Spy High (4 page)

“What the hell?” I demanded.

He straightened and took a drag from a
fresh joint. After a long pause, smoke filtered through his beard
as he mumbled, “Patience is a virtue, girlie.”

My mouth dropped open in indignation,
but then I caught the barest hint of a twinkle in his eye.

I snickered. “Ratboy’s patience?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,”
Skidmark said, and offered me his cigarette. “Toke?”

“No thanks.”

He nodded sleepily before taking
another long draw himself. I stepped away from the eye-watering
combination of pot smoke and body odour and was about to head for
the road when he spoke again.

“So you’re a girl mechanic.”

“I’m not a mechanic. I just like
working on cars.”

“Huh.” He squinted blearily at me.
“Hey, you’re really tall…” He blinked. “…Are you a dude in women’s
clothes?”

“Yeah,” I replied, deadpan.

He stared in silence for a long moment,
his cigarette hand drifting up to his lips as though of its own
volition.

“Far out…” he mumbled, and took another
drag. After a long exhalation of smoke, his eyes narrowed as though
an idea had braved the burned-out corridors of his brain. “Wanna go
back to my place and screw?” he inquired.

“I just finished telling you I’m a
man.”

He shrugged. “So I’m into equal rights.
Can I touch your ass?”

“No.”

His shoulders jerked rhythmically,
accompanied by the wheezing that served him for laughter. “You’re a
woman all right.” He offered his joint. “Toke?”

“No,” I repeated.

The distant crunch of approaching
footsteps made me turn, my pulse kicking up a notch at the thought
of another confrontation with Ratboy. My heart rate failed to slow
at the sight of the man rounding the bend in the road.

Orion.

He smiled and waved, and I waved back
while Skidmark stood blinking placidly in the mist that was
beginning to gather itself into raindrops.

“Hi, Storm,” Orion greeted me as he
strode up. “Hi, Skidmark.”

I managed a casual ‘hi’ in return.

Damn, it should be illegal for a man to
have eyelashes that thick and dark. They framed moss-green eyes
alight with intelligence, almost the same colour as the soft
corduroy shirt he wore loosely over a brown T-shirt that showcased
the hard contours of his chest and abs. He had been clean-shaven
with close-cropped hair when he had arrived at the commune a few
months ago, but now short whiskers accented a chin that might have
been carved by Michelangelo and his hair fell in those soft waves
that begged me to run my fingers through it…

My cheeks warmed when I realized he’d
spoken while I was ogling him.

“Sorry, I’m brain-dead today. What did
you say?” I stammered.

He smiled. “Word of advice: Don’t stand
so close to Skidmark. If you’ve been breathing that fug, you’re
probably half-stoned.”

My brain snapped out of ogle-mode and
into full alert. There it was again. A wholly Canadian accent, but
‘fug’? Nobody used that word around here.

Stemp had enemies overseas. If someone
was going to come after his parents to gain revenge on him, they
might have some sort of British or European accent…

I forced a chuckle, and Skidmark
emitted his wheezy laughter before offering Orion the
much-diminished joint. “Toke?”

“Sure.” Orion appropriated the butt and
took a short drag before offering it to me.

“No thanks,” I said for the third
time.

Orion was handing the roach back to
Skidmark when the sudden clamour of bells made me flinch and
swear.

“Jesus, not again,” I muttered.

“Come on!” Orion seized my hand and
dragged me into a full run. The pealing of the bells mounted to a
frenetic crescendo, and I dug in my heels as we reached the first
bend of the road.

“Hang on!” I pulled free of his grip.
“You go ahead if you want, but they can honour the Earth Spirit
without me this time. Moonbeam already hauled me out of bed in the
middle of the night a couple of days ago. I’m all honoured-out for
this week.”

“Come on, Storm!” Orion grabbed my hand
again and pulled. “Hurry up!”

Damn, he was strong. Dragged into a
reluctant jog, I protested, “Hell, Orion, you’re a smart guy. You
don’t really believe the ground’s going to open up and swallow us
if we skip some hokey ceremony, do you?”

He skidded to a halt. “It’s not hokey!
This is important! Why are we here if not to honour the Earth
Spirit?”

