We all pondered her declaration for a minute.
“I just don’t understand it. Why would anyone want to harm us? Not to mention two disparate groups—rogue Salamanders and a Were?” I stroked Carson’s chubby hand, his fingers curled on my shirt. His eyes closed, his cheeks flushed pink. I saw a blue vein through the translucent skin at the inside corner of his eye and his wisps of hair were sweetly sweaty.
Newt looked at Eliza. His tone casual, he repeated his earlier question. “Did you recognize the other Were?”
“No.” Eliza stood up and walked three paces toward the kitchen. “If I’m done being interrogated, can we have lunch?”
Tim didn’t look as if he agreed the so-called interrogation had ended, but nonetheless didn’t object as he followed Eliza into the kitchen. Newt jauntily joined them.
Pausing behind them, Sheila lowered her voice and asked me, “What’s up with Eliza?”
I shook my head. “Worried, I guess. I’m sure she’s upset the other Were escaped her.”
“I’m surprised he was skilled enough. Our girl’s quite a hunter and I would bet on her in a fight.”
“I guess he might have outweighed her? And he knew the area?”
“I suppose.”
Tim called from the kitchen to ask where the mustard was, so Sheila promised to bring me a sandwich and disappeared after them. I stared into space, alone with my thoughts and feeling less sanguine than my words indicated.
****
“I guess that’s why the Duran Duran song is ‘Hungry Like a Wolf,’ huh?” I said, eyeing the remnants of a couple pounds of lunchmeat, most of a loaf of bread, and two bags of chips.
Sheila yawned and settled one arm on Tim’s shoulders after the stretch. “I think it’s ‘Hungry Like the Wolf.’ ” I threw a chip at her, which she caught neatly one-handed. “At this rate, I’m going to start charging the pack council for room and board,” she teased Tim.
“I’m going back to find that Were. Without Julie. I can’t be distracted by worrying about anyone.” Eliza pushed back her chair and stood. “I’ll search along the river; he can’t hide his tracks completely.”
“You and I will both go,” said Tim. Eliza pursed her lips, but nodded assent. Tim continued, “Newt, you’ll stay here and keep watch?”
“Sure.”
With those quick plans made, Eliza and Tim drove off, Sheila went back to her spell books, and Carson and I laid down for a nap. When we climbed the stairs, Newt leafed through some magazines and prowled the living room, so I assumed he’d keep himself busy somehow.
Carson and I woke up an hour and a half later. I took advantage of the relative quiet to snuggle with my little boy and let my mind wander. As soon as it wandered in the direction of things like fire, enemies, and Eliza’s odd behavior, I yanked the leash firmly and forced myself to think about Carson’s cuteness, the perfect weather in southern Oregon during early September, and the surprise bonus of shopping for all new clothes and furniture. Which surely was an upside of this whole thing, right?
Thinking about those logistics reminded me I needed to stop by the insurance office and fill out a whole bunch of papers to start the reimbursement process. I also needed to face rebuilding the house, but didn’t want to even think about that now—not until we were out of danger, at least. But I’d need money soon, so Carson and I went downstairs to suggest an exciting outing to the insurance office.
“Okay,” said Sheila. “Maybe afterward we can stop by the garden center and the food co-op, so I can pick up some ingredients.” She gestured to a couple of pages full of neatly handwritten notes.
“Is it near Harry & David’s?” asked Newt.
“Nope, sorry.” At Sheila’s quizzical look, I added, “Our Salamander has a penchant for Moose Munch and just realized he’s near the source.”
“Well, who doesn’t like Moose Munch?” Sheila smiled and we kept the conversation light as we piled into her candy-apple red convertible, Newt folding himself into the backseat.
We continued the façade of a normal outing through my visit to the insurance office, where they gave me a preliminary check for five thousand dollars, updated me on the progress of my claim, provided me with what seemed like ten million forms, and told me about the living stipend I’d receive until my house was rebuilt. The whole insurance response impressed me. Time consuming and form-laden, yes, but it really seemed like I would receive full value for everything I owned and they’d rebuild my house any way I chose, up to market value of the old structure. Carson showed his best-behaved baby self as he chortled in his car seat and practiced hanging onto his toys.
