by Holley Trent
Mallory swiped at tears budding in the corners of her eyes and repressed a sniffle.
Yes. She remembered. Her marriage been easy before it stopped so cruelly. She’d been spoiled. Maybe some part of her had been afraid for her to try again—had been afraid that nothing she ever did was going to hold up to what she had with her late husband.
But they weren’t comparable. She was in a different sort of world and needed a different kind of arrangement.
“I remember, Mama.”
“Good.” Mama gave Mallory a much-needed hug and then sent her back to the kitchen to finish her dinner. “I’m going to go snoop.”
“About what?”
“About whether or not Lachlann is going to catch up to Ótama.” Mama snatched up her purse and shoved her feet into her walking mules. “Oooh, I can just see it now. Sparks are going to fly.”
“I thought you said drama was bad, Gramma,” Vann said.
Mama gave him a long, scolding stare.
“Never mind,” he murmured and rushed his bowl to the sink.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Jody
“Do you think that perhaps we should have brought along Oliver or one of the other former Fallonites?” Ótama asked as Jody steered the rental truck down a long dirt road.
“This isn’t Fallon,” he reminded her. He’d decided to pursue representatives from a group just outside of Reno that the Afótama had long since ceased communications with. He was going in blind, not knowing if they were friendly or hostile anymore, or if they even knew anything about the circumstances in Norseton. After so long, renewing contact face-to-face seemed to be the best way to go about diplomacy.
She twined her fingers atop her lap and stared through the rain-slicked windshield. “No,” she murmured. “Not Fallon. Not even close. Still…”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“You’ll wait here?” Elliott asked her.
He’d insisted on tagging along. Jody had balked at first, but in the end, they all decided it was a good idea. Being outside of Norseton would probably lighten some of the heaviness on the web. The inner circle was trying to hold in so many secrets, and sometimes, it was easier to keep the web light if they worked out the angst separate from the collective.
“No,” Ótama said. “I don’t think so.”
Jody gritted his teeth, parked the SUV at the curb in front of the warehouse, and pulled up the parking brake. “You know you look out of place, right? It’s not rude of me to say that?”
She fidgeted with her seatbelt buckle until the catch finally released. “What would you have me do?”
“It’s the cloak,” Elliott said. He hopped out, as did their werewolf accompaniment Colt. Jody hoped they wouldn’t have a situation where they’d need to fall back on Colt’s particular style of defense, but he wasn’t so reckless to think that he was guaranteed safety just by virtue of being who he was.
Nan had essentially lost track of all of the fringe groups that had splintered off from Ótama’s voyage. Some were too small to be bothered with, and they’d taken special care to keep themselves obscure. Nan may have decided to cut them off and let them be, but Lora kept up the list of group names and locations anyway. Information was too valuable a thing to lose. If they’d been in touch with those groups during the disappearings, the Afótama might have had better data about who was harassing them.
Jody scoffed and released his seatbelt. Lora always thought ahead. Her magic was common sense. She had more of it than anyone.
And yet she’s the one locked in a pretty box right now.
That seemed ridiculous.
Elliott helped Ótama down from the high seat and waited for her to gather up some of the unnecessary fabric she wore that was dragging against the ground before extending his arm again.
“Oh, let me have my ancient trappings,” she said. “If I must adapt to your modern ways, can I not at least keep the few articles that provide me with security?”
Jody put his hand against her spine and gave her back an encouraging rub. “You talk about security, but you have so much magic pouring off you that the hair in my nostrils is twitching right now.”
“I have no idea what you’re referencing.”
Jody, Elliott, and Colt guffawed.
They may have all perceived magic in different ways, but Jody had a hunch that anyone with paranormal inclination standing within ten yards of Ótama would have felt the way energy swarmed and coalesced around her.
“Let’s just hope those folks in there aren’t sensitive to what she’s putting off.” Colt gestured to the building. “They’ll clam up before you have a chance to get a word out.”
They made their way up the cracked, uneven pathway to the building. All the clanking, hammering, and shouting that had been evident from the curb became more pronounced as they approached the door.
Decades ago, hundreds of workers per day had passed through that entryway and punched their timecards before spending their shifts assembling tiny plastic toys. The sign posted overhead alluded to a more dangerous livelihood now: YOU LOSE AN EYE, IT’S ON YOU. SAFETY FIRST.
“Well, that’s morbid as fuck.” Colt rooted a pair of safety glasses out of a conveniently situated barrel and wiped the lenses clean on his shirt. He handed them to Ótama. “Jody, what’d you say these people do?”
Jody pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through the assortment of research snapshots Lora kept filed in the royals’ note app cloud. “They make weapon replicas for films, museums, cosplayers, that sort of thing.”
“Blade on that thing is too sharp,” someone shouted in the distance. “Dull that thing down or we’re going to end up with another fucking lawsuit.”
Colt gave Jody an eloquent look that screamed “Well, that changes things.”
“Yeah.” Jody got it. Fake weapons could cut just as deep as the ones meant to kill. “Just be on your guard.”
