Лори Девоти - Unbound

Kara stared after him, her resolve still strong. “And I know there’s something funny about that door over there,” she called.

“Really?” He cocked his head at her, then slapped an ashtray down in front of a soup-kitchen reject a few feet away.

Kara pursed her lips. She would not be put off. Not this time. What was it Risk had called him?

“Garm,” she muttered.

“What was that?” He turned, spilling cigarette butts into the ice.

“Garm. You’re a garm.” She’d surprised him that time. Her lips curved upward.

He stared at her for the count of five, long enough that Kara felt the need to shift in her seat, but she didn’t. She held her place, and kept her gaze solid.

Finally, he shook his head. “You don’t know anything.” He went back to gathering dirty ashtrays, his tapered back straight.

Kara exhaled, her shoulders dropping a fraction. He had to tell her something. He had to. She stared at the balled-up twenty, willing her brain to come up with a plan.

The bartender glanced back at her and sighed. After grabbing a glass and a bottle of whiskey, he strode toward her.

“It’s for your own good,” he muttered, sloshing the liquid into the glass three fingers high. “Not all that go in come back out, and none of the witches.”

Her face still lowered, she peered up at him.

He sighed again. “I tried to warn the other one, but she…” he let out an exasperated grunt “…was worse than you. Stomping around, making sure every magic-hungry thug within three worlds knew what she was. Know what it got her?” He leaned forward, his ice-blue eyes spearing Kara. “Nothing.” He shook his head, his hand caressing the neck of the whiskey bottle.

“At least she hasn’t come back out yet. May mean she’s still alive, but for what? Nothing good going on down there. That’s as sure as a wolf’s howl.” He picked the bottle up and slammed it under the counter.

“Anyway, once the toll’s been set and met, there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

A new patron slid in between two stools and signaled for a drink. With a scowl, the bartender grabbed the bottle of whiskey and turned to leave.

“Wait,” Kara called. He was talking about Kelly, she knew it. Finally, someone had started talking to her. Kara couldn’t let him get away now.

He paused.

“A toll? You said there’s a toll, how much is it?” Kara didn’t have a lot of spare cash, but she and Kelly owned their small house outright. It had to be worth a decent sum.

He laughed, a you-have-to-be-kidding sound.

“For you? Not much. Witches don’t pay the toll.”

The patron waiting for his drink picked up an empty bottle and banged it on the counter.

The bartender shot him a killing look. The man dropped it and scurried away from the bar.

Muttering under his breath, the bartender turned to walk away.

Kara threw herself across the bar and wrapped her hands around his forearm. “Wait. You said witches don’t pay the toll. I’m a witch — I can prove it.” She released his arm to free her hands.

“You have no more sense than the other one. Do you know what kind of beings are in here?” He grabbed both her hands in one of his, then just as quickly let go.

Kara placed her palms flat on the bar and glanced around. The bar was lined with men and women interchangeable with the one who’d attacked her earlier — dull, lifeless, even their clothing lacking in color as if they were trapped in some old sepia-tinted photo.

The bartender recaptured her hand and squeezed until she thought a bone might pop. “Desperate. That’s what kind. Doesn’t matter if they’re forandre, giant or dwarf. Or even demon or god. If they’re here, they’re desperate, and that makes them the most dangerous of their kind.”

Kara stared down at his hand. His darker, larger hand made hers look delicate, defenseless. But she wasn’t. She looked back up at him. “Well, I’m desperate, too. And from what I hear, I was already one of the most powerful of my kind.”

The woman sitting closest to them edged sideways — away from them and the tension thickening the air.

Kara waited, her heart beating in her ears. Would he call her bluff? Was it a bluff? She had no idea exactly what she would or could do to get what she wanted anymore.

Brows lowered, he pulled his hand away and crossed his arms over his chest. “Not my job to save you. You want to know why witches don’t pay the toll, can’t pay the toll? ’Cause witches are the toll.

“You want to go where the stubborn little bit like you went? Do what she did. Announce to any of these fine customers what you are, and they’ll happily stick a knife to your neck and escort you through the doorway.”

Kara’s eyes darted down the bar.

The bartender picked up her drink and set it back down with a bang. “But don’t do it here. I don’t need a fight breaking out tonight.” He pushed the glass toward her with one finger. “Oh, and don’t plan on coming back. As I said earlier, a jaunt through that doorway, is a one-way journey — at least for witches.”

He strode away.

Kara edged her eyes from left to right. Giants, dwarves, demons, gods? Could anyone in this dreary place be a god? She picked up her glass, the amber liquid sloshing out onto her hand. She didn’t believe in a god or gods, remember? At least she thought she remembered thinking that sometime in the past.

Of course, what had she believed in the past? She couldn’t remember.

From behind her, breath as cold as an icicle scraped over her skin; a tinny voice whispered in her ear, “I’ll help you out.”

“No, let me.” A second voice oozed over her like fog.

Kara whirled, looking for the source of either voice. No one was near her. In fact even the woman who had edged away from Kara earlier during her argument with the bartender had left.

The entire bar was empty except for Kara and the bartender. From the other end of the bar, he gave her a sad smile. “I warned you.”

“Where did everyone go?” Kara asked.

He jerked his thumb toward the front door. “Waiting. They know I won’t put up with trouble in here. They’re out there.”

Kara pulled a black vinyl-covered chair under one of the windows and stepped onto it. Using her balled fist to clean a place through the grime, she stared out into the growing dark. There were a few loiterers, a man with a ball cap flipped backward, a woman dressed in velvet and high-top tennis shoes, but in general the street was empty. Just an occasional whirlwind of snow dancing across the parking lot.

“You won’t be able to see most of them. Not if they don’t want you to. They’re all different, except that desperation thing I mentioned, but they can all hide well enough you won’t know what’s got a hold of you until two, or more, of them are fighting over you.”

He picked up a dirty ashtray and dumped the butts in the trash. “Good news, though. This toll has conditions — you don’t arrive alive, you aren’t worth nothing.”

Kara hopped down from the chair before her shaking legs forced her down.

“Course, a lot of them aren’t that smart. Wouldn’t be the first time one of them missed a detail like that.”

Kara bent at the waist; her hands gripped around the top of the chair and she filled her lungs with air. He was just trying to scare her.

She glanced around the empty bar.

Besides, there was no turning back now.

Risk pulled his Jeep into the lean-to behind his cabin and shimmered inside to grab a shirt and boots. He was already regretting the time he had wasted driving up the road, but his power to shimmer another mass didn’t extend to something as big and inanimate as the Jeep. And when he’d first driven off, he hadn’t been thinking of his hunt — just of Kara and the image of horror in her eyes.