“Fucker hit me,” Flash muttered.
“Rob?” Galen asked as he set his hand on Flash's head to use the healing.
“Yeah.” Flash sighed as Galen pulled his hand away. “Thanks, that hurt.”
“What happened?” Galen asked.
“Rob came down stairs, I didn't think anything of it, you know? He came into the shop, grabbed something then headed towards the back. I just put a hand on him to see where he was going, and pow.”
“Flash?” Galen held up his hand. “Slow down. I need a little more detail.”
His friend ran a hand through his hair, pulling loose the band that held the ponytail in place and putting it back in. “Rob came down about fifteen minutes after you went up. Huh.”
“Huh?”
“He didn't get coffee, I should have known something was up then. I'm an idiot.” Flash shook his head and continued, “He headed over to the books, he was over there for a few minutes, going through them. I really didn't think anything about it, you know? He does that. I should have thought about the no coffee thing, though. Why didn't I see that?”
“Which books?” Galen headed into the shop and over to the research section. Flash trailed after him, muttering the whole time about coffee. “Which ones?”
“That big brown one, the blue one with gold lettering and...”
“And?”
“And that one that isn't right here,” Flash said, sliding his hand in an empty space.
Galen looked at the books. Both were collections of Sagas, and the missing one was in the section on geology. He stared at it for a long time, trying to remember what had been there. “I'm an idiot,” he said suddenly.
“Glad I'm not alone. Why are you an idiot?” Flash asked.
“They're cataloged.”
“What?”
“Rob catalogs all the books.”
“Wouldn't we need to know what the book was? Author or something?” Flash asked dubiously.
“You'd think, but this is Rob. He has too much time on his hands most of the time, and tends to over-organize. For once I'm happy about it.”
“Why?”
“This.” Galen walked over to the old library card-catalog file cabinet his brother had purchased at an auction. “He has them all cataloged here, but by section. So we find the book right before it, which is?”
“Lyell, The Ancient Changes of the Earth.”
“Is Volcanism and Tectonism by Stephen P. Reidel and Peter R. Hooper there?”
“Nope, the next book is on Krakatoa.”
“There's no Fire, Floods and Faults?”
“No.”
“He took two books, then,” Galen slammed the drawer closed. “Why?” He tried to reach out along the bond, only to come up against that solid wall of shadow. He eased back before it became aware of him and lashed out. Judging by the first attack, he would be in serious danger if that happened, and they had to get to Rob.
“Shouldn't we, I don't know, be going after him?”
“Yes! Of course we should!” Galen snapped. “Sorry, we should, but we need to know where we're going and what we are facing.”
Flash nodded, pulled out his phone and punched a number. “Hey, yeah. Rob's gone. Yeah. No. Uh huh. Yep. Please. Yeah, and make mine an extra large.” He looked up at Galen. “Rhiannon's on the way. I figured we'd need back up.”
“Thanks for asking.”
“Anytime.” Flash grinned. “So what?”
“We see what he was looking for.” Galen strode across the floor, heading towards the stairs to the apartment. As he reached the top, he heard an odd noise. “Dera!” he called. An angry croak came from down the hall. Sprinting through the living room, he discovered the door to the bathroom jammed closed, a chair wedged against the knob and the skeleton key that was always in the lock lying on the floor in the hallway. He quickly opened the door and both ravens swept out, croaking angrily, seemingly twice their usual size.
“Where is he?” Dor demanded.
“I don't know. He drove out of the parking lot.”
“I go.” The raven dipped his head and was out the broken window before Galen could say another word.
Dera landed on his shoulder and gently butted his cheek. “Are you injured?”
“No.” He walked to the table where Rob had been sitting. There were still books open on the table, paper marking various spots. Galen bent closer to one page, then glanced at another. “Do you think he was trying to leave us clues?”
“How?”
“I don't know. When I healed him, it was there, so maybe he was trying to leave us breadcrumbs?”
“I like that idea, and it is something he might do. Can you read this?” Dera drifted gracefully onto one of the books.
“Not really, although Rob did say that this one,” Galen tapped the book in front of him, “was a translation of the one you're on. Not a good translation.”
“Of course not,” Dera chuckled fondly.
Galen read the passage that was marked and dragged another book over, the whole time the need to go after his brother getting more and more desperate. He could just sense Rob through the bond, the tiniest whisper, fainter than usual, and what was there was beginning to make Galen frantic with worry. “What does this mean?” he asked, reading a paragraph for the fourth time.
“You think I'd know?” Flash asked sourly.
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to listen to you muttering about all kinds of shit, none of which made sense.”
“I need help, I don't even know where to go. I think he was researching this here: 'and they raged over the whole of the land, churning it beneath their feet, destroying as they moved. Several of their number rose up, and they were punished, they suffered the death that was not death, and they were placed within the living rock.' I'm just not sure where that leads us.”
“Are things that are locked in rock things we really want to be looking for?”
