Summon the Keeper

by Tanya Huff

  “I don’t think so…” Wielding power like a sword, Diana slashed through the pattern where Jacques was caught.

  Not subtle, but effective.

  As the points flipped up and over, Claire broke her name free.

  CURSES, FOILED AGAI…

  The unmarked bedrock of the furnace room floor steamed gently.

  Diana let out a breath she couldn’t remember holding. “Wow.”

  Dean jerked to his feet as Claire swayed. “You okay?”

  Actually, she had no idea how she was, but okay would do for the moment. “Sure. What about you?”

  He frowned. Until Jacques had appeared out of the darkness, he’d stood on the slope leading upward toward the glow of what were probably the fires of the damned and had known he’d been forgotten. Sure, Hell was busy with Sara, but still…“I hesitated,” he said.

  Claire felt her lip curl. “Get over it. You were willing to die to save the world. You’re a terrific person!”

  “You mean that?”

  She cupped his face between her palms and moved close enough that he could see her clearly without his glasses. “Yes. I have never meant anything more in my life.”

  Keepers lied quite easily to bystanders; but he believed her. The load of guilt lifted off his shoulders. “Thanks.” Pulling free, he took a step back. “There’s something I need to do.”

  “Ow!” Diana rubbed the spot where Dean had applied the side of his work boot. “What did you kick me for?”

  His silence said it all.

  “Oh. Never mind.”

  “You’ve done a wonderful job, Claire, but are you certain you don’t want me to come to Kingston and check things out?”

  “Quite certain, Mom. The site is closed.” Claire had put the furnace room through every test she could think of, and she’d even allowed Diana to come up with a few. To all intents and purposes, there’d never been a hole to Hell. Or an Aunt Sara. “Dean drove Diana to the train station. She’ll stay with friends in Toronto tonight and head home first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Well, I’m sure that’s the plan.” Martha Hansen sounded doubtful.

  “Don’t worry, she gave me her word she’d go straight home.”

  “Claire Beth Hansen! Did you put a geas on your sister?”

  Claire grinned. “Yes.”

  “Good. But how on earth did you manage it?”

  “I agreed with her when she opened her defense with ‘all’s well that ends well,’ and while she was still reeling in disbelief I slipped it by.”

  “You agreed with her?”

  Her grin broadening, Claire explained. “I had every intention of tearing a strip off her for being so adolescently arrogant, thinking she could wake Sara without consequences, but then I realized that she was right. Keepers go where they’re needed. The two of us in combination were needed to close down the site, so it’s entirely possible that everything that happened was intended to happen. Diana, me, Dean, Jacques; even Hell had a hand in its own demise by squeezing a Hell Hound through the tiny window of opportunity between Sara’s original capture and her power being used to temporarily seal the site.”

  The phone remained silent.

  “Mom?”

  “If Diana’s reckless disregard for consequence was necessary to help save the world, she’s going to be impossible to live with.” Claire very nearly felt her mother’s sigh. “Still, I expect your father and I can come up with a few things to say to her when she gets home.” Sara’s choice of sacrifice had not been elaborated on, but parents were perfectly capable of drawing their own conclusions. “You said that Dean was driving her to the station; how is he? Is it safe for him to drive?”

  “He’s fine, Mom. Really. He was a willing sacrifice, completely ignorant of what that meant, and he believed that in falling he’d burn in Hell forever. With that kind of karma, he could’ve just walked through the possibilities to the light. If Jacques hadn’t found him so quickly and brought him back to the basement, I expect he’d have started tidying the place up.”

  “What do you mean, he had no doubt he’d burn in Hell forever? He’s been living next to the site for almost a year completely unaffected.”

  She’d been hoping she’d slipped that by. “There was an incident.” Leaving out the bits that Diana would be sure to embellish on later, Claire explained about the elevator and Faith’s boyfriend. “He hesitated.”

  On the other end of the phone, Martha snorted. “Oh, for…”

  “That’s what I said. But this whole sacrifice thing grounded him again. He’s as good as new.”

  “I see.” The pause spoke volumes. “What happens now?”

  Claire chose to misunderstand. “Now, I expect I’ll be summoned somewhere else. Austin says I’ll be able to leave by tomorrow, that help is on the way.”

  “Claire…”

  “He’s down to his last life, you know. But he says he’s not worried.”

  “Very well. If that’s the way you want it. Give Austin our love.”

  An uncomfortable moment later, Claire hung up and sighed.

  What happens now?

  Jacques was waiting in her sitting room. He had to know she’d be leaving—that she couldn’t stay and he couldn’t come with her.

  This wasn’t going to be a pleasant interview.

  “Jacques?”

