“Yes!” Ralph said, ridiculously pleased that I knew his name.
“Right. I’m, uh, worried about you. I heard you had some trouble with feybloods the other day?”
The alchemist frowned. “That’s what they tell me.”
“You mean you don’t remember?”
Ralph glanced around as if someone might be listening, and beckoned me closer. I approached the counter cautiously. He leaned forward, and said in a low voice, “You wouldn’t betray me to the ARC, would you?”
“What do you think?” I asked, not wishing to lie to him. That was another thing about love potions—whatever happened to the person while under the influence of the love potion would leave a real psychological impact after the potion wore off. And funny thing was, people who used love potions rarely did so only because they wanted the best for whomever they used it on. So it was not unusual for the impotioned person to develop issues with things like trust or physical contact afterward. I might not think much of this guy, but I wasn’t going to be the one to ruin love for anyone if I could help it.
Ralph worked his lower lip with his teeth for a second, then said, “I think … of course you wouldn’t betray me. The thing is, I use a potion to wipe recent memories after my more … sensitive transactions, to protect the identity of my clientele and suppliers and such.” He motioned to a couple of hourglass-shaped bottles on the shelf behind him, filled with a milky fluid. “I guess … I must have taken one after whatever happened, because I don’t remember it.”
Or the Arcanites had forced him to do so, or wiped his memory in some other way to protect themselves as well as their valuable potion maker from potential questioning.
I glanced at Heather, but her mask made it impossible to read her expression.
“And I’m guessing you don’t have security cameras or anything like that?” I asked.
“No. I have more active measures against troublemakers and thieves. Besides, everyone likes me,” he said. “I’m a fun guy, really! Watch this!”
He grabbed three potions off the nearby shelf, and began juggling them. “Do you juggle? I’d love someone to practice with. I don’t want to brag, but I’m kind of ambidex—”
One of the bottles fell and crashed to the floor with the sound of shattering glass. Ralph fumbled with the other two to keep them from falling, then quickly stepped away from the fallen potion. “Uh, you’re not allergic to goblin blood, or have the power to project nightmares, do you?”
“No,” I said.
“Good, good. Perhaps we should just step over here for a bit anyway.” He moved down to the end of the counter. “I like to, uh, smash a potion every once in a while, just to test my shop’s filtration system. You know, in case a customer has an accident.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “Very smart. Look—”
He smiled as if I’d just announced he won the lottery. “Thanks! Not as smart as you, I’m sure.”
I shot a quick glare at Heather, who was doubtless smirking like an idiot beneath her masking spell. I was so going to repay her for this. I turned back to Ralph, a smile on my face. “I don’t know. I couldn’t make a potion to enslave feybloods to my will, for example. I heard you were working with certain mutual friends on that.”
“Mutual friends?” he asked, and sounded more hopeful than suspicious.
“Friends who know the real danger the Fey represent,” I whispered conspiratorially.
He put his hand over mine on the counter. I had to resist the urge to jerk away.
“I knew there was a reason I liked you,” he said, and smiled.
“Uh, yeah, me, too.” I patted his hand as I carefully pulled my trapped hand free. “I just hope you keep the cure safe. We wouldn’t want the feybloods getting hold of that.”
He frowned. “There is no cure.”
“Right,” I said, doing my best to hide my disappointment, and slapped him on the arm. “I was making a joke.”
“Oh! Got it!” He laughed.
“So you have no idea who might have wanted to stir up trouble between you and the feybloods?”
“Naw. Just the feybloods themselves.”
I lowered my voice. “Maybe our mutual friends did it?”
Ralph shrugged, his eyebrows raised. “Maybe. Don’t seem like them, though. Why would they want the ARC sniffing around here?”
“Right.”
It seemed I’d reached another dead end. And what little I’d learned was not good. No cure for Grayson’s Curse. And if the Arcanites weren’t behind recent events, then I really had no clue who was.
“Well, I should go,” I said. “I have some things I need to do.” I nodded to Heather, and started for the door.
