Smells Like Finn Spirit

by Randy Henderson

  “Far as I know,” Dawn said, “she didn’t have any real girlfriends most of the time you were in exile. At least not while she was in Port Townsend, or that she ever brought home.”

  I nodded, and squeezed Sammy’s free hand. “I’ll bet if you hadn’t found Fatima, that might have remained true. But I remember the first time I met her. It was Brian and Ernesto’s wedding, with that horrible DJ. You refused to dance, the way you do. But Fatima sat with you, wiggling in her chair to the music despite the awful songs, obviously wishing to get up. And finally, you somehow hacked into the sound system with your phone and played some song that made tears come to Fatima’s eyes, and you two danced. And not just danced, but she actually got you to take off your shoes and dance barefoot on the grass—that’s when I knew you must really love her.”

  I felt Sammy’s hand twitch in my own. Encouraged, I continued, “Fatima is the only person I know who can make you smile. You. Smile. Laugh, even. And she doesn’t do it with potions, or by beating up a lecherous unicorn, or offering you a new computer. She—”

  Sammy blinked, and her left hand moved within the Power Glove, her fingers making a series of motions like a ninja focusing her powers. On the laptop screen, several of the cage’s golden bars dissolved or drew apart, forming a gap. The glowing sphere flew out of the cage, and a second later, Sammy blinked and shuddered.

  “Sammy?” I asked.

  “The one and only,” she said.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m Rocking the Casbah,” she replied, then looked at me, and her tone softened slightly. “Thanks, brother.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  Sammy looked around the room, her eyes fixing on the sorcerer and Dawn. “We have to get out of here, now.” She nodded at the sorcerer. “He was just responding to the alert triggered by my hack, but they didn’t know who tripped it. I’m sure he reported us, and reinforcements are on the way.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  Sammy looked at the sorcerer. “How about we not discuss our plans in front of Mysterio over there?”

  “Oh, uh, right. Are you okay to move?”

  “I’m fine,” Sammy said, disconnecting her laptop and stuffing it into her messenger bag, along with a couple of the components Helen had provided.

  We left the sorcerer drooling on himself, and we all passed down the hall to the front of the garage arcade. Sammy and Dawn headed for the exit to the street, but I paused by the door to Helen’s hideout.

  “What about Helen?” I asked.

  “She can take care of herself, trust me,” Sammy said.

  We exited, and made our way across the parking lot to Dawn’s car. As we marched, I said, “So, where are we going?”

  “I have to go free Fatima. You have to stop the Arcanites. Which, as luck would have it, involve the same thing.”

  “So you figured out where they’re doing the transfer?” I asked.

  “Maryhill Stonehenge.”

  I moaned.

  “What’s wrong?” Dawn asked.

  “Gods, where to start,” I said as we piled into the car.

  Sammy leaned forward from the backseat and said, “First, we need to go to Green Lake. I have a friend there who can hook us up with supplies, and mask us from the ARC’s location spells, at least temporarily. And hurry, before enforcers find us.”

  Dawn started up the car, and took off. Dawn generally drove responsibly to avoid any possibility of a police stop. But when in a hurry, she treated stop signs and traffic signals more like suggestions than rules. Only her preternatural sense for police cars and traffic cameras saved her from getting busted faster than Smokey and the Bandit in a Geo Metro. And those Air Force flight simulators that tested g-forces had nothing on the passenger seat of Dawn’s old station wagon when she started whipping around corners and changing lanes like she was Automan. I waited until we hit the freeway and I was (somewhat) safe from being pressed against the glass of the passenger window before I tried to explain my reaction to the Maryhill Stonehenge.

  “Did you know that Seattle is the only city to have officially mapped its ley lines?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Dawn replied. “I remember hearing that.”

  “Well, there’s a reason. There’s a group of mundies—not the group who actually did the mapping, but the group behind that group—who suspect the magical world exists. And they view it as their sacred duty to watch for magic and stand ready to defend against it.”

