Changeling Hunter

by Frank Hurt

  “I do. What of it?”

  “Could you tell me what she was like in her younger days? When you two were both young Novice Healers? You had to have known each other then, both being from Malvern Hills, right?”

  “I don’t feel like talking about it.” Gloria shook her head. “I just want to sit here in silence. I suppose that’s too much to ask?”

  That’ll do, too. Ember felt the pulses of her mana. She waited until the tempo matched her heartbeat, and then she sent a string of energy outward. She visualized the movements Barnaby had taught her. Her imagined figure posed as it had previously, when she lifted the Deference Spell from Duncan. As she had before him when freeing Nick and Katrina Hershel from the same.

  This Deference Spell was fresh on Gloria. It hadn’t time to solidify, to take full hold over her aura. It was easy to intuit the holes in the dark spell, to tease them loose and pull it free from its host. The heavy, tar-colored threads evaporated in the air around Gloria.

  The old woman blinked and looked around the room as though she was seeing for the first time. She felt her chest, found the spectacles dangling from the chain around her neck. Gloria slipped the frame onto her face and squinted at Ember.

  “What was that?”

  “You felt it?” Ember pulled her mana back from Gloria. “The others weren’t able to feel it. I suppose as a high-level Healer—”

  “The others?” Gloria reached for her cane. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “It’s called a Deference Spell,” Ember explained. “Higginbotham cast it upon you. It shrouds your aura, inhibits your abilities and grants him influence over you.”

  Gloria tapped her cane on the carpeted floor. Her cloudy grey eyes widened as the memory returned. “That weasel. I remember now! He came in here, all cheerful and sunny with his perfect smile and his charming demeanor. That weasel touched my hand, and I felt it…I felt his energy hit me like a…like I was being fondled by a jellyfish.” She pulled her knitted sweater closed around her, as though she was cold.

  “He’s done it to me, too,” Ember spoke softly. “He’s done it to others.”

  “How did you…I don’t understand how you countered his spell. You’re no Healer.”

  “It’s difficult to explain.” Ember steepled her fingers. “Did you tell him anything about our work together?”

  The old Healer looked at the ceiling. “He asked me what we were doing together. I told him that we were healing Druws.”

  “Nothing else?”

  She shook her head. “I guess he didn’t ask the right questions. Oh, that weasel did tell me that he wanted me to keep an eye on you. Said he had the other Investigators watching, and they haven’t found any dirt on you yet. I don’t think he fully trusts you, young lady.”

  “With good reason. Did he mention anything about a Mister B?”

  “Mister B? No, nobody like that.” Gloria’s jaw clenched. “I won’t have this. I am going to give that man an earful.”

  “No, you can’t, Doctor Rout.”

  “Oh, she thinks she can boss me around now, does she?” Gloria wagged a finger at Ember. “Don’t you think for a second I will let you or anyone else tell me what to do.”

  Ember pinched the bridge of her nose. “Please, Dr. Rout, I need you to understand something.”

  “Oh, I understand alright. We have among us a vile and filthy man who is abusing his power. He’s a dirty little weasel who’s getting his tricks off, taking advantage of pretty young girls and defenseless old women. Well, I’m not so defenseless. I’ll go straight to the Viceroy and—”

  “Please, Dr. Rout. That won’t help the situation.”

  “Of course it will.” Gloria tapped her cane aggressively on the floor. “We’ll see him brought on charges. This is clearly an abuse of his position.”

  “Doctor Rout, remember how Wallace explained to you why he was requesting your help? Why we couldn’t just ask anyone to help these disabled changelings?”

  “She thinks I can’t remember. Of course, I remember! That Wallace said there’s corruption at this colony. That it wasn’t clear who could be trusted.”

  “Right. Well, Elton Higginbotham is one of those corrupt—”

  “Oh, thank you, Sherlock.” Gloria waved her hand dismissively at Ember. “No wonder you’re an Investigator. Any other obvious observations you care to share with me?”

  “Yes. This corruption runs deeper than just Higginbotham. We can’t be sure who is involved yet—the Viceroy included. Those changelings, the ones you are treating, their lives could be at risk if others find out what we know.”

  Gloria touched her wrinkled hand to her temple, adjusting her gold wire glasses. She fixed her gaze on Ember. “Their lives…and ours.”

