Authors: J.A. Pitts
“I cost a very lot,” she said, taking up one pen. She jotted down the date and time on the top of the page in red ink, then took up a different pen to write down my name.
“Explain the situation to me,” she said, her face closed and her voice clipped.
Definitely not Ms. Congeniality.
I gave her the story as far as I could piece it together. Girl runs away, girl needs help, I get called. She wrote everything down in a sort of code I didn’t recognize. Dwarvish shorthand for all I knew.
“And you are not the legal guardian, I take it.”
“No.”
She wrote several more sentences.
“That’s a lot of words for a simple no.”
She looked at me, eyes flat, and tapped her pen on the page. “With this particular client, nothing is simple. I get paid to make problems go away.” She grinned at me for the first time, and it was like being in front of a hungry wolf. “I make observations, perceptions of things that may serve me in the future. Especially when I meet someone new.” She jotted down a few words and laid the pen aside. “I sense you could bring difficulties,” she said, finally. “I don’t like difficulties.”
She opened her briefcase, deposited her notebook, and took out a cell phone. She pulled a Bluetooth headset out of her jacket pocket and hooked it on her ear. Then she dialed the phone.
She spoke quickly, relaying all the details I’d given her from memory. The description she gave of me was a bit disconcerting, but apparently the person on the other end needed confirmation.
“Yes. One minute,” she said. “We will call back.”
She took a second phone out of the briefcase and placed it on the table between us. I started to reach for it, but she slid it back a couple of inches, shaking her head at me.
She pulled a penknife from a pocket and slit open the plastic casing on a new headset she pulled from her briefcase. It had two sets of wires running out of it, a splitter. She plugged the headset into the second phone, held one piece to her ear, and slid the second over to me. “Put on the headset.”
I held the headset up to my ear, and she punched a button on the phone. It rang once, and a familiar voice answered.
“Ms. Beauhall. You are a blessing and a menace.”
It was Nidhogg. “I beg your pardon?”
She laughed. “I have granted you pardon on several occasions already. Now I need to know what you intend to do about this latest upset you have caused.”
I looked at Anne Rokhlin, who looked at me like I was something she’d stepped in.
“Are you referring to Jai Li?” I asked.
Nidhogg hissed. “You know full well what I mean. The girl is your responsibility now. I can no longer trust her in my presence. Not while Qindra remains detained.”
What a stupid bitch
, I thought. Anger flashed through me. “She’s a harmless child.” I had to stop myself. The words I wanted to say would only cause more trouble. Anne sensed it and nodded slowly.
“Broken and useless,” Nidhogg said, her voice full of venom. “Tainted by your interference.”
Because I hugged her? Showed her compassion? Jesus, this was one stone-cold bitch.
“Fine, I’ll keep her,” I heard myself saying. “If you think she’s too much for you to handle, I’ll gladly give her a place that is safe.”
Anne’s eyes went wide. That was not what she expected.
That shocked Nidhogg as well. “She is not yours,” she said, her voice icy. “When will you free Qindra? When will you fulfill your bargain?”
“I built you the gate you requested,” I said, trying to breathe through the anger. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked since Qindra fell.”
“And you are still lacking,” she said. “You are not worthy of Qindra’s shadow. Do your task. Bring her home to me. Then we will discuss your fate and the fate of the renegade child.”
The phone cut off, and I sat staring at the lawyer, my mind numb with shock. She disconnected the phone, rolled the headset around her fist, and took a pair of wire cutters from her briefcase. She cut the wires into several pieces and put them into a plastic baggie. Then she took the battery out of the second cell phone and dropped the shell on the floor. With one quick stomp, she shattered the face of the phone and swept the pieces into the bag with the battery.
Finally, she took out the notebook again and began writing.
I sat there, breathing, trying to find my center. I wanted to pick the table up and throw it through the wall.
“You do not lack for chutzpah,” Anne said. “Do you intend to harbor this waif?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “You heard Nidhogg. She’s not welcome there. Not until Qindra is rescued, if ever.”
She nodded, pulled out several pieces of paper, and slid them in front of me. “Sign these. This will grant you temporary custody of the child until the rightful guardian can be contacted.”
They were full of legalese, but I scanned them, making sure I wasn’t giving away my kidneys. Basically, they gave me power of attorney over Jai Li. For the interim, I was her legal guardian. It was temporary, but there was no specified end date.
The documents were real enough, but how legal they were, I had my doubts. I signed them, of course. What else could I do?
“What now?” I asked.
She took them, pulled a metal contraption from her briefcase, and crimped the signed pages, notarizing them. Then she signed them in several places, each signature different—forgeries. Some laws were meant to be bent, I guessed.
“Simply speaking…,” she said, separating the papers into two piles. The first she placed in a battered manila folder and slid it across the table toward me. The rest she slid into her briefcase. “You are now the child’s temporary guardian. Have been for the last six months.” She smiled at me, a toothy shark’s grin. “Legal in the state of Washington. Don’t try to take the girl out of the country or across state lines. Other than that, take her home, give her a bath, read her a story, and tuck her into bed.”
She stood and held her hand out to me. “Congratulations. You’re a mommy.”
She swept out of the room, leaving a cold wake behind her. Ice princesses could take lessons from this woman.
I took the papers back into the observation room and sat next to Katie. Jai Li was lying on the floor, playing with some building blocks that had appeared while I was gone.
“Officer Simpson brought them,” Katie said, taking my hand. “How was the lawyer? What’s the plan?”
I brushed the hair out of her face and kissed her gently. “Looks like we’re mommies,” I said, handing her the papers. “At least until we get all this straightened out.”
