Soul Shock, page 13
I gave him a tiny howl of thanks and settled back into the plush cushions.
“So words are too much to ask for? Any of you want to tell me what’s going on?”
Humans and their words, I simply closed my eyes.
Secret answered him, though, with the rustle of her own shift. “Abby’s tired, Vicky’s annoyed with her.”
“I got that, Secret. Thanks.” He gave a deep sigh. “I’m going back to bed.” The TV went silent.
“You’re welcome!” Secret said brightly.
If their conversation continued, I missed it as I fell into the depths of a restful slumber.
An insistent tweedle-dee-dee-dee of a phone called me back from sleep.
“Oh, gawds,” Cliff groaned from the bedroom. “Mom?”
An angry torrent of indistinct syllables flowed.
“Mom. Mom! Mom, calm down,” Cliff futilely protested against the stream of abuse. “It’s fucking five AM, Mom.”
Curious, human me came forward, swelling my bulk to my dire wolf form as I slipped from the couch. The floor creaked beneath my paws as I padded over to the door that led to Cliff’s bedroom.
“It’s not like that, Mom!”
Gloria’s voice clarified as I moved close, “Bullshit. Henrietta saw you kissing the both of them!”
“Well, Henrietta needs to get her eyes or sources checked. I was Abby’s date so I only kissed her and no, I haven’t slept with her.”
“You promised me she was just an employee! A friend. You swore, son of mine! Swore to your mother.” Gloria’s tinny voice made the speaker pop and spit.
“God dammit, mom,” Cliff’s frustration momentarily elevated his voice above a harsh whisper, “This is none of your business. Don’t you remember we’d all be dead if not for her? She’s one of the good guys, mom.”
“She’s a murderer and monster. You need to get away from her. Twenty-seven people have disappeared in Powellhurst in the last six months! Twenty-Seven! They’re calling it Powell-cursed. Nobody in that neighborhood dares venture out after dark. While the police are too scared to do anything about it, but mark my words, the Lord Almighty will send somebody to stop her.”
“Mom, come on, don’t talk like that.”
The conversation continued, but I stopped listening. As soon as somebody mentions the lord with a capital letter, I tend to stop listening. Thanks to my mother, the term is heavily associated with tasks I don’t want to do. Time to go. As gratifying as it was to hear Cliff defend me, I didn’t want to be around for Cliff to ask me about missing persons in Powellhurst. The actual number we’ve caught driving into the neighborhood with silver-bullet-loaded guns lay between twenty-seven and zero. Closer to zero than twenty-seven but not by much.
Victoria’s golden eyes shined from the recliner, one of her tall ears rotated towards the animated conversation. I doubted she needed to relocate to hear both sides clearly.
Trouble? She asked with a tilt of her head.
Hunt now. I pointed my nose at the door.
Finally. Her tail thumped against the seat cushion once before she grabbed Secret, who had been sleeping on the armrest of the recliner, by the scruff of her neck.
“Merp?!” Secret mewed with groggy indignation as Victoria carried her over to me and deposited her between my shoulders. She burrowed into my fur with a tired merf. I shifted a few more notches toward human so I could fumble the dead bolt open. We padded down the stairs of Cliff’s porch with the horizon aglow with the coming morning, but the air cool on my nose. If there was a time to find Joy, it was now.
20
Do Fey sleep? I wondered as we rushed home, shifted, grabbed clothes, and loaded my hatchback with a collection of old iron tools that Victoria had collected from yard sales. Did Joy nestle down for the night or was she a being of constant motion? Every single moment we spent living, was she drawing more and more people into a hazy trap from which there might be no escape?
Two more trees stood on Kelly Butte. Even if we could get in there, dig them up and drag them across the park’s threshold, would they be human again? And if they were, what state would they be in? Would they be worse than Gary? Who had suffered two days’ worth of sunstroke and sunburn. How long would it be before saving them would kill them outright? Regardless, seeing those two more trees drove a hard-to-swallow lump of guilt into my throat.
Not our territory, wolf me stated, need more wolves.
How many wolves would it take to control and protect the entire city, then? I asked wolf me.
