Tyrant Trouble

by Phoebe Matthews

Tyrant Trouble

  Mudflat Magic 1

  Phoebe Matthews

  LostLoves Books

  Second edition:

  Copyright 2012 by Phoebe Matthews

  Cover Design Copyright 2012 by LostLoves Books

  Mudflat Magic Novels

  Tyrant Trouble

  Welcome to Mayhem, Baby

  Barbarian Toy Boy

  Spice and Sorcery

  Goldilocks Hits Town

  Beastly Week

  Tyrant Trouble

  CHAPTER 1

  Flattened against the wood fence, I smelled the alley dumpster odors and tried not to puke. Can’t do it silently. And if he heard me, he'd find me and then I would be dead meat, stinking a lot worse than the dumpster.

  “Claire? Claire honey? I want to talk to you, Claire. That's all, just talk.”

  Yeah, and right after we talk and I tell you no, I do not have the information you want, you slit my throat, right, fella? I'm not stupid. Oh, maybe I am or I wouldn't be hiding in an alley with the likes of Dork tracking me down. Okay, so his name isn't Dork, it's Darryl, but it might as well be Dork. Dork the cheat, Dork the con man, Dork the liar, or, if I go Goth, Dork the Destroyer, because that's sure what he wants to do to me.

  Stupid doesn't even cover my case. He'd been all charm and flash, fancy restaurants, tickets to a country western concert, jeez, even roses, can you believe it? Roses, delivered in a white van with a mushy note attached.

  He had been really charming me with a two-week pursuit, until he leaned over the table of a dimly lit booth in a way too pricey restaurant and said, “I need you to make me a chart.”

  “Sure,” I said, not giving a second thought to that request.

  I work parttime at a bank, and I also work at the Mudflat Neighborhood Center to support myself. Astrology is a skill I learned from my grandmother. It earns me a little extra pocket money.

  I was wearing an almost-there black dress, killer heels, and I'd even had a friend twist my long dark hair into a style that scraped it back behind my ears to show off my dangly earrings. Okay, so only the shoes were mine, bought at a discount store, and the dress and earrings were borrowed. Glamour, that's me. I was looking way too good to think clearly.

  “Do you have a birth certificate handy?”

  Everybody knows their own date of birth, but most folks don't have a clue as to the hour and minute, very important, and an amazing number don't even know the latitude and longitude because they presume they were born in the town where their parents lived at the time. Nah. Not nowadays, maybe not in the past hundred years for all I know.

  Most people get born in a maternity wing of a city hospital anywhere from across the street to hundreds of miles from their home address. And, oh yes, that makes a difference.

  Except not to Darryl. “Not that kind of chart, honey. I know you're so good at charts, you give career advice, marriage advice, and you're bang on right.”

  Odd. He knew what I did, of course, but this was the first time he questioned me about it and, honestly, I thought he wasn't interested. So how did he know all that? Right. We grew up in the same small neighborhood.

  “Umm, so if you don't want a horoscope, what do you want, Darryl?”

  “Numbers. Scores. Winners. For sports events, honey. Seahawks, UDub games, whatever you come up with.”

  Ho-kay. This took thinking. I leaned back in the booth and made a big deal of sipping my wine, buttering a roll, carving a narrow strip of the salmon filet. Score and winners? For one game? For one office pool bet? Wake up, stupid Claire, look at where you're dining, look at his beautifully tailored clothes, salon styled hair, and was that a Rolex? I'd been thinking it was one of those knock-off imitations, but whoa. I don't think so.

  “You can do that, can't you,” he said and it wasn't a question.

  “Uh, I don't know. I never have.”

  “Not yet, but you can, right, with whatever information you need. I can get birth date info on players and coaches, franchise times, the minute the ink soaked into a contract, whatever you need.”

  “I do horoscopes for people,” I muttered.

  “Yes, fine, do the players. Figure it from there. Scores are best, but win-loss is good, if that's all you can do. Not that I think it is. Jimmy told me you tipped him on some stocks, the exact date they'd peak and the price.”

