Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free

by Randy Henderson

  I reached blindly behind me for the handle to the car door. If I couldn’t get through to Pete, I’d have to try to escape and get help.

  “Pete! Come on! Remember me! And Vee! You’re going to marry her, remember?”

  Wolf-Pete stopped, his growls dying down.

  Then he barked at Waerjerk and bolted for the forest.

  “It seems your wolf companion has abandoned you,” a deep voice intoned. A man stepped forward from the gate as if he had passed through the metal bars, but I realized he’d probably been standing there for some time, glamoured, just watching our fight.

  Sterling William Clay.

  He looked like a man in his early fifties in constant and imminent danger of a heart attack; not obese, but not fit either, his pale puffy face tinged red as if he’d been running to the point of heat stroke. Some vampires might be vain, but Clay obviously fell more in the camp of those immortals who figured, what the hell, if cholesterol and alcohol can’t kill you, why be moderate?

  That didn’t mean he was any less deadly, however.

  Clay gave a smile stained nearly brown—I preferred to assume by centuries of tea, coffee, and tobacco rather than blood. “If the wolf has come to join us, he is most welcome,” he said. “You, however, are most not.”

  “I came here to talk,” I said. “I don’t want to fight.”

  “And I do not wish to be disturbed from my evening walk by rude strangers attacking my home.”

  “Your clan mates attacked me,” I said. “After I explained that I was here to help.”

  “Help?” Clay laughed. “We are not the ones in need of help, I think.”

  I heard a whisper behind me. I gave a quick look over my shoulder, but nobody was there. When I turned back, Clay stood close enough I could feel his breath on my face, and he wrenched the baton painfully from my hand. It flared white at contact with his skin, but he barely twitched, then slammed the baton closed. “And don’t try to summon my soul, boy. I don’t have one.”

  I swallowed. “Everybody has a spirit.”

  “You are twice a fool,” he said, and walked back toward the gate. “Once a fool for coming here, and twice for not coming better prepared.” The redcap rose to his feet, an unpleasant smile stretching his face as he lowered his hand from the now-healed cut.

  “I came prepared enough,” I said. “The ARC knows I’m here, for one.”

  “Do they? Or do they only know you intended to come here?” Clay asked. “Who’s to say whether you ever arrived, the infamous Phinaeus Gramaraye, the necromancer who seems to find trouble wherever he goes? Perhaps you ran into a rogue redcap on the road?”

  And me without my AAA redcap protection.

  “Fine. But I came to tell you that someone is using your clan like pawns. That’s what got Ned and Hiromi killed. If you don’t care that someone is making a fool of you, go ahead and kill me.”

  Clay smiled. “Oh, I never said I was going to kill you. I was just offering advice, exploring hypotheticals. Willem, be a good lad and go inform Minerva that her boyfriend’s off running with a new playmate. Have her bring them home?” He waved his hand, and the gates opened.

  The redcap whimpered, and appeared to deflate, slumping forward into a dejected pose. “But I thirst.”

  “I’ve told you before,” Clay said. “Do not pick fights you cannot win. Tell Consuela to give you a pint of blood before you dry out completely, then do as I requested. Now.”

  Willem glared at me briefly, a look that promised revenge, then he scooped up his staff and scurried off through the opened gates.

  Clay watched him go, and shook his head. “Redcaps. So hotheaded. You wouldn’t believe how much trouble he is, but I do what I can.”

  “Uh, yeah, it must be terrible.”

  “Ah, sarcasm. I remember when sarcasm was a killing offense. Better days. Come, let us go somewhere more comfortable to await the return of your brother, and discuss how you, the great necromancer, are going to help little old me.” He turned in the direction of the gate.

  “Uh, can’t we just discuss it here?” I asked, glancing back at my car and the slim possibility of escape should things go sour.

  “Come now, don’t be a sissy boy. And do not fall behind, arcana.” Clay began marching up the road. He looked to either side, and stage whispered, “There are bad things in the night.” He chuckled, and continued his steady stride.

