Immediately, one of the women handed her child to the woman next to her, and moved over to assist Mrs. Faa in rising. The old woman slapped at her hand before beckoning imperiously toward me. “Kiya will assist me. Piers, Arderne, you have work to do, yes?”
The two men—both dark-haired, and apparently twentysomethings—nodded.
“The women will attend to their duties, as well.”
A hurt look flashed in the woman’s dark eyes before she nodded and bowed her head, returning to claim her child before moving off to one of the RVs, the other woman herding the toddlers into another RV. The two men scattered, one grabbing a gas can and heading to a motorcycle, the other taking an ax and disappearing around behind the one standing building.
“Were those your sons and daughters?” I couldn’t help but ask as the old woman grabbed my arm and used it to pull herself to her feet with a grunt.
“I have seven sons, and fourteen grandsons, but no daughters. Vilem is my oldest son but one. Andrew, Piers, and Arderne are my grandsons. The oldest of the women is Lorna, Piers’s wife. The other is Rachel, Arderne’s bride.”
“Wow. Big family. And all boys, huh? Here, let me help you—”
She didn’t need me to hoist her up onto the step of the RV—she simply grasped my arm with one hand, and the handrail with the other, and more or less pulled herself up the steps. The dogs must have been trained well, because they stood back until she had climbed the three steps before clambering in after her. “Three of my grandsons are wed, and have eight children between them, so yes, we have a big family.”
“Are they all here?” I asked, trying to remember how many RVs there were in the circle. Five, I thought.
“No. They will join up with us in August when we journey to the Scarboro gathering. Here. I will rest on the sofa.”
She settled herself on a long butter-colored leather sofa that ran along one side of the RV. I used the time it took her to get settled with all five dogs around her to surreptitiously glance around the motor home. I may not be a connoisseur, but I recognized money when I saw it, and the interior of Mrs. Faa’s home away from home screamed affluence. The couches (two) and chairs (four, not counting the driver’s and passenger’s seats up front) were all the same rich leather. Gleaming, highly polished oak was highlighted with brass fittings, and the kitchen area toward the rear had what looked like real marble on its tiny counters. “We will rest for two hours,” Mrs. Faa said grandly, patting a pug (Jacques) with one hand while picking up a book with the other. “You may use this time to get yourself settled. You will tell Vilem to lend you the camping equipment that is stored in one of the caravans. You may also wish to go into town to purchase whatever else you need for your stay.”
I stopped eyeballing the interior of the RV and tried to look attentive and highly reliable. “Oh, like a toothbrush and such? Yeah, I suppose I should get that.”
“I will provide you with an advance on your salary since you are obliging me by staying on the mill grounds with us. Tell Vilem to put up your tent next to where you parked your car. That should provide you with the privacy you no doubt seek.”
“Sure. But what about water? And bathroom facilities?” I adopted an expression that I hoped would demonstrate just how ill equipped I was to cope without basic amenities.
“Hmm? Oh, you’ve seen the stream. It is quite clear and suitable for washing, although I would not drink from it without first obtaining a water purification kit. As for the other—Vilem will instruct one of my grandsons to dig a latrine for you. Since we have limited running water here, we have set up similar facilities so as not to strain our resources. You will no doubt wish your own facilities.”
“Yeah, that’s probably going to work out better.” I didn’t want to think too much about using any pit toilet, but at least one dedicated solely to me would be less icky than using a communal one.
“Just tell Vilem what you need, and he will see to it.”
I thought of the unpleasant William and blanched. Until that moment, I never fully understood the act of blanching, but just the idea that I’d march out and tell Mr. Anger Issues that he had to dig me a pit toilet left me with a very fine appreciation of all those Victorian heroines who blanched at the drop of a hat. “Um. He might not want to do that. He didn’t seem to like me….”
