The Second Summoning Read online

  Every light on the Christmas tree exploded, and as brightly colored shrapnel ricocheted off hastily erected shields, the angel on the top of the tree broke into a loud chorus of “Day Dream Believer.”

  “That,” Austin observed from under the couch, “doesn’t sound good.”

  FIVE

  “CLAIRE!”

  It was a voice that required a response regardless of circumstances. A voice that could be heard across a crowded shopping mall, that could blow past headphones, and could cut right through indifference. Had Hannibal used it on his elephants, he’d have not only made it across the Alps and conquered Rome but he’d have done it with clean dishes and folded laundry.

  Claire recognized it in spite of the Summons careening around inside her skull like roller derby on fast forward. “Mom?”

  “Uncross your eyes, dear. You don’t want your face to freeze like that.”

  After a long moment, Claire figured out just where her eyes were attached to her face, and a moment after that she got them working again as a set. Gradually, the multiple images of her mother merged and nodded approvingly.

  Worry lines pleating his forehead, Dean leaned into her line of sight. “Claire, are you okay?”

  “I…I can’t feel my fingers.”

  “Sorry.” He loosened his grip. “What happened?”

  Shaking the circulation back into her hand, she sat up. “It was a Summons. Is a Summons.”

  “Do Summonses usually…?” His gesture took in the fine patina of broken glass that covered the carpet three feet out from the Christmas tree creating a perfect reproduction of “The Last Supper” with the Teletubbies replacing four of the Apostles.

  “No.”

  “Thought not.”

  Tinky Winky appeared to be arguing with St. James.

  Gripping Claire’s chin between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, Martha turned her daughter’s face up into the light. “Your pupils are dilated, and your pulse is racing.”

  “Mom, I’m fine. The Summons has blown off its stored energy and is settling down to same old same old. Give me a minute or two and I’ll have totally recovered.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Straightening, she folded her arms and frowned. “What were you thinking? How could you have trapped a Summons in a privacy barrier!”

  “How could she?” John repeated thoughtfully before his elder daughter could muster a defense. “That’s a good question. It shouldn’t have been possible, not even for Claire.”

  Martha turned to face her husband, brows lifting as she reconsidered all the implications. “Do you think the resolution of the situation with Dean has actually added to her power?”

  “It’s possible. I’d like to run some tests.”

  “But it could have just been the timing. I doubt that she deliberately tapped into the sexual energies.”

  “True, and an accidental surge would be harder to reproduce under measurable conditions, but…”

  “Excuse me?”

  Both Cousins turned.

  Claire was on her feet, arms folded. “No one is running any tests.”

  “But…”

  “No, Dad; I have a Summons to answer. And I only knocked it aside because it felt like Diana.”

  All heads turned.

  Diana pulled a candy cane out of her mouth and shrugged. “I don’t know what she’s talking about. I had better things to do last night than…wait a minute. Santa!”

  Her father sighed. “Diana, are you suggesting that Santa was spying on Claire and Dean?”

  “No!” And then less emphatically. “Although there is that whole sees you when you’re sleeping, sees you when you’re awake schtick, which I strongly suspect is not entirely legal.”

  “Diana.”

  “And he does know,” she added, “if you’ve been naughty or nice. Or specifically in this case, if Claire’s been naughty or nice.”

  “Diana!”

  “Okay. Something hit my shields just as Santa showed up. I figured it for his annual distraction and flipped it…”

  “To me.” Claire nodded. It was all beginning to make sense. “When I felt your touch, I leapt to an understandable conclusion…”

  “Hey!”

  “…and trapped it in the barrier.”

  “So!” Diana bounced to her feet. “This is really my Summons.”

  “Are you feeling it now?”

  “What difference does that make? It hit me first.”

  “Perhaps…”

  “Perhaps?”

  Claire ignored her protest. “…but it hit me last and besides, from the intensity of the thing we’re practically on top of the site. I can run out, close the hole, and be home before the turkey comes out of the oven.”

