“Have to go back in daylight,” Kage said. “Fetch them in.”
“Back to the same spot? Won’t they expect us? Anyway, didn’t that just prove the bikes aren’t safe?”
“Worrying too much, princess. Sound like Cassia. What are we supposed to do without them? Three or four ride all day in the caravan?”
“Ride to where?” Zar asked. “Where do we go now that we lost the mages?”
“None of that matters tonight,” Gabriel said. “We need to set up the tent and rest. We’ll sort things in the morning.”
“Can’t do that,” Kage said. “Not safe. Could be there’s some chance they trailed us. Have to stay in the caravan and Jeep.”
“Either way, let’s turn in the best we can. The sleeping bag and floor will suit, I daresay.”
“I can change,” Zar muttered.
The door banged and I jumped, having already been half-asleep and their voices blending to dreams. Andrew snuffled appreciatively in my hair and sighed.
“Hey!” Kage shouted on the tail of the door noise. “Jed? Jed! The bloody wanker—what’s he playing at? Wandering off? You let him?” This last remark perhaps addressed to Isaac, who would be there outside the door on all fours.
“He’s just having a sniff around the new space,” Zar said, accompanied by soft sounds as he undressed. “He’s not going to come running because you shout at him.”
“Wouldn’t have to shout at him if he wasn’t such a stura. Don’t know if he noticed Jay and I saved his life. Bloody hell, did you see Cassia set that bird thing on fire? Not like scorched. Bleeding set it on fire like she threw petrol on it. Flip to Moon… Don’t suppose we know ten percent of what she can do. Wonder if she even does…”
“She wore herself out with all the magic today.” Jason sounded worried.
“She had to use it after the river also,” Zar said.
“Was that only a trap?” Jason asked. “Or would they really have been willing to chat if we’d made it on time?”
“Jed! I reckon they meant it. Mad, aren’t they? Wild mages? And the way you talk about them they’re so powerful they wouldn’t be afraid of us. Having a laugh maybe? Get there in time, we talk. Don’t get there in time, they punish us by setting the reavers to watch the road. It’s a game to them.”
“A murderous game,” Gabriel said. “How can we be certain they were there at all?”
“Two men with a badger and a bird?” Jason said. “They were there. Easy to track right out the door, then the scent vanished—like Cassia said it would. They’d masked it with magic. It didn’t disperse. It just stopped. Magic of people who didn’t care if we knew they’d been in, but didn’t want us to know where they were going.”
“And of people who knew she had wolves with her,” Kage said. “Means they have to be the arseholes behind this sterk. Even if they’re only mercenaries they know all about us and what we’re up to.”
“Their employer would have to keep them informed. They’re the ones sending out reavers, right? Anyway, if there’s some vanishing spell, a really strong type of warding that removes all trace of you having been somewhere, they wouldn’t need to know anything. They would just be covering their tracks in a general way. There he is—”
“The hell you doing?” Kage demanded.
A wolf shook himself with a beating noise as his coat and ears flapped.
More muttering and shifting. Gabriel asking Zar what happened to his nose. Zar saying he would change and curl up here. Click of wolf claws. Everything hushed, the whole bed rocking gently with steps and movements as the trailer shifted. Noise of fabric, a zipper, the horrible pop and grind of the change. Someone lay down very carefully at my back. Then…
Chapter 27
Jed flying sideways, Andrew smashing into the road, a beak the size of a boot crunching down on Kage’s arm, blood spraying from Zar’s nose, a sheet of fire, a bursting river washing it all away, everyone gone, a man laughing.
Gray. Sharp cold and damp only on a bit of my head and ear. Otherwise warm and held.
I shivered, blinked, found fur in my face.
Someone moved: fabric noises, the door softly clicked.
Isaac whispered in my ear, “Not out of shouting range.”
“No,” Gabriel answered. “We can’t sleep anyway. Just a stretch.”
