Dirty Deeds

by R. J. Blain

  “The closest vet or veterinary hospital. And they can board him. I’ll be out in three days and can claim him then.” She extended a padded envelope. “There’s a picture of Rover inside, his favorite doggie chew, a package of dried roast beef, his leash, and—” She stopped. “And two thousand dollars.”

  Liz’s eyebrows went up. “That’s more than we agreed on.”

  “It’s also a down payment on vet bills and boarding. Your reputation says you’re honest and reputable. Just… please find him and get him to help.”

  “I’ll do my best. How do I get in touch when I find Rover?”

  “My cell was destroyed in the accident. You’ll have to email me, the same way I reached you. My laptop is my constant companion.” She patted a small device at her side, nested in a wheelchair pocket.

  “I can do that and tell you which vet he’s at. Hope you feel better.”

  “I’ll feel better as soon as Rover is safe.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Liz dinged Eli’s cell and walked out the door, dropping the mask in the special biohazard can at the entrance.

  When Eli pulled up, she got in the SUV and he eased back into traffic. Liz opened the envelope. It had all the things in it Golda had said. She counted out the twenty hundred dollar bills.

  “Is half that mine?”

  “No.” she ruffled the bills and shoved them back in the envelope. “You get half a grand. The rest is for the vet bills and boarding.”

  “So why are you frowning.”

  “I don’t know. Something’s odd.”

  “Odd as in we abort and go get a steak? Or odd as in we continue on, eat dinner in the mosquitoes and humidity, and hope snakes don’t crawl into your sleeping bag.”

  “I’m not scared of snakes,” she said thoughtfully. “And I don’t have a feeling we should take the money back and quit. I don’t know what I’m feeling. Something.”

  “Burger before we leave civilization?” he asked.

  “I thought you only ate healthy.”

  “I occasionally do stupid things. And enjoy them.”

  Liz wanted to say, Am I a stupid thing you might still want to do? But she kept her mouth shut and smiled very, very slightly. Two could play the guessing game. Liz had heard Eli’s last girlfriend had been a red-head, but otherwise, very different from her—a law enforcement officer who loved coffee and firearms. Liz didn’t drink much coffee, didn’t need firearms, and could take care of herself just fine without them. Liz just wanted things back like they had been. That meant admitting she hadn’t thought about parking and give kudos where they were due.

  “I hadn’t thought about where I could safely leave the Subaru overnight. I guess I planned to leave my car on the side of the road when I hiked in. That was stupid. Thanks.” She had planned on Eli carrying the seventy-pound pound dog out overland and hadn’t thought about much else.

  “You were hoping to find the dog close by,” he said mildly.

  “Yeah. Still am. But scared dogs can run for hours. The crystal has a range of three miles. Rover could be anywhere.”

  Thereafter they rode in silence, though Liz did look at his hands often. Dark skinned. Strange callouses, probably from weapons’ practice and fighting, a few white hairline scars, likely from the explosion that nearly killed him in Afghanistan. He was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt, camo pants with lots of pockets that bulged with stuff, and hiking boots that bore a strong resemblance to combat boots. She was wearing thin, water-wicking, water resistant hiking pants, a tank top and had stuffed a thin, lightweight jacket in the pocket of essentials. Eli’s wardrobe looked sturdy and hers looked like she was out for a walk with the kiddos. She wondered if she had brought the right clothes. Or the right anything. But she figured she had brought the right man. Eli Younger looked like he could handle anything she couldn’t, and she had more magic in her necklace than most ten other witches.

  Liz

  Sometime later…

  Their driver from the comfort station was the taciturn vet named Chewy who called Eli, “Hoss.” Chewy was a white guy with a beard thick enough for eagles to nest in, never looked at her, spit tobacco juice into a foam cup every few minutes, and played Merle Haggard over Eli’s sound system at ear splitting levels. When he pulled over on 414 at the obvious signs of a very recent car crash—skid marks, a bumper and car door still lying in the trees—Chewy pulled over, looked up and down the road, and said, “Position of this vehicle gives you adequate room to maneuver. Leave the doors open.”