They moved farther down the corridor, past the unoccupied reception desk, and through the factory’s open double doors. People in padded coveralls and protective headgear were all working industriously. Sparks were flying from forges and blowtorches. The place was sweltering.
Tugging his stifling collar from his neck, he scanned the expansive space, seeking out an obvious leader. “Maybe we should have called ahead, after all,” he murmured.
“If you had,” Elliott said, “they’d probably pretend not to be home.”
“True.” Jody walked toward the closest person he could see who wasn’t holding some sort of fiery implement of death. “Excuse me,” he called out to them.
Within moments, all the sounds of industry dimmed. Workers lifted their visors and looked toward the cadre at the entryway.
“You can’t be in here,” someone called out. “This is a production area. Didn’t you read the signs?”
“I did, but I need to talk to someone.”
“Phone number’s posted by the door. Did you try calling it?”
“This is too important for a phone call.”
Ótama glided past Jody toward the left. He noticed on her departure that there was a room in the far corner, closed off from the factory space with a wide, thick glass wall. There were kids behind it, oblivious to the sounds from the factory, apparently. They played on brightly colored foam furniture and danced around. Not a single noise could be heard.
“Ótama,” Colt whispered hoarsely.
She ignored him and walked all the way around the rim of the work floor to the play space.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jody projected to her as the nearest worker strode toward them.
No response from Ótama, but he had more pressing concerns. Their self-designated host had lifted her safety helmet and loomed in front of the men wearing the sort of ominous stare usually reserved for potential muggers.
“What do you want?” she asked.
He couldn’t sense magic of any sort coming off her, or any psychic buzz whatsoever. She likely
couldn’t tell he was anything special, not that he thought he was.
“Who’s the leader here?” he asked. “I need to talk to them.”
“Leader?” she sneered. “If you’re looking for the owner of this place, can’t help you. If a shift manager will suffice, you’re looking at her.”
“Great.” He extended a hand for her to shake. “I’m Jody Dahl from Norseton. I—”
The rest of his explanation was drowned out by the squeaks of stools being pushed aside, the clatter of dropped tools, pounding footsteps, and the din of helmets, visors, and glasses hitting the floor.
There hadn’t seemed to have been so many workers when they were spread out, but as they closed in, Jody lost count at twenty.
Jody, Elliott, and Colt put their backs together and their hands up—the hands that weren’t feeling for guns, anyway. Not being strapped, Elliott was at a disadvantage, but truly, they were outnumbered no matter what. Twenty dull swords and axes could dispatch them in the time it took them to properly warn and aim.
“Let’s not be hasty,” Colt said.
The shift manager, who’d unsheathed a box cutter from her utility belt, laughed darkly and took a step toward the trifecta. “You really want to step on someone else’s property and tell them how to run it?”
“No. I’m telling you you’re overreacting.”
The women closed in closer. They were all women. That hadn’t been evident, with their baggy coveralls obscuring their shapes and their headgear completely hiding their faces. Women of all shapes and sizes.
Jody wondered if Lora’s intel had been bad.
“You gonna accuse us all of having synced periods next?” she asked.
“I’m just saying you should let the guy talk. No need to fly off the handle.”
Something about that combination of words must have triggered that particular group because all at once, they lunged at the circle.
They couldn’t get close, though.
For so many months, Jody had been trying to douse his temper and suppress the magic attached to his emotions because it wasn’t something he knew yet how to control.
But sometimes, the magic did what it wanted. It piggybacked on Jody’s anxieties and found its way out.
He could feel the pressure finding outlets in every pore, his nose, his open mouth, before he was blinded by the hot, white surge.
And then came the shatter of so much glass, raining down from windows mounted high and the skylights in the roof.
It was like a hurricane had blown through without warning, and given them no time to duck for cover.
Elliott tried to get down, though, as did Colt, who was actually trying to put his body between Jody’s and the building shattering around them.
But they didn’t understand.
For Jody, everything was playing out in slow motion.
The flying shards. The women ducking beneath nearby worktables.
Ótama’s instinctive pressing of her hand to the wall of the playroom before letting herself in. That wall stood while every other pane of glass broke.
He was the only one standing.
And then the room was silent. Elliott was breathing hard, body shaking. Colt holding his hand in readiness over the butt of his gun. He was struggling to restrain the inner part of him that was wolf and wanted to come out and guard in a more animal way.
Jody cleared his throat and took off his hat. He shook a bit of glass out of the fabric and put it back on. “Tell me who your glazier is,” he announced, “and I’ll see to it that all those windows are repaired.”
“Whose little prince is this?” Ótama called out. She was grinning in the nursery doorway with a young boy on her hip. “Such a good singer.”
The nursery attendant was dumbstruck, ashen behind her. Wide-eyed like she’d just seen a ghost. In a way, she had.
“M-mine,” someone beneath a table said.
“What’s his name?” Ótama asked.
“Ben?”
“He was singing a song about rainbows to me. I think I’d like to hear it again.” Ótama carried Ben back into the room and sat on the floor with him and a few little girls who were in the midst of what seemed to be a very serious session of Barbie Dream House interior decorating.
