Into the Woods (53 page)

“I really like Mrs. Withon,” Jenks said as he landed on top of the pulley, a silver dust falling from him as they pushed out and down again.

The rope seemed to give way, and Trent panicked, reaching for it as it spun through the pulley and Jenks darted off. But it had only been Jenks’s dust lubricating it, and he frowned when the pixy came back when they hit the wall again, having descended almost three times the usual amount. “How that nice woman ended up with a kid like Ellasbeth is beyond me,” Jenks added as if nothing had happened.

“Yeah?” Trent panted, unable to make himself push off again.

Jenks grinned, his wings pinned to his back in the stiff wind. “She just threatened to throw the next man who shoots at you out the window. Megan is awake. She offered to help. God, Trent, what is it with you and women?”

Trent looked down again, smiling past Lucy. Her diaper had gone heavy against him. That drop had been scary. She hadn’t cried, though, and he gave her a comforting pat as he pushed away in a series of short hops to reach the end. A wave of something passed through him, chased by panic. Lucy trusted him? She trusted him to keep her safe? God help him, he could not fail her.

Swallowing the emotion back, Trent slowly descended the last few feet. The sound of the surf was loud, and the smell of dead things strong. He exhaled loudly as his bare feet finally touched the spray-wet rock. Knees trembling, he put a hand to the rock face. It was not over, though, and he looked out past the crashing waves. Still no boat.

“Look out!” Jenks shouted, and Trent shied as a weird sort of swallowed sound
schluup
ed through the rising and falling water six feet out.

Scowling, Trent looked up the line. They were shooting at him again, and concerned, he put a hand to the cord to feel it humming from more than the wind. They were coming, not afraid to shoot him dead now that he was on the ground.

“I think you’re okay,” Jenks said, peering up as three more bullets cut through the water, the closest too far to be a worry. “The angle is wrong. But you got three minutes before they show up, rappelling down your rope.” Jenks landed on an outcrop, his hair blowing wildly as he held his wings to his body. “I know you said there was a boat coming to pick us up, but how are you getting out to it? You elves got gills?”

“Something like that.” Head down and fingers fumbling from the spray, Trent shimmied out of the harness, leaving only the one that kept Lucy snuggled close to him.

“Seriously!” Jenks said, hovering between him and the wall as he tried to keep out of the wind and away from Lucy’s frustrated reach. “You can swim, but what about her?”

“Boat,” Trent said shortly, glancing up briefly to see that it still wasn’t here. It wasn’t a holiday, was it? It would be just like the Goddess to decree that his entire plan, haphazardly implemented and disastrously flawed, would end here at the end with his goal in sight but just out of reach, devolved by a slipped timetable or obscure holiday.
A goat. I’ll give you a Goddessblessed goat. Just get me out of here alive
.

“I don’t see no boat,” Jenks said, and Trent finally got his tiny knife and lighter from his belt pack. He’d brought it to blow the gum, but it would also burn the rope, and Jenks whistled in appreciation as Trent cut the cord, exposed the flammable core, lit it, and it smoked and burned like a fuse, shaking slightly as it burned upward.

“Nobody is going to make it down here on your rope now!” Jenks said in appreciation. “You just bought yourself ten minutes, you little cookie maker!” Jenks landed on his shoulder, his wings cold on his neck. “Ah, your boat going to be here by then?”

“Yes.”
Two goats
, he thought as he kicked the harness into the water. Crouching with Lucy before him, he inflated the little cockleshell boat using the compressed air that he’d brought to inflate a blown bike tire. In two seconds, one ounce of specially designed plastic became a small boat for one.

“That takes care of Lucy,” Jenks said, peering upward again. The bullets had stopped, but they’d start back up the instant they moved from the lee of the cliff. Trent doubted they would shoot at the little boat, so obviously carrying Lucy, but they’d try for him, even if it meant she might dash against the rocks. Maybe he had promised to revisit the custody arrangements too soon. This was insane. He’d gotten her, gotten out of their stronghold. Enough was enough.

“Here you go, sweet pea,” he found himself saying as he inexpertly wiggled Lucy out from her sling, the little girl’s eyes drooping. The stimulation of wind, water, and motion had begun to take their toll, and she frowned at the sudden cool breeze against her. “You can sleep in the boat,” he whispered, tucking her blanket in around her and drawing the thin plastic top over her to protect her from spray.

