Outback Spirit

by Nicole R. Taylor

  Her hand tightened around the rock and she began to manipulate the layers inside it. At least, she thought that’s what she was doing.

  “If I’d known back then, I wonder how my life would be different now,” she murmured. “I’d have parents who loved me, a good job, a home, friends, a future. Do I want those things? Did I ever? I don’t even know what it looks like. My only dream had been to wake up tomorrow because maybe—” She clamped her mouth shut, her throat burning with unshed tears. Blinking wildly, she tried to keep herself composed. The last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of Kyne…not that this was any better.

  “Spoken like a true Exile,” he mused. “We all feel the same in our own way. How each of us came to be here is a different story, but we were all searching for something.”

  “I’m beginning to wonder if I want to know the answers.”

  “It depends on the question,” he murmured.

  “Well, you are right about one thing.” She handed him the rock. “What I am was always there.”

  Kyne’s eyebrows rose as he saw the egg-shaped rock resting in his palm. Hard white quartz flecked with veins of iron, clear crystal, and a speck of gold. “I’ll be damned.” He turned it over and over, his head shaking every so often. “Where in the world did you come from?”

  She shrugged. “I’m just a traveller on a lonely road.”

  Kyne looked at her, his eyes burning a deep ochre as his elemental power reached towards her…and before she knew it, he was kissing her. His mouth on hers, her mouth on his. Their power entwining. Her heart beat a fast, primal rhythm. His skin on hers. Her hand reaching out to touch his face. There was no fear, only desire. Trust.

  Her first kiss was perfect.

  Vera sighed as she stepped out into the light of a new day. After she’d kicked Drew out and Eloise had left, her place sure felt empty.

  Walking around to the front of the Outpost, she jangled her keys in the pocket of her loose emerald green cardigan. She couldn’t believe Drew had come back. What had he expected her to do? Welcome him with a smile and open arms just because he ‘helped’ Coen bring Eloise back? It didn’t change the fact that he was hiding something from her…something that affected all of Solace.

  Stepping up onto the verandah, she sighed. A package sat on the mat—a medium-sized beige cardboard box with a white shipping label, but she thought nothing of it—sometimes truckies left stuff on their way past—and stepped over it so she could unlock the door.

  Grabbing the box, she turned on the lights one-handed and dumped it and her keys onto the counter. No sooner than she’d swept her frazzled hair out of her eyes, the bell rang.

  Turning around, she saw Drew shuffling into the shop, his gaze on the floor.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Drew, seriously. How old are you again?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “That’s not what I meant!”

  He ground his jaw and didn’t reply. Either he was being a stubborn arse again, or he genuinely didn’t know what to say. Vera knew his people skills left a lot to be desired—living as a dingo would do that to a person—but all he had to do was say so.

  “I suppose you reckon I should be thankful you decided to man up and walk in here,” she said with a pout. “But that’s only the first step, you know.”

  “I know I’ve got a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock,” he said, tapping his temple, “but I’m trying to do the right thing here.”

  Vera crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her sandalled foot on the linoleum floor. “Which is?”

  “Help you.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Help me? How is bringing the Dust Dogs down on this town helping me? Next time it won’t be a couple of postcards and a bottle of tomato sauce, Drew.”

  “Take it out of my pay.”

  “Oh, you think you still have a job here? Your delusions run deep.”

  Drew shrugged.

  “What did you steal from those dingoes?” she demanded.

  His eyes narrowed. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?” she demanded.

  Drew dragged his fingers across his lips and made a locking motion and threw away the invisible key.

  Vera let out an exasperated cry. “I’m trying to help you, Drew! We all are! You can’t just go around smashing Finn in the head with a shovel and expect us to thank you for it!”

  “I thought you hated the guy,” Drew said with a scowl.

  “I dislike him,” she seethed. “I don’t hate him. Hate is a strong word, and you better believe it when you say it, Drew. Hate is an awful thing.”

