Storm of Reckoning

by Doranna Durgin

  But his gaze found her, and held her. Unhidden, those bright eyes and their slitted pupils. Holding her.

  She could still see that power in him now, as he walked the scant shadows across this already hot McDonald’s parking lot, dressed in his hunting clothes — the rugged boots, leather pants, and indigo blue shirt with an asymmetrical cross-bib front and lacing.

  “Hey.” Quinn came up short, staring hard at the rental car where it hugged a tiny blot of shade. “I thought we locked this car. I’m damned sure we didn’t leave the windows open.”

  “We did lock it.” Lucia regarded the PT Cruiser with coffee in one hand, the other resting on a cocked hip — a model’s saucy pose. “Who would break into the car in order to roll down windows? And is everything still there?”

  “Everything and more, I would guess,” Garrie said dryly.

  “Mow!” Sklayne sounded off from within the car — distinctly not back at the inn where they’d left him. His tail alone appeared above the bottom edge of the window, unfurling in pleasure.

  Sklayne, it seemed, had been practicing cat — although perhaps not quite enough. It seemed there was an eye at the very end of the tail, wide and unblinking.

  Watching them.

  “Is that—” Quinn hesitated as he reached for the door handle.

  Trevarr took one swift stride, reached inside the car, and came up with Sklayne — hanging by the scruff, tail gone limp and extra eye vanished. Trevarr lifted him to a level gaze and raised that one eyebrow.

  If there was anything more sullen than Sklayne caught, Garrie didn’t care to hear it. ::Had to come. Get into trouble if you leave me.::

  “You get into trouble no matter where you are, as far as I can tell,” Garrie told him.

  The tail lashed. ::You. Get into trouble. Trevarr, into trouble. Always.::

  Quinn snorted. “It’s almost as if you’re talking to...”

  His words faded as Garrie looked at him. As Sklayne looked at him.

  Quinn took a breath, gave them a look of equal parts glare and obstinence. “Abyssinian. Ruddy coat with ticking, particularly distinguished by its lack of patterns. Medium-sized cats, wedge-shaped heads, often considered to be the breed that ancient Egyptians worshiped. Not talking.”

  “Quinnie’s been researching,” Lucia said, sing-song and under her breath.

  Trevarr tucked Sklayne up in his arm, one hand absently scratching along the ruddy cheek. Sklayne unthinkingly leaned into his fingers. “Did you bring the book you received?”

  Somewhat baffled, Quinn said, “You mean the one you sent and then wouldn’t let me study?”

  “Wouldn’t let others study.” Trevarr looked down and saw he was chin-scratching Sklayne at the same time Sklayne realized he was enjoying it. Both instantly arranged a parting of ways, and Sklayne leaped back into the car. “Study it now. But do not think of Sklayne as mere cat.”

  Garrie added, “Look under made of awesome. He talks back to us, too.”

  “Us?” Quinn said, looking not the least mollified or reassured. “Us, who?”

  “Me,” she told him. “Trevarr.”

  “Not me,” Lucia reassured him.

  ::But I borrow your sight.:: From within the car again, unchastened.

  “You what?” Garrie asked him, startled.

  ::Not you. You would know.:: Smug now, with only his ears showing over the bottom edge of the car door.

  Quinn closed his eyes. “I’m right. He’s talking to you.”

  “He — well, yeah,” Garrie admitted, deciding a quick change of pace might be timely. “How about we hit your friend’s shop now?”

  “How about we do that,” Quinn said, reaching for the car door. “I’ll drive. I scoped the place out last night while I was grabbing food. Much of which seems to be gone already, even with what Lucia made.”

  ::Treyyy. Still healing.:: Sklayne jumped lightly to the front seat, taking a proprietary interest in Lucia’s coffee as she slid it into a cup holder.

  “Funds for additional food will not be a problem.” Trevarr opened a back door for Garrie, ducking into the car after her. “Metals that your world holds dear are more common on Kehar, and have been easy to exchange for cash.”

