Post by Shay on Sept 8, 2010 19:38:46 GMT -5
We were miles from the house when California turned to look at me.
"Carl, you need to be on your best behavior".
I laughed. "What? Me? _You_'re the one that destroys people's cars, their nightclubs, their faces..."
She shook her head, for once being serious. "No, really. They'll know it when we get close enough. So..."
"You still haven't said where we're going." I interrupted.
"Directions." She waved a page from the hotel office printer.
I grinned. "You know what I mean."
"I'm serious, Carl. These people are the fodder you're used to being around. They're _old_. One of them at least. That one doesn't think like people. Not for a long time." She didn't smile.
"Vampires, you mean?"
"One of 'em is more like a force of nature. Let's see who shows up."
I nodded. "So, What're we actually going to do? We didn't bring any weapons or anything."
She smiled grimly. "Don't worry about that. If it comes to fighting, you just run like hell and hope I slow them down enough that you can find a crowd of people or something. In the meantime, just keep up that metal static you learned at your super-fab academy. I would really appreciate it if they didn't find out our hotel room number, where my grandmother lives, and junk like that."
"So, why're you bringing me along? Isn't this super-secret stuff, that we mere mortals aren't allowed to know about?"
C.C. sighed. "Can't be a newb forever, O cute little monkey-boy."
I laughed, but I wasn't too thrilled by all this...
-----------------------
The place was a fairly small building near the part of downtown newly-reclaimed from the urban decay at the center of our rotting cities. We drove by various boutiques and restaurants, but C.C.'s directions led to a free-standing two-story building that divided its ground floor between a dry-cleaner's business and a used bookstore that seemed to be called "The Purloined Letter".
California's mood darkened as we parked in the driveway behind the building. She sighed softly as I turned off the engine. "I can't feel her." She sounded wistful, not like C.C. at all. I wasn't even spared a glance as she opened the car door.
"You all right?" I asked, as I locked the doors and followed after her to the storefront.
She reached for the door, but stopped and turned back to me. "Carl, it's better to listen and be confused than to say something to cause offense accidently."
I nodded, and that seemed to satisfy her.
-----------------
Inside, the store was a fairly normal-looking bookstore, though a big dark from not enough lighting and tall bookshelves casting shadows. I paused to look at the stacks, most seemed very old and not all seemed to be in English. We quickly found the cash register, but noone was manning the desk. That didn't seem to stop C.C., though, she went through the open door nearby. The back room, I was hoping.
"Shouldn't we..."
"They're waiting for us." She said, and continued on.
There was a little lounge, with a couple of couches and stairs leading up to the next floor. C.C. had just put her foot on the bottom step, when a figure appeared in the doorway at the top. She was very thin and pale (not a surprise), wearing a loose dress printed with tiny purple flowers. Her hair was long and dark, and she wore glasses that I was reasonably sure she didn't need.
"Ah, you've arrived." Only that and then she disappeared from the doorway.
We continued up the stairs nontheless.
"I hate when they do that", C.C. sighed.
"You do it to me all the time."
C.C. snorted. "But I don't drink your blood for fun and profit."
"I suppose not..."
Then we were passing over the threshold into a living room of sorts, the walls lined with bookshelves and those filled to bursting. This room must have taken up most of the second floor of the building. A pit group dominated the middle of the room... it all seemed very comfortable and affluent. Nothing sinister here.
We stopped just inside the room, somehow the woman we had seen a moment before was across the room in a mostly-open kitchen area behind a bar.
C.C. smiled. "I am California Blake, and this is Carl Terrance. You... you're Veronica Ross?"
The woman smiled thinly in return. "Indeed. Welcome." She tilted her head toward the sofas. "And this, is Toro." At that, an immense black dog rose from where it had been resting. It took a step or two toward us, then sat as if it had been given a command. It looked to be a Doberman, with possibly some Great Dane ancestry as well. Veronica smiled again. "Won't you come back to the sanctum, California, that we might speak more privately." She looked to me. "Please, make yourself comfortable. We shan't be long. Toro will behave himself, I am certain."
C.C. brushed a hand through her strawberry-blonde locks, then stepped toward the kitchen and the door beyond. "Wasn't there supposed to be someone else? 'Tamara'?"
The other woman smirked a bit. "One never knows when she will turn up. She will be here or she will not, as the mood strikes her." She stepped to the door, and stepped inside before C.C. reached her. California passed inside as well, and the door closed behind her.
I stood there for a long moment, looking at the bear masquerading as a dog. But, all it did was sit at attention, looking at me in turn. I decided to sit, as requested... and I chose a seat as near the door as I could, and even then I just sat on the edge of the seat.