More, she answered. Helpful as always.
“Abby, stop growling at yourself,” Victoria said, sitting in the passenger seat. In her hand she cupped Renata’s nose, which she stared at as if she held a live spider. “We’re doing what we can.”
“Merp,” Secret agreed, wedged in the dashboard’s corner, the farthest she could get from all the iron and still be within the car.
“Right, find her first. Then figure out a way to trap her,” I agreed, then waited.
Victoria slowly brought the oversized canine nose up to her face and placed it on the flap of skin that covered her nasal cavity. Her features tightened as the nose swiftly changed its shape to that of a human. Its wooden nostrils flared as Victoria took her first inhalation through it.
“Do you smell her?” I asked.
Victoria didn’t answer immediately, hands rising to press her temples.
“Maybe? Is this how Fey smell? It’s real weird. Like there’s a bunch of pixies in my head trying to out-sing one another.” She twisted around in her seat before fixing on the east. “Bright that way but cloying to the north. It’s too much.”
“Can you get us through her wards?” I asked.
“Maybe? Gotta shift.” Her voice strained, and she pulled her top off as fur spread down her spine. She barely wriggled out of her shorts before she lost her thumbs but panted with relief once she reached her wolf form. Better. She sent with a shake of her body then rolled down the window and leapt out of it.
Head down, she walked up to the yellow-tape-marked border of Kelly Butte park and spent a few moments snuffling around. Abruptly her tail and ears perked, Got scent. Hunt! With an excited howl, she dashed down the road, towards the river, not the burned neighborhoods.
We found Joy at a dog park, standing on the sidewalk with an armful of cut daisies. I wouldn’t call the park crowded, but it had far more people than you’d expect for a Saturday morning a mere hour past the ass-crack of early dawn. Either she had lured them out, or Portland’s dog owners were really dedicated to the idea that Fido should play before it got too warm. At least Joy didn’t appear to take any notice of us as I slid my car to the curb. We watched her for a bit.
Passersby were offered a flower and after several refusals a woman with a Great Dane accepted one.
Victoria growled. Danger.
I smelled it too. That gossamer floral scent had filled my nostrils when that lady’s fingers had touched the flowers. It faded swiftly as the woman continued down the sidewalk.
This had to be some sort of way of gaining influence or simply sustenance, similar to the way Rey had spread foxes of all sorts and types among our neighborhood. I had no idea what the flowers did, but if they had a glamour on them, that meant they represented some sort of effort on her part. If I could destroy them, then that would be wasted effort. “So begins our game of whack-a-mole,” I said to nobody in particular as I reached into the back and retrieved one of the smaller cold iron pieces we’d brought with us. A small figurine of a raven, I held it in my fist so the beak poked between my index and middle finger. “Vicky, stay with Secret.”
When the jackal-like wolf nodded, I slipped out of the car and walked down to the corner crosswalk, keeping Joy in my vision. The Fey appeared focused on her task. As I crossed the street, I heard her pitch, “Hello, I’m bringing Joy to the world today. Take a flower as a gift to help me spread it.”
The foot traffic was dense enough that someone was within ten feet of her at all times, bringing her plenty of fresh ears. I angled my approach behind a tall man walking a very plump corgi.
I looked out into the dog park and saw a man, stripped to his waist, running among a pack of dogs, leaping up to catch a Frisbee with his teeth. It bounced off his open mouth and a collie caught it off the rebound. The pack and man headed toward the thrower of the Frisbee. One weirdo playing with the dogs is hardly news in Portland, but the stem of a daisy wrapped his bicep. Then I spotted a cluster of topless women skipping in a circle. A man ran up to them with a barrel-shaped drink cooler and flung its contents at them. They screamed like surprised children as the ice and water hit their skin. Individually, all things that could happen at this park, but all had the yellow and white of a daisy on their person.
How many of those flowers had she given out already? She still seemed oblivious to my presence. I tightened my fingers around the figurine as I closed to within thirty feet. She had angled away from me, talking to a couple who were on the verge of plucking two daisies from her outstretched hand. Wolf-me noted how unguarded her long neck appeared, but I couldn’t hit that; I needed the flowers she cradled. Iron hadn’t worked on Gary, but he’d been under the fey’s influence for over a day.
