He looked down, and stepped back again so that my hand fell away. “Just make sure she’s there. I want it to end tonight.”
One way or the other. He left that part unspoken, but it was alive on the scented air.
Throat tight, I nodded shortly. “I’ll look for you.”
My “Realtor” cleared her throat behind us. I shot him one last uncertain smile, before I headed back into the house and out the front door with Chandra. Once there, I took a deep breath of the crisp morning air. Despite the world threatening to crash in around me, it almost felt like a fresh start.
23
It occurred to me as Chandra and I strode to my car that whatever corner we’d been about to turn in our acrimonious relationship was about to experience a monumental roadblock. I don’t know how long she’d been standing on that patio, but the strained silence told me she’d seen and heard more than enough, and Warren would undoubtedly make up for her astounded silence once he heard of it.
“How’d you find me?” I asked, as my engine ignited in a sweet, low purr. There was no other car on the street, and I knew she hadn’t walked to Paradise Palms from the sanctuary, so I wasn’t surprised when she answered darkly, “Gregor dropped me off. He knew where you were, and Warren has decided he wants us paired up again. The doppelgänger created another portal this morning.”
“I know.” The vibrational percussions had had my Porsche shaking on its wheels as I drove to Brynn’s. It wasn’t as long and percussive as her last entry into this reality, though, which meant it had only been a nongentle reminder-and warning-for me. One day to go.
“You know I have to-” Chandra broke off, then took a deep breath before continuing. “We have to tell Warren about this. What you’ve done. What you’ve shared with that…mortal.”
Ignoring that I was driving down I-15 at ninety miles an hour, I squared in my seat on Chandra. “That mortal is my life. He’s everything to me. He’s all I want, all I care about, all I need. And if any of you ask me to give him up, you can shove the third sign of the Zodiac up your collective asses.”
“If Warren wants you to give him up, he won’t ask.”
I knew that. Warren would kill the President himself if he thought it best for the troop.
“Turn off on Blue Diamond,” she said, a few minutes later. “We have to scout a location for Kimber’s metamorphosis tomorrow.”
I did so silently, whipping onto a road so straight and long and narrow it eventually disappeared into the desert. We’d already scouted at least a half-dozen locations, but the senior troop members weren’t going to settle for a spot that might be compromised. Riddick and Jewell were older than the quarter-century mark when they’d taken up their star signs, so not counting my flawed transition into the troop, it’d been almost two years since an initiate had metamorphosed, and nobody had forgotten the carnage that’d ensued when the Shadows had learned of that location. Tekla’s heir, caught in the paralyzing moments of receiving his powers, had lost his life. I didn’t think that night would ever stop fucking with her.
“We can’t leave the city limits,” I reminded Chandra as I watched the buildings fall behind us, the streets dropping away until there was only the one.
“We can’t enter another city,” she corrected, which was what I meant, “and we’ll be turning off well before we reach Pahrump…not that it counts as a city.”
She wasn’t simply being rude…this time. There had to be a large enough population to warrant a proper troop, and Pahrump wasn’t there yet. Soon, though. People had been pouring into Vegas for almost two decades now, annually making it the fastest growing city in the nation, and Pahrump was getting a lot of the spillover.
We drove forty miles into what looked like nowhere, flat expanses of desert flanking both sides of the two-lane road with stubbled brush and crippled cacti jutting from the earth like a marine’s botched crew cut. I was surprised when Chandra had me slow for no apparent reason, and totally astonished to find a badly paved road veering ninety degrees south, even farther out into a very literal no-man’s-land. However, I wasn’t surprised to hear the telltale bluster of Soulfly’s “Corrosion Creeps” emanating from my phone, though I only gave it a cursory glance before setting it aside, smiling.
“Aren’t you going to get that?”
“Not yet.”
We drove for another five miles, the paved road giving way to gravel before a giant pole appeared out of nowhere, stretching into the desert sky like it was flagging us down. It was only as we got closer that I realized it wasn’t just a pole; it had an unshielded light affixed to its apex. A beacon, then.
I pulled into a lot cleared of all natural brush and stone, still so taken by the sight of the pole, I would’ve plummeted over the cliff in front of us if Chandra hadn’t jerked sharply on the steering wheel, causing us to swerve.
“Watch it, will you?” She closed her eyes, hands fisted on her lap as I pulled the car to a halt. “Just because I can survive a thirty-foot fall doesn’t mean I want to.”
“Well, shit,” I said, climbing from the car so I could peer over the cliff. “I didn’t know it was here.”
“Not many people do,” she replied, coming around to stand next to me. “Which makes it perfect for our purposes.”
It was a small arroyo, proof water had once run through this area; probably around the same time greenery had flourished and giant creatures had yet to become extinct. “What is it?”
“Cathedral Canyon,” Chandra answered, heading back toward the light pole, and motioning for me to follow. “Nature made it, and man improved it…or one man did, anyway.”
She went on to point out a sign welcoming visitors to the tiny canyon, a wooden box next to it soliciting donations, and a rickety staircase leading into the crevasse, with a platform situated at the halfway point, directly in front of a giant sculpture of Jesus. We continued all the way to the bottom under his watchful eye, and that’s when I saw the pottery and statues situated in surprising little clearings, and the drawings and quotes encased in Plexiglas stands, many dedicated to a deceased relative or someone who contributed heavily to the canyon’s creation.
I glanced up to spy a rickety footbridge linking the two sides of the narrow grotto, and below it, where we were, a well-marked pathway curled along the canyon’s base. A waterfall, currently off, was tucked at one end, and a bathroom was hidden in a natural alcove at the midway point. Most important, however, were the dozens of tiny stained glass windows fitted into the natural outcroppings, glinting impressively even in the full day’s light. Chandra explained at night the colorful windows exploded with light, thus giving the cherished little canyon its name. Classical music would pump from hidden speakers, and water would again fall where it once had. Somebody loved this little place dearly.
“It’s open air,” I said, pointing out the obvious. Metamorphosis from initiate into star sign always took place in a secured indoor environment; the more elements the troop could control during the process, the better. “Unless there’s an underground aspect to this canyon you’re not telling me about.”
“No, this is it.” She turned around herself, the choppy layers of her hair striping her face in the slight breeze. She shook them away. “And the closed environment didn’t serve us very well before. Warren thought we’d try something new. Something the Shadows would never suspect.”
And a place of worship and respect and peace dropped into a crevasse in the middle of the Mojave would pretty much do it.
Soulfly’s groove metal sprung from my pocket again, Chandra looked at me, and this time I answered it.
“Give it back.”