The Cursed Blood

by Jeremy Craig

  I fumbled for my glasses on the nightstand and pulled them on, squinting at how fuzzy things looked with them on. I peered over the rim of the lenses and things were crisp and clear, but when I gazed through them again everything was all warped and fuzzy like a fun house mirror.

  It weirded me out, but I put them back on the nightstand and decided to get dressed before the overexcited hound left bruises on my side from ramming his cold nose into me and patting at me with his oversized paws in his effort to urge me along.

  “Ok, ok, I’m up, I’m up,” I complained halfheartedly as Manx panted up at me and whined as he watched me stretch, yawn, and toss the sheets aside to grudgingly get up and start the day.

  Gramps had laid out the best choice (in his opinion) of clothes on the dresser before dinner the night before. Rummaging through my suitcases and travel bags all the while shaking his head and mumbling about “city folk” and “bloody mundane’s” as he promised over and over again that we would be setting out for provisions the next day and would get me “better sorted” then.

  Between Manx’s whining, badgering persistent urgings, and a rumbly empty stomach, I was out of bed way before I’d gotten all my ducks in a row. Not that the big Witchound cared. He was happy as long as I was up and acknowledging him. Petting his head and scratching behind his floppy, furry ears, I simultaneously hopped about trying to pull on my jeans.

  I donned the only flannel I’d owned up to then, a warm pair of woolen socks and a battered old pair of white sneakers that had definitely seen better days all as Manx whined and sniffed at me like I was the most interesting thing he’d smelled in ages.

  I was pulling on the denim trucker style jacket I’d gotten from my dad for my last birthday and out the bedroom door with an excited bear like dog on my heels (that almost bowled me over in his hurry to get outside) about ten minutes later.

  “Good morning. No glasses, eh?” Gramps noted with an odd smirk. I shrugged, and he chuckled to himself, ushering me and the dog out the front door with a snort. It was cold and barely light out yet. The air was crisp, and the leaves were changing.

  It would have been lovely if I’d had the interest at the time to take it all in as he rushed me to his old truck. It was an old battered blue FORD with rounded fenders and a bed walled with wood panels—kind of like a farm truck.

  Manx bounded off and began sniffing the ground as he circled and romped among the first of the colorful and dry fallen leaves (which evidently smelled divine if you happen to be a demon dog), clearly not interested in joining us for provision shopping. Gramps eyed the Witchound and shook his head with a chuckle as he climbed in.

  He shoved his key into the ignition, turned it, and with a growl and puff of exhaust it started up. Killer Queen by Queen unexpectedly blasted on the radio. Gramps grumbled, lowered the volume, pointedly ignoring my raised browed look as he slammed his door shut and gruffly told me to buckle up.

  I watched the Witchound get smaller as we drove away, the gate opening for us as we approached as if by magic, (which is exactly what it was) then slamming shut the moment we were through. I could have sworn that one of the Gargoyles was watching us (which of course it was, as that’s its job) very closely as we drove away, itching at its snout with a stone claw before returning to a normal.

  Then before I knew it, we were down the road, driving in silence as Gramps fiddled with a pipe he keeps in the glovebox. He considers this particular pipe his “travel pipe” in case you were wondering. He frequently and lovingly refers to it as Bessy (which is a bit creepy if you ask me).

  I watched this in uncomfortable silence for a while as I worked up the nerve to try to ask questions, something Id already gotten the feeling Gramps had little patience for.

  “Why don’t I need my glasses?” I finally asked.

  Gramps paused before securing the pipe stem between his teeth, eyeing me cautiously a moment before answering as he drove.

  “Part of the change, boyo. Darklings like us just don’t need them. Least till we get a bit older,” he added that last bit a little bitterly as he squinted at the road sign half hidden in the shrubbery to the side of the road a way’s ahead. He grumbled about silly questions as he fiddled at striking a match to light Bessy while all but steering his with his knees.

