Hounding The Moon: A Tess Noncoire Adventure

by P. R. Frost

  “No food this trip, Scrap. I’ll get you beer and OJ as soon as I can. Hang on, we’ve got to get out of here. And you didn’t really shift into a weapon. A soup ladle, for Goddess’ sake!” I spotted a uniformed cop prowling around the parked cars, looking into each one, occupied or not.

  I shifted into gear and peeled out.

  Turn right, right, right, right here! Scrap screeched loud enough to slice an eardrum.

  “That’s away from town,” I objected and kept on driving straight. No left turn presented itself behind the Safeway, only the high school athletic field where a Med-Evac helicopter descended in a typhoon of dust.

  Trust me, Tess. Turn right at the next intersection. Scrap shifted his black cherry cheroot from one side of his mouth to the other. Fortunately he hadn’t lit it.

  “Why should I trust you?” I stopped at the big red sign that said I must.

  A black-and-white police car turned onto my street.

  Without waiting for an answer from Scrap, I yanked the wheel right and stepped on the gas. At the next street, a broad one, but free of traffic, I turned left. I didn’t see the police car in my rearview mirror.

  Good move, dahling. Now just follow this road for six point five miles. Scrap jumped down onto the passenger seat and pulled a map out of nowhere. He could do that when he wanted to be helpful and not just a pain in the ass.

  “Six point five miles! How far out of our way is this?”

  I knew Dill’s hometown was removed from the city.

  How far removed I had not realized until I needed to be back in Portland in a hurry.

  The road twisted and burst into a straight stretch. It hung on the edge of a bluff. Off to my right stood Mount Hood in all its towering splendor. The grand old man of the Cascade Mountains was a little bare of snow in mid-September, but still sported a few glaciers to take my breath away. At the bottom of the bluff spilled a long river valley full of green. Green trees, green meadows, green crops.

  I wanted to linger and stare in awe at the wonder of it all. Words began to form in my head. I had to describe this scene, use it somehow. Where? Where in my book could I plant this landscape?

  Wake up, Tessie, and drive. Dirty rotten copper on our tail. He doesn’t like the way you weave across lanes while you gawk. Scrap bit down on his cigar. Then he reached for my coffee cup.

  “Paws off my coffee!” I screeched. But I kept both hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road. “There’s a ton of heavy cream in it and you are lactose intolerant, Scrap.”

  Not even any good mold in it yet. I hate book tours.

  You never stay in one place long enough for mold to grow, and I have to pick up after you before the hotel maids come to clean. Scrap turned bright red. Steam blew out his ears.

  “Stop sulking, Imp, and prove your worth. I need clothes, something respectable. I need my professional face and persona.”

  One best-selling fantasy author coming up. Scrap faded to passionate pink. He had a job to do, he could stop thinking about his malfunctioning digestive system and perform fashion miracles.

  The obnoxious scrap of an imp would rather play dress up with me than fight demons any day.

  So would I.

  Whoopee! Time to play.

  A quick slide through the car’s air conditioner for another restorative bite of mold and off I go. Rapid transit for imps requires popping into the chat room, the entryway to all the portals to all the dimensions. Imps can go anywhere from the chat room. Other beings are usually limited to one or two dimensions.

  Humans even fewer, unless they are unusually persistent—for that, read stupid.

  Time is just another dimension, if you know how to use it.

  So I decided to take a moment for a quick visit to Mum. Just to see how she was doing. I hadn’t been home in a while—like since she threw me out. Maybe she’d finally accept my diminutive stature now that I’d melded with a warrior companion.

  After all, being small made me low maintenance compared to my siblings.

  “Hi, Mum, what’s you up to?” I asked as I dropped in from nowhere. Nowhere being the portal.

  “Out, out, out.” She swished her broom at me. “I banished you yesterday and here you are back again.”

  Crap. There’s that time thingy again. I’d been gone nearly three years human time, barely a day by Mum’s. I’d had time to grow one whole wart on my bum, but she didn’t bother noticing the beauty mark.

