Traitor's Son: The Raven Duet Book #2

by Hilari Bell

  Otter Woman took the pouch, frowned, and clenched her hand around it.

  “There’s hardly any left. What happened to the rest? If you’ve kept some of it back, human, I’ll know it. And—”

  “I didn’t,” said Jase. He’d thought about that, but he’d been afraid she’d know, this woman who dominated his dreams. She would punish his grandmother if he tried. “I poured most of it over the batteries in my car. Raven rigged it so the Tesla won’t run unless the dust is there and I’m there. I can’t afford to lose my transport now.”

  If Raven was telling the truth, his car would die in a few weeks anyway, when the dust wasn’t “properly used.” At that point Jase could replace the enchanted batteries with new ones, that didn’t go around imagining they were cold all the time. It would be expensive, but running a vintage Tesla was expensive.

  He was already paying a higher price than that.

  Otter Woman threw back her head and laughed. “How like Raven, to try to fix the game that way. And if you really scattered it—yes, I see you did—you could never gather up enough of the pollens to use it. How very fitting, that breaking her own meddling destroyed it!”

  Smiling still, she wrapped the cords around the pouch, pulled back her arm, and hurled it toward the sky.

  Despite himself Jase lurched after it—but it didn’t fall.

  In a great rush of feathers, an eagle swooped down and snatched the pouch out of the air. Some of the distant tourists shouted, but Jase ignored them. The big brown bird flapped away till it was only a brown dot in his vision. Then the dot vanished.

  His head ached. His heart ached. He turned grimly back to Otter Woman, but she’d already turned away, walking back down the boardwalk to the parking lot. And truly, there was nothing left to say.

  The deal was done.

  Chapter 10

  Jase had just parked the Tesla in the hospital’s garage when he heard the thump of running steps and looked up to see Raven hurrying toward him. She wore rumpled surgical scrubs, probably pulled from some hospital laundry bin. And either there were feathers woven into her sleek hair, or some parts of her hadn’t yet shifted into human form.

  “What happened? I felt the pouch leave you, and now I can’t sense it at all! Did you—”

  “I gave it to Otter Woman.” Jase’s voice was hoarse, and he cleared his throat before he went on. “In exchange for my grandmother. So you’re going to have to—”

  Her warm dark skin turned muddy tan when she paled. “You what? I told you I’d get her back!”

  “You said you’d try,” said Jase. “But don’t pretend you believed you were going to succeed. Even I could see you didn’t think you’d get her back.”

  “So what!” Her voice echoed in the concrete cavern. “She’s only one human woman, who’ll die in a handful of decades anyway. I’m trying to save a whole living world!”

  “And I’m trying to save one old woman,” said Jase flatly. “Because to me, she matters more. You’ll find some other way to heal the leys.”

  “I told you, that dust can’t be replaced! It has to be human magic that—”

  “Carpo!” Jase snapped. “You could do it yourself, with your own damn magic, if you weren’t so busy playing politics with your sadistic kidnapping friends. It’s a game, to all of you. But it’s not a game to my grandfather and my family. And to me, they matter more.”

  Mr. Hillyard was right. You paid for what you wanted. The more important it was, the higher the price.

  “Playing politics,” Raven said, in a voice he’d never heard from her before. “Maybe we are, but that doesn’t make the game less real or the stakes less deadly. You’re a traitor, Jason Mintok. Like your father. And it’s not just me you’ve betrayed.”

  She turned and stalked away. Her bare feet were dirty from the grimy floor.

  “Where are you going?” Jase was angry enough, hurt enough, that he wanted to go on shouting at her, even if it wouldn’t do any good.

  “Home,” she yelled back. “Home to find out where in this world they’ve hidden that pouch. And then I’m going to find a better human to carry it!”

  “Fine! I hope you do. I hope he’s fracking Galahad. I just hope you don’t get half of his family killed too!”

  She kept walking, and in only moments turned out of sight. In another minute she’d melt and disappear.

