The Wild Ways (Gale Women #2) - Page 11
CHARLIE CAME OUT of the Wood just inside the perimeter fence, facing the mine-head.
"All I need is a definitive moment in time. Something that resonates so loudly, I'll have no trouble following its song out of theWood."
Allie folded her arms. "What if you're wrong?"
"Then it doesn't work and I end up where, not when."
"And if you get lost?"
Charlie sighed. "Get lost once your first time in and no one ever lets you forget it."
The landscape told her absolutely nothing about when she was. She'd followed the stirring anthem "Charlie Kicks Troll Ass" which should have brought her out just as the Charlie of ten days ago realized how things worked. Unfortunately, all that had happened/was happening deep in the mine leaving no impression on the surface. There was always a chance she'd followed an echo, a chance the song had been so powerful it would resonate through the Wood for years leading travelers astray. Well, travelers attuned to that sort of thing. Okay, her.
If it had worked, here and now Jack was chasing a Boggart down the elevator shaft and she was just about to hit the floor.
"What about paradoxes?" Graham had demanded.
"Chill.What happened, happened. And we don't know what happened after that happened, so anything can happen."When he seemed about to protest, she kissed him, kissed Allie, hugged Jack, and walked through the shrubbery in the courtyard into the Wood.
As Charlie emerged from an annoyingly dense bit of dog willow, she spotted Paul's penis-mobile. No way would it still be sitting there ten days after Paul had disappeared or been discovered disemboweled. Either way, it'd be in a police impound lot.
Punching the air seemed entirely justified.
"Holy shit, I traveled in time. I'm like freakin' Dr. Who, and the cute redheaded companion should turn up right about . . . now." A quick look around. "Or not." Apparently time travel was fine, but a cute redheaded companion was too much to ask of the universe.
She patted the penis-mobile's shiny black roof as she jogged by. Kept jogging past the big double doors they'd left unlocked ten days earlier, and charmed open a standard-sized door in the next building. The big elevator was down in the mine, but a little research had turned up three smaller ones.
"Machinery breaks," Graham pointed out. "If the big elevator is fried and they absolutely have to, they can get the miners out the coal shaft, let them ride the belt up, but better to spread their eggs over a few baskets and get them out one or two at a time in smaller, supplemental shafts."
Much smaller, Charlie realized peering through the grating as the motor powered up. This cage would hold two people, three if they were willing to be very friendly and if Graham hadn't printed up the schematics of the building for her and marked a big X on the spot, it would have been easy to miss. The steel door said only, no unauthorized personnel beyond this point not open me to find an elevator you can use to save the day.
She glanced at her watch. Jack would have finished wrapping her in the Troll by now and started pushing the cart toward the Gate.
"Jack, I'm sorry, but you're still too heavy to get through theWood."
"The car . . ."
"I'm pretty sure . . . absolutely sure," she corrected because certainty was at least half of making this work,"that I can get myself when I need to go, but I have no idea how much I can take with me. I'd hate to lose the car and you somewhere between now and then."
"That would suck," Jack admitted reluctantly. "What are you going to tell the guys and Shelly about me not being there?"
"That your guardian got freaked by news of the violence at the festival and made me send you home."
"In the middle of the night?"
"Don't worry, they'll believe me."
"Yeah," Jack snorted. "Totally not worried about that."
The tiny elevator smelled like heated dust and every once in a while gave a grinding hiccup that made Charlie think she should have just climbed down the metal rungs she could see passing outside the cage.
This elevator only went down as far as the Canaveral level.
"Don't need to go any farther," Charlie muttered, stepping out into a dark and empty tunnel. Pulling out a dozen plastic bracelets, she cracked them and slid six on each wrist.
"Magic?" Jack asked as she filled her pockets in the Emporium.
"Nope. Chemistry."
A vigorous shake and she was bathed in the soft glow of dibutyl phthalate, the multicolored bands of light just enough to activate the night-sight charm on her lids. She couldn't see much, but she could see enough to keep from slamming into random carts or the tunnel walls. Running full out, she followed a song of shattered stone to Canaveral where she'd fought the Troll.
"And won," she muttered, stepping around a crushed cart, squinting under the overhead lights.
No sign of Eineen or Paul or the Goblins, but if the Goblins had let their prey get more than three meters from the gate, she'd be very surprised.
Another song sent her after Eineen and Paul. Circumstances dictated it be a love song – boy meets seal, seal enchants boy, boy and seal have children who make the Canadian Olympic swimming team. As she followed it, Charlie made a mental note to check if previous gold medal winners had ancestors from Cape Breton.
