Wanderers 3: Garden of The Gods (The Wanderers) Read online

  I caressed Tess’s face with the tips of my fingers. She had been snoring lightly, but my touch was enough to cause her to shift her head off me, and her snoring ceased. I eased off the bed and stood up. Bending over her, I kissed her lightly on the cheek. Then I pulled the sheet up over her and went into the bath.

  I was dressed and sipping coffee while considering what our next course of action would be when I heard Tess murmur. I glanced toward the bed and saw her twisting beneath the sheet. Setting my cup down, I went to the bed and stared down at her.

  Her face was contorted in some painful dream. Placing a hand on the top of her head, I felt the emotions pouring through her dream. She was afraid, but it was more for someone else than herself. Odd, I thought she might be having a nightmare about the rapists, but this seemed not to be the case.

  Before I could lift my hand from her head, she jerked awake. I left my hand touching her and waited.

  Her eyes focused on me in the dim light. “Rafe? What are you doing?”

  “You had a bad dream. I was trying to decide if I should wake you.”

  “Oh? Okay. Well, thanks, I guess.”

  I removed my hand and sat beside her on the edge of the bed. “Want to talk about it?”

  “No, well, geez.” She was hesitant. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell you. It was about the explosion. The one that killed me and messed me up.”

  I nodded and waited.

  After a moment of silence, Tess slid up to sit against the bed’s headboard. “It was after the Valkyrie brought me back. I was still confused and disoriented by the blast, but I remember smelling burnt meat. Some of the smell was coming from me, but more was coming from my three buds that’d been killed. The MRAP was burning, so there was the smell of burning insulation, rubber, and diesel, but the smell of cooked flesh was greater and masked the other smells.”

  I nodded again and placed my fingers against the side of her neck. The contact let me feel her emotions again and let her feel my empathy for what she was going through.

  “The other vehicles in the convoy were stopped, and people were bailing out. Some were setting up a perimeter to watch for snipers, but others were rushing to try to help us. I don’t understand, but no one else saw the Valkyrie and while I thought she’d talked to me for a few minutes, only seconds could have passed.”

  I nodded. “I don’t think mortals can see the Valkyries unless they’ve come for them. As for the time, I don’t know. When she came for me, everyone in the area was dead except for me.”

  Tess turned her face more to me. “That’s right. You had to go through something similar. You never told me just what happened.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone just what happened. Walt, bless his soul, never asked and it was too fresh a memory for me to relate before his death.”

  Tess put her arms around me and pulled me close. “I’d like to hear about it sometime.”

  “Sure,” I nodded. “Anything you want to know, I’ll tell you.”

  “Thanks,” she said into my chest. “Anyway, my dream was about that day. It’s repeated a few times since, but it’s always the same. There’s the explosion, I wake up to see the Valkyrie, but in the dream, my teammates are screaming in pain, as they’re burned alive. That didn’t happen in real life, but it’s my dream of what happened.”

  “What do you think it means?” I asked.

  I felt her head shake a negative against me.

  “I don’t know. I rarely have dreams that make any sense. Before this, the only repeating dream I have is being chased by a T. Rex.”

  “The dinosaur? Really?”

  “Don’t laugh. It came the night after I saw Jurassic Park as a kid. I guess I was about ten when Mom and Dad let me watch it. Something about it bothered me and several times a year the dream repeated. I’m in that glass-top tour vehicle, and Rex is staring down at me. After that, it varies, but I usually wake up before he catches me.”

  “I imagine so. That must have been pretty scary for a child,” I said as I caressed her head and back with my fingers.

  “It was. At least it was until just after I went into the Army. I haven’t had that dream in the three years of wearing the uniform.”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “I know, but now I have this other repeating dream. How do I get rid of it?”

  “It was a traumatic event, but one that made you part of what you are today. Go with it. Understand that it didn’t happen that way. That your teammates were dead when you regained consciousness.”

