It was one of Ghehera’s lerkhets, a thing trapped in its ethereal holding pen. Not a thing, missing, that should have gone noticed. Ghehera had a dozen in service; rotating among agents. Trevarr’s plan to withdraw and return one...
Easy plan. Good plan.
Who knew it would react to the Sin Nombre energies — to transform with them? Who knew the Ghehera would send a probe roaring through these canyon lands, mixing with the sickened energies to make the Garrie go insane? Who knew the lerkhet would gulp those energies down, and the Garrie’s breezes along with them?
He’d never seen a lerkhet hold onto the power it absorbed.
And he’d never seen a lerkhet amass enough personal energy so it turned into a lodestone for more.
::Also not my fault.::
Too bad there was no one here to hear him. For once he was right.
~~~~~
Sklayne hunkered for a while longer, waiting for Trevarr to bring the Garrie back while the lerkhet bounced off the hillsides. Waiting.
Waiting.
Bored.
He reached out to the Lucia person, following the subtle tug of awareness he now and always held of her. He did not go deep, careful with this body-free connection of his.
He didn’t need to.
The Lucia person was in town as planned. She had been to shop, spoken to people, persisted with people... holding herself straight and tall, and yet reeling from the general onslaught of the evening. Not just people, but spirits, pulled from their rest — resentful, grieving, confused, and crowding up against her.
He felt the exhaustion of it weighing on her. She lacked the skills and power of the Garrie, but she could still pet those in unrest, in her subtle way, and she did. She sent them quiet offerings of better emotions than the ones they had.
And she knew they were riled. That they had a sense of age and sleep about them, the confusion of spirits long slumbering and recently disturbed.
She wasn’t the only one, sitting now in the back room of this unpretentious little crystal and bead shop with too much incense swirling around, clammy in marginally cooled air. She perched at the edge of the folding chair, a circle of chairs around her and a man and a woman beside her. Wary.
The man wore his thinning hair in a tight ponytail. Nothing like Trevarr’s, thick and horse-mane strong, obscured k’thai encounter braids woven throughout. The woman had hair enough, and had forgotten to do something with it. They both wore loose short-sleeved tunics and baggy pants and an astonishing amount of patchouli.
Once they learned the Lucia person was working with Robin, they had hoped she would speak to them in this private space, with the doors of the store now locked. They probably didn’t know that inside her beloved Burberry tote, her hand had closed around a small canister of fiery defense spray.
Now that would be a scent to savor.
But Sklayne sensed only the faintest power in them. The ability to perceive certain things. The ability to do something about it? Noooo.
“It’s just,” the woman was saying, “it’s a small community. We know one another, mainly. Even those people who...” She trailed off, glancing at the man.
“Who feel differently when it comes to the responsibilities held by beings of spiritual influence,” the man said firmly.
Beings of Spiritual Influence. The man didn’t even know what he didn’t know.
The Lucia person cocked her head slightly, a faint awareness of Sklayne’s reaction.
Oops. Be more careful.
The Lucia person put aside what she’d felt. Not forgetting, just moving forward. “Are there particular things you’re concerned about?”
“Well,” the woman said, “we were hoping you might tell us a little bit more about why you’re here. Who you are. That sort of thing. This is a small community, of course — we know you were in Crystal Wind this morning, and the mess that came of that. But mostly... this is our home. Our place to nurture. So if you know anything, really, we should act on it as is best.”
“Oh,” the Lucia person said. She nodded. “Yes, I can see why you’d feel that way.”
They smiled, thinking how smoothly this was going, eager for what she could tell them.
But Sklayne felt the Lucia person’s rising anger, her resentment on behalf of all the spirits now so upset and disturbed, the land damaged. Her voice grew a crisp edge, one against which Sklayne wanted to rub his cat cheek. “Unfortunately, you’ve wasted your opportunity. Your people of differing philosophies haven’t been stopped, and now it will take a reckoner.”
