Chapter Nine
"CHARLOTTE GALE?" Paul took a step thatput him between her and
Eineen, although Charlie doubted he knew he'd done it. "Carlson Oil paid a Catherine Gale to take the pelts. "
"Whose idea was it?"
"Hers. " He'd responded without thinking and was obviously not happy about it. Too bad.
"That's interesting. " Charlie let her guitar swing around until it hung down her back a la Johnny Cash. She folded her arms but kept her expression neutral. "And when I say interesting, I don't mean it's interesting that it was her idea; it's interesting that you knew it was her idea. I saw you at the press conference, but you're not a reporter, not in those shoes, and you're not a low-level flunky either. " The items on the desk outside Amelia Carlson's office had been arranged with the same anal attention to detail that marked the roll of Paul Belleveau's shirtsleeves. He couldn't have gotten the fold more precise even if he'd measured it, and Charlie wasn't ruling that out. "Amelia Carlson's assistant, I presume?"
They didn't need to know Tanis had already told her who Eineen's new boy toy was. They could remain in awe of her powers of deduction.
Paul ignored her, turning to Eineen. "I don't think it's coincidence that they have the same last name. "
"It isn't. " Eineen took his hand, lacing her fingers through his. "They're family. But it's not important. "
"You've never met Catherine Gale. " From his tone, Paul had. The aunties left a lasting impression. "Trust me, it's important. "
"We're not on the same side," Charlie told him, still neutral, stating a fact. She didn't owe him reassurance. Not that there was a lot she could say about Catherine Gale any sane man would find reassuring. "What Auntie Catherine did, well, that messed up our fiddler's girlfriend and that messed up our fiddler. I don't want our fiddler messed up, that messes with the music. That puts Auntie Catherine and me on opposite sides. " It was the first time she'd made a definitive declaration. It hung in the air for a moment, waiting for Charlie to deny it, or qualify it, or freak out about it, but Charlie picked none of the above. Auntie Catherine had messed with the music. Turned out, it was as simple as that.
Dum dum dum DUM.
"So . . . " She shifted her gaze past Paul to Eineen and moved on to the next bit of business. ". . . of all the seashores in all the world, who'd have thought Amelia Carlson's assistant would show up on yours. Bad ballads get written about those kinds of coincidences. "
"Not coincidence, destiny. " Eineen breathed the word.
The fiddler kicked in with the first few bars of "Wha Can Help It. "
Charlie rolled her eyes. "Useful. "
Proportions shifted as the Selkie's glamour flickered. "Not mutually exclusive. "
Holding up both hands in the universal sign for, dial it down, sweetheart, I'm not dissing your bright and shiny new relationship, Charlie murmured, "Fair enough. " Not a surrender as much as an acknowledgment that it was none of her business. It wasn't like she'd ever actually had a chance of Eineen showing up on her seashore.
Paul shook his head. "You can't trust . . . " he began, but his voice trailed off when Eineen stroked his arm with pale fingers.
"Don't worry about it," she murmured soothingly.
And he didn't.
In the old days, when a man saw a Selkie dance in the moonlight and lost his heart, he grabbed her sealskin and hid it. As long as he had the skin, he held all the cards. The seal-wives did as they were told in fear of being trapped forever in a Human life - the same blackmail Carlson Oil had perpetuated, only they hadn't gone so far as to demand regular sex and housekeeping. Maybe a few of them fell in love with their captors in some kind of weird Pinnipedia Stockholm syndrome - Charlie wasn't judging - but they sure weren't there by choice.
In this new age, although the Selkies remained bound by ancient Rules, they followed only the letter of the law. They danced in the moonlight and ensnared the hearts of men, but they did it now without handing over control. Paul may have gotten his hands on Eineen's skin, but Charlie doubted he'd held onto it for long.
On the surface, Selkies seemed to still be all about the traditional relationship. One man, one woman, two point five kids, all four and a half of them living happily ever after. Well, happily ever after until the tears and betrayal if Tanis could be believed, but the point was, all the attention on the seal-wife thing, on the little woman in the kitchen sliding the fish and chips into the oven with a bun or two in the oven herself, masked a fundamental point of the relationship. The Selkies were Fey and the Fey considered Humans more playthings than partners. And not playthings in a fun and kinky kind of feathers and whipped cream sort of way, playthings in a cat with a catnip mouse kind of way - it's all fun and games until the stuffing comes out.
Without the protection gained from holding her skin, modern man didn't so much get a beautiful and compliant wife as a wild ride with teeth and claws and attitude. Tanis had Bo wrapped around her little finger although Charlie had missed the full extent, masked as it was by the constant weeping. Eineen didn't bother to hide that she called the tune Paul would dance to.
In spite of their adherence to outdated gender roles, Charlie had to admit she admired the way the Selkies played the system.
"Just out of curiosity," she said, ignoring Paul and watching Eineen, "where did you have Goblins? And how did you get away? That's not the sort of infestation you can clear up with a few antibiotics. "
"We ran. And we got lucky. " Her fingers tightened on Paul's arm, dimpling the skin. Goblins weren't very big, but they swarmed their prey, overwhelming larger creatures with numbers. "They were in the mine where the skins are hidden. "
"No. " Charlie shook her head, thinking back to the blank verses in Tanis' song. "I could have found them in a mine. "
"The tunnel they're in goes out under the bay. "
"Under the water?" The Gales had their roots sunk deep in the Earth. They didn't do water and, until Jack, barely did air. Auntie Ruby's attempts at skywriting aside. "That might be enough to do it. " Had been enough to do it. Obviously. "So you were trying to get the skins back. Mr. Belleveau's switched teams?"
