Storm of Reckoning

by Doranna Durgin

  Nothing? Not for Trevarr. Garrie swallowed her instant reaction, tried for better words. “Still, obviously... it’s not as if everyone can do that sort of thing.” Or should want to.

  “I think most people are capable of things they don’t even realize,” Caryn said, an earnest expression widening her eyes.

  Garrie instantly put up buffers — probably just in time, to judge by the startled look on Caryn’s face. Garrie pretended not to notice. “I heard something in town today — maybe you know what it was supposed to mean. To watch out for Sin Nombres?”

  The question distracted Caryn from her stubbed psyche. “Well, sin nombre is what they first called Hanta virus... but there hasn’t been any particular outbreak this year.”

  Okay, not much help after all. So, what the heck. Go for it. “And is there really a guy around here named Jim Dandy?”

  Caryn shifted a step back, crossing her arms. “You did have an odd day, didn’t you? Sure, his name is Jim Josephs, but he goes by Jim Dandy. He’s with the Canyonside tours, mainly, but he does some vortex hikes on the side. With... exclusive clientele. I don’t think it’d be your thing. If you want to know more than that, you’ll have to ask someone else.”

  Ah-ha. Pay dirt. And more than Robin had been willing to say out loud just yet.

  “Listen,” Caryn said. “I know we got off on the wrong foot last night. But about your friend Trevarr. He really needs some attention.”

  Hot. Surging. Wild. Temper. The twining, rising dragon within.

  It rose up hard, swelling against Garrie’s throat and chest, curling her toes and fisting her hands. She fought it back as she might fight a spirit gone mad; she fought it back as she might conquer a darkside entity running rampant. And though she kept herself from lashing out at Caryn, sharp breezes licked past and dissolved her shields.

  Caryn gasped, her eyes going wide and her hand lifting to her throat, a surprised and vulnerable gesture.

  “Best,” Garrie said tightly, reining in the remnants of the moment, “that you don’t concern yourself too much with Trevarr.”

  Caryn just stared at her. She’d taken a step back, and now she looked at her hands, as if she expected to find them burned. “What —?” she said, her eyes widened as she raised her gaze to Garrie’s again. “How could you — ?”

  “There’s a whole world outside Sedona.” Garrie’s mouth tightened around the words. A whole world and more. “And in that world, people who interfere with the energies of others face consequences.”

  From me.

  ~~~~~

  But after that little exchange... well, then Garrie was just embarrassed by herself. Hard to know where to go after emitting such a proclamation.

  “So, listen,” she said, clearing her throat and inching away from the ice machine. “Thanks for the help.” Sorry I almost gave you an ethereal head-butt.

  “Sure,” Caryn said faintly.

  Garrie had very little ethereal warning of Bobbie Ghost’s arrival — just a blur of motion; a sudden slam of fretful spiritual wind, the faintly familiar feel of her anger from the cleansing circle. Bobbie Ghost pounced with a slap of ethereal vengeance, accusation in her hollow voice. “I felt you!”

  “Gah!” Garrie jerked back, jarring up against the weathered shade shack.

  “Gah!” Caryn yelped, skittering away as she looked wildly around. “What? What now?”

  “I’m not sure,” Garrie said, perfectly honest. Then, so casually awkward that it hurt, she asked, “So, hey. Did your aunt find out anything about the woman who died here in the late 60s?”

  Caryn gave her a wary look. “She didn’t mention it.”

  A new ripple of air burst through beside Garrie — a tight, hard ball of roiling energies, also newly familiar. Jim Dandy, already intoning, “Takennnn.”

  Oh, come on. “Seriously?” Garrie muttered. “Both of you?”

  But she knew it to be her own fault — her own consequences. They’d felt the dragon, and they’d come to it — demanding, emotional, irrational supplicants, both of them strong enough to wreak more havoc if they chose. Flinging boulders, flinging ghost poop...

  “Are you..?” Caryn stopped, quite obviously not certain it was a good idea to ask.

  “Fine,” Garrie said. “I’m just farking fine.”

  A dog suddenly sat near her feet, wagging a stout tail. A Labrador mix, chunky and strong, with broad head and lolling tongue. Feed me.

  “Ah,” Garrie said, beyond discretion. “Ghost Bob the dog. Of course.”

  “Dog,” Caryn repeated blankly. She might have been reaching for her cell phone, or maybe she was just backing for the office.

  “Lab mix. Black. Kind of fat. Wants to be fed. Seems to be missing half an ear.” Garrie could only wish for Lucia to be there, a hand on her arm — silencing her. Or for Quinn, speaking up to cover her babble.

  Caryn blanched. “Feather’s old Doogie Dog.”

  Feed me?

  Garrie tipped one of the mugs, spilling several ice cubes over the ground in front of the dog. He leaped to his feet, tail wagging a steady metronome rhythm of hope, his big brown eyes exaggerated as if someone had gone mad in a graphics program. Mine?

  “Yours,” Garrie told him. The dog leaped at the crunchy treats, unable to connect with them but apparently willing to try forever. Garrie stepped aside to leave him at it. “Okay then. Gotta go.” Before anyone or anything else showed up.

  She gave their visitors a gentle nudge of breezes, a silent message — I can’t help you right now — and backed a few steps toward their cabin.

  “Right,” Caryn said, barely audible. “Good night, then.”

  Garrie didn’t have any idea how to make it better without getting in deeper. With some people she could be matter-of-fact about her world and her reckoning; others couldn’t deal with it all. And the ones like Caryn wanted too much from it, and too much from her. “Look,” she said. “Things aren’t predictable right now. So whatever you think about Trevarr, maybe you don’t want to be too close anyway.”

  “No,” Caryn might have said. “Maybe not.”

