by Sara Hanover
I thought of all the bodies/souls I’d seen twisting on meat hooks in the Butchery when I had been trapped. “Bigger than the Mafia? Or a drug cartel?”
“Not necessarily bigger but more buried and infinitely more powerful. Let me think on this a bit, and don’t you dare go acting on your own.”
“I won’t.” But something twisted inside me, and I thought: unless I have to. Unless that’s what it took to change what I had done to my father and save him.
To distract myself, I leaned over so we could kiss. I loved the way my mouth melted into his, and the sensations sang all the way to my toes and back, comforting and sizzling all at the same time. When he leaned away from me to put the car in gear and pull away from the curb, all I could think of was that we should kiss more often. The thought occupied me the whole way across town to Hiram’s home.
Make that estate. We parked at one end of the circular drive, where there was just enough room, the rest of the area already occupied. I saw a lot of SUVs, tires and fenders spattered with dirty ice and dripping dry. We got out with Scout trotting at our heels, stopping once or twice to throw his head up and smell the air. Trees peppered the lots everywhere on the street, evergreens straight and limber, their branches clear, their bodies tall against the wind and weather. I could smell a bit of sap myself, against the crisp afternoon. I liked the neighborhood and wondered if any of the clan lived here besides Hiram.
Evelyn must have been stationed at a window, waiting for us, because she rushed out before we were more than a third of the way to the door. She looked gorgeous, fitted slacks, a fitted coat with a beautiful blouse underneath, her hair knotted in fashionable braids, and her eyes shining with excitement. She reminded me of Christmas mornings and Santa. I dropped a hand to Scout and softly told him “Off” so that he wouldn’t bounce up in similar joy.
Evelyn got in between us and locked her arms in ours. “Isn’t this place fantastic? It looks and feels like Hiram.”
“It does.” Carter shot me a look over her head, and I gave a little nod. Yes, Evelyn knew more than she did before I had talked with her, but I had no idea if she’d discussed it with the Iron Dwarf at all or not.
“You’re the last to get here, and I think we’re all ready,” she bubbled and gave my arm a squeeze before breaking free and breezing toward the open door.
“I’m not sure if I’m ready for this,” I said, but Carter laughed at me. I found it funny as well, and when we entered the doors, we were both grinning from ear to ear.
And then I saw my mother and her plus one across the foyer and vast living room of Hiram’s home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
WHO GOES THERE?
IT WAS THE fedora that struck me. I knew that hat, knew it from the Societas Obscura meeting, knew that the man wearing it had gotten close enough to influence me, to give me advice, to coax me into behaving. I didn’t know who he was . . . a little taller than my mother, about the same mid-forties in age, well-dressed if a bit behind the current styles, with a nice mustache across pleasant features. They stood far enough away that I still couldn’t get a clear look at his face, but he seemed nice-looking. Though if she thought he was just some scholarly civilian who’d happened into her sphere, she was terribly wrong. I needed to tell her that.
Our gazes met for the barest of moments, and then he turned his back to me, taking my mother by the hand and drawing her into the kitchen and great room where refreshment tables glistened with glasses and dishes, and they disappeared among the crowd. I saw a number of Dwarf clan members among the diners.
“What’s wrong?”
I wondered if I should drag Carter into our family disagreement, before deciding on the negative. We’d sort this out together, if we still had a together. “Nothing. Everything is fine.”
“Fine,” he repeated. “That’s one of those trigger words, isn’t it?”
I punched him lightly in the bicep. “Stop it.”
“Fine. But you will catch me up later.” He took up Scout’s lead. “Looks like Hiram has a screened-in porch. Let’s go mingle.”
We found Hiram and Evelyn’s parents (and Evelyn) there, as well as three other high-powered couples from the city council. Hiram was explaining how he’d inherited the lot and commissioned a builder, as though no one ever built custom homes anymore, but if anyone knew custom, this crowd did. Everything looked to be going well until Hiram flicked a look at me. His brows knotted, and I swear a storm cloud settled across his forehead. What was that for?
