Trickster Noir (Pixie for Hire Book 2)

by Cedar Sanderson

  Jao reappeared and looked at them. They must have looked a mess. Mud, blood, wet hair... he snapped his fingers and came up with serviceable wool blankets. He handed one to Lom and tucked the other around Bella. Two women came in and clucked over them. Bella just kept eating.

  She knew that without some time to recover, they couldn’t go after the kids. Dimly, she heard Lom telling Jao what had happened, the meeting with Daniken, the hut, the kidnapping... she faded out. Lom jostled her awake again.

  “Sorry,” she sat up, realizing she was still clutching half a sandwich. She eyed it, and then ate it with an internal shrug.

  “Bath?” He asked, still holding the blanket around him.

  “Oh, that sounds lovely.” She scrambled to her feet with his help. “What did I miss?”

  “Jao left men where we found Ash, to try and track the Hut, but they can’t even find marks after it blurred out in the middle of the field. I think we can assume that it is not on Japan any longer.”

  “I need to scry... to go after them.” She staggered, and he caught her elbow.

  “Bath, sleep, then scry. Also, I need to call in a favor.” Lom helped her undress, dropped his pants, and got them both in the smaller tub. The big one was only for use after cleansing, and both of them were covered in mud. He helped her wash, and she washed him. The heat of the bath did help, and by the time they climbed out, she was feeling less empty and sick, and more just tired.

  “No clothes...”

  “We’ll walk in towels.” He wrapped her in one. “They are big enough nothing is showing, and you are not using magic right now.”

  “Yeah.” She leaned on him all the way back to their room, and they fell into the bedding with towels crumpled on the floor. Someone had prepared their bed, kindly, and it was warm. She let the sleep roll over her, still worrying about Dorothy and Chong.

  She awakened in the morning with a jerk, and sat bolt upright. “Ash!”

  Lom sat up, rubbing his eyes. “I don’t know.”

  Bella held out her hand, testing her strength and summoned clothing. She was sore, but her strength was back. The room was dark, and when she moved the screen, it was dark outside, too. She lit an elf-globe and realized they had only slept a few hours.

  “You check on Ash and I need to scry for Dorothy.”

  They dressed hastily and went downstairs. Jao met them, looking like he hadn’t slept. “Ash is alive. He’s awake, I was just coming for you.”

  Lom nodded. Bella asked, “I need a bowl, the bigger the better? And water.”

  “You will scry for them?” Jao brightened. “It is a lost art, here in my Court.”

  Lom rasped, his voice rough with lack of sleep. “My court, as well. Bella is special.”

  “Go see Ash.” Bella told him.

  He followed Jao to a screened-off area, where a surprisingly modern hospital bed held a very pale Ash, Melcar standing beside him talking with an Eastern Court healer.

  “Are you taking him home?” Lom rasped. He cleared his throat.

  Melcar clasped forearms with him. “He will heal best with his tree. Did Ellie find you?”

  Lom shook his head. “She came?”

  “She knows where his tree is.”

  Bella was surprised to see Ellie walking down the hall of the Kyuden. She held out her arms and the diminutive elf hugged her. “Did you see Ash?”

  Ellie nodded. “He will be well. And Dorothy?”

  Bella shook her head, tears prickling and threatening to fall. “I don’t know... I’m going to scry for her.”

  “You will find her. Take heart.”

  From Ellie this was a long pep speech, and it made Bella smile. “Lom and I will go after her as soon as I find her. But Baba Yaga has her, and she’s a monster.”

  Ellie shrugged. “Then you hunt monsters. It’s what you do.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Bella hugged her again, and grabbed the passing woman with the bowl and pitcher as Ellie left.

  “I think that’s for me.” Bella took the bowl back to the table and filled it with water, then leaned over it, letting a spell trickle from her fingertips poised just above the surface into the liquid. She had gone to the room where Dorothy slept and found a hair on her blankets. That was floated on the surface, and there was a faint ripple, then the water turned silvery and Bella stopped adding the spell.

  She waited, trying not to hold her breath, and then the surface shimmered, coming into focus slowly. Dorothy was sitting in the corner of a bare room, holding her knees and looking terrified. Bella sighed. Then she had to wait for the spell to refocus.

