by Coralie Moss
“Calli,” Tanner said, his voice low, “put down your phone and look at me like we’re flirting or something.” He slid the red-lettered pie box onto an empty chair. “Don’t look out the window. Look at me.”
Working against the urge to turn my head and do precisely what he’d asked me not to, I placed an elbow on the table and rested my chin in my hand. With poured concrete under my leather-shod feet and glass and metal to my right, I couldn’t get a read on what might be happening outside the restaurant.
“We’re being monitored,” he said.
“Since we left the orchard?”
Tanner shook his head and reached across the table to touch his fingertips to my elbow. “No, since we entered the market.”
“How do you know?”
“They’re probing. It’s subtle, but I can feel it.”
“Can you sense what they’re looking for? Or who?” Magicals got hungry too, and I’d noticed a couple of familiar signatures as soon as I exited my car.
The young man behind the counter hit the order bell. “Two Margherita pizzas.”
“That’s ours,” I said.
Off-balance at Tanner’s mild alarm—and the sensation of his fingertips on my bare skin—I stood a little too suddenly. My chair teetered and quickly righted, Tanner’s foot looped around the closest leg. While I paid, he retrieved the boxes and stacked the pie container on top.
“Can we take your car?” he asked.
I nodded. “But where’s yours?”
“I let Wes and Kaz use my truck. I’ll have them pick me up when they’re done.” He held the door open with his back. When I passed in front of him, he tensed. “Calliope, take the food.”
“Why?” My left arm brushed his chest, meeting a solid wall of warm, tensed muscle.
“Because I’m not sure what it is we might be walking into and I can’t defend us if I’m also trying to save our dinner.” Tanner hitched the straps of my bags higher on my shoulders before handing over the stack of fragrant boxes. The bottom one was hot. He bent forward, brushed his lips against my cheek and whispered into my ear, “Go to your car. Put the food on the floor, start the engine, and wait for me.”
My urge to gawk at his backside cooled even as my cheeks burned. I hightailed it to where I’d parked, keeping my eyes forward and daring any driver to get in my way.
Damned if I was going to play the damsel in distress.
And damn Tanner for making it so easy to pretend there was something between us.
I stashed the pizzas and the pie behind the driver’s seat, readjusted my cross-body bag, and leaned against the car door, slowly scanning the street and sidewalks. If he could feel the presence of another magical, then so could I.
Maybe. Probably.
It was worth a try, especially with the boost to my confidence earlier in the day. Slipping off my boots and wincing at the gravel underfoot, I kept my eyes open—always a challenge when I was sensing—and fed my awareness out in concentric circles.
Chapter 4
I couldn’t recall the last time I tapped into the energy of downtown Ganges with the purpose of tracking Magicals. The energy was always thicker in the summer and especially on market days, when the collective magic resembled a tangled mass of root balls. Familiar signatures—ones I could attach to specific shops and offices—burst here and there, like tiny buds and flowers.
I gloated when I located Tanner’s citrine-colored signal in the park. The druid was likely surrounded by toddlers and hula-hoopers and…
Oh! A peculiar, solitary point tugged on a section of entangled energies at the near side of the marina. The knot was close to where prop planes took on and dropped off passengers, which could mean whoever was giving off the signal had just arrived, or was preparing to leave. Wiping the soles of my feet on the inside of my pant legs, I wiggled back into my boots and headed in the direction of the harbor. I had to cross a main thoroughfare and jostle my way through clusters of bodies. Holding firm to the unknown entity, I kept to as straight a line as possible.
Once across the busy street, I released one foot from its boot and wiggled my toes into the soil underneath the shrubbery lining the sidewalk.
Maybe Tanner was on to something with his quick on, quick off footwear.
The ominous presence pulsed oily and cold among the boats bobbing in the crowded harbor. My toes recoiled. Following the line of energy to its source had just gotten exponentially harder. There was no way I was going swimming in that water.
