by Holly Lisle
His mind grabbed onto that fact, swallowed it readily, accepted it completely. No glasses — and she was almost blind without her glasses. No ring. And Minerva never took off her ring.
He started to laugh, softly at first — but then louder, and giddily. “It looks like her,” he said. “My God, it looks like her. But it isn’t her.” He felt dizzy with relief, felt he’d been pulled back from the edge of some unfathomable abyss. He smiled at the ER nurse. “It really isn’t.” He smiled so broadly his face felt as though it would split. “Oh, it isn’t her, it isn’t her!” Ilene stared at him as though he’d just lost his mind. He spread his hand out. “Don’t you see? It can’t be her. She never took her wedding band off. Never.”
He started to laugh again, the relief was so great. Minerva was okay — still lost in the mirror, but okay. This body was — somebody else.
“Doctor Frankel!” Ilene called, and backed out of the cubicle. “Doctor Frankel! I need you in here stat!”
And Mike came running, and Ilene came racing back with a needle, and a couple of big guys held him still while she gave him a shot of something, though he protested when they did. They walked him into a private room and put him on a stretcher, and his mother and father came and sat in the room with him and talked to him. Meaningless gibberish. Silly stuff.
Minerva dead. Silly. Silly. Minerva wasn’t dead. She just wasn’t here.
After a while, everything went dark, and he slept.
* * *
Secret Agents Jeevus, Renskie, and Equator crept down the steep stone stairs to the first landing below the tower.
“These stairs are just what we need,” Jeevus whispered. “They’re designed to be easily defended.”
All three children paused on the landing. Agent Jeevus lay on his belly and scooted to the very edge of the stairs. He looked down for a long time, then scooted back again and stood up.
“This is bad, men,” he said and crossed his arms over his chest. “There are a bunch of them down there. All monsters like the one we got. It’s going to take a lot of ammunition to beat them.”
“We don’t have any ammunition.” Carol crossed her arms, too. “I think we should just run away.”
“Heck, I don’t even think we can get out of here right now. This place is full of monsters. We’re going to have to beat them just to get to the door.”
Barney said, “I think we should sur— um, sur—... give up.”
“Surrender? You want us to surrender! Never!” Jeevus whispered. “Only sissies quit.” He glared down at Barney.
“Well, I want to go home,” Barney said. “Maybe the monsters will let us go home.”
“Ninny! They’ll eat us.” Secret Agent Renskie rolled her eyes, then glared at her brother.
“I don’t think so,” Barney said. He didn’t want to be a secret agent anymore. The game was no fun. The stairs scared him, the monsters scared him, and he wanted his mother and father... and breakfast. He was hungry.
Murp, tired of being held, yowled once, and Jeevus paled. “Keep him quiet!” he whispered. “If they find out we’re here, they’ll come up the stairs and eat us — and we haven’t even had the chance to set our booby traps yet.”
Just like his butthead brother to think anyone could make Murp be quiet, Barney thought. “Okay. You hold him, stupid. Maybe he’ll be quiet for you.” Barney held out Murp toward Jamie. The cat sensed impending freedom and squirmed out of Barney’s hands — then darted out of Jamie’s reach and down the stairs. He disappeared from view.
Jamie stared down the stairs after the vanished Murp. “Shit!” he whispered. “You let him get away, you moron! You were supposed to take care of him.”
Barney wanted to cry. He started to go after the cat, but his brother grabbed him.
Jamie looked like Barney felt. “You can’t go after him. They might get you.” Jamie closed his eyes and rested his head against the stone wall. “Oh, boy! I hope they don’t eat him.”
Barney realized his big brother was scared, too. In a funny way, knowing that made him feel better.
Jamie pointed to the huge wooden door that led off the landing. “We need to go in there, and see if we can find any stuff for weapons. Maybe Murp will come back.” He didn’t sound very sure.
Carol whispered, “What if someone is in there?”
Jamie chewed on his bottom lip and frowned. “That would be bad,” he said.
Carol put her hands on her hips. “I guess! So what are we going to do?”
