Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free (41 page)

“You okay?” I asked.

His eyes snapped to mine, and they were wolf eyes for a second, pale blue surrounded by black. He blinked and they returned to his normal warm brown. A confused expression crossed his big cherubic face before he said, “Finn? Sorry, I thought I smelled … other waerwolves have been here.”

“Yeah,” I said. “They attacked the steading.”

“Two males, one female,” Pete said. “Minerva, the one who came to the house. I felt an … urge to run into the forest, to find them.”

“They're gone. I hope. But … I may need your help talking to their Archon.”

Pete nodded earnestly. “I can do that. Thanks for not ditching me. I hate when you sneak off and get hurt.”

I snorted. “Yeah, me too. Come on. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can eat.”

“Waffles?” Pete asked, his tone hopeful.

“Der doy!” I replied.

*   *   *

The region's Forest of Shadows Archon operated from his estate on the slope of Cougar Mountain, just outside the city of Bellevue. The city sat on the far side of Lake Washington from Seattle, and though officially a suburb of Seattle, it had grown into a sizeable city in its own right. The Archon worked in the city by day, and by night held court over all of those voted “Most Likely to Be Evil” at Brightblood High.

He was, unsurprisingly, a vampire. And a lawyer.

Dawn had told me all about the vampire craziness in books and movies while I was in exile, but Sterling William Clay was not particularly sexy or glittery, nor mopey, moody, or broody from what I'd heard. He was a cold, calculating old bastard who'd lived centuries and generally saw humans as little more than cattle whose best uses were as food and to make him a profit.

It was a good thing for humans that vampires were notoriously territorial and not easily created. There were, as far as I knew, still only a dozen in the entire world.

And I had to convince this particular ancient jerkhead to stop his clan from attacking the Elwha steading.

It was still only 4:00
A.M.
when we reached Bellevue, so we headed for Clay's estate rather than his law offices. Cougar Mountain was the first and smallest of the “little Alps,” a range of tree-covered hills that loosely qualified as mountains and formed a circle of wilderness surrounded by sprawling cities.

The road up Cougar Mountain wound through forest, with the houses plentiful at first then coming further apart and growing larger and grander the deeper in we drove. By the time we turned up the paved side road that led to Clay's estate, we hadn't passed another house in over a mile. His property was backed onto hundreds of miles of protected wilderness, perfect when many of your clan preferred to run wild, or had a difficult time passing as human even with a glamour.

We were stopped by a tall iron gate across the road, and by the six-foot Crocodile Dundee–looking dude who stood in front of it with his bare arms crossed and his eyes shaded by an Aussie-style cowboy hat. As Pete and I got out of the car a safe distance away, he called out, “No visitors. Get back in and turn around.”

Pete sniffed at the air, and cocked his head. “This is one of the waerwolves from Elwha,” he whispered to me.

Great. I'd hoped against hope that the Archon had no knowledge of the attacks on the Silver, that he would be as furious about someone using his clan members to create trouble as the Silver were.

That seemed less likely now.

“Hello!” I called back, and held my hands out and open at my sides. I stayed close to the car. “I just came back from the Other Realm, where I had a nice chat with a Bright Lord from the Greatwood. I need to talk with your Archon about it.”

Dundee dude's head tilted back, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed, and a golden hoop glinted in his left ear. “You're allied with that Silver tree bitch.”

“No, not allied. I want to help you both.”

He made a sound between a grunt and a growl, and said, “Rumor is a necromancer helped her kill Ned. He was my pack mate.”

Crap.

“Look. If you can just get your Archon—”

A rustling in the undergrowth to our left caused me to take a step back and put my hand in my pocket, grasping the cool silver-plated steel of the baton.

A wiry old man stepped out of the forest wearing jeans and a dirty red flannel shirt, his white hair sticking out wild from beneath a fedora the color of drying blood.

A redcap.

He held a wooden staff in his left hand, his talon-like nails preventing him from closing his hand entirely around it, and in his right he gripped a wriggling rabbit by the scruff of its neck. He was busy tearing the throat out of the rabbit with his teeth when he stepped onto the road, and stopped short when he realized he was not alone.