Moving forward, I tried to be unobtrusive. I mean, I lived here. I knew almost all the shop owners and the staff at the marina, and on a normal day it could take me twenty minutes to get from where I was to where I needed to be. I retied my ponytail, threw up a deflective mirror shield with four flicks of my right wrist, and hoped everyone was too busy with the time-honored practice of separating tourists from their dollars to pay attention to the witch on a mission.
I honed in on the handful of yachts at the first dock, in particular, the sharkskin gray, custom-painted exhibit of excess floating close to the pulse of darkness. My ex’s family ran a realty firm. Along with a roster of exclusive listings, they owned a fleet of gas-guzzling vehicles and a yacht.
In fact, they owned that yacht, The Merry Widow, Doug’s mother’s nod to her marital state, not the famous opera.
I had no way to reach Tanner through non-magical means, but I could blend in better without a six-foot-tall druid by my side. I made it to the booth at the head of the boarding ramp the same time a float plane took off. The slippery connection flew from my grasp, whip-like and slick as the plane headed toward open waters.
Dammit.
Shielding my eyes, I could see heads behind the plane’s tiny windows. I flagged the navy blue-clad baggage handler rolling his cart up the ramp.
“Where’re they headed?” I pointed to the plane and made sure he acknowledged the badge affixed to my waistband.
“Vancouver. Private charter.”
Nothing else I could do. My hope sank as the plane disappeared. I turned to walk back to my car, discouraged but still alert to other signals, when the baggage guy added, “If it’s any help, they were staying on The Merry Widow.”
* * *
Six o’clock had come and gone. Market stall workers were breaking down their tents and mismatched trestle tables and loading their vehicles. I made it to my car, only to find Tanner pacing bumper to bumper.
“Where were you?” he demanded.
Fingers tapping on the roof of my car wasn’t the signal I was looking for. Even if those fingers were long and elegant and could play a tune across any surface. Metal. Tree bark. Skin.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, unlocked the doors, and slid into my seat. This shared investigation was not going to work if I had to report every move to him or wait for him to approve my decisions.
Or deal with a crush.
I blamed my fluctuating hormones.
Tanner slid in beside me and buckled his seat belt. “Stay to the speed limit,” he ordered. “And take a different way home. I don’t think anyone will follow us, but do it anyway.”
I fiddled with my keychain and pondered a shortcut. “What happened back there?”
He propped one hand against the dashboard and kept his gaze out the back window. “I smelled dirt. Really old dirt, combined with…engine oil, maybe?” He pressed into the seat and threaded his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry for yelling at you. And for making assumptions.”
“We don’t know each other, and we don’t yet know how to work together,” I offered. “And thank you for the apology.” I put the car into reverse, ready to be home, ready for some breathing room. “By the way, I felt it too, and I traced it to the marina. And a boat belonging to my ex-husband’s family business.” His look went from irritated to possibly impressed. “But the connection disappeared when a prop plane took off.”
* * *
Once we were at my house, Tanner insisted I park the car so it
faced down the driveway. “In case you need to get out of here in a hurry” was his offered explanation. I went with it, scooping up the pizza boxes so I could be the one bearing dinner and thereby have my sons’ complete attention.
“Guys,” I yelled, tapping my toe against the bottom of the screen door. “Food’s here.” Footsteps thundered down the inside stairs, followed by gangly limbs and smiling faces. “You two get your chores done?”
“What chores?” Harper lifted the pizza boxes out of my arms and held both high above his head as he twirled.
“Harper Flechette-Jones, put those back and go set the table. For four.” My eldest sent the boxes sliding the length of the kitchen’s narrow island. Thatcher—taller, skinnier, and, eight times out of ten, hungrier—stopped the boxes from toppling over the edge.
“Mo-om, I love you,” he said, flipping the lid and inhaling. “And you got one of Sallie’s pies!”