“Since I think one of them is what has Rob, yes,” Galen said, his eyes straying over the page again.
“I don't like it.”
“I don't either.”
“Thanks for the...” Galen stopped when his phone rang, he glanced at the caller ID and felt his heart speed up. “Rob!”
“Galen?” Rob sounded confused.
“Where are you?”
“Heading up Snoqualmie Pass.”
“Where?”
“I'm not at the summit, but I will be in a few. I don't have long. I... I'll... no, too soon... East, Galen, I'm hea...” The phone cut off abruptly.
Galen stood. “We need to get going. Rhiannon's here?”
“Yeah, Greg too.”
“I don't think they need to come.” He walked back to his room and opened the closet where he kept his weapons. He pulled out his bag—full of supplies, medical and magical—and his falcata. He didn't know if he'd need it, but he preferred the bladed weapon to a gun, but that didn't stop him from grabbing his Sig Sauer P226 9mm, and tucking it in his bag as well.
When he walked back into the living room, he stopped in front of the shelf on the west wall. The Emrys family Coat of Arms hung there, with a roster of names of Keepers back to the First Emrys thousands of years before. Most importantly, the Swords were there. Custodes Noctis blades were special, bonded to the user, and passed from generation to generation. These swords had begun life in the Copper Age and had been carefully improved over the millennia. The blades were etched with a variety of spells, runes, ogham, Latin, each adding strength to the Swords. Galen's panic ramped up a notch when he realized that Rob's sword was still there.
His brother would never go into battle without it.
Galen grabbed both swords and headed downstairs, walking out into the lot towards the 1939 Ford Coupe a long-time customer had given him. He loved the car, and they drove it often. The closer he got to it, to the reality of driving, the more he started sweating. He hadn't driven since the accident; every time he got behi
nd the wheel he would come so close to a panic attack he would have to call up the healing to stop the reaction. It hadn't really been a problem so far, more an inconvenience, but now, faced with not just a drive across town, but possibly across the state... He stopped and attempted to get the panic under control.
“Despite the damage that certain birds have done to my car, it's far faster than yours,” Flash said, coming up behind him.
“Flash...” Galen turned to his friend. “I don't know what I'm heading into.”
“And your point would be?” Flash grabbed his arm and tugged him towards the black SUV parked by the wall. “Get in. You too,” he said to Dera. “No eating of the upholstery.”
“Why would I do that? It doesn't taste good, and it's not fun.”
“Ha ha. Rhiannon, we're going!”
A small woman came out the back door. Galen had met Rhiannon Ross when he was eighteen. Her daughter had been killed and since then she had become a killer of things that took children. It was her specialty, although she was willing to join any fight that came her way. She'd stood beside him many times, in many battles. She walked over and hugged him, then pushed him gently into the car. “You both better come back.”
“Hey,” Flash whined.
“You three. You know exactly what I meant, Flash. You better bring them both home, or I'll have your head for a coffee mug.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“I'll have the window fixed, too,” she added as she closed the car door. “Be careful, Galen.”
“I will,” Galen assured her softly.
Flash pulled out and onto the street. “Where to?”
“Head towards the pass, that's where he called from.”
“Wouldn't it be cool if you could just track him by his phone like they did on that show last night?”
“It would be, but I think you have to turn on that function...” Galen stopped. “I wonder if he would?”
“You mean if he calls in again? Do you think he'd have time? Before it shuts him down again?” Flash flipped off the driver in the car beside them, passed and merged onto the freeway. “Asshole.”
“I'm not sure. It's becoming more and more aware.” Galen could sense the solidity of the shadow through the muted bond, it was slowly growing so what he felt of his brother was not Rob, but that dark, ancient power.
“What the hell is your problem?” Flash shouted, swinging into the left-hand lane, racing around the luxury car beside them, then cutting them off to cross all four lanes to get to the Auburn exit. “You know how fast that car can go? And they're poking along at fifty on the freeway. Fifty!” Flash swung around the exit with enough speed to toss Galen against the door and Dera to dig his claws into the seat back.
“Flash!”
“What?” his friend answered innocently. “You want to get there or not?”
“I would like to get there, period.”
“Right. That's what I mean.” Flash cut off a semi, and slipped into the left-hand lane. Galen watched as the speedometer started to climb, then decided it was probably best to ignore it. “There's a map in the glovebox.”
“Map?”
“Yeah.” Flash glanced over at him. “I don't trust the GPS in this thing, not since it got me lost that one time.”
“You weren't on the road.”
“It should have found a road for me,” Flash insisted. “Paper also doesn't need a battery. More to the point in this case, if he is headed over east, that thing shows a lot of roads he might use, so maybe if he tells us, we can get an idea of where we need to be.”
“Good idea.”
“I know.” Flash grinned.
