by Danny Bell
A forty-something year old soccer mom of a woman, made all the more notable by the lack of my food in her hands, wrung them nervously and looked at me with pleading eyes. “Elana Black?” she asked.
“Grubhub?” I asked in hopeful response.
“May I come in? I think my brother might be dead.”
I shoved the crumpled dollars back into my pocket.
Chapter Three
“This is probably in really poor taste, but you’re not some kind-a day-walker vampire or anything, are you?” I wasn’t joking, but I cringed as soon as I said it and thought about the wards Olivia and I had placed around the house. I still needed practice, and Olivia needed a lot of practice, but in theory, this should have been a human and elf zone only. If anyone or anything else tried to walk in here, we’d know about it and they’d really know about it. Again, this was in theory, and I wasn’t eager to see what it would look like in practice.
“What?” the woman asked, giving me a look that suggested she sincerely believed she must’ve heard me wrong.
“You know, because of having to ask for permission and actually—you know, it’s cool. I think regular people also ask permission. Just come on in.” I held the door open, hitting eject on that train of thought as quickly as I could, and hoping for the best.
The distressed lady nodded her thanks and walked into the living room. Her eyes were immediately drawn to Chalsarda.
“Distressed lady, this is Ann, Chalsarda, and Olivia. Friends, this is distressed lady.”
“Heather, actually,” she said, half-dazed. “Heather Holzman.”
Well, now I knew her name, that she probably had a dead brother, and wasn’t with Grubhub. “Heather, sure. I’m just not sure what you want with me.”
“I’m really sorry, but are those real?” she asked, pointing at my friend’s ears. “I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it, except my friend said you’re a Wizard and, if that’s true, then maybe elves are also real, and… I don’t know what I’m saying. Sorry.”
I might be a Wizard. I was certainly aiming to be, but the real answer was still up in the air. There were Wizards, Sorcerers, Magicians, Druids, and a whole lot more, each term held specific criteria to it. Without any kind of real magical role model in my life these days, it was tough to know for sure what I would become. It wasn’t like I had a D&D character sheet where I could just write down what I wanted to be, I had to figure it out along the way. “Okay, I’m going to need you to take a seat, take a deep breath, and then start all the way the heck over.”
“I have a good place to start,” Olivia began. “How about how you have my address?”
“Oh, Claire, from the bookstore, she gave it to me,” Heather replied absently.
“Probably shouldn’t be just giving out my address to strangers, but whatever,” Olivia replied in a tone that made it certain it was not whatever.
Heather looked like she picked up on the tone and averted her gaze, and I saw her a little differently then. The way she hesitated, the frailty in her shoulders, the bags under her eyes; it wasn’t age I saw earlier. She was just tired. Very tired and very afraid. I glanced at my friends trying to convey a message of, “Oh dang, I messed up,” and did my best to adopt a sympathetic tone. “Why do you think your brother is dead?”
Heather gave a small nod and began. “My brother, Cody Holzman, is a rock climber and long-distance hiker. You might know his YouTube channel? CodyClimbs?” She looked to us as if that might explain some things, but judging by the blank stares, no one in the room had heard of him. “Cody is, was, a very experienced climber, but he had a bad habit of going out alone. About three months ago, he shared a video that I think was the start of everything.”
“What was on the video? Can we watch it?” I asked.
“A cave. Well, not the actual cave itself, but he talked about a cave, shaped like a star. His camera died just before he found it, but when he got back to his car, he talked for almost half an hour about it. He said it terrified him, but he also felt something drawing him towards it. He wasn’t sure if he should explore it or not, but he turned back because he was low on supplies and daylight. After that, he made three videos about trying to find it. The first two were unsuccessful. After the third, he…”
Her words trailed off and Ann finished them for her. “He didn’t come back.”
Heather choked back a sob and nodded her head. “Search and rescue gave up a month ago. No one knows anything about a star-shaped cave in the area. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I’m sorry about your brother, but why me?” I asked. “I’m not a hiker. I’ve been winded just trying to walk up the hill to this house.”
