The Summoning (19 page)

I stepped forward. “No? You up for breaking another mirror? You think the bad luck cancels out after two?”

One of the older men said, “We didn’t ask you to come here—”

I said, “You took Richard. That’s like sending me an engraved invitation, don’t you think?” And I stepped forward again. Wolves are patient. But that’s not what my blood was saying right then.

The olive-skinned man took another turn. “Honey, please. We didn’t know he was yours. Marlin brought him—”

“We thought he was a volunteer,” another voice concurred.

“He never said a word,” another insisted.

“You always treat people like that when they come here?” I remembered, which made my anger surge. “And you
knew
he was under constraint, with that bracelet—”

Their glances swept one another once again. The olive-skinned guy tried again, “Honey, Stan—Richard—whatever you call him, he wasn’t people. Didn’t you know?”

The air grew thick with my anger. I felt it differently that time, cold, not hot, steel, not blood. Certain. Enormous. Patient. Maybe I was growing up.

“I don’t give a flying empty shit if you think of him as
people
or not. He was people to me.” They grabbed one another as I took another step forward, my rage carried with me like a giant wave. My voice dropped again to that malevolent resonance. The air, still organized with their working, thrummed to its sound. “Do you know the wolf kind?” I asked them. “Do you know what you have done? To touch one of us is to touch us all. You may be strong together.” I stared down the lot of them. “But you are not always together. And we wolves are patient hunters. You owe me blood for this, and blood will be paid.” Great exit line. I turned to go.

“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, honey.”

I knew who it was before I turned back. The olive-skinned guy had come forward, together with the slender guy, and the suit guy who had brought Marlin here. The older guy said, “Listen. We don’t have time for this now—”

I laughed at that.

He continued right on. “In case you haven’t heard, we’re in a war here. We’re raising power every day and every way we can to use against a common enemy. A lot of people are helping us. We thought your Richard was just another one.”

“Under constraint,” I spat back. “Did he
look
like he was having a good time?” There was a long pause after that question. I laughed again, but tears were pricking my eyes. Damn! I don’t cry—and never in public. But the thought of Richard, and how expressive his face could be, in this room, with these guys… I stared down the lot of them, furious once more. But underneath this new surge of anger, the huge, cold anger swelled, strong and long-lived as a glacier. It gave me comfort. All accounts would one day balance, from every one of these guys.

“Listen,” the older guy said again. “We’ll help you find—Richard—in any way we can. When Marlin gets better—” His voice thickened as his throat tightened on the thought. “We’ll find out where he took Richard, all right? And we’ll tell you. How’s that? Fair enough?”

“Ask yourselves,” I said coldly, “if it were one of you, or yours, if that would be enough.” And I walked out.

When I had cooled down enough to think, I turned my car around from where I had been heading toward the freeway and went back to Darius’s place. If Darius knew everyone, as he said, he might know where I needed to go to look for Richard now, where Marlin might have dropped him off.

Darius’s shop was still dark; all right, I expected that. I went down the narrow passageway between two buildings that led to the door that he had let me out of, when I left his back room. I knocked there. No answer. No sign of any movement inside. No noise, no scent. I walked around to the back of the building, hopped up on a wall, dropped into the adjoining yard where someone was storing shelves of potted plants, backed up to find the narrow window that looked into Darius’s room. It was dark, too.

The yard dogs came on me silently, in a rush, a pair of German shepherds, trained not to bark. I changed, grew large the same instant out of annoyance at the inconvenience, and stood there on four feet looking down at them while they stopped, stared wide-eyed, whined, and then their tails began to wag in apology. I should hope so! I advanced on them, lowering my head, and they scrammed, which gave me time to change back and hop back over the wall before they smelled naked meat and got brave again.

I checked Darius’s door one more time. Hey, the great sorcerer, shouldn’t he be spinning his bowls and keeping watch over the world? Shouldn’t he be paying attention to me in case I needed him? Damn! I banged on his door quite a lot, until I saw a cop car cruising the street, slowing down to look for undesirable elements. That’s the trouble with hanging out in good neighborhoods when you’re not, exactly, a good neighbor.