After a few minutes, the silence was broken by a low growl, which began just at the edge of my perception, but began quickly to grow. I looked quickly to the dog, which had flattened its ears back and began to show its teeth. Worse, it began to drool great gobbets of foam and to shudder violently as the volume grew. I stood quickly, but I really had no idea where I was going to go. I was on my feet for just a moment when the dog began a stream of earsplitting barks. I knew I was about to die, ripped apart by this psychopathic dog... so it may not be surprising that I thought I had lost my mind when I saw the hummingbird.
Like too many things today, this tiny hovering bird seemed to have appeared from nowhere. I had seen it blink into existence near the sliding glass door leading to what I supposed was a balcony, but it quickly moved to inspect the dog. It took me a moment to realize that the dog had stopped barking, and then another moment for the echoes in my head to fade and to notice the unnaturally-loud droning of the crimson-and-green bird.
The door flew open, with C.C. charging out, the other woman behind.
"What the f..."
"Toro! Stop..."
Both women stopped suddenly, looking toward the sliding door. I think they missed seeing the monstrous dog cowering in fear before a tiny bird it could have swallowed in one bite. I looked to the window as well, where several more hummingbirds had appeared in a riot of color.
California grinned. "Oh, she's here."
I think I caught a scowl on Veronica's face for just a moment, but she had put on her vague smile very quickly.
The hummingbird in the middle of the room joined its fellows, and all disappeared as quickly as they came. In their place stood a small woman, surely not more than five feet tall. She seemed to me Greek or something of that sort, but she was alabaster-pale and perfect. Her hair was cut short and her eyes were dark. She wore baggy jeans and a dark blue t-shirt under a leather biker jacket. That's what I saw, anyway.
C.C. seemed in awe. I certainly was. Even Veronica had no choice to look at the newcomer.
"Lady." California breathed.
------------------------------------
Strangely, she didn't seem interested in the other two women. The next moment, she was at my side. I could hear her inhale, to speak.
"You needn't fear this beast. I have taken the fight out of it. It will trouble you no more." She smiled, and for a few moments there was nothing else in the world but this woman and her smile.
Veronica's voice broke my reverie. "I must protest, Tamara. That dog is my guardian." She crossed quickly to us, and knelt next to Toro, who seemed to be resting placidly.
The smaller woman smiled again, with teeth this time. "You have enough protection, I think. I see your wards and barriers. Why you sought to keep me out, I do not understand." She shrugged. "And there is the man across the street, watching the building. You are employing living wizards now? His mind is well-guarded. I thought it best not to break him in case he was valuable."
"What?! Where? No... he must be a spy."
C.C. interrupted. "Ah, no... lady. He's mine. A friend. I meant no offense, but I have this thing about continuing to exist. Call if paranoia, if you like. Forgive me."
Tamara smiled indulgently, as if California were a precocious child. "I understand, Calliste. All is well."
Veronica frowned, as if to remind us that all was _not_ well with her, but she said nothing else.
C.C. seemed to be lapping up this attention, though she blinked at being called 'Calliste'. She only lost a beat, though. "Lady, will there be anyone else?"
"No, no others could attend at such short notice... none that would be able to get alone with one another." the shorter woman looked pointedly at Veronica.
The other woman refused to make eye contact with Tamara, and turned away a bit. "I am, of course, more than happy to host your little gathering, Tamara. However, I am quite busy. Could we proceed with haste?"
That garnered a scowl from California, but Tamara didn't seem to notice the hostess' displeasure.
"Very well. I have called you here to ask for your assitance once again." the small woman paused for a moment, then continued after noone moved. "As you know, the Hunter in the Darkness is no more..."
Veronica interrupted, "Ha! You _did_ eat him, then?"
"There are other ways of becoming stronger, than devouring one's enemies... or friends, for that matter." Tamara said evenly. That seemed to quieten Veronica for a moment, so Tamara continued. "Our foe may well be destroyed, but his evil will poisoned everything it touched, even from afar. The very darkness he entombed himself in is now free, possessed by the great cunning and malice of our enemy... but without the will to keep the hate in check. It is now free to kill and grow in strength."
"Why do you not simply face it down and destroy it, O great elder." Veronica chimed in snarkily.
"I may, if I must. But, I will set things in motion nontheless. My apotheosis may well make my intervention impossible. Thus, I come to you."
"Should he be hearing this?" Veronica looked at me. "Either of them?"
"Would you shut up?" California was finally acting like herself, I thought. "All you've done is complain since we've been here. I'd be happy to give you a repeat of the last time you and I were together."
Veronica took a step back, and her gaze flicked to her huge dog, snoozing at Tamara's feet, then back to C.C. "Do not dare to threaten me in my own home." I think that was mostly to save face. She nodded to Tamara, then. "My apologies. I was preserving the forms of our etiquette."