"I'm not gay!"
Charlie and Eineen turned together to stare at Paul.
"And I've got news for you, caring about personal grooming has nothing to do with sexual orientation. " He brushed a bit of dust or something equally invisible off his shirt. "I know gay men who wear flannel for God's sake. "
"Okay. Not those teams. I meant you've switched from supporting the evil oil company to throwing in with Two Seventy-five N's protest. "
"Oh. " Paul squared his shoulders. "No. "
"No?" Eineen's reaction cut Charlie's off, so Charlie waited. He couldn't refuse to answer Eineen. She wondered if he could lie to her.
"Taking the pelts, well, that was wrong. " Paul turned to stare lovingly into Eineen's eyes, their fingers laced again. "It was wrong even though it was in the best interests of the company and I am truly sorry that we caused so much grief to your family. " His free hand rose to cup her cheek. "But the well, there's nothing wrong with that well. There's a substantial oil field off Hay Island, and it only makes sense to exploit it. It's deep, sure, but the rock's stable and unlike deepwater wells, it'll be easy to sink, remarkably safe in comparison, and entirely profitable as it's so close to shore it'll make transportation costs negligible. We're in talks about a pipeline to a processing center on Scatarie Island and we'll be bringing significant numbers of jobs to Cape Breton. "
Charlie really wished she had a camera. The expression on Eineen's face was priceless. "I'm guessing you two lovebirds didn't talk about this. "
"There's nothing to talk about!" Eineen jerked back until she was standing far enough from Paul to work up the volume. "Scatarie Island is a protected wilderness area! If, no, when there's a spill, it'll destroy entire ecosystems. If it happens during storm season, and that's likely when it'll happen . . . "
>
"Because of the storms," Charlie added helpfully. "Being in the North Atlantic and all. "
"A spill during storm season will be impossible to contain," Eineen continued, ignoring her. "Impossible. Not difficult! And that's not even mentioning the disruption of a protected seal rockery just putting the damned thing in! And," she added, cutting Paul off as he opened his mouth, "deep or shallow, all water wells leak. We're raising children in those waters. "
"We?" he managed.
"Not you and I, personally!"
He didn't look reassured.
When Charlie pointed that out, Eineen told her to shut up and locked eyes with Paul. "If you are with me, you are not working for Carlson Oil. If you are with me, you are not supporting a company that wants to destroy my family's home. "
No contractions, Charlie noted as the proportions of Eineen's face shifted between Human and not.
Reaching out, she pressed her palm over Paul's heart. "Are you with me or are you with Amelia Carlson?"
When a full thirty seconds passed, Charlie realized he was actually thinking about it. She was impressed. He had bigger cajones than it appeared. And he'd need them if the expression on Eineen's face was anything to go by.
"We are together," she growled.
"I know. But I worked hard to get this job. I'm good at it and I'm paid well for doing it. I mean really well. " He held out his wrist. "This watch cost me eight hundred dollars. My father never owned a watch that cost more than twenty. "
"You are not your father!"
His smile looked more like a snarl. "That's my point. My father wore thrift shop clothes and smelled of fish. At forty, his arthritis was so bad he could barely open his hands. When he died at forty-three, we had to sell the car to pay for the funeral. I'm not going back to just getting by. "
"Daddy issues much?" Charlie muttered under her breath.
Eineen closed her eyes and visibly composed herself. When she opened them, she was more Human than Fey and the line of Paul's shoulders visibly eased. "I told you, but you didn't listen. Ships uncounted litter the floor of the sea," she said. "Some are coffins only, some are wrecks of no value, but some have spilled silver and gold from between rotting timbers. My people harvest dead men's treasure from the sea and then invest it. Our holdings are about seventy/thirty low-risk/high-return funds. We're loaded. "
"Seriously?" Charlie didn't expect an answer, but to her surprise, Eineen flashed her a triumphant smile.
"Seriously. How do you think Two Seventy-five N can afford such kick-ass lawyers?"
"Hadn't actually thought about it. "
"Wait. " Paul seemed to be having a little trouble finding the right words. "You said there were investment bankers. You never said you were rich. "
"I have as much as I need, or want, but if you need or want more, it's there. And there's a job for you taking care of it, making more of it if you want that. Strangers manage it now. It's been years since one of us has ended up with a mate who wasn't a fiddler or a fisherman. Or a German tourist, but we're fairly certain that was an accident; they own a lot of land on the island. "
"Wait," Paul said again. "I'd work for you?"
"You'd work for the money. You need give up no material pleasures for love. That leads, in the end, only to resentment. " She closed the fingers of the hand pressed over his heart and tugged on his shirt. "You'd have power of your own. Power I wouldn't interfere with. "
Somehow, Charlie managed to keep her response behind her teeth.
"I'd need to think about it . . . "
"Of course. And while you think about it . . . " Human features slipping, Eineen twisted to face Charlie. "Call His Highness. "
"Excuse me?"
"We need to speak with the Dragon Prince. Call him. "
Charlie raised a brow. Eineen seemed a little confused as to just who she'd danced for.