The man snorted. “You’re out of line, young lady. And no one can—”
The Lucia person stood. “We’re staying at the Journey Inn. When you want to help us, come along. When it sinks through to you that the distress of the earth and of the spirits is more important than your claim of jurisdiction, come along. When you decide that your own son’s suffering needs to be eased—”
Maybe she hadn’t meant to say that; she stopped herself, very suddenly. Sklayne felt her chagrin.
Too late. They gasped, reaching for one another. The man’s face reddened. “That’s what this is,” he said, virulently enough so the Lucia person withdrew the defense spray from her purse, keeping it hidden in her palm. “Trying to take advantage of our grief — !”
“No! Theo!” The woman clutched at him. “What if she can talk to him—”
“She can’t!”
“I can’t,” the Lucia person agreed, easing toward the exit. Dignified. “But I can feel—”
“Nothing!” the man spat at her. “Don’t you come into our town, our store, and think you can work us, just because this is a place of believers!”
The Lucia person stood her ground. “Your believers are killing this place! And this is your only chance to influence how the outsiders handle the problem your insiders have made!”
“Get out!” the man shouted, his worn face purpled into a strange color, the woman sobbing beside him.
The Lucia person paled, but not in response to his rage — flinching as emotions rose high her, spirits on the brink... their son on the brink. Their son... knowing they turned their rage on the wrong person. Pleading, while the Lucia person put up a hand as though to shield herself.
All the lights in the room blew out.
All the lights in the shop blew out.
All the lights on the block blew out.
The Lucia person fled. Out of the room, out of the shop, fumbling with the doors and with the burdens and with the fear, all seeping through to Sklayne. He rode her shoulder with his presence, purring in her ear, not knowing if she heard. Approval.
Brave person of modest power, doing what she could.
But not the only one.
And so Sklayne eventually left her behind and followed the faintest of tugs to the Quinn person — splitting his awareness between the arch where his not-cat shaped energies crouched without ears, waiting for Trevarr’s return and keeping track of all things here at the same time.
Ahhh, the Quinn person. Alone in the room, gear spread everywhere. Books across the bed, papers stuffed into an accordion folder perched precariously beside the bed, a wire bound notebook flapped open beside the hefty laptop computer, printer, and scanner. Cords and wires and rechargers... a giant travel mug filled with stinging ice water. A constant murmur of voices and static bursts in the background.
Sklayne knew most of these things by the thoughts he stole, dipping into the Quinn person’s mind. A shallow connection, borne of shallow acquaintance.
But here, this room, was the place to which the Lucia person now fled. Trevarr might say that Sklayne pushed his allowable boundaries, intruding and eavesdropping on this one who knew no better, but Sklayne had purpose.
This place must be safe for the Lucia person. Safe not just for her body, but for her vulnerable self.
The Quinn person tabbed away from a computer site on which he chattered —
No.
Not quite right.
Like Lucia, feeling around for local information. Pretending he had just moved here. Pretending to be one of them. On another page of his browser, he scanned information about the Garrie’s newest ghost. Her Jim Bob Dandy. His business on the far side of town, some personal tidbits... lots of photos. Lots and lots of photos.
The computer screen flickered, objecting to Sklayne’s presence... he remembered the unexpected demise of the thing called television in their San Jose hotel room and moved away from the tickling energies.
Maybe later.
The Quinn person scowled, fiddling with the power cord... unplug, replug... settle back to work.
The staticky voices changed. No longer a trickle, they became a steady stream, a little fuzzy burst at the end of each clipped comment. Sklayne moved his attention closer. Teasing him, those fuzzy bursts were. If he could only catch one...
The computer pinged at him — pinged again, and again.
“What the hell?” The Quinn person stuck his pen between his teeth and put both fingers to the keyboard, tabbing back to the chatter room, scrolling along through the quickly appearing messages. “Ahh, Garrie... what have you done?”
