by P. R. Frost
“Okay. Noon.”
The king winced.
“Three days hence.” On the day of the full moon.
He nearly gagged. “So be it.” The entire troop disappeared in a poof of displaced air.
Now what have we got ourselves into, dahling? I sure hope Gollum pulls some magic out of his computer and lets me know. I can stab these guys and kill them, but there are so many of them, Tess and I just might wilt in the middle of the fight. I can hold a tiny bit of flame in my hand, enough to light a cigar. Not enough to wipe out this herd.
We need help.
But not from Donovan.
I’m sure if I just knew what he was, then I could overcome the barrier that keeps me away from my babe when he is near. He’s like imp’s bane, but I don’t get tiddly from him. He’s more like a lock on a dimensional portal.
But locks are just puzzles if you know the key.
Hmm . . . this will take some thought.
And I don’t have enough time to do any research!
But time is just another dimension and can be manipulated by those who know how.
When I got home, I tiptoed up the stairs so as not to disturb Mom and Darren in the parlor. They were curled up like two puppies, arms and legs tangled, almost indistinguishable from each other.
I knew my mom. She wouldn’t do anything stupid, like sleep with the guy. He might be half demon with a talent for mesmerizing his prey, but my mother was an old school French-Canadian Catholic. I’d bet her church upbringing against his seduction any day.
WindScribe sat cross-legged on her bed, playing cat’s cradle with a piece of decorative braid from my sewing bin. I cursed. That bit of brocaded ribbon had cost several bucks a yard!
“Good night,” she called to me cheerily. Her eyes still looked glassy, her expression dreamy.
I dashed downstairs to check on the vials of tranquilizers. Damn. One vial was all aspirin, the other still sealed. I flushed the lot.
As an afterthought I locked the now empty vials inside my rolltop desk and pocketed the key. I’d be interested if my guest managed to find them.
Mom and Darren didn’t even acknowledge me standing in the doorway.
Fuming at life in general and the host of predatory guests that had landed in my lap, I slammed back into the kitchen. I needed a snack to make up for the skimpy dinner I’d barely eaten. Not even any desert.
Empty fridge. Empty jar of coffee beans. Not even any peanut butter.
“Gollum, I’m going to the grocery store,” I called down the hallway to the apartment. “Do you need anything? ”
I heard a series of grunts and nothing more. Nothing from the lovebirds in the sitting room.
“Keep an eye on WindScribe,” I called to Gollum.
Another series of grunts.
So I trundled to the discount store down the Six A. I still wanted Scrap watching Mom and Darren. He’d pop over to me if I ran into trouble of the demon kind.
The wind remained calm, the sky clear. The waxing moon kept a lot of shadows at bay. I’d be safe if I hurried and stayed near crowds.
Eggs, milk, bread, the cod (I do live on Cape Cod after all) the lemons I’d promised for dinner tomorrow night, and a bottle of white wine for the sauce. The pile in my cart kept growing and growing. I could see the balance in my checking account dropping rapidly. While I was there, I checked on table linens for my kitchen. Nothing I’d spend money on. Just cheap and tacky prints with pigs and kitties in ugly light orange or uglier dark orange.
I was not a happy camper.
I may not have the fashion sense of Scrap or my mother, but I know what I do and don’t like in décor. And I don’t like orange.
When I stepped outside the store with a cart full of bagged groceries, the wind bit through my gloves and slacks. Litter whipped about the parking lot in sudden frenzy.
“Scrap, I may need some help,” I whispered into the night.
On it, babe. My imp flew three circles, deosil or clockwise, around my head, then lighted on the handle of the cart.
I couldn’t discern his color in the weird blue-white fluorescent light circles around the poles. First time I noticed how many dark spots lay between those lifesaving circles. Did they grow darker and denser as I watched?
“Are there any Windago lurking about?” I kept looking over my shoulder and peering into the distance. Anxiety crawled up and down my spine. No way to tell if that was the flare of warning of demons present or just my own nerves.
I had been on edge pretty much all day and the night before.
Scrap wiggled his pug nose and slipped his forked tongue in and out, like a snake tasting the air. Naw, you’re safe from demons for the moment. But I’m not too sure about those three thugs hugging the shadows behind that black van next to your car.
“Probably just teens out after curfew sneaking smokes or drinks.” This parking lot had a reputation as a cool place for boys with aggressive tendencies to hang out.
