by J. A. Pitts
I didn’t look over, but I heard his chair scraping across the floor.
“She named me her Fist,” I went on. “We met with that dragon from Portland, Frederick Sawyer.” I caught a glimpse of Jimmy in the window, vague and distorted. He stood by Katie’s bed, his shoulders hunched and his hands in fists.
“There’s more going on than we’re aware of,” I continued. “It was me, Nidhogg, her witch, Qindra, whom you’ve met.”
He nodded without thinking.
“Also Frederick Sawyer, the dragon guy, and his assistant, Mr. Philips.”
“That was the guy the blood cult snatched as bait, right? Guy they dangled from the side of the mountain to draw Sawyer out.”
“Yeah.”
I could hear him breathing, trying to calm down. He thought I should’ve killed Sawyer that night, killed Nidhogg. Or given it my best shot. We’d argued about it later.
“They aren’t the only dragons,” I said. “There are more like Jean-Paul out there. Dragons that seek carnage and battle. Those that want to make open warfare on the dragon council and break the Veil. Rebels and anarchists who want to shatter the world order and send us all down into chaos.”
I turned, looking at him. His eyes were wide.
“There’s a war coming,” I said. “They haven’t said it outright, but I can feel it, Jim. All this activity, all these players coming out of the woodwork.”
I stepped over to Katie and brushed my hand across her cheek. “In the meantime, she’s lost. Her spirit is somewhere in the Sideways and I can’t find her.”
He sat in the seat I’d been in earlier and put his face in his hands. “I can’t lose her, Sarah. I’ve already lost our parents. And Deidre’s paralyzed. And Maggie and Susan, all the others …”
I could hear the anguish in his voice. The strain of trying so damn hard to keep things together.
“And we don’t have much magic,” he continued, looking up, his face red and his eyes shining. “Trinkets and a few weapons. Trifles.” He paused. “If Nidhogg named you her Fist and she tells you to come after us, what then?”
I shook my head. “No deal. I told them you were clan, you were family. You, the Flight Test crew, Julie, Mary, Edith … my family. All safe, all have my protection.”
He looked at me, his fear and anger warring with one another.
“We’ll never be safe, Jim. But we’ll have powerful allies.”
“I don’t know,” he said. He stood, squeezed Katie’s shoulder and walked to the door. “Do you trust them, Sarah? Honestly?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I do. I trust Qindra, and I think Nidhogg is scared. She keeps talking about the wheel being broken. Remember, I told you when I first met her. She thinks it’s her fault, for leading the rebellion against Odin and his lot. She thinks she broke the wheel and that’s why the world is going to shit.”
“And you want me to ally with her?”
“No, I want you to trust me. I’m taking that responsibility. I just want your support. I want your guidance and your advice. You’re my Seneschal, Jimmy. I need you. Katie needs you. Our daughter needs you.”
He drew a deep shuddering breath, cricked his head to the side, popping his neck. “You love my sister,” he said finally. “You came back for her, you protect her. That makes you family.”
He stepped forward and held out his hand. I grabbed his forearm, a warrior’s grip.
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, eh, Beauhall?”
I squeezed his arm and shook.
“You never know,” I said. “The players are shifting. I think we need to be damn careful with the Mordred crew. Shall I ask Qindra about them?”
He stepped back, his face lost in thought. “Don’t give anything away, but dig around. We’ll set up a meeting with them.”
I remembered the business card from Katie’s pencil jar at school. “I think Katie met with Charlie Hague sometime before she collapsed,” I said, thinking back.
“Definitely want to talk to them personally,” he said. He was pulling himself back together. I knew he wasn’t happy, but he was going to cope.
“Very soon,” he continued, turning back into the hallway. “I’ll keep you up to speed.”
I sat back down beside Katie and picked up my knitting. Jimmy was golden as far as I was concerned, but we were all dancing in the shadows. I hated not knowing, and so did he. Two peas in a pod. Made me grin. I sat there for a couple more minutes, but my mind was racing and I was restless. I dropped my knitting in the basket, kissed Katie on the cheek, and went out to the front of the house. I called Jimmy back in from the deck where he was watching the kids run around like wild things.
