The Second Summoning

by Tanya Huff

  “It is.”

  “Good.”

  “Right after this.”

  “But…”

  “Keepers police metaphysical crimes, right?” He caught up her hand and stared earnestly at her over her fingertips.

  “Essentially, but…”

  “How can I help you do your job, if I blow off this guy doing his?”

  Her eyes widened.

  “That’s not what I meant.” His glasses steamed up in the heat rising off his face. “It’s not. It wasn’t. Look, just let me deal with this. And then you can do what you want to make up the time.” The sound of heavy footsteps drew closer. “Claire?”

  “Okay,” she muttered reluctantly. “But make it…”

  “A quickie,” Austin snickered from the depths of the cat carrier.

  As he turned toward the looming figure of the OPP constable, Dean shot a glance behind the seat that promised a discussion with the cat in the near future. Claire didn’t know why he bothered since Austin usually went to sleep right around the time Dean started talking about mutual respect, but she admired his persistence—futile though it might be. A cat’s idea of mutual respect had nothing about it any other species would recognize as mutual.

  “License and registration, sir.”

  The constable’s accent was pure Ontario and Claire felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. Maybe it would be possible to get back on the road with a minimum of delay.

  Dean struggled to get his wallet out of his back pocket, realized he was strapped in, and jammed his seat belt trying to open it. Pounding the release catch with one hand and yanking at the lap belt with the other, he flopped about, making it worse. With the theme song to “C*O*P*S” running through his head, he fought to keep from hyperventilating as he alternately pounded and yanked. He’d watched enough television to know that when the police thought they were being dicked around life got unpleasant for the perp.

  “If you’d just relax…”

  “Not now, Claire.” Just relax and it’ll happen. Just relax and don’t think so much. Just relax and let nature take its course. After two nights of Claire telling him to relax, that word in her voice got him so anxious he wanted to scream at her to shut up.

  “I think your lady’s trying to say that the tension against the belt is causing the problem.”

  “Oh.” He sagged back against the seat, pressed the release with his thumb, and pulled the belt free. Fully aware of Claire’s pointed stare, he got out his license and registration and handed them over.

  “Newfoundland, eh?”

  “I meant to get my plates switched—and my license,” he explained hurriedly, hoping it didn’t sound like he was making feeble excuses for breaking the law, “but I wasn’t certain I was staying.”

  The constable bent down and peered at Claire. “I see. You know a Hugh McIssac?” he asked as he straightened.

  “Oh, no…”

  He bent again. “Ma’am?”

  Claire reached into the possibilities.

  Five minutes later, they were driving east at a careful eighty kilometers an hour having received a stern although truncated warning that had included no references to hockey.

  “Is it warm in here, or is it me?” Austin asked, dropping down onto the seat.

  Claire gathered him up onto her lap and shot a worried glance at Dean. He looked as though he’d been carved from flesh-colored marble, the only indication of his mood a certain flare to the one nostril she could actually see. If he doesn’t say something before we reach that pine tree, I’ll speak first.

  The pine tree passed.

  Okay, if he doesn’t say something between now and when we reach those blackthorn bushes by the side of the road, I’ll explain.

  A lunantishee looked out of the bushes as they went by and stuck a long, mocking tongue out at Claire.

  Fine, if he won’t talk to me by that next crossroad, he can just sit there. There’s no reason I should have to say anything. I was right. Because, after all, we’re just on our way to catch a demon and that’s so less important than a forty-five-minute discussion of a peewee game played back in 1979.

  They crossed the crossroad.

  Austin sighed. “So,” he said, squirming around to face Dean, “who was Hugh McIssac?”

  “A guy.” Dean’s teeth were locked so tightly together the words barely emerged, but innate politeness forced him to answer a direct question.

  “A guy you knew back in St. John’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Play hockey with him?”

  “No.”

  Claire felt the burn rush up her cheeks at the clipped negative. Oops. There’d be no way to make this up to him. A sound caught somewhere between an apology and a whimper forced its way past her teeth.

  Dean glanced at her and sighed.

  “Against,” he added grudgingly.

  “Aha!”

  “Oh, nice way to smooth things over,” Austin muttered.

  “So, if I hadn’t stepped in, we would have been there another half an hour!”

  Dean shook his head. “You don’t know that.”

  “Because this would have been the time you cut the conversation short?”

  “Yes!”

  Claire folded her arms.

  “Well, maybe.”

  She snorted.

  “Okay, probably not. But that’s not the point,” he told her indignantly, slowing slightly to let a minivan pass. “You said you’d let me deal with it.”

  “I didn’t change any of the police stuff. He had no intention of giving you a ticket.”

  “I’ll never know that for sure, will I?”

  “And there’s nothing worse than girding your loins for a battle you don’t need to fight,” Austin interjected, climbing off Claire’s lap and stretching out on the seat.

  “You girded your loins?” Claire stared across the cat at Dean.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I don’t even know what that means!” He sighed hard enough to momentarily frost the inside of the windshield. “I just wanted to handle it myself.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “Yes, I trust you. But you’re some high-handed at times!”