As I stowed the multifarious bags in the hatch of the SUV, the light directly above me spat, fizzled, and winked out, plunging me into shadow.
I swallowed my curses and slammed the door down. I kept the key in my hand, letting the long, sharp prong of it extend through my clenched fingers.
“Nice purse, lady. Got anything in there for me? Like your wallet?” A male voice oozed menace from the area around the driver’s side door. A glowing cigarette butt in the region of his mouth provided the only indication of where he stood.
No way was I going to press the unlock button on my key set with him standing between me and the dubious safety of the interior.
“Nice car, lady. We think you need to share your wealth with us downtrodden poor folk,” another male voice said from behind my right shoulder. Stale alcohol on his breath.
“Need a little Dutch courage to harass a defenseless female?” I asked mildly. Judging by the price of their athletic shoes, these kids weren’t poor by a long shot. I could buy two weeks’ worth of groceries for the cost of one pair of their shoes.
Oh, this is going to be good. Scrap dissolved into laughter. He found a new perch on the luggage rack, swinging his bandy legs.
“What’s that supposed to mean, lady?” Cigarette Guy snarled. He moved three steps closer, blasting me with his bad breath. “We ain’t Dutch.”
I sensed a third presence on the other side of the car. They hemmed me in, my back against the hatch. My butt resting on the bumper.
Right where I wanted them.
Chapter 16
In the late nineteenth ccentury, Sir John Herschel supposedly discovered a winged batman Vespertilio Homo on the moon. In 1874, Richard A. Proctor wrote a book that treated the story as science rather than science fiction.
"YOU REALLY DON’T want to do this, guys,” I warned them. “I’m not in the mood to take your crap.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s a little bit of a thing like you gonna do to us?” Cigarette Guy puffed out his chest and pressed closer to me.
“This!” I yelled.
Before I could think about what I was doing, I balanced against the bumper and lashed out with both feet. I connected with a very satisfying thunk. Cigarette Guy and Beer Breath grunted and staggered backward, clutching their bellies.
Adrenaline flowed through me and lit my senses like fine single malt scotch.
Unseen Guy launched at me, fingers extended toward my eyes. I barely registered long nails and a hint of feminine curves beneath her baggy jacket.
Instantly, I was back in the Citadel with Sister Paige screaming at me. She wanted no mercy.
I gave none to this wanna-be bad girl. She got a sweep of my leg behind her knees and my key raking her cheek.
It came away dripping blood. “Oooh, you’re gonna have a scar just like mine!” Speaking of which, the scar pulsed hot and angry. I wondered if it was visible.
The first two were up and coming at me again. Backward kick to the balls of one. Then I kept turning and jabbed my fingers in the
throat of the other.
A siren erupted at the far end of the parking lot. Blue-and-red lights strobed the kids.
The girl took off. The other two curled into fetal balls, choking and gasping.
“You didn’t have to hurt them!” Allie yelled from the safety of her cruiser.
“You want a piece of me, too?” I snarled at her.
“Easy, girl,” she said holding both hands up, palms out in a universal gesture of surrender. “What’d they do to you?” She wandered over.
I told her.
Mike crept forward in her shadow. He knelt down and examined the two youths. “This one may never contribute to the gene pool and the other might not talk again,” he said with more humor than I gave him credit for.
“There was a third one. A girl. She’s bleeding on the cheek,” I advised them, holding up the stained key.
“I’ve been wanting to nail these kids for weeks. Had six complaints from women shopping alone at night, but the kids always disappear with purses, groceries, and cars before we get here. Then they abandon the cars a few blocks away, taking the food and the cash and not much else. Not smart enough to figure out how to do identity theft, I guess.”
“How come I haven’t heard about this, Allie?”
“Because you’ve had your nose in a book on deadline for the last month and haven’t even turned on the TV.”
“Oh.”
Mike radioed for an ambulance. Then he leaned over the kid I’d struck in the throat. “Oh, my God! You broke his trachea. Allie, get that ambulance here fast. The kid’s not breathing.”
He was choking and gasping, clawing at his throat. Panic turned his face white. Lack of air had turned his lips blue.
“CPR?” I knelt beside the kid, prepared to go into action. Damn. Damn. Damn. I hadn’t needed to hurt these guys, I just needed to work off some frustrations. And now I’d killed one of them.
