“I’m continuing to monitor the situation, but I’ve yet to figure out how it’s related to our cases. I think it’s just a matter of coincidence.”
“I suppose that’s possible. What information did you get from the police today? Something tangible toward our case?”
“It might be. They found a gas station receipt, and the address connected to the account is located in Rose Hill. Coupled with the information I had regarding Travellers in that area, I thought it best to return and do a more thorough investigation. It’s entirely possible that they are using that town as a temporary base of operations.”
“I suppose. Where was the latest victim killed—Yreka? Isn’t that in California?”
“Yes, but it’s close enough to Rose Hill—about two hours’ drive—that it makes those leads viable.” Peter’s jaw tightened again when he thought of the murder scene he’d recently examined. According to the mortal police records he had covertly accessed, the woman had been in her late eighties. That someone could kill an elderly woman was bad enough, but the thought that it was a Traveller who had killed her enraged him. He might not have any ties to his family, or for that matter any Travellers, but that didn’t mean he would turn a blind eye to their crimes. For too long the Travellers had been a world unto themselves, outside the laws of the mortal and immortal worlds. It was time they be brought into the present. It was time they were held accountable for their way of life. “Those bastards stole her life away, Dalton. They just stole it, and left her corpse with nothing.”
“They? More than one?” A note of interest crept into Dalton’s voice. “Are you—” The sound of another explosive sneeze filled Peter’s ear. “Pardon—are you certain it wasn’t a solo Traveller?”
“Two men were caught on the security camera outside her apartment.”
“Is it possible for more than one Traveller to steal time? I was under the impression that the thefts were always conducted by one individual.”
“It’s possible,” Peter said with grim finality.
“I really must request some of the L’au-dela’s records on your people. I feel a sad lack of knowledge about them, and since you are now certain that it is, in fact, a Traveller—or Travellers—who is responsible for this outbreak of deaths along the West Coast, then it would behoove me to familiarize myself with the abilities of such people.”
“They’re thieves, pure and simple.”
“Time thieves, yes. That much I know.” Even through the distraction of pain and the electronic buffer caused by the Bluetooth device, Peter could hear the amusement in Dalton’s voice. “How is it that you’re sure the two men were Travellers? Did you recognize them?”
“No. The security camera was located at an intersection half a block away, and only caught a brief, blurred glimpse of their profiles, and longer shots of the backs of their heads.”
“But you know they’re Travellers?”
There was a moment of silence before Peter spoke one word. “Yes.”
“Ah.”
Neither of the two men said more. There was much unspoken speculation, however.
“I believe you told me some time ago that your grandmother was a savant,” Dalton finally said, breaking the silence. “At the time, I thought you meant she suffered from a form of autism, but that is not what you meant, was it?”
“Is this important, Dalton?” Peter asked, aware that the ever-present sense of annoyance was now quite evident in his voice, but unable to keep it from tainting his words. “I’m in the car right now, and you know how hard it is for me to concentrate when the damned Bluetooth is giving me a migraine.”
“It is often the littlest things that have the biggest impact,” his boss said in his usual understated manner, which, until that moment, Peter had thought of as being an asset to Dalton’s position. Now it just ruffled his mental feathers, if there was such a thing. “And I’m sorry that you’re still having trouble with mobile phones. Did you speak with the healer I recommended?”
“Yes. He wanted to run tests to see why Travellers can’t be around certain types of machinery without either destroying them or burning out their own brains with migraines. I don’t have time for that. I have a job to do.”
A minivan pulled up behind him. Sunil’s light stopped wandering up and down the edge of the pullout, and zipped back to the car. He had to admit that Sunil was very considerate when it came to mortals, ensuring his presence went unnoticed by them.
“That was a most exciting experience, Peter-ji!” Sunil announced as he settled back into the car seat, his little light quivering with pleasure. “The falls were excellent, and highly deadly, as the sign warned. Did you know that many people have fallen to their tragic deaths right upon this spot? You should take the time to see it. I am sure that you would be appreciating just how magnificently deadly a sight it is.”
Peter didn’t follow that train of thought, but knew better than to ask for an explanation.
“Mmhmm.” Dalton didn’t sound the least bit sympathetic, damn him, and Peter had a nasty suspicion that his boss wasn’t going to leave well enough alone, a suspicion that was fully justified when Dalton continued. “You know, I read a study once that discussed the hereditary traits amongst Guardians, and how savants were often found in the same family, but separated by a generation. I wonder if the same can be said for Travellers?”
Peter said nothing, but his fingers tightened on the steering wheel again.
“Shall we being on our way again?” Sunil asked. “It would be very greatly terrible if those mortal children were to peer into your expensive car and notice me sitting here. It cannot help but be most unnerving for them, and would likely cause them to have the terrifying dreams of exacting painfulness.”
“Yes, we’re leaving now,” Peter said, and suited action to word, listening to Dalton continue to speak in his earpiece.
“Guardian savants showed extraordinary abilities, and were able to do things that were beyond the means of ordinary Guardians. It holds that such abilities, were they applied to another type of being, could also be shown by those who are deemed of the savant level of proficiency.”