  “I do understand it. At least I do when I’m awake. While I’m in the dream, it feels like the truth, not what I remember.”

  I kissed Tess’s forehead and eased off the bed. “I made coffee. Are you ready for some?”

  “I am. I have a bit of a hangover, and I really need to go, but pour me a cup.”

  “Sure thing.”

  I got off the bed and Tess hurried into the bathroom. I fetched Tess the last cup of coffee from the two-cup brewer that came with the room. I set it up to brew two more cups into the small carafe and left Tess’s full cup on the counter.

  She came out of the bath a few minutes later. She still wore the Army nightshirt she’d worn every night since I’d finished healing her limbs. Tess grabbed the cup and joined me at the table. I’d set a couple of protein bars out in case she was hungry, and she tore the first one open as she sat down.

  Between mouthfuls, she asked, “So now what, Boss?”

  “More of the same. We’ll continue your training. You ready to start learning another spell?”

  Tess brightened at that. “Damn straight! Do you have one picked out or can I choose?”

  “I have your first few tattoos picked out. I’m not against letting you pick which ones to do, but I want to make sure you have the basic requirements done before you start picking and choosing.”

  “Okay, then which one is next?” She asked as she shoved the rest of the protein bar into her mouth.

  “The next one is the healing tat.”

  Tess cocked her head to one side. Then she swallowed and picked up her cup to wash down the remnants of the bar. She burped, quite un-ladylike and then looked chagrinned. “Excuse me. I don’t get it. I already know a healing spell.”

  “Yes, and it’s a great spell for healing. But the healing tattoo will trigger any time you’re injured, even if you’re unconscious.”

  Tess nodded. “Okay, that sounds like a good thing to have, but I thought the enhanced senses tat would be just as important. It’d be nice to be able to see glamours and move around in total darkness.”

  “Yes, that’s why that tattoo is number three on my list for you to acquire.”

  “Okay, then. The healing tat it is.” She finished her coffee and went to the counter to get the carafe. Bringing it back, she filled both our cups and sat back down. “What about my familiar. You told me you wanted me to summon one as soon as possible and it’s been three days and you haven’t mentioned it again.”

  I nodded and grinned. “I was waiting for you to bring it up. I think you’re ready, but you have to ask to do it. This is not like memorizing a tattoo spell and burning it. This is a mental thing. You have to be totally ready before you cast the summoning.”

  Her grin seemed to split her face from ear to ear. Tess nodded enthusiastically in the manner of a bobble-head doll. “Hot damn! Yeah, I’m ready.”

  “Okay, then. We’ll do the summoning tonight.”

  “Great! I am so ready.”

  “Then get dressed. We’ll get breakfast and head out to our training site.”

  Tess jumped up; she started toward the room’s only dresser, but then turned back and bent over me. She put her hands on either side of my face and pulled my lips to hers. We kissed, surprisingly passionately, and then she let go of me and went to the dresser.

  I sipped my coffee and watched her pull out socks, panties, and a sports bra from the drawer where she kept her things. She pulled the
Army nightshirt over her head and started dressing. I didn’t turn away. Tess and I were both comfortable being naked in the other’s presence. In truth, I enjoyed watching her dress. I enjoyed her undressing even more.

  Chapter 10

  THERESE

  We spent the afternoon after my near rape–or should I call it my first real world training exercise?–doing still more training. Most of it with me memorizing the healing tat that Rafe said had to be my second tattoo. When I grew tired of concentrating on the pattern, Rafe had me switch to studying the familiar-summoning spell. That spell was seriously more difficult than the other ones I’d seen in his grimoire. Its saving grace was that it didn’t have to be memorized or turned into a tattoo. When I was ready, I could use the grimoire and cast it.