  “Didn’t helping Coen win me any points?”

  “Don’t drag him and Eloise into this,” she retorted. “I know Coen and he’s too clever. Getting you to come back was one of his stratagems. The rest is up to you, but all I’ve heard so far is the same old shit.”

  “Fine. I took something to protect all of you,” he hissed. “It’s better that you don’t know anything about it.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I buried it someplace where no one will ever find it.”

  Vera snorted. That’s what he’d been doing when he clocked Finn with the shovel. It looked like he’d found a better place to hide his stolen goods.

  “You know I can use magic to find it,” her eyes narrowed in warning, “or get the truth out of you.”

  “Why can’t you just believe me!” Drew threw his hands into the air. “The first time in my life I try to do something good, and I get shit all over! What’s the point?”

  “You’ve done nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt, Drew,” Vera fired back. “Nothing.”

  “You’d trust Kyne in a heartbeat.”

  “That’s because I know him,” she hissed. “I went out on a limb for you, Drew. You were a stranger who needed help. A stranger.”

  His hands curled into tight fists and he trembled with anger. Vera turned her back on him, knowing that arguing would get her nowhere. Drew wasn’t talking and never would.

  She sighed heavily and picked up the box cutter from the jar beside the till. “Maybe it’s time to admit Solace isn’t the right place for you,” she began, slicing open the tape on the package. “I can’t keep having the same argument with you.” She opened the box and pulled out a layer of bubble wrap. “I—”

  Vera let out a blood-curdling scream as she saw what sat in the box. The pungent scent of decay filled the air and she recoiled, knocking the box to the floor. A severed dingo head rolled out, leaving a trail of congealed blood and wriggling maggots in its wake.

  Drew reached out and pulled Vera away, stepping between her and the head.

  She pinched her nose and closed her eyes “I-is it…?”

  “It’s a wild dingo, not a shifter,” Drew replied, kneeling. There was a rustle as he grabbed the box and Vera opened her eyes as he shoved the head back inside.

  She didn’t have to say it out loud, and neither did Drew. The package was a blindingly clear message from the Dust Dogs.

  The next head that would roll was Drew’s.

  “I’m telling Kyne,” she said.

  “No,” Drew cried. “Please. I’ll fix it. This time it’ll stop, I promise.”

  “I can’t do this anymore!” she cried, her hands shaking. “It has to stop right now! Drew, I—”

  She held her breath and reached for a can of air freshener. Spraying the front of the shop with ‘ocean breeze,’ she tried not to burst into tears. She was tough, having been through her own fair share of troubles, but this was a whole new level…and none of it was her fault for a change.

  Drew busied himself with cleaning up the mess, wiping the blood and maggots off the floor with a bunch of balled up tissues. “Just give me a day,” he said, laying the bubble wrap over the head in the box. “One day.”

  Vera clutched the air freshener like a weapon. She didn’t have it in her to yell at him anymore. He looked defeated. The package had certainly scared her, but it
’d changed something in the shifter, too.

  “Twenty-four hours,” she conceded. “After that, I’m taking matters into my own hands. Witchcraft is more than potions and poetry, and I hope to whatever God lives in the sky that you’ll never live to see it.”

  Drew picked up the package and his jaw tightened as he struggled with his own internal monologue.

  “I think the words you’re looking for are thank you,” she told him with a scowl.

  “Yeah, um… Thanks,” he muttered and pushed out the door, taking the foul box with him.

  Vera sighed and sprayed a short, violent burst of air freshener after the shifter. If he wasn’t back by this time tomorrow, she was telling Kyne.

  Chapter 18

  Eloise sat at the grinding wheels in Hardy’s workshop, staring dreamily into space.

  Romance had always been the last thing on her mind, considering what usually happened to people when she touched them. She’d made her peace with being solitary long before she’d bought her van, knowing any relationship would never end well. Until she’d met Kyne, that was.

