Probably the best I ever would.
I took a big swig of coffee in an attempt to wash down the lump in my throat.
Zara returned with two huge baskets of fries and two plates of bacon. De Vries grudgingly ordered a Sprite without ice and, after a dubious inquiry for malt vinegar, waited for me to finish slapping the ketchup bottle. I considered placing it in the far corner of the table, but I was getting tired of the petty digs. He knew I didn’t like him. It took more energy to keep reminding him than it did to trust he would remember. I handed over the bottle.
We demolished our fries and bacon. When our burgers arrived, we demolished those too. Then, clearly envious of my massive slab of chocolate pie, De Vries ordered a strawberry milkshake.
I almost laughed. I would have laughed, except the moment he finished ordering it, he reached across me for the napkins, and I saw his arm.
He’d rolled up the cuffs of his dress shirt to mid-forearm. Earlier, I’d noticed the sparse, dark hair and prominent vein looping his wrist, then gone right back to ignoring. This time, his reach pulled the cuff of the shirt just enough to expose the edge of a mandala tattoo.
Finally. Some ink. I’d started to doubt the existence of the usual Sorcerer tats, but he clearly had them. Just not where anyone could see.
I started to say something about this when De Vries’s foot lifted onto the bench next to mine and pressed down firmly on top of it.
This startled me. I wasn’t the type to jump when surprised, though, and exposure to his vaguely stony presence had inured me to the initial fear that he might just off me on a whim.
Instead, I froze. Then I heard the jingle of the door and, slowly, looked up at De Vries. He was gazing out the window beside me. No, not out the window, at the reflection in it. I smelled him, even with my dull human nose. Sweat and energy, antiperspirant doing its thing.
My breath caught in my throat. I glanced up to find a group of men and women in camouflage vests and hats. At first glance, I’d have categorized them as hunters. Except I was pretty sure you couldn’t hunt anything but coyotes in June. A second glance revealed thin, raw-boned faces. Sinewy arms. A slight smell of ozone, like wind blowing in the smell of a thunderstorm.
De Vries’s hand shifted to his hip, that pure white magic crackling across the grip of his gun, priming bullets.
The woman at the register gave the crowd of newcomers that same lukewarm welcome she’d given us. Only, instead of heading toward us in a cluster, the first three fanned out down the bar, where they’d have cover. Two more moved toward us.
Then, bringing up the rear of the group, I saw the face that had made De Vries go all spines and static-electricity.
There, in a metal band shirt and camo bomber jacket, his gun already primed and out, stood Ritter.
Chapter 16
jaesung
“Fuck!” Eric shouted, slamming the Rover to a screeching halt at the stoplight. He wrenched out his phone for the thousandth time, jabbed his finger at the redial with screen-cracking force, and scowled at the glowing red dot ahead of us like he could change it to green with his brain.
We’d been driving around Henard for hours, checking all the places we thought it likely Helena might go. Meanwhile, we’d received no word from Ritter regarding De Vries’s location. They could be in Henard, or they could be halfway to Baltimore, where Deepti said the trial would be held.
Or, he could be taking her somewhere else completely.
Or she could already be dead.
Krista had succumbed to silence at last. I still didn’t think she was processing right. Anticipating several days of pursuit, she’d settled the care of Ruff Patch with Sanadzi and explained to Alina that she would be out of town, all while casting conspiratorial winks at me and Eric.
Not that I was upset that she wasn’t freaking out. Now would not be a wonderful time for her to freak out—we had important shit to do.
Like drive around Henard, failing to find Helena.
Eric made to slam his phone down again. I caught his wrist and pried the phone from his fingers. “Okay, big guy. Give me the delicate technology.”
Eric fumed in the stoplight’s direction, his knuckles going white as he twisted his hands around the wheel. “Ritter isn’t picking up.”
“I got that.”
“Deepti isn’t picking up either.”
I sucked in a slow breath, forcing the logical side of my brain to function. “She’s a surgeon. She’s probably busy with somebody’s coronary arteries.”
