The Metaphysical Detective (A Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery) (22 page)

Donovan raised an eyebrow.  “Is this legal in California?”

“Do you really care?”

“I wouldn’t want to see you arrested,” Donovan said.

“What about me?” Vinnie said.  “Don’t I get to defend myself?”

“You’re already dead,” Donovan said.  “Besides, you said you weren’t coming in.”

“Well, I’m not staying out here by myself!”

Riga took her flashlight from her jacket pocket and handed it to Vinnie.  “It’s dim enough that if you shine this in something’s eyes, you’ll slow it down.  Hold it like this,” she said, curling Vinnie’s fingers around the six inch metal tube.  “If you need to, use the serrated edge on the attacker’s neck.”  She began to turn away, then turned back to him.  “And if you shine it in my eyes, I’ll take it away from you.”

Donovan entered the labyrinth and Riga followed.  It was darker inside, the mist thick upon the ground.  The passage was wide enough for two to walk abreast, but the long thorns stretched towards them and Riga, fearful of stumbling on the uneven ground, kept behind Donovan.  Vinnie cursed and followed.  Cerberus brought up the rear, ears twitching.

At the first turning, Riga asked Donovan to wait.  She hooked a loop of yarn on an outstretched thorn, careful not to scratch herself, and attached the ball to the spindle. 

“Lady’s choice,” Donovan said.  “Which way?”

She pointed down the right hand path.

Wordlessly Donovan made the turn.  Riga followed, spinning the yarn out behind her.  Its beads shone like diamonds in the gloom, a glittering trail through the non-light of Hades. 

They crept through the labyrinth, doubling back at dead ends and stumbling over the twisted roots that lay across their path.  Soon Riga lost all sense of direction, and was happy to let Donovan make the decisions.  His guesses were as good as her own, and she needed a spell that would recall the yarn to her spindle.  She built the web of magic in her mind and attached it to a word.

When she reached the end of the skein, Riga called a halt.  “I think this should work,” she said.  She held the spindle outstretched before her, the end of the yarn looped loosely about it.  She summoned the energy from above and below.  “Reverto!”  A tidal wave of energy flowed from below, up the path of her spinal cord.  Her head was exploding.  There was a blinding flash of white and her legs collapsed beneath her.

“Riga!  Riga!”

Riga was on the ground and Donovan held her loosely in his arms.  She could feel the rise and fall of his chest.  A whirring sound came from her hand – the yarn winding itself around the spindle.

“What are you crazy?” Vinnie said.  His hair was ruffled as if by a strong wind.  “What the hell did you do?  I knew I should have stayed away from you dizzy dames.”

“Enough,” Donovan snarled.  “It worked.”

“Not quite as I’d intended,” Riga said shakily.  She was in the below and hadn’t accounted for the excess of lower energy when she called it to her.  The affect had been akin to a drowning woman getting hit with a fire hose.  “Things work differently down here.  I should have expected it.”

“You did it,” Donovan said.  “I can’t believe you did it!  I’ve never seen real magic before.”

Riga laughed.  “You’ve got the archetype of a Greek god inside you and you’ve never seen magic?”

“I’ve never seen someone else do it.  This is your life?  You do this all the time?”

“Not all the time,” Riga said, rising to her feet.  Her legs still felt wobbly and she held tight to Donovan’s arm.  It felt good.  He felt good.  “It’s not safe to go public with it.”  People accepted mystics and Tarot readers, because there was always the possibility their magic might not be real.  Real magic was still too dangerous. 

“Can you go on?” Donovan said.

Riga nodded.  Pen was getting farther and farther away.    She had to move.

Once certain Riga was steady on her feet, Donovan led the way.  They twisted along the labyrinth’s paths, Riga rewinding the yarn when it came to its end.  The yarn trick saved them time, but they were still moving too slowly.

“This is taking too long,” Riga said as she rewound the yarn.  She’d stopped counting how many times she’d cast the spell. 

“It’s too bad your yarn can’t show us the way out,” Vinnie grumbled.

Riga looked at him, struck.  Why couldn’t it?  She’d been so panicked by the loss of Pen that she was reacting rather than thinking, copying from old myths rather than making her own. 

She closed her eyes, and visualized the web of magical energy that would lead the way.  This time, she took care to focus on drawing energy from above and managed to direct a more balanced flow.  “Exitus!”  The yarn slowly spun outward, winding a glittering path before them into the labyrinth.  “Follow the blue line,” she said.

