Jacked Cat Jive

by Rhys Ford

  An animated column of furious rock, it ate up much of the sky as it stretched out its limbs and screamed one final time, with a hurricane of rage I could hear even through the muted ringing in my ears. Then it slowly dropped back down, and moments later, it disappeared from sight.

  I didn’t let my foot off of the gas.

  “Are you good to drive?” Ryder asked softly. There was concern in his voice—probably not as much as on his face, but I’d already endangered us by looking at the creature. I wasn’t going to fall into the pity party he was having for me on the next seat. “You should pull over—”

  “Not until we’re someplace far away. The campsite is less than forty-five minutes out. I can make it,” I growled at him, and I tried not to hiss when a jostle sent sparks of pain down my spine. “What was that thing back there?”

  “I think it was a henge guardian, probably a juvenile.” He laughed when I risked giving him a look of disbelief. “They normally only wake up during solstices, and they’re known to be foul tempered when they’re young. They stop eating meat at a certain point and subsist only on the rocks they carve out to make their dens. That is only the third one I’ve ever seen and the youngest. I’m more concerned about the ainmhi dubh. They came upon us quickly and circled us.”

  “Someone’s controlling them, but they could’ve just been patrolling a range. We are in Unsidhe territory,” I reminded him. Another jerk of the transport and I couldn’t hold back my grunt of pain. “Those were a master’s work. Somebody powerful has their leash and probably won’t be happy that they lost one. That kind of ainmhi dubh takes a long time to grow in a vat. So either the area is protected by someone powerful or there’s been a Wild Hunt called on the kids we’re trying to rescue.”

  Eighteen

  IT’D BEEN two years since I’d been in the canyons. Post-Merge SoCal stretched hundreds of miles from the coast to its eastern border. It picked up a lot of land when the Underhill crashed into it. I didn’t know a lot about what the elfin world was like and how its landscape looked, but from what I’d heard, this part of the country was a bit of a jumbled mess. The low prairies were left behind about twenty minutes back, and we’d entered a wide labyrinth of wind-sculpted canyons and mesas. The campsite I’d been to before was a literal oasis in the parched, baked red rock, complete with a fairly decent-sized spring-fed pond and overhangs large enough to provide cool shade in the hot summer months.

  I’d bowed down to the crippling pain after half an hour of driving. There didn’t seem to be any enraged ten-foot-tall stony armadillos following us, so I let Cari bully me out of the driver’s seat and switch sides with me in the cab. The ground was green on the scanner, so there wasn’t any danger of us ending up in a subterranean tomb. I’d stopped coughing up blood a few minutes after we left the creature in the dust, but the area we’d been in was riddled like wormwood, and there was only so much trust I could give out on any given day.

  “Pull in over there.” I pointed toward a spot a few yards away from the crystal-blue pool. “It’ll give us a good view of anyone coming in or out of the canyon.”

  “Sometimes I think your paranoia goes a bit too far, Gracen.” Cari muttered a profanity but did as I told her. “Then I remember that everyone who meets you does eventually want to kill you.”

  “I’ve had those moments,” Ryder interjected from behind me, “but then it always seems like someone is trying to beat me to it.”

  “Funny. Just remember, everything that happened in the last few hours was because of your cousin back there,” I pointed out. “Let’s just get camp set up, and then I can take a look at my ribs.”

  The vibrant walls of the moon-shaped canyon were muted with a bluish wash as dusk crept up on us. Like most of the smaller pockets, the ground was mostly made up of hard-packed sand and small gravel with a few small cacti and bushes hugging the perimeter of the broad pond. Something small splashed at the far end—a fingerling minnow being chased by something larger—but I knew from experience there was nothing more dangerous in the water than the occasional long-pincher prawn. Fresh air swept down through the opening at the other end, curled around the rise in the ground, and held a slight bite—a promise of a cooler night ahead.

  Cari parked the transport and angled the cab toward the pond so we could use its spotlights to illuminate the area. She watched me as I opened the door and then gave a good scold when I moved slower than she liked.