He felt funny talking to her with Jenks listening, but the pixy only nodded at the care he took, seeming to be satisfied. Perhaps he’d done better than he ever dreamed, bringing Jenks along with him. The pixy was a seasoned parent, and if he deemed the precautions he took adequate, then perhaps he wasn’t doing badly.

“I still don’t see a boat,” Jenks said as Trent carefully picked up the floating basket, wincing as the rocks cut into his feet.

Saying nothing, Trent waded out into the water. One bullet whizzed past him, then another, making Jenks swear and Trent’s eyebrows rise. The cold was breathtaking, and the bike suit soaked it up, holding it to him. Six steps put him to his chest, the waves jostling him until he gave up and pushed off, holding Lucy before him. He should have had the engineers fashion a way to tie her to him, he mused as he began to swim, the
schluup
s of the bullets making his jaw clench. If not for the erratic bobbing of the waves, he’d likely be hit by now. It only made him angrier, and he kicked harder, falling into an awkward but effective rhythm. Shove the boat, stroke, stroke—shove the boat, stroke, stroke.
Where is the bloody pickup boat!

“Boat?” Trent sputtered when they finally got far enough from the rocky edge so that he wasn’t fighting waves coming from both directions.

“Sure! Got it!” Jenks’s wings hummed, and Trent started when the smooth shape of the rocking cockleshell boat pulled away from him.

“No!” Trent said, his reaching hand smacking into it to make it rock violently. He panicked, thinking he had gotten Lucy wet, but she didn’t make a sound, apparently asleep. “I meant, do you see the pickup boat yet?” he asked as he began to tread water.

Jenks darted off, flying a good five feet above the water to make Trent wonder about sharks. If they had fish that would snack on Jenks, then there would be sharks, eating the fish, right? The cold was beginning to get to him, and he began swimming to generate heat, pushing forward going nowhere. He’d once pulled Rachel out of the frozen Ohio River. She’d been suffering from hypothermia after only a few minutes. He hadn’t had an issue with the cold, but he’d been in the water here for at least twice that. The bullets had stopped, and he was thankful. But maybe that only meant they had their own boat out here and didn’t want to hit it.

Doubts tugged at him, and his thoughts began to slow. He’d been awake almost three days in a row getting out here, and he’d asked his body to perform far beyond what he had prepared for. Jenks was gone, maybe eaten. He’d brought his daughter out of her safe home and for what? To die a cold and frightening death in the middle of the ocean?

The sound of Jenks’s wings brought his head up, and he leaned his body into treading water, the cold seeping into him. He peered up at him, squinting into the sun as the pixy landed on the edge of the cockleshell boat. “No boat,” Jenks said, making Trent’s heart sink. He’d been a fool. A fool to believe he could do this. The Goddess was laughing at him. He should have promised her more, but doing this without killing anyone had been his greatest sacrifice. Perhaps he should have tried harder not to kill the man with the knife. It had been instinct. Instinct had caused his downfall. He was not enough. He should turn around and take her back to them. He would die, but Lucy would live. Rachel would be furious with him. She was expecting his help, and a feeling of guilt swept through him. Just one more broken promise. He was no better than his father.

“Unless you’re talking about that nasty-looking whale-watching boat,” Jenks said, his expression pinched as he bobbed on the water and looked into the distance.

Trent’s head slipped under as shock stilled his slowly moving legs. “That’s the pickup boat!” he sputtered, kicking violently and steadying Lucy.

“That rat trap?” Jenks blinked, his wings turning an embarrassed red. “Oh man, I’m sorry,” he said, rising up and looking to the north. “Damn, I’m sorry, Trent. I though you had some sort of fancy-ass speedboat arranged to pick us up. I’ll go get them. They can’t see you from here. Hang on. I didn’t think you’d rely on something as chancy as a whale-watching tour boat!”

“Neither would the Withons,” Trent said, his exasperation turning into a weary elation, but Jenks had already zipped off. He should have told Jenks what to look for. Why did he keep treating him like an accessory? The man was more efficient than Quen at thinking on his feet and had more endurance than one of his racehorses.

