Got Hope

by Michael Darling

  I drew the fire toward me, driving the bugs nearer. Hurricane Goethe wouldn’t make the evening news, but it was only intended for me and a few thousand of my special friends. The flames rose, almost higher than the trees, and curved toward me like a crashing wave of fire. I didn’t know how many eyes these bugs possessed, but half of them had to be on the fire and half of them on me.

  Driven by the flames and by their urge to bite, they swept forward.

  Chanting “Tine!” I swept my other hand in front of me and released more power. A second whirlwind of flame erupted in front of me, turning in the opposite direction. I swathed myself in fire, keeping it as close to my clothing as I dared. Cocooning myself in orange heat, I continued pulling the first whirlwind closer. I heard the buzz of their wings as the insects flew faster, but they were caught now between two walls of fire with a wave of flame crashing down upon them. I smelled charred bug—and more stink—as the walls closed in, storm within a storm. The heat grew around me. Fire didn’t burn me from the point of casting, but once created, fire was fire. Beads of sweat painted my face, evaporating instantly. I chanted and listened between chants to the sound of crisping insects.

  At least it’s a dry heat.

  I dialed back the blue juice. If I wasn’t careful, I’d end up as a khaki-clad baked bun with giant blackened sesame seeds sprinkled over my carcass.

  With no more fuel, the fire fell apart in shreds and tatters, leaving the swampy ground littered with hundreds of shiny black corpses. The branch I’d tried before floated nearby and I snatched it up. The bug on my back had gone quiet, perhaps docile now that its friends were eliminated. Or it had enough of my flesh in its belly and couldn’t eat any more. It needed to join them in that great bug fest in the sky. I gave myself a decent thwack and felt a satisfying crunch.

  When I stood, something slipped down my back. I untucked my shirt and a black body went plop in the water. The bad news was the twitching I still felt in my back, some legs or antennae or something still wiggling, unspent energy from its central nervous system.

  Shivering from not only the heebies but also the jeebies, and yelling, I delivered a few more thwacks and tried not to think about it too much.

  Blech.

  Finally, I could only feel a wet spot on my back. All the bugs in the water would be a fine feast for the fish and birds. You’re welcome, Nature.

  Slogging back through the trees, I checked the road to see if my pyrotechnics had attracted any other attention. Like a fire truck.

  The Escalade hadn’t moved, and the dudes still stood on the side of the road.

  “Hey!” I yelled. “Tweedledum and Tweedledumber!”

  They gave me the full carnivorous bunny salute with the ears and the chomping action and the fist to the chest before they got back in the Escalade. Idiots. I could chase them, but my shirt was bloody and my shoes and socks and pants were soaked and I had a feeling we’d meet again eventually. I squelched across the highway and got to my car as they pulled away. They’d left a calling card under the windshield wiper. Black ink on white stock in a design that resembled a deformed bunny face.

  They’d also taken the bag of evidence.

  Knowing the bag was gone, I checked anyway. Back seat, floor, everywhere. Nothing.

  I was starting to hate those guys.

  I dug my phone out of my pocket and called Nat.

  “Hey,” he answered.

  “You and Hope good?”

  “Yep.”

  “You made it to the stadium?”

  “No problem,” Nat said.

  “Anybody follow you?”

  My question was met with granite-quality silence, which made me laugh. Nat was correct in not answering. That was a question I didn’t need to ask and Nat didn’t need to answer. If they made it to the stadium, they’d made it without being followed, because Nat was Nat.

  “Good work,” I said. “I’m going to make a stop. Our friends tried to give me a message. I wasn’t in the mood to listen.”

  “You all right?” Nat asked.

  “I will be. Keep an eye on our quarterback.”

  “‘Kay.”

  I ended the call.

  Our resident bad guys had failed to kill somebody this morning and I still couldn’t be sure if it was me they were after or Hope or both. They’d also failed to do whatever they’d wanted to do to Hope and me this afternoon. They’d gone to some hole to regroup but they’d be back to finish their business. I needed to anticipate their next move and be ready for it.

