I berated myself for having a box in my gun
hand. Going to have to retrain myself. Dad would never have let
that happen to him.
A squawk sounded from the hidden crow, then
the dry leaves that hid it started to shake and flutter in a frenzy
of sound, as if a huge bird fight was happening just out of sight.
The region of uproar moved up and around the tree, getting even
more frenetic, the crow squealing in distress, then suddenly
stopped.
I was frozen, my hand on my gun, completely
unnerved by the energy of the violence that I could hear but not
see. Motion caught my eye, two black feathers floating down to the
ground. My eyes automatically tracked their fall, but were drawn
back upward by three sudden streaks zipping out of the tree in
different directions. Gone before I could lock sight on them, just
an afterimage of dark blurs flashing out of the brown leaves. The
hair on the back of my neck was standing at full attention, and I
suddenly realized I was holding the unholstered Sig in my right
hand, with no memory of the draw. My hand was so tight that the
Crimson Trace grip laser was painting the base of the tree with a
dancing red dot.
Taking a deep breath, I backed into the
house, dumped the boxes on the little entry table that holds my
keys, and slammed the door shut. Only then could I force my hand to
loosen its grip and re-holster the gun.
After a moment or two, I chided myself to man
up, go out and find out what happened to the crow. First, I
reloaded the Sig’s magazine with ammo from the shoe boxes I had
brought in. One box held a hundred and fifty rounds of .40 ammo,
just basic Winchester hollowpoints from Wal-mart. I had spent a
couple of hours in the shop, cutting tiny cylinders of iron from
five-sixteenths rod stock I had out in the forge. Each tiny
cylinder was just long enough to fit inside the cavity of the .40
hollowpoint, where it was super glued into position.
The second box held a hundred rounds of .44
magnum ammo, similarly doctored, but with three-eights rod
sections. This would make my little Winchester lever-action rifle
toxic to whatever roamed my woods.
With the new ammo in my Sig, I went back out,
put a ladder against the tree and climbed up. Inside the brown
leafed limbs of the oak, I found a spherical region of mayhem,
blood and black feathers spattered around a foot and a half space.
Draped over one thick tree limb was the shredded, empty husk of the
bird; the skull and feet barely attached by fleshy threads.
Thoroughly spooked, I slipped the carcass into a zip lock freezer
bag and beat feet back down to the ground.
The sun was setting as I headed inside,
putting my gruesome plastic bag into the bottom rack of our chest
freezer.
Distracted by the crow’s violent demise, I
could only concentrate long enough to make grilled cheese
sandwiches and tomato soup for the girls, which they happen to
love. They ate at the counter, and for once I was glad that their
teen-aged self absorption eliminated the need for me to help carry
on a conversation.
Dinner over, they disappeared back into
Ashley’s room, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the evening
news while I cleaned up.
-Scientists in Switzerland report that the
Large Hadron Collider is running smoothly at half power and they
plan to gradually increase to three-quarters power over the next
month. The largest machine ever built by man has been running
continually for five and a half months, producing millions of
collisions per hour. The information generated by this awesome
project has already filled the equivalent of four hundred college
libraries.
Despite the enormous controversy over the
safety of this massive particle accelerator, the project has an
unblemished safety record. Hans Vorst, PR director for CERN, the
multi-national organization that built the Collider, reports that
not a single black hole or other catastrophe has resulted from the
LHC’s operation, much to the chagrin of the doomsayers who
predicted world ending events when the machine was switched on. The
LHC is considered by many to be science’s best chance to discover
the elusive Higgs particle, the so-called God Particle. Reporting
from Switzerland, I’m Roger Novac. Michelle, back to you-
-Thanks Roger. Our next story is much more
disturbing. In the last three weeks, the six children have gone
missing in four different states, prompting an unprecedented number
of Amber Alerts. And several of these recent disappearances
occurred inside the children’s own homes.-
“Dad, I can’t get the printer to work!”
