by Lish McBride
Despite his nervousness, Douglas had drawn it out. Watching from the shadows as Brannoc stood in the middle of the moonlit grass twisting and turning, trying to figure out what was amiss. It must have driven him crazy, knowing something was wrong, hearing the very forest cry out against it, but not being able to understand.
Brannoc had never relaxed or let down his guard. No, not him. In the end, though, it didn’t matter. Douglas had stepped from the shadows and sliced his throat before he could even blink an eye. It had all happened so fast. So much buildup and then suddenly it was over. Almost anticlimactic, really.
He’d stood over the corpse then, watched as the blood drained out. He was careful not to step into Brannoc’s line of sight, tempting as it was. After all, what’s the point of winning if you can’t tell the loser who beat him? No glory. But caution won out. Douglas knew that death might not keep Brannoc from talking. He knew that better than anyone.
He cleaned his knife while he waited. It was weird. Brannoc had always seemed invincible. So big in the mind’s eye. It must be much like the day when a child turns around to see that his parents, the people who towered over him for years, are really just … people. Weak and frail, and not as tall as he remembered. That’s how Douglas thought it might be, anyway. He’d never had that opportunity. He hadn’t seen his parents since they’d handed him over to his aunt.
But when it came down to it, Brannoc was still flesh and blood. And fey. Douglas had held up his knife. Cold iron—just a fancy way of saying iron that had been forged and purified away from its usual raw state. Faeries hated it. Ironically, if he’d stabbed any of the actual weres in the Blackthorn pack, they would have been able to heal it. One of the advantages of being a werewolf, he supposed.
Once he’d been sure that Brannoc was dead, he’d walked away. Slowly and quietly picking his way through the forest. No need to hurry, really. But he had to move before the temptation to wait, to stay and see the pack mourn their loss, overtook him. He had trekked the two miles back to his car—his shoes would be absolutely ruined—before he heard the first howl. First one, then many more. It covered the small sounds of his car as he slipped in and let Minion drive it back to the cabin. He was glad he had a getaway driver. The adrenaline coursing through his veins would have made it difficult to concentrate on the road.
Douglas threw another log on the fire, using the poker to prod the flames to greater heights. He’d sift through the ashes in the morning to make sure nothing was left. He’d have to dispose of the shoes some other way. Bury them? Throw them in the ocean? Give them to a drifter or a hobo? He would bag them and decide after a good night’s rest.
For now, it was time to celebrate. Douglas grabbed his keys and went out in search of a good time.
13
SUMMERTIME, AND THE LIVING IS EASY
I was hungry, but my stomach was still kind of wobbly, whether from my magical overdose or from my meeting with Brid, I wasn’t sure—not that it really mattered. The cause didn’t change the effect. So I chewed on an apple as Frank went over everything he’d learned from the rabble. Brooke seemed to be taking her own notes, and Ramon appeared to not be listening at all as he leaned back in his chair. Or at least I started chewing on an apple. It wasn’t long before James came in and began clattering around and putting more stuff in front of me: pita bread, veggies, and some sort of white dip. I sniffed the dip experimentally.
“What’s this?”
“That is a Tuscan white bean dip.” He didn’t look at me when he answered, but continued to do his graceful kitchen dance. A glass of water and a glass of ginger ale appeared in front of me as well. Then a multivitamin.
“Am I both thirsty and in need of supplements?”
He continued to clatter and clang. “You’ve suffered a lot of stress and a major episode of … something. The ginger ale will help your stomach. Plus, you’re still a growing boy, or so I’m told.”
James was taller than me. The jerk.
“And you’re still dehydrated—”
“How do you know that?” Frank asked.
James reached over and pinched my skin.
“Hey!”
He ignored me. “See how the skin isn’t snapping back and the color is a little off?”
Frank stared at my arm and nodded. Then he took his turn pinching me. The skin stayed tepeed up for a few seconds, then slowly went back. I smacked his hand as he reached to do it again.