  More butter on the potato, until it ran in hot yellow streams around the plate, more peas tucked into the mash I was stirring up inside those salted potato skins, more carefully carved salmon, a top-off on my wine glass, and not one swallow of anything making it to my mouth.

  Jimmy. Right. I never did financial stuff, way too tricky, sure to backfire, but Jimmy had been in a bind with foreclosure breathing down his whatever, and he was a cousin and family and all that and I made a bad mistake, gave him this stock tip based on a string of math formulas and hit it right on.

  “That was a one shot thing,” I said and looked up and met Darryl's gaze, hoping I'd see something there that said this was nothing more than a casual suggestion.

  I knew when I said it I'd been lying to myself. Every tightened muscle of his expression gave him away.

  Then the glossy con man smile. “It's really important to me, honey, and I know you can do it. For me.”

  Man, had I heard that line before.

  I did a lot of fast talking, made a few vague promises. And as soon as we'd done the kiss goodnight thing and I'd shooed him out and closed my front door, I grabbed my phone and called that rotten Jimmy.

  He did a lot of throat clearing, the bum.

  “You're the one who introduced me to Darryl!” I shouted. “You set me up! You know I don't do gambles, never have, never will. I've turned down enough offers. You know that!”

  “Darryl can be persuasive,” Jimmy whimpered.

  Was that how he'd got so far down in the hole, and, now that I thought about it, what did I know about Darryl except that his younger brother still lived in my neighborhood? Darryl had been in high school when I was in grade school. Now he lived in a classier part of Seattle and our paths hadn't crossed until my lying cousin introduced him to me and told me he worked for some perfectly respectable Seattle business, something to do with cruise ships.

  “What do cruise ships have to do with betting? Does he deal blackjack to tourists or something?”

  “I wish,” Jimmy said.

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “Uh Claire, I don't think I want to talk on the phone.”

  When I told him which of his body parts I was going to remove, he said, “Meet me tomorrow, lunch at McDonald's, the one down by the ferry dock.”

  McDonald's? Right, definitely my budget level, although I had forgotten that in the past two weeks of Darryl wining and dining and strewing rose petals in my path. Two weeks. Constant attention. Very few kisses. No tries to hit on me. And I'd thought he was very proper, very gentlemanly, when all the time he was very unreal and I do hate that too-good-to-be-true cliché.

  I knew Darryl's brother, knew he was scum, but I really try not to judge people by their relatives because do I want to be judged by Jimmy's behavior?

  I headed for my computer and was up so late googling Darryl that there wasn't any point going to bed. Amazing how much is out there and how much is hidden, but I collected enough information to make some guesses.

  By dawn's annoying light I showered, dressed, headed for the bank where I temp cashier and asked a loan officer how to run credit checks.

  “Thinking about promotion, Carmody?”

  “Can't hurt to learn.”

  “True, the more you understand, the wider your job opportunities, though in your case, I don't see you as advancement material.”

  Okay, so
by the end of any working day my very long hair has escaped the clasp and is sticking out in odd directions, as well as trailing down my face. For some reason, my shirts never stay tucked in and it's good I work in the computer room, because my pantyhose are always full of holes and runs, and, even as I stood there talking to him, I wiggled my foot a little too hard and the four-inch heel snapped out from under my left shoe.

  We both knew I was employed because they had three women gone on maternity leave and the bank was desperate and I did have experience. Glowing references, no, but my resume verified that I was honest and did not make mistakes, and when the unemployment numbers drop, what's a human resources department to do?

  He gave in, showed me how to pull up credit reports, and I didn't bother to tell him that once I am pointed in the right direction, I am wicked good on a computer. Anyone who has ever downloaded an astrology program and then checked for errors knows what I mean.

  I found so much to worry about, I didn't need more from Jimmy so I stood him up. Served him right. A forty minute lunch hour later on the computer and I knew I was dead.

