Mad Lizard Mambo

by Rhys Ford

  Movement near a rise of massive house-sized boulders caught my attention, and I slowed the transport down, angling my head to see around the truck’s side-view mirror. Beige and brown slipped between the gray stones, blending into the dirt patches and slides running down the low mountains.

  “If we’ve got time on the way back, I’m going to grab some antelope from the hills.” With the grasses at their greenest following the rains, the herds were easy to spot on the craggy landscape. “An eland would be nice. I can split a share between me, Sparky, and Dempsey and leave the rest of it for Jonas’s crew.”

  Ryder’s face was hard to read, and judging from the snorfling going on behind me, Malone’s excitement over the rhino waned to a point where he’d drifted off into sleep. As much as I liked the way Ryder looked, the assessing glances he threw my way were unsettling.

  “What?” I finally asked after a few minutes of pointed silence.

  “I am reconciling my image of you. Every time I think I understand who you are, you do or say something and everything shifts.” He inclined his head toward the rear bench seat. “I would have thought of all the people you’d want to shoot, Malone would be one of them. Yet you not so politely told me we were taking him along on this trip, regardless if I wanted him to come or not. That… surprised me, and I don’t think you did it solely to annoy me.”

  “No, that was just a bonus,” I admitted. “And it wasn’t like it didn’t cross my mind. Seemed like I would just be kicking a kitten, and I try to avoid doing things like that. Bad for the soul, and that’s the one thing you get to take with you when you die. When you show up in front of whichever god’s got gate duty that day, you want your soul to be as clean as you can get it. I’ve got enough blood on my hands they might not even answer the bell when I ring. I don’t need to be rubbing shit into my ledger too.”

  “And once again—” Ryder chuckled. “—you shift.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re going to keep shifting. I’m going to take you on a detour.” A dip in the grass to the right of us was the only sign I had for the road I’d been looking for. Slowing the transport down, I turned, easing the truck’s massive tires onto the track. “It’s going to get a little bumpy, but it’ll be worth it. Trust me.”

  “Always,” he whispered. A flick of green again, the light hitting his eyes, and then Ryder turned away to stare out of the window. “I would only wish it was reciprocated.”

  “I trust you.” His gaze turned back on me, sharp and cutting. I shrugged and continued, “Okay, so it’s a little shaky sometimes, but I’m working on it. Mostly.”

  The drive was a steep grade down one ravine and up the next. The trail went dead a few times, and I had to slow the transport down to pick it back up again, gleaning the subtle differences on the ground by the way the light bounced off of the dirt and rocks. It was easier in the transport than in my truck, its wheels eating up the distance between the road and a spot in the hills I’d always found magical—a spot I, for some inexplicable reason, wanted to share with Ryder.

  We entered a grove of thick trees, and the afternoon heat peeled off of us, the truck bathed in cool shadows as I made the final turn into a leaf-canopy-sheltered clearing. I could smell the water, clean, fresh, and sweet, but our destination lay hidden in the dense thicket. A few final bumps and the clearing emerged from between the trees, a semicircle of tiny hot-spring pools dug into mica-flecked golden rock sitting on the edge of a slender, white-capped river.

  It was a pretty enough place, with the rock bed glistening from the crystalline spray frothing up from the river, but it was the tiny fleck-fish living in the hot springs that made the trip worthwhile.

  They glowed.

  And not the simple bioluminescence of a firefly. These minuscule flying fish swirled with colors, throwing off spritzes of flares and flurries as they hopped from one pool to the next, changing hues before they hit the water again.

  It was a meteor shower caught in the shadows of sky-swallowing trees, a lace curtain of light and splashes set against the white of the river beyond. And every time I visited the springs, it took my breath away. Much like it stole away Ryder’s, judging by the awestruck look on his face.

  “Oh… Kai,” he whispered, leaning forward in his seat. “This is… I have no words.”

  “It’s why they call this place Rainbow. Well, now. It was called Rainbow before apparently, but after the Merge, guess the name works better now.” I turned off the transport, killing its loud rumbling engine so we could bask in the river’s melodic burble. “Literally one of my favorite places in the world. I wanted you to see it.”