I’d get back to him. I’d get back to Tamara as well.

I drove home. When I opened my apartment door, I almost expected to find the odors of food waiting for me and Richard there to tell me it was all a mistake, Marlin dropped him off back at home when he was finished with him, and he’d showered already, and hadn’t quite gotten dressed again. But my apartment was dark, and Richard’s scent was fading, overpowered by the yeast-based bread dough still expanding in my trash can. I went to my room, fell down on my bed without bothering to undress, and went to sleep.

The scent of the sheets gave me strong dreams. I saw Richard hanging in a cage. I saw him dressed in a filthy smock, shoveling shit in a barnyard. I saw him come into my room, bend down and whisper in my ear, but I was so engrossed in his touch, in feeling him against me again, that I didn’t hear what he said.

When the alarm jerked me alert in the morning I went automatically to the shower and got ready for work. I hesitated when I picked up my keys and then thought, why not? The city may be about to be swallowed into the sea, but I still wanted my paycheck.

At Arches Auditorium, I got out the linseed oil and stood under the platform applying the first coat to this part of the lobby while the others worked above me. When break time came, I went on working. Yvette joined me after that and worked in silence, while the guys chattered above us about some movie they’d seen.

Yvette said, “You’re not so cheerful today.”

“No,” I said.

“Right. Yesterday, you were like a real person, all smiling and laughing, and today… you act like your man left you for his boyfriend.”

I cracked a smile. “He did. Just about.”

“No kidding?”

“That’s what I’m told.”

“Well,” Yvette said, instantly pissed on my behalf. “Fuck him. That’s what I say. Fuck ’em all.”

“Yeah. Right.”

We painted for a while in silence, rubbing off the excess oil with a rag when it had dried to the point of tackiness. Then she said, “What are you going to do to him?”

“To who?” I asked, dropping to my knees to polish the wood I’d already oiled.

“To that guy, who left you.”

I rubbed fiercely. “I’m going to get him back, that’s what.”

Yvette laughed, egging me on. “You do that, girl. You show him.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I will.”

We worked in silence after that until lunchtime, when Yvette offered to take me to the place where they made the best enchiladas in town. That’s when I realized that I’d missed a lot of meals since walking into my apartment the previous night expecting dinner to be on the table. I have no idea if they were the best enchiladas in town. I scarfed down six of them without stopping to taste them. Getting food into me also brought me to my senses. Painting Arches was not accomplishing anything. If the world ended (or the greater L.A. basin, whatever), I wasn’t going to need rent money at the end of the month anyway. When we got back to the auditorium, I told Yvette to tell Pete, our boss, that I was feeling sick and going home. Yvette raised her brows at this and replied, deadpan, “Yeah, you got the wicked hunger fever, I know that. Six enchiladas is a definite symptom.” She went into the auditorium laughing at her own joke and shaking her head, and I drove away smiling.

I drove fast. My little Honda Civic shook at the way I pushed her, but I pushed her anyway. The cold raw anger that had risen within me the night before swelled in me now, coloring my every thought and passion stronger and more certain. It felt good.

I found my way back to the music store in Costa Mesa without any trouble. I can generally find my way back to somewhere I’ve been, even if I wasn’t on foot and didn’t leave a trail. I parked my car down the street and made my way to Tamara’s shop. There were no bears outside today, and when I went in, the shop was empty of customers. Jacob, the bear with the scar across his eye, was sitting behind the counter. I went over to him. I don’t let bears scare me.

“Tamara?” I asked.

He gazed at me coldly. “She waited for you. She was here yesterday, and the day before. You don’t have a phone?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t gotten a phone. I didn’t want any calls.

“She was looking for you.”

Unbelievably, I felt myself blushing. I suppressed it hard. “I was busy,” I said, and it sounded more belligerent than I meant it to, but what the hell. No one tells me where to be, or when. That’s a promise I made myself.

His brows arched like he was getting mad. “You were busy? What are you talking about?”

I changed the subject. “Where is Tamara? When can I see her?”

