From ten floors up the white-trimmed streets looked mellow and romantic under the orange glare of sodium vapor lights. At sidewalk level...ugh.
Richard emerged from the hotel lobby into freezing wind and blowing snowso different from the desert-dry hell-blast of his visionand cast about for transportation. He'd cabbed over for his dinner date with Mercedes, not wanting to risk his classic Jaguar E-type to the fender-bending of the slick streets. Of course, he could have driven the more sensible Land Rover, but the same argument held. He liked his toys to look new for as long as possible, and besides, parking downtown was always a bitch. No point in berating himself for caution now. How was he to know the world would decide to fall apart tonight?
There was always at least one taxi loitering before every major hotel in the area, usually lines of them. He couldn't believe they'd all scuttled from sight just to annoy him. Bloody hell. He turned north, going as quickly as he dared on the iced-over walk for a few yards before taking to the street itself. The sanding trucks had been through recently, preparing the roads for the coming morning rush. The mixture of sand and salt was somewhat less perilous underfoot. He covered the two blocks to the streetcar stop on Queen without incident, and chafed impatiently in the inadequate shelter. The things were designed to discourage homeless people from taking up residence, hence the narrow, downward-angled seats that prevented anyone from stretching out for a nap and the enclosure being open below to allow in plenty of fresh arctic breeze. At least there was a roof to keep out the wet. Played against the other inadequacies, its effectiveness was more of a symbolic gesture than anything practical.
Richard did not feel the winter as much as others because of his condition, but it seemed determined to take hold of him now. He suffered an unaccustomed shiver in his long leather overcoat, and belatedly remembered to dig out gloves and a thick black ski cap from one of his pockets.
All in your head, he told himself as he pulled the cap on. Cold comfort. Very cold.
He wanted to go to Philip Bourland's house immediately, but Sabra would not be there any sooner for it. It would unnecessarily alarm Bourland and Michael to be turning up at this lateor earlyan hour. Let them sleep.
Richard resisted the temptation to phone Sabra back. If she sensed anything of import she'd let him know.
The next eastbound streetcar rumbled up, and the doors opened. He swung inside, dropped coins in the box, and tore off his flimsy ticket, taking a seat not far behind the driver. Richard had his pick, only two others for company: a comatose kid with too-black hair and a nose ring and a sleepy woman in nurse's shoes.
The ticket's flip side advised him of the availability of gay and lesbian services and gave a number. It struck him as being a rather ambiguous message. If one was gay or lesbian, would calling that number get you serviced? Would that were also true for straight people. He'd never have to worry about hunting or courting his next meal ever again. Just ring a number and hopefully a willing young lady would arrive on his doorstep, rather like ordering pizza...
He shook his head, knowing he'd retreated into absurdities to avoid the horrors of memory. God, but it was frightening how swiftly things could shift and go bad.
The line of linked cars trundled forward, pausing at the stops, moving steadily along the length of East Queen's eclectic mix of neighborhoods. Modern flats and century-old houses in varying states of preservation or decay stood cheek and jowl with tiny gas stations, and on almost every corner either a flower shop or a veterinary clinic. With the long drab winters and brutal cold the locals needed the color of plants and the distraction of pets to maintain their sanity.
But there were worse things to threaten the mind and soul than an occasionally difficult climate.
Amid these prosaic surroundings, Richard felt secure enough to dredge his memory concerning the vision. What recollection of it lingeredbesides the anxiety it inspiredremained stubbornly elusive to insight. He'd walked in the Otherside, seen something terrible happening, and done nothing to stop it.
That infuriated him. His unthinking instinct was ever to rush in, and there he'd stood watching like a spectator at a staged show waiting to see what the actors would do next.
He most feared that because of his uncharacteristic inaction Sharon Geary might be dead. That would be unbearable. Unforgivable, however mitigating the circumstances.
He couldn't and wouldn't be one hundred percent sure, though, until he saw her body himself. There were degrees of death, and wasn't he the proof of at least one of them?
But Sabra said Sharon was "lost." There was a difference between that and death. Being lost implied that one could be found again. Richard held hard to that tiny little flame of hope. If there was a way to find her, bring her back, he would make it happen.
Sharon, with the bewitching smile, the strange but workable mix of charm and stubbornness and bold confidence...and why in God's name had he let her go? He could have persuaded her to stay. Without resorting to hypnosis. Bloody hell, but women, lovely as they were, could be damned frustrating.
He had not heard from her in over a year now; she'd been busy. Yet another he'd loved and lost. Now lost perhaps forever...but how and why? What happened to her? Who was that man she fought? Swathed in shadows, he had been too far distant to recognize.