  Jase would have kicked the Tesla, but he didn’t want to risk scraping the finish.

  She’d find the pouch eventually. In this world, she’d said, which made sense. If he couldn’t take a weapon into the Spirit World, if she couldn’t take clothing to and from it, then the pouch would have to stay here too. She would find it, and then find some other poor sucker to heal the sea, and the air, and whatever else she wanted healed.

  Jase was done with it.

  He’d never claimed he was a hero. He’d tried to tell her that, at first. Not his fault she’d refused to listen.

  Jase went up to his grandmother’s room and watched her sleep. She might wake up any minute now, though he couldn’t explain that to his parents, who wandered in and out badgering the doctors about more tests.

  He might have explained it to his grandfather, but the old man was so focused on his wife that Jase didn’t think he could get his attention. There would be time to talk, to tell his story and ask questions later, when his grandmother was awake and safe in her own home.

  But she didn’t wake up. How long did it take to get back from the Spirit World, anyway? Surely it was just a matter of opening your eyes? It wasn’t like she had to take a shuttle or something!

  His mother pulled him out of the quiet room for dinner in the hospital cafeteria.

  “The doctor says he’s run out of tests,” she told Jase wearily. “And he still has no idea why she isn’t waking up. He’s given her the strongest stimulant he’s willing to use, until her case becomes desperate. And it’s not desperate yet,” she added, with determined optimism. “In fact, he’s recommending we simply wait a few days and see if she wakes up naturally.”

  She should have awakened, naturally, several hours ago. If Otter Woman had kept her word. Or maybe it did take a while to get back from the Spirit World. Jase might have asked his grandfather, but he was afraid to hear the answer.

  “What does Dad think?”

  “He thinks it’s time to call in an expert, and he’s got a couple of assistants working late to compile information on the leading specialists in comas and neurological disorders. He’ll have their files on his desk tomorrow morning, but it might take a while to get your grandmother in to see one of them, since her case isn’t an emergency.”

  “And what does Grandfather want to do? Doesn’t he have final say on Gima’s treatment?”

  “He does, and he agrees with the doctor. In fact, he plans to rent a van and drive your grandmother home tomorrow. There’s a registered nurse in the village who can take care of her. Your grandfather says she’ll return from her journey in her own good time, and wake up in her own bed when she does.”

  “I hope he didn’t say that in Dad’s hearing.”

  Jase was glad he’d spent most of the day in his grandmother’s room.

  “No, I’ve managed to keep them apart for the moment,” his mother said. “And I’m going to keep doing it until your father has chosen a specialist, and it’s time to send her for treatment. That will take days, maybe as much as a week. I think, I hope, that if she hasn’t awakened by then your grandfather will be ready to OK more treatment. If he doesn’t”—her lips tightened—“your father knows good custody lawyers.”

  Jase’s jaw dropped. “He’d sue for the right to take Gima’s treatment decisions out of Gramps’ hands? He’ll never forgive him for that! Never. And I couldn’t blame him!”

  “You father knows that. But he can’t just stand around and watch Gima die.”

  “You said she wasn’t dying. Her vital signs are stable, and her brain is fine!” His voice rose, and the people seated nearby look
ed at him with pity in their eyes.

  “She’s all right, for now,” his mother said. “With any luck, please God, she’ll wake up soon and be just fine. But if she doesn’t . . . Your father will have to act, Jase. He doesn’t have a choice.”

  Jase knew exactly how that felt. “Do you want me to drive you home? I need to get some sleep.”

  Urgently.

  His mother looked tempted, but she shook her head. “Your grandfather plans to sleep tonight, since he’ll be driving all day tomorrow, and your father’s sitting up with Gima. I’ll stay.”

  Jase wanted to stay too, but he didn’t dare. He drove home, downed some of his father’s pills, and fell into sleep as if he’d jumped off a cliff.

  He woke in the morning, with no memory of having dreamed at all.

  Otter Woman was avoiding him.

  Bitch.