The smaller woman (who seemed even tinier next to the Doberman) smiled again, and I swear that my brain began to run out of my ears. "That world is gone, I fear. We have more important priorities, and we must seek new allies." She turned her smile on C.C. "Or renew our ties with our allies of old."
California said blissfully. "I'm in."
--------------------
It was a long drive... a loooong drive... to our next stop. Where that was, I can't really say, except that it was on the East Coast, and in the mountains. That gave C.C. and I a lot of time to talk... which is not always the best thing.
"Let's try this again... who are we going to see this time?"
"A friend. It doesn't matter that much who it is. Well, not so much my friend as someone I know. She's more the friend of the people we just met."
"So, a vampire?"
C.C. sighed, and paitienly replied, "Not really. It's... I don't know. Complex."
I nodded. "Plenty of time. We're not even to Memphis yet."
She shifted in her seat, to look at me. "Allright. Well, a few years ago... no, it's been more than a few... there was a big battle. I mean, some serious crap went down. There had been a big leadup, a lot of heavy players began to collect in one place." She smiled. "That's where we're going, by the way".
"Are these people still there? I don't think I have enough gear for a bunch of vampire lords."
She laughed. "No... it was more than vampires, but most of those things are dead now. All used up in the last battle. Pawns, rooks, knights... all pieces for the queen to use against the king."
I nodded sagely. "But, the good guys won."
She looked at me strangely, perhaps a bit sad? "Did we?" She sighed again, wistful, " I dunno.Things changed, sure. The world changed, moved on. I guess that's good."
"I guess you were fighting that 'Enemy" or whatever the hummingbird-woman was talking about? The one's whose shadow we're worried about?"
C.C. nodded. "Yeah. That's the one."
"So, the hummingbird-woman killed this uber-vampire and drank his blood?"
California shrugged. "Wasn't there. I don't think anyone saw what happened. I don't think so, though... that kind of thing... well, vampires are afraid of dying, aren't they? So, even if someone drinks all their blood, their spirit tends to hitch a ride into the other vampire's spirit. So, I don't think she would've wanted that darkness on her soul." She laughed. "Or, maybe she did, and knew a trick to banish that spirit. Who knows?"
------------------------------
We stopped in a nice little town somewhere between Knoxville and Charlotte; a place that had been known in the past as a playground for the wealthy East Coast elite of the last century or two. Not so much now. Now it was just quiet, though I gathered from C.C.'s hints that a lot had gone on here below the surface in the last decade or two. Hopefully the wounds of that secret struggle had healed by now.
The house was on a little bit of land on the outskirts of town, the curvy roads and hills isolating it somewhat. We parked under a tree in the long quartz-gravel driveway. C.C. stopped me before I could open my door.
"OK. So, we're going to go talk to a friend of mine named 'Maya'. Well, I guess I can't say she's really my friend. More someone I used to know." California smiled, "And you're actually going to talk to her... at first anyway. I don't want to scare her."
I considered the house as she talked. "Funny how it's always people who know you that are afraid."
She smirked. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
I snorted. "Must make it rough to get a date."
C.C. shook her head. "Never." She shrugged. "Look, you go to the door, and I'll go around the back to make sure that there aren't any unwelcome visitors. Besides us, anyway."
"Yeah." I stepped out of the car and slipped on my suit jacket. I wished again for the comforting weight of a pistol, but in general it didn't do much good. Shooting the things C.C. tangled with usually just made them mad.
California pulled on her biker jacket, and started toward the side yard, where a flower and herb garden began at this end of the driveway. I crossed behind her, up the path to the screened-in patio.
The house's facade was painted a muted white, fairly recently. The patio was aluminum and steel mesh, but I could see that it was a bit more sturdy than one might expect. There was a screened wooden door, and a sign that read simply 'Fortunes Told'. I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. I thought I barely heard a buzzer somewhere, perhaps inside. C.C. was out of my sight-line, so I turned on our com-system and put the earbud on.
California's voice was in my ear as soon as I did. "...are you, then?" I could hear her breathing deeply but steadily, as she usually did before a fight. Dead calm, as always. "Wait... I remember. Jamie!" There was a burst of sound a moment later, heavy paws drumming the ground, and a heavy thump before the radio went dead.
"C.C.?" I asked, tapping my ear. "C.C.? Are you there?" No response from the radio.
"Who are you looking for?" That was a new voice, serene and musical. A small woman, slim and pale, stood framed in the doorway leading into the house. She smiled a bit as I started in surprise.
I managed to recover after a moment. "Sorry. I'm looking for Maya".
She nodded. "You've found her." She didn't move from her place in the doorway.
I smiled a bit nervously... still no response from C.C. "I think I need my fortune told."
The woman seemed to consider that for a moment. "So you have an appointment? I usualy do readings by appointment."
I shrugged. "How do I get an appointment."