“It matters not.” She pinned me back with a look that had me straightening my back and squaring my shoulders. I wondered if Mrs. Faa had ever been a drill sergeant. “He will do as he is told. Come back to me in…It will take Vilem some time…. Four hours should be sufficient for you to go to town, do your shopping, and return here. By that time, Vilem should have your tent erected, and your facilities arranged. You will then take my darlings out for a drive. They will enjoy that. Do not let Maureen sit in the front seat, though. She gets carsick.”
I all but saluted her as I left the RV, her snappy commands sealing the impression of a drill sergeant. “Just a couple of months, and I will have enough to get Eloise fixed up properly. I can do this,” I muttered to myself as I crossed the mill yard over to the RV into which the cranky William had disappeared. I braced myself to knock, adding my foster mother’s favorite motto depicting courage: “With your shield, or on it, Kiya. Although I really hope it’s with my shield, because if it’s on it, it means I’m dead…. Oh, hi. It’s me again, the unclean one. Um. Mrs. Faa said that she’d like you to do a few things for me.” I gave him the list of his mother’s commands, and waited for the explosion.
I wasn’t in the least bit disappointed. I spent ten minutes sitting next to Eloise, waiting while William had an argument with his mom, but in the end, Mrs. Faa had her way. A few minutes after that, I was driving down the long drive toward the main road, a salary advance nestled safely in my pocket—courtesy of a snarling, obscenity-laden William—and a fervent hope that maybe things would be all right.
FOUR
Peter Moore Faa was annoyed. It was becoming a normal state of mind, given his situation in life, but nonetheless, he was annoyed that he seemed to be annoyed so much of late. He thought briefly of being annoyed over the annoyance regarding his present state—annoyed—but decided that down that path madness lay, and if he didn’t stop, he’d be caught up in some sort of endless loop that would result in his brain exploding. Or something of that ilk.
“Travellers,” he snarled to himself.
“Yes?” the stuffy-sounding voice in his ear asked in a mild tone that would have annoyed him, except he knew he’d go stark, staring insane if he added any more shades of irritation to his life. “Are you speaking of something in general about them, or just making an observation that there are Travellers near you?”
“Neither. Although they are here.”
“What is that being ahead?” Peter didn’t bother to turn to look at the source of the slightly singsong Indian voice. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had—in the bright sunlight that flooded the passenger seat, the speaker would be all but invisible. “It is another tunnel? What a lot of them this area has. I enjoyed the last one most greatly. Peter-ji, if you would be so kind as to roll down the window of your expensive car, then I might chant loudly and hear my echo again. A wondrous thing this is, yes?”
“You’ve had enough yelling in tunnels for one day,” Peter told the faintly visible blob of light that bounced excitedly in the seat next to him.
“What’s that?” the voice in his ear asked.
“Nothing. I was speaking to Sunil.”
“Sunil? Oh, the animus that was bound to you. How’s that going?”
“As can be expected.” The predominant note in Peter’s voice was resignation. He was momentarily pleased by that fact. It made a nice change from annoyance.
“Just so. Still, he’s a cheerful fellow, and bound to be good company for you. And as for the Travellers you say are in the area, I’m glad at least that my journey out to this sagebrush hell hasn’t been in vain. Have you seen them?” The voice faded out for a few seconds as Pete
r drove through a tunnel that curved around the side of a massive granite cliff, affording him a brief moment of respite from pain. Unfortunately, the Bluetooth device clipped to his dashboard indicated he was still connected with his boss. “—if they’re not here as you thought, then we might try Portland. I’ve heard a rumor, a very nebulous rumor, that a group of Travellers was seen in the suburbs.”
“You will please to give my compliments to the sahib-ji,” the quarter-sized ball of golden light said when they emerged back into the sunshine. “I am hoping that he and his family are well and happy. Look, there is a sign ahead. It is being a different color from the other signs. How very curious that is. It must be a sign of most importance. I cannot read the lettering yet, Peter-ji, but I am fully confident that it will indicate something of great desire. I await with breath most bated our arrival at the sign.”