  “Check on Kerrick. Those painkillers you gave him are probably going to make him sick to his stomach in a few minutes. They always do that to me.” I gave her a smug look when a groan came from one of the bunks behind the seats, along with a sound I more equated with Newt coughing up fur from his belly. Cari bolted to hover over somebody else. “There’s a bucket in the compartment next to you. You’ll probably have to dump the stuff out of it, but it’ll give him something to throw up in.”

  Ryder stayed exactly where he was and swung open the main doors to the back cabin. “Do you intend to wash up in the pond? Because you’re covered in blood and dirt, and I want to be able to see what I need to stitch up on you.”

  “You might have to rebreak my arm and reset it. Everything else’s pretty much going to be taken care of.” I looked longingly at the pond. A bath sounded great, and I knew where the circulation pattern was so I wouldn’t dirty the water for drinking. “I can’t feel my fingers. So, if you’re willing to do that, come on down.”

  I left Cari to deal with Kerrick. He was mostly road rash and gave off a yelp when she popped his shoulder back in, but by the way he was moving his arm, it seemed fine. I was less lucky. The break was fairly clean and about halfway healed when Ryder clenched his teeth and pushed everything back into place when I showed him where to grab. Luckily, I held my stomach and didn’t foul the pond, but it was close. Stripping off my clothes was an experience in patience, but I hadn’t healed into any of the torn fabric on my body, so I put that into the win column.

  The water was cold, or maybe I was just too hot. Either way, I sat down in it, rested on a natural stone shelf a few feet below the edge, and leaned back, grateful for the water sluicing over my bruised body. The hematoma over my ribs bordered on alarming, but it was healing rapidly, probably driven by my fear that Cari would slather her mother’s witch balm over my wounds and its minty aroma would bring out every feline creature within twenty-four miles.

  “Och, look at your leg,” Ryder exclaimed softly. “Did that thing take a bite out of you?”

  “Small one, but it’s almost healed over. Hurts a bit, but it’ll stretch. Meat’s easier to heal than bone.” Rotating my arm around, I was happy to not hear any crackling-rice sounds coming from the area I’d broken. “You did a good job with this. Slid right into place.”

  “I hate that you live a life where you know how your bones sound when they are broken.” I got another long-suffering sigh from Ryder. “And yes, I know it’s your life, but I still don’t care for it. Maybe it reminds me of how dangerously you live.”

  “Not like we’re on a walk to the donut shop here, lordling.” Rubbing at my calf made it feel better and eased away some of the ache as the muscle rebuilt. “I don’t know why you insist on coming along when you know damned well you could get killed. Hell, I don’t know why Kerrick is here. All he had to do was sit back in Balboa and wait to see if you came back.”

  “Ego, mostly,” Ryder replied. “And he’s competitive. I did not fight in the wars, and he did, so he probably feels he would lose face if I risked my life and he did not. My part of the family is forbidden from conflict because we are a fertile clan. I was surprised they took him or that Sebac allowed it. Still, he acquitted himself well, by all accounts.”

  “Yeah? Then why didn’t he pitch in while we were fighting off that damned worm?” I made a face as I recalled how he’d worked to get the transport unlocked, but I didn’t want to give up the argument. “Hell, the asshole could have picked up a rock and thrown it. Something. I mean, it’s not like I’m
asking him to come out with a flamethrower or anything.”

  He chuckled, and I scrunched back down into the water and hoped the cold would numb the rest of my body.

  Sitting on the pond’s edge, Ryder took off his boots and socks and eased his feet into the water. I could practically hear him thinking, and I didn’t blame him for staying silent. I welcomed it at the moment, but there were a lot of questions pressing down on us, things we would have to figure out before we went any farther.

  “Do you really think those ainmhi dubh were part of a Wild Hunt?” he asked when I finally opened my eyes to stare up at him. “Unsidhe magic killed Duffy, and there’s so much we don’t know about the Dusk Court below San Diego. Everything I’ve heard says their clans and houses are in a constant battle—to the point where they’re starving their people because resources are spent feeding armies instead of villages.”

