The Second Summoning

by Tanya Huff

  “It’s okay, sir. She’s perfectly safe.”

  “She is?” Something about the young man made him feel like a fool for asking. He considered himself a good judge of character—well, he had to be in his position, didn’t he?—and by voice, expression, and bearing, this stranger said, “I will have my withdrawal slip filled out properly before I approach the teller, I would never stand too close at the ATM machine, and your pens are sacred to me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Oh.” The blue eyes behind the glasses made him think of contributions to retirement savings plans done monthly rather than left until the last minute. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “No, sir, St. John’s. Newfoundland.”

  “Small world. One of my tellers is from St. John’s. Rose Mooran.”

  “Does she have a brother named Conrad, then? I played Peewee hockey with a Conrad Mooran.”

  “No, not her brother, that would be her husband.”

  “Husband? Lord t’undering Jesus.”

  They spent a while longer discussing hockey and the relative size of the world, then Mr. Tannison patted a muscular arm, flashed a relieved smile, and hurried back across the street.

  The clutch of eight-year-olds were a little harder to impress.

  When Dean limped back to the truck, Claire was standing by the passenger door looking a little stunned.

  “Is it closed?”

  She nodded.

  “What’s wrong?”

  When she held up her hand, her fingertips were dusted with black glitter.

  “Char?”

  “Demon residue.”

  “Once you’re in the city, where are you planning on going, dear?”

  Byleth stared out past the Porters’ heads at the Toronto skyline, thrusting up into a gray sky like a not particularly attractive pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. “As far away from you as possible,” she muttered.

  To her surprise, Harry Porter lifted an admonishing finger toward her reflection in the rearview mirror. “That is quite enough of that, young lady. There is no call for you to be so rude. You will apologize to Mrs. Porter this instant.”

  “As if.”

  “Fine.” At the first break in traffic, he moved into the right-hand lane and began slowing down.

  “Harry…”

  “No, Eva. She apologizes, or she walks the rest of the way.”

  Demons understood bluffing. Byleth folded her arms and waited.

  When the car finally rolled to a stop, Harry put it into park and turned around. “Last chance,” he said. “Apologize, or this is as far as we go together.”

  She tucked her chin into her collar and glowered.

  “If that’s the way you want it.” He unbuckled his seat belt, got out, and opened her door.

  When she stared up into his face through the blast of frigid air, she realized he wasn’t bluffing. “You actually want me to walk. We’re still miles away!”

  “We’re still kilometers away,” Harry corrected. “And I want you to apologize. It’s your choice whether or not you walk.”

  It was cold outside. It was warm inside the car.

  “Get back in the car and drive.”

  He merely stood there. She might as well have tried to command a rock.

  “I’ll hitchhike, then, and get picked up by a mass murderer, and then how will you feel when they find a broken bleeding body by the side of the road.” It wouldn’t be her broken, bleeding body, but he didn’t need to know that.

  Harry shook his head. “Not even mass murderers would stop for you. Not at these speeds. You’ll be walking all the way.”

  “I don’t want to walk!”

  “Then apologize.”

  The car rocked as four transports passed, belching diesel fumes. She contemplated kicking Harry into traffic, but Eva would likely fall apart and be totally useless and although she knew how to bring plagues and pestilence, she didn’t know how to drive.

  “Make up your mind, Byleth.”

  “Fine.” Anything to get her into the city where she could ditch these losers. “I’m s…” Her very nature fought with the word. “I’m sorr…” She had to form each letter independently, forcing it out past reluctant lips. “I’m sorry. Okay?”

  “Eva?”

  “Apology accepted, dear.”

  “Now was that so hard?” Harry asked, smiling at her reflection as he slid back behind the wheel.

  “Yeah, it was.”

  “Don’t worry. It’ll get easier with time.”

  She was afraid of that.

  “Excuse me.” Braced against the movement of the escalator, Samuel reached forward and tapped the heavyset matron on one virgin-wool covered shoulder. “The sign says that if you stand on the right, then people in a hurry can walk up the left.”

  “There’s no space on the right,” she pointed out sharply.

  “Then you should have waited.”

  “And maybe you should mind your own business.”

  “You shouldn’t let the fear of being on your own keep you in a bad relationship. Your husband is controlling and manipulative, and just because he doesn’t love you anymore, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t love yourself…”

  The sound of her palm connecting with his cheek disappeared into the ambient noise. In the fine tradition of mall crawlers everywhere, those standing too close to have missed the exchange either stared fixedly at nothing or isolated themselves from the incident behind a loud and pointless conversation with their nearest companion. As they reached the second level and the heavyset woman bustled off to the left, Diana smoothed the tiny hole closed, grabbed Samuel’s arm, and yanked him off to the right.

  “What was that all about?”

  Rubbing at the mark on his cheek, he looked confused. “I was just trying to help, you know, do that message thing.”

  “And what help is a message telling that woman her husband’s a creep who doesn’t love her anymore?”

  “She knows that. Now she needs to move on.”

  “And you know that because…?”

