Forest Moon Rising (17 page)

“I just can. I’m an imp. With that ball we can spy on the forest elf and his band of juvenile delinquents.”

“We can?”

“Yeah, and we can keep an eye on Donovan, and Gollum.”

“No!” she screams at the top of her lungs. “Go do imp things and leave me alone. If I finish this book before the end of the year I just might be able to salvage my career and my credit balance.”

“If you hadn’t let Dad tie up so much of your money in retirement accounts . . .”

“Out!”

So out I go. Allie’s no fun. She’s making phone calls and pretending to read bride magazines, in between petting the matt-black revolver cradled in her lap. Now if she’d let me design her gown we could put together the wedding of the year on a budget. But no. She can’t see or hear me, and Tess won’t interpret for me. I settle for marking a page in a magazine on the bottom of the pile and move it to the top.

What’s this? Allie’s talking to the community college. They’ve got an opening for an instructor in the Criminal Justice Department. Woo Hoo! She and Steve are gonna move here. Tess needs that. She misses her family, though she won’t admit it. She’s been lonely for too long.

I can’t help Allie write up her resume. But I can do something about the crystal ball. I know my babe needs that artifact of power. The Universe or the Powers That Be wouldn’t have put it in her path if she didn’t.

So I pop out to the chat room.

What? I can’t see any demons on guard. Usually, they are visible as the only spots of color in the vast expanse of nothing.

(I’ll tell you a secret. You know that white light people talk about when they have near death experiences? That’s really just the chat room. Imps aren’t allowed to know what happens after death. For us there is nothing. The end is the end. But some races and tribes get to start over again. To do that they have to wander through the chat room from one dimension to the next, or one life to the next. Whatever.)

Eeeeeek! It’s the Politbutts. Big as trees, shaggy with a fur made of lies. See, a Politbutt can’t tell the truth if you paid them to do it. And every time they tell a lie, it shows up as a long tendril of fur, some white, some black, some mixes of colors. The white guys are the worst. They make their lies sound so very believable.

This guy is white, barely discernible against the white-on-white room. It lumbers toward me. I scoot to the right, the opposite direction from where I need to go.

Politbutt anticipates me and snakes out an arm the size of a sewer pipe. It slams into me; I can’t move fast enough to avoid something that big.

The breath whooshes out of me. My mouth tastes metallic—like copper. I hope it’s not blood.

The blow shoots me straight across an acre or two of empty space, down a long corridor with windows into the past. I scream past glimpses of the crystal ball’s origin and history.

I came here with the resonance of that ball in my mind. The windows show me what I’m looking for. But I have no control over my flight. I can’t breathe. I can barely look at the scenes in the life of the Crystal.

I catch pieces of its discovery by a druid in Scotland. The ball changes hands dozens of times, from grandmother to grandson, to distant cousin. A clan of Romany takes it in trade for healing magic. The clan sells it in desperation during the Holocaust where they are hunted down with the same zeal as if they were Jewish. And then ... and then ... our Starshine finds it in a pile of junk at a flea market. She pays a pittance for it. I see another buyer, can’t tell who it is, but she (?) finds it too late. Starshine doesn’t know what it is; she just knows it is valuable. And powerful. She lusts after it with greed, not with understanding.

My Tess understands it. I can show her how to use it.

Then I smack into a solid door. My wings crumple. Pain lances like fire along the full length of every bone and cartilage. I sink down to the floor that suddenly goes squishy and starts to absorb me.

Revelation. Imps don’t truly die or pass into nothingness. We, with our special powers that allow us to travel through the dimensions anywhere, anywhen, become the chat room. We don’t need fixed portals, we make our own. My ancestors have become the walls of this transition place. We live forever, continuing our duty to the Universe in a new way.

Peace and warmth flood me with this knowledge. I can pass into this new existence with ease. It won’t hurt.

Much.

Lingering stabs of fire remind me of who I am and what I am.

I’ve got to find some life deep within me to cling to.

If I die, Tess dies. It’s not her time. She still has so much good she can do.

If she’d just bought the damn crystal ball I wouldn’t have had to chase it through the chat room. I might live to become the Celestial Blade once more.

If I die, she dies.

The white envelops me....

T
HE COMPUTER SCREEN BLURRED. I blinked my eyes several times to regain my focus. How long had I been at work?

My vision cleared enough to check the time at the bottom of the screen. Six twenty-three. Was it morning or evening? Hints of dull, rain-washed light paled the sky. In late October, that could mean either sunrise or sunset.