Given that it would be pretty pointless to arrive after the Goblins attacked, she concentrated on speed rather than stealth, leaping debris and not bothering to muffle the sound of her sneakers against the stone. Refocusing the Goblins' attention on her was the point of the trip.
"How long will the batteries powering the headlamps last?" Eineen whispered.
"I don't know. They're supposed to be fully charged at all times, but there's often large variables between supposed to be and are." He was amazed by how calm he sounded. Forty-eight hours ago if someone had told him he was going to find himself deep in the Duke with a girlfriend who became a seal – or possibly a seal who'd become his girlfriend – backed up against a gate to a fairytale realm, and under attack by Goblins, he'd have suggested they were off their meds. He was terrified, sure, but Eineen was a warm weight against his side, her arms wrapped around his waist, and he had to hold it together for her.
The same way she was holding it together for him. He could feel her trembling, but her voice was steady, the question had been matter-of-fact. He'd never loved her more.
Pushed into the light by its companions, a Goblin hissed, and spit, and howled out a one-man catfight as it scrambled back into the dark.
"That sounded insulting."
"They use very inventive profanity," Eineen agreed.
"You can understand them?" The noise hadn't sounded like words.
"A little. But it's been a long time since I've heard Goblin."
He thought of asking her how long, but if time spent with Amelia Carlson had taught him anything, it was never ask a woman her age.
"This has all been for nothing," she sighed. "When they attack, the four skins Catherine Gale took will be destroyed with me."
"You're not going to be destroyed."
"Destroyed. Eaten. Same thing. They don't like the light, but it doesn't hurt them. Eventually, the taunting will drive one of them out to attack and at first blood – ours or theirs, it doesn't matter – the rest will follow."
"Well, I'd never thought about going through a Goblin's digestive tract with you, but as long as we're together, there's worse ways to end up."
She twisted in his arms to look up at him – twisted the headlamp back toward the Goblins, setting off another storm of hissing – and said, "You actually mean that, don't you?"
"I actually do." Paul would have kissed her except dipping his head would turn the light away from the Goblins. "However, are you sure that going through the gate . . ."
"Even if they didn't follow us, what's on the other side is worse."
"Jack, the dragon-boy . . ."
"Dragon Prince. And he's long gone."
Paul had already tried the breaker that was supposed to turn the lights on in the side tunnel. He didn't know if it wasn't working because of the gate or the Goblins, but in the end, it didn't matter. His pockets held his phone and some change. His belt buckle wasn't large enough to use as a weapon. He was out of ideas. When he'd thought about dying, he'd thought about wearing a pale gray Armani suit and having captains of industry cancel million-dollar meetings in order to attend. There might have been a wife weeping attractively in the background. Torn apart and eaten by Goblins in a mine had never come up. It was hard to believe it was real.
Then it was suddenly very easy.
Pushed from behind, another Goblin stumbled into the light. Head tucked in between its shoulders, it snarled softly. Tiny gold rings glinted along the curve of one rounded ear and two of the small teeth between the four-centimeter fangs were gold as well. It bent and scraped the claws of both hands against the tunnel floor, gouging out four parallel lines and proving that its claws were strong enough to cut through rock as well as steel.
Wonderful.
Paul hoped that the marks on its grimy leather tunic were a faded pattern, but they looked a lot like tattoos.
The hissing and howling from the darkness grew louder. Goblins crowded the edge of the light. Glistening. Gleaming.
"They're taunting it."
Paul licked dry lips. "It?" A stupid thing to worry about, but he suddenly had to know.
"Goblins are hermaphroditic."
"Okay, then." His heart was pounding so hard his whole body throbbed with every beat. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't swallow.
"So are salamanders and Sylphs."
"What?"
He felt Eineen shrug. "I didn't want you to think it was only an attribute of the vicious."
"Right."
The Goblin crouched, reminding Paul of a cat just before it pounced. He shoved Eineen behind him, felt her hands on the small of his back, brought up his fists. His eyes snapped closed. He forced them open.
The Goblin was in midair, its claws a meter from his face.
And then it exploded.
Ears ringing, Paul staggered back, Eineen steadying him.
From the mess seeping out into the light, more than the one Goblin had exploded.
It looked like every Goblin in a line between the one attacking them and . . .
Charlotte Gale.
She picked her way through the mess, glowing . . . no, not glowing just bracelets on her wrists glowing. Her face . . .
