by Tanya Huff
“Best for both of us from the sounds of it.”
“Of course.”
“What about after it’s dead? What will they do then?”
“After?” The older man snorted. “After, they’ll very likely try to kill you, but with no reason to hide, you can pick them out of the sky as they come in for the attack.”
“Provided they attack one at a time.”
“Which they will. As I said, they don’t agree on much and, furthermore, with only a single shot to base their assessment on, there’s no way they’ll anticipate how dangerous you are. After, they’ll be furious and you can take advantage of that lack of finesse.”
True. Checking that his M24 rested secure against the padded lining of the case, he frowned. It sounded reasonable-for those definitions of reasonable that referred to the more important part of how he made a living-but there seemed to be more variables every time they talked. For the first time in a long time, he wondered if he did know what he needed to.
Brian called at 8:10 just as Allie eased the ancient Beetle onto Deerfoot Trail heading for the airport. Eased because one of Gran’s charms appeared to be a NASCAR derivative and maintaining a speed less than 20K over the 100 KPH limit proved to be taxing. Fortunately, Saturday morning traffic was sparse compared to the usual commuter tangles so, after glancing down to see the call display, Allie picked up the phone.
“Is he there?” Brian sounded wrecked.
She’d left Michael communing with the coffeemaker, eyes squinted nearly shut, hair sticking up in at least three different directions. He’d slept through the dragons’ flyby-probably for the best-but had hopefully regained enough consciousness to understand her instructions for opening the store.
“Allie, please. Is Michael with you?”
He deserved to know that much.
“Yes,” she told him. And hung up.
“Hi, you must be Joe. I’m Michael, a friend of Allie’s. She’s gone to pick Charlie up at the airport, but she should be back by eleven unless Charlie convinces her to stop by a grocery store, which would not be a bad idea since there’s a significant lack of crap in that apartment. But not a big surprise since Gale girls don’t trust anything they haven’t baked themselves. Which reminds me, I ate the last of the rhubarb pie for breakfast, so you’re in the clear with Aunt Ruth’s charm, and in case no one’s warned you, pancakes are sneaky because they can pour the batter in pretty much any pattern they want. Generally, they’re pretty harmless, but stick to toast and eggs if you pissed one of them off. And butter the toast yourself. Oh, and Allie says you’re in charge.”
He had a place here. The prickle of panic evoked by the stranger at the door stopped running up and down his back. Joe looked down at the enormous hand engulfing his and then up, way up into a friendly smile and shadowed fox eyes. “How the fuck tall are you?” he demanded, wondering if this Michael had a touch of the blood.
“Uh… six five. Ish.”
“Ish?” Who actually said ish? “And could you maybe let go of my hand, then?”
“Sorry.”
“It’s all right; seems I can still use it.” He flexed the fingers just to be sure. “So, when did you arrive?” Charlie and Roland he remembered, but Allie hadn’t said anything about Michael.
“Late last night.”
Front door unlocked, Joe turned the sign, and decided to be amused by how much the big man had to shorten his stride to walk beside him to the counter.
“So, uh… you’re a leprechaun?”
“Oh, she told you that, did she?” She might as well have hung a sign around the big guy’s neck saying I trust him, so you can. Conscious of Michael’s continuing stare, Joe sighed. “Go ahead and say it.”
“I don’t…”
“Yeah.You do. Let’s get it over with and move on. I’m a little tall for a leprechaun.”
Broad shoulders rose and fell; the grin was damned near blinding. “Not from where I’m standing.”
Joe spent a moment thinking of punching the guy in the nuts, considered the consequences, and pulled a ten from the cashbox. “If I’m in charge, you’re going for coffee.”
“I don’t…”
“Next door.”
“Okay, then.”
He sold a yoyo to a kid on a skateboard while Michael was gone and was entering it in the ledger when he got back.
