Warrior of the Ages (Warriors of the Ages) (11 page)

“I’m trying to drown out your personal questions. I don’t want to answer them. I think they’re inappropriate and rude. Ours is a business relationship only.” The world was full of lawyers and she’d happily find a new one.

After a moment Sherman Kelts used his controls to roll up her window.

“Well, I thought we were becoming friends.” His eyes went to her legs.

Beth moved her big purse down her lap to cover them. It isn’t easy to get dresses the right length when you’re six feet tall, and she knew exactly what Sherman Kelts was interested in. Her fists balled up again.

“What the….” Sherman groused as a State Trooper pulled alongside the Jaguar, lights flashing. The trooper motioned for him to pull over.

“I was not speeding. What’s this about?”

AT LEAST THIS time Beth got to ride in the front seat of the police car, but twice in one day riding in any part of a police car seemed like setting a bad precedent.

“Thanks for driving me home, Trooper Blake, I appreciate it.”

The State Trooper nodded at her, making polite conversation. “No problem. I don’t often have a good reason to get off the highway. This is a nice area. I’ve never been here before.”

Peering out the window at Willowyth’s tree lined Main Street Beth had to agree with his assessment. Already, just a couple miles from her new house she felt the strange anticipation that the house on Pearl Street incited in her. An odd thought occurred to her.

“Can I ask what made you pull Sherman Kelts over? I mean, were you planning on impounding his car when you did it?”

The State Trooper touched the brim of his hat briefly, responding a bit elusively.

“Everything is automated anymore. You can’t get away with not paying tickets.”

“Seems to me he got away with it for a good long time. I mean he said he hadn’t paid any parking tickets in ten years.”

“He’ll be paying now and just between you and me, I’ve never seen anyone get away with not paying tickets for ten years. I don’t know how he kept his registration current. He’s in a lot of trouble.” The Trooper glanced over at her and said a bit dryly, “Even if he plays golf with the governor.”

Beth grinned at him. Sherman certainly hadn’t taken having his vehicle impounded very well. Standing alongside the freeway he’d tried every threat he dared and dropped names without a hint of shame.

“I have reason to believe he was lying about that,” she told the officer then pointed at her street, “Turn right there. My place is the big house at the end.” It was impossible to keep the pride out of her voice.

“That’s not your convertible in front is it?”

“What? Yes it is, why?”

The Trooper looked over at her, tugging his sunglasses off, sympathetic brown eyes took her in.

“Looks like this just isn’t your day. Someone put a wheel clamp on it. You parked facing the wrong direction.”

BETH TOSSED HER Smartphone onto the bed and dropped to the floor. On her knees she fished beneath the bed and pulled out a shoebox. Despite her Dad’s admonitions never to do it, she always kept a lot of cash on hand. Good thing because there was a big orange hunk of plastic bolted to a wheel of her car, and the release fee to get it off was astronomical. Apparently parking facing in the wrong direction was quite the crime in Willowyth. Trying to look on the bright side, she decided that at least they hadn’t arrested her for it, not yet anyway. According to the ticket on the windshield she had twenty-four hours, the penalty was left to her imagination. Good thing City Hall was only a couple blocks away.

FLASHING LIGHTS FLICKERED in the rearview mirror of her boot-free car, and Beth yanked the wheel, her tires rubbed the curb as she pulled over. Slamming into park she grabbed her bag and found her license and registration right on top. Four new tickets, all moving violations, in…she glanced at the clock on the dashboard, thirty-four minutes. That had to be a record. Subtlety definitely wasn’t how these people worked. It was almost funny because subtlety had never been her strong suit either.

Four minutes later, another ticket in hand, Beth watched the squad car make a U-turn and pull off Pearl Street. Smiling she drove to the end of the street, and then steered her car up and over the curb, parking right in the middle of her front yard. Brenda sat on the front porch waiting for her, her look of incredulity clear in the headlights. Well, Brenda already thought she was nuts. The tickets didn’t bother Beth, however, that wheel clamp thing did. She was going to avoid that. Gathering up her four tickets, she dug out a handful of money and using a fat black magic marker she jotted a note right across the front of a ticket.

Brenda hissed after her, questioning, but Beth marched across the yard and then jammed the tickets into the screen door of the house next door. There was really no reason for it, common sense told her that the house could very well be owned by a nice elderly couple, as Brenda often speculated. Instinct told her that the Police Chief would know what she’d done by morning. Grinning she headed back to her house, ignoring Brenda’s comments about terrorizing old people. If this was day one in the campaign to rid the village of Beth White, she best be ready for round two.

AFTER THE WEEKLY celebration, hundreds of members of Cultuelle Khristos stood inside the cave. They blocked paths and prevented thousands from making much headway as they tried to leave through the lone exit. Happy voices sounded through the enormous cavern. Many darted in and out of smaller chambers and children ran screeching, their voices amplified to an almost painful level. Warriors assigned to the mundane duty of traffic cop half-heartedly attempted to direct the exiting masses. Most simply took the time to join in the general mayhem of the typical Sunday afternoon.

Kahtar skulked around the edges dressed in his traditional leggings and chain mail, with a sword at each hip. Preoccupied, he allowed the melee around him to take its natural shape without his usual interference. Today his mind kept wandering to how to rid the clan of the threat that Beth White posed, while simultaneously trying to block out the memory of the way Sherman Kelts had looked at the Orphan of the Inquisition. Every time the picture intruded into his head, he reached to grasp the hilts of both blades at the same time and wondered if, just this once the Old Guard might approve the assassination of a Seeker. Tonight he would have to do penance for his little daydream about beheading the lawyer, but for now he was rather caught up in it.

The familiar huffing and puffing that signaled Elder, Abigail Adit’s approach, echoed up the tunnel behind him interrupting his little fantasy. Hoping to dodge her sharp tongue, he sidled towards the front of the passageway but she snapped in his wake.

“Don’t you even try. I can feel the vibration when you walk, Goliath. I need to talk to you.” The middle-aged woman approached, faded red hair wound into a tight bun, dressed in her usual drab olive green dress. Kahtar recalled the style had once been popular among Seekers many decades past. A gold chain hung around her neck attached to a pair of glasses. She shoved them onto her nose for emphasis from time to time. In the dim light of the tunnel Abigail did just that, huffing up to his side. At barely five feet tall, standing next to Kahtar, the Elder looked like a fat little girl playing dress up.

“What’s this I hear about there being an Orphan in town?”

“What did you hear?” Probing those sharp little eyes of hers, Kahtar could read nothing in them.

“Huh.” Abigail slapped some papers into his hand. “If you didn’t have the plebes scared witless you’d have gotten this sooner. Really, Kahtar, you have some of those boys wetting their beds at night.”

Instantly he recognized the traffic tickets and knew who they’d been issued to, he could scan Beth’s DNA on the paper. Several bills were folded between them and he counted two thousand dollars. Flipping a ticket over he read in bold black print,
Chief—Can I run a tab?

Kahtar whispered a word he never said.

“Why does she call you Chief?” Abigail demanded, hands on the area where her hips would be, if they had been discernible from her general fleshiness.

“I am the Police Chief.”

“Are you certain that Orphan doesn’t know you’re also the Warrior Chief?” Ferociously, Abigail slammed her glasses further up her nose.

“Kahtar?” The Mother of Cultuelle Khristos glided attractively to Abigail’s side. Anwyn Glorianna D’Aval, the ideal of feminine strength and beauty with dark red curls resting against an ivory neck, looked more like a statue of a water nymph than the leader of their clan. The quick intelligence in her dark eyes swept Kahtar’s face and she murmured, “An Orphan of the Inquisition is in our village?”