by TR Cameron
Chapter Fifteen
Enough time had passed inside the mountain that when Ruby stepped back through the portal from Oriceran to the kemana, it was the middle of the night. Rather than waking the family, she’d left a note to let Matthias, who was always the first to rise, know she was home. When she finished that, she discovered the tiger-woman was already asleep on the bed with the covers pulled up to her neck, making strange happy-sounding growly noises.
She changed into a nightshirt and climbed in beside her, wondering how in the world she’d explain this to everyone. Her head spun with the implications—how would they live together in the small attic room? What would her parents think? How much would she have to take care of her new apparent life-partner—until her brain succumbed to sleep, crushed under the burden of questions without answers.
She woke with the sun and stumbled toward the shower with a small growl of her own at the woman taking up far more than half of their shared sleeping space. When she emerged, toweling off her hair, Idryll was sitting cross-legged on the bed staring at her. Ruby stammered, “Uh, good morning.”
She inclined her head in response. “The same to you, Ruby.”
Again, she seemed faintly amused. Ruby wondered if something about her entertained the shapeshifter or if the other woman thought everyone on Earth and Oriceran existed solely for her amusement. “So, we never got around to discussing what you eat or any of that stuff.” They had a veritable mountain of stuff to deal with.
Idryll shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. “I can eat anything in any of my forms.”
“You, uh, have more than the two?” Ruby couldn’t remember feeling quite so out of her element, ever, except when she’d met Keshalla for the first time.
Her laugh was throaty and inspired a smile despite Ruby’s nervousness. “Oh yes, more than two. Are all humans as easily unbalanced as you are?”
Ruby scowled. “Well, if you mean would the average human find having a fatal headache that could only be fixed by fighting to the death to somehow wind up with a crazy cat lady as a life-partner somewhat disconcerting, yes. Also, I’m not a human.”
Idryll lifted an eyebrow. “You look like one.”
It was true. She was back in disguise now that they were on Earth. “That is a long, complicated, and as yet not completely revealed story. You know very well that I’m a Mist Elf, so knock it off.” She sighed. “My mother will want all the details. Maybe you can tell her.”
The other woman showed her teeth. “Oh, no. Also, you might find that you have…issues sharing any information about your venamisha.”
Ruby frowned. “What kind of issues?”
Something like a purr came from Idryll. “The kind that will prevent you from speaking about it in any detail. There’s a reason the stories are so vague.”
A sigh escaped her. “Well, I guess I’ll point at you, and everyone can figure it out for themselves. Now, come over here. We need to find you some clothes. I mean, your fur is nice and all, but you’re going to distract every male who sees you if you don’t put something on over it.”
The other woman laughed throughout the process, which made Ruby grind her teeth. It felt less like a joyful laugh, although some mirth was in it than a condescending one. She’d never been particularly comfortable being the source of others’ amusement, and that now included the oversized feline. Plus, it would take time to explain stuff, time she didn’t have. She needed to get jobs lined up and put her business plans in motion, not to mention trying to figure out the next steps to make whoever killed the people at the casino pay for doing so. I’m way too busy to deal with a person-sized talking cat with an attitude.
When they were both properly clothed, Idryll stared at herself in the mirror while Ruby tamed her hair, pulling the still-damp locks back into a ponytail. A small chime echoed through the house, the staff’s announcement that breakfast was ready. Except on special occasions, they never had a formal meal to start the day, which meant that the staff treated this as a special occasion, doubtless at her mother’s request. “Lovely,” she muttered, then continued, louder, “Okay, kitty, let’s do this.”
Idryll replied, “Perhaps don’t call me kitty, and maybe I won’t bite your arm off while you sleep.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” She pulled open the door and headed out into the hallway. “This is fine. I’m sure this will be fine.”
She steadily ignored the other woman on the way down to the dining room, then drew a deep breath and turned to warn her new partner not to cause trouble. She couldn’t because Idryll wasn’t there. She spun a full circle, wondering where she’d gone before the low rumble of a loud purr brought her eyes down to her feet. There, sitting primly beside her in a puddle of clothing that no longer fit, was a cat. She was a Bengal, probably twice as large as the usual breed, and had stripes like Idryll had in her tiger form rather than the more common spots. Even at that size, her amused superiority was obvious.
Well, that’s useful, I guess. Mental note, put in an order at the pet store. She shook her head and whispered, “You are such a jerk,” then turned and walked into the room. Only her father and sister were present, and Morrigan immediately shot to her feet and rushed over. Ruby grinned and held out her arms for a hug, but her sibling ignored her completely.
Her sister slid to her knees and enthused, “Oh my goodness, what a cute kitty. You’re a sweetheart, aren’t you? I know you are.” The cat fell over on its side so she could pet it, and Ruby rolled her eyes and headed for the table.
Her father grinned at her. “You went on a legendary journey and what you have to show for it is a cat?”
She nodded as she sat. “It looks that way.” She tried to tell him about it but discovered that the words wouldn’t come. Confused, she made another attempt but still failed. “It appears there’s a reason you don’t hear about them more often. I try to explain, but no sound comes out.”
