Gatefather (7 page)

That's what Stone told me to do. That's what makes
sense
.

Right, it makes sense to leave the man I love completely alone while he's going through the worst thing in his life.

But if I try to talk to him or go to him, then he'll just be worried about me and have to try to protect me, and what if he
can't
stop the Belmage from using me?

Well, so what if he does? Just because it's the Belmage doing it doesn't mean I can't still be making love with Danny. And with me, Danny won't have to do whatever he did to make his body useless to the Belmage. He can go ahead because whether the Belmage is there or not, it's what Danny and I both want to do so guess what, Belmage—we win!

Stupid, she told herself. Stupid. Danny doesn't want it that way, with an onlooker, with somebody else
riding
him like a pony. With a
monster
watching. And neither do I, because it won't really be Danny. No way does Danny have some kind of magical trick to undress women in a couple of moves, if that's what really happened. Danny's not experienced, he's not smooth, he's just a kid, and
that's
who I want to make love with, not a thousand-year-old incubus who uses up women like kleenex.

But if I just talk to him. Just tell him that I know, that I—

That's the opposite of what Stone said to do.

When did Stone become my boss?

He became my boss when I went to him and asked him for advice and he gave it to me and I realized he was
right
. What good will it do if I let the Belgod know that we've figured him out, that we know Danny's a captive? That would make me even stupider and more selfish and more disloyal than Xena and Sin and Laurette. As long as I stay away from him, Danny won't have to worry about me.

That's the circle she kept running through, around and around in her mind, and underneath it all this nagging thought: Why did the Belmage go to all three of them and try to get Danny to have sex with them but he didn't bring Danny to
me
? Can he read Danny's mind and figure out that Danny doesn't actually want me that way? Or was that gross encounter up on the hill the only try he's going to make?
That
sure wasn't smooth or experienced,
that
was just crude.

She wasn't sure where she was. She had been so lost in thought that she was probably lucky not to have wandered into traffic. Now she only knew she was on some rural road south of Buena Vista.

Not that it mattered. She could get back to the school grounds whenever she wanted.

She fingered her amulet, and then realized that using it would not only get her back to their little clearing in the woods overlooking the high school, it would also be noticed. By Danny, perhaps—though maybe he could hide his perceptions of his gates from the being who possessed him. But also by Danny's friend Veevee. The one who pretended to be his aunt. Danny had said that she could sense whenever someone used his gates. Maybe she would come to see what Pat was doing. Maybe not. But if she came, Pat could talk things through with her. Stone said that Veevee had done a lot of research into the Belmage. Maybe she would know things that could help Pat make a rational decision.

So Pat pushed her finger into the amulet.

She was relieved that none of the others were in the clearing. The last thing she wanted was their company.

She walked to the downhill side of the clearing and looked out over the school. Pat had been walking all afternoon—but not really, because school was still in session and the buses hadn't even assembled. Some poor unfortunate PE class was running the hill with Coach Lieder watching them. Soon to be a grandpa, Coach Lieder. To the child of a Gatefather who was seduced by a succubus. Your daughter.

Don't dwell on that.

“If you want to be alone I'll go away again.”

Pat turned around and gave Veevee a half-smile. “I was actually calling you. Or at least I kind of hoped you'd notice me and look into why someone was using Danny's gates.”

Veevee frowned. “They aren't Danny's gates.”

Pat had no idea what this meant. “They go where Danny made them go.”

“All very complicated,” said Veevee. “I don't think I could have made sense of any of it before I went through the Great Gate. But here's what happened. Loki—Wad—the Gate Thief—he gave his gates to Danny.”

“But Danny already took them.”

“But now they weren't stolen, they weren't imprisoned. They belonged to Danny. But you knew that. The thing is, that's how Danny learned that gates
could
be given. So when the Belmage took over Danny's body and started trying to get him to make a Great Gate, Danny
gave
all of Loki's gates back to him. And then—and this was such an act of genius—he gave all his
own
gates to Loki as well.”

“Including my private gate?”

“Everything. Stripped himself bare.”

“And he could do that? The Belmage didn't stop him?”

Veevee shrugged. “He
didn't
stop him. But maybe he didn't know what was happening until the gates were gone.”

“So the gate I went through is Loki's gate now.”

“Oh, it's more complicated than that,” said Veevee. “Because Loki took up all the gates.”

“Ate them?”

“No, no, they're his now, so he just took them up. Like gathering up your knitting and putting it in a bag. So that he was sure none of them were left for the Belmage to use, probably. He doesn't explain himself to me. All the gates I've been using disappeared, which terrified me—how long would it take me to get to Danny without gates to bring me here? I had already bought a plane ticket to get me to Roanoke when all of a sudden all my gates were back. Every one of them. Exactly where Danny had made them.”

“That was … tidy of the Gate Thief.”

“It was incredibly generous. Not at all typical of the behavior of gatemages
or
Family members. And you know whose gates he put back first? Yours. And then Danny's other high school friends'. And he only put back the ones I use last of all. Maybe because I'm a gatemage of sorts. Or maybe because he wanted to make sure he wasn't inadvertently putting back a gate Hermia might use.”

“So the Gate Thief isn't our enemy anymore.”

“He was never
your
enemy, darling,” said Veevee. “But now, I don't know. Because I think I'm seeing a lot of brightness in your outself. What are you?”

Pat was a little confused by the question.

“You went through the Great Gate like the rest of us,” said Veevee. “And now you've learned how to do some magery. What do you do?”

“Wind,” said Pat.

“Are you any good at it?”

Pat shrugged. “That's not why I called you.”

“No, you called because you're in love with Danny and you have some fantastical idea of helping him and you want to know what you might do that would be of any use.”

