Forest Moon Rising (30 page)

“You’re taller than your sister and Allie’s eyes are brown. “What do you need? You should be asleep.”

“I ... Are we really supposed to call you ‘Mom’ now?”

I gulped. Mom. I’d begun to think I’d never have the privilege of hearing another person call me that.

“I’d like that if you are comfortable with it.”

“Gollum ... I mean Dad said we should. It shows respect. What’s respect?”

Oh, boy, was I in trouble. I had to start at square one with a teenager. The dictionary definition would probably go over her head.

Tomorrow. Or rather later today. I’d deal with their education in the morning.

“Respect is an attitude of careful listening and going along with their suggestions because you’ve learned they are usually right. It’s treating that person as if you value them.”

“Oh.” She looked puzzled. Then her eyes brightened. “Oh!”

I patted the place beside me on the cot, urging her to sit, get comfortable; put her in a sharing mood.

She sat slowly, careful not to touch me directly.

“And because I respect you, I’m going to ask your approval for changing your name.” Part of me wanted to drape my arm around her shoulders. I needed to respect her need to avoid physical contact. “I’d like to call you Phonetia.” I explained about the mobile phone that carried her real name.

“That sounds good. I like that. Can I have one of those phones?” She flashed me a huge smile that nearly melted my heart.

“We’ll talk about that when you’ve earned the responsibility of an expensive phone.”

“Oh. What about Salal?”

“We thought E.T. would be a good name. But that’s more a joke than a name.” I explained the line in the movie.

“I like that. I think she will too. We can think up new words to fit the initials for each occasion.”

That sounded like mischief in the making. At least these two troubled girls could find something to laugh about.

“So what can I do for you this late at night?”

“I ... uh ... Salal—We should have said something earlier. We know the guys with the tattoos.” She hung her head.

“You do?” Did I ever say that I don’t believe in coincidences?

“We don’t really know them. I mean we’ve never talked to them. And I don’t know if they recognized us, they only ever saw me in the dark when Father sent them to my bed. But they do business with Father ... with that man ... with ...”

Cold invaded my bones.

Phonetia shuddered too. I put my arm around her shoulder and drew her close. A morsel of warm steadiness grew between us.

“I know who you mean. And he is your father, biologically. Let’s just call him the dark elf for now. What kind of business?”

“They grow something strange. Fa—the dark elf lets them use certain clearings in our forest, and he blurs the paths so the ... the law won’t find the plants and destroy them.”

“Marijuana?”

“I think that’s what they call it. It’s not native to us. It doesn’t belong in our forest. Our duty is to keep the forests healthy. Nonnative invasive plants need to be cut out and burned, not carefully cultivated and protected.”

“You are right. Marijuana is a dangerous plant. So is the dark elf. He hails from a different land, a different environment. He’s as invasive as the marijuana. But you and E.T. and your brothers are all native. You belong here.”

She mulled over the new and frightening idea. But one that might save her sanity.

Last month three hikers on Mt. Jefferson had been shot at and chased mercilessly for days until they found their car and raced away; all for stumbling off the trail into a ten-acre marijuana patch. A SWAT team went in and cleared out the patch. They lost two members to the growers’ booby traps. Hidden pits filled with poisoned stakes. Tactics straight out of Vietnam.

Big money came from those marijuana farms.

“What does the dark elf get from the growers in return for land and protection?” I asked.

“I ... I don’t know for sure what Fa ... the dark elf gains.” She looked at her hands.

“Did your father demonize the tattoos?

“Is that what you call it?”

“I guess. I’ve never run into it before. Scrap gave me hints. I watched them glow. Not just anyone can do it. He’d have to have help, or permission, or something.”

“He never talked to Salal—E.T. and me about his business. He talked to the boys. We only know what we overheard.”

“Your brothers got the names of majestic trees. He named you two for lowly vines that need to be curbed and heavily pruned to control them.”

“He doesn’t respect us.”

“No, he doesn’t. I think you both have a lot of reasons to respect yourselves though. It’s my job to help you do that.”

“I don’t know that anyone can do that.” She stood up and made as if to go—reluctantly.

“I have to try.”

“I respect you for the trying.”

I knew she wasn’t telling me everything. She might respect me, but she didn’t trust me yet.

I reached for the phone on the desk. I knew someone who might fill in some of the blank spots. It wasn’t too late to call Las Vegas. Lady Lucia kept vampire hours. I owed her a bunch of favors.

She owed me some explanations.

A clap of thunder made us both jump. Lightning right on top of it lit the entire room as bright as noon.

“It’s Father!” Phonetia screamed as she dived under the cot. “He’s really pissed.”

K
ABOOM
. Lightning hit a transformer. The building shook. Lights flickered and died. The ever-present hum of the refrigerator silenced.

E.T. scooted into the room without knocking. As if sensing her sister’s position she joined her under the cot, covering her head with her hands.

A thunderstorm in the middle of the night? In
Portland?
We rarely get more than distant rumbles over the mountains.

