The Summoning (Custodes Noctis) (7 page)

“
Your body is broken. You need to heal. Then come to me.”

The presence was gone, and suddenly the light flowed easily into Rob. Galen guided it through his brother’s body, gently repairing what the two-story fall had done. He could see the spots where the dark tendrils of the thing were beginning to get a foothold in his brother, hiding in the scars left by previous encounters with Darkness. When Galen finally pulled his hands away, dark spots were dancing at the edge of his vision. He walked to the table and sat down, putting his head in his hands. 

Dera gently nipped at his hand.
“How bad is it?”

“Not good, worse than I thought, although I’ve fixed the physical problems. At least as well as I could. He’s going to need time to heal correctly. I am half-tempted to call Mike and get something.” Mike Silva was a close friend and emergency room doctor that had come to their aid on more than one occasion.

“I think you should just call him,” Flash said, pulling out his phone. “Drug him so he can’t go flying out windows.”

“If I thought it would make a difference, I would.” Galen sighed. The strength of the summons could probably override anything they tried.

“You don’t even think it’s worth a shot?”

“
We must do something,”
Dor said, his deep voice worried.

“Galen?” Rob asked softly.

He looked up and smiled. “Hey, Brat.”

“What happened?” Rob tried to sit up, but collapsed back onto the couch with a groan. “And why am I in the back of the shop?”

Rob frowned. “It was calling me again, and it showed me where it was. I was walking towards it when…” He blinked. “Did you say I went out the window?”

“Yeah. Right through the glass,” Galen answered calmly, even as his hands started shaking again.

“Right through the glass?” Rob raised his eyebrows. “How much will that cost me?” he asked, the sardonic tone he used to cover emotion in his voice.

“We’ll see after I call the glass guy.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Rob blinked. “I really went out the window?”

“Yes.” Galen stood and paced to the still open door, looking out at the broken glass and blood that marked the spot where his brother had fallen. “Right out the damn window.”

“But you healed me.”

“Rob, the healing… I tried, I couldn’t at first. There was something there blocking me. It spoke to you, and you
answered it.”
The last two words snapped out of him with more anger and fear than he planned. His brother, Flash and both ravens stared at him. “You would have died if it hadn’t let go.”

“
Galen, we understand you are upset. This does not solve the problem,”
Dor said calmly.

“
It might be our best chance,”
Dor added.

“Do not encourage him!” Galen paced away again. He knew they were fighting a losing battle, and he didn’t even know what he was fighting yet.

“This is what we do,” Rob said calmly, struggling up. “I need to find out when…” His eyes suddenly unfocused and he took an unsteady step. Galen grabbed his arm and stopped him. Rob tried to pull away, seemingly unaware of his surroundings, but Galen held him in place. Galen carefully opened the bond to get a better idea of what was talking to Rob. The voice was back, the summons so strong, he almost found himself caught up in the call. His brother was answering, the words dissolving quickly into emotion.

Galen tuned out the soft conversation—or whatever it was—between Rob and the thing and tried to get an idea of what was going on. It was important to know who was calling Rob and how much power it actually had. Hiding his presence as best he could, Galen delved deeper, seeking what was there. The answers that shivered up the connection terrified him. It was ancient, and its power had built over the millennia until the very land around it hummed with its existence. Galen gently tried to ease closer to the connection it had with Rob. It was a mistake.

It was aware of him.

Galen felt his brother’s panic and desperately tried to pull away, but it was too late. The owner of the voice lashed out at him, reaching him through the connection with Rob. Pain exploded behind his eyes—darkness engulfed him—a darkness smelling of heat, the fires that lurked under the mantle of the earth. In the midst of the smoke and flame surrounding him, the voice was chiding him for trying to find it and stop it. Pain became agony, searing along his skin. The last thing he heard was Rob’s voice, in his head and in his ears, begging for his life.

“Let me try,” Galen said, focusing the healing and sending it through his body. Whatever had happened was serious. He floated there for a moment, drawing on the light. The creature, whatever it had been, had stripped him bare. “I’m… I’m mostly okay,” he said, opening his eyes. He was on the floor, Rob and Flash were kneeling beside him.

“It knew you were there,” Rob said, sitting back on his heels.

“Yes.” Galen pushed himself up and leaned against the couch. He laid a hand on his brother’s arm to get a sense of what was going on with Rob. The echo of the thing was still there, a black shadow, hard as stone. The soft buzz of the muted bond was completely gone. Galen felt his heart accelerate in terror, then clamped it down as he eased the connection open.

“
Yes, this is not good,”
Dera said, hopping over to sit protectively on Galen’s leg.
“This is far worse than we have considered. It is an Ancient, and one of the Punished.”

