Wolf Hunted

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  I rubbed my ear. I shouldn’t make excuses for the elves. No matter how much I loved the family who’d adopted me, they were still elves, and they had their elven issues.

  “I will.” How was I to explain to Arne that he needed to take a long, modern look at his motivations? Maybe Maura could help.

  Ed sniffed, as if getting a whiff of the words we spoke would give him some deeper understanding than listening alone. “At least this time we know there’s something hidden here.”

  “I did see a shadow,” I said.

  He pulled his ever-present notebook from his pocket. “I’m going to do some digging on Natural Living Incorporated, the old-fashioned way.” Ed gripped my elbow. “Thank you.” Then he, too, walked away.

  I pulled out my phone to text Lennart and let him know I was on my way over. I swiped… and looked down at the photo of my mystery woman.

  Damn it, I thought. Whatever clung to the photographer wasn’t the only concealment I was dealing with. At least the new magic wasn’t slipping out of my mind the way she was.

  I touched her face. Her name is Ellie, I thought. Ellie Jones.

  Too many mysteries polluted my life. I tucked away my phone. I needed to find her, and I would. If I happened to be a few hours late to Raven’s Gaze, what would it hurt?

  Chapter 4

  Raven’s Gaze Brewery and Pub occupied two older buildings between Wolftown and the artsy neighborhood around the college. Like every place where elves live, the greenery here was lush, and the animals fat and happy. Massive trees shaded the tables and seating in front of the building’s old brick façade, and kitchen gardens filled most of the space between the eatery and the brewery proper.

  Raven’s Gaze Brewery and Pub had been painted diagonally across the front of the eatery along with the unironic established 1062, Alfheim, Minnesota. The entire design was obvious from the road with its worn, rustic colors and conspiracy of navy blue raven silhouettes. Several of the tables were shaded by wide umbrellas printed with the same birds.

  The pub and brewery would not have been out of place in Minneapolis’s trendier neighborhoods. But the buildings weren’t in The Cities; they were here with the elves. The pub still tended to be busy most evenings.

  Neither Bjorn nor Lennart ran the restaurant. That fell to a rotating crew of mundane managers, all of whom seemed to do a decent job, but one of the cooks was an elf. The food was excellent, and they did deliver all the way out to my lake, beer included. Between Lara’s Café, Raven’s Gaze, and the handful of other restaurants in town, Alfheim kept the tourists happy.

  I parked Bloodyhood in the back of the pub’s lot, away from the other cars and where my truck’s brand-new plow attachment wouldn’t scuff or be scuffed. Bloodyhood was one of the bigger models available anyway, which I needed because of my size, and with the plow, she pretty much took up two end-to-end spots.

  Sal hummed to herself in her magazine pocket on the back of the passenger seat. She had her own special slot in my truck’s toolbox, but she preferred to ride in the cab, and since she asked nicely, I wasn’t going to say no. She glamoured her handle so she looked like an old, worn, wood-chopping axe, and put off waves of leave me alone that also served to keep people away from my truck.

  My axe was a better deterrent than the truck’s anti-theft systems.

  “I’m going to walk around the neighborhood,” I said.

  My mighty elven battle axe tossed me a clear You’re searching for your mystery again, aren’t you?

  Sal didn’t so much talk as toss me comprehension. I didn’t hear her per se, but I knew what she wanted me to know.

  “Of course I am,” I said.

  She humphed. She wanted a stroll.

  “I can’t walk around with you on my shoulder. There are tourists.”

  She humphed again.

  “I’ll take you with me this evening. We’ll walk around the lake.”

  Sal reluctantly agreed to my compromise, but didn’t fully believe I’d stick to my word.

  “I promise,” I said.

  She axe-sighed, which involved a subdued flash of purple-ish magic.

  I shook my head. “You’re testy today.” She must have picked up on the activity at the park. “We have the situation under control. No need to worry.”

  A renewed flash of desire to walk the neighborhood followed.