  “Ooo,” said Dawn. “Please tell me there’s one girl chosen every generation to wield superpowers and stand against the magical forces of darkness? Because if so—”

  “Um, no. The Gedai don’t have any real powers.”

  “Jedi? Seriously?”

  “Genuine Earth Druids Against Inhumans. Gedai.”

  “Ugh. I briefly dated a guy who thought he was a druid, but mostly he just liked to camp and take mushrooms.”

  “Well, these guys are a little more serious about it than that. Granted, they have their share of whackjobs, but I’d say the core group are at least as serious and organized as a good weekly gaming group.”

  “So what do they have to do with the Arcanites?”

  “I don’t know. But the Gedai keep on top of anything that might possibly be a part of the magical world, hoping to capture proof of our existence.”

  “I thought the Maryhill Stonehenge was just a replica, a bunch of concrete pillars?”

  “Built over a major ley intersection, with crystals and runes at their heart that focus and direct the ley energies. They have real power.”

  “Of course they do,” Dawn said. “When will I stop being surprised?”

  “If the Arcanites are using Stonehenge Junior for something,” I said, “then either they’ve found a way to hide their activities from the Gedai, or they’ve eliminated the Gedai in the area. Either way I think I know a way in.”

  “George the Druid?” Sammy asked, her face lit by the glow from her laptop.

  “He goes by Merlin now,” I replied, and nodded agreement.

  “Whatever he’s calling himself, think he’s forgiven you?” Sammy asked.

  I turned sideways in my seat to face Sammy. “I don’t know. And not sure we have much choice anyway. So why Stonehenge? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It is a fixed portal spot,” Sammy said.

  “Yeah, maybe if the Arcanites were trying to illegally breach the walls between worlds I could see it. But they seem to have control of the ARC at this point. Why not just sit back and let the ARC send everyone over from the Snoqualmie facility?”

  “Maybe they don’t have as much control of the ARC as you think,” Sammy replied. “Or they are afraid of backlash from the cubicle grunts there. I mean, if the Arcanites can arrest and send whoever they want to the Other Realm, what’s to say you’re not next, right?”

  “Or maybe they need to do something special with the spiritual transfer that will create the link they need for the poisoning ritual,” I thought out loud.

  Sammy shrugged. “I don’t care, really, as long as we stop them.”

  I moved to put a reassuring hand on her arm, but thought better of it, and just said, “We’ll stop them, Sammy. We’ll get Fatima back.”

  “Oh, I know,” Sammy said. “And then, we’re going to burn Grandfather’s little asshole club down, once and for all.”

  * * *

  Dawn drove us south toward the Washington-Oregon border and Maryhill Stonehenge. I rode in the front with her, and as the streetlamps and mile markers flicked by, I told her what I knew about our destination.

  Maryhill was founded by a man named Sam Hill. He’d intended it to be a utopian experiment, to build a town perfectly situated between the dry heat of eastern Washington and the rainy coolness of western Washington and populate it with Quakers. In support of it, he became a pioneer in road building, and funded a highway along the Columbia River to the area. He was a man of wealth and vision who helped to shape an entire
region.

  Unfortunately, the land he bought was a bit too far on the dry heat side of the line for good farming or comfortable living, and no Quakers followed his dream.

  He did, however, leave behind several monuments to his vision, including the river highways, and the Peace Arch between the US and Canada. The fortress-like mansion he had begun to build for himself in Maryhill he instead converted into a museum. And, of course, there was the Maryhill Stonehenge, a to-scale and astronomically aligned replica of the actual Stonehenge, dedicated as a monument to the fallen of World War I and Hill’s desire for peace.

  But that was not the whole truth, of course. It was not just Quakers, but arcana and brightbloods he hoped to bring to Maryhill to live together in peace. In that land between extremes, Hill had hoped to build a bridge to peace between our world and the Other Realm, and the Maryhill Stonehenge was to be the bridgehead—a portal not only capable of allowing spiritual transfers, but actual physical crossing between the realms.

