Brian looked skeptical. He knelt, that heavy knife of his ready in one hand, and touched his other to the woman's forehead. He squinted, concentrating, the moment stretching into a minute or more, and then nodded.
"They're free. She doesn't hold anything now, dragons or trees or fields or people."
Jo tested the thread of binding that she'd followed. It sat limp in her hand, dissolving even as she tested it.
{I go.}
And the dragon slipped between the trees, a black streak glittering in the scattered shafts of sun. Jo blinked and it was gone. How could something that large move that silently and fast? Newfound friend or not, it sent shivers down her spine.
Something odd in the scene . . . she'd spotted David, zeroed in on him, and the rest had vanished from her thoughts. Jo gasped as her brain finally analyzed the impossible thing her eyes had been telling her all along. The fox now lay curled around a newborn baby, protecting it and suckling it, giving the magic of the wildwood as milk.
But the fox was the spirit of Maureen's forest . . . Maureen's baby? Had time slipped a cog again? Jo had become an aunt while her back was turned? Nine months lost at right angles to her life?
Maureen seemed to read her thoughts, or at least the sudden focus of her eyes. "It's Fiona's, Fiona's and Brian's. She wanted a weapon, not a baby. She was going to kill it for the Power in its blood. She'll never touch this child again, or have another."
Well, that explained the rage and the kick. The woman . . . Fiona, Sean's twin . . . stirred and glared up at Maureen. Jo winced at the hatred on that face, and suddenly realized that the woman was naked from the waist down, lying in blood and mess. She'd just given birth. No wonder the baby seemed so small and . . . well, ugly. Wrinkled, purple, scrawny, head still squashed out of shape -- a face only a mother could love.
Fiona spat at Maureen's feet. "Let it suck your Power, then. Ask your dragon poet about the curse of children. That thing will weaken you for years."
Maureen shook her head. "And that's a problem? You haven't learned anything. Power scares me. I've got too fucking much of it for safety."
This was a Maureen that Jo had never seen before, calm, self-confident, strong. And sober, even though the sister Jo knew would have had to be stone drunk to stand there like she owned the world and feared no part of it.
Something had changed, Jo was certain. Maureen must have exorcised a major demon. They needed to have a sisterly giggle-fest and late night whisper, like she remembered when they were girls sharing a bedroom.
Have to find out what Brian had been up to, as well. He sported a black eye and bandages on his arm, blood soaked his side, and he seemed to be favoring one leg. He was still standing, but knight-errantry looked like a rough trade. As far as she was concerned, David should stick to poetry.
Maureen turned back to the woman on the grass. "Okay. Play-time's over. Grab your pants and move your sorry ass. You've got your life. I never promised freedom. I place the forest as a guard on you, an endless maze like your own hedge. You'll find food, and drink, and a dry place to sleep if your dreams let you, but you'll never leave. The trees will kill you if you try. I gave you my word, not theirs, and they are doing me a favor. They don't fucking like you. Don't push it."
Fiona crawled over to a pile of cloth, dragged it to the stream, and rinsed it and wrung the water out before pulling it on. She staggered to her feet, moaning and clutching at her stomach.
Jo's sister frowned and shook her head. "Cut the crap. We know you're stronger than that. These days, even human mothers get kicked out of the hospital the same day they give birth. Walk! The forest will show you where it wants you to go, and Shadow's going to be following you. I think he's hungry."
{One still questions whether this is fit to eat.}
A huge black cat, Jo thought it was a jaguar or something similar, formed out of the shadow of a tree. It stood and stretched lazily before strolling across the clearing.
The dark witch straightened up, glared at each of the others in turn, and gritted her teeth as if she was biting back a curse only because she lacked the Power to make it stick. She turned and walked away, limping but steady, seeming to gain a trace of strength with each step. Her head lifted, defiance stiffening her spine and shoulders.
Maureen watched until Fiona reached the edge of the meadow. "And if you think you can escape by walking between the worlds, the forest knows how to trap stronger Blood than yours. Remember the legends of Nimue and Merlin."
