Homeward Bound (Journeyman Book 1) (20 page)

“So do the runes around it do anything or just add to the ‘mighty’ factor?” she asked, knowing that Futhark runes generally did imbue qualities such as luck, strength, and defense to weaponry and standard seals.

“Honestly, I added those since they looked cool around it,” he confessed. “It's the entire set of runes, so I'm sure if something was working, it's probably being cancelled out by something else.”

“I knew it!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together as if she had won a bet. “I'll have to tell Joey when I see him.”

Gage raised a brow again. “Say what?”

She stuck her tongue out at him and he responded by kicking the sheets off his left leg. Their fall was delayed briefly by a gust of wind, showing a clear and lingering view of the sleeping giant before settling back over him, leaving his meaty thigh displayed in the cool light.

“Just for that you're going to have to translate this last tattoo all by yourself, darlin’.”

She propped herself up and gave the leg a good once over. Futhark runes ran horizontally in several short lines spelling out some sort of spell or phrase. The symbols were resting atop scalloped clouds shaded in the background, which flowed along the defined peaks and valleys his muscles formed. She brought a hand down to help study the runes as if they we written on a delicate scroll and the fibers involuntarily flexed under her touch.

“Now let's see,” she stated confidently. “It looks like we have a Bruce Lee fan here ladies and gentlemen. Seems to say: ‘Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.’ Am I right?”

Gage kept his mouth shut.

“Haha. Love it,” she said, leaving her hand to linger there on his quad while starting to trace its way up along the deep lines.

“Well that's enough looking for you,” he said in fun, pulling the covers up high. All of him was encased in a fluffy cocoon except for his beaming face, white teeth shining with a light all themselves.

Adrienne repositioned herself to stare directly into those emerald pools of his, caressing him on the chest and rubbing his tender nipple.

He unfurled an arm out from under the blankets and rested it next to hers.

“I know I can come across as a big badass,” he stated, half expecting another love tap from her. “Someone that can handle themselves and loves to be alone. Reality is, that's as far from the truth as you can get. Being alone… it scares me.”

In a heartbeat her hand nestled itself into his again and she looked up, unbelieving of how clear the stars managed to get out here.

“Gage,” she said back, “we've journeyed together for a while now, mostly working and placing the safety of others ahead of our own feelings. It does makes it worthwhile, doing it for those you care about… those you love. But I’m glad our feelings for each other are finally getting acknowledged and we’re acting on them. Life is a lonely road, but only until you find someone to travel with. My road, no our road, is a lot less lonely now.”

Gage hadn’t ever considered it that way, always shoving his own feelings on the back burner in the hopes of not getting them hurt.  

“Well then, I can safely say that I'm not afraid,” he declared.

“Goodie for me,” she acknowledged, again looking at his irresistible face.

He returned the glance and laughed. “Oh really now? Just for you?”

“Yup. You are very attractive, sir,” she mentioned casually.

“Damn right I’m your ‘sir.’ Ya better get used to calling me that,” he commanded. “I think I like it more than Gage now.”

She nodded. “Oh you won’t have to worry about that, sir. I’ll continue to stare; it’s kind of involuntary at this point.”

He smiled that unbelievably charming smile one more time as he lifted her hand up in front of them. “Well take a sec and look at this,” he said, keeping their hands out. “See that right there? Since taking everything from me, and I mean it all, I’ve become the best at haunting the dreams of monsters. Now I have someone to haunt them with me. Plus, if things went to hell and ended at this moment and I never got to see anything else in this fucked up crazy world, know that I have all I need in this life right here, right now.”

Her grip tightened, a single tear escaping her eye. “Yup,” she said. “Everything.”

As their hands fell back to the truck bed, they both drifted to sleep underneath the canopy of twinkling stars.

Gage coughed. “You forgot to say sir.”

ADRIENNE WAS AWAKENED BY
the morning sun dancing on her eyelids as it filtered through the canopy overhead.

Apparently, she had kicked off most of the covers during the night. Gage was notorious for being a scorching furnace and as such, holding onto him for any length of time under a massive stack of blankets would have been a death sentence, or at least a good way to lose a good bit of excess weight. Speaking of that grizzly beast, she prodded the man shaped mound of cloth beside her and discovered that he was already gone. Par for the course, she took a final stretch before tossing the sheet aside to start the day.

Leaping to the ground from the tailgate, her bare feet hopped across the craggy gravel before cuddling up to the carpet-like grass. A little too much winter blew by, forcing her to tiptoe back and reach into the truck to snatch up something to cover herself with before making her way toward the house.

When she reached the picket fence, a lone figure standing out by the pasture caught her attention. Coming around the porch line and into the back yard, she could now make out that it was Gage propped up soulfully with his elbows on the metal gate.

He was looking off into the distance, mind wrapped up in a secret thought, so she found the nearest tree and huddled against it to admire the view while making sure not to disturb him. Perhaps the sheet around her had grown a bit too effective, but it was getting ridiculously hot. It had to be the sun, now peeking over the trees to the east; that was as good an excuse as any.

Calmly he shifted in her direction, the dreamy amber glow settling across every detail from his naked, arched back down to his lower, jean enclosed curves. When their eyes finally met, they didn’t need to say a single word, yet spoke volumes.

In her heart, Adrienne knew at that moment it was going to be a great day; the most perfect day.

“Good morning dear,” he told her, his voice having a sexually charged raspiness to it. Turning fully around, he placed the small of his back against one of the metal bars and a bead of salty sweat left the center of his chest on a journey down beneath the sweet lines of intimate denim.