She looked at me intently, I felt like she was looking through me. She grinned after a moment. "Oh, come in." She stepped from the doorway to unlock the patio door. Rather than wait for me to come in, the woman retreated to a table nearby. The door to the house she left open.
I entered the screened-in patio a bit reluctantly, keeping an eye on the open door. I sat across from her, though she didn't ask me to.
"So, what would you like?" she asked with another smile. She seemed young from a distance, but up-close I could see the lines at the corners of her eyes, her mouth. Her eyes were old. She was younger than I was, and older at the same time. "Tarot? Runes?" She opened the large lacquered box on the table to reveal decks of cards and other arcane things I hadn't seen before.
I smiled a bit. "Whatever is best."
She nodded and drew out some cards, and closed the box again. She held the deck for a moment, and then set them in front of me. "Touch the cards, and ask your question. Then cut the deck and pick a card without looking. That'll be you."
I did, and drew one from the new middle of the stack of cards. I handed it to her, and she put it in front of her. It was a woman on a throne with a sword and scales... reminded me of statues I had seen in D.C.
"Justice, reversed. Hmm. I'll keep it." She dealt a card on top of the first. "The High Priestess." Maya tilted her head, thinking. She put another card on the table, between us. It seemed to be an angelic figure blowing a trumpet. "Judgement... in the past. Hmm." She dealt one southeast of the middle cards. "The present." That was a woman in a field with a scepter and a starry crown . "The Empress." Maya looked up at me. "Do you have a woman problem?"
I snorted. "You might say that".
Maya nodded. "Strong women." Another card, northwest this time. "The Devil, in your future." She put another card on top of that, one with a castle struck by a lightning bolt. "Hmm." A third card. "The Wheel." She looked at me. "I swear there are other cards here besides Major Arcana."
I shrugged, and looked at the cards. "What do you see, then?"
She put a card down to the northeast. "Not finished yet. Illusion... the Moon. You think everything is so mysterious, but it's not." A card to the southwest. "But, the truth is..." This card was a man hung upside-down on a tree. "Hmm." She looked up at me again. "Do you love this woman... women? They seem to be important in your life, changing you."
I nodded. "I've been changed, for sure."
A last card went north of the others, next to the third card she dealt. A baby on a white horse under a bright sun. Maya grinned. "Well, that's good. It should all end in sweetness and light." She looked the spread over again. "So... you had changed suddenly, and your mother didn't like it? Didn't like this girl?" She motioned towards the Empress card. "You've had, or will have your world shattered because of lust or being too hidebound maybe, but things work out. You're confused about your feelings, but you'll come to a new understanding about yourself, and it all works out in the end... you'll see eveything in a new light." She looked at me. "Sound about right?"
I looked at the table again. "I'm not sure... you're the fortune teller." My polite smile fell as my eyes followed Maya's gaze to the open patio door. A heavy shadow suddenly appeared there, and heaved itself well inside to the wooden planking of the floor. I could see that it was solid... the form of a great black wolf or wolf-dog, but huge. California stood outside, now revealed. She smiled, her clothes and even her jacket in tatters.
"Hey." she said, running her hand through her hair.
Maya screamed as if the end of the world had come.
----------------
I wasn't sure if the end was of her world or mine, at least at that point.
"Uh, C.C.... are you allright?" I asked, blinking.
"Oh yeah," she grinned. "I usually manage." She crouched over the beast, to stroke its fur. "Mostly it's my pride that's hurt. He acted like he didn't remember me."
"Maybe he did, and that's the problem." I said dubiously.
Maya had been silent during this exchange, staring at me in horror.
"What?" I asked, a bit amused. "Did I grow another head..."
Maya pointed a shaking finger over my right shoulder, when I carefully turned to look there was a burst of movement and color that moved to the center of the table, scattering the tarot cards as it landed. A hummingbird.
"Where the hell did that..."
Noone answered, both Maya and C.C. stared at the thing expectantly; though the small woman's terror seemed almost a physical thing to me. The tiny bird walked a circuit around the tabletop, then looked up at Maya once more.
"You told me you'd leave me alone, that I had earned a rest." The voice came from the woman across the table from me, but it was hardly the same as before. This speaker was weary and getting angry.
The hummingbird's response was a quavering whistle for a moment, then modulated to a smooth alto.
"And so you have, _chrysophorus_ . You have been left in peace."
Maya rose slowly from her seat. "You said that I wouldn't remember. I wasn't supposed to remember!"
--------------
The sun was starting to set as Maya went back out to the covered porch to find C.C., who was sitting on a chair she had pulled to the open patio door to bask in the last rays of the evening.
"I still don't understand who and exactly what you are." Maya said, doing a dance with the slowly-shifting light-and-dark patches on the patio floor.