I maneuvered for the pounce. The couple took the flowers, and I could smell a gossamer scent burst through the air as their smiles widened. Leaping out between them and Joy, I thrust my free hand out to grab for the flowers. Joy twisted away a fraction of a second too late. My fingers closed around the stems of a half-dozen of the flowers and ripped them from her arms.
The couple made breathless exclamations of surprise as I caught myself.
“Oh, Abby!” Joy finished her pirouette with a smile. “If you want a flower, you can have it. A gift to you.” An overly floral scent exploded in my nose as the iron in my hand suddenly went cool. Joy’s smile faltered as I stabbed the flowers with its iron beak. I heard a crackling twang, as if a glass thread had shattered, and the scent vanished. “Ugh, iron? Really? You’re such a buzzkill.” She turned to the couple she had just bewitched. “Isn’t she the worst buzzkill?”
“Totally harshing the vibe,” they echoed together in a dreamy tone.
With a growl, I punched out at them, landing a beak on the guy’s pec and her shoulder. The glamour broke with that crystalline twang.
“Hey, what’s the big idea?!” The man made a pained face and staggered back.
“Ow! That hurt!” She rubbed her shoulder. “You can’t just punch people!”
“Uuuh,” I started, “Sorry, but you need to get away from her right now,” I pointed at Joy. “She has a habit of lacing her gifts with, uh, LSD.”
They made faces of confusion. “Shit, you a cop?” the man asked as the pair quickly retreated.
Joy laughed, then called after them, “Course she is. Part of the anti-fun police.”
I rounded on her. “You want to have fun? Fine, do it without the glamour.” Her smile stretched and the wind shifted, bringing me Victoria’s dusky scent; she hadn’t stayed in the car.
“Abigail, look around. No one here is in danger. They’re not screaming for help.” The un-glamoured flowers had disappeared, and one hand rested on the hilt of her sword. “They’re simply playing harder than they would otherwise. Letting loose.”
“You are drugging them without their consent. They didn’t ask for this. Undo it, or I will.” I said, showing her the little iron raven in my hand. “It’s not hard.”
“Consent? That’s rich coming from a servant of the Moon Court; they’re all about permission.” She laughed with a bitter sarcastic edge. “We collaborated with Twilight and Sol to protect the crossroads. Your Queen turned Sol’s power against us, cutting us off. We didn’t consent to that, and now humans have wrapped this world in iron. I doubt you gave permission to become what you are.”
“I did. I asked for this. I don’t regret that bargain, either. She gave me power to protect what I love. And I love this city. I won’t let it become the playground of any court of the Dream, or whatever they have in the Twilight,” I said, my body squaring off against hers, circling, edging toward a fight where I couldn’t afford to land a blow.
While one hand remained on her sword, which I knew she could draw like a viper, her other pulled a cigarette from the breast pocket of her vest. “So noble and confused. The age of your goddess rises,” She paused and took a drag and sighed, “and you are fighting against it. There is no choice in it happening. You can’t hold back a tide. You say you got a choice in the matter, but did you really? Did you give your girlfriend other options?” She blew out a pink arrow of smoke and my gaze followed it to see Victoria, her long muzzle peeking out around a tree, in it, she held one of the iron stakes. Secret’s head poked up between her long ears.
Victoria’s lips curled up into a snarl and she growled. Not important.
“Forgiveness differs from permission,” Joy noted with a smug satisfaction as guilt twisted my intestines.
Victoria’s, um, recruitment into the pack had not been my proudest or most coherent moment. “That isn’t any of your concern. Victoria, touch everyone who smells of glamour with that iron.”
With a snort of affirmation she set off into the park, running first at the man playing among the dogs. I watched Joy carefully, ready to intervene if she made any move toward Victoria and Secret, but the Fey simply stood there, watching. Victoria threaded between the dogs and brushed his leg as he pounded past after yet another Frisbee. He stumbled and caught the Frisbee. with his hand this time. He held it, and glanced around self-consciously as something rippled through the dogs. Some tried to jump up and take it from him, but other pack members looked around, their tails held high in alarm.
