by Anne Bishop
He saw the flatbed trucks. They had to see him. But just as the first truck made the turn onto The Jumble’s access road—where did the fool think he could go?—Grimshaw saw one of the trees next to the access road fall.
“No,” he breathed. Dane had hired someone to cut down trees?
He reached for the cruiser’s mic, intending to call dispatch in Bristol and request backup for a potentially lethal situation. He didn’t know how many men were out there cutting trees. He didn’t know how many men were in the flatbed cabs. And he didn’t know if any of them were carrying.
He was almost on top of the second flatbed truck, so he pulled into the other lane to make sure the driver saw him. That’s when he spotted the horse and rider. He didn’t recognize the rider, but when he saw the red hair with the yellow and blue tips, he took his foot off the gas and tapped the brakes, wary of getting any closer.
One moment Grimshaw saw the horse and rider. Then next moment, he saw the tight funnel of a fire tornado heading right for the flatbed trucks at a horrific speed. He put the cruiser in reverse and stomped on the gas, praying to Mikhos that he could get far enough away before the tornado hit.
The concussion of tornado hitting flatbed trucks and the heavy equipment they carried, followed by the explosion of the gas tanks a moment later, lifted the cruiser off the pavement. Grimshaw held on to the steering wheel, as if he had some control while airborne.
The cruiser’s tires hit the pavement, and Grimshaw breathed a sigh of relief. It hadn’t felt any worse than going over a speed bump too fast. Before he could think to apply the brakes, the cruiser rolled to a stop.
He stared out the window. The trucks were burning. The trees were burning. And the fire tornado had vanished as swiftly as it had appeared.
Grabbing the mic, he called Osgood. “Call out the volunteer fire department. I need firefighters, EMTs, doctors. We’ve got a mess here.” He hesitated. “I need you too, Osgood. And Julian Farrow. And call the Bristol Police Station for backup. We need CIU, firefighters, cops— we need everything they can send. You escort Ms. DeVine to Ilya Sanguinati’s office, then you hightail it out here.”
“Yes, sir.” A pale sound, but Osgood would be there.
He pulled the cruiser onto the shoulder of the road and ran toward the burning vehicles, but the fire burned too hot for him to get close enough to determine if anyone had survived. He hoped not.
“Anyone out there?” he shouted. The crews in the flatbed trucks were gone, but the men who had been felling trees might have seen the funnel in time to run.
Sirens. A lot of sirens. Too soon for any help from Bristol, but they would be coming. Captain Hargreaves would see to that.
The volunteer firefighters arrived first with the fire truck and a water tanker, followed by the EMTs and Dr. Wallace. Officer Osgood and Julian Farrow brought up the rear. Osgood stumbled out of the passenger side of Julian’s car and stared at the fire, making Grimshaw wonder if a potentially good cop had seen too much too young.
Then Osgood shook his head as if to clear it and ran to where Grimshaw waited.
“Take the cruiser and go down the road,” Grimshaw said. “Block it off. I’ll have Julian block off the road at this end.”
“Yes, sir.” Osgood stared at the fire. “The Others are angry.”
Grimshaw nodded. “But not with us. Get going.”
As soon as Osgood headed for the cruiser, Grimshaw turned to Julian Farrow.
Julian said, “This morning Vicki and I met Fire, who calls himself Aiden. He was riding a horse named Twister.”
“Gods,” Grimshaw breathed. “How’s Vicki?”
“How do you think? A fire was reported at The Jumble. No one could tell her if the buildings were burning or some other part of the property.”
“I need you to man the barricade at this end of the road. I need to find one of those bridle paths or any kind of trail that will get me around to the other side of the fire. There were men out there cutting down trees. I don’t know if they got away.”
“And you have to check on Dane and the rest of them.”
“Have to do my job.”
“Caw.”
Grimshaw turned toward the sound and spotted the Crow. He figured it had to be one of the Crowgard. All the ordinary birds would have fled from the fire.
“Aggie?”
“Caw.”
“I need to find a trail to the main house.”
The Crow flew off between a break in the trees. Grimshaw hurried to follow. If the fire cut him off from the road, he’d head for the lake.
“Keep reporting in,” Julian called.
The game trail opened onto a bridle path. Grimshaw jogged to keep up with Aggie until she landed in a tree and didn’t continue. Obviously she wasn’t going to lead him any farther.
He pointed at the path in front of him. “The main house is that way?”
“Caw.”
He took a step, then looked at the Crow. “If the wind doesn’t change direction, more of The Jumble will burn. Miss Vicki would be sad about that.”
No response, so he followed the path.
He didn’t know if Aggie had delivered the message that fast or if something else had been listening, but when he reached the access road a minute later, the wind had shifted, blowing the fire back over already scorched earth.
* * *
• • •
The moment Grimshaw’s foot crunched on the gravel, four armed men swung toward the sound.
“Hey!” he said, holding up his hands, palms out.
Swinn and Reynolds looked spooked enough that he felt lucky they hadn’t fired out of reflex. The other two men? Yeah. Private security for sure.