“Need to get the girl back in time for dinner,” I said when he looked back at me. “You know how important schedules are to a little one.”
He made a face, but nodded. At least he didn’t try to talk us into staying again. I called to Jai Li, let her dash in and grab her cross-stitch and kiss Katie goodbye. She returned with my knitting as well. Guess I could work on it back at Circle Q or something. Then we piled into the truck. She waved at the twins and Bub. They all three chased the truck to the end of the and jumped up and down, waving as we pulled out onto the main road.
I noticed that none of them went past the fence. Maybe they were aware of the protections on the farm. Maybe they felt them in some way. Or maybe they’d been forbidden by the adults to go past a certain marker and they were just good kids.
Nancy wasn’t too far behind the twins, so I knew they wouldn’t run out into the road. Not that it got much traffic this far into Black Briar territory. There were bonuses to being at the end of a road and shoved up against federal lands. Allowed for some decent isolation.
As I drove through Gold Bar I thought about our allies. Who did we really have besides Black Briar? Who could we really trust? Maybe Mordred were bad guys. Didn’t make Charlie one. He just may be a patsy. I’d keep an eye out for him.
In the meantime, I needed to talk with Qindra. Time to get some more information on exactly what the hell was going on.
Twenty-eight
After we got back to Circle Q I let Mary take Jai Li out to brush down a couple of the horses and went into the room we’d been staying in and unpacked my knitting. I’d been thinking on the way back to the farm, and I decided I needed to do something better with the diary than to leave it in the back of the closet.
I had the diary wrapped in one of my old scarves, so it was pretty camouflaged, but I was feeling like I needed something more. Jai Li didn’t usually nose around in other people’s things, but I suddenly felt like I’d been lax in that department. Someone could’ve been killed.
I went into the kitchen, dug around until I found a good-sized Tupperware container and took it back to the room. I put the scarf wrapped diary in it and put the whole thing in the top of the closet, all the way in the back. I left it there about three and a half minutes before I pulled it out again, raided the kitchen a second time, and ended up wrapping the book in aluminum foil—careful to only touch it with the scarf, then rewrapped the scarf, and shoved it back into the Tupperware. I figured all those crazies who wore tinfoil hats to protect their brainwaves may have had something going for them. I had no idea how magic actually worked.
I was watching the box, waiting for something to happen, some stray magical beam or something to erupt after all the handling. I hadn’t felt anything, but you couldn’t be too sure. I’d have preferred a lead-lined box; I just didn’t know where to get one. But I could do something else. Back when Mary’s favorite horse, Blue Thunder, had been ritually murdered out in the main barn, Katie had the idea to burn lavender and sage to clear the last vestiges of magical taint. Purify the area. The next time I went out, I’d pick up some of both and add those inside the box. May help to pick up stray bits of magic that could leak out. It was a good idea. Not that we had any way of telling what exactly was going on with the book. I, for one, was in no mood to explore things further.
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I felt kinda bad for not telling Jimmy I had the diary. That was on Katie to confess when she pulled through this mess. Right now I wasn’t pushing the subject. Not like we could sneak it back in and pretend nothing happened. This was big shit. And the worse part, I was pretty sure it contributed to JJ dying.
What did I do with that? Sorry, mister and missus Montgomery, your son was killed by the side effects of my girlfriend’s magic diary? It was just fucked up.
I spent a few days puttering around with Julie, hitting a few small farms, and working a ton at Circle Q. We repaired about a million miles of fencing in the back of the farm and did some work on the acreage that Mary was going to lease to Lester Boudreaux and his boys. Mainly marking off where a new fence was going in, then spending two days digging holes. With Mary and Julie helping, we had a whole new section of fence up in just a few days. It was hard work, left me sore and bone tired, but it was a good sore.
