The Wild Ways

by Tanya Huff

Chapter Ten

 

  JACK SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE between keeping an eye on the Boggart and not giving himself away, but that still put him high enough he had to keep one eye out for planes. Although he'd never admit it to a Gale, who were in lots of ways just as narrow-minded as his family on the other side, planes were one of the reasons he wanted to stay. Beings without flight had claimed the sky. How cool was that? No one in the UnderRealm had ever tried it. Sure, his uncles would have taken them apart the first time they got off the ground, but that wasn't the point - they hadn't even tried.

  Humans were pretty cool.

  He was a lot less pissed off at his father than he used to be.

  The Boggart squirmed under a fence that guarded three sides of a property - a cliff and the Atlantic guarding the fourth - and headed straight for the cluster of buildings over by the edge of the cliff. There was a car by the building and a guy asleep over by the fence, but Jack couldn't see anything that said there was a gate around. He circled, and as he came in from over the ocean, saw the Boggart squirm through a square hole in the roof of one of the buildings and disappear inside.

  Adjusting his size so as not to bring the building down, Jack landed and stuck his head in the hole. The Boggarts, all the Boggarts, not just his, had definitely gone down there. The smell was unmistakable; old damp sofa cushion mixed with ash. No, old damp sofa cushion mixed with the inside of the vacuum.

  If he was going to follow, he'd have to get smaller still. Deep breath and . . . clench.

  The breeze off the ocean blew the smoke inland as he snickered. Good thing he couldn't change size in skin, he'd fall into the toilet. Digging his claws into the tiles, he reminded himself to repeat that observation to Charlie later.

  Deep breath and . . . clench.

  All that time he'd spent messing around with the mail delivery person was about to pay off. It wasn't easy compressing himself into hawk size; none of his uncles could get this small, and he was bigger than all of them. But then, none of his uncles were sorcerers. Or Gales.

  It didn't matter that he was smaller than the Boggarts now. He was finding the gate - not heading for a fight. Besides, at this size, his flame would cut like a blowtorch, and if he had to get bigger, too bad for the building.

  Finally small enough, he turned on the diagonal so his wings would fit, and dropped into the hole.

  It was fun following the shaft through the building, the Boggarts' trail easy to follow. Too easy with a side order of maximum gross-out at one point. He'd have fried the damp pile as he passed to kill the stink, but he was afraid of cutting through the thin metal under it and Human buildings were weirdly flammable.

  There were twelve Dragon Lords, so most of the UnderRealm built in stone.

  When he reached a shaft that descended down into the earth with Boggart-scented cables running from enormous pulleys, he knew where he was. Back home, Dwarves mined the mountains near his mother's cave. Cameron had laughed when he'd told him, but Dwarves weren't a cliche where Jack came from and anyone who got along that well with his mother had balls out of proportion to their hei . . .

  Music? Charlie.

  He hadn't been hurrying, but now he folded his wings close in to his body and dove, snapping them out as he emerged into a huge room carved out of the rock.

  Snapping them out further to their full width when he saw what the rock had hold of.

  Clutching the bar on elevator's gate so hard the metal cut into his palms, Paul stared at the creature hauling Charlotte Gale into the air. Enormous arms were attached to massive shoulders that tapered down to stumpy legs. It had a head, and Paul thought he saw a face before it was blocked by the Gale woman's body.

  It looked like living rock.

  Except rock wasn't alive.

  "Living earth, remember?"

  Wasn't alive.

  Wasn't.

  "I have the skins. " Eineen's hand closed around his arm, warm, grounding. Something in her touch pushed the terror back. "We need to get out of here. "

  He still couldn't get his fingers to unclench, but he nodded toward the . . . the Troll. The gesture turned into a flinch as it flung the pieces of the smashed guitar aside. "We can't. "

  "We can't do anything. "

  "We can't leave her. "

  "She's a Gale. She'll be fine. "

  Catherine Gale would have been fine. Paul wouldn't have worried for a moment about Catherine Gale. Had he not been running for his life, he might have worried about the Troll. But the Troll wasn't crushing Catherine Gale and Paul realized that nothing could have convinced him of the differences between the two women more than the terror he now felt for her younger relative. Even Eineen's reassurances came in a distant second.

  "We have to do . . . "

  A horde of small furry creatures swarmed down over the elevator, swerved wide around the Troll, spotted the Goblins at the last minute, shrieked, swerved again, and disappeared down a different tunnel.

  "What the hell?"

  "Boggarts. " Eineen's grip tightened slightly, but the calming effect had definitely lessened. "The gate is in these tunnels. "

  Paul looked at the Troll, past it to the Goblins, then turned just far enough to look at Eineen. "You think?"

  Something hit the top of the elevator, bounced, and a single Boggart scrambled across the open area and after the rest.

  The Troll didn't seem to notice.

  Or had noticed everything and not reacted. What the hell did Paul know about Tro . . .

  At first he thought it was bird, maybe a big golden gull - not that gulls came in gold but what did he know about b . . .

  "Dragon! Oh, my fucking God, that's a DRAGON!"

  The tail slammed the elevator, rocking it, knocking him back. The wings, half folded, filled Canaveral. The head dipped low on a long, sinuous neck. Steel screeched as carts were crushed under enormous clawed feet or flung to crumple against the wall.

