Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free (47 page)

The center of the garden stood empty, just the crushed and chopped remains of entangled branches, thorns, and vines, and the scarred, twisted bush at its heart.

“Crap,” I said. “Either we scared her off, or we missed her.”

“Aw, you missed me?” The green tangled wall at the back of the clearing wavered like a Romulan cloaking shield being lowered, and Heather appeared, finishing off a vial of liquid.

She looked even worse than last time if that was possible, thinner, paler, the blue-gray shadows under her eyes practically bruises. Combined with the black hair and long black jacket, she might have been mistaken for a vampire groupie, except for the brightly colored SuperSoaker in her other hand.

“Heather,” I said. “Thanks for coming.”

Heather looked past me as she tucked the empty vial into a jacket pocket. “Dawn,” she said. “I like the new hair color.”

“Heather,” Dawn said, and waved at the garden. “Have you just been lurking around here waiting for Finn's bat signal?”

“No. I have a … place, not too far away. When the crow called me, I snuck here as quickly as possible.”

“Huh. Shouldn't you be in, like, Mexico or someplace?” Dawn asked, her tone skeptical. “Hiding out, putting the whammy on some resort bachelor or something, living the glamorous life of a fugitive and all?”

“You know, I tried,” Heather said. “But turns out being alone, without family or friends, being hunted by half the people I knew, and hated by the rest … it just wasn't as exciting as the brochures promised.” Her voice broke a little on the last word.

Ah frak. “Dawn, Heather, I—”

“But you've got all that magic,” Dawn said. “Like love potions! You know, I just learned they're a real thing. So why didn't you ever use one on Finn?”

“Look—” I said.

“Because,” Heather replied. “I didn't need it. And I would never use a love potion on someone I actually cared about.”

“Ah. Okay,” Dawn said as she slipped the sword in and out of its sheath a couple of times. “So you'd only seduce someone and try to kill them, but love potions, that's where you draw the line. Good to know your sense of right and wrong isn't completely bat-shit fucked up or anything.”

Heather looked at me, and said in an exhausted voice, “Is this why you signaled for me, so your girlfriend can remind me what a horrible person I am?”

“No,” I said, looking at Dawn to emphasize the point. “I need your help, to save the brightbloods.”

“Damn it, Finn,” Heather said, anger scrunching her face. “I already told you, I'm not going to make a damn cure for the mana drug. Even if it was possible, it would just put a bigger target on my back.”

“I know,” I said. “I want you to actually make the drug for them.”

“Wait. What? Why in all the hells would I do that?”

“To at least keep them from dying while they try to find their own cure.”

Heather gave a bitter laugh, and shook her head. “Jesus. You're just like your grandfather.”

An unexpected rage flared up in me, and I took a step toward her, my hand going to the holstered Taser. “Take that back!”

Heather's eyes widened, and she said, “I'm sorry. Shit.” She sighed. “I didn't mean that, really. It's just—no matter how much I try, I can't seem to escape my parents' life.”

I relaxed. “You won't be doing this to control the brightbloods, or for profit,” I said. “You'll be doing this to help. I'll escort you to their steading—”

“Their steading?” she asked. “Crap.” Her mouth scrunched to the side for a second as she considered me. “Okay. I'll do it, but I want—”

“No,” Dawn said. “No favors, no deals. Finn's not going on any more quests for anyone but himself.”

Heather shrugged. “I don't see much reason to risk
my
life then, not for this.”

“You get to help me out,” I said. “And earn some good karma while you're at it.”

“Good karma for making drugs?” Heather gave another bitter laugh.

“It's for good reasons,” I replied.

“I need to earn points with the ARC, not some feybloods.”

“Okay, fine. This isn't about you,” I said. “Or me.” I gave Heather the short version of recent events, and said, “I need your help to stop a clan war. And deal with the damage my grandfather, and you, have caused. For Pete and Vee's sake, and my own conscience.”

“Shit,” Heather said, and paced for a few seconds. “Look. I'm not proud of what I did. You know that. But, what you're asking me to do—” She shook her head.

