unthinking instinct was ever to rush in, and there he'd stood watching like a spectator at a staged show waiting to see what the actors would do next.

  He most feared that because of his uncharacteristic inaction Sharon Geary might be dead. That would be unbearable. Unforgivable, however mitigating the circumstances.

  He couldn't and wouldn't be one hundred percent sure, though, until he saw her body himself. There were degrees of death, and wasn't he the proof of at least one of them?

  But Sabra said Sharon was "lost." There was a difference between that and death. Being lost implied that one could be found again. Richard held hard to that tiny little flame of hope. If there was a way to find her, bring her back, he would make it happen.

  Sharon, with the bewitching smile, the strange but workable mix of charm and stubbornness and bold confidence . . . and why in God's name had he let her go? He could have persuaded her to stay. Without resorting to hypnosis. Bloody hell, but women, lovely as they were, could be damned frustrating.

  He had not heard from her in over a year now; she'd been busy. Yet another he'd loved and lost. Now lost perhaps forever . . . but how and why? What happened to her? Who was that man she fought? Swathed in shadows, he had been too far distant to recognize.

  In the face of Sharon's (possible) loss Richard's other concerns were frivolous and futile. Things had been stable and damned good lately. His businesses running well, and in between their demands he'd kept a fairly close eye on his godson, Michael. The selling of the oil company had also ended the boy's last links to Texas and the tragedy there where he lost his whole family. He seemed to be recovered from the violence and was getting every possible attention. Bourland, friend, almost a second father, to Michael's late mother, had adopted the orphan, and was an excellent father. With his grown daughter off practicing law someplace Bourland had gladly taken on the responsibility. He'd welcomed Michael into his home and heart so thoroughly it was almost as though the boy had always been there.

  Sabra had moved to Toronto to be Michael's mentor and counselor, and sometimes mother surrogate, when needed. Richard had been very pleased about that. He'd nearly lost her once and preferred her close.

  Michael, they had learned, possessed some very unique gifts, requiring unique help. The boy was blessed—or cursed—with Sight, which was Sabra's specialty, so who better to prepare him to deal with it?

  All three adults maintained tight, affectionate ties, linked by their charge. For the first time in decades, Richard felt that he was part of a family again.

  He'd had that before, many times, but it always ended in sorrow because of his agelessness. The humans he loved grew, withered, and died seemingly in an instant. It was worth the price, though. He knew too well what life was like without connection. Treasure it while it lasts and don't dwell on what awaits in the future.

  He pulled the signal cord so the streetcar paused right at Neville Park Boulevard, and ventured into the chill and ice again. The sanding trucks hadn't gotten this far, nor would they bother with residential lanes. Richard forsook the dangers of concrete and walked across his neighbors' small front yards. Snow on dead grass was much safer underfoot. Others had done the same, to judge by their overlapping trails.

  His house at the Beaches was the last one on the left, two and a half tall stories with a basement, a narrow drive to a small backyard that was mostly filled by the detached double garage. The side yard was much larger, with a high board fence and a gate that opened directly onto the beach. The splash of waves from Lake Ontario was a constant presence. Though free-running water was deadly to him, he did quite enjoy its music.

  He stamped snow on the doormat from his wet shoes and let himself in to silence. The house was at least seventy years old
—thoroughly modernized of course—but haunted by its own creaky voice. Tonight it seemed to be pulled in on itself, smothered and waiting. An echo of his own feelings. It would be a long while until six o'clock.

  The answering machine in his office blinked patiently at him as he passed the open door. The thing was always doing that. He only ever bothered to check it at the end of the day since most of the calls were the phone equivalent of junk mail. He shrugged from his coat and pressed the play button. Nothing but importunate advertisements, recorded halfway through their pitch then cut off. Idiots. Did anyone ever buy anything from some mechanical stranger interrupting their dinner? Perhaps. Just enough to keep the fools dialing other, more resistant types like himself.

