Eye of the Tempest (Jane True)

by Nicole Peeler

  “Our Lost City of Gold,” Caleb rumbled, helpfully, in case my brain had fallen out while I had slept, and I could no longer understand analogies unless they were given in threes.

  “But how did you land on Rockabill?” I asked.

  “It makes sense that Rockabill has something,” Anyan replied. “After all, why do you think this place has always drawn so many of our kind? And didn’t you ever wonder why Nell is so powerful? Gnomes are strong, but Nell is ridiculously so.”

  The others thought about that, as Sarah Nahual nodded.

  “Both Marcus and I became stronger when we moved here. Not a huge amount, but enough that we both noticed. We thought it was our partnership.”

  “And why did you move here?” Anyan asked. “Why did any of you move here?”

  Iris frowned. “I dunno. I was passing through, and I felt I had to stay in the area. I just liked it here. I couldn’t stay in Rockabill itself, as there weren’t enough people to feed off… but I wanted to be close, for some reason.”

  Both Sarah and Marcus nodded, as if Iris had summarized how they felt. Minus the people to feed off, obviously.

  “Yeah, it’s like I felt at home here. Even though it’s nothing like where I grew up,” Amy replied. “I only came out here to pick up some killer weed a friend had told me about, and I just knew I had to stay.”

  As my friends talked, I started to get what they were saying.

  “I was born here, because my mother showed up. But why Rockabill?” That question had always bothered me, ever since I’d been told my mother’s true identity. Now it was starting to make sense. “I mean, if she just wanted a… a mate, there are definitely better places to go. My dad was one of like five fertile men in all of Rockabill at the time. Everyone else was too old, too young, or too… problematic to have children by. So why not go to a place with more chances to find a baby daddy? Yet she came here.”

  “Exactly,” Anyan said. “There’s power hidden in Rockabill—great power. It would be slightly masked by Nell’s presence. And if it is the power from the nursery rhyme, it’s a power so ancient, so foreign, we haven’t truly recognized it. But still it calls to us, power to power.”

  We all sat in silence for a few seconds, contemplating Anyan’s words. It’s not every day that you discover your “choices” might have actually been made for you. Or, at least, helped along by forces outside of your control.

  “So what’s the power?” I asked, eventually.

  Anyan shrugged. “We don’t know, exactly. But that nursery rhyme has been around forever. It’s something old. Something strong. And something that shouldn’t be found.”

  “You couldn’t have gotten all that from a nursery rhyme,” I said. “Especially one so vague.”

  “No,” Anyan said. “Blondie’s been chasing up this myth for centuries. And that’s why she was following us. She wanted to use us as her invitation into Rockabill. She’d narrowed down her search to places like Rockabill—coastal cities with disproportionately large concentrations of supernaturals, and had been going down the list.”

  I frowned, my brain pinging at the word “list.”

  “Why didn’t she just introduce herself?” I wondered out loud.

  “I asked her that. She said that she needed to know she could trust us before she told us what she wanted. If she’d just knocked on Nell’s door, Nell would have booted her into Canada, as a powerful stranger. So Blondie wanted to suss us out, make sure we were on the level, tell us what she wanted, and then use our help figuring out if Rockabill really does house the power the nursery rhyme talks about. If she’d just told us, and we were both evil and really sitting on the right site, she’d have had a hard time getting through Nell to stop us finding it.”

  I thought of the times Blondie had stopped in to save us while we were traveling. Yeah, she seemed on the level, and I could see that Anyan and my other friends clearly trusted her. But why?

  Before I could air my suspicions, Iris interrupted my thoughts: “But then you were attacked,” she said, solemnly.

  “Yes. And Blondie thinks they’re connected,” Caleb rumbled.

  I looked up sharply. “What?”

  “Think about it,” Anyan said. “Blondie’s not the only person who was looking for that myth, and war is coming.”

  “What does the war have to do with it?” I asked, confused.

