Live and Let Fly

by Karina Fabian

  "I know." He opened the box, and held it in front of him, brooding. "Vern. She could have been killed. Because I had something they wanted. How can I ask her to—"

  I smacked him on the shoulder.

  "Don't!" I snarled before he could protest. "Don't even think about 'going it alone'

  because you don’t want to risk putting your lady love in danger. That's a Mundane cliché, not ours."

  "But—"

  "Where would you be if your grandfather had thought like that? He was going up against the forces of Hell. A good quarter of the Faerie population wouldn't be alive if soldiers in the Great War thought like you're thinking right now."

  "But she's—"

  "A big girl with a lot of bodyguards. And she handled herself pretty well, all things considered."

  "The things McThing said they'd do to her—"

  "Humans have been doing to each other long before you came along and for thousands of reasons."

  When he continued to mope at the ring, I grabbed his shoulders and made him meet my eyes. Fortunately, at our angle, I could still get a look at Sergeant Binoculars in the trees. He was getting quite a show. Part of me wondered what he thought of it. "Listen to me. I've got an eternity of experience. As long as humans are humans, they will find ways to hurt each other.

  She's more likely to die in a car accident than in an evil scheme. But if you break up with her, I can guarantee she'll be living with a broken heart."

  He just shook his head. "You wouldn't understand."

  Of all the arrogance! I shook him, "You self-absorbed little mortal! Sister Grace is the best friend I have ever had. Ever. Do you understand how long that is for me? She has taken bullets, fought demigods, and been cursed more in the past eleven years than in her entire career because she's with me."

  "She chose that."

  "And Heather chose you. Or will, if you give her the chance." I closed his hand over the box.

  "Yeah, you're right." He didn't sound totally convinced. Nonetheless, he put the ring into the pocket of his windbreaker and zipped it shut.

  "Of course I'm right. I should start charging. All right. Our guy's checked in. That's two at fifteen-minute intervals. I'm betting it's standard, but we'd better not push it." For effect, I pulled out the camera again and made Charlie pose at the rock before we went back to the vehicles.

  Before I started mine up, however, I finished my bottle of water then chucked it as hard as I could into the jungle.

  "Oi!" Charlie protested.

  "Leave it," I ordered and took off before he could say anything more. Once we were on the way, I'd tell him how I heard it hit the blind that hid a trail. I'd thought that shoulder in the road had looked too neat.

  * * * *

  Grace and I have developed our own special language, a mishmash of several languages Mundane, Faerie and imaginary, as well as code words we made up. For our files at home, we also convert it into a numerical code using a brownie numbering system based on shoe sizes. The result: a code that would make any Mundane (or Faerie) intelligence service go crying into their shaken-not-stirred martinis.

  Writing up a report of our findings for Grace, therefore, didn’t present a challenge.

  Sending it proved as easy, too, thanks to my partner's recent discovery. I labeled the file "Story for Grace" and misfiled it. Grace, meanwhile, set up a folder on her laptop called "Stories for Grace," and we let the brownies handle the transfer.

  Of course, we'd never tried it before, and I had no idea if the brownies would know to look in my computer, or if they followed us, or... I said a quick prayer as I hit "Save."

  When I turned around after shutting down the computer, I saw Charlie asleep on one of the beds, the ring box held close in his hands. Good sign.

  If I'd been a dragon, I would have probably gone out for a night flight to see what else I could discover, but my body was only human, and jet-lagged and weary as well. I didn't know if fatigue would transfer over to my dragon form; besides, we'd decided against my using magic this early in the game. I pulled off my clothes, left them on the floor and stretched out on top of the other bed. I didn’t even have time to decide if the mattress was comfortable before I fell asleep.

  Chapter Sixteen: Gears of the Tiger

  Note to self: Never go to sleep without brushing teeth.

  I was in the bathroom rectifying that error, when Charlie leaned against the entrance, Heather's ring still in one hand and a sheet of paper in another. "Found this by the door. It's got the day's agenda at the hotel. Breakfast doesn’t start for half an hour, but at least it’s a buffet.