“Morning to you, too, mister,” she replied while gliding up to him, throwing her arms around his neck as her feet kicked back off the ground. The sheet fluttered around her like an elegant white dress as their lips met.

“Don’t think I’ll ever tire of that,” he said when they finally pulled apart.

“Good thing,” she replied, tapping a finger across the middle of his lips. “I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.”

He wrapped his stalwart arms around her, drawing her to his side as they settled back on the gate together, admiring the house in its provincial glory; so warm in the morning shine.

“I managed to get the utilities back on,” he murmured in her ear, slowly raising his voice to match his elevated mood, “but the house is in a kind of ‘low power’ mode: the lights are on, but aren’t going to get very bright and the large appliances won't be working for us at all. I’m sure we can find a way to get the coffee pot working though, if a three-year-old blend tickles your fancy. Let's see, I also got the pumps fully operational and, oh, you’re gonna love this: there’s even hot water available through the solar heaters. Thank you, Dad!”

“Oh that’s fancy,” she said earnestly, thankful that there was an opportunity for a relaxing soak in the near future. Nothing beat that feeling of hot water on the skin, especially after a long stint of road travel; it seemed no matter how long a trip lasted, it always brought the same level of muckiness along for the ride.

Yet the harsh reality of all this fanciful daydreaming about steaming baths underneath dim lights hinged on them actually being able to open the door, and when they last attempted it that was still a no go.

“That sounds fantastic, but are we any closer in figuring out how to get in?” she asked pragmatically, the ‘we’ undoubtedly meaning ‘you’ in this case.

“That happens to be what I was mulling over when you came by,” he answered. “I sent Joey a text last night with a photo of the ward, hoping he could help me figure it out.”

“And… he was able to?” she asked with a little apprehension. Even though she said there was no rush last night, the mere mention of hot water earlier made her realize just how dirty she had become.

“Yeah, thank God. Seems I had the right idea, doing all those circus acts on the porch. As entertaining as that was, I was forgetting a key part of the deal: the passphrase. J called it an ‘amalgamated ward’ or something technical like that, so it needs all the different elements to be in play correctly and at the same time for it to work.” He paused to toss a pious look her way, “Trust lil’ ol’ me to mix shit up from different cultures when I drew that out. At least the phrase isn’t a long one: same number of words as triangles within the circle.”

“Makes sense to me I guess. So… what is it?” she asked anxiously. “Please for the love of all that’s holy tell me you have the phrase figured out.”

His hands raised in defense. “No need to fret, I got this,” he reassured her while gesturing back to the building. “Wanna see?”

“By all means,” she said, not wasting any time stepping away to allow him to pass. Why did she have the sense he was procrastinating for time?

He pushed himself off and swaggered confidently by, promenading along the grassy field up toward the house. Adrienne once again fell in behind him, taking stock of his abundant assets and in no time they were back on the porch staring at the unblinking eye.

“Here goes nothing,” he said, dramatically putting his hand on the mark while looking directly at it. Clearing his throat, he spoke three words to command the door to open, “Home sweet home.”

The mandate was followed by an uncomfortable silence, punctuated with the quaint chirping of far off birds.

“Gage!” shouted Adrienne in a huff. “Seriously, come on!”

He laughed at her frustration, though the look on her face didn’t reflect the same sentiment. “Okay, okay. Sorry.”

“Fucker,” she said modestly under her breath, arms resting squarely on her hips.

This time, with a look of intensity that could swoon the most prude person on the planet, he focused all attention on the ward. The dawning day shut itself out in a darkening vignette as he pressed his right hand firmly against the wood, its surface slippery with condensation. Closing his left eye he crouched, right eye peering on while his mouth was cracked, the three words of power hanging ready from his lips.

“
Non… Omnis… Moriar…
” he uttered calmly.

With each spoken word, a low rumble coursed through the doorway, its prickly heat spilling out to bubble the siding and shake the glass in its frames. A surge of air rushed at him and he tore his hand away from the now fierce stinging; the eye that had been still all this time now blinking as if alive. Suddenly it bloomed into flame, looking around wildly while the hand symbol spread its fingers wide, catching fire too like some burning starfish. When the fingers reached their widest, near painful point, the triangles around them spun erratically before shooting off in dazzling jets of orange that outlined every window and door, surging three times before fizzling out with a subtle
crack.

The door, at last, swung open to beckon them inside.

Gage stared at the open portal, partly ready to storm inside, yet also wishing he was still trying to figure out how to get it open. Yet, as usual they had succeeded and there was no point in delaying the inevitable any longer.

“Time’s come to find out if y’all were right about this being a trap,” he said to Adrienne while stepping over the threshold. Care seemed to fall away the moment his foot came down on the other side, followed by the other.

Adrienne was soon inside herself, entering the foyer and closing the door behind her. It clicked softly, securely shut again after all the effort put forth to open it.

Gage had stopped a few paces ahead, mulling over a collection of photos that were neatly arranged across two wooden tables, one on each side of the archway leading into the large living room. The drywall behind them shot up a dozen feet, coated with once lively shades of green and tan. Equally vibrant paintings of country landscapes were distributed around the walls, their colors neutralized under a thin layer of dust; the chalky haze covered pretty much everything in sight, leaving a dullness that betrayed the place’s former glory.

From what she could make out, Gage was looking at a family photo. She looked at his smiling mom and dad dressed in their Sunday best. Shoved awkwardly between them was a scrawny kid, tall and dressed in an oversized blue dress shirt with black slacks. No more than a buck twenty, his spotty face smiled proudly through a thick set of braces. When compared with the present day version of Gage, the difference was quite staggering.