I Married the Third Horseman (Paranormal Romance and Divorce) (11 page)

Play it cool,
I thought fiercely. I
kept my hand where it was.

“To my embarrassment, I can’t just let this
be,” he said. “I promised my brother to bring you back, and I shall
do that. So. I need you to come with me.”

For some reason, Uri’s polite request made my
insides run cold.

“You know I don’t want to go back to him.
Won’t go back to any of your family.”

“Oh, you will. Kicking and screaming, if
needed, but you will. Mitchel said that he wanted his prize at all
costs. He never said that you had to be…shall we say,
‘undamaged’.”

I reached out to pick up my coffee mug.
Stopped before I did. I wasn’t going to be able to raise it to my
lips without shaking. Instead, I decided to bluff. I tried out a
couple lines I’d read in the script for a direct-to-video gangster
flick I’d done a while back.

“You talk a good game, Uri. For someone who’s
grown up watching cop shows on television. News flash: that doesn’t
mean you’re the tough guy in the room.”

An eyebrow raised. “Why makes you think I
only ‘talk’ the game?”

“Because otherwise, you’d have grabbed me out
of this seat already.” I said it as a heady feeling coursed through
me, half fatigue, half caffeine. I didn’t exactly want to get him
angry. But Uri’s expression of cool amusement rattled me a lot more
than Mitchel’s anger or fake contrition did.

Then Uri surprised me. He sighed, and then
spread his arms out. Indicating our surroundings with a vague
gesture of his hands.

“Unfortunately, that would be against the
rules for me,” he said. “This place around us is holy ground. So I
can’t touch you until you step off of it.”

It’s a good thing that ‘my jaw dropped’ is
just an expression. Because otherwise, my lower teeth would have
splashed into my coffee mug. Quick, someone get on the phone and
call Connor McCloud, I’ve got another sequel in mind for the
Highlander
series.

“Wait, wait.” I said. “You mean to tell me
that this two-star excuse for a Denny’s or a Coco’s…is holy
ground?”

“Dubious, I know, but it has nothing to do
with the powdered eggs or the suet caking your bacon strips. As
matter of fact, this place used to be the Church of St.
Christopher’s. It was never properly deconsecrated after it fell
into ruin.” He nodded at the heavyset waitress who’d served me when
I came in. “When the site was purchased by Abigail there, and her
husband Dwayne, they just built on top of the pre-existing
foundations, none the wiser. So we talk first.”

“Sounds like we have a standoff, Uri,” I shot
back. I clenched the hand that lay on my handbag. The fabric felt
rough under my skin. “You can’t pry me out of here. And I’ll be
damned before I walk out that door on my own.”

“You’re making an awful lot of assumptions
there, Cassie.” Uri said with a smirk. “I know you wouldn’t walk
out there willingly. Well, not if you’re the only one that has…what
is it that you mortals like to say these days? ‘The only one who
has skin in the game’.”

I
definitely
didn’t like the way this
was going.

“So if you don’t come out on your own, other
people are going to get their skin put in the game, whether they
like it or not.” He leaned back in his seat as the waitress came
over to our booth. Her name tag, which indeed had ‘Abigail’ printed
inside a gold oval, glinted in the light as she refilled my coffee
mug. She threw Uri a distinctly disapproving glance.

“Everythin’ all right here, dearie?” she
asked, eyeing my companion with open suspicion. “Didn’t see this
fellow come in with you.”

“Everything’s fine,” I assured her.

“Want me to hustle another menu over here,
then?”

“No, thanks. My…friend here, he was just
leaving.”

She nodded, taking me at my word for now. The
ding of a bell from the pick-up station, and she left to go handle
the next order.

“Go on,” I said, though with a lot less
bravado than I’d shown a moment ago. “A half-finished threat…it
feels like getting stuck in a showing where the film burns
through.”

Uri’s eyes went flat. “No one is going to
leave this diner until I wish it.”