Static filled my eyes. White static. I tried to shake my head to clear it of the fuzzy vision and scattered thoughts. My head was too heavy. So were my arms.

I needed to put my head down. The desktop seemed a league away and retreating.

Sleep. If only I could sleep a little.

I flopped back against the high back of my office chair, letting my head loll to the side. I closed my eyes.

Just for a couple of minutes. Allie would be calling me to dinner soon. I’d be okay with just a short nap.

“Tess, wake up. Tess?” Allie shook my shoulder vigorously.

I swam up through layers and layers of white mist, trying desperately to speak, hearing only a gargled croak.

“Tess, what’s wrong?” Allie crouched before my chair. Her long fingers encircled my wrist, testing my pulse. She shook her head and moved her touch to my throat.

I think I breathed.

“You’re alive. For a while there I wasn’t sure.” She stood up and glowered down at me from her superb height.

“Huh?”

“You scared me. What happened?”

“Wh ...” I licked my dry lips and swallowed deeply. Then I tried again. “What happened?”

“That’s what I asked you?” She ran the back of her hand across my brow the same way Mom used to check for fever.

“Time?” I blinked a couple of times, trying to focus my eyes. The room kept trying to spin away from me. After a couple of tries I found a scratch on my desk to focus on. Gradually, things stopped sliding away from me.

“It’s after nine. Have you eaten anything? Have you even been to bed?”

“Nine in the morning!” More than just lamplight filtered into the room. Dull and gray outside, but still brighter than when I’d succumbed to sleep.

Or was it more than sleep?

“Scrap. Where’s Scrap?” I shoved my chair back in panic. I had to find him. Something was wrong. Terribly, awfully wrong.

The room lurched right then left. I fell heavily against Allie.

“Easy, Tess. Take it easy. Let’s get you to the kitchen and pour some coffee and food into you. I’m calling Gollum.”

“No.”

“Yes. Either him or Dr. Sean. You know he’ll put you in the hospital and run a thousand expensive tests that will show nothing. You need help. So swallow your pride along with your coffee. We’re calling Gollum.” She slipped her arm around my waist and braced us both for the trip across the hall to the tall counter between the kitchen and living room.

I eyed the swivel barstool warily. I knew that if I tried climbing onto it, it would twist and fling me away.

Allie solved that problem with a heave and a push.

“I feel as helpless as a child.”

“You are. Drink this and think about letting someone help
you
for a change. You don’t have to do everything alone.”

“Tell that to Scrap. He’s alone somewhere and hurting. I need to find him.”

“You need to regain some strength so he can. You two are bound so tight with magic and love and blood you’re almost the same person.”

I sat listlessly staring into the black depths of my coffee. Black and strong like a hungry black hole in space; bitter enough to etch the sugar spoon I stirred.

The whirlpools within the cup drew me deeper and deeper. If only I could see through the murkiness, I was sure I could find Scrap. I knew I had to find him before this terrible listlessness would dissolve.

I do not know this door that pushes so insistently at my back. I should know every door in the chat room, all six hundred sixty-six of them. This is one that has never revealed itself to me before. It wants me to rise up and push it open.

But I know if I do that, it will swallow me whole and I will leave my beloved Tess to drift into nothingness, neither alive, nor dead.

This is worse than the time the Guardians of the Valley of Fire trapped me within the Goblin Rock. They at least asked questions. They demanded I look deep within myself and find the source of the darkness in my soul. Only when I brought forth my guilt for allowing my bloodlust to extend beyond those who sought to kill me to the onlookers who cheered them on did I find a sliver of light within the darkness. Only when I admitted that I didn’t need to kill them did I loosen the hold that guilt had upon me.

Only then could I stand within the same room as Donovan Estevez, the former gargoyle who still repelled those who would taint the sanctuary he had guarded for eight hundred years.

This solid and unmoving door reminded me of all that. Inspiration born of instinct tells me to get away from that door. Behind it lies a dimension from which I can never return.

Slowly I roll to my dimpled knees. The door tries to follow me, pressing against my bum like a lover.

Death stalks me like a lonely lover.

I crawl back the way I came. I cannot return Death’s affection.

My wings sag over my shoulders. Tiny movements rock them with pins and needles of fire. I do not think them broken. Just sprained, like Tess’ ankle.

The windows I passed on my way down the corridor of curiosity have closed. One shot. That’s all you get on a search. One lousy look. The window decides how long you can peer through, taking note of details that might prove useful later. Then it slams closed, never to open to you again. I don’t know if it will open to another searcher. I hope not. Otherwise, our enemies will know what we know.