The Master (7 page)

Really, the only useful thing in the entire basket was the two-pound bag of dried apricots. Those might help his brother-in-law be a little less uptight, since Nick was sure the sourpuss still wasn't taking Uncle Albert's annually repeated suggestion of a Christmas cranberry punch high-colonic to sweeten his mood.

How could his sister have married such a humorless cretin? Of course, they both came from a family of humorless people, so maybe it was inevitable.

The family would probably appreciate the eggnog, though. This year, he had taken the precaution of bringing his own supplies and recipe. He was as traditional as any man, and treasured what few holiday rituals his family had, but his grandma's recipe was something to pass swiftly from the face of the planet and never be mentioned again. Not even that chiding ghost in his mirror could argue with that. It was nice that there was something they agreed on.

The ghost nodded solemnly.
Lovely lady, but a lousy cook.

His relationship with the specter was not a comfortable one, and Nick rather hoped it would disappear after the holidays. Things had worked that way in the Dickens story, so there was some expectation of eventual emancipation.

But Scrooge saw the light and redeemed himself,
the ghost said.
So far you've managed to keep your lights switched off.

Scrooge had a clot on the brain and was hallucinating, Nick thought in return, and then sighed. He might have a clot, too. It was scary to think about, but this ghost might not be a purely psychological disturbance. He'd have to see about an MRI after the holidays if the spirit remained with him after January second.

I'm hurt.

“You're annoying.”

This ghost was a bit different from anything in
A Christmas Carol.
True, the spirit often wore a stupid holly crown and a green bathrobe trimmed in gold tinsel—a sort of poor man's royal robes—but the ghost wasn't simply some spirit from another realm, or the revenant of someone who had died and come back to haunt Nick. That, he could almost have understood. There was tradition for
that
type of ghost. No, this specter's body was still very much alive. Nick knew for certain since it was, in fact, his own face that looked out at him. His face, if older, more lined, more grim. The sight was fairly ghastly— especially in that stupid tinsel-trimmed robe. In recent weeks, Nick had taken to avoiding all mirrors and reflective surfaces. He didn't need any more lectures about the hell of a wasted life.

For heaven's sake! It wasn't as if he didn't know his life had become a little unbalanced.

Then do something about it,
the ghost said. He sounded unusually testy.

“Can you just be quiet until we get through the mountains?” Nick muttered. “I'm not dead yet and I need to watch the road.”

The ghost nodded sadly.
I've seen corpses with more Christmas spirit than you have. Your soul is shriveling, boy. It's nearly dead—starved to nothing. You had best wake up before it's too late.

Nick didn't say anything; he just stared out at the wet road beyond the windshield. Usually he liked the rain, at least the sound of it. He liked it mostly because it was something he didn't have to respond to—not a voice, not a beep, not a siren. There was nothing he could or should do about the weather. Listening to the rain was as close to feeling lighthearted and irresponsible as he came these days.

And that is sad, sad, sad.
The ghost shook its gold-tinseled head.

“Please shut up.”

A couple of hours before dawn, a lightning storm broke over the Sierra Nevada mountains, bringing with it Ping-Pong–sized hail and thick sleet that clogged his Jag's wiper-blades.

“Merry Christmas, everyone,” Nick muttered to the heavens. “Great joke on the holiday travelers, God. Rates right up there with food poisoning.”

It isn't a joke—it's destiny.
The ghost sounded suddenly cheerful.
I was hoping that this would happen. All signs pointed this way. Say hallelujah! We are saved.

“Saved from what? You
would
want this. Look, just be quiet for a bit longer. I really need to concentrate. The road feels greasy.”

Nick spared an unkind thought for the bastards at the weather bureau who had sworn the night would be fair. On their advice, he hadn't bothered to pack chains for the car. Fortunately, the road was deserted, so he was able to crawl along at a turtle's pace for a mile or so, but soon even that became impossible. His tires could barely gain traction on the ice-slick road. Nick began looking around for a place to stop.

