by Tanya Huff
Steel-gray brows rose. “Just?” The aunties never did well with qualifiers.
“Did you See the impact?”
“No, Charlotte . . .” She started walking again and, as she still held Charlie’s hand captive, Charlie fell into step beside her. “. . . I did not.”
“Then we’re good, right? No impact means we stopped it. It’s like that summer when you saw one of the old gods rise, but you didn’t see Jack deal with it.”
“It’s not like that at all. By the time you became involved, I’d already implemented a plan to prevent the rising.”
“And cause an environmental disaster.”
“A potential environmental disaster, and still preferable to having the Maritimes fall into soulless chaos.”
Charlie’s personal soundtrack managed the beginning of “Farewell to Nova Scotia” before she shut it down. Distracted, she missed the step as the casino dropped to a lower level and would have fallen but for Auntie Catherine’s grip on her arm. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t want anyone to assume I’d pushed you.” She shrugged and the corners of her mouth twitched into the shadow of a smile. “Not if I hadn’t pushed you.”
“Of course.” Charlie found herself smiling as well and they walked in what seemed very like companionable silence for a moment or two.
“Can I assume your minimal reaction to the warning of a cataclysmic event, however distant, means you have a solution?”
“NASA.”
“Charlotte . . .”
“It’s a falling rock, Auntie Catherine.” They skirted three muscular young men in appreciatively tight T-shirts arguing about tickets to Celine Dion. “All I have to do is give NASA a shove in the right direction and they’ll do the rest.”
“Can it be that easy?”
Something in the timbre of the question told Charlie that Auntie Catherine had also been hearing I think we’re all going to die and for longer than Charlie had. That Doomsday Dan had confirmed what she’d feared since she’d Seen the asteroid. Although the question had been asked more to the world at large than Charlie specifically, Charlie answered it. “Piece of cake.”
“Well . . .” Auntie Catherine tossed her head. “. . . if I’d known this was going end up as such a nonevent, I wouldn’t have mentioned it. But, as you’re here, just how are you planning to shove NASA in the right direction?”
“They have these things called bars,” she said, wondering when she’d started talking to Auntie Catherine like she was talking to Allie. “I go where NASA is . . .”
“And that’s where?”
“No idea. Thus the internet.”
“Thus?”
“Perfectly good word. And NASA has a Twitter account, for crying out loud.”
“There’s toothpaste with a Twitter account,” Auntie Catherine snorted. “So that doesn’t fill me with confidence.”
“The point is, they’re not a secret organization. I find out where NASA’s located, I find a group of scientists out for a few after work, and I motivate them.”
“Sounds like fun.”
That response was a pale shadow of the entendre Charlie’d been expecting. Motivate, in that context, should’ve been irresistible. Auntie Catherine’s profile gave nothing away. She didn’t seem relieved that it wasn’t the end of the world. She didn’t seem to be calculating a way to turn the situation to her advantage. She didn’t seem pleased the solution could be left to the rest of the world with minimal Gale involvement. She seemed thoughtful. Contemplative. Small hairs lifted off the back of Charlie’s neck.
As they arrived at the velvet ropes separating the cashiers from the rest of the casino, Auntie Catherine tightened her grip for an instant, then dropped Charlie’s hand and turned to face her. “Before you motivate NASA, talk to Doomsday Dan.”
It was a suggestion, not a command. It almost sounded as though she were talking to an equal. Lost in the implications, Charlie missed the next few words.
“. . . already knew about the asteroid, and certainly have no need for corroboration, he must have another part to play.”
“You’d mentioned him to me,” Charlie pointed out. “And I came to Vegas.”
“You came because I called you. Surprise, it’s not all about you. He’s not a Gale . . . although I suppose he could be one of the Courts’ accidents.” Bracelets chimed as she dismissed the Courts, waving off practically immortal, ethereally beautiful, magical beings from another reality as if they were the neighbor’s annoying teenagers. “Honestly, live for thousands of years and can’t figure out how to use a condom.”
“Jack says Dan’s Human. And he sounds Human.”
“Then how does he know that the sky is falling?”
“Good drugs. No, bad drugs.” Charlie exaggerated a frown. “Conversation with Chicken Little over beer and nachos?”
Auntie Catherine sighed, the worry that had weighted her voice replaced by more familiar and infinitely less disturbing irritation. “Oh, for pity’s sake, Charlotte, just go ask him. Find out how he knows. Find out what he knows. Find out why he thinks we’re all going to die. Find out why I Saw him.”
* * *
Ignoring the bouzouki music in the distance—although sitting in on a session with Gary seemed like it’d be a lot more fun than trying to get anything coherent out of Doomsday Dan—Charlie followed Jack’s song out of the Wood and back to . . .
...the badlands outside Drumheller. Crouched with his wings tight to his back, an overcast sky almost but not quite blending his gold into the soft cream rock of the ridge, Jack didn’t react as Charlie emerged from a clump of sagebrush. His eyes locked on the distant horizon, he might not have seen her. Taking advantage of this rare chance to really look at him at full size—he was significantly less than full size and somewhat less majestic curled up in the living room covered in babies—she began at the slightly paler gold of his muzzle, swept her gaze up over the sweep of his horns—flesh, not the bone the other Gale boys sported—down past the shimmering folds of his wings, and finally out along the sinuous curl of his tail. He was gorgeous. Magnificent.
