by Lish McBride
“Yeah,” Ash said, “he’s got some juice.” She pursed her lips. “So what we’re looking for is probably not mortal, something big, something from a higher plane, like a demigod or something associated with a major pantheon.” She looked at me and narrowed her eyes. “What kind of shit storm did you land us in this time?”
“I would like to point out at this juncture that this is not my fault in any way.”
“It never is,” she said with a sigh.
We sat quietly for a minute, all of us deep in thought. I sifted through my brain trying to come up with any little tidbit or memory, anything that might get us closer to what was going on.
“The flower,” I blurted out. Everyone turned and looked at me. I got some blank expressions and a few worried ones.
“The flowers are very pretty this time of year,” James said hesitantly.
“No,” I said, frustrated. “When I came back that first time, I had a flower with me. I remember, because I put it on Brannoc’s pyre. But it was nighttime, and the flower was fully open, and I didn’t pick it. The flower was with me when I came back.”
“That’s something,” Ashley said.
Frank got up and dusted off his jeans. “Enough for me to get started,” he said.
“On what?” I asked. I was grateful for his enthusiasm, but to me it didn’t seem like much to go on.
“Research,” he said. “I can cross-reference higher-level entities with flowers, see what we can come up with. Not everything is associated with flowers, right?”
No, but many of them are.
“It will still give me somewhere to start. And as we learn more, I can narrow it down. James, can you come down to the library? You might be able to help me.”
“I need to go to Tia’s house first.” His whiskers twitched. “Sam has asked me to go and assess their security.”
“Oh. Okay. After, then?”
James nodded and Frank left. It was amazing to me to see how much self-esteem Frank had gained in the past few months. When I’d first started to work with him, he seemed like such a shy and lost little kid. He was pretty young, but not so young that his shyness made sense. As I got to know him better, I started to understand. I don’t think Frank had ever had anyone show full confidence in him. His parents were indifferent at best. He’d often stay for days at my old apartment, and they didn’t seem concerned that their minor was gone for some pretty major stretches. It wasn’t that he was unloved, but they certainly seemed preoccupied. So to see Frank starting to come into his own, well, it felt good.
I wondered what his gnome name would be.
Ashley sniffed, wiping away a pretend tear from her face. “Our little boy is growing up so fast.”
I pulled her pigtail. “Shut up. I’m proud of him.”
“Me too,” she said. “Isn’t that what I just implied?”
A very entertaining house. Ed seemed to be enjoying his time here tremendously.
James cleared his throat. “If I can add something?”
“Sure?” It was best to make it a question with James and leave full judgment on whether his adding something was okay only after he actually added it.
“You might also want to talk to the pack and see if they have a patron god or creature or something associated with them. That could save you a lot of time. You know, assuming they’ll talk to you.”
I blinked at him. Sometimes, it’s easy to overly complicate things. “You just earned yourself ten brownie points,” I said, grabbing my phone. I walked into the yard so I could make my call with a little privacy, when I noticed an unfamiliar car pulling up. I didn’t know what kind—Ramon was the car guy—but it was sleek, expensive looking, and had darkly tinted windows. Because of that last bit, I was only mildly surprised when a large umbrella poked out and unfurled, followed quickly by Kell.
He advanced, looking coolly sophisticated in his three-piece suit and wearing his wide and toothy smile. I didn’t know how old Kell was or if vampires lived as long as I thought they did, but I wondered if he was as smooth and charismatic before he died. Since he was the only vampire I knew, I couldn’t tell if it was just him or not. He managed to look suave even walking under an umbrella on a sunny day, so I was inclined to think he’d been dead at least long enough to get some practice making that look completely normal.
“Good morning,” he said. “Mind if I approach? I’d much prefer the porch if it is all right with you and your guests.”
“Sure,” I said, pocketing my phone. We walked back to the porch.
Once under the overhang, Kell collapsed his umbrella. He greeted the group as he did, seeming to know everyone there, which surprised me. He stopped on James. “That’s a nice look for you,” he said, indicating James’s kitty status. “Very svelte.” Kell’s mouth twitched as he said it, a small smirk on his face. James simply nodded in greeting and then ignored him. It would take a lot more than that to shake him up.