  “And don’t you think highly of yourself,” Diana snorted. “You think because you can find it, you can close it. You’ve forgotten what it’s like around here.”

  “I’ve forgotten more than you know.” Claire tossed a superior smile across the room.

  Diana tossed it back.

  When the smoke cleared, Martha had her right hand clamped on Claire’s left shoulder and her left on Diana’s right. “Both of you answer it.”

  “But…”

  “No buts. While I’m willing to regard your childish behavior as an inevitable result of the amount of sugar ingested this morning, I am not willing to see it continue. You are both far too old for this.”

  “But…”

  “What did I say about buts?” She turned them toward the door. “Claire, try to make it a learning experience for your sister. Diana, try to learn something. Dean, I’m very sorry, but you’ll have to drive them. As long as you’re here, I suspect no other transportation will make itself available.”

  Trying to hide a smile, Dean murmured an agreement.

  “Austin, are you going or staying?”

  A black-and-white head poked out from under the front of the couch and raked a green-gold gaze over the tableau in the doorway. “Let me see, stuffed into the cold cab of an ancient truck with tag teams of young love and sibling rivalry or lying around a warm kitchen on the off chance that someone will take pity on a starving cat and give him a piece of turkey. Gee, tough choice.”

  “You’re not starving,” Claire told him, rolling her eyes.

  “I’m not stupid either. Have a nice time.”

  “Diana, stop shoving.”

  “Oh, yeah, like you care. You’re practically on his lap. Moving that stick shift ought to be interesting.”

  Thankful that he’d taken the time to back in—reverse would have approached contributing to the delinquency of a minor—Dean slid the truck into gear, eased forward, and jerked to a stop at the end of the driveway.

  A lime-green hatchback roared past, the driver’s gaze turned toward the Hansens’ house, whites showing all around the edges of his eyes.

  Diana waved jauntily.

  “Diana!” Claire reached into the possibilities just in time to keep the small car from going into the ditch as it disappeared around a curve on two wheels. “You know how nervous Mr. Odbeck is, why did you do that?”

  “Couldn’t resist.”

  “Try harder. We need to go left, Dean.”

  “I don’t know about nervous,” Dean observed as he pulled out, “but he was driving way too fast for the road condition, and he wasn’t watching where he was going.”

  “That’s because Diana keeps things interesting around here.”

  “Interesting how?”

  “Strange lights, weird noises, walking trees, geothermal explosions.”

  “Hey, that geothermal thing only happened once,” Diana protested. “And I took care of it almost immediately.”

  Almost. Dean considered that as he brought the truck up to the speed limit and had a pretty fair idea of why Mr. Odbeck was so nervous. “Is that what you meant when you told Claire she’s forgotten what it’s like around here?”

  “It’s not he
r,” Claire told him, “it’s the area.”

  “He asked me.”

  “Sorry. Turn right at that crossroads up ahead.”

  “The area?” he prompted, gearing down for the turn and trying unsuccessfully not to think about the warm thigh he couldn’t avoid rubbing.

  “Is he blushing? Ow!” Diana rubbed her side and shifted until she was up as tight against the passenger side door as she could go. “Mom’s right, you’re too skinny. That elbow’s like a…a…”

  “Hockey stick?”

  “The area,” Claire said pointedly—Dean realized a little too late that was not a blank he should have helped fill—“is covered by a really thin bit of barrier.”

  “The fabric of reality is T-shirt material where it should be rubberized canvas. Your mother told me that back in Kingston,” he added when the silence insisted he continue. “She told me that’s why they’re here, her and your father, because stuff seeps.”

  Diana snickered as she exhaled on the window and began drawing a pattern in the condensation. “Jeez, Claire, and I thought your explanations were lame.”

  “At least I haven’t turned the McConnells’ fence posts into giant candy canes.”

