by Tanya Huff
“We ran. And we got lucky.” Her fingers tightened on Paul’s arm, dimpling the skin. Goblins weren’t very big, but they swarmed their prey, overwhelming larger creatures with numbers. “They were in the mine where the skins are hidden.”
“No.” Charlie shook her head, thinking back to the blank verses in Tanis’ song. “I could have found them in a mine.”
“The tunnel they’re in goes out under the bay.”
“Under the water?” The Gales had their roots sunk deep in the Earth. They didn’t do water and, until Jack, barely did air. Auntie Ruby’s attempts at skywriting aside. “That might be enough to do it.” Had been enough to do it. Obviously. “So you were trying to get the skins back. Mr. Belleveau’s switched teams?”
“I’m not gay!”
Charlie and Eineen turned together to stare at Paul.
“And I’ve got news for you, caring about personal grooming has nothing to do with sexual orientation.” He brushed a bit of dust or something equally invisible off his shirt. “I know gay men who wear flannel for God’s sake.”
“Okay. Not those teams. I meant you’ve switched from supporting the evil oil company to throwing in with Two Seventy-five N’s protest.”
“Oh.” Paul squared his shoulders. “No.”
“No?” Eineen’s reaction cut Charlie’s off, so Charlie waited. He couldn’t refuse to answer Eineen. She wondered if he could lie to her.
“Taking the pelts, well, that was wrong.” Paul turned to stare lovingly into Eineen’s eyes, their fingers laced again. “It was wrong even though it was in the best interests of the company and I am truly sorry that we caused so much grief to your family.” His free hand rose to cup her cheek. “But the well, there’s nothing wrong with that well. There’s a substantial oil field off Hay Island, and it only makes sense to exploit it. It’s deep, sure, but the rock’s stable and unlike deepwater wells, it’ll be easy to sink, remarkably safe in comparison, and entirely profitable as it’s so close to shore it’ll make transportation costs negligible. We’re in talks about a pipeline to a processing center on Scatarie Island and we’ll be bringing significant numbers of jobs to Cape Breton.”
Charlie really wished she had a camera. The expression on Eineen’s face was priceless. “I’m guessing you two lovebirds didn’t talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about!” Eineen jerked back until she was standing far enough from Paul to work up the volume. “Scatarie Island is a protected wilderness area! If, no, when there’s a spill, it’ll destroy entire ecosystems. If it happens during storm season, and that’s likely when it’ll happen . . .”
“Because of the storms,” Charlie added helpfully. “Being in the North Atlantic and all.”
“A spill during storm season will be impossible to contain,” Eineen continued, ignoring her. “Impossible. Not difficult! And that’s not even mentioning the disruption of a protected seal rockery just putting the damned thing in! And,” she added, cutting Paul off as he opened his mouth, “deep or shallow, all water wells leak. We’re raising children in those waters.”
“We?” he managed.
“Not you and I, personally!”
He didn’t look reassured.
When Charlie pointed that out, Eineen told her to shut up and locked eyes with Paul. “If you are with me, you are not working for Carlson Oil. If you are with me, you are not supporting a company that wants to destroy my family’s home.”
No contractions, Charlie noted as the proportions of Eineen’s face shifted between Human and not.
Reaching out, she pressed her palm over Paul’s heart. “Are you with me or are you with Amelia Carlson?”
When a full thirty seconds passed, Charlie realized he was actually thinking about it. She was impressed. He had bigger cajones than it appeared. And he’d need them if the expression on Eineen’s face was anything to go by.
“We are together,” she growled.
“I know. But I worked hard to get this job. I’m good at it and I’m paid well for doing it. I mean really well.” He held out his wrist. “This watch cost me eight hundred dollars. My father never owned a watch that cost more than twenty.”
“You are not your father!”
His smile looked more like a snarl. “That’s my point. My father wore thrift shop clothes and smelled of fish. At forty, his arthritis was so bad he could barely open his hands. When he died at forty-three, we had to sell the car to pay for the funeral. I’m not going back to just getting by.”
