I figured his question was rhetorical, so I didn’t answer, but I was thinking about the woman we released two nights ago.
“What do you think we should do?” I asked.
“We certainly can’t go back to your aunts’ house while we’re being tailed. We’ll have to either ditch them or persuade them to go elsewhere,” Rafe replied.
“I don’t want to fight while we have my Aunts with us,” I said.
I was watching the helicopter, waiting for Rafe’s reply, when there was a flash of light beneath the helicopter.
“They’re firing on us!” I shouted.
Rafe turned to watch the fiery streak that was cutting the distance between the helicopter and us.
“You’d think they’d have learned a lesson the other night,” Rafe said.
“What are you going to do?” asked Ashley.
“Well, we can’t take down that helicopter over the middle of the city. There’s too great a chance of innocents being in the way. The missile is another matter,” Rafe replied. He raised an arm, and his left fist glowed golden against the night sky. Lightning flashed down from a cloudless sky and struck the missile. It exploded in a ball of fire.
“Wow! You did that?” Emily asked.
“Don’t bother him with questions when he’s working,” I scolded, for once feeling like the adult rather than the child when dealing with my aunt, Command Sergeant Major Emily Levins.
Rafe didn’t wait for another attack. He triggered another tat that glowed beneath his leathers. “Okay, here we go.”
A moment later, I felt a shift as we flew through a portal.
In an instant, we were somewhere else. Rafe closed the portal behind us and said, “Beast, head more northerly.”
“What was that?” Aunt Emily asked.
“A gateway,” I said. “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”
“Oh, my God,” Ashley said as she pointed downwards.
We were flying a thousand feet over a river valley mostly covered by a dark forest and a scattering of lights that could have been campfires.
“Where is this place?” Emily asked.
“I have no idea. Rafe?” I said.
“It’s a peaceful world. We should be safe here. We’ll cross back over as soon as we’re far enough away from the helicopter to be sure they can’t track us.”
“Do we have to go back right away? I’ve never been to another world,” Aunt Ashley said.
“We can’t stay away too long. We have business in our world, and this could just be another attempt to distract us from our mission,” Rafe said.
“You didn’t say what your mission was. What brought you to the Springs and why is someone launching air-to-air missiles at you?” Aunt Emily asked.
“I can’t really explain the second question, but for the first, Verðandi sent us here to fix a problem. It’s what we do.”
“What kind of problem?” Ashley asked.
“We’re supposed to be preventing Ragnarök,” Rafe added.
“What’s he talking about?” Aunt Emily asked me quietly.
“It’s the Norse equivalent of Armageddon. The gods get together and have a bloodbath. It’s supposed to bring about the end of the world,” I answered equally softly.
Emily was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “You wouldn’t be pulling your favorite Aunt’s leg, now would you?”
“Favorite? I have two aunts now. Maybe Ashley is my favorite,” I said.
Aunt Emily released her tight grip on my waist with one hand and pinched the nerve in the top of my thigh. I squealed, drawing both Rafe’s and Ashley’s attention.
“Really, Emily, you think this is a time for horseplay?” Ashley scolded.
“Ah, I didn’t hurt her,” Emily complained in a petulant tone.
“She’s right, Aunt Ashley. She always does that when I tease her. It’s just her way of showing affection,” I said.
“What? Affection? I wasn’t showing any such thing. I was trying to get you to–”
“Sweetheart, don’t you think you could save that kind of behavior for when we’re in our own world. Look around you, dear. This is another world! Aren’t you amazed?”
Aunt Emily was quiet for a moment, and then she said, “Looks like it could be anywhere in North America.”
Rafe laughed.
“What’s so funny, junior?” Aunt Emily asked.
“If you could see who was around those campfires, you wouldn’t be so caviler about what world you are on…and don’t call me junior. I was a Wanderer before you were anything more than a twinkle in your father’s eyes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What he means, Aunt Emily is that he’s been a Wanderer for more than forty years. You are considerably younger than Raphael.”
