Wild Ways

by Tanya Huff

  “I’m not Fey, you are. And the car’ll be moving on its own, I’ll just be steering.”

  “Still something that comes out of a bull.”

  “Still not arguing. Should still work.

  “But you’ve never done it.”

  “I used to think about doing it with Dun Good’s bus.”

  “But you’ve never done it.”

  She grinned. “First time for everything.”

  Jack studied her grin and suddenly missed not knowing if he’d live until dark. It was a weird feeling; he hadn’t been that homesick for months. “Okay, then, let’s do it.” He glanced at the house. The smell of sausages and pancakes wafting out of the enormous kitchen covered the scent of who was up. “And let’s do it before Allie stops us,” he added.

  “You think she can stop me?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Duh.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. But we’ll go tomorrow morning. Two reasons,” she added before he could protest. “One, I’m starving and two, there’s stuff to sort out after ritual and I don’t want to leave it all to Allie. Oh, and nice work with the helicopters, by the way. The UFO thing was inspired.” Surging up onto her feet, Charlie grabbed the pool net and started fishing her clothes out of the water.

  “Why are . . . never mind.”

  “Did you charm them?” Jack whispered as Charlie closed the apartment door and locked it.

  “Nope. I wore them out.” She gestured with the bulging plastic bag stuffed full of jeans and sweaters and he started down the stairs. “It’s a good thing they’re used to you slipping out for an early flight because you can’t sneak for shit. What did you do? Raid the refrigerator?”

  The tips of his ears, all the skin she could actually see from three steps up, flushed pink. “Aunt Mary sent another peach pie.”

  “And you wanted one last piece.” Understandable, Allie’s mother made great peach pie with a minimum of charms. Have a good day. Stay safe. A few grandchildren would be nice before I’m too old to enjoy them. Fortunately, that last one was aimed specifically at Allie. “Maybe I should go back and get . . .”

  The pink darkened.

  “You ate the whole pie?”

  “I was hungry, and she’s not going to be sending peach pies to . . . That’s weird.” Jack paused and stared at his reflection, moving his head closer to the glass then away again.

  “Your pigeon impression? Is weird?” she added when he shot her a look dripping with teenage scorn.

  “No, this!” He made the move again as Charlie stopped beside him.

  She rolled her eyes. “Ah yeah, the 3D thing again. Hate it.”

  “I’ve never seen it do this before.” Stepping back as far as the narrow hall allowed, he made a few of the martial arts moves that seemed to be hardwired into the teenage boy genome, then charged forward. “Cool. It’s like I’m coming out of the glass.”

  Charlie grinned. “The fact that you’re so easily amused will probably come in handy later.” Crossing behind him, she opened the door leading into the store—she’d parked out front, knowing they couldn’t sneak past the loft and Auntie Gwen. She stepped out into the Emporium, stopped cold, and stepped back. “Say that again.”

  Jack shrugged, grabbed for his hockey bag as the strap slid off his shoulder, and said, “It’s like I’m coming out of the glass.”

  “It’s like you’re coming out of the glass,” Charlie repeated. Her fiddler ran through the first few bars of “Smash the Windows” but only because “It’s About Fucking Time” had never been put to music. She pushed past Jack, back to the mirror, where fireworks were going off around her reflection. “I’m an idiot.”

  “Okay.”

  “Not talking to you.” Leaning forward, she exhaled against the glass and drew a charm in the condensation. “Thank you. I’m sorry I was so slow.”

  “You just apologized to an inanimate object,” Jack pointed out as she turned.

  “Auntie Catherine is coming in through the mirrors when she goes after the sealskins. That’s why I couldn’t find any evidence of charms; they’re all on the other side of the glass. The mirror, this mirror, has been trying to tell me that since she started, but I didn’t get it.”

  “You are an idiot.”

  Charlie cuffed him on the back of the head. “Come on, kid, we’re going to be heroes.”

  “You ready?” Charlie flexed her fingers over the strings and angled the headstock a little more toward the roof of the car giving her better coverage over the sound hole and making it less likely she’d clip Jack in the ear at an incredibly inopportune moment.