That was why the young woman’s face was familiar. She was related somehow to Harper and Thatch on Doug’s side of the family, which probably made them cousins. And solved one of the day’s mysteries.
“I’d love you more if you two would do your chores without me having to remind you all the time,” I said.
Harper coughed and adopted a serious tone. “Mother. Did you happen to look in the wood box? And did you observe the empty dish rack?” He swept his arm toward the staircase. “And I didn’t notice you inspecting our rooms in the three minutes you’ve been home, so I think—”
I swatted his shoulder. “Did you two really do all that, or are you just desperate for food?”
“Both,” they answered in unison as Tanner knocked at the kitchen door and let himself inside.
“This is Tanner Marechal,” I said. “He’s an agent with the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources, and he’s working on a case with me.”
A round of manly handshakes and deliberate eye contact followed, behavior I hadn’t noticed my sons exhibiting before. All movement toward getting food to the table paused as they assessed one another.
“Guys? Food?” I waved utensils and cloth napkins in the air. “Thatcher, can you please make a pitcher of lemonade?”
Once settled at the table, the teens inhaled their first slices of pizza and settled into a more sedate pace with their second. As usual, they were more interested in eating than in making conversation.
“What does your dad need your help with this weekend?” I asked.
“Is it okay if we go?” Points to Harper for swallowing first.
“Yes. But you still need to answer my question.”
“Dad bought a condo in Vancouver, near Granville Island, and he wants our help packing up his apartment in Victoria and assembling a bunch of furniture from Ikea for his new place. You know Dad. He wishes he had a magic wand so he wouldn’t have to get his hands dirty with menial shit.”
The bite of pizza got all cardboard-y in my mouth. How could Doug be one of the few people able to afford to move into Vancouver? Lack of money was his chronic lament. I wanted to spit out my mouthful of half-chewed dough, pick up my phone, and harangue my ex, but that had never worked in the past.
“You have someone to cover your shifts at the farm and the market?” I asked. The brothers nodded in tandem. “Then make sure your father pays for the ferry and see if he’ll cover your lost wages.”
Tanner focused on eating. Harper and Thatch discussed the logistics of getting to a concert they wanted to attend later in the summer, while the sounds of rhythmic chewing and swallowing filled my ears. Splaying my bare feet against the cool maple floor boards, I connected with my house and, below that connection, with my land.
A quiet burp, followed by an, “Excuse me” and chairs being pushed away signaled the teens were finished. They cleared the table, rinsed the dishes, and disappeared upstairs, plates of pie in hand. Following their movements, my heart clenched, wanting to hold on to the little boys inside the young men they were becoming.
Tanner shifted his left knee and made contact with my leg. “Good kids,” he whispered.
“Mm-hm,” I agreed.
He tapped the side of my knee again. “We should talk.”
“Let’s sit outside.”
A heavy three-seater swing took up one-third of the narrow deck off the back of the house. I placed my glass of lemonade on the low table and nestled into weather-hardened cushions. My house abutted a heavily wooded area, and when the sun dropped behind the hill that shouldered the long side of the property, the temperature shifted rapidly. I unfolded a shawl and wrapped it around my shoulders.
Fir trees were shrouded in summer-weight capes of light and dark greens, their edges decorated with ripening cones. Faint whisperings within the overlapping branches pricked my awareness, while an argument raged between the resident raven couple and a flock of interloping crows.
“Do you encounter a lot of witches in your work?” I asked Tanner once he settled in the opposite corner. “Or shifters and other Magicals?”
“Here and there. I’ve collected a core group I trust, including the two you met at the Pearmains’ and the two you didn’t, River and Rose.”
“Are they druids as well?”
“The three men are. Rose is River’s sister, and she’s a witch.”
“I know almost no one,” I confessed. “And today has been very unusual compared to most Tuesdays or any other day.”
A handful of persistent crows now had the full attention of the raven pair, and a storm of dark wings and sharp calls shattered the cozying twilight.