Eric flashed me a look, and I didn’t like the worry I saw beneath the frustration. “Yeah, well, I need her go-ahead to pursue De Vries.”
Krista leaning forward between the front seats. “Why do you need permission?”
“Because it involves leaving my jurisdiction. It’s Guild procedure.”
Krista wrinkled her nose. “Aren’t you trying to rescue her from Guild procedure? I thought we were breaking the rules.”
Eric glared at the stoplight. Fingers tapping along the steering wheel, he seemed to be running her words over in his brain.
“Fuck,” he said. The word sounded lighter, almost happy. “You’re right.”
He spun the wheel around hard and hit the gas, pulling us into a U-turn that took us up over the curb. The moment the rear wheel slammed onto the asphalt, the Rover took off, jerking me back in my seat.
“Are we finally going after them?” I asked, seizing the door handle and trying to ignore the speed with which the darkened trees were now whipping past my vision. I drive fast enough, but damn.
“Yes!” Eric called over the wind. “We’re making a stop first to get supplies.”
“This is so legit!” Krista shouted. “Do you need material components?”
Eric glared at me. “Park. The fuck is she talking about?”
“Just say yes.”
“How long is that going to be your strategy?”
“Forever!”
I was disassociating from the situation. I could tell. This was how it went with me, no matter what. I panic for a bit, then my brain builds a cage and shoves all of the un-fun things inside of it, and guards the door with snark and borderline-manic energy. It didn’t keep me from feeling sick, or feeling that conflicting craving for the biggest, greasiest hamburger in existence, but it did keep me from descending into a useless spiral of panic.
We rocketed through Henard’s darkened streets, and though we passed at least three cops on the way, no lights or sirens flickered on. I guess they’d know Eric’s car, and assume if he was going this fast, he was working.
I gave a somewhat hysterical laugh as Eric hooked a right turn into a tree-lined side road. Gravel peppered the undercarriage and clouds of whitish dust tore up around us.
I caught flashes of light through the trees—houses huddled in the forest. We streaked past mailboxes and piney driveways until the trees on our right thinned. A long wooden fence cropped up, just as a long, grassy field sprawled into view, sloping down to a twisting river.
The Rover slowed, and Eric turned into the driveway across from the field. A second later, a two-story farmhouse emerged from the trees, all front-porch and peeling white paint. Another car sat in the driveway. It had the boxy lines and heavy, rusted bumper of a car made in the previous century, and judging by the amount of grass growing around the tires, hadn’t been driven in this one.
We came to a crunching halt and got out. Eric waved us toward the side yard. “Kelly and I live on the second floor,” he said. “Separate access.”
We tromped around back, which proved to have a deep rear porch that supported a second-story deck. The wooden staircase up to the deck looked like a new structure.
“Who lives downstairs?” Krista asked, mounting the stairs behind Eric.
“Guy who owns the house. And the field with all the cows. He rented the place to Kelly about a decade ago, when he couldn’t climb the stairs anymore. He’s about ninety now.”
“Whoa,” Krista said. I got the fee
ling it wasn’t about the homeowner’s age. Once I got to the top of the stairs, I discovered why.
From the tangle of snapdragons spilling over the railing to the laden trellis spanning one entire side, the whole deck was a topsy-turvy explosion of green, growing things. I saw tiny fruit trees, pots of herbs, and a pitcher-plant that definitely should not have looked so healthy this far north of the equator.
“Welcome to the jungle?” Krista said.
Eric snorted, keys rattling in a peeling set of French doors. There was a light on in one of the interior rooms, and music seeping through the half-open windows. It sounded like the low, chanting stuff they played in spas or places that sold crystals and books on palm-reading.
“Kel!” Eric called, opening the door and leading the way in. The room was shallow and wide, extending into a kitchenette on the left and a tiny sitting area on the right. The couch was a little small, but looked battered and comfortable and oddly artistic. In front of it hunched a low coffee-table. At first, it looked like one of those expensive ones made from the metal cast of a stump. Upon closer inspection, however, I realized it wasn’t made of wood at all, but hand-shaped clay, glazed in a slightly-iridescent deep purple.