Aunt Emily seemed to puff up. “That’s ridiculous. He can’t be much older than you.”
Aunt Ashley laughed. “Sweetheart, haven’t you been paying attention? Tess is Rafe’s apprentice. That alone implies that he’s a mature Wanderer, someone who has spent years learning a magic that I can only guess at.”
“Rafe told me I’d probably be his apprentice for twenty years,” I said.
“There, you see, sweetheart. Twenty years just to learn everything that makes a person a Wanderer. How old would you have to be to actually have an apprentice?”
Rafe laughed. “You can look me up, Emily. I was born in Colorado Springs and enlisted in the Army here.”
“That doesn’t make you older than me,” Emily stated flatly.
“The first time I died was in Vietnam, in 1969, before my twentieth birthday,” Rafe said.
Aunt Emily’s voice didn’t sound as confident as before when she said, “You expect me to believe that?”
Rafe shook his head and turned away from us. “I don’t really care if you believe me or not. It’s not something that would keep me up at night, but if you question your niece’s calling, you can easily find my birth certificate and my DD-214 at the local courthouse. Back then, they told us to put a copy in the official records at our courthouse in case we lost our copy. I understand that now everything is on a computer, so that’s not necessary, but when I was discharged in 1969, things were a little different.”
“You don’t act like a senior citizen,” Aunt Emily grumbled.
I had to laugh at that. “You are certainly right there. Rafe is as young as he looks, in every department but experience.”
Rafe joined in my laughter. “What your niece means, is that I have experiences that no one my apparent age could possibly have. Trust your niece, Emily, she wouldn’t deceive you.”
“I don’t know. This is just too much to absorb at once,” Emily complained.
“That’s all right, Emily. We won’t be around long, and you can take your time settling with what your new reality is,” Rafe said. He said something low to Beast and they angled steeply downward toward the valley floor. Maia followed without instructions from me and in a few seconds, we were flying just above the forest’s crown.
“This should be far enough. We’re going back to our world,” Rafe said.
“Do we have to?” Ashley asked.
A portal opened in front of us and before Rafe could reply, we were back in Colorado Springs, flying just above the houses.
“Set down on a side street,” Rafe said.
Beast growled a response that I didn’t catch and then curved off to the right, aiming toward a street where streetlamps were dim or non-existent. He touched down softly on the pavement, and a moment later, Maia lit beside him.
“Time to morph,” Rafe said.
“You too, Maia. Thanks for the ride,” I added.
“It was my pleasure, Tess,” Maia said.
Beast began to shift, and I could see Ashley was having trouble holding onto Rafe as the manticore morphed into a Harley. A moment later, Maia did the same. It was the first time I’d been on her when she morphed. It was a strange sensation going from astride a flesh and bloo
d hippogriff to a metal and leather Harley.
“Jesus!” Aunt Emily exclaimed as she struggled to hold onto my waist during the transformation.
A few seconds later, where there had been mythological creatures, there were just a couple of Harleys, three women, and one man.
“Okay, we should have lost whatever tail we had on us. Let’s get your Aunts home before something else happens,” Rafe said. He pointed to the left and Beast roared off in that direction with Maia and us right behind them.
We were less than a mile from my aunts’ home, and we were there before Aunt Emily could ask any more questions. We pulled into the inclined driveway and stopped. I put my feet down to brace the bike and waited until Emily dismounted to kill the engine and swing my own leg over the frame.
“Beast, you and Maia stay here. We’ll be leaving soon,” Rafe ordered.
“So soon? Can’t you stay for dinner?” Aunt Ashley asked.
“I really think it would be best for you if we get moving. I hadn’t expected that attack and I don’t want to draw them to your home,” Rafe said.
“I thought we lost them when we switched worlds,” Aunt Emily said.
