Gods and Mortals: Fourteen Free Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Novels Featuring Thor, Loki, Greek Gods, Native American Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, & More (105 page)

E
ven though Therese
felt pretty sure the saga in her dreams was imaginary, she couldn’t stop herself from getting on the Internet as soon as Carol brought her home from the hospital two days later. She had to use her laptop, though, which was slower than her parents’ computer, because that computer had been taken by the police for their investigation.

Her neck had finally loosened up, and she could walk around without much pain. She could even run up the stairs to her room. She should have played around with Clifford, her little brown and white fox terrier, who was obviously starved for her affection. She should have let Jewels climb up her chest to nestle against her neck as she did most evenings while Therese read a good book. She should have taken Puffy from his cage and allowed him to scamper around in her hair, which she fanned out for him over the bed like a curtain, her arms carefully hovering over him lest he scurry out of reach. The chipmunks were in need of sunflower seeds, the deer their corn, and the wild horses the apples she tossed out behind her house. But Therese put off all these things, usually so important to her, to log on and surf the net for information about the Underworld.

A part of her knew her obsession with her dreams was a distraction. Her brain didn’t want to think about what her house would feel like without her parents in it. Her brain didn’t want her to go downstairs and into the kitchen on Saturday morning and find only Carol sitting with the paper at the granite countertop. As much as she loved Carol, Therese’s brain wanted more.

She googled “Underworld mythology” and was surprised by all the links that appeared on her search results page. She clicked on the first link: “Hades, brother of Zeus and Poseidon, was the king of the Underworld, which he ruled with his bride Persephone, whom he kidnapped and made his queen. Guarded by Cerberus, a three-headed dog, the Underworld was underground and separated from the land of the living by five rivers, one of which was the Acheron, across which the dead were ferried.”

Therese sat bewildered as she read articles describing many of the features about which she had dreamed. Not all the sources agreed on the details, but there were enough commonalities about them and her “tour” that made her hair stand on end: Charon, the old boatman; Tartarus and the Elysian Fields; Lethe, the river of forgetfulness; Sisyphus and his huge rock. Maybe she had read this stuff somewhere before?

A particular passage soon caught her eye: “Thanatos, also known as Orcus and Mors, was the god of Death. The son of Night and twin brother of Hypnos (Sleep), he was believed to be a beautiful young man but, because of his ghastly task, was very unpopular with both man and gods.”

Therese’s heart pounded in her chest. She felt she might be sick. Surely she had read this stuff before? Of course she had, she thought, taking a deep breath and slowly releasing it.

One article depicted Hades and his sons as evil demons. Therese shuddered. Then she clicked on another link. An image of the Grim Reaper, also named Death, tall and hooded with a gruesome face, long, thin hands, one of which held a scythe, made Therese flinch.

Clifford must have sensed her anxiety, because he jumped on the bed beside her, shook his stubby tail, and looked pleadingly into her eyes.

“You want to go outside?” she asked.

He immediately pranced around her room, full of eager excitement, running through the cluster of balloons that were beginning to sag. Puffy hopped onto his wheel and ran with enthusiasm, even though he usually waited to exercise at night. Even Jewels poked her head over the side of her plastic tank to peek at the activity around her.

Therese carefully took her tortoise into her hands and placed her against her chest. “You can come another time, Jewels.” She stroked the shell and then put the tortoise back on its log in the tank with the hot lamp shining.

As she and Clifford went down the stairs—he like a speeding bullet and she a little more slowly than usual—panic gripped Therese’s heart. She had almost forgotten. She had almost expected her parents to be downstairs reading or watching TV. She stopped on the bottom step and looked past the kitchen to the empty living room. Where was Carol?

Therese went to the deck outside, followed by Clifford. Carol sat at the wooden table talking on the phone, her body turned toward the reservoir side, away from the giant elms in back. The sun was just over the lake, heading toward its rest behind the mountains on the other side. The sky was a clear blue, and though it was still a long time till dusk, some of the animals were making themselves visible. There were always the birds hopping from tree to tree, twittering anxiously about this and that. But now there were also the chipmunks scampering around, and across from them, two deer plucked grass beneath the trees.

