Just One Bite Volume 3

by Rachel Carrington, Daryn Cross

  She gazed down at her keys, clinking one against another. “I don’t understand. If you want to see me, then why--” She lifted her head and stopped.

  He was gone.

  * * *

  Weeks passed. Devin Ferris didn’t drop by. Her best friend phoned; so did her parents. Callie tinkered with her fall lesson plans. Nothing chased away her haunted thoughts of Devin, and who (or what) he was.

  Authorities seek help in locating missing man, said an article from the local paper’s online archive. Anyone who had seen college biology researcher Devin Ferris, 29, was asked to come forward.

  That article was dated twelve years ago. Maybe he’d died, and she’d kissed a ghost? But he’d seemed ordinary and tangible, as did his handkerchief. She had washed it, and often carried it in her pocket, frequently examining it as if it might perform a supernatural trick.

  What about that creepy couple who knew his name? They likely knew how to find him. But what were they?

  She tried to return to the hill. Though she often saw it behind one house or another, she could never reach it. The street veered the wrong direction, or fences stood in her way. She couldn’t find the path Devin showed her, despite being almost certain it was on Elm Place. His word for solving the “maze” escaped her--something like she, but spelled differently? Did it matter?

  A month after Midsummer, her ex phoned. “This is tacky, but I was thinking if we returned your engagement ring, and split the money...well, we could both use it, right?”

  Loathing iced her stomach. “I’ll bring it over tonight,” she said. “You can do it.”

  But, in no rush to see him with his newly glowing girlfriend, she found herself stopping first at the library. A book to escape in, anything...

  And there, in the fantasy section, a word on a title jolted her to attention. Sidhe. At last!

  She rushed to an Internet terminal and typed it in. Half an hour later, as the sun sank, she printed out a page, heart galloping, and ran for her car.

  “The Gaelic word ‘Sidhe’ refers not only to the faerie folk but to the hills where they dwell. The hills may be visible to humans, but often can only be reached via a magic path or password. The fair folk sometimes invite humans in, but the visit usually ends up a long imprisonment.”

  She parked her car along Sequoia, and jogged uphill in the warm evening air.

  “The unhappy mortal, suspended in time, may be allowed to wander among his own people, especially on magically potent days such as Midsummer or Samhain, but is under a spell rendering him unable to explain his predicament, and must always return to the fey dwelling.”

  Poor Devin. Drawn in by a beautiful, unearthly woman, possibly the one with the antlers--would she fight Callie for him? Callie doubted she’d win such a battle. She nonetheless picked up her pace, turning from Ivy onto Daffodil.

  “To rescue such people one must enter the Sidhe realm and demand the return of the prisoner. An item belonging to the prisoner must be presented, and a valuable gift offered in exchange. Livestock, precious jewels, or musical instruments are all traditional.”

  Handkerchief belonging to prisoner: check. Livestock or musical instruments, no, but Callie hoped her gift would be acceptable. After all...

  ”Gifts of inadequate value are often spurned, and with violence; but gifts of quality should appease the Sidhe.”

  Heather Drive gave way to Elm. Panting, Callie stopped beneath the same small tree Devin had, and looked ahead. There stood the fences, but with no path between them; they touched at the shoulders with barely an inch to spare. The enchanted hill peeked over the rooftops as if laughing at her, now adorned with purple vetch among its daisies.

  In frustration, she stomped on a fallen stick, snapping it.

  Remember what I showed you.

  With a sudden insight, she knelt, grabbed a fragment of stick, and inscribed SIDHE in the dust. She spoke the word aloud, and lifted her head.

  An evening planet sparkled over the hill. The path lay clear and plain, leading straight forward.

  Callie walked the magic lane, and stopped at the mound’s base. Holding out the handkerchief, she called, “I demand the return of Devin Ferris.”