  “Oops.” She erased the pattern with her sleeve and reached into the possibilities.

  Claire squinted into the rearview mirror. “Now they’re dancing.”

  “It’s not my fault! It’s Christmas. There’s so much peace and joy around it’s messing everything up!” This time when she reached, she twisted. “There, those are fence posts.”

  “Definitively,” Claire agreed. “You do know you’ve anchored them in the barysphere?”

  “At least they’re not dancing.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Why don’t you finish telling Dean why closing this site may not be a piece of fruitcake. Not literally fruitcake,” she amended, catching sight of Dean’s profile. “Although fruitcakes have punched holes through to the dark side in the past.”

  “You’re not helping,” Dean pointed out, and turned left following Claire’s silent direction. “There’s a hole in the T-shirt fabric…”

  “…and because the fabric’s so thin you can’t just pinch the edges together nor will it take anything but the most delicate of patches. It can be tricky, but it’s nothing I can’t deal with.”

  Driving left-handed, he caught Claire’s fingers and brought them to his lips. “I never doubted you for a moment.”

  She smiled and rubbed her cheek against the shoulder of his jacket. “And why’s that?”

  “I’ve seen you in action.”

  “Oh, barf.” When two pairs of narrowed eyes glanced her way, Diana shrugged. “Austin’s not here. Someone had to say it.”

  “True enough.” Claire straightened as Dean murmured an agreement. “Stop there, at the gray brick house.”

  As Dean brought the truck to a stop, Diana squinted at the mailbox through a sudden swirl of snow. “Giorno.”

  “You know them?”

  “I go to school with a Lena Giorno. She’s a year behind me, though. I’ve never been to her house.”

  Seat belt unfastened, Claire turned slowly on the seat, feeling the summons pulling at her. “Well, you’re about to.”

  “Mr. Giorno, hi, Merry Christmas. I’m Diana, a friend of Lena’s, and this is my sister Claire.”

  Even standing out of the line of fire, Claire could feel the charm Diana was throwing at the glowering man in the doorway. The air between them practically sparkled, but it didn’t seem to be having much effect—the glower never changed, and he remained standing squarely in the doorway as though defending the house against all comers.

  “Francis! We can’t afford to heat the whole world! Close the door!” Mrs. Giorno’s shout carried with it the distinct odor of burned turkey.

  “Don’t you start!” He turned his head just far enough to bellow his response back over his shoulder. “I’ll close it when I’m good and ready to close it! Lena,” he said, facing the porch again, “is not going out. Maybe when she’s thirty, I’ll let her out, but not until. You kids shut up in there!”

  The background shrieking changed pitch.

  A little worried about all the head swiveling, Diana cranked it up a notch. “We didn’t want Lena to come out, Mr. Giorno. We were kind of hoping we could come in and see her.”

  “I don’t…”

  “Please.”

  His expression changed so quickly it looked as though his cheeks had melted. “Of course you can come in. Girls like you should not be left standing on the porch unwanted. You’re good, nice girls. Good girls. My Lena’s a good girl.” He sniffed lugubriously and rubbed the palm of one hand over his eyes. “You come in.” The now damp hand gestured expansively as he moved out of the way. “You come in, you talk to my girl, and you find out why she should break her father’s heart. Come.” He squeezed Diana’s shoulder as she passed and beckoned to Claire. “Come.”

  It looked as though a bomb had gone off in the living room and the debris field had spread through the rest of the house. That it was Christmas Day in a house with three children, two teenagers, a cat, and a pair of neurotic gerbils might have been explanation enough another time, but this time, neither day nor demographic came close to explaining the level of chaos. The Christmas tree was on its side, half the lights still on, the cat—wearing a smug smile and a half-eaten candy cane stuck to its fur—curled up in the broken branches. Nonfunctioning toys and run-down batteries were scattered throughout, two AAs had been hammered into the drywall of the hall as though someone at the end of their rope had tried every battery in the economy-sized package and these were the last two and they still didn’t work. The gas molecule racing around turned out to be the five-year-old with a stripe shaved down the center of his head.