“Daddy issues much?” Charlie muttered under her breath.
Eineen closed her eyes and visibly composed herself. When she opened them, she was more Human than Fey and the line of Paul’s shoulders visibly eased. “I told you, but you didn’t listen. Ships uncounted litter the floor of the sea,” she said. “Some are coffins only, some are wrecks of no value, but some have spilled silver and gold from between rotting timbers. My people harvest dead men’s treasure from the sea and then invest it. Our holdings are about seventy/thirty low-risk/high-return funds. We’re loaded.”
“Seriously?” Charlie didn’t expect an answer, but to her surprise, Eineen flashed her a triumphant smile.
“Seriously. How do you think Two Seventy-five N can afford such kick-ass lawyers?”
“Hadn’t actually thought about it.”
“Wait.” Paul seemed to be having a little trouble finding the right words. “You said there were investment bankers. You never said you were rich.”
“I have as much as I need, or want, but if you need or want more, it’s there. And there’s a job for you taking care of it, making more of it if you want that. Strangers manage it now. It’s been years since one of us has ended up with a mate who wasn’t a fiddler or a fisherman. Or a German tourist, but we’re fairly certain that was an accident; they own a lot of land on the island.”
“Wait,” Paul said again. “I’d work for you?”
“You’d work for the money. You need give up no material pleasures for love. That leads, in the end, only to resentment.” She closed the fingers of the hand pressed over his heart and tugged on his shirt. “You’d have power of your own. Power I wouldn’t interfere with.”
Somehow, Charlie managed to keep her response behind her teeth.
“I’d need to think about it . . .”
“Of course. And while you think about it . . .” Human features slipping, Eineen twisted to face Charlie. “Call His Highness.”
“Excuse me?”
“We need to speak with the Dragon Prince. Call him.”
Charlie raised a brow. Eineen seemed a little confused as to just who she’d danced for.
“The Goblins,” she continued, as though it explained her tone, “are guarding the skins. Until they’re removed, we can’t get them out of the mine. The Goblins might not obey his command, but the Prince is what he is and he is terrifying.”
“Yeah, well, right now Jack’s off terrifying answers out of Boggarts. So, sorry. No prince.”
“Boggarts are vandals. Irritants. Cowards.” Eineen dismissed them with a wave. “They’re probably heading straight back to the gate. Chasing them is a pointless waste of time.”
“Chasing them will find the gate and get us—that would be me and Jack—information on who opened it.”
“You know who opened it. Your Auntie Catherine opened the gates and forced the Goblins through so they could guard the pelts.”
“She convinced me they’d be safer in the mine.” Paul answered the question Charlie hadn’t asked. “Who else could add that kind of security?”
“Carlson Oil didn’t pay her to add it?”
“To add Goblins?”
Charlie nodded at the woman beside him. “Selkie.”
He acknowledged the point. “No, we didn’t pay her to add Goblins.”
“Well, trust me, she certainly didn’t do it out of the kindness of her heart. Why would she throw her support so vehemently behind stopping Two Seventy-five N and getting this well in?�
�
“She’s your auntie,” Eineen snarled. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“That was rhetorical, right? Or do you want to stand here all night while I tell you?”
“I want you to call the Dragon Prince.” Eineen glanced up at the sky, drawing Paul’s gaze with hers. Charlie didn’t look. Wings the size of Jack’s made a distinctive sound; he wasn’t up there.
“You’re a Gale,” Paul said. “We only have your word for it that you aren’t working with her. For her.”
“Why would I toss Boggarts at a festival I’m trying to win?”
“An accident,” Eineen sneered. “One gate would have done for both the Goblins and the Boggarts. Boggarts often hang around the edges of Goblin gangs trying to look tough, too stupid to realize it only puts them in danger from the Goblins as well as larger predators.”
“And the reason for their appearance here tonight?”
“If you opened the gate, they’d be drawn to you.”