Kell made himself at home, pulling up a chair and sitting at the table.
“To what do we owe your visit?” I asked.
“Council business. We need you to accompany Pello up to the mountains.”
“Yeah, ’cause last time I helped, I did so well. I’m still finding seaweed in uncomfortable places.”
Kell tilted his head. “Really?”
“Well, no, not as such, but you know what I mean. And seriously, don’t we have enough with Brannoc’s death and all?”
“Seriously,” Kell said, “current tragedy aside, we still have a job to do. The world continues to turn, even after we die.”
“That seems a little heartless,” I said.
“Brannoc of all people would have understood,” he said, “that we cannot allow ourselves to wither and fade just so we can adhere to convention. We mourn while we work.” He tapped me with the umbrella. “Now, get properly dressed.”
“What does that mean?” I said, starting to rise. “Like a suit or something?”
“Like good shoes and a water bottle. You’re going hiking.”
20
I FEEL THE EARTH MOVE UNDER MY FEET
“Kell wasn’t joking,” I panted, stopping to pull out my canteen and drink. Pello offered me his handkerchief, and even if it hadn’t been covered in filth and spots of … something, I wouldn’t have accepted it. Everything Pello owned fell into the category of “I don’t know where that’s been and I don’t particularly want to, either.”
“No, thanks,” I said. “Got my own.”
Pello tucked his away without using it. He wasn’t sweaty, despite the uphill climb and his beer gut. Ramon, who had come as my escort and additional muscle in case I needed it, wasn’t breaking a sweat either. We’d also brought Taco, who was bounding from rock to fallen tree and racing through the dappled sunshine in blatant disregard of the leash law. The sunlight and fresh air, I figured, would be good for him, but I’d fed him before we left. I didn’t want him taking down Bambi on our first trip to the great outdoors. He sprang merrily after a butterfly and didn’t look winded in the slightest.
“Hey, what gives?” I asked. “Why am I the only one suffering here? There’s no way in hell Pello is in better shape than me.” I quickly added, “No offense meant, Pello.”
The satyr grinned lecherously at me. “I get plenty of car-di-o.” He punctuated the word with some questionable thrusting.
“Okay,” I said. “Never do that again. And I call bullshit. So serious answer, please.” I took another swig from my canteen while I waited. It had taken us over an hour and a half of driving plus a ferry ride to get to Olympic National Park. We’d been hiking and walking for over an hour on a wandering trail, and I was beginning to wonder why whoever we were meeting hadn’t just come to us like everyone else.
The air felt somewhat cooler underneath all the old-growth pines towering above me. Despite, or perhaps because of, everything going on, it was really nice to get outside. Another butterfly flickered by, floating past a mass of ferns to a small open nook
. I’d have to come back here when I wasn’t concerned with my friend’s murder and my own potential demise at the hands of his pack.
Pello gave a half shrug. “I am at my best in the forest. This is where my power lies.” He affectionately patted the thin, peeling white bark of the paper birch next to him.
“So if we were urban hiking?” When he gave me a blank look, I added, “It’s exactly what it sounds like—hiking through city trails.” Downtown Seattle had steep hills that were appealing for that sort of thing. Not that I did it. I’m not much of a hiker, urban or otherwise. A leisurely stroll through the woods? Yes. A ten-mile uphill death march? No, thank you.
“I would be in your sorry state,” he replied with a grin.
We started moving again, and I snagged a few huckleberries off a bush while we walked. When we were younger, my parents would take us out hiking and camping all the time. If we were good, and if we were diligent enough about picking—but not eating—enough huckleberries, my mom would make pancakes in a griddle over our fire. There were few things better after a day of hiking than waking up to pancakes with those tart red berries. Bellies full, we’d spend the rest of the morning sitting on downed trees or large boulders by the lake, fishing for rainbow trout.
I flicked a berry at Ramon. “What about you? You’ve never been what I’d call a forest denizen.”