“Probably, but since I don’t know how they reacquired us, I can’t be certain. You will be safer if we stay away from you until we finish our local business.”
“And then what?” Aunt Ashley asked.
“And then we’ll move on to the next problem. There’s always another problem for us to handle,” Rafe said.
Aunt Emily turned to me, and before I realized it, she had me in a bear hug.
“Aunt Emily, you’re crushing my ribs.”
After a few more seconds, she eased up and stepped back. “Look, Tess, I don’t care if you have a destiny with this Wanderer character. I don’t want you to be a stranger. Come see your auntie when you have time.”
“That goes for both of us,” Aunt Ashley said. A moment later, I was in another woman’s arms. She squeezed me almost as hard as Emily had.
I was certainly not used to this much affection, but I enjoyed it far more than I would have thought.
When she released me, I saw Rafe had walked back up the steps to the front door. He was doing something at the doorjamb. The three of us climbed the steps, arm in arm and reached him as he finished burning characters into the wood of the door jamb.
“What’s that?” Aunt Ashley asked.
Rafe finished, and the characters glowed gold in the darkness. “I was just fixing the ward you put on the house. I added a little something that I use. Trust me; it’ll take a powerful supernatural adversary to get past your threshold now.”
Ashley ran her fingers across the letters and made an oohing sound. “I can feel the power.”
“Then you have potential. You should find someone to instruct you and improve your talent rather than wasting it,” Rafe said.
Emily mumbled something and Ashley frowned at her. “I can learn more magic and still wear the uniform. The two aren’t exclusive.”
It sounded like the beginning of an argument. I caught Rafe’s eye and motion toward our familiars with my head.
He nodded. “Ladies, it was a pleasure meeting you. Good luck with the magic, Ashley. Emily, I’ll take care of Tess.”
“See that you do,” Emily said, holding out her hand.
Rafe took it, and they shook briefly. When he held out a hand to Ashley, she pushed it aside and hugged him. “Come back when you can. You and Tess are family.”
Rafe seemed to be at a loss for a response, so I nudged his arm and then started down the steps.
I mounted Maia. Her engine roared to life. I waved a last goodbye to my aunts, hoping it wouldn’t be the last goodbye and when Rafe was on Beast, I started back down the street the way we’d come.
Chapter 17
Raphael
We were well past Joe’s deadline to join him for supper, so we picked out a restaurant/bar on South Tejon called Southside Johnnies and grabbed a quick meal of burgers and beer. Neither of us spoke much during our meal, I was thinking of the idea of Tesla’s inventions and how I could adopt something like that as a weapon. I was so engrossed in the subject that I really didn’t notice that Tess was lost in her own thoughts.
We finished up and motored back up Cheyenne Mountain to Joe’s cabin. Joe was sitting on his porch enjoying the chill night air as we pulled up. He raised a hand in greeting, and I waved back.
“Should I let Maia go for the night?” Tess asked.
“Sure, but tell her to stay with Beast until he’s sure she has my restrictions on behavior down pat. We don’t need reports of hippogriff’s stealing animals from Cheyenne Mountain Zoo or anything like that.”
“I do not feed on caged prey,” Maia snorted derisively.
Tess laughed. “He wasn’t trying to insult you, Maia.”
“He does a good job for something he isn’t trying to do.”
I avoided rolling my eyes and said, “My apologies, Maia. That was just an example, and I could have come up with a better one.”
“She’ll be fine with me,” Beast growled.
“I’m sure,” I said.
Our familiars morphed into their true forms and in a blast of wind, disappeared into the night sky. I watched them soar away and then turned toward Joe’s cabin. We crossed the level area next to his pickup and up the steps to his porch.
“Welcome, Rafe, Tess. There’s beer in the fridge. Did things go all right today?”
“I’ll get them, Rafe,” Tess said and opened the cabin’s door.
I sat down in the only other chair, a straight back chair with a cane bottom, and filled Joe in on the afternoon and evening’s events. He listened quietly, nodding from time to time.
