Forest Moon Rising (31 page)

“Don’t worry about him. They breed in cycles. One child, maybe two. Then none again for a hundred years. That way people forget about him and don’t hunt him down.” She suppressed a yawn.

“Not this guy. We’re up to six, maybe seven rapes in the last year. I’ve got the two girls from his previous rampage about fifty years ago. They look to be twelve and fourteen.”

“Impossible.” She didn’t sound so sure. “Nörglein only sire sons. And if these girls look like teenagers then they are teenagers. The longevity gene doesn’t kick in for half-breeds until after puberty.”

“But ... but there are no reports at all of lost hikers in Forest Park ten to fifteen years ago. If five hikers got lost in the same area in a three year period, someone would have noted it.”

“They might have noted it, but did they report it? Hm? Listen,
cara
, this news troubles me greatly. Your elf’s genes are breaking down. He should have one son in his care. No daughters. Only one son. You say he is raising five teens and siring half a dozen more? Something is terribly wrong. I will take the next available flight. I’ll call from the airport when I get in.
Ciao.
”

She hung up without further explanation.

I had a feeling I should alert someone of her coming. Like Donovan. But I wasn’t speaking to him at the moment. Maybe Gollum. No. Not yet. I needed time away from him. Time to forget how much I loved him so that I could move on with Sean.

A wicked chuckle erupted from deep inside. Sean would love to meet a vampire. Even if she was a fake.

Better dig out the hair comb,
Scrap said. He sat on the edge of the desk, idly swinging his bandy legs and fluttering his wings.
You want to watch Lucy’s aura when she arrives.

“I hate wearing the thing. It turns my hair brittle and gives me a headache.”

The phone rang again.

“Tess, one more thing,” Lady Lucia said without preamble. “I’ve heard rumors of a crystal ball of pure beryllium surfacing. A special crystal ball with power. If you find it, do not under any circumstances let the elf get his hands on it.”

“Why?” I asked suspiciously. I looked to Scrap to see if he could enlighten me.

“Later.
Ciao.
” She hung up on me again.

“I guess if you’re the vampire crime boss of Las Vegas you don’t have to exercise manners.”

I missed my dawn appointment with the sun on my balcony. But then so did Allie and the girls. I saluted the morning light, fresh and clean after the storm, halfheartedly with a wave of my coffee cup as I went about finding breakfast stuff.

Allie rolled over on the sofa and grumbled something about too much noise.

Would the girls eat cereal? Or did they prefer eggs and hash browns? What about pancakes and waffles? If they didn’t get up soon and give me some ideas we were all going to get toasted peanut butter and jelly.

My alarm over my dad made me wonder if I should call him. No, he’d be worried about me if I called outside my Monday morning routine.

A squeak from the bedroom roused my curiosity.

“Would you girls shut up and go to sleep!” Allie yelled. “All night they’ve been grunting and moaning. All night long.” She pulled her pillow over her head.

The squeak came again. It sounded like tree limbs sawing against each other in a high wind.

“That’s not teenage girls being brats!” I dashed down the hall to the bedroom. Why hadn’t I heard this earlier?

“What?” Allie asked. She came up behind me, both hands wrapped around the grip of her revolver. Weapon carefully at her side.

“Phonetia? E.T?” I asked as I tapped on the door.

The muffled squeak came again, this time I caught a hint of desperation behind it.

“Scrap, what’s happening?”

Heck if I know. The other side of the door, it doesn’t like ... exist,
he slurred. Then he hiccuped.

The fine hairs along my spine stood on end and my scar pulsed. Something was definitely wrong.

“If I go charging in there will I step into another dimension?” Like the Nörglein home world?

Unknown. If this is elf guy’s work, he shouldn’t be able to hide from me. Not unless ... not unless ... Back in a moment, babe, I’m gonna check on the crystal ball.
He flew off in a drunken swoop.

“What did he say?” Allie’s question masked the pop of displaced air as Scrap went elsewhere.

“Proceed with extreme caution. And put that thing down before you shoot someone with it. I don’t think the gun will help against a forest elf. Otherworldly hide is impervious to bullets.”

Allie responded by raising the gun and aiming it over my shoulder. “Open the door very slowly,” she whispered. “If I need to shoot, you hit the floor.”

“Okay.” I drew out the word into about five uneasy syllables.

I turned the doorknob slowly. It moved easily, unlatched. A push from one finger opened it. The hinges creaked like the sound effects of a haunted house.

Different from the weak sounds coming from within the room.

Okay. Now I knew something strange was going down. My faucets didn’t drip, my drawers didn’t stick, and my hinges definitely didn’t squeak. I made sure of that during the long hours of writer’s block, insomnia, and depression over the last year.