  The sky darkened, faster than possible. The stars wheeled and the moon slid upward, then stopped. Standing in noticeably cooler air beneath the sudden midnight, Callie watched in panic as half a hundred figures crept closer, surrounding her until they were almost at arm’s reach. Wings, antlers, fangs, and claws marred the graceful bodies. Sounds resembling snakes rattling and knives being sharpened mingled with their snickers.

  Maybe I’ll be taken prisoner too, she thought. Then at least I’d be with him.

  “Your gift?” purred a voice. Turning toward it, Callie recognized the girl with the antlers.

  Callie slipped the diamond engagement ring from her pocket and tossed it to her.

  She caught it, and several of the others converged upon her to examine it, like seagulls vying for the same cracker.

  With nary a word spoken, the eerie folk scattered into the shadows. Callie stood, heart drumming. She jumped and spun about each time the wind brushed grass against her knees.

  Then a head peeked over the hill, followed by shoulders in a white shirt. Devin strolled into view, one hand loose, the other lifting the handkerchief like a flag of victory.

  Callie ran to him. He caught her in an embrace at the foot of the hill.

  “You worked it out,” he murmured, “you darling, darling girl.”

  Hand in hand, they sprinted down the path and back into the human neighborhood.

  Something Fishy

  by Angela Spencer

  I’ve run into ex-boyfriends in the most unlikely of places, but finding Ezra Marsh wet and shirtless at the end of a dock was the strangest. This was the last place my clients’ daughter had been seen, which was an unfortunate coincidence. But it didn’t top the fact that Ezra was dead. I attended his funeral fifteen years earlier and cried for weeks. Yet, here he stood hunched over and staring wide-eyed at me. His expression reminded me of the last time I caught my cat pissing on my bed.

  “Teresa?” he said. So much for mistaken identity. He looked thinner than I remembered. Less baby fat, more muscle. He’d aged well. Fifteen years and several forgettable boyfriends disappeared in that moment. I was seventeen and in love. I fought down the feeling.

  “It was a lovely funeral,” I said. “Were you even in the coffin?”

  Instead of responding, he pulled on his shirt. In the dim light his dark brown hair and eyes both looked black. When he raised his arms I could make out faint scars on his chest, three parallel lines on each side.

  “Fine! Ignore being dead. What brings you to the city of Crynoch?”

  “I live here,” he said, and picked up his shoes. “You? Last I heard you lived in Seattle. Teresa Martin, private eye.”

  “You know where I live?” I said. Hysteria twisted to outrage. “You know where I live, and you never bothered to find me?!”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “That’s between me and my client. But now that you mention it, you don’t know anything about the girls going missing around here, do you?”

  “The college students?” he asked. His gaze flickered down and to the left. I’d learned in high school that it meant he was about to lie. “No. Just what I read in the paper.”

  Bastard. How could he come back into my life just to be suspect number one?

  Ezra skirted around me. I tried to grab him but he wrenched out of my grip, stronger than he looked. I stepped back, giving him distance.

  “Happy hunting,” he called back.

  I watched him walk away, giving him a head start so he wouldn’t notice me following. He surprised me by walking into a house right near the marina, a large, crumbling old house that looked out over the harbor.

  I spent the evening watching as he wound down for the night. He turned lights on and off as he moved through the house. I sat in silence a
nd darkness for fifteen minutes after he turned off the last light before I called it a night.

  #

  The next morning I staked out his house. I tucked my hair up into an old Mariners hat, wore prop glasses and parked my car halfway down the street. In case of nosy neighbors, I sat in the passenger seat as though I was waiting for the driver to return.

  Ezra ambled out of his house and got into a white, mid-80s Toyota hatchback. Great for moving bodies. I cursed my fate again.

  I let him gain some distance before climbing over to the driver seat, starting my engine and following. It’s moments like this that make me wish I had another investigator working with me. It’s easier to follow someone unnoticed when you can coordinate with one another.

  His stops were innocuous: breakfast at a greasy spoon, the butcher shop, the bakery, the drug store. I noted the times and addresses of the stops in my notebook.

