Wild Ways

by Tanya Huff

  Actually, some of the roadies looked familiar.

  “Those two played in Mabou,” Shelly told her, pointing at a couple of scrawny teenagers staggering past with cases of bottled water. “They volunteer and get a chance to go on stage between bands. Most of them are solos, but they can have up to three in a group. Their names go into a lottery; winners sit out the next draw but go back in the draw after. The festival stage offers a lot of exposure.”

  “Sure,” Charlie snorted, “if you want to be an itinerant musician dependent on the kindness of strangers, which I’m not saying is a bad thing,” she continued as Shelly’s brows went up. She spread her arms. “I mean, hello, knowing of what I speak.”

  “It’s not a bad life.” Shelly grinned. “In fact, it’s a fine life.”

  “No show tunes!” Mark snapped, swinging around to face them, sunlight glinting on his holographic Sharon, Lois, and Bram medallion. “I end up in one more drunken ode to Rodgers and Hammerstein and I will put my head through my floor tom.”

  “It’s three in the afternoon. Who’s drinking?”

  As Shelly began naming names, Jack poked Charlie in the side. “Ow.”

  “Yeah. Whatever. The seal-girl, I mean the fiddler’s girlfriend, is trying to get your attention.”

  “Tanis? Is she crying?”

  Jack leaned out to the right, and squinted. “I don’t think so.”

  “Wonder of wonders.” Charlie turned and Tanis waved. “Come on.”

  “I don’t . . .”

  Jack’s arm was warm when she grabbed it but more like car parked in the sun than burn the flesh from your bones. “This may be about what happened last night. You’re my distraction.”

  “From what?”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Tanis is a bit emotional. Tanis, hi. What’s up? Don’t kneel!”

  Tanis wobbled but stayed standing and compromised by so obviously not looking at Jack she might as well have been staring. “Eineen . . .”

  “Has hooked up. I heard. I’m happy for her.”

  “Who told you . . . ?” Her gaze flicked over to Jack for a millisecond then locked back onto Charlie’s face, eyes moist. “The Dragons are wise and all knowing.”

  “Know-it-alls, maybe,” Charlie grunted as Jack elbowed her in the ribs.

  “I wouldn’t say . . .”

  “You didn’t.” She got him in a headlock but knew she’d never get him to say auntie before he raised his body temperature from sun-warmed to deep-fried. “Was that all?”

  “No . . .” Tanis watched them, confused, but that was a huge improvement over moist. “The man she joined with, he works for Carlson Oil.”

  Suddenly released, Jack hit the ground on his hands and knees. Swearing under his breath, he slapped out a small grass fire.

  Charlie kicked him lightly with the side of her leg. “Watch your language, Your Highness. So Eineen’s with a man from Carlson Oil? That’s interesting.”

  “More than interesting; he’s the personal assistant of Amelia Carlson.”

  “Not a fiddler, then?”

  Tanis searched out Bo in the crowd of musicians. “He says his father was a fisherman.”

  “He?”

  “Paul.”

  “Okay.” Charlie waved a hand in front of Tanis’ face until the Selkie stopped staring at her boyfriend. “Did Eineen plan this?”

  “We don’t plan the dance.”

  Jack made a rude noise that morphed into a squawk when Charlie smacked the back of his head. “If it was a plan, it’s pretty clever. If it wasn’t . . .” She glanced up at a cloudless blue sky and wondered if the gods were laughing. “. . . it looks like the universe is sticking its oar in again. It’s a seagoing reference,” she added when Tanis looked confused. “Is Paul giving your sealskins back?”

  “He doesn’t have them, but he knows where they’re hidden. Eineen says they’re going to pick them up tonight.”

  “They are?” Charlie looked up at the sky again. “So, I wonder why I’m even here . . .”

  The fiddler in her head broke into a reprise of “I Won’t Do the Work.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. I just said I didn’t know what needed to be done.”

  “Uh, Charlie?” Jack poked her arm. Hard. “You’re talking to yourself.”