Donovan gave her a brittle smile.  So far, their only obstacle had been the labyrinth itself.  It seemed too much to hope for that there weren’t any nasty surprises inside. 

He turned a corner and stopped abruptly.  Riga bumped into him. 

They were in the center of the labyrinth, a wide square with branches leading off in four directions.  The yarn wended down the left hand path, a ribbon of shimmering blue.  In the center of the square was a stone slab with a broken chain trailing from a hook in it.

“Something’s gotten loose,” Donovan said, his voice low.  He put one hand protectively in front of Riga.

“Maybe it’s gone down another path,” she said.

“I hate this,” Vinnie said.

Donovan shifted the knife in his hand to a more defensive position.  “Let’s go.”

They continued on, following the yarn floating eerily before them.  Occasionally, they passed a toga-clad shade, silent, pale, and mournful.  With no sun or moon to mark their progress, she lost sense of time.  Riga stumbled with fatigue.

“So what happened in Afghanistan?” Donovan asked.

“What made you think of that?” she said, wary. 

“Just wondering.”

She fell silent, trying to push the memories away.  Then:  “This isn’t a good time for that story.”

“Is there ever a good time?”

“No.” 

Vinnie cleared his throat.  “I was in the Pacific.”

“You fought in World War II?” Riga said.  She should have considered it before – the timing was right.

He nodded. 

“Is that how you died?”

He shook his head.  “I wish I’d bought it over there.  I was just the good time Charlie, you know?  No family, no wife.  What did I have to lose?  But nothing ever touched me.  Instead I got to watch my buddies fall.  And I don’t wanna talk about it either,” he said.

Donovan looked like he was going to say something, but shook his head. 

They walked, bracing for an attack at every turn.  But nothing happened.  Riga’s nerves throbbed.  The yarn floated before them, fully unraveled now.  She trusted her magic; they were on the right path, but even so she began to despair of ever getting out.  They had to be getting close now, Riga thought.

Donovan walked more quickly.  He turned to look at Riga.  “I think I see the exi—“

A brown blur sped between them and tossed Donovan sideways like a rag doll.  There was a ferocious roar, and something struck Riga from behind, knocking her flat.  She rolled to her side and scrambled up.  Cerberus and the minotaur locked in combat.  The thing looked part bull, part grizzly bear.  The two beasts tore at each other, growling and snapping.

“Oh, shit oh shit oh shit,” Vinnie muttered.

Donovan lay on his side beneath the hedge.  Riga rushed to him, slipping in the blood that pooled upon the dead grass. 

He raised his head weakly.  “Riga, take Vinnie and get out of here.”

She shook her head.  “You need help.”  She felt along his body until she found the wound.  “Good Christ, you’ve been gored.”

He gritted his teeth, his face tense with pain.  “I’ll be fine.  Just go.”

Cerberus yelped and they all flinched in response.

She pressed one hand to his side and with the other, fumbled in her satchel.  “We need to keep pressure on the wound.”

“Vinnie, get her out of here,” he said.  Donovan passed out.

She found her first aid kit in her bag.  It was her fault; it was all her fault.  If she’d had quicker reflexes, if she’d kept Pen safe, they’d never be here.  She flicked the kit open with one finger and was torn between laughter and tears.  Her kit wasn’t for wounds like this.  She could pack the entire roll of gauze in his side and it wouldn’t do a damn thing.  Pressure, she had to keep the pressure on.  She whipped her scarf from the handle of her bag and packed it beneath Donovan’s shirt.  Blood oozed from beneath her hands.

“Vinnie!”

“Yeah boss?”  The flashlight in his hands shook.  “If I shine it, it might hit that dog thing.  And I think the dog is on our side.”

“Can you get Donovan out of here?”

He looked toward the exit.  Cerberus gripped the twisting minotaur in its jaws and was dragging it steadily down one of the paths, away from them. 

Vinnie nodded.  “I think so.”  He tucked the flashlight inside his belt.  Grasping Donovan beneath his shoulders, he hauled the wounded man along the path and through the opening.  When they were ten yards outside it, Vinnie stopped, heaving with exertion. 

A bloodcurdling howl rose from within the labyrinth.  Vinnie grabbed Donovan and dragged him another five yards.  He wiped his sleeve on his forehead.  “I don’t think that thing’s going to stay inside,” he said, looking at the labyrinth opening.

Riga dropped to her knees beside Donovan and felt the wound again.  Her scarf was soaked through.  There was too much blood.  She felt a touch upon her neck – Donovan’s hand.

