One Bounce Away from Crazy, page 9
The aforementioned red-head crouched down next to the big canine and buried her face in his fur. He went very still as if he understood she was fragile. A moment later, Elvo laid his head on top of hers.
“He’s nothing like those beasts,” the woman said, her voice muffled by an abundance of fur. “I don’t care what anybody says.”
I blinked. I’d been joking, but it sounded as if she’d taken me seriously. “Is he one of those things?” I asked Justice.
“Not completely. He’s got some Hellhound in him, but it’s mixed with a big shaggy dog from here. The kind that’s good at tracking.”
“Here?”
“Terro,” he responded, frowning at me. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”
“Yep. So, what you’re telling me is that Elvo is a Hellhound-Great Pyrenees mix?”
“He is. He has all the protective fierceness of the hound, with the gentleness and tracking expertise of the other.” Justice sighed. “If I can’t talk you out of this, we need to get going.” Glancing at Kimmie, his expression softened.
Jealousy’s poison nipped me, and I had to look away.
“You’ll be fine?” Justice asked, his phrasing foreign.
She hesitated only a beat and then nodded, extracting herself from Elvo and standing. “We’ll be fine, Guide Justice. Take care and return to us whole and healthy.”
He inclined his head, then reached a hand toward me. “Let’s go, Rae. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
I frowned, taking his hand. “Of course I don’t. I’m the newbie here.”
To my surprise, my Guide laughed and shook his head. Then the world went flat and rolled us into darkness, and the next thing I knew, my feet were slamming down in an odd and unimpressive place.
As I pulled my wits back around me, a gust of wind flared around us, bringing with it a whirlwind of leaves and debris to settle around our feet.
I was proud of myself that I was able to shake off the bounce so quickly. I was even prouder that I’d engaged it without any effort at all. I said as much to Justice and he shook his head.
“You didn’t engage that bounce. When a traveler needs to visit the Bureau, the guide has the ability to shift him or her there.” He gave me a rueful smile. “It’s the only time most of us have that power.”
“Oh.” I nodded, hoping my embarrassment didn’t show on my face. “So…” I pointed to the mound of dirt in front of us. “Please don’t tell me that’s the Bureau.”
His gaze followed mine. “Why not?”
“Because it’s so…Hobbit-like.”
His blank stare told me he didn’t get the reference.
“Lord of the Rings?”
He shook his head.
I rolled my eyes. “You and I are having a movie night as soon as we fix this current mess.”
My statement had been said in fun, but the look on his face suddenly made me want to take it back.
“I’d like that,” Justice said, his gaze like molten lava against my skin.
I dragged my gaze away from his and shook it off. “This isn’t the Bureau, is it?”
“Yes and no,” he said. “The Travel Bureau has offices in the three main dimensions. This is the Aere office.”
A gust of wind swept past, nearly shoving me down with its power.
“As you can feel, this dimension has a lot of wind gusts, some of which are enough to topple buildings and trees. The third time the Travel Bureau had to rebuild, they decided it made more sense to go underground. You must have seen similar structures on Terro. I know I have.”
“Below ground houses. Yeah. But somehow, I thought the Travel Bureau would be cooler. More…” I struggled with the word.
“Magical?”
Yes. That was perfect. I nodded.
Justice sighed. “Never judge a book by its cover,” he said, smiling. “Come. We need to get started so we can get back to Kimmie.”
Watching him stride purposely toward the small, round-topped door in the middle of the mound of dirt in front of us, I frowned. Despite my insistence on coming, his resistance to having me visit the Bureau weighed on me. I hoped I wasn’t making a mistake by pushing the issue.
Then I shoved the worry aside. Mistake or no, I was there. Might as well face it head on. I started after Justice.
As I stepped onto a concrete rise, Justice reached out and turned the knob on the strange door. I realized it was every bit as small as it had seemed from a distance. He pushed the door open, lowered his head, and stepped inside. After only a moment’s hesitation, I stepped in after him.
To say that I immediately regretted my decision, would be an understatement of gargantuan proportions.
13
Special Delivery
The creature looked like King Kong. Sort of. He was much hairier than the famed giant gorilla, and had saber teeth. He also had claws like a lion and… “Are those boobs?”
Justice threw me a disgusted look and moved into the oversized room, which looked much like an office on Earth, complete with rows and rows of cubicles. A few of the rows around the gorilla thing were little more than kindling at that point. As I watched, he…she?... picked up a chair and threw it at a small man with a bad comb-over, who was much faster and more agile than I would have expected looking at him.
He dove for cover behind a short wall that separated the bigger room from a hallway. The hallway was filled with people, for lack of a better word, who were smashed together and cowering back from the giant, angry critter.
The gorilla-thing roared, showing shiny rows of smaller but equally deadly-looking teeth between its saber fangs. She picked up another chair and threw it at the hall, causing a general commotion and much screaming as well as the potential for somebody to get trampled.
Deciding I’d better help Justice stop the thing, I pulled my filet knife, grimacing at the skinny blade. My gaze skimmed back to the monster and I cringed. I was going to die.