"The Goblins," she continued, as though it explained her tone, "are guarding the skins. Until they're removed, we can't get them out of the mine. The Goblins might not obey his command, but the Prince is what he is and he is terrifying. "
"Yeah, well, right now Jack's off terrifying answers out of Boggarts. So, sorry. No prince. "
"Boggarts are vandals. Irritants. Cowards. " Eineen dismissed them with a wave. "They're probably heading straight back to the gate. Chasing them is a pointless waste of time. "
"Chasing them will find the gate and get us - that would be me and Jack - information on who opened it. "
"You know who opened it. Your Auntie Catherine opened the gates and forced the Goblins through so they could guard the pelts. "
"She convinced me they'd be safer in the mine. " Paul answered the question Charlie hadn't asked. "Who else could add that kind of security?"
"Carlson Oil didn't pay her to add it?"
"To add Goblins?"
Charlie nodded at the woman beside him. "Selkie. "
He acknowledged the point. "No, we didn't pay her to add Goblins. "
"Well, trust me, she certainly didn't do it out of the kindness of her heart. Why would she throw her support so vehemently behind stopping Two Seventy-five N and getting this well in?"
"She's your auntie," Eineen snarled. "Why don't you ask her?"
"That was rhetorical, right? Or do you want to stand here all night while I tell you?"
"I want you to call the Dragon Prince. " Eineen glanced up at the sky, drawing Paul's gaze with hers. Charlie didn't look. Wings the size of Jack's made a distinctive sound; he wasn't up there.
"You're a Gale," Paul said. "We only have your word for it that you aren't working with her. For her. "
"Why would I toss Boggarts at a festival I'm trying to win?"
"An accident," Eineen sneered. "One gate would have done for both the Goblins and the Boggarts. Boggarts often hang around the edges of Goblin gangs trying to look tough, too stupid to realize it only puts them in danger from the Goblins as well as larger predators. "
"And the reason for their appearance here tonight?"
"If you opened the gate, they'd be drawn to you. "
"If I opened the gate, they'd know I could kick their collective asses, and Boggarts, as you pointed out, are cowards. Auntie Catherine is a Wild Power. That makes her a wild card. That means if there's high-level shit disturbing going on and she's in the neighborhood, she's probably behind it. Plus we already know she was the one who took the skins. We just don't know why!"
"Everything okay over here?"
Charlie turned toward the police officer, suddenly aware she'd been shouting. And waving her arms. And stamping her foot. "Everything's fine. "
"I was asking Eineen. "
She smiled. "Everything's fine. A night like tonight . . . " She waved in the general direction of the burned chip wagon and, for all Charlie knew, the mine. ". . . nerves are on edge. That's all. "
"If you're sure. So I hear Seanan's not well. "
Seanan had been one of the Selkies whose sealskin had been stolen.
"She's a bit under the weather, yes, but I'm sure she'll be fine soon. " Eineen glanced pointedly at Charlie. Who gave serious thought to throwing a charm on the cop just because she could.
"Well, tell her I was asking after her when you're talking next. And you," he turned back to Charlie. "You keep it down, okay? I think there's been enough shouting in these parts for one night. Eineen. "
"Brayden. Seanan's husband is his cousin's brother-in-law," Eineen added as he joined the other officers by the Visitor's Center.
Like a small town, Charlie reminded herself.
"If Seanan's going to be fine soon," Eineen began.
"You need to get the skins, yeah, I got it. " None of the Fey were subtle. They thought they were, but no. "I need proof I can confront Auntie Catherine with, and that means I'm not calling Jack back from hunting Boggarts. Plus . . . " She held up a hand, cutting Eineen's protest off. ". . . the Boggarts attacked a crowd of inno
cent people. When your people decided to join the environmental movement, not to mention put lawyers on retainer, you joined the game. You're players now, and there's risk involved in throwing yourself in front of corporate planning. Sure, it sucks that it bit you on the ass, but these people tonight, they came to listen to music. They're not playing; they don't even know there's a game going on. So we deal with the Boggarts first. Then, for chosen family's sake, and through Bo for Tanis, we deal with the Goblins. "
"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.
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.
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.
When she turned, Eineen and Paul were in a clinch so cliche 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 thras
h 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?"
"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.
"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?"
"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 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?"
"No. Truth to Highness. " It rolled back onto its feet and held up both hands. One hand had three fingers. One had six. "Truth to Highness," it repeated. "Go home now?"
"Yeah. Sure. " Jack shifted back on his haunches, giving the Boggart a clear run to the trees. It looked up at him suspiciously for a moment, then took off, using its hands as well as its feet to gain speed. As soon as it was out of the clearing, Jack surged up into the sky. He'd follow it to the gate and see if he could pick up the Goblins' trail. They wouldn't be far from the gate. Not even Auntie Catherine would allow a pack of Goblins to run loose in the MidRealm.
He hoped.
"Why are we stopping?" Charlie leaned forward and peered out the front window as Paul pulled over to the side of the road. She could see lights through the trees but nothing near enough to the car to explain them stopping.
"There's a guard at the gate. If I go back in again, at this hour . . . " Paul's voice trailed off.
Charlie sighed. "So your entire plan was to ask Jack to help and wing it? Great. And I'm guessing Eineen can't do that whole Selkie seduction thing now you two lovebirds have paired up. "
"Expecting Eineen to seduce the guard isn't only demeaning, it's cli-ched. "
"You use the skills you've got, dude. But never mind . . . " She opened the back door. "I'm on it. "
"Planning to seduce the guard?" Eineen asked.
Charlie settled the guitar strap over her shoulder and grinned. "Depends on the guard. How far are we from the gate?"