  “I know that the humans have abandoned the area.” I splashed water over my face and then cupped some into my mouth to ease the dryness in my throat. The water was sweet and held a hint of the ginger grown in farms along the river. “There were some cities down there, but most are ghost towns now. Mexico lost a lot of its land to the Unsidhe in the Merge, and with its people gone, there is no incentive to gain it back. Cari’s mom had family down there, and they all fled north to SoCal.”

  The crunch of footsteps on gravel brought us both to attention, and Cari held her hands up and chuckled as she showed me the small duffel she’d carried over from the transport. She set it down by my elbow and joined Ryder in shedding her shoes to soak her feet.

  She gazed out over the pond and sighed.

  “I brought you some clothes, since yours look like they’re about ready to fall off of your body. Kerrick threw up mostly water, so it wasn’t too bad. I told him he should come out here and at least get a sponge bath, but he passed out again. Said something about how the Sidhe sleep off their wounds. Apparently it’s better for them to heal that way. I told him the only Sidhe I knew was you, Kai, and you would sooner drop dead than admit you were hurt.” She grinned when Ryder snorted. “So what do we do now? We know there are Unsidhe in the area, as well as those assholes on their hunting party. It’s too late to call in reinforcements, and even if we did, I don’t know what good they would do.”

  I thought about it for a moment and then replied, “I’m hoping the ainmhi dubh were a patrol, because they didn’t seem focused on any one person in particular. If they were looking for elfin, they would’ve gone after Kerrick and Ryder specifically. Or even chewed on me a bit more.” I didn’t mention the hunger I’d felt from the black dog I’d fought with or the ache to control it that I’d experienced. “Duffy told me she used to get some help from the people in the area on other runs, but that all dried up. Something’s changing out here, and I don’t know what it is. If the Tijuana Dusk Court is running patrols this far north into SoCal, then it makes sense for farmers not to want to stretch their necks out for runaways. They have their own to worry about, especially if the Unsidhe are moving up here. I mean, the nearby area’s marked as Dusk Court territory, but it’s been mostly a buffer zone. One thing to mark it on a map, but it’s another if they’re actually starting to move in. Something’s changed to drive them up.”

  The Dusk Court didn’t have the cohesiveness to protect an area or to even make insurgent runs into SoCal territory. They were on arid land that was nearly impossible to make viable, even with everyone’s cooperation. I knew the Sidhe had people who could shape plants and land, forcing nature to provide a higher yield at harvest, but I couldn’t say the same for the Unsidhe. And of course, humans had to do things the old-fashioned way, with irrigation lines and backbreaking work through hard soil. Still, there were acres of fruits and vegetables about twenty miles to the east of us, and that kind of arable land would be attractive to a starving Dusk Court.

  “It seems uncharitable. If someone is fleeing for their lives, why wouldn’t you help them? Why wouldn’t you extend them any protection?” Ryder leaned forward to rinse his hands off. “Running a patrol of ainmhi dubh requires a lot of control and support from a clan. They wouldn’t just have one pack. It would have to be multiple groups to cover an area this wide.”

  “Yeah, it makes more sense that what we ran into was a Wild Hunt rather than a patrol.” I didn’t like it, but Ryder’s logic made sense. “We should move toward our rendezvous point as quickly as possible. We’re guessing the three kids who are coming up are Dawn Court, but suppose they’re not? Maybe they’re from a clan that’s dropped out of favor and someone wants those kids dead?”

  “Your mind is like a telenovela,” Cari tsked. “Why do you always pick apart problems and make them intrigue?”

  “Everything is an intrigue with the courts. I haven’t even been around them that long, and I know that,” I replied. “Just ask Ryder here.”

  “He is not wrong.” Ryder inclined his head and glanced back at the transport. “I’m going to go check on Kerrick and then maybe ask him why he’s here with us, because it does not seem as though his intentions line up with ours.”

  “Do you mean because he didn’t help with the giant centipede back in the cavern and then disobeyed me when I told him not to go too far?” The cold was getting into my bones, and I reluctantly resigned myself to getting out of the water. “It’s almost as though he has an agenda and he wants you to fail. He’s walking around with the idea he’s some high lord commander in charge of an army so he doesn’t have to listen to some mutt like me. Does that sound about right, Cari?”