“CPR won’t work. He can’t get air through his throat. I’m going to have to open him up.” Mike pulled a jackknife and a ballpoint pen out of his pocket.
“Aren’t you going to sterilize that or something?” Allie asked. She’d already added an ASAP to the ambulance call and closed her radio.
“With what? You got any matches?” Mike asked.
“I do.” I made a show of fishing in the pocket of my slacks. Scrap, I need a little flame, I begged. With a little sleight of hand . . .
I grabbed Mike’s open knife and cupped my hand around the blade, shielding it from the wind. Then I spun around on my knees, turning my back to the two cops.
Scrap landed on my shoulder and touched the blade with a blue-white light. He ran it back and forth, both sides, until my hand felt as scorched as the blade.
“Hurry up, Tess. He’s beyond panic, gone into stillness, ” Allie warned. She blew ink out of the pen cartridge.
Calmly, I returned the knife to Mike. “If you know how to do this, go for it.”
Mike breathed deeply, closed his eyes a moment, then slashed the kid across the throat.
Blood flowed along the line of the cut. Quickly, Mike separated the folds of flesh with the fingers of one hand. He probed a few seconds, found something white and gristly. Another quick cut with the knife, then he plunged the ink tube in.
Instantly, air whistled through. The kid’s chest moved.
We all sat back and breathed a little deeper ourselves.
Sirens penetrated the sound of the wind, still blocks away.
“You saved the kid’s life, Mike. Thank you.” Energy left me in a flood. I hadn’t murdered the boy.
“Cool thinking.” Allie slapped him on the back. “We might make a good cop of you yet.”
“Three years on the Miami force didn’t do that?” He raised his eyebrows and quirked a smile.
So he wasn’t a raw rookie after all.
“Can I go home now?” I didn’t think I had the umpf to deal with the rest of this emergency.
“No. I need to file paperwork on this. You don’t go home until I go home.”
“Allie, I’m done in. How about tomorrow? I can come down to the station and give an official statement.”
“Nope.”
My shoulders sagged in defeat. I was very, very tired. “How come you’re back on duty? I sent you home from dinner over an hour ago.”
“Somebody called in sick. I was wound up after our . . . um . . . meeting.” She looked pointedly at Mike, acknowledging her need for . . . er . . . discretion. “So I volunteered to come in.”
“So why are you here?” I gestured around to the sparsely occupied parking lot.
“Customer heard an altercation and called 911 as they peeled out,” Mike said. “We were cruising close by and answered the call.”
The kid with his hands wrapped protectively around his balls moaned and opened an eye. His gaze lit on me. He slammed his eyelids closed again and groaned even louder.
“Remember that, Beer Breath. Maybe you’ve learned a lesson that mugging ladies in the parking lot doesn’t pay,” I snapped at him.
“Julie’s idea,” he rasped around his aching groin.
“Julie? Typical. The kid with the ideas is the first one to hotfoot it the minute the action gets tough,” Allie said. “Shouldn’t be hard to pinpoint her at school tomorrow. Only kid with a bloody cheek.”
The ambulance arrived and carted the kids off. They glad-handed Mike and offered to write up a commendation. Allie rolled her eyes. “No living with him now. First day on the job, and he saves a kid’s life.” She presented me with a clipboard filled with official looking forms.
“You know all this information,” I whined. “I just want to go home.”
Not yet, dahling. Scrap took possession of my right hand. He pulsed a bright vermilion as he stretched longer and longer.
While I’d been occupied with Allie and the muggers, I’d ignored the way the wind had jacked up the pitch of its wail and how the bottom had fallen out of the temperature.
The Windago scented blood.
No wonder my scar pulsed and the nerves along my spine tingled.
“Windago,” I breathed. I had no adrenaline left. “I really don’t want to do this now.”
“Windago?” Allie mouthed, eyes wide with wonder and a touch of fear. She reached for her holster.
You’ve got me, babe, Scrap sang.
At least the parking lot had been scraped clear of ice and heavily sanded. I had traction.
I took a deep breath as I began twirling Scrap like a baton. He solidified and extruded sharp, half-moon blades.
I stepped out into the clear space between parking aisles.
“What do we need to do?” Allie asked. A note of panic and awe squeaked out of her.
Mike’s mouth hung agape. “I never thought it was true,” he whispered, pointing to my now visible Celestial Blade. Then he clamped his jaw shut and drew his weapon.
