I Married the Third Horseman (Paranormal Romance and Divorce)

by Michael Angel

  No logo, no fancy printing, no phone number. Nada. Zip.

  Only the address, which listed a road and number combination for the city of Taos, in the state of New Mexico. A thought occurred to me. A half-turn of the key in the ignition, and I switched on the car’s GPS. I plugged in the address and had the device plot some suggested courses from my current location.

  My destination lay at the end of a long, winding road somewhere just to the north of Taos proper. As to my starting point…I let out a groan. Just as I had thought: in my panic, I’d hopped back on the I-15 and headed north out of Vegas. The good news? I could still make it to Taos, as long as I kept the Porsche fed regularly with premium gas. The bad news?

  If I kept going on I-15 North and stayed on the major freeways, then I’d end up passing close by Salt Lake City. Too damned close by half to the town of Sundance. Too damned close by three-quarters to the Thantos ranch. But if I turned around to head south…Mitchel was there, in Vegas. Waiting for me to run right into his arms. Right into his taloned claws.

  I rested my forehead on the edge of the leather steering wheel for a moment. Dammed if I went forward, damned if I headed back. So abso-friggin’ perfect.

  God, I was tired. So very tired.

  A tremor ran down my arms, the precursor of more to come.

  I rolled the windows back up, locked the doors. Then I reclined the seat all the way back, flipped a switch, and watched the moon roof slide open. The stars above burned bright. Brighter than I’d ever seen them in my life.

  My life…

  That’s when the awful, uncontrollable shaking in my arms really began. When the tears really began to flow, scalding hot along my cheeks, dripping into my ears. I groped for a travel pack of tissue I’d stored in the door compartment and did my best to keep up with my brimming eyes. A racking sob came from my throat, followed by another and another and another…

  Freeze Frame.

  Sorry to break down on you like this, therapy buddy.

  I guess this is the two-hankie part of the film right now. I wish it weren’t. I wish you were here, right now, to cry with me and tell me that it’s okay, and that I will get through this. I wish I’d never agreed to go out with Mitchel. I wish I’d never made Machupo. I wish…hell, I wish that my Mom hadn’t died in the first place.

  I couldn’t make the tears stop. Because of my guilt. Because no matter what the logical, Xena High-Heeled warrior princess side of me said, I felt responsible.

  I was the reason that thousands of people lay dead, all over the world. It was my fault.

  Every time I closed my eyes, I saw bodies. Emaciated, fly-blown, sprawled like some bloody, obscene puzzle design that stretched from Bali to Sydney, Mexico to China, with stop-overs in Seoul and South Dakota.

  At the very last, as I slid the moon roof closed and curled up in a fetal position, praying for sleep to come, I had a strange thought. I’d cried myself out by then, but the thought still burrowed in, gave me a twinge between the eyes.

  All those dead people proved one awful, gut-churning thing.

  That in his own twisted way, Mitchel really did love me.

  ***

  Dawn woke me.

  Well, if you want to be precise, the cold woke me. I just happened to sit up around the time that the gray light of the early morning desert began to blossom into the orange furnace of the day. Someone hadn’t turned the pilot light on the furnace yet, though. The condensation that had beaded the inside of my windows was chilly. I dug out my remaining tissues, used a wad of them to wipe the windows clean. Fog from my breath hung in the air in little cotton puffs.

  The Boxster’s motor roared to life, and I let the engine warm up for a moment as I cupped my hands. Breathed into them.

  I felt hollow inside, fragile, like a bell jar. As if I’d let out an empty-sounding chime if someone touched me. But as I looked at my options, I realized that my plans were surprisingly simple. That is, once I faced up to the fact that I really only had one option available to me.

  I had meant what I said back at the Odyssey. I’d go through Hell itself to get my divorce now. And I’d pour gasoline on my best Alberto Guardiani pumps and light them on fire before I went crawling back to Mitchel.

  So a quick glance back at the GPS maps, and I pulled out onto I-15 North. Another two hours watching the sun rise as I drove. I left Nevada and breezed through a tiny chunk of Arizona, on the way into Utah. Not to head towards Salt Lake, though. Instead, I planned to strike out due east, take the smaller state highways through the state’s southern edge and on down through Colorado and into New Mexico.