Ashley said suddenly from behind me. Water splashed across the
countertop and on the window over the sink as I jumped at her
voice. Turning I gave her a look.
“Did I scare you?” she asked with a smirk.
Ashley loves to try to surprise me, but usually fails. She was
loving this.
“Yeah, thanks for taking ten years off my
life!” I replied. “What’s the matter with the printer?”
“Weellllll, it’s not working!” she said,
still smirking.
“That’s not overly helpful,” I pointed out,
wiping my hands on a dish towel. She already held her laptop, so it
only took a moment to check the online status of our wireless
printer. Being able to take a laptop anywhere in the house is
great, but for some reason, the wireless handshake between the
printer and the two computers we have gets sketchy. The strange
code interactions that take place inside our increasingly complex
computers had suddenly changed and the result was the printer was
no longer the default choice. Since we don’t have any other
printer, I don’t have a clue what would have been the default, but
I didn’t have the mental energy to try and chase down that logic
path. I fixed the pathway and handed her back her laptop.
“There, that should work. Getting your
homework done early?” I asked.
She laughed. “No Dad, we’re printing out
pictures of the football team and drawing on them.”
Then she laughed at my expression and went
back upstairs.
I really wasn’t going to handle the whole
boyfriend thing well.
I went back to the sink to finish the dishes,
but a movement out the window caught my attention. The automatic
yard light had not yet come on, but it was almost dark enough to
trip it. The kitchen window looks out into the driveway and in the
gloom by the base of the lamp post a tall man was standing and
staring at me.
Chapter 5
He was on the old sandstone walkway, dressed
in black, with white blond hair and dark skin. Looking me in the
eyes through the time warped glass of the kitchen window, he nodded
once. Ignoring my racing pulse, I paused to think. Both girls were
upstairs, with Charm. The house was locked up and I was armed with
more than a utility knife. Mr. Tall and Foreboding was standing
very still, his demeanor non-threatening. Didn’t mean much. I had
seen him fight; he was very, very fast.
Coming to a decision, I dropped the dish
towel and moved to the front entryway, pausing to get the shotgun.
Grabbing my house keys, I glanced out the window to make sure he
was still there, armed the house alarm, unlocked the door, and
stepped out, relocking the door behind me. The house alarm would
kick on after twenty seconds. If tripped it would ring to the alarm
company, who had instructions to call the police, then my
father.
He hadn’t moved an inch, staying eerily
motionless as I glanced around to make sure nothing was sneaking up
on me from either side.
I stayed on the porch, shotgun in both hands,
barrels pointing at the sandstone block at his feet.
His eyes, which were an icy blue, catalogued
my every motion, and his head moved ever so slightly in what might
have been a nod of…..respect?
His right hand came up, palm facing me, his
other hand open by his left leg. A black heavy bracelet was wrapped
around his right forearm, a carved animalistic head near the back
of his hand.
“I am Greer,” he said in an even tone, his
sharpish teeth flashing white against his dark skin. His accent was
a soft burr, something between Irish and Scottish.
“What do you want?” I asked.
He nodded again, acknowledging my abrupt
manner.
“You intervened – in the forest – when you
had no need to,” he commented. It was almost a question.
I shrugged, but kept the gun centered on the
walkway in front of him.
“Seemed the thing to do,” I replied.
His head tilted to one side, his expression
quizzical, as if trying to understand something foreign to him.
Greer was a shade over six feet, lean, but
not skinny. The term ‘whipcord’ popped into my head as I
automatically evaluated him as a fighter. Dangerous and deadly
fast. His face was angular, with high cheek bones, and when he
suddenly shifted weight from one foot to the other, his pony tail
swung into view, hanging to the middle of his back.
“It was not a logical thing to do,” he said,
even closer to a question.
Part of me was getting angry that he was
questioning my intelligence in helping him.
“Not logical to help a person in trouble?” I
questioned.
He smiled suddenly, a real smile, making him
slightly less menacing.
“Oh, don’t be thinking I’m not happy you did,
because I am! It’s just not something my people would be likely to
do,” he said.
