The Mentor (33 page)

Pavan’s CD
player had been lost during my last abduction, and I actually missed the
constant murmuring in my ear.  Once it seemed like a good time to head
into the daylight, purchasing another would get me through the remainder of the
library discs.

One of the
library’s audio offerings had been the
Art of War
.  The author
wrote, “the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow
the enemy’s will to be imposed on him.”  That had been my problem with the
Mentor—he was imposing his will upon me, controlling my moves.  Guinea had
been the first time I changed the rules and took a path of
my
choosing.
 Now it was just a matter of picking up that pace.

On the
third day, after feeding the cats, I’d plopped down onto the couch, when
something caught my attention, and my pulse began to thump in my neck.
 Did I get a sudden waft of paranoia or had there been something that
broke me from my concentration?

The house
was mostly dark and at that point I considered going around and turning every
light on.  The one thing that came to mind is that if The Mentor had come
to this home, Toby the dog-bear would be going nuts.

Unless he
couldn’t…

At the
door, I went up on tiptoes to look through the peephole.  Dark.
 Flipping the light on, there wasn’t much more to see: just a fish-eye
shaped dark wrapped in a dirty halo of light.  

Pushing the
door open slowly, I passed quickly under the light then walked around the side
of the house, toward the garage, and the moment I rounded the corner nearly
jumped out of my skin.  Behind the eight-foot fence, Toby barked, and then
settled into a constant growl.  The reflective glow of one of his eyes was
glimmering from a crack halfway up the door.

“Nice
doggy.  It’s your water boy, remember me?”  Then his growling pitched
up a little and the fence shook.  Oh yeah.  I broke eye contact and
backed away slowly, easing toward the front door.

Dashing
past the spotlight above the door, I jumped into the dark of the parlor room
and listened to the house for a moment.  Nothing.  Stepping out
slowly, there was a queer sensation around my feet.   

“Oh, damn.
 Hey Muggles.  Hey Ruggles,” I whispered as they playfully slithered
around my ankles, then traded sides and kept swirling.  Glancing at all
the dark corners of the room, still jumpy, I sprinted to the kitchen and filled
their food bowl to the top, and put down an additional bowl of water.

Toby
barked.

I didn’t
like the sound of that.  Sure, it was a terrifying sound on its own.
 But, I wasn’t entirely sure why it had done that.  Did the dog’s
water dish need refilling, too, already?

I twisted
the spigot at the kitchen sink and put an empty milk container under the tap,
then left my kitten-slippers to their food and sprinted through the house to
the garage.  Slowly, I opened the door, slinked my hand out, and clicked
on the light.

In the
corner, I could just barely see an outline of a… thing.  A presence.
 But, this creature only wanted water… or if the eye contact thing had
riled him up, maybe a little more.  My hope was it was just about water.

At the far
end of the garage, I filled the big silver bowl up, which took forever because
of the little spout on the gallon milk jug.  As the final few drops
gurgled into the dish, I flinched as something cold hit the back of my hand.

The giant
head of Toby the dog was just below my fingers after it had apparently poked me
with a wet nose.  Tentatively, I stroked his big, oil black head and after
a couple seconds, it broke away and drank the water.  Huge and terrifying,
it seemed the creature could also dole out small doses of affection on occasion.

But I knew
to be careful.

I came back
in from the garage, left the door as a crack so I could hear the giant beastie
if it needed anything.

Back
inside, I flipped the lights on but the very act confused me.  
How long
had I been in the garage?  Since before it had turned dark?  

Breathing
out the entire contents of my lungs, another deep breath in, a strange calm was
coming over me, in waves.  

The moment
my butt hit the couch, I was attacked.

Rummels
(unable to tell them apart, in my head I began to just combine their names)
jumped up next to the sleeping Rummels, pressed its back against its twin and
began to press its feet into my belly, making biscuits.  Then, it jammed
its head into the gap on the other side of my body.  

A couple
millennia ago, cats had protected the Egyptian royal family.  Guard cats.
 Maybe they’d devolved from there into the aloof, furry meatballs rolling
around homes of today, but who would want a cat as a guard dog anyhow?

A moment
later, Rummels' head popped up.  So did Rummels'.

An electric
current whipped through me, from forehead to sphincter.  Something had
spooked the cats.  I cocked my head a little, gave the dark corner a look
and saw someone standing there.

No, no.
 Tired, eyes filling in scary gaps where there were none.

Then the
non-someone shifted, a quick staccato move, as if he/she/it was trying to
decide which way to bolt.

"Who--"

"Dexter."
 A woman's voice.  But not kind.  Deep and almost seething.
 I wondered, briefly, if it was someone I had dated previously.

Then, I saw
her more clearly.

"You're
that blondy from the truck stop."

"Turn
around."

"And
from the Marietta Square."

"Turn
AROUND," she said.  At her hip, there was a gun trained on me.
 I turned around.

I asked,
"What are you--"

"Shit,"
she said.  I heard a bang against the wall near her.  She'd hit it
with a fist.

"You
hadn't expected me home, right?  I was out--"

"Shut
UP."

I looked at
Rummels and Rummels, and frowned.  My next move already decided and in motion,
to the kitty closest I whispered, "sorry."

Ducking
low, I grabbed both fat, furry cats, one in each hand, and threw them at the
woman.  
NarraeaaaaaaaaRRRRnnnnn!
 Then I heard her scream.

"JESUS!
 GET OFFFF MEE!"

From the
floor in front of the couch, I wheeled around the end of the sofa as she pushed
off one Rummels as another gnawed at her leg.  She lifted her other leg,
as I came up behind her, about to kick the second cat off.