Charlie flinched as Johnny Diaz’s “Fool for Love” blared out so loudly it was hard to believe Jack hadn’t heard it—actually, it was hard to believe Allie hadn’t heard it back in Calgary and Charlie wasn’t going to discount Auntie Jane’s radar ears until she’d gone a good half hour without a phone call. Before she could shut it off, it faded out to a smug silence, point made.
Yes, the standing and staring was getting a bit creepy.
Shoving everything she felt back down out of sight where it belonged, Charlie dialed the cousin/friend/Wild up to eleven and called Jack’s name.
He didn’t react.
He’d told her once that he could hear a rabbit fart from thirty meters up, so while he might have missed her arrival, he’d definitely heard her. Conclusion: he was deliberately ignoring her. Sometimes, he was so much more than what he seemed, he overwhelmed her. Sometimes, he was so seventeen she couldn’t believe she’d gotten herself into this mess.
He didn’t react as she climbed up the ridge toward him. As the ratio of her foot to his side was about the same as a mouse kicking a moose, it wasn’t entirely surprising when he ignored the toe of her boot jabbed into his armpit.
Clearly, she was supposed to know what she’d done wrong and open with an apology. Shifting her guitar over toward her right shoulder, she pushed her left side into Jack’s bulk, warming her hands on his scales. Tucked in under his front legs, they were like snake scales, soft and almost hot from the fires banked inside. “So, you want to help me save the world?”
Even expecting the change, she toppled sideways as thousands of pounds of dragon disappeared. Conservation of mass, my Aunt Fanny. Aunt Fanny taught grade eight physics.
Jack caught her before she hit the ground. One hand wrapped around her upper
arm, he hauled her back onto her feet with no apparent effort. “Seriously? We need to save the world? Is it another old one rising?”
“Nope, big rock falling.”
“Big rock?”
“Auntie Catherine’s Seen an incoming asteroid. She says it’s big.”
His eyes flared gold. “Dan said the sky was heavy.”
“And Auntie Catherine said Dan was right.”
“How will we stop it?”
“We won’t. NASA will. But since they haven’t seen it yet,” she continued before he could ask another question, “that means it has to be years away, giving them plenty of time to get their shit together once I point them in the right direction.”
“So you don’t actually need me.” Releasing her arm, he stepped back, smoking heavily. Clearly, he wanted to continue sulking and just as clearly figured he couldn’t do it since he’d both changed and spoken.
Charlie waited, tucking her chin down into the collar of her jacket. Without Jack blocking the wind, it was cold and smelled of snow.
“You left without saying anything,” he muttered at last.
“Allie knew . . .”
“To me!” His cheeks darkened and he turned away. “You left without saying anything to me.”
About to point out that she often left Calgary without telling him, Charlie remembered the pain she’d heard in the Wood and closed her teeth on the words. She’d done that. Her leaving had really upset him. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” he growled.
“Hurting you?”
“I wasn’t hurt, I was angry!”
Yeah, they’d go with that. “Auntie Catherine called to tell me Doomsday Dan was right,” she said. “Since one of the things he’d said was that we’re all going to die, I thought I’d best pry a few more details from Auntie Catherine ASAP.”
A line of scales rippled up his spine, glistening against the creamier gold of his tan, and he turned back around to face her. “Are we all going to die?”
“No. It’s an asteroid. A falling rock. Plain old everyday physics.” Charlie paused to consider that for a second. “Or possibly geology. Either way, NASA will deal with it. But Auntie Catherine wants me to talk to Doomsday Dan.”
“To find out why he thinks we’re all going to die?”
“That’d be good, yeah. She also thinks we should find out how he knows the sky is falling. Turns out talking with Chicken Little is not an acceptable answer. Chicken Little,” she continued as Jack frowned, “is a story about . . .”
“I know. It’s one of the kids’ favorite books.”
Charlie had a sudden vision of Jack reading to the twins; his hair in his eyes, Edward on his lap, Evan nestled in the curve of his tail. Over the last year, his voice had deepened into a smooth baritone that made her think of a cross between Michael Bublé and Stan Rogers. Charlie cut the thought short. “I do need you, Jack; you know where to find him.”
“Chicken Little?”
“Doomsday Dan.”
Brows drawn in, he folded his arms. “If he’s in the city, Allie could find him for you.”
“Yeah, I don’t really want to talk about big falling rocks and crazy people announcing we’re all going to die with Allie. Ever since the twins, she’s been a bit . . .”
“Scarily overprotective?”
“I was thinking insanely overreactive, but yours is good, too.”
Jack scratched at the small patch of scales in the center of his chest. “Dan’s not really coherent at the best of times and today didn’t sound like the best of times. I think he freaked when he realized people were listening to him.”
“We still have to try.” Charlie couldn’t stop herself from looking up. “The sky is falling.”
“It’s not . . .”
