Elf Raised (Northern Creatures Book 3)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  And now I was having problems remembering what the entire encounter had been about.

  Maura pointed at Sal. “Why is the axe angry?”

  I set Sal on my shoulder. “Leave it.” I couldn’t talk about it because Maura was an elf. I couldn’t remember, for the same reason. I couldn’t ask for help or an opinion. Not that I’d remember to do so soon enough, anyway.

  There’d been a woman. I’d already forgotten the color of her eyes.

  “I will not leave it, Frank. Something obviously happened. You yelled at the kids.” She pointed into the house. “You never yell at the kids.”

  “I did not yell at the kids.” I hit the lock button on my truck’s key fob and a shrill beep-beep echoed between the house and the garage.

  “You found a bike you wouldn’t let them look at.” She walked around to the back of the truck, the groceries in her arms, and peered into the back. Her brow crinkled and she shook her head as if confused.

  I couldn’t remember the color of Ellie’s eyes.

  Maura stepped back. “Is this a leftover effect from the vampires?”

  “Leave it!” I thundered. Leave me alone, I thought.

  I swung Sal at the sidewall of my new truck between the rear tire and the tailgate. Swung her like a baseball bat right at the brand-new sparkly finish of yet another extraordinary elven gift.

  Sal hollered. Magic blasted from her blade. And somehow, my axe stopped herself just before she made contact with the truck.

  The shock of hitting the magical equivalent of a concrete wall slammed into my wrists and rocketed up my arms. The force hit my shoulders and my spine, and I staggered back.

  “Frank!” Maura yelled. “What’s wrong?”

  “Leave me alone,” I said.

  I couldn’t remember the color of Ellie’s eyes.

  “Frank…”

  “Maura, leave me alone.” I set Sal on the corner of the truck and walked away.

  “Frank!” Maura yelled.

  I ignored her and pushed through the broken gate. Sunlight hit a bottle and a shimmering spot of green danced across my house’s damaged siding. It wiggled and spun much like an elf’s natural magic.

  Ellie had a natural magic about her, but I couldn’t remember that, either.

  I would never see her again—no, I would. Her cottage was here, somewhere. I’d see her in town, or walking by the lake. But I wouldn’t remember not remembering her, or her kiss, or her arms around my neck. Or all the other moments I know we spent together but had already been erased.

  I punched the house. The siding cracked next to the stain left when my brother attacked Arne into yet another crater in my life. I walked to the lake, and dropped down onto the slippery rocks.

  Maybe, if I concentrated, I’d remember something. Maybe, this once, not all of Ellie Jones would slip away.

  Water lapped at my foot. Insects buzzed. Across the lake, repairs on the Carlson house had begun. And I still could not remember the color of Ellie’s eyes.

  I might as well get used to it.

  The sun dropped below the trees and spread golds and oranges over the lake. Frogs chirped and the snake Marcus Aurelius liked to chase rustled through the weeds along the deck. I moved off the rocks and up to my sunning mat, but stayed outside.

  The kids didn’t need to see me waiting out a concealment enchantment. They didn’t understand. Neither did Maura. If I was honest, I didn’t understand. Yet deep in my gut, I knew that when the sun completely vanished, so would my few remaining fractured memories of Ellie.

  Akeyla came out to ask me if I wanted a burger. I thanked her and gave her a quick hug, and told her that she and Jax did an excellent job cooking the meal. She kissed my cheek and went back inside.

  The glare of headlights arced around the house, and at least two cars pulled into the driveway. Doors slammed, and voices followed.

  Axlam had come to pick up Jax. I stayed where I was. Axlam didn’t need to see me this way, either.

  A male voice floated through the doors and out onto the deck. Arne Odinsson had escaped the Icelandic elves and made his way to my home—which meant he wanted me for some fight or another. I ignored him and continued to stare at the orange glow the setting sun spread over the water. I was about to lose what little I had left of my Ellie memories. Her auburn hair. Her tears. Her touch. Arne could wait.