“The old guy next door? Kenny Shoji? He can tell exactly what kind of coffee you like. Pretty cool, eh?” The big red mugs looked small in his hands although they regained their size when he set them on the counter. “He said it makes more sense to use these than to keep wasting paper, that we should bring them back when we’re done, and that if I’m staying for any length of time, he’s going to get some crap coffee in so that we can abuse it without causing him pain.”
Seemed that Michael was also a triple/triple man. And it seemed that coffee shop Kenny trusted him on sight. Joe, however, still had trouble trusting anyone so tall. At least a dozen members of the NBA and four MLB pitchers were half bloods, so it wasn’t like the Courts didn’t have a presence in the MidRealm. He slid the ledger back under the counter. “How long are you staying, then?”
Just like that, the shadows in Michael’s eyes won; darkening the hazel, banishing the grin. “I don’t know.”
In spite of his suspicion, Joe felt like he’d kicked a puppy. A big, half-grown, annoying puppy that he’d best stay on the right side of, not only because of the size of his teeth but because Allie was clearly holding the end of his leash. Sighing, he scraped at a smudge on the counter with a ragged fingernail. “So why’d you need sanctuary, then? And don’t even try to lie to me about it.”
“Because you’re a leprechaun?”
“No, because any idiot can see you’d be crap at it.”
Seemed for a moment like Michael wasn’t going to answer, then he shrugged. “I caught my partner fucking around on me.You?”
So he’d caught that it went both ways. The big guy wasn’t stupid for all the air was probably right thin up near his head. “I got my life threatened by an attitude case with a gun and loaded Blessed rounds.”
Looking thoughtful, Michael took a long swallow of coffee. Set the mug back on the counter and said, “True death, eh? Well, that puts infidelity in perspective.Your life sucks worse than mine.”
Joe saluted that insight with his own mug, then kicked the second stool over. “You know you’re fucking covered in charms, right? And they’re not all hers.”
“You can see them?” Michael asked, sitting down. “Sorry, stupid question. Of course you can, given who you are.” Glancing down at a tanned forearm that screamed don’t even fucking think about it to anyone with the sight, he twisted it so the muscle rolled beneath the skin. “Some of them are Charlie’s, a couple are Aunt Mary’s-that’s Allie’s mother-at least one is her cousin Katie’s, and there’s one of David’s. Her brother,” he added when Joe raised a brow.
“No aunties?”
“They try, but Allie always catches them. Her gran actually managed to keep one in place for almost a week once, but that was only because she drew it just before my dad dragged me off to Ottawa with him. Allie hit the roof when I got home and she found it.”
“Little possessive is she, then?” Joe murmured watching the charms on the backs of his own hands catch the light.
“A little.” His smile flashed bright and unconcerned about being possessed. “But she’s not controlling, and the aunties are. Can be,” he amended. Frowned. “Are.”
“But you’ve family of your own?”
“Sort of.” Michael took a long swallow of coffee. “Well, yeah. But my parents are politicians-back room, not elected-and they never have much time for anything that doesn’t impact at the federal level. First day of kindergarten when the au pair was late, Allie took me home with her and I pretty much stayed. She’s got no sisters and that’s kind of an anomaly in her family.” He shot Joe a knowing look. “I think that’s why she collects strays.”
>
“I’m no stray!”
“If you say so, but you’re a long way from home.”
As much as he wanted to, Joe couldn’t argue with that.
Charlie’s reflection was wearing a cowboy hat as she passed the mirror on her way into the store, but that, Allie noted, seemed to be the only embellishment. Her reflection stood tied to a stake surrounded by bones split for their marrow.
“Yeah. Dragons. I know,” she sighed as she followed her cousin.
“You must be Joe.”
Eyes wide, Joe managed to sweep his gaze from the blue hair to the lilac Docs and settle somewhere in between by the time Charlie stopped across the counter from him.
“I’m Charlie. Don’t let her…” A toss of her head, toward Allie. “… boss you around.”
Ginger brows drew in. “But she’s my boss.”
“Well, you’re screwed, then.” She turned and charged between the first set of shelves. “Michael!”
