Moon In The Mirror: A Tess Noncoire Adventure

by P. R. Frost

  There just is not enough of me.

  Three Windago. They always hunt in mated pairs. But Tess killed the mate of one of them back in Wisconsin. They’ll not let go of that grudge easily. Lilia has found reinforcements for her vengeance.

  If she can’t get to Tess, she’ll humiliate her by taking the one she has vowed to protect. They have the backing of someone, something very powerful if they are out during daylight. Are the Windago WindScribe’s punishment for escaping her cosmic prison?

  Before I can claw my way back to the scene of action, the Windago blow down the motel room door. Cheap plywood has no resistance.

  WindScribe screams. Something heavy hits the wall. A stream of Damiri curses spew from Donovan.

  Finally, I am able to cling to the window frame and watch. Only watch. I ache to transform. I thirst to taste Windago blood.

  Without Tess, I can do nothing but watch.

  The Windago grab WindScribe by her long blonde hair. She fights them with teeth and nails and feet and fists. Her blows strike only moving air and freezing cold.

  Donovan rights himself and grabs a lamp. He turns it on and breaks the bulb. Then he jabs the nearest Windago with the weapon. Sparks fly. The demon crackles with electricity gone awry. He jerks and spasms. His semihuman form is outlined by lightning. He becomes a storm.

  Thunder rumbles around and through him. Lightning strobes the room and nearly blinds me.

  Then he stops and crumbles to freeze-dried coffee grounds.

  Now the Windago are down another mate. They will double their efforts at revenge. They will not remate from within. They must each turn another human.

  His companions flee, dragging WindScribe by her hair. Where her heels touch the ground, sparks shoot out like fireworks on the fourth of July.

  Donovan drops to his knees and pounds the floor in his frustration. The boards warp from the force of his blows.

  I creep away. Useless. A normal imp would retreat to Imp Haven to gain comfort and succor from his Mum. I can’t. My Mum would grind me to a pulp for my failure.

  So I slink back to Tess, doing my best to hide the truth from her. I would die if she rejected me.

  But I am a failure.

  Chapter 35

  In a 1744 hieroglyph by de Hooghe, Virgo represents ever germinating life under the dominant influence of the Moon.

  AN HOUR PASSED in my holding cell. Then two. Noon came and went.

  I hated to think what would happen if I didn’t show for my battle with the Orculli trolls.

  I rattled the cell door, uselessly. I screamed to be let out. I cajoled and offered bribes to my guards. Nothing worked.

  I couldn’t see if anyone occupied adjacent cells—the intervening walls were solid cement. I couldn’t hear evidence of occupation either. Sunday midday; last night’s drunks had cleared out, and no one else was likely to need incarceration until later.

  Where was Gollum with his promised lawyer? Or my dad, or anyone who could help me?

  Where was Scrap? Probably off indulging in a feeding frenzy of mold. He’d be fat and limp and useless from overeating when he returned.

  Even Dill had not returned since . . . since I had thrown him away last night. I wasn’t sure I truly wanted him gone now that he was.

  My heart sank. My whole life seemed one big failure. I’d committed myself to saving WindScribe from her fate and failed. What good was being a Warrior of the Celestial Blade if I let a little thing like arrest for murder and jail interfere with my duty?

  Slumped into a corner on the low cot, I stared at my hands, worrying the calluses I’d built up on palms and fingers from training with the blade.

  “Mom always did blame me for everything that went wrong, even when I was Cecilia’s scapegoat,” I grumbled. “Now she blames me for murdering her husband. How could my own mother think I did such a thing?”

  That set me to prowling the cell again. My muscles ached with the need to do something. Anything.

  “Maybe she is still in demon thrall.” I plopped down again, too depressed to think straight. “I detected hints of red embers in her eyes when he was around.

  Scrap slid down the wall and sat next to me, silently chomping on his cigar. He looked a peckish gray.

  So he hadn’t had an orgy of mold. What had he been up to?

  The guards kept wandering through, sniffing the air for evidence of violators of the no smoking rules. I couldn’t summon enough humor to laugh at them.

  “We’re in trouble, Scrap.”

  You think this is trouble? I think this is a nice quiet vacation. He leaned back against the wall, both paws behind his head and blew fanciful smoke rings around the end of his black cherry cheroot. But there was a wary edge to his voice and his posture.

