Authors: A.J. Aalto
“Yetis are very peaceful creatures, very docile,” I reminded Declan. “Don’t hurt him. Don’t use your Talents. Just keep moving. Dance around. They’re not dangerous if you give them space.”
That’s when I spotted the yeti. He’d clearly found my go-bag, and his captors had allowed him to fondle my shit. He had thrown on my Glenda Hasenpfeffer wig, and it hung at a haphazard angle across half his face. He’d wrapped the petal pink tutu holster around his broad, hairy waist, but he hadn’t tied it very well, and the ribbon loops dangled in front of his crotch, through which hair bulged like exaggerated gonads. The whip was in his hand, uncoiled. In his other hand, he had my silver scissors.
He ran forward, pointing them at us, then brought his giant, ape-like arm up and snapped the whip with an impressive crack.
“I was wrong!” I yelled. “Yetis are super-scary. Run!”
We took off in different directions around the curved edge of the pit, but soon ran out of space; we met up at the other side.
“You’re not very good at this part,” he observed.
“That’s also my understanding of the situation.”
The yeti watched us and cracked the whip again. The crowd, as limited as it was, began to grow as word got out that someone interesting was in the ring. Nervous, stressed out, my werefox bite throbbing, and then my legs started to feel funny.
“Oh, fuckberries,” I announced warily, like a drunk frat boy about to hurl up half a keg. “I’m gonna prance!”
Declan said, “Run, Glenda!”
“I can’t!” The spell blossomed completely, and I pranced to the left.
The yeti cocked his head, watching my bare feet. I pranced to the right. The yeti sat down, legs splayed out to either side. “He likes it!” I pranced a bit more, and the yeti showed me his big, furry feet and waggled them at me. He put down the whip and the scissors and grabbed his toes with a hoot that was apparently supposed to mean something to me.
When I pranced closer to my go-bag, he didn’t try to stop me. The crowd shouted in unison at the perceived unfairness of it. The yeti pointed to my toes and then to his own. I checked inside my bag to make sure the lid on the canopic jar was secure and the honey mixture hadn’t leaked. The Lilith’s Heart pod was safe, too. Then I got out my pink nail polish and picked up the abandoned barber scissors.
“What are you doing, Dr. B?”
I stuck one dusty bare foot out and wiggled my toenails at the yeti. The yeti wiggled his, too. He let me get close without swatting me, which was a good first step. I crouched near his foot and took a swipe of pink nail polish at one of his long, bear-like toenails. He allowed it, a low grumbling noise purling from deep in his throat. Next, I took a little nail clipping to test his patience. He allowed that, too, so I took a healthy-sized snip, and put it in my pocket. Then I painted the shorter stub and all the others. He grumbled happily, and the crowd began to snicker and laugh.
Without warning, thunder exploded in the stands, thunder that belonged to no cloud. People started to scatter, but here in the cage, the yeti was not scurrying for cover, so I figured we were okay for the moment. I spotted uniforms, and, after a minute, Nischal among them. I smiled over my shoulder at Declan, who damn near melted against the chicken wire with relief. We were safe. I had the nail. I had the honey. I had the seed pod. We could return to Skulesdottir and I could rescue Harry and Remy, and House Dreppenstedt could kick troll ass with their new queen, and I could go home and sleep for months in my own bed. I was suddenly more tired than I’d been in a long time.
The yeti swung open his arms and gave a low hooting noise. All that fur. I was so exhausted and he sure looked cozy. He thumped his chest and then shook his arms open again. It did not seem like a primate threat; it looked more like an invitation. Of course, if I was wrong, I could get smushed into Marnie jam and left in a pile. I stood there for a minute, staring at his lap, not seeing anything that warned of a surprise mating attempt. My prancing legs gave a shake as my kneecaps started chattering together and the yeti thumped one big fist against his breastbone and grunted. Then he folded his arms in like he was hugging someone and rocked the invisible body like a mommy rocking a baby to sleep. Those giant hairy arms opened again and the low whoop insisted.
“Sure, this might as well happen.” I stepped closer to his wooly body and was careful to remain in a tight self-hug, not opening myself to groping. “Why not cuddle a yeti in a fight ring in Nepal? Why not, Marnie?”