  “What does every war need?” Anyan asked, clearly rhetorically. I’d noticed that the barghest, while normally short-winded, did enjoy the occasional rousing speech. Unfortunately, he wasn’t talking to a cabal of military strategists, and we liked to mess with him. So before he could finish his own question, we’d jumped in to “help.”

  “A punchy code name?” I hazarded.

  “Fabulous uniforms!” Iris blurted out.

  “Bulletproof jockstraps,” stated Caleb, getting into the spirit of things. Iris had obviously brought out the playful side of the normally serious satyr. No wonder he liked her so.

  In the meantime, at his words, the entire group of us sitting in the circle—including the kelpie, with her eye-level pony view—all turned as one to look at the satyr’s package. Undaunted, he reaffirmed his opinion.

  “Definitely bulletproof jockstraps.”

  “Yeah, um, no,” Anyan said. “What every war needs is an advantage.”

  “And an army,” I added, helpfully.

  “And food. Don’t armies march on their stomachs?” said Amy Nahual.

  “Which means people to cook the food—” I agreed.

  “Shut up!” Barked Anyan.

  We shut up.

  “In this instance, for the sake of this conversation, and before I beat the shit out of all of you, every war needs an advantage. Got it? Are we clear?”

  We all nodded obediently, fearful that otherwise the barghest would snap and blast us into oblivion.

  “Excellent. Good gods. Okay.” Anyan took a long breath, clearly counting to ten under his breath. “So, wars need an advantage: something big, something powerful, something that will give one side an ultimate upper hand over the other side.”

  “Whoever’s King of the Mountain,” Caleb added, helpfully.

  “Exactly,” Anyan said. “So Blondie’s people have been watching the other side, spying to see if they were mobilizing to get something that would give them such an advantage: a location, or a weapon, or a warrior. And that’s how we got moved up Blondie’s list—she discovered the enemy’s interest in Rockabill.”

  “Did Peter Jakes have anything to do with this?” I hazarded, seeing a hazy connection between this “list of locations” and the halfling monitor who’d been cataloguing his own kind for Jarl and Morrigan, not knowing their true intention was to wipe out all non-full-blooded supernaturals.

  “Yes,” Nell said. “I, for one, am certain of that. I remember when he checked in, we had this really long conversation about how many supes were living in this area, and from far and wide. We talked about how very few were native, but most were passers-through who’d settled. He thought it was fascinating. I’m sure he passed on such information, even if he didn’t know its implications.”

  I shivered at that chilling thought. “And when did the, er, possessions start?”

  “Right after you were attacked,” Nell said. “If we’d had any doubts about Blondie’s story—”

  “Wait,” I interrupted. “I’m sorry, but can we stop there? I know I’ve been out of the loop for a month, but the last thing I knew, Blondie was some mysterious stranger we thought could be a renegade Alfar. Now we’re all buddies? Are you sure we can trust her?”

  Anyan smiled. “Yes, Jane. I’ve done my homework on her, believe me. We needed her, obviously, when things were touch and go with you. So while she was playing nurse, I was doing some pretty thorough background checks. She’s known by a number of aliases throughout the Territories as a friend to halflings, and a rebel leader. Her reputation is solid: She wants change, but she’s no terrorist or wacko. Everyone do
es thinks she’s a renegade Alfar. Very few people know her true identity as an Original. But they do know her, and good people whom I trust have vouched for her.”

  I frowned. I remembered Ryu telling me all those months ago, when we first met, that sometimes even supes who wanted to believe something enough could be glamoured. If a savior appears to fall from the sky, are you really going to be working overtime to discredit her?

  Apparently Jane True would, my brain said.

  “Like I was saying,” Nell continued, as if to drive Anyan’s point home, “if we had any doubts about Blondie’s story before that, they were dispelled when the warnings started. There is definitely something lurking in Rockabill.”

  “Is that what Stuart was doing? Was he warning us?” I asked, distracted from my thoughts about Blondie. There was so much going on, so much I’d missed out on, that I had to get caught up as quickly as possible.

  “We think so,” Anyan replied. He had felt me shiver, and his hand rubbed along my shoulders comfortingly.