"Heh. Neither do I." California laughed, her eyes still closed while she splayed herself across the wooden chair.
"Carl, you need to be on your best behavior".
I laughed. "What? Me? _You_'re the one that destroys people's cars, their nightclubs, their faces..."
She shook her head, for once being serious. "No, really. They'll know it when we get close enough. So..."
"You still haven't said where we're going." I interrupted.
"Directions." She waved a page from the hotel office printer.
I grinned. "You know what I mean."
"I'm serious, Carl. These people are the fodder you're used to being around. They're _old_. One of them at least. That one doesn't think like people. Not for a long time." She didn't smile.
"Vampires, you mean?"
"One of 'em is more like a force of nature. Let's see who shows up."
I nodded. "So, What're we actually going to do? We didn't bring any weapons or anything."
She smiled grimly. "Don't worry about that. If it comes to fighting, you just run like hell and hope I slow them down enough that you can find a crowd of people or something. In the meantime, just keep up that metal static you learned at your super-fab academy. I would really appreciate it if they didn't find out our hotel room number, where my grandmother lives, and junk like that."
"So, why're you bringing me along? Isn't this super-secret stuff, that we mere mortals aren't allowed to know about?"
C.C. sighed. "Can't be a newb forever, O cute little monkey-boy."
I laughed, but I wasn't too thrilled by all this...
-----------------------
The place was a fairly small building near the part of downtown newly-reclaimed from the urban decay at the center of our rotting cities. We drove by various boutiques and restaurants, but C.C.'s directions led to a free-standing two-story building that divided its ground floor between a dry-cleaner's business and a used bookstore that seemed to be called "The Purloined Letter".
California's mood darkened as we parked in the driveway behind the building. She sighed softly as I turned off the engine. "I can't feel her." She sounded wistful, not like C.C. at all. I wasn't even spared a glance as she opened the car door.
"You all right?" I asked, as I locked the doors and followed after her to the storefront.
She reached for the door, but stopped and turned back to me. "Carl, it's better to listen and be confused than to say something to cause offense accidently."
I nodded, and that seemed to satisfy her.
-----------------
Inside, the store was a fairly normal-looking bookstore, though a big dark from not enough lighting and tall bookshelves casting shadows. I paused to look at the stacks, most seemed very old and not all seemed to be in English. We quickly found the cash register, but noone was manning the desk. That didn't seem to stop C.C., though, she went through the open door nearby. The back room, I was hoping.
"Shouldn't we..."
"They're waiting for us." She said, and continued on.
There was a little lounge, with a couple of couches and stairs leading up to the next floor. C.C. had just put her foot on the bottom step, when a figure appeared in the doorway at the top. She was very thin and pale (not a surprise), wearing a loose dress printed with tiny purple flowers. Her hair was long and dark, and she wore glasses that I was reasonably sure she didn't need.
"Ah, you've arrived." Only that and then she disappeared from the doorway.
We continued up the stairs nontheless.
"I hate when they do that", C.C. sighed.
"You do it to me all the time."
C.C. snorted. "But I don't drink your blood for fun and profit."
"I suppose not..."
Then we were passing over the threshold into a living room of sorts, the walls lined with bookshelves and those filled to bursting. This room must have taken up most of the second floor of the building. A pit group dominated the middle of the room... it all seemed very comfortable and affluent. Nothing sinister here.
We stopped just inside the room, somehow the woman we had seen a moment before was across the room in a mostly-open kitchen area behind a bar.
C.C. smiled. "I am California Blake, and this is Carl Terrance. You... you're Veronica Ross?"
The woman smiled thinly in return. "Indeed. Welcome." She tilted her head toward the sofas. "And this, is Toro." At that, an immense black dog rose from where it had been resting. It took a step or two toward us, then sat as if it had been given a command. It looked to be a Doberman, with possibly some Great Dane ancestry as well. Veronica smiled again. "Won't you come back to the sanctum, California, that we might speak more privately." She looked to me. "Please, make yourself comfortable. We shan't be long. Toro will behave himself, I am certain."
C.C. brushed a hand through her strawberry-blonde locks, then stepped toward the kitchen and the door beyond. "Wasn't there supposed to be someone else? 'Tamara'?"
The other woman smirked a bit. "One never knows when she will turn up. She will be here or she will not, as the mood strikes her." She stepped to the door, and stepped inside before C.C. reached her. California passed inside as well, and the door closed behind her.
I stood there for a long moment, looking at the bear masquerading as a dog. But, all it did was sit at attention, looking at me in turn. I decided to sit, as requested... and I chose a seat as near the door as I could, and even then I just sat on the edge of the seat.