“It’s true. She lives on Del Taco and 7-11 hot dogs,” Olivia confirmed. “Elana has the cardio of a basset hound.”
“I don’t think my brother is lost; there was something about the way he spoke about that cave. He said things that didn’t make any sense, just—here. Watch.” Heather pulled out her phone and opened a video. In it, her brother stood in front of his Jeep somewhere out in the desert around dusk. Clouds had gathered, giving the purple sky behind him an ominous feeling. We had to pause the video when my food came, but I made her restart it when the delivery person left. The sky didn’t look right, and neither did Cody. He looked paranoid and sick, like someone who had been in great shape once but had become emaciated. That was to say nothing of the blood soaking on his shirt or the deep scratches on his face.
“I’m uh, I’m out here. In Mojave. I won’t be uploading this,” he said with a hint of confusion. His voice was weak, weaker than you’d expect even his diminished form. “There’s no one…I couldn’t… didn’t see anyone…there are whispers. They know me. They warned of me the wolf, that…I killed a wolf. Not a coyote, but a wolf. They’re not species that inhabits the desert, but this one was following me, it hated me. And the voices…It’s crazy, but it’s not. I found the star cave once, and what I thought at the time was a voice inside my head saying to turn back, but that was before I knew what real voices sounded like. Before, that, that was just a second though but now there’s…the cave. I have to find it again. I know it’s not on the maps, but it’s real! It’s real, but it…it moves. And…and it’s not just shaped like a star, it’s full of them! At least it was in my dream. Maybe it doesn’t want to be found or maybe it wants me to earn it, but maybe it’s something else. Maybe it hides from the day, so I need to find it at night. Maybe it only wants me to see it. So, this time, I’m not recording my search. I’m going to leave my phone here, under the driver’s seat, where it’s safe. If you find this, then that means you’ll have to find me too. I…I have to go. I don’t know why.”
Heather put the phone away and tried to compose herself. “That one was never…it was on his phone, in his car. Our parents aren’t…they gave me the phone. Look, there was something there, I’m sure of it. That’s not the Cody I remember. A few months ago, you helped my old roommate with whatever was haunting his new place and he knew Claire. I thought maybe you could help, and you wouldn’t think I was crazy. I’m sorry to bother, but please, I can pay you if that’s the problem.”
I felt for her. My every instinct said I should help her, but I didn’t know how. “I don’t think you’re crazy. Just looking at him, I’d say something’s up, but there’s a whole lot of nothing out there, and I wouldn’t know where to begin. I’m not sure I’m the one to bring him home.”
“Elana, might I speak with you a moment?” Chalsarda interjected before Heather could reply. I nodded a response and followed my friend into the backyard.
“What are you thinking?” I asked as I closed the sliding glass door.
“You cannot take this job on yourself,” she said curtly.
“No kidding, I don’t know how to survive in a desert. I mean, technically L.A. is a desert, but not, like, a real desert.”
“Yes, but more than that, Mojave is outside of your boundaries,” Chalsarda clarified. What she mean
t was that it was outside of L.A. county and thus outside of Freyja’s protection.
“Come on; no imaginary lines are going to stop me from helping.”
“No, but your duties here should and will,” she replied. “You have that meeting later today, for instance, do you not?”
She was right, Freyja had regular check-ins scheduled for me, and one of them was today. “I’ll go tomorrow then, whatever.”
“Elana, I find it entirely plausible that this man stumbled across something dark and dangerous. The way he described those voices, maybe a demon or even something primordial, something that feeds on confusion or ambition or creator knows what else. I find it equally plausible that he had mercury poisoning and was eaten by buzzards. Nevertheless, allow me to look into this. If I leave now, I can be there before nightfall, take a look around, and properly explore in the morning. Besides, between the two of us, I’m better equipped to search miles of barren wastes.”
That was putting it mildly. “Aren’t you supposed to say, ‘no offense,’ at the end there?”
“I don’t think so, why would that offend you?”