Ramon grunted. “Maybe not before, but I am now. Besides, after weeks of trying to keep up with the pack, I’ve just got more endurance for this kind of thing.” He thumped his chest with one hand, Tarzan-style.
Sometimes, if I wasn’t thinking about it, I forgot what had happened to my best friend. That we’d both changed over the spring. The remembrance was always followed by a wash of guilt. I was born to be this way, but Ramon’s state was completely my fault. He’d gained it by trying to save my scrawny ass.
I flushed and looked down, concentrating for a moment on the crisscrossed formation of roots at my feet. “Right,” I mumbled. “Sorry.”
Ramon either didn’t want to talk about it or felt that apologies weren’t necessary, and he didn’t answer.
“I’d forgotten how pretty it is out here. We should come back. I’ll bring Brid, and you can drag Dessa along. We can double date.” Oh, wait. My gut bottomed out even more. “Never mind. What I meant to say was, ‘You can bring Dessa up here, and I’ll follow you crying and being a big, whiny baby.’ Très romantic, no?”
Ramon glanced at me. “You were really serious about her, huh?”
Taco came back to me then, a suspicious feather sticking out of his mouth. I plucked it and held it up in front of him. “No poaching. Got it?” He managed to look hangdog for approximately two seconds before I felt bad about scolding him. I picked up a stick. “You wanna play? Here.” I threw the stick. “Fetch!” Taco didn’t need any encouragement—he took off like a shot.
I turned back to Ramon. “Yeah, I mean it hasn’t been super long but…” It was hard to put it into words. Brid was, well, she was amazing. But it was more than that. We had fun together. And as cheesy as it sounds, we fit.
Ramon finished my sentence for me. “But you’re stupid for her.”
“Ridiculously, boneheadedly so, yes.” I gave him big puppy eyes. “She completes me,” I said in an eerie singsong voice. Taco came back with the stick, a look of grave importance on his face … that lasted until I tried to take the stick back. I grabbed for it, and he danced away, stopping just out of my reach. I managed to snatch it (when a bug distracted him) and tossed it again. We were going to have to work on “dropping it.”
After a minute of digesting what I’d said, Ramon nodded. I examined him closely. “What, that’s it? A nod? No ‘you’re too young’ or ‘you’re still at the infatuation stage, so give it some time’ kind of speech?”
Ramon stopped and put his hands on my shoulders. “Look, you’re my best friend in the whole world, so I’m only going to say this once and then we’re going to forget I said it, because we’re dudes and we don’t like to talk about feelings—”
I snorted. “Please. You cry like a baby every time we watch Old Yeller.”
He pointed a finger in my face. “That’s different. That’s a dog. Now, listen up. You’re my best friend, and I love you, so obviously no girl is ever going to be good enough. That being said, you’re not going to do any better than Brid.” I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. “Not because you’re not awesome, but because she is.”
“Wait, what?”
He shook his head. “If anyone is perfect for you, it’s that girl. I’ve seen you guys together and, well, I think you’re meant to be.” He paused, thinking. “Getting stuck in that cage might have been the best thing that ever happened to you.”
I cocked my head at him with a grin. “Aw, you’re a romantic! I can’t believe I never realized it before. That’s adorable.”
He jabbed his finger in my face again. “Shut up. I don’t know what you’re talking about. This conversation never happened.” He turned away and kept walking.
I jogged to catch up. “Oh, don’t be like that. C’mon. Ladies love a sensitive guy.”
“I take it all back. I hate you,” he grumbled. He gave me the silent treatment after that.
Pello was leading, and once we’d gone a few minutes in and the trail was out of sight, he paused to take off his necklace. The odd-looking charm he usually kept around his neck was actually a purchased glamour—an object that changed the perception of the people around you. It made it possible for the satyr to live in an urban environment. With it, he looked like a dirty, overweight, dreadlocked skeezeball hanging out in one of the parks sleeping under trees or hitting on underage girls. To me, he’d always looked like a washed-up Dead Head with his flip-flops, ripped jean cutoffs, and stained Hawaiian shirt open and framing his rounded gut.
