But then, it might not be ordinary anymore. For all he knew the cars were coal-powered and there were dirigibles hovering overhead. Maybe this was no longer North Carolina but the domed capital city of the new kingdom of Frelonia. With his world unraveling so much, he had no way of knowing what else had changed.
Cavanaugh was talking. He tried to make himself focus.
“When the first three boundaries have been laid out and you’re in position, I’ll open the portal. Call out to her, if need be, so she’ll know just where you are. When she comes at you, take hold of her and keep her immobile, so that Mr. Marzavan can put the fourth metal in place to complete the field. Then you must keep her within the boundaries defined by the four symbolic walls.”
Considering he’d be working blind, it seemed like a tall order. “Where will Mo be?”
“Heading to the portal so that she can’t slip back out once she discovers this is a trap,” came the brusque voice of this almost-familiar friend. He sounded almost happy in a gruff way; maybe this kind of operation was a comfort zone for him. Tanner wondered if he’d gotten out his old military camo for the occasion. It was weird imagining the Mo he knew reconfigured into this different person.
“Meanwhile,” said Cavanaugh, “I shall be constructing the spells. Fortunately, corporeal form is not necessary for me to draw the vital symbols in the air.”
Tanner was glad he didn’t have to worry about that side of things; he trusted that Cavanaugh knew what he was doing. It was his own role in the enterprise that struck doubt into him.
Now the noisy gravel underfoot gave way to the near silence of grass. They must have emerged back into the parallel garden again, for Mo’s footsteps slowed to a stop, and Tanner, walking with a hand on the older man’s shoulder as a guide, stopped too.
“This is a good place,” said Cavanaugh quietly. “Mr. Marzavan, if you will be so kind. The silver along the east-west ley line… very good. Now the steel, along here… the saber a little farther north, if you please.”
He pictured Mo helping the ghost by laying out the metal objects to define the boundaries for the ritual. Unable to find a source of lead at hand, they had substituted steel: Mo’s military saber, which Cavanaugh said might have accumulated enough positive energy over the years to be effective. Construction of the three-sided box went quickly, and it wasn’t long before Cavanaugh was saying, “Excellent. That is all, Mr. Marzavan, until the demon is present to be closed in. Tanner, are you ready?”
“More than,” said Tanner briefly. Now that it was bearing down on him, he wanted more than ever to get to it. He didn’t want time to think.
Time to remember Joy’s face, so pale the freckles stood out shockingly against the pallor. Rose’s tiny dimpled hand, unmoving—
But also Joy’s face as she rested after labor, exhausted but radiant, beaming down at scarlet-faced Rose in her arms. To have them back…
Now. Let’s do it now.
“Mr. Marzavan?” their leader queried. “All is in readiness?”
A grunt of affirmation was the reply.
“Gentlemen, ready yourselves.” Cavanaugh’s voice was sober. “On my mark. Three… two… one.”
Chapter 26
The banshee scream came out of nowhere, raising gooseflesh all over Tanner’s skin, and he found himself paralyzed, unable to make a sound. But it seemed he didn’t have to: the sudden stirring of the air gave him only a fraction of a second of warning before the succubus was upon him, clawing for his throat.
Light though her weight was, it almost brought him down like a bowling pin, and he staggered back a step before digging his feet into the ground to keep his footing. In the furious onslaught of blows and curses that bore down on him he realized that the she-demon was angrier than he had ever known her—angry enough to forget to plot him out of existence.
His arms shut around her at once, pinning her so tightly that she could no longer move her arms to hit him, and a mewl of outrage rose in her throat.
She was agile, wriggling, kicking, and when those kicks landed painfully he felt his own anger bubbling up again. He wanted to crush her in his arms, feel the breath squeeze out of her lungs… No. Detach. Feel nothing.
But it wasn’t working. She was growing stronger, if anything, and he wondered suddenly how long he would have to hold her. How long he could hold her. Was Cavanaugh working his magic? Tanner could only hope so. He couldn’t hear him or sense his presence at all over his struggle with the spitting, snarling thing that was the succubus.
