Gathering Storm (11 page)

“Who is takin’
responsibility for findin’ my friend?” No one answered. “Everyone
who is no’ takin’ responsibility, be quiet and do no’ say another
fuckin’ thin’ unless you’re bein’ asked.” He turned to Glen. “Where
are we?”

Clearly frustrated, Glen
ran his free hand over the bed head he was rocking. “I can’t
tell.”

While Ram was looking at Glen, someone at
the back of the room yelled, “Angels rule!”

Ram’s head jerked in that
direction. “Exceedin’ly immature for creatures claimin’ to be
superior. There’s no room for politics and games here. This woman…”
He pointed at Litha. “…is missin’ her husband. ‘Tis scary for her.
Do you no’ get that?

“We’re grateful if you’re
here to help. If you’re no’ here to help, get out so the rest of us
can get down to business.”

Elora was standing toward
the back of the room, feeling a little numb. Her mind was on alert
and trying to mount a defense against thoughts she didn’t want to
think.
What if we don’t get him
back?

Seeing movement out of the
corner of her eye, she brought her head around to see Baka quietly
slipping in with five vampire close behind. He nodded as he spotted
Elora and started drifting her way.

When he reached her side,
she leaned over and whispered, “Good to see you. Thanks for
coming.”

He rolled his eyes. “Like
there was a question. What’s going on here?”

“Ram is trying to sort things out and get
the search started.”

Baka’s head jerked toward
her. “No one’s looking?”

Elora shook her head and
Baka could read the worry on her face. “Not yet.”

“Christ.” He rubbed a hand
over his mouth.

When no one met Ram’s
challenge by leaving, he turned on Deliverance and didn’t try to
hide the fact that he would have loved to turn the demon into a
pillar of salt. On the spot. With no fanfare beforehand and no
marker afterward. The only thing that kept him from plotting the
murder was the fact that they probably couldn’t find Storm without
the one who lost him.

“I do no’ know anythin’
about the geography of passes. Can you take the route you used to
get here, divide it into sections and assign these different…” He
looked around the room as the thought flitted through his mind that
dozens of academic types employed by The Order would have a field
day if turned loose on that gathering of creatures heretofore
thought mythological. “…factions an area to cover?”

“It won’t be exact, but we can do something
kind of like that.”

Ram marshaled every bit of
the example of control Storm had set for him so that he could pin
Deliverance with a level look and calmly say, “Then will you do
that please? Wherever he is, I’m certain he’s wishin’ he was here
instead. So, I’m thinkin’ sooner is better than later.” He glanced
at Litha and back to the demon. “Do you understand me?”

Ram noticed Javier behind
Elora. He’d been inching closer and was now leaning in to smell her
hair with a dreamy look on his face when Ram stopped him with a
pointed finger.

“Step away from my wife now,
motherfucker!”

Following Ram’s finger,
Elora turned around and bared her teeth. She was utterly without
patience for adolescent shenanigans. “I suggest you do as my
husband says quickly unless you want to end up with another ruined
blouse.”

Javier looked down at his
chest as if he was remembering a flagpole protruding from his front
and took a step back. Baka gave him a dirty look. Javier shrugged
in response as if to say, “You cannot blame an immortal vampire at
the height of his sexual urges for trying.”

Ram turned back to Deliverance muttering
something that began with, “Great Paddy…”

The incubus nodded his
agreement with the plan and started around the room letting the
searchers get a fix on Storm by his shirt. He then began giving
assignments and calling them out to Glen so he could write it on
the board.

Ram’s voice carried over
the room. “Be sure to check in with Mr. Catch or myself every so
often. When you find Sir Storm,” Ram was careful to say ‘when’
rather than ’if’ for Litha’s benefit. “…report here right away. One
of us will be here.”

In a short time there were
four left. Rammel, Glen, Litha, and her father. Baka had left when
the vampire were given their search parameters after extracting a
promise that someone would call him immediately when there was
word. Elora had gone upstairs to take over looking after Helm and
Rosie.

