Powers (15 page)

She vanished. Albert heard a door open. Then her voice came again, hollow and echoing as if she spoke from a cave.

“Beware these doors, Simon Lahti! Your mother warns you! Half of them lead to places that will kill you if you don’t know where you’re going. Plus, they sometimes change. Will it be the Lady or the Tiger?”

A door closed.

He stood staring up. Mother? That “Balkis” thing wasn’t a joke? Gods and goddesses? The Seal had cried out to him, begging him to forge it once again, guard the way between the worlds.

Gods and goddesses loose in the world once more. That would fit Legion’s warning about the world changing. He didn’t
like
the bastards, even if he was supposed to
be
one.

Another metallic click echoed beside him. Probably the
other
goddess, setting the safety on her shotgun.

“Well, that raised as many questions as it answered. Should have tried to shoot her.”

Albert turned, shaking his head. “But that’s
Mother.
”

“Whoever or
what
ever that was, that woman isn’t your mother. Skin can lie, but no lifeline connects you to her. The winds tell me this.”

Goddess of the Mountain Winds.

Goddess of the Mountain Winds—cold, thin, deadly, remote. You can’t keep secrets from the winds. You can’t hide from them. Even the strongest door can’t keep them out. They’ll find some way to sneak inside and chill you to the marrow.

And the killing will be just as cold and remote. Not passionate death, she’s
not
an avatar of Kali. The mountain winds just don’t care. Make one mistake and die.

They can touch you, but you can’t touch them.

Well,
that
explained a number of things.
If
he could believe Mother, which required a leap of faith at the best of times. The world-myth held a multitude of forge-gods, some even with a bum leg and “vertically challenged.” Smithing was the kind of work that people everywhere knew
needed
gods, and somehow involved dwarves. And spitting in the east corner before firing the forge.

Too bad he didn’t know his own name. If Mother could be trusted, he might yet remember it. Soon. As soon as enough power drained from the Seal.

“I don’t
like
gods.”

The Wind Goddess was staring at him, furrows of intensity above her nose. She shook her head. He couldn’t tell if that meant she agreed with his statement, or disagreed. Communications breakdown.

If all else fails, ask. “Do you believe Mother? That we’re gods?”

“She’s
not
your mother. Whatever else she is, she’s not that. But her life
does
stretch back out of sight. Which takes some doing. Yours disappears in fog. Hers goes over the horizon off
that
way.” She bobbed her head generally east.

An answer that wasn’t an answer. Mother could be thousands of years old
without
being Balkis, either Queen of Sheba or Goddess of Sa’aba. Without him and . . . Ms. Detective Lieutenant Melissa el Hajj . . . being gods.

“So what do I call you? What do I call
her?
”

She wrinkled her nose. “Call her Mother, if that’s what flows easiest off your tongue. Or ‘that bitch’ will do just fine. From what little I’ve seen of her. Me?” Another shrug. “The few people who don’t call me ‘Lieutenant’ or ‘Goddess’ call me Mel. ‘Noshaq’ is a mountain.” She thought for another moment. “I don’t think anyone alive today dares to call me ‘Mel.’ You may.”

He blinked at that. All of it. Including the regal graciousness of the last bit. It meant something important, but he had no idea what.

Or should he concentrate on the bit that no one left alive called her that? “Dare to call me Mel, you die!”

English was a slippery language. But “Melissa” wasn’t an English name—his chancy memory said it was Greek for “honey bee,” and he wondered where she’d picked
that
up. Alexander’s wandering army? Where and when had
he
learned Greek?

Anyway, she’d chosen a venomous insect for her name.

Her eyes had gone back to scanning the . . . building? The galleries, anyway. Over her shotgun sights, of course, although she held the gun against her hip rather than her shoulder.

“I want to talk to those doors. Not open them yet, just ask them what they hide. I think your Bilqis was telling the truth when she said some of them would kill you. Doesn’t have to open straight to
Jahannam
or a
djinni
lair—Antarctica will do. The center of Rub Al-Khali also comes to mind, before they mucked it up with oil wells. Or even underwater, if the sea level has changed since Allah created this place for His amusement.”

