Wanderers 3: Garden of The Gods (The Wanderers)

by Richard Bamberg

  I wanted to hide behind Rafe and wait for it to go away.

  Instead, I swallowed the excess saliva that had filled my mouth, set my shoulders back, and slipped off my bike to be ready to fight.

  The man, Rowle I guessed, threw a leg over the beast’s neck and slid to the ground.

  He was tall, even at this distance I could see he was over six feet tall, and muscular. His hair was dark, but with red streaks that reminded me of Rafe’s own hair. A dark great coat covered him from neck to ankles, showing nothing else of his clothing except for a pair of black boots. On his head was a black Stetson. Sheesh, I had to admit that he had succeeded at looking the part of an evil bad ass.

  I felt a snap of power near me and guessed that Rafe had activated his shield. I couldn’t see it unless we were meshed, but I didn’t see any other sign of him getting ready for a fight.

  “Rowle, was that little ambush yours?” Rafe asked.

  Rowle stopped about thirty feet from us. “Always to the point, eh, Raphael?”

  “When I’m dealing with you.”

  Rowle smiled, it almost made him look friendly. Then he looked directly at me, and his smile lost any sign of appearing friendly. “You’ve found an apprentice. Good for you, but a woman? What was Verðandi thinking?”

  “She’s as qualified as any of us were when we were reaped,” Rafe said.

  “Oh? Killed in actual combat and not some accident?” He studied me long enough to make me feel like a target and then finally cast his gaze back on Rafe. “Well, I’m not here to judge your apprentice.”

  “Why are you here, Rowle?” Rafe demanded.

  “I just wanted to see if you have given my proposal its proper contemplation. How about it, Rafe, ready to join me? Of course, you can bring your apprentice,” he added.

  “I gave you my answer the last time we met. I’m not one who changes his mind about such matters.”

  “But that was before you started practicing night magic,” Rowle asserted. He smiled again, this time, it was as if he had won a point in this pissing contest.

  “News travels fast,” Rafe said. “Where would you have heard such things?”

  Rowle shrugged, the great coat moved up with his shoulders high enough for me to see the tops of his boots.

  “I have my sources. I’m not the only one involved. I told you as much the last time we talked.”

  “Yes, but I seem to recall that you left out a few details during that conversation,” Rafe said with a growl that was almost Beast-like.

  “Oh, what details are those?”

  “Just that you had killed off my fellow Wanderers. Why didn’t you brag about that, Rowle?” Rafe snarled.

  Rowle’s palms spread and turned upwards at his waist. “Raphael, what good would that have done? I’m no braggart and if I couldn’t impress you on the importance of joining me without the threat of a similar fate, why would you trust me?”

  “I’ve never trusted you, Rowle. You’ve killed those I consider my family, and I will never join you.”

  “I gathered as much when I heard of your using night magic. I told you that you would never defeat me without it and yet if you use it, I predicted you would come around to my way of thinking.”

  Rafe cleared his throat noisily and then spit onto the ground between them. “Tell me something, Rowle, since we’re being honest.”

  “Certainly, Raphael, what question weighs on your mind?”

  “Why didn’t you ever get an apprentice? Did Verðandi realize what you were becoming or is it that you had to kill your apprentice because he wouldn’t join you?”

  Rowle blinked sharply. He stared from Rafe to me, and I felt my spine chill under his gaze.

  “When you finally decide to join me, I will give you your answer,” Rowle said.

  “What’s your next move, Rowle?” Rafe asked, ignoring the larger man’s prediction. “The page with the first element of the spell was lost during our last encounter. How can you open the portals without it?”

  Rowle grinned again and turned back toward his mount. “That would make it too easy for you. You’ll have to figure that out on your own.”

  He levitated onto the back of his dragon and took a long quiet look at Rafe. Finally, he said, “It’s always good to see you, Raphael. Some things in life are worth waiting for, and you joining me is one of them.”