  Quinn absorbed that as he started the car, backed it out in a tight turn, and gauged the traffic. As the last seat belt clicked into place, he propelled them into the street. Lucia turned back to eye Trevarr — and his ever-present belt-and-buckle — with an expert glance at the hard sheen of the bright metal, the crisp and sweeping edges of the design. Not softened and worn and tarnished, even though it had the look of something long-used. “Platinum,” she said wisely.

  “Platinum,” Trevarr agreed.

  “Platinum,” Quinn said, shaking his head. “Tonight’s pizza is on you.” He slowed to navigate the big Y intersection between 89 and 179, the town’s only two major streets. Here, the road narrowed slightly, bottle-necking traffic with slant parking to make the tourists hesitate so the lure of food and shopping might draw them in even if they’d thought they were headed to Oak Creek Canyon or Flagstaff.

  “Parking spot!” Lucia sang out.

  Quinn said, “Gotcha!” and slung the Cruiser into one of those slanted spots, barely slowing to do it.

  “Nice,” Lucia said, approval in her voice. “Prime parking turf. And no meter, either!” She looked up and down the street, giving an approving nod. “Two tiers of shopping, unmetered parking, pedestrian friendly... I may have underestimated them.”

  “It happens,” Garrie said, straight faced. “We were tired when we came through yesterday.”

  “I was looking for the hotel,” Lucia said, archly enough to let Garrie know she’d never be too tired to notice good shopping. “And a good bodega.”

  But Lucia had it right, a fact that only became more obvious as they slipped their seat belts and emerged from the car. The shops begged for exploration. They were double-tiered with outdoor entries and raised walkways and charming adobe architecture, their names scribed in classy desert tones and elegant scripts, their contents beckoning. Unique artisans, funky clothing, new age allure, trendy little restaurants...

  Lucia gave a happy sigh.

  Quinn cast her a quick frown. “Luce, we’ve got work to do.”

  “And work we will,” Lucia said, casting him an arch shopping princess look. “Don’t even insult me by suggesting I can’t multi-task when it comes to shopping.”

  Quinn held up both hands in quick capitulation. “It’s just that Robin—”

  Lucia instantly softened. “We’ll find your Robin,” she said. “What was the name of her store, did you say?”

  “Partly her store. Crystal Winds.”

  Garrie gave him a squinty look at the blatant arrogant woo of it.

  Quinn gestured around — not at the storefronts in the foreground, but out further — red rocks rising all around them, grand vistas in every direction. “Hey, this place is what it is. It’s a good name.”

  “If they had any idea what real wind is,” Garrie muttered.

  “Chicalet’s got her back up,” Lucia observed, striding out with long and elegant legs until she found the very best vantage point to peruse the shop names. “Do we look here, or —?”

  “One of these little side streets.” Quinn consulted a much-folded map and pointed vaguely; he and Lucia headed down the street.

  Trevarr still regarded the scene with such silence that Garrie felt compelled to catch his eye across the top of the Cruiser, sunglasses and all. “Okay?”

  From within, unmistakable tones, unmistakable glee. ::Tasteee inside! Tasteee!::

  Garrie closed the car door. Hastily. Firmly.

  Trevarr said, “There are moments... when I know for certain how far from home I am.”

  Garrie’s chest felt a little tighter. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The exile...”

  He gave her a mildly surprised look. “I have goals beyond.”

  Garrie bit her lip, and swallowed with a throat suddenl
y gone dry. She couldn’t have said just why... only that Trevarr had, somehow, told her more than she could understand. And she’d find out, too — but not this moment. “I suppose there’s no point in worrying because he’s in a hot car.”

  “No point,” Trevarr agreed.

  ::No point,:: Sklayne echoed.

  If Garrie hadn’t been looking for the little poof of a bright ethereal breeze, she might have missed it. She might even have been surprised to find Sklayne waiting for her when she rounded the front of the Cruiser to gain the sidewalk.

  “I hope you locked it behind you.”

  Chapter 8

  Crystal Winds

  “Listen through chaos.”

  — Rhonda Rose

  “Yes, it’s supposed to scare you!”

  — Lisa McGarrity

  “Treat them like customers.”

  — Lucia Reyes

  Garrie found Lucia waiting on the street corner, impatience in her modelesque hip-shot stance. “Down here,” she said, gesturing. “Crystal Winds. Quinn went ahead.”

