From long habit, Cade stood somewhat to one side of the doorway as he pushed
it open with his left hand, then pretended to take a moment to put his keycard
back in his jacket pocket rather than walk straight into the room.
The door swung gently open all the way to the wall before he entered the
room, blocking the door's return swing with his right boot as he glanced around
and continued his entry with almost no pause.
Mandi sat on the bed, Andrea sat in the desk chair. A bottle of champagne
nestled in an ice bucket on the desk and Mandi's bags had been moved nearer the
door because two blue suitcases had taken their place by the desk. There were no
other people in the room and both women were staring at him.
"Well?" asked Mandi, "Are you coming in or not?"
Andrea chuckled as Cade replied, "Have you ever seen me just waltz right
into a room, ma'am?"
Snickering, Mandi asked, "Not even your own room?"
Cade walked over to Andrea as he said, "I'm old enough to have old habits
because I earned them the hard way. Your own room is the first place to expect
an ambush. Especially on birthdays in military service. 'Surprise!', and all
that."
Mandi snickered again, but her glance went to Andrea as if to confirm
something.
As Andrea stood up to take his hand, he met her gaze for a long moment, and
said, "And you are definitely a surprise. Hi. I'm Ed, and I hope to Goddess
you're Andrea, ma'am."
Her smile continued, but she asked, "Goddess?"
"I'm a pagan. We mostly prefer goddesses if we bother with deities at all."
Andrea glanced at Mandi, who nodded and grinned as she said, "That probably
wasn't a line, Andrea. He has a pagan website where he sells stoneware and
pewter jewelry."
Returning her gaze to Cade, Andrea said, "I'll have to see it sometime. Yes.
I'm Andrea. Are you at all disappointed?"
Shaking his head, Cade said, "Not even a little. Are you?"
Grinning, Andrea said, "Mandi and I have been talking about you. I've
decided that youth may not be everything. Could I have my hand back now?"
Pretending to notice that he was still holding her hand, Cade released it
with a calculated 'Oh, I kinda forgot' shrug.
Laughing, Mandi said, "I think you've got his attention, Andrea. Let's have
some champagne. Cade?"
Reaching to open the champagne, Cade said, "I'm on it."
The wire on the bottleneck broke when he twisted. Cade reached for his
beltknife, flicked it open, wedged it under the wire, and twisted. The wire
broke and he pried it off, then slapped his knife shut and slipped it back into
its belt pouch.
In the mirror above the desk he noticed both Mandi and Andrea staring at
him. Oh, well. Had Mandi somehow missed the fact that he'd been wearing a belt
knife all this time?
He decided that was unlikely and finished opening the champagne, then poured
some into each of the three plastic cups Andrea silently lined up on the desk.
In truth, he detested champagne, but he'd only ever met one woman who felt the
same way about it.
Handing glasses to the ladies, he picked up his own and said, "Mandi, you're
the honcho here, so you make the toast."
Andrea snickered and Mandi laughed, "Gee, thanks. Okay. Let's keep it
simple. Here's to all good things. May there always be many and may they never
end."
After clunking their cups together and sipping, Mandi sat back down on the
bed and said, "I talked to John this afternoon; he now knows you've been
converted." Noddingly indicating Andrea, she said, "Andrea's your instructor.
That's all he knows and that's all he needs to know."
She sipped again and said, "We have time for dinner before I leave for
Vegas. Any suggestions about where to eat?"
"Yes," said Andrea. "A buffet steakhouse just opened near my neighborhood.
Since Ed's got a convertee appetite, we may as well go there."
"Works for me," said Cade. "Andrea, what do you do?"
"As in work? I'm a research scientist with the CDC."
"That sounds a lot more important than selling jewelry on the net and
writing science fiction. Would you rather I call to make arrangements for my
cats and stay up here with you this week? It wouldn't be a problem."
Shaking her head, she said, "No way. I haven't had a whole week away from
that place in over a year. You're stuck with me, Ed. You have cats?"
"Three. You like cats?"
She nodded. "Oh, sure. I'd have one if I were home more."
Turning to Mandi, she said, "I think I like this guy already. He has cats."
Returning her gaze to Cade, she asked, "How do you feel about horses?"
"Had one until I was fifteen. Didn't use a saddle most of the time. He
especially liked bubblegum and mulberry leaves."
Andrea's grin widened. "Yeah, we'll get along fine, Mandi."
A quick knocking at the door made Cade put his drink down and go answer it.
Cody Barnes from the ops room entered the room to stand by Mandi's luggage.
"Ma'am," he said, "John sent me for your luggage."
"It's all right there, Cody. Thanks."
"Oh, no problem, ma'am. I'll have it UPS'd tomorrow."
He grabbed the bags and headed for the door. Cade let him out and came back
to lean against the desk.
When he didn't ask, Mandi said, "UPS is easier. Safer for the stuff in them,
too."
Nodding, Cade said, "Figured that."
