The Wild Ways (39 page)
“With the Dragon Prince’s help, we could retrieve our skins tonight!”
Charlie half turned, and gestured at the smoking ruin of the chip wagon. “Seems his dance card’s full tonight. But thanks for playing.”
“Call him!”
She turned back, swinging the guitar around into place. “Or you’ll what?”
Paul moved to put himself between them, but Eineen pulled him back and stepped forward in his place. He looked confused and unhappy but stayed where she’d shoved him.
“If Tanis asks him . . .” Her lips were drawn back off her teeth, her glamour so shaky she looked like a flip book. “. . . and Tanis will ask him if she’s told to, Bo will stop playing for you.”
“You think what you do to them . . .” Charlie waved a hand between Eineen and Paul. “. . . is stronger than what the music does? I’ll take that chance.” Cue a background chorus of what sounded very much like “I Lost My Love,” and Charlie gave the fiddler in her head points for the title while not entirely convinced the situation called for a jig.
Eineen stared at her for a long moment, fierce and Fey. The moment passed. “You don’t understand,” she wailed, all unlikely angles and uncomfortable beauty. “I was so close to getting them back.”Then she dropped her head, her hair flowing forward to hide the defeat Charlie’d glimpsed on her face.
She was Fey, so mind games were a given, but Charlie didn’t think anyone could fake that kind of grief.
Paul wrapped her in his arms and glared over the top of her head.
Oh, yeah. Like I’m worried about
you.
you.
On one hand, there was no real reason she couldn’t deal with the Goblins herself. If Jack could find her wherever she was, she didn’t need to hang around here, and she’d never been good at waiting patiently. On the other hand, the pelts were completely safe, and Eineen knew where they were. It wasn’t like they were still missing, exactly. On yet another hand, there was a chance that the Goblins had slipped through with or behind the Boggarts if they hung out together and then had been drawn to the pelts on their own because they were something of the UnderRealm buried in the dark places they loved, and that meant the Goblins had nothing to do with the Gales. On still another hand, if Charlie caved to Eineen’s demands without argument, she was as enthralled as Paul, only she wasn’t getting laid as a reward for good behavior.
Of course, she
had
argued. And shouted. And stamped. She’d made her point. Won her point. It was time to be gracious in victory.
had
argued. And shouted. And stamped. She’d made her point. Won her point. It was time to be gracious in victory.
Hand number five for the win.
Charlie sucked in a deep breath and jackknifed forward as her lungs filled with a lingering wisp of smoke. “Fine,” she wheezed after a moment spent coughing up what felt like smoke and lungs and french fries. “I’ll help.”
“You?” Eineen lifted her head, her hair moving away from her face without being touched. “You can deal with the Goblins?”
“They can hear me, I can deal with them.”
“They’re in a mine.”
“So you’ve said. The acoustics don’t actually matter; I won’t be giving a concert. They just have to hear me.”
Eineen’s lip curled. “And the Boggarts?”
“I can deal with your problem while Jack deals with them. And this isn’t going to take long. All I’m going to do is keep the Goblins away while you retrieve the skins.”
“They need to go back.”
“Not tonight.”
“The Dragon Prince . . .”
“Look, do you want the Goblins dealt with or not? Because I do have other things I could be doing. Apparently, I have a string that needs changing.”
Paul shifted his grip, wrapping his arms around Eineen’s waist. To Charlie’s surprise, Eineen relaxed back against his body. “Are the pelts safe from the Goblins?” he asked. “Because they didn’t look like the sort of creatures who play nicely with their toys.”
He seemed to be handling the whole Goblin thing well. It was Bo’s reaction, or nonreaction, to an expanded reality all over again. Which pretty much confirmed that sex with Selkies, fully aware that at least part of the time the hottie in their arms packed on a hundred pounds of blubber and ate raw fish that didn’t come with saki, opened the door far enough that anything weird or wonderful could wander in. As for his question . . .
“If Auntie Catherine brought them over, and yes,” Charlie sighed, “I’m pretty sure she did, and if she told them to leave the pelts alone, they would.”
He nodded. “If. What are the odds?”
Charlie shrugged. “Honestly, about fifty/fifty.” The family didn’t play nicely with other people’s toys either.
“I think,” he said to Eineen, stroking his finger along the curve of her cheek, “we should let her help. Catherine Gale created this mess when she stole the pelts; who better than another Gale to deal with it?”
He had a point. It was a family problem from a couple of different angles.
Eineen turned her head and pressed a kiss into his palm. “All right. She can help.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” Charlie muttered, heading back to the picnic table for her guitar case. She thought about calling Mark, but it was late and she’d be back in plenty of time to deal with whatever Jack found and make the run through of the set list. It wasn’t as if she was going to ride the penis-mobile
back
from the mine.
back
from the mine.
When she turned, Eineen and Paul were in a clinch so cliché the fiddler slid into “Natalie and Donnel’s Wedding.”
“Could you two try and tone down the displays of blatant heterosexuality during this little adventure?” she sighed, walking over to the car.
As she opened the door, she heard Paul say, “Is she . . . ?”
And Eineen answer, “She’s a Gale.”
As if that explained it.
Which it did.