  I got the impression this was something he really didn’t want to talk about and kept quiet, staring out the window the rest of the trip as Gramps went about his morning pipe routine. He had his pipe lit and was puffing away at it well before we reached a tiny blink-or-you-might-miss-it town, just as the last of the orange and red in the sky faded and the loons in the nearby lake were just starting to sing.

  We pulled into the gravel lot of a busy neon lit old style metal trailer like diner on the town’s outskirts. A sign by the steps to the door advertised an early bird special, bottomless always fresh coffee. Feydom famous bacon burgers, award winning dragon’s breath chili and a Pig in a Poke (whatever the heck that is) every Thursday with WE NEVER CLOSE scrawled in big, bright red letters at the bottom.

  It’s called The Wayfarers.

  The famous local joint is run by a stout, grumpy old long bearded Dwarf and his wife. From what I understand they opened it ages ago after Mr. P suffered a tragic accident in the mines that left him well compensated and honorably discharged from the industry, but completely unable to settle down into retirement.

  So, they did what every soul with a lifelong love of greasy food and plenty of time and gold coins does, I guess. They opened a diner. It’s still there today and I’m still more than a little addicted to their chocolate chip pancakes.

  Good luck finding it though, as it hasn’t seen a mundane Human customer since a very lost family of tourists in the summer of 1965. The picture of them is on the wall hung crookedly from an iron nail by the old cash register among countless other faded snap shots of famous Feyish folk of the races who had visited over the years. Along with more than a few hunting and fishing group photos of Elvish hunters on vacation posing proudly with their harvests.

  The bell above the door rung merrily as we walked in and a few old timers at the counter spotted Gramps and offered grunted greetings over their shoulders. Then, after inevitably noticing me, turned curiously in their swivel seats to get a better and slightly chilly gander at me.

  More than a few shuddered then exchanged weary, curt nods with Gramps as he trudged by, hand on my shoulder to lead me to his customary table at the very back by the smudged windows.

  “What’ll it be, hon?” This was obviously the first time I ever met a Dwarf, and Mama P was not what I had expected as she sauntered up to our table.

  She wore a home sewn white apron over a pretty pink dress. She was short—obviously—only coming up to below Gramps’ chest if he had been standing but was broader than anyone I’d ever seen before.

  With big, muscular arms and a stern but pretty face with bright pink lipstick, a perm, and sparkling eyes the color of chipped flint behind golden horn-rimmed ruby lensed glasses. (Just so you know, Dwarves have notoriously poor vision above ground during daytime hours and deeply dislike going out on sunny days without specially made goggles or eyewear that filters out the sunlight).

  She finished off the look with a polished pink opal stone necklace, matching dangly earrings, and wrists full of more bracelets than I’d ever seen before outside of a jewelry store.

  She eyed me and a smile spread on her broad, friendly face that turned to a frown as she sniffed at his pipe and shook her head.

  “You know the rules. Keep that smelly thing out of my restaurant,” she scolded with pursed lips as she irritably tapped the tip of a long, colorful quill against her notepad, glaring at Gramps until he put it out with a grumble by dropping it into his glass of ice water. At this she scowled at him with obvious annoyance but said nothing, instead looking down to me with another brilliantly white, friendly smile.

  “So, this is the little one, eh?” she asked to which he merely grunted and folded his arms
over his flannelled chest and harrumphed much like Manx had as he settled in the night before by the fire. Choosing to ignore her question he muttered “the usual” under his breath as he stared longingly at the pipe pitifully bobbing in his water glass.

  She shook her head at him and snorted. Obviously giving up on any conversation and promising to return with something tasty for me that she insisted was just what I needed. She even pinched my cheek and remarked at how cute I was before shuffling off, jotting our order down and grumbling about “gruff old insufferable sticks in the mud.”

  She returned with steaming plates, cups, and bowls on a tray carefully balanced over her head a few moments later. My eyes bulged at the chocolaty flapjacks and sausages on my plate as she sat a heaping bowl of honeyed oats and a heaping plate of bacon next to Gramps’ mug of black coffee. She handed me a tall frosted glass of chocolate milk with a wink and left us to tuck into our morning feast after fixing Gramps with another long-suffering look.

