Tyrant Trouble (Mudflat Magic) (38 page)

Late
that day, shortly after sunset, he turned beneath the overhanging fir branches
and saw one of the beast-barrows standing motionless by the roadside, humming softly.
He feared almost nothing, had already faced his worst fears, and so he climbed
through the ditch and up onto the road and walked close to the thing.

A
door opened in its side and a man stepped down. They saw each other at the same
time.

The
man frowned and said, “Hey. Whatcha doing out here?”

He
pushed his hood back from his head because the man was bareheaded. It was a
common courtesy. Anyone who remained concealed could be an enemy.

The
man's expression softened. “You need a ride, son? Gotta take a leak, be right
back,” and stepped down into the ditch. A minute later he climbed back out,
pulled at something on the front of his pants, and said, “Hop in. Where you
headed?”

He
watched as the man walked around to the far side of the thing, opened another
door, climbed up and sat on some sort of chair, then leaned across to call out
the open door, “Hurry up, kid, I've got to get moving.”

He
nodded, walked to the open door, looked carefully into the little room with its
step and chairs and a wheel sticking up, and climbed carefully up, turned, as
the man had done, and settled himself in the seat.

“Fasten
that seat belt. I can't afford a ticket.”

He
stared at the man, not knowing what he was supposed to do.

“Wow.
You are zonked. Bad scar on your forehead, but it looks like it's healing. Been
camping? Get lost from your party?”

While
talking, the man reached across, grabbed a strap and pulled it so that it
stretched from shoulder to hip, clicked it in place.

He
leaned against the strap and found it held him against the chair back. Before
he could worry about that, the whole room moved and then the road and the
forest went rushing by him. He could see it through the front of the room, see
as clearly as if he were looking through an open doorway and should have felt a
blast of wind but felt nothing. Numb, he stared straight ahead, expecting to be
thrown out. When that didn't happen, he finally leaned forward as far as the
strap would allow and reached out his gloved hand. His fingers touched
something as solid as a wall and yet he could see through it.

“Yeah,
got a few dings in that windshield,” the man said. “Where you headed, son?”

He
turned to look at the man and for the first time actually saw him, gray hair,
heavy face, not unfriendly, dressed in something shiny, arms reaching in front
of him and his hands curled around the wheel.

Where
was he headed? He guessed at what the question meant, nothing to do with his
head, everything to do with where.

“Seattle,”
he said softly. “Do you know where that is?”

“Sure,
not going that far but I can drop you at a diner down the road. A lot of trucks
stop there. I'll hook you up with a ride to town. You don't come from Seattle,
huh? So why are you headed there?”

“Looking
for a girl.”

The
man laughed. “Yeah, that figures.”

THE
END

NEXT
-

Welcome to Mayhem, Baby

CHAPTER
1

Seattle,
Washington

When
I heard that low, sexy whine of Darryl's BMW, I grabbed Nance's arm and slammed
us both down the drive and against the cement retaining wall. My cousin's house
is built on a hillside. Actually, the whole city of Seattle is built on hills,
but anyhow, this particular house is a half flight of stairs up to the front
door and a six-foot drop down a sloped driveway from the street to the garage.

That's
where we were, huddled in the corner between the garage door and the wall,
hiding.

Nance
swore. Fast learner, that girl.

“Sorry,”
I muttered. “That's the car we don't want to meet.”

She's
a tough little blonde teenager. She moved free of me to creep up the drive,
peek out at the street.

“Stay
down,” I said.

Teenagers
are fearless. At twenty-three, I am a whole lot more careful. Kind of like to
make it to twenty-four.

Bent
low, Nance scurried back down to me.

“He's
about two houses down. Claire, we need to get a gun.”

Late
November rain didn't sweeten my attitude.

Her
suggestion was tempting on an emotional level, impossible on a practical level.
Sure, I'd love to shoot the bastard. Only I really wouldn't. Unlike Nance, I
don't approve of violence and certainly not of murder.

I'd
been home since the previous winter and avoiding creepy Darryl Decko all that
time. I was really, really sick of it. I had to earn a living despite the Decko
brothers.

Half
my living is earned working at the Mudflat Neighborhood Center. I do a lot of
paper shuffling for the counselors during the day. Two nights and a couple of
afternoons a week I also teach teenagers. That means going home after dark in
the winter.