  Ember nodded slowly. “You see, we can’t move against Higginbotham. Not yet. We need to be patient, to know who all is involved. And we need to heal the Mandaree Incident scouts. They are as much victims in all this as you or me.”

  The old woman narrowed her gaze. “Victims. I am not a victim.” Her expression relaxed. “And you, young lady, nor are you a victim.”

  “No, I am not.” Ember’s lips quirked up. “Elton will get what’s coming to him, believe me. When the time is right, I’m going to bring that bloody wanker to his knees.”

  “I believe you. I want to be there when you do.” Gloria shifted her weight and leaned on the cane. When she was standing, she looked over at Ember. “So, what are you doing still sitting there, growing mushrooms under your bum? I’ve got patients waiting on me.”

  17

  My Useless Brother Darwin

  An industrial contraption marred the idyllic tableau of the Schmitt Family farm. The white, steel truss was an exclamation point of activity against a calm backdrop of verdant trees.

  The latticework was hinged to the rear of a heavy truck with a logo uninterpretable by Ember or her passenger as the Highlander pulled into the yard. A trailer with a semitransparent water tank was parked to the side, hoses leading from the tank’s spigot to the truck. The arrangement was situated midway between the house and the barn which housed Maxim and Marta’s yearling calves. About a dozen people sat in the shade, balancing paper plates on their laps.

  “What’s all this now?” Gloria waved her wrinkled hand at the derrick. “Don’t tell me the oil boom has arrived in their front yard?”

  “I don’t think it’s an oil rig,” Ember guessed. “It’s much smaller than any of the drilling rigs I’ve driven past.”

  Lucky emerged from the sidelines, running and wagging her tail as she barked. The dog circled the Highlander, then leaned against Ember’s leg until she was rewarded with pats to her head. The German Shepherd waited patiently until tribute was offered. Soon, Lucky was orbiting Ember, a pig ear held greedily in her jaw as she ran.

  “Oh sure, don’t worry about me,” Gloria grumbled from within the SUV. “It’s not like I’m getting any older. You go ahead and make sure the dog gets its stinky treat. I can wait.”

  “Um…sorry.” Ember stopped scratching Lucky’s ears long enough to open the passenger door and to help the old woman to her feet.

  “Ember!” Marta and Maxim appeared. “Did you bring us anything?”

  “Are you in the tribute queue, too?” Ember grinned.

  “What’s a tribute?” asked Maxim.

  “What’s a queue?” asked Marta.

  “Little beggars,” Gloria chided. She scratched her cane in the gravel. “Half dogs themselves, these two.”

  “It just so happens I did.” Ember tucked her hand into a pocket and pulled out two individually wrapped candies. She gave one to each of the kids.

  Maxim unwrapped the candy and popped it in his mouth. Marta took the time to study the label. “Glacier Mints. Fox’s.” The little girl looked up at Ember. “Uncle Boni’s a fox. A red fox.”

  “This candy’s blue,” Maxim held the wrapper up.

  Marta untwisted the wrapper. “No, Maxim, it’s clear. Just the wrapp
er is blue.”

  “Is this from Britain?” Maxim cocked his head to the side, a small bulge in his cheek.

  “You look like a little chipmunk when you do that,” Ember grinned. She mussed Maxim’s hair. “But yes, it is. It’s one of my favorite candies. But don’t try chewing it, so you don’t hurt your teeth.”

  “Maxim! Marta! You two are a couple of hyenas,” Stephanie called as she approached. “You can’t even let Ember and Doctor Rout get away from the car before you start harassing them? Did you at least thank Ember?”

  “Thank you, Ember,” the twins said in unison.

  “Here’s another for later.” Ember gave the children each another mint before they scurried off.

  “Hello, Ember, Doctor Rout. We were just finishing up lunch.” Stephanie walked next to Ember, matching Gloria’s slow pace.

  “What’s going on here, anyway?” Ember shifted the weight of Gloria’s bag on her shoulder.

  “These are the water well drillers,” Stephanie gestured at a bald, round-faced man stuffing his face with a pastry. Next to him was a teenage boy who might have been his son. Ronald and Boniface were visiting with the stranger, but they stopped long enough to greet Ember and the doctor. Nine of the changeling scouts were seated on steel folding chairs, some situated in the bright July sun, though most huddled within what little shade the water tank and drilling equipment offered. Each of the changelings cheerfully greeted Ember and the doctor. Two of the men offered their chairs to the new arrivals.