“Honouring the Earth Spirit is fine if
that’s what you believe in, but these random rituals are bullshi…”
My heart smote me as his beautiful eyes widened with hurt. I blew
out a breath. “Sorry.” I let him pull me into a run again.

When we panted up to the main building,
Aurora Peace Rain was practically dancing with impatience beside
the door.

“Hurry, hurry!” she brayed. “You’re the
last ones, and the Earth Spirit needs us!”

Clenching my teeth against the
onslaught of her voice, I accepted the rolled-up mat she pushed at
me and followed Orion into the darkened building. Weaving between
supine bodies, I tiptoed to my designated spot, where I unrolled
the mat and lay down.

Blissful humming rose from the commune
members and I closed my eyes, trying without much hope to achieve
the meditative state Moonbeam wanted. It hadn’t happened in four
months, so it didn’t seem likely now.

I drew a deep breath and let it out
slowly. Hell, even the little kids were lying perfectly still and
humming along with their parents. Surely I could manage some form
of meditation. What had Moonbeam said? Something about grounding my
root chakra to the Earth Spirit…

But wasn’t my root chakra somewhere
down around my ass? So if I was going to ground it to the Earth
Spirit, wouldn’t it make more sense to sit instead of lying
down?

But sitting on the Earth Spirit’s face
seemed a tad disrespectful.

Then again, dragging me out of bed in
the middle of the night for a ‘Spirit Calling’ was damn
disrespectful, too.

Maybe the Earth Spirit could just kiss
my chakra.

My eyes popped open in defiance of
Moonbeam’s ‘eyes closed’ edict and I studied my surroundings
without moving. The heavy hand-hewn beams above us were barely
visible in the dimness cast by the heavy shutters shrouding the
windows. The wall beside me radiated a damp chill, and I wondered
what architectural madness had impelled the builder to pour a
four-foot-high concrete base and then finish the building with wood
frame construction.

A soft green glow swelled into the
room, and I slitted my eyes to peer between my lashes, shifting
slowly to get a clear sight line without disturbing my humming
neighbours.

The raised dais at the front of the
room always held a large copper gong suspended from a wooden frame,
with a small table a few feet in front of it. But now green light
pulsated from the heart of the large crystal that occupied the
centre of the table.

While I watched, Aurora and her
sidekick Zen rose from their mats below the dais and stepped up to
the crystal, each pressing an ear against it from opposite sides
while their hands stroked a complex pattern over its surface.

The green glow brightened, illuminating
their exalted expressions, then abruptly extinguished.

Blinking to clear the afterimage, I
barely saw Aurora and Zen exchange nods. Zen crossed to the back of
the dais and struck the gong once.

As though animated by the mellow
reverberation, the recumbent bodies stirred and sat up, looking
expectantly toward the dais. I sighed and did the same. I knew what
was coming.

“The Earth Spirit has spoken! Come;
follow.” Aurora’s voice ravaged my eardrums like a jackhammer after
the peace of the meditation.

Everyone rose and split into two
groups, one behind Aurora, the other behind Zen. Two other leaders
whose names I had forgotten brought up the rear, apparently to
corral any stragglers.

Cold rain pelted down as we filed out
of the building, and I hitched my jacket collar up and muttered to
Orion beside me, “Remember, this was your idea.”

“Silence! We must honour the Earth
Spirit with our silence.”

Aurora had caught me. She gave me a
severe look and I ducked my head, hoping I looked contrite and
holding back the urge to reply, “I’ll shut up if you will.”

Instead, I bit my tongue and joined the
rest of the mute group to plod off into the wet forest single-file
behind Aurora. With superhuman restraint, I managed not to grouse
about the stupidity of tramping the winding forest trails instead
taking the direct route along the gravelled road. After about
fifteen minutes of hiking, our dripping crew filed into a large
open field, meeting Zen’s band as they arrived from the opposite
side.

Like well-drilled soldiers, we split
into groups under our four leaders and moved to the cardinal points
of the field where we knelt in the sodden grass, still silent.

The icy wetness made my knees ache and
the rain trickled in cold rivulets down the back of my neck. A raw
breeze moaned through the trees behind me, cutting effortlessly
through my soggy jeans. In front of me a bald man with a bushy
beard shivered uncontrollably, and I blessed my long thick hair. It
was soaking wet, but at least it provided a bit of insulation.