“Of course, Lieutenant,” Carol said. “We’ll be there.” Carol pushed the end button on the portable phone. “No cell reception out here, I guess.” She waved the receiver. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been land-locked.”

“We’re lucky we get good Internet service out here. We had to use dial up until just a few months ago.”

“Ugh.”

“Did the lieutenant have any news?”

“They want us to come for a line up tomorrow, to see if you can identify the man whose face you saw, you know.”

“They think they got the killer? Already?”

Carol tilted her head to the side. “The man you saw may not be the killer. They think they got him, though. His picture was in their system. They went to his apartment and brought him in for questioning and have enough to detain him overnight. He
could
be the killer. They don’t know yet.”

“Oh.” Clifford lifted his paws to Therese’s jean-clad shins. “Okay, boy. Let’s go.”

“Where are you going?”

“Just for a walk through the woods where Clifford likes to do his business. We’ll be right back.”

Therese realized as she led Clifford off the back steps of the wrap-around deck that Carol probably would have liked an invitation to join them, but Therese didn’t want human company just yet. She wanted to retreat like she always did to the mountain forest with her dog and the wild animals for company.

Clifford frolicked around in front of her, sniffing this tree and that, as she headed up the mountain through the pines, aspens, and cypresses. A cardinal swept down and landed five feet away on a cypress branch. Therese inspected the feeder on the elm by the back deck. Empty. If she wanted to watch the birds through the kitchen window while washing dishes, she’d need to refill it. She looked more closely at the elm. One of its branches had turned completely yellow. Her mother had told her it had Dutch elm disease and the tree would slowly die if they didn’t cut off the dead branch and treat the roots, but her parents hadn’t had a chance to do anything about it. They kept saying later this summer…

She headed back up the trail after Clifford. She stepped over little round pellets, evidence that more deer had been visiting.

The national forest climbed behind her property for miles, and she rarely ran into another person on her walks. Only five homes stretched the expanse between Lemon Reservoir and the national forest, and the homes were more than half a mile apart. On the end lot on their northern side with twenty-five acres of private ranch land was Jen’s house. It was three quarters of a mile down the dirt road that separated the houses from the reservoir, and Jen’s mother ran the trail rides up through the forest in spring and summer, so, occasionally, Therese could hear them calling out commands to their animals. Usually the woods were quiet, like they were now.

Up ahead, Clifford started growling and barking. Therese caught up with him where he stood crouching in the woods.

“What is it, Clifford? Do you see a deer? You think you’re so vicious, don’t you, boy? But you and I know the truth.”

Therese glimpsed a sudden movement ten feet away that was nothing like a deer. It seemed larger, like a bear, but human. “Who’s there?”

Clifford’s growl grew more intense, and he bared his teeth, backing away toward Therese.

Could a stranger be roaming around the forest?

Or worse, could her parents’ killer be after
her
?

“Come on, Clifford! Let’s get out of here!” Therese ran, but the dog stayed planted, baring his teeth and growling viciously.

“Clifford, come!” Therese’s heart beat wildly, her throat felt dry, and her body numbed.

Still Clifford growled.

Therese ran over to Clifford and swept him up in her arms. Then, in her peripheral vision, she saw the figure move, closer this time.

“Therese!” It was a woman’s voice, but it did not belong to her aunt.

Therese held on to Clifford and scrambled down the trail to her house, her head and neck throbbing with pain. Her foot caught on an aspen root, and she fell to the ground, hurting her knee and the palms of both hands. Clifford leapt from her arms as she fell, and he bounded back up the trail.

“No, Clifford!” She sprung to her feet and followed her dog. “Come back here, boy! Please! Come!”

From the corner of her eyes, she saw the figure move between two trees. Clifford yelped and ran down the trail, back to the house. Before Therese turned to follow him, she saw a woman wearing a short brown leather skirt and brown knee-high boots. She had pale skin and blonde rogue curls falling from a high bun. Therese thought she saw a bird perched on the woman’s shoulder, but she couldn’t be sure, because Therese had turned around so quickly and ran so fast that she couldn’t be sure of what she had seen. She knew it was a woman, and that was all. A woman who had said her name.