As Sheila drove down Oak Street toward the food co-op, Newt said, “Okay. ’Manders are following us.”
Sheila reflexively stepped on the brake in alarm.
Newt twisted around in his seat to look out the back. “I thought I sensed them behind us earlier, when we were on the main road. Now I’m sure. They’re definitely following us. Don’t stop, Sheila.”
“But what do I do?” Sheila asked. Both her hands tightened on the wheel and she kept darting glances at the rearview mirror.
“Just drive. I’m trying to spot them.” Even now, Newt’s voice hadn’t lost its cheerful timber, making it seem like this was more of a game than a life-and-death matter.
Sheila drove around semi-aimlessly for several blocks, as both Newt and I craned our heads this way and that trying to find the Salamanders. I kept rubbing sweaty hands on my jeans.
Sheila gasped. “Newt! The car’s overheating!”
“Shoot. Okay. Hold on.” His freckled brow tightened in concentration as he did…something.
I wasn’t sure where to look and ended up somehow dividing my attention between the temperature gauge, checking on Carson, watching Newt’s intent face, and scanning the cars nearby. The car’s temperature fluctuated wildly.
“Newt?” I forced the words out of my tight throat. “Is the car going to catch on fire?”
“No.” Sweat started to bead on Newt’s forehead. “I’m pulling out the heat and sinking it into the ground. We’re going to be fine. I just—I can’t find them while I’m focusing on the heat.”
In fact, his eyes half-closed in concentration, so I started searching nearby vehicles in earnest. I shifted my feet in vague discomfort without identifying the source. After a moment, I spotted them.
“There! Wait.” We turned a corner and I twisted around wildly then pointed as the other car turned, too, nearly a block behind us. “That car! The woman in the passenger seat looks just like Newt.”
“What?” asked Sheila.
I waved my hand impatiently. “No, no, I mean, focusing like him, all intense. And they followed us for at least the last three turns. It’s them!”
I watched their car in the side mirror, then cursed violently as I saw heat mirage shimmering near the gas cap on the side of our car. I rolled down the window and stuck my head out to get a better look. The cherry red paint started to blister and swell. “The gas tank. Newt! They’re trying to make it explode.”
Newt clenched his jaw, sweat pouring down his face. I felt heat radiating off him, even though he sat in the backseat. The air around him shifted like distortions above hot pavement.
Sheila sped up and ran a stop sign, careened around a corner—coming extremely close to a parked car—and made a series of quick turns to try to hide our car in traffic. I watched out the back window, hoping we’d lost them, but the silver sedan screeched around the last corner we’d taken.
“Shit.”
“It’s okay. I needed the break. Stay as far away as you can—they’re less effective at a distance,” said Newt.
Damn. I moved my feet again before realizing why.
“Newt, the floor’s getting hot.”
“Gas line,” said Sheila.
The sedan traveled right behind us again, despite Sheila’s efforts. I glanced at the temperature gauge, in the red zone. The paint on the side of the car wasn’t any worse—
but I saw heat once again radiating from the area.
“Do something!” I yelled.
“I am doing something. I. Am. Stopping them. From burning. The car,” Newt said, through gritted teeth. “Two. Against. One.”
“Sheila.”
“I’m driving the damn car, Jules.”
“Fuck.” What was the use of having a Salamander and a Witch on my side if they couldn’t attack the enemies?
“Evasive maneuvers, Sheila!”
“It’s not a space ship,” Sheila yelled, but nonetheless sped up and headed toward a more congested area. I could tell she wanted to pass through a bunch of stoplights and escape the other car, which was a good idea. Hopefully, the Salamanders weren’t eager to attract attention and wouldn’t run red lights. Unfortunately, the timing was slightly off. At the second red light, we stopped with the ’Manders right behind us.
“Sheila! Put the roof down!”