Paul glanced at his GPS. "About half a kilometer. "
"Give me fifteen minutes and come on in. "
It was a pleasant walk. The night had cooled a little but was still warm with just enough breeze to lift damp hair off her forehead. She could hear the two part percussion of waves against rock in the distance while, closer at hand, an owl mournfully demanded her identity from the trees. Directly over the road, half a dozen bats created shadow patterns between her and the stars. Then the owl swooped out of the trees and nailed one of the bats, snatching it out of the air with a twist of its head and snap of its beak. The bat squeaked once, and died.
Allie would have called it an omen. Charlie wanted a second opinion before she jumped to any conclusions. Sure, the whole experience had sucked for the bat, but the owl got dinner.
The gates leading onto the mine property were locked on the inside. No surprise.
The lights were on in the trailer. She could just see the top of the guard's head and a lot of messy dark hair through the open window. About to play him out and up to the gate, she realized she had no idea how close the Goblins were or how well they could hear. Given their reputation, it didn't seem too smart to give them a heads up and time to plan an ambush.
"Hey! Hello in there!" When the guard looked out the window, Charlie smiled at him and waved. "Hi! My car broke down and my phone's dead. I need some help!"
The thing was, most men wanted to be heroes.
"Are you lost?" he called, coming down the stairs. He'd clearly attempted to tame his hair by running his hands through it and he was tugging wrinkles out of his shirt as he hurried to the gate.
In spite of Joss Whedon, most men didn't see danger when they saw a pretty blonde.
"I'm just in Cape Breton for the music festival and I guess I took a wrong turn and then my car made this grunch noise and just stopped. "
"A grunch noise?" His smile slid toward patronizing, and Charlie absolved herself of any guilt in advance. "So you're a musician?" He gestured at the guitar with the hand holding the lock as he pulled the gate open with the other. "You going to play something for me?"
"Actually, I am. " Charlie put her fingers to her s
trings.
When Paul's penis-mobile pulled up seven minutes later, the gate was open and the guard was on the ground, propped up against the fence.
Paul's eyes widened. "You killed him!"
"Don't get your y-fronts in a twist," Charlie sighed, getting into the car. "He's having a nap. "
"There? On the ground?"
"Interestingly enough, I can do a lot of really cool things - including getting in and out of a D minor 7th add 9 - but carrying a sleeping man significantly heavier than I am across six meters of grass and up four crappy stairs to his comfy chair is a bit beyond me. He'll be fine," she added when Paul continued to stare and the car continued to stay exactly where it was. "I'll give him a poke when we leave. Now, can we get on with this? It's late and I'm tired. "
"Paul. " Eineen's voice drew his attention off the guard. "We should get this done. "
"It's like I'm not even talking," Charlie muttered as Paul finally got them moving in the right direction.
When she got out of the car, she scuffed through the thin layer of gravel to the dirt below and paused for a moment, sifting the night for the out-of-place. If there were Goblins in the mine, then the gate had to be close. Goblin herding made cat herding look like a smart idea; not even Auntie Catherine would be able to control them over any great distance.
She couldn't sense the gate, but she honestly hadn't expected to. Like she'd said to Jack, Auntie Catherine, knowing she was in the province and working with the Selkies, had probably hidden it.
Paul had unlocked and opened half of the big double doors. Eineen waited on the threshold. "Are you coming?"
Charlie grinned. "Not even breathing hard. "
The contrast between the night and the light in the room that led to the elevator and the shaft down into the Duke made Charlie's eyes water. She blinked rapidly, trying to speed the adaptation. Mines, particularly empty mines, should be dark and spooky not lit by harsh industrial fluorescents. By the time all the retinal flares had died down, Paul had the elevator open and was handing out hard hats. She couldn't see Goblin sign in the room, but just in case, she asked Eineen what she saw.
The Selkie's eyes went black from lid to lid. "No blood, no gouges from tooth or claw. They have not been this high. "
Charlie spun her hardhat on one finger. "I was kind of hoping for no empty beer cans, no used condoms, and no graffiti saying UnderRealm rules! MidRealm drools! but I'll take no blood or claw gouges. " She paused at the elevator and leaned out over the shaft, peering down through the grates on the floor. "I see why they call it a cage. You're sure this is safe?"
"I would worry more about what you'll face at the bottom," Eineen told her.
"Yeah, I think I'll worry about getting to the bottom first. " She took a deep breath and stepped into the elevator, grate cutting into the bottoms of her flip flops.
When Eineen moved to follow, Paul stopped her. "You should wait up here. I can bring the pelts up. There's no need for us both to go into danger," he added quickly.
Charlie snickered. "You know she can probably kick your ass, right?"
They ignored her.
"The skins belong to members of my family. I will retrieve them. We . . . " She reached out and touched his cheek. ". . . we will retrieve them, together. "
"Yeah, that's sweet. " Balanced on her right foot, butt against the safety bar, Charlie sketched a charm on the bottom of her left flip flop to make it a little sturdier. "But none of the skins are yours. Why not grab Tanis or Neela - they're somewhere around the festival - and let them retrieve their own skins?"
"Because they're distraught!" Hair fanning out in an ebony wave, Eineen spun around to face Charlie. "They would have no consideration for their lives. "
"Okay, I'll give you Tanis, but Neela barely cracked upset, and yeah, I'm sure she's repressing for the sake of the kids. Mental states aside, they deserve to be here. "
"With their skins so close, they'd be easy prey for the Goblins and whatever else is down there!"