  “But, Mum, I’ve m…”

  She swung the broom again.

  “The least you could do is sweep up some of the dirt with that thing!” I dove beneath a pile of interdimensional garbage. I skidded, scraping my nicely rounded belly on some flash-frozen watermelon rind. Good thing my wings are dwarfed, other wise they might have snapped off when I bumped against a cast-off 286 cpu. Goddess, there were a ton of those—literally—in our backyard alone.

  Someone tossed the cpu aside. I rolled, expecting a swat from Mum’s broom, but it was just a gamer treasure hunting.

  Did I tell you that to get out of the chat room through a portal humans have to be incredibly persistent? That’s gamers for you.

  I came up short with my nose on top of a pretty hair comb with only one broken metal tooth. The curved back of it was decorated with all kinds of semiprecious stones and filigree gold knotwork.

  “Oooooh, Tess will love this!” I snatched it up, broke off a bit that might look like a stylized bat, and flitted back through the portal to her hotel room where I snagged some clothes and other niceties. The magic glamour of the comb shone like a pulsar in my dimension; in the mortal realm it faded to a soft patina of antiquity.

  Chapter 3

  Fruit bats have been known to cut and shape leaves into tents for roosting.

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER Scrap popped back onto the passenger seat carrying my favorite tote bag. A friend had machine embroidered the fabric with magicians and dragons and castles.

  “Did you remember my bookmarks and autograph copy stickers? What about my favorite pen?”

  Better than that, babe. Scrap glowed green with pride.

  I brought a wet washrag, lightly soaped, and moist towelettes.

  And perfume. I’ll have you smelling like a rose in no time.

  “Can you do something with the dog bite first? It burns. I’m afraid of infection.”

  Ooooh, that is a nasty one. Nothing like imp spit to fix you up.

  “Scrap, no!”

  He went ahead and licked the wound anyway. I had visions of all kinds of otherworldly bacteria having a feast on my flesh. The wound cooled instantly. Then he wiped it with the soapy washrag.

  Don’t even need a bandage now.

  “Uh, Scrap, what did you do?” I twisted my arm, trying to look while keeping both hands on the wheel.

  No need to bother looking. Imp spit is a natural antibiotic to our warriors. To anyone else, though, it’s a lethal toxin. He giggled wickedly.

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  Then he began scrubbing the tension out of my neck with his washrag. I sighed in relief. Just that little bit of moisture and coolness made me a lot less anxious.

  The road stopped winding and widened as we neared civilization. I’d seen enough nurseries and Christmas tree farms to last me the year. A gas station, a lumberyard, and a feed store looked positively civilized.

  “Time?” I asked. The digital clock in the rental was positioned wrong for the angle of sunlight coming in through the windshield.

  We’ve got forty-five minutes, Scrap replied, moving the washcloth down my arms.

  I lifted my elbow so he could reach the pit.

  “Time enough to get to Simpson’s, not enough time to change clothes,” I grumbled despite the relief of the impromptu bath.

  Trust me, dahling. I brought clothes.

  Strangely, I did trust the imp. When it came to clothes and makeup, he had better sense than I did.

  We came to a red light beside a tractor dealership. I stared i
n awe at the size of the farm implements. The wheels were taller than I. More fodder for my fertile imagination.

  A scene began to form in my mind.

  Half a mile down the road, with the entrance to Highway 26 in sight, Scrap gave me new directions. Take a right here, he said from somewhere around my left foot.

  He’d slipped off one of my pink tennies and bathed my bare foot.

  I sighed in near bliss and turned away from the road I knew would take me to the freeway.

  Next thing I knew Scrap had slipped a high-heeled, white sandal onto my left foot. He was working on untying my right shoe. At the next stoplight, three miles downhill and approaching a community college, I braked with my left foot and he worked on my right. By the time we reached the freeway at the base of the hill, I had proper shoes on clean feet.

  “What about the rest of me?” I rummaged with one hand in the tote bag.

  Scrap slapped my wrist. I felt only a swish of air.