  They’d hung out last night, talking and watching the sunset. He told her about how he used his power to mine and she spoke about some of her adventures. They sat together in the front seats of her van as she pointed out all the pins on the headliner, rating all the places she’d been.

  When the hour had become late, Kyne stayed over and they’d kissed a bit more, but that was it. It was just actual sleep after that. She hadn’t had the courage to admit he was her first anything, but she imagined he was smart enough to already know.

  Finally becoming aware that she wasn’t alone, Eloise shook her head and looked up at Hardy. He was staring at her, his hazel eyes glinting in the lamplight. He wasn’t blinking, which weirded her out.

  She curled her nose. “What?”

  “You’re smiling.”

  She felt her cheeks heat. “So?”

  “It’s that loopy smile people get when they’re infatuated.” His grin widened. “Could a certain miner have something to do with it?”

  Her flush deepened.

  Hardy chuckled. “He didn’t come back last night.”

  “It’s not… I’m not like that,” she told him.

  “It wouldn’t matter if you were.” He pulled a chair over and picked up the opal she’d been working on. “God knows you both need something to smile about. Romance will do that to a person.”

  Eloise chose not to reply, wanting to keep things casual between her and Kyne. While she was attracted to him—and not at all unhappy that he returned the sentiment—she wasn’t entirely sure what to do about it.

  “This is a good cut,” the vampire said, peering at the opal. “A perfect circle.”

  “That’s good?”

  “A lot of opal is cut irregularly to keep as much colour as possible. The more uniform shapes are more sought after. It’s about the finished product, after all. We’re just a link in a long chain.”

  “What comes next?”

  “For this stone, it’s polishing. That’s where you’ll see the colours really come out and shine.”

  Hardy spent the rest of the morning showing her how to use serum oxide and water with a felt wheel to polish the rough cuts she’d made. The stone was fixed to a post with wax, then buffed to a high shine. It was a long process of moving back and forth between the grinding wheels she was used to, so she could buff out imperfections and perfect the dome shape of the opal face.

  Then, once she and Hardy were happy with the smooth shine, he taught her how to mount the stone face-down so she could shape the back. It was another round of grinding to create a flat back and a tapered edge that was important for the next stage of an opal’s life—jewellery. The edge had to be perfect to ensure a secure setting, but it was also the most difficult stage due to the accuracy and the softness of the stone itself.

  Eloise’s elemental gift guided her hand while Hardy’s vampire senses helped his. Together, they managed to cut the piece of black opal into a fine, circular shape with little imperfection.

  There was a small shard of sandstone along one edge, but if she chose to grind it out, the whole shape would change and they’d lose a lot of good colour correcting it. A perfect circle with a fleck of sandstone was more valuable than a stone with an irregular shape.

  “No one will see that without some serious magnifying,” Hardy told her. “I can see it because I’m a vampire. You can tell it’s there by feel alone, I suspect.”

  “It doesn’t change the value?”

  “Not really. Any black opal is sought after. This is a fine piece, Eloise. Good work.”

  She beamed, the pride she felt at creating something beautiful made her heart soar. “Can I do another one?”

  “That keen, are we?” Hardy laughed and slipped the opal into a tiny plastic ziplock bag. “First, let’s think about lunch,” he added when her stomach gurgled.

  Eloise had brought food with her, so they sat out in front of the shop on some deck chairs, shaded by the verandah.

  As the vampire unwrapped his sandwich and began to eat, she watched him with an air of surprise. Sensing her gaze, he glanced at her.

  “I thought…” she began uneasily.

  “I don’t usually like to talk about my dietary requirements,” he told her. “It’s just like you imagine, I suppose. Everything works like it should, but I only eat food for enjoyment now.”

  Eloise flushed and took a bite of her sandwich.

  The low rumble of an engine echoed in the distance. Before long, a truck came into view. It wasn’t a huge road train like the one’s Eloise had seen tear past, but a smaller semi-trailer.