Fingers flying, he switched to a new screen, moving a little white arrow around and ooh. Fast. Shiny. Sklayne focused in on it, his metaphorical haunches twitching, raising in the air and ready to thrust —
But oh. He wasn’t truly here. And now would not be the best time to eat the Quinn person’s shiny.
Maybe later.
The voices grew louder — annoyingly loud. The Quinn person fiddled with something on the screen and the static cleared away and suddenly Sklayne understood the whole strange scene.
The Quinn person was eavesdropping, too.
Stuck in his puny human body, he had found a way to listen to the people who took charge of things happening here. And now they talked fast, and they had urgency in their voices. They said things like blackout and mass hysteria and gas leak and evacuate and unknown unknown unknown. And by the time the Quinn person returned to the chatter page, enough words had poured in to scroll off the screen and most of them went !!!!!! and the Quinn person muttered, “What the fuck —”
The Lucia person burst through the door. She slammed it behind her and stood up against it as though she was keeping it closed with her body, although there was nothing on the other side. “Oh!” she said. “Oh!”
“No kidding,” the Quinn person said. “Do you have any idea — ?”
She shook her head, most vigorously. “No, no, no. I’m done here tonight. No more. I am closed!”
“Lu, I don’t think—”
“Your Robin doesn’t think, that’s what!” She closed on him, stalking him — her finger out and aiming for a big poke on his arm. He braced himself. “Trying to use you! Trying to control us! Dismissing us and insulting us! If she had been open with us, we might have some idea what’s happening here!” She threw her hands in the air. “Instead we have this! Sedona ghosts set to boil! Imagine if they hadn’t been weakened by what these Sin Nombres do!”
“Lu—” said the Quinn person, holding his hands out — placating, for what it was worth.
Worth just about nothing. Sklayne admired the energy of her — that which had come from the ghosts, sparking around her hair in a constant glimmer and flicker of light and emphasis. Not like the Garrie, not a small person of much power. But perfectly suited to the Lucia person.
“Lu, nothing!” Her voice grew brittle. “You know I’m right! You could have set your parajito straight from the start. You could have given us half a chance to do this right!”
The Quinn person stood so suddenly that the chair scraped back. “I know!” he shouted back. Not that the Lucia person took so much as a startled step away. “I know! You’re right! I’m sorry! I just hoped—”
He took a deep breath and started again. “I kept hoping she’d get it. That’s what I thought, when she contacted me — that she’d finally lost that super-certainty she’s always had. This is what things are and this is how I handle them. She’s never been able to see that there might be more beyond, even when she’s been in the middle of it. Why do you think we’re not together?”
“Because she’s a controlling bitch and you’re better than that!” the Lucia person snapped, and then slapped a hand over her mouth as the Quinn person recoiled. “Oh. Oh, Quinnie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“You did,” he said, resigned now. “Hell of it is, you’re right. She doesn’t get it and she hasn’t changed and it doesn’t matter how brilliant she is or what I feel when she walks into the damned room. I can’t be with someone who thinks my life is a lie. I couldn’t then, and I can’t now. I just hoped...”
“Oh,” the Lucia person said again, and Sklayne felt a startling little twitch at the sadness and understanding in her voice; his body lashed its tail. These were not his people. Not his bonded. Not his problem. What was he even —
“Oh,” she said. “I am sorry, Quinnie.”
For an instant, the Quinn person looked desperate, even a little trapped somehow. Then he jerked the chair to the side and gestured at it. “Sit,” he said. “Let me get you something to drink. Take some breaths. I don’t know what’s going on out there, but I have the feeling we’re going to find out. And then I don’t think we’ll have much time for anything like pulling ourselves back together.”
Sklayne thought he was exactly right.
And if he sat with them, purring at the Lucia person — only because it amused him and no other reason at all — he also watched at the Arch, where Robin had subsided to whimpers in the wake of the lerkhet’s transformation. He went wide, a quick scope of the area... far enough to find the lerkhet. To find the person called Huntington. To see the two beings converge... interact... move away together.
