I Married the Third Horseman (Paranormal Romance and Divorce) (13 page)

A television screen had been duct-taped into
submission at the edge of the checkout counter. I’d come out in
time for the local news report. Apparently, a ‘freak sandstorm’ had
blown through the southwest corner of the state, knocking out power
to St. Christopher’s and causing a fire at a local eatery.

Some quick clips of the
Pork n’
Flapjack’s
gutted remains. An even quicker clip of the
interview with the local fire chief. The man scratched his head,
his puzzlement evident as he spoke about the ‘big mystery’ as to
how so much of the structure had been consumed by the flames. Even
the ash.

A shiver ran down my arm. “Quit it,” I said
to myself, though the bored cashier perked up a bit and gave me a
strange look.

As I walked back out to my car, I sighed.
Figured that I’d need to get used to that.

I drove onward as the sun turned into an
orange ball of flame. Did my best to ignore it as it began popping
up in my rear-view mirror. Dusk fell, and after the third yawn, I
consulted the GPS again.

Not much out here. But the road arced through
the very bottom left corner of Colorado, and in the curve of that
bend was a decent-sized town – one with a brace of motels! – called
Puebla de la Guerra. Nice. Sounded quiet and out of the way, which
was just what I needed.

It was a struggle to keep from dozing off as
I drove. So I sung show tunes and dumb jingles from the commercials
I’d worked on until I pulled into the town’s main street. It was
quiet, almost completely still, but the well-maintained street
lights and lack of iron bars on the motel windows was
encouraging.

I stopped at a local mini-mart to top off my
tank again. My heart jumped as I spotted one of the daily papers
that carried Dora’s column. And while I still didn’t feel hungry, I
figured that I better have something around to snack on if my
stomach decided to stop pulling a Garbo and come back out into the
public eye.

So, armed with my suitcase and a handbag
stuffed with a package of blueberry Pop-Tarts, a rolled up
newspaper, and a pair of ancient magic items, I drove across the
street to the closest motel. The clerk barely spared a glance up
from his newspaper to take my cash.

In case you’re curious, I checked in as
Ms. Macguffin
. It’s an in-joke for people in my industry.
Trust me, it was appropriate.

I back flopped onto the motel’s bed with a
creak of well-abused springs and a puff of lemon-scented room
deodorizer. My suitcase lay tossed in one corner, the handbag in
another. Breakfast pastries on the nightstand.

Maybe, just maybe, I’d summon up the energy
for a shower and a change of clothes. Right now, the garments I
wore smelled like I’d been doing my best to get a tan by leaning
over a barbecue pit. But I had something else to do first. I tore
apart the newspaper, discarding section after section, until I
pulled out the page with Dora’s column.

I stared in disbelief.

The headline in her section cheerily informed
me of the gut-wrenching news.

Our inimitable advice columnist Dora Pahnn is
off for the week, attending to matters of cosmic importance! Until
she returns, here’s some Dear Abby!

Abso-friggin-amazing. The one friggin’ time I
needed, really, honestly, and truly needed Dora’s advice, and she
goes off on vacation.

No, not that, I realized. More like she’s
gone low-profile, underground. Those matters of cosmic importance
applied to a certain blonde from La-La Land. One who was dumb
enough to marry into a family of possessive, homicidal
immortals.

I tossed the paper off to one side. Put my
forearm up over my eyes and groaned.

I couldn’t believe it. Just as I was starting
to understand her weird new-age crap, too.

All I had left was the Sphinx’s riddle, which
I apparently sucked at figuring out as well.

What is it that looks like a door to some, a
passage to others, a message from those who seek to do evil, and
yet solves all of life’s problems?

Okay, I knew that there was a way to make a
door look like a passage. Use a forced-perspective technique. I
could make a foyer look like a damned subway tunnel if I
needed.

But I didn’t think that the answer to the
sphinx’s riddle was a simple camera trick.

How could a passage look like a message? Let
alone solve every single problem life had on offer, like some
do-it-all whatzit from a late-night infomercial?

I lowered my arm to my side. Pondered the
riddle for three, maybe four more minutes.

Then sleep came for me so suddenly, it was as
if I blacked out.

It was nice. Peaceful, for a change.

At least until I woke up.

My eyes fluttered open.

I’d heard a noise. A deep, crunching sound
from off to one side.

The room light was still on. I hadn’t reached
up to turn it off before I’d conked out. I didn’t dare turn my
head, but I swiveled my eyes as far as I could to the right. The
window lay open, and the moon had risen far into the night sky.
Maybe I’d been asleep for two, three hours.

Another sound. A growl, maybe? That was
followed by a familiar-sounding
crackle
.

It came from an opened toaster pastry
wrapper.

Someone or
something
had gotten into
my breakfast. Visions of the bat-wolf sheydu played in my head with
a chill. Another growl. A raspy chewing noise. Not a human sound,
not at all.

I slid my eyes over to the left.

Not knowing what I would see.

Not even knowing what to
pray
that I’d
see.

I slowly turned my neck to the left.
Pretended that I was doing a slow-pan with my Cinegraf camera. All
I could do was hope that the creaky springs in the motel’s cheap
mattress wouldn’t give my movement away.

A tall, muscular man dressed like a medieval
knight sat at the room’s kitchenette table, chowing down on one of
my blueberry toaster pastries. It was almost comical.

Almost.

It would have been a lot more amusing if the
knight’s armor didn’t look as if it had been dipped in a pool of
drying blood. The multitude of spikes jutting out from the knees,
elbows, and helm didn’t exactly scream ‘kid-friendly’ either.

The knight had raised the faceplate on his
helm in order to eat. I stared. As with Mitchel, the skin on the
man’s face had been pulled back. Red-irised eyeballs bulged out of
the bone-white skull.