He fixed his bloodshot eyes on me, and with a red grin he lifted the rabbit and let its blood stream down onto his hat. “Hallo, boys. What 'ave we 'ere?”

Why couldn't anything ever be easy?

Meeting a redcap without magical protections was about as lucky as running into Freddy Krueger in a knife shop.

I glanced back. I would not be able to get into the hearse before the redcap could reach me. And fleeing into the forest was not an option—this was their turf.

Dundee McWaerjerk smiled an unpleasant smile. “Good timing, Willem. This Shadows-murdering arcana and his friend were just trying to get at our Archon.”

“Now wait—” I said.

“Funny thing,” Waerjerk continued, “I don't see a single beaded moustache between them, and he ain't once gone all official talking about ARC authority and all. What do you think that means?”

Willem met his grin, and dropped the rabbit, his hat now glistening and bright red. “I'm thinking it means dinner, it does!”

“Don't do this—” I said, and stepped toward the car as I flicked my wrist. The baton extended and burst into fiery blue light.

Willem threw his staff at me, and leapt after it.

Why can't there be time-outs in real life?

 

27

Devil Inside

I managed to turn enough that Willem's staff clipped my shoulder rather than punching me in the throat. It sent me staggering sideways, and my left arm went numb. I saw Waerjerk and Pete crash into each other, both punching and trying to knock the other to the ground.

And then Willem leaped on me, his eyes wide and wild and red as his fedora. I swung the baton with all my strength for his head.

He caught the edge of the blow on one forearm, but the baton still connected with his cheekbone, and flared white. The redcap crashed into me, and we fell to the cold concrete together. The baton jolted out of my hand as it hit the ground. Willem punched me in the throat, and I gagged. He straddled me, his bony knees pressing my shoulders to the ground, and leaned down, blood dripping from a nasty gash on his cheek.

I looked over, gasping for enough breath to call for help, but Pete had his own problems. Waerjerk leaped at Pete, transforming into a black wolf twice the size any wolf had a right to be.

The redcap pressed one hand over my mouth to keep me from speaking, jerking my head back to face him.

“No wizardy words from you, oh no,” he said, a wicked smile wrinkling his old-man's face. His breath reeked of blood and decay, which only made me gag worse. He ran a talon along my cheek with his free hand. “Let us see what power there be in a wizard's blood, hey?”

I punched him in the side—and the redcap's pressing hand muffled my cry of pain. Willem might look like an old man, but he was solid as a log. He chuckled, and pressed his talon against my neck.

I grabbed his wrist, concentrated, and summoned his spirit.

Willem screamed, his body convulsing as the spiritual feedback set his nervous system on fire. I pushed him off of me.

My head rang from the feedback of the summoning as I scrambled across the carpet of pine needles and snatched up the baton.

“Mercy, mercy,” Willem said, whimpering between words. “I meant no harm, only playing I was.”

Yeah, right.

I crab-walked backward, and then pushed myself to my feet.

Willem pressed a hand to his bleeding cheek. His red fedora darkened around the edges, the blood draining away to sustain and heal him, leaving the rim dry and crusty.

I backed toward the car, the now-glowing baton held pointed at the redcap. “Don't move,” I said, and looked over at the vicious sound of two wolves snarling and snapping at each other.

Pete had transformed into a wolf.

If Waerjerk was two times the size of a normal wolf, Petey was nearly three times. His coat shifted in a pattern of grays and light browns, and he had pale fur around his muzzle that was now spotted with red.

The dark wolf squatted low, growling. His gold hoop earring still glinted in his pointy ear. He limped to one side, and Pete growled and pressed in. Waerjerk snapped at Wolf-Pete, and Wolf-Pete launched into a crazed frenzy of barking and snarling. He bit at Waerjerk's neck and practically climbed on top of him before leaping away and stalking him again.

Waerjerk lowered himself to the ground, and belly-crawled toward Pete, whimpering.

Pete snapped once at him, then appeared to just lose interest. Waerjerk stood, and moved around to his side and slightly behind him.

“Pete?” I called. “You okay?”