The yeti’s arms were surprisingly gentle and every bit as warm as they appeared as they closed in around me. He pulled me in close, settling me into his lap, and rested his chin on my head. The wind couldn’t find me, except for my eyes. I squeezed those shut. The yeti made a contented noise around me and it rumbled through my body.
It was the best hug in the world, and by the time the police had rounded up the club organizers, and Nischal and some park rangers came to open the cage door to rescue the yeti, I was half asleep.
“You're sitting in the lap of a yeti,” Declan informed me. “You're getting yeti snuggles.”
“That is the complete opposite of a problem.” I blinked drowsily up at him. “The nail’s in my front pocket. Can you get my bag?”
“Got it.”
“Is Dev okay?”
“He’s giving a statement to police before he helps the park rangers find the yeti’s original den and return the animal there.”
“I’ll stick with the yeti until he’s for sure home, yes?”
I thought he’d object. We were, after all, on a tight schedule. But Declan smiled down at me and exhaled tiredly. “Sure thing, G-Pfeff.”
WE FOUND AN EARLY FLIGHT
the next day from Kathmandu to Norway, booked first class because we’d damn well earned it, and collapsed into our seats just before dawn. The flight attendant brought us coffee and pastries.
Declan spread a linen napkin over his lap. “Sarmeela made us a nice dinner last night to celebrate Devarsi’s freedom and the dismantling of the fight club. Too bad you couldn’t join us.”
I’d spent the evening with Nischal and his crew, finding a good spot to release the yeti back into the wild. I let the yeti keep the whip and the tutu, but I reclaimed my bag and all the goodies inside. “Wanted to make sure the park rangers got the yeti safely near the den.”
“You spent the night with the yeti, didn’t you?”
“I was cold. He was warm.”
“One night stand with a strange yeti,” Declan said with a teasing lilt in his voice. “What would Harry say?”
“Something overwrought and probably condescending, but with an affirming undertone. In my defense, desperate times call for desperate measures.” I suggested, brushing pastry flakes off Harry’s singed and battered pea coat. “What happens in Nepal at the foothills of the Himalayas stays in Nepal at the foothills of the Himalayas? Besides, we’re not total strangers, and he doesn't snore as loudly as you or Batten. We’ve fought, and we’ve cuddled. I heard Devarsi say his name.”
Declan nodded. “Devarsi said her name translates as Big Grey Ears.”
“I’m not gonna lie,” I said. “He’s pretty sexy. Wait…
her
name?”
Declan nodded. “She’s a she.”
“Big Grey Ears isn’t the prettiest name in the world,” I said. “I’m going to call her Betty the Yeti.”
“Can she call you Al?”
“Paul Simon would be so pleased.”
I went through my go-bag for the hundredth time since leaving the fight club, counting my rescue-artifacts, reassuring myself that I had everything. I had removed the underwear-bandage Declan had made for my arm and wrapped both the golden nail and the yeti clippings in it, putting it deep in the bottom of my bag, under the canopic jar.
“So, Dr. B., where is Agent Batten?” Declan said.
I pulled out my phone and showed Declan the text again. “What the figgity-fuck does ‘I’m out’ actually mean?” I asked. “Out of Nepal? Out of the closet? Out of gas? Out of the relationship? Out of mayo? Out of the whole thing?”
He flapped his hand unhappily north toward the Arctic Circle, and I knew what he meant. Declan thought Batten had left us for good this time. He wasn’t coming back. Whether he was going home or going somewhere to lay low for a while so he didn’t have to face us, it didn’t matter. He’d made some critical decision: he was bailing on me. Could that be true? I was going to have to listen to Harry’s crisp, British
told-you-so
for decades.
“What do you think ‘I’m out’ means, Dr. B.?”
“It means he’s a dead man,” I said, my voice tight with disappointment I couldn’t hide. “It means he’s on my
I’d-Do-It-Myself-if-I-Had-a-Hammer-and-an-Alibi
List.”
***
The first person to catch my eye when we deplaned in Norway was Konrad Rask, towering above the crowd with his pale blond beard and poker-straight hair, eyes like shards of Arctic ice. He looked like he was expecting us, though he didn't have his sign this time. He waited patiently as we gathered our things and bundle up against the cold.
“Deal with this shocker for a moment, Konnie,” I said, entrusting my go-bag to his waiting arms. It clunked and clattered. “Not only did I not get murdered, but I got one artifact, two artifacts, three artifacts.” I showed him three fingers proudly. “
And
I saved the town of Grimston from the worst band in Undercroft while simultaneously emptying a clurichaun’s garden of pests.
