Kristyn gave me a wink as she handed a customer’s card back. “You’re hot in an old-hippie kinda way.”
“Gee, thanks.” I smirked, bagging up some purchases to hand across the counter. “You do realize I’m about thirty years too young to have actually been a hippie, right?”
“Bah, hippie’s in the soul.”
Well, if hippie was the worst thing in my soul, I was doing pretty darned good.
Between the two of us, we managed to clear out the mob, one rabid customer at a time. By the time the crowd thinned, the other five employees had arrived for the monthly employee meeting.
Chris-a gargantuan teen whose six-foot-oh-my-God height allowed him to see most of the store at a glance-took over the register while the rest of us gathered around Kristyn. Paulo found a clothing rack to sulk against. I was starting to wonder whether he could stand up unaided. Maybe the sullen slouch was a medical condition.
The first announcement was the hiring of Paulo, prefaced by Kristyn’s assertion that “Chelsea will not be joining us again for the rest of her life. She pissed me off for the last time.” The dark boy gave everyone the same indifferent glower by way of greeting. Good to know it wasn’t just me.
“Spring Clearance will run through Sunday, and on that day we’ll have an extra ten percent employee discount tacked on.” Kristyn shuffled through a stack of e-mails, while the kids murmured amongst themselves. I eyed some of the clothing racks myself. You could never have too many Tshirts with witty sayings such as SOULS TASTE LIKE PEEPS. That one always made me laugh, but I’m pretty sure some of my clients wouldn’t have shared my amusement.
“And Sierra Vista management has asked me to review storm procedures with you, since we’re hitting tornado season again, and they’re predicting a bad front moving in this weekend.” Everyone groaned. “C’mon, guys, I gotta do this. Cut me some slack.” Kristyn gave a long-suffering sigh, and the rabble quieted.
“In case of a tornado warning, which means that a tornado has actually been sighted on the ground-”
“The exits are hereherehereherehere anywhere!” The kids cracked up as Abe channeled Aladdin’s genie and Kristyn swatted him with her papers.
“Okay fine, smart-ass, you do it.” She shoved the e-mails into his hands.
Abe cleared his throat solemnly and proceeded to read the instructions in what was possibly the worst British accent I have ever heard. “Please direct customers to the designated storm shelter areas, and lock the doors to your businesses. All public restrooms and storage hallways are to be considered storm shelters. Once there-”
“Put your head between your knees and kiss your ass good-bye.” Leanne tossed in her two cents that time, and Kristyn threw up her hands.
“I tried. If you all get blown to Oz, it isn’t my fault.”
The meeting was dismissed to a chorus of “I’ll get you, my pretty!” Poor Kristyn. She’s actually a good manager, but riding herd on that bunch of miscreants was nearly impossible when they were all together. Such were the hazards of a relaxed work environment.
She caught my eye and gave me a tired smile. “You’ll take care of them, old dude, right?”
“I always do.”
For the record, upon my death, I want to be nominated for sainthood. I’m not Catholic. I’m not even sure I’m Christian. But it might do the church a world of good to admit a beer-drinking, brawling, hippie samurai into their ranks. And after I spent the entire afternoon trying to train Paulo on a register, getting no more than a grunt or two from him in response, I damn well deserved some recognition. Thankfully, Kristyn shooed Paulo out the door at six, and after that, my evening was infinitely better.
As Mira predicted, I wound up working past my shift, helping Kristyn and Leanne with the mad clearance rush. Believe it or not, I like my job. I get to listen to all kinds of music, see interesting people, and I don’t have to wear a tie or cut my hair. It’s perfect!
No one blinks if I have to take off with no notice, and I can usually give them at least a day or two. They’re used to my coming back on crutches or otherwise injured, and it’s not really a physically taxing job when I’m limping around. And the kids, bless their little hearts, believe every lie I tell them about what I’ve been doing. Nothing like a bunch of teenagers to swallow your BS story hook, line, and sinker.