She was back to studying
him,
those disconcerting dark eyes narrowed and weighing him over the balance-point of her sharp nose. “Guard
this
door.” She cocked her head at the one leading to the alley. “I don’t want any distractions wandering in and interfering with my winds.”

Another stare, followed by a nod to herself. She laid the shotgun down and started to unbuckle her gun belt. “You said you knew how to handle a pistol. Looked like you meant it. Have you practiced recently?”

Valid question. Pistols are tricky tools, not like a rifle or a shotgun. You can’t lay off pistol practice for a year or so and still count yourself a gunman.

“Two hundred rounds on a practical pistol range, little over a month ago. I scored eighty percent lethal hits, including clean on the shoot/don’t-shoot section.”

Two hundred rounds plus range-time was damned expensive, on his limited budget. But, he couldn’t see any point in keeping the guns if he wasn’t able to hit a barn from inside it.

She handed him the gun belt. Heavy—holstered pistol and four spare high-capacity magazines. Plus handcuffs and pepper spray and portable cop radio, the whole
meghilla.
He wondered just how many laws and department regulations she broke by handing it to him.

“I’m thin. That should fit you okay. Rather have someone at my back with a gun than with that knife and sword-cane, impressive as they are.”

“That leaves you with just the shotgun.”

She grinned, a hard smile with a touch of nasty in it. “Not on your ass, little man. I still have my Colts, the .45 and .380. What you have is just the duty gun. Chief says every cop has to carry the same hardware, interchangeable magazines and such, we’re a
force,
a
unit,
not a goddamn mob of individuals.” Her snarl told him exactly what she thought of
that.
“I’ve practiced with it, but a few thousand rounds downrange can’t make me like it. Different balance, bad grip, and it jammed a couple of times. My Colts never have.”

Great. Maybe she
was
an avatar of Kali.

He drew the gun from its holster, cleared it—round in the chamber, dammit—and examined it. Smith and Wesson 9 millimeter semi-automatic, double action, polymer frame and metal slide, he’d never handled one like it before. That double-stack magazine made the grip seem fat to him. He’d really need to use both hands for good control—he could understand why it felt odd to her as well. But he could live with it.

Or die with it, more likely, if it jammed in a situation where a knife just
wouldn’t
do.

Maybe he could talk to it about smooth feed and ejection, if they got a few minutes free. Safety came ready to his thumb, anyway, and it pointed where he meant it to point. Ambidextrous safety as well, he swapped from hand to hand, trying the feel. Mel watched his antics for a moment before issuing a curt nod of approval. Or, that’s how he chose to read it.

She grabbed the shotgun, stood up, and walked over to the nearest door, the first one on the ground floor on the right, and placed her left hand on one of the recessed wooden panels. He loaded the pistol, including the round in the chamber again—that was the way
she
carried it, and she was probably going to ask for it back. Besides, as a modern weapon, he assumed it had a firing-pin block and wouldn’t go bang if he dropped it on those pavers with the safety on.

Gun belt was wide, heavy stiff patent leather and shiny—he’d prefer matte nylon webbing, lighter and more flexible—but probably police force standard again, not her choice. He took off the backpack and buckled the belt on. Needed to use one notch over from the faint crease where she usually wore it, he was wider around than her for all she stood at least half a foot taller. Slim. Like that gold Kali, all lean muscle, marathon-runner build. Being a goddess, she probably didn’t have to exercise to look like that. Part of the god-package . . . like he’d never been able to change the way
he
looked.

She’d moved on to the second door and stood leaning her forehead against it. Asking deeper questions? She shook herself, stepped back, shook herself again, and walked over to the third.

Not his problem. If she wanted him to know, she’d tell him. Meanwhile, that left him with an unfamiliar gun and holster. This one had a pretty serious top strap, probably designed to keep an alleged perpetrator from grabbing an officer’s weapon in a scuffle, so Albert needed to practice actually getting
to
the gun if he ever needed it.