  The kids came out. Jax laid his hand on my shoulder. He squeezed once with the wisdom only a nine-year-old could have. “Thank you for having me, Mr. Frank.” Then he ran to his mother and his car ride home.

  Arne stepped out onto the deck. He shut the doors and stood under the darkening sky for close to a full minute. He watched the lake and the Carlson house. He listened to Axlam’s car pull away, and Maura and Akeyla cleaning the dishes.

  But mostly he watched me ignore him.

  He walked down to where I sat cross-legged on my mat.

  He folded himself into his own cross-legged, almost serenely yoga-like pose, and inhaled deeply. “Son,” he said.

  “Arne,” I answered.

  He looked no different from the last time I’d seen him, when he pushed Dracula’s pike out of my chest. His elven ponytail still wiggled behind his head and his magic still wafted around him in great sheets of kingly energy. His ear continued to be as notched as ever, and his scars continued to tell their tales.

  His magic shifted and rotated around itself as it always did. Unlike Dag’s armor-like gearwork, Arne’s magic appeared smoother. Leaner, perhaps. Where Dag was clockwork, Arne’s magic had always felt more biological.

  Arne Odinsson, warrior king of natural magic.

  “Maura said you almost put a hole in Bloodyhood.” He nodded toward the house.

  I chuckled. “I figured Akeyla would come up with that name on her own.” She must have.

  Arne grinned. “Sal told me.”

  “Ah,” I said. Of course Sal told her King.

  “She also told me she thinks you had another run-in with fae magic.”

  Seemed Sal had a more consistent memory of Ellie than I did.

  “Is this the same magic that you took care of when Magnus brought you out of the vampire’s pocket?”

  Ellie was in Dracula’s shadow land with me? I opened my mouth to answer, but no words come out.

  Arne watched my face. His brows cinched, but he nodded as if understanding why I couldn’t answer. “Long ago, when I was young, before I took up voyaging with our mundane Norse…” He leaned toward me. “… before I knew that the Mediterranean existed, much less Iceland, Greenland, or Vinland, I knew a fae.”

  “Is this the evil fae on Gotland? The one who enthralled the hive of low-demons?”

  He shook his head. “Oh, no. This fae was a princess.” He looked out over the lake and he smiled, which loosened into a wistful chuckle. “Dagrun is the most extraordinary woman I have ever known,” he said. “And I have known many women, elven, mundane, witch, kami, spirit, and all versions in between.”

  And here I thought Arne and Dag had a marriage based on politics and royal blood, but now I wondered.

  “I don’t think the fae princess was a woman.” He chuckled again. “I think she was femininity.” He looked up at the sky. “You can’t fight that.”

  “I suppose not,” I said.

  “The moral, son, is that fae magic is primal. It’s neither good nor evil. It is what it is and it will grab ahold of your most alive parts.” He patted my shoulder. “The best you can do is ride that wave.”

  I could follow his metaphor with the obvious—navigating women was like surfing a tsunami. But that was simply an excuse for not working on what needed work. Any man could weave an exaggeration—the fish was that big, or I fought off that many, or my girlfriend was that unreasonable. But sometimes you needed to grow up and take responsibility for the wave you caused.

  “Do me a favor,” I said.

  “Anything.”

  “Help me to remember that I can’t be with Benta.” She had somethi
ng to do with why I was sitting here at the foot of my deck watching the lake with a belly full of anger and a head full of haze.

  Not that Benta was to blame; my choices when it came to interacting with her were the problem, not her. But I had to start somewhere, and cutting off that dragon’s head before it breathed more fire seemed the best course of action.

  Arne nodded. “I will, son.”

  We sat in silence as we watched the rising moon. Arne had come to speak to me about something other than my unintentional attempt to damage my new truck. And me, I was out here because…

  … because I’d had a moment on the way home. A twinge that felt as if some horror inflicted by the vampires continued to linger. Because that had to be why.

  I tapped my chest. “There’s nothing left of the spells, is there?” Best to have the Elf King do the checking.