  With gentle touches, she pulled the view back until she could see Chong, prowling from window to window. There was an opalescent whiteness outside them, but no sense of motion. Bella wondered if the hut was stopped. Then she saw what Dorothy was staring at.

  Ash’s hand, fingers still in a rictus on the inner doorjam, was clamped in the door. Bella backed away from the bowl and let her sobs out where she wouldn’t destroy the spell. Dorothy, the quiet pixie, was trapped in a nightmare. If only Bella hadn’t thought that her coming along was such a good idea...

  Lom’s hands, warm and steady, wrapped around her shoulders. She could feel him kiss her hair.

  “What’s wrong? What did you see?” He asked.

  She pointed. “I haven’t pulled back enough to see where they are, but, oh Lom...” Her voice broke again.

  He leaned carefully over the bowl. “Oh...”

  Bella took a long, shuddering breath, then another. “I can go back to it, now.”

  He stayed with her, a warm hand on the small of her back, as she bent over the bowl again and pulled the view back, outside the hut. It was moving, she realized, the interior must be held stable by some spell. Other than the sense of movement, she couldn’t see details. Pulling back further meant she might lose the hut, but she did it anyway. This was the first time she had scried for a moving object.

  There... she squinted, her head aching. She couldn’t have put a name to the country they were in, without a map overlay. Which, as they were Underhill, wouldn’t have significance, anyway. The hut was racing across the Gobi desert, headed mostly west, with a slight northern tilt to the route.

  She leaned back and closed her eyes, rubbing her temples. Lom’s hand left her back, and she guessed he was looking, now. It had been about ten hours since the kidnapping. The hut... did it need to stop for rest? If it did... she could get a location and put them on it in minutes. Bubbling and trying to hit the interior of the moving hut was a recipe for disaster.

  “We need to start after it.” Bella sighed. “So we’re close enough to jump on it if it stops. And hope we can catch it before one of our young ones has a silly idea, like setting fire to it.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at Lom. “What do we need? Can we just... travel after it?”

  He nodded. “It’s not like we need a passport. I’m more concerned with the route they are taking... Underhill is far less populous than above.”

  Bella had thought this was the case. “So there aren’t people where they are going?”

  “There’s a broad stretch of wasteland, stretching between West and East. It’s a refuge of some unsavory elements, and the Hunt... It might be where the Hunt beds down. So much was lost, a few centuries ago, when the Western Court splintered.”

  Bella was conflicted. This seemed like a really good time to delve into the library, but it was finding the information that would take time. She knew it wasn’t like looking up a definitions of a word she had in front of her. This was a study of the history, grasping the elements that led to the... Lom had been carefully avoiding the word war. With an effort, she set the ideas aside.

  “Can we go, now?”

  He nodded. “Jao has agreed to let the two of us go on. He really needs to stay here, and I don’t trust any of his underlings.” Lom shrugged. “We talked about how this happened. It seems the hut was wrapped in a don’t-see-me spell, or
glamoured to look like the gardener’s shed. It was right where that shed should have been, and the remains of it were scattered around, spelled until the hut with chicken legs took off.” Lom rubbed his face, tired, but not wanting to waste more time sitting and talking instead of moving after the hut.

  “Ash?” Bella asked. The hand, waxy and pale, was a hard specter to banish.

  “Went home with Melcar and Ellie. Melcar is confident that by his tree, he will heal. Oh, not regrow the arm, there are things beyond magic’s power. But the internal injuries.”

  Bella pulled the spell off the scrying bowl, fixing a destination in her mind. She held out a hand to Lom. “Let’s go, then.”

  They didn’t need to pack supplies, they wouldn’t be leaving Underhill and she could pull anything they needed from the tagged items they had prepared in his armory with minimal magical effort. Lom still pulled two heavy backpacks before they left.

  “If we get tired again, having something with us could mean all the difference. I know you’re in a hurry, Princess, and I am too. But preparation is a necessity.”