  “Not really.”

  “Loosen up on the steering wheel, I can smell burning plastic.”

  “This is crazy.”

  “Three hours with Auntie Jane.”

  “Okay.” Jack drew in a deep breath.

  “Ease off the clutch as you give it a little gas.”

  “I know!”

  Of course he did. Teenagers knew everything.

  The car jerked forward.

  “A little more gas.”

  “I know!”

  They roared down the street toward the riverbank, the car demanding a higher gear.

  “Now, into second.” Charlie’d covered the car with the necessary charms—where necessary meant every charm she could think of that might work. “You’re doing great. Now, third.” She braced herself against the dashboard just in time. “Okay, that was first, not third. Remember the H shape.”

  Unfortunately, when she’d come up with the idea of taking the car through the Wood, she’d forgotten she wouldn’t be able to drive it. Still, how hard could it be for a Dragon Prince/Sorcerer/Gale to master a crash course in driving a standard shift?

  “That’s good.” Right knee against the door holding her steady, Charlie played an arpeggio in G. G minor. G minor seventh. “Now give it more gas and drive it straight into those trees.”

  Crash course being the operative words.

  “Brake! Brake!”

  The back of the Selkie’s house on Grandfather’s Cove was coming up fast.

  Really fast.

  Too fast.

  “Jack, that’s the clutch! Off the gas and on the bra . . .”

  The car bucked up on its front wheels and stalled.

  “. . . ke,” Charlie finished as it bounced to a stop. A slightly singed birch branch slid down the windshield, bounced off the hood, and fell to the ground. Steam rose up through the front vents. Hopefully steam. Smoke would be bad.

  Breathing would be good, too, she realized.

  Turning to Jack, she poked him in the side and he exhaled explosively.

  Good news: compared to what now filled the car, that was definitely steam coming off the engine.

  “That was still better than three hours with Auntie Jane.” She couldn’t see his face, but Jack sounded fine. Of course he was fine. He was a Gale.

  They got out of the car more or less in unison. Guitar swinging from the strap, Charlie coughed, waved away the smoke, and stared at the ruts crossing the backyard. As she reached out and patted the back of the house, not actually needing to completely straighten her arm, her G string broke.

  “End of the summer, we might take the long way home,” she said thoughtfully, jerking her head away from the flailing wire.

  “Yeah . . .” Jack was still smoking on every exhale but the volume had started to taper off a bit. “. . . I’m down with that.You think they’ve noticed we’re gone?”

  A phone rang inside the house, Allie’s ringtone clearly audible through the open window.

  Charlie’d given her phone to Eineen. Who’d evidently left it here. Nearly seven Calgary time, nearly eleven in Nova Scotia, and no one was answering. So no one was home. “Well, that sucks. Here we are, bearing the knowledge of how to keep Auntie Catherine from playing bogeyman—and there’s no one to tell. Wait!” Jack jerked and she hid a smile. “I can use your phone!”

  “I’m not fifteen, remember. Bu
t Auntie Jane said she’d give me a phone early when we talked in Toronto.”

  Possibly. Charlie was sticking to her original theory that Auntie Jane didn’t want Jack running Wild.

  “I can get through that door,” Jack offered. “Easy.”

  If she had her phone, she could call Tanis—who couldn’t go into the water without her skin so was probably weeping on Bo’s shoulder.

  “The door isn’t a problem, but we have to time it right.”

  “Time it? Charlie, it’s a . . .”

  The phone stopped ringing.

  “Now!”

  Charging across the kitchen, slamming her thumb into the edge of the table as she snatched up her phone, Charlie managed to dial out before anyone else dialed in.

  “It’s like on Stargate,” Jack said as she waited for Tanis to answer.

  “The TV show? I think they got that idea from Auntie . . . Tanis? Auntie Catherine is coming through the mirrors. That’s how she’s taking the skins. What? Please stop crying, you sound like you’re talking underwater.” She waved Jack toward the door and mouthed, you broke it, you fix it.

  He leaned the door against the kitchen cabinets. “How?”

  “Hello? Sorcery.”