Tears sprang to her eyes.  He was dying. 

“Healing was never something –  I’m sorry, Donovan.  My magic doesn’t work that way.”

He smiled wryly.  “It’s okay.  Mine does.”

Golden energy rippled from him, stirring her hair.  She rocked back on her heels.

Donovan sat up cheerfully.  “Archetype inside.  Remember?”  He removed her bloody scarf from beneath his shirt.  Where once there had been a ragged puncture, now there was a whitening scar.  As she watched, it disappeared, leaving his skin unblemished. 

He gave her a critical look.  “I told you to just go.”

“You could have told me why!  How was I to know?  You couldn’t magic your way through the maze but now I find out you can heal yourself?”

“Now’s not the time, kids,” Vinnie said, rolling his eyes toward the labyrinth. 

Cerberus emerged from the labyrinth and dropped a fleshy piece of something upon the ground beside Riga.  She leaned into the dog’s chest, weak with relief.  “My hero.”  She straightened and picked up the blood soaked scarf.  “That was my only Hermès scarf!”

“If we get out of here, I’ll buy you another,” Donovan said.

Cerberus settled down to gnaw on the bloody piece of flesh.  Its three heads tore at it, growling happily and Riga backed away.  Bits of bone and blood spewed from its jaws. 

“Don’t bother,” she said.  “So what else can you do?  It would be helpful to know what we’ve got to work with.”

“Dionysus has no power over Hades domain, or over anything here that Hades has created.  But a puncture wound isn’t going to stop me.”

“Can you heal others?”

“Down here?  Let’s not test it.”

She tossed the scarf upon the ground, giving it up as a lost cause.  “Fat lot of good you are.”

Donovan pointed to a dim glow of light upon the horizon.  “That’s the palace.  It’s another day’s march, so I suggest we camp here.” 

Riga frowned, about to argue the point.  Pen seemed so close.  But Donovan’s face was drawn and reluctantly, she agreed.

“I’ll build a fire,” Vinnie offered, and hurried off across the barren landscape, where silhouettes of dead, twisted trees loomed in the dim light. 

Riga and Donovan helped gather wood, and soon Vinnie had a sizable bonfire going. 

“Got anything to eat?” Vinnie asked, looking hungrily at Riga’s bag. 

She withdrew a packet of beef jerky and a candy bar. Her stomach rumbled.  Cerberus sat up, looking hopeful.

Donovan gave Vinnie a hard look.  “The dead don’t need to eat.”  He pointed at Cerberus.  “And neither does the dog.”

“I know,” Vinnie said plaintively.  “It’s just been so long since I’ve tasted food.”

“I guess you’ve earned it, but we can’t spare much for you,” Riga said.  “I’m sorry, Vinnie, but we’ve got a long walk tomorrow and Donovan and I will need fuel.”  She snatched a water bottle from Vinnie’s hands.  “But no water – we have to conserve.”

Vinnie grumbled, hungrily watching Riga and Donovan as they ate. 

Riga sprang to her feet.  “I’ll get more firewood,” she said with false cheerfulness.

Donovan staggered upright.  “I’ll join you.”

 They moved out of earshot, and Donovan said, “Good thing you’re a packrat.” He added another stick to the bundle in his arms. “Food, water, weapons…  You are the woman of my dreams.”

“Good thing the terrain is flat.  I didn’t bring much water.”

The shade of a Greek soldier walked past, trailed by two wailing ghosts.  The soldier spared Riga a grim glance and marched onward.

 “I hope we haven’t made a mistake with the fire,” Riga said.  Cerberus lay stretched before it, panting.  “You don’t think it will attract unwanted attention, do you?”

 “I don’t think it matters much,” Donovan said.  “Hades knows we’re here and we’ve got Cerberus.”

The strains of a banjo floated toward them. 

Donovan shook his head in despair.  “Vinnie.”

Riga could see Vinnie’s silhouette before the fire, cradling an instrument.  He began to sing, his voice a rich baritone.  She listened, spellbound.

“That’s a Josh Turner song!” Riga said.  “Where did he learn it?”

“Where did he get the banjo?” Donovan asked.

Shades gathered around the fire as Vinnie sang on.  There was magic in music and Vinnie, Riga thought with surprise, was a skilled bard.  The lyrics wove themselves around her.

 “For a small man, he’s got an awfully big voice,” she said.

It was one of her favorite songs and it made her feel a sense of longing.  Cerberus crept to Vinnie, its heads lowered, and sat down upon its haunches, panting.