  Then:

  "Hallo, love, I've found . . . henge . . . dropping everything and come lend . . . this number . . ."

  His heart rate shot high. The message was garbled through and through with static, but that was Sharon's voice. He noted the recording time. This morning, long after he'd left home for business meetings with Mercedes, and he'd not noticed it on his way out for their date. The caller ID screen said unknown so there was no return number to track. Useless damned thing. If he'd just been here or bothered to check his messages . . . for all the good it might have done her. Almost everything important came to him through e-mails or his cell. But Sharon hadn't had that number.

  Richard worked very hard at curbing a desire to rip the machine out and fling it through a window. He'd missed her message, and something or other had buggered up the recording. Deal with it. He listened again.

  What had she found? And why had she out of the blue phoned him about it? Where the devil had she been, anyway? If not for the vision he'd have had no clue of anything being amiss for her.

  He tried her cell phone number. Hoping against hope. The recorded reply stating the customer had switched off or was out of range was no great surprise.

  The memory of the Otherside pyramid nagged him. He'd seen it before. The style was Mayan. He sought out one of his many bookshelves. About fifty years back he'd purchased encyclopedias, the kind with thin paper, small, dense printing, and picture plates. Much of their information was still good and more detailed and faster than delving the Internet. He pulled out M and flipped pages. There. A stark black and white photo, but it matched his vision. What in the name of hell had she been doing on top of El Castillo in the Yucatán? On another recovery mission for Lloyd's of London? There was a thriving black market in New World antiquities, perhaps that was it.

  He glanced at a clock. Wee-hours morning here, full-blown business day in London. Richard phoned Sharon's employers and was eventually passed to a woman who acted as her supervisor when needed. The nature of the job required that lady be discreet, but she did finally say that Sharon's last report had originated in Bath, where she'd been working. She'd concluded her errand successfully and would call in Monday to inquire after any fresh assignments, apparently taking a long weekend.

  Richard then explained that Sharon had gone missing—certainly the truth—and asked the woman if she could check on things from that end. She made it clear she was not too terribly interested in doing so on the word of a stranger, even if he was phoning all the way from Canada, even if he did suspect foul play might be involved. From her tone, she'd decided he was a crank.

  Richard held his temper and thanked her and carefully rang off. He had friends in higher places who could help, after all. Within ten minutes he was speaking to one of them, lighting fires, getting things moving. He hoped the woman at Lloyd's would have an interesting time of it under the eye of one of the senior men from Scotland Yard. The man owed Richard a hell of a private favor from ten years back and had ever been ready to return it.

  There, that wheel in motion, what next?

  "Henge" the recording had said. Salisbury Plain lay between Bath and London. Sharon would have taken the A303 for her drive back, and both Stonehenge and Woodhenge were on that route. He could not guess why she might stop at either of them or why from there she'd suddenly gone flying off to Mexico. What was the connection?

  He'd get the recording into professional hands. There had to be some way to extract sense from under the static. Bourland would know useful contacts for that who wouldn't ask questions.

  Next Richard called Sabra's cell. His information about Sharon's activities was thin at best, but might shed some small light. It was nothing that couldn't be covered when they met later, but he wanted to hear her voice.

  Not so long ago she'd been happy enough in the isolation of her Vancouver wilderness. Sabra loved the touch of primal earth; it was part of her strength, but she was no stranger to accepting change and readily embraced it for Michael's sake. Hers was a compromise, though. She lived miles north of Toronto in a mostly undeveloped area. Her home had all the mod-cons, but the land it sat on was virtually unchanged since the indigenous natives last hunted there. It took some doing on Richard's part to secure her a usable identity and a bulletproof background history, but now she had what she needed to continue comfortably in the twenty-first century.

  Each age they lived through possessed its own special minutiae one had to know to survive without drawing undue and often inconvenient notice. For all its high-tech snags, this one is no different. Low tech could be very complicated, too, after all. It was just as demanding to know how to make a bow and arrow from scratch as it was to learn to use a new computer program. Richard and Sabra could do both.