  After breakfast, we bought sandwiches at a nearby Subway, and Rafe had cast a stasis spell on them when we reached the clearing. Near sundown, he called a halt to training, and we ate. The sandwiches were still warm and the lettuce still crisp. Even the soft drinks were still ice cold. That was one handy spell to know and just one more in a list I was mentally forming to decide what to learn next. It looked like my next decade, or two, was going to be spent learning and training, assuming we lived through Rowle’s Ragnarök attempt.

  We ate slowly, even though I wanted to scarf down my food and get back to the summoning spell. Sitting cross-legged, back-to-back, we ate, and Rafe told me things he thought I needed to know. He did that at almost every opportunity. Some of the things he told me were truly surprising, and other things just seemed like daily life for him. The story of the serial killer was one that was surprising. I’m not sure why he brought it up because I had assumed that Wanderers stayed out of mundane affairs. At least I thought he did until he mentioned the serial killer and his victims.

  Suddenly, I thought I understood some of his actions with the rapists. Wanting me to solve my own problems had been understandable, once I had considered his explanation last night. I did need to be able to stand on my own two feet, so to speak. Sure, I was ready to kill all three men without considering the consequences. In my defense, no one had ever attempted to rape me before. I could claim temporary insanity, but that would be a cop-out. I was angry, and I had wanted their blood.

  Rafe had calmly put them in a place where they were unlikely to survive. It gave me some satisfaction and kept us from leaving bodies lying around. I was still tempted to ask him to take me to them so I could remove pieces of their anatomy, but heh, I was the wounded party. I deserved a little treat. My bloodthirsty thoughts gave me pause to wonder if becoming a Wanderer was also changing me. I’d heard the old adage about power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely, but I didn’t get the sense that Rafe abused his power by doing things to people who didn’t deserve his attention. It was something I’d have to watch in the future. I didn’t want to end up like Rowle.

  By the time we finished eating, the sun had set.

  Rafe stood and gathered the remains of our meal. He shoved everything into the plastic bag the food had come it and then tossed it into the air. Before the bag could fall, he triggered his fire tat and incinerated the bag and its contents. A few handfuls of ashes floated off on the light breeze. It was a regular trick of his to avoid leaving anything behind that might contain our DNA. He’d told me a few of the spells that used someone’s DNA and not many of them were pleasant. Could you actually make someone’s heart explode just by the use of the right spell while holding a lock of someone’s hair? It sounded so far-fetched compared to most of Rafe’s spells. I could understand how Rafe used magic to direct energy at things he could see and control the wind and lightning and all that sort of stuff but to make someone’s heart explode at a distance. That was, well, it was like magic, wasn’t it?

  I gazed at the sky. We were still in twilight, and only a few stars were out. “So, do you think I’m ready to give it a shot?”

  Rafe turned to me with a fretful expression on his face. He wore that expression a lot, usually after I asked a question. I wouldn’t say that it troubled me when he did, but it was a little frustrating. “That’s up to you. If you have any doubts, then you should wait. This is too important a spell to flub.”

  I considered, giving it a full minute of thought so that he’d know I had taken his apprehension seriously and then I perked up. “I’m ready. I can do this.”

  His concern vanished and was replaced with a wide smile. “Good, I thought you were, but I needed to make sure you were confident about casting it. Bring your ride over to the circle. We’ll need the object your familiar will possess in the circle with us.

  I’d left my Harley by the road at the edge of the clearing. I still remembered how we’d been attacked last week during our training and I didn’t want my ride being in the line of fire if some other nasty showed up. I’d only had it a few days, but I already considered it mine and didn’t want anything untoward happening to it.

  I practically ran back to my bike. It cranked smoothly, and I motored back to where Rafe waited in the circle that we’d cleared of small pebbles and sticks, just to make the ground a little more comfortable. Killing the engine, I leaned the bike on its kickstand and then had to catch it as it began to sink in the soft dirt.

  “Hold it still just one second,” Rafe said. He bent beside me, and a moment later blue light erupted from his right hand and struck the ground beneath my kickstand. The light held for a few seconds and then went out. Rafe stood. “Try it now.”