  Both the car and I needed refueling again. Just over the state line from Arizona, I stopped at the town of St. Christopher’s when I spotted signs for gas and a diner called the Pork N’ Flapjack. The town’s name sounded promising, as it was the name of the saint who protected travelers. The diner sounded even more promising. It sounded like they served bacon.

  One tank of premium later, a set of little silver bells dangling from the front door jingled cheerily as I entered the diner. On the inside, the Flapjack looked like a bright island of the 1950’s. Black and white Formica counter, chrome-rimmed stools, checkerboard tile, and the warm smell of bacon on the grill mixed with sweet, cinnamon apple pie.

  A waitress in a striped uniform showed me over to a booth by the window. It didn’t take me more than a few seconds to put my order in. Sunny-side up eggs, hash browns, and extra bacon. Coffee, strong as they could make it and with a bunch of sugar and cream on the side.

  I don’t think it needs saying that the calories weren’t going to count today.

  I savored the warmth radiating from the heavy crockery mug of coffee when it came. Then began wolfing down the eggs and hash browns as soon as the waitress had set the plate down. The empty bell-jar feeling went away as I plowed through one egg, then another, following up with the most milkfat and sugar-laden drink I’d had in quite a while.

  It was so good, I almost didn’t notice it. The jingle of the bell as someone came in.

  A heavy tread to the step. Menacing. I lowered my coffee mug. Stupidly, I’d taken the seat that faced away from the door. I began to work my nerve up to turn around and take a look.

  But I didn’t need to. A tall, slender man walked up to my booth.

  My insides froze. Mitchel’s brother Uri cracked a reedy smile and took the seat opposite mine without so much as an invitation.

  “Well, now,” he said, gloating. “Look at what a pretty fly just wandered into my web.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Early morning sunshine is supposed to make everything better. Supposed to.

  At least it’s supposed to make it a bit more cheery. That’s why I always relied on shots taken right after sunrise for commercials and music videos. Everything from maple syrup to family restaurants to rock ballads just went better with that extra golden touch. But Uri’s thin build and pale complexion seemed impervious to warmth, to heat. The dark cast around his eyes seemed to swallow the light, turning his sockets into unsettling pits.

  “My brother Mitchel’s gotten to be such a bore lately,” Uri said, absently brushing a mote of dust from the shoulder of his khaki-colored jacket, as if there was nothing more important on his mind. “He’s been pestering all of us to get off our collective duffs and bring you back to him. As if we didn’t have more important things to do on a daily basis.”

  “Don’t let me stop you from getting back to your job,” I replied. My hand slipped down to where I’d placed the handbag on the booth’s seat, next to me and out of sight. I’d brought it in with me, out of habit more than anything else. Though I doubted that Uri was going to sit there quietly while I rummaged through it.

  Play it cool, I thought fiercely. I kept my hand where it was.

  “To my embarrassment, I can’t just let this be,” he said. “I promised my brother to bring you back, and I shall do that. So. I need you to come with me.”

  For some reason, Uri�
��s polite request made my insides run cold.

  “You know I don’t want to go back to him. Won’t go back to any of your family.”

  “Oh, you will. Kicking and screaming, if needed, but you will. Mitchel said that he wanted his prize at all costs. He never said that you had to be…shall we say, ‘undamaged’.”

  I reached out to pick up my coffee mug. Stopped before I did. I wasn’t going to be able to raise it to my lips without shaking. Instead, I decided to bluff. I tried out a couple lines I’d read in the script for a direct-to-video gangster flick I’d done a while back.

  “You talk a good game, Uri. For someone who’s grown up watching cop shows on television. News flash: that doesn’t mean you’re the tough guy in the room.”

  An eyebrow raised. “Why makes you think I only ‘talk’ the game?”

  “Because otherwise, you’d have grabbed me out of this seat already.” I said it as a heady feeling coursed through me, half fatigue, half caffeine. I didn’t exactly want to get him angry. But Uri’s expression of cool amusement rattled me a lot more than Mitchel’s anger or fake contrition did.