  He shoved his hands in his front pockets and shrugged. “I have Higher Knowledge.”

  “Which gives you personal information on the life of a perfect stranger but neglects to tell you what a stoplight means?”

  “Yes.”

  She’d never heard such a load of sanctimonious crap. “Just don’t do that again, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you know that with the price of those boots you could feed a Third World child for a year?”

  Something in the gold-brown eyes compelled an honest answer.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “So…?” Samuel prompted, smiling encouragingly.

  “So why don’t you mind your own fucking business, dude?”

  “That’s the guilt talking.”

  “Yeah?” A very large hand wound itself into the front of Samuel’s jacket. “And in a minute you’re gonna feel my fist talking!”

  Diana handed the shoebox to the clerk and reached into the possibilities just in time to keep an innocent Bystander from committing mayhem on an angel—as justified as that mayhem may have been. Freeing Samuel’s jacket, she shoved him out of the store and started things up again.

  “I was just…”

  “Well, stop it.”

  “But…”

  “No. People like to have their moral failings pointed out about as much as they like to have their personal lives discussed in public by strangers.” She tightened her grip and dragged him quickly past a couple playing what looked like the Stanley Cup finals of tonsil hockey. When she finally slowed and took a look at him, he seemed strangely restrained. “What?”

  “Those two people…”

  There were thousands of people in the Center, but she had a fairly good idea who he meant. “Yeah? What about them?”

  “They had their tongues in each other’s mouths.”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  He snorted,
a very unangelic sound. “They looked like they had gerbils in their cheeks.”

  “Okay.” She had to admit she was intrigued by the image. “So?”

  “So isn’t that unsanitary?”

  “Gerbils?”

  “Tongues.”

  “Not really. And don’t get any ideas—our relationship is strictly Keeper/Angel.”

  “I wasn’t…”

  “You were.”

  “I couldn’t help it.”

  He sounded so miserable, Diana found herself patting his shoulder in sympathy. “Come on, we’ll duck out at the next doors—a little cold air will clear your head.”

  “It’s not my head.”

  “Whoa. Didn’t I make myself clear? We’re not discussing other body parts.” If the last pat rocked him sideways a little more emphatically than necessary, well, tough.

  The sidewalk outside the mall was nearly deserted. There was a small group of people huddled together at the corner of Yonge and Dundas, waiting for the streetcar, and a lone figure hurrying toward them from the other direction in what could only be described as a purposeful manner.

  Hair on the back on her neck lifting, Diana stared at the approaching figure, then looked down at two identical snowflakes melting on the back of her hand. “Shit!”

  “What’s that smell?” Samuel muttered. He checked the bottom of both shoes.

  “Forget the smell. Move it!”

  She hustled the angel north, hoping that Nalo hadn’t seen them. The older Keeper had no more authority over Samuel than she did, but something—the identical flakes that continued to fall, the way every car on the road was suddenly a black Buick, the street busker playing “Flight of the Bumblebee” with his lower lip frozen to his harmonica—something was telling her to keep them apart.

  At the corner of Yonge and Dundas, Diana felt the possibilities open.

  “Hold it right there, young lady!”

  Grinding her teeth, she pulled a token out of necessity, shoved Samuel into the line of people climbing onto the eastbound Dundas streetcar, and told him she’d catch up later.

  “But…”

  “Trust me.” She pried his fingers out of the down depths of her sleeve and, with one hand on an admirably tight tush, boosted him up the steps. “And try not to piss anyone off!” she added as the door closed. Staring back out at her through the filthy glass, he looked lost and pathetic, but she couldn’t shake the feeling he was safer away from the other Keeper.

  Wrapping herself in surly teenager, she turned, stepped back up onto the sidewalk, and folded her arms. “Don’t call me ‘young lady’,” she growled, when Nalo closed the last of the distance between them. “I really, really hate it.”

  “Really? Tough. Now, you want to tell me why you were hauling ass away from me, or do you want me to make some guesses?”

  They were alone on the corner—there’d be no help from curious Bystanders. Diana snorted and rolled her eyes. Not a particularly articulate response but useful when stalling.

  “Your parents don’t know you’re here, do they? Don’t bother denying it, girl…” An inarguable finger cut off incipient protest. “…you’ve got guilt rolling off you like smoke.”

  Perfect! True, if a tad trite. Diana could have kissed her. She widened her eyes. “You won’t tell?”

  “None of my business. I don’t care if you’re here to waste money, I don’t care if you’re here to see that boy you stuffed on the streetcar—oh, I saw him, don’t give me that look—but I do care about what you’ve been up to since you got here.”

  “But I haven’t done anything!”

  “You stopped time, Diana.”

  Oops.

  “I was trying to prevent a fight.”

  Nalo sighed. “Girl, I don’t care if you were trying to prevent an Abba reunion.…”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. The point is, you’ve been messing with the metaphysical background noise since you got here The whole place is buzzing.”

  “It wasn’t me!”

  “No? Then who?”

  A black Buick cruised by, and Diana bit her tongue.

