Into the Woods

by Kim Harrison

  “Crap on toast,” Jenks swore, using one of Rachel’s favorites, but pleased that Jumoke had indeed been tapping off his sugar level. The kid had a head on his shoulders. “She did. I remember now. She put it around the azaleas this spring.” Frustrated, he rose up as his wing speed increased. “I hate it when people use stuff and don’t replace it. How am I supposed to make a bomb without nitrogen?”

  Bis brought up a serious-looking black screen and started deleting evidence of Web sites and searches. “How about mothballs?” he asked, and Jenks laughed.

  “You’ve been watching TV again. No, mothballs and pixy dust don’t mix. Besides, that would make something more like napalm, and we want inward destruction, not outward devastation. Vincet wouldn’t thank me for destroying his garden.” Jenks frowned. Ammonia, maybe, but Ivy didn’t keep that on hand like she did the soap and lighter fluid. “We want a nice simple pop, and for that, we want fertilizer.”

  “How much?”

  Jenks looked at Bis as he pushed back from the table, wondering what Ivy would say if she knew the gargoyle had been using her computer. Silent, Jenks pointed to a bowl hanging from the overhead rack.

  Bis’s pushed-in face smiled as he flew to the rack, his wings sending the loose papers on the table flying. Jumoke took flight, yelling that Bis was as dumb as a downdraft, but Jenks squinted through it, not moving as the gargoyle dropped to the counter with the larger bowl.

  “We’ve got lots of nitrogen at the basilica,” Bis said, grinning at him through the settling papers. “I’ll ask my dad about nymphs and dryads, too.”

  Alarmed, Jenks clattered his wings. “Hey, this is a run, not a job,” he called, and Bis hesitated, flipping in midair to cling to the archway to the hall with the bowl dangling from a hind foot. “You can’t steal it from the gardener shed.”

  Bis made his wheezing laugh, looking evil as he hung upside down with the white tuft of his tail twitching. “No problem. They can’t give this stuff away. Thirty minutes.” Instead of dropping to fly out, he slithered up to the hall ceiling, going nearly invisible as he shifted his skin tone to match the shadows. Only the glint of the copper bowl gave him away. That, and the faint scrabbling of claws. Jenks would be really worried about the scratches on the ceiling if he didn’t know where they came from. The ceiling, the walls, the window ledges . . . He had to get Bis to start wearing some clothes. A bandanna or something.

  Stifling a shudder, Jenks turned back to Jumoke, seeing him pale and wide-eyed. “It gives me the creeps when he does that skin thing,” the small pixy said, and Jenks nodded.

  “Me too. But we need to figure out how to mix this stuff up in one batch before he comes back or we’ll be here all night. I know Vincet’s going to keep his kids up, and Sylvan might burn another one of his new-lings. And carefully!” he added when Jumoke tipped the bowl with the lighter fluid to look in it. “The last thing I need is Ivy coming home and finding fire trucks at the curb. She’d have hairy canaries coming out her, ah, ear.”

  At his shoulder, peering in at the lighter fluid, Jumoke shook his head. “Women.”

  That one word jerked Jenks’s attention up, and his own smile grew to match Jumoke’s. Pride filled him. Jax hadn’t been like this. He wasn’t making a mistake teaching Jumoke his skills. This was going to work, and his son would have a unique talent, one that would help him find a wife, and then all his children could have their happy-ever-after.

  Jenks clapped him across the shoulders. “Can’t live with them, can’t die without them,” he said, beaming with pride. This was not a mistake. Not a mistake at all.

  FIVE

  Pigeon poop?” Vincet exclaimed, aghast as he hovered with his three children clustered behind him, clearly frightened of the sight of Ivy reclining on the nearby bench. “You’re going to save my family with pigeon poop!”

  “Pigeon poop,” Jenks affirmed, concentrating on the silvery goop in the bowl Bis was holding steady. The moon was up, making it easy to see Vincet’s horror as he dug his hand into the softly glowing mess. Taking another oozing wad back to the statue, he slapped it onto the smooth stone with the rest. “That and pixy dust!” he said cheerfully, trying not to think about it as he wiped his hands off on a fold of stone. He’d never be able to handle a mixture of lighter fluid, soap, and nitrogen like this without the pixy dust to act as a stabilizer. It was the dust that made it go boom so spectacularly, too.

  “That’s disgusting!” Vincet said softly, and Bis, holding the bowl, rolled his eyes.