Peter contemplated turning on the radio to drown out his boss’s voice, but he was too much of a professional to do that.
Besides, the radio was sure to get nothing but evangelical channels and pass reports this far deep into the mountains, and the pain in his head was bad enough as it was.
“One might almost be willing to speculate that savants of all types of beings would be able to recognize their fellows without even being near to them,” Dalton commented blithely. “I wonder how one would go about verifying that?”
“I’ll be in Rose Hill before dark,” Peter said, ignoring the line of speculation altogether.
“Excellent. Call me when you get to town, and I’ll arrange to meet you and pick up the DNA.”
“All right. I want to check out the address first. It may be nothing but a red herring, but it’s worth looking at.”
“I enjoy herrings,” Sunil said, apropos of nothing. “When I was visiting my distant cousin in England, where you killed me, Rajesh gave me both herrings and kippers to eat. To be factually honest, I enjoyed the kippers more.”
Peter sighed.
“Agreed. Later, perhaps, we can discuss just how it is that you knew those two men were Travellers—”
Peter clicked a button on the Bluetooth device, hanging up the phone, and relishing the cessation of pain in his head.
“Dalton really is the limit,” he muttered under his breath.
“I am wondering, the limit of what?”
“It’s just an expression,” Peter explained.
“Ah. A colloquialism.” Sunil pronounced the last word very carefully, his pleasure at learning something new evident in his voice. “He is the limit. I am the limit. You are most respectfully the limit. Yes, I see it now. It is a very good colloquialism, is it not?”
Peter felt the weight of his sins pressing down on h
im despite the fact that Sunil was apparently happy. “Yes, it is a good expression. However, Dalton is mad if he thinks that I’m going to discuss my talents, such as they are. I haven’t spent my entire life trying to get away from the time-thief label to have a lengthy discussion about what it is to be a Traveller.”
“And yet, that is exactly what you are, is it?” Sunil said. “For if you were not a Traveller, then I would not be here, and we would not be having this grand adventure together! We really are most fortunate.”
Peter sighed again, feeling the Eeyore cloud grow a couple of sizes larger. “You are the only man I know who is happier dead than you were alive.”
“That is because my distant cousin Rajesh was a very great man, a Vaishya Vani, you understand, and did not have time for one such as me. Although it is true that he gave me a job at one of his very successful restaurants, for which I was most grateful.”
“Sunil, what did I tell you?”
“You have told me a great many things, Peter-ji, all of which I value highly.”
“One of those things was that I don’t hold with the caste system. No one in the Otherworld does. It doesn’t matter that you were born to a lower caste than your snobbish cousin who couldn’t be bothered to give his own flesh and blood a better job than dishwasher. You’re a valuable person on your own.”
“Yes, yes, you have told me this, and I am agreeing,” Sunil said quickly, his light bobbing earnestly.
“Good. See that you remember it. I don’t want to hear any more about you being unworthy of anything but the utmost respect and honor. There is no such thing as the untouchable caste anymore.”
“No, there is not, there is most certainly not, and we Dalits are most extremely grateful about this.”
Peter gave up trying to make the Indian understand the idea of self-worth. He had centuries ahead of him in which he could instill that.
The tiny ball of light buzzed around quietly in the seat as they drove.
“I am thinking that I have angered you with my reference to my death. For that, I am most entirely sorry,” Sunil said a few minutes later, his voice contrite and subdued. Peter hated the fact that the man whose death he had caused felt obligated to apologize to him.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he said brusquely. “I’m the one who was responsible.”
“It was an accident,” Sunil said, and as penance, didn’t even comment on the petting zoo sign that loomed up on the horizon. Peter knew that the animus—what mortals would describe as a cross between a soul and a spirit—desperately wanted to see the petting zoo just as he had desperately wanted to see every other point of interest that they’d come across during their stay on the West Coast. To be honest, Sunil’s joie de vivre was one of his most endearing traits, if at times somewhat wearing.
“At least you’ve been saddled with a cheerful person,” Dalton had told him when he announced three years ago that thereafter he would be accompanied by a tiny ball of light that had once been a teenage illegal alien in England. “Count your blessings. You could have been stuck with someone much less pleasant.”
And for that reason Peter pulled off at the next sign indicating the route to the petting zoo. Instantly, Sunil’s light began blinking very fast, a sign he was filled with excitement. “We are going to the zoo of petting animals?”
Peter shook his head. “We can’t stay long. And if there are others around—”
“I will stay close to the ground so that no one sees me,” Sunil promised, chattering away happily. “The sign informs us that the petting zoo has alpacas! I’ve never seen an alpaca. Do you think they will try to eat me like that buffalo who tried to do so a few weeks ago when you kindly let me visit the ranch? Its tongue was most amazing. Ah, another sign, what a happy circumstance. Perhaps it warns us that alpacas eat shiny things? ‘Please keep your children at your side. Unattended children will be given a shot of espresso and a puppy.’ What a very most amazing sign that is. I wonder what sort of puppy they are giving?”