“If I opened the gate, they’d know I could kick their collective asses, and Boggarts, as you pointed out, are cowards. Auntie Catherine is a Wild Power. That makes her a wild card. That means if there’s high-level shit disturbing going on and she’s in the neighborhood, she’s probably behind it. Plus we already know she was the one who took the skins. We just don’t know why!”
“Everything okay over here?”
Charlie turned toward the police officer, suddenly aware she’d been shouting. And waving her arms. And stamping her foot. “Everything’s fine.”
“I was asking Eineen.”
She smiled. “Everything’s fine. A night like tonight . . .” She waved in the general direction of the burned chip wagon and, for all Charlie knew, the mine. “. . . nerves are on edge. That’s all.”
“If you’re sure. So I hear Seanan’s not well.”
Seanan had been one of the Selkies whose sealskin had been stolen.
“She’s a bit under the weather, yes, but I’m sure she’ll be fine soon.” Eineen glanced pointedly at Charlie. Who gave serious thought to throwing a charm on the cop just because she could.
“Well, tell her I was asking after her when you’re talking next. And you,” he turned back to Charlie. “You keep it down, okay? I think there’s been enough shouting in these parts for one night. Eineen.”
“Brayden. Seanan’s husband is his cousin’s brother-in-law,” Eineen added as he joined the other officers by the Visitor’s Center.
Like a small town, Charlie reminded herself.
“If Seanan’s going to be fine soon,” Eineen began.
“You need to get the skins, yeah, I got it.” None of the Fey were subtle. They thought they were, but no. “I need proof I can confront Auntie Catherine with, and that means I’m not calling Jack back from hunting Boggarts. Plus . . .” She held up a hand, cutting Eineen’s protest off. “. . . the Boggarts attacked a crowd of innocent people. When your people decided to join the environmental movement, not to mention put lawyers on retainer, you joined the game. You’re players now, and there’s risk involved in throwing yourself in front of corporate planning. Sure, it sucks that it bit you on the ass, but these people tonight, they came to listen to music. They’re not playing; they don’t even know there’s a game going on. So we deal with the Boggarts first. Then, for chosen family’s sake, and through Bo for Tanis, we deal with the Goblins.”
“With the Dragon Prince’s help, we could retrieve our skins tonight!”
Charlie half turned, and gestured at the smoking ruin of the chip wagon. “Seems his dance card’s full tonight. But thanks for playing.”
“Call him!”
She turned back, swinging the guitar around into place. “Or you’ll what?”
Paul moved to put himself between them, but Eineen pulled him back and stepped forward in his place. He looked confused and unhappy but stayed where she’d shoved him.
“If Tanis asks him . . .” Her lips were drawn back off her teeth, her glamour so shaky she looked like a flip book. “. . . and Tanis will ask him if she’s told to, Bo will stop playing for you.”
“You think what you do to them . . .” Charlie waved a hand between Eineen and Paul. “. . . is stronger than what the music does? I’ll take that chance.” Cue a background chorus of what sounded very much like “I Lost My Love,” and Charlie gave the fiddler in her head points for the title while not entirely convinced the situation called for a jig.
Eineen stared at her for a long moment, fierce and Fey. The moment passed. “You don’t understand,” she wailed, all unlikely angles and uncomfortable beauty. “I was so close to getting them back.”Then she dropped her head, her hair flowing forward to hide the defeat Charlie’d glimpsed on her face.
She was Fey, so mind games were a given, but Charlie didn’t think anyone could fake that kind of grief.
Paul wrapped her in his arms and glared over the top of her head.
Oh, yeah. Like I’m worried about you.
On one hand, there was no real reason she couldn’t deal with the Goblins herself. If Jack could find her wherever she was, she didn’t need to hang around here, and she’d never been good at waiting patiently. On the other hand, the pelts were completely safe, and Eineen knew where they were. It wasn’t like they were still missing, exactly. On yet another hand, there was a chance that the Goblins had slipped through with or behind the Boggarts if they hung out together and then had been drawn to the pelts on their own because they were something of the UnderRealm buried in the dark places they loved, and that meant the Goblins had nothing to do with the Gales. On still another hand, if Charlie caved to Eineen’s demands without argument, she was as enthralled as Paul, only she wasn’t getting laid as a reward for good behavior.
