Gods and Mortals: Fourteen Free Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Novels Featuring Thor, Loki, Greek Gods, Native American Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, & More (144 page)

Williams pulled out his phone.

“No way,” Kara said. “We’ll all end up dead if you talk to him.”

“Whatever. I’ll do it,” I said.

In for a dime, in for a dollar, right? I was going to be on the boss’s radar soon enough, if I wasn’t already. Why not get off on the right foot with him by warning him of a possible traitor?

“Beth,” Kara said, sounding uncomfortable. “He’s not like a human being. Talking to him — it’s not easy.”

“What do you mean?”

She squirmed in her seat. “He can play with your mind, make you feel what he wants. He goes in for sex games. It’s pretty sick. God, even thinking about it is awful.”

“That sounds like rape.”

“Oh yeah. It is, totally. Except you want it while it’s happening.”

Jesus H. Christ.

“So how do you resist him?”

She looked like the thought had never even occurred to her.

“You can’t. You’d have to be stronger than he is, and he’s one of the great powers.” She paused. “Sometimes you catch him on a good day. Then he’s okay.”

“He’s never okay,” Callie said flatly. “He’s a demon among demons. I’ve never understood why he’s involved with us.”

I figured it couldn’t be that bad. I wasn’t sure where this Cordus guy was, but he wasn’t close enough to rape me, even if he made me want him to.

“Look, let’s just get it over with. If he makes me do something, you guys can handle it, right?”

I tried to leave the “something” as vague as possible in my mind.

There was a resounding silence.

Finally Kara said, “Yeah, sure we can. No problem.”

She handed me her phone again, then undercut her own words by getting out of the van as fast as humanly possible.

An entry in her contact list was highlighted. It read “Boss Man.” I made the call.

“Kara Dolores Sanchez.”

My god, his voice
. I was instantly aroused. My hand slid toward my crotch. The urge to touch myself was overwhelming.

“It’s Beth,” I forced out.

There was a pause, during which I managed to drag my hand back. I might be able to imagine more embarrassing things than getting myself off in a car full of people, but not many.

“Elizabeth Joy Ryder,” he said in a different tone. He still had a super-sexy voice, but not in a paranormal way.

“Yeah,” I said, relaxing a bit. I heard Callie let out a breath, and even Williams’s shoulder shifted, as though some tension was leaving him.

“I have been looking forward to speaking with you but did not expect the conversation to occur so soon. To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”

I took a deep, steadying breath.

“Well, we think we’re running into a little problem with the open strait near my town. We’re not certain what’s going on, so we thought we’d better seek your advice,” I said as deferentially as I could.

“I see. What seems to be the problem?”

“A couple days ago, Callie had a premonition that I needed to go to the strait to help. She believes it’s essential.”

I had to stop myself from getting into how unlikely that seemed to me.

“So she and Williams and Kara have been trying to get me out there, but we think Graham may be trying to stop us.”

I tried to suppress the feeling that I was betraying a friend.

Why did I kiss him? So stupid.

I could feel the surprise on the other end.

After a moment, Cordus said, “What evidence can you offer to support your accusation?”

I got the sense that I’d better have some, and it’d better be good.

I reported the conversation I’d overheard between Callie and Graham, and my own conversation with Graham the next morning. I also said Graham had moved me back into my house in part to keep Callie from pressing me. Lastly I described Graham’s intervention when Kara and Williams had tried to take me the night before and the two blow-outs we’d just had. I left out the fact that Graham hadn’t been out to the mill himself since arriving. That seemed too damning. I didn’t know if Graham’s luck would help us if he was beyond saving.

“And how long has this strait been open?”

I thought about when the fire had started. “Since last Friday, so nine days.”

The silence on the other end was ominous.

Finally Cordus said, “Please wait a moment,” and I heard him set the phone down.

A minute later, he came back on the line.

“I have tried to contact Mr. Ryzik. Apparently, he does not see fit to answer.”

His voice was still sexy, but now it also made all the hair on my arms stand up. I realized I had hunched down in my seat, as if someone were shooting at me.

“We may have misunderstood his actions,” I said hurriedly.