I opened my mouth to ask another question,
but halted as the light outside suddenly went dim. As if someone
had passed their hand over the sun. A flurry of commotion from off
to our side. I turned, watched as a family of four sitting a few
booths down chatted excitedly.

“Mommy, is that a sandstorm?” the smaller of
the two children, a tow-headed blonde, asked.

“I don’t think so, honey. It looks like a fog
bank.” The mother frowned and spoke to Abigail. “Do you get fog out
in the desert like that?”

A shake of the head. “Never seen anythin’
like it, to be honest.”

As quickly as the drop of a stage curtain, a
wave of mist draped itself over the windows, turning the light
outside the shade of cloudy orange juice. Then it got heavier and
heavier, turning the orange to gray. A chill spread out from the
knot in my stomach as I watched. I mean, that old horror film
The Fog
didn’t have this much fog.

A shout, and a man came out from the kitchen.
He was dressed in a stained white apron, and a faded USMC tattoo
adorned his bulky bicep.

“What the hell was that?” he exclaimed.
“Looked like some kind of huge bat!”

The children didn’t cry, not exactly, but
they burrowed in closer to their parents. Abigail spoke crossly to
the cook. “Stop scarin’ the kids, Dwayne, and get back to that
stove!”

A thin cry from the mist outside. Things had
gotten so dark that I could barely make out the front bumper of the
closest car in the parking lot, call it fifteen yards. But I
spotted the same bat-like creature. Whatever it was, it had a
horrible human face, clawed wings, and a mouth full of gaping,
rotting teeth.

“Those are the
sheydu
, the tribe of my
famine demons,” Uri said offhandedly. “As you can guess, they’re
under my command. They’re ravenous, and not particularly fussy
about what they consume. Whether it’s meat, vegetable, wood, or
stone. Whether it’s fish or fowl. Whether it’s dead, or still alive
and screaming. In ten minutes, if you’re not out in that parking
lot, they’ll come in here and tear this place down to the bedrock
with their teeth.”

“Wait,” I said, my stomach chills now turning
into rock-hard ice. “I thought this was holy ground! How are those
things going to get in here?”

Uri shrugged expressively. “What can I tell
you, Cassie? Not everyone’s Catholic.”

I just sat and glared at him.

He got up and walked towards the exit,
whistling a little tune to himself. A little jingle of bells as he
pulled the door open. He looked over his shoulder, and a strange
smile lit his face.

“Ten minutes, Cassie,” he said. “But take the
time to finish your breakfast. Wasting food is bad. There’s lots of
kids starving right now, all over the world. Trust me on that one.
I should know.”

No one noticed Uri’s departure. They were all
glued to the windows in horror. A flock of bat-things with bodies
the size of Dobermans, and wings the length of a good-sized car
circled around the diner like…I wasn’t sure. A pack of airborne
wolves, maybe.

A goose-pimpling howl from outside.

Uh-huh. Just the time for Cassie to be right
about something, for a change.

I pulled the handbag out from where it sat at
my side.

If ever there was a time to open Circe’s
gifts, this was
it
.

I took out the case and set it out on the
table. A pair of gold latches, the kind you found on a courier’s
attaché case, gleamed softly in the booth’s light. The release
buttons were engraved with the picture of a jar held shut by a
thick, textured lid.

It wasn’t as scary as finding a ‘skull and
crossbones’ or the orchid-y looking symbol meaning ‘biohazard.’ But
it still made me pause. At least for a moment.

A shriek from the table where the family
still sat, watching the circling demons, the
sheydu
. One of
the bat-things had smacked the window before it flew off. A greasy
mark the size of a dinner plate marked the point of impact. So did
a spider web of cracks in the glass.

I wasted no more time in pressing the
buttons.

