I Married the Third Horseman (Paranormal Romance and Divorce) (18 page)

When I got up, both Ma and Pa Kettle were
watching me from the next island over. They were obviously
wondering if they should call for the nice young men with the clean
white coats for me.

“You okay, Missy?” Pa asked.

“I’m fine now,” I said, keeping it light as I
got back in my car. “Just a mild attack of agoraphobia, that’s all.
See you ‘round.”

Four more hours on the winding loops of
highway. The landscape got rougher, the mountains got higher, and
the air got drier. Dry enough that my old habit, thinking of
sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen, nagged me throughout the entire
afternoon’s drive. But I didn’t have any on me, and after Pueblo, I
didn’t dare stop again.

The sun began to sink in the west as I turned
off the freeway north of Taos and bumped along a country road
pockmarked with hubcap-swallowing potholes. The GPS flashed ‘You
have arrived at your destination’ as I pulled up to a pair of
weather-beaten wooden posts. One had been sawed off at waist level.
Atop it sat a jumbo-sized residential mailbox, complete with a
thumb-sized door hinge and a badly corroded padlock.

The other post held a collection of signs.
From top to bottom they read:

TRONDHEIM (~7,579 KM)

OSAKA (~9,905 KM)

ATHENS (~10,251 KM)

THEBES (~10,700 KM)

NINEVEH (~11,307 KM)

JERUSALEM (~11,418 KM)

HEAVEN – OLYMPUS – ASGARD (followed by an
upward-pointing arrow.)

HADES – ASST. UNDERWORLDS (followed by a
downward-pointing arrow.)

Finally, at the bottom, a longer note written
with impeccable printing:

TRESPASSERS

WILL BE TURNED TO STONE,

PULVERIZED INTO GRAVEL,

AND USED AS CHEAP FILLER

TO PAVE MY DRIVEWAY!

In spite of myself, I grinned at that part.
Nice.

The ‘driveway’ was more of a beaten path
among the tall grass. I winced as I followed its trail up, up, and
further up into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, cutting long
switchbacks along the slope until it disappeared into dark,
brooding copses of pine trees.

A cold wind gusted past me as I contemplated
the way. Then a stray cloud flitted over the sun, throwing
everything into shadow. This felt foreboding. This felt like
THE
END
.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said to myself.
“Maybe we’re at the final reel, that’s all. Get hold of yourself,
‘Dancer of the Sun’!”

So I did what every person does at the start
of a long journey: I put one foot onto the path. Followed it with
the other. Step-one, step-two, and so on,
ad infinitum
. In
no time, I’d crested the first rise and looked back down on the
bright silver shape of my car.

That whole ‘the end’ thing did chill me,
though. I’d never envisioned my life as a damned adventure serial.
Tune in again next week, to find out how Cassie, our plucky
heroine, escapes the marriage trap this week!

This was going to end. One way or another,
this evening would close everything out, for good or ill.

I knew it in my bones.

Supposedly, the rugged peaks of the mountain
range I now trudged through were called the
Sangre de
Cristo
, or ‘Blood of Christ.’

Sangre de Cristo, my fanny.

More like Sangre de
Freezo
.

The stiff breeze I’d felt about a thousand
feet lower down the mountain redoubled its effort now. It ripped
the heat from my body like a cosmetologist at a salon, tugging back
a layer of warm wax. And even though there was no hair removal
involved, it still felt like it carved its signature into my flesh
with a multitude of little knives.

I did my best to ignore it. Head down,
keeping my pace up, until I reached the first gnarled, twisted
thickets of scrub pine. Soon, the thickets grew taller and denser,
shielding me from some of the awful wind. My teeth began to
chatter. I mean, I spotted pockets of snow snuggled up to the
trees,
that’s
how cold it was.

Freeze Frame.

Look, I need you to cut me a little slack
here.

The profiles I’ve seen on the
Audience-O-Meters (or whatever the suits from marketing call it
these days), say that people like a certain kind of
protagonist:

One who takes action to handle their
situation.

(Okay, check, I got that.)

One who they can relate to.

(I
think
I have that one down. Not
many people out there marrying supernatural creatures, I know. But
at least a few must’ve gone out with a
creep/stalker/crazy-ex-from-hell before. So I’ll score myself a
gimmie on that one.)

Ah, and here’s the kicker: One who is
sympathetic
.

Therapy buddy, nobody is going to keep
following this story if I lose their sympathy. And the quickest way
I can think of for doing that is if you hang out, watching Poor
Little Miss Blonde Woman whine her way up the mountain for the next
hour. So, let’s just hit the
FAST-FORWARD
button
on this thing.

Okay?

There goes Cassie, shooting up the mountain
in wonderful 4X fast-forward. Watch…as she takes the hairpin turns
of the switchbacks at breakneck speed! Marvel…as she fights with
the tangles of her long blonde hair getting blown into her eyes and
mouth! And then follow along as she shuffles at the quick-step up
and down the last roll of the land, emerging from the pine forest
to see…

…
and, let’s switch back to
PLAY now.

From the woods at my back, a pack of coyotes
set up a chorus of yips and howls, as if celebrating my arrival.
But I ignored them as I stepped out onto a wide, open plateau. A
bare, gravel-strewn expanse the size of a football field stretched
ahead of me, up to a gentle rise covered with a strange collection
of trees.