She shot me a wild-eyed glance, but hesitated only a split second before pushing the button for the convertible top to retract. I turned all the way around in the seat, and got a good look at three people in the other car. They looked at me, too.
“Julie,” Newt only said the one word, but I heard the strain in his voice. The gauge on our dashboard kept jumping madly up and down and the engine whined in protest. The floor was so hot I couldn’t keep my feet down. The third Salamander must have thrown his strength into the fight when the car stopped.
“Hold on.” I tried to time it perfectly. I unbuckled my seat belt. As the roof tucked itself in and just as the light turned yellow for the traffic going the other direction, I grabbed Sheila’s steering wheel lock from the floor of the car, gave a mental prayer, and hurled it at the windshield of the car behind us. The lock hit the windshield with a loud bang and cracks spiderwebbed the glass. Car horns honked around us.
“Go! Go! Go!” I screamed as the light turned green. I knelt backward on the seat and Sheila accelerated, pushing me flat and breaking every traffic law in the middle of downtown touristy Ashland.
Several near misses and a couple of crazy turns later, Sheila stopped the car high on the side of the mountain above Ashland, where houses were big and rich people territorial of their view. She pulled around with the car facing in the direction we’d come, so we could ambush the enemies if they happened to follow us despite the broken windshield and late start.
As soon as the car stopped, Newt jumped out and hurried to a nearby landscaping rock the size of a coffee table. He pressed both hands on it and I watched the dirt covering the side blanch to pale brown, then crack and start to flake off. When he stood and came back over to us, the air near the rock shimmered with heat-illusion.
“Sinking the heat,” he explained. “Redirecting it without touch is a lot harder. I can hold a lot of it, but back there when all three of them poured power into the car, it was a bit intense.” He smiled.
Intense. Yeah, that was one word for it.
We sat there for a few minutes, watching the slope of the road carefully, and relaxed stage by stage. Sheila tried to call Tim’s cell phone, but it went straight to voice mail which probably indicated he was still in wolf form and his phone was…well, somewhere in magical limbo. Wherever Werewolves’ clothes and things went when they changed.
“I can’t sense them,” said Newt. “Which means they can’t sense me.”
I nodded, thankful for the reassurance.
Somewhere in the middle of all the ruckus, Carson managed to fall asleep.
“ ‘Evasive maneuvers?’ ” Sheila lifted an eyebrow at me.
“Red alert?” I suggested and we both started to laugh hysterically.
After we calmed down, Newt said, “I don’t get it.”
That set me off again and a minute passed before I could say, “You know, the TV show? Spaceships and aliens and holes in the time-space continuum.”
“Oh. I never watch that kind of thing.”
“You don’t?” Sheila sounded horrified, but like she tried to cover it.
“Nope.”
“Wow,” I said. “Why not?”
“I don’t know. I like things more realistic.”
His answer prompted a renewed fit of laughter and I raised my hands, gesturing weakly and wiping tears off my face. I couldn’t look at Newt, lest his puzzled expression prompt further hysterics. Instead, I closed my eyes, took some breaths and said, “You, a Salamander, thinking space travel is unrealistic.”
“But,” Newt’s voice held a smile, “Salamanders are real. Space ships and those ridged-forehead guys aren’t real.”
Well. True enough, I guess, and a sobering thought. I was still getting used to this so-called reality complete with Werewolves, Salamanders, and Witches.
“By the way,” Newt said. “Good job getting us away from them, Julie. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”
“Yeah, the lowly human comes in handy sometimes.”
Newt looked surprised. “I didn’t mean—”
“We know,” said Sheila. “Jules, you okay?”
“Yes, of course! Of course.”
“Quick thinking, Jules. Even though a dozen people probably ended up with a description of my car and the police’ll knock on my door any day now.”
“Shit. I didn’t even think of that, Sheila.”
She shook her head. “No big deal. If the Salamanders press charges, we’ll deal with it then. Better a ticket—or whatever—than our car becoming a fireball in the middle of downtown Ashland.”
I swallowed and rubbed my arms against the vivid image spawned by her words.
