In
the Rift : Glenraven II In
the Rift : Glenraven II
Rhiana walked from the broken window in the dining room to the door that she could not close because the Rift monster blocked it, then back to the window again. What if the men Kate had spoken of had weapons like the one Kate had? What if they came after her with those weapons?
Val and the warrag sat together in the living room, heads together and voices low. Rhiana suspected they were plotting some way to rid themselves of Kate as soon as they could-the longer Rhiana spent with Val, the more she disliked him. She wondered if he might be a member of the Kin Resistance, which fought against the new Watchmistress and the changes she wanted to make in Glenraven.
Tik sprawled on his belly on the living room floor, sleeping. Every so often he snorted and grumbled and shifted position, but he never woke up. That was typical, Rhiana thought. The dagreth were rumored to be the most comfort-loving and sedentary of the Kin-hera. If he found the larder, no doubt he would apply himself to enjoying that the way he was applying himself to getting the most out of his nap.
Leaving me to worry alone.
Kate had handed the book to Tik before she went upstairs. Tik, in turn, had passed it to Rhiana before he took his nap. Rhiana moved away from the partially open front door and the stink of the monster to the window again. She peeked through the curtains in time to see a sort of horseless wagon pull onto the little dirt road that led to the house. She'd been watching as similar horseless vehicles raced past on the smooth stone road out in front, and had been horrified by how quickly they moved. This one-beige with writing on its sides-stopped under the pines, and doors on both sides popped open.
She wondered if these were the killers and debated raising the alarm.
But then two large men got out, walked around to the back, and removed a mechanism she recognized as a variety of hoist on wheels. They wore matching clothing in an ugly shade of light brown and heavy leather work boots with laces and leather gloves, and they didn't carry anything that she could identify as a weapon. She realized they had come to remove the dead horse.
They looked almost like the southwestern Machnan-their features were broad and flat and their skins were deep shades of brown. Their hair was tightly kinked, though, while the southwestern Machnan had hair that curled more loosely. And both of them were much taller. Closer to the height of Kin, as was the woman Kate. As was the new Watchmistress, for that matter. Rhiana wondered briefly if all the people of the Machine World were so tall.
She wondered what the men would do when they saw the Rift monster.
She wondered what she ought to do. She opened the book, hoping for advice.
You can't pretend no one is home with the front door obviously standing open. But you don't need to have much to do with them. They're here to do a job, and they won't be a danger to you unless you make a mistake dealing with them. When they ask about the Rift beast-and they will ask-tell them you shot it with your shotgun. You won't need to tell either of them any more than that. But you should go outside and wait. You don't want them to come to the door and see Tik or Errga or Val. That would be unfortunate.
I'm not from this world, Rhiana thought. I don't know anything about this world. My clothes are wrong. My voice will be wrong. I won't know what to say.
But the book was right. If people from this world got a good look at her companions, trouble would ensue. So she took a deep breath and opened the front door the rest of the way and slipped out of it. She climbed over the stinking carcass of the Rift monster and hopped down to the grass on the other side as the men wheeled the hoist up the path to the horse. She kept the book with her. She was afraid she wouldn't understand either of the men without it.
It was only when they could see the horse that they could see the monstrosity on the front step, and both men came to a halt, mouths hanging open.
"What in the hell is that?" the one with the rich brown skin and black hair asked.
The other, who was lighter brown with graying hair, said, "Sweet Jesus, Roy."
Both men looked to her.
"Ma'am, what is that thing?" the younger one asked.
The book did a good job of translating for her. The movements of the men's mouths didn't match the words she heard, but she had no trouble understanding their meaning.
"I don't know," she said.
"My . . . God . . . that wingspread must be close to thirty feet. Maybe it's a dinosaur. I read about the Loch Ness monster maybe being a dinosaur. There are all sorts of places on earth people haven't been yet-maybe this came from one of those places."
The older man said, "They ain't any places in North Carolina people ain't been, Roy. I say it's a sign of the latter days."
Roy looked at his colleague and sighed. "You would, James. I'll bet if we called a paleontologist, he could tell us what it was. And I'll bet a paleontologist would pay good money for the carcass, too." He looked at Rhiana. "You realize you could probably get money for this?"
She shook her head. "You came to take it away, didn't you? I don't want to keep it."
"Well, technically we came to get the horse," Roy said. "But we sure can't leave that here. We can take it first since it's blocking your door. Then we can come back and get the horse."
"I don't believe you're telling her that," James said. "We ain't supposed to dispose of demons."
Roy had gone over to the monster and was running his fingers over its side. "Man! This is amazing." He looked up at Rhiana. "What happened, anyway?"
"I shot it," she said.
"Well, yeah." Roy looked impressed. "But I mean, where did it come from? How did it get here? What do you know about it?"
Rhiana shrugged. "It attacked me. I shot it. That's all I know."
He'd moved onto the stoop, where he could see the monster's teeth. When he looked up at her again, she could see respect in his eyes. "You shot this? While it was coming at you? This is the scariest thing I ever saw."
"Me, too," she told him. Then she clambered over the monster's stinking back and stood for an instant in the doorway. "I will leave you to your work." She went into Kate's house and closed the door as far as it would go. Then, heart pounding and pulse racing, she leaned against the cracked wood and waited. At last she heard the hoist in action, and the sound of the Rift beast's carcass dragging along the ground. She peeked around the corner long enough to be sure the men were taking the creature with them and not just moving it. Then she shut the door, studied the mechanisms for a moment, and locked the sliding chain lock. The door was cracked and the frame had been split in places, but both ends of that lock were in solid wood. She thought that if someone attacked it, the door would hold long enough for her and her three associates to find places to hide. That was her only real concern.
But once the men were gone, the hours passed and no one else came to the door. Rhiana started when they returned for the horse, and every time the house broke its silence with some unexplained humming or clanking or shushing; she learned to identify the sound that preceded hot air blowing out of the vents in the walls, and located a huge white metal box that occasionally purred to itself, then fell silent. She found a mechanical contraption that forced a bird out of a little wooden door at regular intervals, and punctuated the bird's arrival with a startling "HOO-hoo! HOO-hoo!" She thought perhaps the device served to mark the passage of the day as the bells in Ruddy Smeachwykke marked the stations of the sun as it marched across the sky. Val and Errga slept, and Tik snuffled and snorted and pawed at the air in some chasing dream, and at last, weary from pacing and worrying, she settled into one of the broad, cushiony, comfortable chairs and slept, too.