“Call the lieutenant! Call 911!” Therese cried to her aunt, who still sat on the wooden table looking out toward the reservoir. “But come inside! Lock the doors!”

“Therese?” Carol jumped up. “What’s wrong?”

“Come inside!
Now!
”

It seemed to take Carol forever and a day to follow Therese in through the kitchen door, but when she did, Therese slammed it shut, locked it, and turned the dead bolt, which was not easy because they hardly ever used it. Therese then ran to the front door and did the same. “Check the downstairs windows!” Therese yelled. “All of them!”

“What is going on, Therese! Tell me what happened!”

Why couldn’t grownups ever just do what kids asked of them without asking a million questions? “Please, Carol! I saw someone out there. She looked really weird. And she called my name.”

Carol went to the bedrooms to check the locks on the windows, but not without saying, “Calm down, honey. It’s probably nothing. Maybe a neighbor you didn’t recognize?”

Therese finished checking the last window and then found her aunt in the guest bedroom. She pointed a finger at her aunt and shouted, “You either think I’m paranoid or you’re acting brave because you think you need to for my benefit! Well, I think I have a right to be paranoid. And if you’re just acting brave, don’t.”

She left the room and sat on the sofa, which faced the kitchen, and stared at the back door. Clifford jumped into her lap.

“Therese, I’m sorry.” Carol crossed the room and sat on the other end of the sofa.

“I know my own neighborhood,” Therese said, still worked up.

“You’re right. I’ll call the lieutenant. I’m a little scared now, too.”

I
t was
dusk when the lieutenant arrived with another officer in tow. They came inside, accepted glasses of iced tea, and listened to Therese’s account of what happened earlier in the woods.

The lieutenant said, “To be on the safe side, I’ll post an officer on guard for a week or so to keep an eye on the place. Officer Morgan here will stay tonight. I’ll see you both in the morning for the line up. Let Officer Morgan know if you hear or see anything the least bit suspicious to you, okay?”

“We will,” Carol said, following the lieutenant to the door. “Thank you so much.”

Officer Morgan slept on a cot on the back deck, so Therese felt a little more at ease, even though she couldn’t take Clifford out to pee without him barking up a storm.

At night, when it was time to go to sleep, she was glad the officer was there below her on the deck outside. She lay there with Clifford and first thought of the fear. The woman had looked so strange. Even her voice was strange. Then Therese thought of the despair, and she fought off the panicky feeling until it won and she sobbed and sobbed until she finally fell asleep.

T
herese was riding
on a carousel at a carnival on a painted horse rising up and down to accordion music when Hip appeared and said, “My brother is coming for you.”

“But he said he’d kill me if he came to me,” Therese said.

“Only when he’s acting as the guide for the dead. He’s getting our father to make me take over that loathsome job. I’m not looking forward to it, and I guess I have you to thank for it.”

“I don’t get it. You’re going to be the new guide for the dead?”

“Just temporarily, so Than can come for you.”

“And then what?”

Hip shrugged. “I think he wants you to become his queen of the dead.” Then he said, “Why don’t you become my queen instead?”

Therese laughed. “You’re not the marrying kind, Hip. I can see that.”

T
he next morning after breakfast
, Carol drove Therese to the Durango Police Department. Lieutenant Hobson met them at the front desk and escorted them into a dimly lit room that smelled like her father’s cigars. Through a window on one wall, they could see six men being led into an adjacent room. Each wore a number around his neck. Two of the men were tall and the others closer to average size. One had a big belly. All six men had dark skin and beards, though the beards were of varying lengths and tidiness. Therese recognized the face she had seen the day of the shooting. Seeing him sent shivers all down her spine and made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She could barely breathe. There was no question in her mind. He was there the night of the shooting.

Had he killed her parents? She looked at him with hatred and fear as tears slid down her cheeks. Had he been responsible for ruining her life forever? She wanted to break through the glass and strangle him. “Number four,” she finally said with confidence. “Definitely number four.”