In the face of Sharon's (possible) loss Richard's other concerns were frivolous and futile. Things had been stable and damned good lately. His businesses running well, and in between their demands he'd kept a fairly close eye on his godson, Michael. The selling of the oil company had also ended the boy's last links to Texas and the tragedy there where he lost his whole family. He seemed to be recovered from the violence and was getting every possible attention. Bourland, friend, almost a second father, to Michael's late mother, had adopted the orphan, and was an excellent father. With his grown daughter off practicing law someplace Bourland had gladly taken on the responsibility. He'd welcomed Michael into his home and heart so thoroughly it was almost as though the boy had always been there.
Sabra had moved to Toronto to be Michael's mentor and counselor, and sometimes mother surrogate, when needed. Richard had been very pleased about that. He'd nearly lost her once and preferred her close.
Michael, they had learned, possessed some very unique gifts, requiring unique help. The boy was blessedor cursedwith Sight, which was Sabra's specialty, so who better to prepare him to deal with it?
All three adults maintained tight, affectionate ties, linked by their charge. For the first time in decades, Richard felt that he was part of a family again.
He'd had that before, many times, but it always ended in sorrow because of his agelessness. The humans he loved grew, withered, and died seemingly in an instant. It was worth the price, though. He knew too well what life was like without connection. Treasure it while it lasts and don't dwell on what awaits in the future.
He pulled the signal cord so the streetcar paused right at Neville Park Boulevard, and ventured into the chill and ice again. The sanding trucks hadn't gotten this far, nor would they bother with residential lanes. Richard forsook the dangers of concrete and walked across his neighbors' small front yards. Snow on dead grass was much safer underfoot. Others had done the same, to judge by their overlapping trails.
His house at the Beaches was the last one on the left, two and a half tall stories with a basement, a narrow drive to a small backyard that was mostly filled by the detached double garage. The side yard was much larger, with a high board fence and a gate that opened directly onto the beach. The splash of waves from Lake Ontario was a constant presence. Though free-running water was deadly to him, he did quite enjoy its music.
He stamped snow on the doormat from his wet shoes and let himself in to silence. The house was at least seventy years oldthoroughly modernized of coursebut haunted by its own creaky voice. Tonight it seemed to be pulled in on itself, smothered and waiting. An echo of his own feelings. It would be a long while until six o'clock.
The answering machine in his office blinked patiently at him as he passed the open door. The thing was always doing that. He only ever bothered to check it at the end of the day since most of the calls were the phone equivalent of junk mail. He shrugged from his coat and pressed the play button. Nothing but importunate advertisements, recorded halfway through their pitch then cut off. Idiots. Did anyone ever buy anything from some mechanical stranger interrupting their dinner? Perhaps. Just enough to keep the fools dialing other, more resistant types like himself.
Then:
"Hallo, love, I've found...henge...dropping everything and come lend...this number..."
His heart rate shot high. The message was garbled through and through with static, but that was Sharon's voice. He noted the recording time. This morning, long after he'd left home for business meetings with Mercedes, and he'd not noticed it on his way out for their date. The caller ID screen said unknown so there was no return number to track. Useless damned thing. If he'd just been here or bothered to check his messages...for all the good it might have done her. Almost everything important came to him through e-mails or his cell. But Sharon hadn't had that number.
Richard worked very hard at curbing a desire to rip the machine out and fling it through a window. He'd missed her message, and something or other had buggered up the recording. Deal with it. He listened again.
What had she found? And why had she out of the blue phoned him about it? Where the devil had she been, anyway? If not for the vision he'd have had no clue of anything being amiss for her.
He tried her cell phone number. Hoping against hope. The recorded reply stating the customer had switched off or was out of range was no great surprise.
The memory of the Otherside pyramid nagged him. He'd seen it before. The style was Mayan. He sought out one of his many bookshelves. About fifty years back he'd purchased encyclopedias, the kind with thin paper, small, dense printing, and picture plates. Much of their information was still good and more detailed and faster than delving the Internet. He pulled out M and flipped pages. There. A stark black and white photo, but it matched his vision. What in the name of hell had she been doing on top of El Castillo in the Yucatán? On another recovery mission for Lloyd's of London? There was a thriving black market in New World antiquities, perhaps that was it.
He glanced at a clock. Wee-hours morning here, full-blown business day in London. Richard phoned Sharon's employers and was eventually passed to a woman who acted as her supervisor when needed. The nature of the job required that lady be discreet, but she did finally say that Sharon's last report had originated in Bath, where she'd been working. She'd concluded her errand successfully and would call in Monday to inquire after any fresh assignments, apparently taking a long weekend.
Richard then explained that Sharon had gone missingcertainly the truthand asked the woman if she could check on things from that end. She made it clear she was not too terribly interested in doing so on the word of a stranger, even if he was phoning all the way from Canada, even if he did suspect foul play might be involved. From her tone, she'd decided he was a crank.
Richard held his temper and thanked her and carefully rang off. He had friends in higher places who could help, after all. Within ten minutes he was speaking to one of them, lighting fires, getting things moving. He hoped the woman at Lloyd's would have an interesting time of it under the eye of one of the senior men from Scotland Yard. The man owed Richard a hell of a private favor from ten years back and had ever been ready to return it.