Grimshaw turned to Yorick Dane, who was clumped with his business partners. “Is everyone all right? All the people staying with you?”
Dane stared at the charred husks of trees, then raised a shaking hand. “Is that . . . Is that a body?”
He moved in that direction for a closer look. Gods, let those men be removed from all suffering. He counted four bodies before he walked back to where Dane stood.
“What happened?” Vaughn demanded.
“Fire tornado,” Grimshaw replied. “It hit the two flatbed trucks and the construction equipment you were bringing in, and then took out the crew felling trees.” He tried to chain the anger swelling inside him. “You were warned.”
Even Vaughn looked shocked. Most likely, they’d been getting away with underhanded deals since their university days, if not before. This should have been nothing different—except they weren’t dealing with humans anymore.
“We’ll have to leave,” Darren said. “That truck is blocking the way and has to be moved.”
He looked at the burned-out truck the loggers had driven and shook his head. “The firefighters are still bringing the fire around the flatbeds under control. You’ve got thousands of pounds—maybe a few tons— of burning, twisted metal blocking the access road.” He pointed to the burned truck. “Nobody will be moving that one for a while.”
The men stared at him.
“Then how are we getting out?” Dane asked.
“You’re not,” Grimshaw replied. “Well, you can pack a light carryall and walk out, following the bridle trails until you reach the road.”
“Hammorson?” Vaughn said, turning to the beefy blond man.
“We can take my boat and go to the public beach and get help there,” Hammorson said. “Or go across the lake to that big lodge I saw on the other side.”
“Does that boat have a motor?” When Hammorson nodded, Grimshaw turned to Dane. “Didn’t you tell your friends about the no-motor rule on this lake? Are you looking for ways to get these people killed?” He turned back to Hammorson. “Even if you take out a rowboat, you do not want to go across to Silence Lodge. Not today.”
“The Sanguinati.”
Uneasy now, all the men shifted their feet.
“Look,” Grimshaw said. “The main house and the lakeside cabins are probably the safest place right now. Your cars aren’t going anywhere until the road is cleared and that could take a couple of days.” Or more. The flatbeds had been burning when he’d run to check on the people here, but his impression had been of metal twisted and melted into nightmarish shapes. Not the kind of thing you could roll out of the way.
“Vicki should have widened the access road and built a second entrance,” Dane said. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if she’d put enough money into this place.”
Grimshaw stared at Yorick Dane. Was the man actually pouting because the ex-wife he was screwing on a business deal hadn’t gone into debt to do more improvements?
He shook his head, disgusted with all of them. “Hear those sirens? That’s the Bristol police and fire department coming in to help. You all do what you want. I’ll inform the CIU team that you’re all alive but there are burned bodies that need to be identified. I imagine someone will come in soon to talk to you. It would help if you could provide the names of the loggers you hired to illegally cut down those trees.”
“Now, see here,” Vaughn protested. “We did nothing illegal—”
Grimshaw held up a hand. “I’m not interested. That’s for someone else to figure out. Just remember that the someone who is going to decide isn’t a member of your damn club.”
Ignoring their protests and vitriolic opinions about his parentage, Grimshaw followed the bridle path, then chose a game trail heading in the right direction. A few minutes later, he reached the road.
The firefighters had contained the blaze and were hosing down the surrounding grass and trees—and no doubt would continue until the water tank ran dry. They were being thorough because, like sweat and ash, fear was a taste in the air.
CHAPTER 64
Vicki
Thaisday, Sumor 6
As soon as the Bristol police arrived to assist Grimshaw, Julian drove back to Sproing and picked me up at Ilya Sanguinati’s office. We stopped at Pops Davies’s general store and bought some food that wouldn’t spoil if we didn’t eat it for a day or two. Then Julian drove us to the Mill Creek Cabins.
Beer wasn’t my favorite drink, but I didn’t say anything when Julian offered me a bottle before settling into the other chair on his porch. I could see the water mill from where I was sitting. It looked quaint, peaceful. I wondered if I would ever feel peaceful again.
“I feel bad about the men who died,” I said. “Their boss might belong to that stupid club, but that doesn’t mean those men did. They came here to do a job, just like any other job, and they died because Yorick and the rest of those . . . men . . . thought they could take whatever they wanted.” Like Yorick had done with me. “And I keep thinking about all the men I had hired to renovate the main house and the cabins, the men who had brought in the bulldozer and backhoe and all the other equipment to replace the septic system. They could have been killed.”
“I don’t think so,” Julian replied. “You were very careful about what you were doing. I remember you saying that you had reviewed the terms of the property agreement with all of your contractors to make sure you, and they, didn’t violate the terms. And, Vicki? You hired firms from Crystalton, which meant you had hired Intuits. It stands to reason that at least one of the men on those crews would have known before the first shovelful of earth was dug up if they were doing something dangerous. The terra indigene wanted The Jumble restored, and you were doing that. And who was your first lodger? One of the Crowgard.”
“A test.”
“Probably.”