And if I am being wholly honest, I don’t do well taking orders from people I don’t respect. That particular tendency of mine tends to limit my long-term employment options. I have an extensive list of “You just didn’t work out” dismissals to prove it, not to mention that a BA in philosophy doesn’t open a lot of doors. Yeah, I had strikes against me from all directions.
On my break, I borrowed the store phone to call and check on my girls. It was a nightly tradition to tell Annabelle good night as Mira tucked her in.
“When are you coming home, Daddy?” I could hear the sleepiness in her little voice. She was fighting to stay awake even now.
My heart always breaks when she says things like that. “You’ll be asleep when I get home, button. Daddy has to work.”
“Can you stay home tomorrow? I miss you.”
“I’ll see what I can do, sweetheart. You go to sleep. Have sweet dreams.” She passed the phone to Mira. “Has she been good tonight?”
“Of course. She helped with the smudging. Then we had a tea party with her stuffed animals.”
I smiled wistfully. “Wish I could have seen that. Anything else of import happen?”
“We got a notice from the hospital.” My stomach dropped. It definitely wasn’t her “good news” voice. “The insurance company denied that last claim again.”
I sighed and rubbed my temples, a faint headache springing up. “I was afraid they were going to do that. What’s the damage?”
“A little more than two grand.”
I felt like banging my head against the wall. Damn bureaucracy. “Well, at least we have it. I’ll just pick up a few more shifts here for the next couple months to make up for it. I’m sorry, baby.”
“Can’t be helped. We’ll find a way.” That’s my girl, ever the optimist. “I’ll leave dinner in the microwave for you.”
“Thanks, baby.” I worked because I had to, but sometimes I felt I was missing my daughter’s life.
“Hey, old dude. You still need Saturday off?” Kristyn was poring over next week’s schedule as I came back out of the break room to straighten the shelves.
“Yeah, it’s my mom’s birthday. I’m a dead man if I don’t show up.”
“You get her a present yet?”
I eyed her suspiciously. “You been talking to Mira?”
She grinned under her punk bangs. “Would I do that?”
“Yes.”
“You still don’t have a present, do you?”
“I’ll do it! I’ll do it tomorrow.” Or the next day, maybe. It was only Monday, for Pete’s sake. I had until Saturday.
We closed at ten. I didn’t leave the store until almost eleven. There was one car I didn’t recognize in the parking lot, a dark-colored Escort, and I waited for the girls to get in their cars before I took off. I could see the featureless silhouette of the driver, just sitting there, and though I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, I operated on the assumption that my own male presence was enough to ward off trouble.
Kristyn laughed at me. “It’s not like every strange car is a serial killer waiting to pounce, old dude.”
I only shrugged and stood next to my truck until they pulled out onto the street. Sure, the odds of Jack the Ripper jumping out of that particular car to wreak havoc were slim. But slim isn’t impossible, and an honorable man takes care of those around him. If I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t be who I am.
I turned out toward the highway, and happened to see the Escort pulling out of the parking lot, too. See? It was just an employee of another store going home for the night like the rest of us.
My usual route to and from work involves minimal highway exposu
re. There are several quite serviceable back roads that point toward home, and I don’t have to deal with the traffic. No one in his right mind would cruise the steep hills in the dark when he could buzz along at light speed on the freeway. I guess no one ever pointed out that the joy is in the journey, not the destination.
When I glanced back to see another car leave the highway right behind me, I was understandably surprised. Encountering another set of headlights on this stretch at this time of night was unusual, to say the least.
Mostly out of mild curiosity, I kept checking my rearview mirror, waiting to see where it turned off. There were many residential additions on the way, and I kept expecting the car to duck into one of them at any moment.
Instead, it seemed intent on catching up to me. And if I considered my speed on the dark, narrow road unwise, this guy was downright suicidal. I watched with ever-growing concern as the car continued to edge up on my back bumper without regard for anyone’s personal safety.