  He gazed at me once more, and his right hand rose to touch the brim of his Stetson. “A pleasure to meet you, lady. Maybe next time Raphael will show proper manners and introduce us.”

  I swallowed hard but kept my mouth shut. I hoped I’d never see him again.

  He snapped his fingers, and the dragon leapt skyward. We watched until they disappeared into the darkness.

  “Oh, my God! I so thought he was coming to fight,” I said softly.

  “I was a little worried about that myself,” Rafe admitted. “But Rowle likes to play with his victims.”

  “That familiar of his, wow! I know you said he rode a dragon, but damn, that thing is huge. What is it when it’s not in its true form?”

  “A Chevy Suburban, big and black and looks like it should have government plates on it.”

  “So what now? Do you think we’re still safe for the time being?” I asked.

  “From him, yes, at least from direct attack. I imagine our ambush was organized by him though and I’m sure he’ll have something else to make our lives interesting.”

  “And you still have no idea why he hasn’t tried to just kill you like all the other Wanderers?”

  Rafe shrugged. “He claims to want me to join him, but I don’t know if he made that offer to the other Wanderers. For all I know it’s just a ruse. He knows there’s no one left, besides us, to stop his plans, so maybe he wants to stretch out the game.”

  “Then what should we do?”

  I felt another ping of power as Rafe dropped his shield.

  “Now we get something to eat and hit the road. A moving target is harder to hit.”

  I sat back on my Harley, hit the electric starter, and the big twin roared to life. Rafe mounted Beast, and his engine kicked over without Rafe doing anything. There was something to be said for having a familiar possess your ride. According to Rafe, Beast didn’t use gas, oil, or tires. He never needed maintenance and could steer even better than Rafe at speeds that I wouldn’t have thought possible if I hadn’t been on Beast when he’d been doing it. I was excited about summoning my own familiar.

  Rafe nodded toward me, and we pulled out of the copse, following the narrow ruts that led along the riverbank back to Highway 87/287. The sky was getting lighter, and a line of clouds in the distant east cast a ruddy glow across the landscape.

  We rode side by side, keeping near the speed limit. The sun hadn’t come up yet, so this stretch of four-lane blacktop was limited to 75 mph and even with the helmet’s visor and the small windscreen, I could feel the buffeting of the wind. I glanced over at Rafe. He didn’t have the same problem. He didn’t wear a helmet but had one stowed on the back of Beast. His short hair moved slightly in the wind, but I knew from experience that Beast shielded his riders from the major effects of their travel.

  Dumas, Texas appeared in front of us before we’d gone twenty miles. The streetlights were still lit, and there was a little traffic, but not much this close to six a.m.

  We hadn’t gone very far into town when Rafe pointed toward a little place on the left. The sign read Kountry Donuts and Burritos. I had a moment of disappointment. I’d been looking forward to a big meal, and this didn’t sound like what I was going to get.

  We waited for a few seconds for a couple of southbound semis to pass and then pulled across the street and parked beside the small building. I left my helmet on my handlebars while we went inside. The restaurant had a few tables, but only one was empty. I looked at Rafe questioningly.

  “We’ll take it with us,” Rafe responded to my unasked question.

  “That’s easy for you. You can leave the driving
to Beast, but I can’t.” It sounded somewhat bitchy to my ears, but I had expected a big sit-down meal.

  Rafe chuckled and slapped me lightly on the back. “Okay, Tess, we’ll sit down, but I want to get moving.”

  Rafe ordered at the counter and got six steak burritos, two coffees, and a couple of donuts. I thought that sounded like enough for me, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to share. Our food came, and we sat at the one unoccupied table.

  The burritos were a lot larger than I expected but I was well into the third burrito before my stomach began to feel like I’d had enough. Rafe polished off two and then one of the donuts while I eyed the last burrito.

  “That one’s yours, too,” he said when he saw me looking.

  I nodded, having stuffed too much of number three into my maw to speak. It had been like this every morning since he’d started healing my injuries. I’d wake up with more flesh on my stumps and an appetite that would have made a crocodile envious.