  “I’m a Keeper! And I’ll have you know I’m no more high-handed than it takes to do my job. If you’d rather talk hockey than make love…”

  “What?”

  “We find the demon, I banish the demon, we find a private corner; isn’t that the plan? Unless you don’t want…Why are you pulling over? Dean?”

  He put the truck into neutral, stepped down the parking brake, and pulled on the hazards. Then he turned to face her, one hand braced on her headrest, the other on the dash. “I want to make love to you. I want to make love to you so badly it’s all I can think about. When I’m eating, when I’m driving, when I’m looking at you, when I’m not looking at you, when I’m talking about demons, when I’m talking about hockey—I’m still thinking about making love to you.”

  “And this is what you’re thinking about when you’re talking to me?” Austin demanded, rising up into the space between them. When Dean answered in the affirmative, he sighed and dropped back down again. “Well, that’s really going to put a damper on future conversations.”

  Reaching out, Dean stroked the back of his fingers over Claire’s cheek. “But I’m only thinking about making love to you because I can’t actually make love to you. If I could, I certainly wouldn’t be talking about hockey, I’d be…”

  “Okay, that’s enough. The cat does not need to know the details.”

  Without taking her eyes off Dean, Claire picked Austin up and dropped him behind the seat. Then she snapped off her belt and slid forward. After a moment she sucked Dean’s lower lip away from his teeth and, when the suction finally broke, murmured into the swollen flesh, “Shall we find that demon, then?”

  Dean’s answer was essentially inarticulate.

  Austin opted to stay out of the discussion entir
ely.

  “Would you please stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Rubbing my car. It’s…”

  “Turning you on?”

  “…distracting me. I keep seeing peripheral movement, I think someone’s about to make a lane change, and it’s always you. It isn’t easy driving this car in this weather in this traffic, and I’d appreciate just a little…HEY! YOU WANNA STOP VISUALIZING WORLD PEACE AND START VISUALIZING YOUR TURN SIGNALS!…consideration.”

  Byleth blinked, looked from Leslie/Deter to the SUV that had just drifted across three lanes of fast-moving traffic and back to Leslie/Deter again. “He didn’t hear you.”

  “I know. But it makes me feel better. Helps me drive.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s just a way of releasing…TRY LEASING A CAR YOU KNOW HOW TO DRIVE, MORON!”

  The car in question braked hard, swerved left, then right, then hit a patch of ice, turned a complete three hundred and sixty degrees and settled safely on the shoulder. A half a kilometer of brakes squealed, dozens of steering wheels were cranked, sudden moisture caused two seat warmers to short out, and then it was over.

  Byleth smiled. “He heard you that time.”

  Fingers white around the steering wheel, Leslie/Deter stared wide-eyed out at the surrounding traffic still moving miraculously to the east and beginning to pick up speed. “God saved us all.”

  “You think?”

  “He reached down His hand to keep His children safe.”

  “No.” Byleth frowned and shook her head. “I’d have noticed that.”

  “You can’t deny that was a miracle.”

  “Hey! I can deny anything I want,” she snarled, folding her arms and slumping down in the seat.

  They drove in silence for a few minutes, then Leslie/ Deter sighed and squared his shoulders. “You know, you’re not as tough as you think you are.”

  Byleth glared at him past the lock of hair bisecting her face, her expression as much disbelief as anger. “You have no idea how tough I am.”

  “You think you’re bad.”

  “I am bad!”

  “You think it’s cool to be all dark and dangerous.”

  “Hello? Hell to Leslie!” One navy-tipped fingernail poked him hard in the shoulder. “I am dark and dangerous.”

  “I know why you do it.”

  “Oh, please…”

  “It keeps people from getting close to you. Keeps you from getting hurt.”

  “I don’t get hurt. I do the hurting.”

  “Essentially the same thing.”

  “If you think that having red hot pokers stuffed up your ass is the same as stuffing those same pokers up someone else’s ass, you’re dopier than I thought. And that’s almost scary.” Beginning to wonder why she hadn’t considered the implications of being stuck in a car with a God-pimp for three hours, Byleth unhooked her seat belt and twisted around until she faced the driver, her eyes onyx from lid to lid. “Leslie, look at me.”

  “Not now, Byleth. I’m trying to keep the car on the road.”

  “I said, look at me.”

  “And I said, not now!” A glance in the rearview mirror showed the front grille of a transport and not much else. “Unless you really want to end this little journey upside down in the ditch.”

  She thought about that for a moment, her eyes lightening. “Well, no.”

  “Good.” He leaned back, downshifted, pulled into the passing lane, and, engine roaring, shifted back into overdrive. They screamed past traffic and dropped speed only when they’d cleared the clump and had moved back into the right-hand lane.

  Byleth closed her mouth with a snap. “That was so kewl.”

  Bright spots of color appeared on pale cheeks. “Thanks.”

  “Do it again!”

  “Sure, next time I have to pass something.”

  “What? Like a kidney stone? Do it now!”

  “No.” Glancing over at her, his eyes widened. “Byleth! Do up your seatbelt!”