“Wait!” Ralph said. “I don’t even know your name. Or where you live. Let me just close up the shop and we can go get some food, or—”
“That all sounds really great,” I said as I continued edging toward the door. “But I really need to run some errands first, on my own. It’s what makes me happy.”
Ralph looked at Heather with narrowed eyes. “But she gets to go with you?”
“No,” I said. “I’m going alone.”
“Maybe she should wait here for you then. Any friend of yours is a friend of mine.”
His tone suggested otherwise.
“No, I wouldn’t want to burden you,” I replied, putting my hand on the door handle. “And this way, when I come back, you and I can hang out alone.”
“I suppose,” he said uncertainly. “I can wait here then, if that’s what you want. But hurry back.”
“Thank you,” I said and opened the door. “Take care of yourself.”
I slipped outside, followed by Heather. The gray clouds building overhead made it feel closer to dusk than the 4:30 my watch claimed. A couple of seagulls fought over a food wrapper in the Starbucks corner lot across the street, and a crow cawed from the power line above us.
“Well, that was no help,” I said.
“Maybe,” Heather replied in a distracted tone. “Maybe not.” She pulled a tranquilizer gun out from beneath her jacket, and shot the crow before I could—
The large black bird fell to the ground.
—even ask her, “What are you doing?”
“Lone crow, so I’ll bet he has a nest in the area,” she said. “Good chance he saw what went down with your feyblood friends.”
“Maybe, but—oh!”
Of course. The ARC had sorcerers who could read the memory of birds and animals. If this bird really did see what went down with the brightbloods, then it might be enough to prove their innocence. Or it might prove Silene had pushed Veirai into the attack.
“Here,” I said, motioning for the bird. “I’ll take it to the ARC and—”
“No,” Heather said, holding it closer. “What if the Arcanites have someone on the inside, or the ARC chooses to have the bird destroyed to avoid scandal with the Fey?”
“Well, what then? Do you have a potion—”
“No,” she said, and gave the bird’s head a sharp twist. There came the snap crackle pop of delicate bones, and the bird went limp. “I have a necromancer.”
I stared at the now-dead crow.
“And what am I supposed to do with it? Even if I can Talk to its spirit, I don’t exactly speak crow.”
“For that, I do have a potion.” Heather produced a strawberry milk bottle. “Sort of. It’s how I give them commands once I’ve enchanted them. But it works more by passing images back and forth from mind to mind.”
I sighed, and took the offered bottle. This was a bad idea. But I didn’t have any better ones.
I slammed back the contents of the bottle, which tasted less like strawberry milk and more like the ashes of burnt foot fungus. I coughed some up onto Heather’s jacket, but managed to choke down enough to do the trick. I hoped.
I shuddered, and shook off the effects of the taste. Then I focused my will, calmed my mind, and summoned the crow’s spirit.
It rose up with a fl
uttering of ghostly wings and an indignant cawing. Images formed in my mind as the caws thrummed across my consciousness like the vibrations of a guitar string, images as if seen through a fisheye lens in black and white, of me and Heather emerging from the alchemist shop, and Heather firing her tranquilizer gun.
I was Talking to a bird.
“I am Dar,” I said, in my best Beastmaster barbarian voice. Except my words came out as harsh caws.
I put my hand to my throat, and turned a questioning look to Heather.
“It wears off quickly,” she said. “Don’t freak.”
“Caw caw caw,” cawed the crow’s spirit. Images flashed across my mind—of a soaring crow, and a McDonald’s sign. I frowned in confusion for a few seconds, then the magic translated the images into the crow’s name—Soars over Golden Hills.
“Soars over Golden Hills, I need to know what happened two days before today, when a group of brightbloods gathered here, and one was killed by the man inside that shop behind me.”