  The space filled with fire, a heartbeat of searing heat that didn't burn, and a boy in his mid-teens with pale blond hair, crouched over Charlotte Gale's body next to a pile of stone. He was naked, but, other than that, he looked absurdly normal. He turned. Wild, golden eyes locked on Paul's face as he wailed, "Help me! I don't know enough about Humans!"

  So much for normal.

  Smacked by the dragon's tail, the cage door had buckled.

  Paul dragged at it. He'd never move it. "I can't . . . "

  The boy's eyes flared. The door unbuckled and snapped open so fast Paul nearly lost a finger. He stepped forward, but Eineen still had hold of his arm.

  Eineen was on her knees, face hidden behind her hair.

  "Hey!" He couldn't get free of Eineen's grip. Trying hurt. "Eineen!"

  She shook her head, her hair waving like kelp at low tide. "The Prince. "

  Which was when Paul connected the dots. In his own defense, this was his first dragon. The boy was the dragon. The dragon was the prince Eineen had been going to ask for help. And none of that mattered.

  "Get up. " He tucked his free hand under her other arm and hauled her up onto her feet. "We have to help him. He doesn't know enough about Humans. "

  Something he said, or maybe because it was him saying it, got through. Eineen tossed her hair back and stared past him at the boy. At the woman on the floor.

  And then they were moving, Eineen dropping back to her knees beside the body.

  No, not the body. Blood still bubbled between parted lips. It wasn't a body until she stopped breathing.

  "Did you do this, Highness?"

  Jack glanced over at the Selkie touching the pile of rubble that had been the Troll and shook his head. "No, Charlie did. But she's hurt. She's hurt bad and she won't wake up and I don't know what to do. " He couldn't control the smoke that puffed out with every word. He waved it away from Charlie's face and bit his lip until he tasted blood. He wasn't going to cry. Crying was weakness. Weak
ness was death.

  A drop of water splashed onto Charlie's arm and rolled off.

  "You have to take her home, Highness. Her people can heal her. "

  The Selkie's voice was soft but insistent. Jack rubbed his nose on his wrist and said, "How? Home is too far away and . . . " He looked over the rubble at the empty tunnel where the Goblins had been. They'd fled when he'd arrived, but he'd seen them. "The gate is down here. Stupid! I'm so stupid! I followed the Boggart to find the gate, so of course the gate is down here. I can take her through the gate, cut through the Under Realm, and out again by Allie. Allie can fix anything. "

  "If you move her, she'll die. "

  Jack glared up at the man standing by the Selkie. "I have to move her, or she'll die!"

  "The blood, in her mouth . . . there's internal damage. Broken ribs, for sure. If the ends haven't punctured a lung yet . . . " The man's voice trailed off and he shook his head. He looked really upset, like he cared, so Jack didn't kill him for what he'd said. For stopping him from taking Charlie home.

  "Okay. " He touched Charlie's hair because that wouldn't hurt her. He just had to think about this. He was a dragon, but a dragon would eat her, and he didn't want to do that even if he could have. He was a Gale and a Gale would take her home, but he couldn't do that. He was a sorcerer and he could turn her into butterflies, but butterflies died so easily. He could move things without touching them. He could . . .

  He could make clothes out of nothing.

  First day he'd been here, right after he'd followed his father's blood through from the UnderRealm, he made clothes out of parts of David's rental car so he'd look like everyone else. David had been really, really pissed, but that didn't matter now. Point was, he could make things out of other things.

  He could make a thing so he could move Charlie.

  There were bits of the Troll broken up under her so Jack started with those, smoothing them out and connecting them together. They weren't Troll anymore. Whatever Charlie had done, they were only rock. Then he shoved the Selkie out of the way and brought more bits over and started to curl them up and around, just barely touching Charlie's skin.

  "She's not dead! You can't . . . "

  The Selkie stopped the Human male before Jack did. That was good because Jack didn't want to split his attention, but he totally would have fried that guy if he tried to tell him what he could or couldn't do.

  He was especially careful around Charlie's head, but he might have caught a bit of hair anyway.

  Then he sat back, took a deep breath and looked.

  Except for a circle over her mouth and nose, he'd totally encased her in rock. The troll had hurt her and now it would keep her safe while he got her home.

  "As long as I don't whack her on anything, I can move her. "

  He stood, changed, and realized that if he stayed small enough to get through the tunnels to the gate, he'd be too small to carry the rock and Charlie.

  Paul had watched the rock flow and change and feared for a moment the boy - dragon - was building a coffin, but it soon became clear he was using the rock to immobilize Charlotte Gale's injuries. Casting her in stone, as it were. He'd have laid her out were he building a coffin, not taken such care to wrap her where she lay.

  When the boy stood and became a dragon again, the problem he faced was obvious to anyone with eyes. "We can lift her into one of the carts. " If they could find a cart the Troll and then the dragon-boy hadn't crushed. "And then we can roll her to the gate. "

  Another flash of fire and a naked teenage boy stared at him, wide-eyed. "How did you . . . ?"

  "The rock has made the . . . has made Charlotte Gale not only heavy, but bulky. You've got to stay small to fit through the tunnels. It's just a matter of putting the information together and coming up with a solution. It's what I do. "

  The dragon-boy's smile made Paul feel as though he'd just - well, slain a dragon wasn't the best analogy under the circumstances, but he felt like he'd finally done something important with his life. The feelings Amelia Carlson had evoked for a job well done weren't even close.

