The abbot looked at Sun. “Are you a witch too?”
Bella snorted. “No, Khen Rinpoche. Gregori is a Rider. They work with us.” Her face fell, and Gregori felt the ache in his heart that always resonated through him when he thought about the loss of his title and all that went with it. “Sorry. Force of habit. He was a Rider. Something happened last year that changed everything.”
“My world was shaken to the core,” Sun said quietly. “That is why I am here, in an effort to regain my balance and find my way to a new life.”
“I see,” the abbot said. “It is not going too well, is it?” He gazed at Gregori with compassion in his eyes. “You look terrible. This is not the first I’ve noticed of it, but I had assumed that you were simply trying too hard, as some novices do in the beginning. Sleeping too little, working and meditating too much. But I suspect there is more to it than that. I apologize for not realizing it sooner.”
Gregori bowed his head. “I know I should have been more honest with you, Khen Rinpoche. But I did not know how to tell you how badly I had lost myself. It would have been impossible to explain that I had lost my connection with the universal energy and gained in its place precognition, visions, and a healing gift I could not control.”
The abbot sat in silence for a minute. “Or perhaps you found it just as impossible to ask for help, feeling the need to deal with these issues on your own.”
Gregori had no answer to that. It was true that he had not told the abbot everything about his past—including his long life and unusual origins—at least in part because he was concerned that the Human would not believe him. Unlike his current companions, Sun could not do anything dramatic to prove his story, and he had worried about being thought insane and turned away. But it was also perhaps true that he was better at giving help than at taking it. It was something to think about, when there was more time.
The abbot rose gracefully from his cushion and walked over to stand by one of the painted scrolls on the wall. It showed a dragon and a tiger, both rearing on their hind legs and roaring fiercely at each other.
“This is one of my favorite pictures,” he said. “Such strong creatures, the dragon and the tiger.”
“Damn straight,” Koshka muttered under his breath. “Dragons rule.”
“They each have such power and grace. The purpose of this scroll is not to celebrate their strength, but rather, to remind us that when we fight our own natures, all that power and grace is wasted.” He turned to Gregori and gave him a small but beneficent smile. “Perhaps you would be better off finding some way to embrace your new nature, instead of fighting it. It is just a thought.”
He returned to his seat and to their original subject. “But you did not come to me tonight for spiritual advice, did you? You said something earlier about this storm having a supernatural origin?”
“I know it is hard to believe,” Gregori said.
The abbot shook his head. “In fact, it is not. I have had a feeling since the snows started that something was not quite right, although until now I have not been able to put my finger on it. There is something wrong about the way the air feels. A heaviness that weighed on my spirit. To be honest, I am grateful to discover I was not simply feeling my age and beginning to imagine things.”
He held up a hand as Gregori and Bella started to protest. “I have lived a very long time,” he said. “One does worry about such things. But tell me what you mean when you say the storm is supernatural, please. Is it the result of some sort of curse? A demon let out into the upper worlds?”
“Worse,” Bella said grimly. “We believe that someone has called on the Russian goddess of winter, Morena.”
The abbot put down the teacup he had been holding, for once less than completely composed. “A goddess is doing this? That is . . . unfortunate.”
“Indeed,” Gregori said in a dry tone. “That is one word for it.”
“And you are going to stop her somehow?” The abbot looked torn between hope and disbelief. “The two of you?”
“Ahem.” Koshka cleared his throat.
“Excuse me.” The abbot bowed in his direction. “The three of you are planning to stop a goddess? That seems very ambitious. Am I to assume that you wish me to play some role in this plan, since you have come to see me?” Dismayed concern crossed his face. “Unless you have simply come to explain and say good-bye?”
Gregori shook his head. “We do not expect this to be a suicide mission, if that’s what you are worried about. In fact, we have no illusions that we are in any way equipped to go up against a goddess, even one who has been weakened by the centuries. Our plan is to call in Jarilo, the god of spring, in the expectation that he will be able to either stop her or convince her to desist.”
“I see,” the abbot said. “Or rather, I don’t. What does this Jarilo have to do with me? As you know, Gregori, Buddhists do not worship a god, per se, and certainly not this one specifically. My parents came from Tibet, so I am not unfamiliar with some of the Russian mythology, but I do not understand how you think I can be of assistance, as much as I would like to be.” He looked grim for a moment. “This storm is going to kill a lot of people before it is over, if it does not come to an end soon.”
“Maybe I can explain,” Bella said. “As Gregori said, we believe that someone summoned Morena. Probably using a specific spell, which I don’t have for Jarilo. We do have a connection to him, because Gregori is his son, but that alone, even with my magic, isn’t likely to be enough to get his attention.”
“Your father is a god?” the abbot said to Gregori. “I begin to understand why you did not come to me with your story at the start.”
Gregori gave him a lopsided smile. “It is a very long and complicated tale, Khen Rinpoche. I thought it easier to simply say that I was seeking peace, which is true.”
“We all seek peace,” the abbot said. “The trick is finding the path that leads to it.” He nodded at Bella. “So you want my help how?”