Soars’ spirit cawed. More images: Dunngo, Challa, Frog Face, and Faun gathering outside the alchemist shop, their brightblood nature masked from mundane sight by the shimmering of glamours. Their trying to discourage arcana from entering the shop while Soars cawed at them to either drop some food or go away. Veirai charging from the alleyway across the street, plowing through her fellow brightblood and the opened door of the shop. Veirai facing back out of the shop, a confused look on her face. Veirai falling forward with an expression of surprised pain.
Veirai on the ground, dead.
My brows furrowed. “Did you see anything in the alley from where the brightblood charged, before or after the attack?”
Soars cawed again. This time, I saw Silene watching from the shadows of the alleyway. Silene with her face blurred as if by a heat shimmer.
And then Romey stood in her place.
Holy Batfey! Romey wasn’t just a waerfox, she was a true shapeshifter!
There weren’t many brightbloods who could shift shape at will and choose the shape. Doppelgangers. Trickster gods.
And of course—
The jorōgumo leaped out of the alley across the street, taking form from the shadows not in a memory but in the here and now and oh crap. Her human body swayed side to side as she skittered forward on the spider legs that grew out of her back.
“Caw caw!” I shouted, releasing Soars’ spirit.
*Oh shite,* Alynon agreed.
15
If You Don’t Know Me by Now
Heather, thankfully, reacted to the look on my face before my second “caw” had even escaped. She dropped the crow’s body as she spun. In the same motion, she grabbed a bottle from an inside pocket of her long jacket, and flung the bottle back at the jorōgumo.
“Cawm on!” I said, my ability to speak returning as I grabbed Heather’s arm and pulled her in the direction of the alchemist shop. The jorōgumo half-caught half-swatted the bottle to one side with a human hand as she continued to advance on her long spider legs. As I swung open the shop door, the potion struck a Toyota Prius and exploded in white fire. The explosion blasted us through the doorway, and caused the jorōgumo to stagger and scream in pain.
I slammed the shop door closed just in time. The jorōgumo smashed into it. Her screams sounded like Mothra being kicked out of a textile factory.
“Are you okay?” Ralph asked.
“No!” I said. “There’s a jorōgumo about to break down your door.”
He reached beneath his counter, and closed his eyes a second, then said, “Not now. My wards are up. And I imagine she’s not too eager to strike my door again anyway. I mixed a little something with the paint on this building that’s extremely painful for most feybloods to touch. A necessary precaution in my business.”
Indeed, there were no further strikes against the door, and the jorōgumo’s furious cries faded into the distance.
“Well, thank you,” I said.
“You’re not injured, are you?” he said, sweeping out from behind the counter and striding toward me. “I have healing potions, and antivenins.”
“No,” I said. “I—”
“But he might in the future,” Heather said to Ralph. “I’m sure he’d really appreciate it if you gave them to him anyway.”
I shook my head at Heather. “I can’t afford healing potions, and I’m guessing neither can you.”
Heather shrugged. “And I’m guessing he’d be willing to give them to you for free, or at least very cheap.”
“Absolutely,” Ralph said. “Anything I can do to help you out.” He winked at me. “Being my friend has its advantages.”
“Uh, maybe if you have something I can use to protect myself against a jorōgumo, something that is cheap even without your friendship discount? All I have on me is forty bucks, and a quarter Thoth of mana.”
“I have just the thing,” Ralph said, eagerness in his tone. He turned and hurried though a curtained doorway to the back of his shop.
I looked at Heather. “I won’t take advantage of his ‘friendship.’”
“Why not?” Heather replied. “You don’t think he takes advantage of other people? Or feybloods?”
“We’re already in dangerous territory legal-wise,” I said. “But so far, all we’ve done is ask him some questions. When the ARC busts him, and they will, I won’t have him telling how we used the love potion to steal from him.” And I wasn’t going to leave him believing love had made him a fool.
“You need to wake up,” Heather said. “You’ve got not just one world but three working against you—the human, the feyblood, and the Fey—and you need to look out for yourself, because nobody else is.”
“My family is.”