  “Sorcery!”

  “No, Tanis, Auntie Catherine is not using sorcery; it’s a Wild Power thing, like going through the Woods, only shinier.” She waited while Tanis told Bo, then added, “Tell everyone to cover their mirrors, that’ll keep her out.”

  “All their mirrors? Even the small ones?”

  “Even the small ones. This may be the one time size doesn’t . . .” Tires squealed. Charlie winced. “Tanis? Tanis?” Given the volume of the shouting, both Tanis and Bo were fine, but they sounded liked they had some things to work out. Charlie tossed her phone back down onto the table. “Tanis ripped off the rear view mirror and threw it out the window. Come on, let’s go.”

  Jack jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “The door’s still a little wonky.”

  Both the door and the space it filled were no longer exactly rectangular. But they weren’t butterflies, so Charlie counted it as a win. “Does it lock?”

  It did.

  “Good enough.”

  “I thought I wasn’t supposed to do sorcery?”

  “You’re not supposed to be a sorcerer,” Charlie told him, sliding in behind the wheel. “Not the same thing. Now, if we’re going to make sound check . . .” Fingers crossed, she settled her left hand in the undulations Jack had melted, and turned the key with the right. The engine grumbled for a moment but started. “. . . we’re going to have to drive fast.”

  “Cool.” Jack rolled down his window. “Can we stop for food, though? I’m starving.”

  Inside the house, the phone began playing “Ride of the Valkyries.”

  SEVEN

  “SO, YOU’RE COUSIN JACK.” The weird guy in the skirt straightened, and peered at Jack over the top edge of his sunglasses. “You seem to be a good influence on Chuck since she’s actually here on time. Mark.” He stuck out his right hand.

  Jack looked at the tangle of cables Mark held and then over at Charlie, who shrugged. Maybe this was a test. After a little initial confusion, he’d learned that when people held out their hand in the MidRealm, it was a greeting not a threat. While Allie’d applied first aid, Graham had explained that it used to mean, See, my hand is empty. I’m not likely to kill you in the next few moments. Was Mark saying, I can strangle you with these cables, you decide how this interaction is going to go? Or had he just forgotten he was holding them? Given what Jack could see of Mark’s expression behind all the hair, he was betting on the later. Tugging the cables free of a surprisingly strong grip, he shook the guy’s hand, then handed the cables back.

  Seemed to have been the right thing to do, but he supposed it could come back to take a bite from his tail later.

  “I like him, Chuck.You know why you’re here, Cousin Jack?”

  “As far as Mark’s concerned,” Charlie said before Jack could answer, “you’re here to be a roadie for the band. That’s as far as his interest extends.”

  Her expression said, He doesn’t have to know all you are.

  Well, duh. Who did?

  “Bullshit. I have extended interests.” Mark seemed harmless. Jack didn’t trust that. “Anything you need to know, Cousin Jack?”

  He shrugged. “Charlie’s got it covered. But . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Why the skirt?”

  “It’s a kilt.”

  “Okay.” He waited. Glanced over at Charlie, then back at Mark.

  After a moment, Mark’s brows rose—barely visible between the sunglasses and the hair. “Oh, you really wanted to know. I thought you were just being a smart-ass, you know, given the fourteen and all. I wear a kilt . . .” He ran his empty hand down over the pleats. “. . . because I find it more comfortable to let the boys hang free.”

  “Genitals,” Charlie said quickly. “Don’t give me that look,” she added more quickly still as Jack closed his mouth so emphatically his teeth clacked. “You know you were about to ask how he got boys under his kilt and you . . .” Turning to Mark. “. . . were going to say a six-pack usually works, so . . .” She mimed a rim shot. “. . . moving on.”

  “No one appreciates the classics,” Mark muttered. “Can you lift an amp, Cousin Jack?”

  Jack shrugged. He could lift a buffalo. “I’m stronger than I look.”

  Stepping away from the van, Mark made a sweeping gesture at a black box thing with fabric and dials. Jack guessed that must be an amp. Charlie’d never brought one home, so he’d never seen one up close and personal. They looked fuzzier on YouTube. He leaned in, lifted the box thing up, and said, “Where do you want it?”