  I picked up the last burrito and stuffed its wrapped goodness into a jacket pocket. “I know you’re in a hurry. I don’t understand why, but that’s all right.”

  I scarfed down my donut and gulped the last of my coffee.

  Rafe grinned. It gave him a cocky air. Not that he wasn’t cocky enough for any two men without the grin. If he had any faults, that I could identify in our brief time together, it was cockiness. He always assumed he could whip anything that came along and so far, he had been right. Unless you counted him getting ambushed and killed by Laura. I didn’t count that one, after all, she had been possessed by a shade, and her stabbing Rafe in the chest with his own knife wasn’t exactly something you could anticipate. I felt a twinge of regret. It had been two nights since I’d watched Rafe plunge the same knife, in its sword form, into Laura’s chest. Killing her had affected Rafe more than it had me. He tried not to show it, but I could sense the great sadness in him. When we meshed, it was impossible for him to hide his emotions from me and even when he tried not to think about Laura, I could still feel the emotions he was trying to suppress. I wanted him to share how he felt, but he’d been alone too long (more than forty years) to open up, even to his brand spanking new apprentice.

  We dropped the trash from our meal into the receptacle by the door and returned to our rides. We took a few more minutes for me to top off my tank at the Allsup’s across the street and then we were back on the road, turning west along Highway 87 toward Dalhart, Texas. Rafe had shown me a map in a rest area back on the Interstate south of Amarillo, and he had traced out our intended route toward Colorado.

  Since Rafe wasn’t doing a lot of talking over the wind–again, it hadn’t been a problem when we were both on Beast–the ride gave me plenty of time to think about what had happened to my life since I’d been killed in Afghanistan. The shock of finding out I’d actually died was just the start. Then there was the Valkyrie who had brought me back. The Valkyries are harvesters of the dead, but apparently, they only harvest warriors on the battlefield. I hadn’t ever considered myself a warrior, but I guess I fit the description. I was in the Army and in combat, but I’d had medic training and spent more time taking care of my buddies’ injuries than trying to inflict them on the Taliban. Still, the IED that had cost me my left hand and most of my right leg hadn’t discriminated between actual warriors and those of us who carried the rifle more for self-defense than for assaulting the enemy.

  Regardless, when Rafe showed up and told me I was his apprentice and that he could restore me, I thought he was nuts. A very handsome nut, but a nut nonetheless. He had immediately healed the burns scaring the left side of my face, earning him more than a little trust.

  That was less than a week ago and since then I’ve seen him fight frost giants, Amazons, magic users, and a couple of shades who had possessed his old flame, Laura and the son Rafe didn’t know he had, Alex. Alex had survived Rafe’s fight with the shades, but Laura hadn’t.

  We’d left yesterday before Alex could bury his mother, and Rafe had decided not to tell Alex he was his father. I thought it was kind of a chicken response, but Rafe may have been right about it. Alex had enough to mess with his mind without learning it was his father who had killed his mother.

  I was missing Alex too. We’d hit it off, and he was only a couple of years younger than I was. It wasn’t entirely my fault that I had dragged the eighteen-year-old into bed at the first opportunity. After all, Rafe and I had been training constantly and a major component of the training involved meshing our emotions. The primary side effect of meshing your auras and emotions was that it made you incredibly horny. Rafe had tried to keep our relationship platonic, which hadn’t lasted long once I jumped him before he was well awake. I had to smile at the memory. The sixty-something-year-old man was trapped in the body of someone not yet twenty-five and those years had racked up a lot of experience. Some of it was dedicated to killing things that needed killing, but some of it was better expressed in the bedroom.

  Rafe had explained how Wanderers were not immortal, but we only aged a year or so for every decade. He’d been younger than I was when he was reaped from a battlefield in Vietnam and after all this time, he still was carded by most bartenders.

  As the miles passed at 75 mph, I spent more time than I should have comparing the man and his son. Rafe had the experience, but his son was so enthusiastic.