“I hope that you have, Miss Ryder. I will look into this matter. In the meantime, please do not endanger yourself by trying to approach Mr. Ryzik.”

“We’ll stay safe,” I assured him.

“Good-bye, Miss Ryder. Thank you for calling.”

He hung up. I closed Kara’s phone and sat there a moment. I never wanted to meet that man. I’d rarely felt so certain about anything. Too bad I probably wasn’t going to get my wish.

Williams rolled down his window and motioned to Kara, who got back in.

“How’d it go?” she asked nervously.

I described the call, then looked around at the others. “So, I think it went okay. Now we all need to put it firmly in our minds that we are going to the mill to save Graham. Graham is in big trouble with his boss, so we have to get there and help him.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Having a little trouble really feeling that one,” Kara said.

Williams grunted, and Callie sighed.

“We have to do it, right? Otherwise a car’s going to fall on us, or something.”

Callie said, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen the demon do?” After a pause, “Now imagine him doing that to Graham.”

Williams grunted.

“Yeah, got it,” Kara said. “Good one, Callie.”

Wow. And I knew how much Kara hated Graham. Now I really didn’t want to meet Cordus.

Graham-saving thoughts firmly in mind, we started up and headed for the strait. Williams looked straight ahead and drove. The van groaned, squealed, and shuddered. He’d probably need a new one after the abuse we were heaping on it. The rest of us sat there swiveling our heads, looking for weird dangers bearing down on us. The yards ticked by. Nothing happened. Soon enough we were pulling into the mill’s parking lot.

We got out of the van. The parking lot was a jigsaw puzzle of broken asphalt and dead weeds. Flood lights, powered by a noisy generator, illuminated the area. Hoses crisscrossed the lot. It looked like the firefighters had uncovered the mill’s old well and were pumping water out of it. Several fire trucks were parked in front of us, and a handful of firefighters had a hose trained on the smoldering pile of wreckage. Occasionally a gout of fire would erupt from the pile, and the hose would be trained on that area, only to be moved to a new spot a few minutes later.

“Aren’t they going to see us?” I said.

“Williams has a barrier around us,” Kara said. “Can’t you feel it?”

I shook my head.

Kara looked shocked.

“She wasn’t seeing through fully a few days ago,” Williams said.

“But I am now,” I said. “At least, I thought I was.”

“Graham took her to St. Mary’s, and she saw the cemetery demon,” Callie said.

“Look at me,” Williams said.

I looked at him. His Blandy McBlandsville disguise suddenly appeared, competing with his real form. It wasn’t quite as disconcerting as seeing Bob’s disguise along with the real Bob — with Williams, at least there wasn’t simultaneous presence and absence.

“You see my real form?”

“Yeah.”
Unfortunately
.

Williams held up his right hand.

“Can you sense this little working?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“What the hell?” Kara said, looking freaked out.

“What the fuck has Ryzik been doing with you all this time?” Williams said.

His sudden anger reminded me how much he scared me.

I shrugged, trying to project submission. “Today he had me looking for gifts.”

“Goddamn it.”

“John,” Callie said, “you mustn’t speak that way.”

“Could someone please tell me what’s going on?”

“You’re only seeing half-workings,” Kara said. “You’re blind to the full ones.”

An obvious answer occurred to me. “Maybe that’s because I’m really weak.”

“No,” Kara said. “That can’t be it. No matter how weak you are, you always see both. We’re all sensitive to essence that’s been worked.”

Was I just ignoring something I should’ve noticed?

“What does the barrier look like?”

“Well, it’s more a feeling than a seeing,” Kara said. “There’s this area about ten feet that way that’s just … I don’t know. Different. Buzzy, or something. Sort of quivery.” She tipped her head back. “And it goes up there, and down over there, and there. I can tell it’s all around us. Under us, too.”

Callie smiled. “John’s barriers always make me feel safe. It seems soft and warm to me, like a wall of puppies.”

Williams made a disgusted sound.

“I definitely don’t feel anything like that,” I said.

“So what do we do?” Kara said. “Give up? If she can’t see workings, she can’t see the strait.”