  “Arnie’s helping Rik at a well site today,” Stephanie explained before the question could be answered. “They’ve been going almost nonstop, trying to keep up with the work.”

  “Making hay while the sun shines,” Ember quoted Alarik. She scanned each of the faces. The water driller and his son were NonDruws, so she chose her words carefully. “Everyone looks so bright and chipper today. That makes me so happy.”

  “We’d be even happier if we could find water.” The voice belonged to the round-faced bald man. His skin was pale but for his neck and cheeks, which were the splotchy, bright red of rosacea. He pulled a dirty baseball cap on and shrugged at Ronald. “I kinda feel bad, making such a mess in your yard without any luck.”

  “Ah, it’s not your fault.”

  “I know. But now your yard looks like a prairie dog town.” The bald man shook his head and looked at his assistant. “Five holes in four days. We just drilled a well at the Johnson place up the road. It took longer to set everything up than it did to drill the well. Water at 55 feet, wasn’t it?”

  The boy bobbed his head. “Eight gallons a minute.”

  “They’ve got a high water table there,” Boniface said. He was chewing on a toothpick. “When’s this water witcher supposed to be getting here, anyway?”

  “I called Luke last night,” the bald man glanced at his watch. “He lives in South Heart. That’s about…three hours’ drive? He should be here by now.”

  Gloria waved her hand dismissively. “A water witch. What quackery!”

  “Normally, I’d agree with you, ma’am,” the bald man said. “But this guy is something else. Odd ducks call him odd. He’s spooky-good at finding water. He never misses.”

  The old woman scoffed and shooed her hand at the man. “Bah, it’s all smoke and mirrors. I’ll tell you what’s real: starvation. An old woman could dry up and wither away in this heat. It’s probably too much to expect to be fed.”

  Muriel was sitting on the tailgate of a pickup, her feet dangling. “Now, Doctor Rout, there’s no need for you to be all passive-aggressive. You were our guest all last week. We didn’t let you starve then, and we won’t start depriving you now. Let’s go inside where you can visit with everyone. I’ll dish you up a plate.”

  Muriel led Gloria to the house, a procession of changelings following. Before they left, they picked up their chairs, a cooler, and four empty deep-dish pans. Stephanie unrolled aluminum foil from the top of a fifth pan, revealing two golden brown buns within. She held it out to Ember. “They’re hamburger-cheese buns,” she explained. “Go ahead, have one. In fact, have them both.”

  “One will be plenty. Cheers.” Ember dug one out and accepted a bottle of water from one of the changelings before the cooler disappeared.

  The well driller licked his lips and requested the last bun when he saw Ember decline. “These things are so good, ma’am. Your husband’s a lucky man, having a cook like you.” He consumed the fist-sized pastry in two enormous bites.

  The warm, soft dough smelled fresh, and aromatic steam rose when she bit into it. The sweet bread was wrapped around seasoned, browned hamburger and two types of melted cheese. Ember immediately regretted taking just one. “Oh my god, Stephanie. These are amazing! You made these?”

  When she beamed, Stephanie looked exactly like her daughter Marta. “I did, yes. The secret’s in the dough; it’s all made from scratch. My friend Denise gave me the recipe.”

  The bald man wiped his hands on dirty jeans. He watched the procession head to the house. “So that old lady’s a doctor?”

  Ronald nodded. “Yeah, Jerry, it’s uh. They’re all, uh—”

  “Group therapy,” Ember said. “Kind of a private matter, if you’ll excuse me saying.”

  The bald man held his hands out, “say no more. My wife and I went to couples counseling. I didn’t think much of it at first, but now I’m a believer.”

  “I didn’t know that,” the man’s son said.

  “Ah, this was years ago, Junior. Oh, looks like Luke’s just pulled up.” The bald man was eager to change the subject. He got up, groaned as he patted his considerable stomach, and waved the new arrival over.

  A rusting, old red Dodge pickup rambled up and parked on the gravel next to Ember’s rented Highlander. The man who slid out from behind the steering wheel was stocky, of average height, had a grey mustache and whiskers. He wore a dirty, sweat-stained straw cowboy hat that looked like it had been sat on once or twice, and tinted glasses on the bridge of his broad nose.