Disappointment flickered across his face, but understanding quickly replaced it. “That explains a lot. Maybe you can answer questions. Let’s try that. Is the cat part of your journey?” She nodded, happy to be able to confirm it. “Was it hard?” She nodded again. “Did you have to fight?”
She tried to nod a third time but was unable to move her head and laughed ruefully. “Seems like you’ve gotten all you’re going to get from me, Columbo.”
Rayar chuckled and nodded. “Well, okay then. This will really upset your mother, though.”
Ruby laughed again. “Well, at least there’s one bright spot. This time I get to keep the secrets.”
Discomfort was there and gone in her father’s expression, but he pretended it hadn’t happened. “Will your roommates be okay with you bringing in a pet?”
She frowned and paused in the transfer of scrambled eggs from a bowl to her plate. “That’s a good question. I have to hope so. They’re pretty cool. I’m sure we can work it out.”
Morrigan took her seat again. “Well, if not, I’m happy to keep her. What’s her name?”
“Idryll.”
Her sister scowled. “Where did you come up with that? It’s rather vicious-sounding for such a pretty kitty.” Her voice went sing-song at the end as she looked down to the side, presumably where said kitty was.
“She’s volatile. Big claws.”
“No way. She’s adorable. She can stay here. We’ll convert your room into a play area.”
Her mother came in and immediately joined the chorus of approval over the new animal. Ruby’s inability to divulge any exciting information about her experience was a major irritant for the older woman once she got past the suspicion that her daughter was being obstinate and refusing to share. Like I would do such a thing. So, a little good, a little bad. Now I need to get the heck out of here.
It took another half-hour before she could extract herself from the family and portal to the garage near the house she shared with her roommates. She escorted the cat up to her room, thankful not to encounter anyone along the way. When the do
or was closed, Idryll transformed into her tiger-woman form when Ruby turned her back. “This is where you live? I like the other place better.”
“Shut it.”
“I mean, why pink? It’s not a shade that goes well with your skin. Makes you look rather sickly.”
Ruby sighed. “Everyone’s a critic. Listen, I need to meet with someone, and it’s the sort of meeting where bringing a cat, a tiger, or another person along wouldn’t make sense. Can I trust you to behave yourself here while I’m gone?”
The other woman threw herself back on the bed, which creaked underneath her alarmingly. She must be heavier than she looks in this form. I don’t want to explain that I managed to break my bed. Too good a setup for the others. I’ll never hear the end of it.
“Depends on how you define ‘behave,’ I suppose. I promise not to eat anyone unless they attack me first or I get really hungry.” She looked thoughtful for a second and added, “Or bored.”
“You know, I’d like to think you’re only screwing with me, but something tells me you’d be downright dangerous to everyone around you if you lacked distraction.” A small television sat on one of the dressers, and she flicked it on and handed over the remote. “Here, watch some TV. It’ll be educational.”
The tiger-woman pushed herself up on her elbows. The way her fur blended with her skin was beautiful. No clear separation between the two was visible although part of her was furred and the rest wasn’t. “Do you expect to be gone long?”
Ruby shook her head. “I need to get to the Strip and call a car. Where I’m going is about twenty minutes away, figure an hour there, then the same back unless I find a good hidden spot to portal from. So, a couple of hours tops. Do you think you can manage not to ruin my relationship with my roommates for that long?”
Idryll leaned back with a long-suffering sigh. “I suppose. There better be something exciting waiting for me on the other side. Or I’ll have to eat someone.”
Ruby laughed. “Maybe I should introduce you to Jennifer then. Seems like a fitting end. Her gravestone can read, ‘consumed by boredom.’” She walked to the door and pointed at her new partner. “Seriously. You behave.”
The toothy grin she got in reply did not inspire confidence.
Chapter Sixteen
The trip had been more or less what she’d predicted. The car dropped her off at a town too small to be included on most maps. It sported a collection of homes, a grocery store, a gas station, a school, and not all that much else. She’d first visited Vagrant’s Crossing when she was in high school as part of a career project and had returned every time she’d come home from university for a visit.
She looked up the long sidewalk that led to Margrave’s house. “Phineas Margrave the Fourth,” he’d declared at their first meeting, then insisted that she call him Margrave. High school Ruby couldn’t be that informal, so they’d met in the middle with “Mr. Margrave,” but the title had fallen off as she’d gotten older and they’d gotten closer.
Like Ely, the town was positioned at the base of a mountain, giving it a robust irrigation system. The lawns were green and expansive, a source of evident pride for the residents. Her business mentor’s also bristled with odd statues and structures. He claimed it was his hobby: both the creation of artwork out of discarded junk, like the ten-foot-high skeleton made of what looked to be mainly car parts, and collecting items to tell stories, like the small forest of lawn gnomes engaged in a game of miniature croquet on the opposite side of the yard.
She noticed he’d added a new scene since her last visit nine months prior. Two homemade robots looked down over a chessboard filled with kid’s action figures from old cartoons. One of the robots winked at her while she stared, and she laughed and bounded up the short stairs to the porch.