He settled back on the stool he was using, and it creaked under his weight. “She’s in the desert scrying the stars. You were lucky to find her here once. She doesn’t stand still often.”

“I have a few questions for her.”

“They’ll have to wait,” he pointed out. He looked past me to the door of the shop. “She left a message for you.”

That was more like it. “Yeah?”

“Where’s the other? You know. The demon.”

It surprised me to see the great bear so diffident. So, bears didn’t like demons. I looked around behind me in all innocence. “Richard?” I called, as though he had come in behind me. “I don’t know,” I said, turning back to him. “He’ll be here in a minute.”

He leaned forward to tell me quietly, “Lady Tamara says, you beware of that demon.”

I stiffened, and I didn’t bother to lower my voice. “Oh yeah? Why?”

He looked around sharply before he answered me. “Something the demon said, when he was here. You remember he spoke of the Eater of Souls?”

“Sure I do. That’s what we came here for.”

“Yeah, well.” Jacob leaned forward farther over the counter, and the stool creaked again under him. “Tamara looked into it, asked questions, and the Eater of Souls is real, that’s sure.”

Strangely, what I felt was relief. Not what I would expect on hearing that a second terrible enemy was coming to town. Then I realized it meant Richard had been telling the truth. I smiled. “So, my demon wasn’t lying after all. Well, then.”

Jacob raised one hand. “Ah, but he was. If you remember, he referred to the Eater of Souls as a male. He said,
he
.”

I frowned, trying to remember. “Yeah, so?”

“And the demon said he’d run into the Eater of Souls before, so he should know—the Eater of Souls manifests as a female. An old woman, an ancient one, bowed down by the weight of her years, which number the centuries like days.” Jacob pointed his finger at me. “Your demon is lying. He lies about one thing, he could be lying about many another. You be careful. The Lady Tamara says, you check with her before you believe any more of your demon’s information.”

I felt my back go all hard and straight and my mouth tighten. I do not like being told what to do. I started thinking of open spaces, of being on my own again, and away from the stupid troubles of this stupid city.

Jacob shook his head sadly. “You can’t.”

I brought back my gaze to him sharply. “Can’t what?”

“Run off, like you did before.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded.

He chuckled at that, and for a moment I saw the bear in him again. “You think I don’t know you? We who have two natures, we’re more alike than you know. And one thing that makes us is wise to each other’s tricks. In any case, we know you won’t be going. You’re bound here like the rest of us. Lady Tamara read it in the fire.”

I thought about this for a moment, and then asked, “And did Lady Tamara see the demon in her reading?”

He said with disgust, “You can’t scry a demon. You know that.”

Actually, I only knew what Darius had told me, and he didn’t have to be right. “So she didn’t know Richard’s gone. He was taken from me.”

He frowned at this, looking past me around the store. “I thought you said…?” Bears can be slow sometimes. Then he shook his head. “Well, maybe that’s for the best, if he’s a trickster.”

It was my turn to lean on the counter. “All right, but think about this. If there are those of us on one side of this battle, there are sure to be those on the other. And one of them may now have my demon. Is that good?”

He sat arrested by that thought for a moment, then said slowly, “Maybe the demon will work just as contrary for the one who has him now. He left you, did he?”

“He was
taken
,” I emphasized again.

“Lady Tamara said, it can’t be a good thing, a wolf with a demon.”

He was totally under her spell all right, if spell it was. I said, just to see what he’d say, “And what about a bear with a demon? Would that be all right?”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have anything to do with one of those. Even if,” he smiled at me slyly, “you could find a demon anywhere who could comprehend the ways of the bear kind.”

Well. At least he was consistent. Bears are, though. It’s one of their weaknesses.

“When does Tamara get back from the desert?”

But he didn’t know. Scrying the stars could take a night, or a week of nights, now that the moon was full. “She’ll send for you,” was all he’d say.

I was back on the freeway before I realized she didn’t know where I lived. I thought about turning around, but I didn’t. She’s a sorceress, after all. If she found me, I’d know a little more about how strong she was. I took the 5 north, then dog-legged over on the 101 and then caught Santa Monica to West Hollywood.