Chronicles Of The Keeper - Summon The Keeper Part 105

Feeling as though the big green binder of 1945, Kin to Kip, had just smacked her on the back of the head, Claire read that paragraph again.

Margaret Anne Groseter.

"Mr. Smythe told me that she lived in the house next door her whole life. He said it used to be Groseter's Rooming House and Mr. Abrams was a roomer who didn't move fast enough and got broadsided."

"It's not possible."

For Mrs. Abrams to have been fifteen in 1945, she had to have been born in 1930. Which would put her in her late sixties. With a virtual thumb blocking the bouffant orange hair of a mind's eye view, Claire supposed it was possible.

"I used to be quite progressive in my younger days."

It was, Claire reflected, occasionally terrifying knowing the exact measure of the fulcrum that Fate used to lever the world.

Stepping through the s.h.i.+eld, Diana had a momentary qualm. The emanations rising from the sleeper were stronger than she'd expected. It wouldn't be easy accessing power surrounded by such potent malevolence.

"On the other hand," she cracked her fingers and moved up to the head of the bed, "if it were easy, everybody'd be doing it."

... however, it took the combined strength of both Keepers to achieve the necessary balance of power between Sara and the pit, and even then she nearly broke free of their restraints.

Given the urgency of the situation, the Keepers on the scene felt it best to use a slam, bam, thank you, ma 'am approach.

The Historian clearly believed in making history accessible to the ma.s.ses.

Reaching carefully through the middle possibilities for power, Diana trickled a tiny amount into the matrix that held Sara asleep.

As the patterns in the dark emanations changed, a howling Austin raced into the room, trailing a cloud of shed fur. "Diana, stop! You don't know what you're doing!"

I TOLD YOU NOT TO WORRY ABOUT THE SECOND KEEPER. SHE'S HELPING US! DO WHAT? SHUT UP AND BE READY.

The cat gathered himself to leap just as Sara's lips parted and drew a long breath in past the edges of yellowed teeth.

NOW!.

At the top of an infinite number of voices. h.e.l.l shouted Sara's name up the conduit.

With the seepage added to Diana's power, the balance tipped.

Sara opened her eyes.

Her own eyes wide, Diana tried to block the power surge. One second. Two. A force too complicated for her s.h.i.+elds to stop slammed into her, dropping her to her knees.

Yowling, Austin landed on the end of the bed.

Sara smiled and raised a finger.

The energy flare caught him full in the face, lifted him into the air, and smashed him against the wall between the two windows. The first bounce dropped him into the remains of the fern. The second dropped him unresisting to the floor.

"NO!" Unable to stand, Diana crawled toward the body. A warm hand clamped down on one shoulder stopped her cold.

"I don't think so."

As Sara's grip dragged her around to face the bed, Diana put up no resistance. When Sara's eyes met hers, she grabbed for all the power she could handle and smashed it down on the other Keeper like a club.

Sara didn't even bother swatting it aside. She absorbed it, twisted it, and wrapped it around Diana like a shroud. "My mouth tastes like the inside of a sewer," she muttered, running her tongue over her teeth. "Christ on churches, but I could use a cigarette."

... unfortunately, as both Keepers were drawn from troops about to leave for the European theater, this temporary solution...

"Claire Hansen?"

"In a minute. I've almost got it."

"Suit yourself. Keeper, but I just got an e-mail telling me to reactivate that bit of history you're reading."

Claire looked up from the binder. "What do you mean reactivate?"

"Probably got a couple of loose ends tying themselves up."

"Probably?" Claire scrambled to her feet. Any loose ends had come untied since she'd left. "What's happening?"

"How should I know? I don't mess with the present, I do history. Put the book back on the shelf before you..." The Historian sighed and moved a black three onto a red four as Claire raced away through the ages. "And they wonder why I don't like company."

"Would it have hurt them to have dusted me on occasion? I don't think so." Lifting a thras.h.i.+ng Diana about three feet off the floor, Sara tied the laces of the young Keeper's black high-tops together and used them as a handle to drag her through the air toward the door.

Chewing on the power gag that held her silent, Diana dug her fingers into the doorjamb.

"Let go or lose them, your choice." It was clearly a literal offer. "I, personally, don't care. I know what you're thinking," she continued as Diana reluctantly released the wood. "You're thinking that all you have to do is delay me and sooner or later more Keepers will arrive. Well, they won't. And do you know why? Of course not, you're a child..."

Tiny wisps of steam rose up from Diana's ears.

Sara smiled and ignored them. "... you couldn't possibly comprehend how I work. Over fifty years ago, two interfering busybodies put a s.h.i.+eld around me. Specifically, around me. It's still there. No one will know I'm awake until it's much too late."

As the sound of Sara's gloating receded down the hall, several small, multicolored figures came out from behind various pieces of furniture and moved purposefully toward the limp body of the cat.

Running full out, Claire still hadn't reached the end of the bookshelves.

"Stop thinking about the past!"

Distorted by echoes, it could have been anyone's voice. Claire didn't waste time turning to check. She needed a door. She couldn't get home without going through a door.

"h.e.l.lo, handsome. Are there any more at home like you?"

Pressed up against the wall in the lobby. Dean had a sudden memory of a fish flopping about the gaff that pinned it to the bottom of the boat. It didn't stop him from struggling, but it did give him a pretty good idea of how successful that struggle would be.

When he finally sagged, exhausted, he felt the sharp points of fingernails lift his chin off his chest.

"Very nice," Sara cooed. "I've always been a big fan of flexing and sweating." Slipping her fingers into the front pocket of his jeans, she pulled the denim away from his body and dropped the keys into the pouch. "Thanks so very much for your help. I don't suppose you have a cigarette on you?"

Dean shook his head and dragged himself out of the pale depths of her eyes. They were same gray/blue as the heart of an iceberg only less compa.s.sionate. He nodded toward Diana's thras.h.i.+ng body. "She said she was going into the attic. I thought Keepers couldn't lie."