There, that wheel in motion, what next?
"Henge" the recording had said. Salisbury Plain lay between Bath and London. Sharon would have taken the A303 for her drive back, and both Stonehenge and Woodhenge were on that route. He could not guess why she might stop at either of them or why from there she'd suddenly gone flying off to Mexico. What was the connection?
He'd get the recording into professional hands. There had to be some way to extract sense from under the static. Bourland would know useful contacts for that who wouldn't ask questions.
Next Richard called Sabra's cell. His information about Sharon's activities was thin at best, but might shed some small light. It was nothing that couldn't be covered when they met later, but he wanted to hear her voice.
Not so long ago she'd been happy enough in the isolation of her Vancouver wilderness. Sabra loved the touch of primal earth; it was part of her strength, but she was no stranger to accepting change and readily embraced it for Michael's sake. Hers was a compromise, though. She lived miles north of Toronto in a mostly undeveloped area. Her home had all the mod-cons, but the land it sat on was virtually unchanged since the indigent natives last hunted there. It took some doing on Richard's part to secure her a usable identity and a bulletproof background history, but now she had what she needed to continue comfortably in the twenty-first century.
Each age they lived through possessed its own special minutiae one had to know to survive without drawing undue and often inconvenient notice. For all its high-tech snags, this one is no different. Low tech could be very complicated, too, after all. It was just as demanding to know how to make a bow and arrow from scratch as it was to learn to use a new computer program. Richard and Sabra could do both.
She was breathless when she answered.
"Something wrong?" he asked, coming alert. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, just digging my car out from the latest snowfall. It stormed tonight and the snow's still coming down. I'll be running late because of this, but don't worry."
"Look, I can come pick you up."
She laughed. "Please, it's an hour's drive even when the weather's good, don't bother. I'll be in when you see me; I'm going to take my time if the roads are bad."
"Very well..." He told her the little he'd learned of Sharon's last whereabouts and the phone message.
"Can you play it for me?"
"The sound will be atrocious, but" He held the receiver close to the machine and hit the play button again. "Did you get any of that?"
She didn't answer.
"Sabra?"
"A moment." He heard a door open then slam shut. The ambient noise of wind, which had been coming through, ceased. "I'm inside now. Let me hear that once more."
He repeated the playback. "Well?"
"It's not static. It sounds like it, but I heard...there were voices, other voices besides hers."
"Whose? Saying what?"
She sighed. "Nothing nice."
"Look, she's already missing, perhaps dead, you can't make me any more worried than I am."
"Please, Richard. Don't say that."
He pulled up short. Tempting fate was always a bad idea. "Sorry. This has me rattled."
"And I as well. Usually things are clear, even if there's a dozen outcomes to choose from." Her Sight again.
"What can you tell me?"
"When Sharon made that call something was doing its best to interfere and mostly succeeded. To anyone on this Side, it's static. To someone like me it's was both warning and threat and was very graphic. I'd rather not get more detailed if you don't mind."
"A threat to Sharon?"
"To anyone helping Sharon. Anyone opposing it."
"Which would be us."
"Yes."
"And it can reach us from Mexico?"
"To forces like that, there are no concepts of distance. However, it does take a lot of power to upset the balance on our Side. Such power is hard to acquire and quickly exhausted. I'm not saying we're completely safe, but we should be fine for now."
"I'm sorry, but that's not good enough. After that vision I'm having a healthy bout of paranoia."
"Yes, it's what you're good at. On the other hand, whoever's behind that vision has been compromised so far as I'm concerned. There's cracks in his ability to conceal himself, enough for me to know ahead of time if and when he makes any kind of move against anyone under my protection."
"How far ahead of time?"
"Enough. More than enough."
Richard relaxed only marginally. He knew the tension between his shoulders wouldn't ease until he saw her.
"It will be all right, Richard," she said. "I promise. Go over to Philip's sooner if that will make you feel better. Sit in on breakfast. Keep an eye on Michael. Just be there with him."
"I'll call now. If he had the same vision"
"Then he would have called me. Or Philip would have. I just want you with them both. I'll get there as soon as I can."
"Is Michael in danger?"
"Not at the moment. That's all I can say at this time, and I'll let you know if that changes."
Richard understood. They were each too well aware that the future was always in flux. "What about yourself? Are you certain you're all right?"
There was a smile in her voice. "I'm being well looked after." This was a reference to the Goddess. "We'll work something out about this, don't worry."
But he sensed a lack of surety behind her words, which disturbed him. She always knew what to do. He very much wanted to ask exactly what was going on and what had become of Sharon, but what would be the point? Sabra would have told him. Perhaps she could use Michael's uncanny gift to find out. She'd be reluctant to involve him, though in the past Michael had surprised her with the power of his Gift. She worried for him. With power comes peril.