The gate clanged shut.
"Excuse me?" Charlie dropped her shoe to the floor and slid her foot into it without taking her eyes off Eineen - and not for the usual reason. "And whatever else is down there? It's funny but I don't recall you mentioning anything but Goblins. "
"It was more a feeling," Paul told her. Eyes still locked on Eineen, Charlie could see him in her peripheral vision, standing with his hand over the big green button.
"We didn't see anything but we heard . . . thudding. Kind of drumlike. Um . . . booming. "
"Booming?"
"And scraping. "
"Scraping? Booming and scraping," she repeated, but they didn't sound any better lumped together. Call her paranoid, but Eineen's complete lack of expression suggested she hadn't mentioned both the booming and the scraping on purpose. "There is no way those sounds can be good. "
"Whatever it was, it was deeper than the skins," Eineen pointed out. "If you keep the Goblins away, we can grab the skins and be out before it rises from the depths. Do it!"
About to ask what she expected done, Charlie realized, as Paul's hand slapped down on the go switch, the command hadn't been to her. The elevator shuddered and dropped about six inches. Reflexes honed growing up in a large family only just kept the bottom curve of her guitar from impacting against the metal grid as the sudden movement slammed her to one knee. "Fucking, ow!" Small mercies, the edges of the metal had been worn smooth by men in hard-soled boots, shuffling in place as they rode up and down and down and up and down again, but the grid still dug into her knee and it hurt! "That's definitely going to leave a . . . " She frowned and touched a gleaming line where the paint had been scored from the metal. "Last time you were here, did a Goblin grab on to the bottom of the elevator as you left?"
"Yes, but Eineen aimed the beam from my hardhat light into its eyes and it fell away. "
"Thanks for mentioning that, too. " One section of the grate had been nearly cut through. "It looks like the Goblins are staying in the mine even though they could climb the walls or the cables or, from the looks of this, cut their way through the rock to the surface. Eineen, what are the odds they're staying down there because that's the job they were hired to do?"
"You don't hire Goblins," Eineen sniffed. "You bully them or you blackmail them or bribe them and even then you don't expect them to keep their word. "
"Yeah. So why are they staying in the mine?"
"They can't get out. "
Charlie twisted and pointed at Paul. "That's right. They can't get out. " Eyes narrowed, she shifted her guitar against her thigh, strummed a simple chord progression with her thumbnail, then scanned the inside of the elevator. "Paul. One step to the right. "
"You don't tell me . . . "
"Now!" She played again as he moved. "There it is. "
"There what is?"
Right. They couldn't see it. "It's a Gale charm. And since I didn't put it there, that pretty much guarantees Auntie Catherine did. " The charm had been worked in and around the blank spaces on the instrument panel. "The Goblins aren't leaving because they've been charmed in. She's charmed the elevator so they can't use it, they may not be able to even get into it. Since they're still down there, she had to have also charmed the cables and the walls of the shaft. I don't know why they're not digging their way out, maybe they are, maybe she specifically told them not to and they're so afraid of her they're not going to try. But she missed a spot. " The aunties were not omniscient, no matter what they, personally believed. "They can ride out on the bottom of the elevator. "
"But when they get to the top, the cage will be blocking the shaft. "
Charlie scraped her fingernail over the deepest gouge. "They'll go through the elevator. "
Paul folded his arms. "You said they couldn't get in. "
"Through isn't in. Those degrees of yours, not in English, are they?" Gripping the safety bar, she rolled back on her heels and stood. Then bent a
nd took a look at her knee. The grate had pressed purpling dents into her skin but not broken it. On the one hand, good. On the other hand, a blood charm painted across the floor would keep anything out.
Overkill for Goblins, she supposed, but the thought of a pack of them running loose sent a shiver up her back. People would die before they were rounded up again. And, yeah, the Gales didn't interfere with the Fey; she'd heard that her entire life. Apparently Auntie Catherine hadn't been listening - the proof of her involvement was right there on a pitted piece of painted steel. Charlie settled her guitar into place, took a deep breath . . .
And nearly fell again when the elevator jerked to a stop.
"Warn a person!" she snarled at Paul.
He shifted to stand behind Eineen. Quite possibly, the smartest thing he'd done in the limited time Charlie had known him.
The elevator opened into some kind of central depot. Considering it was nothing more than a large room carved out of the rock to be a tunnel terminal, it was well lit. The five tunnels Charlie could see from where she was standing were not.
"We didn't turn the lights off in C tunnel when we left," Paul said quietly.
"Goblins don't like the light, remember?"
"They figured out how to turn the lights off?" He sounded horrified.
"Didn't have to," Charlie told him, sketching night-sight charms on her eyelids. "They probably ripped down the wiring and smashed the fixtures. " She hadn't needed night sight at the festival, hadn't bothered with it on the road, but here and now, it seemed like a good idea. Not that it helped much. Beyond the first two meters, the tunnels weren't so much dark as filled with an absence of light, and the charms, like cat's eyes, needed minimal illumination to work.
"Why aren't they waiting for us," Eineen murmured, close enough that her breath lifted the hair off the back of Charlie's neck. "They must have heard the cage descend. "
In a just world, Charlie would have refused to shiver. In this world, her body went with it. "Were they waiting for you the last time?"
"No. We heard them approaching when we got close to the skins. "
"Best guess, they're exploring. If Auntie Catherine left them to guard the skins, then they've set up wards and your proximity called them back. " Locked into the mine, easy to find, they wouldn't want to fail at the task Auntie Catherine had set them. Charlie covered a yawn with the back of her hand. She needed to get this over with and grab some sleep. "Okay, which way?"
