Opening Gambit...Part 3

I stopped just before I touched the door, hand still extended. “What?”

Ravyn reached out and brushed my arm aside. Her voice grew louder in her impatience. “Don’t you see the damn door isn’t locked? Do you think a Caster of El Diablito’s ability is going to leave one of his haunts completely unprotected? Sheesh! After all of this time and after everything you’ve been through, you were just going to barge in there without thinking, weren’t you?”

I raised my hands in surrender. There was certainly no arguing with her when she was this fired up. “OK, OK. Do whatever you think you need to do to make it safe, I’ll be a good little zombie and wait for the mighty Caster to do her work!”

Ravyn’s eyes flashed as she turned to respond. Her mouth opened as if she were about to respond when Zenny slipped in between us, her back to Ravyn.

She looked up at me with disappointment in her eyes as she placed a hand on my forearm. “That was uncalled for, Rusty. Ravyn is thinking only of our safety.”

Her almond shaped brown eyes reflected a level of sadness that drew me up short. I looked away from her in shame. “I’m sorry Ravyn. I don’t know why I said that.”

Zenny turned to Ravyn and spoke in a very soft voice before Ravyn could reply to me. “Please, allow me.” She nodded towards the door.

Ravyn alternated looking between Zenny and me as she backed away from the door to allow Zenny to use her skills.

Zenny pulled the thin deerskin glove off her right hand and stepped to the door. She leaned in close to the door, placing her palm flat on the door at about ear height. She turned her head to the side as she did and closed her eyes. Her lips parted ever so slightly as she began to concentrate on what the door could tell her.

Ravyn watched her with concern, her own hands clenched with the tension of the unknown that hung heavy in the suddenly silent and still night air. Even the creaking of the sign had finally stopped. It was as if all of south Florida was waiting for the results of Zenny’s contact with the door.

After several tense moments, Zenny stepped back from the door with a sigh. As she turned to face the two of us, she brushed a stray strand of her dark hair back under her hijab. “This door has not been opened in nearly a year. The last people to use it were manual laborers of some sort. I don’t sense any about the door that would be of concern in opening it.”

Ravyn nodded. “That’s good. At least we know it’s safe to open the door.”

Zenny shuddered. “I did get a feel for this person you have called El Diablito.” She looked directly at me. “Rusty, I don’t think that I will ever be able to think of you as Shaitan again. That man has truly earned that name.”

Concerned, I put a hand on her shoulder. “What did you see?”

She shook her head. “That is something we can discuss at another time. Let’s see what awaits us inside.”

Zenny moved to the side, allowing me to reach out to the door as she carefully put her glove back on. She wore them almost all of the time since her talent was always active—giving her impressions and information about everything that she touched, unless she was wearing something as familiar and safe as those gloves.

With my left hand on the handle, I glanced back at Ravyn to make sure that she was ready and then flicked my right wrist to allow that baton to drop into my palm. I let it stay in its collapsed form for the moment.

At Ravyn’s nod, I yanked the door open and slipped into the doorway just in case there was a surprise waiting for us. The dark, dusty interior of the empty shop greeted me with bored indifference.

I recognized the skeleton of the once cluttered shop that I had visited those many years before. But the racks and shelves that had once been full to the point of bursting now stood empty like the bones of a long dead beast picked clean by scavengers.

“It looks abandoned.” I walked in towards the counter where the cashier used to stand. The light switch on the wall next to the ancient cash register was unresponsive.

Behind me, I heard Ravyn whisper. “Bob, you stay close, OK?”

I heard the cheery warble of ‘Bob’ reply as I looked back to see Ravyn on one knee at the doorway of the shop. She had taken her small backpack off and was holding the top flap open so that Bob could float out.

The soft yellow glow that Bob gave off when he was happy to be exploring a new place helped to illuminate the shop further. As Bob floated happily to the top of the room, the harsh, skeletal shadows retreated to their corners.

Ravyn stood up and swung the now empty pack back across her shoulders as stepped into the shop. Zenny followed behind her, smiling in wonder at the bizarre, orb-like creature that was now happily whistling as he drifted along the ceiling.

After taking stock of the clearly empty and abandoned shop, Ravyn turned to me. “You were here once before, can you lead us back to any office he might have had? That’s probably the place where we are most likely to find anything he left behind that Zenny might be able to get a reading off of.”

I nodded and pointed towards the curtain hanging just to the left of the cashier’s counter. “If go through there, we’ll pass through the used book area that he had and down a hall towards the back. There’s a large ceremonial room where he drugged me when he was making my Chakra. There’s a small office and kitchen area back there as well. If he’s been here in the last year, that’s where he’s most likely to have been.”

Ravyn pushed back the holey curtains, putting her hand to her face to protect herself from the dust cloud that act generated, and waved me through. “After you.”

(Conclusion of Opening Gambit due tonight…)