  “I have a fiddler in my head,” she sighed.

  “Is that like one of those things that means something else?” he asked. “Because if it isn’t, you’re officially the weirdest person I’m related to.”

  “I’m officially the weirdest person you’re related to.”

  “Okay, then.”

  And the fiddler played “Farewell to Decorum.”

  When Paul walked out of the office at 7:22, the earliest he’d ever left voluntarily, Eineen was waiting for him by his car. She wore a purple tank and faded, low-cut jeans held over the sweet arc of her hips by a worn leather belt. On her feet, cheap department store sneakers. She looked like the girls he’d grown up with in Dartmouth except that her hair flowed over bare shoulders like water from the darkest, deepest part of the ocean and the curve of those shoulders was the perfect curve of a wave heading for shore. He cupped her face with both hands and realized, as he caressed her cheeks with his thumbs, that her skin felt like water sun-warmed in tidal pools. Her eyes promised him everything, unconditionally.

  He felt as though he was being swept away by all she offered, so he anchored his mouth to hers and . . .

  . . . remembered he was in the parking lot outside of Carlson Oil’s Sydney office.

  Licking lips that tasted of salt, he pulled away. “I can’t do this here.”

  “But you’re doing it so well.” She yanked him back against her by his belt loops.

  “No, I work here. It’s unprofessional.” He shifted slightly, changing the angle of contact while he was still able.

  “To have a life?”

  “I was going to pick you up in Louisburg.”

  Her shrug moved their bodies together in interesting ways. Goose bumps rose on his scalp under the cool paths her fingertips stroked over the side of his head. He didn’t realize she’d removed his earpiece until she handed it to him. “It was faster for me to come to you.”

  “How . . . ?”

  “I took a taxi.”

  “But money . . .”

  “Dead men’s bones can’t stop us claiming treasures from the ocean floor. Also,” she added, allowing him to step away, “about forty years ago one of my cousins danced for an investment banker. We have a comprehensive portfolio.”

  “An investment banker?”

  Eineen smiled. “His father was also a fisherman. And he was a better than average fiddle player, if only at ceilidhs.”

  She spoke like she’d known him.

  Paul remembered seeing her change, he remembered seeing the pelt fall empty-eyed to the rock, and while he knew it had happened only the night before, it felt as though it happened to someone else a long time ago, everything that had happened overshadowed by the crystal clear memory of how she’d danced to the rhythm of his heart. He knew what she was. He didn’t care. Hell, if she didn’t care what he was, he had no grounds for complaint. She was tall enough, he barely had to bend when he stepped back in and kissed her. “Let’s go make this right.”

  She licked her lower lip as though chasing his taste, but she didn’t look happy. “Returning the skins won’t make it right.”

  “But it’s a start?”

  “Yes, it’s a start.”

  He knew he should put his earpiece back in. The greater part of his job involved being available when Ms. Carlson needed him. The plastic housing was warm and slightly greasy in his hand. He slipped it into his jacket pocket.

  “Yeah, I had a call you were coming, Mr. Belleveau.” The guard at the gate frowned, but it looked more like concern than suspicion. “It’s kind of late and it’s going to be dark soon. Are you sure you don’t want to do this tomorrow?”

  Paul fought to k
eep his grip on the steering wheel loose. He’d been pleased to see a different guard than the one who’d let him in before although a repeat of the first man’s disinterest would have been a bonus. “I’m here tonight.”

  “Pardon me for saying this, but you’re not exactly dressed for . . .”

  “I came straight from the office.”

  “Well, okay, but . . .” He pushed his cap back and rubbed at the red dent in his forehead. “. . . you shouldn’t be going in alone. What if something happened?”

  “You know where I am.”

  “Well, yeah, but . . .”

  “If I’m not back in three hours, assume something has happened.”

  “Three hours is . . .”

  “I have no intention of rushing an inspection.”

  “I guess that’ll . . .”