  “What if . . .”

  Not to worry about the long term. The murderer will be found, and you’ll be released. In the meantime, you get to relax and let them feed you. Nice and warm in here.

  “What about WindScribe?”

  Worthless bit of trash. Let the Orculli have her. She had to have done something hideous and dangerous to the entire universe or they wouldn’t want her back so bad.

  “No human is totally worthless. And if she is so dangerous, why won’t anyone tell me what she did?”

  A whoosh of air displacement announced the entrance of an otherworldly visitor. My curiosity woke up and banished some of my worry-induced depression.

  King Scazzy popped into the cell just inside the door. He waddle-rolled over to the cot and jumped up beside me, a higher jump than I thought possible for a twelve-inch-tall garden gnome. Make that a semilevitation, semijump.

  Then he wiggled between Scrap and me, sitting on the edge of the cot with the aura of assuming his throne.

  I bunched my muscles, ready to fight the guy with teeth and nails and willpower. I didn’t have anything else handy.

  Except Scrap. And he didn’t seem inclined to transform. He continued to lounge on the cot blowing smoke rings as if we didn’t have a care in the world. Though he did darken from gray to flame orange. He needed to go vermilion in order to become the Celestial Blade.

  “Greetings, Tess Noncoiré.” Scazzy inclined his head graciously.

  I snapped my gaping jaw closed. “Greetings, King Scazzamurieddu.” I kept my head rigidly upright.

  “The Orculli honor you, Warrior of the Celestial Blade.”

  Scrap turned his back on us. At the moment I didn’t have a blade to be warrior of.

  “You do?”

  “Of course. We share many duties and purposes.”

  “Such as?”

  “Keeping the demon world in check.”

  “Oh.” Such a brilliant conversationalist! I searched my brain for something scintillating and important. All I came up with was another “Oh.”

  “I have come to tell you that, much to my dishonor, the one you call WindScribe, but that is not her true name, has escaped me once again.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Who you talking to?” The policeman in charge of guarding these cells wandered by, peering into the corners of my cell.

  The place was free of shadows and hiding places. Still King Scazzy managed to fade and blend into the walls. He took on the translucent aspect of Scrap, a little fuzzy around the edges, with the wall showing through from behind him.

  “I’m so bored I’m talking to myself. Can I have a magazine or a book or something to read? Please?” Before the prison warden of the universe showed up, I had been going stir crazy. In stir.

  Hey, is that where the term originated? I’d have to look it up when I got out of here. If I got out of here.

  “Sorry, Miss. No reading material in holding. You’ll have to wait for an arraignment and more permanent accommodations.” The officer wandered off, shaking his head.

  King Scazzy brightened back into view.

  “So WindScribe is on the loose again,” I picked up the conversation where we’d left off before we were so rudely i
nterrupted.

  “Not exactly.” The gnome had the grace to blush a little.

  “What happened?” My heart sank once more. Scrap turned an embarrassed green and nearly disappeared.

  “She ran to the fallen one, Donovan Estevez, for refuge.”

  Again a reference to Donovan Estevez falling. From what? I didn’t have time to think about it.

  “The Windago found them together,” King Scazzy continued. “The demons born of the north wind hold a fierce grudge against you, Warrior, and took WindScribe in revenge. I do not know what force gave them the power to appear in daylight.”

  “Windago!” I bolted for the cell door, ready to storm through it by sheer force of will if necessary. “They’ll freeze-dry her.” I couldn’t imagine a worse death. I’d faced it myself.

  First, they will dance her through the forest until her feet light sparks, Scrap said, huddling into the corner, as far from Scazzy as he could get and remain on the cot.

  “You have to help her.” I rounded on King Scazzy, full of fury and anxiety.

  “The Windago have their orders. They will return her to my custody once she is exhausted and so full of pain she cannot escape again.”

  “Alive or dead?”

  “It makes no difference to me. Dead, she will be less trouble. Alive, I will fulfill my duty.” The gnome jumped down from the cot and looked ready to disappear again.

  “Just a minute.” I grabbed for him.

  He eluded me. All I came up with was his cheerful red hat with a bit of tarnished gold braid.

  Scazzy whirled on me, covering his naked head with his hands. He had about three hairs, each the length of his body, growing out of his bald pate. I’d cover that head, too.