The sun was setting behind the mountain peaks when Peter arrived back at the small town of Rose Hill. He drove slowly down the street, this time noticing the composition of the town. When he had been here earlier, he hadn’t paid much attention, intent as he was on surveillance on his family. That had all gone bust when, while Sunil was off ecstatically chasing a butterfly in the woods, he ran into that redhead with the dogs.
What a bizarre woman she was. Not at all to his taste, with her breezy, flippant way of speaking, and her attempts to pull the wool over his eyes by acting like he was the crazy one, when clearly she was playing some game with him. One that involved populating his person with annoying little balls of fur that had faces only their mothers could love.
A horrible thought struck him. What if she was one of his cousins’ wives? He was annoyed by that thought, and then he was annoyed by the fact that it annoyed him. “It doesn’t matter who she is,” he told himself as he cruised down the main street, idly noting that it contained the usual mom-and-pop businesses, ranging from country diner to a thrift shop, a grocery store, and a motel that was located in what appeared to be a small, renovated church. “She’s nothing to me. No, she’s something—she’s dangerous. She belongs to them.”
“Who is dangerous? Who belongs to someone? It is a woman in the forest you are speaking of? The popsy you said you saw?”
“Yes, the pretty woman in the woods.”
“Ah,” Sunil said, his light flickering in a manner that indicated great wisdom. “You fancy her, do you not? This is a good thing. You are without a woman, and men such as you should not be without a woman. My mother always said that women bring us much happiness.”
“I don’t fancy her, and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. She’s obviously connected with one of the family.”
Which was a pity, because he felt something inside him ease a little when he had run into her in the woods, a sense of something lightening, as if the burden he carried wasn’t quite as heavy as it had been.
“Ridiculous,” he snorted, then remembered the way she had spoken the same word. She had a lovely voice, light and bubbling like a spring. Just like her personality. He could tell she was one of those light-and-bubbly-personality people like Sunil. He disliked light and bubbly. He had no time for it. His life was one of grim responsibility and darkness.
She did amuse him, though. How long had it been since a woman had genuinely wanted to make him laugh?
“I do not laugh,” he told his reflection in the rearview mirror. It looked rather surprised, to be honest. He didn’t like that, either, and added it to his list of annoyances. “I am a man who hunts down murderers, even if they are in his own family. I have killed an innocent man, and have had his animus bound to me forever because of my sins. I have nothing to laugh about. I scoff at laughter, and light, happy women with beautiful eyes and breasts and bellies. They are as nothing to me.”
“You noticed the popsy’s eyes and breasts and belly? This is good,” Sunil said, his light nodding with the full wisdom of his twenty years. “It is the way of women that they tempt us with such things, although we must not touch unless so invited. This I have learned.”
“I wonder what she was doing with Lenore Faa’s pugs,” Peter mused, half to himself.
“I do not know the answer to that, not having seen the woman. Or the pugs.”
“She must be one of my cousins’ wives. There was no sign of a wedding ring on her finger, though. Hmm.”
“That is a highly most excellent piece of news. I consider it a sign of good fortune. You can pursue the popsy knowing that you will not be disturbing the happy home life of another.”
The honk of a horn behind them ended Peter’s musings on the pugged woman. He waved a hand at the truck behind him, obviously impatient because he had stopped in the middle of the street, and pulled over into the parking lot of the church motel. It bore the same address that the Californian police had traced from the gas receipt.
“Right,” he told Sunil, pocketing his cell phone, and making sure his gun was tucked into its holster. “Enough mulling over women who thrust pugs on people, and time to focus on the job at hand. You stay in the car until I’ve seen the lie of the land.”
“I am certain that I could be of much help to you,” Sunil said hopefully. “Should you need the assistance of one such as me, that is.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to refuse the offer of help, but he just didn’t have the heart to do so.
“You can come with me, but you have to stay out of sight, and not speak until I tell you it’s safe. Do you understand?”
“Most accurately do I understand!” Sunil bounced happily up and down in the seat until Peter held open the pocket of his jeans. The light flitted over to it and inserted itself, leaving Peter with a slight tingling sensation on his hip bone.
He exited the car, quickly scanning the immediate surroundings. It looked as innocent as could be. The building had clearly seen better days, bearing the usual small-town church shape—steeple up front, a couple of (mildewed) stone steps, and a few pieces of somewhat dismal stained glass visible on either side of double doors from which paint peeled in long, dingy strips.
A sign that alerted potential customers to the joyous possibilities of vacancies lay on the ground, half-covered by a round bush covered in yellow flowers. Peter walked carefully up the slippery steps, and pushed open one of the doors, blinking a couple of times as his eyes accustomed themselves to the sudden gloomy interior.
“Silence now, Sunil.”
“I will be the most silent you have ever heard,” came the muffled reply from his hip.
In the distance, he heard the faint sound of a buzzer. The interior of the church—now motel—had been divided up into a main passage down what was once the center aisle that led to the altar, with rooms opening off it on either side. At the far end of the passage, an archway opened into a dark, dismal space, above which an equally dark balcony had been added. Peter was about to explore the former when the sound of quick footsteps had him pausing midway down the aisle.