  The last stop he made was another bakery. Which seemed weird until he came out he had a large pink box in one hand, a cup holder with two cups of coffee in the other. He walked straight towards my car. I noticed what could have been a knife strapped to his leg. A glance in my purse confirmed that my pistol was there.

  I cranked down the window as he came up to my window.

  “How fast was I going officer?” I asked.

  He snorted a laugh. “Are you aware that stalking is a crime in the state of Washington?”

  I couldn’t decide if I should plead ignorance or point out that I’m a licensed and bonded investigator. But neither choice reached my mouth.

  “Look, I’ve got a box of the best doughnuts this side of the Olympic Mountains and one of these coffees has two creams and three sugars. Sweet and blonde, as you used to call it. I know that you’ve been watching me. I can either call the police or we can sit in your car and hash this out.”

  I stared daggers at him while he maintained his best attempt to look patient and innocent. Finally I said, “You’re an ass” just before reaching over and unlocking the passenger side door.

  He got in and offered me one of the coffees before taking his out and putting it in the cup holder. Then came the doughnuts and I wanted to hit him. A dozen doughnuts, two-thirds of which were my favorites: maple bars and raspberry-filled. The other four were clearly his: Two custard-filled and two glazed.

  God, he was laying it on thick.

  As I grabbed a maple bar, he asked, “Investigating the missing college girls, huh?”

  I mentally kicked myself for letting that one slip last night. “In an indirect sense,” I said around a mouthful of pastry.

  Having him in my car brought on a wave of nostalgia.

  “I could help. Friendly local guide and all.”

  “How do I know you’re not a suspect, dead man?”

  He smiled and shrugged helplessly, another habit of his that hadn’t changed since we dated. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to punch him or kiss him. “I’ve lived here for years. The disappearances are new. What, you want character references?”

  “Spend a lot of time thinking up that defense?”

  Another shrug and smile. I restrained the urge to throw my coffee at him. I’ve had other boyfriends since high school, but none stuck with me like Ezra had. I guess grieving his death made him stand out more. If we’d just broken up when we went to college he’d probably just be another asshole I wished I could forget.

  “Fine. Where do you propose I look?”

  “You’ve been checking out places where the girls were last seen, correct? So have I. And I think I’ve hit more of them than you. The only place I haven’t gone is the area around the warehouse where a girl disappeared from a rave.”

  “Wait, why have you even been looking into this?”

  “It’s what I do.”

  “What, like a job?”

  “Sort of. Less official, though.”

  I scowled. “Do you have a plan? Or are we going to just fumble around the neighborhood until we find a clue?”

  “When you put it that way it sounds lame. Like I said, I’m familiar with this city. I’m likely to notice something that stands out that you wouldn’t.”

  I frowned but started up the car before I changed my mind.

  #

  When Ezra called for a break, I nearly cheered. I leaned back against a corrugated metal wall, hoping to take some weight off of the heavy wads of pain my feet had become. The place smelled of stale urine. I could smell the river that ran just on the other side.

  We’d spent a couple hours walking up and down poorly paved streets and barely paved back alleys. All we had really found was the local collection of homeless people and drug dealers. Ezra even seemed to know some of them. This didn’t reassure me.

  I decided to ask the obvious question, hoping I’d catch another lie, “Are you responsible for the girls going missing?”

  Ezra had been staring off at nothing, taking deep breaths through his nose and turning his head to face different directions. My question startled him and he turned to face me.

  “No, I’m not.” Truth.

  “But you know what’s happening to them, right?”

  Down and to the left. I cut him off.

  “Don’t lie to me again.”

  His gaze snapped back up and made eye contact with me. I noticed that his irises did not just seem dark, but they were outright black.

  “I have a theory,” he said.

  “Care to share it?”

  “No.”

  Before I could speak he placed a finger on my lips to shush me. Had this been anyone else, I would have broken that finger, kneed him in the face and then kicked him when he was down. But this was the first time we’d actually touched, and the feel of his skin against mine brought up a wave of memories and emotion.

