by Hilari Bell
***
Where was Raven? Now Jase wanted to see her, so he could get that pouch out of his garage before something even worse showed up to claim it. She wasn’t in school on Wednesday, either. What would he do if she never came back? If even part of what she’d said was true—which now seemed a lot more likely—he couldn’t just throw the pouch away. She should have given him her pod code, or whatever it was aliens used to communicate.
The house was more secure than the garage, so Jase moved the pouch into his room and hid it in the back of his desk drawer. Still in its plastic bag, because despite what Georg said, you never really knew. Maybe the airtight bag would keep it from leaking magic as well.
His father told Jase he’d be needed to drive Mr. Hillyard back to the border on Tuesday, and that he’d clear it with Jase’s principal. Which would be fine, if Jase had given the pouch back to Raven by then. If he hadn’t . . . As long as Mr. Hillyard was with him he’d be fine. It was the long drive home that worried him.
But there was no reason for football player aliens to be looking for him at the border, Jase told himself firmly. He hadn’t seen them again, not at school, or around his home, or anywhere. He’d probably convinced them he didn’t have it. The tall one had said he couldn’t sense anything, and the short one hadn’t been sure they had the right car—which meant that someone must have seen the girl throw the bag over the fence, seen Jase retrieve it, but they hadn’t gotten a good look at him or the Tesla. The fact that they couldn’t identify his Tesla pretty much proved their alien nature, as far as Jase was concerned. But aliens or not, they didn’t seem to be stalking him now.
Unless they were biding their time, waiting till he relaxed his guard.
On Wednesday night Jase dreamed of being hunted again, of hiding, cowering, while something menacing tried to find him. When he woke up enough to think, the dream made sense—being stalked and mugged by aliens who could stop sound was enough to give anyone nightmares. Maybe the principal was right, maybe the study group had been talking too loudly to hear him. Or maybe the aliens had used some advanced sound-damping tech—Jase preferred both those explanations to magic. But he resolved to leave his window clear for a while, anyway. He was getting accustomed to sleeping in the light.
On Thursday he played basketball with Joey and Brendan, and he was so distracted looking at passing football players, and any girl with long dark hair, that he missed several passes. When he found himself peering into nearby trees for a big black bird, he quit the game and went home early.
Forget it—and they could forget about him, too! If Raven wanted to save the world so bad she could make contact. And if she didn’t show up soon, he’d hide the pouch in the woods somewhere and let them all go hunt for it.
When she knocked on his window late Thursday night she woke him out of a sound sleep. About time she showed up!
“Open the window.”
Jase could barely hear her through the glass. He hoped his parents couldn’t.
“Shh!” He got out of bed and padded over to the window, not bothering to put on his pajama top.
Raven, who’d leaned over the rail to knock on the glass, settled back onto the deck. As Jase drew near enough to look, he saw that this time she was dressed in a man’s big flannel shirt . . . and nothing else, as far as he could see. Planning another seduction? He had no intention of falling for it.
“Open the window,” she repeated.
Despite his resolution, Jase wished he could. If she was wearing as little as it seemed, watching her climb in would be interesting.
“It doesn’t open,” he told her. “Go down the deck to the door and I’ll let you in.”
Moving through the dim hall, Jase was grateful his parents’ room was on the other side of the house. But when he reached the big glass door, he still touched a finger to his lips for silence before he pressed the button to slide the door aside.
She’d wrapped her arms around herself, and she stepped hastily into the warm house. Jase couldn’t be sure in the gray twilight, but he thought he saw goose flesh on those long bare legs.
He gestured for silence again, led her back to his room, and closed the door before he spoke.
“Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for days! Something happened that I need to tell you about.”
“Are you carrying the medicine bag?” She sounded as if she hadn’t even heard what he said, which annoyed him even more. But in that old-style flannel shirt, with her dark hair falling around her, she looked like the kind of woman who could ask that question. Good luck on the hunt, my love. Do you have enough ammunition? Your medicine bag?
Except the way she looked now, any hunter in his right mind would suddenly decide to delay his departure for a few more hours, and—
“Hey!” She waved her hand in front of his eyes, breaking into the beginning of a really nice fantasy. “Where’s the pouch? It doesn’t seem to be on you, but I can tell it’s near.”
“If you can tell that, how come he had to turn out my pockets?”
“What? Who’s ‘he’?”
“A couple of guys, who shook me down in the school parking lot.” Jase pulled open the desk drawer, groping till his fingers touched the slick plastic. “They looked like Native kids, about my age. But they didn’t fight like kids.” He turned his face to the window, showing off the fading bruise. Holistomax had lightened the color, but green and yellow blotches still showed.
“How do you know they were looking for the pouch?”
“Because they asked if I had it—the catalyst, he called it.” Jase held out the pouch, but she just stood there, frowning. “I said I didn’t know what they were talking about, because I didn’t know anything about a catalyst. Then they told me they were looking for the medicine bag I’d picked up at the border, and I kept saying I didn’t know what they were talking about, and one of them pulled a knife on me. I know they were . . . were your people, because after I escaped I started shouting and they stopped the sound. Somehow.”