Pat sank to the ground. “And because you didn't come straight to that point, I'm betting that you're going to say that I can't do anything.”

“Only because it's true. Believe me, dear, if I thought anything you might do would help Danny, I'd send you off to do it even if it killed you.”

“That's rather heartless of you,” said Pat, “but—”

“It's not because I love Danny and don't give a rat's petoot about you,” said Veevee, “because Danny cares for you very much, and that means that the one thing I can do to help him is try to keep you safe. For him. In case he ever gets out of this.”

“Which you don't think he can do.”

“Well, not without dying,” said Veevee. “Or having the Belmage find somebody else who is more useful to him. But compared to the greatest gatemage who ever lived, who would
that
be?”

“Loki?” asked Pat.

“Loki is no fool,” said Veevee. “All this stuff he did with gates—he did it
from Westil
. That's quite incredible—to manipulate gates, make and unmake them, on another world—what a mage he is. But no, he'll never get anywhere near Danny while the Belmage has him.”

“So the Belmage, Set, he wouldn't want a windmage?”

“Oh, how noble of you,” said Veevee. “I'm not mocking you, it really is noble. But you're an untrained novice at this, and there are some highly trained windmages who went through the Great Gate. There are about five hundred people on Mittlegard who are likelier targets for the Belmage than you. But it doesn't matter. Even if the Belmage decides to abandon Danny, he's a spiteful bastard, and he'll probably kill Danny as he leaves.”

“What's the point?” asked Pat in despair.

“To punish him for getting rid of his gates. To the Belmage, that must seem like the ultimate perfidy. ‘I took over a gatemage, and now he has no gates? Somebody's got to pay!'”

“Danny can't go through this alone!”

“He got into it alone, didn't he?” asked Veevee. “He didn't phone you up and ask if it was a good idea for him to do the bouncing bedcovers with the coach's daughter, did he?”

Pat shook her head. “But he
did
keep the Belmage from using his body to … sleep with my friends.”

Veevee made her explain it all. Pat hated going over it again, but she made herself remember what the other girls had said.

“Oh, this is splendid,” said Veevee. “This is unprecedented. In all the cases of possession by the Belmage himself—at least the ones we're pretty sure were him—nobody was ever able to resist him to the slightest degree.”

“So Danny's doing well,” said Pat.

“And no doubt pissing off the Belmage even more.”

“Well, that goes without saying,” said Pat. “Are you saying that Danny's as good as dead?”

“I don't know,” said Veevee. “He's already done things that nobody has ever done to resist the Belmage. I'm very proud of my clever clever nephew.”

“He's not really your nephew, is he?”

“The school records say so,” said Veevee, “and they're
very
official.”

Pat sat in silence.

“Do you mind putting down that wind?” asked Veevee. “You're scaring me.”

Pat had no idea what she was talking about. Then she looked around and realized that there was a gale blowing in a circle all the way around the clearing. A wind so strong that it was bending the nearly leafless trees. It was making a kind of suction in the middle that had already raised her a few inches from the ground. Veevee was clinging to a branch.

Pat reached out and stilled the wind. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn't know I was doing that.”

“Undisciplined,” said Veevee. “Not your fault, but you really do have to keep the wind from picking up on your moods and acting them out.”

“I didn't know I was…”

Veevee was looking at her with amusement. And, it seemed, pity.

“Yes,” said Pat. “I did know. But I didn't notice. It just felt…”

“Natural,” said Veevee. “Listen, Pat. I love that boy almost as much as you do.”

“But in a different way,” said Pat.

“Don't kid yourself,” said Veevee. “All the ways of loving people overlap more than we're comfortable with admitting. Possessing, controlling, exploiting—we do those things and call them love just as we act kindly and unselfishly. And call it love.”

“But
real
love—”

“Do you really love Danny North? You've known him for only a few months. I've known him for a few years. But the people who loved him most and first—his parents—they were ready to kill him if they had to, for the good of the whole Family.”

“But it wasn't a good family, so the good of the Family wasn't
good
.”

“And which family do you have in mind, when you speak of good families?”

“Most families are mostly good,” said Pat.

“How much do you love Danny North?” Veevee asked again. “Do you love him enough to kill him?”

Pat turned away, her face flushing, because she knew exactly what Veevee meant. What if Danny's only escape from the Belmage was death? Did she love him enough to set him free from that bondage?

“I'm not saying that's what you should do,” said Veevee. “He's showing so much more freedom and control than any other possessed person I've read about. But he's still not
free
.”

“That's like asking if you should let someone in a coma starve to death,” said Pat. “If you don't know that they're never going to wake up, what right do you have to—”

“I'm not talking about killing him to set him free,” said Veevee. “Dead isn't free. Dead is dead.”

“Then why would I kill him?”

“If it looked like Set was going to be able to use Danny to make a Great Gate, and Danny couldn't stop him, then what would Danny want you do to?”

“He'd want me to do whatever was necessary to take that power away from the Belmage,” said Pat.

“Which means killing Danny, not to set him free, but to accomplish the purpose for which he went to war.”

“So you're saying that Danny was on a suicide mission,” said Pat.

“Danny was like any other soldier,” said Veevee. “He knowingly put his life on the line. More than that—he knew he was the person in the most danger in this war, because he had the power the enemy most wanted. He told me and Hermia explicitly: ‘If the Belmage ever has me, kill me before I can make a Great Gate for him.'”

Pat nodded. Danny had said pretty much the same thing to her. Not for
her
to kill him, but for
someone
to do it.

“But it's pretty hard to kill a Gatefather,” said Veevee. “He gets away too fast. So when Danny gave away all his gates, he wasn't just keeping Set from making a Great Gate. He was keeping himself from being able to get away from any attempt to kill him.”