Without the charm, he looked exactly the same until you got to the gut, below which you found fur and hooved feet instead of the usual scrawny legs and sandals. Unfortunately, he felt more comfortable going pantsless. On meeting days, Ariana made him wear a Utilikilt that she had purchased for him so she wouldn’t have to see anything she didn’t want to or worry about where his naked ass had been. Her next goal was to get him to utilize the kilt’s “modesty snaps,” or at the very least learn to cross his legs. It was an uphill battle.
I wouldn’t have cut off-trail without Pello. I wasn’t that experienced as a hiker, and the woods were full of lots of things that weren’t fuzzy bunnies and happy butterflies. As I was thinking this, the forest gave me an example in the form of a seven-foot thorny menace referred to as devil’s club. It’s an aptly named thorny plant, and it can grow in large, dense clumps that I don’t recommend walking through unless you are a masochist or happen to have a sharp machete on your person.
I was well versed on this plant. My mom cultivated some of it behind her house. Devil’s club is related to ginseng, and it’s used in a lot of herbal remedies. Despite being a literal pain—I spent a good deal of my childhood nursing wounds from harvesting that plant—it was kind of beautiful. The leaves resemble those found on the maple, and they can grow really big. In the summer, the plant blooms with these tiny flowers that later turn into bright red berries.
We tried to slip around the plant, but even though we were aware of it, we all got a few things tangled in its leaves. One particularly thorny bit snagged my arm and drew blood. I hissed at it as I pulled the leaf slowly away from my flesh. It was a slow process because I didn’t want the plant leaving any barbs behind, and I knew from my mom’s garden that the plants are actually quite delicate. I didn’t want to harm it, even though it was making me bleed. I lectured it under my breath as I detangled myself.
“Sorry, guys,” I said, focusing on my task. “This is going to be a second.” Getting no response, I glanced up at my companions. Both of them were about five feet away, their backs to a large conifer. They managed to both be looking up with identical looks of amazement on their faces. Taco, concerned,
had climbed up onto my shoulder and was eyeing my battle with the plant.
“What?” That was all I needed, something else going wrong.
Ramon licked his lips. “The plant.”
“What about it?” I asked, frowning.
“Look at it.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing.” I went back to my careful extraction. Apparently I’d snagged part of my backpack on it as well.
“Dude, chico, look up.”
I paused my extraction and did what I was told. The giant plant was … cowering. I’m not kidding, that’s what it looked like: a giant, leafy, scolded child. And that’s what I’d been doing exactly—scolding it. I stood there for a moment, surprised and bleeding and a little amazed. I’d seen ill-mannered plants act this way around my mother sometimes. When Tia LaCroix walked through a forest, you could bet nothing snagged her favorite shawl. This plant was treating me like my mother. But why now? If I had a bit of witch in me, why hadn’t it come out earlier? I gave a mental sigh. Yet another question to put into the “hell-if-I-know” pile.
While I was staring at the plant, a giant crow—and I mean giant—landed on a branch above me. I’d never seen one so huge. Taco hissed at it. The crow seemed unimpressed.
“Holy shit,” Ramon said. “That thing could carry off babies.”
Pello stared at the crow thoughtfully. “Crows are harbingers and omens. Big juju stuff.”
“My mom said a ton of crows showed up at my birth. She said one was the size of, well, that.” I nodded at the crow. “She even named me after them—my middle name is Corvus.”
“Well, then, I suggest you be nice to it,” Pello said, and he turned and started walking farther into the trees.
The bird was uncharacteristically quiet, apparently happy with its silent vigil.
“Ramon, can you get that container out of my bag? The one we packed for Taco?” It was full of roast chicken and sliced ham. Ramon handed a chunk of ham to Taco so he’d stop looking at us in an accusatory manner, then placed a particularly large chunk of chicken on a branch for the crow. The crow didn’t move, but I felt we’d done enough, so he repacked my bag and wiped his greasy fingers on my shirt.