  He stopped pacing and turned to face her. “Vôtre mère, your mama, is she good?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Bon.” Drifting out through the coffee table, he waved a hand at the sofa. “Please, cherie, I have things to say.”

  Since she wasn’t looking forward to saying the things she had to, Claire sat. If listening was all that she could do for him, she would at least do that.

  “You are ready? D’accord.” He rubbed his hands against his thighs, a living gesture Claire’d never seen him make before. “I am decided, it is time I move on.”

  You’re leaving me? Somehow, Claire managed not to voice her initial reaction.

  His expression grew serious. “I have seen Hell and I do not belong there, or they would not have allow me to leave. There is not enough evil in me for them to hold.” The corners of his mouth twitched up. “It helped that you held my heart.”

  When he smiled, Claire had to smile with him. “That wasn’t your heart.”

  “Non? Ah, well, close enough.” He took a step back and held out his hand. “Will you help me?”

  So much for her speech about change being constant. Claire ripped up her mental notes, stood, and laid her palm against Jacques’, his fingers wrapping around hers like cool smoke. “Of course. When?”

  “Now. I have found the courage to face her. I have found the courage to descend into Hell for l’âme, the soul, of Dean, who I do not even entirely like. I think while I have found my courage, I should use him, it, to face what is on the other side.”

  “Did you want to wait and say good-bye to Dean?”

  “No. You tell him I say au revoir, adieu, bonne chance, and that if he does not use it, it will fall off.”

  “Maybe you’d better stay a few more minutes and tell him yourself.”

  Jacques shook his head, a strand of translucent hair falling into his eyes. “No, cherie. Now. There has always been—will always be—an excuse to stay. Dean, he will understand. It is a guy thing.”

  “A guy thing?”

  He shrugged. “I hear it on Morningside.” One hand still wrapped about hers, he laid the other against her cheek. “Thank you for the night we shared. I think I saw heaven a little bit in your arms.”

  “You think?”

  “I am fairly certain.” He grinned. “When you talk of me, could you perhaps exaggerate a little?” When she nodded, her cheek moving up and down through his hand, he squared his shoulders under the heavy sweater. “D’accord. Then I am ready.”

  Claire reached through the possibilities and opened the way. Squinting a little, she stepped back to give him room. “Just follow the light.”


  His features almost dissolving in the brilliance, he took a step away from the world, and then he paused.

  “Au revoir, cherie.”

  “Good-bye, Jacques.”

  “Si j’etais en vie, je t’aurais aime.”

  And then he was gone.

  “If were alive, I would have loved you?”

  Blinking away the spots in front of her eyes, Claire tried to focus on the cat.

  Austin carefully climbed onto the hassock and sat down. “Not a bad exit line.”

  “You’re supposed to be resting?”

  “I am resting, I’m sitting.”

  “You should go to the vet.”

  “No, thank you.” He twitched his tail around his toes and his lip curled under the lower edge of the bandage. “It’s been taken care of.”

  “By the mice?”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Locked in the gaze from his remaining eye, Claire shook her head. “No. Not as such. But if I may point out, I haven’t seen any mice.”

  “You haven’t seen Elvis either.”

  Claire glanced over at the silent bust. “So?”

  “So that doesn’t mean he’s not working in a 7-11 somewhere. Did you take care of Mrs. Abrams?”

  “She thinks Baby died a natural death about six months ago, and now that she’s done mourning, she’s going to get a poodle. But while we’re on the subject; how long did you know Baby was a Hell Hound?”

  “I knew it from the beginning.”

  “Well, why didn’t you tell me?”

  Austin snorted. “I’m a cat.” Before Claire could demand a further explanation, he cocked his head. “There’s Dean’s truck. Maybe you’d better go take care of that last loose end.”

  “The hotel is yours if you want it.”

  Dean paused, one hand on the basement door, and turned to face Claire. “No, thank you. I don’t want it. You’ll be leaving?”

  She nodded. “Soon. Tomorrow, probably. Austin says that someone’ll be along.”

  “So you pretty much knew my answer before you asked?”

  “Pretty much. But I still had to ask. How long…”

  “I guess I’ll wait until that someone shows up and play it by ear.”

  “Okay. Good. Um, Jacques is gone. He said to tell you goodbye and that you’d understand why he didn’t wait.”

  “Sure.”

  When the silence stretched beyond the allotted time for a response, Dean nodded, once, and went downstairs.

  As the sound of his work boots faded into the distance, Claire pounded her forehead against the wall. That hadn’t gone well. There were a hundred things she wanted to say to Dean, starting with, Thanks for driving Diana to the train station, and moving on up to: Thanks for sacrificing yourself to save the world. Somewhere in the middle she’d try to fit in Maybe you and I…

  “Maybe he and I what?” she asked herself walking back to the office and jerking her backpack down off the hook. “Could be friends? Could be more than friends?” Yanking the cables from her printer, she shoved them into the pack. “He’s an extraordinary guy. Not brilliant maybe, but good, kind, gorgeous, accepting…” The printer followed the cables. “…not to mention alive.”

