He took a deep breath and held it until he was out the front door of Divine's Emporium, then let it out quickly and loudly.
"Spill," Stanzer said, before Ethan was off the porch and heading for the wrought iron gate and off the property. He stayed where he had probably been the entire time, leaning against a tree by the curb.
Ethan didn't hold anything back. After all, this was Stanzer's territory. He cared about Angela. If anyone had a clue how those stolen books and the Von Helados and Angela all tied together--heck, how the laughing lights and other strange sounds and shadows and feelings tied in, too--he was the one. It took the entire walk back to Stanzer's office to get the whole story out and report most of what he and Angela had said to each other.
"Trouble," Stanzer said, the first sound he had made since Ethan started his story. He pushed his office door open, and Ethan was impressed to realize that the other man hadn't locked his office when he left.
When he saw the young woman sitting at the computer, a shot of hungry envy socked him in the gut. It would be nice to have a partner, someone to work with. Someone to smile at him when he walked through the door like this girl looked at Stanzer.
"Big news," the girl said. She glanced at Ethan, and then tipped her head toward the screen, silently asking Stanzer what to do.
"Later. Angela's problem just got bigger."
Ethan flinched when a big spark just like the one that had been sitting on Angela's shoulder flew into the office. He tried not to watch as it flew circles around the girl, whom Stanzer introduced as Dawn, before it settled on Stanzer's shoulder. That hint of a voice was stronger now. His head ached, temples and at the base of his neck. Ethan decided it might be wise to sit down before he fell like a toppled oak and cleared off Stanzer's desk.
"You okay?" Stanzer settled on the edge of the desk, frowning down at him, while Dawn ran to a mini-fridge and pulled out a bottle of water to give to him.
"Guess I've been pulling too many all-nighters in a row," Ethan offered. He nodded his thanks as he took the bottle of water, and limited himself to small sips as he talked. "That sketch must have had some drug on it--bad smell when it burned." He felt better just speaking that theory. It was a better explanation than the others that pressed at his conscious thoughts, which he refused to consider. Not now anyway, in the light of day.
"Later," Stanzer said again, looking at Dawn.
Ethan decided he really hated them for that instant communication in just a glance, a frown, a flick of the eyes.
That spark flared brighter and Stanzer seemed to be looking at it--and nodding. He focused on Ethan again, with an assessing, weighing look that was all too familiar. Ethan had worn it himself, had seen his reflection wear that expression when he studied people he wasn't sure he could trust. Part of him rose up in protest. Hadn't he been as honest as he could be with these people? They were the ones with secrets, hidden knowledge they weren't sharing with him. They were the ones with strange enemies. They were the ones who believed in magic and dreams and lived in a town that reeked with otherness.
"What's Lanie's schedule, do you know?" Stanzer slid off the desk and looked over his shoulder at Dawn.
"Full day today." She settled down at her desk again. "Truth or consequences?"
"Let's hope not." He gestured for Ethan. "You up for walking?"
"I'm fine." Ethan stood, more relieved than he liked to admit when nothing protested, and the room didn't spin around him. He gestured thanks to Dawn and put down the half-empty bottle of water on the desk. He didn't ask where they were going until they had left Stanzer's office behind and had crossed two intersections, and then turned left.
"I have someone I want you to meet. Or maybe the better way to say it is, I want her to meet you." Stanzer stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered down the street as if they weren't doing anything other than enjoying the clear, bright, warm weather.
Ahead of them was a sprawling building that looked like several separate, older buildings had been connected together. The sign in front proclaimed it the Neighborlee Tattler. Ethan supposed that made sense. Newspaper reporters and private investigators made good partners. He wondered what Stanzer thought he could tell this reporter. Then he considered the way the other man had rephrased it--he wanted her to meet Ethan.
Before they had crossed the parking lot that stretched in front of the extended building, the door opened and a woman in a wheelchair rolled out and down the short ramp. She had tangled, dark hair, and wore capris, sandals, and a tie-dyed T-shirt that seemed to swirl inward as she pumped her wheels, crossing to meet them.