“Well, not all of it,” she cut him off. “But when an auntie is that insistent about something, it’s best to pay attention. Or run,” she added after a moment.
“Allie doesn’t think Auntie Catherine can be trusted.” He met her gaze. “What do you think?”
“Honestly . . .”
“That’d be good.”
“. . . I don’t know.” Hands in her pockets, she rubbed a guitar pick between thumb and forefinger and heard Auntie Catherine speaking to her Wild to Wild. The gulf between first circle and third was definitely wider than any gulf between her and Jack, but Auntie Catherine had crossed it. “I think that if I noticed she was relieved when I told her why it wasn’t a problem, then she had to be damn near panicked going in. She knew this wasn’t something she could deal with; she’s all about manipulation and you can’t manipulate a falling rock. It was also the most straightforward conversation we’ve ever had, so I think she’s realized that if she’s not the only Wild Power . . .”
“And she’s not.”
“. . . then she’s not alone anymore.”
He folded his arms. “So why wasn’t I there, if I’m Wild? I was just at the coffee shop, you could’ve waited for me.”
“And done what? I can’t haul your ass through the Wood—you’re too heavy. If we take the car, we need to know we have room to stick the dismount . . .” The car picked up a lot of momentum crossing the Wood and a Dragon Prince on board extended the room necessary for a full stop by a significant margin. “. . . which we can’t know if we don’t know where we’re going.”
“And because you’d already spent the whole morning in the same room with me and you figured that was plenty.”
Maybe because very similar words had run through her head as she headed out to meet Auntie Catherine, she was sharper than she’d ever been with him. “Surprise, Jack, it’s not all about you!” He had no choice but to believe her. She hated herself a little, but she let it stand.
They stood for a moment, listening to the wind howl through the badlands.
Then Jack said, “I’m sorry.”
Charlie swallowed her second apology. “For what?”
He shrugged, scales rippling down his torso. “Making the end of the world about me.”
“It won’t be the end of the world.”
“Okay.” They watched sparks trail behind his bare foot as he rubbed the side of it against a rock. “We good?”
“Always.” She may have put a different power behind that. With any luck, Jack was still young enough he couldn’t tell them apart.
“Right.” He smiled a little sheepishly. “So do you trust Auntie Catherine?”
“Not entirely.”
Jack snorted, changed, and glided down off the ridge to stomp out a burning bush.
“And that,” Charlie called down to him, “is also why we need to talk to Dan.”
Resting up on his hind legs, tail stretched behind him for balance, Jack adjusted his size until his head was level with hers. “He has a flop down by the water.”
“The Loireag . . .”
“Leaves him alone.” Jack smiled.
Dragons had a lot of very sharp teeth. The Loireag may have been chronically depressed, but she wasn’t stupid. “Will he talk to me if you’re there?”
“I don’t know how much sense he’ll make.” The tips of Jack’s wings stirred up dust devils when he shrugged. “But he’ll talk. Fly with me?”
As Jack spread his wings, Charlie took a step back. He’d never asked her before. She thought about climbing onto his shoulders, settling with the smooth, gleaming curve of his neck between her legs, gathering up a double handful of the flexible strands of flesh that made up his mane, her heart pounding as he rose into the sky . . . “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Afraid?” He’d gone nearly cross-eyed trying to look down his muzzle at her.
“Hell, yes.” Although not of flying.
“Your loss.” Spread out like golden sails, his wings blocked what sun there was. He leaped skyward with t
he first downstroke.
“Wait! You didn’t wipe out your footprints!”
He circled around, grinning as he swooped in close enough Charlie had to brace herself against the wind, eyes squinted almost closed. “I know. Drives the dinosaur guys crazy. Funniest thing ever!”
* * *
Charlie was there waiting as he landed on the Fort side of the river, in behind a bank of dogwood, out of sight of the road.
“How long have you been here?” he asked, back on two legs.
She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. “Well, I went to Mexico for a couple of days to shake off October in Alberta, but after that, only a few minutes.”
Jack stared at her for a long moment, nostrils flared. “Liar. You don’t smell like tequila.”
“I can go to Mexico and not smell like tequila.”
“You smell like tequila when you go to Taco Bell.”
“Ow!” She clasped her hands over her heart. “Brutal! Get dressed and let’s find Dan.”
He made his T-shirt from late leaves, golden brown and skin tight. His jeans and shoes and jacket were brown as well, probably from the darker mud by the water. Although he usually stayed on the Gale side of the line between Gale and Fey, the colors he’d chosen made him seem otherworldly. Exotic. Momentarily less like himself than when he wore gold scales and wings.
“Okay, so Dan . . .” Rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, Jack looked past her toward the fort. “At this time of day Dan’s probably out by the parking lot, trying to decide where to go for lunch.”
“Nice he has choices,” Charlie muttered, stepping off the narrow path so Jack could lead the way.
“The Chinese place on the corner of 9th and 8th sometimes feeds him and so does the diner on 13th. If there’s something on at the stadium, he’ll dumpster dive and the stadium Brownies know they’re to save stuff for him.”
“There’s Brownies at the Saddledome?”