  But once around the corner, they discovered Quinn standing outside the store’s forced adobe charm, thumbing impatiently at his cell phone and glancing up at the second floor apartment as though it would offer answers. “I missed a call,” he said. “It could have been Robin. Damn, the can you hear me now people need to do something with the reception holes here.”

  Garrie thought of the other holes she’d seen — those where the breezes should have been playing and dancing. “Yeah,” she said. “Holes everywhere.”

  Quinn frowned at her with distraction, stabbing through the phone menu. “Ought to be a missed call number here — no. No. Don’t even try to tell me the battery is going! I charged this thing all night—” He lifted his head, sudden and sharp, eyes narrowing. “Where’s that cat?”

  “Good luck with that,” Garrie muttered. She extended her awareness into the store, finding breezy reflections from geodes and crystals, meditation lamps and candles and incense, beautifully illustrated tarot cards and meditation CDs and rune stones and —

  Ugh, nausea. She closed her eyes. She’d have to shield strongly in this maelstrom of influences and conflicting needs. “Quinn, I’m going in while I still have my nerve.”

  Quinn scowled between phone and store. “Give me a sec. I’ll be right in. Maybe I can find a signal.”

  “Me first, I think.” Lucia went through the door with a jingle of bells, and incense drifted out in her wake.

  A strangely disquieted look crossed Trevarr’s face. “That smell—”

  “Patchouli,” Garrie told him, and made a face. “It’s not a bad thing, used in moderation.” She laughed at his patent disbelief and pushed through the bell-laden door. “Maybe you should just wait out here, huh?”

  Just inside the door, Lucia held up a jumble of disjointed, irregular ceramic disks on monofilament, a flat length of tapering wood in the midst of them. “Chicalet, look! Tree of life wind chimes!”

  Garrie squinted; the components settled more properly into place and suddenly there it was, a branchless tree with ceramic leaves and a bamboo trunk.

  Lucia said happily, “Mi abuela will love this.” She waved off Garrie’s reticence and nodded toward the back of the store where the single clerk was prepping the register, her pasty complexion reddened and her expression hassled. “It’ll be easier to talk to her if we’re buying.”

  “Well,” Garrie said, trying not to sound grudging, “if they have some good lavender-scented soap...”

  Lucia collapsed the wind chime down into a puddle of ceramic and string and said dryly, “Funny thing, about that missing soap of yours.”

  “Isn’t it, though.” Garrie matched her tone and headed toward a display of candles, figuring if this place had specialty soaps, this would be the...

  “Oh,” she said. “Handmade soap. Lavender and oatmeal. Oh.”

  Lucia laughed, a satisfied sound. “Now,” she said, “our hands are full. We can go talk to that woman.”

  The woman in question greeted them with a marginal smile. Medium height and pushing the limits of zaftig, she wore flowing lightweight harem pants, an equally flowing blouse, and a remarkably snug, tailored bodice that thrust her ample charms first and foremost. She had bright blond hair that didn’t quite look natural, make-up that could have been a little less intense... and faint lines of worry bringing out her age.

  “Buenos dias,” Lucia greeted her. “We’re not too early in your day, I hope?”

  “Not at all.” But the woman spoke with distraction, sorting through a batch of crinkly papers on the counter. “Can I help you find anything else?”

  Garrie opened her mouth to ask for Robin, and instead winced under the sudden onslaught of stenchy ghost disgruntlement, and an ethereal male voice rang out loud to her ears only. “Reeeespect!” the ghost bellowed, his reverb going guttural.

  The entire display of wind chimes sounded off, ringing wildly in cold and stuttery ethereal breezes and carrying a stench like rotting incense. A hazy roil of waxy presence hung in the corner, melting and ever renewing, looking like nothing more than a ghost fountain.

  The saleswoman’s smile took on a brittle nature at the ringing chimes — the only thing she was likely to perceive. “I must have left a window open in the back.”

  “Respect!” the ghost gurgled, insistent. Awesome timing.

  “It’s not a draft,” Garrie said, going for blunt. This was, after all, Robin’s shop. And Robin had asked for help of the ethereal kind. “But I expect you know that.”