I clenched my jaw in frustration.

*Remind her that a war between Demesnes would disrupt the ARC's flow of magic and profits. That won't look good for the current leadership,* Alynon said. *Helping to save their asses, or at least their assets, might earn her a little leniency.*

I want to give her a chance to do this for the right reasons first,
I replied.

*Right for you, or for her?* Alynon said.

As if reading my thoughts, Dawn said, “Oh, well, we wouldn't want you to help just because it's the right thing to do.”

Heather sighed. “Not all of us had the privilege of your carefree life, Dawn. Some of us had shitty parents, and then had to be parents ourselves, to—”

“You did a bang-up job of that,” Dawn replied.

Heather looked as though Dawn had slapped her, and tears welled in her eyes.

“Crap,” Dawn said. “How do you always bring out the bitch in me?”

“I'm sorry,” I said, and looked at Dawn. “I know this is awkward, with all that's—”

“Oh, get over yourself,” Dawn said. “This isn't about you.”

“Yeah,” Heather said, and gave a sad smile. “Dawn and I have disliked each other a long time without your help.”

“That's the truth,” Dawn agreed, but didn't sound happy about it, either. She poked at the ground with the sheathed sword. “I think—I guess I just resented how everything came so easy to
you
.”

“Ha! Easy?” Heather said.

“Look, guys—” I said, trying to get back on track.

“Yes, easy,” Dawn replied. “You'd show up at a bar and dance, and every guy there was yours. You got a great job—”

“Great? Teaching high school?” Heather said in a mocking tone. Then she seemed to deflate a bit. “Yeah, I guess it was pretty great. And you know, I may have gone home with plenty of guys, but it was always a mistake. At least you were free—”

“Oh yeah, I was so free, working crap jobs to support Phoenix just so he could dump me and run away.”

“You were pursuing your dreams. That's more than I had the courage to do in the end,” Heather said. “And you know, you didn't have to always go home alone. I heard guys admiring your … assets.”

“Yeah, dude-bros who wanted to check off ‘bang a black chick' on their fucket list.” Dawn shook her head. “You know what, screw it, whatever. We're here now. We're both adults. Well, I am. You're running around in a Halloween wig and carrying a squirt gun.”

A smile played across Heather's lips. “Cute.” She lowered her water rifle. “I guess I can move beyond the past if you can.”

“Sure,” Dawn said, and smiled. “And that's the magic of nothing-to-lose conversations. Two women can talk through their personal crap.” She raised the sword, and slapped the sheath across her palms. “But just to be clear, I still don't trust the woman who tried to kill my boyfriend.”

The smile dropped from Heather's face, replaced once again by exhaustion and determination. And hurt.

Dawn continued, “This isn't about you and me, though. It's about protecting Finn's family from getting sucked into some crazy war. I know you care about them. I know you care about Mattie. So prove it. Help them.”

Heather looked up at the house for a second. “I—I do still care about them.” She closed her eyes. “If I do this, Finn, you have to swear to me on your magic that nobody will tell these feybloods I created the mana drug.”

“I swear,” I said. “We go in, make a bunch of the drug for them, and get out. That's the plan.”

Heather was silent a minute, then said, “Where's this steading?”

“It's the Elwha Silver steading, upriver from the dams.”

“Yay, hiking. I'll go get my equipment, and what ingredients I can. If—”

“Oh! wait,” I said. “I, uh, also need two truth potions. Can you get those?” They were required for the duel, and I'd nearly forgotten them.

“I'll try,” Heather said. “Meet at the trailhead in, say, two hours?”

“Sure, that should work.”

Heather turned, and disappeared along the garden path.

“Damn,” Dawn said after a few seconds. “I mean, she brought it on herself, but still. Damn.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That about sums it up.” I shivered in the shade of the garden. “Can we go inside? Or at least back into the sun?”

“Big baby,” Dawn said. “So what were the truth potions for?”

“Oh, uh, Silene asked for them,” I lied. “I think maybe to make sure she doesn't have any more spies in her group.”

