by Leigh Evans
“Try.”
“No,” I said softly. Inside the car, the air got hotter, more layered with Were. It smelled like a wild, unmapped forest, before the crackle of the storm. Trowbridge gave an exasperated huff, and reached out for them. He flipped the pendant over, found a piece of the dead amulet sticking out and tried to tug it free.
Merry sent a lightning bolt of pain up the chain that circled my throat. My feet shot straight out and my head snapped back. The long thin trail of my cry ended in a whimper. The air still swirled. It wrapped around me, and felt almost soothing to my hurt.
Blue light flared in the car, and then subsided.
“Explain that,” he said, when my breathing had returned to normal. His hand hovered near me, as if he wanted to touch me, but was afraid to hurt me further.
“She’s Fae. She was just protecting herself.” I cupped a trembling hand over Merry and company. “You’re a Were, you can understand the need to protect what you have. She’s incapable of beginning a fight, okay? She’s not a threat, she’s not prey. You wouldn’t blame a rabbit for snapping its teeth at you as you bit down, would you?”
My eyes started to burn. “She’ll die without me,” I said, my voice getting high. “If you take her away, she’ll fade away just like your amulet did. I feed her and take care of her. In return, she heals me after I’ve used my gift.”
The air kept moving, but now it was stroking me, confusing me with each soft brush.
His voice was low. “You need healing after you use your magic?”
“Mmm-hhm,” I said, looking down at my hand.
I heard his hair brush his collar as he cocked his head toward me. “You know I can tell when you’re lying. I can hear when your heart changes. So I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to try very hard to tell me the truth. How much Fae magic do you have?”
“Not much,” I said. Except that I keep receiving my aunt’s dreams, and it’s beginning to look like I’d pass any mystwalker exam with flying colors. His eyes penetrated mine. I willed my heart to slow. “Almost nothing,” I lied. “If you’re talking in terms of a real Fae. I’m limited to moving things. I’ve tried to do other stuff—mind magic and climate stuff—but I’ve never been able to do anything else. I think the Were blood in me keeps me from doing anything really great.” I knew my smile was bitter.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t blink. He kept staring at me.
Ah, a loophole. Trowbridge can sense a lie, but not an omission.
“You saw me move the washing machine,” I continued. “That’s it. I can move a washing machine. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever moved. I couldn’t even move the couch back at the apartment when Scawens attacked me. I had to use the television to stop him.” The little line in between his eyebrows turned into a furrow. “I used my magic to make it fly through the air. Smacked him in the head with it. Down he went.” And then, when that didn’t satisfy him, I said in a little voice, “What?”
“Scawens attacked you in your home?”
I nodded.
“What did he want?”
“An amulet. He thought Merry was yours.” I took my hand away and looked at the heavy knot of Fae gold resting on my heart. “I told him no Fae amulet will ever work for a Were. Do you think that was enough?”
“Maybe it will work for a Fae girl who works for a Were,” he said slowly.
“I’ll never work for a Were, Trowbridge. Not one of them lifted a finger as my father fought for his life.” I kept my gaze fixed on the chain-link fence ahead. Damned if he’d see the hurt in my eyes. “And I told you. I’m not really skilled. I’m pretty limited. Until today, I’ve never used it for any serious harm. You don’t want to screw up your Karma.”
“Karma concerns from a Fae.”
“It’s all around you, Trowbridge. You’ve got to pay attention to it.”
“That’s all you can do, then? Move things?”
I nodded again, feeling the heat in my cheeks.
“How about my amulet?” he asked. “Can you use its magic?”
“It doesn’t have any. I don’t know how you stood wearing it around your neck all these years. Even when it brushes my skin, I can feel its—” I tried not to shudder, but the acid was in my mouth again. “Deadness.”
The air changed again. Hot, but not in a good way. It lifted his scent and spread it on every surface in a thick, hot layer. I rubbed my hand against my leg and still felt the clinging tingle of it.
“I can’t separate the amulets. If you take yours back, you’ll take Merry with it.”
“You call it Merry.”
