Authors: David Sakmyster
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Paranormal & Urban
They both shook their heads.
Mason turned, saw his son, the cane under his arm, strolling out the door, after first opening it for an older woman.
Reformed, and a gentleman?
Again he wondered who Gabriel was, and what had changed him. Or was it all an act? He stared at the card, and something about it gave him the shivers. He noticed suddenly the black wasn’t all black; there was something beneath it, trapped under the dark. A coiled form, like a snake or a nest of vipers; the things seemed to define themselves the more he stared at the card; red-tinged, their scales—and the eyes, twinkling almost if you held the card just right, and away from the light.
Oddly, it felt warm to his touch.
Shelby pressed her hand to his arm, getting his attention. She said, “He wants … to ’omebak?”
“He wants to come back,” Lauren translated, sounding more hopeful than certain.
Mason slipped the card into his shirt pocket. “He wants something, that’s all I know for sure.”
“You goin’ to give it? Do what-eber he ’sked you?” Shelby asked, her voice clearer than Mason ever remembered.
“I don’t know,” he said, along with making the quick sign. A peal of laughter caught his attention. A few tables away, Pamela led a crowd of his coworkers into near-riotous laughter after some joke or story, most likely at his expense.
Mason turned back to meet the stares of his family, the looks that expressed a sense of hope, and reconciliation.
I don’t know
, he signed.
“Go,” Lauren said, pointing to the pocket where he had placed the business card.
Shelby nodded, then signed:
Go
.
Chapter 3
Outside, Gabriel proceeded quickly to the black stretch limo where the side door opened on cue and he slipped inside. The limo launched before the door even closed and he had to steady himself before almost pitching forward onto the other man in the car.
The windows allowed in only minimal light. The seats were leather, the floors an oddly root-contoured feel. Around the ceiling hung an assortment of vines—some green, some wooden: mistletoe, hazelnut, hemlock, all entwined and crisscrossing in elegant, almost harmonious patterns, creating a patchwork living roof of foliage.
“Well?” came the voice from the seat across from Gabriel, behind the driver’s panel. A face pulled itself free of the inky folds of shade and fractured light, a chiseled face right out of the pulp comics, the rugged face of a hero with high cheekbones, a jutting chin and a broad forehead ringed with coarse red hair and tied back in a pony tail. A fine edging of a beard framed his jaw, and a perfectly manicured mustache rested under eyes of intense jade, like ancient stones set in an excavated statue of some nature god. He wore a dark suit, the mirror of Gabriel’s, as black as oil, with the exception of a tiny yellow wildflower pinned to his lapel.
Gabriel cleared his throat. His fingers traced the ridges of his wooden staff, seeking comfort there. When he spoke, his voice cracked. “I think he’ll call.”
“You
think
?” his employer asked.
“I … I know he will. I’ve got his interest, if for nothing else, to see what I’ve been doing. He hopes I’ve changed.”
“Oh you have, Gabriel, you have. I’ve seen to that.”
Gabriel nodded. “Thank you. But I don’t believe it’s in the way my father hoped.”
The man with the red hair sat back and gave a low chuckle. “Sons rarely please their fathers. It’s a truth he should have prepared for the day you scuttled out from between your mother’s legs.” The diminishing laugh merged with the sound of a hard tapping.
Gabriel clenched his own cane tighter as he saw the other staff, the one carried by his employer, gleaming in the green-tinted radiance. A gnarled, ancient stick with a gold-plated base and an emerald tip. His employer was tapping it against his open palm, absent-mindedly. “Tell me,” he said, in almost a whisper. “Because I do not share your optimism. What options do we have if he refuses?”
Gabriel swallowed hard. Closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. “My mother maybe, but if time is of the essence …”
“It is.”
“Then you have to go after Shelby. She’s the true love of my father’s life. He pays every day in guilt for what happened to her, and he tries every minute to make up for it. If anything else should threaten her …”
“Perfect. Although of course I had already arrived at the same conclusion.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“I just wanted to hear you say it. It confirms that my trust in you is not misplaced.”
“After all I’ve done? You trust me by now … sir.”
“Good, then it’s settled. But I’m sorry. We are not going to wait for his call. I’d hoped you would have been … more persuasive. Now, we’re out of time. We have to ensure his compliance.”
Gabriel was about to argue, but saw the determination in those green eyes, the look that said the discussion was over. Reluctantly, he shrugged, though his muscles were heavy, his blood ringing in his ears. “I know the stakes. I’m prepared to make … sacrifices.”
The other man smiled, spun his cane and withdrew into the shadows as the limousine raced onto the interstate.
