by Renée Jaggér
“At least,” Bailey began, “we finally got some privacy and can relax a little. We don’t have to base everything we do or talk about on, y’know, our mutual situations.”
The wizard raised his cup. “I’ll drink to that.” He smiled, and she couldn’t help mirroring it as they both took a long swig of coffee.
“Although,” Roland added then, “we probably ought to talk about what we’re going to do next. We’ll have to find a motel or something. Wish I could say I had friends in town who could have us as guests, but I don’t. Still, we might as well have fun while we’re here.”
Bailey pushed a lock of brown hair away from her face. “Yeah, I’ll agree with all of the above, especially the part about having fun. Shit, I’ve been thinking about coming to Portland to do something like this for a long time. It just never seemed, I dunno, realistic.”
For a second, his mouth twisted into a slight smirk and it looked like he was going to make fun of her, but then his eyes softened.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Leaving home seems almost impossible until you actually do it. Then, suddenly, you can do anything.”
Bailey worked her foot under the table and prodded Roland’s ankle with her toes. “That sounds like a slogan for one of those inspirational posters, but I think you’re right.”
“Of course, I’m right,” he gloated. Then his smile faded. “Well, you can do anything except stuff that, well, stuff that certain of us can do but aren’t supposed to in view of everyone else. You know what I mean, I’m sure.”
“Right,” she shot back. “Like the kind of stuff I can’t do.”
Blinking, he apologized. “Sorry. I suppose it would also apply to lifting a three-hundred-pound object with one hand. Not many girls can do that. In my case, of course, it means the flashier magicks.”
She nodded. “Aye. You were using some back at the barn, weren’t you? Against the South Cliffs? I mean, correct me if I’m wrong.”
“I was,” he confirmed. “Just minor stuff that isn’t going to set off any alarms.”
At that, he leaned back and stared at the ceiling for a moment. “You know,” he muttered, “I understand the rules and why we have them, but it’s hard not to be annoyed by all the constraints, not to mention the unpleasant prospect of having to deal with them. Just one of the harsh realities of life, I guess.”
Bailey squinted. He was speaking as though he were referring to something obvious and well-known, but she had no goddamn idea what he was talking about.
“Them?” she asked. “Who? The witches? The other packs?”
He turned his eyes to her and gave her a blank look for a second or two. “Huh. You really don’t know, do you?”
“I guess not,” she grumbled, feeling foolish.
“Well,” he went on, “no one is born knowing anything, so there’s no shame in learning something later than someone else. Them, meaning the ‘Men in Black.’ That’s not what they’re actually called, but it’s close enough. The people who keep a lid on supernatural things.” His dour expression suggested he’d encountered them before and didn’t recall them fondly.
Bailey suddenly felt the skin crawl between her shoulder blades. “Shit. I honestly never heard of them. I guess Greenhearth isn’t important enough to be on their radar or whatever. There’s seriously some agency or whatnot that goes around suppressing stuff? Stuff like, well, you and me, I mean?”
Slowly, the wizard nodded his head. “Suppressing information, mostly. It’s not like they’re out to exterminate us. At least, I don’t think so, and if they are, they’re doing a pretty bad job of it. But you can imagine how the rest of the world would react to the knowledge that witches and werewolves and lots of other things that go bump in the night are real.”
Bailey thought about it. In Greenhearth, everyone knew some of the population was different from the rest, and there had always been a taboo, mostly unspoken, about revealing that information to outsiders.
Roland finished his coffee. “It would be bad to fire up the anxiety and paranoia and superstition of seven billion people. The results would probably make the Salem Witch Trials look like a Girl Scout marshmallow roast.”
She glanced around, suddenly concerned that someone might be listening to their conversation. No one was sitting in the adjacent booths, though, and the nearest other patrons seemed absorbed in their own conversations. Even Bailey had trouble hearing them under the buzz and bustle of the place’s ambient noise.
Returning her gaze to the wizard, she had to agree. “Yeah, people can get finicky about things they don’t understand. I mean, the folks in Greenhearth know me and my family, and even assholes like Oberlin. We’re just part of the scenery; everyone knows the score.”
Roland watched her in his calmly intense way, as though he were contemplating what it would be like to live in a small town with a big secret.
She continued, “We never talk about it with anyone from out of town. Hell, most people only know about werewolves from horror movies or old legends and stuff. They’d probably flip their shit if they knew that’s what I am. ‘Hide your cats, Bailey’s on the prowl.’”
Roland bit down on a smirk at that.
She forged ahead. “Or, y’know, young mothers going all helicopter parent on their kids. ‘Oh, no, Bailey’s a WEREWOLF! She’ll eat little Billy the first chance she gets. My, what big teeth she has.’ As if little Billy would even taste good. Probably all fat and sinew. You’d have to put him in the slow cooker and then season the hell out of him with a ton of pepper and steak sauce.”
Mid-rant, her eyes had glazed over as her mind had turned absently to the problem of cooking low-quality meat. Then she remembered Roland and refocused on him, wondering for a second if she’d gone too far with that last joke.