“Well, my theory is that we have the basic ingredients to call on Jarilo—Gregori’s blood connection and my magical abilities—but we need to be able to boost the signal, so to speak. Not only is the monastery a place of spiritual power, but if we can get all the monks to focus their combined will on sending out the message, it should hopefully boost my magic and be enough to reach him.”
“Ah,” the abbot said, looking thoughtful. “A very clever plan. Anyone who has ever been in the same room with many monks all chanting at the same time can feel the energy resonating out into the universe. You are simply talking about taking that energy and giving it a different focus and purpose.” He gave a decisive nod. “We will do this. Some of the monks and laypeople are still out in the community lending a hand there, but I will gather those available here and we will do what we can to help you in this task.”
He moved briskly toward the door. “It will take me some little time to assemble everyone in the shrine hall. Gregori knows where that is. I suggest you three take what opportunity you can to rest until you are needed.” He gave Sun a particularly pointed look.
“Oh, one more thing,” the abbot said, turning back momentarily. “Perhaps it would be best if we did not share the entire saga with all the monks. I suspect it will be difficult enough for them to deal with the sudden appearance of a god in the middle of the meditation room, should you succeed in your task. It may not be necessary to also subject them to talking cats and a witch who can change her appearance. Just a thought.”
He closed the door gently behind him as he went out, and Koshka said to no one in particular, “Cat, singular. And actually, I’m a dragon.” He snorted smoke rings into the air as if to prove his point. “Humans. They’re so touchy.”
CHAPTER 24
CIERA paced back and forth across the cracked linoleum floor of their temporary home, desperately trying to come up with a plan that would work using her limited
resources and whatever time they had until their captors returned. So far, the best she’d come up with was hitting whoever was first through the door over the head with the toilet lid. She probably needed to do better.
Victor had locked her and the girls in a small room at the back of the warehouse; from the looks of it, it had probably been some kind of break room for whoever had worked there. There was a stained green couch with worn cushions and a couple of tan molded-plastic chairs, with a low table in between them that had one leg held together with duct tape. The only other door led to a bare-bones bathroom with a toilet, a sink, and a medicine cabinet with the mirrored door removed from the front. There were no windows, and the only vent was in the ceiling, well out of their reach even if they tried putting a chair on top of the couch. She knew, because that was one of the first things they’d attempted.
There was water, if they didn’t mind drinking out of the sink, but that was about it.
To make things worse, before he and his men left, Victor had put a tidy pile of temptation in the middle of the table. Ciera hadn’t taken a close look at what all it contained, but even from a distance she could see little baggies filled with white powder, pills, and joints. Always considerate, he’d also provided a couple of syringes, and all the other equipment they might need to take advantage of the bounty he had provided.
“Perhaps this will put you in a mood to be more cooperative,” he’d said as one of his men had laid out the feast of poison. “Take your time making up your mind. No one is going to be looking for any of you.” He sneered. “Three homeless junkies and a friendless librarian.”
Then he had added a couple of pieces of paper and a pen for Ciera. “Have these filled out when I get back,” he said. “Your resignation from the library, effective immediately, due to urgent family issues. A note to your landlord, apologizing for the short notice about leaving.” He gave his shark’s smile. “Don’t worry about your things. I’ll have them cleaned out for you.” He dangled her keys from one manicured finger. “You should never have gotten an apartment in that part of town. It isn’t safe there, you know.”
Safe. Now that was a humorous thought. Ciera couldn’t believe she had actually kidded herself into thinking she could be safe while Victor was still alive.
As soon as the door shut behind Victor and his men, the lock clicking with almost silent menace, they’d tried to find some other way out. Now the three girls sat huddled together on the sagging couch as Ciera paced back and forth like a caged tiger.
Was Victor right? Would no one miss them? Somehow she couldn’t believe that. The folks at the shelter knew she’d gone out looking for Julie Ann, Kelli, and Shannon. Surely they’d worry if she never came back. Of course, the storm had everyone distracted, so it might be some time before anyone got concerned enough to do anything.
Except Gregori. Maybe. Would he realize that her vanishing had anything to do with the story she had told him about Victor? She sagged against the wall for a moment, indulging in the fantasy of him busting down the door and coming to their rescue. Her rescue. She opened her eyes, but the door was still intact, and there was no one to be seen but her three charges. One of whom was buckling under the strain.
Kelli cradled the hand she’d reached out toward the table, the air still ringing with the sound of the slap Julie Ann had delivered.
“Hey,” Kelli said with a pout. “I was just checking out what was there.”
“Not a chance,” Julie Ann said. “We’re not going to let this asshole win.”
“Good for you,” Ciera said. She found an empty wastepaper basket lying on its side under a table to the side of the room that had probably held a coffeemaker once, if the spatter of stains on its surface could be trusted, and swept all the drugs into it before setting it firmly out of sight inside the bathroom. “You don’t need this crap.”
“Speak for yourself,” Kelli muttered. “We’re probably all going to die here. I’d rather be stoned when that happens, thanks.”
