Chapter 8

 

The urge to flee dove from Caleb’s stomach, furiously pushing on his legs to get them moving.  Run! Get out of here!  He sees you!  Caleb’s mind shouted at him, but somehow it had drifted off into the background, dwarfed by the warm spot on his leg where Kay was touching him, telling him to be calm without a word.  Bane sniffed again, tilting his head like a bloodhound who knows his prey is nearby, hiding in the bushes.  But which bush to look in?

Caleb felt more than heard its growl as it stared through them and Caleb realized that Kay was doing it, somehow; she was hiding them.  Bane turned towards them, still hunched like a beast, when a roar from down the street turned all their heads to side.  The flapping noise of a muffler well past its prime rolled towards them, accompanied by another brief roar as a faded blue pickup rumbled towards the store and pulled into two spots diagonally a few feet behind Bane.  The engine choked to a stop and a couple of teenage girls climbed from the passenger’s side doors, two boys mimicking their move on the other side of the rusted four-door monster.

The girls looked at each other and smiled, suddenly bursting into a laugh at some unseen joke, but abruptly stopped as they noticed the murderous glare driven at them form the pale-skinned Bane.  They gave each other a look, communicating silently as young girls do and walked around the front of the car.  One of the girls met one of the boys at the hood, immediately crushing together in a kiss better reserved for something more private than a Las Vegas parking lot at early dawn while the other pair sauntered into the store.

Bane continued glaring until the couple broke the kiss, the boy looking at him with drunken bravado, “Stop staring you perv!”

Bane’s eyes narrowed dangerously.  He inhaled deeply, his massive chest swelling before he snorted a half-laugh and turned away, flicking one last glance at the alleyway as he stalked down the street and away from them.

They waited a long time before Kay’s eyes finally dimmed and Caleb saw the shadows slink back to the places physics normally allotted for them.  She turned to him and stared at him curiously for a moment.  “How did you know?”

Caleb shrugged, almost embarrassed to talk about it.  “I just…did.  I started hallucinating…I think…and saw him attack you.  When I snapped out of it, I just knew he was right there…hunting us.”

“Has this ever happened before?”

Caleb hesitated, looking at the wall and trying to decide if he should be straight with her.  She was probably more than a little tired of saving him from monsters and teaching him like he was a child. 

“How many times?” she asked, seeing the truth in his hesitation.

“Three…if you count just now.”

“And have they all been accurate like that?”

It dawned on Caleb for the first time that they had.  Granted, he never saw the wannabe rockstar with Tiffany bleeding on the ground, but he had sure wanted to put him there.  “More or less, yeah.  I mean…not exactly, but…close enough.”

“Pfft…figures.  She was right.”

Caleb’s face crunched up in confusion, “Who wa…”

“I’m not so mad that she’s right most of the time—I mean, it is her thing—but does she have to be right all of the time?”  Kay asked, looking at Caleb like he wasn’t completely ignorant to who or what she meant.  He was going to open his mouth and sputter something decidedly unintelligent but her tirade went on, “I mean…it might help if she was wrong on occasion…or at least not so completely gorgeous and ageless and…and…skinny.”

“Kay?  Who are you talking about?”

Kay sighed and turned away from him, walking into the street and past the lip-locked teenagers who had decided the hood of the truck was as good a place as any to continue their assault on each other’s mouths.  “C’mon.  I’ll take you to her.”

The teenagers jumped and cursed, surprised anyone had been there.  “Take me to who?”  Caleb asked, ignoring the glare from the drunken pair as he walked by them.

“Ell.”

“Who is Ell?”

Kay checked to be sure nobody was within earshot before speaking.  “A wizard.”

Caleb stopped walking as she continued on and just stood there a moment, staring dumbly before shaking his head and muttering, “A wizard…why not?”

******************

 

They found Kay’s car a few blocks away—a little black economy thing meant to be cute and get good gas mileage—and made their way towards the strip.  For a moment, Caleb had been afraid they were headed to the Excalibur Casino—and was dreading the inevitable way it would make his brain hurt that a wizard worked there—but they drove past it and eventually came to a building the size of a small department store.  White brick walls covered in ivy the color of moss sat in the ruddy glow of the rising desert sun, contrasting the black asphalt parking lot and red stepping stones that wound through mottled gravel around the building’s base.  Flowing Celtic script made of some sort of electric blue marble marked the place as the “Avalon Wedding Chapel.”

They stepped from the car into the cryptic silence of the moments before dawn.  Cars passing on a nearby highway sounded like gasping that rose and fell as they moved towards black iron gates at the end of the red stepping stone pathway.  Beyond, Caleb could see a small courtyard with trees and a stone fountain that trickled water from a dozen carvings that looked like various types of faeries holding pots and bowls.

“A wizard lives here?” he asked skeptically, glancing sidelong at Kay.

“What did you expect?  A big tower with a moat?  Maybe some blonde princess with her hair hanging from an upper window?”

“I don’t know…something a bit less…shady?”

“Ell’s a bit of a romantic at times.”

“Romantic?  A Vegas wedding chapel?”  Caleb looked more than skeptical.

“Her idea of love and romance is a bit more open than most.  This place suits her, trust me.”

They moved to the gate and Kay pressed her finger to a little pewter square that had been painted gold.  A small white button was under a large round speaker.  A buzzing sound could be heard.  A few moments later, a voice crackled from the small speaker, “I’m sorry we don’t open for another 2 hours.  If you’d like to make an appointment feel free to call and leave a message or go to our website.”