Barney closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could feel nothing but emptiness from the other side of the door. Wherever the monsters in the castle were, they weren’t in there. He decided if Jamie could be brave when he was scared, then Secret Agent Equator could be, too. “We can go in there,” Secret Agent Equator said, and pushed on the door. “It’s okay.”
The door didn’t budge. He pushed harder. The door was really big and really heavy.
Jamie and Carol pushed with him. Suddenly, something behind the door gave way, and it slid open, screaming on its hinges like the ghosts in Barney’s nightmares.
“Oh, man,” Jamie whispered. “They’re going to hear us for sure.”
Carol stared through the opening, and groaned. “It looks like your room,” she said.
Jamie looked over her shoulder, then at her. He gave her a puzzled frown. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Yes, it does. It’s a dump.” Carol stepped through the doorway, and Jamie and Barney followed.
The place was a dump, Barney decided — but a really neat one. Huge trunks sat along one wall, some with the lids open to reveal hats and clothes and stacks of paper. Silly-looking suits of armor took up one corner of the huge room, moldy boots and high-backed saddles and piles of books cluttered the floor. Several mop buckets sat just inside the door — full of slimy green water and with the mops propped beside them.
Jamie ran to a huge mound of rusted metal and started pulling spiky objects out of it one by one. “Wow! These are caltrops,” he whispered, and held up one of the small, sharp weapons to show Barney.
“What’s it for?”
“Armies put them in fields and on roads and stuff so the bad guys’ horses can step on ‘em. But,” he grinned up at Barney, “we can throw ‘em down the steps.”
“Wow!” Barney was impressed. “Doesn’t it hurt the horses when they step on them, though?”
Jamie nodded. “I guess so.”
“I don’t like that very much.”
Carol wandered over, swathed in ropes of big, gaudy glass beads. “No one should hurt horses. I won’t use those.”
Jamie sighed with exasperation. “We aren’t gonna hurt horses. Jeez! We’re gonna hurt monsters.” He frowned at Carol. “Unless you’d rather get eaten. Or chopped up into little pieces or something.”
Carol sucked in her bottom lip. “No.”
“Okay, then. I promise we won’t use the caltrops on horses.”
“Okay.”
“You need to take those beads off,” he said. “They’ll slow you down if you have to run.”
Now it was Carol’s turn to look annoyed. “That isn’t what they’re for.”
“Oh, no. Of course not. So what are they for?” Jamie rolled his eyes and muttered, “Girls.”
Barney felt something moving in the stairwell; sensed curiosity and concern. He tapped his brother on the arm. “They’re coming.”
Jamie’s face went ghost-white. “We can’t let them get above us,” he whispered. “We’ve got to attack now!”
He ran for the door, carrying as many caltrops as he could, and flung them down the stairs. The clattered and bounced. Below, a gruff voice yelled “Hey, watch it with that garbage. You might hurt somebody!”
Barney imitated his brother.
Carol didn’t. Instead, she took one of the necklaces, bit the string apart, and stripped the beads off with one hand. The round beads rolled and bounded around the stairwell, clattering as they fell. Below, the children heard
a scream, followed by a heavy thud.
Jamie stared at Carol, amazement clear on his face. “All right!” he yelled. “Yes-s-s-s!” He pumped the air with his fist, and tossed a few more caltrops.
“Stop that immediately,” the voice yelled. Barney ran back into the supply room and grabbed the first thing he could find — a bolt of cloth. He dragged it out and shoved it to the open center of the stairs, then out into the void. He didn’t dare watch it fall.
Jamie and Carol, meanwhile, pushed the first of the trunks out of the storage room. It crashed down the stone stairs, making a tremendous racket and scattering debris in all directions.
“Fly up the middle,” one of the monsters yelled.
Barney grabbed three caltrops and, as soon as he heard the beating of wings, threw them into the center of the stairwell.
There was another scream, and a solid thunk. “Great Karras! Don’t fly! Don’t fly!” a monster voice screamed. “Try something else.”
The castle below the children grew quiet.
Jamie, Carol, and Barney stood on the landing, breathing heavily. Jamie mumbled something too softly for Barney to hear. Then he said, “They’re going to do something else.” He turned to Barney. “Can you tell what?”