  We’d only gotten half-finished when the bell above the door rang again and in slumped a family of what could best be described most kindly as hillbillies with pointy ears. At the time I’d had no idea that the Clampetts (as I’d later learned them to be infamously named) were in fact a family of mostly mountain folk Hedge Witches of a most unpleasant disposition. To say the least.

  While most Fey families, even mixed blooded ones like these, produced both males and female Witches, the Clampetts however only seemed to ever produce males (they called it the Clampett curse) over last few centuries (there were rumors they killed off any girls that were born but at the time that was completely unsubstantiated). None of which amounted to much more than being meddlesome and unpleasant.

  The Clampett family (well, to be fair, most of it) spent their miserable lives thieving, poaching, brewing illicit potions, and feuding with the other local families. Lucky for us they considered Darklings, Gramps in particular, to be their arch enemies. Long ago (for reasons we will get into later) they declared a “vendetta against our house” that normally amounted to little more than mild annoyances.

  Though once I was warned that they had brazenly taken a few shots at Gramps in the deep woods while he was tracking a particularly nasty poacher. The culprit was likely one of their clan, (probably Erol himself) as rumor had it this was one of their biggest cash cows, but no one could ever really prove it, as catching them at it in the woods is like trying to herd smoke.

  They had missed, but according to Gramps it had been a little too close for comfort. So, they could be dangerous to a point.

  Especially if underestimated.

  They were even rumored to be at the heart of a few nasty, ugly incidents of murder over the years that had earned them a dirty kind of infamy, to say the least. This foul reputation of theirs definitely wasn’t at all helped by the whole insisting they were Feyish royalty thing they bragged about every chance they got. Not that anyone believed them or listened.

  Erol Clampett Senior eyed our table and pointed us (mostly me) out to his two older boys that seemed more Orc than man. The unpleasant trio glared at me from under huge, caveman like foreheads the angry, sour way most do when they see a dirty cockroach or rat scurrying out of their kitchen cupboard.

  Gramps had stopped spooning honeyed porridge into his mouth and had taken up staring right back at them. His black eyes narrowed to cold glittering slits as he sipped at his coffee.

  It was extraordinarily uncomfortable for me as they just stood there holding the door open. Playing a game of who’ll blink first with Gramps that they never had a chance of winning. All the while letting in a draft while the other diners looked from them to us in a way that clearly spelled out trouble as well as the seasonable chill was in the air and that not a soul was all that happy about either being let in while they tried to eat their breakfast.

  I’d learned since that the whole town was built on hallowed ground and that the Clampetts couldn’t even so much as lob a hex bag at us (as if it would have done them any good). I knew that I was absolutely safe with Gramps but that didn’t make me feel any less awkward as I sat there with my pancakes going cold and goopy as the brutish, overalls and denim jacketed trio cracked their knuckles and glared at us from beneath their filthy old hats.

  It was then that the stained apron sporting Papa P lumbered out of the kitchens. The swinging double doors slammed startlingly against the shiny steel serving station, rattling the containers of clean silverware and neatly stacked cups as he pushed into the dining room, threateningly toting a massive cast iron skillet in a Christmas ham-sized fist.

  He looked for all the world like a hugely bearded, heavily tattooed, grumpy, grease splattered, ill-tempered boulder as he fixed the lot of unwelcome hedge witches with a glower that could clamp at the bowels of a dragon.

  “We’d best be a’leaving as the place’s gone and got itself a varmint infestation’ an all,” Erol cackled and spat on the pristine floor. Refusing to meet the old miner turned cook’s thunderous stare as the three Clampetts turned to leave after gracing us with a murderous, threatening stare. The door swung shut behind them with another ring of the bell and slowly conversation started to pick back up again.

  Papa P glowered furiously at the door, snorted, nodded solemnly to Gramps, and shook his head unhappily as he adjusted the ridiculous looking paper cook hat he wore with his free hand. Then, almost having to turn himself sideways to squeeze back through, pushed himself back into the kitchen to fetch a mop, muttering angrily as he went. He emerged a few moments later to mop up the tobacco spittle congealing on his floor.