  She was breathless when she answered.

  "Something wrong?" he asked, coming alert. "Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine, just digging my car out from the latest snowfall. It stormed tonight and the snow's still coming down. I'll be running late because of this, but don't worry."

  "Look, I can come pick you up."

  She laughed. "Please, it's an hour's drive even when the weather's good, don't bother. I'll be in when you see me; I'm going to take my time if the roads are bad."

  "Very well . . ." He told her the little he'd learned of Sharon's last whereabouts and the phone message.

  "Can you play it for me?"

  "The sound will be atrocious, but—" He held the receiver close to the machine and hit the play button again. "Did you get any of that?"

  She didn't answer.

  "Sabra?"

  "A moment." He heard a door open then slam shut. The ambient noise of wind, which had been coming through, ceased. "I'm inside now. Let me hear that once more."

  He repeated the playback. "Well?"

  "It's not static. It sounds like it, but I heard . . . there were voices, other voices besides hers."

  "Whose? Saying what?"

  She sighed. "Nothing nice."

  "Look, she's already missing, perhaps dead, you can't make me any more worried than I am."

  "Please, Richard. Don't say that."

  He pulled up short. Tempting fate was always a bad idea. "Sorry. This has me rattled."

  "And I as well. Usually things are clear, even if there's a dozen outcomes to choose from." Her Sight again.

  "What can you tell me?"

  "When Sharon made that call something was doing its best to interfere and mostly succeeded. To anyone on this Side, it's static. To someone like me it's was both warning and threat and was very graphic. I'd rather not get more detailed if you don't mind."

  "A threat to Sharon?"

  "To anyone helping Sharon. Anyone opposing it."

  "Which would be us."

  "Yes."

  "And it can reach us from Mexico?"

  "To forces like that, there are no concepts of distance. However, it does take a lot of power to upset the balance on our Side. Such power is hard to acquire and quickly exhausted. I'm not saying we're completely safe, but we should be fine for now."

  "I'm sorry, but that's not good enough. After that vision I'm having a healthy bout of paranoia."

  "Yes, it's what you're good at. On the other hand, whoever's behind that vision has been compromi
sed so far as I'm concerned. There's cracks in his ability to conceal himself, enough for me to know ahead of time if and when he makes any kind of move against anyone under my protection."

  "How far ahead of time?"

  "Enough. More than enough."

  Richard relaxed only marginally. He knew the tension between his shoulders wouldn't ease until he saw her.

  "It will be all right, Richard," she said. "I promise. Go over to Philip's sooner if that will make you feel better. Sit in on breakfast. Keep an eye on Michael. Just be there with him."

  "I'll call now. If he had the same vision—"

  "Then he would have called me. Or Philip would have. I just want you with them both. I'll get there as soon as I can."

  "Is Michael in danger?"

  "Not at the moment. That's all I can say at this time, and I'll let you know if that changes."

  Richard understood. They were each too well aware that the future was always in flux. "What about yourself? Are you certain you're all right?"

  There was a smile in her voice. "I'm being well looked after." This was a reference to the Goddess. "We'll work something out about this, don't worry."

  But he sensed a lack of surety behind her words, which disturbed him. She always knew what to do. He very much wanted to ask exactly what was going on and what had become of Sharon, but what would be the point? Sabra would have told him. Perhaps she could use Michael's uncanny gift to find out. She'd be reluctant to involve him, though in the past Michael had surprised her with the power of his Gift. She worried for him. With power comes peril.

  "What about the Goddess?" Richard wanted to know.

  No answer.

  "Sabra?"

  "It's . . . clouded."

  "What does that mean? A busy signal?" This was getting very annoying.

  "For want of a better term. This sort of thing's happened before . . ."

  Only when the situation's gone seriously wrong, he silently concluded.

  "Richard, the snow's coming down heavy here, I want to dig out the car while I can still see it."