“More like you’re looking out for them. Which is why you should do whatever is necessary to protect yourself, and them. Just think of it like one of those video games you love, where you go into a shop and take whatever potion you find in the chest. You need to take the merchant’s potions to help you survive.”
“Life isn’t a game,” I said.
“Shows how much you know,” Heather said. “Life is a game, and believe me, we’re not the players, we’re the pawns.”
“And all is fair in love and war. I get it. If we’re done with the cliché-a-thon, can we discuss what we’re going to do?”
“We?” Heather snorted. “I plan to get as far away from this disaster as I can, right after I send a message to the ARC turning this guy in as an Arcanite and black marketer. Hopefully, that will earn me a little credit toward avoiding exile, at least. I have no clue what you’re going to do.”
“That makes two of us,” I said. But even as I said it, I realized what I had to do.
The crow was probably toast after that explosion, and if not was hardly a credible witness. I had no evidence of what I thought I knew; and what I thought I knew still didn’t make any sense. I’d learned Romey was the jorōgumo, and she clearly wanted to cause Silene’s brightbloods some trouble with the ARC, if not kill them outright. But why? And who was helping or controlling her? Was this tied to the Arcanites in some way after all, with the mana drug, or was that a coincidence? I just kept coming up with more questions.
I’d learned just enough to know how screwed I was, but not enough to get unscrewed, or help anyone I’d promised to help. And I only knew one way to get the answers I needed, to truly clear Silene and her brightbloods, to get me and my family free of the danger of an unknown enemy, and gain my brother some good will.
I had to capture and question the jorōgumo.
“Most heinous,” I whispered.
Ralph returned. He held a jar of what looked like Pepto-Bismol. “Are we still going for lunch, just you and me?” he asked, an edge of jealousy in his tone as he glanced at Heather.
“Uh, what do you think?”
“I think we definitely are,” he said.
“Well, there you go then,” I replied.
Ralph’s face lit up, which given its florid state
looked like a very pink and unhealthy glow. “I know this great new Mexican place. You’re going to love it.”
“Sounds great.” I sighed.
“Unless you don’t like spicy foods. I know another place—”
“No, that’s fine,” I said. “I love spicy. Look, I—”
“Oh man, I’m the king of spicy,” Ralph said. “I can eat practically anything! Here, uh, watch this!” He grabbed a nearby candle, and shotgunned the melted wax down his throat.
“Ahhhmmmphh!” He exclaimed, and began coughing and turning bright red, dropping the bottle he’d brought for me onto the counter rather than the floor, thankfully.
I looked to Heather. “Can you help?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I could.”
I rolled my eyes, and started to move toward Ralph to slap his back; but he waved me away, and fumbled at the potions on the shelf behind him as he continued to cough and gag. He found a bottle he liked, pulled the cork, and downed the potion with a good deal of gagging and spitting.
Finally, his breathing and color returned to relatively normal.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Hundred percent,” he said, his voice a bit scratchy. “It, uh, just went down the wrong tube.”
“Uh huh. Look,” I said. “You don’t need to prove anything to me, really.”
He flushed pink. “Oh man, you must think I’m pathetic, desperate. I’m not, I swear. I have lots of friends. And I’m very confident. Here, look,” he said, turning and starting to unbuckle his belt. “I even got a tattoo—”
“Stop!” Heather and I both said at the same time.
I raised my hands. “I believe you. Really. So is that the jorōgumo potion?” I pointed at the bottle he’d dropped on the counter.
“Oh, yes!” He rebuckled his pants, and grabbed the bottle. “Here, it’s a gift.”
Heather moved close to the door, and cocked her head as if listening.
I took the potion from Ralph. “I can’t accept it as a gift. But I will pay for it, as agreed.”
“I think it’s safe to leave,” Heather said, her tone one of mixed amusement and disgust. “Or at least, to make a run for it.”
“Wait!” the alchemist said, and grabbed my arm. “You can’t just go out there. You should wait until we know for sure it’s safe. We could … talk more.”
Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free Page 17