  Jase dug into the pantry till he found his mother’s ragbag, and hung strips of every bright color he could find off the balcony railing. Surely such a clear emergency signal would bring Raven to see what was wrong, no matter how angry she was.

  He was still trying to think of a way to explain this display when his parents came in.

  His grandmother’s condition was unchanged. Before they left the hospital, they’d seen her loaded into the back of his grandfather’s rental van and strapped in for the drive, with monitoring equipment hooked up and running.

  His mother was gray with exhaustion, but on his father’s face Jase saw a determination that frightened him more than grief.

  Files that contained information on specialists would be on his desk today. He’d be in touch with one of them, making an appointment for Gima before nightfall, because he was going to save his mother—and he didn’t care what got wrecked along the way.

  They went to bed without even glancing at the bright fringe that rimmed the deck.

  ***

  When his parents woke in the late afternoon, Jase told his mother that the bright cloth was an experiment to see if more rufous hummingbirds could be lured to a feeder. The project was due at the end of the week, he said, so he had to start now. He didn’t have anything else to do, so he might as well finish his homework.

  His father, in a hurry to reach his office, didn’t even ask.

  The rest of the day dragged past. His grandfather didn’t call to say his wife had awakened. Raven didn’t knock on his door to ask why Jase was shouting for help.

  Just after eight, his grandfather finally appeared on the house com screen to let them know he was home and had put Gima to bed. She was still sleeping, but the nurse was looking after her body, and her spirit would return when it was ready.

  Jase might have found that reassuring, if the com screen hadn’t revealed the haunting fear in the old man’s eyes.

  He took his sleeping pills, went to bed, and dreamed he was looking frantically for something he had to find. His heart was pounding and sweat slicked his body, but the vital thing continued to elude him. He bruised his fingers turning over rocks, and scraped his chest sliding down a tree he’d climbed for some reason that wasn’t quite clear.

  In the morning, there were no marks on his skin—a normal nightmare, with a normal cause.

  Jase lurked near the household com while his mother called his grandfather, but he already knew the result—his grandmother’s body was still in a coma, because her spirit was trapped in another world.

  Otter Woman had broken her promise.

  And Raven hadn’t turned up either, which she would, surely she would, if she were free.

  They weren’t coming back from the Spirit World, either of them. Not unless someone went to get them.

  It was time to learn about his heritage.

  Chapter 11

  Jase started on the net. It felt like an odd place to research how to enter the Spirit World, but Raven would call that “human knowledge,” and the net was where human knowledge was stored and accessed.

  Though when it came to entering interdimensional interfaces, human knowledge was pretty scant. The closest Jase came was an article in a folklore journal about hills as portals, which referenced the Celtic fairy mounds, the cavernous Greek underworld, and “a number of stone piles in Alaska and Canada that were said to be portals to the Spirit World.” Which would be fine, if any source had mentioned where those piles were or how you used them.

  Jase decided to focus in, and searched for references to Ananuts entering the Spirit World. All he learned was that Ananut shamans painted the path to the Spirit World on the bodies of the dead and dying to guide them there. And much as he wanted to get into the Spirit World, he didn’t want to die for it.

  Jase thought about calling his grandfather then. The old man had a book of all the paths that could be painted on a body to guide the spirit. He’d painted the pattern for child to adult onto Jase for his coming-of-age ceremony, when he turned thirteen. The colorful swirls of red, blue, and green had tickled going on, itched as they dried, and melted in vivid smears in the steam bath after the ceremony.

  Would his grandfather allow him to go adventuring in the Spirit World, which had already claimed his wife?

  That was another question that Jase preferred not to have answered, but his vague plan was taking shape. It was risky, challenging the enemies who held his grandmother prisoner. But as far as he could see, he wasn’t risking anything he hadn’t already lost.

  He searched some more, and found a site that offered pictures of the Ananuts’ painted paths. The one for coming of age (male) looked pretty much like his vague memory of the pattern his grandfather had painted on him, so Jase printed out a copy of the death path. The text made it clear that, despite the name, it was really the path to the Spirit World. And even if it was usually painted on the dead, it didn’t say you had to die to use it.