"Hey, Stanzer. Maurice said you had a new friend you wanted me to meet." She tipped her head to one side, looking up at Ethan. A frown dug around her eyes and flattened her mouth as Stanzer introduced her as Lanie Zephyr, copy editor and columnist for the paper.
"Something wrong?" Ethan had to ask.
"Just wondering... You aren't into dragon-slaying, are you?"
He backed up a step, startled at her words, and feeling as if the parking lot had tried to slide out from under his feet like a slippery rug on slick-polished marble.
She snorted. "Sorry. I just get these impressions of people when I first meet them, sometimes. Ask anybody around here, they'll tell you it's left over brain damage from when I ended up in this thing." She slapped one of her wheels. "So, what's up?"
"Ethan, just trust me on this, okay?" Stanzer gestured at Lanie. "I want you to hold Lanie's hand and tell her everything that happened when you went to see Angela."
"Hold her hand?" For about two seconds, Ethan seriously considered just turning and walking away. His weirdness quotient for the month had been used up in just one day in Neighborlee.
"I'm a reporter. I'm good at reading people," Lanie said, holding out her hand. "Stanzer wants to get my impression of your reaction to it, that's all. Any movements you make, if you start to sweat, that sort of thing. Intensifies if we're touching."
Chapter Seven
Ethan didn't buy that explanation for one minute, but his gut instinct was working overtime in this town. When logic didn't help, he knew better than to ignore that silent, often inexplicable guide. He wiped his hand on his thigh and gave it into Lanie's grip. He flinched a little, feeling the strength, the calluses, in that lean hand. Then he thought about the encounter with Angela inside Divine's Emporium, and decided to start the story with getting the sketch and commission from the Von Helados.
He left out the talisman and the report on the discoloration coating it, but told her basically what he had told Stanzer, about the big, empty circle on the map when he noted all the locations of the leads the Von Helados had given him--and Neighborlee in the center of the empty circle. He described the sketch, Stanzer taking him to Divine's, and Angela's reaction to the sketch. He didn't have to tell them about the agreement he had made with Angela, but he sensed trying to keep it a secret would be useless. She would tell her friends, and his holding back on that bit of information might work against him.
He decided in that moment that his strongest emotion was jealousy. He wished he had people to gather around him defensively when there was a threat, like the support Angela had in this town. Ethan didn't doubt that when more people learned about her problems, they would gather around, too. He usually enjoyed his solitude, his lack of encumbrances, freedom to move, and no one to be used against him when he angered the people he investigated. Not now. For the first time in what felt like decades, he felt alone, abandoned, maybe even cast out. It hurt.
"You don't want to believe in what happened," Lanie said, after she let go of his hand. She sat back in her wheelchair, eyes narrowed, looking up at him. "But you're one of those logical guys who's so honest, it hurts. You won't throw aside what you saw until you get proof it wasn't real." She snorted. "But there are a ton of things you saw, that you didn't want to see."
"Yeah, and that makes sense?" Ethan wanted to laugh. It caught in his throat. He thought of the laughing, colored lig
hts, and that spark that seemed to talk and have a man's face.
"You're on the up-and-up as much as you can be. And everything that happened freaks you, just a little. And you've got some knight in shining armor tendencies." Her face softened a little. "You're pissed at these Von Helados--did you know helado in Spanish means ice? Von hints at maybe Dutch or German or something, so I don't know what the connection is, but... You're planning on pretending to keep working with these creeps until you figure out what they really want from Angela, aren't you?"
"Yeah, that's pretty much the plan." He swallowed to keep from asking how she had pulled that thought from his head, when it wasn't really concrete until he had talked through the events at Divine's Emporium for the second time.
"You're okay, Ethan Jarrod. You need to get those blinders off your eyes, and you need to figure out a bunch of things, to let go and enjoy the unbelievable and just plain freaky, but you're okay."