  The water well drillers shook hands with one another. Ronald and Boniface stood by the water tank with Ember. Ronald said, “Jerry said this Luke guy only accepts payment in booze.”

  “Smells like he might have already had a job this morning,” Boniface sniffed the air.

  Ronald nodded. “Rum, I think.”

  “Bourbon, actually.” Boniface shook his head.

  “Wait…you guys can smell his breath from this far away?” Ember raised an eyebrow and looked at both men.

  “Wolf,” Boniface pointed at his brother, then himself. “Fox.”

  “Ah, yeah…I guess. I should know better.”

  Boniface patted her shoulder. “We won’t hold it against you.”

  Stephanie held the empty pan beneath her arm. “So that’s why you had Anna bring home those cases of beer. Six cases of Bud Light.”

  Ronald nodded. “If this guy’s for real, that’ll be cheap, compared to what all these dry holes will be costing us.”

  “A drop in the bucket,” Boniface chuckled at his own joke. “Let’s go meet our water witch.”

  The changelings may have been able to smell the liquor from a distance, but it was Ember who recognized the man’s aura. “He’s a Malvern,” she muttered as she joined the three Schmitts.

  “The whiskey masks his scent,” Boniface said. “But now that you mention it, I think you’re right.”

  Luke Farsching introduced himself with a belch. “Sorry, I’m late. It’s a long drive from South Heart, and I hadn’t accounted for all the oilfield traffic.”

  “We’re just glad you’re willing to help us out here. It’s pretty hairy on those roads,” Ronald agreed.

  “You ain’t a-kiddin’. Highway 22 through the breaks is just plain deadly. That one corner south of the Lost Bridge, where you have a right angle you have to take at 20 miles per hour…I ain’t a-gonna lie, meeting a tanker truck on that corner makes me white knuckled.”

  Ember thought of the alcoho
l on this man’s breath and shuddered to think of him driving, especially on such dangerous, high-traffic roads.

  “You said you live down in South Heart?” Stephanie leaned against the man’s Dodge. “Maybe you know my friend, Denise Engel? She and her husband live south of town.”

  “Jed and Denise? Sure I know them. They’re my neighbors, just on the other side of the Clay Hills. She used to be a Bayn. Her parents were Rudolph and…” Luke looked at Stephanie as he called up his memories. He snapped his fingers three times before the thought popped into his head. “Ludmilla. Rudolph and Ludmilla Bayn. My brother Darwin and I punched a hole for them on their ranch back in ’92.”

  “Small world,” Stephanie mused.

  “Small state,” Luke corrected. “You can’t swing a cat without hitting someone’s relative. Not that I’m advocating cat-swinging, mind you. Now, where’s my dowsing rod?”

  Luke leaned over the side of his pickup box and began shoving objects aside. He tossed empty beer cans, lifted a spare tire that appeared to be flat, and grumbled. “Goddammit, Darwin! That fucker took my dowsing rod again. I told him to put it back.”

  The man squinted and looked over at the rows of trees along the edge of the Schmitt farm. “You wouldn’t happen to have any willows growing in your shelterbelt, would ya?”

  “No, we don’t.” Ronald crossed his arms. “Can you substitute with caragana?”

  Luke shook his head. “Nah, nah, that won’t work. I’ll have to improvise.” He dug around in his pickup box and lined up a row of empty, half-crushed beer cans on the tailgate. One can still held liquid when he swirled it, so the man held it to his lips and tipped his head back. He smacked his lips. “Waste not, want not.”

  Luke dug out an old jackknife and began sawing at the empty beer cans, cutting the tops off. “My useless brother Darwin, he drills water wells with me during his days off. He’s a toolpusher with Nabors. Drilled oil wells all over the Williston Basin in North Dakota and Montana, since the previous boom in the 80s. Those were some rough times, you remember them?”

  The man didn’t wait for anyone to answer. “So, my useless brother Darwin, he’s kinda slow. He talks slow, he moves slow. He drinks too fucking much—and that’s coming from me, mind you. He was roughnecking back in the 80s, and he and his crew were on Evening Tour on a well in the badlands outside of Fairfield. The guys always stopped by Club 85 for beers after work.”