  “It is… glorious.” Ryder patted my thigh, a quick touch through my jeans. “Thank you. For sharing this. For… surprising me. Thank you.” He was quiet for a long while, not disturbing the comfortable thrum between us, then asked, “Why don’t more people come here?”

  “Too difficult to get to in a normal car. Even some trucks. My old girl? No problem. It’s powerful enough and can take a beating, but it’s hardy.”

  “Like a destrier,” he agreed but saw my slight frown. “It’s a horse. A very large horse.”

  “I forget you guys didn’t have tech before the Merge.” It had been a surprise to discover the elfin’s sciences were practical, a society built more on the arcane than technology. “Adapted to it pretty fast, yeah?”

  “Thankfully. Horses, while lovely, are a lot harder to maintain than a car. It’s been so long since we’ve lived that way. Our technology was rudimentary, much like the humans’ magic. When the Merge… shook our world, we gained a science we hadn’t had before. This world benefits both of us, elfin and humans alike. A twisting of fates fitting into one another. We gained science, and the humans found magic.” Ryder’s dimples flashed on either side of his cheeks, a smile deep enough to warm the emerald-gold facets of his eyes. “Two halves never meant to be together but now… joined.”

  “Like me,” I teased.

  “Maybe you were made for this world, Kai,” Ryder whispered, his hand back on my thigh. “Have you thought of that, perhaps?”

  “Yeah, sometimes.” I let my fingers trace over his nails, enjoying their smooth texture. “Or maybe—just maybe, Ryder—it was made for me.”

  Eleven

  THUNDER HOUNDED our asses all the way into Temecula. I’d felt the first drops of rain hit my nose when Ryder and I stepped down from the transport to watch the hot pools’ leaping fish leave sparkling rainbow trails in the deepening dusk. The rain held off its fury during my maneuvering the truck out of the creaking forest, and Malone slept through our mad scramble back into the cab, only waking up with a porcine snort when the transport’s heavy tires grabbed at the road when we left the dirt track behind us.

  Then the sky gods sliced opened their grief and wept.

  “The water’s pouring down the hills,” Malone observed from the backseat. “It looks like rivers.”

  “Yeah, not something we want to be in. This area gets flash floods when a storm hits too fast and too hard.” A streak of lightning cut a swath under the bank of granite-hued clouds, forking out to tickle the sky’s belly. “We’ve got one more gulch to go and then we’ll be on the Temecula flats. Water drains off the mesas and into the black rock below. Let’s hope Changa’s got some space for us or we’ll be sleeping in the truck.”

  Booms shook the hills a few heartbeats after every flash, the rumbles coming fast and faster as the thunderstorm began to hit its stride. The strikes grew furious, bleaching the sky with each pass and growing stronger until the clouds were spangled with forks. Water rose up from the sides, swamping the transport’s heavy tires, but its weight kept it pressed down into the road. I hit a patch of deep water, a dip in the road filled past its curves, and the truck shimmied back and forth. Fighting the swerve, I battled the rear end, swearing as I threw my weight into turning the steering wheel to bring all eight wheels back onto the asphalt.

  “Kai, watch out!” Ryder clutched the dashboard.

>   “I see it,” I growled, my hands clenched on the shaking steering wheel. “Hold on.”

  There was no missing the house-sized boulder crashing down the mountainside and headed straight for the road. It left craters in the ground as it bounced, a nearly impossible feat for something larger and heaver than a full-grown kraken, but the storm apparently suspended physics because it jumped and dove as if it were made out of rubber. Gushes of water followed it, a slurry of dirt, smaller boulders, and trees.

  Amid the coursing, dank waters and tumbling rocks, I spotted something else—many somethings—and my teeth ached from my clenched jaw. I hadn’t been certain when the first splash of two crimson lights sparked bright against the dark hills, and I’d almost convinced myself I’d been seeing things when another pair joined the first, then another. The shadows moved across the rocks, avoiding the avalanche of boulders with sure-footed leaps from crag to crag.

  And keeping up with the struggling transport’s egress.