  He stepped away to find a working cart and realized Eineen had remained on her knees, once again locked in place, staring at the dragon-boy.

  When Paul touched her shoulder, she said, "Your people do not do such things. "

  Since he had no idea what she meant, he turned his attention to the dragon-boy who shrugged, light catching the scatter of golden scales on his chest. "I'm unique. "

  "You're impossible. "

  His teeth were almost Human when he grinned. "Sometimes. "

  "You're . . . "

  "I'm in a hurry! Get up and help, Seal-girl!"

  She stood as if she were a puppet and he'd pulled her strings. Paul didn't like the look of that, but since the dragon-boy then ignored her, he decided it was a problem that could be temporarily forgotten. Kind of like the whole naked issue.

  They found a high-sided cart with a dent in one side that still rolled. Unfortunately, they could only roll it about a meter before a tangle of crushed carts blocked the tracks. Paul glanced around Canaveral. This was a staging area. With any luck, a working forklift had been left behind when the mine had closed. Just because he hadn't seen one . . .

  "Seal-girl!"

  "My name is Eineen, Highness," she snapped as she pushed past Paul. Seemed she wasn't happy about the puppet experience either.

  The dragon-boy rolled his eyes. "And mine's Jack. Now help me push!"

  "You can't," Paul began, but it seemed they could. Eineen put her hands next to the dra . . . to Jack's on a piece of buckled metal and the two of them shoved what was probably half a ton of crushed steel out of the way. Jack's eyes flashed gold again, and forced the cart over a section of flattened track and rolled it up beside Charlotte Gale's body.

  "Wait!" Paul swallowed as Jack turned glowing golden eyes toward him. Had to swallow again before he could continue. "You've immobilized her injuries, but you've got to be careful moving her. Her insides could shift. " Contents could shift during shipping. He shook the thought away. "If you can lift her on your own, Eineen can get into the cart and steady her as she's lowered. We can stay in the cart with her to steady her as you roll her to the gate. " Although given Charlotte Gale's current weight . . . "Try not to make any sudden turns. "

  "I don't," Eineen began.

  Paul cut her off. He understood her protest. Thought he understood anyway. She'd gotten away from this kind of hierarchy when she'd left Faerie or whatever they called it when they were home and she didn't want to go back, but the hierarchy wasn't the issue here. A woman's life was. Charlotte Gale's life. "He'll be able to move faster with our help. "

  "Okay. " Jack nodded. "Great. Get in the . . . "

  Eineen raised a hand. "Do not make it a command. " She climbed over and into the cart, then turned, hands up. "Lift her in, Highness. Slowly. "

  The best Paul could do was stay out of the way. He watched as Jack, the dragon-boy, and the woman he loved, who just happened to be a seal part of the time, lifted and settled Charlotte Gale, wrapped in re-engineered Troll, up and into a mine cart. His job with Carlson Oil seemed to have happened in another life. Here and now, he couldn't call to mind why he'd been so proud of it.

  With Charlotte Gale settled in the bottom of the cart, he climbed in beside Eineen. He couldn't lift a body wrapped in rock, but he could help brace it.

  "We were meant to have a life as close to normal as I could make it," Eineen murmured as Jack pushed the cart into the tunnels.

  "We were meant to have a life together," Paul told her, taking her hand and placing a kiss in her palm. "As long as I have you, I don't care about the rest. "

  "Trolls and Goblins and Boggarts and Dragon Princes . . . "

  "And Amelia Carlson and Carlson Oil and thousand-dollar suits. " Another kiss. "They don't matter. We do. " He was almost surprised to find he meant it. Something had changed over the
last few hours - or maybe it was him who'd changed on a deep and basic level. He was done with the job and what he was expected to do in order to keep it. Monday morning, he'd walk into the office and say . . . "This isn't the tunnel we went down before!"

  The only light came from the headlamps he and Eineen were still wearing. There were no magical lights on the tunnel walls.

  "This is the tunnel the Boggarts went down," Jack told him, his breathing level and unlabored as he pushed the cart at a full run. "Little cowards were heading straight for the gate. "

  "The Goblins?"

  Jack snorted out a cloud of smoke. "They won't come near when I'm around. I'll fry their asses. "

  It sounded like teenage bragging. In a way, Paul supposed it was, but that didn't make it any less true.

  It seemed the Goblins knew that because there was no sign of them as they moved farther and farther into the mine. As near as Paul could determine without the schematics, the tunnel they were in followed the line of the bay to the southwest. He watched Charlotte Gale breathe because it was less disconcerting than watching the tunnel walls speed by.

  "We're close," Eineen said as Jack dug in his heels and slowed the cart.

  Braced against the rusting steel, Paul checked his watch. It was 2:37 AM.

  "It's that side tunnel," Jack grunted. "The next one. "

  As far as Paul was concerned, the next side tunnel looked no different than any of the others they'd passed. And they were going to pass this one, too. Bare feet and a teenage boy, no matter what else he was, couldn't stop the forward momentum of steel and rock and two adults, no, three adults and . . .

  The cart stopped with the front edge about six centimeters beyond the tunnel in question, the rear edge buckled under Jack's grip, the steel hot to the touch.