After a few minutes, the silence was broken by a low growl, which began just at the edge of my perception, but began quickly to grow. I looked quickly to the dog, which had flattened its ears back and began to show its teeth. Worse, it began to drool great gobbets of foam and to shudder violently as the volume grew. I stood quickly, but I really had no idea where I was going to go. I was on my feet for just a moment when the dog began a stream of earsplitting barks. I knew I was about to die, ripped apart by this psychopathic dog... so it may not be surprising that I thought I had lost my mind when I saw the hummingbird.
Like too many things today, this tiny hovering bird seemed to have appeared from nowhere. I had seen it blink into existence near the sliding glass door leading to what I supposed was a balcony, but it quickly moved to inspect the dog. It took me a moment to realize that the dog had stopped barking, and then another moment for the echoes in my head to fade and to notice the unnaturally-loud droning of the crimson-and-green bird.
The door flew open, with C.C. charging out, the other woman behind.
"What the f..."
"Toro! Stop..."
Both women stopped suddenly, looking toward the sliding door. I think they missed seeing the monstrous dog cowering in fear before a tiny bird it could have swallowed in one bite. I looked to the window as well, where several more hummingbirds had appeared in a riot of color.
California grinned. "Oh, she's here."
I think I caught a scowl on Veronica's face for just a moment, but she had put on her vague smile very quickly.
The hummingbird in the middle of the room joined its fellows, and all disappeared as quickly as they came. In their place stood a small woman, surely not more than five feet tall. She seemed to me Greek or something of that sort, but she was alabaster-pale and perfect. Her hair was cut short and her eyes were dark. She wore baggy jeans and a dark blue t-shirt under a leather biker jacket. That's what I saw, anyway.
C.C. seemed in awe. I certainly was. Even Veronica had no choice to look at the newcomer.
"Lady." California breathed.
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Strangely, she didn't seem interested in the other two women. The next moment, she was at my side. I could hear her inhale, to speak.
"You needn't fear this beast. I have taken the fight out of it. It will trouble you no more." She smiled, and for a few moments there was nothing else in the world but this woman and her smile.
Veronica's voice broke my reverie. "I must protest, Tamara. That dog is my guardian." She crossed quickly to us, and knelt next to Toro, who seemed to be resting placidly.
The smaller woman smiled again, with teeth this time. "You have enough protection, I think. I see your wards and barriers. Why you sought to keep me out, I do not understand." She shrugged. "And there is the man across the street, watching the building. You are employing living wizards now? His mind is well-guarded. I thought it best not to break him in case he was valuable."
"What?! Where? No... he must be a spy."
C.C. interrupted. "Ah, no... lady. He's mine. A friend. I meant no offense, but I have this thing about continuing to exist. Call if paranoia, if you like. Forgive me."
Tamara smiled indulgently, as if California were a precocious child. "I understand, Calliste. All is well."
Veronica frowned, as if to remind us that all was _not_ well with her, but she said nothing else.
C.C. seemed to be lapping up this attention, though she blinked at being called 'Calliste'. She only lost a beat, though. "Lady, will there be anyone else?"
"No, no others could attend at such short notice... none that would be able to get alone with one another." the shorter woman looked pointedly at Veronica.
The other woman refused to make eye contact with Tamara, and turned away a bit. "I am, of course, more than happy to host your little gathering, Tamara. However, I am quite busy. Could we proceed with haste?"
That garnered a scowl from California, but Tamara didn't seem to notice the hostess' displeasure.
"Very well. I have called you here to ask for your assitance once again." the small woman paused for a moment, then continued after noone moved. "As you know, the Hunter in the Darkness is no more..."
Veronica interrupted, "Ha! You _did_ eat him, then?"
"There are other ways of becoming stronger, than devouring one's enemies... or friends, for that matter." Tamara said evenly. That seemed to quieten Veronica for a moment, so Tamara continued. "Our foe may well be destroyed, but his evil will poisoned everything it touched, even from afar. The very darkness he entombed himself in is now free, possessed by the great cunning and malice of our enemy... but without the will to keep the hate in check. It is now free to kill and grow in strength."
"Why do you not simply face it down and destroy it, O great elder." Veronica chimed in snarkily.
"I may, if I must. But, I will set things in motion nontheless. My apotheosis may well make my intervention impossible. Thus, I come to you."
"Should he be hearing this?" Veronica looked at me. "Either of them?"
"Would you shut up?" California was finally acting like herself, I thought. "All you've done is complain since we've been here. I'd be happy to give you a repeat of the last time you and I were together."
Veronica took a step back, and her gaze flicked to her huge dog, snoozing at Tamara's feet, then back to C.C. "Do not dare to threaten me in my own home." I think that was mostly to save face. She nodded to Tamara, then. "My apologies. I was preserving the forms of our etiquette."