  “Black dogs,” I muttered to myself. There was a niggling want to call Ryder’s attention to the magic-spawned horrors shadowing us, but there was more than enough to worry about without adding ainmhi dubh to the mix.

  There was no way of knowing if they were a rogue pack or one with a Hunt Master. A few glances to check on their progress confirmed my fears—they were hunting the transport, keeping their distance but never falling behind. My brain hoped for rogue, cut free of their command restraints following the death of their maker, but my gut told me I was wrong.

  Most rogue ainmhi dubh lurked around outlying settlements, feeding off of humans and livestock rather than culling the herds roaming San Diego’s mesas and canyons. They’d never stalk a vehicle, it wasn’t in their nature, not unless they were commanded to… and their Master told them exactly who or what to track.

  So they were definitely hunting the transport. Or… one of us.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out the odds. Of the three of us, I was the most likely candidate, especially since I’d probably killed my brother the last time I’d seen him. Probably. Valin could have survived the plunge into the 163 rapids. I’d hoped I’d never know the truth of it, but fate sometimes decided differently.

  As it always did.

  I punched the truck’s acceleration pedal as hard as I could, praying Sparky used every last bit of her brilliant mind to dump power into the heavy-duty cell engine. Fast wasn’t the way to drive in a growing storm, not with the minilakes forming in the road’s uneven surface, but hydroplaning and fishtailing were a hell of a lot easier to live through than being crushed beneath tons of solid, dense rock.

  The transport wasn’t fast enough. Almost but not quite. The rush of water hit the back tires, pushing us off the road. My shoulders took the brunt of the steering wheel’s wrench, and my arm shook and screamed with the pain of keeping the truck straight and moving forward. Something hit the back cab. Then the tires found a bit of purchase and the transport shot forward, twisting and sliding on the water-soaked roads.

  With the exception of Malone’s praying and Ryder’s heavy breathing, the transport felt fine, its engine grumbling along as the tires moved freely in their wheel wells. When I tested the steering wheel, it responded sluggishly, more from the water than any damage, and the transmission shifted up and down as we moved through the gears.

  “You can stop asking Thor to save us, Malone,” I called out over my shoulder. “We’re through the worst of it.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  Ryder’s breath hitched, and I could feel his heart pounding through the hand he’d clenched over my right thigh.

  “Knowing you and the trouble you get into, Kai, I am going to say that was just the start of it. So pray all you like, Malone, because we’re going to need it.”

  VIOLET CRACKLE weed covered most of the ruins, their twisting vines crisscrossing the bones of the fallen buildings. The V-shaped main tower’s metal bones rose up from the fog, the jutting bent beams bristling with the vine’s enormous serrated leaves. Bits and pieces of the buildings’ gaming history peeked out. An Ace of Spades neon sign hung lopsided and broken from a blown-out window, the storm banging it against a pair of heavy steel doors standing in the middle of a weed-engulfed plot, the rest of the cigar shop’s walls scattered in ruins behind a weatherworn dumpster lying on its side.

  Only a string of squat, plain-faced bungalows remained of an old hotel, its cheery turquoise and gold wooden sign welcoming us to Changa’s when we drove in. The wood was burned at the ends and flecked with lava grit, but the sign’s grinning sun leered out from under the low stand of squat palms, its toothy smile nearly black from soot and dirt.

  A few heavy rigs were squatting in the corner of the parking lot, huddled together as if muttering about the rain over beers and cigars. Their drivers were probably doing just that in Changa’s lounge, eyeballing the men and women Bryan, the owner, somehow conned to work at the stop. The front office was a long rectangle of space with an L-shaped high counter and mainly served as the entrance to the restaurant and lounge.

  It was early enough in the day for the kitchen to be fully fired up, and from the sound of clicking dishes and glasses filtering past the beaded curtains separating the dining room from reception, the kitchen was doing a booming business. The place hadn’t changed since I’d last been there. The carpets were still an odd vomit of mingled colors, indeterminate swirls dappled with greenish stars, and for some reason a faded red P broke the pattern every foot or so.