Actually, she looked disgusted and muttered a litany of "Eww" as she minced forward. When she cleared the worst of the wet chunks, she looked up and smiled. "You know how there's a note that shatters glass? Seems there's a note that shatters Goblins."
Those Goblins who'd been outside the line of fire were gone. Had disappeared back into the darkness.
Paul took a breath, gagged, swallowed so he wouldn't vomit, and realized at some point in the last few seconds when death in obscurity had been imminent, he'd pissed himself.
"I can take care of that." Charlotte nodded at Paul's hands – lovely large hands – now covering the spreading stain on his suit pants. "You play in enough bars, and someone you know is going to end up with a lap full of beer."
"No." Eineen pushed out from behind him, her voice shaky but her back rigid. "You're not putting a charm anywhere near his penis."
"Get over yourself, it'll be on his pants. Dries right through to the skin. It's perfectly harmless."
"No. I do not trust you with genitalia, Charlotte Gale!"
"How about we let Paul decide?" Paul was looking, well, stricken if Charlie had to put a word to it. Seemed like his last straw had been one of those crazy, bendy straws that leaked all over. "Hey. Boy-toy."When he blinked and focused on her, pulled out of his head by the insult, she smiled. "I'm not judging. You've handled all the shit that's come down the pike at you really well. Will you let me dry you off?"
He took a deep breath and said, "You have something on your shoe."
Charlie glanced down. There, just where the rubber of her sneaker gave way to canvas, was a large glob of glistening, greenish-gray Goblin guts. "Oh, gross." Holding the top of the cart, she scraped it off against the bottom edge. She'd barely worn those shoes and that was definitely going to stain.
When she looked back at Paul, Eineen had moved between them, his arms wrapped around her waist, her hands over his. Charlie didn't have anything against Eineen loudly, if nonverbally, shouting "Mine!" or even mistrusting a Gale's motives around her man, but making that man wear pee-soaked trousers because of that overly possessive lack of trust? That was mean.
Okay. Charlie could do mean. "So as I arrived, I noticed you were about to shove him at the Goblins, hoping they'd spend enough time eating him that you could haul ass and get away."
Eineen tossed her hair as much as her position allowed. "I'm carrying four skins that aren't mine. I have a responsibility to my family."
A little impressed she didn't deny it, and had stayed completely Human-seeming while doing so, Charlie spread her hands, the bracelets drawing streamers of light. ""I get that," she said pointedly, looking at Paul.
He wet his lips, swallowed, and said, "I would have happily died if it meant Eineen survived."
"Happily?"When he nodded, Charlie surrendered. "I'm impressed; that's some enchantment. Walk in pee with my blessing. And while we're on the subject of walking, we should walk out of here."
"The Goblins?"
"Don't worry about them." She pointed back along the tunnel with enough emphasis the lovebirds finally got moving. "The Goblins won't come near when I'm around."
"That's what the Prince said," Eineen muttered, stepping over one of the sloppier piles of Goblin bits. "Then he left us."
"And I came back."
"You were gone for barely half an hour and you were near death."
"Yeah, well, I heal fast." She put enough edge on the words to discourage further questions.
"Why?"
Or maybe not. "Why what?" she asked.
Eineen turned her head far enough the beam from her headlamp swept across the side tunnel they were passing. The darkness screamed, Keep moving, nothing here. "Why did you come back? We are not your family and the Gales do not get involved in the business of the Fey."
Charlie snorted. "You lucked out, I decided to be one of the good guys."
"You can decide that?"
"Seems I'll be deciding that every moment of every day. Great power. Great responsibility. Yadda. Yadda."
"Sucks to be you," Paul said dryly.
Charlie laughed. "You're okay, Boy-toy.
It was clear he wasn't okay, not quite, not yet, but with every touch of Eineen's hand, or bump against his shoulder, or loving glance, he got a little better as the attitude adjustment that protected the Selkies in relationships distanced him from what had happened back at the gate. Walking behind them – mostly because they had the lights, but if they wanted to believe she was guarding the rear, she was good with that – Charlie could see the wobble in his movement firm up until he was moving as normally as his trousers allowed. When he half turned to help Eineen over a junction in the rails and she could see the edge of the stain, she sang the charm onto it.
Paul stopped walking, looked down, looked back at her, and said, "Thank you."
Eineen turned to glare. Charlie shrugged. "Saved your life, saved all four skins – five counting yours – don't need your permission anyway, only a line of sight, and you're welcome."
When they emerged out into the open area, Eineen and Paul ran for the elevator. Although the cage door had been left open and even a Goblin could figure out a big "press here" button, the elevator was right where they'd left it.