  Eat, and then go explore the island?"

  I rinsed and spat. With the mint smell diminished, I caught the hint of a familiar scent.

  "Let me see."

  He handed me the paper. In our special ink, Grace had written: Got the file. Great job. I'll explore the rocks today, "looking" for dive spots. Further down, she'd circled an event and added: If "Brown" doesn't deliver a file to you today, meet us here.

  "Okay," I told Charlie, "but let's get back in time for the dance."

  He gave me a look that said he completely missed the implication. "Why?"

  We'd used the bug detector BILE had outfitted us with, but without magic, I wasn't trusting to it alone. We'd decided to keep in character at the hotel. I replied, "Because I like to dance." I handed it back, pointing at the event. Take a hint, "Nigel."

  "'Rhonda, a native American singer,'" he read. "Can you dance to that?"

  He must be tired. He wasn't normally this thick. "There might be some Rak," I told him.

  "Whatever," he said, but he slapped his forehead. Message received.

  The hotel also had a bus going to the flea market in Kota Bhandar, so we decided to take that and see what we could pick up, both in supplies and information.

  As with every place that depended on tourism, the stall owners knew passable English but were thrilled to speak to someone who had taken time to learn their language. We passed up the booth hawking stuff obviously "handcrafted" for the tourists, bought some old shoes from a used clothing dealer, and found a junk booth selling knives and farm implements. While Charlie looked over the local equivalent of machetes, I chatted up the proprietor.

  Guess my people skills were improving. Ket was only too glad to tell me about the items on display—mostly farm implements he'd bought from others who had left the village to work on a special project for the Li Consortium. Nothing flashy, like those other vendors (he all but spat at the booth down the way displaying "tribal swords" done up with fancy leatherwork and colored strings), but actual working items used for generations. I let him explain the use of several items even though I already knew most of them. Faerie agriculture is technologically not much above Bhandar Baru's, and plow blades and grinding wheels share a similarity of form no matter what universe they're in. I also picked up that, although a Christian, he was not happy with the defiling of the religion of his forefathers.

  "This festival! Peh! An excuse for tourists to indulge in hedonism and sin. The churches citywide are holding a prayer service that night. You should join us instead."

  I took note of the time and place; then asked him for specifics about how the Old Faith had changed. "You know, the articles I read say the Christian influence has—"

  "Peh! You should not believe what you read, my friend. Bhandar Baru, we had no written language before the enyelamatas arrived. Before then, children learned from the elders. The priests taught the Old Ways. Then came the enyelamatas and their books and schools. The books change. The children learn differently. They argue with the elders, trust paper over the priests.

  They won't listen, because who brought them the 'better life'?"

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. I knew how he felt. I hated it when people tried to contradict me over things I'd lived because some author who heard it third-hand from someone else got his account published. "Stupid."

  "And dangerous. Apikewa was a fickle god,
one to be respected and revered. So my grandfather taught my father who taught me. I have accepted Jesus as my savior, and I am grateful to the enyelamatas for showing me the Truth, but that doesn’t mean I don't remember.

  But the generation of my sons, they see Apikewa as something wild, glorying in violence and unrestrained passion—and a voyeur, too! They think we appeased his appetites by indulging ours. Does that sound Christian to you? No, you want to blame someone, blame them!" And he grabbed a used book off his table, opened it to the title page and shoved it at me.

  Gurdwick Educational Supplies, Madras, India. I took note of the name.

  "So, is your son...?"

  "Sons. No. They were baptized and learned from the Christian Brothers. The youngest, he studying in America now. We send him what money we can, you know, but I will not lower myself to lying about my people." Again he cast a dark look toward the other stall. "Still, our needs are simple, and one day, he will care for us. That is the Old Way, too. Now his brother, he is working for Li. They are digging into Apikewa."

  "Why? Putting holes in the mountain to release the lava?" I wondered if that would work.

  Ket shrugged. "So they say. But my son, he says—" Ket shut up suddenly, as if realizing he was saying too much to a stranger and enyelamata. He shrugged again.