  “Because you’ll get a ninety-six-dollar fine and lose three points if the cops pull us over?” she sneered, her hands as far away from the belt as possible while still attached to her body.

  “Because you’ll get hurt if anything happens.”

  “Won’t your god protect me?”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Tell me about it,” she snorted.

  He sighed and shook his head. “I’ve been trying to.”

  “I want you to know I’m only doing this up because I have to get to Kingston in one piece,” Byleth told him as she dragged the shoulder belt down over her jacket, and shoved the clasp together as hard as she could. “I’m sure not doing it because you told me to. And I so totally don’t believe you care if I get hurt.”

  “I do care.”

  “Why?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  “Probably,” she snapped, sinking down into the depths of the bucket seat, knees braced against the dash.

  Samuel poked a paw out through the top of the backpack and tapped Diana lightly on the chin. “What’s wrong?”

  “Summons,” she whispered. Although the train was crowded with post-Christmas travelers, they had a double seat to themselves—mostly because of the disgustingly realistic stain the possibilities had provided. She’d draped her jacket strategically, but talking to luggage would still attract Bystander attention.

  “Okay.” A quick shoulder lick to gather his thoughts and he had a plan. “Here’s what we’ll do: you deal with the Summons, and I’ll go to Kingston and save the demon from your sister.”

  He looked perfectly serious. Or at least as serious as an orange cat in a green backpack could look.

  “And just supposing I was insane enough to agree to that—how?”

  “I’ll think of something. I’m a cat.”

  “You’re an angel shaped like a cat,” Diana reminded him pointedly.

  “That’s what I meant, I’m an angel.”

  “Right. Fortunately, the Summons is on the train. I can deal.” She stood, left her jacket lying where it fell and, turning reluctantly in place, attempted to pin down the feeling. It wasn’t that she minded being Summoned, it was what Keepers did, after all, but since her wallet had been distinctly short of lineage money, and she’d had to spend her Christmas money to buy the train ticket, it didn’t seem exactly fair. Either she was saving the demon on her own time, or she was working—which was it to be? “There! Is that the washroom,” she added, smiling broadly down at the middle-aged man whose attention had been jerked away from his paper.

  He shot her the look those over forty reserved for those under twenty and returned to a review of Archie and Jughead, the holiday’s breakout movie. Diana hadn’t seen it, but she strongly suspected George Clooney had been miscast.

  The sound of claws in upholstery brought her shuffle toward the aisle to a sudden stop.

  “Where are you going?” she muttered, bending so that her face was millimeters from the angel’s, pushing him back under her jacket.

  “With you.”

  “Why? You won’t be able to do anything. I won’t be long. Just stay here.”

  Samuel thought about it for a moment. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  He seemed surprised by the question. “I don’t want to.”

  “Fine.” Grabbing the straps, Diana swung cat and carrier up onto her shoulder, enjoying the muffled, “Oof!” rather more than she should have.

  As it turned out, the accident site was in the washroom. Unfortunately, so was someone else. There were four people already waiting in line and judging by their expressions, not to mention the fidgeting, they’d been waiting for a while. Hoping she wasn’t too late, that seeping darkness hadn’t claimed a victim, Diana reached into the possibilities just far enough for safety—not quite far enough for voyeurism.

  She couldn’t quite prevent the astounded sputter.

  The motherly woman in line in front of her
half turned. “Are you all right?”

  “Choked on spit. Hate it when that happens.”

  “I see.” Still looking concerned, although her focus had shifted from concern for to concern about, she turned away.

  The possibilities had shown two people in the bathroom. They’d already been there longer than they’d intended, and it seemed like they were going to be there for quite a while yet. Darkness had no intention of allowing a quickie, not when a delay would leave everyone involved so frustrated. Few things resembled a lynch mob quite as much as people waiting for a toilet.

  As though Diana’s thoughts had been her cue, the first person in line, an elderly woman with deep angry lines dragging down the corners of her mouth, stepped forward and banged impatiently on the door.

  Which broke the rhythm and looked to delay things even further.

  There seemed to be only one logical thing to do.

  A few moments later, the couple emerged looking too totally satiated to be embarrassed by the amount of noise the finale had generated. Muttering in disgust, the elderly woman pushed past them, slammed the door, and shot the “occupied” slide home with such force it echoed throughout the car like a gunshot.

  Moving Samuel to her other shoulder, Diana followed the line forward, jerking to a stop at the sound of a happy moan from inside the bathroom, closely followed by a muffled “Oh, yes. Yes! YES!” from the cubicle in the next car. Blushing scarlet, she reached back into the possibilities. She’d only intended to bring the original couple to a conjugal conclusion, not everyone who had to relieve themselves between Toronto and Montreal.

  Although VIA was trying to get more people to ride the train.…

  Diana caught herself on the edge of the toilet as the train lurched around a corner, barely managing to keep her head from cracking against the outer wall.

  “Better wash your hands when you finish,” Samuel observed from the sink. “You wouldn’t believe what this place is covered with.”

  “I can guess.”