Litha turned to the demon,
feeling exhausted, but determined to ignore it.

“Give me an assignment and tell me what to
do.”

Ram sat down next to her
and spoke quietly. “Litha, we have…” He looked at Glen. “How many
are out searchin’ right now?”

“Thirty-nine.”

“
Would it no’ be better to
take care of Rosie?” He lowered his voice so that it was soft and
comforting. “I hear she’s growin’ up pretty fast.”

She looked into Ram’s
face. She wondered if her husband really knew how lucky he was to
have so many people who loved him. Tears welled in her eyes and
overflowed without warning. Rammel immediately moved closer to
offer a shoulder, which she took, gratefully.

“He didn’t want to miss
anything,” she said. “I could hardly get him to go to sleep. He
wanted to just sit by her bed at night and watch her.”

Ram felt his own breath
catch in his throat and curled his fists tight when the
overwhelming emotion threatened to overtake him as well. He blinked
rapidly. He wouldn’t allow himself to entertain the possibility
that Storm wouldn’t be back. That outcome was just too impossible
to imagine. Through all the years of close, close calls, he’d
accepted that each of them would probably end up like Lan.
Not like this. Not this!

When Litha began to quiet
and pulled back, he said, “Come upstairs. Have some dinner with us.
My wife is beside herself with worry about you.”

Litha narrowed her eyes. “Nice try. She’s
worried about Storm.”

He cocked his head to the side a little.
“She loves you, too, Litha. Do you no’ know that?”

She nodded. “I do. I’m
just cranky. I’m too anxious to have dinner and wait. I need to do
something. I’ll go out for a while. If I don’t find him, I’ll come
get Rosie and take her home to sleep in her own bed.”

“Whatever you want.”

When Litha and Deliverance left to pursue
their separate hunts, Ram heaved a weary sigh. After a short pause
he looked at Glen.

“Let’s take twelve hour shifts. I’ll be back
at nine. I can sleep on that couch over there.”

“You sure about that, old
man? You might get a crick in your neck.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

At eight thirty, Elora had
just put Rosie’s little white nightgown on her. She was too
beautiful for words, with Litha’s stunning emerald-green eyes set
into a feminine version of Storm’s face. It was the latter that
loosened Elora’s tear ducts, not that it ever took much to harvest
tears from Elora. Rosie, who seemed to have a wide streak of
empathy, immediately started to cry along.

Elora swiped at her face.
“No. No. Precious baby. Auntie just loves that you look so much
like your daddy.”

“Daddy.”

“Yes. He’ll be home soon.
And then we’re going to have a big party with balloons.”

“Balloons,” Rosie repeated and
confirmed.

Elora hoped to all the
gods that she was telling the truth.

CHAPTER 9

Storm had been whizzing
along toward his daily lunch briefing with Glen, thinking about how
cute Rosie was with Litha’s monks and how much they fussed over her
like she was the second coming. Without warning he was stopped dead
still. The haze that surrounded him continued to swirl in shades of
gray and rose constantly mixing, separating, and reforming like a
living abstract of colored smoke. He yelled for Deliverance, but
knew the volume of his raised voice had been swallowed by the white
noise the currents made. His voice even sounded far away to his own
ears.

He told himself not to panic. If there was
anything that had been drilled into Black Swan knights since they
were little more than babies, it was that panic is never useful. He
willed himself to calm and, within seconds, was decided on the only
course of action that was both logical and reasonable. That was to
do nothing.

If he stayed exactly where
he was, Deliverance would come back for him. So he set about trying
to stay where he was, but the strength of the current in the pass
made it impossible, like standing in ocean water up to your chest.
The sand changing form underneath your feet and the motion of the
waves would move you around whether you agreed to it or
not.

After a while, the
exertion from just trying to stay upright was taking its toll on
Storm’s muscles. It seemed to him that he’d been at it for hours,
struggling to stay where he could be found. He knew his body was
succumbing. His mind was trying to organize a Plan B, but he was
exhausted.