  It started that night, the string of phone calls, first wheedling, then threats, because Darryl wasn't just doing a little sideline betting, or even planning something as straight forward as knocking off one of the Indian reservation casinos. Oh no.

  Did I mention that I live in Mudflat, not a place that shows up on any Seattle map. It's more like a mindset. The city is divided into numerous neighborhoods, each with a name, and the names do appear on maps and in conversation, but Mudflat is a winding trail of blocks of property that cut through several neighborhoods and is considered off limits by those who know. Because Mudflat is where old magic lives.

  It's where I grew up. It's why my horoscope predictions are right-on. There's no big magic in my family's genes, just glimmers and traces that give a boost to anything esoteric in our lives. It's why I limit advice to career, romance, health, safe stuff, and even when I can see a clear answer, I always couch it in vague terms. I know.

  People think the “meet-a-tall-dark-stranger-someday” line is a cover-up for faking. Nope. Just the reverse.

  I could say, “You'll be running off with your best friend's husband on the second Tuesday of next June,” but what for? How would that help anybody? Instead I say, “You may be tempted to betray a friend, all in the name of love, but you're a good person and will make the right decision.”

  And I cross my fingers and know darn well that on the second Tuesday of next June, her friend is going to be crying her eyes out. Or buying a gun.

  That's how good I am, except I can never read my own future, which is why I was now being stalked by a wizard's brother who planned to put me in the middle of a bad deal going down, some kind of national gambling ring, and for sure I would end up dead or in jail, which is the same thing, right?

  I was absolutely not going to help him. First, he was into felony territory. Second, he'd up the demands until I was so twisted in the net of lies, I'd never get my life back. And third, there's not much you can't figure out with the help of a horoscope, a computer and access to news files, and his brother the wizard was sometimes a very bad dude.

  Which is why, when my sort of buddy, Roman, said he and a couple of friends were heading over to the Olympic peninsula on a camping trip, I said, “Wow! I love camping!”

  Yeah, like I even go in the backyard to pull weeds. Sorry, I live in the heart of tree-hugger country, but give me city traffic and smog to breathe any time. Still, it was a small lie which earned me an invitation. Skip town for a week, spend boring camping time thinking up another destination and, who knew, I could be out of town for maybe a month or so, at which point my credit card would do the spontaneous combustion thing.

  With any luck, Darryl would give up on me and move on to his next scam.

  Really good plan, really bad timing, because at somewhere around midnight I was stuffing stuff into my backpack when I heard Darryl's car pull up outside. I left the lights burning and ducked out the back door, cut across the small yard, rolled over the wood fence and did a dive into the alley, landing on my hands and knees. I tore the knee (both the denim one and the flesh one), grabbed my pack and started to hobble away.

  That's when I heard the gate scrape open and I wedged myself behind the dumpster.

  Darryl shouted, “Claire? Honey?”

  He moved slowly down the alley, peering into shadows, while I tried not to breathe. Looking behind the dumpster apparently wasn't on his list of possibilities because he moved past me and I saw the reason instinct had sent me running. He was carrying a roll of duct tape. Somehow I didn't think he'd stopped by to repair my leaking gutters.

  Fortunately he was a spoiled brat and lacked fortitude. Those of us who are self-supporting know how to hang in there, which this time meant staying stuffed behind the dumpster, silent and not puking, until boredom sent Darryl back through my yard to his BMW.

  When I heard the engine purr, I slipped through the gate and back into my yard but I didn't go near the house. I went to a back corner of the garden, crouched down on damp earth between the fence and an overgrown bush, and waited.

  And kept right on waiting. No one expected me anywhere until morning. I made the right choice because next thing I knew, the car came purring down the alley, its headlights chasing the dark away from hidey corners.

  He drove through twice, then stopped, got out, came through my back gate and circled the house, went up the back steps to the kitchen door, tried the knob. Knocked. Pounded.

  Keep it up, Billy Goat Gruff, I thought. Wake up the troll under the bridge.