  He smelled almost the same, with a hint of sea salt mixed in. I wondered if that was a result of living next to the ocean.

  “I would tell you if I could,” he said softly, sliding his finger from my lips along my jaw line in a caress.

  “Is this some secret society Masonic bullshit?” I asked.

  “Something like that.” He started to pull his hand away but I grabbed it and held it close. I fought down the urge to kiss his hand.

  My next question was cut off by a crash inside the warehouse we were leaning against. The tender expression disappeared, and he looked cold and hard at the wall behind me.

  “I was right,” he said.

  “Right about what?”

  “This is the warehouse. Stay out here.”

  “What makes you think I’m going to just wait out here while you go play cowboy?”

  “You haven’t changed, have you?” he asked with a sigh. He reached down and pulled the knife from the sheath under his pant leg. It was a strange thing of wood and brass. The handle looked like an octopus. “Fine, come with me. I know you’ll just follow anyway. At least I’ll know where you are if I stop fighting now.”

  I scowled at him as he turned and walked to the nearest entrance. It was hell being known.

  He fished out a set of picks from his pocket and set to work on the door. While he did that I slipped my hand into my purse and grabbed hold of my pistol. After a few minutes he pulled the door open. The hinges screamed in rusty protest.

  A musty smell of stale water filled the inside of the warehouse, suggesting that part of this building opened onto the river. I could barely see in the dim light, while Ezra moved forward confidently and sniffed at the air. I did my best to stick close to him while placing my feet carefully. The boards felt rotten and my pride couldn’t handle falling through.

  As my eyes adjusted to the gloom I could make out some shapes. I saw oxygen tanks and wet suits hanging against one wall, some small off-board motors left in a heap farther down with the shattered remains of a boat next to them.

  A strange clicking, squeaking and groaning echoed through the metal and plywood walls. Ezra froze, placing a protective arm against me.

  “We can do t
his the hard way or the easy way,” he called out.

  I don’t know what tipped Ezra off, but one moment he was standing there staring into the dark and the next he was leaping backwards and scooping me up into his arms as though I was a rag doll. Something large hit the ground where we had just stood. Wood creaked and cracked in protest.

  “Hard way it is,” he said.

  In the almost darkness I could make out a hulking shape. It almost looked like someone crouched down, but no one could be that big. Ezra shoved away from the thing in the darkness before launching forward. He stabbed forward with his knife and the thing in the darkness lurched backward and screamed in pain.

  Enraged, the monster lumbered forward in a weird hopping crawl, trying to swat at Ezra. Ezra just darted out of reach, a flickering shadow of movement in the dark.

  The thing crashed through an outer wall as it tried to hit Ezra. The corrugated metal popped out of its rivets under the weight and fell into the water outside with a loud splash. Light streamed in and illuminated the creature.

  Crouched down it was over ten feet tall and may have been twice that at full height. It looked like a frog covered with fishy scales. Rows of gills ran along its ribs. Its mouth was filled with serrated teeth and it eyes were black on black. Black blood streamed from several wounds. While it stumbled back onto its feet, I heard Ezra mutter something and a nimbus of light formed around the creature. It bellowed in frustration.

  I brought the gun up and fired off three shots at the thing. The glow around it vanished and Ezra cursed. The monster didn’t react it pain, it just looked at me and started lumbering in my direction. The last dregs of volition I had were overwhelmed by terror.

  The creature was almost on top of me when Ezra intervened. Ezra clung to the creature’s shoulder and plunged his dagger into the monster’s thick neck. It shrieked, reached up and threw Ezra across the room. The knife clattered off into the darkness. Ezra hit the ground and tumbled away like a rag doll.

  I broke out of my paralysis and ran away while trying to figure out a plan. It was big and scary, but it was also pretty slow and I was able to out pace it. If I could out run it, it might just bleed to death. Yeah, right.