Barney held still and listened to the whispery feelings that touched his mind. He clenched his fists tightly and sucked in his breath. After an instant, he nodded. “They’re going to fly again in just a second, when they think they can catch us by surprise.”
“Do we have any more caltrops?”
Barney shook his head from side to side. “I couldn’t find any more. Maybe we could shove another box down on them.”
Jamie nodded. His face grew stern, and he tapped his foot. “All right. Agent Renskie, Agent Equator — shove a box over the side as soon as you can get it there. I have another idea.”
Equator and Renskie chose a trunk with lots of little, hard things in it, and started shoving that through the maze of junk toward the stairwell. Agent Jeevus, meanwhile, dragged a chain to the edge of the landing, then a couple of loose pieces of armor. Then, both buckets of slimy cleaning water. Jamie’s weapons didn’t make a very impressive pile, Barney thought.
Barney suddenly realized he and Carol weren’t going to get to the edge in time. “They’re ready now, Jamie!” he yelled.
Below, Barney heard the leathery flap of wings.
“Keep coming, men,” Jamie shouted back. “I’ll take care of ‘em! Chain!” he screamed, and shoved it over the edge.
The chain made a long, slithering rattle as it fell. Below, the monsters yelled and shouted instructions. The chain hit the ground noisily — then Barney heard the wings again.
“Shrapnel!” Jamie screamed, and kicked the pieces of armor over the edge.
Barney heard thuds and screams from what sounded like direct hits. He and Carol were almost out of the room with their box. They kept pushing. Jamie crouched on the edge, hands gripping the edges of the bucket.
The sounds of flapping wings came up the stairwell for the third time, and Jamie shrieked, “Boiling oil!”
He dumped both buckets, and below, several voices screamed. Barney heard glass breaking.
“Psych!” Jamie yelled.
Carol laughed. “Got ‘em! Got ‘em! Way to go, Jamie!”
Carol and Barney maneuvered the trunk onto the landing, while Jamie did a little victory dance. “Suckers!” he shouted down into the stairwell.
The trunk sat, poised on the lip of the abyss.
“Don’t shove it over yet,” Jamie told Carol and Barney. “Save it for the next attack. Get ready—”
Both Carol and Barney braced against the trunk, waiting for Jamie’s signal. We’re gonna win, Barney thought. We’re gonna beat the monsters.
Below, everything was silent.
Without warning, big claw-tipped hands lifted Barney into the air from behind. Identical sets picked up Jamie and Carol.
“No!” Jamie yelled. “They flanked us! They flanked us!”
Barney shrieked and kicked and tried to bite.
The monster who’d captured him growled, “That will be quite enough of that.”
CHAPTER 5
Minerva and Talleos kept themselves out of sight. They went through the endless meadows crouched over, until Minerva’s lower back burned with pain. They ducked into every available stand of trees. And they ran north — steadily north.
Minerva kept seeing those still forms silhouetted on the path — watching her. In her mind’s eye, they grew hideous. Their cloaks whipped around their legs, their hands twisted into talons, and from empty eye-sockets in hideous faces, eerie ruby light burned.
She wished to hell she’d never read Tolkien.
Talleos’ response to her few attempted questions was to press a finger to his lips.
It was a long, exhausting, frightening day.
At twilight, when Talleos led her into a dark woods, she was ready to drop. She was hungry and thirsty, and she longed for a place to sleep, or even something soft to sit on for just a while. In the gloom, she saw the bulk of darker gloom — a building of some sort, squat and dire and silent. Talleos motioned her to be still, then crept around it and out of her sight. She clenched the hilt of the little silver knife that hung at her hip and pressed her back against the biggest tree she could find. Whatever came after her, she was going to be ready.
She waited. No sound of Talleos. No sign of him. Things cracked and crunched around her. Leaves rustled. A night bird screeched right behind her and she nearly jumped out of her skin. The damp night air brushed the hairs at the back of her neck, familiar as a lover. She shuddered.
They’re out there, she thought. Those things, those Watchers — they’re out there looking for me. Oh, God, what if they find me?
She was scared. She wanted to be home, safe, with her kids and her husband. She wanted someone to tell her everything would be okay.