“Makes sense.” Dawn hooked my arm with hers. “Walk me home?”

“Of course, milady,” I said.

“So you take Heather to these brightbloods, and then you're done, for real?” Dawn asked as we slipped through the break in the hedge between our properties, and walked toward her back door.

“One way or another, I will be done tonight,” I replied.

*Nice dodge,* Alynon said snidely.

Suck it.

“And you promise you're not going to do something crazy and get yourself killed?”

“Well, I can't promise I won't do something crazy. But believe me, I'm not looking to get killed.” Which was true. Not that it made me feel any better to lie to her.

We entered Dawn's house, and she led me into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. I leaned against the counter, and just soaked in the moment—the sunlight glowing through the kitchen window, lighting her profile, glinting off the glass of water. A beautiful sight.

“I love you,” I said.

Dawn choked on her water, spraying it, and leaned over the sink to cough as I patted her back.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“What did you say?” she asked at last.

“I said I'm sorry.”

“No, you idiot. Before that.”

“Oh. I said … I love you. I really do. And, well, I'm sorry I haven't said it earlier. I was being an idiot.”

“Huh,” she said, and nodded. “Okay then.”

She attacked me. In a good way.

Don't ruin this,
I thought to Alynon as I consumed Dawn's kiss, was consumed by it.

And for once, Alynon, and the fates, listened.

I followed Dawn's lead, her kisses releasing a tidal wave of need in me. And I didn't even think about Alynon again until Dawn and I lay sweaty and naked and breathing heavy in her bed, at the end of a trail of clothes and several stops along the way. The thought that we might have damaged some of the family pictures we knocked from the walls getting here, and regret over the number of times I accidentally pinned her hair to the bed with my arm, also flickered across my drowsy mind. But such thoughts were pale, fleeting shadows on the glowing feeling that still pulsed through me like fading aftershocks.

I kissed Dawn's shoulder, and curled up against her.

“Mmm,” Dawn purred, wriggling back against me. “You feel nice. Warm.”

I kissed her neck, nuzzled up under the soft curls, breathed the coconut and slight chemical scent of her hair, tasted the salt of our earlier exertions. Where our kisses before had been wild, devouring, giddy, I now felt something more tender driving me: a desire to write poems with my lips across the smooth expanse of her skin; a need to speak the depth and truth of my love through my fingertips as they brushed gently down the path of her spine, over the curve of her goddamn beautiful ass, over her hip and down, under the fold of her belly. She moaned, and shifted onto her back, granting me access to her full beauty.

I painted a field of butterflies across her with my lightly brushing kisses. I gave a lingering kiss to the teeth marks on her stomach, where I had earlier bit into the ample flesh and had felt the animal urge to devour her, to growl and fuck and howl. I felt the urge rising in me again at the memory, but I moved on, exploring, following the lead of her quickened breathing, her soft moans, her writhing.

When I finally entered her this time, it was more than the joyous and mutual victory of the first time, it was returning home. I held myself over her, looked down into her eyes, into the dark heart of creation and life, the birthplace of stars and souls, and suddenly laughed a giddy, uncontrollable laugh as tears filled my eyes. She laughed with me, and pulled me down into her, into the world of her, our rhythm joined, our bodies molding to each other, and together we found completion.

We floated together for a time measured by the beating of hearts, warm breath on skin, sweat cooling degree by degree. And the fact that I had to do the impossible with less than a day to do it seemed in that moment the perfect reason to just go to sleep, holding Dawn close.

*WAKE UP!* Alynon shouted in my head.

I lurched awake. Dawn lay next to me snoring louder than anyone I'd heard except Petey.

What the hell?
I asked.

*Time to make the donuts,* Alynon replied. *What do you think?*

I blinked crusty eyes to look at Dawn's bedside clock. The red digital numbers said 2:12
P.M.

*I am sorry,* Alynon added, and actually sounded genuine. *I wish I could just let you sleep. But you've got to prepare if you're going to win this contest and not get us killed.*

“Okay, okay.” I sat up. Dawn looked so peaceful in the afternoon light. I gently shook her shoulder.