by Rhodan, Rhea
Uh-oh. “What don’t I know?”
“Keeper trouble.” He was staring at her, blinking his dark brown eyes.
“Yes, you said that.” Cayden fought the urge to bang her head on the table. She did remove the goggles, just in case. They were special even prior to her modifications. “You are not going to tell me I have to help him.”
“Keeper clueless bastard.”
“I know that, too.” She was more than inclined to let the expletive slide.
“Soon-Warder not know.”
She couldn’t help it. She banged her head on the table. Only a few times, and not very hard. Nevermore squawked in alarm. Perversely, the knocks made her feel better and helped her think. His warning pertained to the Keeper, and calling her “soon-Warder” also had implications.
“This trouble involves both Clint and the Crossing, doesn’t it?”
The amulet throbbed. Nevermore bobbed his entire head and neck up and down.
“And you can’t tell me more because…”
He shifted from foot to foot again, obviously conflicted, raindrops glinting off his sleek feathers in candlelight enhanced by her awakened power. She stared at him, waiting.
Finally, in a mournful voice, he whispered hoarsely, “Crossing need Warder. Keeper need soon-Warder.” He shifted again. “Nevermore love Cayden.”
His loyalty, always a comfort, touched her deeply tonight. He clearly felt obligated to warn her about unfinished business, even if he didn’t want her to be a part of it. “Oh, Nevermore, I love you, too. Don’t worry about me. I’m stronger than I used to be. I can deal with Clint MacAllen if it means warding the Crossing. He can’t possibly hurt me any worse than he already has.”
At her Thursday afternoon class three days later, Bill came in looking so anxious Cayden hoped she hadn’t misunderstood Nevermore, that Clint’s “trouble” wasn’t being zapped to somewhere he hadn’t returned from.
Before she could come up with a way to phrase a reasonable question, Bill said, “Can I, talk to you for a minute?”
“It’s about Clint, isn’t it?” After he nodded, she moved off to the corner with him. She worked to keep the worry out of her voice when she asked, “Is he all right?”
“Don’t tell him I told you, but no, he’s not all right. He’s drinking too much, yelling too much, not sleeping enough.”
“Oh.” He’s as miserable as I am. A spark of hope danced in the ashes of her heart.
“That’s not why I wanted to talk to you, though. Or maybe it kind of is. It’s how I let him suck me into this, anyway. See, I’ve known Clint a long time, and well, you’re the best thing that ever happened to him. Now he’s gone and blown it with you. What kind of a friend would I be if I didn’t try to help him fix it?”
She’d never noticed Bill had puppy-dog eyes. She searched for a gentle way to let him down. “Clint’s lucky to have a friend like you.” Especially considering the other company he keeps. “But I really don’t see any way to repair my relationship with him.”
Bill let out a long sigh and shoved his hands in his pockets, shifting from foot to foot much as Nevermore had. “Since he can’t get hold of you, he, uh, asked me to ask you to meet with him. Said it’s real important. Something about a crossing. He seemed pretty sure you’d be interested.”
It was a shamelessly blatant manipulation, Clint’s forte. She ought to thank him for reminding her to guard her heart; she’d thanked Nevermore for warning her. She didn’t really have a choice, though. Not if meeting Clint could save the Crossing.
“Suppose I am interested. Then what?”
“So you’ll do it? You’ll talk to him?” Bill’s smile was as hopeful as his eyes. “Soon? He said the sooner the better. I think so, too. Before he gets any more messed up.”
She nodded while she considered her options. The moment the plan occurred to her, she felt the rightness of it. If Clint was going to use the Crossing, so would she. Besides being the safest place to meet him, it provided another possibility. He could be the missing ingredient in the Rite of Commitment. She’d tried everything else. It may not have been that way for Gran as Warder, but maybe that’s how it was supposed to be for Cayden. This simply wasn’t a possibility, or opportunity, she could afford to ignore.