“Hey.” Sheila’s voice was softer now. “We’re okay. No fireball. No fire at all.”
I nodded and leaned back to adjust Carson’s car seat straps as an excuse not to meet anyone’s eyes.
“How did they find us?” I asked. “Do you think they have Sheila’s house staked out?”
Newt shook his head. “If they were hanging around her place, I would have felt it. The Weres would have smelled them, too.”
“Maybe they just got lucky?” said Sheila. “Happened to drive past us and sensed us? Like we sensed them?”
“I got a good look at them. The Salamanders. Did you two?” I asked.
“Cursorily, through the mirror,” said Sheila.
“I saw them, but was pretty focused on the heat energies. Not letting the engine overheat. The gas tank explode. You know, minor stuff.” Newt grinned and I rolled my eyes at him.
“Okay. Well, the one I saw last night wasn’t with them, so there must be at least four, all together. Um, three of them were in the car, two men and one woman. The man driving had bleach-blond shaggy hair, the messy-on-purpose kind. Like a surfer. Late twenties or early thirties. He wore sunglasses. Didn’t look huge, probably average height, but it’s hard to tell in a car. We’ll call him Surfer. Next to him in the passenger’s seat was…let’s call her Kitty, because she had these crazy cat-eye sunglasses.” I held my fingers up to demonstrate.
“I’d peg her for late thirties, but I could be wrong.” I thought for a minute, questioning myself. “Her skin looked kind of leathery. Like she’d tanned too much in high school and now started to wrinkle more than she should, you know? She had long brown hair with highlights—the kind that almost look like stripes. Vivid red lipstick.”
“Mutton dressed as lamb, huh?”
“What?” I stared at Sheila for a minute, before understanding. “Oh, yeah. Exactly. Okay. Surfer, Kitty, and…hmmm. Mr. Average.”
“Mr. Average?” Newt laughed.
“Well. He was nondescript, one of those faces you’d pass over in a crowd, ya know? Like, a good cover for his secret identity as a rogue Salamander?”
“Jesus, Jules. Can you give a better description than that?”
“Neat dark hair with a side part. Smooth-shaven, middle-aged.” I shrugged. “That’s about all I got—he was in the backseat.”
“Surfer, Kitty, and Mr. Average.”
“And Hipster Guy
,” I said. “That’s what I’ve been calling the one I saw last night—the one with the ponytail and the glasses. He wore sandals.”
“Sandals make him a hipster?” asked Sheila.
“No, it was his whole vibe. You’d understand if you saw him.”
Newt raised one eyebrow at me and nodded. “I’ll call the master and go over descriptions with him.”
“Master?” I asked.
“The head Salamander.”
“You call him master?”
“As in master of skills, not a slave owner or something. It’s a traditional title. Like in martial arts.”
“Folks,” said Sheila. “Let’s cut the chitchat and figure out if it’s safe to go get spell ingredients, if we should go back to my house, or if we need to find somewhere else to hide. What do you think?”
Chapter Seven
With Newt as our lookout, his eyes half-closed as he focused on sensing body heat or electromagnetic forces or whatever he said Salamanders used to find each other, we managed to get to a grocery store—not the co-op we’d been heading for earlier, but a place in the opposite direction—and the grange, which sold farm and garden supplies. Sheila picked up a whole bunch of seemingly random items, but I knew they all had a spell-related purpose. We then took a circuitous route toward Sheila’s townhouse on Mountain Ave, canvassing the area in a complex grid-like pattern to make sure there weren’t any ’Manders lurking. Newt didn’t find any, so we decided as long as they weren’t nearby—and since Newt would detect them if they came within striking range—we could safely return. Maybe they had been lucky to find us—their good luck, our bad. Maybe their smashed windshield decapitated them all. A girl could hope.
The car radio showed six thirty when we pulled into the driveway, and Tim and Eliza still weren’t back. I told myself not to worry. They might spend quite a bit of time tracking the other Were, since he seemed good at covering his scent. They were both strong, competent Werewolves and no news was good news. Usually.
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