“Okay, Joe, okay. We’ll be back tonight,” Rafe finally agreed.
Outside, Maia–in Harley form–waited beside Beast. I got a little thrill knowing that hidden away inside my Harley was a beautiful hippogriff. I really wanted to let her out and go flying, but there’d be time for that later.
“Hello, Maia. Was Beast pleasant enough?” I asked as I swung a leg over the seat.
She chuckled, and Beast growled. “He was pleasant, for a manticore.”
“I guess we can’t hope for more than that, eh, Rafe?”
Rafe grinned. “That’s about all.”
As their engines roared to life, I asked, “Rafe, what did Joe mean about his cabin being shielded? Is it like some kind of camouflage?”
“No, not that kind of shielding. It’s like our personal shield spells. I haven’t mentioned that capability because we’ll never have a place that we will need to shield the way I could if I stayed in one place. Joe already had his cabin pretty well shielded when I first saw it, but I helped him with a few other spells. Now I don’t think a tank could break in his door. It’s a lot of work to maintain at that level, he has to refresh the spells every few days, or they start to fade, but since he built directly under a ley line, there’s plenty of available power.”
“Then he was right when he said we’d be safe?” I asked.
“In the cabin, we’re as safe as we can be anywhere on the planet. I just worry about drawing attention to him. He’s not a young man anymore.” Rafe’s head turned toward the cabin. Joe was sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, watching us. Rafe lowered his voice and leaned closer. “He’s aged a lot since I was last here. I’m not sure how much longer he’ll be around.”
I felt a twinge of regret and sorrow tighten my chest. “Really?”
“Yes, I’d hate for him to have to spend his last days worrying about the government or the kind of people that Rowle keeps siccing on us.”
I didn’t know what else to say. I glanced back toward Joe and realized I’d grown fond of the old shaman faster than I would have thought possible.
Beast began to move, and I dropped the transmission into gear and pulled alongside Rafe as we started down the mountain toward the city.
Chapter 15
Raphael
We left Joe enjoying the mild November afternoon and dropped down the mountain, passing The Broadmoor Resort. We went around the traffic circle and turned left onto Cresta Road. Cresta led north, bordering the older Skyway neighborhood and became South 21st Street around the nearly six hundred acre Bear Creek Park. The dog park section was crowded as it had always been as far back as I could remember. We crossed the hill, and I was surprised to see a largely residential neighborhood in the area called Gold Hill Mesa. I couldn’t recall there being anything in that blighted area in my lifetime. It used to be the Golden Cycle Mill but had closed about the time I was born. The area was polluted with lead, mercury, and arsenic and I had never thought to see it developed. I had to guess someone had found a way to clean up the pollution.
We crossed busy Cimarron Street, which doubled as Highway 24, the four-lane blacktop that led west into the mountains, and then turned west when we reached West Colorado Avenue. Colorado Ave led us through Old Colorado City, a large tourist area between downtown Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs at the base of Ute Pass. We idled past the restaurants and touristy shops that lined the street. My feelings were that our summoning was still northwest of us. When we reached Ridge Road, I felt we needed to turn more north and I motioned for Tess to make the turn onto the smaller street.
Almost immediately we began to see the red rock formations that gave the Garden of the Gods it signature landscaping. Ridge Road led directly into the park, and I knew we were getting closer to our summoning with each mile we traveled. We reached Juniper Way Loop, a one-way circuit around the most massive of the monoliths that drew so many tourist to the park.
We motored on without speaking. I was concentrating on identifying the source of our summoning, but I could see that Tess was having trouble concentrating and was spending her time taking in the magnificent scenery. We passed Gateway Road, which led from the park’s east entrance and continued north.
Almost immediately, I noticed the source of the summoning had moved to the west. So, we’d gone as far north as we needed to. We continued along the loop, passing the north parking lot, which sat in the shade of the Tower of Babel, and shortly thereafter began to curve back to the south. Just after the curve, we reached the high point of the road and the park opened out before us. It was a tremendous view. I motioned to Tess to stop at the left hand pull-off.
The source summons was somewhere straight ahead. In the valley that stretched a half-mile or so to our south, the terrain was heavily wooded with mostly spruce and scrub oak. There were a few open meadows and a hiking trail snaked between the open areas and the massive monoliths to the east.
“Wow!” Tess said with a note of wonder in her voice. “You don’t get views like this back east.”
“Pretty much, although there are a few.”
She pointed toward the nearest of the red massifs. “Do these things have names?”
“Sure, although I don’t know all of them. The northern most outcropping, there,” I said pointing. “Is the Tower of Babel. It’s really part of