“Charles!”
Allie rounded the shelves in time to see Michael heave Charlie off her feet, secure her with one arm, and reach out to stop an ancient wire spinner stuffed with old Maclean’s magazines from toppling over. Moving up next to the counter, she leaned over and beckoned Joe closer. “Charlie can mark you with a song, so if she gets out her guitar, watch where the music is going.”
“You people are scary in a group,” Joe snorted. “You know that, right?”
“Yes.” Allie smiled. “But this isn’t a group.”
“Say the word,” Charlie growled as Michael put her down, “and Brian’ll have the theme music to ‘Mr. Dressup’ on permanent earworm.”
“Let it go, Charlie.”
“Right.” She reached up and cupped his face in her hands. “Revenge served cold. Got it.You know where I am when the time comes.”
“Thank you.”
“Could be worse. If you were straight, you’d have been stuck with Allie, and it’s not like she’s all about commitment.”
He grinned. “When was the last time you slept in a bed?”
“I can’t remember, but I was in Halifax.”
Allie caught his eye and nodded.
“Okay, then.” Bending, he scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder. “Bedtime.”
“Hey! There’s a whole bunch of eight track tapes up here.” She grabbed one off the shelf and tossed it into Allie’s hands as she passed. “Hang onto that for me.”
“It’s the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.”
“Or not.” Falling forward, head pillowed on her arms, she stared down Michael’s back as they exited the store. “Your ass looks amazing from this angle.”
Michael’s response got lost in the sound of his boots on the stairs.
“I sold a yoyo while you were gone,” Joe said at last.
“Well, what do you think?” Allie asked as Michael wandered around the half-completed loft, poking at pipes and wiring. Like most of the Gale boys, he’d spent summers working construction for her Uncle Neil. Unlike most of the Gale boys, he’d actually enjoyed it and the experience had ultimately shifted his interest in art into architecture. Allie figured the renovation would keep him from dwelling on Brian’s betrayal.
Brushing dirt off his hands, he returned to her side. “The plumbing and electrical’s all in. If I finish the build, and you hire the retailer’s people to install fixtures and counters and carpet and shit-under my supervision-this place could be livable in about a week. Maybe less.”
“Carpet?”
“We run linoleum across that end, kitchen and bathroom. Put down a good, hard-wearing Berber in the remaining space.” Arms folded, he looked down at her from under the edge of his hair. “It’s going to take a lot of yoyos, Allie.”
She smiled, reached up, and brushed his hair back. “You just make the calls and let me worry about the money.”
“Allie!” Joe whirled around to face her as she came back into the store picking yet more spiderwebs off her sweater. “This person…” He waved at the tiny woman practically vibrating by the counter. “… wants to buy this painting.” It was the seascape Allie’d been looking at just before Shamrocks-and-attitude had shown up.
She suppressed a grin at the way the customer just barely kept herself from snatching it out of Joe’s hands. “That’s great.”
“Yeah, but it’s…” Leaning closer, he dropped his voice. “… got a price on the back that says ten thousand dollars.”
“And?”
“Ten thousand dollars? That can’t be right.” He waggled the painting so that Allie could see the charm sketched under the price.
The woman raised a thin hand in protest, fingers trembling slightly, the scent of linseed oil wafting up from a stain on her sleeve. “Please…”
“Why don’t you let her hold it, Joe.”
“But…”
“It’s okay.”
Still frowning, he turned back around toward the customer and barely managed to let go in time when she snatched the painting from his grip. “It’s just…”
“A nice round number.” Allie noted that half the woman’s left eyebrow appeared to be Cadmium Yellow, and asked her, “Do you have a problem with the price?”
The woman opened her mouth, closed it again, an internal struggle clear on her face. Finally, she shook her head, gray-streaked ponytail swaying in counterpoint behind her.
“You handle the money, Joe.” Her tone suggested he table any further protests until after the deal had been completed. Allie was pleased to see he’d realized it wasn’t actually a suggestion. “I’ll wrap it.”