  “Yeah, it does. But I think he had a ‘come to whatever god you guys worship’ moment back there.” She cocked her head, ran her hand through her hair, and then winced at the speckles of dirt she found. “I don’t think he expected Kai to go down after him… or anyone else, really. Alexa told me a little about what it’s like to live in Elfhaine, and she said the farther you are from the center of the clan, the happier you’ll be. Kerrick doesn’t strike me as being too happy, so I’m going to guess he’s in the thick of things.”

  “I would say he is. Coming down here is both a way for him to show our grandmother that he is committed to our clan and at the same time a way to carve out a space for himself.” Ryder pulled his feet out of the water, shook them off, and splashed me in the face. I growled at him, and he patted my head. “I’m going to go see if he needs something. Cari will be here to make sure you don’t drown while you bathe. Are we going to spend the night here? Or are we only stopping long enough to rest?”

  There were arguments to be made on both sides. We were beaten and tired. I had just had my right arm reset, and it was painful to move. Cari and Ryder were quiet, obviously waiting for me to make a decision. I wanted to sleep—I couldn’t argue with Kerrick’s insistence that sleep was the best way to heal—but if somebody got to those kids before we did, I didn’t think I could live with myself.

  “I know that look on his face.” Cari groaned and reached for the duffel bag. “Let’s at least get clean and get some food in us before you drag us back out. A couple of hours, Kai, that’s all I’m asking.”

  “Three. I’ll give us three hours.” I took the bag from her, attempting to be stoic and not wince, but I failed miserably. There was soap and a washcloth along with a clean set of clothes. The pain along my sides cheerfully informed me it would probably take me about half an hour to get squeaky clean. “We’re going to want to get our guns clean and ready for this run. We don’t just have the ainmhi dubh to worry about. Don’t forget, there’s a group of hunters out there who want to use these little kids for target practice, and that makes them bigger monsters than any black dog I’ve ever met.”

  AT ABOUT the two-hour mark of our stay, I took a lantern to scout out the road a bit. I’d cleaned out the shotguns Cari used on the black dogs, and she loaded up a bandolier of shells for me. I grumbled about losing yet another knife, but I brought plenty. We gulped down a quick meal of lukewarm spaghetti and a spongy strawberry ca
ke, and then I made some noises about wanting to make sure the transport could get through the next passage and set off for a walk.

  I needed some breathing room and to ease the ache in my leg.

  I fitted one of the Glocks into the shoulder holster and strapped the other to my side. I’d replaced the knives in the sheaths on my thighs with longer blades. It felt like there was a storm brewing. Something heavy sat on the horizon, and I couldn’t carry enough weapons to make myself feel prepared for it.

  There were still a few good welts on my skin, and my back looked like a tabletop gamers’ map of a fantasy world. I was scared I was going to piss blood for a couple of days, considering how many hits my kidneys had taken, but otherwise I seemed to be okay. My calf hurt like a son of a bitch. It ached where the flesh was quickly growing back, and Ryder had insisted on applying a derma-layer on the area—more to keep it protected from rubbing against my jeans than anything else. The wound meant not wearing boots, so I’d have to be careful about snakes and anything else willing to crawl up my pants leg.

  We were too far out for me to get any service on my link, but I checked anyway, hoping something might have bounced off of the farms nearby. Mostly I was worried about Dempsey. I’d left him stewing in the poisons of his own body. He had time left in him, but he was a man who didn’t like life to control him. I would have extracted a promise from him that he had to wait for me to come back before he died, but he probably would’ve just slapped me.

  “Wouldn’t have said no to some rabbit meat tonight,” I grumbled to myself. The protein would’ve been good. There were chunks of chicken in the spaghetti, but my body craved meat, especially when it had a lot of healing to do. I’d spotted a jackalope ten minutes into my slow stroll, but I never hunted those. I liked them too much. “Jackalopes and capybara. A man’s got to have limits, ’cause dog and cat are right out.”