The Wild Ways (35 page)
Eineen’s grip tightened as she turned. Her voice bypassed Paul’s ears and jabbed straight into his brain, overriding the rhythm that held him in place. “Run!”
They abandoned the cart, and when Eineen’s hardhat fell off, crashing and rolling behind them, they abandoned that, too.
Slick soles slipped against the rock. These were not the shoes he would have worn if he’d known he was going to be running for his life. He’d been a runner in high school, quit in university when someone had made a crack about Kenyans, making it a race thing, but he was barely keeping up and he could tell Eineen had slowed her pace.
He wanted to tell her to go on without him.
He didn’t.
He hung on, let her yank him forward, keep him from falling, keep him moving faster than he could’ve gone on his own.
He tasted iron at the back of his throat.
His lungs fought to suck in enough hot, humid air. Then fought to force it out. In. Out.
Don’t think of what might be following.
Just run.
Eineen reached the cage first, out in front by the length of their stretched arms. She ran in through the open gate and turned, staring past him. Her eyes were too large. Too dark. Her face the wrong shape. Nostrils flared too wide. He could see her chest, rising and falling. Her shoulders were too broad. Her torso out of proportion. Then he touched the steel and she was Eineen again. Stronger than him; he couldn’t have turned to look behind them. Not for anything.
Panting, he keyed in the code with his free hand.
Nothing happened.
The hoist wouldn’t work with the gate open.
He’d have to turn.
He spun on the ball of one foot. Grabbed the bar. Yanked it sideways. Swore as it bounced back.
The skittering scraped over his skin, rubbed nerves raw. The boom boom boom slipped into a more primal place.
Eineen’s hand beside his, he slammed the bar home again.
This time, it caught.
No,
latched.
This time it latched. Don’t think caught.
latched.
This time it latched. Don’t think caught.
He input the code again.
Smacked the green button.
The cage jerked up. He staggered back, Eineen steadying him as the cables groaned and the elevator began to rise steadily toward the surface.
Then something hit the bottom of the cage, slamming into the metal grating hard enough they both grabbed for the safety bars to keep from falling.
“Don’t look down!” Eineen made it a command.
Paul wanted to obey, but he’d already ducked his head.
Clinging to the cable, the claws of one hand stuffed through the grate, was something out of nightmare. Huge eyes. Like a lemur’s. An evil lemur’s. Bulging and glistening. Too many teeth. Too many sharp pointed yellow teeth in a mouth too wide. Small ears, small and round and tight against its head. Paul couldn’t help thinking they should have been pointed. Not much of a nose. Black skin. Really black. Not black like he was black. He was medium brown at best. These guys were black like the coal that had come out of the
Duke
back in the day. Purple iridescent highlights—the whole nine yards.
Duke
back in the day. Purple iridescent highlights—the whole nine yards.
And the thing on the cable wasn’t alone. Seven, eight, ten . . . They spilled into Canaveral like cockroaches. As the cage rose past the roof, they crowded to the edge of the hoist shaft.
“Do you have any salt?”
“Do I
what
?”
what
?”
“Have any salt!”
“No! But I have sugar substitute.” Not every coffee shop had the brand Ms. Carlson liked.
“Sugar substitute?” She was laughing at him, but it wiped the look of horror from her face and that was all that mattered. And looking at her was better than looking down. She cupped his cheek, leaned in . . .
Steel screamed as claws gouged deep lines in the grate.
. . . and she snatched the hardhat off his head.
“The light!” Dropping to her knees, she flicked the headlamp on and aimed the beam right into the creature’s face.
It screamed, much as the steel had, and dropped away. The light glinted off its flailing hands. The creatures it passed as it fell screamed with it.
“Rings.”
“What?”
“It’s wearing rings!” Paul expanded, not sure he recognized his own voice. “It’s not an animal.”
“Of course not.” Eineen rocked back up onto her feet, impossibly gracefully, still pointing the headlamp down the shaft. “It’s a Goblin. A type of Goblin, anyway. And they shouldn’t be here.”
“No shit!”
“A gate has been opened.”
Paul sagged against the side of the elevator, only barely managing to stop himself from clinging, raising both feet up into the air. The air still seemed fine. The sea had hidden depths and the earth wanted to kill him, but the air, it hadn’t changed. That was comforting.
Eineen leaned against him, her back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and anchored himself in the one thing that really mattered. Laid his cheek against her hair and breathed in the faint scent of fish.
When they were outside, when the system had been shut down and the lights turned off and all the doors locked behind them, when the stars were shining overhead and he was standing drenched in sweat beside the very normal, very solid bulk of his car, he asked the other question. “What was the big thing coming behind them?”
Eineen shrugged. “Demons. Demons in the dark.”
“Demons? Are you serious?” At this point, he had no trouble believing in demons.
“Shhh. It’s okay!” Her voice calmed him enough he could remember to breathe. “I meant I didn’t know. It’s a movie quote, from
The Two Towers
.”
The Two Towers
.”
“The what?”
She tucked herself up against him, one arm around his neck, head on his shoulder and murmured, “I think I’ve spent more time out of the water than you have these last few years.”
Her sympathy almost undid him. “My job keeps me busy.”
“I know.”
They stood there for a moment, regrouping, then he lifted his head and said, “What now?”
Her body moved against him as she sighed. “We’re not fighters . . .”