  “Lena’s downstairs in her room,” her father told them, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and blowing his nose on the bit that wasn’t covered in melted marshmallow Santa. “Go. Talk to her.”

  Diana glanced at Claire from the corner of her eye. When Claire nodded, she smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Giorno.”

  “No, thank you.”

  As they started down the stairs, he turned away, hand over his face and shoulders shaking.

  “I didn’t mean to make him cry,” Diana murmured, as the two Keepers picked a careful path down through the mess.

  “You didn’t. The energy seeping from the site is warping the possibilities. Can’t you feel the fine patina of darkness?”

  “Yeah, but I figured it was smoke from the turkey. Or maybe the Christmas tree—it seems to be smoldering in spots.” As they stepped down onto the painted concrete floor, she looked expectantly toward her sister. “Well?”

  There were two bedrooms and a bathroom to their right. Laundry room, furnace room, and wine-making equipment to their left.

  Following the Summons, Claire turned right.

  The door to the front bedroom was shut. Claire knocked.

  “Go away! I hate you!”

  “Wow.” Diana took half a step back. “She really does hate us.”

  “What do you expect? She’s in there with the site. You try,” Claire suggested when her second knock brought no response at all.

  “Lena? It’s me, Diana. From the decorating committee, remember?” She jiggled the knob. The door was locked. “Let me in.”

  “No!”

  It was one of the most definitive “no’s” Diana had ever heard, and she’d heard her fair share. “You sure it’s in there?”

  Claire nodded.

  “Then it’ll take more than a cheap lock to keep us out.” Diana reached into the possibilities. The door came off in her hand. “Okay.” She staggered back under its weight. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

  “You never do,” Claire sighed, “but that’s not important now. Look.”

  “Oh, man, I knew she was into angels, but this is just too much.”

  “Not that. Look down.”

  The hole h
ad opened just off the corner of Lena’s bed; a dark, ugly, metaphysical blemish on the pale pink carpet.

  Lena lifted a blotchy face from her pillow and glared out into the basement. “Put that door back! I am not coming out! I don’t care what my father says!”

  “Look, Lena, you don’t have to come out. We’re not here to…” Realizing a little late that she wasn’t going to get into the room while holding the door, Diana leaned it against the opposite wall and stepped over the threshold. “We’re here for you.” Skirting the hole, she circled around to the far side of the bed and sat down. “We want to help.”

  “You can’t help me.”

  As she turned her head toward Diana, Claire came into the room, knelt by the hole, and used her fingertip to brush a symbol against the nap of the carpet.

  “No one can help me,” Lena continued, rubbing her nose on the back of her hand. “My father took my angel away!”

  Wondering how she could tell there was an angel missing given the number remaining in the room, Diana patted her shoulder in a comforting sort of a way. “Well, you’ve got more…”

  “No! He was a real angel. He came out of the light last night when I lit my candle! And I don’t care if you believe me.”

  “I believe you. Did your father happen to hit this angel?” Claire asked in such a matter-of-fact tone that Diana swiveled around on the bed to stare at her.

  “Yes. He just barged in like he does, all mad, and when he saw him, he like totally lost it and he hit him and took him away, and I am never speaking to him again.”

  “Where did your father take the angel, Lena?”

  “To the priest! I so totally hate him!”

  “The priest or your father?”

  “Both of them!”

  “Diana.” Bending, Claire traced another symbol, then hurriedly erased it as a bit of the carpet melted. “I think Lena would feel better if she got some sleep.”

  “No! I don’t want to…”

  Diana adjusted Lena’s head on the pillow, then turned back to her sister. “Are you suggesting that Lena actually got visited by a real angel?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. You heard her: a Bystander can’t lie to a Keeper.”