“I call her Merry.”
He must have heard the words not said—the sisterhood; the unbreakable twining plait of dependency, love, and friendship I held for Merry. The windshield wipers kept swiping at the rain, never catching that spot in the middle. “Fuck it,” he said to himself, staring ahead as if he saw something there that I couldn’t. He bit the inside of his cheek. Once. Just a brief, meditative snack before action. “It doesn’t matter,” he said in a hard voice. “They’re all dead. Keep the amulet. It never did much for me. Consider it a gift from a Were Rogue to a new Fae Rogue. If you can figure out a way to separate them, then you can use it instead of”—he glanced down at her—“Merry. Listen to me carefully,” he went on. “You have the car. Drive it until there’s no gas, and then ditch it somewhere no one can find it. The gun I took off Scawens is under the seat. Make sure you turn the safety off before you point it at anyone. If you do have to aim it at someone, pull the trigger. Don’t squeeze the trigger until they’re close enough that you can’t miss.”
“I’ve never held a gun.”
“There’s always a first time.” He rolled his window back up. “Do you have some money on you? Enough to get out of town with?” When I nodded, he continued. “It’s probably not worth telling you this again, but the smartest thing would be to put the car into gear right now and keep going.” His tone was flat, carefully washed of any expression. “Don’t call your friend. Forget him. Keep moving, that’s the key for the first few months.”
“I won’t be here when you come back.”
“That’s what I’m counting on. Are you still going to call your boyfriend?” His cold eyes measured mine. When he read the answer there, he tossed his head, the way men do, with their chins, not their hair. “Never let me stand in the way of true love. Go ahead. Call Billy-Bob. Tell him to run.” He leaned back to dig into his pocket and came out with a handful of change. “Here.” He put a couple of coins into my hand. “Take my fifty cents.”
I stared at the coins. They were dull, old, and had probably crossed too many hands to count. Trowbridge escorted me to the pay phone, and waited until I lifted the receiver off its cradle. He watched me, expressionless, as I pushed the coins into the slot. When the change fell and the phone chimed, he turned toward the club.
“Their Alpha wants the amulet to open the portal,” I called after him. “You know that, don’t you? He wants to send someone to the other side. I won’t help him, but he’ll keep on searching for a way. Do you know what will happen if he ever finds one?” I thought of the terrible cold fury marking the Fae executioner’s face as he drew a line across my mother’s throat. “It will be war if he finds a way. You should warn the other Weres about him.”
“Your concern is duly noted.” He looked over his shoulder at me. I could see the laugh line where it curved up past the whiskers on his face, stopping short of his eyes. “But it’s not going to happen, is it? None of us are in any danger as long as the portal is closed.”
“The whole world is falling apart,” I heard myself say.
“It fell apart a long time ago. There’s no going back,” he said.
He was still close enough that if I reached for him, I could have put my hand over his heart and felt the blood surge in and out of it. “The portal is closed?” he asked. I nodded. He tilted his head and searched my face. His fingers touched my jaw and then slid dow
n to my throat, where my pulse beat. “And you can’t open it?”
I shook my head, feeling nothing more than the heat of his knuckles against my throat. Nothing else. Not the rain. Not the sadness uncoiling like a worm.
“You don’t know anyone who can?”
“No.”
His eyes were slits as they studied mine. No glow, no gleam, just Mediterranean blue studying cool green. Then a door snapped shut between us that I hadn’t even realized had been open.
“So, no problem,” he said.
“What kind of man are you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the answer will come to me over my second Jack.” He gave me a smile that wasn’t one.
“You’re not the guy I thought you were.”
“Nobody ever is,” he said, turning away again.
“Bridge,” I called.
He held up a staying hand, but didn’t turn back. He pulled open the door to the strip club. The music swelled, and he walked out of my life for the second time: it was only after the door closed behind him that I realized I should have pulled out the gun.