The only decorations seemed to be a shelf full of pottery. I guess it must have been nice, but I really had no idea.
Eric kicked aside a wooden chair blocking his way to the narrow hallway leading back. “Kel, we have company!”
“What?”
I didn’t register the voice in time. The next moment, a guy leaned out from a room on the left, shaking light brown hair from his face.
“Yesss,” Krista breathed. I just kind of stared, pretending not to be as surprised as I felt. Really? Really? Kelly was a guy? Eric—big, gruff, lumberjack cop Eric—was married to a guy?
Fine. Cool. Not the most shocking part of my day.
God, though, I never would have picked Eric for a gay dude. Which is something that Krista would probably make me put a quarter in the homophobia jar for saying.
“Company,” Eric said, waving his husband out of the room. “Park, Krista, this is my husband Kelly. Kelly, this is Helena’s boyfriend and roommate. Entertain. I have to pack.”
Eric vanished through one of the doorways on the left, leaving Husband Kelly staring after him in confusion.
“Enterwhat?”
“Entertain!” Eric yelled. “You know, keep ‘em busy? Conversation. Magic tricks. Canapés. Whatever.”
Husband Kelly lifted his eyebrows. “O…Kay.”
He stepped out of doorway in a trashed tee shirt and the holiest pair of jeans I’ve ever seen. He was covered in mud from elbow to fingertips, and more mud streaked down his clothes. Still, he managed to look put together, like the movie-star version of a construction-worker. He’d run silty hands through his hair at some point, streaking it with mud in a slightly duller shade of brown.
“Hey,” he said. After a quick scan of our expressions, he gave a low cackle, dark eyes glittering. “He didn’t tell you, did he? Just called me Kelly and let you assume.”
I gave a cough. “Yeah, kinda.”
“I think I actually owe the homophobia jar,” Krista said. “That never happens.”
Husband Kelly smirked and ducked into the kitchen, grabbing up a rag. “It’s fine. He’s purposefully misleading. Honestly, Eric’s kind of a drama queen. I think he likes the big reveal.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to this, and the three of us stood there, watching each other for several moments as Kelly scrubbed the worst of the mud from his hands and arms.
“I’m not sure what a canapé is,” he said. “Food, right? I think I have some Oreos around here somewhere. Or…” he scanned Krista’s piercings and tattoos, “…did you need something with more iron? I’ve got spinach on the deck.”
Krista’s face fogged with polite confusion.
“She’s not a sorceress,” I said. “She just found out, like, hours ago that any of this exists. I kind of…transformed in front of her.”
Kelly’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”
Krista looked at me. “Sorceress is a thing? Can I be a sorceress? I want to be a sorceress.”
I took a deep breath. “Let’s sit down.”
Kelly scrubbed at his fingernails as he watched us. He dried his hands on his jeans and crossed to the fridge, pulling out four hard ciders. These he set on the coffee table, then produced the promised package of Oreos from the pantry.
There was something weird about him. He walked with the kind of perfect balance I’ve come to recognize in dancers and martial artists. He didn’t have the right build for someone who did either, though. He was too slight, and the only muscle he really carried was in his arms. He was just someone who understood his own center of gravity.
But that was only part of it. He had a certain…draw. A kind of aura or ‘it-factor’ that made it hard to stop studying him.
He sank into the wooden chair across from the couch where Krista and I had taken up residence.
“Park,” he said. “Is that actually your name?”
“My last name,” I said. God, this was awkward.
Krista pointed at the wooden floating shelves above us. “Are you a potter?”
“What gave it away?” Kelly asked, gesturing to his mud-streaked clothing. “Actually, I work in archaeological restoration. North American ceramics, specifically. I just spend my spare time playing in the dirt.” He turned his eyes to me, and I saw a twinge of amusement flit through him. “You’re trying awfully hard to figure me out.”