  *I do not trust him.*

  If he wanted me dead, I’d be dead, I replied. And really, I didn’t have a lot of options.

  I hurried to follow.

  The road slowly curved and climbed up into the forested hillside. The climb gave Clay plenty of time to regale me with a long joke about a travelling unicorn who had to choose between the daughter of a Polish farmer, a Negro farmer, and a wizard.

  Fun fact about vampires: they’re mostly bigoted asses. It might have something to do with being privileged immortals, most of whom received their education and position centuries past. If the leader of the Ku Klux Klan hung out in a sauna with a bunch of rich old white dudes from corporate dynasties telling jokes about women, gays, and minorities, he would probably sound a lot like a vampire on a more polite day.

  By the time we got to the top of the drive, I was winded, my legs ached, and I wanted to slap Clay into the twenty-first century. Clay whistled what sounded like some Germanic opera tune as he led the way up the steps onto his pillared porch.

  Clay’s house was a house in much the same way the Pentagon is an office building. A grand, sprawling affair, I would not have wanted to enter without a map and compass. It looked like Frank Lloyd Wright had snorted coke and stayed up all night designing the Grandest. Home. Ever!

  “Welcome to my humble abode,” Clay said. “Excuse its poor simplicity, but I am merely a brightblood after all.”

  “It is no less than befits an Archon,” I said.

  “Well well, look who learned manners!” He motioned to the door. “Please, enter my home, and be welcome.”

  I cautiously opened the door.

  A banshee scream blasted my ears. I jumped, my heart painfully skipping a beat and stubbing its toe.

  Clay’s face had an exaggerated expression of shock. “Oh, my, so sorry. That’s our alarm system. I keep meaning to have that looked at.”

  Alarm, my ass.

  Another fun fact: vampires love practical jokes. Apparently, practical jokes were one of the few things that made life less boring and predictable for them. They played them on anyone who came within their sphere of influence, which was annoying, but not usually dangerous.

  The practical jokes that vampires played on each other, however, could be deadly to anyone caught in the crossfire. Being both immortal and virtually indestructible, a battle of practical jokes between two vampires could escalate over years, even centuries, to insane extremes. And with so much time on their hands, they were not above setting up jokes that took months, years, even decades to come to fruition, which made it difficult to end a battle since a joke whose foundations were laid decades ago might not bear fruit until years after a truce was called, triggering a response and starting the whole process over again.

  Parking meters. Junk mail. Daylight Savings Time. All rumored to have begun as a vampire’s practical joke. It’s said one ancient vampire was responsible for both the invention of toilets, and of fireworks, just so that centuries later he could do the first cherry bomb in the toilet joke.

  I stepped across the threshold, half expecting a trapdoor to open beneath my feet, but nothing happened. The entry hall alone was the size of a studio apartment, with walls of pale wood, stained glass windows, a pair of sofas, and a number of plants. More Martha Stewart than Transylvania Goth.

  “You have a nice home,” I offered.

  Clay closed the door behind us. “Manners again! Quite refreshing.” He proceeded across the grand entry to an arched hallway, and motioned for me to follow. “Redcaps, waerwolves, trolls, they can be quite cunning in their way, and exc
el at tearing out the throats of their enemies, of course, and yet I’m sure you will be quite shocked to hear they have terribly poor manners.” His voice took on a low, confidential tone. “Frankly, not all brightbloods are created equal. Not their fault, obviously, but so many have the blood of animals, or the lesser races.” He sighed. “It is rare that I have someone to chat with in a civilized manner. Ah, here, the den. This will be perfect for our talk, I think.”

  He motioned to the doorknob, and grinned.

  “After you,” I said.

  “As you wish.” Clay opened the door without any surprising results, and entered a room of deep greens and browns. I followed.

  The den had been decorated to create a feeling of being in the forest. Dark green carpet, walls of brown stone hung with photos of trees, a polished table made from the gnarled stump of a tree, and more plants. A river-stone fireplace had a fake fire crackling on a video screen.