A yard-long sword, encased in a red leather
holster – or whatever you called the holder for the damned things –
hung down by his side. The sword’s outline had been etched into his
breastplate. I watched the knight’s fingers, encased in
talon-tipped metal gloves, pick up a second Pop-Tart and slice open
the wrapper with a razor-sharp finger.

“About time you woke up, Cassie,” the
man-creature said, in a voice laced with extra bass. He raised the
pastry to his mouth. Then took a bite, chewed, swallowed it down
the hatch with relish. “Hrm. These cake things your people
make…they’re quite good. I’m beginning to understand why two of my
brothers are so enamored with humanity.”

Two?
I tamped down my surprise. More
important things to worry about now.

I sat up with a creak of the box springs. No
use even pretending I that was resting. At least I recognized who I
was dealing with. Mitchel’s oldest brother.

The personification of War.

“I wish I could say I was happy to see you as
well, Raphael,” I said honestly. “You and your family…are awfully
persistent.”

He popped the rest of the pastry in his
mouth, and then shrugged. The gesture made his face look even more
horrific, if that was at all possible.

“You humans have no idea what persistence
means, to an immortal.” Raphael stood, as he absently brushed a few
crumbs from his armor. “Let’s go. Mitchel and my brothers are on
the way.”

I stood as well, though I backed away from
him as he advanced a step. Rafael was a lot taller than I’d
remembered. The spiked tips of his helm brushed the popcorn-white
bits off the spray-on acoustic ceiling.

I didn’t know what to do. I mean, this was
the friggin’ incarnation of
War
, okay? And I wasn’t close
enough to make a grab for my handbag. Maybe if I bought some time,
I could make a run for it. Maybe.

“But…if they’re on their way, why not just
wait here?” I said offhandedly.

“I suppose we could. But I want my brothers
to see that it took a being like
me
to bring you to them.”
He gave me a chilly look. “And I heard about what happened with
Uri. You’re out of luck. Sorry. If you hadn’t been slumbering,
you’d have heard some of your hornier fellow travelers knocking
boots. This motel’s hardly holy ground.”

“Yeah, when you start booking at places that
Triple-A would give less than a single star, it can be a
stretch.”

I risked a glance out the open window. My
breath caught for a moment.

The parking lot was full of demons with the
same wolf-head as the sheydu. Only these were the size and shape of
a full-grown silverback gorilla. A gorilla that had been dipped in
scarlet spray paint and given a nail-studded club to play with. A
couple stood at attention, while others lounged about. I frowned as
I spotted one lying across the hood of my Porsche.

“Those are my
mazikkim
, the ‘demons of
harm’,” he said, with a touch of pride.

“I don’t suppose they like bacon,” I said
sourly.

“Doubtful. Now, we go.”

I swallowed, hard. Luckily, I spotted my
handbag in the corner, and decided (for a change) to take the fast
ramp onto the freeway. This being was still a man, I figured, and
by his admission was only partially aware of human traits.

It was worth a shot.

“No, we’re not leaving yet,” I shot back.
“Your brother Uri put me through hell this morning, Raphael. My
clothes smell like a wet match, I’ve got bacon grease and smoke in
my hair, and I look like I’ve been through a war zone.”

“What do I care about that, woman?”

“You may not care,” I said, pressing the
point, “but what is Mitchel going to think, if I show up looking
like I’ve been in battle?”

A look of doubt crossed War’s face. “Uh, I’m
not sure.”

“Then I’ll tell you! He’ll just smile at you
with that shit-eating grin of his. The one that he always gives to
people he privately holds in contempt. Because you actually had to
fight
to get me come to along with you!”

Raphael clenched one armored fist and brought
it down. That single blow smashed the table into kindling.

“I bet he would, too!” he growled. “Fine. I
like your spirit, woman. Go clean yourself up. One minute, and then
I take you.”

“I could use more time than that…”

“Enough!” he roared. “One minute, no more! Or
we go this instant!”

“Fine, fine,” I grumbled, in mock irritation.
Best not to push my luck.

I grabbed the handbag and shoved my way past
Raphael’s bulk. His armor gave off the smell of a burnt cast-iron
pot, but I ignored it. I went into the bathroom and slammed the
door shut behind me.

A quick glance around. The standard motel
bathroom items: shower stall with slightly moldy curtains. Eggshell
colored plastic toilet, sink, and counter. I dumped out the
handbag, clicked open the attaché case, and pulled out the compact.
I threw away the note and reached to pluck off the rubber bands
that held the clamshell sides shut.

A thought occurred to me. If I stood on the
toilet, I could peek out the narrow slot of a window above it. I
could probably open the window and wriggle through it, if I hadn’t
put on too much extra weight from the days when the calories didn’t
count. After all, it was a cinematic staple to have the hero – or
the bad guy – escape out the bathroom window, wasn’t it?

Okay, maybe it was a cliché, but I doubted
that Raphael watched a lot of films outside of
Patton
,
Black Hawk Down
, or
Platoon
. The flimsy seat wobbled
under my feet, but I carefully stood on the rim’s edges and looked
out into the night.

More war demons hung out in the back lot,
tapping their spiked clubs and looking as pleasant as a squad of
coffee-and-donut deprived cops. One even gave me a desultory wave
before I jumped back down.

I guess Rafael had seen more movies than I
gave him credit for.

A heavy blow struck the bathroom door. A
strip of wood above the knob shivered loose under the impact.

“Your time’s almost up, Cassie!” Raphael
demanded. “Get out here!”

I think I made a sound like
eep!
as I
had a flashback to an old Stanley Kubrick flick. Another moment,
and Mitchel’s brother would be chopping the door down with his
sword, sticking his beast-face through the gap, and announcing
‘Heeeere’s Johnny!’
in his best faux-Jack Nicholson.