“As do I, Sunil.” Peter flinched at the resumption of the stabbing pain in his head when the connection was restored. “Sorry, Dalton, you cut out there for a minute. If you were asking if I was sure that Travellers were here, then yes, I am. I ran into one of them in the woods while I was out discovering where they were living.”
“So it’s true, then? It is this group that you’ve been looking for?”
“Yes. Considering the abuse that was hurled at me by the man who found me checking out their camp, they aren’t happy to see me. I couldn’t make any arrests without enough proof, naturally, but we had better do so soon before they decide to cut and run again.”
“We’ll have proof soon enough, assuming you managed to acquire the DNA from the mortal police.”
“I’ve got the DNA, and yes, I’m certain it’s this family that is involved. No one else was seen near the last mortal who was killed. I’m confident that an examination of the DNA traces the mortals found around the body will be enough to identify just which person killed the victim.”
“The sign informs us that there is a falls of the great height of two hundred feet shortly to come before us,” Sunil read as the local landmark sign became readable. “Fatalities have—ah, but we are driving too fast for me to finish reading about the most impressive sight. Ahead, however, appears to be a location where we can stop and view the deadly spectacle!”
The earpiece buzzed and crackled softly in Peter’s ear as he continued to drive through the mountains, indicating that Dalton was thinking about this news. Peter damned for a thousandth time the creator of the cellular phone.
“Peter-ji, are you concentrating so hard on the sahib-ji’s conversation that you perhaps did not hear me?” Sunil asked, his light bobbing and weaving with excitement.
“I heard you. It’s probably just another waterfall,” Peter told the animus. “We’ve already stopped for three. I’d like to get to our destination before nightfall.”
“It is probable that the fine government of this country would not go to all the considerable trouble of placing a sign notifying travelers of this most impressive sight if it wasn’t a place of extreme importance and beauty,” Sunil gently chided him. “I am thinking that it would be disrespectful of us to drive past it without at least looking for an hour or two.”
Peter gave in to the censure. He didn’t want to stop at yet another waterfall, but his conscience couldn’t bear the note of sadness that would creep into Sunil’s voice if he failed to indulge the animus’s desire. He pulled over and used the master switch to lower the passenger window. Sunil bounced out of the car, his ball of light hovering briefly around a brown scenic-view sign before perching on the edge of the overlook.
The earpiece crackled again in his ear. Dalton’s voice was hesitant when he spoke. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Sorry to hear what? My conversation with Sunil? He’s driving me insane on this trip, Dalton. He insists on stopping for every single tourist trap and natural-wonder sign he sees, and there are a lot of the latter in this area. I know he’s young, and it’s all new to him, and I am responsible for his happiness after the…incident…but there has got to be a limit! I don’t know of anyone else who has a soul bound to them who hasn’t yet gone insane, and I begin to understand why!”
“How many people do you know who have an animus bound to them?” Dalton asked.
“Other than me? None. But it has to be a common phenomenon.”
“Sunil has been with you for how long now? A year? Two? How old was he when he died?”
“It’s been three years, and he was seventeen then.” Guilt swamped him at the memory of the tragic event three years past, making him feel like a living, breathing personification of Eeyore. Idly, he wondered if there was a black cloud hovering over the roof of his rental car.
“I’d have thought you would have worked out a bearable relationship by now.”
“It hasn’t been this bad before, but we’ve never been on the West Coast, and he seems to feel like we have to see every inch of it.”
“And of course, you give in and let him see whatever it is he wants to see.”
“If he wasn’t so damned nice about everything, I could tell him no once in a while. But when I do, he just gets sad, and that makes me feel like a bigger monster than I already am.”
“You’re not a monster, Peter, and I’m sure he’ll calm down in a day or two. Assuming you’re there that long. Actually, when I said I was sorry, I was referring to the Travellers.”