“You do too, Brat.” Galen let Flash help him to his feet. The Ancient had drained him far more than he had let on, it took everything he had to walk to the stairs without falling. The scar in his chest where the Old One had torn free was throbbing with a new pain, and he was aware of a weakening of his Gift. Rob followed him, and the ravens swept into the apartment ahead of them, Dera landing on the back of the sofa and Dor at the table.

Galen made it to the oversize chair he preferred and dropped down, exhaustion suddenly dragging him into darkness. As he drifted away, he thought he heard his brother speaking with the ravens, the sound of a door closing and sometime later, the distinctive sound of Rob’s Jeep’s engine starting. Galen jerked awake and stumbled to the window in time to see his brother pull out of the parking lot.

Galen

It took a full second for Galen’s brain to catch up with the significance of the car pulling out of the lot. The next moment, he was racing down the stairs. Reaching the back door, he tried to open it, only to find it jammed closed. Without wasting any effort on trying to force it, he turned and ran towards the shop, only to be stopped by a pained groan from a prone body. “Flash!” Galen flipped on the light and dropped beside his friend. There was a dark bruise marring the side of Flash’s face.

“Rob came down stairs, I didn’t think anything of it, you know? He came into the shop, grabbed something then headed towards the back. I just put a hand on him to see where he was going, and pow.”

“Flash?” Galen held up his hand. “Slow down. I need a little more detail.”

His friend ran a hand through his hair, pulling loose the band that held the ponytail in place and putting it back in. “Rob came down about fifteen minutes after you went up. Huh.”

“Huh?”

“He didn’t get coffee, I should have known something was up then. I’m an idiot.” Flash shook his head and continued, “He headed over to the books, he was over there for a few minutes, going through them. I really didn’t think anything about it, you know? He does that. I should have thought about the no coffee thing, though. Why didn’t I see that?”

“Which books?” Galen headed into the shop and over to the research section. Flash trailed after him, muttering the whole time about coffee. “Which ones?”

Galen looked at the books. Both were collections of Sagas, and the missing one was in the section on geology. He stared at it for a long time, trying to remember what had been there. “I’m an idiot,” he said suddenly.

“You’d think, but this is Rob. He has too much time on his hands most of the time, and tends to over-organize. For once I’m happy about it.”

“Why?”

“This.” Galen walked over to the old library card-catalog file cabinet his brother had purchased at an auction. “He has them all cataloged here, but by section. So we find the book right before it, which is?”

“Lyell,
The Ancient Changes of the Earth.”

“Is
Volcanism and Tectonism 
by Stephen P. Reidel and Peter R. Hooper there?”

“Nope, the next book is on Krakatoa.”

“There’s no
Fire, Floods and Faults
?”

“No.”

“He took two books, then,” Galen slammed the drawer closed. “Why?” He tried to reach out along the bond, only to come up against that solid wall of shadow. He eased back before it became aware of him and lashed out. Judging by the first attack, he would be in serious danger if that happened, and they had to get to Rob.

“Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, be going after him?”

“Yes! Of course we should!” Galen snapped. “Sorry, we should, but we need to know where we’re going and what we are facing.”

Flash nodded, pulled out his phone and punched a number. “Hey, yeah. Rob’s gone. Yeah. No. Uh huh. Yep. Please. Yeah, and make mine an extra large.” He looked up at Galen. “Rhiannon’s on the way. I figured we’d need back up.”

“Thanks for asking.”

“Anytime.” Flash grinned. “So what?”

“We see what he was looking for.” Galen strode across the floor, heading towards the stairs to the apartment. As he reached the top, he heard an odd noise. “Dera!” he called. An angry croak came from down the hall. Sprinting through the living room, he discovered the door to the bathroom jammed closed, a chair wedged against the knob and the skeleton key that was always in the lock lying on the floor in the hallway. He quickly opened the door and both ravens swept out, croaking angrily, seemingly twice their usual size.

“
Where is he?”
Dor demanded.

“I don’t know. He drove out of the parking lot.”

“
I go.”
The raven dipped his head and was out the broken window before Galen could say another word.

Dera landed on his shoulder and gently butted his cheek.
“Are you injured?”

“No.” He walked to the table where Rob had been sitting. There were still books open on the table, paper marking various spots. Galen bent closer to one page, then glanced at another. “Do you think he was trying to leave us clues?”

“
How?”

“I don’t know. When I healed him, it was there, so maybe he was trying to leave us breadcrumbs?”

“
I like that idea, and it is something he might do. Can you read this?”
Dera drifted gracefully onto one of the books.

“Not really, although Rob did say that this one,” Galen tapped the book in front of him, “was a translation of the one you’re on. Not a good translation.”