Gathering Storm (10 page)

Even though a life ruled by
compulsion wasn’t a recipe for happiness, it could have been okay.
All he had to do was bet the track with poker winnings and go home.
But the fever escalated beyond that and he ended up borrowing. No
matter how much he won at poker, he could always manage to
lose
more
at the
track. From the outside looking in, it was an exquisite form of
psychological masochism.

He’d had some close calls
with the shark, the guy he called Baph, but he’d always managed it
out before it got too dicey and won enough to pay off his debts in
money, not blood. At least that was what had always happened
before.

CHAPTER 8

Just like every day,
Deliverance came at half past nine so that he’d have half an hour
to play with Rosie before taking Storm to Jefferson Unit. At ten,
Storm picked up his beautiful three-year-old and gave her smooches
on her ticklish little neck until she laughed
hysterically.

“Say bye Daddy,” he
prompted.

“Bye Daddy.”

“See you later.”

“See you later.”

Litha’s emerald eyes seemed to sparkle with
iridescence whenever she watched that exchange. When Storm turned
toward her, she was clearly eager for her turn. She got a sweet and
thorough kiss and giggled like Rosie when he turned around and came
back for another.

Storm left with a grin on
his face, loving every second of his two emerald-eyed girls waving
goodbye. It was a vision so perfect that it burned into his memory
like a brand. It would be a memory that he would recall thousands
of times.

The trip from the Black
Swan Vineyard on the Pacific Coast to Jefferson Unit at Fort Dixon,
New Jersey normally took about three minutes. According to the
habit they had already formed, Deliverance created a portal in his
mind just outside the Sovereign’s office at J.U. before taking
Storm in tow by gripping his son-in-law’s forearm.

Perhaps the demon became
relaxed in the habit. Perhaps there was interference from another
entity traveling the same network of passes. The reason is less
important than the result, which was that Deliverance arrived
outside Sol’s office alone.

The demon was over eight
hundred years old and, in all that time, he’d never once had reason
to panic. The rise of that emotion, common to humans, was as
shocking and dramatic to him as a heart attack might be to a
man.

Glen was just glancing at
his watch when his door was opened without a knock. Deliverance
looked stricken and the expression was made more alarming by the
fact that his olive complexion looked wan.

“Have you seen Storm?”

Glen’s brows pulled down into a scowl.

“No.” Though he was
getting a very bad feeling about the exchange, he posed his next
question evenly and deliberately. “Have you?”

Deliverance was looking a
little wild-eyed. “Um. Yes. He was with me?”

Glen stood up
slowly.
Calm. Remain
calm
. “What do you mean
was
with
you?”

It was a good thing that
Glen was calm because the incubus was headed toward full-fledged
hysteria. Not because he was tight with his son-in-law, but because
he knew his little girl would be every possible version of angry
about Storm getting himself lost en route.

“I mean I picked him up at
home, but he’s not here!! What else might I mean,
human?!?”

Glen’s hands had
involuntarily curled into fists and his molars were clenched shut
so tight he felt like he had lockjaw. “Deliverance. What are our
options?”

“I don’t know! Nothing
like this has ever happened before. Maybe there’s a reason why we
don’t carry inferior…”

“DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT
FINISHING THAT SENTENCE! THIS IS NO TIME FOR BETTER-THAN-YOU
BULLSHIT!”

“Okay.”

“Options. THINK!”
Deliverance stared straight ahead, frozen. Nothing was forthcoming.
“Can you retrace your route and find him?”

“No. The passes aren’t
stationary. They’re like… I don’t know, tides? They move around. He
could be any one of a thousand places.”

“So how do you propose we find him?”

The demon was fidgeting
from side to side like a child who’d been caught doing something
very naughty. “Search party?”

Glen was infuriated and
looked it, but did his best to keep a handle on the emotion.
“Search party. Okay. Good. Good. Who are you going to get to
search?”

“Friends?”

“I’m very glad to hear you
have friends, demon. You need to get started on that pronto, but
first you’ve got to let Litha know what’s going on.”

Deliverance was shaking his head from side
to side violently. “No.”

“That is NOT an option.
She has to know and she has to know now. For one thing, she’s going
to want to help look for him. Have her bring Rosie here. We’ll look
after her.” The demon didn’t respond. “You’re wasting valuable
time. Man up and go tell your daughter you lost her husband.” Still
no reaction. “If you’re waiting for me to offer to go with you…?”
Glen finished that thought by chuffing out a disgusted breath and
reached for the phone. “I can call her, but she’s never going to
respect you again if she hears this from me over the
phone.”

Glen looked down to speed dial. When he
looked back up, the demon was gone.

Rosie was playing on the kitchen floor.
Litha was emptying the dishwasher, when she felt the atmosphere
shift. Storm always wondered why she was never startled by the
demon’s popping in and out. It was because she had enough demon
blood to sense the change when another entity opened a portal into
her immediate environment.

Litha turned toward him. “Dad. Why are you
back so…?” The question hung in the air when she got a look at his
face. “What’s happened?”

She’d never seen
Deliverance look so unsettled and it scared her. “Is it
Storm?”
Oh gods.
His lips parted and he looked like a person who had something
to say and couldn’t decide how to say it. Losing patience, she took
a step toward him. “Say it. What’s wrong? Where’s
Storm?”

He was shaking his head just a little. “I
don’t know.”

“You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t
know?”

“We left here…”

“I know that.”

“And I was the only one who…”

Litha felt her knees go
weak and had to grab onto the countertop behind her. “You didn’t
lose him in the passes.” She felt tears well up. Litha hated tears.
She hated looking weak. She hated feeling weak. She hated crying.
And she hated her father for making her feel everything she was
feeling at that moment. She whispered, “Please tell me you didn’t
lose him in the passes.”