  Liz got out and started calling for Rover. Eli slung a small day pack around his shoulder, pulled out a pair of fancy binoculars, and began to scan the surrounding area.

  “What does your locator fob say?” Eli asked.

  She pulled the small box out, opened it, and simply stopped. The crystal inside nearly took her breath away. It was a quartz crystal in its natural form, clear as diamond, but with slight magnification properties. “Wow.” She touched it and felt the faintest sizzle of energy inside. That energy pulled her hard off the road in a direction where the land fell off downhill fast. Like it was the end of the world. Liz clipped the crystal on its split ring to a carabiner on her belt and pointed downhill. “That way. ‘Second star to the right.’ ”

  “ ‘And straight on till morning,’ ” Eli finished the quote while checking their position on an old fashioned compass.

  Liz grinned but said nothing. Either he was a Star Trek fan, Peter Pan fan, or he’d been watching movies with the kids. Liz was betting on the latter.

  “Any idea of distance, or are we just gonna whistle and call Rover all day?” The words boarded on snark, but his tone was relaxed and calmer than she’d heard it in weeks.

  As a stone witch, Liz might be able to get something more specific than Golda’s “within three miles.” She closed her eyes and concentrated. She smiled, then frowned. “About a mile, down the hill, that way, and moving away from us.” She pointed, getting a flash of the blood-curse taint still on her skin. She dropped her arm. At least it had never gotten any worse.

  Eli gave a faint grunt that could have meant anything and began removing their gear from his SUV. Liz slid into the straps of the backpack, hung her own binoculars around her neck, took her walking stick in one hand, and by the time she was done, Eli was fully kitted out in his guns and blades and heavy pack. Dang. That was fast. “All clear?” he asked Chewy.

  Chewy looked over his shoulder and said, “All clear. Get out of sight before I pull off. Black man with guns. Be careful.”

  “Always am. We’ll be out of sight in two mikes.”

  “Call when you need exfil, Hoss,” the old vet said.

  They shut the SUV hatch and doors. “Let’s get out of sight,” Eli said, “Chewy’s right. Black man with guns is considered a clear and present danger, especially in backwoods North Carolina.”

  “Unless you’re with Yellowrock.”

  “Being with her makes things easier and harder.” He didn’t elaborate. She didn’t ask. They started downhill, walking in the path of the car that had gone over the railing, taking out the thick underbrush that grew near the road. And down. And way down, fast, for about thirty feet until it flattened out just a bit.

  When they were out of sight from the road, Chewy pulled away and they were on their own. Eli stopped again and took in the location of the mountain peaks, compared their location to a topo map on his cell before pocketing the cell. He asked, “Does your magical crystal see an exact trail, or does it just show what direction the dog is now and which way to go.”

  “I don’t—” She stopped. “Let me try something.” She lifted the crystal with her left hand, touched a blue and green chrysocolla bead on her necklace with her right hand, and opened a seeing working. The magic stored inside the crystal pointed off to the left and directly down. “Nice. Okay. The workings are compatible. No direct trail, just a location and current movement. A mile that way as the crow flies, moving parallel to the bottom of the gorge, but slower than bef
ore and still away from us.”

  “How did that just work?” he asked.

  “I used a seeing working to follow the magic tying the crystal to the amulet on the dog.”

  “So not something a mundane could use.” His tone was asking for clarification of a supposition.

  Liz frowned slightly. “On your own? Without a witch? Maybe. With some modifications and an additional amulet or two.” Or with a witch and physical contact. Like holding hands. “I’ll think about it.”

  Eli put away his toys and led the way down. And down. And down. She had to grab trees to stop wild careening slips that would have sent her rolling like a ball. She had to stab her walking stick into the ground and use it like a lever to hold herself in place. She was noisy and breathless, while Eli moved almost silently, was alert to everything around them and above them, and stepped downhill with his usual economy. He might as well have been on flat land. It was disgusting.