  Then Uri surprised me. He sighed, and then spread his arms out. Indicating our surroundings with a vague gesture of his hands.

  “Unfortunately, that would be against the rules for me,” he said. “This place around us is holy ground. So I can’t touch you until you step off of it.”

  It’s a good thing that ‘my jaw dropped’ is just an expression. Because otherwise, my lower teeth would have splashed into my coffee mug. Quick, someone get on the phone and call Connor McCloud, I’ve got another sequel in mind for the Highlander series.

  “Wait, wait.” I said. “You mean to tell me that this two-star excuse for a Denny’s or a Coco’s…is holy ground?”

  “Dubious, I know, but it has nothing to do with the powdered eggs or the suet caking your bacon strips. As matter of fact, this place used to be the Church of St. Christopher’s. It was never properly deconsecrated after it fell into ruin.” He nodded at the heavyset waitress who’d served me when I came in. “When the site was purchased by Abigail there, and her husband Dwayne, they just built on top of the pre-existing foundations, none the wiser. So we talk first.”

  “Sounds like we have a standoff, Uri,” I shot back. I clenched the hand that lay on my handbag. The fabric felt rough under my skin. “You can’t pry me out of here. And I’ll be damned before I walk out that door on my own.”

  “You’re making an awful lot of assumptions there, Cassie.” Uri said with a smirk. “I know you wouldn’t walk out there willingly. Well, not if you’re the only one that has…what is it that you mortals like to say these days? ‘The only one who has skin in the game’.”

  I definitely didn’t like the way this was going.

  “So if you don’t come out on your own, other people are going to get their skin put in the game, whether they like it or not.” He leaned back in his seat as the waitress came over to our booth. Her name tag, which indeed had ‘Abigail’ printed inside a gold oval, glinted in the light as she refilled my coffee mug. She threw Uri a distinctly disapproving glance.

  “Everythin’ all right here, dearie?” she asked, eyeing my companion with open suspicion. “Didn’t see this fellow come in with you.”

  “Everything’s fine,” I assured her.

  “Want me to hustle another menu over here, then?”

  “No, thanks. My…friend here, he was just leaving.”

  She nodded, taking me at my word for now. The ding of a bell from the pick-up station, and she left to go handle the next order.

  “Go on,” I said, though with a lot less bravado than I’d shown a moment ago. “A half-finished threat…it feels like getting stuck in a showing where the film burns through.”

  Uri’s eyes went flat. “No one is going to leave this diner until I wish it.”

  I opened my mouth to ask another question, but halted as the light outside suddenly went dim. As if someone had passed their hand over the sun. A flurry of commotion from off to our side. I turned, watched as a family of four sitting a few booths down chatted excitedly.

  “Mommy, is that a sandstorm?” the smaller of the two children, a tow-headed blonde, asked.

  “I don’t think so, honey. It looks like a fog bank.” The mother frowned and spoke to Abigail. “Do you get fog out in the desert like that?”

  A shake of the head. “Never seen anythin’ like it, to be honest.”

  As quickly as the drop of a stage curtain, a wave of mist draped itself over the windows, turning the light outside the shade of cloudy orange juice. Then it got heavier and heavier, turning the orange to gray. A chill spread out from the knot in my stomach as I watched. I mean, that old horror film The Fog didn’t have this much fog.

  A shout, and a man came out from the kitchen. He was dressed in a stained white apron, and a faded USMC tattoo adorned his bulky bicep.

  “What the hell was that?” he exclaimed. “Looked like some kind of huge bat!”

  The children didn’t cry, not exactly, but they burrowed in closer to their parents. Abigail spoke crossly to the cook. “Stop scarin’ the kids, Dwayne, and get back to that stove!”

  A thin cry from the mist outside. Things had gotten so dark that I could barely make out the front bumper of the closest car in the parking lot, call it fifteen yards. But I spotted the same bat-like creature. Whatever it was, it had a horrible human face, clawed wings, and a mouth full of gaping, rotting teeth.