Chapter 4
A leisurely celebration dinner at TGI Friday’s, and Mason and Lauren were soon caught up on everything in Shelby’s life—at least everything she was prepared to tell them. She was, after all, almost twenty years old, and her father could tell there were things she was less than forthcoming about. English boys, most likely, maybe something else, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t think it was anything to do with drugs or alcohol; he would know the signs. She had always had a good head on her shoulders, a lot of common sense born from tragedy. Perspective. Near-death can do that to someone.
There was definitely something bothering her though, but now wasn’t the time to press it. She’d have another week with them before returning overseas for another six months. She seemed in no hurry to leave, unlike other times when she couldn’t wait to return to new friends and parties.
After what she’d been through, Mason begrudged her very little. He wanted his little girl to be happy, to live and experience life’s pleasures without his interference. He had almost lost her twelve years ago; so all this was like extended hours at a theme park, time to be savored and enjoyed.
Her research had been going well, and as far as he knew, it involved exciting investigations into early Anglo-Saxon religious practices, with an eye toward nature-worship and astronomical ceremonies. Mason couldn’t wait to read her jealously guarded thesis, but as yet she wasn’t sharing.
A double-decker brownie dessert dish later, along with some decaf coffee for him and Lauren, and they were finally ready to leave, but not yet done talking. They had yet to address the elephant in the room, the particularly large and ungainly one by the name of Gabriel.
What are you going to do?
Shelby signed to him.
About Gabe?
Mason stared into his coffee for a long time until Lauren pinched him under the table. “Your daughter wants to know what you plan to do about her brother’s offer.”
“Reject it,” he said at last, pushing away his coffee mug and rubbing his eyes. “A new job, I don’t need. I would have gladly welcomed him back if he needed help, or a place to live for a while, anything like that. But this …” He shrugged.
Shelby leaned in, brownie crumbs falling from her lips as she tried to speak. “You dunt trust ’im?”
“I don’t, honey, I don’t. Something about this whole setup …” Mason turned his face to Shelby so she could read his lips. He was too tired to sign. “Gabe has changed, but I sense—I don’t know, some ulterior motive, like I’m being set up to be the butt of some April Fool’s joke. Or in this case, probably a seriously unfunny eco-terrorist prank. No thanks.”
Again, a squeeze under the table. Lauren leaned in. “Don’t you want to at least hear him out?”
“Not particularly, no.”
“Please? It’s been three years. Whatever you believe about his motives, three years is a long time. He’s my son too, you know. I want to see him.”
Me too,
Shelby signed. “And I leef on Fray-day.”
Mason sighed. “Overruling me again? I can say this at least. Without Gabe around, I’ve been outvoted by the females in this family for too long.”
“Talk to him,” Lauren repeated. “Just do that. If your stinko-meter still rejects his pitch, then walk away. And if he won’t come back to us, then …”
“Ef him,” Shelby said, stuffing the last brownie piece into her mouth, grinning, then turning red. She signed,
Sorry.
Mason and Lauren couldn’t hold back their laughter. Mason reached for the check. “Ef him indeed. All right, it’s a plan, then.”
O O O
Back in their house in Kensington, Shelby went right to bed and gave Mason a nostalgic thrill in letting him tuck her in, four-leaf pajamas and all.
“Still my girl?” he signed as he ruffled her hair.
Always,
she signed back, and gave him a neck-twisting hug. As he was on his way out, closing the door: “Dad …?”
“Yeah?”
There’s something, a package I sent to you here. Probably arrive after I’m gone.
What is it?
He signed back.
It’s nothing. I want you to throw it out. Don’t even open it.
Mason closed the door, with him still in the room. He turned on the light. “Honey? What is it?”
Nothing. Just promise me you’ll toss it.
“Can you give me a hint? Was it something … you found over there?”
Just something foolish. A dumb gift.
As she signed it, her fingers seemed listless, as if she were signing underwater. It was one of the tells Mason had come to recognize over the years. She was lying.
“Okay, honey.” He smiled. “No problem.”
“Promiss?”
Mason crossed his heart and signed,
Promise.
“Good night.”
He eased out this time, after shutting off the lights. Back in his room, Lauren was struggling with her wheelchair. “Let me,” Mason said, coming to her aid.
“I can manage.”
“I know you can. But it’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of tucking in two girls in one night.”
“You rascal.”
“That’s me.”
“One award and the man thinks he’s god’s gift to women. Like we really swoon for the weathermen.”
“You know it’s true.” He scooped her up in his arms.
“Are you going to change me too?”
“Of course.” He tugged off her shoes, and started on her pants. “At least halfway.”
She grabbed him by the tie, pulled him up to kiss her. “I mean it about Gabriel.”
“I know.”