  They’d given me precious few clues but now I knew they weren’t just from this realm and they didn’t mind my knowing it. They’d made a point of getting in my face both here and in the Fae realm, stolen evidence, and left their calling card. I needed to find out what it meant.

  First, I needed to get some bug parts off my back.

  Driving with the cranium of a critter stuck in my skin was distracting at best. Every time I leaned back in the seat, it was there, like a pebble under my epidermis, and the sensation served up a portion of the willies as a dessert to follow the main course of heebie-jeebies. I drove leaning forward over the steering wheel, which was pretty much how half of the residents of Florida drove. At least the ones older than seventy. All I needed now was a fisherman’s hat and bifocals.

  When I hit stoplights, I searched on my phone for information about beetles. What I found was disturbing. The beetles had been chosen to send a message. I did a search for death by insects, too. The photos and articles that resulted did nothing to quell the willies.

  Erin answered when I called and offered to meet me at her house, which was closer to her office than my house. I was grateful she could make time for me. Maybe she wasn’t mad.

  I walked past the bougainvillea to the door to find it standing open and Erin waiting.

  Hesitating, I said, “Uh, is Blake here?” Blake was Erin’s husband in the mortal realm. I was Erin’s husband in the Behindbeyond. Unsurprisingly, the situation was complicated and I felt uncomfortable treading on what I considered his territory, both physical and marital.

  He’d found her first.

  “Blake’s at the group home,” Erin replied. Blake had gone missing for five and half years and had no recollection of where he’d been during that time. Part of his rehabilitation included spending several hours a week at a group home for youth who had been kidnapped or lost, and working with the kids helped Blake’s therapy as well.

  I put a foot inside tentatively. No alarms.

  “Get in here.” Erin grabbed my arm. Her nose screwed up in the middle of her face like it was trying to escape to somewhere safer. “What’s that smell?”

  “Let me introduce you to Ocypus Olens.” I opened my hand to show Erin the bug I’d taken from the swamp. “Also known as Deargadaol. Also known as the Devil’s Coach-Horse Beetle. Only three times as big as it’s supposed to be.” I put the bug parts down on the table and pointed over my shoulder. While I took off my shirt, I said, “His buddy is in my back. What’s left of him.” I turned.

  “Oh my word, Got. It’s just the head.” Erin said.

  “Yeah. Insect Godfather,” I replied.

  Erin grimaced. “That looks bad.”

  “This is the right place to take care of bad.” I attempted a smile as Erin ran to get her kit. She returned wearing nitrile gloves and safety goggles and carrying her bag of tricks and treats.

  “Where’s the rest of him?” She probed the skin around the bite with her fingers and I tried not to grunt.

  “Everglades.” I grunted. “Feeding the wildlife along with a thousand of his buddies.”

  “A thousand?”

  “The Chinese have the death of a thousand cuts. Today, some new friends tried to introduce me to the death of a thousand nibbles.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I burned them.”

  “Burned them?”

  “The bugs. Not the friends.”

  “That’s good.”

 
“I would have shot the bugs, but…” I paused for a moment to calculate. My Glock had a magazine with six bullets plus one in the chamber versus a thousand bugs. “Hitting one hundred and forty-two bugs with each bullet? I’m not that good.”

  “You would have had six bugs left over anyway.”

  My wife the scientist-mathematician.

  “I would have killed the rest by throwing my gun at them.”

  “Good plan. Were you seen casting fire?”

  “Oh yeah. Some birds. Some fish. A turtle, who, by the way, refused to clap or whistle or give me a high five. Snob. Other than that, nobody. It happened in the marsh off Highway 41 behind some trees.”

  Erin’s fingers continued their skillful probing and tweezering. I grunted again. “That’s it,” Erin said. “He’s out. The final question is, do you want a scar or not?”

  “Why would I want a scar?”

  “I don’t know. Impress Hope when you take off your shirt?”

  “I’m not taking off my—” I realized where she was going with this halfway through. “Look, Erin, I didn’t handle that right about Hope. When I called—”

  “How does she look in my clothes?”