  “But who’s doing the warning?” I asked.

  “We don’t know. Whatever’s hidden probably has a guard. Maybe an actual guard, maybe a magical alarm,” the barghest answered. “These are some of the things Blondie’s trying to find out.”

  “So what’s been happening? I saw Stuart, but what else has there been?”

  “Lots of odd things,” Anyan replied. “Lots of people acting like Stuart, and chanting that same phrase.”

  “Or writing the phrase,” Caleb added.

  Anyan nodded his agreement. “As graffiti on buildings, or just over and over again on napkins or placemats or newspapers.”

  “Tracy wrote it over and over in her crossword puzzle one day. It was freaky,” Amy said, and I got very pissed at the idea of someone using my pregnant friend as a passenger pigeon for a supernatural message.

  “The Sow’s also been acting up,” said Caleb.

  “The Sow?” I asked sharply, thinking of what had happened to me earlier.

  “Jana Henning lost her boat last week,” Marcus explained. “A really strong piglet popped up right under her, way farther away than any piglets should have been. The crew would have been drowned if it hadn’t subsided just as quickly.”

  “But the piglets have been acting up all over,” Sarah continued. “It’s like the Sow’s expanding or something. Keeping everything away from her.”

  “Well, that kind of goes against the experience that I had earlier,” I said, as all eyes turned to me.

  “I was swimming with Trill. We were playing in the Sow, like we normally do. I got batted down by a piglet that sprang up, but that’s not too out of the norm,” I insisted, as Caleb raised an eyebrow. “But what was out of the norm was that I started to crawl toward the Sow. I don’t know why. At the time, it felt good. It felt like… I dunno, like I was being massaged by the water. But when Trill hauled me back, I was covered in cuts and bruises.”

  The little pony nodded where she stood among our knees.

  “That’s what happened to you?” Anyan asked, his face troubled. I nodded at him.

  “She was really banged up,” he told everyone. “I healed her,” he added, lamely, when Trill’s pony form leered at him.

  “Healing? Is that what’s it’s called?” she asked, clearly ribbing the barghest. I held back a giggle as he turned a rather intense shade of red. Iris gave me a look, arching an eyebrow at me in question. I responded with a cheeky wink that made her smile.

  “And nothing like that’s ever happened before with the Sow?” Caleb asked me.

  “Never. I’ve always gotten a lot of power from her, but I’ve never lost myself like that.”

  “We should keep the humans even farther away from the Sow for a while,” Marcus said. “Just in case.”

  Amy nodded. “And we should put our heads together and try to remember when and where all the possessions occurred. And catalog any new ones.”

  “I can make one of those maps with the pushpins like they have on CSI,” Iris gushed, sounding excited about the idea. To be honest, after all the drama she had experienced, I was surprised she wanted to be involved in more. But I could see how she might feel good being proactive, rather than merely defensive.

  “Not a bad idea,” Amy replied, giving Iris a warm smile.

  “Yeah, but what does all of this tell us?” I cut in, still not quite sure what was going on after my long hiatus in coma land. “I mean, what do we actually know about what is happening?”

  “Well, we know that humans as well as some of us are being possessed,” Nell responded to me. “Most of the possessions take the form of warnings. But yours seemed to be leading you into the Sow.”

  “Maybe that was just a more aggressive form of warning?” Anyan wondered aloud, as he tried to figure out why the possessions would change style. “Maybe whatever’s out there is trying to show us its power. Show us what it can do.”

  Sarah shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe the Sow’s just reacting to all the power that’s shooting around. Natural habitats can be influenced by our hoodoo.”

  “The voodoo that you do so well,” I intoned solemnly, if randomly. I was ignored. And yet I persevered. “So we know that there are possessions taking place and that they consist of some type of warning. But warning about what? I’m asking, basically, what do we really know, rather than what are we guessing?”

  “There has to be something here, in Rockabill. It’s the only explanation for the possessions, and us getting attacked the way we were,” Anyan said. “I’m the strongest power here, besides Nell. And she’s well nigh unstoppable. So they wanted to get me out of the picture and use you as leverage, probably against Nell. So they could enter the Territory.”