Those trees grew more and more curious as I
crossed the gravel and drew closer. There were some pine trees,
yes, but interspersed with those were trees I thought liked warmer
temperatures. Cypress, oak, and…it even looked like a couple
fruit-bearing olive trees had been thrown into the mix.

Beneath these trees, the grounds had been as
carefully manicured as the pages of a New Age magazine’s spread on
the latest ‘rustic’ day spa. Roughly hewn tables, lawn chairs with
plush cushions, and a Santa-Fe style fire pit and hearth. And thank
you, whoever watched over semi-frozen film directors, because I
also spotted a cozy little cabin.

The building looked like it had been hewn
from trees cut down from when dinosaurs still roamed the world.
Green and purple lichen splotched the walls, verdant vines trailed
along the roof. A round door of the kind that Bilbo Baggins
would’ve recognized punctuated the side of the building.

That door opened, and a young woman with an
olive complexion and a tight coil of shiny black hair stepped out
onto the wooden porch. She wore jeans like mine, a blue cotton
blouse, and a dun-colored deerskin jacket.

“Hello, Cassandra,” the woman said, kindly.
“I’m Dora Pahnn, and I’m truly glad that you made it this far.
Especially since I couldn’t use my column to guide you
anymore.”

I blinked. I suppose that I shouldn’t have
been surprised, given all the whacked-out crap that I’d been seeing
as of late. But somewhere deep inside, I supposed that I’d been
expecting something…I don’t know, something
more
.

The way that the Sphinx, Circe, and Gabriel
had spoken of her – with something between reverence and awe – I
was expecting someone who lived in a temple done up with Greek
columns. Someone who wore a skin cap with antlers on their head and
shot lightning from their fingers, or something. Not someone who
could’ve graced the cover of the Italian edition of
Better Homes
and Gardens
.

But at the present, the only thing that came
out of my mouth was a request.

“Do you have…anything warm…to drink?” I
asked, between the
clackity-clackity
spasms of my teeth
chattering.

She gasped, as if just becoming aware of my
shivering, bedraggled appearance. Dora reached inside the door and
brought out a garishly colored Navajo blanket. In no time, she’d
swept me up in it and then coaxed me over to the nearly empty fire
pit. She sat me at one of the split-log benches and then pulled a
pair of stones the size and shape of plum tomatoes from her
pocket.

Dora knelt by the pit, knocked the stones
together, and tossed them onto the remaining pile of half-charred
wood.

With a
whoosh
, flames leaped out and
blossomed into a deliciously warm fire. I tried to keep from doing
more than bugging my eyes out. Neat trick, that. The
Sharper
Image
catalog would’ve paid a pretty penny for a pair of those
rocks.

“Wait right here,” she instructed me. I
nodded, focused on thawing out before anything I valued on my body
suffered freezer burn, until she returned and handed me a small,
steaming mug of something that smelled like a rich, dark tea.

“Oh, thank you,” I said, carefully slurping a
tiny bit. The tastes of cinnamon, cloves, and alcohol rode herd on
the tea flavors as everything went down in a nice, comfy waterfall
of warmth.

“Go ahead, get as much of it down as you can.
It won’t burn you. It’s a special blend of mine. Black tea mixed
with spices, ancient restorative herbs, and a dash of Bailey’s
Irish Cream. Makes it go down smoother, I’ve found.”

“Mmm…” I said appreciatively, as I finished
the mug in a trio of gulps. Already, I felt a little firmer on my
feet. “You and Circe ought to set up shop. You’d put the energy
drink guys out of business in months.”

“Cee Cee can do anything that she puts her
mind to. And I want to hear more about how my favorite old-school
sorceress is doing. After we settle what brought you here. Gabriel
has kept me posted about your marital troubles. He says that you
also managed to bring the ritual by which your union can at last be
dissolved.”

“Yes, I have it,” I said, feeling the
reassuring weight in my jacket pocket. “You know them, then? The
Thantos brothers?”

“I suppose you could say that they are long
acquaintances of mine, yes,” she intoned. She was quiet for a
moment, and I got the distinct impression that she was surveying
me. Luckily, I also got the impression that she approved of what
she saw. “I take it that you want to annul your marriage to Mitchel
Thantos? Finally, permanently, irrevocably? Because there’s no
going back.”

I nodded firmly.

“Then come with me,” she said, getting to her
feet. “We have little time before he arrives, and we have a lot to
do.”

“May I have the scroll container, please?”
Dora asked, holding out one delicate, olive-skinned hand.

I put the blanket aside, and then fished the
cylinder out from my jacket. She took the object from me and
studied the complex patterns of beaten silver. Her dark eyes shone
in memory and recognition. She nodded to herself, as if she’d come
to a conclusion.

Then she dropped the container into the
flames of the fire pit.

I let out a sound like a squawk from an angry
bird. Before I could do something as dumb as actually reach into
the fire, she deftly blocked my move with an outstretched arm.

“It’s all right,” she said. “Bide a
moment.”

Dora bent down, grabbed a nearby branch, and
used it to nudge the now-blackened cylinder out of the flames and
onto the stones that ringed the pit. She motioned for me to pick up
the smoldering container.

“You have to be kidding,” I said wryly.

“Not at all. It shall not harm you.”

“Why don’t
you
pick it up, then?”