  Bella forced herself to relax, and he pulled her rifle and one for himself, catching them neatly in each hand. She smiled. There was something about the way he was doing this that spoke of long practice, and reminded her of what had first drawn her to him. That rare quality, quiet competence.

  They said their goodbyes to Jao, who pointed outside.

  “Will you be taking the dragon with you? Not that it wouldn’t be a status symbol to the Kyuden should he take up permanent residence, it’s just that the gardeners are complaining.” Jao smirked at Lom.

  “I don’t think we have a choice.” Lom grinned. “And having him looking over our shoulder will be a nice, intimidating touch, at least.”

  Bella asked, “Are we bubbling him too?”

  She wasn’t sure about carrying that kind of load, the beast had to weigh tons. Lom shook his head. “Jao, we’ll be back with Chong.”

  The older man got a little misty. “The dragon is a symbol of power, and luck.”

  Into the Wilds

  Bella bubbled them and went to the point she had marked in her head. They both bent their knees as she popped the bubble. With unknown ground, it could be inches, or feet, to a solid footing. Here, it was only inches, a dry, flaky soil, lots of rocks, and a wind whipping grit into their eyes.

  “Where are we?” Lom was hastily pulling coats out for them. It was piercingly cold.

  “The Gobi... somewhere. My geography isn’t bad, but this is almost unmapped territory, both above and Underhill. They’re parallel universes, aren’t they?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it, Princess.” Lom shielded his eyes. “How close are we?”

  “Not very, I don’t think. I am just following the route, I need to scry again.” Bella wrapped the coat closer around her body, fighting a shiver. “This wind is going to make that... difficult.”

  “Oh, there’s our friend.” Lom pointed upward, to the east, and Bella could see the dragon, with his oddly snake-like swimming motion, approaching rapidly.

  “How does he do that? Well, ok, duh... magic. I didn’t realize animals had magic.”

  The dragon landed with a jarring thump, and galumphed up to them. He lay down his head and smiled at them.

  “I don’t think he’s an animal.” Lom responded, absently, going to rub the creature’s scales. He spoke to the dragon, although Bella couldn’t hear what he was saying over the wind. The dragon curled his body around the two of them, and the wind dropped, where they were standing.

  “Will that help?” Lom asked, giving the dragon a friendly last thump on the cheek.

  “Yes, very much. What do you mean, he’s not an animal?” Bella pulled her cooking kit out of the backpack. The shallow pan from the old boy-scout kit would work as a small scrying bowl. The stainless steel was a bit battered, but perfectly functional. She poured water from a canteen into it and sat on the rocky ground, her back against the dragon... Bella looked up.

  “His name is Beaker.”

  “What?” Lom looked startled. Bella patted the scaly bulk beside her, as the curve tightened slightly. The dragon was interested, and looking at her with those big puppy-dog eyes.

  “Beaker, the muppet character who only spoke in nonsense syllables. I can’t keep calling him ‘the dragon’ or the creature.”

  “Um...” Lom stared at the dragon. The dragon licked his face, and Lom backed up a step. “Sure... Beaker. Got it. Are you scrying?”

  “Working on it.” Bella added the hair to the water. She had the pot on the ground, to minimize movement.

  It was a touch easier, this time, to find them and focus in. Dorothy had gone from sitting, to lying curled up. She had her eyes closed, but Bella wasn’t sure if she was asleep, or just blocking it all out. Chong was sitting nearby, looking exhausted. Bella pulled the view back to an external perspective.

  “They are slowing down. I can see... forests. They seem to be traveling alongside a river.”

  “Can we intercept?” Lom asked, pulling protein bars out of his pack and handing her one.

  “Maybe. I’ll pull out, see what is ahead of them a bit.”

  She concentrated, feeling the building headache. A definite argument against spending hours scrying, that was. But she had an idea.

  “There’s a big river, and a little one, they come together not too far ahead of the hut, which seems to be paralleling the little one. I don’t know whether this counts as China, or Russia, above.”

  Lom squinted at the bowl, his nose almost touching the liquid. “Novi... Novosibersk. Above, there’s a Russian city by that name. Howling wilderness Underhill, though. It can’t be colder and windier than it is here, though.”