“Okay, I’ll do it. Tell Clint I’ll meet him tomorrow night at eleven o’clock at the Crossing. He knows which one.” The moon would be nearly new. She’d have time to get a feel for how he fit into the Rite of Commitment, as well as get it set up well before the witching hour. “Oh, and Bill? Tell him this is his last chance to make things right.”
“Great!” Bill’s grin was wide as he bounced on the balls of his work boots. “I can’t wait to tell him. He’s gonna be so jazzed. He may not admit it, even to himself, but he needs you.”
Isn’t that what Nevermore had said, that Clint needed her? No, he’d said the Keeper needed the soon-Warder. This was about the Crossing, nothing more. She was as bad as Bill. Apparently, despite knowledge and experience, acceptance remained a work in progress. What would it take for her to fully exorcize her dangerous romantic dreams?
“Naturally, she wants to meet us at the Crossing. It’s the source of her power. You are aware she’s a witch, aren’t you, Mr. MacAllen?”
Milton Cumberland was sitting in the larger of the leather chairs in Dean’s office, his tone as uncompromising as everything else about him. When he said the words, they sounded matter of fact, not crazy as they had in Clint’s head.
“How long have you known?” Clint said.
Dean turned from the window behind his desk. “The more important question is, how long have you known? You must have had an inkling Monday evening when I found you at the side of the road. Yet you withheld that information. Last week, you attempted to talk me into permitting the old woman’s family to keep the land, which you said you did without the girl asking you to. Or have I misspoken?”
Why had Clint thought Dean would let it go? “We’ve gone over this already. And you can’t honestly expect me to have told you about an experience I couldn’t believe myself. You’d have thought I was nuts.”
“We were quite aware Aileen Buchanan is of black witch blood. However, it wasn’t until Monday after the meeting when I witnessed her deflecting the rain from the Crossing, that I realized how much of that blood her fat little granddaughter inherited.”
Clint shouldn’t have flinched at Dean’s reference to Cayden’s figure. It was true. She did have a lot of body for her height. A lot of luscious curves. Or was that the spell talking?
Milton had been staring at him with cold, hard eyes. “You can hardly hold Mr. MacAllen responsible. The girl obviously used witchcraft on him.”
The penetrating gaze retuned to Clint. “She did, didn’t she?”
It was a hard thing to accept, even if it did let him off the hook. He shrugged as casually as he could manage. “Would I know if she had?”
Dean said to Milton, “He does have a point.”
“Yes, unfortunately, he does. It means we’ll have to cleanse him.” Milton’s mouth wasn’t smiling, yet when he looked at Clint again, something in his arctic eyes was.
Clint shifted in the more compact, still comfortable, chair to disguise the shiver that ran up his spine and gave the old man the practiced tone he used on bankers when they discussed the risk of loaning money to a small construction company. “I take it you’re not talking about soap and water.”
“I’m afraid not.” The words should have added to Clint’s discomfort, but Milton’s voice was smooth and easy. Even when he said, “This cleansing will require blood.”
“My blood?”
Dean nodded.
Milton said, “Our blood, as well. A negligible amount. I assure you, you won’t miss it.”
“You two seem awfully
knowledgeable on the subject. Are you also witches?”
The other two men exchanged glances. Again, it was Milton who spoke, “Certainly not. Only women can be witches.”
“Right. And you know this, how?”
Milton coughed. “I met the witch Aileen Buchanan forty-one years ago.” Dean’s head jerked so slightly, Clint nearly missed it. “I learned a great deal from her. Including the reason for her attachment to that piece of land. I made it my business to learn everything I could.”
“Does this mean we’re not going to meet Cayden there? I don’t think I can get her to meet anywhere else.”
“Oh, we’re definitely meeting her at Buchanan’s Crossing.”
“Won’t that be dangerous? It being the source of her power and all?”
“Once you combine your blood with ours, in addition to removing any spells, it will create a bond that protects us.” Milton wheezed.
Protection sounded good. Cayden was going to be plenty pissed when he showed up with the Cumberlands in tow. She’d never have agreed to meet him if she’d known they were going to be there. They still hadn’t told him how it was going to go down tonight, either.