Paul moved out in front, and Eineen let him. Given how close she stayed behind Charlie's right shoulder as they made their way through the open area, her position remaining constant as they stepped around abandoned carts and over the tracks they ran on, Charlie figured it had less to do with giving Paul a chance to man up and more to do with being terrified. Paul feared the Goblins because they were outside his experience. And okay, because they were freaky little not! Humans who'd tried to claw their way through steel to get to him. Eineen feared them because she knew exactly what the freaky little not! Humans were capable of.
When Paul began to maneuver one of the flat carts onto the rails heading for tunnel C, Eineen stopped him and said, "We won't need it. "
"Four pelts weigh . . . "
"As much as four lives, as little as I need them to. "
"But the last time . . . "
"I didn't realize that was why you were taking the cart. "
Charlie could tell he wanted to ask Eineen just what she'd thought he was going to use the cart for, but, in the end, he only shook his head and moved toward the tunnel. Given that he hadn't had the sense to run when Eineen came out of the water to dance, he'd better learn to cope with confusion.
Unfortunately, no matter how many times Paul flicked the breaker, the lights remained off in tunnel C.
Charlie put her hand over Paul's and stopped the obsessive working at the switch. "I think they're broken. I'll go out in front from here on, okay?"
For a moment she thought he was going to protest. Give her some involuntary testosterone-produced crap about being the man, but all he said was, "Okay. "
Enchanted. Not stupid. Good to know.
About to draw a charm on the wall with a wet finger, Charlie squinted as a light bulb came on above her head.
"Sometimes the helmet lamps take a while to warm up," Paul explained. "And there's no absolute guarantee that, in spite of regulations, the batteries are 100% full. " He laughed, nervously. "Still, there's no absolute guarantee for anything, is there?"
"I thought you met Auntie Catherine," Charlie muttered, scanning the rocks for . . . "There you are. Come to Mama, baby. " The piece of coal was about the size of a chocolate truffle and soft enough it ran easily over the rock wall as she sketched a charm at the point where the light from the big open area gave up and quit. Leaning forward, she huffed a breath at the wall. The black lines sparkled, then gleamed, then glowed white. The charm didn't throw a lot of light, but it created a small oasis in the darkness. Charlie'd learned it in Auntie Claire's outhouse, the charm written so that closing and latching the door completed it.
Oh, great. Now I have to pee.
"What would happen if I drew that mark?" Paul asked speculatively.
"Think you can remember it?" The lines of the charm had been washed out by the light.
"Of course, I . . . "
Leading the way down the tunnel, Charlie grinned at the frown in his voice. "Let it go, dude. "
"Do you know how much energy could be saved if everyone could draw on the wall, or the on ceiling, and light their houses?"
"Do you know how boring music would be if everyone sang in the same range?"
"What?"
"To each their own, Mr. Belleveau. " About two meters past the light from the first charm, she drew and activated another. If she'd been using spit, she wouldn't have needed to activate, but breathing took a lot less time than having to constantly wet her finger. She was pretty sure there was a dirty joke buried in that statement, but she was too tired to bother digging it out.
As time passed, she fell into what Mark would've referred to as a Zen state and Charlie thought might be closer to bored stupid. Walk and charm, walk and charm. Half circle of tunnel; curved roof, flat floor. Walk and charm, walk and charm. Rough roof, smooth floor. Walk and charm, walk and charm. Sound of her footsteps, sound of Paul's footsteps, silence of Eineen's footsteps. Walk and charm. When Eineen touched her shoulder, she jumped and made a noise she had every intention of denying later.
"We're nearly at the skins," the Selkie murmured. "The next side tunnel to the left.
"So far, no Goblins," Paul added.
Eineen made a nearly inaudible sound of protest.
"What?"
Charlie rolled her eyes as the unmistakable sound of claws against stone drifted up from the lower tunnels. Two degrees and the man had no understanding of what not to say in this kind of a situation. "And at least it's not raining," she sighed, finished one last charm, and dropped what was left of the coal. "Little bastards are fast. " The sound of the claws had already come notably closer.
"We can hear them," Paul pointed out.
Kind of pointlessly, Charlie thought. The Goblins weren't trying for a stealth attack.
"So they can hear you," he added.
Oh. "I want them close enough the sound doesn't distort. You knew the job was dangerous when you took it," she added before he could protest.
"Without the Dragon Prince, what can you play that will make a Goblin run?" Eineen asked.
"Okay, first . . . " Charlie ran her thumbnail over the strings checking the acoustics. " . . . if you thought I had nothing to offer without Jack, this is not the time to bring that up. And, second, they've met Auntie Catherine. " She squared her shoulders, settled the guitar into place, and wrapped the fingers of her left hand around the fretboard. "I'm going to point out the relationship. "
When the darkness began to break into piec
es, pieces that gleamed and glittered like eyes and teeth, she began to play.
Auntie Catherine's song. Her song. The song of the Gale women who hunted down Uncle Edward, tore him to pieces, and devoured him. Wild songs.
The gleaming and the glittering got no brighter.
Then it faded, and there was only the darkness.
Charlie played a moment more, then stilled the strings. The silence in the tunnel was oppressive. Calm before the storm, she noted silently. Because unlike certain executive assistants who'd been recently saved from the darkside by the love of a good sea mammal, she knew better than to poke at fate.