That’s when he was clipped
by a passerby. It wasn’t done with malice. It wasn’t even
intentional. Entities who travel the passes don’t expect to
encounter a stationary object – like a humanoid at full stop - any
more than an autobahn driver expects a single car to be at a
standstill in the fast lane.

The impact wasn’t enough
to do damage, not even a bruise, but it was enough to cause Storm
to take a step to regain his balance so that he didn’t go down.
Unfortunately that single, fateful step took him out of the pass
and into another dimension. Storm didn’t need a life signature
placeholder to keep from having his own life extinguished on
contact with a dimension where a counterpart might live. His demon
blood negated his susceptibility. He could have a conversation with
another version of himself if the opportunity presented. But if he
had needed a placeholder, it would have been there for
him.

The Storm who was native
to that dimension had mistreated a former one night stand outside
the men’s room of a club a couple of nights before. She had been so
incensed by his humiliating rejection and malicious cruelty that
she had taken out a tiny pistol with mother of pearl on the handle
and shot him in the face at point blank range. She’d had the
presence of mind to take his wallet before she slipped out the
alley exit. That was how that dimension’s version of Storm ended up
a John Doe in the morgue, with no one who was close enough to him
to realize he’d gone missing. Somewhere he had a mother who cared
whether he lived or died, but he hadn’t seen her or talked to her
in years.

The newly arrived pilgrim,
Storm, knew exactly where he was. When he’d been recruited by Sol
Nemamiah, the first training facility he landed in was right on the
edge of Golden Gate Park. He’d spent time in San Francisco and knew
China Town when he saw it. He wasn’t actually in China Town at the
moment, but if he crossed the street, he would be.

Storm didn’t know he was
in a different dimension, but he knew something had gone wrong and
he knew his nerve endings were pricking painfully. He stood in the
street for a few minutes grimacing, waiting for the pain to
subside, which it did after a few minutes, when his body adjusted
to a different vibration. The human in him didn’t appreciate
dimension slipping.

When he’d left home it was
ten in the morning. The street he was standing on wasn’t completely
deserted, but it was clear it was after hours.

He took out his phone and dialed Litha. No
service.

Shop fronts were closed.
Most eateries were closed. Scanning up and down the block it seemed
he had two options. A walk-up donut shop that looked like they
could use a mop, or a bar with part of the neon winking on a sign
that read, HALCYON. The donut shop had customers, hard as that was
to believe, and he didn’t want to wait in line to ask to borrow a
phone. So the bar it was. An establishment called Halcyon couldn’t
be all bad. Right? And the warmth would feel good. He’d left home
in jeans and a black long sleeved tee thinking he was going
straight from his kitchen at the vineyard to Glen’s office. The
temperature was forty-something where he stood, but with wind
chill, it felt colder.

He let the red door swing
closed behind him and looked around. It was nothing special, just
the kind of place you might go to hide out in the dark and lose
yourself in one kind of amber liquid or another. Place had an old
Wurlitzer playing mellow, bluesy music. No revving. Just the right
mood music for a melancholy drink alone.

Nobody was sitting at the
bar, but the guy behind it was just finishing a wipe down. He threw
the damp towel over his shoulder as his eyes darted around the
room. He was a big fella, about the same size as Storm. Maybe
thirty years before he’d had the same flat stomach.

He tracked Storm’s
approach, giving him the once over and watching until he reached
the bar and stopped.

“Help you?”

“Ah, yeah. My phone’s not getting a signal
and I’ve got to make a call. Do you have one I can use?” The
bartender studied him for a few beats, then reached into his pocket
and withdrew a phone. “Don’t walk off with it.”

Storm nodded, continuing to look the man in
the eye so that he’d be reassured he wasn’t making a mistake by
giving trust to a stranger. Storm was self-aware enough to know
that he was tall and dark with an intense look that could easily be
interpreted as menacing. “Very kind of you. I’ll be just at the
other end of the bar.”