The way he mentioned ‘his people’ was odd, as
though he spoke of a separate race. Then he flicked his hair
absently with one hand and a pointed ear poked through. Separate
race indeed.
“I find myself in
dettis onach
,” he
said, his tone and expression a mixture of disbelief and
resentment.
“What?” I asked.
“It is a concept of my people – a life debt
of sorts. You risked your life for mine without a logical reason to
do so. We are not related, we do not work together and we have no
prior obligation to each other,” he said.
“Yeah well, ‘my people’ call it lending a
hand. But who are your people?” I asked.
He smiled a little at that, then paused to
look at the security light, the car in the driveway and back to the
gun in my hands.
“There have been many changes since I was
here last,” he commented, continuing to sweep the house with his
gaze. “Not
here
, actually, I’ve never been
here
. I
mean here on this world.”
“Ooookay, I’ll play this game. If I had’t
seen the green ape things I’d figure you for a Lord of the Rings
wannabe or maybe a Mr. Spock impersonator,” I said. “So I’ll throw
it out there…..you’re an elf?”
His eyes widened momentarily, then he laughed
a short sharp laugh.
“Your people remember us!” he said.
“We have legends, but nobody really believes
them. I’m not sure I buy it even now. The ape-lizards could just be
genetic experiments and you could just be a dozen cards shy of a
full deck.”
“Your ancestors would have called them
goblins. We call them
t’oorcs
. The ones I fought belong to
Summer.”
“Summer is long gone,” I pointed out,
confused.
He shook his head again, smiling. “I’ve not
had a conversation like this in some time. I mean that the
t’oorcs
, the goblins you saw belong to another faction of my
world; Summer or the Green Court. I belong to Winter –the White
Court.”
“And just where is this world of yours? And
how did you get here?” I asked, my head reeling from the surreal
conversation. Maybe the guys in white coats would show up soon to
collect their escapee. But oddly, part of me wanted to believe the
story.
“I don’t have the words to explain
everything, I’m not a Watcher of the Veil. But our worlds are
closer to each other than the others that circle your star. They
are just….kept separate,” he shook his head in frustration. “We
come here when the Veil that separates them thins enough. Some of
my people, myself included, have enough….,” he paused, scratching
the tip of one pointed ear while he tried to think of a word.
“talent.....ability… to make the leap.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but
I had a grip on the next proper question.
“Why? Why do your people come here?”
“Ah well now Mr. Ian Moore, that’s just it
then, isn’t it?” he said. “We come to gather.”
“You gather here? Like in a group?” I asked,
lost.
“No we gather as in collecting,” he answered,
his tone just slightly ominous.
“What do you collect?” I asked.
“Children,” he said, simply.
I almost shot him right then, just out of
reflex, but I managed to control the impulse. Nonetheless, his
sharp eyes read enough of my body language to get a hint at my
thoughts. He held both hands up quickly.
“No fears Ian Moore, I am not a Hunter. They
all belong to Summer. I would not take children, that’s not my
role,” he said.
“You better explain real quick and just how
the hell do you know my name?” I questioned.
“Your name is printed on the metal container
on the post. The one that printed messages go in,” he said,
pointing back toward the mailbox at the end of the driveway. “I am
a Guardian, I protect the gateways,” he said, although it seemed
like he had wanted to say more but held back.
“Why does Summer take children?” I asked,
struggling with the anger building inside.
“To save our world,” he said with a sad
smile.
I raised my eyebrows and motioned with the
shotgun for him to continue.
“We,” he motioned back and forth between us,
“are related, at least enough that our people can interbreed. My
people don’t produce offspring..children frequently. Not like you
do. And our race is much, much older than yours. Our bloodlines
have thinned, weakened. To survive as a race, we need fresh stock.
So when the Veil thins we cross over and Gather new blood. The
Green Court does the searching, as the talents needed to find the
right children have all concentrated in Summer’s bloodline. The
White Court guards the gateways and keeps Summer honest.”