  Jack and Eineen reversed positions to get Charlotte Gale out of the cart. Nostrils streaming smoke, Jack lifted her over the edge, and with Eineen steadying her, tipped her carefully onto feet - or the rock over her feet. Eineen kept her upright until Jack jumped out and took possession.

  "You can carry her like that?" Paul asked. "As a person?"

  "I'm always a person, dude!" Jack glared over a stone shoulder, his eyes flashing gold. "But yeah, for a little ways. Long enough to carry her through . . . " He shuffled forward three steps and vanished. Not into the darkness.

  Not there.

  Paul shone his headlamp down the tunnel. It looked like a tunnel, no different than any other they'd passed. He stepped forward and a grip on his belt jerked him back, Eineen suddenly between him and the tunnel.

  "You don't want to do that," she said, wrapping her arms around his waist and laying her head on his shoulder. "It's dark and bloody on the other side. "

  "It's where you come from . . . " Her hair smelled like the wind coming down the eastern passage carrying the scent of the sea and the knowledge that the world was wide and wonderful. And a little like fish. ". . . so it can't be all bad. "

  He felt her smile. "We were the best, and we left centuries ago. "

  "Jack . . . "

  "Isn't like the other Dragon Lords. "

  "I gathered. He's . . . "

  Claws skittered against rock. The sound was between them and the way out.

  "They won't come near when I'm around . . . "

  Jack flew low, following the contours of the land. It was harder work, but he hoped that by staying close to the ground his uncles would miss his return. The last thing he needed - the last thing Charlie needed - was for him to have to play their stupid power games. Actually, the last thing he really needed was for his mother to notice he was back in the UnderRealm.

  It smelled wrong.

  He'd gotten used to the smell of people and engines and industry.

  Wings spread, he bent his head and sniffed at Charlie, cradled safely in the claws of his right foot. He'd gotten used to the smell of family.

  She was still alive.

  He'd get her home and Allie would keep her alive.

  If he could find the other gate.

  He couldn't feel a blood link to his father anywhere. I'm so stupid! He should've known there wouldn't be a blood link to the gate in Fort Calgary, or his mother would've gone through it and not followed his blood over the weirdly twisty path he'd had to take to get to the MidRealm.

  He could take that path again; at least he thought he could. He'd done it once and then his mother had done it and Allie had sent his mother and his uncles back along it and that many dragons marked a route. If they hadn't destroyed the path completely.

  Didn't matter. Charlie didn't have time for him to go that way.

  Charlie needed him to get her home.

  Hit with a sudden wave of homesickness, his stroke wavered and he ended up a lot closer to the ground than he'd intended. He knocked something over with his tail, heard it crash, and struggled to gain altitude without looking back.

  He wanted Allie to tell him everything would be all right.

  He wanted Graham to explain how.

  He wanted Joe to translate the explanation.

  He wanted Auntie Gwen to roll her eyes and then fix things.

  He wanted Charlie to . . . to do anything. Open her eyes. Sit up. Survive.

  He was too old to cry.

  He missed his room. He missed his stuff. He missed pie. He missed . . .

  The landscape in front of him had shifted.

  If he flew straight and true, he'd make it home. The gate in Fort Calgary had left a weak spot in the border within the territory the Gales claimed, and he could feel home through it.

  Easy.

  He flew a little higher. A little faster.

  "Home again, home again, jiggedy jog. " The red Dragon Lord came out of the sun and matched Jack's pace. Uncle Viktor was the only one of his uncles who could still keep up to him at his full speed. He couldn't do it for long, but he made the most of every opportunity. "I can't remember if it ends with them eating a hog or a dog and don't care. We missed you around here, Nephew. "

  "Piss off. "

  "Well, they didn't teach you manners, your squishy relatives. " His voice faded and Jack thought he'd outflown the older dragon but a sudden sharp pain in his left wing membrane told him where his uncle had gone. Given their difference in size, it was the one place he could do significant damage. He always went for the wing membrane. Jack knew that, but the need to get Charlie home had distracted him.

  "Running away again? Running away like you're just out of the egg and your scales are soft and you're too scared to fight. What's that you're carrying? Is it precious?" Viktor sneered. "Can I make you drop it?"

  Jack whipped his neck out to the side and snapped.

  Uncle Viktor laughed. He knew how close he could fly to Jack and remain safe.

  But Jack had grown while he was gone.

  Blood hot in his mouth, Jack spat out the wing. Let it flutter to the ground. They were flying low enough Uncle Viktor might survive both the injury and the impact with the ground. He didn't care either way.

  And he was still too old to cry.

  By the time he could sense the weak spot in the border between two trees up ahead, his wing sent ripples of pain up into his back and through his whole body with every downstroke. He'd never flown so fast for so long

  When he landed, he had to drop forward and brace himself on his hands. Fortunately, the grass was too damp to burn. His foot had cramped holding Charlie for so long. Breathing heavily, shaking his head to clear the smoke, he forced it open, his claws dragging trenches through the dirt so Charlie could be set directly onto the ground. He had to change in order to fit through the gate, but he didn't have the energy for clothes no matter what Allie said about clothes inside the city limits.

  If anyone other than his Uncle Viktor had noticed he was home and had gotten ahead of him, this was when they'd attack. He wasn't worried about someone finding Uncle Viktor and
coming after him - at the speed he'd been moving, they'd still be eating. Slipping and sliding, he managed to get his arms around Charlie and tip her carefully up onto her feet.