I let up on the gas, thinking that he’d pass me if he was in that much of a hurry. Wrong idea.
At first, I didn’t understand why I felt a sudden shudder through my steering wheel. Only on the second thud did I realize there wasn’t something wrong with my truck. The bastard behind me was actually ramming my bumper! “What the fu-” My teeth cracked together as he hit me again, and I gripped the steering wheel tightly to stay on the narrow road. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
Seemingly in answer, the small dark car nudged my truck again, and I fought the wheel to keep the front end pointed south. Tree branches scraped down the side of the truck and I felt the loose soil on the side of the road give way. I yanked hard on the wheel, swerving into the other lane to avoid the ditch. “Buddy, if you dent my truck…” What the hell was this asshole’s problem? With one hand, I reached into the door well for my knife and laid it on the seat beside me.
I know, they always say don’t get out of the car in a road-rage incident, but I’d be damned if I let this guy run me off the road, then sit there unarmed, waiting for him to come back with a gun or something.
There was one little lonely stop sign out in the middle of god-awful nowhere. As I barreled toward it, I frantically begged anyone else out driving in the night to be anywhere else. Fate or whatever was with me, and there was no one there as I blew past the sign without stopping. All four tires left the road as we jumped the top of the steep hill.
As close as he was, and with the headlights glaring, I couldn’t see the plate number. Even the color eluded me, in the absence of working streetlights. Would it kill the city to put some lights out here? The streets ahead were better lit, however, and I sped up, anxious to get the car behind me into the light. I most definitely did not want to stop out here in the dark with no witnesses.
Of course, getting to better lit streets involved staying on the street in the first place. The next hit almost put me in the ditch again despite my best efforts. If I could just make it to the top of the next hill, there would be people below-and lights. And maybe cameras at the intersection to get this jackassery on tape.
Whoever the guy was, he was obviously not ready for his close-up. As we crested the last hill, the brightly lit intersection below us, he whipped into the oncoming lane and zoomed around me. The light turned red, and he barreled through it to the tune of honking horns, leaving me to slam on the brakes and skid to a stop. There was no license plate on the back of the little car, but it was definitely a dark blue Ford Escort. The one from the parking lot?
The light cycled slow enough that I was almost done shaking by the time it went green again. I couldn’t even think of any suitable curse words, I was so unnerved. Freakin’ drunk sonsabitches. Damn high school or college kids, probably, thinking it was some great prank. Little jerks were going to kill somebody like that. I thought about calling the police, but it seemed futile without a plate number. Finally, I resolved to call my brother-the-cop in the morning, and let it go at that.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t watching behind me as I drove on toward home. Last thing I needed was some little punks egging my house or breaking my windows or something. Not to mention I’m pretty sure scaring the hell out of Mira would be hazardous to their continued well-being. But there was no one back there, and I arrived without incident.
Climbing out of the truck in the garage, I immediately went to inspect for damage. The corner of the license plate was a little bent, but that could have happened long before. Other than that, there wasn’t a mark on her. “Atta girl.” I patted the fender affectionately, some of the tension going out of my shoulders. At least my baby wasn’t hurt.
The house was dark when I got inside, and it smelled of sage and enchiladas. It figured that I’d work late. She hadn’t told me it was enchilada night.
Mira, the most perfect woman in the world, left me a plate in the microwave. Her enchiladas were even better reheated, and I wolfed them down as quickly and quietly as possible, lurking in front of the bay window in the living room. Nothing stirred outside; no cars, no people, nothing. Somewhere, there was an owner of a small dark car who was no doubt congratulating himself on giving some perfect stranger the scare of his life.
I put the plate in the dishwasher, then did my usual house walk before bed, checking the doors and windows. Stopping to eyeball the street again, I watched one lonely car trundle up our block until it reached the end and turned out of sight. It wasn’t the mysterious car that followed me from the highway; I recognized it as belonging to a house a few blocks down. The light came on briefly in the neighbor’s yard to our rear, and I heard her mumbling to her dog to hurry up his business. Blocks away, another dog started barking, to be silenced by its disgruntled owner. On the surface, things were as they should be.