After what seemed like forever, Aurora
and Zen must have received some sign from their beloved Earth
Spirit. They released us with a joyous cry of, “The blessings of
the Earth Spirit are upon you!”

The supplicants replied with an equally
enthusiastic, “And upon you, too!” as they scrambled to their feet,
though I could have sworn the bald man had actually said, “And fuck
you, too.”

Or maybe that was just me.

Shivering, I hurried for the road and
made a beeline for the main building, jostling past the smiling and
chattering commune members who seemed impervious to the
bone-chilling rain.

Orion found me half an hour later at
one of the big woodstoves in the communal kitchen, where I was
reheating a pot of soup and huddling as close to the stove as I
could get without actually branding myself for life.

His hair hung in dripping ringlets
against cheeks ruddy with cold, and his green eyes sparkled with
amusement at the sight of me.

“Are you just a bit chilly, then?” he
inquired, grinning.

“Shut up.” I licked the hot soup off
the spoon before clasping it between my icy hands. Its warmth
dissipated almost instantly, and I sighed and resumed stirring.

He touched the towel I’d wrapped
turban-style around my head. “I like it. You look exotic.”

“I look like I’m in the final stages of
hypothermia. Which, by an amazing coincidence, I am.” I scowled and
licked the spoon again before lovingly embracing its tiny heat.

He moved a little closer, his eyes
darkening. “You’d warm up a lot faster if you did that to me
instead of to the spoon.”

I hid my sudden breathlessness in a
snort. “If I put these cold hands on you, you’d have indoor
plumbing for the rest of your life.”

“It’s a chance I’m willing to
take.”

Those green eyes. Dammit.

His eyes crinkled at the corners, dark
lashes lowering over heat. “I’m up for shower rotation today. My
slot is in an hour. You could share it with me.” A slow blink, his
eyes hooded with desire. “Nothing like a steamy-hot shower to warm
you up.”

Speaking of steam…

A curl of vapour drifted past my face.
I stepped away from the stove just in case, but it was likely only
wafting up from my suddenly-overheated nether regions.

I suppressed a sigh. After four months
of peaceful cohabitation it seemed unlikely that Orion was a threat
to Moonbeam and Karma, but still. I was under orders. And there was
that niggling suspicion…

I leaned past him to grab a bowl.
“Sorry, the power will come on in half an hour and I want to
blow-dry my hair. And I want to wash some clothes while the power’s
on, too.”

“Well, you know where I’ll be if you
change your mind.” He gave me one last scorching look before
withdrawing from my personal space to sink into a nearby chair. “I
don’t suppose there’s enough soup in your pot for two?”

I glanced up to see if that was some
kind of innuendo, but he was hungrily eyeing the saucepan on the
stove.

“You’re in luck.”

He grinned. “It’s not really the way I
was hoping to get lucky, but it’s almost as good.”

I shrugged and ladled out soup. “You
can get as lucky as you want. Any of the women and probably half
the men would be delighted to share your shower.”

“Not
any
of the women.” When I
glanced up, he was studying me intently. “You won’t.”

I sank into a chair and directed my
attention to my soup before he could read my face. “So I’m a freak.
Nothing personal.”

“Are you… er…” He hesitated. “Do you
prefer
indoor plumbing?”

Soup shot into my sinuses and tears
streamed down my face while I choked and groped for a napkin.

“Jesus!” I sputtered when my coughing
subsided. “Don’t do that when I’ve got a mouthful of soup! No, I
like your plumbing just fine…” My face heated. “I mean, as far as I
know,” I added hurriedly. “Not that I’ve been looking… oh shit,
shut up! Isn’t it time for you to go take a shower or
something?”

Orion leaned back in his chair and
laughed. “Not quite.”

Hoping to fill my mouth with food so my
foot wouldn’t fit in again, I reapplied myself to spooning soup.
Conversations from the other occupied tables rose around us,
emphasizing our little island of silence.

Moonbeam and Karma strolled in looking
warm and dry, their arms around each other and heads together in
quiet conversation. I jerked my chin in their direction and
muttered, “I didn’t see them freezing their asses off in the
rain.”