  The woman stepped back behind the glass-topped counter, her mouth drawn tiny and tight. “You’re doing this? Are you supposed to scare me?”

  “I — say what?” Garrie stopped short, feeling stupid amongst the rising scent of ghost excretions and the cloying perfumes of melting candles. Melting candles and ghost poo. Nice.

  “Did that Greg Huntington send you?” the woman demanded, her eyes narrowing. “Because you’re not scaring me — you’re just making a mess. And you can get out!”

  “Aie!” Lucia said, horrified shopper personified. “We’re your customers.”

  “Not anymore.” The woman’s grim tone left no room for discussion. She gestured at the candles melting throughout the store. “Or maybe you brought a great big wad of cash to pay for this damage?”

  Garrie scowled back at her. “I don’t even know who Huntington is.”

  “ReeeSPECT—”

  Garrie flicked an annoyed breeze at the spirit without thinking. “Ghost Bob! Behave yourself!”

  “Oh, stop,” the woman said, her tight mouth disdainful. “Ghost Bob. How stupid do you think I am?” She reached under the counter with one hand and jabbed a finger at the door with the other, even as Sklayne broadcast a loud mind-voice trill of alarm. “Get out of here, before I—”

  She broke off with a gasp.

  Trevarr slammed open the heavy glass door, setting the bells to a frenzied jangle and filling the doorway — and then filling the shop, all dark and tall and leather and hard lines gone predatory. Responding to Sklayne’s alarm, and doing it in Trevarr style.

  “Oh my God,” the woman said, gaping at him as she fumbled and scrabbled to recover whatever she’d grabbed. “Huntington did send you!”

  Lucia threw her hands in the air, oblivious to Sklayne’s ongoing alarm. “Aie! ¡Caray! This is not going well.”

  “Just stop,” Garrie said in frustration, and without any hint of effect.

  Trevarr strode past the wind chimes, cute batik shirts and melted candles. He stalked through the burbling wax manifestation of the ghost, planted a hand on the glass counter, and clamped down on the woman’s wrist.

  A startlingly pink stun gun clattered down to the counter.

  Garrie opened her mouth to say something sensible. Something like, “This is all a huge misunderstanding,” or “No, seriously, a ghost did it,” or “Trevarr, don’t break her!”

  But the woman used her other ha
nd to scoop up the stun gun and jam it against Trevarr’s arm, her face contorted with fear and her eyes wild.

  Electricity crackled, sharp and loud.

  Garrie cried a wordless and angry protest as Trevarr stiffened, an involuntary grunt kicked out of his lungs.

  “Go down!” the woman cried, plump features distorted with fear. She triggered the stun gun again even as Garrie leaped to join the fray. Sklayne appeared from nowhere, phasing from glass cat mode to visible cat to leaping cat, all flattened ears and snarling countenance and leaping to put himself between the stun prongs and Trevarr.

  POOF!

  Puffer fish cat, every hair standing on end, legs splayed in four directions. Trevarr jerked back, stumbled, and fell against a display of wind bells, taking it down in a jumble of sound and motion. Sklayne dropped straight to the floor, balled up, and rolled away like a tumbleweed.

  “Respeccct!” said the ghost, gargling and offended. “Respect now.”

  Garrie finally clamped onto the woman’s wrist, twisting it fiercely; the stun gun clattered away into some hidden corner. She slapped Ghost Bob down with a hard breeze, buying time, and shoved the woman away, barely catching a glance at Trevarr.

  Had she ever seen him look ungainly before?

  “There,” she said, as they all hesitated on silence, Ghost Bob included.

  The woman spoke first, backing away to rub her wrist. “Who are you?”

  Lucia reappeared from between two racks of clothing, not a hair out of place, errant stun gun in hand. “Aie, Dios, maybe you should have asked that before zapping us?”

  “No kidding.” Garrie scowled at the woman as she knelt beside where Trevarr sprawled in disheveled disarray down there with the wind bells, his sunglasses knocked askew — his eyes dazed and exposed and so thoroughly not human.

  “Look at me,” she said, groping for his sunglasses. If she could keep his gaze averted from the others, maybe they wouldn’t notice. “Here. Me.”