She parted a finger from her cup to indicate Cade's cup and asked, "You
don't like champagne?"
"Nah. I'm more of a beer person. Or Dr Pepper. Or gin and bitter lemon."
Andrea's snort almost startled him.
When he looked at her, she said, "I just don't believe this, that's all. Gin
and bitter lemon? Me, too. I didn't think anyone else drank those."
"Hm," said Cade. "Horses, cats, gin and bitter lemon, and gorgeous eyes.
That's a damned good score so far. Will you be very surprised if I propose to
you later, ma'am?"
"No, probably not. Will you be very surprised if I accept?"
Cocking his head, Cade said, "Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure I would be. You
can't look that delicious and not be married if married is what you want to be."
"Maybe I'm just waiting for Mr. Right."
Shaking his head, Cade said, "Nope. Doesn't seem to fit. Can't say exactly
why, but I don't think that's the answer."
Mandi laughed and asked, "Did I tell you he seems to be fairly smart, too?"
"Yes, indeed you did. Notice how he mixed that compliment with undeniable
logic before he stated an intuition?"
Standing up, Mandi said, "Sure did. If nobody's going to drink any more
champagne, I think it's dinnertime."
Andrea and Cade agreed and they trooped out of the room and down the hall to
the elevator, which was moving with a bit more alacrity since the convention
crowd had begun thinning.
Cade had expected Andrea to produce a car and simply drive them to the
restaurant she'd mentioned, so it surprised him a bit when Mandi poked the
button for the top floor.
During the ride up, he considered a few things. Mandi had likely spent some
time discussing him with Andrea. Call it a briefing of sorts. She'd known about
his cats and his preference for gin and bitter lemon was in his records.
Horses were another matter; he couldn't remember having mentioned his
childhood horse to Mandi, but John knew about Cloud and knew Cade had owned part
of a riding stable in Germany back in the seventies; after all, the agency had
used the place as a meeting point dozens of times.
Andrea was nearly six feet tall and had striking eyes. John might also have
mentioned Giselle, who'd had similar features and a place in Cade's heart, and
how Cade had considered leaving the agency when she'd been killed during an
arrest that the system had refused to prosecute for diplomatic reasons.
Or maybe he was just being a bit paranoid. Could be she truly just happened
to be a tall goddess with ice-gray eyes who liked cats, horses, and the same
booze as Cade. He wondered what the other convertee in Atlanta looked like and
whether Andrea had 'volunteered' or been 'chosen' to coach him.
On the other hand, the conversion was underway, like it or not, and he'd
been issued a goddess. Cade glanced at Andrea and decided that things could most
definitely be worse.
From the top floor they took the stairs to the roof and Mandi retrieved her
flattened can from its hideaway under the eaves. After she put it in place to
keep the door from locking, she turned to Andrea and Cade and put her hands on
her hips.
In a dead serious tone, Mandi said, "I'm afraid it's time to choose, Ed."
A trick? A trap? For what reason? No point in trying to escape, in any case.
"Could you be just a bit more specific?" he asked.
Noddingly indicating Andrea, Mandi said, "You have to choose which of us
will carry you."
Hm. He hadn't known that Andrea could fly. Cool. Maybe that meant that
flight was one of the powers he'd have later.
"You mean you aren't going to fight over me?"
Andrea snorted and groaned softly, "Oh, yeah, right."
Cade glanced at her and said, "Hey, it was just a thought."
Shrugging, he told Mandi, "Whoever wants to haul me may do so. I know better
than to choose between goddesses. Need a coin to toss?"
"Oh, never mind," said Mandi, and she wrapped her arms around Cade and
lifted them into the evening sky.
After two minutes of flying eastward they landed among some trees near a
very new-looking restaurant. It was a bit crowded, as is normal for new places,
but Andrea opined that the crowd would act in their favor because nobody'd
notice the number of times Cade visited the serving lines.
Almost two hours later Cade felt pretty much full for the first time in two
days. Andrea had been right, for the most part. Only one of the waitresses had
noticed that Cade seemed to be packing away inordinate amounts of food, and
while she watched with a certain amount of amazement, she apparently said
nothing about it.
On the way back to the hotel, Andrea suddenly dropped away from them like a
stone falling toward the ground and Cade almost lost the dinner he'd spent all
that time consuming when Mandi followed her in the same manner. Looking down, he
saw where Andrea was going.
A tanker truck had maneuvered to refill a local gas station's underground
tanks and a yellow pickup truck in the alley behind the station was heading
straight for the truck at about fifty miles per hour. As they neared the ground,
they could see the driver slumped on the steering wheel.
As Andrea flew to deal with the pickup, Mandi landed to set Cade down and
flew to join Andrea. Everything seemed well in hand, but an unanticipated wild
card in the form of a blue Ford sedan entered the parking lot behind the tanker
truck.
The driver couldn't take his eyes off the two flying women and didn't have
sense enough to stop the car. The Ford hit a light pole and one of the wires
above snapped with a sound like a rifle shot, then swung down and touched the
concrete, where the current made it dance crazily around the car.