Oh, wait. My talk with Evie?
I mouthed, “I can explain” to him, but he turned a broad shoulder to me, ignoring me further. Wow. Maybe I should plan to leave the party before it got any harsher! Carter bumped shoulders with me as he reached for a drink and offered me one, hot cider from the luscious smell of it. I sipped at it cautiously as we approached everyone. Evelyn’s mom swung about.
“Tessa! You’re looking beautiful tonight.”
She made it sound like such an exception, I wondered what I looked like other nights, but made a gracious sound anyway. Mr. Statler merely nodded a greeting but did not stop his conversation about property and conservation and ease ways, to which Hiram responded only, “Naturally.” The other two couples looked as if they hung on every word until Scout decided to bump a leg, nosing out an hors d’oeuvres plate that was sagging too temptingly close to his level.
The whatever it was, I didn’t get a good luck at it, disappeared with one slurp.
“Goodness,” chirped the redhead with silvery highlights. “That was quick. I didn’t even see your dog.”
“I’m sorry, really. Can I get you another . . .”
“Pâté, but no thank you. He did me a favor, really. Luncheon will be served shortly, I understand, so I shouldn’t be eating now anyway.” The woman gave Scout a congratulatory pat and set her empty plate aside. Scout promptly sat and watched her closely for seconds. Her mouth curved. “No pressure, I see.”
Mr. Statler looked to the redhead’s husband. “A great sense of humor. No wonder you told me she was a keeper.”
That drew a quiet chuckle all around, as I dropped a hand to Scout’s collar. “Have some place I can put him for a nap?”
Hiram pointed a blunt finger to the screened-in area. “Also, there’s a brook that runs along the edge of the property. He might enjoy a walk out there later.” He barely finished the sentence before turning away from me again. I seemed to be making missteps in my relationships all over the place. Iron Dwarves didn’t seethe, but they could certainly grow cold and judgmental.
Evelyn caught up with me as I put Scout into a comfortable corner. “He’s a little uptight,” she confessed to me.
“Tell me about it. Did he get angry with you?”
“No, not really. I did have the feeling that he might not have told me, and that bothers me. How long would he have waited? Would I have never known? Or was he thinking we’d just run our course and he wouldn’t have to.”
“I can’t answer that for you.”
“I know, and I don’t want you to. I want him to, but this isn’t the time or place, I guess.” She brushed her hand against her forehead, putting some stray stands of hair back into position. “I just don’t know if I can wait.” I was glad to see she didn’t have crazy eyes.
“Whatever his plans, we know that Hiram is one of the good guys. He’d never knowingly hurt you, even if his hesitation is driving you a bit crazy.”
She rolled an eye before acknowledging, “Yeah, he’s definitely a gentleman. He seems to be getting along really well with my dad.”
“What about your mom?”
“She’s always been the suspicious type. I had to do an end run around her just to stay friends with you.”
That surprised me. Well, it did, and it didn’t. I knew well the suspicion that had settled on our little household years ago, but not that her
mother had bought into it. “Wow.”
“That’s why I got to drive you home from campus so many times. Her way of checking on you to make sure you were doing all right.”
As if I might go bad like a carton of dairy shoved into the back corner of the refrigerator. I gave Scout the Stay signal and trailed Evelyn back into the main part of the house. “I had no idea.”
“She can be subtle.” Evelyn wrinkled her nose slightly. “Unlike my dad who is . . . how shall I say it . . . relentlessly forthright?”
“And you’re a happy blend of both.”
“Thanks! Did you get a look at the menu?”
“Not had a chance.”
“Oh, let me show you.” She dragged me right past our little group, leaving Carter behind, and into a living room/dining room area that was dominated by an L-shaped table, with porcelain and good crystal and sterling silver, along with place cards and small menus tent-folded and sitting on each plate. It looked like something out of movies and society scenes. In a way, it made me uneasy because this was not the Hiram I knew, the young man who enjoyed pizza or taco night. Not the builder who’d redesigned and constructed our new cellar. Nor the Iron Dwarf who lived in a fantasy old forest with his clan. Was this version of Hiram even real?