Hmm.
But a surge of Keharian energy pulled him back, completely back. Out of the hotel room, away from the Lucia person, back to his not-cat form in the canyon, completely solidified unto self.
There, where a splurge of color filled the night and told him of an oskhila — there, where he prepared to run or to greet. For Trevarr was not the only one with an oskhila. And the Ghehera probe that had swept through in the wake of the lerkhet’s arrival...
Not a friendly thing, that probe. Not a good thing. Not for Trevarr.
Not for the Garrie.
But ah. This time, the familiar sense of Trevarr. The bond, slipping into a more comfortable place with proximity. ::Tre-eyyy,:: he purred, not meaning to, and wished that like the Lucia person he could clap his hands over his mouth.
Tried it anyway.
Paws.
Not the same.
By then the darkness sparked away; the colors faded. Trevarr stood with the Garrie, the two of them pulsing with lingering and uncompleted sensations. Sklayne wrinkled his cat nose, flipped his cat whiskers. ::Just do it,:: he told them, startling the Garrie and earning one of those looks from Trevarr.
But not for long. Because Trevarr left the Garrie and ran to the spot where the lanterns and people and lerkhet had been. Nothing left of it now, only a spot drained scratchy dry and surrounded by ugly spots. Leftover ethereal litter.
The Robin person said dully, “They’re all gone. Everyone. Every thing. Even you. I’d ask what the hell happened and where the hell you went and what did we even do here, but right now... you know, I just want to go.”
“I think we’d better,” the Garrie said, regaining some balance. “Back to the hotel. See what Quinn and Lu have found. See if we can figure out just what happened.”
They’d need to know about the lerkhet and the Huntington person, they would.
But Sklayne sat with his tail tucked around his legs and his ears tucked into his head and his whiskers prim, looking at the Robin person all pasty-faced and the Garrie desperately trying to pull herself into nonchalance and Trevarr, standing tall and ready and wary by the Arch, knowing better than any of them the ramifica
tions of what had happened this night even if he didn’t even know all the facts yet.
Maybe later.
Chapter 15
The Journey
“Assess your circumstances with an objective and steady eye.”
— Rhonda Rose
“Hell, no, it’s not safe.”
— Lisa McGarrity
Garrie stopped for fast food on the way back to the hotel, swinging briefly the wrong way down 89A to grab it and then back again. She swung into the parking area closest to their unit and pulled the key from the ignition, glancing over at Trevarr as he fed Sklayne the last of the French fries.
“I want to go check on Bobbie Ghost at the uncleansed circle before I go in,” she told him. And then, looking at Sklayne’s squint of pleasure as he chewed the fry, she sent an extra, silent message: Ears!
Cat ears popped back into place, perky and perfect and without so much as a hitch in his chew. Garrie bit back a smile and got out of the car with more energy than she’d gotten into it.
After all, this was her time of night, with the clock crawling on toward midnight and the world settling around her. Most people thought ghosts emerged mostly at night; the truth was, they were there all the time. They were simply harder to notice, with radios and televisions blaring, traffic noise, ringing phones... even the heightened flow of electricity changed their interaction with the world.
At midnight? Not so much.
Trevarr emerged to join her, and Robin came a distant third. Sklayne... well, who knew. But at least he had ears again.
Robin spoke for the first time since they’d left the Arch. “Seemed like an awful lot of red and blue flashers out there tonight. And didn’t it look like half the town was dark?”
“Quinn’ll know. And I won’t be long.” Garrie hadn’t expected the company, but she didn’t wave them off as she headed for what was left of the cleansing circle, past the hotel office and around behind, finding the path familiar in the darkness. She reached the huge rock in a few matter-of-fact moments, surprised to see there were already a few new tokens placed along the outside edge.
Feather didn’t learn from experience, apparently. Or she still didn’t understand.
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