  “Good. Thank you.” Paul stepped on the gas just emphatically enough for instinct to move the guard away from the car. He drove as fast as he thought was unremarkable to the other side of the wellhead and parked. And exhaled.

  “He didn’t see you.”

  “I told you he wouldn’t. He saw your jacket and your briefcase.” Eineen lifted them both off her lap, twisting gracefully to drop them in the backseat.

  “That’s amazing. You’re amazing.”

  “I just wasn’t the droid he was looking for.” When he frowned, she shook her head. “Never mind. Come on.”

  Paul hadn’t even considered going back to the Duke alone, although had Eineen not been able to do whatever she’d done to the guard, getting her in would have been complicated. In all honesty, he had trouble thinking about doing anything alone. Every thought of the future, from ten minutes to ten years, involved Eineen. There were whole blocks of time, minutes stacked on minutes, when he didn’t think about work at all.

  She looked incredible in the hardhat. As the cage descended down the hoist shaft, he wrapped his hands around her waist and kissed a line up one side of her throat, along her jaw, and down the other while she murmured his name and held onto his arms tight enough to leave bruises.

  When the cage jerked to a halt at Canaveral, Paul pulled away and fixed his shirt before opening the gate. The corner of Eineen’s mouth twitched and he knew she was laughing at him but there was nothing wrong with looking good even one hundred and fifty meters underground. He was still who he was, and who he was did not wander about with a dress shirt untucked and rumpled.

  “It’s this way, down C tunnel. We can grab the cart I used the last time; it’s just inside the tunnel.”

  When he turned his helmet light on, Eineen reached up and turned it off again. “It might be best,” she said quietly, “if the shadows weren’t moving.”

  There were more shadows with the only illumination coming from the tunnel lights, but Eineen was right. They stayed put and that was a huge improvement over his last trip when fear had seeded the deserted mine with imaginary dangers.

  Pulling his phone from his pocket, Paul called up the schematic as they walked. Without it, he’d never recognize the correct cross corridor. In all honesty, he hadn’t tried very hard to mark the place where he’d left the pelts. That wasn’t like him, and he wondered if it had been guilt, already present but buried under his obligations to his job.

  The cart rolled effortlessly along the tracks, easy enough to push one-handed. They walked silently, Eineen close enough to his side he could feel the turbulence her movement caused in the still air.

  “We’re under the sea . . .” Cool fingers pressed down on his mouth, stopping the words. When he turned toward her, she shook her head, reached out, and pulled the cart to a stop. Pulled it to a stop before he stopped pushing. He looked at his hand on the crossbar, on her hand beside his, and decided beside his was the important thing to remember.

  As the last of the noise chased itself down the tunnel—metal on metal, his leather soles on the stone—she leaned close and whispered, “There’s something down here.”

  And all at once he remembered the sound of claws against rock.

  “Where . . . ?”

  She shook her head, but whether she wanted him to stop talking or because she didn’t know where, he couldn’t tell.

  The cross tunnel, the first cross tunnel out under the sea where he’d left the pelts, was still about ten meters away. Paul pointed and jerked his thumb to the left.

  Eineen nodded, came out from behind the cart, and started forward slowly.

  Completely silently.

  Sweat dribbling down his sides, he followed. Not quite so silently.

  It was a deserted mine. It had been deserted for years.

  There was nothing down here with them.

  They were granting the dark and the quiet and the heat and the oppressive weight of rock and water too much influence.

  They were allowing their imaginations to . . .

  He missed his footing on a bit of uneven rock, brought his right foot down a little too hard.

  It wasn’t much of a sound. Anywhere else, it would have gone unnoticed, lost in the ambient noise. Anywhere else, there would have been ambient noise.

  He froze. Eineen froze, then slowly reached back toward him. Paul caught her hand and laced their fingers together, breathing shallowly, trying to hear past the blood roaring in his ears.

  It sounded like rats at first, rats in the distance.

  Claws skittering against stone.