The smaller woman (who seemed even tinier next to the Doberman) smiled again, and I swear that my brain began to run out of my ears. "That world is gone, I fear. We have more important priorities, and we must seek new allies." She turned her smile on C.C. "Or renew our ties with our allies of old."
California said blissfully. "I'm in."
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It was a long drive... a loooong drive... to our next stop. Where that was, I can't really say, except that it was on the East Coast, and in the mountains. That gave C.C. and I a lot of time to talk... which is not always the best thing.
"Let's try this again... who are we going to see this time?"
"A friend. It doesn't matter that much who it is. Well, not so much my friend as someone I know. She's more the friend of the people we just met."
"So, a vampire?"
C.C. sighed, and paitienly replied, "Not really. It's... I don't know. Complex."
I nodded. "Plenty of time. We're not even to Memphis yet."
She shifted in her seat, to look at me. "Allright. Well, a few years ago... no, it's been more than a few... there was a big battle. I mean, some serious crap went down. There had been a big leadup, a lot of heavy players began to collect in one place." She smiled. "That's where we're going, by the way".
"Are these people still there? I don't think I have enough gear for a bunch of vampire lords."
She laughed. "No... it was more than vampires, but most of those things are dead now. All used up in the last battle. Pawns, rooks, knights... all pieces for the queen to use against the king."
I nodded sagely. "But, the good guys won."
She looked at me strangely, perhaps a bit sad? "Did we?" She sighed again, wistful, " I dunno.Things changed, sure. The world changed, moved on. I guess that's good."
"I guess you were fighting that 'Enemy" or whatever the hummingbird-woman was talking about? The one's whose shadow we're worried about?"
C.C. nodded. "Yeah. That's the one."
"So, the hummingbird-woman killed this uber-vampire and drank his blood?"
California shrugged. "Wasn't there. I don't think anyone saw what happened. I don't think so, though... that kind of thing... well, vampires are afraid of dying, aren't they? So, even if someone drinks all their blood, their spirit tends to hitch a ride into the other vampire's spirit. So, I don't think she would've wanted that darkness on her soul." She laughed. "Or, maybe she did, and knew a trick to banish that spirit. Who knows?"
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We stopped in a nice little town somewhere between Knoxville and Charlotte; a place that had been known in the past as a playground for the wealthy East Coast elite of the last century or two. Not so much now. Now it was just quiet, though I gathered from C.C.'s hints that a lot had gone on here below the surface in the last decade or two. Hopefully the wounds of that secret struggle had healed by now.
The house was on a little bit of land on the outskirts of town, the curvy roads and hills isolating it somewhat. We parked under a tree in the long quartz-gravel driveway. C.C. stopped me before I could open my door.
"OK. So, we're going to go talk to a friend of mine named 'Maya'. Well, I guess I can't say she's really my friend. More someone I used to know." California smiled, "And you're actually going to talk to her... at first anyway. I don't want to scare her."
I considered the house as she talked. "Funny how it's always people who know you that are afraid."
She smirked. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
I snorted. "Must make it rough to get a date."
C.C. shook her head. "Never." She shrugged. "Look, you go to the door, and I'll go around the back to make sure that there aren't any unwelcome visitors. Besides us, anyway."
"Yeah." I stepped out of the car and slipped on my suit jacket. I wished again for the comforting weight of a pistol, but in general it didn't do much good. Shooting the things C.C. tangled with usually just made them mad.
California pulled on her biker jacket, and started toward the side yard, where a flower and herb garden began at this end of the driveway. I crossed behind her, up the path to the screened-in patio.
The house's facade was painted a muted white, fairly recently. The patio was aluminum and steel mesh, but I could see that it was a bit more sturdy than one might expect. There was a screened wooden door, and a sign that read simply 'Fortunes Told'. I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. I thought I barely heard a buzzer somewhere, perhaps inside. C.C. was out of my sight-line, so I turned on our com-system and put the earbud on.
California's voice was in my ear as soon as I did. "...are you, then?" I could hear her breathing deeply but steadily, as she usually did before a fight. Dead calm, as always. "Wait... I remember. Jamie!" There was a burst of sound a moment later, heavy paws drumming the ground, and a heavy thump before the radio went dead.
"C.C.?" I asked, tapping my ear. "C.C.? Are you there?" No response from the radio.
"Who are you looking for?" That was a new voice, serene and musical. A small woman, slim and pale, stood framed in the doorway leading into the house. She smiled a bit as I started in surprise.
I managed to recover after a moment. "Sorry. I'm looking for Maya".
She nodded. "You've found her." She didn't move from her place in the doorway.
I smiled a bit nervously... still no response from C.C. "I think I need my fortune told."
The woman seemed to consider that for a moment. "So you have an appointment? I usualy do readings by appointment."
I shrugged. "How do I get an appointment."