  The blood drained out of my face. I’m in trouble.

  “I can’t do it,” Erin said, laughing. “You’re such a puppy-face!” Her eyes sparkled as she patted my arm. The blood shifted into reverse, putting heat into my cheeks. “I called Sandretta,” Erin said. “She explained everything. It’s okay.”

  “You were messing with me?” I stared at her with an expression almost entirely devoid of shock. “I almost had a heart attack. Is there a defibrillator in that kit of yours?”

  “No. But I’m an expert in mou—uh—rescue breathing.”

  Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. That’s what she’d started to say.

  Now we were both red in the face.

  “I’ll put some antibiotic cream on that bite,” she said. She found what she wanted from her kit and started spreading a cold dollop on my back. I twisted around far enough to find the tube and got some for the bite on my leg. We didn’t talk while we worked. Or whistle while we worked. I didn’t mind her teasing me. It’s traditionally been our thing. She’d just never had occasion to tease me about another woman. Many wives don’t.

  “Leave the cream on overnight.” Erin put a bandage on my back and handed me another for my leg. She put everything back in her kit. “Magical healing is great for physical wounds but less effective on infections. If you have swelling or redness, we’ll treat it.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Got. I think you should get a girlfriend.”

  Monkeys. And the poodles they rode in on.

  Chapter Eight: Dubhcridhe

  “I’m not getting a girlfriend, Erin. We talked about this.”

  “No, we didn’t. We talked about me and Blake. We didn’t talk about you.” Erin’s toffee-colored eyes had a way of changing to emerald green when she got intense. Her eyes were so green now, she could have run traffic through an intersection in the capital city of Oz.

  I crossed my arms and felt the bandage pull on my back. Ouch. “Look, I understand about you and Blake. Doctor’s orders, stability, normal-life-will-help-his-recovery. Blah plus blah and, while I’m thinking about it, blah.”

  Erin let me sputter.

  “We agreed to live here until people start wondering if we’re going all Dorian Gray.” Since Erin and I would age very slowly, compared to mortals, sooner or later somebody was bound to notice. “Then we’d move somewhere else and let Blake have a happy senility. Then, when he finally bids adios to this world, we can see how we feel.”

  Erin shook her head. “We didn’t agree to do that. We agreed doing that would stink.”

  “How come we remember conversations differently?”

  “Because you remember them how you want. I remember them how they were.”

  She wasn’t wrong. “Okay. But, unless I’m not remembering correctly, it wouldn’t entirely stink. You still have feelings for Blake. And not just because he needs you. So, what are you feeling? Right now?”

  Erin turned away from me and I heard her sigh. She put her hands on her face but I couldn’t tell how she was reacting. Had I hit a nerve? Was she mad? I wanted to ask her if I’d said something wrong.

  “Got. You’re far too accommodating,” she whispered. “What I’m feeling is, I hate this feeling. The feeling that you’re putting your life on hold for me.”

  I nodded, which I realized Erin couldn’t see. Duh. “I’m not putting my life on hold. I’m just occupying my time with other things that are also important. Whatever life we might have together in the future, it’s worth the wait.”

  Erin shook her head. The motion was slight, but I saw it.

  “Did I go too Brontë there? Overly Jane Austen?”

  Her shoulders started shaking and that’s when I knew I’d screwed up. She was crying. Then she turned around and I saw she was laughing although it was a serious laugh. If there was such a thing.

  Erin’s eyes were still green but she looked at me with all the candor of a medical examiner’s report.

  “Blake needs me. Yes. He has a lot to deal with. In a way, I need him. I can’t forget what he was like before, and while he’s changed, we have feelings for each other and that’s still recovering.” She shrugged. “I can’t help but think maybe it would be easier for me to work things out the way they need to if I knew you had someone in your life, too.”

  “That’s crazy. You’re saying that it would help you deal with your relationship if I shacked up with a blond cheerleader? Who, by the way, I only met this morning, and she’s going through a divorce so she’s married, technically. And she’s a client, so there’s all kinds of ethical nuh-uhs there.”