"What about the Goddess?" Richard wanted to know.
No answer.
"Sabra?"
"It's...clouded."
"What does that mean? A busy signal?" This was getting very annoying.
"For want of a better term. This sort of thing's happened before..."
Only when the situation's gone seriously wrong, he silently concluded.
"Richard, the snow's coming down heavy here, I want to dig out the car while I can still see it."
A most unsubtle hint, mixed with a touch of exasperation. "Sorry. This is my own worry showing. I'll shed it and be waiting at Philip's for you."
"With hot chocolate? Double strength?" Since her change back to being fully human, Sabra had become quite the addict.
"A gallon of it. The gourmet kind." Bourland's pantry was well stocked with boxes of the stuff. He delighted in spoiling her whenever she visited Michael.
Hanging up, Richard wanted physical action to distract him. He had hours to fill, a common situation given his penchant for the nocturnal, but he'd long learned how to manage that detail.
Keeping his thoughts prudently neutral if not completely shut down, he trotted up to his bedroom to trade the business suit for more expendable attire. Back down again, through the rarely used kitchen, and out the side door to the garage to fetch the snow shovel. The snow blower would have been faster, but in this part of the Beaches the houses were built close together. The obnoxious noise at this time of morning would not endear him to his neighbors.
Clearing the driveway. After hockey it was Canada's other great winter sport. Not nearly as exciting, but the exercise helped channel his frustrated energy into something more constructive than punching holes in walls. On occasion, he'd been known to do that and was trying to break the pattern.
The Duke of Normandy's son, Lord Richard d'Orleans, later known as Lancelot du Lac, and still later by a hundred other names, worked steadily to free the side of the garage housing his Land Rover. Once upon a time he'd have delegated the humble task to a dozen pages, who would have leapt forward and had a race to see who was fastest. Those days were long past, the young pages gone to dust, their names lost to history. They wouldn't have known what to make of a modern truck anyway, probably taken it for an infernal contrivance and burned it to exorcise the demon within. They'd have assumed success when the gas tank blew...
Absurdities. Distraction. Most needed and necessary distraction.
Finished, he checked the sky. Snow still tumbled lazily out of the darkness, but had slacked off considerably and didn't seem to be sticking. Mercedes' flight would have no trouble departing then. Damn. For all the abrupt changes that had taken place, forcing him to shift his focus to other matters, he would miss her.
Minutes later in his bath he stripped and stepped into the oversized shower, the water temperature set just short of scalding and the tap at full force. Mercedes had wanted him smelling like a man. Well, she'd have been most happy with him now with the sweat he'd worked up. He scrubbed it away, along with any lingering trace of her baby powder scent. Pity about that. Her blood was still with him, though. He felt it running in his own veins, almost as hot as the water hammering his skin. What a woman.
Dried and dressed in fresh casual clothes, but with no place to go just yet. More waiting to do before Bourland could be expected to be up and seeking his first coffee of the day. He was an early riser, but not this early.
Richard threw on a jacket and muffler and went out again. His side-yard gate was convenient to the beach, but blocked under a snow drift as high as the fence. He went out the front door, then took the public stairs at the end of the street that led down to the lake.
Ice caked the shoreline; deep snow mixed with sand clung to his boots. The wind was knife-sharp on his face. As far as he could see in either direction he had the place to himself, with not even a psychotically dedicated early jogger to mar the solitude. At times like this he felt that he alone owned the whole of the land and lake. A good feeling, that.
At intervals along the beach boulders had been brought in to serve as breakwaters. People adored clambering on them in the warm months; now they were a deathtrap. He moved past them, wanting an unimpeded view of Ontario's restless water plain.
He slogged east toward a groin, one of the cement promontories flanked by boulders that extended out into the water. There were several of them along the length of the park's shoreline. Their practical use was to also act as breakwaters during storms; the rest of the time locals took them over, especially in the summer.
He took care stepping up onto the broad flat of concrete and held to the center. The edges were trimmed with a footwide band of steel to slow down the weathering that was inevitable with such a harsh winter climate. Slick with ice, possessing no guardrails, they were a treacherous walk. He kept clear of the metal; a fall into the water could be fatal, even to him. It was a big lake; he had a healthy respect for its power.
The rocks and parts of the pier were coated with the frozen splashings from the constant waves. Even if the lake didn't freeze overhe couldn't recall that happening since moving heresome of the more shallow areas could fill themselves with slush. A gray wave rose, washed over the breakers, broke apart into spray, and died, leaving behind another thin layer of wet for the wind to congeal. In the middle of a stand of rocks a small tree had flourished during the summer; now its skeleton was held prisoner by the ice. Would it softly die in its winter sleep or waken to grow taller in the spring? No way to tell, but the odds were against survival here.
At the end of the pier Richard looked westward, barely making out the CN Tower lights in the misty distance. Low clouds dimly reflected the city glow of downtown. So many people there, and who among them was even remotely aware of Otherside matters? Damned few, and probably just as well. There were enough lunatics in the world.