  A really big weird dude rented the basement apartment in my house and he worked nights, so maybe he wasn't home. I hoped he was and hoped Darryl woke him up in a bad mood. Far as I knew, the troll was nonviolent, but he did not look nonviolent.

  Darryl pulled out his cellphone, punched in a number and said, “Not here. Yes, probably. Light's on so she must be coming back. I'll swing by first thing in the morning.”

  I spent another hour feeling the damp spread across my ass and soak its way up through my jeans, with the only distraction the burning in my knee. By the time I decided to move, I was almost too stiff to unfold. Then, very quietly, cautiously, I slipped back to the alley, stayed in the shadows, made my way to the street and headed out on a five mile hike to Roman's house.

  Buses don't run in Mudflat after evening commute.

  Okay, I made it before sunrise, much to everyone's amazement, got stuck in the middle of the backseat of Roman's old car between a couple who were mad at each other, and curled my damp self around my damp backpack and went to sleep.

  I wish I could sing the joys of camping but it was far worse than I had imagined. It took us about four hours, what with a ferry ride and two bridges, to reach the Olympic Mountains, which are centered on a peninsula and surrounded by a narrow band of flat land and beaches and saltwater and the whole thing stretches west to the Pacific Ocean where there's a line of windswept beaches and a rain forest, and some people actually think of it as vacationland. Tourists love misery.

  We didn't go that far. Quick geography lesson here: the Olympic Mountains are a fairly spectacular cluster, high and pointy and snow-topped most of the year. A few roads go up the edges to lookout areas. The best known is Hurricane Ridge.

  The roads do not cut through the range because it isn't as though anyone needs to shortcut across a peninsula at the end of the world. So the center is kept wild, though I guess naturalists prefer words like pristine, which means no paving. Nothing that goes putt-putt or vroom-vroom is allowed to enter. It is open past the road's end and the ranger stations on a permission basis to the sort of folks who hike where there is no trail. The permission thing is required. I guess the park service gets really tired of searching for lost hikers.

  Around the outer edges, on the lower slopes, there are picnic areas and camp grounds and that's where we ended up, sleeping in stupid ca
nvas bags on bare dirt while the rain dripped slowly on our soggy cocoons.

  The others warmed themselves with some slightly illegal and some highly illegal substances. The food supply ran out and the liquor was nonstop.

  Sick of the lot of them, I took advantage of the first sunny day. I peeled out of my wet jeans and sweat shirt and switched into tee shirt, shorts, sandals, tucked my pony tail through the back strap of my baseball cap, and shouldered my pack, which contained very little but I didn't trust any of them to stay out of it if I left it. I was down to my last clean tee shirt.

  While Roman and the others stretched out on the ground and on the picnic table, snoring themselves into oblivion and sunburns, I decided to find the road and see if I could possibly hitch a ride to somewhere, anywhere. My credit card was good for a motel room, a hot shower and food and oh yes, please, black coffee before I died from caffeine withdrawal.

  The one small flaw in my plan was my lack of any sense of direction. I was absolutely sure that if I took a shortcut it would get me to the road in twenty minutes, forty tops.

  After three hours of pushing my way through thickening undergrowth, all I'd found were a few prickly berry bushes. I dug out my Swiss army knife, one of those great red things that someone once gave me and I never expected to use, and managed to cut off a small spray. The berries looked ripe but were hard and sour. My arms and legs were crisscrossed with scratches. I tucked the knife through the belt on my shorts and then stumbled into a shallow stream to cool my burning feet.

  A stream had to go somewhere, right, and I was beginning to suspect I'd been walking in circles. So I stayed in the stream and waded through the knee-deep cool water until weariness slowed my pace to a full stop.

  Every inch of me, from my knees up, itched with sweat. I took off my hat, stuffed it into my pack, and ducked down into the stream until its coolness soaked through my clothes to my skin, then stood and bent over and managed to get my long hair and sticky scalp thoroughly wet.

  Let me say here than I don't know which of us was most surprised.