Suddenly, cold, bony fingers gripped her shoulder.
She whipped around toward her attacker, swinging the knife up underhanded, putting all her strength into the tip. She knew that the wraith or whatever had come to get her wouldn’t be stopped by such a tiny weapon—
Talleos shrieked and leapt back before the knife connected. “Gods on hot rocks, Minerva!” he yelped. “What are you trying to do — kill me?”
Minerva was shaking. Her heart pounded in her throat, and her pulse roared in her ears. “Why the hell did you sneak up on me?” she snarled. “You damn near gave me a heart attack.”
“Yeah? Well, you just returned the favor,” Talleos muttered. “I was checking out the house to make sure we didn’t have any unwanted company. We don’t—” He glared at her. “Unless I decide you’re unwanted company. If you think you can refrain from skewering me, I’ll let you go inside.”
“You mean we get to rest now?” Minerva whispered. “Oh, how wonderful.”
She followed the cheymat along the tiny flagstone path to his house. It was a big cabin built of rough, hand-hewn logs, chinked with what looked like a mixture of moss and clay — the windows were small and covered with oilskin.
Primitive, Minerva thought. Doesn’t matter. If I have to sleep on animal skins tonight and kill my breakfast in the morning, that will be just fine. At least I’ll get to sleep and eat.
Talleos ushered her through the door and closed it behind him. Then he switched on the light.
“What?” She stared around the entryway in shock. Foyer, she thought, and rubbed her eyes to make sure she was seeing it right. Straight out of the pages of House Beautiful. Featured in Robin Leach’s “Lifestyles of the Well-Hooved and Famous.”
The walls were creamy white plaster, the hardwood floor gleamed warm honey-gold. The electric lights were tastefully set in hand-hammered brass sconces — they filled the entryway with cozy yellow light. The big, thick throw rugs looked like Aubusson to her.
“Hungry?” Talleos asked.
“Ah — er—”
“C�
�mon,” the cheymat said. “Let’s get something to eat. He trotted off to her right, through a bookshelf-walled sitting room, a charming breakfast nook, and then into a kitchen her mother, God’s gift to cooking, would gladly have killed for.
“Wow,” Minerva whispered.
“You like?” Talleos grinned, looking tremendously pleased. “I got a really good architect.” He trotted to a polished oak door and pulled it open. A light flicked on inside.
Architect ? What kind of wild woodland creature hires an architect? she wondered. And then she saw where the wild woodland creature was leading her. “Wow!” she murmured. “A walk-in refrigerator! Neat!”
“Nice, huh?” the cheymat asked. “The other door is the freezer. I have a huge pantry, too. I’m so far from the main drag out here, it’s a pain in the ass to go shopping. Besides, the groupies make it almost impossible for me to shop. So I stock up about six months at a time.”
“This isn’t quite what I expected,” Minerva remarked.
Talleos came out of the fridge, arms loaded with sandwich fixings and canned beer. He kicked the door closed with one hoof. “Yeah. I could tell. The outside of the house has to meet standards set by the Winterkinn Woods Property Association. They determine acceptable styles, window coverings, stuff like that. We have to keep all our power lines buried. No external antennas — lots of rules. Inside, we can do whatever we want.”
“Property Association? That sounds so — suburban.”
“Nah. Worse than the suburbs. This is a hot tourist spot.” Talleos started slathering knifefuls of green stuff out of a jar onto one slab of bread. He grinned at her. “Fix yourself a sandwich. The stuff in the bright red pack is imitation kaldebeast — low salt, low fat. The sausage is Summer Cherkie. The really dark meat is roast fowks — top grade.”
Minerva looked at the packages — they looked like standard grocery-store fare from home until she picked one up. Then she discovered she couldn’t read a word on the package. The alphabet was swoopy and loaded with curlicues and little stars and dots. She rubbed her eyes, hoping that would bring things into focus. It didn’t.
“—and the beer is Tothfi Premium Dark Lager,” he continued. She realized she’d missed part of what he’d said. “Huudegelf Tothfi, the local brewer, makes it. It goes great with the shoodlaf cheese.” The cheese he pointed to was a pale powder-blue through and through.