  Two hands on the wheel, babe. I don’t fancy having to transport you into another dimension to free you from a car wreck.

  The miracle of freeway speeds brought me through the junction with I 5 and up to the City Center exit faster than I thought. I even had enough time to throw on the denim wraparound skirt and a white blouse with blue and lavender sprigs—the long sleeves covered the still angry-red dog bite on my arm. Instant color coordination with the tank top. I threw the pink belt pouch into the tote, refreshed my lipstick, layered new makeup on the scar—the stranger had seen it, maybe someone else would, too, and ask questions.

  “I’m as ready as I can get, given the circumstances.”

  A surge of delightful adrenaline sprang through me, lightening my step. I supposed I should get used to battling demons and rescuing damsels in distress in my spare time.

  What spare time?

  Your hair, sweetums! Scrap called from inside the tote. He handed me a wide decorative comb. Your dishwater-blond curls are a tangled mess.

  “Dill used to say I had sandy-blond hair. This is new. Where’d it come from?”

  Don’t ask.

  “Ill-gotten gains?” I hesitated. Even after two years together I had no idea if Scrap considered theft illegal or immoral. The comb looked expensive. Very expensive, and although lovely, not something I would indulge in for myself.

  Trust me, dahling, the comb is legally and morally yours.

  “But my hair is so short, I’m not sure it will hold the comb.” If I didn’t keep my hair cropped short, the curls became so tight the only way I could comb or brush them was if they were soaking wet. But I’d been on tour and attending science fiction conventions for close to three months with few breaks, while promoting the new book. No time for a haircut.

  Would you rather I turned myself into a hat for you?

  I winced at the thought. I didn’t need the imp wrapped around my head all day. I was close enough to a headache without him.

  I scooped the mass of curls into a twist and anchored as much of it as possible with the comb. As I walked the two blocks to Simpson’s—a former warehouse turned into the biggest bookstore on the West Coast—I grabbed my cell phone out of the pouch. Two buttons connected me with Sylvia Watson, my agent. Miracle of all miracles, she answered the phone.

  “Tess Noncoiré, where are you? Simpson’s expected you half an hour ago,” she barked into the phone.

  “They can expect me forty-five minutes prior, but I don’t have to show up until the scheduled time,” I barked back. Then I relented “I’m sorry. I did some sightseeing and ran into a monster of a traffic jam. Listen, Syl, I don’t have a lot of time and I have an important job for you.”

  “It’s Saturday, my day off.”

  “You are in the office. You answered your business line, not your private one. Just listen and do. Please. This is important. I need you to find me the best lawyer my money can buy.” My heart beat faster and my concentration narrowed on the cell phone, just like I did before a fight. This was right. I lost all hesitancy.

  “What kind of trouble are you in, Tess?” She sounded instantly alert. I could almost see her flicking through the pages of her computerized address book.

  “Not me, Syl. There’s a little girl, Native American, twelve or thirteen, Colville tribe, Cynthia Stalking Moon. She’s been in foster care in Alder Hill, Oregon. About now, she’s being admitted to the nearest hospital. Probably in Gresham. Dog attack. She wants to go back to her tribe, but officious officials won’t let her because the reservation is in a different state. I agree with the girl; she should go home to her people.”

  My arm began to shake while holding the phone. That dog bite had affected me worse than I thought.

  How was I supposed to sign dozens of books with this injury?

  “Uh, Tess, this doesn’t sound like something you want to get involved in.”

  “I promised, Syl. It’s important. Trust me, please.” I owed the girl.

  “Are you sure, kiddo? You haven’t allowed yourself to care about anyone since… well, since Dillwyn died. If you don’t care about them, they can’t hurt you when they leave. Why this child? Why now?”

  “Because she gave me a flower to put on Dill’s grave.”

  Sylvia was silent a moment. “Okay. Good publicity for you, championing the cause of an underdog.”

  I winced at the canine reference. “Sic the press on the case, but keep my name out of it. I don’t want anyone to know I was in Alder Hill this morning.”