Funny
thing about tough-talking guys like Darryl, they never want daytime confrontations
where there might be witnesses to see them bullying a skinny, helpless-looking
woman. He was a big, handsome guy, dark hair and a cap-toothed perfect smile
that never lit his eyes. Instead, he managed to chase after me a couple of
nights a week when I headed home.

This
night Nance and I were wearing dark rain jackets, jeans, sneakers. Nothing to
reflect light except Nance's blonde hair. I reached toward her and pulled up
her hood to cover it.

He
didn't see us in the sloped driveway, but he knew we were close. The creep
didn't want to catch me. He wanted to scare me. A shot rang out, and yeah, the
scare part worked.

We
huddled against the retaining wall of the drive, shivering and sweating at the same
time, one of those body reactions that requires a massive dose of fear. Wasn't
there anyone in the neighborhood to hear a gunshot?

My
cellphone rang in my jacket pocket, because that's what cellphones do, ring
when I don't want to make noise. I'd forgotten to turn it off.

Digging
it out of my pocket, I flipped it open to shut it up.

The
voice I expected was the one that spoke.

“All
I want to do is talk to you, Claire. Where are you?” Darryl said.

Like
I'd tell him that, a guy who follows me with a gun in his hand. And then I had
a bad thought. Did he have one of those global positioning things in that car
or some other device that could locate my phone?

I
hit the off button fast.

“We
should have headed the other way,” I whispered to Nance.

“Jimmy
will help us.”

The
girl had an odd amount of confidence in my scudzy cousin. Not that Jimmy was
what worried me. It was the block. Trouble doesn't stay in one place. But that
doesn't mean I go looking for the place it stays. And trouble was here, all
right, on Jimmy's street.

A
family who lived two doors down from Jimmy had disappeared. Not magic
disappeared. Literally disappeared. No break in, no signs of robbery, and
worse, purses, billfolds, money, car, all the stuff people take when they
intentionally go on a trip? That stuff was still in their house and garage.

The
Lettiwick family had been missing for a week now, long enough that we'd had
police all over the place and way too many TV vans and cameras.

Except
when they might be useful.

“A
guy is shooting off a gun and there's not a TV van in sight,” I complained.

“How
long are we going to hide here?”

“Until
he leaves.”

“He
can corner us down here.”

“He
didn't see us run this way, or he'd be pulled up at the top of the drive now.
He thinks we're in somebody's backyard.”

A
Mudflat backyard is capable of containing anything, because Mudflat is where
old magic lives.

Fortunately,
none of the Seattle city reporters know the name Mudflat. When they follow
crime reports here, they haven't a clue that they are in a space between
Seattle’s designated neighborhoods, an area that is so well organized it has
its own council.

Now
the Mudflat council was forming into an army of searchers. The missing family's
history in the neighborhood went back three generations to some strong magic,
and who knew, it might pop up again in the missing kids.

They
had to be found.

Until
they were, it was anyone's guess about why they were missing. Was it the
Lettiwick family specifically, or was something bad going down for anyone on
the street?

Obvious
direction to look, according to the law, was adjacent houses used for meth labs
or by pushers. That was Seattle law enforcement's theory. Mudflat knew better.
That stuff could happen anyplace else. But in Mudflat, look for a cranky wizard
or a crackpot vigilante.

Either
way, I didn't like to hang around near the Lettiwick house.

Another
shot exploded.

****

Mudflat Magic Novels

Tyrant Trouble

Welcome to Mayhem, Baby

Barbarian Toy Boy

Spice and Sorcery

Goldilocks Hits Town

Beastly
Week

Other
urban fantasy series by Phoebe Matthews include Turning Vampire, Sunspinners,
and the Wicked Good short story anthologies. For a list of current titles and
backlist books by Phoebe Matthews, her website is at
http://phoebematthews.com

Sunspinners
Novels

Demonspell,
or, Curse of the Everlasting Relatives

Demonhold,
or, Blight of the Deadly Demon

Demonprice,
or, Doom of the Penultimate Husband

Demonfire,
or, Charm of the Killing Cousin

Turning Vampire Novels

Vampire Career

Vampire Disaster

Wicked Good Short Story Collections

Nine Horoscope-in-Catsup Stories

Steampunk Man and More

Steampunk Widow and More