Eye of the Tempest (19 page)

“But if not many people can read ancient Alfar—” I began.

“Unfortunately,” she interrupted, “ ‘not many’ does not mean ‘only me.’ The bad guys know everything I do.”

“And who, exactly, are the bad guys?” I asked, remembering Nell’s fear that this problem wasn’t just national but international.

“People just like Jarl, all over the world. It’s the same war that we’ve fought a million times, or so it feels like.”

“Those who want to live with humans versus those who want to subjugate them?”

“It’s more than that,” Blondie replied, raising her tight white wifebeater just enough to scratch lazily at the piercing in her belly button. “It’s about how we live. One side wants strict hierarchies—strict laws about who can and cannot lead, and how we live our lives. The other understands the idea of choices, and how we must be free to make them. Part of that is how we live with humans. Some of us want no contact, and for humans to be, basically, our slaves. Others understand we need humans… that we’d be lost without them.”

“Okay,” I said, remembering to focus on my original questions and not go off in a tangent that could be Blondie-induced. “So why were you following Anyan and me, instead of working with Nell to get access to the Territory to find the creature?”

Blondie pursed her lips, obviously gathering her thoughts.

“I really did need an invite into the Territory. Nell isn’t trusting, especially of someone with my powers.”

“And?” I prompted, knowing there was more.

“And,” she said, slowly and carefully, “I was interested in the two of you.”

I frowned. Why would she be interested in me and Anyan? Anyan was the only one worth following… And then it all fell into place.

“You think Anyan could be the champion,” I stated, knowing I had to be right. It made sense: Why else would someone like Anyan feel he needed to make a home here? Maybe he was
called
by the power. And who better to take on some mysterious championship (if that’s what it was called) than someone who was already a badass?

Blondie was watching me with a furrowed brow, which smoothed out as I talked. Undoubtedly, she was relieved that I had guessed her secret.

“Well, let’s say I
thought
Anyan was the champion,” she intoned, nodding her head toward where both Caleb and Iris were
still
trying to shove Anyan’s recalcitrant ass into the back of the SUV.

“Oh,” I said, realizing what she was saying. “Doggies don’t make good champions?”

“No,” she replied, drily.

“Do you really think we’ll be able to change them back?” I asked, worry cutting through my other Blondie-related anxieties.

“I know we will,” she answered. “We just have to find those locks. With the power the creature contains, we can fix both Nell and Anyan.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Positive. But we have to go. As soon as we check out whatever that explosion was, we’ll head straight over to Gus’s rock.”

I nodded, and then had a thought.

“Why can’t you be the champion?” I asked.

She was about to answer when she stopped and got a funny, faraway expression on her face.

“Well,” Blondie agreed, eventually. “Both Nell and Anyan are out of the picture.”

“It makes sense. You have the most power. And you were drawn to Rockabill, like everyone else.”

“Drawn to Rockabill?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We figured that’s why there’s all the supes here. Power draws power,”

“Is that why you’re here?” she said, grinning.

I laughed. “Nope, I was born here. So, are we going to tell the others?”

She frowned. “The fewer people who know the truth, the safer we all are. If one of us falls into enemy hands, or even just babbles the truth, everyone would be looking for the creature and its power, not just the few people who already know the legend.”

I thought about what she had told me, and whether either Caleb or Iris or the others really
needed
to know it. Finally, I nodded, agreeing with her estimation that I needn’t tell anyone what she’d just told me. Yet.

“So do you trust me, Jane?” Blondie asked, suddenly serious.

Not answering her for a moment, I watched as Iris and Caleb finally managed to shove Anyan into the car and shut the door. Suddenly, I made my decision.

“Sure,” I said, smiling at her. “I trust you.”

She returned my smile, obviously relieved.

“Good,” the Original said, moving in for a hug.

Her arms went around me and I gave her my own hug. She felt lean and long against me, and I felt my libido cock a (bi)curious eyebrow. Telling it to hush, I waited till she’d released me.

“ ’Bout ready to go?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” I replied. “I just have to text someone, and then make a quick call.”

As she walked away, I readied my phone. I waited, my fingers crossed that my plan would work, as Blondie talked with Caleb, her back to me. Then I hurriedly snapped a photo of her profile as she turned to talk to Iris. When she turned to cast a glance back at me, I snapped a full-on photo of her while pretending to text. The picture wasn’t great, with the sun behind her, but it would have to do.

Then I made my phone call.

“Hello?” came Ryu’s familiar voice.

“Hi, Ryu. It’s Jane,” I said, knowing he already knew that from his cell phone display screen, but saying it anyway.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, his voice worried.

“Sort of,” I said. “Actually, not really. Nell’s been turned into a baby, and Anyan into a dog. A real dog.”

“What?” he asked. “How?”

“Some ancient Alfar booby trap.”

“Do you need me to come there?”

“No,” I replied. “Actually, you’d better stay away. If there’s any more of these traps and we get taken out, we’ll need someone to come finish this. But if you’re here, we might lose you, too.”

“Okay,” he said, but he didn’t sound happy about it. “So, what do you need?”

“Caleb said you came here when I was in the coma?”

“Yes,” he said. I didn’t ask him why, or thank him. The others were all looking at me from where they stood by the car chatting, and I needed to make this quick.