Finally, I decided I’d had enough of being a homebody. The conversation I’d had with Bub was weighing on my mind, so I decided to go back out to Black Briar, without Jai Li, and give the poor guy some TLC.
After dinner I dug through a stack of papers I’d been meaning to do something with and found the designs Bub and I had drawn up—schematics for adding a set of clips onto the Ducati so I could attach Gram’s sheath to the bike. Then maybe I’d take him out for a ride. Depending on his fear factor. Never knew what was going to upset him.
I made a few calls, making sure Gunther and Anezka were going to be out at Black Briar on Saturday, then arranged for a pickup from Skella. That way I could ride the bike back to Circle Q later.
I showed Julie our designs once we got Jai Li into bed. I let her laugh at first, then listened as she had some good ideas on placement of the connection points for the sheath clips and a better angle to avoid interfering with a passenger. The Ducati was not the best bike for carrying a passenger, so I really didn’t want to have something that would interfere with the foot pegs in the back.
There was a certain joy in designing. It tickled the runes on my scalp and made me feel smarter. I had lots of ideas I needed to get around to working. When I built the gate to put into Nidhogg’s place I learned a ton about engineering, physics, weight distribution, and overall aesthetics. I needed to do more of that.
I needed to prove that I was more than a grunt hammer swinger. I had a degree, for goodness sake. Okay, it was in English Literature, but I knew about learning. And I was a Maker. I had to explore more of that side of me. Maybe all this magic had some positive things about it—contrary to the evidence so far.
I was really looking forward to trying my hand at something new and creative. I wanted to show Katie something when she finally woke up. Something she’d be proud of.
Twenty-nine
Gunther and Anezka were already at Black Briar when I arrived bright and early Saturday morning. Gunther hugged me, and Anezka nodded at me from beside one of the workbenches. She’d been banging on a long, curved piece of steel when I popped in, and she wasn’t in the mood to stop what she was doing just to hug me. She was like that.
She was mostly not crazy anymore, or so Gunther told us. I guess I should trust him on that, but I had some pretty scary memories of her losing her shit out in Chumstick. Deep breathing and patience were definitely needed when dealing with her.
I called Bub over, showed him the mods Julie and I had made to our original sketches.
“See where she shifted the second weld down several inches so it could run along the bottom of the support beam instead of the top. Gives us a few more centimeters of length and moves it out of the way of the passenger.”
He picked his teeth with one claw, studying the drawings.
“These look good,” he said. “Maybe we can work on your making skills as well, distort reality a small bit. What do you think?”
I felt the amulet flare against my chest. Three hot pulses as he watched me. I pulled the amulet out, watched as it strobed a couple more time and watched him. I thought he was causing it. “Was that you?” I asked.
He nodded. “I can nudge you in certain directions,” he said. “Nothing too blatant, but enough to keep you on the right path.”
“Bloody nuisance if you ask me,” Anezka said, putting down her hammer and stepping over. “Never really found it helped me much.” She stopped next to Gunther and snaked her arm around his waist. “But you may have different results.”
Gunther put his arm over her shoulder and squeezed. “It’s Sarah’s now, right?”
Anezka shrugged and pulled away. “Barely feel it anymore,” she said. “Bub is hers now. No regrets.” She stepped toward me and held out her hand. I shook it, and she went back to Gunther and sat on the workbench beside where he stood. He was tall, very Viking, and she was not so much.
“We have something for you,” Gunther added. “You want it now, or after?”
Anezka was smirking, and Bub shrugged.
“Now is good. I like surprises.”
Honestly I dreaded surprises. Lately they’ve involved crazy psycho killers or giant raging dragons.
Gunther handed me a nice set of saddlebags to replace the ones that had gotten wrecked in the battle with the necromancer, the dragon, and all those walking dead.
“It was a miracle the Ducati didn’t suffer much more than scratches, though the paint job on the tank was pretty trashed.”
“Bike survived,” I said. “With all the death and destruction, I’m thankful for whatever I have.”