Wolf-Pete's pale blue eyes snapped to me, and his hackles rose. He growled, and Waerjerk joined him.

Oh crap.

“Hey,” I said. “It's me, Finn. Your brother?”

Wolf-Pete padded cautiously toward me, his lips pulled back to show all his teeth as he continued to growl.

I reached blindly behind me for the handle to the car door. If I couldn't get through to Pete, I'd have to try to escape and get help.

“Pete! Come on! Remember me! And Vee! You're going to marry her, remember?”

Wolf-Pete stopped, his growls dying down.

Then he barked at Waerjerk and bolted for the forest.

“It seems your wolf companion has abandoned you,” a deep voice intoned. A man stepped forward from the gate as if he had passed through the metal bars, but I realized he'd probably been standing there for some time, glamoured, just watching our fight.

Sterling William Clay.

He looked like a man in his early fifties in constant and imminent danger of a heart attack; not obese, but not fit either, his pale puffy face tinged red as if he'd been running to the point of heat stroke. Some vampires might be vain, but Clay obviously fell more in the camp of those immortals who figured, what the hell, if cholesterol and alcohol can't kill you, why be moderate?

That didn't mean he was any less deadly, however.

Clay gave a smile stained nearly brown—I preferred to assume by centuries of tea, coffee, and tobacco rather than blood. “If the wolf has come to join us, he is most welcome,” he said. “You, however, are most not.”

“I came here to talk,” I said. “I don't want to fight.”

“And I do not wish to be disturbed from my evening walk by rude strangers attacking my home.”

“Your clan mates attacked me,” I said. “After I explained that I was here to help.”

“Help?” Clay laughed. “We are not the ones in need of help, I think.”

I heard a whisper behind me. I gave a quick look over my shoulder, but nobody was there. When I turned back, Clay stood close enough I could feel his breath on my face, and he wrenched the baton painfully from my hand. It flared white at contact with his skin, but he barely twitched, then slammed the baton closed. “And don't try to summon my soul, boy. I don't have one.”

I swallowed. “Everybody has a spirit.”

“You are twice a fool,” he said, and walked back toward the gate. “Once a fool for coming here, and twice for not coming better prepared.” The redcap rose to his feet, an unpleasant smile stretching his face as he lowered his hand from the now-healed cut.

“I came prepared enough,” I said. “The ARC knows I'm here, for one.”

“Do they? Or do they only know you intended to come here?” Clay asked. “Who's to say whether you ever arrived, the infamous Phinaeus Gramaraye, the necromancer who seems to find trouble wherever he goes? Perhaps you ran into a rogue redcap on the road?”

And me without my AAA redcap protection.

“Fine. But I came to tell you that someone is using your clan like pawns. That's what got Ned and Hiromi killed. If you don't care that someone is making a fool of you, go ahead and kill me.”

Clay smiled. “Oh, I never said I was going to kill you. I was just offering advice, exploring hypotheticals. Willem, be a good lad and go inform Minerva that her boyfriend's off running with a new playmate. Have her bring them home?” He waved his hand, and the gates opened.

The redcap whimpered, and appeared to deflate, slumping forward into a dejected pose. “But I thirst.”

“I've told you before,” Clay said. “Do not pick fights you cannot win. Tell Consuela to give you a pint of blood before you dry out completely, then do as I requested. Now.”

Willem glared at me briefly, a look that promised revenge, then he scooped up his staff and scurried off through the opened gates.

Clay watched him go, and shook his head. “Redcaps. So hotheaded. You wouldn't believe how much trouble he is, but I do what I can.”

“Uh, yeah, it must be terrible.”

“Ah, sarcasm. I remember when sarcasm was a killing offense. Better days. Come, let us go somewhere more comfortable to await the return of your brother, and discuss how you, the great necromancer, are going to help little old me.” He turned in the direction of the gate.

“Uh, can't we just discuss it here?” I asked, glancing back at my car and the slim possibility of escape should things go sour.

“Come now, don't be a sissy boy. And do not fall behind, arcana.” Clay began marching up the road. He looked to either side, and stage whispered, “There are bad things in the night.” He chuckled, and continued his steady stride.