“No, we still have to try,” Callie said. “I know it doesn’t make sense, but somehow she’s going to help. I saw it.”

“What if she walks through the barrier, like you did? She doesn’t know where it is.” Kara turned to Williams. “Can you make one that contains as well as protects?”

“That’d weaken the protection — too risky. Fire turned out to be stronger than I thought it was, last time.”

Williams began rooting around in the back of the van. He came up with a rope, which he had me tie around my waist. He tied the other end around himself, leaving about five feet of slack between us.

“This’ll keep you inside the barrier,” he said. “Don’t untie it.”

He gave me a look that might’ve been stern on another face. On his, it looked like the wrath of god.

I was shaken. Obviously something was still wrong with me, and it was a big deal.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed the new issue to the back of my mind. Confronting was good, but I couldn’t confront everything at once.

We turned back toward the wreckage and stood there for a minute, just taking it in. Slowly, my nerves settled. Kara had said Callie’s gift was infallible. There must be some purpose to my being here, even if I was still broken.

“Anyone see Graham?” Kara asked.

“I don’t,” said Callie.

“We don’t need to talk to him,” I reminded them. “We just need to do what we can to help him.”

Callie nodded and stepped forward. I caught Williams and Kara sharing a look behind her back.

“Callie, why don’t you stay here and keep an eye on the van,” Kara said.

Callie turned back to us, and I realized she was pale and shaking. Why hadn’t I thought of it? She must be terrified. After what had happened to her, she shouldn’t even be here.

“Thank you, Kara, but I need to come with you.”

“You just think that, or you know it?” Williams asked.

“I know it.”

He didn’t look happy, but he said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

As a group, we moved toward the wreckage. We got within about a hundred feet of the pile before Graham stepped out from behind a fire truck. He looked angry. Maybe a little scared, too. My bet was that he’d never expected us to make it this far. He planted himself in front of us, clearly thinking his best offense was to force us to do something he didn’t want us to do — walk past him.

But that’s just what we did. I said, “We’re here to help you,” as we went by. He didn’t respond but just watched, amazed, as we trooped past.

We stopped about twenty feet from the edge of the wreckage that used to be the old mill. I wasn’t sure whether I should focus on Graham or the fire in front of me.

Callie said, “Can you see anything, Beth? The strait’s right there.”

She pointed at an area near the center of the wreckage, where some part of the structure hadn’t collapsed completely.

“Try focusing really hard. It looks to me like a dark blue tube sock, all stretched out like a hose.”

A tube sock? Seriously?

I took a couple steps forward and stared at the spot she’d indicated.

My movement seemed to shake Graham out of his paralysis. He made an angry sound and ran right at me.

Things happened fast. Callie lurched toward Williams, her hand stretched out. Before she could reach him, he grunted like he’d been punched and went down. Graham jumped over Williams and tackled me. I fell hard with Graham on top of me and hit my head on the pavement. A second later, I heard a loud sound, and Graham collapsed on me. Something warm and wet washed down the side of my face.

There was a moment when nothing moved. Dazed and terrified, I tried to figure out what was going on. Then I heard voices from my left — the firefighters, shouting. Graham’s limp body was rolled off me, and I sat up, holding the back of my head. Kara knelt beside me and took my hand. My head stopped hurting. I looked around.

Graham was lying beside me. A pool of blood was forming under his head. He was either unconscious or dead. A little bit to my right, Callie was helping Williams sit up. The big man was as white as a sheet. He looked sick and shaky.

“Fuck,” he said. “No way he should’ve pulled that off. Barrier was as strong as I could make it, and he still broke through.”

I looked at Graham, who hadn’t moved. I touched the side of my face, and my fingers came away bloody.

“Did someone shoot him?”

“I think his own luck zapped him,” Kara said, and laughed a little crazily. “There was an explosion in the wreckage. This thing flew out and hit him in the head.”

She toed a dark hunk of metal that was lying at her feet.

“A fireman got hurt too.”

Sure enough, the crew had dropped the hose and was helping one of their own across the lot toward the road. The injured man was hopping along. Maybe some debris had hit him in the leg.

“Come on. We still have to try with the strait,” Callie said.