“Ell, it’s Kay.  I brought a friend.”

Rather than a buzz, a melodic strum of a harp sounded and the gates clicked.  Kay pushed them open and led him inside.  The courtyard was even more elaborately decorated than he realized with waterfalls, fountains and a few ivy-covered archways that seemed to serve no purpose but to have wedding pictures taken under.  It was like every bad ‘perfect wedding’ cliché had been somehow brought here to die.  Or perhaps, Caleb thought, this was the place that had given them all life; a breeding ground of lace, doves, silk, something borrowed and something blue.

They walked through the marriage funhouse and came into a building that looked smaller from the outside than it seemed now that they approached it.  The double doors were swung wide, the lazy desert breeze whisking into it as they entered, flipping white curtains in a long, dark marble hallway.  Podiums in the shape of Roman columns and painted white sat at hip level bearing various types of ivies and flowers in glass bowls that served as pots.  Between each column were yawning black mouths of hallways that led off to the right and left.  The entryway stretched away into what looked like some sort of sitting room at the far end, and Caleb could see an enormous rug under a couch and a divan.  The wall in that room was nothing but glass covered in drifting white linen that made the growing sunlight white as it filtered into the room and down the hall, reflecting in a rectangle off the marble floor and making the objects at the end of the hall into black shapes without detail.

“Down here!” a soft voice called from the other end of the hall, and Caleb and Kay walked to the end of the entryway where a woman emerged from the right side, arms open wide and a smile gracing her face.

“Kay!” she said in a way that lingered between motherly, friendly and almost seductive as she moved for a hug.  She wore a long, white summer dress that reached to her ankles, the top embroidered with pale flowers and leaves, the bottom extending behind her in a short train.  She was tall—nearly as tall as Caleb—and had long, lithe limbs and the figure of a thirteen year old girl that still managed to seem perfectly adult—as if she had fully matured into adolescence.  Everything about her was fine and delicate; her nose a slight slope that upturned at the end; thin, pleasing lips; a gracefully long and lean neck; skin that was pale and smooth and seemed like it would melt under his touch and yet had never been cut.  Even her eyes held an effortless combination of delicacy and power—like industrial strength ceramic.  But it was her hair that caught him off guard.  Green like the color of jade, it verily shone in the hazy white light coming in through the curtained windows as it trailed long and with the slightest wave down her back.

She released Kay from a hug that seemed better suited for a more intimate friendship than what was echoed in Kay’s eyes.  “I’m so glad you came by,” her voice had that lilting tone that was comforting and calming, yet somehow woke you up; caused your eyes and ears to perk up and take notice of things.  “I don’t have a single appointment today.  Please tell me you can stay and waste the whole thing with me!” 

Caleb marveled at how excited she seemed.  Her eyes were wide open and a generally joyful smile spilled across her cheeks, bending them up into little balls that seemed to glow.  She bit her lip and took on the almost comical look of a little girl who was asking if grandpa would bounce her on his knee, but without losing that air that grown men and women take on to convince others that they are, indeed, adults.

“Well…I might.  First I want you to meet my friend, Caleb.” Kay responded, a genuine smile on her face, even if it didn’t match the innocent and complete joy on Ell’s.

The green-haired woman turned towards Caleb and her smile drifted away into a gasp that made her mouth oval out and her eyes go wide.  “He’s…and you,” she said, glancing back to Kay, then to Caleb again, “and then…and he’s…”  All semblances of words crumbled into a short squeal that became a giggle before she threw her arms around Caleb’s neck and hugged him, swaying back and forth.  Caleb stood in shock as he watched Kay’s mouth twist to contain her laughter.

Ell pulled out of the hug, her hands slipping down to grasp his shoulders and squeeze, “Ooh and he’s a strong one, very fit and lean—just how you like them.”  She beamed cheerily as she examined Caleb.

“Ell!” Kay protested and it was Caleb’s turn to smirk.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m just so excited.  I told you this would happen.”  The strange woman said, eyeing Caleb up and down in a way that made him honestly wonder if he blush or smirk.  He settled on a little of both. 

“I know, Ell…”

“And as usual, you didn’t believe me.  But these things happen.  It is how you found me, after all.”

“I know, Ell…”

“Anyways, tsk tsk on me.  I’m being rude.” She said, going from overexcited little girl to regal woman in a heartbeat as she nodded her head gracefully in a sort of half-bow.  “Greetings Caleb, I am Ellyahna.”

Caleb just stood there a bit dumbfounded by the last few moments and this girl who was not a girl.  He reached a hand out to shake hers, “Uhh, greetings.  I’m…well you know my name.” He shook her tiny hand and smiled warmly.

“Would you like something to drink or eat?  I just cut some fruit up for breakfast.  I can always cut a little more up while you two have some coffee.”

Caleb hadn’t realized how hungry he was until she mentioned food.  He nodded eagerly, “Coffee and food would be fantastic.”

She led them over to a little bar on one side of the sitting room and walked behind its polished surface, grabbing two earthenware cups and setting them down, pouring the steaming black salve to his all-nighter before turning again and grabbing some fruit from a bowl and a knife.  Then she spoke as she chopped, her back to him.

“So…how long have you been able to see the future?”