Charlie faced the tunnel. She didn't bother raising her voice; the Goblins would hear her. "Go home. Close and lock the gate behind you. If I come back down here and any of you are still around, I will make you watch the entire run of Barney and Friends.What?" she asked as she turned and found her companions staring at her. "It's not like they understand English. It just has to be a credible threat."
Given the destruction in Canaveral, it was a miracle the elevator had remained undamaged.
"Not a miracle," Paul told her when she made the observation aloud. "The dra . . . Jack. The door had crumpled, but his eyes glowed and he . . ." Jazz hands stood in when he lost the words.
"Good thing," Charlie allowed, closing the gate behind her. "I know another way out, but it'd be a tight ride up."
Although, given the way Eineen and Paul cuddled all the way to the surface, she doubted that they'd have minded.
Charlie, while appreciating that true love had inspired half her play list, was tempted to break into Newfoundland sealing songs if only to counteract the rising level of schmoop. Particularly since the schmoop wasn't being generated by true love but a Selkie enchantment. Still, they'd been through a lot and she supposed they deserved a bit of comfort. First word of baby talk, though, and she was responding with a rousing chorus of "Come All Ye Jolly Ice-Hunters."
The fiddler in her head threw in a few bars in clear agreement.
Half an hour or so later, standing by the car watching Paul lock up behind them, she finally couldn't take it anymore. "Are neither of you the slightest bit curious as to how I got back moments after I left, fully healed and wearing different clothes?"
Eineen shrugged, the movement impossibly graceful. "Fey with even the slightest sense of self-preservation don't get involved in the business of the Gales."
Okay. That made sense. "Paul?"
"You look like Catherine Gale." he said turning from the building.
"Well, sure, there's always been a family resemblance but . . ."
"I don't mean physically." Pulling his car keys out, he pointed the fob and unlocked the doors. "I don't know how to explain it." He frowned, obviously intending to try. "When you meet a wild animal, you have no way of knowing if they'll walk off and leave you alone, or attack. You and Catherine Gale share that same unpredictability. You didn't use to, but you do now."
"You used to be powerful because of who you were." Eineen slipped an arm around Paul's waist. "Now, you're dangerous because of what you are."
"Besides," Paul added before Charlie could figure out her reaction, "you might have wanted to be asked, but part of that was wanting to say I can't tell you when we did."
"That's . . . actually bang on," she admitted. No real reason not to admit it.
"I deal with power every day." He held the passenger door open for Eineen who wore the smug expression of a cat with cream. "The power may be different, but dealing with it isn't."
The fiddler in her head came in with a rousing rendition of "Princess Royal."
Charlie stopped Paul before he could open her door as well – manners devolved into chauvinism too often in her experience – but punched him lightly on the arm as he turned to head around the rear of the car to the driver's door. "I like you, Paul Belleveau. I didn't expect to, but you're okay."
"I'm thrilled."
"You should be. And you needn't look so smug," she added sliding into the backseat, and flicking Eineen in the back of the head. "It's not like you knew what kind of a man he was when he groped your sealskin." A short pause. An added rim shot. Because a sentence like that seemed to require one.
"You planning on using that ax this afternoon, Chuck?"
"Going to have to." Charlie finished tuning the six on her storm guitar and ran her thumb down the strings. "My other one got destroyed last night." Last night for the guitar, ten . . . nine . . . eleven nights ago for her. She'd be glad to see those days pass again, so she could call Allie, tell her it worked, and merge the timelines of her life back together. It suddenly occurred to her that no one was going to call her for the next ten, or eleven, or nine days and that was almost enough to make up for losing her guitar. Almost.
The unnatural silence drew her attention back to the basement. Shelly, Tim, and Mark were staring at her wearing varying expressions of horror.
"Ah, Jesus, Chuck, that sucks the big, hairy hard one." Crouching down, Mark braced himself on her knees and peered up at her through a messy fall of hair. "You okay?"
"I wasn't," she told him honestly. More or less honestly. "But I am now. When it comes right down to it, it was only a guitar. It could have been worse."
He tightened his grip. "That's a remarkably mature attitude, Chuck. If I'd lost my kit, I'd be lying on the floor, drumming my heels and screaming."
She'd done a little of that back in Calgary, but Jack's expression kept reminding her how much worse it could have been, so . . . "Yeah, well, you're wearing a Hello Kitty sporran. Where the hell did you get that, by the way?"