Thick, Stygian blackness greeted me. The air felt so gelatinous and damp I could almost push it aside. It smelled of damp earth, fecund with growing things. A sharp chill redolent of fir needles and holly berries caressed my face.

Let’s explore.
Scrap dove back into this reality.
Whee! This is better than Disneyland!
he chortled as he thrust the magical comb into my hair.
Come on, Tessie, nothing to fear in here. It’s all just a big blank nothingness filled with worms and bats. Oops, not supposed to talk about bats around you. Sorry, dahling, but one of them is just so cute and he’s playing coy with his wings. What a flirt.

“Scrap, have you been drinking?” I planted my feet firm and solid, like a deep-rooted oak.

“Imp bane,” I snarled. We’d run into that nasty trick before. Seems that when mistletoe, ivy, and holly are knotted together in an arcane but very specific pattern, it blocks imps’ senses and prevents them from transforming into Celestial Blades.

No wonder I hadn’t known what went on in this room. With Scrap blocked, so was I.

But now that I wore the comb, I caught three separate heat signatures. One was shifting about restlessly; the other two were still and recumbent.

Gathering my courage, I thrust my hand into the inky blackness and found the light switch in the usual place to the right of the door. One flip and the room sprang to light with too vivid colors and too sharp definition to each object. I saw auras everywhere; but none so vivid as around my daughters.

My girls lay on the bed, stripped to their bark and bound hand and foot with their own pajamas.

Standing over them, wearing his traditional ensemble of green coat, buff breeches, and a green tricorn hat, a thorned whip in his hand, eyes glowing demon embers, stood their father, the last of the Nörglein elves.

He must have crept in through the French doors during the storm and hidden until we all slept.

“About time you showed up, girlie. I thought you were dead the way you clung to sleep. Now you’ll learn what happens to those who steal my property.”

He turned and flicked the whip into my face.

F
IZZY, FUZZY, WHIZZY. My brain is too big for my head-zee and doesn’t want to do anything but curl up and pluck slub-zees off of sweaters.

No, that doesn’t scan. Only half rhymes.

Something strange going down. Down, down, down I plunge.

Oops, didn’t mean to kiss the floor. What’s this? Pretty knots of lacy vines. Holly, mistletoe, and ivy. What a lovely song they make. I could sing of them all night. Sing to them too.

But they don’t belong in my world. Something tugs at me. Hard. Pulling me back from my delightful, lazy musings.

Don’t wanna go back.

Gotta go back.

A slice of pain to my brain.

Acid boils in my stomach, followed by burning anger.

The shroud of fog lightens around my mind.

Holly, Mistletoe, and Ivy.

Mistletoe, Ivy, Holly.

Knots and knots. Twists of lacey woven green. A decidedly Italian flavor to the design.

A jolt of knowledge. The Nörglein invented that spell to make imps impotent. He and his kind have been using it for centuries to keep us at bane. Oops, at bay. Bay. Bay.

Well into the bay goes the Imp bane. Gain, main, disdain, mundane.

Not exactly the bay, but the river. Sliver, quiver, dither, Indian giver.

I grab the tendrils and pop out. Almost lose them in the chat room. Can’t do that. Might trap the unwary imp....

A torrent of giggles bubble out of me. There are more than a few uppity imps I’d like to trap. Starting with fifty of my siblings, a few old guys at the Citadel, and Mum.

Much as I’d like to do that, I need clear passage through the chat room whenever I want.

So blip. Pop back into reality flapping my wings like mad and drop the noxious bundles into the muddy, surging water. The currents grab them, dunk them, and whisk them away over the horizon. All that rain the dark elf spat at us last night strengthened the currents and gave them speed. Speed to separate me from my nemesis.

Now back to my babe and her elf of a dilemma.

The gun exploded in my ear. Echoing, stabbing. Hurting.

I dropped face first to the floor.

I heard the shots again and again. One shot? Or had my brain replayed it?

The thorn whip lashed my back.

I curled into a fetal ball, protecting my vulnerable neck with my hands. With a second lash I yelled in pain and outrage. I couldn’t hear my own screams.

But I heard Scrap howling like a coyote under a full moon.

Crazy as a loon with all that imp bane around. I was on my own.

Another lash. I inhaled sharply.

“Stand up, lowly woman. Take your punishment as you deserve,” the elf sneered. He sounded like a bad actor playing a mob boss.

Another shot.

Allie landed beside me. “Ricocheted right off him,” she gasped, bewildered.

“Punishment!” I screamed at the Nörglein as I rolled closer to the bed. “Punishment? I’ll show you punishment.”

I grabbed a rapier from its hiding place in the bed skirt, unsheathed it in one long motion as I stood and lunged.