  It would have been charming, if not for the lit display cases full of Mammy and Pappy figurines. The little black dolls with the giant red lips filled several cases spaced around the room.

  “Ah, I see you’ve noticed my collection,” Clay said. “I’m quite proud of it. Not as large as my collection of rubber ducks, but it is still growing.”

  *Careful,* Alynon said. *He’s just trying to push you into reacting out of anger, as either a strategy or a joke.*

  Or maybe he’s just an ass. “Actually,” I replied with studied calm, “I’ve been thinking of collecting figurines myself.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Yeah. You can apparently find all kinds of Count Chocula items on the web. Though I don’t know if my collection would be as large as yours. Let’s see. One, one offensive figurine, ah ah ah. Two! Two—”

  Clay’s red face got a bit redder. “You seem to have forgotten where you are, necromancer. And with whom.”

  “No. But I don’t have to pretend to like your racism.”

  “But you do need my help.”

  “And you need mine,” I replied. “Maybe we can get to the part where we talk about that?”

  Clay ran a tongue over his teeth as he considered me. I felt quite proud at not bolting for the door.

  “Very well,” he said. “Please, have a seat. Would you like a drink?”

  “Uh, no thanks.” I sat on the sofa.

  Clay cocked an eyebrow. “I do have something other than blood, of course. A soda, or ale perhaps?”

  “Really, I’m fine.”

  “As you wish.” He sat in an armchair on the far side of the tree-stump coffee table. “Now, you said something about my clan being used as pawns?”

  “Yeah.” I told him about what I’d learned, and what Alynon had guessed. That Hiromi had been given orders supposedly from the Forest of Shadows Court, but that Chauvelin had sworn that the orders were forged somehow. That someone appeared to be attempting to upset the relationship between the ARC and the Silver Court, and make it look like the Shadows were responsible and preparing for war with the Silver. Clay asked questions, and I answered them as best I could, or felt comfortable about.

  When I finished, at least a half hour had passed. Clay tapped at his chin and stared thoughtfully at the fake fire. As he did, Alynon said, *You have made it sound that someone is doing him a favor by screwing over the Silver and handing the Shadows more power.*

  Maybe. But the thing about people in power is, they want control, that’s why they have the power. So what good is power if someone else can just usurp or manipulate it at will? And get your minions killed in the process?

  *That’s a pretty thin argument to lay your hopes on.*

  It’s the only chance we’ve got, I replied.

  “There is an ancient proverb,” Clay said finally. “Same crap, different day. I paraphrase, of course. But I have been through enough wars to question whether any power the Shadows gain in the Other Realm from such a conflict would be worth the lives of my clan here.” He considered me for a few seconds, then said, “I cannot simply deny Kaminari her rightful vengeance. I may, however, be able to direct her anger at a new target. Say, whoever was behind manipulating her sister?”

  “That’s what I was hoping,” I said. “Problem is, I don’t know who really gave those orders. Isn’t the knowledge that Hiromi was manipulated, that you and the Silver have an enemy in common, enough to at least call Kaminari off until you find the truth yourself?”

  “Alas, no,” Clay said, his tone lacking any actual regret. “What if we learn the Silver sent those orders to Hiromi in order to frame my clan as being dangerous and out of control? I would look the fool for letting them recover their strength before loosing Kaminari against them once more.”

  “Why would the Silver do this to themselves?” I asked. “They’ve suffered deaths, and lost trust—”

  “Short term, perhaps,” Clay said. “But you think on a mortal timescale. You do not understand the patient sowing of seeds that will bear fruit in decades, perhaps centuries.”

  I shook my head. “The Silver—”

  A loud fart noise erupted from my seat.

  “I say!” Clay exclaimed. “Are you sure you don’t want a soda? It’s quite good for an upset stomach.”

  I noticed Clay had his hand in his pocket, probably holding some kind of remote.

  I gave him a level look. “No. I’m fine, thanks. But I don’t think—”

  Another fart sound erupted from my seat.

  “Oh my,” Clay said. “Clearly, attempting to think has upset your stomach. So allow me. You have overlooked one obvious option in discovering the identity of these supposed puppet masters.”