  “Look, I spent half an hour on the phone with the 102-year-old Keeper monitoring that site in Scarborough who’s positive we’re heading toward a battle between the dark and the light, and I have better things to do with my time than convince the senile old bird we’re not heading for Armageddon. Either tone it down or take it home, but stop screwing up my…what’s that on your arm?”

  Diana brushed away a little snow, taking the angel residue with it, and peered down at her sleeve. “Where?”

  The older Keeper shook her head. “Must’ve been ice crystals.” She tucked a cashmere scarf more securely into the collar of her coat. “I think I’d like to keep an eye on you for a while. You can join me for a bit.”

  Surrender seemed the only option, but she made a token protest regardless. “I can’t afford the kind of restaurants you like.”

  “Honey, we’re Keepers. We should be, if nothing else, adaptable.”

  “You buying?”

  “I might be.”

  “Then I can be adaptable.”

  Distress bordering on panic pulled Samuel off the streetcar and across the road into a maze of four-story apartment buildings and identical rows of two-story brick town houses. He found the source of the distress crouched miserably at the bottom of a rusty slide and dropped to his knees beside her.

  With gentle fingers, he brushed snow off her head.

  She turned toward him, looked up into his eyes, and threw herself against his chest. “Lost, lost, lost, lost…”

  “Shhh, it’s all right, Daisy.” He had to physically brace himself against the force of her emotions. “Don’t worry, I’ll help. Do you live in one of these buildings?”

  Shivering, she pressed herself harder against him. “Lost…”

  He could see where she’d entered the playground, but her prints were filling in fast. “Come on.” Standing, he tucked two fingers under her red leather collar. “We’ll have to hurry.”

  They weren’t quite fast enough. The paw prints had disappeared under fresh snow by the time they got to River Street.

  “Now where?”

  The Dalmatian looked up at him with such complete trust, Samuel had to swallow a lump in his throat. Dropping to one knee on the sidewalk, he held out his hand. “Give me your paw.”

  She looked at him for a long moment, looked at his hand, then laid her right front paw against his palm.

  He reached into himself for the light.

  “What was that?”

  Diana kept her attention on her stuffed pita. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Did I even mention you?” Nalo swiveled around, her right hand combing the air. “Something shifted.”

  “It’s not a hole.”

  “No, it isn’t.” She sat down again, eyes locked on the younger Keeper. “So I guess it’s none of our business.”

  The glowing paw prints led him to a town house in the Oak Street Co-op. As they turned down the walk, Daisy pulled free and raced for the door.

  “Home! Home! Home!”

  The door opened before she reached it, and a slender young woman rushed out and dropped to her knees throwing her arms around the dog. “You rotten, rotten old thing. How could you put me through that. Where’ve you been, eh?” Brushing away tears, she stood and held out a hand to Samuel. “Thank you for bringing her home. We just moved to Toronto from New Brunswick, and I think she went out looking for our old neighborhood. She doesn’t have her new tags yet.” Suddenly hearing her own words, she frowned. “So, without any tags, how did you find us?”

  Samuel grinned, unable to resist the dog’s happiness. “We followed her prints.”

  “Her prints, of course.” As a gust of wind came around the corner, she smiled out at him from behind a moving curtain of long, curly hair. “You must be half frozen. Would you like to come in and thaw out? Maybe have a hot chocolate, eh?”


  He was suddenly very cold. “Yes, please.”

  “In. In. In. In.” Daisy insisted on being between both sets of legs, but they somehow got inside and closed the door.

  Her name was Patricia, her husband’s name was Bill. As Daisy enthusiastically greeted the latter, Patricia took Samuel’s jacket and led him into the living room. Left on his own, he felt a heated gaze on the back of his head. Slowly he turned.

  “What is it?” The long-haired apricot-and-white cat turned his head sideways and stared at Samuel with pale blue eyes. “It’s awfully bright.”

  “It’s an angel,” snorted the seal-point Siamese beside him, staring down the aristocratic arch of her nose. “Or a sort of an angel anyway. Someone seems to have messed up the design.”

  “What’s an angel?”

  “It’s like a cat, only with two legs, minimal fur, and no tail.”

  “Oh.” Confused but clearly used to taking the Siamese’s word for things, he wrapped a plumy apricot tail around his toes. “It almost looks as if it understands us.”

  “It does. Don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?” Patricia repeated, returning with three steaming mugs on a tray. “Oh. I see you’ve met Pixel and Ilea.” Setting the tray on the coffee table, she scooped up the Siamese. “This is really Ilea’s house. She only lets us live here because we know how to work the can opener.”

  That was enough to distract Samuel from the heady scent of the hot chocolate. “Really?”

  Rubbing the top of her head under Patricia’s chin, Ilea purred. Some questions were too stupid to need answers.

  “Turn here.”

  Dean glanced toward the boarded-up J. Henry and Sons Auto Repair and then back to Claire. “There’s a big batch of snow blocking the driveway.”

  “Park on the side of the road, then, and we’ll walk in.”