To the east were the Scarborough bluffs, invisible now, and to the southeast, where the sun would appear, he thought he saw the sky lighting a little. It could well be his imagination. The clouds were as thick as sin; it would be a gray and gloomy morning. Good. No need to bother slathering on the sunblock.
A last few random flakes of snow touched his face, and he breathed deeply of the clean lake air. This was a favorite spot for him, and on nights when the water and sky assumed the same shade of dull steel he felt suspended between them, almost floating. Only the lap of waves less than a yard from his boots reminded him how close he stood to the destruction of free-flowing water. It was quite nice here in the summer, looking straight down to the rocks on the bottom a dozen feet below. Now it was an arctic hell. Few ventured out here when it was like this, allowing him much needed outdoor solitude.
Calmer now, Richard thought about Sharon and what had to be done.
Once he and Sabra talked, he would arrange to take the first plane heading to the Yucatán and see for himself what was going on there. Sabra might well come along; she was better able to deal with the tropical sunlight and other, more metaphysical things. What the hell had Sharon been doing there? What was the man-shadow thing she fought?
Easy, old lad. You'll find it all out soon enough. Richard knew that in his bones. He'd not have been shown the vision in the first place unless the Goddess was certain he was the right person for the job. Of course, it's a most risky business when the gods take notice of one. He'd learned that the hard way, again and again and again.
But...anything to help Sharon if he could.
Very, very gently, he touched on his long-suppressed feelings for her.
They were still solidly in place. Dormant, like that tree, iced over, but perhaps ready to waken again given the right circumstances.
Yes, she had decided against staying with him. He'd accepted that. Mostly. Maybe on some level she knew it wouldn't have worked, that she would have been one of hundreds he'd loved before her. Loved, and eventually, inevitably, and irrevocably lost.
How many have I loved and then wept for, how many have I taken to the grave? Taken, but never followed.
Tears flared cold on his face. He chided himself for giving into grief when he still didn't know for sure what had happened. He swiped the chill trails away. They weren't only for Sharon, though, but for the others as well. So many, many others.
To keep himself sane, he'd learned to live very much in the here-and-now moment, but sometimes the past reared up to overwhelm his heart. A scent, a soundthe little things that triggered the memories, thousands of them, good and bad, the sweetness and the pain.
He brushed his eyes again. Quickly.
Am I getting too old to hold them all?
The man who had once called himself Professor Rivers sat in the small air terminal, cheerfully waiting for his flight to be called. It was still dark out, but he'd seen no point in hanging around his hotel. Though the chance was small, that redheaded Amazon might have tipped the cops about him being a Suspicious Character, so why make things easy for them? Not that he didn't have perfectly legitimate credentials. God knows he'd paid enough for them.
What was his name today? He tried to remember, failed, and checked his passport. Oh, okay, fine, he could answer to "Daniel Dean" for a few more hours. Jeez, who gave their kid that one? Talk about an excuse to get beaten up on the playground. Well...they could try beating him up.
He preferred his past names over this prosaic example of Western alliteration. The others were more impressive, carried power in their very utterance. Thousands used to tremble and shake-it-up-baby and yadda-yadda way back when upon hearing them. Those had indeed been the good old nights. Gone for now, not forgotten, but nothing lasts forever...
Whups, don't go there. Think positive.
What was his last favorite? Old Man of the Mountain? Father of Assassins? Apophis? Stuff like that. Charon. One of the good ones. He couldn't use it openly anymore of course, that had been thoroughly screwed up, but them's the breaks and too bad.
Looong day of travel ahead of him, tiring. He knew it would exhaust him of all the energy he'd taken from Chichén Itzá. If only the hits would last longer; he hated when the buzz left and the pain started barging in again. But he would recharge again, and he'd been through worse. Now he could get out during the day, no need to wrap up like a mummy. That was a big plus about being human again, but it well and truly sucked compared to the minus side: the Death Thing.
It's fun to inflict on others, but not so much when the Old White Man is staring YOU in the face.
Charon shifted uncomfortably in the plastic seat and glanced around, half expecting to see that dread specter hanging near one of the terminal boutique shops, maybe wearing a souvenir T-shirt and sipping a cold drink. Biding his time, the gaunt bastard.
Nope, not today. He'd been thoroughly put down, smacked down, tossed out of town.
For the time being.
Might be worth whistling him back, though, to deal with an argumentative young couple trying to get around airline regulations about something or other. God, some of them positively asked for it. There were few people in the terminal at this hour, so theirs was the only show to watch. Neither of them or the unyielding gate attendant seemed aware of the thick black and green cloud floating close over their heads, apparently feeding off the rising hostility. The young man with the muddy aura looked ready to explode, but calmed down when another attendant came forward to sort out the mess. The cloud drifted away, its meal interrupted. Like a big jellyfish it hovered over the people scattered about the terminal, probably hopeful for seconds. Who knows how long it had fattened itself up here? Sure had staked out a good hunting ground for heaping helpings of frustration and anger.