  It slowed, turning the corner beside the opal shop, and then reversed into the bay behind the Outpost.

  “That’ll be the post,” Hardy said. “And Vera’s monthly delivery.”

  Eloise snorted, earning herself a wry grin from the vampire who certainly knew a little about women to get it.

  “I bet Wally’s order is on there,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

  “The mythical head gasket,” she murmured. “I still don’t know what one looks like.”

  Hardy chuckled and nodded towards the Outpost. “You’re about to find out.”

  Eloise left the vampire to the rest of his lunch and went to see what all the excitement was about. The driver was already unloading pallets with a battered jack, using a hydraulic lift to get them out the back of the trailer.

  “Eloise!” Vera called. “There’s a couple of boxes for Hardy, and one for Wally. Would you be a darl and run it over to the garage? I reckon it’s your head gasket.”

  Eloise’s heart did a flip-flop as she picked up the box beside the back door. It was finally here.

  “Thanks,” she said to the witch. “Do you need help with this?”

  She sighed dramatically as another pallet stacked full of boxes rolled into the back of the Outpost. “I wouldn’t say no. I’ve got ten of these to unpack.”

  “Drew still hasn’t come to see you?”

  Her eyes narrowed and Eloise took it to mean no.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Vera nodded. “Yeah, I’m just having a…day.”

  “If Hardy can spare me, I’ll be back.”

  Leaving Vera to oversee the unloading of her order, Eloise took the package across the road to Wally’s.

  Kyne was inside the garage with the werewolf when she went in and she smiled shyly at the sight of him.

  “Hey,” she said, handing the package to Wally. “This was on Vera’s delivery truck for you.”

  Kyne frowned as the old mechanic cut open the tape on the box. Eloise felt a pang in her gut and looked away.

  “It’s the gasket,” Wally said, taking a Fiat-branded box out of the package. “I’ll get started in the morning.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Eloise told him, already dreading the invoice at the end of it. “I’ll drive her around when you’re ready.”

&nbs
p; Kyne reached for her hand. “Hey, you got a minute?”

  “Yeah.” She slipped her fingers around his, the gesture still foreign, but not unwelcome.

  They went out the back, the sun warming her bare legs. She was getting one hell of a tan, especially after the sunburn she’d gotten when she was lost…but it was rather uneven.

  Kyne’s expression changed the moment the door closed. “You’re leaving.”

  “I never said I was.” Her heart twisted as another reality came crashing down on her.

  “You never said you weren’t, either.”

  Remembering what he’d said to her when she was laying exhausted in Vera’s bed, she shivered. We could be your family.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

  “You belong here, Eloise,” Kyne murmured. “You belong with us.”

  She looked up at him. “Do I?”

  “Why not? You’re supernatural, just like the rest of us.”

  Figuring out what she was had been the only thing keeping her going, but now she knew. What came after that had never crossed her mind because deep down, she believed she’d never know. Why hope for a future that was forever out of her grasp?

  “This isn’t the life I imagined for myself,” she managed to say. “I’m attached to my van. My travels. I don’t know if I—”

  “It’s not the life I imagined, either,” Kyne hissed, the hurt clear on his handsome face. “But it’s good to know it’s not good enough for you.”

  “Kyne, that’s not what I meant.”

  “You think it’s easy for me to open up to you?” he asked.

  “And you think it’s easy for me?” she cried. “I never kissed anyone before. I couldn’t—” Eloise’s cheeks flared hotly as the words died in her throat.

  Kyne only seemed to become angrier. “I’m the only person you can touch without frying, so you thought you’d take the opportunity, huh?”

  “How dare you!” she shrieked as a wave of unbearable anger welled inside her. “If I’d known you were so nasty, I never would have trusted you!”

  “Then get in that piece of shit van and drive away,” he raged. “Drive away and never come back. Then you’ll be a true elemental.”