by Rhys Ford
“I ain’t scared of anyone coming out to find me. Plenty of room and caves for someone to get lost in. Land out here takes care of its own.” Graham did another check on his patient’s reading and grunted, apparently more satisfied with what the scanners scrolled out than the last time. “You said you’re intercepting a couple of Unsidhe coming across the river? Down which crossing?”
“Marker’s Hang. Or at least nearby. We’re going off coordinates we were given.” I glanced at my link, not happy about how low of a charge it was holding. “We’re a couple of hours from the spot, but they’re not supposed to be crossing over until late tomorrow. I’d like to get rested up before we head down. There’s been too many fingers in this, and that kind of attention makes me nervous.”
“Most of the time that mess down there doesn’t care if someone does a runner across the border,” Graham drawled. “But then, it’s also been a hell of a lot quieter in the past few months. One of my buddies does trawling across the river, and he’s said some of the courts are ghost towns now. Sure they need a walkover?”
“Yeah. Promise to my friend, remember?” I stopped myself from sharing any more. As much as my gut told me to like Graham, I didn’t want to show all our cards. The less he knew, the better, and if something went belly-up, I’d like to die thinking he’d been a good man who hadn’t backstabbed me. “I just want to see it through, and well, there’s still three of these guys floating out there somewhere. I’m thinking they went back to the city, considering we’ve got all their guns and gear, but I can’t rule out them deciding to continue with their stupidity. Some people never learn, you know?”
“Yeah, I know that for sure.” Graham was silent for a moment as he watched the cousins bicker. “Seems kind of strange those two are with you. Brent—well, she’s one of yours—but those two are like tits on a fish, and you don’t seem like the kind of man who’d drag along dead weight with you.”
The fact he’d called me a man told me everything I needed to know about Graham. It rolled off his tongue as easily as Dempsey told a lie, and I was glad my gut hadn’t done me wrong.
“Ryder’s okay. The blond one. High lord. Arrogant as shit and sometimes doesn’t have the sense Odin gave a turkey to come out of the rain without drowning, but he tries.” I cracked a grin at the sheriff. “The other one’s a pain in the ass, but at least I know where he is. They’re out of their element. Even if a lot of this land is Underhill, apparently neither one of them really was for roughing it, and from what I’ve found out on this trip, it’s crazier now than it used to be. There’s things out here even they haven’t seen in a long-ass time, so I think we’re all on a level playing field.”
“Yeah, things do get wild out here. No getting around that.” The visor made a rapid-fire burr of noises, and then its surface flashed with a cascade of green lights. “Well, that’s repaired some of the bruising on his brain. I should be good to get him on the table in my rig so you all can move along. Or if you want, leave that thing parked here and get some rest. There’s a shower stall in the barn. You’ve got to fire up some wood under the tank so it’ll be hot, but it’s better than nothing. The guy you helped last time you were out owns the place. Told him I was meeting you out here, and he said you can crash out here if you want. Even grab some eggs from the chickens up in the loft if you can find any. Eggs. Or maybe chickens. Jungle fowl really. Don’t think anyone’s going to miss a couple if you decide you need a bit of pollo in your rice in the morning.”
“Thanks. I think we’ll take you up on that.” I stood to help him move the guy from the bunk, but Graham stopped me and put his hand on my arm.
“Just do me a favor, son. Be careful. Okay? That buddy of mine says there’s some big changes moving through the Unsidhe down there, and I don’t want to see good folks like you get caught up in that.” He nodded toward the cousins still having their heated argument in the rain. “Those people down there would as soon kill those two as look at them. Might be better off leaving them here while you go meet those people you’re expecting.”
I didn’t know what to say. I clapped my hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I appreciate that, Sheriff, but if you hadn’t noticed, I’m one of them too.”