  He remembered that sound.

  It grew louder and sounded less like the random movement of animals.

  Still claws against stone, but moving purposefully.

  Behind that sound another sound, harder to hear. A rough burr. Stone scraping against stone? As if whatever moved slowly up from the lower tunnels dragged a rock. A large rock. Under the scraping, he could hear a slow thud. Slow but steady. His heart began to match the rhythm.

  Eineen’s grip tightened as she turned. Her voice bypassed Paul’s ears and jabbed straight into his brain, overriding the rhythm that held him in place. “Run!”

  They abandoned the cart, and when Eineen’s hardhat fell off, crashing and rolling behind them, they abandoned that, too.

  Slick soles slipped against the rock. These were not the shoes he would have worn if he’d known he was going to be running for his life. He’d been a runner in high school, quit in university when someone had made a crack about Kenyans, making it a race thing, but he was barely keeping up and he could tell Eineen had slowed her pace.

  He wanted to tell her to go on without him.

  He didn’t.

  He hung on, let her yank him forward, keep him from falling, keep him moving faster than he could’ve gone on his own.

  He tasted iron at the back of his throat.

  His lungs fought to suck in enough hot, humid air. Then fought to force it out. In. Out.

  Don’t think of what might be following.

  Just run.

  Eineen reached the cage first, out in front by the length of their stretched arms. She ran in through the open gate and turned, staring past him. Her eyes were too large. Too dark. Her face the wrong shape. Nostrils flared too wide. He could see her chest, rising and falling. Her shoulders were too broad. Her torso out of proportion. Then he touched the steel and she was Eineen again. Stronger than him; he couldn’t have turned to look behind them. Not for anything.

  Panting, he keyed in the code with his free hand.

  Nothing happened.

  The hoist wouldn’t work with the gate open.

  He’d have to turn.

  He spun on the ball of one foot. Grabbed the bar. Yanked it sideways. Swore as it bounced back.

  The skittering scraped over his skin, rubbed nerves raw. The boom boom boom slipped into a more primal place.

  Eineen’s hand beside his, he slammed the bar home again.

  This time, it caught.

  No, latched. This time it latched. Don’t think caught.

  He input the code again.

  Smacked the green button.

&nbs
p; The cage jerked up. He staggered back, Eineen steadying him as the cables groaned and the elevator began to rise steadily toward the surface.

  Then something hit the bottom of the cage, slamming into the metal grating hard enough they both grabbed for the safety bars to keep from falling.

  “Don’t look down!” Eineen made it a command.

  Paul wanted to obey, but he’d already ducked his head.

  Clinging to the cable, the claws of one hand stuffed through the grate, was something out of nightmare. Huge eyes. Like a lemur’s. An evil lemur’s. Bulging and glistening. Too many teeth. Too many sharp pointed yellow teeth in a mouth too wide. Small ears, small and round and tight against its head. Paul couldn’t help thinking they should have been pointed. Not much of a nose. Black skin. Really black. Not black like he was black. He was medium brown at best. These guys were black like the coal that had come out of the Duke back in the day. Purple iridescent highlights—the whole nine yards.

  And the thing on the cable wasn’t alone. Seven, eight, ten . . . They spilled into Canaveral like cockroaches. As the cage rose past the roof, they crowded to the edge of the hoist shaft.

  “Do you have any salt?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Have any salt!”

  “No! But I have sugar substitute.” Not every coffee shop had the brand Ms. Carlson liked.

  “Sugar substitute?” She was laughing at him, but it wiped the look of horror from her face and that was all that mattered. And looking at her was better than looking down. She cupped his cheek, leaned in . . .

  Steel screamed as claws gouged deep lines in the grate.

  . . . and she snatched the hardhat off his head.

  “The light!” Dropping to her knees, she flicked the headlamp on and aimed the beam right into the creature’s face.

  It screamed, much as the steel had, and dropped away. The light glinted off its flailing hands. The creatures it passed as it fell screamed with it.