“It’s a bank draft.” The woman’s voice was also thin, the audio matching the physical, and she couldn’t meet Allie’s gaze.
“Bank draft’s fine.” Two layers of brown paper with a charm sandwiched between offered more protection than the anal retentive wrapping provided by galleries and high-end auction houses. Allie’d put her wrapping up against pretty much everything but digestion by dragons. Given dragon digestion, that was a case of you pay your money, you take your chance. Given the presence of dragons in Calgary -or over Calgary, at least-that was not a rhetorical observation.
“Ten thousand dollars?” The words spilled out of Joe’s mouth as the door closed and the customer sprinted out of sight. “For that piece of shite? You charmed her into thinking she wanted it!”
“First, it was Gran’s charm, not mine. Second, the charm’s intent was to keep just anyone from recognizing the painting, merely ensuring certain specific criteria were met. Third, it’s a Turner. A study for Calais Pier. I recognized it when I was going through the box earlier. I think he was working out the motion of the waves between the packet and the pier.” She twirled a finger in the air. “The circular pattern was unique for its time.”
“And that means what?”
“Back in 2006 a private telephone bidder bought Turner’s Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio at a Christie’s auction in New York for 35.8 million.”
Joe blinked and finally managed a choked, “Dollars?”
“Dollars.”
“And the yellow-eyebrow woman knew that?”
Allie nodded. “My guess is she spotted the Turner a while ago and then went looking for a buyer willing to give her part of the price up front. She’s probably been panicking we were going to sell it to someone else. Or realize the actual price of what we had. Ten thousand was enough she didn’t feel too guilty about not telling us how much it was worth.”
“Millions. It’s worth millions.”
“Maybe. But, given Gran, I guarantee most of that ten thousand is profit. And…” Allie grinned. “… yellow-eyebrow woman will make enough to be able to paint for the rest of her life without worrying about starving.”
“But you could have made 35.8 million!”
“No, that needs auction hysteria. But she probably was able to find a collector willing to pony up one or two million, though.”
“Not the point. She’ll be making
it, won’t she? Not you!”
“She needed it. That was one of the charm’s criteria. Gran’s letter said the store had become crucial to the local community.” Allie watched a young couple walk by. He pushed a sleeping toddler in a stroller. She tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to get a half-grown golden retriever to heel. “When I met you, I thought she meant the community, but now I think she was working wider.”
“So what, it’s suddenly all, ‘hey, let’s be Robin Hood’?”
“Joe, we made a profit of ten thousand dollars. Get over it. We needed a bit of money. A bit of money appeared.”
“You needed a bit of money, and a bit of money appeared?” Joe repeated, eyes wide, voice a little higher than usual. “That’s how it works for you? For your family?”
“Essentially. We don’t control it, though, that’s darkside stuff. Sorcery,” she added when he looked confused. “We don’t force it; we just let things happen.”
He sank down onto the stool. “Your life doesn’t suck, you know that, right?”
She glanced out the back of the store toward the garage and Michael and frowned at the muting of familiar pain. Still, he was here, with her, maybe that was enough these days. “There should be new pie in the fridge,” she said. “You interested?”
“Ten thousand dollars and pie.” Joe shook his head. “Total fucking absence of suck.”
“So, the Gale woman.”
“Alysha,” Graham muttered without looking up from his monitor. Damned spellchecker kept insisting he meant extinguished when he actually meant exsanguinated.
Dark brows drew in as Stanley Kalynchuk glared down at him. “Alysha?”
“That’s her name.”
“I am aware that’s her name. That’s all you’ve discovered in… what? Forty-eight hours? Our time is not limitless!” Kalynchuk slapped a copy of the paper onto the desk. “Or have you forgotten?”
Graham raised one hand off the keyboard to wave it at his publisher in a vaguely placating manner. “I’m working on the story about the suspicious cattle deaths-we need to put our spin on the speculation.”