  "He helps his brother, too," he said, and I knew better than to press the point.

  Charlie interrupted, bringing up a couple of machetes and two rather nice, American-made survival knives, and the bargaining began, with much wailing about his poor family and our accusations about skinning the tourists. We finally decided on some ridiculously low price. I signed over a traveler's check for a hundred dollars and told him to send the change to his son.

  Ket clasped our hands, blessed us, and again invited us to the prayer service. "You can meet my family. Nearly everyone has the day off for the festival," he said.

  "Everyone? That's nice."

  "Peh! The Li Consortium thinks they are supporting our culture. But please! Is there anything else I can do for you?"

  "Well, now that you mention it..."

  * * * *

  Half an hour later, we were riding in the covered bed of a three-wheeled Fiat truck being driven by a friend of Ket's who was heading to his home on the other side of the island. We'd changed our shoes in the dark. We couldn't see where we were going, but we felt the truck turn along a long curve then slow down to a stop. The tailgate opened, and we crawled out.

  The driver waved a finger at us, his mouth open in a toothless smile. "Crazy Americans!"

  he lisped.

  "Irish, mad Irish." Nigel corrected him.

  He only laughed harder and dismissed us with a wave.

  "That was brilliant," Charlie said when the truck disappeared from view. "Telling him we wanted to pretend to be adventurers seeking lost treasure."

  "Believe it or not, I've got experience at cover stories," I said. "So come on. I'm the courageous, good-looking archaeologist, and you're my spunky protégé."

  "Forget it. I'm archaeologist."

  "I've got the hat."

  “It’s a fedora.”

  “Yeah. And fedoras are cool.”

  We headed into the jungle, arguing and laughing, sometimes stopping to snap a photo.

  Just a couple of crazy Irish out on a jungle adventure.

  After half an hour of walking, talking, and slicing at things, Charlie asked, "You think he was serious when he said to watch out for the tigers?"

  I slashed at a low-hanging branch just for the fun of it. "Don't be ridiculous. There aren't any large animals aside from some sheep. Besides, I've still got my keen senses. If there's a predator out here, I'll know it before it sees us. The only things we have to worry about are snakes."

  "Snakes? You mean, venomous snakes?"

  "Constrictors. They suffocate you by crushing your lungs. If one of them drops on you, push out every time you exhale."

  "Will that work?"

  "How would I know? You think a constrictor would mess with me?"

  We came to a small clearing. A bird called in the trees; otherwise, everything was silent.

  Didn't bother me. One of the "tests" Grace and I ran back home was to approach different animals. Our dogs knew me after a moment of confusion, but just about anything with a good sense of smell still reacted to me like a predator. Too bad, in a way. I'd been hoping to experience riding on something else's back for a change.

  My arm was getting sore. We'd made enough noise that if someone had problems with tourists here, they'd have come for us by now. I stopped, called a bathroom break, and wrapped the blade in cloth and stuck it into my backpack. The camera followed, set into a spot I could easily access. Then I drank a full bottle of water and stuck the empty into the backpack. I told Charlie to do the same. "Urinate if you can," I told him quietly. "There's a cave entrance about a quarter mile that way I want to check out, a lava spout. Then we can find that hidden trail. We're going quiet from here and not stopping."

  "You sound like my mother," he complained but did as I instructed. I took my own advice while he secured his gear.

  "How can you know there's a cave?"

  I tapped my nose. "I know caves. I know volcanoes, too."

  We headed on a more direct, purposeful route toward the cave.

  Partway there, I spotted something gray and round and bent to pick it up. A geode. I hadn't used my virtual tail in a couple of days, so I opened my pack with it and put the geode inside. I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd been half afraid the lack of use would make it disappear.

  Charlie gaped but said nothing.

  The lava spout looked like an ordinary cave peering darkly out from behind drooping ferns. Inside, though: smooth and wide, white rock merging into a marbled red-and-white ceiling; cool here out of the sun, with the faintest promise of heat further on; the clean smell of stone and magma. If I listened intently, I could hear the song of molten rock as it roiled and frolicked in its subterranean playground. Beautiful. It was enough to make a dragon homesick.