The door opened, and Tess popped back out with two cans of beer. She passed one to me and sat down on the top step between Joe and me.
“Having someone track you down with a helicopter must be troubling. I don’t understand how a mundane could have tracked you,” Joe said.
I sipped at my beer, I wasn’t really thirsty, and nodded. “It is worrisome. They have someone who can help them with magic, or they’re working for a magic user, maybe even Rowle, but that doesn’t tell me how they spotted us flying over the city. We were behind glamours and even if they could see through them, we were a thousand feet up.”
“Yes, I don’t know what spell they could have used to track you. I assume you haven’t left anything behind?” Joe asked.
“I’ve been as careful as always, no blood, hair, or fingernails for anyone to use for a tracking spell. Either I’ll figure out how to block it, or I’ll have to pay a visit on those who are harassing us. If they’re all dead, I won’t have to worry about them tracking us.”
“That would solve one of your problems,” Joe said with a nod as he sipped at his beer.
We sat in silence for a few minutes until Joe asked, “Have you thought of who you are going to get to help you with this immediate problem?”
“I gave it a lot of thought, but there’s no one in the Springs area that I’d put in that kind of jeopardy. But I think I may have a trick or two that could even the odds.”
“Oh? Anything I can help you with?” Joe asked.
“Well, there are a few things I need from a hardware store. Could I borrow your pickup in the morning?”
“Of course, the keys are in it,” Joe said.
“What do you need from the store?” Tess asked.
I ignored her question for the moment and asked Joe. “What do you know about Tesla?”
“The inventor? I thought he was as mad as a hatter. A genius, there’s no doubt of that, but if he’d had just a touch of magic to go with his genius, he would have changed the world.”
“You knew Tesla?” Tess asked.
“I met him when I was still a teenager before I started on the path to becoming a shaman. Uncle, my tribe’s shaman for many decades, thought I should meet this man who could do things that were almost magic.”
&nbs
p; “I didn’t know you’d met him,” I said.
“I haven’t told you all the people I’ve met. Remind me, and I’ll tell you about Mr. Roosevelt someday.”
“Teddy?” I asked.
“Of course. Now, answer Tess’s question about the hardware store.”
I explained my idea. It was still rough, but I thought it would work.
When I finished, Joe nodded. “Yes, I can see how that might work.”
“Do you think it’ll be enough to handle a horde?” Tess asked.
“Don’t let the horde thing worry you. I’d rather have a horde of lesser demons than one named demon. There’s a different technique for stopping a horde, but in my experience, hundreds of low-level creatures are not nearly as scary as one really powerful bastard.”
“Um, hum,” Tess murmured.
“What’s troubling you?” I asked.
“I saw this nature film once. It was about how all the animals got out of the way when soldier ants marched through the jungle. Everything, no matter how big and powerful, got dragged down and devoured or ran.”
“And you think I’m the animal that didn’t get out of the way?”
Her head wagged. “No, it’s our job. I don’t see how we can get out of the way. It’s just that we need to remember that even the mighty can be brought down by enough ants.”
I wanted to laugh and tell her not to worry, but I didn’t.
Instead, I got up and got the three of us each another beer. Eventually, the moon rose over the eastern plains. It was a gibbous moon, at least three quarters full and waning.
Sometime before midnight, Tess yawned mightily and stretched, pulling her leathers tight against her lean form.
“I’m about done for the night. I’m going to bed.”
“Do you want me to join you?” I asked.
She gave it a moment’s thought and replied, “No, I’m good. You and Joe finish catching up. Joe, I’ll see you in the morning.
“Goodnight, Tess. May your dreams be pleasant,” Joe said.
“Thank you, goodnight, Rafe.”
“Goodnight, Tess.”
She went inside, shutting the door behind her.
Wanderers 3: Garden of The Gods (The Wanderers) Page 21