The Seattleite was looking at her evenly although his mouth was doing strange things. When she focused again, he doubled over and cracked up.
“Steak sauce,” he cackled, wiping his eyes. “And the slow cooker. Classic. Holy shit!”
Bailey laughed as well. “I appreciate a man who’s got a fucked-up sense of humor.”
The words had just left her mouth when the waitress returned with their food, her mouth scrunching at Bailey’s foul language in a family establishment.
“Hi,” she said, choosing not to make an issue of Bailey’s faux pas. “Here you go. You had the burger medium-rare, right?”
“Yup.” Bailey made room for the heated plate and its pile of food. The server then slid the chicken wrap over to Roland. “Enjoy your meals. Let me know if I can get you anything else. Coffee refill?”
They both requested one, and the young woman promised she’d be right back with it. They dug wordlessly into their food, both hungry and comfortable with the other’s silence. Besides, that way, the waitress returned with coffee before either had a chance to blab more about magic or Were stuff where she could hear it.
Bailey was about halfway through her burger when Roland spoke next.
“Honestly, though,” he continued, picking up where he’d left off a few minutes ago, “the Men in Black are less of a problem than my people. Being the kind of wizard I am, all ‘special’ and shit, poses more difficulties than anything the outside world can come up with.”
Bailey swallowed a large mouthful. “Yeah, I can see that. Your own people are the ones you have to deal with most of the time. I’m ‘special’ in my own way too, although in my case it’s because of what I can’t do.”
She frowned and drank some more coffee. “And for that matter, what I won’t do, such as marry someone like Dan Oberlin. Makes me wish I did have magic sometimes. It’d be a way to secure a better life, seems like, and you guys aren’t pressured into arranged marriages.”
Roland turned his eyes aside. “Well—”
“I mean, you,” she cut him off, “you’re a different case. But with most witches or wizards, it sounds like you’ve got actual freedom. Not gonna lie; I envy that.”
Roland made a s
trange gesture, showing the palms of his hands, and her best guess was that he simply didn’t know how to respond, and had therefore decided not to say whatever had popped into his head. That was probably for the best.
Soon they’d finished their food and coffee and gotten the check, which Roland insisted on paying. “It’s no problem,” he assured her.
It was dark when they headed back out to the truck, feeling much better after a good meal.
“So,” Bailey wondered, climbing into the cab, “what’s next?”
Roland had already opened the passenger’s side door. “As long as you can handle driving in the city at night—which you should be able to do with me guiding you—I’m gonna suggest a night on the town.”
They’d tacitly agreed that going to a nightclub might be a bad idea, even after getting Bailey a new blouse at a Walmart. Too much chance of it ending with her beating the crap out of people. So, instead, they’d headed toward downtown in search of entertainment that was quieter, simpler, and more cultured.
Bailey had no complaints.
Roland inhaled the cool, damp evening air. “I bet this place is even nicer now than it is during the day.”
Walking beside him, Bailey deliberately bumped into him and pushed him gently away from her. She forgot just how strong she was, and he ended up stumbling a couple of steps toward the rail just to keep his balance.
“What?” he asked. “Do you have a personal attachment to Tom McCall and he died at night or something?”
“No,” she said. “You dork. Get back here.” She reached out with her foot, hooking it around the inside of his thigh, and drew him back to where he’d been. “Wouldn’t want you to fall in,” she clarified.
They were at Waterfront Park on the west side of the Willamette River, right next to downtown Portland. The trees and grass were fragrant, the air almost misty.
“Thanks.” He straightened himself out and adjusted the seams of his jacket. “But yeah, in the morning, we should see some of the other stuff throughout the city that would benefit from the sun. The Japanese Garden, maybe, or that cathedral arch thing under the one bridge. I forget exactly where it is, but I’ll look it up later. I’m a stranger here myself, after all.”
They both were, and simply wandering around together through a place completely new and unfamiliar to them had a quality that was almost magical. Somehow it reminded her of the first time her father had taken her up into the mountains.
Passing a covered picnic area, they spotted a board plastered with posters and advertisements. Roland had gotten a step or two ahead, and he slowed to glance at the sheaves of paper. Bailey did likewise.
Mostly it was notices for upcoming events in the park: music festivals, farmer’s markets, stuff like that. One that was especially interesting to the girl since she’d never heard of anything like it back home was an ad for a new Vietnamese-Ethiopian fusion restaurant.
Next to that was a large poster that read MISSING PERSONS across the top in large bold letters. It displayed pictures of the faces of four girls and young women with their names listed below each.
“Huh,” Bailey said under her breath. “Almost sound familiar.”
Two of the missing girls had the same surnames as families in Greenhearth and other Were packs from different parts of the valley. She didn’t recognize the girls, though, so it might have just been a coincidence. They weren’t uncommon names.
Roland had wandered ahead, but, realizing Bailey was no longer beside him, he stopped, turned, and strolled back to her.
“What’s that? Something wrong?” he asked.
“Eh, nothing,” she told him. Part of her wanted to run out this instant, find those girls, and bring them to safety, but she knew that would be virtually impossible. Also, she didn’t want to ruin the moment.