  He never looked at her, but somehow she knew he was aware of her every noisy move. When her hand missed a tree, he caught her lower arm and swung her to the right into a bigger tree. She leaned against it and just breathed for a bit, but it was hot and muggy and even with the elevation, gnats and no-see-ums were everywhere. One flew into her eye, and as if that was a command, others flew into her mouth. Which started a coughing fit, her eyes watering. She held up a finger and the gnat finally flushed out, but the damage to her lungs made her coughing last longer than that she wanted. Between wracking coughs, she risked a look at Eli. He didn’t look worried or pitying, which helped mitigate the awkwardness of what felt like a terrible weakness. When the fit passed, Liz dug into the backpack pocket and pulled out a hat with netting, her sunglasses, the jacket, and reapplied sunscreen with bug repellent. The last coughs passed while she dressed.

  Eli asked, “You got a respiratory inhaler?”

  “Yeah. And a dozen healing charms.” She pointed to her necklace. “The orange ones are for things like broken bones and major lacerations. If for some reason you need to activate one for either of us, put a little of the injured person’s blood or saliva on it and wrap it in place over the area. Or drop one into a wound before you bandage it. They’re easy for a doc to feel if they need to be removed later. If I need to use one for my breathing,” she pointed to three purple ones, “I’ll put one in my mouth like a lozenge. But I’m okay for now.”

  Eli gave a spare nod and turned back to look out over the terrain.

  Liz breathed. And wondered if this gig was worth the money.

  Chapter Three

  Eli

  From midway down the hill, he called the damn dog, even though the mutt was clearly a hard hike away. He watched for movement of scrub at dog height in the general direction she’d pointed, and he called and whistled, while keeping an eye on Lizzie, giving her a chance to rest. Her breathing leveled out quickly enough that he knew she wasn’t in distress. She had handled the terrain better than he’d expected. He’d heard about the boulder falling on her, crushing her chest cavity. Her own sister had done that. And she’d survived.

  He called out again, “Rover! Here boy! Rooooover!” Stupid name for a damn dog. To Lizzie he said, “You ready to move on?”

  “If that’s a euphemism for dying, then nope. If it’s referring to the fact that the earth disappears about twenty feet that way,” she gestured to the line ahead where the earth vanished, “then sure. That looks really easy. Like a stroll in the park. Or maybe like falling off a cliff.”

  He chuckled and passed her a pair of lightweight fingerless gloves. “They’ll fit a little large, and your fingertips will stick out the end, the but they’ll help your grip on the trees and your walking stick.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Meanwhile, that’s called a horizon line,” he said, one arm indicating the straight line just ahead where the earth did indeed vanish. There was nothing beyond it but mountains and those were on the other side of the gorge. “A horizon line isn’t always a bad thing,” he added, voice calm.

  “Uh huh. Sure. Tell me another one.”

  Liz seemed better. And she had an inhaler. And the purple beads. Yeah. Witch shit.

  Liz

  The land dropped off ahead.

  “Meanwhile, that’s called a horizon line,” he said. “And a horizon line isn’t always a bad thing.”

  “Uh huh. Sure. Tell me another one,” she said as she joined him.

  He added, “It just means the drop gets steeper. You climb?”

  “Not much,” Liz said, hating the fact that she took this stupid job. She could have invited him to dinner or camping on the edge of Yellowrock Clan vineyard property. “I took a rappelling course once, but it’s been a few years.”

  “Chewy says there’s a ledge at fifty feet. If I rig you up, can you drop down or do we take the longer, flatter way?”

  Liz inspected the crystal again and checked the position of the sun. Oh fun. She was falling off a mountain at the end of a rope. She said, “I can drop down.”

  Eli didn’t argue. He spent a while picking out the best line, strapped her into a harness, and described the landing site, which was fifty-five feet below. Liz didn’t say that her longest drop was closer to twenty-five. Or less. “After that,” he said, “there’s a ledge and, according to Chewy, what looks like an animal trail off to the west. Things should be easier after we set down.”