He didn’t need a cowboy movie quick-draw, nothing like that, just reliable transfer from holster to hand. Without dropping the damned fat-gripped gun in the process. Same with grabbing a replacement magazine from its belt pouch in the middle of scare-the-shit-out-of-you violence. The snaps on the pouch cover-flaps wanted to stick. Metal, he talked them into a smooth release. Probably should have been Velcro in the first place, but you couldn’t polish that.

She’d moved on to staring out the front window, shaking her head, and then starting on the other bank of ground-floor doors. Just out of curiosity, he opened the back door again, disturbing her winds. Hard rain swept the alley outside, sleet mixed in, he could feel the sting of it when he reached his hand through that boundary. Cold, raw, not a place you’d want to be. Particularly if you happened to be homeless and living in a cardboard hut.

He closed the door and crossed the courtyard to the front window. It looked out on a streetscape, just as he remembered from their earlier check except raining now. Broken window on the second floor across the way and three rust-rimmed bullet-holes in the “No Parking” sign. He remembered those too.

He went back to unsnapping the holster strap and drawing the pistol and flipping off the safety and getting a sight picture, slow motion, just engraving muscle memory with unfamiliar hardware. Then he sat on the marble curb of the fountain, in hot sun next to gentle splashing water, and let the rays soak up some of the tension this place woke in his shoulders. Illusion, all of it. A damned convincing illusion, he could smell the water.

I don’t
like
gods.

The building wasn’t the only cause of tension.

She had worked her way up to the fourth floor galleries, he couldn’t see her but followed her footsteps as they echoed along spending only a moment or so with each door. Rather longer with the window to the front. And rather longer with the one he thought Mother had used.
Balkis
had used.

Gonna take a bit of time to digest that news, that Mother isn’t my mother. Not really
bad
news, considering who She is, but it shakes up my world a bit. Probably says that my brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles . . .
 
aren’t. And that the reports of deaths in the family may be greatly exaggerated. Mother never let facts interfere with a good story.

The weird thing was, he believed it. Mother not being . . . Mother . . . fit in with too many things through the years. She was the kind of person who would tell a lie when the truth would serve as well. Or better.
She
was the center of the universe, and truth could twist itself as necessary to fit.

Mel clumped down the stairs again, boots heavy on stone treads, and walked over to sag down a few feet away from him on the fountain lip. She stared off into space. Little as he knew her, her body-language said she wasn’t happy.

“Doors won’t talk to you?”

“Oh, they talk, all right. Ones on the first two floors lead to places in this world. Except for the rear on the second floor. None of those three rear doors will open, for me or anyone. Not until
Yawm al-Qiyāmah,
maybe. If such a thing will ever come.”

“Well, nothing on the brick wall outside . . . ”

She shook her head. “They lead somewhere. They just won’t open. Maybe direct routes to
Jannah
and
Jahannam.
Outside means nothing. Illusions.”

Yawm al-Qiyamah
—“The Day of Resurrection.” And the Muslim paradise and hell.

Maybe.

“The third rear door?”

“The Blessed Qu’ran does
not
contain all knowledge. The Prophet, may his name ever be praised, never had enough paper for that. All I know is all three doors go somewhere.”

“What about the upper two floors?”

She glanced up. “Those doors go to . . . other places. The winds are odd behind them, but they still speak to me. The one Bilqis took, that goes to an oasis of strange powers and smells. I think we would be unwise to take that door.”

“Where do the doors to this world go?”

“Some of them I know. The middle door on this side,” she nodded to the second one she’d tried, “goes to my mountains. Not to my home, but close. What you call Tibet, maybe, or Nepal. I know those winds. I could walk to my home from there. I wish that I had found this place many years ago.”

Something in her voice . . . he saw a glint on her cheek, and the breath caught in his throat. Tears. The Goddess of the Mountain Winds was crying.
Kali
was crying. Homesick. He looked away, quick before he shamed her.

This would be a good time for him to go sniffing at doors. He did so. He couldn’t feel or smell anything unusual about that middle one on the righthand side. Or any of the others on the first floor, for that matter. The second floor, he caught a whiff of northern forest out of the front-most on the left side, the particular mix of fir and pine and spruce and birch and autumn ferns around a lake in Finland. A lake that he could not put a name to, nor remember visiting.