Fiona's shoulders slumped, and she turned halfway back. Then she shuddered and walked on. The woman and the cat vanished under the trees.
Maureen stared after her, shrugged, and shook her head, as if wondering if she'd made a mistake by honoring her word. Then she turned to Brian.
"You came back."
"I didn't mean to leave in the first place."
"Yeah. Well, you could have left a goddamn note." She bit back words and swallowed.
Then her face softened. "Sorry. I think we need to have a long talk with Father Oak. Both of us need to make some changes in our lives. You're a family man now, with responsibilities."
He winced. Then Maureen smiled at him slowly, seductively. "And I haven't had a fucking drink in " -- she checked her watch -- "at least forty hours, and I really could use a little positive reinforcement." She tugged on Brian's arm, the one without the bandage, and they limped off into the woods with the baby.
Jo blinked. It looked like Maureen had finally figured out why men existed. Speaking of which . . .
Warm sun, soft grass, a man, an empty clearing. Jo lay back in the grass, tugging David down beside her. He lifted one eyebrow but didn't put up much resistance.
"We need to talk about a bunch of stuff."
"Later." She ran her fingertips up and down his left arm, the closest bit she could get her hands on.
"Maureen wants us to take over the castle, as soon as they figure out how to break some kind of curse on it. She hates the place. Wants to live in the forest." He sounded positive, as if he'd found his own kind of balance with this land of magic.
"We've got more important things to discuss than castles." She closed his lips with her own and rolled over on top of him, sinking into the kiss.
{We'll tell the cats not to wait up.}
Jo blinked her eyes open. The clearing wasn't quite empty. The fox seemed to be laughing again. It winked at her, turned, and trotted off into the forest.
Excerpt from The Summer Country
Book One in The Wildwood Series
Chapter One
That man was still following her.
A gust of sleet stung Maureen's face when she glanced back into the night. Winter in Maine, she thought, you'd at least think the weather would have the decency to dump snow on you.
February had been a run of sleet and freezing rain, no damn good for skiing or anything--it just made the sidewalks into bobsled runs and the roads into skating rinks. People always pictured New England with those picture-postcard mounds of fluffy white stuff. Instead, most winters plastered the city with yellow-gray ice full of freeze-dried dog shit and dead pigeons.
She hated it. She ached to be out of it.
And that bastard had followed her through four turns to head right back towards the Quick Shop. He kept his distance, but he was still there. It wasn't chance. She hadn’t seen another person or even a car in the last fifteen minutes. What were her options?
The midnight streets vanished in a vision of green grass and trees, sunshine, warm breezes, and streams of peat-stained water the color of fresh-brewed tea. She breathed summer country, a cabin-fever dream she wanted so much she could smell the clover.
Wish, the whisper came, out of nowhere. Wish. And hard on the back of the thought came a memory of Grandfather O'Brian's voice, "Be careful what you wish for, my darlin'. The gods just might be givin' it to you."
The thought brought tears to her eyes, or maybe it was the sleet. She had been far closer to the old man than to h
er own father, and now Grandfather was fifteen years dead. Funny such a devout Catholic should talk of the gods in plural. Funny she should think about him, slopping through the dark streets of Naskeag Falls and thinking dark thoughts about the entire male race.
Maureen's nightmare still followed her, half a block back--a squat black shadow under the streetlights, framed by the double rows of dark storefronts and old brick office buildings. Everything was closed and silent, brooding over her search for someplace warm and dry and public.
The scene reminded her of a hodge-podge of old movies--Peter Lorre stalking the midnight streets with a switchblade in his pocket. For some reason, the movie image relaxed her. Maybe it made danger seem less real, the sleet turning the night into grainy black-and-white flickers on a silver screen.
Maureen pulled her knit cap down tighter on her head and went back to concentrating on the ice underfoot. She was reading her past into the future. No self-respecting mugger or rapist would be out on a night like this. The voices in her head could just take a fucking hike.