She looked at them for a moment, then hugged me. “Oh, God. Are we ready for this?” She got up and paced around the room. “Jimmy will freak. What about work? And all this crazy stuff going on.” She whirled to me, lowering her voice. “What about that serial killer? Will she be safe with us?”
I got up and walked to her, enveloping her in my arms. “We can take her out to Black Briar. Camp out there for a few days. Until things settle down, you know?”
She didn’t look completely convinced, but I could see something in her, a hunger, perhaps.
“Wow,” she said, looking over at Jai Li. “She’s so tiny.”
“And,” I said, squeezing her, “she’s amazingly talented in some areas.”
Katie looked back at me.
“But she hasn’t had a normal childhood,” I said. “I’m not sure how well she’ll adapt to what passes for normal in our lives.”
We stood there, watching her. This was a moment I wanted to last. That child needed me, and I think we needed her—at least for a little while.
Fifty-two
D
eidre was already asleep when we got back, and
J
immy didn’t wake her. “She’ll flip,” he said as he made up the couch for Jai Li to sleep on. Katie and I would sleep on an air mattress by the couch so Jai Li would feel safe. We got bunked in, and Jai Li went to sleep as happy as I’d ever seen her.
Jimmy and I sat up, drinking coffee for a bit longer. I was watching the clock. I wanted to be ready before midnight. Katie needed to go to work the next day, so she was fast asleep. Or faking it well.
I gave him the rundown on Jai Li, and he kept looking over at the living room.
“She’s so damn small,” he said finally.
“Yes. We’ve noticed.”
“Smart-ass.”
It was nice to be talking to Jim again like normal people. He was relieved that the tiff with Katie had blown over, and I got some of the credit for that.
“I need a favor,” I said. “Nothing huge, but important.”
He nodded. “Sure, what?”
I explained about walkabout, let him in on all the events around that of late. “I want to go out to Chumstick, set up with the squad out there. Have them watch over me.”
“Trisha and her crew are on tonight,” he said.
“Who’s watching the twins?”
“Gunther, actually. A bunch of folks rotate in and out, but he’s spending more and more time out here with Anezka.” He grinned with half his mouth, raising the opposite eyebrow—like a Vulcan shrug. “Can’t see what he sees in her, but he’s a grown-up.”
“You only have eyes for Deidre,” I said, patting him on the hand.
“Deidre’s one helluva woman, that’s for sure.”
He lapsed into silence, his mind churning. I let him work through it.
“Skella will be here in about thirty minutes,” he said, looking at the clock.
“I’ll need her to take me home first. I need some things.”
“Ask her,” he said. “Tell her to put it on our bill.”
“Thanks. But we need to think about some options there. We’ve been working her too frequently, wrecking her sleep patterns. Might want to think about driving some crews out for a few days, give Skella a break.”
He looked thoughtful. “Good point. I’ll call a meeting with her, negotiate some downtime.”
“Good. She’s so eager to help out, I’d hate for her to start feeling like we are taking advantage of her.”
He laughed. “You helped negotiate a damn good rate for her,” he said. “She’s making bank.”
I thought of the irony of a young elf from deep in Stanley Park, Vancouver, making “bank.” It’s not like she had a lot of material needs. Jai Li, on the other hand, had more needs than I’d even begun to fathom.
“I’m worried how Jai Li will react if I’m not here when she wakes up.”
“Sarah. She lived with a dragon. She’s small, but she’s not naive. We’ll cover things if you aren’t back before Katie has to go to school.”
“Thanks,” I said, getting up.
I crept into the living room and kissed Katie, grabbed my kit, and headed out the door. I needed to chat up Trisha before Skella got there. Make sure everyone was on board.
She was in the kitchen part of the barracks, making sandwiches, when I walked in. Frick and Frack were in the back, asleep, and Gunther was asleep in the room with them, sacked out on one of the bunks.
“Hey, Trisha,” I said quietly when I went in.
She waved at me with a knife covered in peanut butter. “What’s going on up at the big house?”
I stepped into her assembly line, helped put a stack of sandwiches together. “Katie and I have gotten temporary custody of a kid.” I didn’t want to tell her she was one of Nidhogg’s. Trisha had real anger issues with dragons. Not that I could blame her. She’d been stabbed a bunch. Only Qindra’s magic had saved her in the end. I was still pissed at the dragons myself. It was complicated.
Trisha glanced back to the sleeping quarters. “Kids are great,” she said, smiling. “They teach you so many things.” She pointed at me with that knife again. “Like for instance, did you know young trolls can eat damn near anything?”
“Like grown-up food?”
She laughed. “Yeah and alcohol. They love alcohol, and I can’t see it affects them in any way. Frack snuck out of bed one night, only time it’s happened, mind. We were getting ready for another shift out at Chumstick, and he took a half-empty beer Benny had left over and drank the whole thing down before we could stop him. He’s strong, the booger, and fast. We got him cornered, and he went into total baby mode, crying and wanting me to pick him up.”
She had a wistful look on her face. “Totally makes everything worth doing, you know?”
“I’m learning,” I said.
“Like this stuff out at Chumstick. I’m keeping the world safe for them, keeping the bad things away from those I love.”
I knew the sentiment, trust me. “Sacrifice anything to save those you love.”
“Damn right,” she said, screwing the lid back on the jar of jam. “Not like you. No offense,” she said, looking a bit embarrassed. “But not all of us are bad-ass dragon slayers.”
“You played your part,” I said.
“Whatever.” She shrugged at me, but I could feel some resentment. “There are some damn scary things out there,” she said. “Having some power wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
The frustration was palpable. I shared it. There were so many things I couldn’t fix—like my family. I sighed and rubbed my face. My hands smelled like peanut butter.