A tree cracked. The splintering sounded long and angry, worse than fingernails on a blackboard. Then the thud of a tree branch crashed against the ground.

“Don’t hurt me,” Phonetia pleaded.

I lay down beside the girls under the cot, pulling them close. “It’s okay,” I whispered over and over.

We clung together. Their fingers tightened on my arms like vines twining and clinging to a cliffside, desperate to survive in the harsh environment.

Then the wind came up, howling overhead like a frustrated banshee. It competed for dominance with the near continuous thunder and the hail against the roof.

This must be akin to what drove Raquel and JJ to accept shelter from the Nörglein. If the dark elf caused the storm, why didn’t he bother putting JJ into a trance and transforming himself to look like Raquel’s husband?

Because he’d put all his energy into the storm. He had nothing left for his usual chicanery.

Allie crept in and joined us on the floor all huddled together.

“He can’t keep it up for long,” I reassured the girls as well as myself. “He’s hurt and sick. This has to pass soon.”

The next hour felt like an eternity. We trembled as fiercely as the building. More trees fell. Wind and rain lashed the windows as if trying to break them for easy entrance to my home.

And then as quickly as it came, the storm abated. Just like a two year old packing up his toys and hiding in his room after a temper tantrum. Of course he had to slam the door on his way out.

One last boom, crash, and flash, followed by a torrent of hail that lasted thirty endless seconds.

“What was that all about?” Allie asked with shaking chin and darting glances. “That one was worthy of Dorothy’s trip to Oz.”

“I think Father found out where we are,” Phonetia said.

“That is one mean bastard,” Allie grunted. “Glad we got you away from his clutches when we did.”

“Did one of the gang bangers with a demon tat get away to inform him?” I asked. I crawled to my knees and dusted off my jeans. I really needed to clean in here.

Allie stared through the window, looking backward through her memory. Her fingers flexed as she counted bodies. “Tall, blond guy, maybe twenty-four, gold chains on his neck, one with a pendant to match his tattoo.” She looked up again almost as if emerging from a trance.

“He ... he’s the leader of Father’s minions,” E.T. said quietly.

“And I bet he reported everything to the dark elf. He might have followed us home,” I sighed. “You girls okay to go back to bed by yourselves? I need to make some phone calls and do some serious thinking.”

“I ... I guess,” Phonetia mumbled.

“I’ll tuck you in and stay with you till you fall asleep,” Allie offered. “Has Tess talked to you about your new names?”

She herded them out of the office like an overprotective border collie.

I reached for my cell phone. The power surge had wiped out the landline.

I’d just drifted off to sleep when the phone rang.

I flopped awake, not sure where I was, what was happening, why my ears hurt.

The phone, babe. Answer the phone
, Scrap reminded me.

His voice inside my head rattled the right synapses. I plucked the phone off the cradle, dropped it, fumbled it up again, and mumbled something into it upside down.

Lights blazed around me. The digital clock on the desk blinked red numerals showing a few minutes after twelve. The power had come back on and the phone lines had been restored only moments ago.

Then I fully opened my eyes and glimpsed the time on my cell phone beside the landline. Four in the damn morning. Who in the hell had the audacity to call now?

My heart went into overdrive.
Dad!
Something was wrong with my father.

“I was thinking about calling you. Then I returned from a party and found your voice mail,” Lady Lucia chuckled. “Is this a bad time,
cara mia?
”

I flipped the phone around, the better to hear her phony Italian accent.

“I have to be up in two hours and I just got to sleep.”

“Sleep is overrated. We can sleep when we are dead.”

“Does that mean I get to kill you and all the Kajiri demons who cross my path?” I wasn’t feeling friendly at the moment.

Lucia laughed loudly. I could just picture her throwing back her head, tossing her long blonde—artificial—tresses into the desert wind, and exposing her vulnerable neck.

A challenge.

Then I had to remind myself, she never allowed herself to become vulnerable, even if she let you think she was.

“So what were you going to call me about?” I asked on a yawn.

“I will be in Portland at the end of next month,
cara
, we must talk.”

“Fine. We can meet for coffee at high noon at Waterfront Park.” Lady Lucia could tolerate sunlight as well as any human, even though it didn’t suit the persona she projected to intimidate friends and enemies alike.

She laughed again. This time when she spoke, she ditched the thick Italian accent. Only a hint of her southern French Alpine origins leaked through now. “Why did you call, Tess? You usually avoid me unless you are in dire trouble.”

“Thank you once again for helping clean up the mess of my mother’s murder,” I said graciously.

“And . . .?”

“And I’ve just adopted two daughters of a Nörglein elf. I thought you might have some pointers ...”

“Nörglein? Did you say Nörglein? Impossible. They are extinct. I killed the last of them myself.” She sounded affronted. “The nasty elf tried to coerce me into exchanging sex for safe passage through my own forest.”

“One got away.” Now I wanted to laugh.

“Impossible.”

“Explain that to the nasty bugger, hiding in
my
forest, who preys on women hikers or binds males while he seduces their wives in their forms.”