Besides, her mood matched the foul weather. She’d had a rotten evening at the Quick Shop, and the chance to blow some scumbag to hell carried a certain primitive attraction.
Maybe while she was at it she should put a slug through the carburetor of that damned rusty Japanese junk-heap that had refused to start and left her walking. And pop the night manager with the roving hands who had reamed her out and docked her pay for being late, before suggesting they could maybe arrange something if she chose to be a little "friendlier."
Hell, go big-time and shoot all the paper-mill cretins from upriver who stomped in for their six-packs of beer, steaming their wet-dog smell and dripping slush all over the place so she spent half her shift mopping up after them.
Definitely blow away the oh-so-precise digital register that had refused to tally when she closed out at midnight. She'd ended up putting in ten bucks out of her own pocket, just to get the hell out of the place. Two hours pay, before taxes.
CONVENIENCE STORE CLERK GOES BERSERK, MURDERS 20.
Again, Maureen checked on her shadow. He was still there, still half a block back. The way she felt, she almost wished he'd make a move.
She kicked a lump of slush and yelped when it turned out to be frozen into place. Adding insult to injury, her next limping stride found a pothole in the sidewalk, and she sank into ankle-deep ice water.
Screw this psychotic winter weather, she thought. Psychosis: a mental disease or serious mental impairment, a medical term not to be confused with the precise legal implications of the word "insanity." Psych. 101, second year elective for distribution requirements in the forestry program.
She had reasons to remember the definition, reasons for such a personal interest in the ways and means in which human minds deviated from the norm. Fat lot of good college was doing her now.
A snowplow growled around the next corner and headed in her direction, fountaining out a bow-wave that washed up over the curb and sidewalk to break against the dark line of buildings. Maureen ducked back into the entryway of the nearest storefront, trying to dodge the flying muck. It spattered icily across her jeans, and she stepped back out into the storm, elevating her middle finger at its retreating yellow flashers.
"Naskeag Falls Department of Roads and Bridges," the sign on the dump gate said, "Your tax dollars at work."
The man following her ignored the truck, and the slush seemed to ignore him. Hairs prickled along the back of Maureen's neck. Without speeding up or even looking at her, he'd halved the distance between them. The paranoia kicked in, elbowing her anger aside and substituting cold calculation. She needed some defenses.
"Enough of this crap," she muttered, or maybe it was her voices. The next alley offered places where a small woman could hide, places where muscles wouldn't help him. If he came in after her, he was history. She thumped the pocket of her wet ski jacket and felt the reassuring weight of metal.
She ducked around the corner. Dumpsters lurked in the shadows, two of them, jammed right up against brick walls and close enough together to just leave space for a single person between. She ducked into the bunker they formed and waited, remembering her lessons.
Smith and Wesson Chief's Special, she heard the instructor lecture, thirty-eight caliber. Five shots, short barrel, not very accurate--don't ever shoot at anything beyond ten yards. Light, compact, reliable--perfect weapon for close-range self-defense.
If you ever really need your gun, don't give warning. Don't wave it around. Don't make threats. Just shoot as soon as you show the weapon. Shoot twice. Shoot to kill. He's trying to kill you!
Her gloves jammed in the trigger guard. She slipped them off and stuffed them into her pants pockets. The wood and metal of the pistol grip actually felt warm compared to the sleet.
The squat shadow turned the corner, outlined against orange streetlights. "You stupid ass," she whispered, "you just voted for the death penalty."
She crouched between the dumpsters, took the two-handed stance she'd learned in the firearms course, and centered on the shadow's torso. Her senses switched into overdrive and the world slowed down. Kill or be killed, just like the instructor said.
She wimped out. "Stop, or I'll shoot!"
The man kept coming. He didn't speed up, or slow down, or flinch, or anything. Was the sonuvabitch deaf? She aimed at the bricks across the alley and snapped the trigger as a warning shot.
Click.
Her belly froze. She hadn't checked the cylinder before tucking the gun in her pocket. Had Jo been frigging around with the gun, dry-firing in their apartment?