I considered it just long enough to realize that I didn’t have a say in the matter. “Okay, fine, and thank you, but let’s not get her hopes up. This dude is probably dead. It’s been a month in the desert. Spooky cave or not, that doesn’t sound good.”
I explained to Heather that Chalsarda would look into it, but that I had to step out. I said my goodbyes to my friends, letting Olivia know that I’d call her with an update later. I’d be early to my appointment, but if I was going to shame-eat room temperature empanadas, I’d prefer it happened alone in my car rather than stealthily in the background of a tragic story of a missing brother. And as sad as it was, Heather wasn’t alone. Things had been getting progressively worse in the city since the Gardeners left, and I had to imagine that meant there were other missing brothers and sisters out there. There was no way to know if I’d saved as many lives as I might have cost with the absence of an authority figure in the city, but I couldn’t dwell on it. If I took the time to second guess every decision I’ve made because of circumstances I couldn’t foresee or even verify, I’d probably never sleep again. I was here to do the right thing as much as I could and help where I could.
Of course, and check in with a Norse goddess every so often.
Big Sister, my undying 84’ Chevy Cavalier, was parked near the bottom of the hill. Somehow, my ancient yellow station wagon wasn’t the car that stood out. An armored SUV displaying a logo for the Vanadis Corporation, identifying itself as a security vehicle was waiting for me across the street. In a neighborhood almost affectionately known for overgrown lawns and patchwork asphalt, a clean car with a fresh coat of wax was a rarity. This was a lighthouse beacon. I had to squint my eyes just to knock on the window.
“Real subtle, guys. What happened? Were they out of flower delivery vans?” I asked as the window rolled down.
Four familiar, somewhat friendly, faces acknowledged me. Well, they were trying for friendly. When you’re wearing bulletproof vests and your fingers are inches away from firearms that I couldn’t begin to guess the proper names of, friendly is a heck of a trick to pull off. Still, we’d seen each other pretty regularly at this point and, if they were just pretending to like me, they were very convincing.
A young man I recognized as James in the driver’s seat gave me a slight nod. I was pretty sure he was younger than me, his high-and-tight buzzcut and too tight t-shirt just screamed trying too hard, but Freyja wouldn’t have hired him if he weren’t capable.
“You know the assignment, Ms. Black. We’re supposed to make sure you get to your appointments with Ms. Geffen in one piece. We’re an escort, that’s all. Besides, it’s ninety-five degrees out and you’re wearing that stupid coat. You don’t get to criticize my ride.”
That was another new thing. Freyja wasn’t going by Freyja in public. In fact, I was forbidden to let anyone new in on that piece of information. In a display of just how serious she was taking our agreement, she relocated the headquarters of one of her businesses to Los Angeles just to make sure I stayed on track. To the rest of the world, she was Erika Geffen, one percenter. The New York Times did a profile on her I would never read.
“Just saying, you might be able to fit more of you in a van. I don’t know that she’s sending enough people to watch over me,” I deadpanned. “Oh hey, James! You’ve been promoted to the front seat. Congrats, buddy.”
The two in the back laughed hard enough at the comment to make James blush. In the far corner was Bilyana, an enormous Bulgarian woman with facial tattoos and shoulders that could have belonged to an oversized bird of prey. She had a laugh that would have taken up physical space if it could have. Sitting behind James was a Venezuelan man who was probably a decade older than him named Luis. Luis gave James a squeeze on the shoulder that was clearly pushing the boundaries of comfortable, his laugh not even audible next to Bilyana. Kisi, the final passenger, leaned forward in the passenger seat to address me. “One day only,” she said in an accent she only recently revealed as Ghanaian. “Today is his birthday. Driving is his gift.”
“It’s a shitty gift,” James protested.
“Right on, buddy, happy birthday! Empanada?” I offered, opening the cardboard clamshell in my bag.
“No, we’re working,” James said tightly, implying that there was a “no empanada consumption while on the clock” rule in Freja’s employee handbook.
“I’ll take an empanada,” Bilyana said from the back, her arm crossing James’ face as she reached for the food. She was really going to get it from HR.