She looked at me intently, I felt like she was looking through me. She grinned after a moment. "Oh, come in." She stepped from the doorway to unlock the patio door. Rather than wait for me to come in, the woman retreated to a table nearby. The door to the house she left open.
I entered the screened-in patio a bit reluctantly, keeping an eye on the open door. I sat across from her, though she didn't ask me to.
"So, what would you like?" she asked with another smile. She seemed young from a distance, but up-close I could see the lines at the corners of her eyes, her mouth. Her eyes were old. She was younger than I was, and older at the same time. "Tarot? Runes?" She opened the large lacquered box on the table to reveal decks of cards and other arcane things I hadn't seen before.
I smiled a bit. "Whatever is best."
She nodded and drew out some cards, and closed the box again. She held the deck for a moment, and then set them in front of me. "Touch the cards, and ask your question. Then cut the deck and pick a card without looking. That'll be you."
I did, and drew one from the new middle of the stack of cards. I handed it to her, and she put it in front of her. It was a woman on a throne with a sword and scales... reminded me of statues I had seen in D.C.
"Justice, reversed. Hmm. I'll keep it." She dealt a card on top of the first. "The High Priestess." Maya tilted her head, thinking. She put another card on the table, between us. It seemed to be an angelic figure blowing a trumpet. "Judgement... in the past. Hmm." She dealt one southeast of the middle cards. "The present." That was a woman in a field with a scepter and a starry crown . "The Empress." Maya looked up at me. "Do you have a woman problem?"
I snorted. "You might say that".
Maya nodded. "Strong women." Another card, northwest this time. "The Devil, in your future." She put another card on top of that, one with a castle struck by a lightning bolt. "Hmm." A third card. "The Wheel." She looked at me. "I swear there are other cards here besides Major Arcana."
I shrugged, and looked at the cards. "What do you see, then?"
She put a card down to the northeast. "Not finished yet. Illusion... the Moon. You think everything is so mysterious, but it's not." A card to the southwest. "But, the truth is..." This card was a man hung upside-down on a tree. "Hmm." She looked up at me again. "Do you love this woman... women? They seem to be important in your life, changing you."
I nodded. "I've been changed, for sure."
A last card went north of the others, next to the third card she dealt. A baby on a white horse under a bright sun. Maya grinned. "Well, that's good. It should all end in sweetness and light." She looked the spread over again. "So... you had changed suddenly, and your mother didn't like it? Didn't like this girl?" She motioned towards the Empress card. "You've had, or will have your world shattered because of lust or being too hidebound maybe, but things work out. You're confused about your feelings, but you'll come to a new understanding about yourself, and it all works out in the end... you'll see eveything in a new light." She looked at me. "Sound about right?"
I looked at the table again. "I'm not sure... you're the fortune teller." My polite smile fell as my eyes followed Maya's gaze to the open patio door. A heavy shadow suddenly appeared there, and heaved itself well inside to the wooden planking of the floor. I could see that it was solid... the form of a great black wolf or wolf-dog, but huge. California stood outside, now revealed. She smiled, her clothes and even her jacket in tatters.
"Hey." she said, running her hand through her hair.
Maya screamed as if the end of the world had come.
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I wasn't sure if the end was of her world or mine, at least at that point.
"Uh, C.C.... are you allright?" I asked, blinking.
"Oh yeah," she grinned. "I usually manage." She crouched over the beast, to stroke its fur. "Mostly it's my pride that's hurt. He acted like he didn't remember me."
"Maybe he did, and that's the problem." I said dubiously.
Maya had been silent during this exchange, staring at me in horror.
"What?" I asked, a bit amused. "Did I grow another head..."
Maya pointed a shaking finger over my right shoulder, when I carefully turned to look there was a burst of movement and color that moved to the center of the table, scattering the tarot cards as it landed. A hummingbird.
"Where the hell did that..."
Noone answered, both Maya and C.C. stared at the thing expectantly; though the small woman's terror seemed almost a physical thing to me. The tiny bird walked a circuit around the tabletop, then looked up at Maya once more.
"You told me you'd leave me alone, that I had earned a rest." The voice came from the woman across the table from me, but it was hardly the same as before. This speaker was weary and getting angry.
The hummingbird's response was a quavering whistle for a moment, then modulated to a smooth alto.
"And so you have, _chrysophorus_ . You have been left in peace."
Maya rose slowly from her seat. "You said that I wouldn't remember. I wasn't supposed to remember!"
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The sun was starting to set as Maya went back out to the covered porch to find C.C., who was sitting on a chair she had pulled to the open patio door to bask in the last rays of the evening.
"I still don't understand who and exactly what you are." Maya said, doing a dance with the slowly-shifting light-and-dark patches on the patio floor.
"Heh. Neither do I." California laughed, her eyes still closed while she splayed herself across the wooden chair.