“Nobody likes a buzz killer,” Joy intoned, blowing out a ring of smoke.
Victoria homed in on the group of daisy wearers playing children’s games as their dogs pranced around their feet. They each gave a shiver as Victoria touched the iron to their legs. Their dogs, all smaller terriers and fluffy puffballs, reacted with the same sudden alertness of the pack of larger dogs, but with every glamour Victoria broke they homed in on her. As she approached a man skipping along a hopscotch course, a terrier a tenth her size erupted in fury. Bolting toward her backside, it launched itself up at her haunches. Victoria turned with a snap of her teeth and the dog yelped as she flung it away.
One of the puffballs let out a howl for blood and every dog in the park locked their gaze onto Victoria. Silence descended on the park for a pregnant second as Victoria’s gaze took in the sea of bared teeth. Her ears wilted, the iron stake fell from her mouth and Secret, still on her back, hunkered down.
“And dogs hate it when you ruin their human’s good time.” Joy flicked her cigarette away as the entire park erupted into a sea of angry barking. The dogs moved as an avalanche surging toward Victoria as she turned and ran.
“Shhiite.” I pivoted back toward the car and booked it across the street only to get blown back by a blaring horn as a speeding car nearly slammed into my legs. I stumbled back onto the sidewalk as Joy’s laughter rang in my ears. Glancing up the street and its legion of stoplight-guarded intersections, I dismissed the car as an option. I threw myself into a full sprint down the sidewalk, wolf me surging up into my body, howling for her pack mate. Grabbing the collar of my shirt with clawing hands, I tore it off my body as I changed. My poor shorts met the same fate.
“Careful, Winter Wolf!” Joy called after me. “This isn’t your season.”
Humid air laced with the gossamer scent of the fey’s magic slapped me as I leapt the first crosswalk. My chest heaved to breathe in the heavy air as pedestrians shrieked in alarm around me.
I ran, following the dog pack’s enthusiastic barking, trying to ignore the damnable heat. People dodged into flowerbeds and pressed against buildings to make way. They mouthed exclamations in my wake. The barking grew louder as I vaulted through each intersection. The pack chased Victoria one street over. I took the corner and barreled down the cross street. There I saw the pack had thinned to ten of the fittest dogs.
The pack skidded to a stop. Fearing that Victoria or Secret had fallen I redoubled my speed, charging into their midst. I snapped my jaws at a German shepherd, and knocked down a greyhound but no blood, feline or wolf, greeted my nose. The dogs scattered back from my towering four-legged form.
“Abby!” Came a muffled call of Secret’s voice. I stood in front of a coffee shop. Secret waved on the other side of a glass window. Relief forced a whine out of me and I pushed my head against the glass. Victoria lay on the floor of the shop, tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth, greeting me with a tail wag.
Teeth sank into my calf, and I whirled, my teeth barely missing the offending poodle, who let go just in time to avoid getting his skull crushed. I stared him down and let him compare the size of our teeth. Seeing the majority of his pack had already given up the chase, he shrank back. I watched them all timidly start to head back the way they’d come, tails solidly between their legs.I allowed myself a good pant as I tried to think what to do now. Passersby and coffee customers both had their phones out. Run all the way home and get clothes there?
The door opened and Secret gestured me into the shop. The air tasted sharp, but so much cooler on my tongue. Victoria greeted me with a sniff and a lick.
“Hey uh, no uh dogs allowed,” a barista stuttered out in protest.
Secret turned to him with her hands on hips, “Do they LOOK like dogs to you?” she said with a voice that oozed sternness.
“Uh no. Not really,” he conceded.
“Good!” Her tone brightened as she grabbed an XXXL T-shirt from a rack of merch. “Hey mister, what’s the code to your bathroom?”
Within a few minutes I was back in my human skin and regretting it as I sweated into the brand new T-shirt that nearly reached my knees. I also remembered I’d probably scattered my phone and wallet on the ground four or so blocks away. At least Secret looked very proud of herself.