“So how does this work?”
“It’s really quite simple. Dean will begin with himself.”
Dean pulled a black leather case out his drawer and removed a syringe with a vial covered in markings attached to it. He pricked himself with the edge of the scalpel, also from the case, and used the syringe to draw his blood into the vial. He replaced the needle on the syringe with a fresh one, sterilized the scalpel, and did the same with Milton’s blood, combining the two in the vial. He again cleaned the scalpel and replaced the syringe before turning to Clint.
“Sorry, I almost forgot. We need a statement declaring you’re giving us this blood of your own free will.”
A ghost of an itch whispered across Clint’s ring finger. “What for? Is this some kind of spell, too?”
Dean raised his eyebrows and smiled in that annoyingly patronizing way. “Nothing so arcane as that. It’s the rather mundane requirement of our attorneys. We can’t risk you coming after us later, saying you were coerced into donating blood.” He set his cell phone on his desk.
“Fine.” He raised a palm and lowered his voice in mock solemnity. “I, Clint Lewis Bruce MacAllen, do solemnly swear I am offering a sample of my blood of my own free will. So help me.” If the tone of the playback was sarcastic, the phone had a decent mic.
“You need to name both of us, as well.”
He heaved a sigh. “I, Clint Lewis Bruce MacAllen, do solemnly swear I am offering this sample of my blood to Dean and Milton Cumberland of my own free will. So help me.”
The itch instantly vanished, as did his perpetual headache. Evidence they had been part of Cayden’s curse. Then one of several nagging thoughts broke through Clint’s conscious. “A suspicious man would think you had this planned all along.”
Seeing Dean’s needle arm tense didn’t exactly reassure him. “What makes you say that?”
He gave Dean a wry look. “Are you going to tell me you’re a diabetic?”
Milton smiled. “No need for concern. We were simply prepared in the event you had been contaminated. You can hardly blame us for being cautious under the circumstances.”
Clint relaxed. They were prudent, that was all. Whatever his other questions regarding their plan had been, they no longer seemed pertinent. Why had he ever thought Milton was uncompromising?
The large callus on his fingertip slowed, but didn’t stop, Dean’s scalpel. Clint watched his blood mingle with the others’ with a curious sort of detachment, as if this wasn’t some teeming strange shit.
Dean placed the vial in the black case and returned it to his desk drawer.
Milton rose and smoothed his five-thousand dollar suit. “Thank you, Mr. MacAllen, for your cooperation. If you’ll excuse me, I have a few items to see to before this evening’s festivities.” He closed the door firmly behind him.
Clint stood too. “I take it you want to meet and walk up there together.”
Dean smiled absently. “Yes, yes, of course. I imagine the girl will arrive early, so we should be safe parking at the old woman’s cottage and arriving close to…eleven o’clock, wasn’t it? Ten fifty will be fine.”
“Okay,” Clint nodded. “See you at ten to eleven.”
His hand was on the door handle when Dean said, “Wait. There’s an errand I’d like you to handle first, a delicate matter I can’t trust to anyone who isn’t privy to the situation.”
The hill was shrouded in twilight when Cayden parked her bicycle in the garden behind Gran’s cottage and went in to feed Rob Roy. The mean old tom had become oddly affectionate since she’d taken over his care. It could have been appreciation, but Cayden doubted it. The first time he’d rubbed against her leg, she’d nearly jumped out her skin. She’d been sure he’d frightened her intentionally. As the days had passed, she’d come to doubt that, as well. He was enjoying a can of tuna in the lonely little kitchen when she left him.
Wound up as she was, she’d dawdled until it was full dark before making her way up to the grove and into the glade. The quiet was not a welcoming one. The oppressive silence added an extra edge to her anticipation at seeing Clint.