There's something just ahead. Slow down just a bit more or you'll miss it.

“Quiet, damn you. Unless you want to drive.”

But the excited ghost was right. Quite fortuitously, just as the storm reached blizzard conditions, a small dirt road suddenly appeared, leading off into the greater darkness of the forest.

This is it.
Then, almost like a prayer:
This
must
be it.

“I see.” Nick eased the car into something slower than a crawl.

Normally, he would not have risked the Jaguar's paint on such a narrow tunnel of spiky branches. His motto was: If it isn't paved, men don't need to go there. But as the hail was a greater threat than the dirt path and the somber evergreens offered shelter, he quickly steered to the right and followed the trail into the blackness.

“If you go into the woods today—better not go alone . . .”

“Shut up,” Nick replied. But he said it almost absently. He didn't actually mind the ghost's singing, as long as it wasn't Christmas carols, and the specter had been completely silent for the last forty-eight hours while Nick was at work.

Probably it was too much to hope that anyone actually lived out here in the wilds. The state of the road certainly discouraged any such optimistic thoughts. He'd be more likely to find an old abandoned miner's shack, or a logger's shelter. Or a moonshine still. Or an illegal marijuana garden. Those littered the area. Still, any structure where he and the Jag might find shelter until the storm passed would be welcome; the hail was ruining his paint, and the road was turning into an impassable river of mud.

Don't worry, my boy! I think someone's at home and expecting us. I can see the fire from here.
The ghost's voice was filled with a smug satisfaction that bothered

Nick more than he liked to admit. He had always assumed the ghost was benign—just a manifestation of his guilty conscience—but what if he was wrong? Just how destructive might his psyche be?

Maybe he should leave, turn back, try to drive on. The elevation was dropping. The ice was bound to disappear as the temperature warmed.

As if hearing this thought, the hail doubled and then redoubled. Thick fog closed in around the car, shutting out the moonlight in a thick white curtain. The hair rose on the nape of Nick's neck.

“Damn it. How can there be fog up here in the mountains, and in a hailstorm? This only happens on the valley floor.”

Better not try to go on. It's too dangerous with this mist.

He didn't like to agree with the ghost, but it was right. One would have to have a real death wish to go on in this weather.

Nick fumbled for his cell phone, praying he could get a signal. His sister wouldn't like it, but he was going to be late for his first Christmas visit in several years. Probably very late.

“I should make
you
explain this to my sister.”

I would if I could. Come on. Cheer up, Nick. You didn't want to go there, anyway. This will be way more fun. We're going to have an adventure.

“Quiet now. I'm on the phone.”

Adventure? Nick disliked that idea only slightly less than he did Christmas.

True to the ghost's prediction, a dilapidated cabin appeared at once, rather like those witches' cottages in the grislier fairy tales where someone got eaten or shoved into an oven. Of course, though this old cabin looked almost magical with the light of a hearth fire flickering on the paned windows and smoke billowing from the crooked chimney pipe, it would not contain any such wonderful or horrible things that those gruesome children's stories provided. Or so Nick hoped.

He parked his car under a thick stand of trees and turned off the engine. Looking about carefully before dousing his headlights, he found no sign of a garage or another automobile. And yet, plainly someone was at home. Fires didn't light themselves—not indoors.

Except in fairy tales,
said the grinning old ghost looking back at him from the reflection in the Jag's window. The image was exceptionally strong now that the headlights were doused.

“It could be cross-country skiers.”

I don't think so.

With a muttered curse, Nick unbuckled his seat belt and threw open his door. He stepped out into ankle-deep slush. Not having expected to meet with rough weather, he was wearing loafers with light socks; both were soaked within two steps. His lightweight coat and shirt were also promptly drenched when a wet accumulation of snow slipped off the pine branches and landed in his open collar. Hail plonked him on the head. He could swear that the wind was laughing.