Abruptly came a shout from Mo, some distance away. “Tanner, Cavanaugh! Heads up! He got past me—”
“My dear colonel,” said a lazily amused voice that made Tanner’s heart lodge in his throat, “you shouldn’t have been left to guard the portal all by yourself. It’s a young man’s game—or a demon’s.”
“It’s Raven,” shouted Tanner. “Her right-hand man.” He must have been freed when Melisande took Steven out of the timeline. But was here as an enemy or an ally? Being locked up in the Sumner basement might have softened his thoughts toward Melisande.
The succubus, at any rate, was certain of his loyalty. In his arms he felt her bound with energy, and she twisted within his grasp.
“Raven!” she exclaimed. “You’re just in time. Help me get free of these fools.”
He didn’t answer at once. Tanner could imagine him standing there in an elegant suit, arms crossed as he surveyed the tense scene before him. Was he enjoying seeing his mistress a captive, for once not in command? Or would she win him over again?
“Hurry!” she commanded, and then Tanner was able to clamp a hand over her mouth to prevent her making him any tempting offers. But in a second she had sunk her teeth bone deep in his already wounded hand, so that reflexively he yanked it away from her mouth, the breath hissing through his teeth in pain. She cried, “Free me and you shall help me rule this plane.”
In another second she’d talk him around. Again he pressed his injured hand over her lips, smothering further words, though sweat sprang to his face at the pain. He wished, god how he wished, that he could see Raven’s face.
“No,” said Raven at last. “I don’t think I will help you, Melisande.”
Tanner felt the shock hit her body. At the same time, relief made him relax his grasp, and instantly she took advantage of it, flinging his hand off again. “Don’t be a fool, Raven,” she snapped, but he could hear the first hint of anxiety in her voice. “You know your existence is nothing without me.”
The reply was unhurried. “We shifters are hedonists, Melisande,” Raven explained. “We exist for pleasure. And for quite some time, life with you brought nothing but pleasure. Travel, wealth, fame, power, an endless supply of succulent beauties… but I think I’m in the mood for a career change now.”
Tanner no longer tried to silence her. He needed both arms to hold her, and anyway he sensed that she was doing more harm than good when she shouted, “You preposterous gadfly, stop talking and help me!”
“No, Melisande,” came the calm reply. “I no longer find life with you pleasurable. And after living as a human with the girl and her child, my curiosity has been piqued.” The ironic note that was usually present in everything Raven said was gone; instead he sounded almost thoughtful. “There was something rather sweet in that life that was new to me, and I want to try more of it. To see what it is about being human that elevates their little lives into something almost poignant.”
Melisande was rigid with anger within Tanner’s arms. “What mawkish drivel,” she snarled. “You’d be a fool to give up your life with me.”
“If that makes me foolish in your eyes, so be it. I’m through with you, Melisande.” The words were edged. “From today you stand or fall alone.”
For the space of three heartbeats there was silence except for her breathing, fast and shallow. Then Raven must have walked away, because the succubus lunged against Tanner’s arms with all her strength, screaming curses after him so that his he
ad rang.
“Keep her quiet!” It was Cavanaugh’s voice, and relief washed through Tanner to know that he was still there. “I must begin the incantation.”
“I’m trying!” Defeat had lent desperation to her struggles, and it was all he could do to hold her now, the cursed wriggling harpy, much less get a hand over her mouth.
Cavanaugh’s voice rang out strong enough to be heard over her fury: “Foul demon Melisande, who never should have been in existence, I do here invoke the power of time and creation to unwrite your being. May you never have been!”
The succubus’s curses turned to a shriek that made his hair stand on end. Thinking to knock her out by head-butting her, he aimed a blow at her with his head. But unable to see, he missed, and by random chance his mouth came down over hers.
Well, that would work too.
She immediately went pliant in his arms, as if he were kissing her. As if she could win him over with sex, she moved her mouth softly against his, no longer fighting… or rather, fighting with her favorite weapons.
And he found that place of indifference.