“I thought she was a girl who had run away from home and needed a safe place to stay. Until the whole eyeball thing.”
Julian sipped his beer. “I bet you didn’t charge her anywhere close to what you could get for a week’s stay in one of those renovated cabins.”
I shrugged, unwilling to admit he was right. I’d wondered where she kept getting the money for the weekly rent, but she paid promptly and didn’t cause trouble—and I didn’t hear about any houses in the village being burgled, so I thought she’d tucked some money away before leaving home.
Come to think of it, I still didn’t know where she got the money for the rent.
Thinking about the men who had done the renovations and the big improvements made me wonder about something else. “Why didn’t the men Yorick hired look at using the farm track and the grassy lane that my contractors had used?”
Instead of taking another sip, Julian lowered the beer bottle. “What?”
“The farm track that forms the boundary between the Milfords’ orchards and The Jumble—where Aggie found the dead man. The crews I hired came in that way. The foreman said it was the long way round but the grassy lane going into The Jumble was wide enough for them to reach the meadow where the septic tank was located.” I frowned. “No, that wouldn’t have worked. The lane ends at the septic tank.”
“That grassy lane that connects to the farm track. Is the turnoff before or beyond where you found the body?”
I looked at Julian, who foolishly waited for an answer.
“You have no clue,” he finally said.
“The only time I saw the lane was when the foreman drove me to the meadow to show me the new septic tank before they covered it up. Aggie and I followed a path in the woods to reach the body.” I sounded defensive. I felt defensive. I tried, I really did, but the You Are Here map that everyone else seems to have in their head? I didn’t get one.
“Vicki.”
It was a soft warning. I followed the direction of Julian’s gaze and saw Aiden walking along the road accompanied by a chubby brown pony with a storm-gray mane and tail.
I thought about the men who died today because the person who had hired them had knowingly broken the rules set down by beings who had no interest in the kinds of petty games humans played with one another. I thought about the men I had hired to do work in The Jumble. And most of all, I thought about the friends whose actions might be misunderstood.
I would never be able to rebuild my life again if a friend died because of me.
I set the beer bottle on the porch. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Don’t,” Julian said softly.
An expression of concern for me or a warning that he sensed something might happen? Either way, doing nothing was not something I could do and still believe I was a good person who deserved good people as friends.
I walked up to the gate in Julian’s enclosed front yard, reaching it at the same time Aiden came abreast of the cabin. He stopped and looked at me. Maybe it was the light last night, or the lack of it. Maybe it was the shock of being evicted and scrambling to move into the cabin. Today, in daylight, I couldn’t pretend Aiden was human.
“I wish I was stronger,” I said. “I wish I was braver. But the truth is, even though you helped me yesterday, I’m afraid of you. I’m afraid of what you can do.”
“You should be.”
No attempt to tell me that what I felt was silly—because it wasn’t silly.
“Your species has some things in common with the shifters in how you touch, and are touched by, the world,” Aiden said. “My kind of terra indigene? We’re connected to the world in a way you never will be. We may tolerate your kind, even feel friendly toward some of you. But we’ll never be your friend, Vicki. Not like the Crows or even the Sanguinati.” He took a few steps, then turned back, giving me a hint of a smile. “But if you need help lighting the woodstove, ask one of the Crows to contact me, and I’ll come by to get the fire started.”
He and Twister walked away, heading toward the mill and the creek. I returned to the porch and took a healthy swallow of beer. J
ulian and I sat quietly, not feeling a need to fill the silence with unnecessary words, giving me time to think about my recent encounters with the terra indigene in general and the Elementals in particular.
Friendly but not a friend. I understood the distinction. I just didn’t know what that distinction would mean for the humans in Sproing in the future.
CHAPTER 65
Them
Thaisday, Sumor 6
Hershel stumbled out of the cabin and grabbed one of the posts that held up the porch roof. Feeling legless wasn’t due to having too much to drink. It turned out fear had a way of keeping a man sufficiently sober. And fear could make a man feel weak.
Well, screw that. Screw all of it. Should have known a putz like Yorick Dane couldn’t put together a solid deal, but Vaughn had said the property had potential. Even after they found out that Dane had given up the property, Vaughn didn’t want to let go of a chance to have shares in a resort on one of the Finger Lakes since the human places around those lakes were so limited. And he had considered how Yorick’s hanky ex-wife—the one who could be used until she was used up and then thrown away—could be worked to do the initial improvements before they came in to take over and build a real resort. But Dane had screwed up big-time, had glossed over the real reasons why his family hadn’t done anything to develop what should be a prime piece of real estate.
They were surrounded by the Others here. Really surrounded by the Others. And not just the Crows and the furry guys. There was some seriously weird shit living in these woods. Like a tornado that targeted the two flatbed trucks and twisted them into an impenetrable tangle of burning metal that would take days to cut apart in order to reopen the access road. Like a fire that killed the loggers they had hired.
No, Dane hadn’t been up front about a whole lot of things, including the fact that the land that was supposed to be his share of the investment didn’t actually belong to him.