Chronicles Of The Keeper - Summon The Keeper Part 34

ON SECOND THOUGHT, DON'T LET HIM GO.

If she let him go, the odds were good she wouldn't fasten onto him again before h.e.l.l tore through the bonds holding him to the world. If she didn't let him go, she'd be dragged through the pentagram and his fate would be a minor footnote to the cataclysm as the seal broke. Her toes dug through her socks and into the imperfection in the rock floor, but that only slowed her.

Jacques or the world?

It was the sort of dilemma h.e.l.l delighted in. Claire could feel its pleasure in the certain knowledge that she'd have to sacrifice Jacques for the lives of millions.

Then strong arms wrapped around her from behind. Her toes stopped millimeters from disaster.

"Bring him in," Dean told her, tightening his grip one arm at a time. "And let's get out of here."

Constrained by the pentagram. h.e.l.l stood no chance against the deeply ridged treads on a pair of winter work boots designed to get the wearer up and down the chutes of St. Johns.

Weight on his heels, Dean stepped back, once, twice, dragging Claire back with him, dragging Jacques with her. At the outside edge of the pentagram, the tension snapped and flung all three of them against the far wall of the furnace room; first Dean, then Claire, then Jacques, who slapped through them both like a cold fog to smash in turn against the rock.

Teeth gritted, Claire pried herself up off of Dean, used the wall to pull herself to her feet, and attempted to blink away the afterimages caused by impact with limestone closely followed by Jacques' left knee pa.s.sing between her eyes. "Is everyone all right?"

"I guess." Dean braced himself against the floor, separated himself from Jacques' right arm and shoulder, and stood.

"Jacques?"

"Won. I am not all right. Where are we?"

"The furnace room," Dean answered, before Claire had a chance.

"What? In the hotel?" The last syllable rose to a shriek.

"Yeah. The furnace room in the hotel." Dean shot a look both wounded and disapproving at Claire. "But I don't think we should stay."

Jacques glanced wide-eyed toward the pentagram. "It is real?"

"It is," Claire told him, holding her head in both hands. When they'd broken free, her will had retracted and she had the kind of headache that came with trying to fit approximately twelve feet of power in an eight-inch skull.

"Then we talk in the dining room." Still flickering around the edges, he disappeared.

"The dining room," Claire repeated. "Good plan." Staggering slightly, she started up the stairs.

One hand out to catch her if she fell, Dean followed, still far, far too angry to give in to the faint gibbering he could hear coming from inner bits of his brain. "Why didn't you tell me there was a hole to h.e.l.l in the furnace room?"

"I'm a Keeper, it's my duty to protect you."

"From what?"

"Living in terror."

A LIE. A VERITABLE FALSEHOOD!.

Claire sighed. She couldn't believe a headache could pack so much ma.s.s; it felt as though she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. "From having to bear more than I thought you could."

"Didn't think much of me, did you? Do you?"

Heaving herself up another step, she waved more or less toward the pit. "Dean, it's h.e.l.l!"

"We've a saying back home..."

"Please, spare me."

"... some don't be afraid of the sea, they goes down to the sea, and they be drowned. But I be afraid of the sea, and I goes down to the sea, and I only be drowned now and then."

"What the h..."

SAY IT.

"... heck does that mean?" she snarled.

"Fear can keep you alive. You should've told me."

KEEPERS, ALWAYS THINK THEY KNOW WHAT'S....

Claire slammed the door shut on the last word, spraying uncooked rice all over the bas.e.m.e.nt.

A single grain of those pushed inside the furnace room flew down the stairs and tumbled end over end across the stone floor. It stopped no more than its own width away from the outermost edge of the glyphs that sealed the pentagram.

d.a.m.n.

"Look, Dean, you knew what you needed to know." Claire kicked at a mound of rice, guilt making her sound petulant even to her own ears. "I told you there was a major accident site down here; I just didn't name it."

His back against the furnace room door, Dean stared at her, unable to believe what he was hearing. "You didn't name it? It's not like you forgot to tell me it was called Fred or George or Harold. It's h.e.l.l!"

"Technically, it's energy from the lower end of the possibilities manifesting itself in a format the person who called it up could understand."

"And that format?"

"Is h.e.l.l; all right?" Sagging back against the was.h.i.+ng machine, she threw up her hands. "You win."

Dean jerked a hand back through his hair. "It's not about winning." He paused, trying to figure out what it was he'd won. "Okay. Maybe it is. You're admitting you should have told me, right?"

"Right."

"That you were wrong?"

She found enough energy to lift her head. "Don't push it." One fingernail traced the maker's name stamped into the front of the washer. "So now you know, what are you going to do? Are you going to leave?"

"Leave?" Leave. He hadn't actually thought it through that far.

"What's the point?" his common sense wanted to know. "There's nothing there that hasn't been there for the last year."

"Shouldn't you be telling me to pack?"