From inside the tiny boat, Lucy began to cry, scared upon waking up in a rocking, shifting world of color and sound after her bland sterile room at the Withons’. Treading water, Trent looked in the direction that Jenks had gone, hearing a boat but not seeing it. He carefully pulled back the protective cover, using his weight to lean it enough that he could see in.

“Hi,” he whispered, and her eyes fastened on him, her momentary confusion at finding him with his hair plastered to his head passing at the sound of his voice. “We’re going to be okay, Lucy,” he said, and she kicked at him as if disagreeing. “You watch, Jenks is going to get them, and we’ll be okay.”

A marine horn tooted, and he looked up, waving at the row of people standing at the railing of the two-story whale-watching boat, binoculars all aimed at him. His heart pounded, and he felt a wash of protectiveness pass through him. Lucy’s eyes drifted, finding Jenks as the pixy spiraled down, dusting heavily. “I told them you were waterskiing and the boat crashed,” he said, darting off his first landing place that was within Lucy’s reach.

“Excuse me?” Trent pushed the damp hair from his face.

“Seriously, I told them you misjudged the tides, and your boat drifted off while you were out walkies with your kid,” he added, kicking at the air-filled cradle. “You’re going to have to explain it from there. I don’t know what you’re going to tell them about her ears.”

Trent frowned, thinking it was a bad story to begin with, but the chugging of the boat’s engine was growing loud, and Jenks darted off as helping hands reached over the side of the boat. Some were brown from the sun, others white with age, but he smiled as he accepted them, feeling reborn as they took first Lucy, then himself, dripping from the water.

It was a confused babble of excitement as tourists cooed over Lucy, making her cry until he took her back. The men surrounded Trent, talking of tides and past fishing excursions, and he sniffed, saying as little as he could, accepting the blanket that someone offered him, and then the diaper and cleaning cloths from someone else, cheerfully given from a worn diaper bag. No one remarked upon Lucy’s ears, no one asked what they were doing in the water. For the first time, he felt accepted as a person, and the new emotion soaked into him. The difference had to be Lucy.

Finally all the questions were answered, all the women pacified, all the men in a corner still talking of the dangers of being on the water, all the kids distracted by Jenks on the far side of the boat. The sun was warm, and he held his daughter in his arms, both of them in borrowed clothes, both swaddled in blankets against the stiff wind.

Finding no eyes on them, Trent slipped to the lee side of the wind next to the boathouse, settling into the patch of sun with a tired sigh. The soft thrum of the engine worked its way up into him, as he sat with his back to the wall, his feet propped up most ungentlemanly on the seat so he could hold Lucy more securely.

Smiling, he looked down at her sleeping, her soft frown easing as he touched her tiny hand with a single finger, watching the way the wind shifted her fair hair about her pointy ears. “I think we’re going to be okay, Lucy,” he whispered, and he leaned his head back, eyes shutting against the bright sun, listening to the wind and water, peace and exhaustion working together to ease him into the first good sleep in days.

They would be okay. He believed it to the bottom of his soul. Rescuing Lucy was the easy part. Surviving the next twenty years was going to be a little more chancy. After today, he thought he could do it with help, and now he thought he had the courage to ask for it.

Lucy would give him strength.

BEYOND THE HOLLOWS

Pet Shop Boys

I originally wrote “Pet Shop Boys” as one of two possibilities for an anthology. I don’t submit to many anthologies, but this group came to me through my agent, impressed with my Dawn Cook titles, and asked me to try my hand at writing about vampires. This was before the dual nature of Kim and Dawn had been revealed, and I was so tickled they asked that my automatic no turned into a yes. I worked up two shorts, trying to get as far away from the Hollows vampire mythology as I could. Under the advice of my agent that “Pet Shop Boys” had the potential to become a series, I retained it to sit in my cabinet until now.

I’ve long loved the idea of the fey living in a world twin to ours, passing through to snare the unwary when the veil was the thinnest. Bringing vampires into the mix was the icing on the cake.

ONE

G
ood luck with the puppy,” Cooper called as the boy leaned back against the glass door, the bells ringing as he tried to push it open. It wasn’t until the boy’s dad lent a hand that the night air slipped in with a dusting of snow and they got outside, their new bundle of yaps and wet spots on the carpet wiggling in the boy’s arms.