Of course, she had argued. And shouted. And stamped. She’d made her point. Won her point. It was time to be gracious in victory.
Hand number five for the win.
Charlie sucked in a deep breath and jackknifed forward as her lungs filled with a lingering wisp of smoke. “Fine,” she wheezed after a moment spent coughing up what felt like smoke and lungs and french fries. “I’ll help.”
“You?” Eineen lifted her head, her hair moving away from her face without being touched. “You can deal with the Goblins?”
“They can hear me, I can deal with them.”
“They’re in a mine.”
“So you’ve said. The acoustics don’t actually matter; I won’t be giving a concert. They just have to hear me.”
Eineen’s lip curled. “And the Boggarts?”
“I can deal with your problem while Jack deals with them. And this isn’t going to take long. All I’m going to do is keep the Goblins away while you retrieve the skins.”
“They need to go back.”
“Not tonight.”
“The Dragon Prince . . .”
“Look, do you want the Goblins dealt with or not? Because I do have other things I could be doing. Apparently, I have a string that needs changing.”
Paul shifted his grip, wrapping his arms around Eineen’s waist. To Charlie’s surprise, Eineen relaxed back against his body. “Are the pelts safe from the Goblins?” he asked. “Because they didn’t look like the sort of creatures who play nicely with their toys.”
He seemed to be handling the whole Goblin thing well. It was Bo’s reaction, or nonreaction, to an expanded reality all over again. Which pretty much confirmed that sex with Selkies, fully aware that at least part of the time the hottie in their arms packed on a hundred pounds of blubber and ate raw fish that didn’t come with saki, opened the door far enough that anything weird or wonderful could wander in. As for his question . . .
“If Auntie Catherine brought them over, and yes,” Charlie sighed, “I’m pretty sure she did, and if she told them to leave the pelts alone, they would.”
He nodded. “If. What are the odds?”
Charlie shrugged. “Honestly, about fifty/fifty.” The family didn’t play nicely with other people’s toys e
ither.
“I think,” he said to Eineen, stroking his finger along the curve of her cheek, “we should let her help. Catherine Gale created this mess when she stole the pelts; who better than another Gale to deal with it?”
He had a point. It was a family problem from a couple of different angles.
Eineen turned her head and pressed a kiss into his palm. “All right. She can help.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” Charlie muttered, heading back to the picnic table for her guitar case. She thought about calling Mark, but it was late and she’d be back in plenty of time to deal with whatever Jack found and make the run through of the set list. It wasn’t as if she was going to ride the penis-mobile back from the mine.
When she turned, Eineen and Paul were in a clinch so cliché the fiddler slid into “Natalie and Donnel’s Wedding.”
“Could you two try and tone down the displays of blatant heterosexuality during this little adventure?” she sighed, walking over to the car.
As she opened the door, she heard Paul say, “Is she . . . ?”
And Eineen answer, “She’s a Gale.”
As if that explained it.
Which it did.
Hunting Boggarts wasn’t as easy as Jack had pretended while talking to Charlie. When they were on the run, all that hair flapping about drew shadows that changed their shape, blending them into the landscape. If that David Suzuki guy on television could be trusted, then it worked the way a tiger’s stripes did, hiding an orange-and-black animal in green-and-gold grass. It didn’t help that he didn’t know which way they’d fled. Probably inland, but just because he’d never dragged a Boggart dripping and shrieking out of the water didn’t mean they couldn’t swim.
Once he got into the air, he began a low, slow spiral out from the festival grounds. He was a good swimmer—his Uncle Viktor had tried to drown him more than once—and the night was warm enough he hoped the Boggarts had run to the sea.
They hadn’t. His life sucked.
Inland. Figured.
He picked up their trail just before they reached this really skinny lake and stayed high while they crossed a bridge he vaguely remembered Charlie driving over on the way to Louisburg. One of them nearly got nailed by a monster truck but scrambled up onto the guardrail at the last minute. What would they know about trucks?