  Maybe she’d had that rare chance that few Keepers ever got and for whatever reason, pride or blatant stupidity, she’d blown it.

  What happens now?

  The site was sealed.

  She was leaving.

  He was leaving.

  It was over.

  Folding a pair of jeans neatly along the crease, Dean set them into his hockey bag. He wanted to be ready to go as soon as possible after that someone arrived.

  “Austin says that someone’ll be along.”

  He’d never be able to look at a cat without wondering. As for the rest of it, well, he knew who he was again, so the rest of it didn’t matter.

  A stack of white briefs, also neatly folded, tucked in beside the jeans.

  There’d been a lot left unsaid upstairs in the hall. Claire’d been looking sort of aloof and unapproachable, but also twisting a lock of hair around one finger. Dean had to smile at the combination as he added all but one pair of socks to the bag.

  Diana had given him continual advice on the way to the station. About half of it, he hadn’t understood.

  It didn’t much matter.

  Claire was leaving.

  He was leaving.

  At least she hadn’t offered to rearrange his memories. He’d have fought to remember the last eight weeks.

  “What in tarnation have you done to my hotel?”

  Claire, who’d been waiting in the office, stared down at Augustus Smythe, opened and closed her mouth, and finally managed a stunned, “You?”

  “Who else would be willing to run this rattrap?”

  “But…”

  “Used to be a hole to Hell in the basement. That sort of thing has to be monitored.” He shrugged out of his overcoat and tossed it up on the counter. “They say I’m retired, with full pension for years of service rendered, but I know better.” Bushy brows drawn in, he glared around at the renovations. “So you opened up the elevator; lose anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Tried it since the hole closed?”

  “No, but…”

  “Never mind. I’ll convince that harpy next door to go for a ride.” To Claire’s astonishment, he smoothed back his hair and grinned. After a moment, the grin rearranged itself into the customary scowl. “Well? Haven’t you got somewhere else to go?”

  Now that he mentioned it, she had.

  The summons grew stronger as she shrugged into her backpack and held open the cat carrier for Austin to climb in. Reaching for her suitcase, she stopped, straightened, and decided Jacques was right. There’d always be a reason to delay.

  She reached for the suitcase again, shifted it to her left hand, and picked up the cat carrier with her right. “Tell Dean I said good-bye.”

  And then she left, ignoring the muttered, “Idiot,” that could have come from either the Cousin or the cat.

  The summons drew her west. She passed the park, and the hospital, and the turnoff to a house Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister had lived in briefly before he entered politics.

  The definitive November wind, cold and damp, blew in off the lake, stiffening her fingers around the handles of her luggage. By the time she reached the lights at Sir John A. MacDonald Boulevard, she decided that the summons was taking her farther than she wanted to walk. Even in a bad mood and feeling vaguely guilty about pretty much everything.

  “You need a lift?”

  He wasn’t entirely unexpected.

  Frowning, Claire turned to face the truck. “You don’t know where I’m going.”

  Leaning across the front seat, braced against the edge of the open window, Dean shrugged. “So?”

  “Just get in!” The cat carrier rocked in Claire’s grip as Austin shifted his weight. “I’m freezing my tail off out here.”

  “You told him which way we’d be heading.”

  “What part of get in don’t you understand?” he snarled, poking a paw out through the wider weave in the front of the carrier.

  There were people crossing the street toward her. Another few feet and they’d be close enough to hear.

  Claire got in the truck.

  Fastened her seat belt.

  As Dean shifted into drive and started across the intersection, she held the top of the cat carrier open just far enough for Austin to climb out.

  “What happens next?” Dean asked.

  Claire shrugged and squirmed around to set the carrier behind the seat with her suitcase. “I don’t know.”

  There was still a lot that had to be said.

  “You did know the speed limit on this street is 40k?”

  And a lot that didn’t.

  Dean nodded. “Okay. We’ll play it by ear.”

  “You’ve been to Hell,” Austin snorted, stretching ou
t on Claire’s lap, “you should be up to it.”

  HEY! WHO TIDIED THE BRIMSTONE?

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  by TANYA HUFF from DAW Books:

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  THE TRUTH OF VALOR (#5)

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  SUMMON THE KEEPER (#1)

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  THE QUARTERS NOVELS, Volume 1:

  Sing the Four Quarters/Fifth Quarter

  THE QUARTERS NOVELS, Volume 2:

  No Quarter/The Quartered Sea

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