Ciera sat down in one of the chairs opposite her. “I am speaking for myself, actually. There isn’t one thing in that pile that I didn’t use once or that doesn’t still tempt me. But I walked away from all that, and so can you.”
“Really?” Shannon looked at Ciera like she’d never seen her before, brown eyes wide in her round face. “You used to do drugs? But, but, you’re a librarian.”
Ciera bit back a laugh. “I wasn’t always a librarian,” she said. “Once I was fifteen and stupid, and ran away from a not-great home, and ended up in the city all by myself with no money and no place to stay.”
“You were just like us,” Kelli said, sounding like she wasn’t quite sure she believed it. “Like, homeless, and on drugs and stuff?”
“And stuff,” Ciera nodded. “Mostly booze and pot until I met this great guy who took me in, and set me up in his apartment, and gave me everything I wanted, including all the crap in that garbage pail. Everything I wanted except freedom, and a way out.”
“Victor,” Julie Ann guessed, her voice flat. “He’s a great guy all right. Don’t suppose he’s got a younger brother.”
“Victor,” Ciera confirmed. “At first I thought he was just a successful businessman. By the time I figured out he was involved with the cartel, I was too drugged up and beaten down to care.”
“He hit you?” Shannon asked. One hand went up to her cheek, as if she knew how that felt.
“Oh yeah. If I burned dinner or didn’t pick up his dry cleaning or looked at him funny. Once he got me hooked on the hard stuff, he used that against me, too, withholding it if he thought I’d done something wrong, then getting off on listening to me beg.” Ciera shook her head. “It was a pretty crappy way to live, and not one I’d recommend. When we get out of here, I’d like to help the three of you find some way to avoid going down the same path, if I can.”
Kelli rolled her eyes, but stopped staring in the direction of the bathroom, which was what Ciera had hoped for.
“How did you get away from him?” Julie Ann asked. She was probably a couple of years older than the other two, and a whole lot tougher, with a darkness at the back of her eyes that said she’d seen things she probably shouldn’t have.
“I had help.” Ciera sagged for a second, thinking about Skye Blue and everything she had meant to Ciera’s life. “This great woman named Skye helped me get away from Victor, and when I was off the drugs she took me into her place and let me sleep on the couch. It was supposed to be temporary, but somehow I never left.”
“So she, like, adopted you?” Shannon said.
“Not exactly.” Ciera laughed. “Skye wasn’t the mothering type, for all that she dedicated her life to rescuing teens. She told me her secret—that she was something of a vigilante, going out into the city at night and exacting justice from those who preyed on the young and vulnerable.”
Kelli gasped. “OMG! Your friend is the masked superhero! That’s so cool. Maybe she’ll come rescue us.”
Ciera shook her head. “Sorry, but that’s not going to happen. About nine months after I moved in, I came home one day to find her dead in the middle of the living room, badly beaten and then shot. Her papers were scattered around the room, torn into tiny pieces like confetti, and the place was completely trashed.” She didn’t think they needed to know about all the blood, and the agonized look on Skye’s face with its open, staring eyes. It was bad enough that the sight still haunted her; no need to inflict it on the kids.
“That sucks,” Julie Ann said with a wince. “Did they ever find out who did it?”
“No. She had been trying to track down a drug lord who was high up in the organization, since she thought he was responsible for bringing most of the drugs into the city. I always figured it was him, but had no way to prove it.”
Ciera remember how quickly her new life had fallen apart. She had grabbed a few of her things—she still hadn’t had
much—and the picture of her and Skye together, and thrown them into a bag. Then she’d called the cops and bolted. There was no way she could have stuck around to talk to them. Not only was she still underage, but she knew that Victor had plenty of connections in the police department. He would have found her the minute her name showed up on a report.
So she had watched from the coffee shop across the street. Watched as the cops and the ambulance arrived, and as the sheet-covered body of the only friend she had in the world was carried out. She had lurked in the neighborhood for a few days, so she had seen when Skye’s well-dressed parents had everything hauled out of the apartment, the father stiff and pale in his expensive suit, the mother dry-eyed under her perfectly dyed and trimmed helmet of hair. They couldn’t have been more different from Skye if they had come from another planet, and it was hard for Ciera to reconcile her passionate, free-spirited friend with these rigid, wealthy people whose Cadillac idled by the curb as if they felt the need to be able to leave the neighborhood as soon as possible. She couldn’t tell if they grieved or not.
As for her, grief was her constant companion, waking her in the middle of the night and washing over her like an ocean during the day. The only thing stronger than her grief was her anger. That got her through that first dreadful, unbearable week; that, and the determination to continue Skye’s work.
Her mentor must have foreseen the possibility of her own death, because when Ciera let herself back into the now-empty apartment once everyone was gone, she found a letter waiting for her in the secret compartment only she knew about.
Along with the note was a large manila envelope full of hundred-dollar bills, a letter of acceptance in her name to the local university compete with a fully paid scholarship, and an impeccable set of fake IDs in Ciera’s new name. There was also a stack of notebooks filled with Skye’s sprawling cursive handwriting and a black balaclava.
The letter had been short and direct.
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