  I looked out at the big oaks in front of Raven’s Gaze, and the remaining autumn blooms in the plantings in front of the restaurant. A few tourists sat at the tables drinking brews. Two more people, both with cameras, stood staring at a guidebook on the walk down the street. They pointed at the large historic former church on the other side of a stand of trees. The building was visible from the restaurant parking lot, but not so much from the restaurant itself. The couple nodded and chatted, and one took several photos.

  Bjorn owned the old church. There were “plans.” What those plans were, I didn’t know. But the building had a soft magical shimmer that made it more interesting than it would be otherwise.

  The elves never stopped the tourists from taking photos within Alfheim. But then again, they’d also built in enchantments that kept the tourist photos to certain areas, like the church.

  I pulled open my door. “I’ll be back in a bit,” I said. I still wore my dress shirt, slacks, and shoes, so I wouldn’t be doing anything other than strolling, anyway.

  My axe stayed silent this time.

  I fiddled with my jacket, which I’d tossed onto the passenger seat, and pulled my wallet from the pocket.

  I locked the truck and walked toward the church. How many times had I checked this part of town? Had I made a list? I opened my phone’s notetaking app and looked.

  Chihiro Hatanaka’s list popped up.

  Associate memories tangentially, item one said. The less a memory was connected directly to Ellie Jones, the more likely I was to remember it. The sub-notes said to try this with Ed, which I obviously had at one point or another.

  The second item said to make notes about my activities, and to keep as many of those notes as possible on my person, and to back up to a cloud server before sundown. I checked; my phone did so automatically.

  I was also to text Chihiro with regular updates, and to never give up.

  Ellie Jones was here, somewhere. Even if she didn’t want to be found, or if she didn’t want to talk to me, I could at least give her Chihiro’s contact information.

  Something told me that connecting them was as important as anything I had to say.

  I tapped my screen and filled in a note with the date, time, and location of this search, then tucked the phone back into my pocket. Checking around the church wouldn’t take much time.

  The two tourists were chatting excitedly as they walked toward Raven’s Gaze. They both shot me the usual shocked looks people give anyone taller than six-five. Both mouths rounded momentarily, and the man did the also-usual look-down-and-to-the-right as he tried to place me in the pantheon of famous sports stars.

  This was another reason I preferred living in Alfheim than, say, The Cities. Here, no one stopped me in the street and asked which team I played for.

  Though being mistaken for a professional athlete was a world’s worth of preferable to the terrified screaming of my unholy “youth.”

  “Howdy.” I smiled and tipped my head as a friendly gesture.

  The woman smiled back. The man did not. I walked on by.

  The church wasn’t large, and sat about fifty people while in use. It dated from the city’s official incorporation just after Minnesota’s statehood, and would have fallen into complete decay if the elves hadn’t seen fit to preserve it. Or, more precisely, Bjorn.

  Standing in front of the building, it was clear why.

  I’d long wondered if the presence of Nordic elves in Northern Minnesota was why so many Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic immigrants settled here. If, somehow, they were drawn to their elves and their old gods.

  The church had been built by
some of the first immigrants who had found Arne’s town. Bjorn had long lived on these lands, and he was a personable elf, even with his enjoyment of fast, loud music. And the immigrants, being Norwegians, probably understood they were in the presence of a being of Thor.

  The wooden church, though filled with Christian imagery, was a beautiful temple to the thunder god, with its skyward-pointed A-line architecture, its many stories, its clear Viking longboat beams, and its stout, strong pillars carved with Norse designs.

  Alfheim was blessed to have it.

  “Is the tattoo on your neck the same as the design on the door of the church?”

  I blinked and looked down. I hadn’t heard the man approach. He stood behind me and off my elbow, a smallish man at least fifteen inches shorter than my almost seven feet. He wore an expensive dress shirt and slacks not all that different from my own yet-more-practical clothes.

  His expensively cut hair had also been expensively styled. His cufflinks sparkled in the afternoon sun. His shoes looked to have cost about the same as Bloodyhood.