  ~~~~~

  Garrie entered the guy half of the cabin bearing mugs of melting ice, and Quinn nudged an open pizza box her way; it had seen much depredation, but several pieces remained separated and askew on the greasy cardboard. “We saved you some meaty pizza.”

  Whoa. The meaty pizza. Garrie shoved the mugs on the rustic little desk beside the pizzas, reaching past Trevarr’s Dr. Pepper for her own soda, popping the top and pouring the contents over ice.

  “That’s not caffeinated, is it?” Lucia asked, alarmed.

  Ah. It showed, then. The ghosts, roiling her up. The waking dragon, roughing her up.

  What a luxury it would be, to simply be tired.

  “It’s a clear one.” Garrie took a big gulp of the soda and sighed in pleasure at the cool bite of it. “Pretending to be citrusy. But, you know... sugar.”

  Lucia dabbed a paper napkin to an invisible spot at the side of her mouth and sat back against the twin headboard of what must have been Trevarr’s bed. His leather duster hung over the corner post, and his stained satchel over that.

  The unfamiliar grain and pattern of the satchel once might have puzzled Garrie; now she merely wondered if Robin — who sat perched stiffly on the edge of Quinn’s bed, a small pizza box balanced on her knees as a plate — would notice the inexplicable leather.

  Trevarr straddled the desk’s wooden chair, arms folded over the back of it, giving his usual impression — that he wasn’t just sitting there. That he was, in fact, prepared to use the chair as a weapon at any time. Supposing the numerous knives secured about his person weren’t sufficient, or the sword of which there was currently no sign, although Garrie knew it to be tucked away in the mystery Tardis pockets of the duster.

  The pockets into which she was careful to never, ever put her hands.

  He’d made serious inroads on his pizza, for what good it would do; his shoulders had a hard, s
harp look, and her body remembered the tight feel of him. He regarded her with just enough of a quiet smolder that she realized she’d hidden nothing from him.

  He, too, knew of the dragon.

  Okay, then. Garrie helped herself to a socially unacceptable bite of pizza, chock full of sausage and pepperoni and tender chicken and closed her eyes to savor her own carnivorosity. When she opened them again — a swallow, fingers pressed against her lips to suppress the attack burp driven by all that soda — she found his quiet regard turned to amusement, and she wrinkled her nose at him.

  “So,” she said, draining her soda and thumping it down. “Jim Dandy, AKA Jim Josephs. Erstwhile tour guide.” She ignored Robin’s surprise. “Liked to dabble in things not mentioned in polite Sedona company. I get the feeling it started out being about power and sex, which is never a good combination, but it’s gone beyond that now. Power and sex and death. An even worse combination.” She cast a longing glance at the final piece of pizza. “The question is, what do we do about it?”