James sat down and snagged a carrot. “Basically, you have a metaphysical hangover. You need rest, which you’ve managed a bit of, and vitamins and water, and you haven’t been getting enough protein, so I made the dip.” He nudged it closer to me. “Eat.”
“’Kay,” I said eyeing James warily. He wasn’t usually this nice to me. Was he actually starting to like me, or was he slipping arsenic into my dip? I slid the dish closer to him. “I bet it’s good with carrots.”
He raised an eyebrow at me, but didn’t go for the dip. I might as well eat it. If I boycotted things because James might be poisoning me, I’d die of starvation. Besides, I had enough people actively trying to hurt me. I saw no need to add to the list out of paranoia. That didn’t stop me from making Ramon smell it, just to be safe. There’s not being paranoid, and then there’s just being stupid.
I motioned at Frank’s clipboard with a chunk of pita bread. “Gimme the skinny.”
“Well, nothing they’re asking for is too crazy. Basic needs stuff. Though they asked for access to some TV time, a communal computer so they can e-mail—”
“Gnomes e-mail?” Ramon sounded both amused and skeptical.
“Yeah, but I think the computer request was mostly from the Minotaur. The gladiators just wanted to use it to check hockey scores and stuff.”
“Anyone else think it’s funny that what Frank just said didn’t seem weird at all?” Ramon asked.
Brooke rested her chin in her hands. “Nothing seems weird to me anymore.” Ramon reached over and hugged her to him, kissing her cheek. She gave a little half smile and leaned into it.
“I was too busy trying to figure out why the gladiators wanted to check hockey scores, which just goes to show you how skewed my sense of strange has become,” I said.
Frank shrugged, not looking up from the clipboard. “They’re Canadian.”
I swallowed my vitamin as quickly as possible, grimacing from the aftertaste. “But they’re gladiators. Wouldn’t that make them Roman or Greek or something?”
“I asked them the same thing. I guess the marble they’re carved from comes from Canada. You can kind of tell if you talk to them long enough. They say ‘eh’ a lot. They don’t seem to have spent much time in their homeland, so I think they are basing most of their culture on stereotypes.”
“Maybe we should hold a Canada party or something,” I said. “Like a little cultural festival. Then we should hold one for the gnomes, because they just boggle me entirely.”
Frank snickered. “No kidding. Did you check out their names?” He pushed the clipboard over to me. Frank had methodically written down everyone’s name and personal info and plugged it into a neat and tidy grid. Twinkle the Destroyer wasn’t alone, it seemed. There were more gnomes than I thought. Pip the Bringer of Pain, Chauncey the Devourer of Souls, Cuddly the Inexplicable, Gnoman Polanski, Pith the Bitey, Gnome ChompSky, Gnomie Malone, Chuck the Norriser—the list went on.
“It’s like a mishmash of violent imagery, TV, and political references.”
“I told you, they like TV. I’m not sure they understand everything they see, though, so they don’t fully grasp what they’re stealing their names from. Like, I think Gnome ChompSky just thought it sounded tough, and Chuck the Norriser came from watching too many episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger. They believe Chuck Norris is a demigod.”
“Who doesn’t?” I asked. “Are they born with those names, or are they more like titles?” I had a sudden image of a baby gnome with “the Destroyer” on its birth certificate.
“No,
they start off with Twinkle and Pip and whatever, and the other stuff is added on after their first battle.” Frank scrunched up his face in thought. “It might be easier to just picture the gnomes as tiny little barbarians. From our preliminary discussions, they appear to be a warrior race. Battle glory, that’s their number one. Makes them a bit bloodthirsty, actually.”
I nodded slowly. “So they get titles bestowed on them once they prove their courage in battle. Hence the tough-guy names?”
“Yup. They tend to do the naming ceremonies upon puberty, so if there isn’t a battle, they manufacture some sort of competition. They were a little hazy on the details there, but if the young gnome proves himself, he’s awarded a new name and a hat.”
Ramon laughed and tipped his chair back from the table. “Good thing they didn’t watch too much daytime TV. You might have ended up with a slew of bloodthirsty gnomes named after talk show hosts and characters from daytime soaps.”