No else one saw it. That was such a hoot. They had no idea. Idiots.
Then it sank lower. Must have picked up something. An Otherside scent, a feeling. There was no telling how the things knew where to go to find negative emotions. None of them were too smart. A lot simply attached themselves to people for a lifetime of feeding unless the victim got depression therapy and some happy pills or even religion. If not...oh, how those things enjoyed contributing to, then feasting on a good suicide, then attaching to the family and friends. Despair followed by a bottomless supply of survivor guilt. Most tasty.
It floated toward Charon. With purpose.
Oh, now that was just too stupid.
He grinned at it. "Come on, dumb-ass. Gimme your best shot."
But the free-drifting parasite suddenly changed course.
Must not like my aftershave.
Charon stretched forth his will and neatly snagged the thing, drawing it closer. It thrashed and fought every inch. Futilely. He threw a net over its shifting shape and gradually pulled it into himself. The murky green cloud touched his chest...and that was it. He started feeding in turn and, oh, that was mighty good. It shouldn't have been, considering its diet, but the things were like catfish. Those were the worst of the bottom feeders, but what a nice delicate taste when prepared right.
Damn if the amorphous beast didn't scream as he absorbed it. He'd had no idea they could do that. It was a psychic thing, translated by the mind into a piercing nails-on-a-blackboard screech. Well, live and learn. Charon noticed a woman a few yards away suddenly put her hand to her head and wince. Sensitive types sometimes got migraines from Otherside racket. Aw, wasn't that just too bad, but a fella's gotta eat.
He sucked out the energy until there was nothing left but ash which quickly vanished. That was fun if much too easy, like running down old ladies in a parking lot. Still, Charon relished the tiny refreshment to his power, his Sight resharpened by it.
Absolutely no one in the place saw any of the action. Manomanomano. Wouldn't it be a gas to change that? What looks on their faces if they were suddenly made aware of all the beings and energies floating around their sane and solid world.
I'll be able to make that happen. Then hoo-boy, party night in Bedlam. Xanax anyone? And they thought things had gone crazy when the Black Death hit Europe like a dose of salts.
Uh-oh. He abruptly noticed a dark-skinned man looking at him from across the way, glaring, really. Who the hell...? Charon opened his Sight up a little more.
Well-well, what d'ya know? An honest-to-gawd ahkin. The old bastard must have come out of the jungle to look for the cause of last night's big bash at the pyramid and followed the psychic trail to here. Yeah, the natives would have been plenty stirred up by that fracas.
Well, you found me. Charon smiled winningly at him, and got a look of pure hatred in return. Aw, did I hurt your little snake god? Give it a bloody nose? There'll be hell to pay before you hear from it again. If ever.
The old man wasn't much to see outwardly: short-limbed, sinew-lean, and pot-bellied, Mayan ancestry strong in his leather-dark face. He wore cheap thin clothes with rubber sandals on calloused feet that looked twice as old as his face. You saw a million others just like him in the towns and villages all through the area, beggars, farmers, merchants, professionals. Their ancestors had been converted or conquered by invaders and disease and time, but the blood still ran strong here. Hell, they shed enough of it so the strain was soaked deep into the very earth.
But the ahkin's astral self was another storyyoung and damned furious, about twelve feet tall, in full battle gear with sun-bright feathers and one of those fancy clubs, spoiling for a fight. He could do some damage and no mistake. Charon didn't want to waste his hard-won energy fending off this self-righteous jerk.
Don't get your loin cloth in a twist, old cock, I'm leaving your territory. You're better off not getting into a pissing contest with me, and we both know it.
The ahkin still glared, his lips moving.
Charon felt a gust of heat roll over him. It stirred his hair, plucked his loose shirt, and set his heart to racing. No one else seemed affected. The old boy knew his noodles. Or was it tamales? Key lime chicken? Whatever.
A low, forceful chanting in a language Charon had never before heard, yet understood, rumbled through the whole of the terminal, echoing off the modern walls. Death Magic. One of its countless variations. Here it was, live and in person, straight from the erroneously named New World, a touch diluted by time, but still potent.
The heat shot up, got worse, centered on his heart. Yeah, this bunch had a thing for hearts. Bet the guy's sorry he can't cut mine out like his great-great et cetera grand-pappy used to do. That would be his remedy for bringing back his missing god. It just might work, too.
Charon winced against the building fire, but hid it under another grin...
Which made the ahkin more angry.
Watch it there, daddy-o. Don't get too personally involved.
The astral body of the old man lunged forward, swinging his club, going for the kill. It smashed right through Charon's Realside self. He suppressed a grunt in reaction.
Okay, enough was enough. He'd been very, very patient until now.
Another pass-through. Ow. That one hurt.