The door shut. It hardly seemed light enough for it, yet they were already up. I had to be also, had to know they were all well. Had to apologize to Zar. Had to pee. I had to pee so bad it seemed I might pop. And brush my teeth. Then this bubbling little wave of nausea. Just the morning sickness.
I tried to turn over, couldn’t with Andrew stretched along my front and Isaac at my back, and pushed up on an elbow instead.
“Have to get up,” I managed groggily.
“Everything’s all right, arä. It’s still—”
“No … bathroom.”
“There are real ones. Showers too.” Bed-sharing now? Maybe he thought someone in fur didn’t count.
“Showers? Where are we?”
“Campground. A place my father used to bring me. I didn’t want to stay in the area. We’re a stone’s throw from Inverness.”
That was why he’d been so long about it. Still out at a campsite but not “out” as we had been last evening.
Isaac moved back as he spoke. I managed to roll over after a lick from Andrew.
“Is everyone okay? Sorry. I sort of … fell asleep last night…”
“Many sensible people do.” Isaac touched my lips with a fingertip. It was still so gloomy in here I couldn’t make out many details, but he wore a faint smile. “We’re fine, arä. No disturbances in the night, and I know the lay of the land. We can all get out to safely stretch our legs in the hills. There’s a wood and open glen beyond that’s seldom visited. Or at least it used to be. It’s been a while.”
“I have to get up.”
“My apologies.” Isaac sat up.
He helped me find jeans and sweater in the subarctic caravan while my teeth tried to rattle free of my skull.
Isaac and Andrew walked me to the concrete structure of bathrooms and coin-operated showers. Then Andrew stayed inside, sitting hunched on the frigid floor with his tail around his paws like a massive and miserable house cat.
The hot shower—I bought three—and a bit of ginger were better than hours of meditation. I was reborn by the time I was properly dressed and got to work on my face and untangled my hair. A bit of magic to dry my shoes, then an experiment with hot, gusting air from my hands on my hair—no miracles, but no damage either—and I felt as pampered as a spa day. Funny how standards have a way of changing during adversity.
All the time Andrew waited for me. Little danger of anyone coming in and seeing him. Even by the time I was out of the shower I don’t think it was yet 6:00 a.m.
“How about one of your own? Go in next door, make sure it’s empty, and I’ll start it for you, then change and we’ll bring your stuff.”
Andrew perked up at that. Isaac had returned to us anyway so he scouted the other side of the bathrooms and started the shower.
Kage and Jason were still sleeping, or trying to, in the reclined front seats of the Wrangler. Isaac had let Jed out of the back and he was waiting for me at the trailer.
Jed limped on a foreleg, but it was slight. While Isaac returned to the bathrooms to accompany Andrew, I sat inside with Jed, sifting through his fur. I couldn’t see anything obvious through all the brown undercoat. Maybe a few pink or raw areas.
“You’re okay? Or will be after another change, right? That was one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen. And the bar is set pretty high these days.” I kissed his muzzle, rolled Gabriel’s sleeping bag, then hunted for the slicker brush in what was becoming a mess of stuff in this place.
Most mess now seemed to be coming from torn, wet, muddy, and bloody clothing.
“Wouldn’t it be handy if you had no clothes left?” I asked while I dug in my own little rolling
bag for the brush. “‘Sorry, I can’t change. Out of clothes.’ It’s been a blessing that you all travel light but we might have to buy a few things. Whereas the extras that we do have along … old papers and books, beautiful pink sandals, a slightly burnt elk antler named Spike, a flute, a stash of soft caramels… Makes one wonder… Dammit, Andrew—” Snatching my own last backup pair of socks from the water bottle pouch on Andrew’s messenger bag and returning them to my bag.
Jed did not seem cheered by the idea of running out of clothes and having to remain in fur. He was, in fact, quite stiff as he stood in the middle of the walkway. Was he in pain?
I unearthed the slicker and sat on the bench with him for a head-to-tail brushing. He never flinched—still couldn’t tell about wounds.