  But the wounds of the last Fey-Arcana War were too fresh, and the various factions in power too invested in the status quo to easily be moved toward true peace.

  Also, summer in Maryhill sucked weather-wise. Stepping outside is like the heat wave of an opened oven hitting you in the face, more likely to inspire irritation than peace. And the land is all hills of brown grass, dust, and stone ill-suited to paradise.

  Hill had originally been close to buying a much more ideal location west of Maryhill, with fertile farmland and a hill with quartz deposits perfectly situated both geographically and on the ley lines to open a portal to the neutral wildlands of the Other Realm far from any single Fey Demesne. But just as Hill was about to close the deal, he whipped out his whiskey flask and proposed a toast to the deal—and the uptight teetotaling couple who owned the land canceled the sale.

  If not for that one impulsive act, who knows whether Hill would have ultimately succeeded in his dreams. Some have even suggested that it was actually an act of sabotage by agents of the Arcana Ruling Council, or some trickster Fey from the Shores of Chaos, that led to the collapse of the sale.

  What can be said for certain is that distances in our world versus the Other Realm are tricky. While the distance in our world between that original property and Maryhill was not so great, the Maryhill Stonehenge opened a gateway not to some equally close part of the Other Realm wildlands, but rather to a far, dark corner of the Forest of Shadows.

  And that, unfortunately, had been the last nail in the coffin of Hill’s dream for peace.

  * * *

  “Huh,” Dawn said. “Someday it would be nice to go someplace with you and not find out it has this whole secret history I know nothing about. You know, just so I can feel like I know something for real.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Maybe we can go to Disneyland when this is over.”

  “Wait, Disneyland is the most magical place on Earth,” Dawn replied. “It’s right in the tagline.”

  I shrugged. “There you go. No surprises.”

  Dawn punched me in the leg.

  “Ow!” I exclaimed.

  “Big baby.”

  “Speaking of magic,” I said, “what exactly did you see back at the arcade?”

  “You were one of the Gentlemen, from Buffy. And you controlled a bunch of those creepy Dig Dug dragons.”

  Which explained why she kept chasing and attacking me. For some odd reason, she’d always found the little green dragons on Dig Dug creepy, with their “empty eyes and tiny red feet.” And she had occasional nightmares about one of the Gentlemen stealing her voice.

  I gave her my version of events.

  Dawn glanced over at me, and said, “You know what I find interesting about that?”

  “My amazing skill as a storyteller?”

  “No.”

  “My amazing skill at video games?”

  *La,* Alynon said. *You mean your amazing skill at playing with your joystick?*

  You’re just jealous.

  “Nuh uh,” Dawn said. “It was that you were the bad guy in every match.”

  “What? No I wasn’t. Ms. Pac-Man’s the hero of Ms. Pac-Man. Mario’s the hero of Donkey Kong. And if anyone’s the hero of Street Fighter, I’m pretty sure it’s Ryu.”

  “Sure. Do you remember that conversation we had—no, of course you don’t, it’s one of those memories of us that you lost. Well, in one of the many instances where I proved what an awesome friend I was, and incidentally the one time we tried pot together out behind your mother’s cottage, I listened to you go on and on about video games and how the heroes were really all bullies and bad guys.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. You gave me this whole crazy theory that Inky was supposed to be a shy ghost, who just wanted to get away from it all and felt forced into fighting Pac-Man to avoid being eaten.”

  “Oh. Uh, yeah, I guess I could see saying that.” That fit his profile from the Pac-Man cartoon anyway.

  “Uh huh. And you said that anyone who’d watched King Kong knew that humans were the real bad guy in that movie, and Donkey Kong was no different, and the reason there was a timer on each level was because if Mario didn’t get the princess away soon enough, she’d realize DK was really the one she loved.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure you believe Tron is the hero of Tron, so no surprises there. But Street Fighter wasn’t around back then, so I have no idea what your thinking on Sagat is. Maybe you feel bad for him or something? Anyway, I’m guessing you made yourself Ryu for some other reason than you think he’s the hero.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what reason that might be, then closed it. I’d read that Ryu struggled with inner demons, an “evil intent” that if he let it take over would turn him into “Dark Ryu.”