James composed himself as Bilyana retreated into the backseat with her prize. “You think maybe today you’ll finally tell us why four of us are needed every other week to watch you drive across town?”
“Sorry, I can’t hear you,” I mumbled over a mouthful of food as I walked backward towards my car, making an exaggerated show of it. “Empanada!”
The frustration was apparent on his face, but it didn’t seem to bother the others. To be fair, I was probably more on his side than anything. Every other week for the past five months, Freyja had the lot of them tail me to and from my meetings with their boss, and they had no idea why. That had to be annoying, and not just because of how slow my car was. I couldn’t be sure about the others, only offer speculation, but James was ex-marine based on his forearm tattoo. Freyja was giving me the VIP treatment and, as far as any of them knew, I was a broke ass bookstore clerk. I mean, I was a broke ass bookstore clerk, but I was also on a mission to stop a mythological apocalypse. Among other things. I’m also teaching myself how to dance.
No one must ever know.
The drive to Freyja’s office was as uncomfortable as ever. For one thing, I hate that office. It wasn’t just that the building was large and sterile, it’s just not the sort of place I’d ever go to on my own. It seemed to staff a thousand people overnight and I don’t know how. Offices and office jobs freak me out, though, so maybe it was legit. Then there was the armed escort. For someone like me who likes to stick to the background, there was something deeply uncomfortable about having four armed and trained soldiers making sure I went where I was supposed to. Freyja had insisted on it as a precaution, but it felt like overkill. The scary thought was that maybe they were necessary. The scarier thought was what they might do if I decided I wasn’t going to my meeting one of these days. The four of them were friendly enough, and there was enough friendly banter between us, but still. In general, I don’t like guns and don’t completely trust people who use them, and their guns were pretty big.
Security waved us into the private garage and my detail kept driving, now off the clock since I’d made it in one piece. There was no one to inspect my car or a checkpoint to stop and frisk me before I headed up the private elevator to Freyja’s office. Maybe it was a sign of trust or maybe it was just that Freyja wasn’t afraid of anything I could do to her, not that I ever would. Fr
eyja was crazy as hell, but she’d saved Logan’s life (or brought him back from the dead, I don’t know); beyond that, she’d listened when I spoke up. She terrified me, but she wasn’t evil and could be reasoned with—at least that one time.
Freyja’s assistant, a striking woman with sharp features who’d never told me her name even though I’d asked for it more than once, welcomed me on cue when the elevator opened. She offered me refreshments while I waited, using the exact same words, tone, and inflection as she had every other time I’d visited, and as I had done every other time, I declined. I didn’t know if Freya played by Fae rules, but I wasn’t eager to find out.
My being early to our appointments didn’t matter to Freyja, of course. Being a goddess meant she had her own godly stuff going on, and I had to wait my turn. I’m sure the goon squad was happy to get the extra free time, at least. I busied myself by reading a couple of chapters of Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett and tried my best not to draw parallels between myself and Rincewind. That was silly. Surely, I wasn’t that lucky.
After what I could have mistaken for seventeen hours, I was called into our meeting. I bookmarked my spot and slung my bag across my chest. As I entered her office, Freyja stood to greet me from what always felt like an unnecessary distance. The size of the office made no sense given that only one person resided in it. Besides the breathtaking view of the city, it held a small library, couches, a bar, a desk that probably cost about as much as I owed in student loans, and a separate washroom that I’d never been allowed into. The thought of ever being in a position to have all of this made me uncomfortable.
The two massive blue-black floofballs she kept in her office, however, did not. I couldn’t tell you what breed of cat they were to save my life, and they both looked to weigh about thirty pounds—fifty, if you counted all that fur. Their names were Biggie and Trigger. How adorable is that? I went to pet one of them—Biggie—and the pair of them shot me a glare that stopped my arm in mid-air. It was the same as always. They’ve never attacked me in any way, but if you’ve ever seen that look from a cat, you know better. Maybe one day they’ll let me pet them.