“Well, elfin, yes, but Sidhe?” He ducked his head when he stood up, probably used to hitting it on the ceiling of most transports. “Son, with that hair of yours, no one’s going to be thinking you’re anything but Dusk Court. And honestly, that’s got me worried too. Those empty towns? Where’d those people go? Not up here. Not through here. I’d have noticed that much activity. And no one goes south. Getting past Old Mexico City is like serving yourself up on a platter to all those dragons down there. Something is going on down there, so my bit of advice to you is, be careful and don’t linger. Last thing I want is to find you nailed up onto one of those trees like I’ve found some of the other Unsidhe who pissed off someone bigger than them.”
GRAHAM WAS right. The shower was glorious. I was the last one in the beat-up wooden stall with its “punctured bucket on a pulley” showerhead, but I stoked up the fire under the massive metal tank next to the barn and stood under the hot water long enough to turn my skin pink. Washing in the faint ambient glow of the powered-up transport was a bit difficult, and I’d spent a good ten minutes clearing out a spider’s nest from the converted horse stall before Cari would use the shower, but it was still damned good.
I didn’t even mind that the soap she left behind smelled like lavender and black tea.
“Do you need more light?” Ryder’s voice broke through the darkness, and through the cracks between the boards of the shower, I could make out his silhouette moving past the sheep. “The moons are almost gone. We’re going to get another storm soon.”
“Same storm. It just doubled back to kick our asses again.” I scrubbed at my hair, still feeling grit on my scalp. “Did you bring a lantern?”
“No, I can do some magic,” he sniffed. “At least the rudimentary spells.”
“Last time you cast magic around me, I threw my guts up, remember?” It was an ugly time back then, cornered in a Quonset hut with only a pair of metal doors and a protection spell to hold back a hunt master and his pack. “I’m really liking this shower. I don’t want to clog it up with my puke.”
“Small spell… and not on you,” Ryder promised. “And if you start to feel ill, let me know and I’ll stop.”
The barn lit up with tiny glowing specks—dancing lights that hung about ten feet above me. They varied in color, mostly white but with fluctuating edges of blues and yellows. Several of the sheep stirred at the brightness and bellowed their displeasure, and I saw Ryder quickly jump over the stall wall and make sure the gate was closed behind him.
“Great, now you’ve pissed off the sheep,” I teased. Still, it was nice to see what I was doing, especially since I’d been scrubbing what seemed like the same spot for five minutes only to discover I’d been trying to wash off a lingering bruise.
“And why is it whenever I find you these days you are either bathing or eating?” Ryder replied. From the sounds of things, he was finding someplace to sit or at least make himself comfortable. “Probably because you’re always getting shot at and need to wash off all that blood.”
“Funny. I didn’t start it this time.” Reminding him would do no good, but still, I had to drive home the point. The water was just starting to go lukewarm, and I debated asking Ryder to throw more wood on the fire, but now that I had light, I could see my fingers pretty much looked like li hing mui. Vowing to stand under the water until it ran cold, I tilted my head back and let the heat wash over me. “Cari and Kerrick already go to bed?”
“Cari did. Kerrick’s reading up on what we know of the Tijuana courts. After what you relayed from the sheriff, it would be useful to know more. There’s just not much there.” Ryder sighed, and the lights moved closer and circled around the shower. “Is that better?”
“If you wanted to get a better look at me, you could just open the door,” I pointe
d out. “I mean sure, the slats on this stall are wide, and the lights help, but you’re probably not getting that good of a show.”
“No, I’ll wait until you’re healed up. Right now you’re all purples and yellows. I’ll have a hard time telling where your dragon tattoos begin and your wounds end.” The flippant rejoinder was light but held more than a bit of velvet burr.
There’d always been a tension between us, mostly animosity from me and overbearing confidence on his part, but things were getting easier—especially since he’d pulled his head out of his ass and admitted that life was better when he wasn’t trying to control me.
I glanced down at the dragons on my thighs and hips and ran a hand over the newest one, an Asian red I’d gotten from Jason in memory of the one I’d pancaked on the Pendle Run I’d taken Ryder on. The water was definitely getting colder, but I was still reluctant to get out.