Hunting Boggarts wasn’t as easy as Jack had pretended while talking to Charlie. When they were on the run, all that hair flapping about drew shadows that changed their shape, blending them into the landscape. If that David Suzuki guy on television could be trusted, then it worked the way a tiger’s stripes did, hiding an orange-and-black animal in green-and-gold grass. It didn’t help that he didn’t know which way they’d fled. Probably inland, but just because he’d never dragged a Boggart dripping and shrieking out of the water didn’t mean they couldn’t swim.
Once he got into the air, he began a low, slow spiral out from the festival grounds. He was a good swimmer—his Uncle Viktor had tried to drown him more than once—and the night was warm enough he hoped the Boggarts had run to the sea.
They hadn’t. His life sucked.
Inland. Figured.
He picked up their trail just before they reached this really skinny lake and stayed high while they crossed a bridge he vaguely remembered Charlie driving over on the way to Louisburg. One of them nearly got nailed by a monster truck but scrambled up onto the guardrail at the last minute. What would they know about trucks?
They knew about dragons, though. He circled around and came in so that his shadow on the ground didn’t give the game away.
The last Boggart in the pack of nine wasn’t guarding the rear, it was the slowest and if it couldn’t keep up, the others would leave it behind without a second thought. It squealed when Jack’s claws closed around its fur.
Or beside its fur. Or something.
The Boggart could’ve rolled sideways to freedom but, propelled by blind panic, it tried to run faster and catch up to the pack disappearing into the underbrush at the side of the road. With the two of them on the same trajectory, Jack had time to poke through the illusion and get a good enough hold to haul the shrieking creature into the air. Afraid it might thrash its way free, Jack gave a quick squeeze and then worried he’d crushed it beyond conversation all the way to the clearing where he landed.
Masked from Human notice by surrounding trees and the night itself, he dropped the Boggart on the dormant grass and bent to check it was still alive. On the bright side, he’d found the pack, so it wouldn’t be hard to grab another if he had to.
The Boggart lay on its side like road kill already beginning to bloat.
Jack took a long sniff, close enough he sucked a hair up into his nose, and sat back on his haunches when the Boggart jumped up and ran for the trees.
Ran right into the cage of Jack’s claws.
It flipped upside down, spun around on what might have been shoulders, head bent at an awkward angle, then decided to play dead again and flopped flat.
Jack sighed.
Coughing and choking, the Boggart flailed its arms and legs, trying to wave the smoke away. Once it had cleared enough for Jack to see its face, he said, “Look, you answer some questions, and I won’t eat you. You keep dicking me around, I’ll have a snack and catch up to the pack.”
Flat black eyes narrowed. “Am cheated! Not said You Highness here!”
“Who didn’t say?”
“Scary!”
“Yeah, I’m gonna need a little more than that.”
“Scary not all Human!”
“Little more.” Although that wasn’t a bad definition of an auntie.
The Boggart waved an arm, hair flapping. “Rock hair! Night eyes! Power like dirt! Smell like dirt!”
“Dirt?”
It smacked the ground. “Dirt!”
“Earth?”
“Earth. Dirt.” The Boggart made gesture that clearly meant
whatever
, and stood. “Go now?”
whatever
, and stood. “Go now?”
“Not yet.” Jack translated rock hair and night eyes to gray hair and black eyes but the important part of the description was the smell. All the Gales smelled a little like earth to him. Charlie smelled like wherever she was—in Calgary a bit like the mountains, in Cape Breton a bit like the shore. Allie smelled like growing things. But the aunties smelled like the dark, rotting places deep in the oldest part of the forest. “Did the scary not all Human tell you to attack the festival?”
“No. Attack music place!”
“Yeah, that’s what a festival . . . never mind.”
“Said young scary not all Human there! Said not hurt!” It folded its arms. “Not said You Highness there!”
“Did the scary not all Human open the gate?”
It blew foam from between rubbery lips. Jack decided to take that as a
duh.
duh.
“And the scary not all Human called you?”
“Called all.”
“I didn’t mean
just
you. What did she promise you if you attacked the music place?”
just
you. What did she promise you if you attacked the music place?”
“Not to hurt. Do thing. Go home.”
“So the gate’s open?”
“Go home, not come back.”
“The gate’s open one way,” Jack translated. “You can get back to the UnderRealm but you can’t turn around and return to the MidRealm.”
“Goblins stay. Big nasty.”
“What?”
“Goblins stay. Big nasty.” It was clearly wondering what Jack hadn’t understood about that.
“There’s Goblins here? In the MidRealm, and they’re staying? Goblins came through when you did?” Goblins were mean. And kind of gross tasting, but right now that wasn’t important. Boggarts hung around on the edges of Goblin packs trying to seem tough, so he guessed they’d be
the
big nasty to the Boggarts. “Where are they now?”
the
big nasty to the Boggarts. “Where are they now?”
The Boggart made a noise that could have meant it didn’t know.
Jack singed the grass at its feet.
“Goblins not here!”
“I know that!”
It flattened under the sudden blast of smoke, hugging the ground. “Goblins do for scary not all Human!”
“Do what? Never mind, they’re Goblins.” Goblins were thugs, vicious, nasty thugs. His Uncle Ryan had been attacked by about fifty of them once. Taking down a Dragon Lord would have made them top dog in more than just the low-level circles they ran in, but it would have worked out better for them if they’d been less flammable. Afterward, Uncle Ryan had lit up any Goblin he ran into—or flew over—as a kind of a hobby. If the Goblins were doing something for Auntie Catherine, it was something unpleasant. “Did you hear where she sent the Goblins?”
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