I snorted and kept reading. “Okay, one of them wants to be referred to as ‘The Darkness Known as Mittens.’”
“That’s awesome,” Ramon said. “We should all change our names too. From now on, I will only answer to Ramon the Invincible.”
“More like Ramon the Assjack.” I frowned at the clipboard. “Hey, some of them have normal names. Like Chad. And Stacy.”
“Yeah, I asked about that. Apparently, Chad is new, so he hasn’t had the ‘opportunity to be tested in combat,’ as he said.”
“What about Stacy?”
“He said girls are scary.”
My head was beginning to hurt. I handed the clipboard back to Frank. “Whatever. Just handle it—give them what they need. You know, within reason.”
Frank nodded, but I could tell there was something else.
“Spit it out, Frank.”
“It’s just, well, they mentioned something you might want to take a look at.”
I was instantly suspicious. “Like what? Am I going to get a jar full of Ebola virus or something?”
Frank shook his head. “I don’t think so, but they weren’t giving me much in the way of information. They just said you needed to check out the downstairs guest bathroom and it wasn’t their fault.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound ominous at all, does it?” I got up with a sigh. Frank and Ramon followed, Frank out of duty, Ramon out of curiosity. Brooke skipped after us, ignoring all sense of decorum and foreboding, because she does what she wants, and right now that was skipping like a loon.
The guest bathroom was the one I’d had to use when I was first brought into the house as a hostage, so I tended not to use it. Ever. It had that clean, cold feeling that all guest bathrooms seem to have. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting when I’d opened the door, but I was greeted—somewhat anticlimactically—by an empty bathroom.
I shuffled in and shot a look at Frank. “Okay, I checked it out. Are there any other random—” A soft scratching noise came from under the sink, where James kept the spare cleaning rags. I hushed everyone and leaned down to open the cabinet door. The memory of a gnome riding a skunk came to mind, and I moved so that I would be behind the door when I opened it.
There was a loud creak as I swung the door open, then a startled hissing noise as a creature the size of a ring-tailed lemur sprang forth and straight at Frank. The thing took Frank down to the ground, more out of his own surprise and horror than its physical force. Without thinking, I snatched it up by the scruff of its neck and yanked it back.
While it hung from my grip, twisting and growling, I was able to get a better look. It didn’t weigh a whole lot, maybe about as much as the average house cat, and it was reptilian in nature. Developed hind legs explained its ability to hurtle itself at Frank, and it had huge eyes, sharp fangs, and a rather feline face. Its arms had a flap of skin that looked like something a flying squirrel might have. Imagine if a lizard and a cat had a baby and then that baby married a bat and had another baby—you might get some idea of what I was looking at.
Pronounced canines jutted from its mouth, and the creature was trying to use them to take a bite out of me. I shook it gently. “Cut that out. We’re not going to hurt you.”
Yellow cat eyes focused on me as the beast appeared to be thinking over what I’d said.
“Okay,” I said. “Good. Now I’m going to set you on the counter, all right? And we’re going to get to know each other a little better. Sound good?”
Its head tilted in a curious manner, and its eyes darted between the three of us. I gently set it down on the counter and then backed away, giving it some space. Though it was feisty and obviously full of energy, now that I was able to get a good look at it, I could tell it wasn’t well. Its coloring, a dusky brown with stripes in greens and blacks, had a dull appearance. The soft gray underbelly looked scratched, and I could see its ribs.
“Are you hungry, little guy?” I asked.
The reaction was immediate. He perked up, his giant ears swiveling forward and his nostrils flaring.
I leaned closer to my friends. “I’m not really sure what to feed him. Any ideas as to what he is?”
Ramon shook his head, but Frank looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure, but my guess is he’s related to the chupacabra family. He looks pretty close to the drawings in one of the books I’ve been reading, anyway.” He leaned in to get a closer look, but stayed outside the reach of the tiny thing’s claws. “He should be bigger, though. Maybe he’s a juvenile?”
I blinked at him. “You think I have a teenage goat sucker in my bathroom?”