The case opened with a click. The interior
had been divided into three compartments, one large and two small.
In the large compartment lay the scroll container: a silver-sheened
tube about the width of a toilet-paper roll. The tube itself was
decorated with complex arabesque whorls and stars. The ends were
plugged at each end with a pointed cap tipped with a glittering red
gem. I gave the caps an experimental tug; they were shut tight.

A battered makeup compact in the shape of a
clamshell took up most of one of the smaller sections. It was held
shut by a pair of rubber bands. Pinned under the bands against the
case’s exterior was a bright yellow Post-It with the note:
ONE
USE ONLY.

I frowned. I didn’t want to gamble with a
one-shot tool, not now. So I grabbed at what looked like a
travel-sized bottle of cologne in the remaining compartment. A
squeeze-ball perfume atomizer fell into my hand. The
lavender-shaded glass gleamed softly. I shook it, listened to the
tiny
slosh
from inside. Not much. Best guess is that I had a
half-tablespoon of liquid in there.

Another slam against the windows. The tinkle
of fractured glass. A responding female shriek. The father pulled
his wife and kids away from the window. His face had taken on an
ashen, waxy look.

“We can’t go out there!” he exclaimed. “Not
with those…things flying around! Is there anywhere to hide in
here?”

“Get back into the kitchen,” Abigail said,
beckoning them around the counter. She looked over to the cook, her
eyes wide with fear. “Dwayne, maybe if they don’t see us…”

“Aw, they know we’re here,” he replied
grimly. But he helped herd the family around the diner’s counter as
the bat-things swirled ever closer to the wide glass panes, teeth
gnashing.

I shook the bottle again. Judgment time. I
had enough to douse me with a nice spray of Mnemosyne water. A
squeeze, and everyone, sheydu and otherwise, would forget about me.
I’d be out the door and on my way. Easy as pie, easy as cake, easy
peasy one-two-threesy…

I couldn’t get my feet to move. I looked at
the family, their terrified children, the cook and waitress trying
to act cool when they didn’t know what circle of hell was about to
bust down the door to come hunting for me.

As if in slow motion, I got to my feet.
Closed the case, slipped it back into the bag. Clutched the
atomizer in one fist like it was a set of brass knuckles.

I turned my back on the exit.

Freeze Frame.

Look, therapy buddy. I know that I should’ve
high-tailed it out of there so fast that I’d have left one of those
cookie-cutout-perfect holes in the wall, just like in the cartoons.
But I also know how horror movie conventions work. I’ve helped
shepherd at least a half-dozen gore-and-blood slasher flicks to
completion.

There’s always that person who’s about to
leave the haunted house/castle/boat/spaceship, but then goes back
for one last thing. The medical supplies. The family scrapbook.
Sigourney Weaver’s friggin’ cat from
Alien
. And what happens
to that person?

Most of the time, they meet an end that’s
equal parts sticky, embarrassing, and very, very unpleasant.

I could end up like that, orders to return me
to Mitchel or no.

But you know what?

This wasn’t just about me anymore. It just
got bigger. As big as all the lives of those people the Thantos
clan had wiped out, with no more emotion about it than you or I
would have in snuffing out a candle flame. I couldn’t let more
people die because of me.

In fact, I damn well
wouldn’t
let that
happen.

I swallowed, hard, and walked over to where
the frightened knot of people clustered around the edge of the
kitchen by the pantry. The children whimpered and tried to burrow
into their mother’s long skirt. The adults looked torn between
diving into the pantry and keeping an eye on what the outside
horrors were planning.

“Everybody, listen to me!” I shouted, raising
my voice to be heard over the swirl of wind and the leathery
beating of wings.

The two men and the waitress jumped, startled
at my approach. I honestly think that everyone had just about
forgotten about the lone woman at the front booth. And I hadn’t
even used the magic water yet.

“Lady, get down!” the cook named Dwayne said.
“Ain’t you been watching those…things out there?”

“I’ve been watching,” I said flatly. “They’re
here for me.”