  Arne held his hand over my chest. Magic swirled around his fingers and washed from his palm to my breastbone. He shook his head. “You’re clean.”

  So why did I feel as if my heart had shattered?

  I looked over my shoulder at the house. Maura shepherded Akeyla toward her bedroom. I rubbed my face. “I found a bike by the road this afternoon. I think I’ll fix it up for Akeyla.” Someone had run away and left it sitting on the gravel. I should make the best of a bad situation.

  “She’ll like that,” he said. “Feeling better?”

  “Yeah.” I rubbed at my shoulder. “I think I’m tired. That’s all.” Why else would I sulk around all morose?

  “Good, good,” Arne gripped my shoulder again. “Because I need you to pack. I need you to go to Las Vegas.”

  Chapter 6

  Dust. Heat. Shallowness and grift. I hated Las Vegas.

  Two hundred years of fights both magical and mundane, and the only time I have ever been arrested was in sixty-two, on The Strip, when I punched a conman after his showgirl sidekick swindled me out of three thousand dollars.

  I should have known better, but I’d been on a college-and-heartbreak bender and hadn’t quite learned yet that not all places in America were like Alfheim.

  So Las Vegas was not my favorite city.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Arne inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly. “You met the Icelandic emissary guards this morning.”

  I’d been correct; Tyr Bragisson did pull a fly-in on Arne.

  He rubbed his cheek in an exceptionally mundane way. “My father-in-law has called an International Conclave.”

  “In Las Vegas?” I could think of a thousand better cities than Las Vegas. Hell, Reno would be better. Or Sioux Falls. Or a cornfield in Iowa.

  “Tyr Bragisson believes I must explain my inclusive ways not only to him, but to the rest of the Courts.” He gestured as if bowing to the night sky. “We are to follow Conclave protocols: No more contact between rulers until we are face-to-face at the Conclave Feast. Parties are to be held to King, Queen, and one elder from each enclave. We’re bringing Magnus.”

  As Alfheim’s most charming elf, Magnus was the best choice.

  Arne sighed. “I am allowed witnesses.” He cocked his head. “Fewer in number than a battle party.”

  I sniffed. “They do realize who your witnesses will be, right?”

  Arne grinned. “My father-in-law killed a witch-turned-werewolf in the Fifteenth Century and now believes he is invincible in the face of all magical threats.”

  Arne seemed more sad than disdainful, and not at all sarcastic, as if Tyr Bragisson really did feel himself invincible.

  “Rules about the early arrival of witnesses are vague,” he said. “But such bending will not be looked upon well, so you are to keep a low profile.”

  “I have never in my two centuries been able to keep a low profile,” I said.

  “Remy will be with you.”

  Remy wasn’t a low profile kind of person, either.

  Arne did not appear concerned. “Protocols decree no glamours during the Conclave Feast. We are not to hide from our equals.” He tapped the decking under us. “There is a costume convention in Las Vegas this coming weekend. Tyr’s emissary has informed me that such occasions offer cover and plausible deniability for any out-of-glamour encounters.”

  The Elf Emperor called an International Elven Conclave and was using a fantasy convention as cover. With that many angry, yelling elves around, an out-of-glamour encounter was inevitable, and cover a good idea.

  “Here I thought the kami were the practical magicals,” I said.

  Arne shrugged. “Many of the kami are better at mundane interactions than elves. Or, perhaps, their mundanes are better at interacting with the kami.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Arne,” I said. “You’re the elf setting up the New Zealand enclave. Not Tyr and not the kami.”

  He stared at the Carlson house across the lake. “Some of the kami believe we were born of the rubbing of magic against the mundane. That all the magicals—elves, kami, spirits, fae—are sparks caused by the mundane’s grinding off the edges of the natural world.” He mimicked the motion of sanding a plank. “Add a little sunshine and you get the good. Add a little darkness, and you get the bad.”

  Sounded about right. “That’s pretty much how it works in The Land of the Dead, with the vampires and the demons,” I said. “Except magicals are born of the energy of the living instead of the rage of the dead.”