  “Shall we go, then? I’ve seen all of the Gobi I want to.”

  “Not a place for sightseeing, is it?” Lom left her to carefully clean and pack, and went to talk to Beaker, who had closed his eyes and seemed to be napping.

  Bella zipped her coat back up and met him there, hearing the tail end of his conversation. “Don’t tire yourself out, ok?”

  “How much does he understand?” She wondered, putting up with a licked face. At least Beaker didn’t drool.

  “I have no idea. That he knows any English is a mystery. Might be interesting to find out more about his history when this is over.”

  They had really only spoken to two people at the Kyuden, Jao and Chong, as the others hadn’t spoken much, if any, English. Bella shrugged. “Is he following us?”

  “I asked him not to...” Lom paused as he bubbled them, taking this leg of the journey on. “I have no idea what his endurance is, and we could well wind up all the way back to Europe before this wild goose chase is over.”

  “That far, do you think?” Bella imagine a globe in her head. That would be nearly half-way around the world.

  “If Baba Yaga is staying close to her old stomping grounds? And I’d dearly love to know what set off this rivalry.”

  He popped the bubble and they landed neatly in knee-tall grass, on the banks of a river. “Flood plain.” He peered up the river. “I don’t see any movement.”

  “Shall I scry again?” Bella shrugged her pack off to get the pan.

  “Go ahead, I’m going to scout a bit, then get food into us.”

  Bella nodded absently. “I’m hungry, yeah... how long have we been doing this?”

  “Most of the day, now. Easy to lose track with the bubbles, and we’ve moved at least one time zone.”

  Bella sat cross-legged over the pan, concentrating. There was very little breeze here, and the warmth of the setting sun on her side was nice. She found that practice did make it easier, this time. The interior of the hut came into focus, and there were three people in it... Chong and Dorothy staring at the third person, their backs to the wall. Quickly, Bella pulled the view back to see where the hut was, and fixed the location in her mind.

  “Lom!” she shouted, standing up. “I found them!”<
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  He came flying out of the trees, and touched down on the plain, running toward her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Baba Yaga is with them... the hut is stopped.” Bella scooped up the pan hastily. “Let’s go...”

  He grabbed her hand and she pulled a bubble around them. With the location of the hut firmly in her mind she sent them flying toward it, her heart in her throat. What was happening in the hut?

  With a sudden jar, the bubble popped. Bella felt herself scream, involuntarily, as they started falling toward the ground, a hundred feet below them. She didn’t even realize her wings were slowing her until she saw Lom unfurl his, below her. Bella slowed her own descent, and looked at the tops of trees, entirely too close to her feet for comfort.

  “Look for a clearing.” Lom shouted.

  The river, here, was narrow, rapids lashed with white foam over rocks. No soft flood plain to set down on. She spun in a slow circle.

  “There...” He pointed, and then headed for it. Flying was tiring, and it was time to get on the ground, figure out what had happened, and how to reach the hut.

  The break in the trees was narrow, where a forest giant had given up and laid down, old age giving way to a multitude of saplings springing up on the rotting trunk. Landing was uncomfortable, but under the trees it opened out into a green gloom and lots of moss.

  Bella gave in and had a fit of the shakes. Lom wrapped his arms around her. When she could talk again, she asked, “What happened?”

  “Interdiction spell, and very strong.” She could feel him trembling a little, too. It was like, she mused, having been in a car accident. Even though they weren’t hurt, that had been terrifying.

  “We need to eat.” He gently led her to a tree and she sat at the base, leaning on the trunk, while he pulled food out of the packs. “I’m not going to try a distance spell.”

  “I wonder what’s happening in the hut?” Bella was worried.

  The Young Ones

  Dorothy and Chong stared at the old woman in dismay. At least, they assumed she was a woman, dressed in a ragged dress, with a tattered cap on her hair. Her hair, long, wild, and filthy to the point of becoming dreadlocks, was mostly gray. It might have been black, to begin with. Her face was equally dirty, with a hooked nose that dominated it, above an angular chin. Her mouth, with that collapsed look of the very old who had no teeth, was not, unfortunately, toothless.