  “My hat!” he wailed. “You have to return my hat.”

  These nasty little critters valued their hats above all else, even their freedom. The hat was the source of their power. Maybe it was only vanity. Maybe the hats were like Scrap’s warts, earned in battle at terrible cost.

  “Tell me something first.” I held the hat on one finger, twirling it idly.

  “Anything. Please. I’ll do anything short of releasing my prisoner to retrieve my hat.”

  “Interesting. The hat is almost as valuable as your honor.”

  “My hat is my honor. My life is pledged as security to my duty as Prison Warden.”

  “That, too, is interesting. But what I want to know is why is WindScribe considered such a dangerous prisoner? She’s a ditzy teenager with a lot of lessons to learn, and a craving for drugs, but she’s basically harmless. ” I hoped. But I was seriously doubting that statement myself.

  Even Scrap sat forward with interest now.

  “Not harmless. In her misguided naïve belief that all creatures deserve freedom, she loosed some Midori, full-blooded demons, from their ghetto. Without restrictions. Without wards. Without thinking.” Scazzy hung his head and shuddered.

  “How is that different from Donovan and Darren working to make a homeland for demons?” I sat down again and continued to twirl the hat.

  “The Damiri work for a homeland for Kajiri, half-blood demons.” Scazzy looked at me as if I were stupid.

  “Enlighten me.”

  “Have you ever encountered a Midori?”

  Nope, Scrap added. I’m smart enough to keep her away from them.

  “What about the Windago we met in Wisconsin last year?” I still shuddered in memory of the fear they’d put in me.

  Scrap rolled his cheroot around in his mouth as if tasting the memory of that fight. Nope, they were human turned Windago, not Windago released from their own world. Lots of human hormones and enzymes in their blood.

  “And how would you know that?”

  “Your imp lacks honor in his past. Do not probe too deeply if this troubles you. The darkness in his past is perhaps why he cannot remain in the same room as Donovan Estevez,” Scazzy warned.

  Scrap turned so pale a gray I wondered if he would disappear.

  A long moment of silence passed around the room, each of us trying to break it. But with what?

  “I admit that there is severe prejudice against the Kajiri, ” Scazzy finally spoke. “They are dangerous, but they also can be controlled with logic and intelligence. They are capable of leading almost normal lives among the race that is their other half, if allowed. They have no real place in the universe, living in the demon ghettos, or among their other ancestors. Outcast and shunned by both.”

  “And full-bloods, Midori, aren’t intelligent or logical?”

  Both Scazzy and Scrap shook their heads with horrified expressions.

  We keep them locked up in their ghettos for a reason, Scrap said.

  “If Midori demons are so dangerous, how did WindScribe get close enough to let them out?”

  Scazzy shrugged. “I am not privy to how the crime was committed. Only that she did it, was judged guilty, and is now my responsibility to imprison. I suspect she had help but do not know who would have the audacity. Or the stupidity to foment such a plan.”

  “Darren Estevez, for one.” I reached forward, almost willing to give him his hat back. He raised his hand to grab it from my finger.

  Then I jerked it away again. Other pieces of information eluded me.

  “How well did Constable Mike Gionelli know Darren Estevez before the murder?”

  Scazzy clamped his mouth shut. He looked longingly at his hat.

  I wadded it up and contemplated eating it. Not that I would, but he didn’t know that.

  “The one you know as Michael Gionelli is Kajiri,” Scazzy admitted.

  “Half Damiri?”

  “No. He belongs to another tribe.”

  I moved the hat closer to my mouth.

  “He’s of the Okeechobee. A water demon. His home is the swamp in Florida near where Darren Estevez has his headquarters. In his natural form Mike looks rather like an alligator. He, or his tribe, probably owe Darren Estevez something. A lot of money or a debt of honor. Something big enough for Darren to call in his marker by making Mike spy upon you, Tess Noncoiré.”

  “Ironic that a water demon pissed his pants in fear of the Windago,” I laughed.

  “He does not spend much time with his demon kin. He is one of the ones who try very hard to remain human, and protect humanity from others of his kind. He is not happy to be Darren’s patsy.”

  “If he’s part demon, even just a little bit, then getting bit by a Windago would have no effect on him.”

  “If the one you know as Lilia David tagged him to become her mate, her venom would have no effect on him. If she sought to kill him, she could.”