"Okay?" He frowned at Stanzer, who visibly relaxed about ten degrees. "You brought me here to get a second opinion on whether I could be trusted, is that it? What does she do? Read auras? Read minds?" He caught himself just before he wiped the hand Lanie had held on the leg of his pants for a second time. "Okay, maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's-- I don't know what it is. I have to get out of here before my head explodes. No offense."
"I'd be worried if you weren't hacked off," Lanie said.
For a second, Ethan choked on something that could have been a shout or a burst of laughter. Exhaustion wiped away the fury that had been trying to coil up from inside him.
"I'll be in touch, Stanzer." The two men shook hands, and Ethan nodded to Lanie before turning and heading down the street. He was pretty sure he could get to the bed & breakfast from here without help. He needed to be alone.
* * * *
"What's the scoop?" Maurice climbed out from the tangle of Lanie's hair, where he had been hiding. He felt a flicker of sympathy for Ethan, realizing the P.I. could partly see him and hear him, and guessing how uncomfortable it made him.
"He's pretty much telling the truth," Lanie said.
"Pretty much?" Stanzer turned, looking down the street where Ethan's tall figure was still visible, striding away with a stiff-legged gait.
"He's not lying, but there are things that he senses aren't true and he's avoiding them. I have never read anybody like him before." She wiped her hand on her T-shirt. "That guy has a lot of problems he doesn't even know about. Makes everything murky. Of course, my human lie detector gig isn't always reliable, so who knows?"
"You mentioned something about slaying dragons before you touched him," Maurice said.
"Yeah. Just when you guys were coming across the parking lot, I had a glimpse of him in armor, rushing into something that sure seemed like flames, holding out his shield and waving this killer sword that would make Conan jealous. I've never seen anybody so pissed and scared at the same time." She rubbed her eyes and let out a groan. "Times like these make me sure God has a really nasty sense of humor. I never understand these visions until after the explanations all fall together, but I know I'm getting clues that could help if I could just figure them out."
"Maybe since this seems to revolve around Angela, you should tell her what you saw?" Stanzer suggested.
"What makes you think she doesn't know all this already?"
"Yeah," Maurice said. "She always knows things and keeps them to herself until the right time. The thing is..." He shuddered a little, feeling a wave of nausea that he realized was worry mixed with fear. It made his wings flutter like a storm-strength gale had just gone through.
"Usually she tells you, if nobody else?" Lanie guessed. "And if she hasn't shared anything with you, then maybe she's having a hard time figuring things out?"
"If she's lost," Stanzer said, as his face hardened with resolve, "it'll help her to know what the rest of us are getting. Or just knowing we're in this with her."
* * * *
Angela felt tears threatening when Lanie, Maurice, and Stanzer laid out what they had seen, and their impressions of Ethan, and their theories. She fought them for a few heartbeats, but realized that was ridiculous. She was only hurting herself. These were her friends, her family. If she couldn't be weak and weep in front of them, she was entirely alone in the universe.
Giving herself permission to let go and cry, naturally, dried up the aching, weary feeling. A few tears trickled down along her nose, but there were no sobs or shaking. She hugged Lanie and Stanzer and made them all laugh when she threatened to save up a big hug for Maurice when he was full-size again.
"I have been having strange dreams of a knight," she admitted, and her throat ached faintly with the effort of forming those words. "There is an overgrown garden that I sense was once a sanctuary, a paradise. It is dark, and the darkness is cold, and on the far side of a patch of moonlight I see him. At first I don't realize he is there, just a shape, perhaps a tree or a stone pillar, it varies from dream to dream. But when I see him and I realize he is a man, he frightens me. And he is angry. So furiously angry."
"Why?" Maurice asked.
"If I knew that, the dream wouldn't be so disturbing. I could do something about it." She sighed and looked around the sun-soaked back yard of her house.
Angela hadn't let herself indulge in relaxing in her garden in the warmth and sunshine since that night when the defensive net around Divine's had been threatened and she had been attacked. She still wasn't convinced the theft of the books and Ethan's appearance with that sketch that had tried to drain the life from her were related. Chances were very good that one had merely opened her up to the other. Perhaps the resonance from the attack had alerted other enemies to the presence of Divine's, or even to her existence, and let them know she was weakened.