I looked at the card. We had soup and salad coming up . . . well, not soup. Bisque. And not an ordinary salad, but a salad du maison. And then a fowl dish and a beef dish. Then fruit and cheese. And a tartlet of some kind following. He’d obviously hired a catering company. I don’t know what I’d expected. Ribs and potato salad, maybe.
“Looks good,” I told her. Evelyn beamed as she put the card down.
“Fish if no one wishes beef.”
“Oh, I’ll take a filet mignon any day.”
“I bet you would.”
We sauntered down the length of one of the tables, eying the place cards. “Did you help pick the food out?”
“Nope. He did it all on his own, with suggestions from the caterers, of course. They’re the same people that are going to do part of Dad’s inauguration.”
“Ah. Makes sense.” We turned at a junction of the tables where I discovered my mother and her intended sitting about half a world away from mine. I stared down at the cards and wondered if I should swap them out, just to be ornery.
I didn’t have time because Evelyn stopped all motion and stood stiff and quiet for a long moment. She half-turned then and looked at me with her eyes very wide. “Change is coming. An unimaginable disaster for the nation. We will not meet again for many months without risking our lives. This will be one of the hardest trials our country, our world, will ever face. Remember.”
Then she closed her eyes for a long count before opening them and taking a deep breath.
“You’ve got to stop doing that,” I told her. “It’s getting scary.”
“Oh, shoot. What did I say?”
“It doesn’t matter. Doom and gloom. Real fun party stuff.”
“Well, you’re a big help.”
I shrugged. “Call them as I see them.” But I wouldn’t forget what she said nor could I match it to anything I knew might be happening down the road. Her words had been too vague, except maybe the “disaster” one. “Don’t think about it. It wasn’t personal.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Nah. You just threw shade on the whole nation, that’s all.”
She pulled out a dining chair and sat down abruptly. “Oh, wow.”
About then Scout let out a sharp bark. It violated his Stay command, so I went to see what the problem could be. He jumped up and danced around a bit, telling me that he needed a potty break. I hadn’t taken his leash off, so I grabbed it up, found my coat in a pile on the sofa table in the foyer, and made my excuses for both of us.
Outside, sharp, cold air bit at my nose and cheeks and whistled about my ears, but Scout trudged into it briskly with his head up and his tail in a determined wave.
I talked to him as we slow-jogged toward the outer boundaries of the property. He had a fence, of sorts, out of trimmed hedges and trees, but nothing solid and impenetrable. Wildlife, deer and such, could wander in and out as wished. I could hear the brook, which sounded to me more like a river, and it hadn’t frozen solid although when we came across it, the banks sparkled with a rim of ice. Scout bounded in for a drink and nearly as quickly bounded out. He found a tree to decorate with pee, and a fallen log to investigate for rabbit warrens underneath it. That brilliant blue sky overhead seemed to have dimmed a bit, muting to more of a stormy gray and blue canopy . . . or maybe I’d wandered into a different forest.
It felt different. The bird songs and animal chatter I’d only half-heard ceased altogether as the fringe of wilderness went ominously quiet. I told myself that, between Carter and Evelyn, I’d been spooked. The silence meant nothing. Scout dropped back to pace me, his wild enthusiasm now measured. His ears and nose went on high alert. What was he scenting or trailing? Whatever it was, he devoured it, yet he didn’t gallop ahead to meet it. Something made him cautious or protective of me.
The icy cold of the day faded. A kind of humidity set in, and I could smell freshly turned and fallen leaves as though it were only an autumn day, a season long gone by. The brook sounded louder, its burbles uncongested by any ice at all. A soft breeze ruffled the trees. I looked up and saw not only the evergreens but huge chestnut trees here and there which no longer grew in Richmond or most of the east coast since the blight wiped most of them out. I stared at their mighty and widespread branches, alive with vibrant fall colors. How did Hiram manage to save these . . . or was this even modern-day Richmond? It felt different and smelled different, and eventually a few murmuring sounds crept back in that I did not recognize. That alone sent twinges of alarm down my back, and I knotted my hand more firmly about Scout’s leash. My stone hadn’t reacted, and I had my bracers on, and they stayed quiescent, too. That did not soothe me at all. Then I heard the distinctive crack of a branch breaking, and the noise of brush giving way. Something paced us on the other side of the hedges and branches, as footfalls reached me.