“I’m going to form a… a search party.”
Litha’s eyes glazed over. “Glen said I should come tell you first,
that you would want to help look, and to bring Rosie to him. He
said they would take care of her.”

There was no response.
Litha’s eyes continued to be out of focus. She looked dazed. As a
frequent traveler of the passes, she had every good reason to react
that way.

Deliverance glanced at
Rosie who was looking at him with accusation all over her little
face. It was an odd look on a toddler. He was starting to get a
little worried about Litha’s reaction. Or lack of.

“Litha. I know this is bad, but I’ll fix it.
I’ll get him back. I promise.”

She blinked. Once. Twice. Then slowly her
eyes slid toward his.

“You’re damned right you will. You’ll find
him if it’s the last thing you ever do.”

Litha didn’t know it was
possible to be so angry or so scared. The combination of two such
powerful emotions smacking up against each other was debilitating.
She felt like her body was going to go on overload and
explode.

“Who’s in this search party? And how are
they going to look for him?”

“I need something personal
so his life imprint can be read, something he’s worn maybe. I’ll
call in some favors, go to the Sylphic Warriors first. They’ll be
the fastest.”

“I know some angels who
will help.”

“ANGELS!?!”

“YES!!! And you will work
with them and you will
like
it.” He crossed his arms over his chest in a huff
and pouted like a petulant teen. “Save it. I’m warning you.” She
stood up straight even though she was feeling a little lightheaded.
“Watch Rosie while I go get something of Storm’s.”

In a couple of minutes she returned with a
black tee shirt that hadn’t been laundered yet.

“Will this do?” He took the shirt, closed
his eyes for a second, and nodded. “I’m taking Rosie to Elora. Then
I’m going looking for my husband. We need a system so that we don’t
have people looking in the same place and a way to cross off
dimensions that have been checked.”

She was thinking while she was gathering up
Rosie’s things. She called Glen. When he answered she said, “You’re
going to be our point person. You’re the best one for the job.”

“Whatever you need.”

“We’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Will
you please contact Elora for me and let her know I’m bringing Rosie
to her?”

“Yes. See you in a few.”

Litha handed two bags full
of stuff to Deliverance. “Carry these.” Rosie reached up as her
mother bent to lift her. Coolly, but to the point she ground out,
“
I’ll
bring
her.”

In his office, Litha
briefed Glen on the only plan they had. Glen then sent Barrock to
set up two smart boards in the conference room and declare the
floor off limits to everyone except himself, Sir Hawking and Lady
Laiken.

“Until further notice, no one gets off the
elevator on this level. Is that understood?” Barrock nodded and
turned to leave. “And Barrock?”

“Yes, Si…Glen?”

“Whatever you may have
overheard, this secret is a real secret. Do you understand
me?”

“I do.”

Elora arrived within a few
minutes. She looked like her level of shock rivaled
Litha’s.

“Come to Auntie.” She reached for her
namesake and Rosie leaned toward her. To Litha she said, “I can
call Baka and get the vampire to join the search if that will
help.”

Litha had held it
together, but when she opened her mouth to tell Elora yes, a choked
sort of garbled noise came out instead. Rosie reacted to her
mother’s distress by starting to cry. Elora shushed Rosie and
reached out to wrap Litha in the arm that wasn’t holding the
toddler.

“We’ll find him. He’s married to the best
tracker in the world. Everybody knows that.”

Litha nodded. It was more
a signal of resolve than agreement. She shushed Rosie again
lovingly and gave her a round of kisses on her pretty plump cheek.
“S’okay, baby.”

Glen began interrogating
Deliverance in an attempt to apply logic to the proposition of
looking for a needle in a meadow full of haystacks. While he was
doing that, Litha went to find Kellareal and enlist his help. Elora
stepped out in the hall to call Baka. She kissed the little fingers
that tried to grab the phone while she waited for him to
answer.

“Lady Laiken.”

“We’re going to need your boys.”

"Should I ask?"

“That demon lost Storm.”

“What do you mean lost?”
Silence. “Oh.” Like everybody else, Baka’s first thought
was,
Gods. Not him.

“Where do you want
us?”

“Sol’s conference room.
Soon as you can.”

“Litha?”

Elora looked back toward
the conference room. “Um, holding up. She’s gone to get help
looking. I’ve got the baby.”

“Okay. We’ll be there.”

“Hey. Wait. Not that I don’t always want to
see you, but we need pass riders. I’m afraid the rest of us are
benched for this one.”

“If I
really
can’t be of help, I may not
stay, but I’ll at least come and say something to Litha.” He
paused. “Rammel’s going to…”

“Be hard to handle. I know.”

“The main thing is to
bring Jean-Etienne so he can ride herd.”

“Agreed.” He hesitated to
hang up. “This is… I feel…”

“Yeah. Same
here.”

She hung up. Ram would
probably be finishing his workout and heading back to the
apartment. She ducked back into the conference room. “Going home to
tell Ram.” Glen stopped when the weight of that sunk in and nodded.
“Don’t be surprised if he shows up down here and tries to take
over.”

“Honestly. I’d like his help.”

Elora noticed that all of
a sudden Glen looked a good bit older than twenty.

By the time Ram reached
the conference room, it was as noisy as a political convention.
Elementals, angels, demons of every sort, and a few unidentifiable
species, all talking and arguing at the same time and not
necessarily in the same language.

Litha sat in a chair
looking shell shocked. Glen stood at one of the smart boards with a
pointer in hand, hoping for an excuse to feel useful.

Ram, his hair still wet
from a shower, leaped up on top of the conference table, put three
fingers in his mouth and let loose an ear-splitting whistle. The
room went instantly quiet.