I blinked and looked away, reaching for one of the ciders. “Sorry,” I said.
I didn’t see him grin, but I heard it in his words. “It’s cool, I’m used to it. You’re pretty recent with all this too, right? Eric told me some of what happened last winter.”
I winced. “Yeah. I’m kind of…first book Harry Potter right now.”
Kelly took an Oreo and propped his bare feet up on the coffee table’s glazed branches. “You’re still not used to the way magic feels, then.”
“I can’t do magic.”
Kelly snorted.
My vision tunneled. I felt my mind going a little fuzzy, as if prepared to shut down before he said anything that might require another tectonic-shift in my worldview. I did not want to have magic. On top of everything.
“Whoa, now,” Kelly said. A hand grabbed my arm. “Chill, chill, it’s fine. You’re not a sorcerer.”
The words were followed by the weirdest sensation, like being reeled back into myself from a distance. The panic ebbed, and my mind went cool and still and clear. I blinked and found myself looking into dark hazel eyes. Kelly was leaning across the coffee table, one hand on my arm, the other touching my temple.
“What? I—what?” I said, eloquently.
Kelly leaned back, brow furrowed. “Damn,” he said, shaking out his hands, like touching me had hurt. “You look like you’re taking all this way better than you actually are.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
Kelly’s laugh wasn’t the happy kind. “Not really,” he said. “But that’s understandable.”
“Are you some kind of empath or something?” I said, struggling for an explanation. “Is that a thing?”
Kelly gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It’s kind of a thing. Really, it’s part of what I am.”
I glanced sideways at Krista, who had been uncharacteristically quiet during all this, and found her mechanically chewing an Oreo, staring at Kelly with the glazed look of someone in complete, mesmerized rapture.
“Um…so…” I looked back at Kelly, and flicked my eyes at Krista in a silent question.
He waved his hand. “She’s fine. I projected kind of hard to calm you down. Must have Xanaxed her. Humans don’t have any shielding.”
I stared at him, processing that statement. Kelly smiled. He reached out and tapped my chest at the exact center of my tattoo.
“You’re not totally human anymore,” he said. “You’ve got t
he soul of a hound fused with your own now. Dogs can sense magic. Or…was yours a wolf?”
I nodded.
“Yeah, wolves are going to be even more attuned. That’s probably why you’re so sensitive. I do get attention, but it’s been a while since someone stared at me the way you have. Unless, of course, you just think I’m hot.”
I blinked. I mean, objectively, I could see he was attractive. But yeah. No.
He seemed to see this answer in my aura or whatever.
“Shame,” he said, with a grin that made me feel just a little bit like prey. “I’ve got a thing for alpha males.”
He had to be kidding. I was so not the alpha male in the room. Krista gave a drunk, slightly-gurgly squee and sank further into the couch.
Kelly’s eyes crinkled.
I swallowed. “So, what…what are you, then?”
“I’m an Earth Friend,” he said. “Which is a really hippie kind of name for a person who’s specifically attuned to the magic currents in minerals.”
“Like a dryad or something?” I said.
“Yes and no. Earth Friends are probably a little closer to elves than anything else.”
“You’re an elf?”
Kelly laughed, tucking his hair obviously behind a very human-looking ear.
“Satisfied? I’m just saying that’s probably where the myth of elves came from. And golems. Water Friends probably explain naiads and mermaids and sirens. Air Friends are sylphs and angels, Fire Friends are dragons, devils, phoenixes, et cetera.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Dryad is a tough one, though. As far as I know it’s impossible for a person to turn into a tree.”
“I can turn into a wolf,” I said. “Why not a tree.”
Kelly tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Point. Plants have a very different sort of energy than sentient creatures. They don’t really have souls.”
“That sounds kind of speciesist,” I said, feeling my heart begin to kick into gear again. “We don’t have a speciesism jar.”
Kelly reached for his cider with a laugh. “Hey, it’s not an insult. They have something different from what we call a soul, something we don’t have.”
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