  Yet he looked familiar, even if he wasn’t carrying a camera or other gear and had put on the expensive jacket. “You’re the photographer,” I said.

  The man shrugged and pointed at my Yggdrasil tattoo. “The tree. On the door.” He pointed at the church.

  He wore the top button of his shirt undone and a thin-yet-obvious gold chain around his neck. A big gold insignia ring adorned his pinkie. Not even Magnus walked around in such cliché rich-man attire.

  “Maybe,” I said. I stuck out my hand. “Frank. Why are you still in town?”

  He carried no obvious magic. He also sneered at my hand as if I carried Ebola.

  He shook it anyway. “Perhaps I like the amenities. Perhaps I want my memory card back.” He waved his hand as if the card didn’t matter. “Perhaps I’d like a burger.” He nodded toward Raven’s Gaze.

  No accent colored his voice. Not even the ever-so-slight Cities cadence, or the lilt common in most of the small towns in the area. Nothing in the way he spoke suggested New Jersey, or Los Angeles, or Chicago. If anything, the gaudy display of wealth screamed European organized crime.

  “Hmmm,” I said, as if agreeing.

  “It’s lovely work,” he said. “The tattoo. Is it from the local shop? The one downtown?”

  A rich man—too rich to be a local photographer—was asking about my tattoos. “Yes,” I said. Close enough, I thought.

  “Ah.” He clasped his hands behind his back and returned to staring at the church. “I swear some of these churches were built for the true gods. Don’t you agree?”

  Was he poking, trying to find a magic hole? At the park, he’d acted as if surprised by local disapproval. Nothing in his voice communicated that he had an ulterior motive. He sounded sincere in his question of immigrant motives.

  Sincere, yes, but not compassionate. He sounded bored.

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said.

  “Yggdrasil, correct? The tree of life brings magic to every place it roots.” He swept his hand through the air. “Magic built on the backs of the people who extend their hands and offer help.”

  “What was your name again?” Bjorn had said Tom something.

  The sun dipped behind a cloud and his lack-of-magic… changed. Solidified, perhaps. And what hadn’t been there to begin with became a shadow that could swallow the moon.

  My instincts said to put him in a headlock and call for magical help, but he’d have an expensive lawyer here lawyering me into aggravated assault charges.

  Better to pull as much info from him as I could.

  I turned fully toward him. I spent most of my life trying not to physically intimidate anyone. Today, intimidation was necessary.

  The open area in front of Raven’s Gaze came into view.

  There she was, my mystery woman, no more than twenty feet away.

  Chapter 5

  I rarely cursed magic. There was no point. Magic was a force of nature, and like all forces of nature, it cared nothing for the people, places, and things over which it steamrolled.

  Some magic wielders, on the other hand, could be cursed all the way to Hell. And whoever wove the concealment enchantments around the woman twenty feet away could rot in the most debased pits in all the versions of The Land of the Dead.

  I wanted to call her name. I tried, but it wouldn’t come out. “Hey!” I shouted instead.

  She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Benta had her feline allure, but for all her expertise with spellwork, organization, and love of the natural world, she was still Benta.

  Auburn fire danced in Ellie’s hair where the dappled afternoon sun crossed her hoodie. She smoothed her hands over the thighs of her jeans, then jammed them into the big pocket on the front of her sweatshirt.

  She tugged on the strap of her backpack, and looked over her shoulder.

  The pack’s pocket came into view—as did the stain along the zipper. A stain I recognized. Ellie Jones wore my pack on her back. My pack. Somehow, some time, I’d given her my bag.

  When? Where? How many times had we done exactly what we were doing right now?

  Her lips rounded. She blinked. And I swore she said my name.

  “Hey!” I called again.

  The interloper stepped around me, as if my interruption of his subtext-laden questions was a crime worthy of a kick in the gut. “Who are you—”

  I refused to look down at his weasel-like face. “I am no longer speaking to you,” I said.