He rolled his neck around on his shoulders and stretched his arms. “Okay, then. Once we’re done with this park, I think we should get some ice cream or something and, I don’t know, maybe stumble our way into downtown and see City Hall. And the Sovereign, which is this apartment building with a cool mural on the side. I heard about it somewhere a while ago. This isn’t the optimal hour, but still.”
“Okay.” She laughed, appreciating his quirky desire to do whatever he wanted, regardless of the time of day. “Promise me you’ll protect me from anyone who jumps out of a dark alley wanting my ass, though.”
He sighed. “I suppose I can make that promise, although you have a pretty good track record when it comes to protecting your own ass.”
“That I do,” she stated.
They walked the short distance to City Hall, which was nice enough, although Roland found it to be nothing special. Then he waffled about whether he wanted to bother with the Sovereign and its mural. He seemed to be getting tired.
Since the hour was getting late, Bailey thought they ought to start looking into renting a room. For a minute, the implications of that clouded her thoughts, but she shoved that crap aside. They just needed some rest was all.
Then Roland stopped dead in his tracks. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.
Chapter Ten
She almost swore aloud, but the wizard’s bizarre behavior kept her quiet.
He’d begun slapping his right hip, then plunged his hand into his right jacket pocket, fishing around with fast grasping motions. His face was distant but intent.
“What?” Bailey quipped, hoping she didn’t sound worried. “You got a party going on in your pocket there?”
For a brief instant, she had the crazy, stupid notion that he’d somehow read her mind with magic about the getting-a-room thing and had a typical male overreaction. But no, it couldn’t be anything like that. He almost looked…scared.
She cleared her throat, being loud and obvious about it. “Seriously, what’s happening?”
“Shit,” he muttered. He sidled up to her, his hand now still since he seemed to have found whatever he was looking for. “Alarm, basically. Back when Shannon and her posse cut us off, while you were insulting them, I quietly cast a little charm.”
Bailey arched her eyebrows. If it involved the witches, he was probably right to react as oddly as he had.
“A fifty-cent piece,” he explained. “It’s a big, heavy, obvious coin. I enchanted it to vibrate and jiggle around if they got close as an early-warning system, and a minute ago, it started going crazy.”
His face fell, and he slipped his hand out of his pocket. “Now it’s mostly still again. Just a slight tremor.”
Bailey put her hands on her hips and looked in all directions, casting sharp glares at any cluster of people she could see. There were no suspicious trios of rich party girls anywhere in sight.
Sighing, she turned her eyes back to Roland. “They followed us, then. Obviously they didn’t find us, but they must have seen through the sheriff’s little story and come the same way we did after all. They might be in Portland right this minute.”
He nodded sharply.
“Well,” she continued, “is there any way they could be, y’know, tracking that thing? The coin. If it picks up their signal or whatever, couldn’t they reverse it to find you?”
The wizard rubbed his chin and looked skyward. “It’s possible,” he admitted, “but in order to do that, they’d have had to get their hands on the coin, which I know they haven’t. So, either they made a lucky guess and blundered into Portland on a hunch, or they’re tracking me the same way they have been so far.”
Bailey kicked the ground. They’d been having such a nice time, and now those three were ruining things again.
“We need to get out of here,” she suggested. “And we’re going to need someplace to sleep tonight anyway.”
“Good idea,” he agreed. They turned and strode quickly back to the nearby lot where Bailey’s truck was parked.
Before she could offer further ideas, Roland came up with one of his own. “A low-end motel would be best. The cheaper and rattier the better, frankly. That alone ought to deter
them. They wouldn’t be caught dead at anything less than a mid-range national chain.”
“Sounds about right,” Bailey agreed.
They reached the truck and hopped in, buckling their seatbelts in tandem with Bailey’s firing up the engine and pulling out of the space.
“Um,” she asked Roland, “do you think traffic has died down by this hour? It doesn’t look as bad as earlier.”
He waved his hand. “Not sure. Probably somewhat. Large cities will always have some traffic, but rush hour is well over by now.”
She turned her head so he wouldn’t see her sigh in relief. “Okay, great. And, do you happen to know of a specific cheap motel, or do we just drive around randomly until we see one?”
“Drive,” he said. “Pick a direction. North or west, since that will hopefully put us a bit farther from Shannon. In the meantime, I’ll look on my phone and find one.”
She agreed and piloted the truck out onto the street, heading north, parallel to the river.
As the wizard checked a map app for a suitable place, Bailey marveled at the width of the streets, the number of lanes, the number of cars, and the size, height, and density of the buildings around them. The architecture and the lights were beautiful in a way, but for someone used to farmhouses, small businesses, and the woods, it was all weird and intimidating.
Still, she’d enjoyed her time here so far, and she seemed to be adapting to the driving conditions. She knew how to handle her truck, so it was only a matter of figuring out the road system and watching for other vehicles.
“Okay,” Roland said after a couple of minutes, “there’s an economy place in North Portland that should be perfect. Low cost, mediocre reviews, underwhelming photos, and it’s located in a working-class neighborhood near an industrial area. All of those factors should act as a pretty effective witch repellent.”