“Don’t be sorry on my account.” Peter gritted his teeth for a moment as his cup of annoyance ran over. With an effort, he loosened his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and continued in a bland voice. “I’ll be glad to have this killer imprisoned, where he belongs.”
“It’s your own family, man. You are allowed to be angry about that.”
“They are not my family. At least not in the way you mean. I was marked from birth as being mahrime. Biologically I may be related to them, but on every other level, they are unconnected to me.”
“Except of course for the fact that, like them, you are a Traveller,” Dalton pointed out in that same benign voice that hid so well an extremely sharp intelligence. “You know, I never did exactly understand what being mahrime entails. It means unclean, doesn’t it? I’ve seen references to non-Travellers being called mahrime, and assumed it was a way to designate outsiders.”
“Yes, although it has a second meaning when applied to one of Traveller blood, like me.”
“Ah. Banished, you mean?”
“Disowned would be a better term,” Peter said grimly, trying not to think of the years of grief his mother suffered when the love of her life cast her out with a newborn son, alone and without any resources or support. “Travellers don’t tolerate anything impure, least of all their own kind. It was fine by them that my father should impregnate a mortal woman, but when she had the audacity to suggest that the family acknowledge me, then all bets were off.”
“A harsh policy, for sure,” Dalton said, and sneezed wetly. “Still, as it’s given the Watch one of its best investigators in this hemisphere, I won’t complain.” There was a muffled sound of a nose being blown. “Can you get the DNA to me tonight? I’m heading for a small town called Clampton to follow up on a report of a rogue magician in the area, but I can meet you somewhere within a hundred-mile radius.”
“A rogue magician? Rogue in what sense?”
“Selling unauthorized favors. No, not sexual, the magic kind. The committee is concerned that he’s not reporting who purchases what from him, and I’ve been asked to see what I can find.”
“Actually—” Peter consulted a map of the area that lay on the seat next to him. “I was in that area earlier today, in a place called Rose Hill. I’m heading back that way now.”
“That’s where I’m going, as well. I will meet you tonight, then.” Dalton sneezed again, muttering obscenities under his breath before adding, “I’ve risked my health to rendezvous with you, and it may well kill me if I have to stay here much longer. If you get the sample to me this evening, I can take it to the L’au-de
la lab in Portland, and be away from this nightmare country.”
“I’ll be there in the next two hours. I found a spot we can use to rendezvous—it’s out of sight, yet close to the camp.”
“Do we need to be out of sight?”
“With several Travellers lurking about? Yes. They already know I’m here, but I’d rather not have them seeing us by chance, and one or the other of them is frequently in town.”
“Very well. Where is the location?”
Peter told him about a small clearing not far from the Faa camp. “I had to run into Blaine in order to check on some new information the mortal police uncovered, but I should be back in Rose Hill within half an hour.”
“You’re still dealing with the mortal police?”
“I am so long as they are having a spate of deaths in the vicinity of my murder victims.”
“Deaths? What deaths are these? I don’t recall you saying anything about other victims.” Dalton’s voice, although thick, was now sharp with concern.
“That’s because the other deaths aren’t connected to us. To the Otherworld, that is,” Peter explained.
“It’s an odd coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Yes. That’s why I’m keeping in touch with the mortal police. So far as I can tell, whenever a mortal’s life is stolen by this Traveller killer, an unrelated mortal suffers a suspicious death.”
“And you think the two deaths aren’t related?” Dalton was clearly skeptical.
“I thought the subsequent deaths were related at first, but the mortals all died by means other than time theft. One died in a car accident. Another choked to death. The one that happened shortly after this latest murder was stabbed in an alley behind his apartment house. None of them were killed by a member of the Otherworld.”
“You are certain of that?”
Peter made a face even though no one could see it. “I have been a member of the Watch for more than forty years. I know when a killer is not mortal.”
“Just so, just so.” Dalton’s interest in the additional murders clearly waned at that reassurance. Peter didn’t blame him. They had enough on their respective plates without taking on the woes of the mortal police, as well.