  Chapter 4

  Raphael

  We reached Dalhart’s lower speed limit, 35 mph, and I glanced to my right to see if Tess wanted to stop. For some reason, she had a wide smile on her face.

  I let go of the throttle and tapped her arm. She turned her head toward me and her smile widened.

  “Something amusing?”

  Tess shook her head. “Just a memory.”

  “Want to share?” I asked.

  “Not right now, maybe later,” she responded.

  I nodded, curious, but respectful of her wishes. “I just wanted to ask if you needed a pit break.”

  Tess looked thoughtful for a moment and then asked, “What’s the road like ahead? Is this like the last stop for a hundred miles?”

  I grinned. “No, that would be Texline. It’s about another half hour up the road.”

  “Okay, I can wait until then.”

  “Your choice. I know you’re not as used to spending the day in the saddle and I don’t want you to get as sore as you were yesterday.”

  She returned my grin. “What’s the matter? Do you worry that I’m going to insist on that massage this time?”

  Well, what could I say to that? “Not at all. If you really want a massage when we camp for the day, I’ll be happy to give you one.”

  “Really? You seemed reluctant last night,” Tess returned.

  “Not so much reluctant as…” I trailed off. I had been reluctant to give her a massage. What was my problem? I didn’t often have to query the motive behind my actions. If my apprentice wanted a massage, then I should have given her one. Of course, with Tess, I was willing to bet that a massage would involve a lot more skin-to-skin action than just working out stiff muscles.

  I noticed she was keeping an eye on me, waiting for me to finish. A traffic light changed red ahead of us, and we had to stop behind a big farm truck. Black smoke rose from its vertical exhaust stacks.

  “Okay,” I finally admitted. “I was a little reluctant. But don’t think I’m above giving my apprentice a massage, if she needs one.”

  Tess laughed. “Careful what you promise, I may hold you to it.”

  I shook my head. Even after nearly a week, I still wasn’t used to Tess. She was a great choice for an apprentice; smart, brave, willing to work hard, everything I could have wanted in an apprentice. But she was so much more. That was her only problem.

  The light changed. The semi was slow taking off, and after the left lane had cleared a bit, I motioned for Tess to follow and we pulled around the semi and accelerated up to the speed limit. In a few minutes, we were back on the open road, following the four-lane blac
ktop toward the northwest and New Mexico.

  We did a pit stop in Texline and a few miles later drove through lonely Clayton, New Mexico. We turned more westerly leaving Clayton and followed part of the Cimarron branch of the Santa Fe Trail. This area has some of the loneliest stretches of road in the lower forty-eight. Except for some parts of northern Nevada and central Wyoming, few places could boast as much barren openness. Trees were almost non-existent, although occasionally a copse of stunted evergreens could be seen along the lee side of small rounded hills. The few trees alongside the roads were shaped by the wind, all of their branches pointed downwind, toward the east. A few shield volcanos, long dormant, poked up from the terrain, but each of these was as barren as the rest of the landscape.

  A train, on the Union-Pacific tracks that paralleled Highway 87 for hundreds of miles, came past us. It carried thousands of tons of high-grade coal from the vast fields in Wyoming toward the ever-hungry power plants in central Texas. It took several minutes to pass us completely.

  I was watching it disappearing behind us when I noticed a speck in my side mirror. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but when it was still there half-dozen minutes later, I grew suspicious.

  “Tess, at the next train underpass, we’re stopping for a minute,” I called to Tess.

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure; it might just be my paranoia, but better safe than sorry.”

  While the highway had small culverts wherever flash floods were apt to fill the small arroyos at a moment’s notice, the railroads were more worried about their tracks and this section of track had small trestles that were dozens of feet in length across even the smallest of the rain cut arroyos. We reached another one in a mile or so, and I slowed and pulled off the highway onto the rarely used dirt path that ran under the tracks.

  As soon as we were out of sight beneath the trestle, I cast a glamour on Beast and another one on Tess’s motorcycle.