Galen opened the map and looked at the lines snaking across it, the colors looking like veins and arteries. Smaller roads were tiny pencil gray lines leading off the brightly colored main roads. He ran his finger along the I-90, trying to see if he could sense his brother through the paper. Scrying had never been something he'd been able to do, but this was different. It was more remote sensing. There was no bounce, nothing to indicate where his brother was, so he let that go and instead just let his eyes roam over the map. For some reason they were drawn, again and again, to a spot on the east side of the Columbia River. There was a tiny gray road that ended abruptly against a mountain. He could see the change in altitude on the map. He glanced up to see where they were, then down at the map and his eyes focused on that spot again.
Hunch? Wishful thinking? He closed his eyes, concentrating, reaching out for his brother. He brushed against the dark shadow and tried to skirt it. Had their bond been what it once was, this wouldn't be a problem—maybe—but now finding his way without any help from Rob was almost impossible. Still, he was getting close, he caught the first whisper of his brother—then sensed the trap.
“You will not stop this.” The words screamed in his head and suddenly his blood felt like it was boiling, his flesh was searing off and a knife, serrated and horrible was tearing through his mind. He desperately scrambled away, aware of someone screaming, but all he could think about was getting away. There was an explosion of pain in his shoulder, he reached out with the healing and shut everything down, protecting himself from the attack.
“I did stop!” Flash snapped as Galen slowly became aware again. A cool cloth brushed against his face and the ground was hard under his back.
“Not fast enough,” Dera chided.
“Were you expecting him to jump out the fucking door?”
“No, not really.”
“Yeah, well, so there.”
“Flash?” Galen asked, opening his eyes. He was on the side of the road, looking up at a huge tree.
“Welcome back.” Flash leaned back. “Don't you know jumping out of moving vehicles is not a very good idea?”
“I did what?” Galen cautiously sat up, making sure nothing was broken. In those last seconds when he'd thrown up the healing as a shield, he must have blocked his body from harm—that, or healed it while he was unconscious, either way all he felt was bruised and a little tired.
“You screamed and jumped out of the car. Lucky for you, Dera figured out something was up and told me to slow down so I wasn't going ninety when you opened the door.”
“You shouldn't go ninety anyway,” Galen said as he stood up, pausing to let a wave of unexpected dizziness pass. He smiled at the raven. “Thank you.”
“It attacked you, why?”
“Yeah, that's a good question, why?” Flash asked, opening the door and waiting for Galen to get in. He made a show of activating the child proof lock before closing the door. Dera flew in the driver's door, perched on the seat and fixed Galen with a steely look. “Well?” Flash growled.
“I was trying to reach Rob,” Galen said. Somehow that didn't feel right. That wasn't the reason.
“And it didn't want you messing with him?” Flash pulled back on the road, floored it and crossed back into the fast lane, dodging slow-moving semis the whole way.
“I'm not sure.” He was about to say more when his phone rang. “Rob?”
“Are you okay? I couldn't stop it.”
“Yes. Where are you?”
“Heading east on I-90. I don't know... I...”
“Rob...” Galen stopped, realizing with sudden clarity why he'd been attacked. How could he let his brother know? “I've got coffee.”
“You... It better be... Quad... Gal...” And the connection broke.
“You've got coffee? Where?” Flash said, glancing over at him. “I want coffee.”
“You know why you were attacked?”
“Yes,” Galen said excitedly. “I do.”
“Want to tell the rest of the class?” Flash muttered as he ran the car onto the shoulder to pass a slow-moving convoy.
“Thanks to your map, I know where Rob's going.”
“What?”
“Yeah, here.” Galen pointed to the spot where the tiny gray road ended and felt a small burst of red-hot pain in his head. Whether or not the Ancient One had meant
to, it had just confirmed the location. “That's where we're going.”
“You're just lucky this thing has four-wheel drive,” Flash grumbled.
“How long will it take?”
Flash grinned. “If you keep your eyes closed, not long at all.” He laughed and floored it.
Seven
Galen
They had been on the road for nearly two hours, the forested Cascades giving way to the open plains of Eastern Washington. In the distance Galen could finally see the haze marking the Columbia River Gorge. The fields were flecked with the first ridges of lava. As they got closer to Vantage, he could feel a soft tug, something pulling him away from the freeway and pointing them towards the huge basalt cliffs along the gorge. The Columbia River snaked through the valley, a deep blue, reflecting the color of the sky. The wind whipped the SUV as they crossed the bridge at Vantage.
Galen had been studiously ignoring the speedometer since Cle Elum, when he'd made the mistake of looking over and seeing it hovering around ninety-five. Once they were past Ellensburg, he knew Flash had sped up even more, and by the time they reached the long downgrade to the river, he guessed they were easily going faster than a hundred. They turned right when they reached the east side of the bridge and started heading downriver. The massive hills rose around them like castles, the lava buttresses hanging out over the road.
Small roads led off into the hills, some of them were marked, most weren't. Galen checked the map again. “Slow down.”
The Summoning (Custodes Noctis) Page 6