Her hands trembled as she flipped the cylinder open and saw the glint of cartridges. It was a goddamn dud. She'd never had a misfire before. She snapped the gun shut.
Click. Click.
Two more duds, centered on his chest. She ran the whole cylinder around again.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
Clear in spite of the shadows, the man smiled in slow motion. He inhaled deeply through his nose, as if he had been tracking her by smell. His mouth opened and spouted gibberish.
"Na gav aygul orsht. Ha an dorus foskulche."
That's what her ears pulled out of the air. God only knew what he'd actually said. Maureen started to scream and found she couldn't. She started to throw the useless gun in his face and found she couldn't. The alley was nowhere near as dark as it had been a few seconds earlier.
The slow-motion unreality continued. The man had a face now, not just a shadow, and his eyes were fire under heavy brows and a mop of coarse black hair. What she had thought was the drape of an overcoat was his square body, short but muscled like a Bulgarian weight-lifter. He radiated power and compulsion.
Maureen flashed back to childhood Sundays in church, and she grabbed the crucifix she wore as jewelry rather than a statement of faith. She started to mumble the "Our Father," offering it as a prayer against witchcraft.
The alley seemed as light as day, and the sleet had vanished from the air. Somebody must have dumped flowers in the trash because Maureen could smell them, lilacs or something sweet like that. The brick walls looked more like fieldstone masonry now, like the peasant cottages in Grandfather O'Brian's yellowed photographs of County Wicklow.
Something flashed in the end of the alley, and Maureen saw another man striding easily through the molasses-slow air. Steel mail rippled across his shoulders and swung heavily as he struck the dark man from behind. Gold crowned the second man's head over honey-blonde hair.
She'd stepped into a tale of knights and mages. Swords. Sorcery.
Bullshit!
Maureen gasped at the renewed sting of the sleet. The metal of her pistol burned cold. Shadows swirled in the darkness and resolved into one man standing and another stretched out at his feet. Her scream finally escaped into the storm, sounding more like the squeak of a mouse.
Steel flashed again, hacking at the fallen mugger. The light-haired man swung some kind of heavy bent kn
ife, almost a short machete. Sour bile clawed at Maureen's throat, and her bladder burned like she was going to soak her pants.
A severed hand scuttled through the snow, sideways like a crab, searching for its wrist. Blood flowed black in the shadows. The meat-cleaver chunking seemed to go on forever. Her rescuer kicked something into the heaped snow across the alley, and Maureen gagged when she recognized it as a head. It hissed at her and clacked its teeth.
The light-haired man dropped his knife and pulled a can from his jacket, sprinkling something over the corpse. It writhed across the filthy snow and seemed to spit steam.
He looked up at her and nodded as if she’d asked a question.
"Lye," he said. "Drain-cleaner. It prevents healing, blocks the tissues from connecting back together." His voice was bright and cheerful, with a faint accent she couldn't place. He sounded like a TV chef assembling lasagna.
The whole scene was insane. His teeth flashed a savage grin from the shadows, as if killing a man was a public service like emptying the rat-traps in the basement laundry room of her apartment. Then his smile vanished as he stared at her shaking hands.
"You tried to fire that gun. Give it to me."
She hesitated and shrank back against the bricks.
"Quick, you fool! Killing him hasn't ended the danger!"
She handed him the .38.
He swung the cylinder open and spilled the duds into the nearest dumpster, muttering something under his breath. Then he grabbed her wrist and dragged her around the corner onto the sidewalk. Two steps down the street, he slowed and took a deep breath, handing back the empty pistol.
"He stretched time for the cartridges. That's sloppy, temporary. Never take short-cuts with your spells: Murphy's gonna bite you, every time."
Maureen's mind chased after the surreal concept of slowing the laws of physics. Her thoughts were punctuated by a muffled pop behind them. Two more followed after a short pause, then two more.
"What the hell was that?" she asked. "A .38 makes a lot more noise!"
"Not enough pressure. Smokeless powder just burns in the open air. You have to confine it for an explosion."
The Winter Oak Page 27