"Did they look like they were running scared to you?" Paul took another poke. "They didn't look like they were running scared to me. "
"The point is," Charlie reminded him, "they ran. Let's get the skins, make like a tree, and get the hell out of . . . "
Eineen raced past her.
". . . here," she finished as Paul ran to catch up. Speeding up a little, although she was not going to run, Charlie watched him reach the side tunnel and smack at a switch on the wall.
These lights were still working.
Paul glanced suspiciously up at the ceiling.
"You didn't get this far the last time, so the Goblins had no idea there were lights. They understand destruction," Charlie added, falling into step beside him. "They don't understand electricity. "
"You say your family doesn't get involved with the business of the Fey, but you seem to know a fair bit about them. "
"You'd be surprised how many people consider neutrality to be weakness. "
"MBA; no, I wouldn't. " He ran to join Eineen at the skins.
Charlie was just as glad three of them were in what looked like garment bags because the whole collapsed face, empty eyehole thing on the fourth was a little gross.
Her hair flowing around her in midnight currents in spite of the lack of any kind of a breeze, Eineen picked the top skin off the pile as though it weighed nothing at all and flung it into the air - kind of like Auntie Jane flicking the crumbs off a tablecloth. Except the tablecloths stay tablecloths while the pelt shimmered in midair and then became a beige scarf Eineen looped around her neck. She bent to the pile again and the sound of reinforced nylon tearing suggested she hadn't bothered with the zipper.
Skin two became a dark brown sweater with black patterning.
Charlie saw Paul open his mouth as Eineen shrugged the sweater over her shoulders, but she didn't hear what he said over the sudden sound in the main tunnel.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Steadily growing closer, claws on stone playing melody over percussion.
"If whatever that is traps us in here, we're done. Pick up the pace!" Holding her guitar tight against her body, she ran to the tunnel mouth. Looking back toward the elevator, the charms were circles of light like pearls spaced along a black silk cord. Looking the other way, she almost thought she saw the darkness tremble with each heavy . . .
Thud.
Thud.
A piece of the wall broke way and skittered down the stone face to the floor.
Thud.
"Oh, shit. "
She knew drums. Bodhrans. Tom toms. Snares. Steel. Taiko. Darbuka. Kpanlogo. Basic big bass drums.
Thud.
That wasn't a drum.
Thud.
That was a footstep. What had feet that would make that kind of an impact and still fit in the tunnels?
"They have a cave troll," she sighed as Paul and Eineen rocked to a stop behind her.
"Really?" From his tone, Paul didn't get the quote.
"You don't get out much, do you?" She reached back, snagged a handful of fabric - Paul's shirt - and yanked him past her into the main tunnel. "Now, move it. And no, not really," she added as Paul grabbed for Eineen's hand and all three of them started to run. "It's a regular troll; I just always wanted to say that. "
"Catherine Gale brought a troll in with the Goblins and the . . . uh . . . "
"Boggarts. And, again, no. He's probably been here for years. " Paul's slick-soled shoes had crappy traction, Charlie realized as Eineen kept him from falling. Her flip flops were no better, though, so it wasn't like she could call him on it. "Trolls are like living earth, they just seep through the barrier, but I wouldn't bet against Auntie Catherine using his seepage to anchor the gate. "
"It would have hidden it on the other side," Eineen allowed.
"Yeah, like the Courts care. " The Goblins had to have found the Troll when they were exploring the mine. Found it, woke it, got it moving. Trolls were nearly mindless and mindlessly vicious if provoked. Kind of like an avalanche. Sounded like the Goblins had provoked it and then aimed it.
"Why don't you do your thing and get rid of it?" Paul demanded.
"Living earth, remember?"
They were nearly past the last of the side tunnels, when the scrabbling of claws grew suddenly louder.
Charlie grabbed Eineen's arm and dragged her to a stop. Eineen's grip on Paul's hand stopped him. "There's Goblins between us and the big open area. "
"It's called Canaveral," Paul whispered.
"Okay. There's Goblins between us and Canaveral. "
"Are you sure?"
Something hissed in the darkness between the last two charms.
"Pretty sure, yeah. " Fishing a pick from her pocket, Charlie slammed out fifteen seconds of power chords.
"Sister Mary Benedict," Paul gasped as the sound rolled away from them. "She terrified me in grade two. I haven't thought of her in years. What . . . ?"
"Basically, don't make me come up there," Charlie told him, pick sliding from sweat-slicked fingers. "Now run!"
THUD.
THUD.
BOOM.
"Boom?" Charlie demanded of the universe.
"Why is it so close?" Paul gasped and tripped over a rail. Eineen kept him upright until he regained his footing.
"Inertia. " Charlie dodged around a row of empty carts. They probably weighed a couple hundred kilos each, but they were trembling. Not a good sign. "Once it gets moving, it keeps moving faster until something stops it. "
"What the hell's an equal and opposite reaction to a Troll?"
Good question.
"If we get the elevator high enough, it'll fall down the shaft. " Eineen could have been inside the elevator and halfway to the surface by now, but she held her pace to Paul's. More or less. Could be true love, could be because she didn't know how to work the machinery.
Not really the time to speculate, Charlie reminded herself running out of a flip flop and leaving it behind. Faster to kick the other one off.
Eineen reached the cage first, still dragging Paul behind her.
Charlie pushed past as they began to drag the gate closed.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM!