Again, Jody cleared his throat. “Ótama,” he murmured. “Daughter of Alfarinn.”
There seemed to be a collective querying at that, and then all the women climbed out from under their makeshift shelters and looked toward the nursery.
Ótama was oblivious as always. The children were demanding her attention, and she was giving them all a little parcel of it, while their teacher stood nearby with her mouth still hanging open.
“She’s insane,” Colt whispered, righting himself. “I see now where Tess and Nadia get it from.”
“Careful,” Jody muttered. To the women, he turned and said, “Listen. That shit went unnecessarily sideways. As I said, we’re from Norseton. But we’re not here to drag you off kicking and screaming. That’s never been our style, and you know that. We have some crimes we need to convene the council for. Serious crimes that impact multiple groups. We’re obligated to invite all the groups we can so they can send their emissaries. The council will need to run for multiple sessions. We’re starting to suspect that the major cases we’re resolving are connected.” It didn’t make sense that Dan would be meeting with the very same man who’d chased down Keith on the open sea and to not know his affiliations. Perhaps Anders and Dan were running two separate schemes, but they were connected somehow. The chieftains had hoped to find proof of that in the cooler the pilot had delivered, but it had been suspiciously empty. The last Jody had heard, the wolves were cutting open the plastic to examine the hidden parts.
“What sort of crimes?” the shift leader asked.
“Worse things than crimes against windows, probably,” someone muttered.
The shift leader tried not to grin as she awaited Jody’s response, but he could tell the situation was wearing down her guardedness.
“The taking of children,” Jody said. “From our community and from others. Some of the responsible parties are our own. We could certainly prosecute them independently, but we’ve always tried to be aboveboard, even in isolation.”
“How many children?” the woman asked.
“Dozens. We’ve identified and repatriated many. None of the ones who were taken from Norseton, however, have been able to provide us with much information about who took them. We’ve had to get that information in other ways.”
From other sorts of victims.
Jody pressed a hand to the back of his neck and rubbed. He hated that Lora was all tangled up in the mess—hated that her life had suddenly become so disordered. He wanted order for her.
The lady sighed and plopped her hands onto her hips. “Why now? Certainly, you’ve had issues before that have been dire enough for you to call up a council. You haven’t dredged us up in ages.”
“Our previous squabbles were nothing like this. And to be perfectly candid, there’s indeed a certain urgency about resolving this situation because one of the people stolen was my sister.”
“Returned, I take it.”
“Fortunately, yes. She’s our clan leader now.”
The expansive room went so quiet that Jody could have heard a sheet of paper falling.
Slowly, the women righted themselves, dusted themselves off, and then, without a word, gathered into a tight circle near the rear of the room.
Jody looked to Elliott and Colt for ideas. They had none.
Ótama had charmed the nursery worker who was now seated on the floor with her and pointing out various shapes of Lego blocks.
The situation seemed entirely too surreal, but so much of his life did. He ought to have been used to it.
The lady returned. She stood with her hands clutched in front of her and cleared her throat. “Few of us here are eligible to participate. We’re not all descendants of the voyage. The women who work here are all
aware of our origins, and hold the secrets in their hearts. We give them a community. They give us the benefit of safety in numbers.
She gestured toward Ótama. “My ancestress was a handmaiden to Ótama. When their boat landed in the Americas, she stayed with the group for as long as she could stand to, but before she died, she had a keen yen to separate from the travelers. She couldn’t bear to be in their midst without her friend. She and her children and some others struck out on their own. Their descendants eventually settled in this place.”
“Not to be rude,” Elliott said, holding up a finger, “but where are your men?”
All the women laughed and many drifted away, resuming their work.
Their emissary chuckled and leaned her hip against a nearby table. “Long story short,” she said, “we don’t encourage them to linger. Some of us are married to men, but they do not come to this place. This is for us.”
“Oh.”
“I will go,” she said and gestured to the brunette lingering nearby. “And Sadie.”
“And you are?”
“Darlene. Sorry. I always assume everyone knows me.”
Jody nodded and finally got the proper handshake from her he’d intended to have before. “If you have a card, I’ll take it, and I’ll follow up with the exact day and meeting time for the first trials. It’ll be soon, pending the success of my appeals to other groups.”
“I could call a couple if you want,” Darlene offered. “We do business with them. That ought to save you some time.”
“And them some windows,” Sadie said.
Jody chuckled dryly. He was probably never going to live that down. “What kind of business?”
“Forging axes, mostly,” Darlene said. “They use them for those touristy Viking games. They’re small groups, but big enough to matter.”
“Everyone matters.”
Darlene’s nod was slow but precise, her gaze thoughtful. “Noted. Follow me into the office. I’ll see if I can find you a card.”
“I’ll go fetch Ótama,” Colt said.
“Good luck with that,” Jody mumbled.
They did manage to finagle Ótama out the door without too many complaints on her part, and with Darlene’s hearty good-luck for their journey back to Fallon.