  His hands roamed her butt, waist, groin area, and abdomen, cinching the harness tighter. It was totally professional, and not the least handsy. She wasn’t sure how some guys got the whole, “proper way to touch a woman without coming off creepy,” thing but Eli had it down pat.

  He walked her through how to lower herself safely and what to do at the bottom. “Take off the harness, yell when you’re safe, and shout for me to pull up the gear. Sit tight and wait for the gear to drop down with the backpacks. Unhook them. Then, sit again and wait for me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Watch where you put your hands and feet on the way down. Rattlers might be nesting in the crevices.”

  “Oh. Whoopie.”

  “Want to turn back? If so, let’s do it now. Chewy says once we get down to the ledge, it’ll be a lot harder to get back to the road.”

  Liz looked at his face, which was noncommittal, not giving her a clue which way he thought she should choose. But her lungs felt better after the short rest. “I have a soft spot for lost dogs. I got this.”

  He repeated his instructions and strapped her walking stick to her pack. Liz took a breath, blew it out, turned her back to the mountains on the far side of the gorge, and started walking down the not-quite-vertical drop. A few feet in, her confidence grew, and she pushed off with her feet, dropping a short distance before stopping her fall, over and over, her eyes scanning for snakes, her hands picking up the muscle memory of her last rappel.

  The ledge was just where it was supposed to be. No snakes were anywhere in sight and getting out of the harness wasn’t impossible. “I’m down. Harness is ready,” she shouted. The harness moved swiftly up, and Liz sat down, taking in the vista. The earth fell away, the trees were still bright with summer, the wind whispered through the forest like the breath of the Earth itself. Molly would have broken into tears at the sight of so much life and peace and so much amazing green.

  The gear came down, tied with knots Liz didn’t know how to undo. It took a while to figure out how they worked before she could shout for him to pull it up. She tucked her walking stick under her arm and went back to the view. Eli landed near her. She heard him putting away gear, his harness, all the climbing stuff. He sat near her and offered her a bottle of water. She took it and drank. It was warm, but she needed the moisture. “This view alone is worth this gig,” she said.

  “Pretty amazing.”

  When the water was nearly gone, Liz went into the bushes and used her portable urinal, rinsing it with the bottle’s last drops of water. Eli went the other way and, she assumed, did the same, but without a femal
e urinal. Then they started down the animal path. And down, and down.

  An hour later, breathing hard but feeling better than she had in a long time, she leaned against a handy tree and said, “I’m pretty sure a mountain goat made this path.”

  Eli burst out laughing, stopped, and looked at her over his shoulder. “You don’t talk much for an Everhart.”

  “I can be chatty. But Cia is the talker. I’m the silent twin.”

  “Why did you ask me to work with you on this gig?”

  That came out of left field. But if he wanted direct, she could be direct. As long as she didn’t look him in the eyes while she was being candid. “I like you. I thought you liked me. Then I got sick and you backed off like I had the plague. Which I did, sorta. I hoped spending the day together might let us see if there’s anything left between us. Falling off a mountain and maybe ending up in a splatter of blood and broken bones seemed the best option at the time.”

  Eli laughed again. It was a good laugh. He didn’t do it often. Maybe hanging with the kids had brought out a softer side of him. “You re-thinking that strategy now?” he asked.

  She pulled off her hat and scratched her sweaty scalp, thinking. She redid her ponytail, this time hanging it out of the small hole in back. “Not really. Angie Baby and EJ called you Captain America. They’re right. And this is fun, in a hot, sweaty, hard to breathe, muscle wrenching, exhausting kind of way.”

  There was a lot left unsaid in that exchange, but she’d take what she could get. He grinned at her and something warmed again in her middle, which reminded her. She dug in a pocket and handed him a tiny reddish stone. “I forgot. Raw hematite. It’s spelled to make ticks think you’re made of rock. Next time I’ll see if I can make one to repel snakes, spiders, and these gnats, which my lotion does nothing to combat.” She waved at the gnats again swarming her face.