Chapter Eleven
The rap artist knew what he liked—big butts. A round thing in his face apparently made him “sprung.” It was hard to hear the lyrics over the pounding bass streaming from the club, but I got that. Baby better have back. I hunched my shoulders against the sudden cold. The rapper chanted on, each word spitting out the same message over a driving beat. Lust. Sex. Satisfaction. A simple enough equation. I wonder if the floor vibrated with it—if the tremor wicked right up the chair legs so that men felt it while they watched the girls who moved to the music and sprang things with their big, round bums.
I called the shop and got the answering machine. “Lou and I have stolen money from some drug lords,” I said. “They’ll be looking for anyone who knows us.” I thought about what else I wanted to say, but the words dried up, and so I finished with, “I’ll leave Bob’s car somewhere the cops can find it.” Someone picked up. I listened to their breathing, and then carefully replaced the receiver in its cradle.
Humans are more afraid of each other than the big bad wolf.
Stupid mortals.
The rain had gone to bed. All that was left was the smell of it, and the water beading up on the windshields of the vehicles in the lot. As I reached the Taurus, the door to the club opened. I spun around, ready to say something snappy like “Hah!” but the man exiting the bar wasn’t Trowbridge.
The club patron stood for a moment, holding the door open, waiting for his eyes to adjust, or maybe just hating the thought of leaving. He was around forty, with a fat-blurred jock build that was starting to sag, and a certain vanity to his clothing and jewelry choices. He started for the cars, thought better, and detoured for the laneway. He unzipped his pants.
A thin stream of urine hit the bricks.
He shook it, zipped up, and went back to his car. Before he drove away, he checked the mirror and smoothed his hair. I stood, one foot in the Taurus, and watched until his taillights grew small, wondering if I was invisible, or just a witness to a future that pained me to think of.
My Were-bitch’s anxiety brought a metal taste to my mouth.
I forced myself into the car. Trowbridge had left his mark there, adjusting the seat way back to fit his long legs. I hung on to the steering wheel as I felt for the handle. The second I touched it, the seat ratcheted backward another notch. Damn Were and his stupid long legs. I grimaced, and fought with the seat mechanism until my toes were comfortable on the gas pedal. I fixed the side mirror; checked the rearview one too. All I had to do was decide on a direction and turn the key.
But first, I had to come up with a plan for a Lou swap that didn’t include offering my head as a bonus. The original concept of a “here you go” trade seemed wildly naïve now. Stone-cold killer, Trowbridge had said.
“Merry,” I murmured. “I don’t know what to do.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and felt Merry’s chain roll under my fingers. She was a heavier burden now, what with the dead amulet stuck to her. She’d found a place under the damp knot I’d tied under my boobs with my shirttails, having been forced to give up on her usual comfort spot in the left cup of my bra. Merry, I was okay with. Anytime, sister, cuddle in. But when she kept trying to drag the other amulet up toward that warm sanctuary? I’d pushed her away.
I brooded down at the lump that was Merry and “it.” I gave a polite jiggle. “Can we talk?” Instead of emerging for a parlay, she huddled deeper under the scant warmth of the knot, tightening around it—him?—with another sinuous twist of her gold. Which, considering the fact that I was sitting in a station wagon outside of a strip club, listening to grind music and hoping the door would open again, just felt a tad insensitive on her part.
I jerked her out by her chain.
She brought him with her. The love-melded clump of the two of them bounced off my knuckles and slid with a rasp to the bottom of her chain. And there they spun, slowly, first his foreign side, then hers, then his. She surrounded him like a lover or a mother, or maybe a shroud—God knows which—but Merry was cleaved to him like she’d never let go. Stuck willingly. Obstinately. And for my sake, I hoped, bloody well not-everlastingly.
I stroked her with the tip of my finger, while I considered the bit of him exposed beneath her twined tendrils. His gem was surrounded by a fretwork of gold. I ran my thumb over its cool surface. The dead amulet was a he. No doubt in my mind now that I’d actually made a point of touching him. He might be pretty, but he was a male Asrai. Even his chain felt masculine. I flicked on the overhead light and took a good look. There was a faint similarity to the design between them, but a huge gap in execution.