  “Those are the sheydu, the tribe of my famine demons,” Uri said offhandedly. “As you can guess, they’re under my command. They’re ravenous, and not particularly fussy about what they consume. Whether it’s meat, vegetable, wood, or stone. Whether it’s fish or fowl. Whether it’s dead, or still alive and screaming. In ten minutes, if you’re not out in that parking lot, they’ll come in here and tear this place down to the bedrock with their teeth.”

  “Wait,” I said, my stomach chills now turning into rock-hard ice. “I thought this was holy ground! How are those things going to get in here?”

  Uri shrugged expressively. “What can I tell you, Cassie? Not everyone’s Catholic.”

  I just sat and glared at him.

  He got up and walked towards the exit, whistling a little tune to himself. A little jingle of bells as he pulled the door open. He looked over his shoulder, and a strange smile lit his face.

  “Ten minutes, Cassie,” he said. “But take the time to finish your breakfast. Wasting food is bad. There’s lots of kids starving right now, all over the world. Trust me on that one. I should know.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  No one noticed Uri’s departure. They were all glued to the windows in horror. A flock of bat-things with bodies the size of Dobermans, and wings the length of a good-sized car circled around the diner like…I wasn’t sure. A pack of airborne wolves, maybe.

  A goose-pimpling howl from outside.

  Uh-huh. Just the time for Cassie to be right about something, for a change.

  I pulled the handbag out from where it sat at my side.

  If ever there was a time to open Circe’s gifts, this was it.

  I took out the case and set it out on the table. A pair of gold latches, the kind you found on a courier’s attaché case, gleamed softly in the booth’s light. The release buttons were engraved with the picture of a jar held shut by a thick, textured lid.

  It wasn’t as scary as finding a ‘skull and crossbones’ or the orchid-y looking symbol meaning ‘biohazard.’ But it still made me pause. At least for a moment.

  A shriek from the table where the family still sat, watching the circling demons, the sheydu. One of the bat-things had smacked the window before it flew off. A greasy mark the size of a dinner plate marked the point of impact. So did a spider web of cracks in the glass.

  I wasted no more time in pressing the buttons.

  The case opened with a click. The interior had been divided into three compartments, one large and two small. In the
large compartment lay the scroll container: a silver-sheened tube about the width of a toilet-paper roll. The tube itself was decorated with complex arabesque whorls and stars. The ends were plugged at each end with a pointed cap tipped with a glittering red gem. I gave the caps an experimental tug; they were shut tight.

  A battered makeup compact in the shape of a clamshell took up most of one of the smaller sections. It was held shut by a pair of rubber bands. Pinned under the bands against the case’s exterior was a bright yellow Post-It with the note: ONE USE ONLY.

  I frowned. I didn’t want to gamble with a one-shot tool, not now. So I grabbed at what looked like a travel-sized bottle of cologne in the remaining compartment. A squeeze-ball perfume atomizer fell into my hand. The lavender-shaded glass gleamed softly. I shook it, listened to the tiny slosh from inside. Not much. Best guess is that I had a half-tablespoon of liquid in there.

  Another slam against the windows. The tinkle of fractured glass. A responding female shriek. The father pulled his wife and kids away from the window. His face had taken on an ashen, waxy look.

  “We can’t go out there!” he exclaimed. “Not with those…things flying around! Is there anywhere to hide in here?”

  “Get back into the kitchen,” Abigail said, beckoning them around the counter. She looked over to the cook, her eyes wide with fear. “Dwayne, maybe if they don’t see us…”

  “Aw, they know we’re here,” he replied grimly. But he helped herd the family around the diner’s counter as the bat-things swirled ever closer to the wide glass panes, teeth gnashing.

  I shook the bottle again. Judgment time. I had enough to douse me with a nice spray of Mnemosyne water. A squeeze, and everyone, sheydu and otherwise, would forget about me. I’d be out the door and on my way. Easy as pie, easy as cake, easy peasy one-two-threesy…

  I couldn’t get my feet to move. I looked at the family, their terrified children, the cook and waitress trying to act cool when they didn’t know what circle of hell was about to bust down the door to come hunting for me.