  She was still breathing. There was fresh blood on the dried blood covering her lips, so she had to still be breathing. Right?

  If it hadn't been so silent, if everyone and everything that lived near the gate hadn't hidden at his approach, he'd have never heard the wings.

  He ducked behind Charlie and nearly dropped her in the backwash from the black dragon's dive.

  "Knew you'd be heading here, Nephew. " Uncle Adam sounded amused. "But the gate is closed. What do you intend to do now?"

  Open it. He intended to open it, but he wasn't about to tell his Uncle Adam that. Of all his uncles, Adam seemed to want him dead the least, but wanting him dead the least didn't mean wanting him alive. Dragging Charlie between the trees, Jack put his hand against the weak spot and pushed.

  It gave. Not enough. He didn't break through.

  Jack had no idea of how to open a gate. He just knew he had to.

  "You're not your father, Nephew. " The ground shook when Uncle Adam landed. And that was just showing off because Jack was twice his size and the ground hadn't shook when he'd landed.

  He pushed against the weak spot again as Adam furled his wings.

  "What have you got there? It smells like blood. Like . . . "

  Jack didn't turn to look but he knew Uncle Adam was frowning.

  "Like Gale blood. Familiar . . . Well, if it isn't the Wild One. What have you done, Nephew?"

  "I haven't done anything. I'm taking her home!"

  "Are you?"

  He could feel home. So close he should be able to touch it.

  "No, I don't think so. "

  Uncle Adam had moved closer and if he got hold of Charlie, Jack didn't doubt for a moment he'd use her. And she'd die from it.

  "Still trying, Jack? I admire that I suppose, but there's no gate there now. Alysha Gale slammed it out of existence, and you can't make something from nothing. "

  Yeah. He could. He slapped his hand again the space again and screamed, "Be a GATE!"

  The only thing that got him and Charlie through was that Uncle Adam clearly didn't believe he could do it and was still just far enough away.

  He fell with Charlie through the gateway into Fort Calgary, softening her impact with the ground as much as he could. She made a sound that hurt his heart as he twisted and yelled, "Stop being a gate!" before his Uncle Adam decided to follow.

  He could hear the water and the traffic and smell people and engines and he was so close, but he couldn't pick Charlie up. He just couldn't. He was so tired and the rock was so heavy . . .

  Inside the rock, Charlie's phone rang.

  And rang.

  And rang.

  He found enough energy for claws and dug the rock away above the sound then ripped Charlie's pocket getting the phone out.

  "Allie?"

  "Jack?"

  "Help . . . "

  Turned out he wasn't too old to cry after all.

  The fiddler in her head was playing "Homeward Bound. " Charlie'd had enough fiddle music to last her a while so, in an effort to get it to shut the hell up, she opened her eyes.

  "Her eyes are black!"

  Allie.

  "Don't worry, Catherine's used to go black off and on for years before the change. "

  Auntie Bea.

  "That's not reassuring!"

  Allie again. She sounded upset. Charlie wanted to say something reassuring, but she just didn't have it in her. The fiddler had stopped, though. Taking advantage of the silence while it lasted, she drifted off to sleep.

  Next time she opened her eyes, Auntie Gwen seemed to be wiping her face with a warm cloth. Seemed to be. It was always best not to take the aunties for granted, especially when laid out flat feeling like overcooked pasta.

  "So, you're back with us, are you? Don't answer that," she added as Charlie scraped a dry tongue over cracked lips. "Let me get you some water first. "

  The water, in a sippy cup shaped like an elephant, was room temperature and the best thing Charlie could ever remember drinking. "What happened?" she managed after half a dozen careful swallows.

  "You took out a Troll, the Troll nearly reciprocated, and Jack brought you home through the UnderRealm having remade the Troll into a kind of a cast. He saved your life. We laid you out on the hill, called a ritual, and put your pieces back together. Allie insisted on you returning to the apartment, so Jack gave up his room although you'd hardly know it since he's been in here most of the time. Congratulations on accepting the responsibilities of a Wild Power, and don't ever do anything like that again. " Auntie Gwen's dark eyes glistened. She brushed angrily at the single tear that rolled down her cheek and added, "Call your mother. She nearly broke the second circle apart trying to get to you and, apparently, your sisters are displacing their teenage angst by hunting vampires in the catacombs under Paris. "

  "There's vampires under Paris?"

  Auntie Gwen sniffed. "Not for much longer if your mother is to be believed. "

  "How long?" Charlie asked. Nothing hurt, but the sheet seemed to weigh a hundred kilos, holding her flat.

  "Since Jack brought you home?" Auntie Gwen helped her sit up, jerking the pillows up with her as support. "Nine days. "

  "Nine days! I've got to call Mark! Wait . . . " Her mistake; frowning hurt. "He has my number, why hasn't he called me?"

  "Jack crushed your phone. "

  "He what? Why?"

  "The poor boy was a bit upset. Did you miss the part about nearly dying, Charlotte?" She stepped back and folded her arms. "You'll just have to write off your little festival group in exchange for being alive. The injuries you had don't heal overnight. Wouldn't have healed overnight even if we'd allowed Jane to bully us into sending you back to Ontario. This is where . . . "

  "Charlie!"