The little man with the comb-over threw up his hands and started speaking in chittering chirps, with the occasional grunt and a lot of body language which shouldn’t be allowed in polite society.
I hadn’t known that other dimensions twerked.
Huh.
The creature stilled for a moment, her small round eyes locked on the man. She answered with similar sounds and movements and, for a moment, I thought we might be able to end the faceoff without violence.
But a long string of shrieks coming from the hallway spurred the gorilla-thing to rage. She gave up throwing furniture and charged the hall.
I took off running, not sure what I was going to do, but knowing that a lot of people were going to die if I didn’t do something. Where the heck was Justice?
The little man started chirping and twerking again, but the gorilla wasn’t listening. She reached the hallway filled with people and grabbed the first one she could find, flinging the overweight woman over one shoulder and grabbing two others behind her.
Bodies slammed into the ground, the wall, and, one lucky guy into a desk chair.
I didn’t slow or hesitate, mostly because I was afraid if I thought about what I was doing I wouldn’t do it. I leaped onto the seat of a chair and pushed off, landing on the thing’s hairy back with an “Umph.”
The hair beneath my cheek was wiry and stiff, and the creature smelled like freshly mown grass. I’d have never seen that coming.
I wrapped my arms around the monster and yelled into her ear. She reared back, spun a few times really fast, and when my brains were muddled from the dizzying movement, tried to smash me into the wall.
“Get everybody out!” I screamed to the little man. He nodded and pointed toward a door off the big room. They poured out, nearly stampeding each other in the attempt to escape before the creature forgot to be worried about me and returned to being mad at them.
Another series of shrieks sent the gorilla-thing into fresh hysterics and she spun back and forth, looking for whatever was making all the noise.
I gritted my teeth and held on, but my arms were getting tired and I was pretty sure I was going to be airborne soon.
A long, shrill whistle sounded from somewhere high above our heads.
The gorilla-thing and I went still, our gazes lifting to a balcony. The gorilla-thing made a soft sound that sounded like grief, and her body drooped.
Justice was standing on the balcony, a much smaller version of the gorilla-thing perched on his hip. To my amazement, he opened his mouth and started speaking the creature’s language. She stiffened at first, one clawed fist slamming into the nearest desk in a clear sign of rage. The cheap wood of the desk shattered beneath her assault, and did a slow collapse downward, sending a computer-like device to the carpet.
Justice spoke louder and faster, his words finally seeming to have a soothing effect. The baby in his arms chirped happily, then cooed, and the mother made another sound that broke my heart. I risked speaking.
“Justice, is that her baby?”
The gorilla-thing jumped as if she’d forgotten I was still hanging down her back.
“It is.”
“You need to give it to her, right now.”
“I fully intend to give it to her, Rae. But if I don’t set some ground rules, she’ll run amok in here, destroying everything and killing everyone unfortunate enough to cross her path.”
I thought about that for a moment and then nodded. “Okay, but let’s finish the negotiations quickly, she’s tensing up again.”
I’d noted the creature’s growing tension as we’d been speaking. I tried to soothe her with a pat on the shoulder, but that only made her growl.
Message received. I’d do no more monster soothing. In fact, I really needed to come up with an escape plan for after Justice released the baby to her. There’d be nothing between me and certain death once she had her baby again.
The negotiations continued. Finally, the creature stiffened again, huge fists threatening the distant guide, and then she inclined her massive head.
“Rae,” Justice said in a soft voice. “As soon as she’s distracted, slide down and run.”
“Got it,” I said, my heart pounding hard enough to splinter my ribs.
Justice and the mother turned together and walked to the end of the building, where a narrow staircase had been built into the wall. The gorilla-thing stopped at the bottom of the staircase and growled softly as Justice moved to the topmost step.
“She doesn’t seem very docile,” I said in soft warning.
“She’s far from it,” he agreed. “Somebody took her baby, thinking it had been abandoned, and she’s out for blood. I’m amazed she’s listened to me for this long.”
“What’s the plan?” I asked, my gaze locked on the critter I was clutching.
“You’ll see in a minute,” he advised. “But you’re not going to like it.” He barked something to the mother and she growled again. Fortunately, though, she moved away from the stairs and toward a circular spot on the floor. The slightly raised spot was made of something that looked like stainless steel, shimmering under the bright office lights with a pale, silver light.
“What is that?” I asked, eyeing it worriedly.
Justice didn’t answer. He watched carefully, slowly descending the steps as the creature put one big foot onto the metal platform.
When she stopped, he barked another command at her. She growled louder, her big body stiffening with anger. Without warning, she whipped an enormous hand around to her back and snatched me off.
I yelped in pain as her big paw tightened around my arm, swinging me violently above her head like a lasso. “She’s gonna launch me!” I yelled.
“Bounce!” Justice yelled, running down the steps.
Without thinking, I did. The world fell away for a beat and reappeared with me standing at the balcony railing where Justice had been minutes earlier. I swayed on my feet, the quick movement, along with the monster’s rough treatment, taking their toll.
Which was why, for a beat, I thought I was seeing things when Justice grabbed the baby around the middle and whipped it skyward.