  This was the one only time in my life I couldn’t bring myself to eat another bite of those pancakes, even though I was still hungry. There was something about those three that just put me off and on edge. Gramps seemed to be of the same disposition since he barely touched his porridge, and even waved off a refill as he glowered at the door as if he expected the unpleasant men to saunter back in at any moment.

  We left about ten minutes later, on my insistence the remainder of my sausage and his bacon in a waxy white paper to go bag to give Manx a bit of a treat when we returned to Craggmore. Gramps didn’t seem overly thrilled by the idea, complaining that the Witchound was fat and spoiled enough already.

  He finally relented though once Mama P overheard my pleas and insisted that a ‘doggy bag’ sounded like a wonderful idea, rather cheekily scolding him that the food (which her beloved husband slaved away behind a stove to cook for him) would go to waste if he just left it on his plate.

  So, grumbling about getting ‘ganged up on’ Gramps paid, leaving a generous tip, tucked the to go bag under his arm and swept off in a huff, leaving me to catch up. I exited the diner to the ring of the door’s bell just as he’d slammed the truck’s door and was sitting there waiting for me to climb in and buckle up as he grumbled at me about “letting in a bloody draft” as he urged me impatiently to shut the door.

  Then, after tossing me the leftovers bag Mama P had doodled a badly drawn dog on (it looked like a deformed watermelon with four sticks stuck in it), he turned the key, and nothing happened. Cursing rather impressively at how the day was going, he gave it some gas and tried turning the key again, and thankfully the beast of a truck roared happily to life with a pungent cough of exhaust.

  He eyed me witheringly and shook his head as he fumbled for his pipe in his jacket pocket. His smile crumbled as when he pulled it out water dribbled out of its bowl onto his lap. After taking a long calming breath he set the wet pipe into the cup holder and pinched at the bridge of his nose just like Dad did every time he got frustrated and was struggling to reign it in.

  “Let’s hope the rest of the morning goes better, eh boy?” he asked with a bitter smile.

  Sadly, he didn’t get his wish.

  Chapter Three

  A traipse through town and a truck bed of trouble…

  Our first stop after breakfast was the town’s “hardware shop” the eclectically named “Lock, Stock & B
arrels Co.” (which seemed to have more swords, longbows and such on display than hammers, saws, screwdrivers, lumber and such than one would expect). It’s a wonderfully cluttered treasure trove of tools, camping gear, building supplies, and dark ages implements of death and mayhem.

  Gramps had to all but drag me out, as I had taken to staring wide eyed at the battle axes lining the far wall beside the racks of sandpaper, bins of bristly wood handled paintbrushes, and a large barrel of cane rodded fishing poles.

  He nodded a curt goodbye to the aproned, white shirt and black bowtie sporting clerk, who with an arched brow and amused smile returned the gesture, chuckling to himself as he straitened up a rack of very questionable magazines and badly pretended not to have been watching the whole thing.

  Next, we went to a place identified as “The Mercantile” in faded gold paint from a creaky wooden sign screwed into the wall over the rickety looking porch. There was a squeaky screen door hat never seemed to stay closed.

  Swaying, creaking, and banging in even the slightest wind into the old rocking chair (of which there were two, set on either side of a rusted iron ringed barrel stamped as once containing Oak matured mead, with a checkerboard painted on its top) that only the old Fey who read the wanted posters (several of which displayed one member or another of the Clampetts clan) and notifications tacked into the cork board above them ever sat on. Although how they managed to play checkers with so many missing game pieces is well beyond me.

  I remember that even back then that second step up to the porch creaked terribly and was just warped enough to send you into the dirt if you weren’t careful (something I did more than once as I dashed up them over the years). Something the proprietor decided to fix by nailing a brightly painted CAUTION sign onto the porch support that likely took longer to make that it would have taken to fix the dratted step.