  That Allie stopped her charge before she threw herself into Charlie's arms told Charlie more about how badly she'd been hurt than anything Auntie Gwen had said. Up to and including nine days and nearly dying. She opened her arms. "It's okay, Allie-kitten. "

  Well, relatively okay, Charlie thought as Allie clung to her and cried. But breathing was highly overrated anyway.

  Allie had said Jack could go in first, but Jack liked Graham too much to put him through that. The poor guy'd been cried on pretty much twenty-four/ seven from the moment Charlie'd been brought from the hill. Allie'd held it together until then, but the moment Charlie'd been moved into his room, she'd stopped being the Gale who led the second circle, who anchored the family in Calgary, who'd kicked his mother's tail - and the rest of her - back to the UnderRealm, and became kind of impressively weepy. Her and that seal-girl back east could have a weep off.

  Allie'd wanted Charlie in the big bedroom with her and Graham, so Jack offered his before the aunties could move her out of the apartment altogether. There was more room and more family at his father's old house, but Allie moving in would have shifted the power dynamics and who could get better with all that going on?

  It was weird that Allie knew Charlie was going to be all right, but still couldn't stop crying. Jack had totally stopped worrying the moment the ritual was over. He let the aunties fuss over him, scrubbing down his scales and fixing his wing and then, once Charlie was settled, he'd changed, flown north, snatched up a buffalo from a ranch herd, and carried it into the mountains to eat. Then he'd slept for three days.

  When he got home and Charlie was still asleep, he still didn't worry. An injured Dragon Lord found a safe place to hole up and sleep until he recovered, and Gales were almost as hard to kill as dragons.

  No one could get to Charlie, but they could get to him and, for the first time, there was no question he was a Gale boy with all the indulgences that entailed.

  Now that Charlie was awake, he was a little worried about
how long Allie was staying in there with the door closed after Auntie Gwen had left. If they were having sex in his bed, that would be just too creepy. When the door finally opened, he breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Graham who seemed likely to pace his way through the floor. "You go. I can wait. "

  "You're sure?"

  "I've got things to do. " Jack used his fork to gesture at the line of pies on the kitchen counter. Seemed like every member of the family in Calgary had shown up with two or three every day since Charlie'd come home. The charms were pretty basic - get better, don't be sad, we're in all in this together. The Gales who'd baked then may have called the charms something else, but that's how Jack read them. Aunt Judith had been making meat pies, figuring that even Gales couldn't live indefinitely on lemon meringue. Aunt Judith was currently Jack's favorite aunt. And given all the pie he'd been eating, he felt great. Very reassured.

  Even David had been in and out, although he hadn't brought pie. He had the changes mostly under control now. Jack liked to think he'd helped with that.

  When Graham went into the bedroom, he left the door open.

  Jack appreciated the gesture. Not that he'd been feeling excluded or anything.

  The last slice of strawberry ice cream pie and a half a slice of peach pie later, Graham stuck his head out of the room. "She's wondering where the hell you are. "

  "I'm right here. " He licked his fork.

  "Missing the point, kid. Get your ass in here. "

  Jack sighed and stood. He stretched, scratched under the edge of his T-shirt, and padded barefoot across the room. When he paused at the door, Graham reached out and gripped his shoulder.

  "She's fine. A little damp, given Allie's reaction, but fine. "

  "I know. " Jack shook himself free. "I was there when they fixed her. She's just been sleeping. "

  "Okay. "

  Okay? He had no idea what Graham meant by that. He pushed past, ignored whatever Allie had to say as she moved to join her mate, man, Graham at the door, and stopped at the foot of the bed.

  Charlie was sitting up against a pile of pillows. Her hair was sticking out and needed washing and she had purple shadows under eyes although he didn't know why because she'd been asleep for nine days. She was drinking out of one of Richard's sippy cups that Aunt Judith had brought over even though she was sitting up.

  And she was fine.

  "Hey. " She put the cup down and held open her arms. "Come here. "

  Jack didn't remember crossing the rest of the room. There was a damp spot on the T-shirt Charlie was wearing, but he hadn't made it.

  "I'm okay. "

  "I know. " When he'd seen her last, they'd said she was fixed, but she'd been all limp . . .

  "Hey, you saved me. "

  "I know. I bit Uncle Viktor's wing off. " He felt her laugh. He liked that she laughed about it because it was pretty cool.

  "For what it's worth, if they try to send you back or make you do anything you don't want when you're fifteen, they'll have to go through me first. Actually," she added as he sat up and wiped his eyes that had totally gotten wet off the mess Allie'd left on Charlie's shirt because he wasn't crying, "I'd have had your back regardless, but I have a feeling it means a little more now. "

  Her eyes were black. Then she blinked and they were gray again.

  Jack took a deep breath and waved the smoke away as he exhaled. "There's pie. "

  Charlie shifted Graham's hand from her hip to Allie's, slid out from under Allie's arm, and got out of bed without waking either of them. Years of bands and bars and leaving town early the next morning, had given her mad skills in slipping away, no fuss, no muss. Although, after nine days, it should surprise no one that she couldn't sleep.

  Grabbing a robe on her way out of the bedroom, she thought about looking in on Jack, but he was fourteen, not four or forty, so she kept going out of the apartment and down the stairs to the store. Or the hall behind the store.

  The mirror shimmered in the light coming through the courtyard windows.

  Her reflection, dressed in the red-and-black-checked dressing gown, appeared to be wrapped in silver bands.