Moira had shared the amulet’s nature in their conversation that morning after it had heated in warning again, its pulsing so intense it compelled her to dig up the MacAllen’s phone number. Clint’s mother had had such a terrible daydream about Clint, she’d been forced to leave work. Unable to reach him, Moira had been relieved when Cayden told her they were meeting tonight. Cayden had been surprised the phone connection had been so stable when she’d felt so unstable, not at all surprised to hear Moira’s nightmares were darker, or that Clint hadn’t been returning her calls.
For the sake of the mother she wished were her own and the daughter she carried, Cayden was grateful saving Clint from the Cumberlands’ snare was the means to the end of saving the Crossing. It might be too late not to love him, but had the situation been otherwise, the temptation to leave him to his fate could have overwhelmed her.
Because the Rite of Commitment was as familiar to Cayden now as that of any seasonal celebration, she completed the first elements quickly. She sat in the circle, her back against her tree, watching the fire and waiting for Clint to arrive so she could complete the rite. Whatever happened, she’d done her imperfect best all along, and she’d no longer fault herself if it didn’t happen to be enough.
The crashing and snapping of brush outside the clearing set her heart speeding. She jumped to her feet. The grove tensed around her, its air thickening. She needed a moment to register what was wrong.
There was far too much noise. Clint was large, not clumsy.
Cayden’s heart had already sunk to the bottom of her stomach before the two men broke into the clearing. She didn’t need to see them silhouetted in the firelight to guess who they were.
The voice that asked, “Where’s Clint?” was calm, reflecting the self-control she’d finally achieved.
She recognized the finely-clad clown from the travesty that had been the planning commission’s hearing. The taller man was at least Gran’s age. Milton Cumberland, to be sure.
He stopped his wheezing, coughing, and hissing at his son to fix her with flinty pale eyes and a scary smile. “I’m afraid Mr. MacAllen won’t be joining us this evening.”
“He set me up.”
It was a statement of fact, made in almost the same detached voice as her first words. Still, she hadn’t intended to say it aloud. Wouldn’t have, if she hadn’t been staggering under the blow of everything it meant. A blow that would have literally brought her to her knees a couple of weeks ago. The betrayal itself shattered her to the edge of a faint. The knowledge she wouldn’t be able to use t
he amulet all but stopped her heart.
“You entertained the hope Mr. MacAllen’s loyalties could be divided?” She didn’t immediately recognize the barking hack as the old man’s laughter. “And here I’d been concerned I’d underestimated you.”
The flash of anger felt good, powerful, coursing through her body, but it was distracting her from something important. Something she should remember.
The younger man spoke with a soft, sympathetic voice. “Don’t be sad. You’ll no longer need to worry about the Crossing.”
Cayden remembered where she’d heard that cultured smoothness, along with his father’s imperious tone. Voices in a dream, arguing. The old man coughing, saying, “Offered freely and spilled properly, the blood of three men born of ancient witches’ line can break the old Warder’s spell.”
The Cumberlands were of the blood, Gran had told her. Being Moira’s son—
“Don’t you need Clint’s blood, too?”
Both men examined her closely. Dean turned to his father with a distinctly nervous expression. “She’s not supposed to know. And you were wrong about her not having any power, too.”
Power. How nice of Dean to remind her. They’d wanted her to believe she was helpless, and had very nearly succeeded. Persuasion was their magic. She’d best not forget that.
The old man spared his son a vicious glare. “You idiot. She’s just a short fat girl with an appalling sense of fashion and a history of instability, who finds herself unable to cope with the loss of the only man who ever paid attention to her and the only place she ever truly called home.” He spoke as if she weren’t standing right there, his voice slippery when it should have been hoarse, intended to lull her, no doubt.
The effort was a fair one, and it could have worked in spite of her having come to reasonable terms with her body type a long time ago, and her new-found faith in herself. Ol’ Milt’s crack regarding her taste was what had blown it. If she’d been a cat, her hair would have been bristling. It probably was anyway. While her style might be considered deviant by some, her certainty in its impeccability was unshakeable. She was, whether she liked it or not, Muriel’s daughter after all.