  Erin put a hand on my arm.

  “You can say all that stuff and it should make me mad. Maybe you’re trying to make me mad, I don’t know. But you’re helping her and she might end up liking you. And men who don’t have a nice relationship for a while get . . . stale. They end up adopting Chihuahuas and letting them lick peanut butter out of their mouths to fulfill their need for affection. Do you think that’s the kind of guy I want to be with later in life?”

  “Okay, firstly, yuck. A Chihuahua? Really? Pekingese maybe. Or a fluffy Pomeranian. Those are adorable. But I don’t have time for that. Don’t even want that. Maybe because I was born in the 1700s and I’m too old-fashioned. You, on the other hand, were born in the wild and crazy 1800s, when all humanity’s cherished values and sense of propriety went out the window.”

  “I’d be impressed and maybe convinced, except you can barely remember the 1900s.”

  “Yeah. Well. We aren’t the first Halflings to deal with this. We’ll figure it out.”

  “Seriously, Got. Promise me that if you get the chance to find a little happiness with someone, you’ll think about it.”

  “How about we compromise? I’ll ignore that completely and you forget you ever said it.”

  Erin stepped in and we gave each other a hug. A brief hug that I wanted to go on a little longer. Like a week or two. She asked, “Do you know what the word ‘compromise’ means? Because that wasn’t it.”

  “Okay. A vocabulary assignment. Something I can work on.”

  Erin smiled a screwy lop-sided smile that said she was only halfway happy. “Speaking of things to work on, didn’t you have some evidence for me?”

  “Oh yeah. Get this. The knuckleheads that conjured the swarm of bugs stole the evidence. They introduced themselves in the Behindbeyond before I ran into them here. They did a crazy thing.” I demonstrated the carnivorous bunny, complete with the chomping action and the fist to the chest. She watched and considered, putting her hands on her hips. “Do you by chance know what that gesture means?”

  “Hello? I love hand puppets?”

  I smiled. Erin was my kind of girl. Her jokes were as bad as mine. Almost.

  “That’s not it. It doesn’t mean anything
then? That you know of?”

  “Can’t think of anything. Other than creepy weirdness.”

  “Okay.” I pulled the business card out and handed it to her. “How about that?”

  Erin locked eyes on the card. Her mouth opened in a heart-framed “O.” Now, the color drained away from her face. She backed away, drifted in reverse, and sat on a chair, staring at the card the entire time. “Where did you get this?”

  I cleared my throat. “They left it on the windshield, under the wiper.”

  “Dubhcridhe,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh, Got. I’m—” She put her hand over her mouth, trembling violently and she gripped the card so hard her fingertips went white. Moments passed.

  “Can I get you something?” I asked. “Some water?”

  Erin nodded. I went to the kitchen and got a tumbler out of the cupboard. There was a vial on the counter top next to a couple of syringes in new packaging. The vial’s label said “Haldol” and the prescription was for Blake.

  I hadn’t intended to snoop. When I’d been Quickened, I’d received the gift of enhanced sight and the stuff was right there and since I can read fine print from across a room I couldn’t help but see it. I got some ice and water from the door of the refrigerator, feeling guilty as the water rose in the glass. I hadn’t wanted to know Blake was taking an anti-psychotic.

  When I returned to the living room, Erin hadn’t moved. Didn’t move. I cleared my throat, but she didn’t hear. I tried again.

  Erin looked up at me with tears standing in her eyes. She was as pale as willow bark and happily traded the card for the glass of water. She took a few gulps and seemed to be lost, staring at her feet. I put the card back in my pocket and sat beside her.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “They killed my mother.” Erin’s voice rendered all five syllables with the same monotone. The same flat sounds with no inflection. Bah bah bah bah-bah.

  “These people? From the business card?”

  “The Dubhcridhe claimed to be a patriotic militia, but they were more of a cult. The Behindbeyond is ruled by the direct line of the monarchy, all of them full-blooded Eternals.”