As I walked down the hall toward the bedroom, I heard the softest of sounds from Mira’s sanctuary.
While I got the former closet as a haven, Mira had claimed the spare bedroom and converted it into her own little hideaway. The spare bed was shoved negligently into the corner and buried under piles of books, mostly research on things Mira wanted for the shop. Bundles of dried herbs dangled from hooks in the ceiling (an entire weekend’s work for me, to get those just how she wanted them), giving the room a pungent, earthy smell. Only Mira knew what they all were, and their purposes. To me, they just looked like dead weeds. A wreath of grapevines, woven into a pentacle, hung on the wall, and beneath it rested a small altar, all the implements of Mira’s faith set in their precise places.
Frowning, I poked my head in.
The candles were lit, one for each cardinal direction, lending a cheerful glow to the hardwood floor. The air in the room felt heavy, like the thickness before a lightning storm. A large metal basin sat in the center of the floor, filled with some kind of milky liquid. And on the far side, Mira sat huddled, arms wrapped around her knees and her face buried as she sobbed quietly.
“Mira?” Alarm sent my heart thudding into my throat again, and I stepped into the room, only to stop short when she flung her hand out toward me.
“Don’t! Don’t break the circle!” Hurriedly, she wiped tears from her face, crawling back to the basin. “You have to see this.”
I moved as close as I dared. Somewhere between us was a thin film of Mira’s own will, holding in her magic or keeping foreign magic out (I was never quite sure about the mechanics of it). I craned my head to see what she was working with.
“I was setting protective spells for Miguel and Rosaline, and it occurred to me that I could try a scrying, see if I could locate him.” Mira’s voice held steady as if she hadn’t just been crying her heart out, her hands making quick and efficient movements over the bowl of milky liquid. Ever practical, that’s my girl. “Here, watch.”
The flickering candlelight made vision difficult, and I strained my eyes to see what Mira saw. The liquid in the bowl-heavily salted water, if I had to guess-swirled in response to my wife’s graceful gestures, clouds of white following her hand
s like a magnet. Once she had them swirling in a very nice whirlpool, she withdrew her hands, and the water took on a life of its own.
At first, it was no more than streams of white through the water, caught up in the vortex momentum. But gradually, the lines began to diverge and congregate, solidifying into something like the reverse of a black-and-white movie. The first thing I recognized was the shape of a man, and as it grew clearer, sharper, I was able to recognize Miguel in negative, his black hair stark white in the reversed image.
But what was he doing? It looked at first as if he were going through katas, the same exercises I did every morning to practice my fighting skills. But Miguel wasn’t a martial artist, and as far as I knew, he didn’t work through forms like I did.
He lunged with the weapon in his hand and chopped hard to the right. That’s not his machete, I thought, and I leaned as close as I could to look. In fact, it looked suspiciously like a baseball bat. What the hell? No one in his right mind used a nonbladed weapon unless he had no choice.
Next, he spun to the left, aiming a low block at some invisible enemy. Then his left shoulder jerked back in response to a blow I could not see. Before he could bring the weapon around again, something hit him hard enough to spin him in a circle. The bat went flying out of his hand and out of view. The grimace of pain was visible on the tiny dark face, even in the dim light. This was no kata, and I was only getting half the scene.
“Why can’t I see what’s there with him?”
“I only have something of his. The salt in the bowl is bound to the salt in his body.” Glancing away from the disturbing images playing out in the water, I saw her fidget with something tiny in one hand.
Miguel’s negative image doubled in half, taking some kind of blow to the stomach, and then dropped to his knees. The next strike came to the back of his neck. I knew it even before his body sprawled on the ground, simply because that is what I would do to a kneeling opponent. For long moments, he lay there; the salt-image wasn’t precise enough to be able to see if he was breathing. Finally, one arm jerked upward at an awkward angle.
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