  “Tell me about it,” the gargoyle said. His voice was stoic, but Jenks could tell he was almost laughing. The white tufts of fur in his ears were trembling.

  Ivy, too, smirked. The living vampire had driven them out here on her cycle—Bis on the gas tank and grinning into the air like a dog—but now she looked bored, lying back on the bench with her knees bent to gaze up into the branches of the tree. It was obvious that she’d been at someone earlier tonight; her color was high, her motions edging into a vampire-quick speed, and her obvious languorous sultriness, which she tried to hide from Rachel, poured from the slightly Asian-looking woman in a flood of release. Even Vincet had noticed, wisely not saying anything when the leather-clad woman had strode up to Daryl’s statue, hip cocked as she pronounced she could take the nymph—if she had the brass to show up.

  Right now, though, Ivy looked more inclined to seduce the next being on two legs she encountered, not fight them, her long straight hair falling almost to the cement as she lay on the bench, and a sated smile on her placid face. No wonder Ivy satisfied her blood urges during Rachel’s weekly absences. Seeing Ivy like this might blow everything to hell. An emotionally constipated Ivy was a safe Ivy.

  “This would go faster if someone would help me,” Jenks said, eyeing the goop remaining when he flew down for another handful.

  In a smooth motion, Ivy sat up and swung her boots to the cement to stand. “I’m going to do a perimeter,” she said, heels silent on the sidewalk as she headed out. “And don’t put that bowl in my cycle bag. Got it?” she shouted over her shoulder.

  Jumoke landed atop Bis’s head and fell into wide-footed stance that would allow him the best balance if the wind should gust. “Mom made me promise not to touch it,” the kid said, clearly proud of his new red belt.

  “I’m holding the bowl,” Bis said quickly, eyes darting.

  Vincet took his daughter’s hand, pretending he needed to watch her.

  “Chicken shits,” Jenks muttered, scooping out a handful and throwing it at the statue. It hit with a splat, and Ivy, somewhere in the dark, gasped, swearing at him.

  At that, Bis grinned to look like a nightmare. “Pigeon shits,” he said cheerfully, and Jenks smeared another glowing handful on Sylvan’s statue’s nose.

  The chiseled face looked as if it could see him and knew what he was doing. “It’s not that bad,” Jenks muttered, but his nose was wrinkling at the stink. It seemed to be sticking to him even if the modified plastique wasn’t. His gaze dropped to Rachel’s bowl, glinting in the lamplight, and his wings hummed faster. Ivy wouldn’t tell Rachel, would she?

  Hovering backward, he looked over his work, almost putting his hands on his hips before stopping at the last moment. If he’d done it right, it’d shatter at the base and out toward the walkway. Sylvan would be free. Jenks’s gaze shifted to the small opening under the dogwood that was Vincet’s home. It was too close for his liking.

  “Jumoke,” Jenks said tersely, and the young pixy rose on a glittering column of sparkles. “Set down a layer of flammable dust on the plastique. I have to get this crap off of me.”

  “You bet, Dad,” he said enthusiastically, zipping to the statue. Jenks had put a heavy layer of dust in the mix already, but a top dusting would flash it all into flame faster than any petroleum product made from dead dinosaur.

  Bis was stretching his neck to get away from the smell, holding the bowl and being more dramatic than Jrixibell pretending to have a sore wing so she wouldn’t have
to eat her pollen. He’d used only about half of what he had made. Maybe he should blow both statues up. That would piss off Daryl.

  “You got a problem?” Jenks asked, and Bis shook his head, breath held.

  “No,” Bis said, his thick lips barely moving. “You done with this?”

  “For now,” he said, and Bis shoved the bowl under the bench, then scuttled to the middle of the sidewalk, gasping dramatically when he stopped in the puddle of lamplight.

  Frowning, Jenks wiped his hands off on his red bandanna, then wondered what he was going to do with it. He couldn’t put the symbolic flag of good intent back around his waist. Not only did it stink, but taking it back to Matalina to wash wasn’t an option. Glancing at Vincet, he dropped it into the bowl. If Vincet had a problem with it, he could just suck Tink’s toes.

  Just off the sidewalk beside Sylvan’s statue, Vincet was on one knee, trying to get his kids to go inside. The triplets were clearly unhappy about being told to go to ground. Vincet was just as reluctant to leave Jenks alone to take them there. Even now, he was eyeing the bow and quiver that Jenks had brought with him to ignite the explosive.