So you like it rough, do you? Lemme teach you how it's done, little boy...
Charon shut his eyes, seeming to nap, but on another level, on Otherside, he rose up, revealing his true self.
The ahkin's weathered face showed shockabout damn timebut the spirit warrior screamed an ancient war cry and attacked again.
Charon wanted this one over fast to conserve energy, so he played it dirty. Oh, hell, he always played it dirty; that's how to win. He used a bastardized version of a tai chi move to get in under the club, then drove his hand deep into the warrior's chest. Just like the snake scales did a few hours ago, the magical armor shattered at the first touch.
Be my valentine? Wrong month, wrong culture, but pretty funny. Charon closed his astral hand around that fast-beating heart and pulled for all he was worth. The bodies on this Side could be just as tough as the ones in the so-called Reality Side.
A shriek. Full throated. Satisfying. Loud enough to shake rafters, filled with agony...and...swiftly over. It should have lasted much longer.
I'm out of practice.
Charon slammed the still-beating heart against his own astral chest and felt the lurch as it was pulled in and consumed.
Whoa, what a rush. The parasite had been cheese on a cracker. This dude was an eight-course banquet, heavy on the cream.
Charon feasted, relishing the nuances of the man's rage and knowledge and powerespecially the power. He had a lot of that. Not on a par with the primal stuff of the ruins, but substantial. Made for a nice boost.
When Charon opened his eyes, the old man was facedown on the polished floor, blood flowing from his nose and ears, hands clenched, lips drawn back in a rictus of pain. People were just beginning to notice his collapse. A short man in baggy tourist clothes responded to a call for a doctor and pushed his way through. People in uniforms closed in.
Too late, but you can't say I didn't warn the old coot.
Had anyone else seen the fight? That woman who'd heard the parasite's scream...no, she was doing the onlooker thing with the rest of the crowd. Okay, she gets to live another day. Who else?
There. Charon spotted another native man farther along the terminal. Probably the old guy's acolyte. He was much younger, on this Side and the next, and clearly scared. He backed off, turned, and shot out the terminal's glass doors. He'd probably go back to his little grass shack in the back of wherever and mutter chants and burn his herbs and try to figure out what the hell was going on. Fat lot of good it'd do him and the rest of his tribe. Their great scaled protector just wasn't around no more, and manomano, hadn't it felt good to take in its energy?
Charon flexed his perfectly healed arm. The ache of the break was quite gone. God, but it was great to be free of that pain. For a cure-all there was just nothing to beat the power of a deity's blood. Even his scars had vanished. Jeeze, he'd had some of those old sword and knife cuts from his salad days as a human for so long he'd forgotten how they'd got there. The new skin was fresh and tight, the muscles under it strong.
For now.
The energy rush would soon fade. He could feel it going even now.
Maybe he should have hauled wormy back for a little bloodbath like Siegfried once did with his dragon and hit the reset button on the whole bod. That might have made a huge difference. But it had all happened so fast, and Kukulcan had been a pretty determined fighter, one couldn't think of everything given those circs. Grand Old Snaky had resisted, then gone for the girl. Charon would have squandered all the power he'd gained getting the monster to come to heel, then been too weak for a sanguinary sauna.
The gains were still pretty good, though. Look on the bright side. With both eyes. He had stereo vision back, woo-hoo. Charon wanted to shed the now superfluous eye patch, but then he wouldn't match his passport photo. Have to keep up the charade a little longer. Besides, the black patch looked good with the restored color of his beard and hair, positively rakish. Check out the hot pirate, ladies. Anyone ready to walk my plank?
To his surprise it was daylight already. Man, the Otherside skirmish with the warrior-priest must have gone on longer than he'd thought. Time was such a trip over there. In some places you could stop off for a snack with the locals and emerge twenty years later to everyone else's astonishment. What a handy way to outlive relatives.
The trickle of people coming in for flights increased. Soon it'd be a flood. Charon picked up his flight bag and went through check-in. He produced his expensive paperwork, answered their ridiculous security questions without fuss, and had a few sticky minutes when the clerk commented that he looked too young for his picture ID. Charon grinned, pretending to take it as a compliment, and credited his vacation as being responsible for the rejuvenation. No need to burden anyone with talk about the specific use he'd made of the power taken in from atop El Castillo and the rest of the area.
Happily, no one was overly concerned with the good-humored tourista, and he was cleared through for boarding.
The next hitch wouldn't be until he hit customs on arrival and have to explain his collection of prescriptions. The damned things seemed to take up half the space in his flight bag...and the cost? Through the roof and into orbit. Hell, buying a gun to end the problem would be so much cheaper.
But he wanted to live.
Not an option so far as his body was concerned. Since that mess with the Grail a couple years ago things had been gradually deteriorating. Way back when, at the beginning, when he had his rebirth in blood, men didn't live all that long. He'd been camping on the outside borders of what was then old age, and once turned human again it became just a matter of time before his genetics caught up with him.