Paul wasn’t sure if she meant him and her or her people. Didn’t matter, he supposed. He’d never been in a physical fight in his life.
“I know someone who is, though.”
“Will they help?”
“That depends on how I ask him.”
The festival had reserved a section for the bands off to the left of the stage. Some of them used it, but more of them sat with their families.
“Where is everyone?” Jack asked as Charlie handed him a wrapped package of fish and chips.
“Shelly’s trading out her current A for a jazz string, for what I’m sure are very good reasons, Mark and Tim are in the beer tent . . .” Stacking two cans of cola on top of the second package and holding them in place with her chin, she dropped to the ground between Jack and her guitar case. “. . . and Bo is trying to get Tanis to stop crying.”
“Again?”
“Still.”
“I kind of feel like we should do something about that.You know?”
“I know, but they don’t need us.” Charlie’d thought she’d been called/ sent/annoyed east to help the Selkies, but she’d started to believe that Jack learning how to be
of
the family rather than within it was the primary not the secondary reason. She tossed him a cola. Hers had been charmed to keep it from spraying after the hazardous journey from the United Church W.I. trailer. Jack’s had not.
of
the family rather than within it was the primary not the secondary reason. She tossed him a cola. Hers had been charmed to keep it from spraying after the hazardous journey from the United Church W.I. trailer. Jack’s had not.
His eyes narrowed. Then he opened the can, took a long swallow, and sighed the long-suffering sigh of the put-upon teenager. “You’re watching me.”
“You used sorcery to keep your soda from exploding. Last night you used it to soften the ground.”
“Yeah, but that’s . . .”
“It’s not a problem, Jack.” Holding onto his ear, she shook his head until he swatted her arm away. “You use sorcery the same way the rest of the family uses charms. To smooth out life’s little bumps. It’s not a big scary different thing, it’s just a ‘remove the middleman’ thing.”
“The aunties say I could use it to take over the world.”
“Do you want to?”
“Do I want to what?”
“Take over the world. They’ve never asked you, have they? They just assume you’re going to.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not going to and I don’t want to. When you take over the world, you have to
run
the world and that’s way too much work plus everyone else who wants to run the world tries to take you out.” The can dimpled in his grip. “I had enough of that back ho . . . back in the UnderRealm.”
run
the world and that’s way too much work plus everyone else who wants to run the world tries to take you out.” The can dimpled in his grip. “I had enough of that back ho . . . back in the UnderRealm.”
Charlie watched him cram a half a piece of fried cod into his mouth and wondered if they could keep Gale boys with too much power from going darkside by trying to kill and eat them in their formative years. Jack’s early upbringing certainly seemed to have created a perspective that the indulgent life the Gale boys lived did not.
The aunties would probably be all for it.
“Charlie?”
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t the aunties try to take over the world?”
“You’re not the first to ask this, young Padawan.” She stretched out her legs, kicked off her flip flops, and crossed her ankles. “We all ask.”
He waved a french fry at her. “And the answer?”
“The aunties are all about family. As long as the world leaves the family alone, they leave the world alone. Something interferes with the family, they cut a metaphorical willow switch and deal.” After a moment’s thought, she added, “Usually metaphorical anyway.” Auntie Catherine had thrown Allie at Jack’s mother in an entirely actual way.
They’d lost the light by the time Captain Wedderbrun, the second festival band, took the stage, but it was a Friday night and no one was in a hurry. Although it had to be past their bedtime by Charlie’s nonmaternal estimate, kids still ran around the grounds watched over by extended family—she saw Neela’s charge past in a crowd and then back again in a different crowd. A soccer ball slammed into Jack’s side and when Charlie nodded, he took off to join the game. All through the audience, friends and family stood shoulder to shoulder, music moving feet and hands and smiles. Even the tourists were starting to relax.
If this were a Stephen King book, this is when the monsters would attack
, Charlie thought. An old friend from another band kicked her legs as he passed, and they exchanged genial and complex insults.
, Charlie thought. An old friend from another band kicked her legs as he passed, and they exchanged genial and complex insults.
Captain Wedderburn was good and, more importantly, knew how to play to the crowd. Their fiddler subscribed to the Natalie McMaster school of step-and-play and their keyboard player—an older woman no more than five feet tall—perpetually appeared to be about to join in. Nine members strong, they were the largest band in the festival and likely to be one of the top three.
At 11:09, the crowd demanded and got the single encore the competing bands were allowed. At 11:21, they were still screaming for more.
Then they were just screaming.
At one end of the field, the stage rocked back and forth as though subjected to its own personalized earthquake. A couple members of the band jumped free, but it looked like the keyboard player and the drummer were caught in their gear. Or refusing to leave their gear.
Charlie could see small dark figures shaking the supports under the stage but it appeared no one else could.
“No way! Boggarts!”
No one else but Jack.
At the other end of the field, a food trailer crashed over onto its side and went up in flames.
Grabbing Jack’s arm, Charlie pointed toward the fire. “I’ll get the ones under the stage, you put that out.”
“How?”
“Hello! Sorcery!”
“Hello! Dragon!” He twisted out of her grip. “Not big on putting fires
out
. I could . . . I don’t know. Drop a whole bunch of water on it?”
out
. I could . . . I don’t know. Drop a whole bunch of water on it?”
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