  She tried to talk me into a press conference.

  “No. Just let me know the moment Cynthia is safe in the hands of either her tribe or a relative. And I mean safe.”

  We made small talk. I disconnected as I approached the bookstore.

  I swept into the nirvana of Simpson’s. Four stories of books, books, and more books. And today, a couple hundred copies had been written by me. I pushed aside my morning adventures and settled in to the fun part of my job. I forgot the burning ache in my arm.

  Mold! Scrap crowed. He popped out of my tote and disappeared into whatever part of the old building was the dampest. He’d feast, hopefully on something that had nothing to do with milk, and leave me alone for a while.

  The staff treated me like royalty. Before I could hint at the need for the restroom, they directed me. Mostly I needed to check myself in the mirror. Wow, the comb worked wonders on my frizzy mop, even if it did leave a few tendrils dangling.

  When I returned to the reading/signing/lounge area, the staff had a large double latte, two sugars, waiting. I’d move to the Pacific Northwest just for their coffee, but home was elsewhere. The coffee hadn’t been enough to keep Dill here. I sipped at the nectar of life and took my seat behind a fortress of books. The line of readers waiting for my signature stretched through two departments.

  I smiled and poised my pen to sign the first book.

  For two hours I talked to the people who made my job worthwhile. I answered the same questions over and over again.

  “Where did you get the idea for the warrior Sisterhood serving a Goddess manifested in the stars?”

  I directed them to the cover artist for my book and a painting he’d done years ago. Each time I answered this question I caressed the cover art.

  I traced the curve of a crescent moon that defined Kynthia’s cheek much as I had traced the lettering on Dill’s tombstone. The slash of light reminded me of the hidden scar on my own cheek. Clusters of stars revealed the Goddess’ eyes and mouth, smiling in gentle beneficence.

  The Milky Way streamed away from her face like hair blowing in a celestial wind.

  As I looked at the cover I realized that the Indian girl Cynthia’s face was a younger, reversed image of the Goddess. Dark hair and eyes in opposition to Kynthia’s star-bright features. Cynthia’s coppery skin was alight and alive; the Goddess’ face was defined by night and darkness.

  “Is there really an order of Sisters who battle demons?”

  Usually asked by an adolescent girl or an aw
kward teenage boy in serious lust.

  “The book takes place in the far future, after a devastating apocalypse. It’s fiction,” I replied. Sometimes I added, “Why don’t you start your own order?”

  No way could I tell the truth.

  “How do I get my book published?”

  I hated that one.

  “When is the next book coming out?”

  When I have the time to finish the damn thing. But I couldn’t say that in public, so I smiled and told everyone it was scheduled for June of next year. Actually, book two was done, awaiting revisions from my editor. Book three was barely more than outline, but the publisher wanted book three done before releasing number two.

  “I have some of your earlier, out-of-print works. Will you sign those, too?”

  I loved that person.

  Questions about where I had been for the last two and a half years, since my last book hit the stands, I avoided completely.

  Scrap came back once to check on me. He bored easily and returned to his orgy of mold in a subbasement near the river that had been neglected for years. I worried then that the damp could not be good for the books, the treasure trove of Simpson’s. An employee pointed out a state-of-the-art heat pump and dehumidifying system. I sighed in relief.

  At long last the line of people waiting for me to autograph their copies dwindled to a trickle and finally stopped.

  I was free to wander through the temple of books. By this time the comb was beginning to pull and strain my scalp, so I released my hair and dropped the lovely piece into the tote.

  First stop, the rare book room, properly escorted by two employees. One of them screamed “Security” in his posture, attitude, and super-short haircut. I’d be willing to bet my next advance that he was a former Marine.

  First editions and one-of-a-kind antiques did not cover the subjects that interested me. I left the Holy of Holies with a smile to the clerk and the guard, breathing a little easier in the less rarefied air of the main store.

  My feet took me to the myth and folklore section.

  Simpson’s had a wonderful collection of used books stacked cheek by jowl with newer works.