The first thing he tried to stave it off was getting himself vamped again. Not a lot of the fang-gang crowd around, and they were good at blending, but he had old friends to look up.
Friends. That was a laugh. Okay, enemies he'd not gotten around to snuffing yet. It was a little tricky trapping one of them, but he'd done it, then starved her into performing a blood-swap, which should have been an end to it.
That had not gone well. For one thing it hadn't worked. She'd drained him white, and he returned the favor when it was his turn to drink...and waited...and waited...
...and it hadn't fucking worked.
After some thought, and the very careful disposal of her headless body so she couldn't come after him later, he decided that perhaps one from his own dark bloodline was needed. He'd made a few rare offspring over the centuries, and they'd early on learned that Daddy Was Not Nice and disappeared themselves, but he knew where to dig. He turned one of them up in Denmark of all places and tried again.
A no go. And another corpse to lose. What was this, a conspiracy?
Or that damned Grail.
Or the whole Vampire Thing being a once-only opportunity. If you were dumb enough to get "cured" you couldn't acquire it again.
Immunity sucked.
Particularly immunity to the one thing that had always kept him alive and healthy.
He'd gone in for a checkup to see about a minor but chronic exhaustion that began to plague him and learned about the bomb ticking in his system.
Make that growing. Out of control. Fast. As though it had a grudge on.
The doctor and the others he'd consulted one after another presented him with a number of treatment options. He knew better than to trust their brave "let's fight this together" optimism.
There were other choices outside of modern medicine available to a man like him, though. Of course, you had to have a certain mindset for dealing with them, but he had that down. Hell, he'd lost all ability to be squeamish back when he'd been human the first time around. Piece of cake now.
So Charon sought out that knowledge for his cure. Quickly. As his energy was consumed by his disease, he replaced it with whatever ambient power happened to be lying around. There was plenty of acreage in the Otherside ready to be turned into car parks now, and who would miss a few floating parasites or even place-guardians? Once the place was gone a guardian was out of a job anyway.
It took him a little practice to learn how to feed fully from those energies, but once he got the hang of it...wow. Hell of a trip. Way better than anything he'd ever puffed from a hookah. The important thing was that for short stretches he felt better. So far it hadn't reversed or even slowed the cancer that was eating him alive, but he had more energy to deal with it. The pause at Stonehenge had given him enough of an upturn to get him across the Atlantic, and Chichén Itzá would carry him a for at least the rest of today. More than enough time if he worked it right. The snake blood had been a lucky bonus, fixing up his arm and eye like it did. He'd have to see what other of the old gods were hanging around, maybe go calling on them if his next ploy was a wash
No, don't go there. It will succeed. Positive thoughts.
Gods were pretty damn tough, anyway. Jealous of their power, too. He'd gotten lucky with Kukie, surprised him, used the in-place energy for the fight. The next one down the line might be more prepared. It was getting harder and harder to keep all this veiled. That parasite shouldn't have been able to sense him.
In the meantime, Charon was an old hand at dealing with hypersuspicious customs people and possessed perfectly legitimate (for once) paperwork concerning his ailment and why he needed the miniature pharmacy. It annoyed him to have so many medicines, but perhaps not for long. His next gambit would have to heal him. But if not, then he'd hit Lourdes and suck out its power. That should tide him over a bit.
But first he had to pick up a little artifact that should have been his ages ago, the one that caused all the trouble for him in the first place and might correct it. He'd also tie up a loose end. Both of them. There were damned few people on the planet who could have the least inkling of what he was up to and he had to keep it that way. The Irish Amazon bimbo damn-near queered the whole scene. He'd done his best to throw a psychic screen around her, to keep her isolated, but chances were she'd gotten a warning out. Charon couldn't risk losing control of the works at this stage.
His flight was called, finally, a morning run due north. Hours and hours of it, but not too bad in first class, and he wouldn't even have to reset his watch. He settled into his seat, enjoying the press of acceleration as they rumbled along the runway, then leapt skyward.
Yes...he felt the wind energies outside the skin of the plane. He could use thoseif the flight attendant would leave him alone long enough to concentrate.
No such luck. Apparently she thought he was cute. He snarled that he had to sleep, shooing her off. At least he had no chatty seatmate.
Immediate distractions shoved away, he closed his eyes and sank into the kind of trance that was necessary to travel the Low Road. A tricky path, no, make that foolish, especially with his mortal condition, but it would allow him to arrive ahead of his body. He wouldn't have to stay, just drop in for a few minutes' visit, long enough for a peek at what was going on, long enough to maybe do himself some good, then snap back again.
Very few could stop him now. Two in particular, and both of them were in Canada, guarding the souvenir he wanted.
How convenient.
Yes, he'd have a long and tiring haul to Toronto with his physical body. Worth it, though. Once there he would take care of the bloodsucking jock and his witchy-bitchy girlfriend...