I searched the shadows which had become thicker, but I couldn’t see through the foliage. Scout halted with me, his ears perked forward, his whole body straining to catch—what? My hand curled even tighter about his leash. I didn’t want him bolting off. He wouldn’t run, but he might attack, and that could be disastrous. Was this friend or foe?
Something quite possibly not human and definitely not four-footed. Or maybe it was. The forest closing in about us muffled the approaching sounds. Hooves? Boots? I couldn’t distinguish it. Something that trod through an entirely different time of year, bringing a warning warmth with it, and a strangeness that made my throat tighten. The only thing I could feel happy about was that I did not smell that coppery tang of spilled blood or decaying flesh the vampire’s minion had brought with him. Or peppermint strong enough to burn the fine hairs out of my nose! I knew it wasn’t another minion, but I had no idea what a Master Vampire might smell like. Wrapped in magic and wards, Morty had written, and likely disguised beyond recognition. He could be pacing us now. I tried not to think of his name, but that didn’t succeed. I wouldn’t breathe it, though. I wouldn’t!
Leaves crunched. The aroma of another season rose heavily into the air. Another bush noisily gave way as though our stalker no longer cared about stealth. I dug my phone out to call and found the screen black and unresponsive, dead as it could be. Replacing it in my pockets, I took a deep breath quietly. I’d have to name names three times to get anyone here—wherever it was—if they could get here.
Then I slipped my hand inside my coat and touched the lumpy bulk of Steptoe’s flash-bangs. They might not stop whatever menaced us, but they would certainly cause a distraction while I got up the salt incantation. Then, depending on what I could discern, I would prepare one of the other offensive spells and hope I didn’t set t
he forest on fire. Not that I thought I could, but the impossible autumn season might just be dry enough. Then Scout and I would have to run for our lives.
But I wasn’t without options. Swallowing down the fear that tried to push up out of the pit of my stomach, through my chest and into my throat, I spread my feet a little to center myself. I prepped myself for some spell dropping.
And that’s when the being strode out of winter, backdropped by the greenery and orange, yellow, and red color of leaves that had yet to fall in an autumn that couldn’t be, and crossed the brook.
So tall that his head seemed wreathed in lower tree branches, he wore a fringed deerskin shirt and trousers, and moccasin boots that laced high on the ankle. I’d never seen anyone like him in person although he looked as though he could be a member of the Powhatan tribe, but Virginia has nearly a dozen indigenous tribes he could have hailed from. None of them dressed like this on a day-to-day basis, but he had. We traded looks, his fiercely brown eyes locked with mine, as I felt a shiver run through Scout. The quiver on the stalker’s back looked well-stocked with arrows, and he carried his bow loosely in his left hand. I didn’t know what I could say to him, and he didn’t look like he wanted friendly conversation.
A squeak finally escaped my throat: “Who?”
He took another step forward without answering. Scout skinned his lips back. I froze for a moment as his body came free of the branches, and I saw that he carried a rack of antlers on his head and those mostly hadn’t been branches at all. Not human, quite. More than. Someone on a level with Malender perhaps. A deity who looked distressed to find me in its territory. He nocked an arrow onto the bow as he raised it. The thought ran through me that it was longbows that ended the protection of medieval armor. That arrow looked like it could split me in two.
I got hold of a flash-bang and tossed it, to keep him at a distance, fearing those sharply pointed horns. It didn’t go off as it should, but it made him drop his bow as it sizzled and smoked. He held his free hand up, and the explosion fizzled away with a tiny burp. I debated tossing another but figured it would be a dud as well. I hadn’t wanted to pick a brawl at all and told myself he’d started it.