  Give me a break, Jenks thought dryly. Like he’d take the man’s garden? Frowning, he reached for his bow peeking from the small bag beside the dung-filled copper pot. Vincet stiffened when Jenks put the quiver over his shoulders and strung the bow. Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten rid of his red bandanna.

  “Go inside,” Vincet said tersely to his children, but they only clung to him tighter.

  “Papa? I’m scared,” Vi said, her eyes riveted to the crap-smeared statue.

  Irritation flashed over Vincet, and taking her hands, the young father faked a smile for his eldest and only daughter. “Go wait with your mother so Jenks can fix this,” he said. “I can’t leave another man alone in my garden with a bow, Vi. Even Jenks. It isn’t right.”

  “But Uncle Jenks won’t touch the flowers,” she whined. “Papa, please come with us. Don’t let the ghost out. Please!”

  Smiling, Jenks gestured for Jumoke, who was bored and flying up and down like a yo-yo. They had time before the moon hit its zenith point. Daryl wouldn’t appear until Sylvan did, and hopefully the statue would be demolished before then. Jenks had to give Jumoke something to do. That darting up and down was irritating.

  “Come here,” he said as he brought out from the bag a pot the size of two fists. “I want you to hold on to the coal pot,” he said, handing it to the excited pixy.

  “Got it,” he said, wings clattering, and Jenks reached up, snagging his foot when he started to flit away.

  “Keep it lit, Jumoke,” he said, yanking him back down so hard Jumoke lost his balance and had to scramble to find it again. “Give it sips of air, nothing more. If it goes out from too much or too little air, I’m going to have to ask Ivy for a light, and that would be embarrassing.”

  “Uh, guys?” Bis interrupted, claws scraping as he slid to a stop beside them.

  “Just a minute, Bis,” Jenks said, turning back to Jumoke. “When I ask, take the top off, okay? Not before. The coal won’t last long given full air.” His voice was severe, but Jumoke was holding the small pot with the right amount of care now, and Jenks was satisfied.

  “Go wait with your mother!” Vincet shouted across the way, and his two boys darted away to leave a heavy dust trail. But Vi . . . Vi didn’t look so good.

  “Jenks?” Bis said, clawed feet shifting, but Jenks’s attention was riveted to Vi. Her dust didn’t look right, and as he watched, her eyes rolled back and her wings collapsed. And her aura—went silver.

  Shit.

  “Vi!” Vincet shouted, scooping up the girl as she fell into convulsions. “The dryad’s taking her!” he exclaimed, eyes wide in horror as he held his daughter. “She wasn’t even asleep! Blow it up! Blow it up now!”

  “Sorry,” Bis said, ears pinned as he looked sheepish. “I tried to tell you.”

  Feeling betrayed, Jenks looked at the moon. It wasn’t anywhere near its zenith! Reaching behind him, he fumbled for one of his arrows tied with dandelion fluff at the tip. Wings clattering, he turned to Jumoke, finding him . . . gone.

  “What the hell?” he stammered, rising up to scan the area, but there wasn’t a single twinkle of dust anywhere. He was gone! “Jumoke!”

  Vincet flew to him with Vi in his arms, his wings clattering and desperation falling from him like the dust he was shedding. “He’s hurting her!” Vincet shouted, Vi’s skin red and her dust white-hot. “Blow it up! Free him!”

  “I can’t! Jumoke has the firepot!” Jenks hovered, poised and scanning. Bis waited on the sidewalk, tail lashing, but Jumoke was gone. Ivy was gone. By the dogwood, Noel was a faint glow gathering the two boys and pulling them underground. They were safe. Where the hell is Jumoke!

  “Jumoke!” Jenks shouted, exasperated, and Bis took to the air with two heavy wing beats to find him. They didn’t have time for this, but as Jenks started off in the other direction, he jerked to a halt in midair. Something smelled like honey and sun-warmed gold.

  Tink’s dildo, the warrior woman was back.

  “You will not!” echoed a vehement voice off the nearby townhouses, and there she was, standing on the sidewalk beside her statue, her bare feet spread wide and her robes shifting. Her expression was frantic, and upon seeing the bow in his hands, she flung her hand out.

  “Look out!” Bis shouted, leaping for him.

  A blast of honey-smelling air hit them. Tumbling into the air, Jenks felt his heart pound, but he fought with his instinct, folding his wings against him and tightening into a ball as he flew out of control. Holy crap, he was heading right for the trees!