  ***

  It was nine thirty when he knocked on the door in Georg’s dorm, and roused him out of a sound sleep.

  “For the good God’s sake, do you know what time it is?”

  Jase averted his eyes from Georg’s hairy chest. “It’s almost ten. It’ll be noon in a few hours.”

  “Yes, but I don’t have classes till three. I remember you. You’re Manny’s cousin’s friend, with that most strange medicine bag. I haven’t found a buyer yet, but this man who studies fossil plants has expressed some—”

  “I don’t want to sell it.” Jase’s blood ran cold at the thought. It might have been sold if he’d waited a few more days. “I need to have all that dust back. Now.”

  Georg scratched his chest, frowning. “I don’t know. Your friend, I think he wants the money.”

  “It’s not his dust,” Jase said. “And it’s not yours, either. It’s mine, and I want it back.”

  Georg eyed him curiously. “Your friend seemed to think he had some share in it.”

  Jase ungritted his teeth. “Call him. You can ask him yourself.”

  He could always pay Ferd back, if necessary.

  It took only a few minutes before Ferd’s face appeared on the com screen in Georg’s dorm room.

  “Hey there. Have you finally found a buy . . . Bro! I heard about your grandmother. I’m sorry. That’s such a—”

  “Ferd,” Jase interrupted. “I need the dust. Now. Tell Georg to give it to me, OK?”

  Ferd’s eyes widened, but he came through. “Hey, if you need it, it’s yours. You know that.”

  “I put a lot of time into advertising this sample,” Georg said. “Not to speak of analyzing it in the first place.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Ferd told him. “Manny will make it up to you.”

  Georg grimaced. “Does Manny know this?”

  “Not yet,” said Ferd. “But he will when I tell him. I’ll square it with him later, if I have to.”

  Jase’s eyes stung. Ferd always came through.

  “I can pay a bit for your time,” he told Georg. “Would you take fifty dollars?”

  Georg had bargained him up to eighty by the time they
reached the lab, and he handed over all that was left of the sample—perhaps a tablespoon of grainy dirt.

  “But for a sample, for the microscanner, this is a great plenty, yes?”

  “Yes.” Jase’s hand closed over the glass vial. “It’s enough.”

  ***

  Raven had said he could reach the sea ley anywhere along the southern coast, but that might not include Anchorage, and Jase didn’t dare waste any of his small supply of dust trying to heal the wrong place. He needed to rent a boat and get out into the Sound, and the closest place for that was Seward. Halfway there he stopped at a flash charge station and purchased a late breakfast, a small bottle of nonprescription sleeping pills, and a black marker. The washable kind, made for kids, since he didn’t want to be wearing death paint into the next week.

  ***

  The road down the Kenai Peninsula was made for the Tesla’s tires. Jase pulled into the small harbor town shortly after noon. It was drizzling, as it often was on the coast, but too lightly to discourage the tourists. The quaint old shops around the harbor and the Alaska Sealife Center made Seward a prime tourist destination—which also meant Jase could rent the kind of boat he needed.

  “You sure you want a bubblehead?”

  The clerk at the boat rental counter glanced from Jase’s Native features to the Tesla and back again. “I could fix you up with a real boat. One that can crank on some speed.”

  Jase had encountered that kind of thing so often he no longer felt compelled to explain that not all Alaska Natives could handle boats.

  “Just a bubblehead,” he repeated. “That’s all I need.”

  The old joke was that after the bubblehead’s designer had reeled off the long list of its safety features to a crowd of rental boatyard owners, he’d finished by proclaiming that this boat was absolutely idiot proof!

  Yeah? an old boatman had replied. Well, that don’t make it tourist proof.

  They’d been named for the plastic shields that sprang up around the cab in an emergency, and the boat’s ability to right itself even if it turned upside down. But bubbleheads were not only unsinkable, their computerized brains kept them clear of other boats, dangerous currents and tides, and any storms the weather satellites were tracking.