Tanner’s gaze went right to the section of woods off the deck, honing in on something I couldn’t yet see.
“What is it?” I asked.
He curved his left palm over my thigh, stilling my urge to stand and move closer to the railing. The birds flew off, taking their argument elsewhere and leaving behind falling feathers and a large splat of guano near the corner of the deck.
I picked up a low growl.
No, not a growl, a chant or incantation, and the sound was coming from Tanner. This day was getting more unsettling by the second. Darting my gaze from his face to the edge of the woods, I found the upside-down, bat-like creature that riveted his attention. Like a flag unfurling in a slow breeze, the animal unfolded one wing, smoky black and opaque, from where it wrapped a fir tree.
Behind us, the house shook with the pounding of teenage feet and bodies hurling themselves down stairs.
“Mom, something weird is…” Harper hurried the sliding screen door open and stopped, his brother plastered to his back.
Tanner kept chanting while the creature separated its other wing fully from the tree. Only the hold of its claws kept it from plummeting to the ground.
“What is that?” I whispered.
The boys froze. Tanner rose from our shared seat and vaulted over the railing. I bumped my shins against the table, toppling my glass in my rush to see if he’d injured himself on the eighteen-foot drop to the ground. He strode to the tree without limping or trailing a broken leg, his right hand aimed at the creature’s head with its pointy ears and elongated snout. The bat’s scrawny body wobbled as it climbed backward down the tree.
Thatch bent down closer my ear. “Mom, what is going on?” he asked, his voice quiet but harsh.
His natural curiosity fought against the palm I pressed to the center of his chest. “I’m not sure. Give Tanner a chance to deal with whatever it is he’s got there. Then we’ll talk.”
“You bet we’re gonna talk, Mom, because this is seriously weird shit.”
“It’s been a Seriously Weird Shit kind of a day.”
With his left hand, Tanner pulled a section of binding rope or vine out of the air and looped it over the creature’s neck. Harper backed out of the doorway and took the more traditional route to the yard. He slowed his approach to a stop when Tanner extended his arm behind him. Harper then crept forward when beckoned.
I was on the verge of hollering at him to stay away.
Low, masculine voices rose from below, their steady timbre punctuated by high-pitched keening. Harper knelt and touched the bat. The whimpering stopped, and the tension in its body released. Tanner raised both hands, palms up. Harper paused then straightened from his crouch. The creature used its claws to climb up his leg, and once it was high enough off the ground to extend its wings, it wrapped them around my son’s ribs and chest, blending the two into one in the gloaming light.
I covered my mouth with a shaking hand, one breath away from cursing Tanner into the middle of next week. Thatch grabbed my wrist and hauled me into the living room. He opened the screen door for Harper and his new companion, making soothing sounds as they entered.
“Calli.” Tanner slid around the trio and took my other hand, keeping his voice conversational as he spoke. “I think Harper has a natural empathy toward winged creatures. This looks like a fruit bat, but it’s nowhere near its natural habitat.” He continued, as though encountering giant fruit bats in coastal British Columbia was so common as to be passé. “I’ve seen a few, but I’ve never seen anything in the chiroptera family take to a human as fast as this one bonded with your son.”
Harper’s eyes registered shock and disbelief, coupled with a possessiveness I was not at all used to seeing. “Mom, what have you not been telling us?”
I darted my gaze back and forth between my sons. My weird day was getting weirder. I turned to Tanner. “Will that thing hurt Harper?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then can you please give us a minute?” Time was marching on, and I had a major, unplanned confession to make.
The giant bat rustled its wings, soft clicking noises coming from its mouth. I had to force myself not to insinuate my fingers between its claws and Harper’s chest or at least shove an oven mitt in there.
Tanner took his cue. “I’ll go outside and see if it’s brought companions. They’re shy, and they can’t echolocate. Maybe it’s…lost.” He shrugged and ducked out the door.