“No!” I screamed in horror. I couldn’t believe my eyes as the baby gorilla flew high into the air, its little limbs flailing the air, and mama roared her disapproval. She took another step backward as the baby started its downward trajectory and lifted her arms to catch him.
The baby slammed into his mother’s arms, his little face alight with glee, and mama pulled him protectively against her body. Almost immediately, she lifted a feral gaze toward Justice, the hard glint in her dark, round eyes all the warning he would get.
But Justice was ready. “Now!” he screamed, though I had no idea who he was yelling instructions to.
The gorilla started to move, her lips open in a snarl.
She never got the chance to take that first step. The air around the steel platform thickened and she was sucked back to the middle of it. Her eyes went wide, but the baby was clinging to her fur, bouncing up and down as if he were on the best playground in the world. He chittered happily as his mother wound her long arms protectively around him.
And then there was a giant sucking sound, followed by a yelp and a blur.
And they were gone.
I stared at the empty space for a beat, watching the air above the platform return to normal. My gaze slowly slid upward, to the perfect hole in the ceiling, and the metal cover sliding back over it.
Then I snapped Justice a glare. “Please tell me that baby is all right.”
He trotted down the remainder of the steps, saluting the small man with the comb-over as he re-entered the room. “Good job, Anil.”
The small man nodded and clapped his hands. The others sifted slowly back into the room, eyeing the destruction with grim faces.
“Justice!” I said, a warning in my voice.
“They’re both fine.” He gave me a patient look. “They’ve simply been returned to the wind-swept deserts of Aere where they came from.”
I sighed, sagging with relief. “How did that happen, anyway? How did that monster get in here? And why did someone take her baby from her?”
“That’s a complicated story,” the little man, Anil, said. “The short of it is that Makani found the little one in the park and brought her here, believing she was abandoned.”
“And the mother?”
“Followed her child’s scent through an open door. An unfortunate mistake.” Anil smiled widely. “But all is well now.” He walked over and clapped Justice on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you, my friend. It’s been too long.”
“Busy, busy,” Justice said, looking slightly guilty.
Anil laughed good-naturedly. “Right. Well. What brings you back to us? A problem, I assume, since I rarely see you otherwise?”
“Um. Yeah. Do you think we might speak outside?” He slid a meaningful look around the quickly filling room.
“Of course,” Anil said after a short, speculative pause. He indicated the door we’d entered through. “After you.”
The wind had picked up some since we’d gone inside. Debris swirled around us, grabbing my hair and flinging it to and fro. I shoved at the tangled mess and hoped we could find a more sheltered spot to chat.
“Let’s sit in the gazebo,” Anil said, as if reading my mind. “I think Rae will be more comfortable there.” His sly smile brought an answering wave of embarrassment that he’d read my thoughts so easily.
“Bad hair day,” I said self-consciously.
He smiled wider, pointing to his comb-over. “Tell me about it.”
I laughed then, realizing I liked the little man. I had a soft spot for people who were willing to laugh at themselves.
“You did well in there, by the way,” Anil told me. He stood back and waited for me to enter the pretty little green and gold gazebo under the trees, then stepped in behind me.
I laughed again. “All I did was cling to the thing like a tick. Not very impressive.”
“On the contrary. There were limited options since we didn’t want to go for a lethal solution. You distracted her long enough for Justice and I to get in place. You kept your head in a difficult situation. I can see why Mira picked you.”
I frowned, opening my mouth to ask about that, but Justice cut me off. His warning glance told me to shut it and let him do the talking. Apparently the subject was a sensitive one.
“I’ve brought Rae to Aere for training. She needs a basic understanding of the predominant dimensions we’ll be working in.” He grinned. “I’ll count today’s adventure as a training exercise.”
“Good,” I said. “At least it will be useful for something.”
He shook his head. “I thought, since we were here, I’d petition someone to help on a little side issue.”
“What kind of side issue?” Anil asked.
Justice winced. “It’s my fault, really. I asked Kimmie to be part of a training exercise on Igne. We intercepted a band of Hellhounds.”
Anil winced. “Nasty buggers.”
“They certainly are,” Justice agreed. “Long story short. Kimmie was hurt. And I was down. Rae managed to get Kimmie free from the hounds, but Kimmie had to bounce both of us back to Terro. As you can imagine, that was taxing. Especially since she’d already bounced several times in quick succession.”
Anil nodded. “I’m sure she’s exhausted.”
“She is. She could bounce if she needed to, but I’m afraid of what that would do to her. I left her with Elvo for protection, but I was wondering if we could dispatch Doug to fetch her? I know he’s currently on a rest, but this would be minimally taxing for him and I’d feel better getting her home, where she’ll be safe.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned her safety. Leaving Elvo with her had been the first I’d considered that she needed protection. I made a mental note to ask him what he was afraid of.
“I’ll contact him and ask if that’s something he’s willing to do. I’m sure he’ll help out. Kimmie is one of his favorites.”
Justice nodded. “As she is with everyone.”
I snorted a little, drawing a warning look from Justice. I didn’t think she was all that great myself.