  “Get it to the stage. Tim’ll place it.”

  Even in this form he could probably carry two, three if they weren’t such an awkward size, but he suspected, given the question, Humans couldn’t.

  “Ah, the energy of youth,” he head Mark say as he headed for the stage. “Anything else I should know about him? You said his parents were dead?”

  “Father’s dead, mother’s not around. He’s strong-minded, independent, easy to feed, and . . .”

  “And I can still hear you!” Jack yelled without turning.

  “. . . picks his nose with his tailtip when he thinks no one’s looking!”

  Jack flushed.

  “Of course we tell the truth,” Auntie Bea sniffed. “We’re hardly responsible for what people believe.”

  It hadn’t taken him long to realize that it wasn’t what a Gale said, it was how they said it.

  Listening to Mark laugh, Jack wondered if Charlie knew that basic rule applied to every word out of her mouth.

  It figured that in front of a crowd of tourists, most of whom couldn’t tell a jig from a reel, Grinneal had never sounded better. At the last minute, Mark decided not to play “Wild Road Beyond.”

  “Wasted on this lot,” he’d said. “Too many Tilleys in the crowd.”

  His song, his decision, but Charlie couldn’t see that the hats made much of a difference. Everyone was on their feet from the second song, and when they knew the words—international crowds meant American covers—they roared the chorus back at the stage like they’d been raised to the sound of the fiddle.

  By nine thirty, the hats were white blobs in the gathering darkness and the smell of sweat had overwhelmed the scent of mosquito repellent. Ignoring the teenagers employed by Parks Canada, who were attempting to herd everyone back to their campsites, the crowd demanded one last song.

  Mark’s eyes gleamed. Charlie tightened her grip on her pick as he slammed them into “Mari Mac.” Eight verses later, the band finished the song at Mach 10 and the crowd, wrung dry, finally surrendered the field.

  “Figures this wasn’t a festival show,” Shelly gasped, tossing Charlie a bottle of water and cracking one for herself. “We were on fucking fire!”

  “Damn right,” Charlie agr
eed, stretching her T-shirt up to wipe her forehead. “So we just do it again. And again. And again.” She emptied the bottle as Shelly laughed.

  “You think it’s going to be that easy?”

  “Please. If it was easy, everybody’d be doing it. We, however, are amazing.”

  “We are.”

  “We not only rock and roll, we Celt.”

  “I don’t think you can use that as a verb,” Shelly pointed out, bending to unplug her electric upright bass.

  “I can use anything I want as a . . .” Charlie couldn’t see what Tanis was looking at, but, even at a distance, it seemed as though Bo’s arm was the only thing keeping her vertical. Swinging her guitar back around in front of her body, although she had no idea what she’d do should Auntie Catherine have decided to get up close and personal now the mirrors were blocked, Charlie ran from the grandstand to where the fiddle player and the Selkie were standing at the end of the trampled grass.

  Not Auntie Catherine.

  Jack.

  And his eyes were gold.

  “Tanis, Bo, I see you met my cousin Jack. Jack, this is Bomen Deol, our fiddle player and Tanis, his girlfriend.” Squirming past Tanis, she moved in beside Jack and elbowed him hard in the ribs. “Remember the food rule.” Her presence had stopped Bo’s constant demands to know what was wrong and Tanis, at least, wasn’t crying. Of course it didn’t look like she was breathing either. “Tanis! Snap out of it!”

  The Selkie blinked, her eyes welled up with tears, and she sank to her knees—sliding out of Bo’s relaxed grip. “Highness.”

  Oh, right. Dragon Prince. Usually the dragon part was the more relevant.

  “Jack!”

  “I didn’t do anything!” His eyes hazel again, he waved a hand at Tanis who shuddered and leaned away. “She’s just . . .”

  “Tanis, get up.” Eineen did not sound happy. Or look particularly Human as she appeared out of the darkness. “Highness.” She inclined her head to Jack, then turned on Charlie, lips pulled back from pointed teeth. “What is he doing here?”