And
I carried out a legal kill on a child serial killing revenant while exposing a black market corpse desecration ring.
And
I rescued a yeti from a fight club while protecting a world-class preternatural biologist.” I exhaled on a whistle. “No wonder I’m exhausted.”
“Dr. Baranuik,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. “Hail, honored DaySitter. Centuries untold celebrate your gift of submission.”
“Oh, right. Death Rejoices and all that jazz.” I shot him a bright, if tired, smile.
“I have a car. We are expected beyond the Bitter Pass,” Captain Rask said.
“Tell me you didn’t just stand here for a week waiting for me,” I joked.
Rask shook his head as Declan came back with coffee from the vending machines. “A messenger from House Dreppenstedt was sent to the pier to inform me that Lord Guy Harrick had felt your approach and was expecting you would need transportation and protection presently.”
My heart soared. “Harry felt me? Is he okay?”
Rask looked like he didn’t understand the question.
I rephrased. “Is Lord Dreppenstedt still trapped, or…?”
“I am given to understand that the Stonecaller was recently instructed to release those kept in the hall at Skulesdottir,” Rask reported, leading us back out onto the tarmac where the taxis were lined up. He motioned to a dark SUV at the end of the row. It wasn't my former Hulkmobile, but I'm pretty sure it would impress The Rock, and I wouldn't want to have it run over my foot.
Declan and I exchanged a glance; our companions were freed. And so were the revenant court and all of the rest of the undead muckety-mucks. Were they royally pissed off? Were they missing us? I guess we’d find out soon. Declan popped one of his oxy-lipotropin pills to stave off yet another headache from not feeding Malas. He offered me one, but I’d wait for the real thing; I craved Harry badly now that we were close to home.
Home, Marnie?
As we climbed in the SUV and sped toward the guard house at the Bitter Pass, I noted how much like home Felstein had started to feel, now that I was free of its confines. Maybe it was because it was Harry's comfort zone. Maybe it was the house Bond that sheltered me through Wilhelm while I was there.
Dark Lady’s mercy. What will the crowned prince say about my forming an alliance with House Rask on his behalf?
Guess I’d face that when I came to it, too. I’d subverted more than one expectation on my trip. Probably, I’d never be invited back. Certainly not by the Dreppenstedts. Well, Remy might. Or she might eat me.
The guards were expecting us at the hut guarding the Bitter Pass, or rather, they were expecting Captain Rask, who joined us in trudging through the door into the weird, wild world of the Pass. The river warden waved us through after the mildest squint at my go-bag; perhaps she felt the strange rescue-artifacts within. I had to move my little legs pretty fast to keep up with Captain Rask’s long stride on the paths beyond.
We still had time. There
had
to be time. My traitor mind showed me a fleet of troll ships piercing the portal and sailing hungrily onward through the icy froth, rocked by savage ocean waves but eager to wreak vengeance on mankind, chanting their battle hymns and sharpening their axes. And at the bow of the first ship, the Scout, his beard crusted with sea ice over his tight, grey-green skin.
Declan and I fell behind a bit. I patted Harry’s battered coat to find the gold fairy coins in the right pocket, and got them ready for the Lord High Treasurer. “Hold it, wait,” I said, fumbling to remove my glove to count the coins bare fingered to be sure I was right. “There should be four.”
Rask grunted ahead of me. He stopped by a funny stump topped by a copper bowl gone green with exposure. He placed three coins in it, one for each of us. “I have the appropriate toll.”
“Oh. Were we supposed to pay in the bowl on the way out? I didn’t know.” I frowned and counted mine a third time. “I should have four left. I have two. Why do I only have two?”
“Where is your Second?” the captain asked.
Batten.
Rask hadn’t seen Kill-Notch, either. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. “He didn’t come this way?”
Rask scowled. It was like having a mountain give me the stink-eye. “It is your responsibility to keep him at your heel.” He was right.
I’d fucked up, and Batten had fucked off, and I’d done nothing to stop him. But where had he gone? If he was returning to Svikheimslending, he wasn't taking Rask’s ship. Was he booking passage to Svalbard through normal means? And then what? Helicopter? Private ship? Would he remember how to get there? How would he pass the
mere tenebrosum?