  “I need to know more about what they’re up to,” Quinn said. “It doesn’t really feel like necromancy, but... it could be some perversion of it.”

  “Perversion,” Garrie said, and offered a nasal little laugh. “Heh heh heh.” At Quinn’s look, she protested, “Drew’s not here. Someone had to say it.”

  Lucia remained above it. “I can go into shopping mode and ask around. We have a better idea what we’re looking for now.”

  “Jim-Bob might be able to tell us more, given another night to sort himself out,” Garrie allowed. Yes, that final piece was looking mighty fine. She reached for it.

  Trevarr’s voice rumbled a counterpoint to them all. “Give them what they want.”

  “Excuse me?” Robin asked. She’d neatened up while Garrie was off getting ice. Like Lucia, she looked refreshed, her tailored bodice framing curves Garrie couldn’t even imagine having, her back exquisitely straight. “Do you even know what they want? And how would you go about giving it to them if you did?”

  “Strength,” Trevarr said. “They want strength. They want power. They want that which they think no one else has.”

  Garrie nodded. “Gotta go with that,” she said around a bite of pizza, catching a stray chunk of sausage and popping it into her mouth. “It’s a theme this month. You know, mainly we deal with spirits who don’t know how to handle who they are. Or who they were. But lately...”

  Quinn scratched the back of his neck, his face scrunched in thought. “You’ve been cleaning Albuquerque since Rhonda Rose found you. Maybe it’s the outlier, not San Jose or Sedona.”

  Garrie said, “Maybe we should have gone walkabout sooner.” It felt like an admission. Or confession.

  “It’s not your job to keep the whole world cleaned up,” Lucia pointed out.

  “Isn’t it?” Garrie asked. “Am I supposed to close my eyes to the rest of it?”

  Lucia got brisk. “You aren’t the only reckoner in the world.”

  Robin put her hands to her temples, pressing gently. Visibly thinking, na na na na na I don’t hear this.

  Garrie stood, leaving crumpled napkins behind as she nabbed another soda. “Okay, but back to our bad guys. I’m not exactly sure how we give them what they want. Or what good it’ll do. Or if it’s even smart.”

  “They dabble with powers they don’t understand,” Trevarr said. “Then let them suffer the consequences.”

  Ah.

  She saw it on Quinn’s face; on Lucia’s face, too. Understanding.

  Partial understanding, at least.

  Not so Robin, but that wasn’t surprising. She wasn’t used to thinking in these terms at all. Trevarr gave her a long look, an assessing thing.

  Garrie gave her props for returning that look. It wasn’t an easy gaze to meet, all smoky pewter in this indoor light, pupils in their round disguise but the overall effect still decidedly startling. Or, once one learned to see past the startlement, riveting.

  He came to some decision, for he abruptly shifted his gaze from her and back to Garrie. “There is a... creature, you might call it. Similar to the Krevata. Smaller... short lived. I have access.”

  Garrie froze with the soda on the way to her mouth. “Similar to the Krevata? Are you nuts?”

  Lucia made a noise. “Chicalet! Don’t poke him.”

  Trevarr took the comment in stride. “Similar in its attraction to energies. Only dimly sentient. Small.” He held his hands apart to indicate the size of a moderate dog, fingers spread and managing to imply a round pudginess. “Awkward. With a face full of...” A brief frustration narrowed his eyes; he brought his hands up to the side of his mouth and wriggled them with expansive vigor.

  Garrie blinked. This was not a sight she’d expected to see. “Tentacles?” she guessed. Not quite, she could see from his face, but close enough. “I take it you don’t consider this thing to be a threat.”

  A disconcerting snicker skittered across her mind — Sklayne, lingering on the edges of the conversation. Also not much impressed by Trevarr’s creature.

  “So it’s not very smart and it’s not powerful and it’s not big and it’s kind of ugly,” Garrie said. “This does what for us?”

  Now, he looked satisfied. “It is bred for detection. We send it ahead into questionable areas. When it encounters stray energies, it—”

  Sklayne leaped into the hesitation with glee. ::Sparklies!::

  “Ahh,” Garrie said, understanding. “Impressive but unimportant.”

  Quinn had been watching — frowning, trying to follow... not nearly as accustomed to thinking across two worlds.

  Not that she would consider herself accustomed. Because really, would that ever happen?