Merry screamed knockoff while he purred designer goods. A disloyal thought, but, screw it, his chain was nicer. It was thicker, heavier, with doubled-worked links, giving it additional depth that spoke of money. Real money. As a rule, I approved of Merry’s over-the-top styling. Nobody believed she was any more genuine than the two point five carat diamond on the grocery checker’s hand, and that worked for us as we tried to stay under the radar. But this male amulet could never go undercover. His chain had a presence, an obvious, supple density that hers didn’t, and there was no Woolworth’s to him at all. And that was just his chain. How had Trowbridge hidden him all these years?
“Who is he, Merry?” I twisted the clump around so that I could examine him closer.
I felt my mouth drop open.
Okay, I knew that his center was blue—light blue from the photo—but colors are off in photos and really off on cell phone screens. I held my fist up closer to the overhead light, careful not to let him brush my knuckles again. His stone was icy blue. Pricey blue. Even in the dim light available, I could see that this wasn’t a piece of amber, polished up for the pretty; this was a jewel, cut to make it sparkle. Set carefully in a piece of Celtic artwork. This guy was the real goods. Which made me wonder, what was Merry?
What would he do if I touched his center? I swiped my thumb over his heart. The blue gem didn’t change color. Or heat or cool. Lifeless. Defenseless except for Merry, who was already stretching herself impossibly thinner in a futile attempt to keep my fingers off him. Merry gave off a warning burgundy flash. Crap. She couldn’t even summon up enough energy to spark vermilion.
“Okay.” I placed them so that she rested against my heart. “I’ll leave him alone.” He would be easy enough to give to the Alpha if I could find a way to chip him loose.
That thought started a string of maybes. Maybe there was another Fae in this realm—someone who’d let a Were take a paddle in the Fae Pool of Life. Maybe Lou was just a backup plan—a spectacularly weak one. Maybe this mystery Fae would make a trade of my aunt for Trowbridge’s amulet. One corpse for an almost-corpse. Harsh words, even said quietly in my head. But that was the truth, wasn’t it? People comfortable with deception recognize truth more often than those who never fib. We have to, so we don’t trip over it as we lay do
wn another layer of lies.
Lou was actively dying, fading at a spectacular speed, gone within a couple of months unless I found a way of healing her. There were no books for that—no titles in Bob’s bookstore that read Save Your Fae or A Guide to Better Health Among the Paranormal. I’d checked with the witches: a bunch of mumbling losers right up there with the tree huggers. I’d spent some time in the graveyard, searching for answers. The spirits that didn’t run were bores, and the ones that did were incredibly nimble. I’d come away from each expedition with diddlysquat, and so I’d watched, and quietly noted every change of Lou’s downward spiral over the last nine months. Now I waited, and wondered how long, and sometimes, when all I could think of was me-me-me, I prayed that when she left, I’d wither as fast as she had.
She was going to die in this realm sooner or later. And at this rate, probably sooner. It would be easier this way. I could do what Trowbridge said: drive until the Taurus had no gas. With a quarter of a tank left, I won’t get far. I snaked my hand down to the bottom of my backpack and pulled out my brown envelope and put the bills on the seat beside me. Six fives. Two tens. Two twenties. Grand total: ninety dollars. That was all that was left of my doomsday fund.
Doomsday had come.
I’ll have to sell a Tear from Mum’s bride belt when the money runs out.
Surely it hadn’t come to that.
I stared at the needle on the gas gauge and pictured my life in the days ahead. Me sitting behind the wheel of Bob’s Taurus, driving along the long, flat ribbon of the Trans-Canada Highway. The old wagon vibrating every time the speedometer hit sixty. Nothing in the seat beside me except the litter of old takeout meals. Merry and her boyfriend grafted into an unbreakable lump, a suddenly heavy and foreign burden between my breasts. Fear behind me, choices in front of me, loneliness a spreading pool all around me. Knowing nothing about my future except the fact that I’d be spending it alone. Always on guard against that casual human touch. Eating by myself while eavesdropping on the conversations around me. Making stories in my head about those people’s lives and futures as I drove on through the night.