He waited for her to ask how he’d escaped from two high-tech aliens with knives. Which was pretty impressive, when he thought about it.
“When did this happen? Have you seen them since? Do they know where this house is?”
“It was four days ago, and I haven’t seen them since. I don’t know what they know.”
“Hmm. If they followed you they’d have found the house days ago. And if they got close enough they would have sensed the pouch, so they didn’t bother to track you down. You must have convinced them you didn’t have it.” Her expression brightened. “You’re a very good liar, Jase Mintok.”
“My dad’s a lawyer. It’s genetic.” She evidently didn’t care about his courage, determination, and quick wits. “So how come you knew I had this catalyst thing . . . it’s the dirt, isn’t it? The dust in this bag, it starts something.”
“Exactly. Well, not exactly, but close enough.”
Jase decided he didn’t want to know what it started.
“So how come you can sense it’s here, and they didn’t know that it wasn’t? How come you could find me when they couldn’t?”
“I’m more familiar with its energy signature,” Raven said. “Though it’s changed, since Kelsa abandoned it. And it’s about to change again, which should slow them down even more. Hand it over.”
Reluctant curiosity stirred once more. “Energy signature?” Jase gave her the medicine bag, and watched her remove its plastic sheath and untie the strings.
“That’s the clearest I can say it in your language.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a bit of folded cloth, then turned on his desk lamp.
“Open this for me, and hold it.” She gave the pouch back to Jase as she spoke. “I don’t want to drop anything.”
Jase held the bag open, trying not to touch its contents. “When you say ‘my language,’ do you mean English? Or Human?”
“Both.” She unfolded the rag, revealing a small pile of what looked
like white glitter, speckled with small dead bugs.
“What’s that? It’s not bugs, is it?” On closer examination, the black bits had neither legs nor wings. In fact they looked like—
“It’s rubber.” Raven tipped the glittering pile into the medicine bag, then took it from Jase with the delicate firmness of someone handling a baby bird. “I filed it off your car’s tires.” She stirred the rubber and glitter carefully into the rest of the dust, and smiled. “Oh, good! It’s melding.”
Jase frowned. That tiny bit of rubber wouldn’t hurt his tires, though he’d bet the file left a scar. But the glitter . . .
“You didn’t file my car, did you?” His voice rose, despite the danger of waking his parents.
“Don’t sound so panicked.” The imp smile dawned. “It’s just a tiny bit off the inside of one of the wheel holes. And a tiny bit off one of the metal parts too, which was hard to file! The tricky part was infusing the whole thing with energy from the batteries,” she added. “I had to perform a ceremony for that, and I haven’t had to do that kind of beginner exercise to control any form of energy since . . . well, for a very long time. And it took days! But it wasn’t like light, or even electricity,” she finished thoughtfully. “It was more . . . slippery, I guess.”
Jase didn’t care how battery energy felt.
“What did you do to my car?”
“Since you wouldn’t do this the easy way, I’m using your car, the thing you care about most in the world, to bind you into the medicine pouch’s magic.”
“You’re what?”
She was still smiling, but her dark eyes held a determined glint.
“I also bound your car’s essence to the pouch. So if you don’t use this magic properly, as it was meant to be used, your car won’t work either.”
“That’s carp. I may have begun to think . . . I mean, maybe those guys did have some cool tech, and maybe some of those old shamans could do stuff. But there’s nothing magic about my car. Teslas are the most reliable cars on the road. And besides, there’s lots of things, people, that I love more.”
She considered that. “You probably do love them more, but your car is more a part of you. I could have mixed your own blood into this dust”—she tied up the pouch as she spoke—“but that wouldn’t have worked, because to you it’s only blood. This will matter.”
“Carpo,” Jase said. “I might be able to believe you could do something to help with the tree plague, but you can’t work magic on a machine. They work with steel and physics and . . . and reality.”
Though so did sound waves, and the football kids had messed with them. But that was different, that was part of nature. This was his car.
“You know,” said Raven, “I think I liked the old curses better. That trick your computers played, transposing the letters . . . I liked bullshit better.”
Her eyes were laughing, as they so often did. Flirting with him again?
“Look, I’m giving back your pouch. Maybe, just maybe, you’re doing something real with it. But I’m not interested in you, or anything you plan to do. Period.”
It wasn’t that those two bullies had intimidated him, oh, no. He just wasn’t interested.
Who was he trying to kid?
He expected her to call him on it, call him a coward. Then he could get insulted and throw her out.
She met his gaze steadily, all the lurking humor gone. “Not interested. Even if my plan involves the survival of your species?”
“You’ll find someone else. Someone who’s willing to sleep . . . to help you.”
Not that he wasn’t willing to sleep with her. It was her using that willingness to manipulate him that he objected to.