  But now Quinn’s expression cleared. “Let them think they’ve come up with something dangerous.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Robin said. “I don’t think you have any idea what you’re talking about. But what makes you think success will stop them, even if they think it might be dangerous?”

  “It won’t,” Garrie said. “But it should at least buy us some time to figure out exactly what they’re doing. You know... before they kill someone else?”

  “You don’t know that they killed anyone in the first place.”

  “Well.” Garrie tossed her thoroughly used napkin into the pizza box and put it aside, giving her tight stomach — no longer perfectly flat — an apologetic pat. “In fact, I do. You don’t know it, but that’s not my problem.”

  “But—”

  “Robin,” Quinn said, gently. “The situation has gone far beyond what you thought it was.”

  “The problem,” Robin said tightly, “Is that in order for any of this to make sense — any single piece of it — then I have to accept every word you’re saying on faith.”

  If Lucia could ever be said to gape, now would be that moment. “The ghost poop wasn’t enough?”

  “The ghost poop left an indelible impression.” Robin’s nostrils flared. “But that doesn’t mean it’s related to the other things.”

  “The ghosts,” Garrie said, closing her eyes to speak through a clenched jaw, “are upset because the energy balance has been disturbed. That one ghost in particular is reeling from a murder you very nearly witnessed. Thus the ghost poop. Which we cleaned up for you, by the way.”

  Robin held her ground without flinching. “Why shouldn’t the stuff just go as suddenly as it came, on its own?”

  Lucia flung a hand out in blunt frustration. “I don’t get you, parajito. This is Sedona. If you don’t allow yourself to think of these things, what are you even doing here? Working in that shop? Calling us?”

  “That’s exactly it,” Robin said. “It’s Sedona. Do you know how many crackpots I deal with on daily basis? I don’t keep a damned strong sense of my own reality, I’ll be just like them.”

  “Then get out of the way,” Garrie said, gone harsh. “Because it’s going to take this particular group of crackpots to deal with your
little problem.”

  Silence fell over the room, which didn’t then seem quite large enough to hold it. Silence, until Lucia looked at Trevarr and asked, “This thing of yours. What’s it called?”

  “Lerkhet.” Trevarr hadn’t moved, a single solid point in a room of frustration and hostility. “It will not be hard to obtain — they are kept in a holding of sorts. But we should bring it to your Sin Nombres at the arch.”

  Lucia moaned. “Back to that stone bridge?”

  “We’ll take the Arch trail,” Quinn said. “The road to get there is pretty much an adventure in shock therapy, but the Cruiser should do it.”

  “Fine,” Garrie said, ready to be done with this conversation. Ready to be hitting the treadmill — or conversely, trying to turn herself off and sleep. Ready to not be justifying herself to Robin. “Tonight, as it gets dark. Quinn, we really need you on research this evening, and Lucia, I bet some of those shops will be open this evening.”

  Lucia brightened considerably. “Excellent, chicalet. This, I can do.”

  Robin, she pinned with her gaze. “Trevarr and I will get this lerkhet thing done. And Robin.”

  They had the same expression, all three of them — Quinn, Lucia, and Robin. Dumbstruck.

  Quinn said, “Are you sure —?” and Lucia said, “Chicalet—”

  And Robin said, “Hell, no!”

  “Hell, yes,” Garrie said, absurdly proud that the cold burning energies did nothing more than lick around her bones, not affecting her voice at all. “It’ll be your very own special reality.”

  Chapter 12

  Kehar: Only One Half-Breed

  Nevahn looked aside from his glyphwork as Ardac eyed the framework of the new village arch, pulling his heavy gloves off with satisfaction.

  It was a lopsided thing, their new arch. Not as large as the original, not as sleek. Not smooth, planed and bent wood, corners edged with platinum, but a struggle of gnarly branches woven at the price at deep scratches and pricked fingers.

  Nevahn thought it beautiful nonetheless.

  And he thought the people stood a little taller, walking past or looking up from their newly backbreaking tasks — tilling soil that resisted improvement, moving rocks that strained their remaining oxen, gathering firewood that grew slowly and burned fast. Newly formed teams stabilized fragile footpaths against recent rains, and the miners straggled back from Solchran’s stingy new platinum dig.