  His head swiveled and he looked in Ellie’s direction, but frowned and blinked as if he didn’t see her. “You are Frank Victorsson,” he said.

  He knew my full name.

  I glared down at the little man standing between Ellie and me. He had the angular features and the brown eyes I associated with French heritage, and carried an echo of the Geroux brothers. But mostly what I saw was his Mafioso-style bravado.

  Ellie glanced wide-eyed at me again, and I swear she hiccupped. Her hand extended toward me just a fraction of an inch, but she pulled it back.

  She turned away.

  “Wait!” I called. “Please!”

  The interloper gripped my forearm. “Victorsson,” he said, clearly accentuating his lack of Mister in his words, “The leaders of this town need discipline.”

  He was just a mundane. He carried no obvious magic. Causing him pain would be too easy. “Remove your hand from my arm,” I growled.

  He let go, but did not step back. “You need discipline.”

  Ellie stared at the interloper. Her expression hardened. She took a step toward us.

  I shook my head no. She couldn’t come near this man. He might not be magical, but he was up to something, and I couldn’t risk his darkness interacting with her enchantments.

  A loud truck full of local kids pulled into the Raven’s Gaze parking lot, followed by a second vehicle full of more kids. They tumbled out, laughing and touching like teenagers do, and moved toward the pub.

  Ellie looked at the vehicles. She looked back at me. Then she ran into the trees between the church and restaurant.

  “Damn it!” Without thinking—without considering the danger touching a rich man might bring—I gripped the interloper’s shoulders. I lifted. And before he could squirm or yell or threaten, I set him to the side.

  I should call Arne. I should let the elves know that the annoying photographer with the terrible attitude had shown up at Raven’s Gaze. Or I could follow Ellie.

  I ran for the trees.

  “Come back!” I yelled. Why did she run away? I rushed toward the church, and rounded the building into a patch of buckthorn. Leaves drifted down from the ash and oak, and I could make out the brightly colored umbrellas covering the outdoor tables at Raven’s Gaze, but Ellie had vanished.

  “I have…” I yelled. I had something for her. “I’m trying!” Damn it, where did she go? I peered through the underbrush. “Ellie!” I finally got out her name.

  “Frank.”


  I whipped around. Ellie stood next to the church, under a carving of a saint that looked more Norse god than godly. She adjusted the straps of the backpack and sighed deeply but didn’t reach for me.

  I pushed my way through the brambles. “I remember your name,” I said.

  The sigh turned into a slight quiver of her lower lip. “You remember that someone else told you my name,” she said.

  “Yes, that’s true.” I stepped out of the brambles and extended my hand. “I’m trying to circumvent the enchantments.”

  She pointed at my leg. “You ruined your pants.”

  I looked down. I’d ripped a small hole in the thigh of my trousers pushing through the undergrowth. “Oh.” I patted at the hole as if my fingers would brush it away.

  The interloper trotted down the path back toward the church. I moved to step between him and Ellie, but she put her finger to her lips and stepped in front of me.

  The man peered into a window, then out into the trees. He walked toward us, stopped about seven feet away, and scowled.

  Ellie was hiding me from him, and I’d ruined his good day by vanishing before he’d finished his insults.

  He snapped a fingernail across the inside of his ring’s band, swore, and walked away.

  She stared toward the parking lot for what felt like forever. “He’s magical, Frank. He couldn’t see me.” She jammed her hands into her hoodie’s pocket. “The concealment enchantments hide me from other magicals.” She stepped closer. “They hide you, too, when you’re close enough.”

  Close like now. I could touch her elbow, or her hip. I could feel her skin.

  Ellie adjusted the pack again. “He carries elf-level magicks. Please be careful around him. Please.”

  Loneliness radiated from her like a cold heat. Or maybe it radiated off me and she was only reflecting a truth I’d been living for two centuries. But it was there in the set of her shoulders and the small steps toward me, then back, then toward me again.

  Her concealments didn’t hide dark magic the way the interloper’s had. Hers turned her into a ghost with no moorings.