  She leaned in, cheek pressed against the cool glass, hands lightly gripping opposite sides of the frame. "I'm glad to see you again, too. " Straightening, she rubbed at the smudge her face had left with the sleeve of the robe. "Enough of this mushy stuff, though. I'm fine. What've you got for me?"

  What it had was her, still in the robe, eating sushi with Jack. As she watched, he picked up a piece of octopus with his fingers and dropped it into his mouth, the golden armor he wore moving with the sinuous grace of scales.

  "Jack is my knight in shining armor and I should take him out to dinner?"

  Her reflection's hair turned turquoise.

  "And my look could use updating. With you there, dude. "

  There were little bears on the dressing gown at each intersection of red and black. Charlie'd never noticed that before. As she checked to see if the actual robe matched up with its reflection, she heard the door to the loft open out in the courtyard.

  The hinges needed oiling.

  Or, more likely, given that Auntie Gwen was knocking boots with a leprechaun and he'd never have let that go, the noise was just to get her attention.

  Charlie glanced into the store on her way by. She'd never noticed before, but the metaphysical items gave off a green glow in the dark. Given the absence of light behind the counter, the signed photo of Boris was enough to cover the glow of the nail. The nail that lost the horseshoe, the horse, and the war. "Lose it," Allie's voice said, in memory, "and you lose everything. " Seemed like the nail couldn't be all it was cracked up to be if a hot shot of a minotaur could block its light. Even the painting of Elvis on black velvet shone brighter. She could feel its eyes following her as she went out the back door.

  Auntie Gwen waited by the tiny shrubbery wearing one of Joe's shirts. She folded her arms, yawned, and said, "So, ask. "

  "I don't . . . " Actually, she did. "You congratulated me on accepting the responsibilities of being a Wild Power. "

  "That's not a question," Auntie Gwen pointed out after a moment.

  Pointless to argue she'd known what Charlie'd meant as it was pointless to argue with an auntie just generally. "What does that mean?"

  "Congratulations is an expression of pleasure at the good fortune of another. "

  "Auntie Gwen . . . "

  She yawned again. "It's three in the morning, Charlotte, and you hauled me out of a warm bed. You're lucky I'm still grateful you're alive. Okay . . . " She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, reminding Charlie of Shelly and her early morning yoga. Reminding Charlie she still hadn't called Mark. "Charlotte!"

  "Sorry. " Her broken commitment to Grinneal would have to be dealt with, but for now, she aimed an expression of rapt attention at Auntie Gwen. "Go on. "

  "You're sure?"

  Charlie nodded, fully aware it had not been a rhetorical question.

  "All right, then, at some point, and I assume it was during your struggle with the Troll, you had an epiphany. "

  Point was, the power wasn't in the guitar . . . the power was in her.

  Because every now and then, something too big to ignore just had to belly up to the bar and declare it could take all comers.

  When Charlie opened her mouth, Auntie Gwen cut her off. "I don't need to hear what it was. It's always a variation on a theme. You don't get this kind of power in order to charm strangers in bars or rack up frequent flier miles going through the Wood. With great power comes great responsibility, a responsibility someone decided generations ago that not everyone in the family can be trusted with. You, Charlotte Gale, are a free electron, able to affect what you will. A warm body between this world and all the metaphysical shit that comes down the pike. "

  "Because I'm responsible enough to handle it?"

  "Because until you were put in a posit
ion where you needed to use it, you had no interest in it. People who want this kind of power . . . " Her dark eyes gleamed. ". . . should never have it. "

  "Jack?"

  Auntie Gwen looked like she'd eaten something that disagreed with her. "There could be an argument made that Jack also accepted his responsibilities. "

  "There could be an argument made that Jack has always accepted his responsibilities," Charlie pointed out. "Being the Gale formerly known as Prince. "

  "Yes, well, you can make that argument to Jane because I'm certainly not looking forward to it. You know that in spite of his saving your life, she's still going to be suspicious of his power. Given that it's his power. "

  "I handled a Troll. I think I can face Auntie Jane. "

  "Really?"

  Charlie thought about it for a moment. "No. Not really. So what about Auntie Catherine?"

  "Catherine is a Seer, as you are a Bard. "

  "Not what I was asking. "

  "Yes, well, no one said the system was perfect or that any one of us is fully aware of the whole. And now that I've gifted you with pearls of wisdom you'll probably ignore . . . " She yawned again. " . . . I'm going back to bed. "

  "Wait! What do I do?" Charlie asked as Auntie Gwen turned back toward her, one eyebrow raised.

  "What has to be done. "

  "What has to be done?" Charlie repeated watching the door to the loft close behind Joe's shirt tail with a definitive snap. "Thank you,Yoda. "

  She'd left a mess behind in Cape Breton, that was for sure. Eineen had the skins back, so Carlson Oil had been stopped and the Selkie rookery saved, but making it right with the band was going to take a little work.

  Three AM in Calgary. Seven in the Maritimes. No way would Mark be up. But it was six in Ontario, and Auntie Jane never missed a sunrise.

  Charlie pulled her new phone out of the robe's pocket, a little disgusted by the used tissue wrapped around it. Still, she hadn't put the phone in the robe's pocket, so dealing with crunchy mucus wasn't entirely unreasonable.