“Gabriel and Zar are having a sniff around,” I said. “I hope Gabriel’s leg is okay. I see he started with the antibiotics last night but it’s not a full round. At least he’s moving. That’s a good sign.” Unless he was only up and moving because of the pain? He’d said he couldn’t sleep.
For the first time ever with a brushing, Jed did not relax. He kept looking up into my eyes. He didn’t sit and settle or lean into my legs as he normally would have.
“Do you feel all right? You’ll have to change and tell us if there’s something important going on. But I thought you might want to walk with the others? It’s sunrise. Isaac said there’s a wood and an open area. So, unless it’s critical, stay like that and you can have a run.” I smiled. “Better than that, how about a ball game?”
Jed gave a start. His head flew up, ears pricking. He whimpered, then grasped my hand in his jaws.
I pulled away. “What? Jed, you’ll have to change if—”
He cut me off with a sort of woofing, grumbly sound and nudged my hand. He backed away, teeth clicking and cheeks puffing out anxiously, so agitated I thought he was going to change after all.
“The ball game…? What about…?”
He gave a little woof again.
I dropped my hands and brush to my lap with a new heaviness. The image flashed before my eyes of our last game, of Jed indicating the ball to me. Of course, the trailer wasn’t even more cluttered because some of our things were in the Jeep. And some were in the motorcycles.
“Oh … I’m sorry…”
He cocked his head, as if this took him by surprise. Stepping forward until his face was close to mine where I sat, he gazed intently into my eyes.
“Jed…” I hesitated while we regarded each other.
All at once he was perfectly still, unblinking. Yet it was as if he cried and pleaded.
It was not only the wool ball that his mother had given him when he was a pup. Almost everything Gabriel had brought with him was in the panniers of his own motorcycle. Andrew had things as well. And there were the bikes. Maybe it was insane to throw ourselves into potential danger for material things like that, but those were valuable motorcycles and the pack had already lost several of them to damage in the fire. Including Jed’s—whose bike and ball were the only two material things he owned that he cared about. We could do better than dumping them and waiting for the police to call after tracing the plates.
“Jed,” I started again, “we’ll go back and get them. Of course we’ll go back.”
With the suddenness of a light switch being flipped, Jed sprang up. Lashing his tail, he leapt at me, licked across my face in a huge, overbearing manner of Kage, tried to spin in a circle but just sort of capered around since he didn’t have space, and lunged again.
I fended him off, struggling to lean over the back of the bench and shove open the door.
Jed dashed into the pale dawn light and raced around the trailer.
Andrew and Isaac were walking back as I emerged to join him.
Jed swung his tail at me as he dashed past, skidded. He returned to slam his forepaws into the soft, wet earth before me. Elbows hitting the ground, tail high and waving, mouth open and eyes sparkling, then he was off again.
The other two stopped to watch.
“Did you give him a shot of something?” Andrew sounded suspicious.
“And may we share?” Isaac asked.
“Stop it.” I flapped a hand at them. “You’re the one who’s been going around smirking for a week. It’s okay for Jed to be happy once in a while.”
“Is it?” Andrew rubbed the back of his damp hair. “Do you reckon he has a brain tumor?”
“I thought he was still limping this morning…” Isaac watched in apparent concern.
Jed vanished around the trailer, suddenly tracking something, nose dropping for a ground scent.
“Must be that shot I gave him,” I said. “We need to get the bikes.”
Isaac raised his eyebrows.
“I know it sounds dangerous, and a long way at this point. But broad daylight? Bring them back to Inverness or wherever and park them safely somewhere? We can’t walk away from them and all of your things. The sun is just rising. If we go this morning it seems almost certain they won’t have been towed away yet—or whatever it is they do to remove motorcycles from shoulders and ditches. Don’t you think we should try?”
“It’s going to be difficult not to have them,” Isaac said carefully. “But is that worth the risk?”
“We’ll ask Zar,” Andrew said. “He actually knows something about these gargoyles. We’ve only ever met them in the dark, right? And they won’t come near a mundane. Sounds to me like we’d be safe enough just grabbing bikes and getting out. But Zar could tell us more.”