"Stayn?" Dawn came around the side of the house, nearly glowing in her excitement. "Sorry." She stopped short, reacting to the somberness of the group.
"No, it's all right." Angela gestured for the girl to come join them in the seating group in the garden. "John said you had made contact with more members of the Hunt. Good news?"
"They're on their way. Fleeing major trouble." She swallowed hard, losing the glow for a moment. Angela ached for Dawn, for the disparity in time that kept her and Stanzer from complete partnership that would strengthen both of them.
Time works against us all, she mused, perhaps the most potent weapon in our enemies' hands.
Dawn quickly told them about four other exiles from the world she and Stanzer had fled from as children, guided by the Hounds. They had been gathered together under false pretenses by a rich, powerful, cruel man who knew far too much about them. He had the power and influence to falsify records and make threats if the young people he claimed were his long lost, kidnapped grandchildren, weren't given into his custody.
He had experimented on them, under the pretense of trying to awaken their memories, and instead had awakened their talents long before the proper time. The four had realized that this rich old man--Wolcott--was actually one of them, a traitor who had come with the Hunt and the Hounds to Earth, planning all along to betray them into Gahlmorag's hands when he eventually caught up with them. If he ever did. The disparity in time and place had kept this man separate from the rest of the Hunt, and allowed him to grow up and grow old, and powerful. He had killed his own son when his heir showed signs of choosing to be loyal to the Hunt and the vows the father had falsely made as a child.
"The thing is, Cinden says living here too long will eventually make us just as sick as Wolcott is now." Dawn glanced down at a printout of the communication that had come through the website she had designed to make contact with other members of the Hunt. "And while we can breed with the people of Earth, it's not a good idea. Oberon, Wolcott's grandson, had some major genetic drift and damage that was killing him, maybe even faster than Wolcott."
She swallowed hard and locked gazes with Stanzer. "The Lai family comes from very strong healers. Cinden's awakened gift let her c
leanse and heal a lot of things, straighten out what had been twisted. Obie has sworn to the Hunt, and he's run away with them. They're heading our way, but Cinden is afraid there's going to be a showdown, eventually. Wolcott knows what to look for, and how to identify members of the Hunt. Now that he knows about the time disparity, he'll find us. If he hasn't found us already."
"Let him," Angela said. "Bring the others here. If need be, we'll send all of you through a dimensional slit to hide, but your enemy will only grow stronger the longer you run and hide. Better to face him now, while he's still smarting from the loss of his grandson."
"But if a delay lets him get stronger, won't it let us grow stronger?" Dawn asked.
"Not if we spend all our time hiding and trying to ward off attack." Stanzer shook his head. "We need to go on the offensive as soon as possible. Angela, I hate to ask this of you, in the middle of all the trouble you're facing--"
"This Ethan understands, and he's not going to cooperate with the Von Helados, correct?" Gratified by the concern of her friends, Angela felt a pleasant warmth steal through her, pushing away some of the cold and tension. She wasn't alone. That bit of knowledge was more important than anything.
"Divine's Emporium exists to help and to heal and to provide sanctuary. Bring your friends here. We have a reprieve. Perhaps Ethan is such a strong disbeliever, he'll not only withstand anything else these people try to do, but he will convince them that I don't exist."
She held onto her serene smile and managed not to shudder as she relived, just for a moment, the draining feeling that washed over her, sucking at her energy, her mind, her soul, the very colors of her life, when Ethan had pulled out that pencil sketch. If he hadn't succeeded in destroying it, if Maurice hadn't shouted "Fire!" and lit the first lantern he could find, that sketch might very well have drained all the color and life from her, leaving her little more than a pencil sketch. Something of a reverse "portrait of Dorian Gray" situation.
The farther Ethan Jarrod stayed away from Divine's Emporium, from Neighborlee, and from her, the happier Angela would be.
Divine Knight Page 10