When Cade saw the woman on the passenger side open her door, he ran toward
the car yelling for her to stay inside it. She stared at him dazedly for a
moment, noticed that the man beside her was bleeding, unconscious, and slumped
between the steering wheel and the driver's door, and freaked out.
The power line was slapping itself frantically around the car as the woman
screamed, opened the door wider, and got out of the car, but she couldn't run.
Her gashed and bloody left leg gave out and she tried to crawl, but chances were
just too good that the power line would hit her.
Cade saw a stave from a broken pallet and grabbed it on the way to the car.
It was one of the spine boards; hard wood with half a dozen slats still stuck to
it.
He almost dove over the front of the car and managed to bat the power line
aside from the woman twice as she continued crawling, unaware that he was there.
Then the power line slapped the side of the car and rebounded so quickly
that Cade had no chance to swing at it. He could only brace the stave crossways
in front of the oncoming power line and hope things would go well.
The heavy line smashed through the wooden stave and hit Cade's chest like a
baseball bat, knocking him flat and slapping him twice more across the chest and
legs.
With each smashing slap, the line sent massive amounts of electricity
through Cade to the ground. He was barely conscious enough to see Mandi grab the
cable and wrestle with it to prevent it from slamming him again, then he passed
out.
Someone was patting his face and calling his name. He opened his eyes to see
Mandi kneeling beside him. Behind her he saw the power line knotted around
around the broken pole.
"Hi," he said. "Thanks. It was gonna get me again."
"Everything's okay now. How do you feel?"
Cade gave that some thought, then flatly said, "Ow."
Chuckling, Mandi asked, "Can you move?"
"Damned if I know. Gimme a minute and I'll find out."
Although his arms and legs were still jangling from the electricity, they
shakily lifted and moved a bit on command.
"Guess so," he said, trying to sit up.
That didn't work the first time, but he was able to roll over and lever
himself swayingly upright in front of her.
"I've been better, but I think I'll survive."
"Great," said Mandi, "We need to get moving," and without ceremony she
picked him up and launched into the sky some distance before he heard Andrea
ask, "How is he?"
"Just barely alive, ma'am," said Cade. "Nice of you to ask, though."
Mandi snorted a short laugh as Andrea came into view and peered down at
Cade.
"Did anybody get a good look at us?" she asked Mandi.
"I don't think so," said Mandi. "The pickup driver was dead, the car driver
was unconscious, and the girl was halfway across the parking lot by the time I
secured the power lines. Nobody came near the car before I lifted with Cade."
"Sneaky angels," said Cade. "I don't know why, exactly, but I like that
concept."
"You said you were a pagan," said Andrea. "Do pagans believe in angels?"
"Angels. Goddesses. Same things, different labels."
When Mandi set him down on the roof, she didn't let go of him immediately,
which was just as well. The electricity had apparently scrambled his circuits a
little and Cade had to try twice to get his legs to function properly.
"Damn," he said. "How much juice do those lines carry?"
Andrea said, "No idea, but it's enough to power everything for blocks in a
commercial zone. We were kind of surprised to find you still breathing, Ed."
As Mandi slapped dust and dirt off his clothes, Cade said, "So was I. Maybe
the lines grounded out as they hit me. Maybe I didn't get a full dose?"
"No," said Mandi. "I saw the end of that cable hit you twice. It didn't
touch the ground either time."
Shrugging with a bit less grace than usual, Cade said, "Well, then, I guess
we don't have an answer. Let's head for the room. I could use a coffee."
Andrea said, "Actually, so could I, I think."
'I could use a coffee,' Mandi repeated Cade's words in her mind as they
headed downstairs. That was exactly what he'd said to Carter after dealing with
Nassir, and he'd said it in exactly the same tone.
She checked his heartbeat and respiration and found them ranging about
normal, even as he descended the stairs to the top floor. To Cade, the incident
was completely over, just as he'd completely closed the Nassir matter with those
words.
Were those words his... with a mental shrug, she inserted the word 'mantra'.
Were they some sort of self-developed ritual or key phrase for closing the door
on an incident?
Cade offered to make the ladies some of his instant coffee as they entered
his room, but Mandi opted for another glass of champagne and Andrea said she'd
see what was in the fridge.
"Ed," she added as he took his cup and his jar of instant to the sink, "I'm
a research scientist, not an M.D., but I'd like to check you over for damage."
Shrugging, Cade said, "Thanks, but if I have anything more than a few big
bruises, it'll be there later. Right now I just want to sit down with a coffee
and try to relax."
Mandi read his pulse and respiration again and nearly laughed aloud. If he
became any more relaxed, he'd be asleep. Cade saw her grinning at him in the
mirror above the sink and she gave him an innocent look, to which he responded
with a mildly puzzled look as he turned on the hot water.
She checked her watch, swore softly, and looked at the alarm clock on the
desk.