I nodded. “Good idea. And we’ll make sure everyone’s in agreement if we’re going. I think that’s who Jed’s out to find right now.”
We walked around as Jed was returning to see what had become of me.
“On our way,” I told him and he dashed off again, plumy tail swinging. “What about Kage and Jason?”
“They’re all right,” Isaac said. “We’ll be just the other side of this wood.”
I called up a quick extra ward, a fresh bubble around the whole of the vehicles and general space. They waited a minute while I set it, then walked on with me around the other side of the trailer after Jed.
Andrew glared at him. “He left his toy in the bike, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” I said. “But there are many practical reasons to go back.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t want your bike also.”
“Of course I do.” Andrew shrugged. “Only I don’t remember you holding my paw and telling me everything would be all right and we’d fetch my lovey for me. Another thing, we’ll have to hurry. You mean to get back for tonight, don’t you?”
“Tonight?”
“To that village?”
“Brethgillian,” Isaac said. “For the solstice?”
I paused to turn in place, taking in more than hints of yellow and orange in the woods, the near absence of bird calls, the first rays of the sun hitting treetops, my own breath steaming before my face on a crisp, clear morning.
“You’re right,” I said quietly as I looked around. “I forgot … it’s autumn.”
Chapter 28
Walking through a quiet glen at sunrise, with soft mist rising off trees that were newly touched in gold, a sky turning from indigo to robin’s egg blue, and five companions alongside was all the remaining energy boost I needed.
Our breaths billowed. Even the new touch of sun was a long way from feeling warm. We walked along the woodland, up the next hill and back, no one straying far. It was only when life-giving sunlight struck the sopping grasses below our feet that the whole ground began to steam. As if Earth exhaled with us.
I didn’t mind Isaac holding my hand with no one else around who had hands at the moment besides Andrew and Gabriel. I leaned into him on the slope as we paused and I turned into the sun, eyes shut, free arm out.
I didn’t have to count my breaths, or worry about our failure or my phone, or reaching Stefan or Melanie, or motorcycles or mages. Lis
ts of gratitude, not fear.
Fall used to be my favorite season—at least once the wave of September spiders passed. In recent years, after Nana died and my own birthdays seemed to pile up with school nearly over, I’d become more of a spring person without noticing. Now that birthday was four days off. The start of Libra’s cycle, meaning Scorpio would soon follow.
Jed remained in such fine spirits he tore past his brothers—Gabriel limping in the sun, stretching tight muscles, Zar trailing behind him with his head down—dipping his muzzle to lick up dew, chasing birds and a plethora of squirrels.
Hadn’t someone told me his was November and Zar October? I couldn’t remember. Either way, I wanted to celebrate their birthdays with them. I wanted to walk on a beach with Zar and take Jed somewhere wild where he could run and run without a fence or house or motorway.
What would become of us by then?
With the enticement of squirrels and Jed’s zipping about, Zar gradually drifted to track through the woods as well, darting at this or that, once being knocked down by Jed in passing.
Gabriel watched them run with a strange look on his face. I couldn’t say if he was sad or wistful, worried—perhaps that we might be seen—or maybe even thinking of other things all together. All of his belongings being gone, perhaps? Questioning what he was doing out here? Or simply in pain from his leg?
Concerned they would wake up and worry about us, I asked Isaac and Andrew to go back and check on Jason and Kage, hopefully bring them out here so they could enjoy the morning.
I approached Gabriel where he walked along the side of the hill. He had on the same— bitten—black motorcycle pants from the day before, and black leather jacket. This trip was the first time I’d seen him out of a suit. He didn’t seem to possess any shirts that weren’t button down. His hair arched across his temples, lines creased his brow, and he looked even more drawn and miserable than he always had at home.
In this? In a moment when even his furry brothers were relaxed?
“Gabriel?”
He paused in his slow walk until I was beside him.
“How’s your leg? You’ll need a doctor.”
Moonlight Magic Page 18