“That would be a good name for a band,” Ramon said. “Tonight, all the way from Wisconsin, it’s Teenage Goat Sucker!”
Brooke snickered. Frank chewed his lip and ignored them. “Maybe? I have to look it up again.”
“We have a problem, then,” Ramon said. “In that he is a hungry goat sucker and we don’t have any goats.”
I smiled at the creature, making sure I didn’t bare any teeth—some animals see that as a challenge. “We’ll have to ask James where he got goats and stuff for Douglas’s sacrifices. In the meantime, we can see if he’ll eat something we have in the fridge.”
We skipped the fruit bowl and the veggie bin because, based on folklore and his pointy teeth, I was pretty sure our new friend was a carnivore. After giving him a few bites of beef jerky, I was able to coax him out to the table, which is where James found us. Well, I say found, but it was more like James walked in and the chupacabra treed him. To be fair, James didn’t know we had a new carnivorous buddy, and the chupacabra didn’t know that this particular kitty was our friend. It was hungry, and James looked like lunch. He quickly morphed to human with very little prompting from me.
“What the hell is that?” James yipped, still crouched on the counter.
“According to Frank’s research, it’s a pygmy chupacabra.” I tossed it a piece of Ramon’s rotisserie chicken.
James watched as it snatched the chicken out of the air with its jaws, then bounced, eyes bright and fingers steepled, waiting for the next bite.
“I wasn’t aware they came this far north.” He clambered down from the countertop slowly so as not to spook the chupacabra.
I tossed some more chicken. “We don’t think they do. Either he was accidentally transported up here with some livestock or something, like how a lot of nonindigenous animals end up where they shouldn’t, or Douglas ordered him.”
James negated that idea. “I would have known. He didn’t want them around.”
“Why wouldn’t he want one?” Brooke asked. “It’s so adorable.”
He frowned. “Something about it being disruptive.” He shook his head. “All I know is that chupacabras were certainly on the banned list. They’re pretty useful, though. He’ll keep the pests down, at least.”
“He really likes beef jerky,” Brooke said.
Ramon shrugged. “Everyone likes beef jerky. Even Sam likes beef jerky, he just won’t admit it.
I wiped my greasy fingers on a nap
kin before tearing another big piece of chicken off the leg bone.
“Well, Douglas isn’t here now, which means the ban doesn’t apply anymore, so can we keep it?” Frank asked, throwing James some serious puppy-dog eyes. Brooke joined him, batting her eyelashes and balling her fists up by her chin. They both looked pretty pathetic.
I expected James to say no outright, but he didn’t respond right away. He eyed the creature thoughtfully and watched him eat.
“That might not be a bad idea, actually.” He reached to grab a piece of the chicken to toss, but the creature’s eyes narrowed as he growled at James, his ears flattening against his skull. James’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as he leaned back quickly, his arms raised in surrender. “As you can see, they are fiercely loyal and highly intelligent. He could probably live off the local wildlife, but maybe we should get him some food of his own so the neighborhood cats don’t start disappearing.”
“Pygmy goats!” Brooke clapped her hands. Then her face fell. “No, pygmy goats are cute. I can’t stand it when things get all Animal Planet.”
“Guinea pigs might be more his size,” Frank said. “Or chickens.”
James gave him a flat look. “No, I’m going to get him food twice his size. I’m so glad you brought it up—otherwise, I never would have figured it out.”
“Play nice,” I said, cutting them off before a fight could erupt.
“I think I will name him Precious,” Brooke said, “because he’s so freaking cute! We can call him Preshie for short.”
I could see Brooke already imagining the little guy in sweaters and Halloween costumes.
“Shouldn’t we call him something like Paco or Taco or Juan?” Frank asked.
“Why?” Ramon crossed his arms. “Because he’s from Mexico? Isn’t that kind of racist?”
“Maybe we should just call him Sven,” James said. “I like ‘Sven.’”
“How is that racist? Besides, how do you know he’s from Mexico? Chupacabras have a bigger range than that.” Frank mimicked Ramon’s crossed arms, a smug look on his face. “Now who’s being racist?”