“It has to be you,” Raven said patiently, “because when she passed you that pouch, Kelsa created a surge of magical potential. She had an incredible talent for healing—it took me months to find her! You don’t have that kind of talent, not as far as I can see. But by her sacrifice, Kelsa opened an energy vortex around you. I think it’ll give you enough power to finish the job. It had better.” Her serious expression shifted into grim. “Because we’re running out of time. They found you and dismissed you, and that was an incredible stroke of luck. They might not look at you again till the healing starts, but we can’t count on that. Once we begin opening the ley they’ll be able to pick up the changed signature. Then they will be able to track the pouch, and we’ll have to move fast to keep you out of their hands.”
“I’m sorry.” Jase was surprised to realize that he almost meant it. “But I’m not a save-the-world guy. You have the pouch. Go find someone who knows what he’s doing. Who believes in it! I wish you luck. Really. But you’ll have to find someone else.”
Someone who didn’t mind being beaten up by football players. It wasn’t like he owed her anything—she’d tried to use him, manipulate him. She still was. No, he wanted no part in this, and even if he did, he wasn’t what she needed. She needed someone like that girl at the border, someone who really could heal the world with magic.
But Raven didn’t look worried. “I knew you’d say that. That’s why I also rigged the magic so your car won’t run unless you’re in it, wearing the pouch. And using the pouch! You’ll have about a week to heal the first nexus before it starts to quit, even when you’ve got the pouch with you.”
“You’re not listening,” Jase said. “I’m not refusing because I’m pissed. Though I am. It’s not even because I’m scared, and I’m scared too! I. Can’t. Do. It. Which of those words don’t you understand?”
“How do you know you can’t,” Raven asked, “unless you try?”
“All right,” said Jase. “I won’t do it. Is that precise enough? Take your stupid pouch, and go find someone else to save the world.”
“I knew you’d say that too.”
Jase was sufficiently irritated that he didn’t even try to argue further when she pocketed the pouch and left . . . no matter what she wasn’t wearing.
***
The next morning, his car wouldn’t start.
The dash lights lit. The p-ping that accompanied the starter sounded. But when he pressed the reverse button and stepped on the accelerator, the Tesla didn’t move.
Cold battery? In late June? He’d been up in the middle of the night—he knew it hadn’t been that cold. But nothing else had ever kept the Tesla from starting.
He would not believe she could magic his Tesla. But he could believe she’d planted some alien device. Or maybe it was just cold.
Jase turned the car off, got out, and opened the trunk to raise the cover that concealed the battery over the right rear tire. The battery was cool to the touch, but not the freezing cold that could keep the car from starting in midwinter.
On the other hand . . . Jase pressed his palm against the coils of the battery warmer, which was standard issue for any car in Alaska. If battery temp dropped below working level, the charger was supposed to heat the coils as well as charge the battery. Once the car was unplugged and running, it used the batteries’ own power, if necessary, to keep them warm. The coils weren’t hot, but the temperature in the garage wasn’t that cold, either.
Jase went to the passenger seat and punched the button that extruded the diagnostic control panel below the dash. Most car owners never used the diagnostics themselves—some barely knew they existed—but Jase thought he could read them as well as most Tesla mechanics. And any addition to the system that wasn’t factory authorized would be flagged in red—which would surely include alien tech! But when he brought up the battery system, every section lit up green on the diagram. So did the motor, and the drive system.
Could the diagnostic system be down too? It was a better explanation than magic.
Jase had to hunt through the menus, but he finally found the manual override to run the battery warmer on command. When he went around and laid his hand on the coils again they were heating nicely, so he went back into the house and made himself a second cup of coffee. With luck he’d be o
nly a little late, and for homeroom that didn’t matter.
When he came out and felt the battery, its cover was warm to the touch—easily warm enough to run. Jase closed the panels and made sure the charger had unplugged itself. He turned the security key and pressed the start button. The controls lit, and the familiar p-ping told him the car was ready to roll. He punched reverse, stepped on the accelerator . . . and the car didn’t move.
His mother finally drove him to school, over his protests that he’d figure out what was wrong any minute now. He was forty-five minutes late for his first class.
***
The diagnostics, which should at least have told him what part of the system wasn’t functioning, must be broken too. Along with whatever else was broken. Or sabotaged. Because the only other hypothesis was that a girl with midnight hair and warm brown eyes had magicked his car, and he couldn’t accept that. Advanced alien technology, that he could believe . . . From a girl who didn’t know what golf clubs were?
Jase’s mother was meeting a client at the gallery that afternoon, and she’d refused to cancel that to help him tow the Tesla to the shop. If Jase was that impatient, she said, he could call for a tow truck and pay the $120 fee himself. Jase wasn’t that impatient. Besides, he knew as much about the Tesla as most mechanics. Certainly enough to spot any alien devices that had been added.
The Tesla was so low to the ground that he had to roll it down the driveway till it straddled the gutter in order to crawl under it, but the neighbors were accustomed to seeing it parked there, with Jase’s legs sticking out from under. He liked to maintain the car himself, and should at least be able to figure out what Raven had done.
With the batteries thoroughly warmed, Jase put the car in neutral and pushed the start button. All systems in the diagnostic glowed green as Jase removed the access panels and checked to see if power was flowing from the batteries to the motor—which it wasn’t. But the batteries were all fully charged and warm. Could they have done something to the starter’s electronics?