  “But Jane got ’em, instead,” Iris said, her voice proud.

  “What else have they tried?” I said, realizing that couldn’t have been the bad guy’s only attempt in a whole month. “That can’t have been their only attack.”

  “It wasn’t,” Caleb agreed. “There are all sorts of little things happening. Probes at Nell’s boundaries; things sneaking in, obviously looking for something, before running off; ‘tourist’ humans who act funny, but not in a possessed way. After what happened to you and Anyan, we’ve been watching the humans as carefully as our own kind. And Nell’s been kept very busy watching her boundaries.”

  “There have also been creatures sniffing around Iris’s, as well as some of the other beings that are outside Nell’s immediate protection,” Caleb said, his voice gone cold and hard. Iris put a hand on his, gently as if to calm him. But I think she was also reminding herself he was there to protect her.

  “So lots of little intrusions. Any ideas who’s doing it?” I asked.

  “There have been a few reports. Harpies… and some humans glimpsed something like a giant,” Anyan replied.

  “Or a spriggan,” I spat. “Phaedra’s crew.”

  “We think so. But there are other helpers. It has to be a fairly large operation,” Nell said. “And there are reports of similar problems elsewhere. Other places that might house something, or someone, of value.”

  “Grim’s been busy in Borealis,” Anyan added, as if to affirm what Nell was saying.

  “The Grim? The one Cappie told us about?” I asked. Grim was a friend of Anyan’s who lived in, and guarded, the little suburb of Chicago called Borealis, where halflings had made themselves a very cool home. Other than that, and the fact that he was seriously powerful, I knew nothing about Grim. He wanted to remain a mystery wrapped in an enigma, and Anyan respected his friend’s wishes.

  “Yep. He guards something strong, and someone’s been trying for it. Using very similar strategies,” the barghest said.

  “So, what we know is that war is coming. The bad guys are looking for things that will give them an advantage. And one of those things happens to be here, in Rockabill, but we don’t know what it is, or where,” I summarized, suddenly feeling immensely tired both physically and emotionally.
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br />   “Well, we know it’s locked. And that there are four locks,” Iris said, still managing to look on the bright side despite everything she’d gone through. I saw Caleb stroke her blond head after she’d spoken, and my heart went pitter-patter. He so got her, I realized—he was rewarding her for a bravery, a strength of spirit, that he would only recognize as either of those things because he really understood Iris—who she’d been, what she’d suffered through, and how she was fighting to regain the part of herself she’d lost in that mansion.

  “Like what kind of locks? What do they look like?”

  “That we’re not so sure about,” Anyan admitted. “But they’re here. Somewhere. Probably.”

  “But we’re not really sure what they contain?” I said, just to be clear.

  “Er, no,” was all Anyan could say.

  We all sat around the bar at the Sty, not meeting each others’ eyes. Although we weren’t talking, I knew everyone was thinking the same thing I was, or at least a close approximation.

  Oh, fuckerdoodles.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  My morning swim was a combination of my usual outing and a new kind of reconnaissance. I swam in and around the piglets, Trill keeping watch, trying to see if I’d go all Exorcist and try climbing into the whirlpool again.

  But nothing happened, and I kept my usual respectful distance from the Sow. She swirled about in front of us, silent and inscrutable, while Trill and I circled like not-very-fearsome sharks.

  After my swim, I went home to shower and then got ready for work. It was my first day back in my normal routine in a very long time. I’d been traveling for weeks before the attack that had left me comatose for a month, so I was incredibly lucky I had such understanding (and slightly glamoured) employers. I was also more than ready to get back into the swing of things, especially since I was really feeling my oats. The night before, shortly after we’d had our run-in with Stu, I’d nearly fallen asleep sitting up. I’d had a busy day for someone who’d been asleep for so long. Anyan looked a bit disappointed when Nell offered to apparate me home, but I took her up on the offer. I didn’t think I could stand up for much longer, so any hanky-panky with the barghest was going to have to wait.