It didn’t matter that her lips were soft. Or that her body, held tight in his arms, was slender and feminine. He noticed those things without feeling any emotion about them. She was just a thing he had to silence and contain, and although it might have looked to outsiders as if he were embracing her, he was simply holding her captive, keeping her mouth locked down, waiting for when it would be over and he could move again. She might as well have been… well, an air mattress, say. Or a stuffed animal.
He found himself considering her as an anthropologist would. Notice how the succubus when cornered falls back on her instinctive defenses of attempted seduction and enchantment. Even when her prey is clearly impervious to her venom, she makes the futile attempt to charm him. Their severely limited survival mechanisms have made the succubus scarce in this habitat…
“Cease to exist!” he heard Cavanaugh command. “I banish you to nothingness, never to be thought of again!”
Was he imagining it, or were her movements beginning to weaken? She seemed to shrink within his grasp. He remembered how she had shrunk and withered into that shriveled husk once before, and wondered if it was happening again, if that was what he would have seen if he still had his vision. A wisp of revulsion flitted across his mind and he dismissed it, knowing he needed to hold on to that precious detachment, his saving grace.
“I heal the universe of this black mark, and erase you!” thundered Cavanaugh.
She was nothing. A sofa cushion. A beanbag chair.
And then she was gone.
Without a sound, without any last flicker of motion or indeed any warning at all, so that he lost his balance and staggered forward until strong hands caught him by the shoulders. “Easy, son, I’ve got you.” Mo.
“Is it over?” he asked. He was surprised at how calm he sounded.
Cavanaugh’s voice was jubilant. “It’s over,” he announced. “If I were corporeal and had a tangible hat, I’d be flinging it in the air. You did it, lad.”
“Well done, son. Well done.” Mo gripped him by the hand and shook it hard. His uninjured hand, fortunately.
“Indeed,” said Cavanaugh warmly. “Please consider our colleague’s salute a hearty handshake from me as well. You did admirably, Tanner. She has been eradicated.”
He felt a little dizzy. For it to have ended so suddenly… he was grateful for Mo’s grip on him, because now that the fight was over all of the nervous energy that had been fueling him had deserted him, making his body want to collapse. “What about Joy and Rose?” he asked. “And Steven, and all of our friends?”
“It will take a little while for history to reweave itself and catch up to the present, my boy.”
“How long? A week? When?”
“Not that long.” He could hear the smile in Cavanaugh’s voice again. “But long enough for you to carefully consider your answer to an important question. And that is: do you want to remember? Your past is even now being rewoven so that Melisande never came into your life. You can choose to forget all the pain she caused you, if you wish.”
But a remembered anxiety distracted him. “Without Melisande, won’t I be dead? That’s how things went before.”
“Put your mind at rest,” Cavanaugh reassured him. “When it is handled gently and not mangled by well-meaning ignorami like Dr. Sumner and Miss Rosenbaum, history naturally hews as closely as it can to the path it was meant to take. You and Joy were meant to be together and to have Rose. Without the intrusion of Melisande, the journey will be somewhat different, but the destination is the same.”
The relief that filled him then made his shoulders sag, and he realized he was exhausted. He tried to imagine not having Melisande in his memory, along with all the self-loathing and anguish that had come with her. But… “I still want to remember,” he said slowly. He didn’t want to risk turning into that asshat alternate Tanner who rated himself a ten and only dated eights and up. And there was an even more important reason. “I don’t ever want to forget how brave Joy was, how she fought for me,” he said. How her faith in him and her steadfast love had rescued him from the damage done by the succubus and had drawn him out of that dark place.
“Ah, good,” said Cavanaugh. “That will make it easier. Joy, too, has chosen to remember.”
“Joy?” he exclaimed, as a blaze of hope ignited in him. “Where is she? When did you talk to her?”
“I stand outside time, remember.” There was amusement but also patience and kindness in the voice, and Tanner felt comforted. “In just a few minutes you’ll be with her again.”
“Thank you,” said Tanner, and if his voice wasn’t quite steady, who could blame him? “And Mo—you’re still there, right?”