The man she’d come to visit opened the door before she reached it. Although he was in his fifties, he looked very well preserved for his age, upright and energetic. He had bushy brown hair, a bushy short brown beard, and a thin handlebar mustache curled back to point at his nose. He always wore jeans, t-shirts, sandals, and oversized flannel shirts, even in the hottest weather, and today was no exception. His enormous grin was a sign of his affection for her.
The one that stretched her face was for him, as well. She closed the remaining distance and gave him a hug, which he returned with strong arms. Finally, she stepped back, and he made a show of examining her. “Doesn’t seem like graduating has changed you much. Did you get my gift?”
Ruby laughed. “Yes. The other folks I shared a house with at school weren’t excited to discover such a small statue could contain so many confetti cannons, not to mention the sheer quantity of the stuff they spewed out.”
He giggled—it was the most incongruous thing about him, that sound, and she adored it. “The secret is in the packing. You use magic to take out the air in between so you can get a nice tight arrangement.”
She frowned. “How do you keep it from sneaking back in?”
He twirled one of the curls in his mustache. “Well, you have to work in a vacuum.”
“You know how to create a vacuum?”
A slightly sheepish look crept onto his face. “Well, it required some experimentation. A little breakage, a burn or two, but no real, lasting danger. Anyway, it worked in the end.” He waved her inside and led her straight into the basement, where he kept his workshop. His work area’s illumination was battery-powered with lanterns and lamps on every surface, plus movable task lighting for specific needs. Down the center ran a long stone table, the size of two large picnic tables, but higher and polished to a perfect shine. It was soapstone, chemically inert by nature and magically inert due to a hell of a lot of work making it so. Margrave was both a wizard and an engineer. He was essentially what she wanted to be when she grew up, minus the wand and the eccentricities that had crept into his personality. Or maybe they were there all along, and it doesn’t have to do with all the “experimentation.”
Shelves and cabinets covered all the walls, their flat surfaces liberally adorned with components and parts, pieces, and who knew what else that the man used in his builds. Margrave created purely mundane objects on occasion, but his real interest was crafting items that blended magic and technology. As often as not, he made them as toys or for his entertainment, but she knew he also took challenging commissions that apparently paid well enough to give him lots of free time to pursue the things he loved. He’d never volunteered specific information about the business side of his craft, and she’d known not to ask for anything more than he was willing to offer freely.
Today, she had things to ask. Important things. “I need a little help with something.”
He nodded and gestured at a stool positioned at one corner of the table, then took the one diagonally across from it at the end. “Of course. What can I do for you?” He grabbed a small metal file sitting on the stone surface and twirled it in his fingers—his energy always sought an outlet, and if he weren’t deep in thought or work, he would inevitably fiddle with something.
“Two things. First, I have a weird question for you. Did you hear about the robbery attempt at the Mist?”
He gave a thin smile. “We may be backward out here at the crossing, but we’re not that backward. We do get the news. Not to mention social media at 5G speeds.”
She blinked. “You have 5G? How did you manage that?”
“Trade secret. It was a pretty puzzle. Took me a week to figure it out.”
Ruby stared at him with a practiced look that almost always got people to keep talking. Unfortunately, he was immune to it, and like most things about him, change was unlikely. Finally, she shrugged. “Quit trying to distract me. What do you know about the casino?”
“I hear the explosives were partially magical. That’s how they hid them.”
“Holy hell. That makes sense. Still, I saw those guys, and there’s no way they were magicals.”
He chuckled. “I thought it might have been you when I heard about the w
hite-haired woman who beat them down. You asking about the robbery more or less confirmed it. What do you hope to accomplish now by trying to find out more? Closure?”
Only after she slammed her palms down on the table and shouted a curse did she realize how much anger and frustration she’d carried since the event. Angry tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she composed herself again. “Sorry.”
Margrave nodded. “It’s okay. You can always be yourself here.”
If only. Doubtless the man had sensed her disguise at some point but had chosen not to remark upon it. Given the work they’d done together, him teaching her how to make objects that incorporated magic and demonstrating how to combine the two, it would be virtually impossible for him to miss it. He’d never asked, and she’d never told. It was one of the reasons she trusted him as much as anyone on the planet. “I can’t stop thinking about the fact that people died because of it. I want to understand why. I need to make sure those responsible pay for it.”
His voice was emotionless, and his gaze had sharpened. “What might that payment entail?” It seemed like an important question, so she thought about it for almost a full minute before answering. What would be the proper counterbalance for such a loss? Could anything be?
Finally, she managed to reply, “Justice.”
His expression didn’t change, but his eyes softened a little. “That’s an answer I can get behind. So, if the explosives mixed magic and technology, there aren’t too many people who could have done the work for them, assuming as you said that they probably didn’t do it themselves. There’s only one other than me who I’d trust with the job.”
“That seems like a good start. By the way you said it, I don’t get the impression you’re best buddies with whoever it is.”
He barked a laugh and shook his head. “That would be an appropriate way of stating it, for sure. It’s Grentham.”