“When we were loading that guy onto Graham’s rover, he told me some of the farmers who helped the Unsidhe get out of the territory were getting their farms hit. Some small stuff like ripped-up fields, but one guy had his barn burned down,” I called out over the stall, hoping Ryder could hear me over the now-noisy sheep. “He thinks someone down there is pulling in the courts, but he doesn’t have enough to go on. Just a hunch on his part. Think the Dusk Court’s got its own Ryder now?”
“I would be more concerned that they have their own Sebac,” he countered, and the lights flickered. “I’m losing hold on these. I’ll have to do the spell again if it fails. Do you want me to?”
“Nah, water’s cold, and I’ll be freezing my balls off if I don’t get out from under here.” I turned the water valve off, worked the pulley back along its track, and righted the bucket after the last of its reserve drained out. Then I grabbed the towel I’d brought with me and quickly scrubbed the feeling back into my legs, warming my chilled skin. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Oh?” The arrogance was back, and I could practically hear his eyebrow lifting. “What do you think I have going through my mind?”
“I think you’re sitting there wondering if we shouldn’t go down into Tijuana so you can strike a deal with whoever is the biggest sweet potato on the buffet. Graham said there’s about thirty clans down there, small but separate. If someone’s gathering them up into one or two courts, you’d want to talk.” I nudged the stall door open with my elbow and fixed the towel around my waist. “Someone down there’s good at making babies. And you want to know how.”
Ryder’s smile slashed wickedly across his handsome face, and he laughed. “I already know how to make babies, my chimera. But yes, I do want to know why. Let’s go rescue our runaways first. And after they get settled and we find out how things look down below the border, I want to go down there. As soon as I get Kerrick out of my court.”
Twenty-One
WE BROKE out of the canyons after half an hour of hard driving and emerged once again into grassy fields and lowland forests. Eerie rock formations punched up through the loamy soil, twisted ocher fingers clawing up at the sky. There were odd patches of sandy desert and cacti every now and then—a bit of old Earth refusing to give way to Underhill’s domination—but eventually those pockets would fall, folded under the weight of the region’s hard rainfall and the river separating the States from the Mexican territories of the Dusk Court. I knew from experience that the grasslands would fall away to more canyons steeper than the red rock gulches and mesas we left behind.
I resisted the urge to take them through the Valley of Names. Winterhaven was far out of our way, but it was something I did with Cari when she was about fourteen. Hauling black rock out to the white sands to write our names out in large letters seemed silly now, but it’d been an adventure, a safe run for her to see if she could handle days of driving and long stretches of nothing.
She must have been thinking the same thing, because she laughed softly to herself and said, “Remember when we wrote our names in the sand that one time? Drove all the way out to the boonies so I could spell Cari on a hill.”
“It was more so you’d know what it was like to have your ass fall asleep after sitting in a truck for nine hours.” It’d been a good trip, and she’d been determined to prove herself. Her brother Mattias started taking her on runs after that haul, and despite her mother’s objections, Cari began studying for her Stalker license. “I think your mom still hasn’t forgiven me.”
“Are you kidding? She loves you. She blames Mattias,” Cari scoffed. “You can do no wrong. You wash the dishes every time you come over and take out the trash. Pretty sure the brothers would kill you if they thought they could get away with it. You’d kick their asses.”
I was about to talk some shit about her brothers when something glistened on a nearby hill. Peering through the somewhat filthy windshield, I hit the cleanser button and got the wipers to clear off the bug specks and dirt. Ryder must have seen it too, because he murmured something low in his throat, and Kerrick shifted in the seat behind me.
“Kai….” Ryder inched in between the front seats and leaned over my shoulder. “Over there. What is that?”
“Nothing that should be there. But it’s close to where we’re supposed to be meeting them. Can’t hurt to look,” I replied and checked the ground map. Since everything looked green except for a few yellow patches to the east, I angled the centipede in that direction. The thing responded sluggishly, dragging its tires through the thick grasses. Something caught on the axle and then snapped free, and the right side spun out before it got traction again. “Shit. Okay. Come on, baby. Just find your groove there.”