Feeling very put upon, Nick hurried toward the cabin door, dodging hail and hoping he wouldn't startle the occupants if they were settled in for the night—or for the winter. He was also hoping that they weren't the sort who had their own moonshine still that they protected with heirloom shotguns, though the state of the property didn't leave him feeling terribly hopeful of finding anything else.

He needn't have worried about disturbing anyone. As advanced as the hour was, the occupants were apparently awake and had heard his arrival. Three small white faces took a hurried look at him through a frosted window and then the front door was opened, spilling more orange light onto the wet snow.

“Come in—quickly!” said the loveliest voice Nick had ever heard, and an angel stepped into the doorway. She gestured urgently as she looked at the sky. “The storm is about to—”

He didn't hear the rest. A bright bolt of eye-searing lightning, followed almost immediately by a huge clap of thunder, drowned out her words. The world turned a funny shade of neon green, and then a million invisible ants boiled over Nick's skin and warned him of imminent danger. Needing no more encouragement, he leapt for the doorway. The heavenly vision stepped back swiftly, pulling the two smaller angels with her, then the door slammed shut on a second lightning strike that fell only feet from the doorstep.

It took a moment for the bright afterimages to clear from Nick's assaulted eyes, and for his pupillary reflexes to return to normal. His body wasn't entirely his own either. Nick felt drunk almost, or like a puppet whose strings had suddenly broken. But when he was finally able to stand erect and see clearly again, his first impression was reconfirmed; the woman who had offered him shelter in this tumble down shack was without a doubt the loveliest creature he'd ever seen. He could only stare. She was exotic in some way he could not describe—her hair, her face, all of her was exquisite and somehow foreign. And her voice was velvet, chocolate; it summoned up everything he'd ever longed for. In short, she seemed perfect, and he was half-afraid of ruining things by talking to her and discovering that she was, after all, only another illusion.

Then he realized that she was addressing both him and the children, and he couldn't properly hear her because of the ringing in his ears.

Nick shook his head, trying to clear it, though he knew only time would calm his tympanic membranes assaulted by the thunder. The feeling of being slightly inebriated would probably persist until then, too; the lightning had been dangerously close.

“That was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Sorry. That last clap all but deafened me,” he said. “I can't make out what you're saying. It all sounds like garbled Greek,” he added with a smile, all the while wondering if he was speaking too loudly since he couldn't really hear himself.

“Not Greek, Lutin,” the angel said, and this time he heard her plainly. She returned his smile shyly, and added in a gentle voice: “Please, come closer to the fire. You look very cold and wet. What a terrible night to be traveling.”

Lutin? But that couldn't be right. That was a French word for goblin, wasn't it? He'd never seen a goblin or heard one speak, but he had heard some nasty rumors about them from people who'd vacationed in Sin City before the flood, and he was certain they didn't speak like this young woman. Come to think of it, they couldn't look like her either. Goblins were supposed to have four arms.

“Thank you. I'm drenched and freezing. I wasn't expecting this storm. Just four hours ago, the weather service said it would be clear. This storm must have come in on the Polar Express.”

“Sudden storms happen in the mountains sometimes,” the vision agreed, helping him remove his coat. The brief touch of her warm hands raised the hair on his arms—his
arrector pili
apparently liked her, too. “Perhaps that is how you got lost, Mr. . . . ? ”

“I'm so sorry. I'm forgetting my manners. My name is Nicholas Anthony—Dr. Nicholas Anthony,” he added, since the title lent a certain respectability. “But please call me Nick.”

He offered his hand, and after a moment she took it. Perhaps it was a leftover effect from the lightning coming so close, but her touch seemed to send pleasant shocks up his arms. The electricity traveled a path to his belly and then a bit lower. His penis stirred. Embarrassed by his body's response, still, Nick didn't retract his hand.

“I am Zee Finvarra,” the woman said. After a moment she added, “And these are my brother and sister, Hansel and Gretel.”

“No way,” Nick said without thought. Then, attempting to see into the folds of her faded denim skirt, where the children were hiding, he corrected himself. “I mean, what lovely names.”