  "Good morning, Charlotte. "

  "Good morning, Auntie Jane. I just called . . . " Except there wasn't any just about it. "I called to say thank you. "

  "For what, Charlotte?"

  "A little less smart-ass and a little more focus. I will not have you killed in such an embarrassing manner. "

  "For being there when I needed you. "

  The pause extended. Charlie figured it took time for Auntie Jane to remember how to smile.

  "You're welcome. I'm pleased you survived. "

  "Me, too. "

  "Of course you are. Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?"

  Jack. Jack's future. "No, I'm good. "

  "That, Charlotte, is still open to debate. "The dial tone punctuated Auntie Jane getting the last word.

  As usual.

  Feeling eyes on her, Charlie looked up to see Allie standing in the window. She slipped the phone back in her pocket and headed indoors. It wasn't like the situation back east could get worse in the next few hours.

  The entire family - minus David, who reverted to hooves and horns in crowds - descended on the apartment for breakfast. The center of a talking, laughing mass of adults and teenagers and babies, all happy to see her up and about, Charlie figured Mark could wait a little longer. Chased away from the kitchen - there were benefits in being the only living Gale girl who couldn't cook - Charlie settled in one of the big armchairs, Wendy and Jennifer tucked in beside her, and told the story of the Selkies and going after their sealskins, and fighting the Troll. She stopped when she hit the floor of the mine, got Jack in a headlock, and noogied him until he agreed to continue.

  She noted how no one looked concerned by her roughhousing, the awareness of Jack being both a Dragon and a sorcerer buried under their knowledge he was a Gale. The kids cheered when he bit his Uncle Viktor's wing off. He finished his part of the story just as platters of French toast and sausages were set out on the big table and he blushed, just a little, as Cameron took the time for a fist bump in the rush for food.

  Cameron was nearly twenty. To a fourteen-year-old boy, that made him more relevant than anyone else in the room. Auntie Jane aside, it looked like Jack's place in the family was secure.

  French toast left fewer opportunities for charms than pancakes so, except for baby Richard trying to inhale the sausage he'd been happily gumming, breakfast was uneventful by Gale standards.

  After, having been hugged hard enough to rebreak her ribs as people left, Charlie settled into washing the final sink full of dishes.

  "So," she said, scrubbing coffee stains out of a mug as Jack dried a plate, "what happened to Eineen and Paul? The Selkie and her new boyfriend," she added when Jack looked confused.

  He shrugged. "I don't know. I left them in the mine. "

  "In the mine?"

  "Duh. That's where the gate was. "

  Charlie replayed the events in the mine as she washed another mug. "Jack, did the Goblins go through the gate?"

  "I don't know. " He paused, one arm stretched over his head to put a plate on the pile. "I don't think so. " He was frowning when he stepped back from the cupboard. "I followed the Boggart trail to the gate, but I don't remember seeing any Goblin sign. Nothing new, anyway. "

  "Okay, that's bad. "

  "He was a little distracted ," Allie put in from where she was curled up on the sofa with Graham.

  "Not what I meant. " Grabbing Jack's dish towel to dry her hands, Charlie turned from the sink. "The gate was pretty deep in the mine, right? If the Goblins didn't go through the gate," she continued when Jack nodded, "then it's very likely that they were between Eineen and Paul and the exit. "

  "I thought she was Fey," Graham began.

  "She's a Selkie. That's basically a serial monogamist with debatable taste in men and a fully fish diet. She's stronger than your average bear, sure, but unless she's facing a cod not very scary. And Paul had recently had a manicure. " Charlie sagged back until her ass was supported by the edge of the sink. "I got the impression he'd suck big-time in a fight. "

  "You don't ever fight one Goblin," Jack said, sagging against the counter, his movement as near an exact copy of Charlie's as differing physiognomy allowed. "They'll come at you all at once, figuring numbers beats size. "

  "So unless they got very, very lucky, like winning a multimillion lottery level of luck, Eineen and Paul are dead. "

  "I can find out. " Graham stood, ignoring a muffled protest from Allie as she toppled over. He walked over to the computer desk by the front windows. "I'll e-mail a friend at the Herald," he said, crossing to where his phone sat in the charger. "If she doesn't know off the top of her head, she'll be able to pull the stories. Bodies found in a mine . . . "

  "Not enough left to be bodies," Jack interrupted.

  "Body parts found in a mine," Graham amended, "will be news. "

  "It'd be national news. " Charlie swept a gaze around the room. "Did no one watch the National while I was out?"

  Jack shrugged. "I never watch the National. "

  "We were a little a distracted," Allie said, sitting up and retrieving her mug from the coffee table. "Particularly during the first forty-eight hours when the story would have been . . . "

  "Graham, stop! Sorry, Allie," Charlie waved an apology in Allie's general direction. "I don't want to know. It's better we don't know. "

  "They aren't family," Allie agreed.

  "No, it's better we don't know because I'm going to fix it. "

  "Fix death?" Graham asked putting his phone back on the charger.

  About to snap out the kind of reply that kind of smart-ass question required, Charlie paused and thought about what she intended to do. After a moment, she said, "I'm not going to fix death, I'm going to make sure no one dies. "

  Charlie let Allie and Graham shout at her for a few minutes. She had lots of time. When they began to wind down, she said,
"Allie, remember how you always said I could get you home through the Wood before you left?"

  "Yes, but . . . "

  "I'm going to go back to the mine before I left. "