"Oh,
no you don't," I said, and bent low taking out the leg the cat was chewing
on.  As the woman fell, Rummels made a break for it and the woman fell on
top of me.  

She stood
just faster than I did and I heard the low clanking of the metal weapon in her
hand as she tried to get a good grip.  

I reached
over to try and grab it and got rewarded with a starburst of incredible light,
as an elbow landed hard just above the bridge of my nose.

My hands
instinctively went up and another elbow jabbed into my left lung, the back of
her fist catching me in the mouth.  Falling to the left, the wall broke my
descent.  Listing to the side, I could just barely get enough hold with
one foot to raise the other.  

My shoe
planted in the middle of her back, I launched the woman into the door leading
into the garage, and she slipped into the darkness.

I’d hoped
for a satisfying thwop! when her head hit the door.  Not because I like to
toss around women but she beat the shit out of me and I wanted to get one good
lick in.

Instead, it
was as if she hit the door running-- which she probably did-- and I simply
helped her through it.  

My heart
sank a little-- another breadcrumb to find out what was happening to me, but
this one blew away in the wind.

“GrrRRRRRRrrrrnnnnrrr!

Then, the
playing field changed a little.

I stumbled
upright and the two kitties were on me in an instant, swirling away at my feet.
 Scooting them away, it almost seemed like they were worried about me.
 Or, more likely, I’d dropped bacon and it had lodged somewhere in the
laces of my cheap tennis shoes.

I cracked
the door open slightly and heard a shuffling.  Then the dog-bear-moose
Toby barked again.

The woman
yelled, growled back.  I could tell she was freaked out and couldn’t blame
her.

Flicking
the light on, I saw my blond ass-kicker in the corner of the room.  She’d
taken a tumble on a collection of hoses I’d made a poor attempt at coiling
neatly in the center of the garage.  To get up, she’d need to lean up on
her hands-- if she did that, however, Toby would be within reach to eat her
head whole.

The look on
the dog’s face, the froth and drool that swirled and foamed at his jowls,
dropping to the floor in clumps, she and I both knew he was hungry for some
head.

“Get this
fucking...
thing
... away from me!”

Toby tugged
at its chain slightly and a growl began gurgled low in its throat.  She
pressed herself lower to the ground.

I sat on
the concrete step at the threshold of the garage.

My lung was
still reinflating itself, but my vision had traded twinkly stars for the early
onset of a headache.  Charity, kindness, saving intruders from
man/woman-eating dog-beasts?-- these were not thoughts at the top of my list.

I asked, “Why
are you following me?”

She laughed
and the dust on the ground cleared away from the sharp breath.

“Oh, hell
no,” she said.  “You’re not quizzing me because Cujo wants a bite out of
my ass.  I’ll shoot the fucking dog.”

“No you
won’t.”

“The fuck I
wo--”

“You’d
shoot me, I bet.  But not the dog,” I said.  “If you were going to do
that, you’d have squeezed one off before I even got in here.”

She smiled
and pointed the weapon in my direction.  Her smile faded as Toby leapt,
and the metal coils that held him in place rattled so hard, the sound of it
hurt my teeth.

“I wouldn’t
do that.”

“The dog is
chained up!”

“Look at
that thing,” I said.  “The chain is merely an optimistic request by the
members of this household.”  Her hand wavered.  “If you listen
closely and hear a Foo Fighters song coming from that thing it's because it ate
my iPod on the first day.  With headphones.  And shock proof case.”

“Bullshit.”

I shrugged.

For a
moment it was quiet.  Her eyes stabbed left to right, then back.  She
said: “You’re lying.”

Standing up
I said, “Oh, good.  Don't hear it?  Ugh, finally!  I’ll check the
yard for it then.”

“DON’T go
anywhere.  You’re going to grab this fuc--”

I raised my
arms at my sides as if I were about to use them to take flight.  “No,
you're the one on the ground.  I'm making the rules right now."
 She raised the gun again.  I watched her eyes and realized something
else: "You won't shoot me either.  This isn't about killing me."

She rolled
her eyes at me.  What?   What would I know about this sort of
thing, so I’m a little slow on the pickup.

"What
do you want?  What does that big asshole, ninja want?"

She started
speaking and then, strangely, she actually laughed.  "If you knew
how
much of an asshole.  God, that's funny."

"What
do you fucking people want from me?"  Toby took a half step back at
my voice, then seemed to notice my anger was directed to the woman on the
ground, and inched right back forward.  Its front paws almost dug into the
concrete.

She looked
around the room and said, "Dexter,
I
don't want anything from you.
 I'm on the job, shit-for-brains."

"What
job?"  Her eyes went from corner to corner of the garage, and it was
making me nervous.  I barely had a hold on the situation and she was
obviously thinking way ahead of me.  "Who are you working for,
then?"

"Hmmf."

"Do
you work for Solomon-Bluth like The Mentor?"  
Shit.

"Who?"
 she said.  "What did you call him?"

"Do
you both work for Solomon-Bluth?"

She shot me
a gaze like I was a bacterium on a golf ball, hurtling toward the rough at
Pebblebrook, and that bacterium had just asked a spec of dirt, "Wait a
moment!  You trying to say there's life beyond our white, dimpled
planet??"

One eye
squinted, she then said almost to herself, "Oh yeah.  Actually, I
think one of them does run that place."

"One
of who?"

Inching
back slowly, she put her hands on the floor, her right hand holding the gun as
she did.  Toby yanked against his chain again, she didn't even seem to
notice.

"
ONE
OF WHO?  WHO?
"

She pulled
into a low crouch and said, "Listen, kid, when they finally come to you
just give them what they want."  The gun lifted from the floor.
 "They always get what they want.  Always.  Christ, it's
why they're-- whatever."