“I am, son.” His hand gripped Tanner’s again in a firm clasp.
“Thank you for everything. I guess I’ll see you around, huh? I mean—well, you know what I mean.”
“We’ll be talking soon.” Mo shook his hand vigorously and slapped him on the back. “Very soon.”
The darkness was lightening, and to his amazement a scene was coming into focus. He was standing in the driveway of the Sumner house, and although it was still dark night, the windows glowed with welcoming light, and moths circled around the porch light.
He turned and saw beside him the figure Mo had described, the figure he was used to seeing in bronze on the Ash Grove campus. A trim thirty-something guy about his own height with a friendly smile half hidden by a lavish Victorian moustache. Formal, old-fashioned clothes. And yes, transparent. Tanner wanted to see if he could put his hand through him, but he figured that was probably rude. Inappropriate, too, even though the idea made him want to laugh. Maybe he was a little lightheaded after all that had happened.
“How can I see?” he asked.
“Without Melisande to blind you, you still have your eyes.”
Tanner’s hands went to his face to find the terrible scars and craters gone, his face and eyes intact. His injured hand was healed too, he saw. “How did we get here?” But he was starting to put things together. “This is where I’d be now if I hadn’t had to fight Melisande tonight,” he realized, and received a nod of confirmation from Cavanaugh.
He stood looking at the house as if the modest little building was in some way remarkable. But it was. Just being there, after all that had happened, was remarkable. Cars were parked in front: the minivan, Steven’s ancient VW, and a Honda with a familiar bumper sticker.
“Anna, too?” he said wonderingly.
“Anna, too.”
“How did that happen?”
Cavanaugh smiled, making his moustache lift at the ends. “That’s her story to tell.”
“And Joy?”
“She should be arriving at any moment. Indeed, she may be inside already, waiting for you.”
Waiting for him. Well, he wasn’t going to make her wait any longer. He put his hand out before he remembered Cavanaugh didn’t
have one to shake. “Well… thanks again,” he said.
It was stupidly inadequate, but the apparition didn’t look offended. He just smiled, tipped his hat, and began to fade into the darkness.
Before he had completely vanished, Tanner was taking the porch steps three at a time. But then he stopped. “Cavanaugh?” he called.
The insubstantial figure wavered into clarity again. “Yes?”
“What about the garden?”
Cavanaugh looked pleased that he’d asked. “It has been restored, along with all of the couples who were divided by the instability Melisande created. Now, I am happy to say, it’s very much as you and Miss Sumner experienced it that first time.”
“Do Joy and I still find our way there? Or is everything just nonmagical for us?”
Cavanaugh’s moustache twitched. Tanner had a feeling that a less old-fashioned man might have winked. “Wait and see,” was all he said.
Tan grinned. Euphoria was beginning to sing in his veins. “Unless you just enjoy being cryptic, it sounds like you don’t know yourself.”
“I don’t have all the answers, Tanner. In any case, some things should be left for you and Joy to discover on your own.” With a final tip of his hat, he faded into the night.
What did that mean? That the answer would be in their new memories when they formed, or that their discovery of the garden might be in their future?
Suddenly he didn’t care. Right now it didn’t matter, because he was going to find his wife and daughter. He flung open the front door, shouting, “Joy?”
Steven and Anna were sitting close together on the living-room sofa, Anna’s head resting on her husband’s shoulder. Startled by his shout, they looked up and then beamed when they saw who it was. Anna sprang up from the sofa and, before he knew what was happening, pulled him into a hug. “Tanner,” she exclaimed, standing back then to get a good look at him. Her smile reminded him of Joy’s. “My son-in-law. It’s nice to meet you properly at last.”
“You too, ma’am. Joy’s told me a lot about you.” He looked from her glowing face to Steven’s, and it was as if his father-in-law had dropped ten years from his age. Tanner had never seen him looking so deeply contented. “I’m really glad you’re back,” he told Anna.
Among the Shadows (The Ash Grove Chronicles) Page 31