  “Gotcha!” came Bis’s faint exhalation, and the wind shifted as the gargoyle caught him, pulling him close.

  Jenks’s eyes opened to see the world dip and swoop. In Bis’s other hand were Vincet and Vi. Vincet looked terrified, but Vi’s expression held a shocking amount of hatred. It was Sylvan. That’s why Daryl had appeared! The stupid dryad. Couldn’t he have waited a few more minutes?

  With a sharp drop and a wrench that hurt Jenks’s neck, Bis dropped to the ground beside the sidewalk next to a large rock. The wind died. Daryl was coughing with her hand to her chest, shaking as she tried to catch her breath in the pollution-stained air.

  Jenks unwedged himself from Bis’s grip and flitted down to feel small beside him. Taking to the air was too chancy, and he could hit the statue from here.

  “Why didn’t you shoot it!” Vincet yelled at him, angry as he struggled with Vi, they, too, firmly on the earth.

  Where the hell is Jumoke! Jenks thought, still not sure what end was up yet.

  “I warned you,” Daryl wheezed, pulling herself straight again. She wiped her mouth, then hesitated, shocked at the sheen of blood glinting in the lamplight. Gathering her resolve, she hid it, shouting, “You will die before I allow Sylvan to perpetrate his abuse on another!”

  “You’re a whiny little nymph!” Vi shouted as she struggled to be free. “The gods are dead, and actors play their rules! You’re alone! Give up! The world’s too ugly for your kind!”

  “That’s the trouble with you dryads. You talk too much,” Daryl said. Eyes narrowed, she raised her sword. The nearby light flickered and went out. The one behind it went black, too, and like dominos, the townhouses across the park went dark. A distant chorus of complaint rose, joined by the beeping of smoke detectors.

  Bis shifted his wings, his back to the rock. “I got a bad feeling about this!” he squeaked.

  “Hey! Golden girl!” Ivy shouted from behind them, and Jenks rose up, wings flashing red when he saw the silver dusting of Jumoke with her. “Pick on someone your own size!” she added as she strode forward, boots clacking aggressively.

  “Dad!” Jumoke exclaimed as he darted to him.

  “Where have you been?” Jenks shouted, his relief coming out as anger. “We can’t blow up the statue without that pot!”

  Jumoke’s wings droope
d as he landed beside him, pot hugged to his middle. “I’m sorry. I was getting Ivy. I saw Daryl, and I just . . .” The boy’s face screwed up. “I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have left.”

  “Blow it up!” Vincet exclaimed, jerking when Vi got her arm free and smacked his face. He caught her wrist, and Sylvan howled. The white-hot dust spilling from Vi was turning the moss black, burned.

  “Let me out!” she said, her childlike voice sounding wrong. “Before that bitch stops you!”

  “Ivy’s in the way,” Jenks said tightly. Giving both Jumoke and Vincet a look to stay grounded, Jenks darted after her, coming to a halt at her shoulder as his partner stopped eight feet back from Daryl. The spicy scent of vampire spun through him, seeming to shift his own dust a darker tint. Ivy was pissed. Hell, even her aura was sparkling.

  Seeing them together, Daryl dropped her sword, flushed as she looked at Ivy’s tight clothes and anger. “You’re aligned with the pixy? Who are you? A goddess?”

  “Ooo! Ooo!” Jenks said, looping the bow over his shoulder so he could have both hands free for his own sword. “I’ve heard this one before. Just say yes, Ivy.”

  Ivy was eyeing Daryl with the same evaluation. “Worse,” she said softly, and Jenks shuddered. “I’m heir to madness. Vessel of perversion. Your nightmare should you cross me.”

  Daryl’s chin lifted, trembling. “Indeed. We might be sisters then, for I’m the same.”

  Ivy hunched slightly, eyeing the woman almost hungrily. “You hurt my friends.” A long hand went out, beckoning. Her lips drew back in a horrible smile, and she let her small but sharp canines show. “Can you hurt me?”

  The nymph blinked as the moonlight hit them, then she tightened her sword grip.

  The air seemed to hesitate, and when Bis’s nails scraped, Ivy jerked, jumping at her.

  Jenks shot straight up, yelling, “Get her away from the statue so I can blow it up!”

  “You can’t!” Daryl cried out, moving impossibly fast as she dodged out of Ivy’s attack. Her sword was swinging toward Ivy’s back, and Jenks yelled a warning.