The saddlebags were nicely tooled leather with a pair of crossed hammers in the center, an image of Gram level across the top of them and a set of runes along the bottom. The runes matched the ones on my calf.
“Nice work,” I said, impressed. “Real quality there.”
Gunther shrugged. “Anezka did the design, and I know a guy.”
I hugged him, then hugged Anezka. She was stiff at first, but loosened up into the embrace. It was nice. She smelled like the forge to me. Not quite like Rolph, but similar. More earthy, somehow. With an undertone of hops. Of course, maybe she’d just been drinking.
Inside the saddlebags was a first aid kit, flashlight, water, protein bars, and my two battle hammers. “Very nice,” I said, pulling out one of the hammers. They felt so light in my hand, fit right in my palm like they were made for me.
“They’re not normal,” Anezka said.
“No,” Bub agreed from beside the drafting table. “They have taken on some of the properties of their defeated foes.”
I had noticed that the last time I used them. They felt different, more attuned to me.
Gunther and Anezka both looked at my designs for how we’d mount the clips before we got started. They agreed with the changes Julie had suggested, so while I got my supplies ready, wheeled out the oxygen tank to prep the kit, Gunther went back to the shed where we’d stored the Ducati and pulled it around.
All three of them were staring at me as I worked, almost annoyed. I didn’t let them get to me. I know I took my time setting up my workspace, but I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. I grabbed gloves, a throat-to-knee apron, and my welding mask. I had everything I needed, the clamps I’d be attaching, the cleaning solution to prep the surface, and a fire extinguisher handy just in case.
I clapped my hands and rubbed them together. “Let’s melt some steel.”
I turned around and froze.
They’d had the bike repainted. The chrome had been repaired and the normal red and white of the original design had been replaced.
The tank had been painted with a battle scene, the top was a giant white dragon, with her wings flowing down the sides of the tank, her head toward the front forks. It was beautiful.
“What the hell?” I started, and Gunther laughed.
“About time you noticed,” Anezka groused. “You are the pokiest damn apprentice I’ve ever had.”
Bub chortled and walked around the bike. “Notice they replaced the da
maged foot pegs from where the bike had skidded on the road the night of the battle.”
I walked around, looking where he pointed. The pegs looked like thick-headed hammers, like the ones I used in battle. The exhaust had been replaced by a slightly larger bore pipe that flared out at the bottom, ending in the roaring mouths of dragons. The front skirting was painted differently on each side. The left showed a blacksmith, probably supposed to be me, standing in front of an anvil with her back to the viewer, hitting a glowing sword with a hammer.
The right side of the skirting showed a winged horse flying towards the mountains just starting to lighten with the dawn.
“Holy shit,” I said, making the full circuit and leaning back against the central anvil. “That is some serious custom work. How much does something like that cost?”
Bub coughed and Anezka frowned.
“Poor form,” she said, grumpily.
But Gunther laughed. “Bartered for it,” he said. “Parted with a vintage seven-inch vinyl of the Sex Pistols, ‘God Save the Queen’.”
Anezka harrumphed. Gunther ran a jazz record store and collected some real esoteric shit. “God Save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols. That was worth more than my bike, I was pretty sure.
“It wasn’t in the best shape,” he said, smiling. “Someone had written on the label. Shame really.”
“So, this is a big deal,” Anezka said. “We’ll leave you and Bub to adding your little addition, but do not fuck up the paint job.”
She turned and walked out of the shop.
Gunther shrugged and followed her.
I turned to Bub and looked at him. “You knew about this?”
“Yeah,” he said, grinning his toothy grin. “We’ll be extra careful, and maybe do something really fancy while we’re working. Maybe bleed the paint job up over the clamps to hide the welds. Wanna try it?”
“Hell, I’m half afraid now.”
He chuckled and went over to stand near the welding gear, within easy influence range but not between the equipment and the bike.
I took an abrasive and scored the area where I’d be adding the clamps. The support I’d be adding them to was not part of the major paint job, but they were colored to blend in with the general theme.