  “Aye,” Arne said. “I still must explain myself.”

  He did. Magicals had rules.

  “Bragisson’s guards seem well-suited to their job,” I said.

  His lip twisted. Arne stared out over the lake.

  “So you found them as annoying as Remy and I did?”

  “Beware the real Cold War spies.” Arne chuckled. “They did not return to Reykjavík with the emissary.” He leaned close again. “I suspect you and Remy will not be the only early arrivals.”

  Las Vegas was going to be crawling with spying “witnesses.”

  Arne patted my shoulder. “You and Remy are to go tonight. I need you two to find someone. The Feast is scheduled for Thursday evening, the first major day of the costume convention. That will give you four days to search.”

  “Tonight? I take it Magnus brought in a plane for us.”

  Arne nodded. “He knows you can’t fly unless it’s private or first class, and with the urgency and the… nature… of the task, we decided to bring in a charter.”

  “Who are we looking for?” I asked.

  He returned to looking out over the lake at the Carlson house. “Remy will fill you in,” he said.

  Which was the answer I suspected I’d get, even if it was not the answer I wanted. “Should I bring Sal?” I motioned at the house. “See if Rose’s notebook will cough up another dagger made from Odin’s Gallows?”

  His eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. Arne Odinsson was legitimately considering what I asked.

  Great, I thought.

  “She’s not a vampire, Frank,” he said. “Not really.”

  Great turned into a string of profanity.

  He sighed again. “Tony and Ivan weren’t the first dark magicals I’ve taken in.”

  “I figured as much,” I said.

  Arne absently picked at my deck. “She lived here a long time ago, before Dagrun came from Iceland. Remy remembers her.”

  Arne thumped the decking. “Find her. Explain the situation. Ask her if she is willing to step forward as a dark magical and explain to the Courts how she chose to come to neutral after we offered a path.”

  “Neutral, huh?” He’d held Tony and Ivan at neutral for seventy years, and probably would have for seventy more, if they hadn’t been re-tempted to the dark side.

  “Compassion will not turn a dark magical into a friend, but it will increase the chances of an alliance against a mutual enemy.”

  “The enemy of my enemy is my diplomatically aligned trade partner?” No wonder Arne was the elf setting up the new enclave.

  He grinned. “Or so they say, my son.
”

  “Why aren’t you the Elf Emperor?” But I knew: Arne was king of the only New World enclave and much too far away from the main elf business.

  He laughed. “Why would I want to be Emperor and have to deal with yelling Siberians on a daily basis?” He shook his head. “Better we take in more vampires.”

  The vampires were what got us here in the first place. The vampires and my witch-daughter, Rose. “So this woman we’ll be looking for, she’s your ace in the hole?” Whoever she was, Arne was hoping her testimony would sway the court, so to speak.

  Arne squeezed my shoulder again. “My father-in-law does not believe the success of the Alfheim Pack is correctly illustrative of my ways.” He shook his head. “Nor does he see you as anything other than an oddity.”

  “That’s comforting,” I said. At least the other Courts didn’t think of me, or the wolves for that matter, as dark magicals, though the dismissive attitude irked me.

  “I ask that you and Remy speak at the Feast, no matter what the rest of my kind believe.”

  I nodded. I’d do what I could.

  “Good.” He looked out over the lake again and shook his head. “My father-in-law agreed to sanction your and Remy’s testimonials. I believe he thinks that my witnesses aren’t truly dark and that your presence will only serve to reinforce his belief that Alfheim needs a guiding hand.”

  Remy and I were to find a magical bad enough to look dark in the eyes of the other elven Courts. One who, unlike the pack, was so dark that coming to neutral was the best Arne could do.

  I wasn’t sure such a witness was a good idea.

  Arne looked resigned. “Even if we end up with a full moratorium on witches, vampires, and dark spirits, the other elves need to understand that the world does not end at the gates of their Great Halls.”

  Arne’s magic flared. He’d been calm and collected since he sat down on the deck next to me. Confident and cool and practiced. But his magic just betrayed an internal churning.