  “I have?”

  “You have,” Clay said. “The gnomes. You said they passed the secret messages to Hiromi. They further delivered the supposed message from the Silver Archon to destroy the siren’s body, a message also forged, if your information is to be believed.”

  Great Scott! The gnomes. I could have saved myself serious time and trouble if only I’d thought of that.

  Clay leaned back, lounging in the chair with his legs crossed. “I have taken the liberty of summoning a gnome. Let us hope he can corroborate your tale. I have high hopes for that waerwolf you brought, and would hate to start off our relationship by killing his brother.”

  “Yeah. That would be quite inconvenient for me, too. But you shouldn’t make Pete angry. You won’t like him when he’s angry.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Clay responded.

  A knock on the door, and a Hispanic woman opened it to say, “A gnome to see you, sir.”

  “Well then, let him in, Consuela,” Clay said.

  “It’s Corina, sir,” she replied.

  “Of course, of course.”

  Priapus, the leader of the most powerful local gnome family, entered the room. “Archon,” he said as he entered. “You lookin for more cursed artifacts?” His Munchkin voice had the eagerness of an imminent deal. Then he noticed me. “Gramaraye,” he said with much less enthusiasm.

  Priapus stood about as high as my knees, not counting the blue pointy hat tilted jauntily back on his head. His dark beard was cut level across his gut ZZ Top style, and his green vest left bare arms covered in muscle and tattoos. One hand rested on the handle of a small hand scythe whose deadliness, I knew, could not be judged by its size.

  Gnome families ruled the black market of the magical world. Stolen goods of a magical nature seemed to find their way into gnome hands—usually because the gnomes were the ones who stole them. They were also good at getting messages to anyone, anywhere. You could put a note requesting a good or service under any gnome statue along with an offer of payment, and if the gnomes accepted the deal you’d soon enough have the object in hand, or the service rendered, no questions asked.

  I’d had dealings with this particular gnome leader shortly after my return from exile, dealings that had ultimately provided him with some wealth, but also got his gnomes tangled up in a couple of nasty fights.

  “Pria
pus,” I said. “Honor to your family.”

  “Thank you for coming, Priapus,” Clay said. “I need the identity of whoever sent a message via the gnomes to the jorōgumo Hiromi. It was supposedly from the Forest of Shadows Court, but it was forged.”

  Priapus shook his head. “You wasted both our times then. Gnomes don’t rat on our clients. It’s bad for business. That protects you much as anyone, Archon.”

  “Really?” I asked. “You don’t care that you were used like that?”

  Priapus shrugged. “Hey, we don’t never guarantee a message is authentic or nothing like that, we just promise that what you give us, we deliver. And we don’t tell nobody who you are. Not less it’s part of the message to tell them, capiche?”

  “Priapus,” Clay said. “Surely there is a clause in the rules that allows you to share such information, if it endangers your own family, for example.”

  “Yeah?” he asked. “If there was such a rule, and I ain’t sayin’ there is, how’s this here endanger my family? I hope you’re not threatening me, vampire.”

  “No threats,” Clay replied. “But it appears someone is trying to start a war between the Forest of Shadows and the Silver Court, playing our brightbloods against each other.”

  “Well, that’s rough,” Priapus said. “But I don’t see as how that’s my business.”

  Meaning Priapus’s clan wasn’t Silver or Shadows sworn. “Wait,” I said. “What Demesne is your family aligned with?” I realized I had no clue.

  “The magical Land of Narnia,” Priapus said. “As in Narnia Business.”

  “If allies are drawn into the battle,” Clay said, “your family may have to fight nonetheless.”

  Priapus puffed out his cheeks a couple of times, clearly weighing our words. Then he spat. “Bah. Every time I get involved with you, Gramaraye, it ends with my boys in some kind of fight. You’re bad luck, that’s what you are.” He paced for a second. “Tell ya what. I can’t just give ya that information like it’s your birthday. It has to be a fair trade. And that information, client information, that ain’t gonna be cheap.”