She turned. It felt like she was turning underwater, moving against the pressure exerted on reality by the creature coming out of the tunnel.
It walked like a gorilla, massive body bent forward, the impact of its fists against the floor making the carts shimmy off the rails. Its half circle of a head sat directly on shoulders that scraped the sides of the tunnel as it emerged.
The darkness behind it splintered into glittering and gleaming, although the Goblins stayed prudently back. Waiting to see if the right side won.
Speed of the elevator. Speed of the troll. Charlie sucked at math, but it was obvious they weren't going to get the cage far enough up the shaft.
The Troll would hit the steel.
Reach up. Grab hold.
If it went over the edge, it would drag the crushed cage down the shaft with it.
Simple choice, really: Die in the elevator.
Or take a chance.
"What are you doing?" Eineen shrieked as Charlie slipped out past the closin
g gate.
"I have no idea. " She was a Gale. They had roots sunk deep in the earth. The Troll was living earth.
And she was about to try and stop an avalanche with a song.
Fun, wow.
She'd dropped her only pick so it was back to her thumbnail and blood on the strings.
What stopped moving earth?
Heavy metal.
She remembered asking a guy in a different elevator if he knew the weight of the battery pack it took to run a portable amp. Not the sort of thing she wanted to schlep around with her. Here and now, it suddenly seemed worth the effort. A wah wah pedal wouldn't have hurt either.
The Troll reared back when the sound hit it, the ceiling of Canaveral just barely high enough to contain it. Its fists came off the floor and spread into three-fingered hands - thumbs and fingers the same length.
Its legs seemed too short to be jointed. Upright, it moved slower, but it kept moving.
Bare foot stomping the beat into the rock, Charlie screamed defiance over the chords. Metal didn't have to sound pretty, or melodic, but it had to be loud. The music bounced off a hundred different hard surfaces and ricocheted, creating a discordant harmony.
Behind and around, filling in the spaces, her fiddler threw in "Devil in the Kitchen. "
The Troll ignored the shower of dislodged rock that fell from the ceiling and bounced off head and shoulders. It shoved one of the heavy steel carts out of the way and kept coming.
Slower though. Definitely slower.
That was good.
It'd stop before it got to her.
It would stop . . .
It grabbed the guitar, grazing Charlie with one finger and knocking the wind out of her. As it lifted the guitar and her by the strap now jammed painfully up under her arm, the ricochets of sound continued, but she couldn't reach the strings to pull them into a whole. Time slowed as the guitar splintered. Strings lost tension in the collapse. Sighed in defeat.
Without an instrument . . .
With no way to bend the music . . .
Keep playing, Charlie begged the fiddler, but silence answered.
The tension on the guitar strap gave way. Charlie braced one foot against the Troll's torso, clutched at its shoulder, dug her fingers into the ridges of living rock, and looked it in the eye.
Its eyes were the same slate gray as its body. Wild eyes. Truly wild. No allegiances.
Living earth.
The Gales had their roots sunk deep in the earth, but no one, nothing, had ever rooted in the Troll.
And doesn't that sound ridiculously smutty, Charlie thought.
It flicked away the ruined guitar - Charlie heard the pieces hit the ground even if she couldn't, wouldn't look - and closed a hand around Charlie's body.
Fuck my life. Should've stayed in Calgary.
Time continued moving slowly as her ribs began to crack.
The Troll's eyes widened at the sound, and for the first time, it actually saw her. If she had to guess, Charlie'd say it didn't like what it saw.
This was Wild. It answered to no one and nothing but itself. It didn't need music to form and direct its power; it was power. The look in its eyes said, I know you. And I'm not impressed.
As the pain started to catch up, Charlie frowned. The Troll's eyes weren't slate gray. They were Gale gray.
And Gales didn't care if walking slag heaps were unimpressed.
Gales knew what Wild meant. They knew it had to be contained, controlled, before it became all there was. Sure, the aunties could take Uncle Edward down, but they were tied to place. Allie had slapped the Dragon Queen home, but she couldn't leave the city. Gales who could do little damage were free to wander as they would - in spite of what her mother thought, Paris would survive the twins - but Gales who could change the very nature of reality were shackled.
And no one had shackled them. The certain knowledge of her own death lending clarity, Charlie knew they'd limited themselves. One day an auntie had looked out at the carnage, folded her arms, and said, That'll be quite enough of that. But every now and then, a bit broke free. A Wild Power. Untied. Because every now and then, something too big to ignore bellied up to the bar and declared it could take all comers.
Her frown deepened. Pain might have mixed a few too many metaphors there, but the point was, the power wasn't in the guitar, or she'd never have been able to pick up a guitar she'd never seen before and play away the storm. The instruments focused the power. The power was in her.
Another rib cracked.
Charlie didn't have breath enough to scream.
Pain wasn't focusing. It was distracting.
You think love hurts? She didn't have breath enough to snicker either. Try having your ribs crushed by a Troll.
Her phone rang.
You have got to be kidding me.
"Charlotte Marie Gale!" Auntie Jane's voice was tinny but remarkably clear considering it came from Charlie's pocket. On an unanswered phone. "A little less smart-ass and a little more focus. I will not have you killed in such an embarrassing manner. "
Right. Let's not embarrass Auntie Jane . . .
Charlie squinted the Troll's eyes back into focus, sucked in as much air as she could, and hissed with everything she had left, "Piss off. "
As she hit the floor, and it felt like a hot iron spike jammed up through her chest, she realized she should have told it to put her down first.