  A couple of burly women stood hunched over a rollo-slots machine, dumping wooden nickels into the thing then jerking the lever to watch dancing fruits spin about before stopping in a high-kicking chorus line. A hairless, ancient Chihuahua lay stretched out on the carpet at their feet, a grimy, fat land manatee staring off into the distance or perhaps the wall. I couldn’t tell exactly because its eyes roamed about, bulging and flexing while the machine sang its chiming ditty.

  Leaning against the reception counter was Bryan, a lean middle-aged man, his amiable mouth set into a nearly permanent smile beneath a trimmed mustache. Dressed in slacks and a bright orange button-up shirt, Bryan was regaling everyone with his glory days as an elephant trainer or tire salesman, because much like the dog’s wandering eyes, it was hard to tell which way Bryan was headed when he started telling a story.

  Judging by the smirking leer Bry gave me when he spotted me, Ryder, and Malone by the door, he’d just gotten worked up and was bringing it home.

  Bringing it home to a haughty, elegant sidhe woman with emerald-gold eyes.

  I didn’t need Ryder stiffening to a board next to me to tell me who the woman was. She wore parts of his face, pieces I was drawn to, from his long-lashed enormous forest-dappled eyes to his full lower lip. Their cheekbones were nearly the same, hers a touch rounder, and her chin was pointier, angling her jaw down a sharp, inward slope. Her hair was whiter than his, more starlight than metallic sunbeams, a starker contrast to the coppery antique gold streaks underneath.

  But while she had the look of her brother, her expression was pure Sebac, a cunning, cruel knife of a smile profaning the mirror of Ryder’s generous, amiable mouth. Turning, she flicked her gaze over me, and if anything, her face hardened still, flattening any softness in her appearance. Malone she ignored, only having a glittering stare for me.

  “Ryder, Clan Sebac, Third in the House of Devon and High Lord of the Southern Rise Court, I greet you,” she murmured in sidhe, and my body jerked inward, reacting violently to a language too similar to my father’s, a behavior learned under dull iron implements and sharp steel. “I see you still have the beathach sgeunach Grandmother disciplined before—”

  “Do not finish those words, daughter of Devon.” Ryder flung his sidhe at her, a furious volley of molten anger, splattering her with its visceral sting. “You’ve crossed into the Southern Rise. You do not have my leave to breathe its air, much less speak poorly of my luranach.”

  I knew less than
nothing about how the sidhe said hello, other than it sometimes devolved into a list of clans, houses, and maybe even what they ate for dinner the night before. Since my sidhe was mostly cobbled together by what I’d learned in vids and its similarity to its darker cousin, unsidhe, I didn’t understand what she’d called me or the last word Ryder said, but it definitely wasn’t something the woman wanted to hear, because she bristled, straightening her spine, and tilted her chin with an arrogance so casual, she wore it like I wore my favorite T-shirt.

  “Introduce us, then, Lord Ryder,” she sniffed. “So I may know your luranach.”

  I was about to tell Ryder I didn’t need an introduction or snap that I was his nothing, but he was angry and serious, so I let it go. She’d suckled on Sebac’s marrow and knitted herself a skin from the old woman’s venomous bones. There really was no mistaking who the bitch standing at the counter was. The only question was why was she there and what the hell we were going to do about it.

  “Kai, Clan Gracen, Stalker and Defender of the Southern Rise Court, please meet….” Ryder paused, slanting an inscrutable glance at the woman. “I would like you to meet Ciarla, Clan Sebac, Fourth in the House of Devon, Sister to the Southern Rise High Lord and Heir Contender to the Clan Sebac… and blood mother to our nieces, Kaia and Rhianna.”

  THE SQUARE bungalow was more of a semidetached yurt made out of adobe and steel with enough space for an outhouse-sized bathroom and a single broad bed. Like the main building, it wore its years poorly, but Bryan did his best, considering Changa’s was the only rest stop on the 15 corridor for nearly fifty miles. The carpets were industrial grade dark gray tiles easily yanked up for cleaning, and the linens were always fresh. I knew for a fact the bedspreads were washed after each guest left, and the fuel cell charging fees were pretty decent, kept low by the enormous solar farm set up behind the ruins. Changa’s restaurant served massive amounts of hot food, and while not anything to rave about, portion sizes were big, and the staff was always friendly.