“Did you meet Blondie when you were here?”

“Who?” he asked.

“The Original.”

“No,” he replied. “I was only there for a few hours, and she was off doing something when I was there. But I heard all about her.”

“I need you to check up on her. I doubt anyone else knows what she really is, so don’t go that route. Just ask around, as if she were any other suspect. Do your usual thing, but try the oldest beings you know, as well as the usual. I’m texting you a couple pictures of her.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything. I have to know we can trust her. Everyone else does, but there’s something odd. I can’t put my finger on it. I want to trust her, but I know there’s more than she’s telling us.”

“Are you sure? Anyan’s not exactly easy to fool,” Ryu warned.

“I know. But apparently she was the one basically keeping me alive. That’s a good way to gain trust, quickly, without deserving it,” I replied.

There was silence from the other end of the line, and then Ryu’s voice.

“True,” he said. “I’ll ask around. Just send me the pictures.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Call me as soon as you find out anything.”

“I will. But you’re sure you don’t need me?”

“No,” I said. “But I need this information more. And we need you safe, in the wings, in case we fail.”

Or in case Blondie really deserves my suspicions
, I thought, as Iris waved to me to hurry as she and Caleb climbed into the front seats and Blondie climbed into the back with Anyan. She had to use her magic to keep the big dog from bolting past her to freedom.

“But I gotta go,” I said. “Call me?”

“Of course,” Ryu said. “I’ll get right on this.”

“Thanks, Ryu. Talk soon. Bye.”

“Bye. Take care.”

And with that, he hung up. I took a few seconds to attach the pictures to a message and send them to Ryu, and then I walked over to the car.

I really hope we can trust you
, I thought at Blondie, as I felt her use just a smidgen of her huge strength to hold Anyan still as I climbed into the back seat.

Because otherwise we are totally fucked
.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Although Anyan had hated getting in the car, he changed his tune when we started moving. He looked very happy sticking his head out the window over my shoulder, from where we’d coaxed him to jump into the very back of Caleb’s SUV. His soft fur against my cheek should have been comforting, but any such emotions were mitigated by the fact that he was panting, long ropes of saliva dripping from his mouth, and occasionally barking at passing street signs.

In other words, everything he did reminded me that the man I’d come to rely on was no longer lurking inside that dog. There was only kibble and slobber. Lots and lots of slobber.

As if on cue, from the seat beside me, Blondie apparated a handful of tissue and passed them over. She’d already apparated herself a long-sleeved T-shirt to wear over her wifebeater, undoubtedly not wanting to turn mortal heads. It was still well chilly here in Maine, despite spring nipping at Rockabill’s heels.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, as she gave me one of her disconcerting winks.

“Where should we head?” Caleb asked, his massive ram’s horns raking the ceiling of the SUV as he turned to look at Iris. She had her hand in her lover’s lap, something I normally wouldn’t have noticed.

But normally people wear pants when they’re driving
, I thought, wiping a stray rivulet of Anyan’s spit off my earlobe as I replied to Caleb.

“Go to the town square. Everyone will already be there,” I told him.

We didn’t know where to head, as all we’d felt was a big boom. Nell would have been able to pinpoint the noise, but she was sucking down formula at the moment. So instead of relying on the gnome, we had to rely on Rockabill. Meanwhile, Iris tittered at my response, knowing small-town life as well as I did. And sure enough, when we arrived at Rockabill’s town square, there were already quite a few people milling about.

Caleb pulled rakishly across a few parking spots, and I was jumping out of the car before it was even completely stopped. Anyan followed me, scrabbling over the back seat and undoubtedly putting a few scratches in Caleb’s upholstery.

“Hi, Mr. Tanner! Mrs. Tanner!” I shouted across the square at our local baker and his wife. He waved back in return, but I also noticed Bob and Marge exchanging slightly panicked looks.

“What’s happening? What was that explosion?” I said, panting from running across the square.

“We’re not really too sure, yet,” Mr. Tanner started, looking to his wife for help. “We were having breakfast in the Trough—”

“All we know is we heard the bang,” Mrs. Tanner interrupted, nervously.

“And then Sheila and Herbert both got calls on their cell phones, and they raced out of the Trough going toward the B & B.”

I felt my stomach clench. Ever since Sheila and Herbert had taken over the Black and White B & B—Nick and Nan’s little pun on Gray—it hadn’t been the same. Nick and Nan had been Jason’s grandparents, who’d raised him after he’d been abandoned by his own mother, a drug addict. I’d grown up running between my house and Jason’s, and the B & B had been as much my home as Jason’s. When Jason died, and Nick and Nan had passed away shortly after, the house had passed on to the nastier side of the family, Jason’s yuppie aunt and uncle, Sheila and Herbert, and their darling son Stuart. Otherwise known as the Bane of My Existence.

The New Grays, as they were still called after all these years, gutted the B & B. What had once been shabby, inviting, and comfortable was done over to reflect a colder, more corporate if elegant feeling. Unfortunately, what the Grays hadn’t considered was the fact that people don’t come to Maine looking for chrome and glass, softened only by the occasional Louis Quinze–replica arm chair. They want quilts, warm fires, and clapboard.