“Are you talking to the vehicle again?” Ryder whispered into my ear. “It can’t hear you.”
“Don’t get him started about cars.” Cari cut him off before he could continue teasing me. “The Mustang is still sitting on blocks in his garage, and every time he works on it, he mutters your name along with some very nasty swear words.”
Kerrick’s derisive snort almost drowned out Ryder’s sigh. Glancing briefly at his cousin, Ryder protested, “I told him I’d pay for someone to fix—”
“No one touches Oketsu but me. I do Pendle Runs in him. Anything goes wrong and I go belly-up, I don’t want any doubt that it was me who fucked up.” The transport grabbed at the ground again, and we jerked forward and barreled down the hill. “Shit, this thing’s chugging. Something’s still around the axle.”
“Surely we can stop and look?” Kerrick’s question was a good one, and Ryder murmured his assent. “See, even Ryder agrees. It must be a good idea.”
“Yeah, I’d love to, but something’s off about this,” I countered. “Think about it. You’re on the run—”
“I have never been on the run,” Kerrick refuted. “My people have always pushed forward. We stabilized regions. There was no running.”
“Yeah, fine. You were Leonidas, but what we’re dealing with here is one woman and a few kids.” I kept my foot on the pedal and pushed the transport through its paces. “They’re on the run. If you were them, you’d be stupid careful about stuff. There it is again. Not rhythmic like a turbine. More like—”
The ground in front of the centipede exploded a foot off of its front end. Clods of dirt and prairie grasses struck the windshield and cracked a line across the right side. I swerved to avoid the next incoming projectile, not sure what I was dodging, but whatever landed to the left of the transport created a crater I could have put six sheep in.
Cari was beginning to load up a high-powered rifle, locking down the plasma burst shells into its stock, and Ryder was doing something behind her, probably finding the Glocks I’d given him before. I didn’t know what Kerrick was good for or what weapons he could use, but then a slight buzzing behind my ear told me everything I needed to know.
I didn’t know the words he was using, but I recognized the pattern of chanting. He was weaving threads of power over himself, pockets of magic he could draw on to fuel a blasting spell. Outraged at his complacency wh
en we needed him to pitch in before, I nearly turned around in my seat to tear him apart when I met Ryder’s eyes.
“He’s arming amulets, badges I suppose.” Ryder frowned, and I could see him look toward his cousin for a better word. “They are coins with sigils. You can activate them. Like the Unsidhe spells that were used to set Duffy’s house on fire.”
“So, limited resources?” I kept my query short, not trusting my temper. Logic told me he was better off saving what he had for when we really needed it—much like now—but it didn’t mean I had to like it, especially since Kerrick had been holding out on us or at least not telling me he’d come armed with more than just his aggravating social skills and agitating personality. “How many do you have, Kerrick? What’s the range? Can I put you on top and you hit them now?”
“Close-range, but powerful. The shorter the distance of travel, the more energy it can expend upon impact.” He was messing with something behind me, but I couldn’t see what it was. “These are arrowheads. A bow is a traditional Sidhe weapon. This is merely an extension of that. I’m an expert with a bow.”
“Of course you are,” I replied, catching sight of another dark round shape as it flew toward us. “And those can’t be used in a gun?”
“A gun requires an ignition point to accelerate a bullet. If you introduce that kind of energy point to this spell, it will go off, and the person with the gun will more than likely be dead.” I wouldn’t say his tone was snarky, but it was borderline, as though I would’ve learned that in baby Sidhe school like he did. “They are a more elegant weapon in a way. They do much more damage than a bullet.”
“Yeah, well, a bullet usually is a letter with someone’s name written on it.” I grunted as I swerved the transport to the side. “What you’ve got there is more like a grenade. That’s more like to whom it may concern. And in case you don’t know, that’s a letter anybody can open.”