“Enough time has passed.”
“I know.”
He searched her eyes, seeing a spark of life that had been absent a long time. Living with the disability was hard enough, but living with guilt for what she perceived as her fault her children turned out how they did: one deaf, the other estranged, it wore on her. She had been on anti-depressants for years. Finally free of them, her spirits were lifted and fun had returned to her life. Both their lives. They played games. Scrabble, strategized through endless hours of global conquest with Risk, and pursued merciless bankrupt-inducing nights of Monopoly. She was almost all the way back to her old self. It had taken so long, but he needed to nurse her the rest of the way, only a few more steps.
Gabriel could surely help. Or he could unravel everything they had accomplished. He had to hope it would be the former.
“I’ll do it,” he whispered, the word blown gently through her lips as she pulled him close for another kiss.
O O O
In the middle of the night, out of a deep sleep, Mason rocked up in bed. Lauren was snoring, a low grinding of her teeth followed by a throaty warble.
But what woke him wasn’t anything so ordinary. It took another few moments of rushed breathing and a rising pulse thudding at his jugular to realize what it was:
A thunderstorm.
Violent, with tearing winds screaming through the palms; and suddenly, a pounding clap of thunder and a painfully blinding lightning burst.
He launched out of bed.
Again
? There was no precipitation in the forecast. Not for tonight, and nothing on the ten-day projection. They were in the middle of a drought. Wildfires were raging to the southwest, made drastically worse due to the lack of rain.
Impossible.
He slipped outside his room, into the dark hall where he paused at Shelby’s room. Opened the door a crack and in the next flash he saw her bed.
Empty.
He stepped in, and was about to dash out and down the stairs when he saw the open window and felt the drops of rain slamming in almost sideways through it, splattering off the hardwood floor. Ran to the window, and looked out.
There on the back lawn, behind the kidney-shaped pool and past the grill, in the pounding sheets of rain, were two dark figures. Arms raised, Christ-like, facing each other.
A lightning flash.
Shelby, in her white and green-clover pajamas, hair now wild, dancing Medusa-like in the winds, drenched, facing … Gabriel? It had to be him. He could see the shine of his bald head in the lightning burst. Still dressed all in black, he squared off against her like they were gladiators preparing to strike at the emperor’s command. The lightning’s aura danced along their arms and fireflies swarmed around their heads, causing halo-like glows.
Gabriel?
Mason’s mind reeled. His son and daughter, out in this tempest? He was about to call out when he heard something—a footfall behind him.
He turned, but not quickly enough. And glimpsed only an emerald-tipped stick of wood bearing down upon his skull.
Chapter 5
When he came to, it was still raining, but the thunder had dropped to a morose rumbling, like the last protests of an upset stomach after a spicy dinner.
Rubbing the back of his head, wet either from the rain or from his own blood he wasn’t sure, he glanced outside, where it was too dark to see anything. But he was reasonably sure no one was out there anymore.
He turned and stumbled out of the room, glancing first at Shelby’s bed, the bed he had tucked her into for so many nights, hoping that maybe he had just been sleepwalking, dreaming a horrible dream, and maybe he had hit his head. But the room was empty.
Rushing into the hall, he paused, unsure of which way to go—
check on Lauren, or race outside
? He lingered a moment too long, then headed down, turned into the dark family room, stumbled to the kitchen, heading for the sliding back doors—and froze.
The light over the sink was on.
Someone was standing there, just to the right, in the thick shadows between the refrigerator and the window. Someone all in black, leaning on a cane.
A flash of lightning, and Mason toppled back, hand over his eyes. He shook his head, hoping to dislodge the sunspots and see the room before receiving another club on the head. He leaned on the kitchen table and peered back into the shadows, which were now empty.
But then his attention caught on the objects on the table:
Two glasses, each half full. A can of
Dad’s Root Beer
. Open. And a business card, that same laminated black card, lying face-up between the glasses.
Mason took a seat, heavily.
He picked up the card.
From upstairs, Lauren was calling softly, then more urgently, asking if everything was all right.
He flipped the card over just as the wind died outside, the cicadas struck up their song and he knew—knew the clouds had vanished and the dark sky again revealed its innocent, speckled tapestry.
Again the image of his children in the rain, but now he saw the scene differently, saw Shelby’s energy fading, Gabriel overpowering her. Or was that only a dream?
What was going on?
He held up the card, turned it over once, twice. The sinewy indentations moved with the light and shadow, and seemed to glide along his fingers, tickling his skin in a not-so tender way.
The longer he stared, the more everything settled in place. The conclusion was inescapable. They—whoever Gabriel worked for—they had Shelby.
And they wanted him to know it.