  Did I really see myself as the bad guy? Or truly in danger of becoming “Dark Finn”? I knew the reasons why I had destroyed Dunngo. They weren’t evil.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it was the sorcerer controlling my choices, and casting himself as the good guy.”

  “Maybe,” Dawn said in a dubious tone. She reached over and squeezed my leg. “I’m just worried about you.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “Oh? Do share,” Dawn said.

  I sighed. “I’m worried something’s … wrong with me. Or broken. Or … I don’t know. But my magic isn’t working.”

  “It seemed to be working when you almost killed that faun at Elwha,” Dawn said, and I could hear in her tone all of the fear and worry that she was holding back, how much that had disturbed her.

  “That wasn’t me, in any sense,” I replied. “That was a trap, a spell set by my grandfather that just used me as a conduit. But when I tried to summon a spirit on my own, it just … nothing happened.”

  Dawn arched an eyebrow. “Well, from what I know about performance issues—”

  “Can we not call it that?” I asked.

  “—they’re either physical or psychological. I don’t know much about how you do the voodoo you do, but I know a bit about psychology—at least, I’ve read enough self-help books to deserve a master’s degree in pop psychology—and you’ve had enough crap happen that I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re all clogged up in here.” She rapped on my forehead. “And that’s without having Aly ride shotgun.”

  I frowned. Magic required will, which was just a short way of saying mental and emotional discipline, focus, strength, and desire. For it to work, your mind, body, and spirit needed to be one. But I had wanted to summon those spirits. I’d been willing, I felt certain. “I don’t think that’s it.”

  Dawn shrugged. “The mind’s a mysterious thing, my love. It may not want what you think it wants.”

  “Maybe,” I said. But I worried about a darker cause. Dawn squeezed my hand.

  Had my use of dark necromancy damaged me in some way? Or … changed me? Could I no longer summon one spirit except by destroying another? I’d never heard of that happening to dark necr
omancers of the past, but then nobody really taught the details. Maybe—

  I would go crazy if I kept thinking about it. So I just squeezed Dawn’s hand in return, and said, “I’ll be fine.”

  Dawn turned on the radio, and I soon dozed off, doubts and fears swirling through my dreams and taking dark winged forms.

  * * *

  We arrived at the home of Merlin at 5:32 A.M., an hour or so before sunrise.

  Merlin lived in a mobile home on the Oregon side of the Columbia River, in a trailer park just a half-hour drive away from Maryhill Stonehenge. It had a fabulous view of the Dalles Dam, which looked pretty cool all lit up at night.

  The dam sat on what once was the prime fishing grounds of the local Native tribe, not to mention the former home of a number of river feybloods, some of whom had been depicted in pictographs that were now mostly underwater being erased forever. Add to that the fact that the Gedai had somehow guessed a connection between hydropower facilities and the magical world—arcana liked to build our secret facilities under either moving water, or power stations, or both, since the shifting energy helped to shield from scrying and Fey magics—and it was not surprising that Merlin had plopped himself down with a view of the dam.

  I took a deep breath, then walked up and knocked on the rattling metal door.

  A dog began barking and growling inside the trailer so loud that the metal siding rang from the reverberation. I braced myself to face the dog’s owner. Hopefully, he wasn’t still angry with me about—

  The door opened. Merlin stood there, a six-foot-tall and rather wide Samoan-American in a voluminous Jedi bathrobe, staring groggily at me as he held a waist-height slobbering beast of a dog to heel. He blinked, and recognition sharpened his gaze. “Finn Gramaraye?”

  “Yup. And, uh, I need your help.”

  “As a druid, I do not visit violence upon others,” he said.