  "Drake?" Charlie's voice called softly, breaking my thoughts.

  I turned and followed his pointing finger to a spot in the bushes outside the entrance.

  Where a tiger crouched motionless, its eyes closed.

  "Is it sleeping?" he asked in a whisper.

  I listened, watched for a rise and fall of its chest. "Noooo," I said grabbing him by the backpack and backing into the cave. "Because it's not real. It's a McTiger."

  Its eyes snapped open. Lenses-for-pupils dilated then contracted as it focused on us.

  "Run!"

  I dashed into the cave, Charlie behind me, the tiger behind him. Its roar echoed off the walls.

  So did Charlie's yell. "I thought you said there weren't any predators!"

  "I wasn't expecting animatronics! This way!" The tube branched. I took the right. I heard Charlie's shoes slip and turned my head, but he gained his balance without losing stride. The tiger bounded off the wall. Neat move, very intimidating, but it cost it some time.

  "I can hardly see in here!" Charlie called. It didn’t stop him from running full out, though.

  "It's a straight shot! Just a little farther!"

  "Until what?"

  "Left!" I slowed enough to pull him my way; then let go to run. This part of the tunnel was bathed in an orange light and heat I would have adored in my dragon form. At the moment, I was more concerned about the end of this tunnel.

  Millennia of living in caves told me exactly when I'd run out of floor. I burst out of the cave entrance and threw myself to the side. I lashed out with my imaginary tail to catch Charlie before he overshot and pulled him to the ledge beside me. He pressed himself against the hot rock wall.

  The tiger ran straight off the ledge and made a nice parabolic arc into the magma. With a splash and a sudden blaze, it ceased to be a problem.

  Bummer. I'd have liked to have seen it stop in midair like Wile E. Coyote.

  "Kind of
anti-climatic," I said.

  Charlie gaped at me.

  I pulled out my camera, set it on wide angle, and snapped photos of the volcano's interior as fast as I could. We made our way back, trying to catch our breaths and clutching stitched sides. Before we reached the entrance, Charlie asked, "Think it reported us?"

  "I don’t know."

  "Think there are others out there?"

  "I don't know."

  "Think we should run for it?"

  " That I do know."

  We made it back to the road in about a third of the time it took to get to the cave.

  On the way, I panted out a prayer and an appeal to St. Christopher, Faerie patron saint of travelers, for some help getting home. In His mercy, God came through with none other than a public bus bringing people in for the flea market. We paid the fare, found a spot in the back, and changed shoes. At the market again, we chucked the old ones into four different trash bins and washed our faces in a public fountain before boarding the hotel bus back.

  Our abortive reconnaissance left us sweaty and sore, but time in the hot tub, a bath, and a nap, not to mention a large meal, cured most of that. Well, not really, but I tried to think positive.

  By then it was seven; almost time for the dance. I opened my laptop and checked my documents files. Nothing.

  "So what do we wear to this dance?" I asked.

  Charlie groaned.

  * * * *

  We walked into of the elevator dressed to kill and dead on our feet. I resolved to not wear shoes for the entire day tomorrow. We leaned on the mirrored back wall and faced the buttons.

  Why do Mundanes do that, anyway? "I can't believe you made me leave my hat in the room," I grumbled.

  "You don't dance in a hat. You'll lose it." Charlie growled back.

  "I didn't lose it in the jungle."

  "I don't know why that is, either."

  "Cliché?"

  The ding of the elevator announcing our destination spared Charlie from having to answer. We pushed off the wall, put on our game faces, and went to party for God and country.

  Or whatever.

  The event was already in full swing, and revelers had spilled into the large hallway and lounge, drinking and talking. One couple was in a pretty serious lip lock behind a potted plant, as if a palm tree was going to hide their roaming palms from view. Charlie did a double take, but I ignored them. I've seen plenty of human mating rituals in my millennia as a dragon.