  Hesitantly, I lowered the kickstand back to the ground and wasn’t surprised to see the steel did not sink into the ground. “What did you do?”

  “I froze the earth beneath it for a couple of feet. It shouldn’t thaw out before we’re finished.”

  “Cool,” I said.

  He sat down in his usual cross-legged manner, and I sat across from him. We clasped hands, and in a score of seconds, we meshed. Rafe released my hands and cast his little bottle of salt into the air. He spoke a spell, and the salt fell around us in a circle about twenty feet in diameter. As soon as the salt was down, Rafe spoke another spell to activate the circle. He apparently didn’t have his senses tat active because I couldn’t see any sign of the circle’s energy field.

  Rafe set his grimoire between our knees and opened it to the spell for summoning a familiar. I looked down at the words and pattern that stretched out across two pages.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Rafe said.

  I glanced up at him and then took a deep breath and let it out. “No time like the present.”

  He nodded, and I could feel his reassurance through our meshing.

  The words and pattern had to be done simultaneously to activate this spell. Some spells required you to make the pattern first, some the words first, others, like the tattoos Wanderers used, only had the pattern.

  I concentrated on the pattern, making sure it was clear in my mind. Raising my right hand, I extended my index finger, focused energy, and began to trace the spell’s pattern in the air between us. As the glowing lines of the spell formed at the tip of my finger, I spoke the words.

  The words didn’t make much sense in English, and I didn’t know what language they were originally created in. Some of Rafe’s spells were in English and easy to follow, but this one was syllables that meant nothing to me, but it did in some forgotten language. As I spoke the spell and traced out the pattern, I felt power massing. There was almost a hum of energy growing inside the circle. The hairs on my arms were tingling, and in a few minutes, I realized the hair on my head was standing up. Without pausing in my incantation, I glanced toward Rafe and saw that his hair was also standing on end.

  This was new to me; none of the other spells had charged the air around me. The spell took a few minutes to recite, but it had to be done three times in succession in order to take effect. Sweat was beading up on my forehead by the time I finished the first repetition. I immediately started the second and found that I was having a harder time holding my concentratio
n.

  I felt Rafe’s concentration augmenting my own, and the difficulty lessened. By the time the second repetition was complete, sweat was rolling into my eyes, stinging them.

  Taking a deep breath, I began the third iteration of the spell.

  Halfway through, I felt as if my tongue were thickening in my mouth. The words were more difficult to form correctly, and my hand that traced the pattern in glowing runes was trembling. I swallowed excess saliva and concentrated.

  Rafe placed his hands on my knees, and I felt energy flowing into me. My tongue seemed to shrink back to its normal size and my trembling hand calmed.

  I reached the last line in the runes, spoke the last word, and reached out to touch my motorcycle. There was a discharge of energy and my Harley glowed with the mystical powers released by the spell.

  I slumped down, nearly exhausted, and waited to see what my summoning would bring.

  Nothing happened.

  After a few minutes, I looked from my Harley to Rafe. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No,” Rafe said with a shake of his head. “You did it perfectly. You have to wait for it. Something always answers the familiar spell, but it isn’t always immediate. I think Beast didn’t show up for about ten minutes.”

  “I don’t understand. Why so long?”

  Rafe shrugged. “Since I’ve only done the spell once, I’m not really sure. Walt just said that it’s not a summoning like calling forth a demon. Those summonings either use the name of the demon you want or you have to accept anything that arrives. This summons is looking for a compatible creature that will fit the requirements of your individual psyche. The creature has to be compatible with you for decades. It’s almost like having a soul mate.”

  I chuckled.

  Rafe stared at me, obviously confused. “What’s funny?”

  “I was thinking about you and Beast. Soul mates, eh? I guess that explains a lot.”

  Rafe frowned and rolled his eyes. “I said ‘almost.’ Besides, I think Beast is an exception to the rule. I’m not sure why I got saddled with him.”