"Esty shop. It's a one off." He patted the pink leather bag hanging over his crotch. "You like?"
"Ignoring the innuendo because Tim's a foot taller than me, I'm just happy to discover they're not in mass production."
"I totally don't blame Jack's guardians for freaking," Shelly muttered, cradling her upright bass against her chest and rubbing her cheek along the smooth finish on the edge of the fingerboard. "I mean, terrorizing grannies and toddlers is one thing, but destroying instruments is a whole other level of fucked up."
"Aggie Forest, Captain Wedderburn's keys, got caught in her cables and nearly went down with the stage, talk about fu . . ." Mark paused, twisted back around to face Charlie and said, "You had your guitar when we saw you last night. Tim went to ask if we could help with the rebuild, and you and me were sitting on that picnic table. You had your guitar then, Chuck."
Oops.
"I had my guitar case then, Mark. Still have the case." It had been in the back of Paul's car. "Now this guitar is in it."
Mark frowned. Ran his thumb along a bit of flaking varnish. "It looks like it got caught out in the rain. How's it sound?"
Charlie picked out the first four bars of "Wildwood Flower," segued into "The Boy's Lament for his Dragon," finished up with Zeppelin's "Tangerine." "Sounds okay to me." She grinned at Mark's expression – he'd dropped back to sprawl at her feet when she started playing – and kicked him in the thigh. "For the love of . . . well, Tim, learn to sit like a lady."
He had his mouth open to answer when one of his sticks nailed him in the back of the head.
"Quite the hollow bonk," Shelly murmured.
"A little respect for your fearless leader," Mark commanded, scrambling up onto his feet. "But Tim's right. We need to get this run through moving; he's got a Kids on Keyboards workshop at one. Where the hell's Bo?"
Tanis had been one of the Selkies who'd got her sealskin back. It was entirely possible Bo wouldn't be able to walk for . . .
"Sorry, sorry, sorry." As if called by the question, Bo bounded down the stairs into the rec room. "Happy girlfriend, happy me, happy idiot in a pickup doing thirty in front of me all the way into town. Let's rock and roll in a Celtic sort of way that'll win us this shindig, get us a recording contract, fill our pockets, and cover us with the limited amount of glory available." He set his case down on the top of the sofa, pulled out his violin, and took a moment to look around the room. "What?"
Tim snickered.
Mark spread his hands. "Nothing." Hands still spread, he spun in place. "You heard the man, people, let's Celt and roll."
Charlie kept a tighter than usual grip on her tendency to throw a you like me, you really like me charm or two out. Today, this first day back playing, she had no idea if a slip would throw out more than just a joy in the music cranked up to eleven.
"Chuck . . ."
"Sorry." She needed to get some kind of barrier up to slow the seepage of . . . of her into the music so she could play without worrying.
Finally, three songs in – well, two because they took three runs at their cover of "And if Venice is Sinking" by Spirit of the West. Two with the erection, one without. Consensus after the fact kept the erection in. Point was, erection aside, by song three, she'd managed to work out a balance between putting her heart into her playing and throwing the rest of her in as well. It wasn't entirely comfortable and it felt so much like slacking that when they finally ran through Mark's "Wild Road Beyond," she let the barriers drop and just played. It seemed safe enough. Bo had the lead and Mark's insecurities ensured they'd never play the song in public, so she'd never be asked to repeat this performance on a stage.
When they finished, Bo's last note circled the basement half a dozen times before fading into silence.
Then someone sniffed and all five of them turned to stare at Shelly's brother-in-law's cousin and what looked like the entire extended family perched on the basement stairs. They looked at Grinneal. Grinneal looked at them. A burly older man wiped at his eyes with the hem of his T-shirt.
The applause when it came was loud enough Mark's cymbals shimmied with it.
Later, after all the women and half the men had come the rest of the way downstairs to hug Bo, Shelly sagged back against the sofa cushions, bass cradled between her legs, and bounced a finger up her E making it sound. "All in favor of adding 'Wild Road' to the set list?"
"No." Mark jumped in before anyone could answer. "It still isn't quite right."
"Dude, if it was any more right, it would ascend." She glanced around the room. "Little help, guys."
"Personally, I'm willing to play that song twenty-four/seven. I want it played at my fucking funeral. Hell, I'll come back from the dead to play it myself." Bo stripped off his sweat-soaked T-shirt and caught a dry one Tim tossed him. "But . . ." He sighed as his head emerged. ". . . it's Mark's song. His call."
"Charlie?"
Charlie grinned. "I'm sorry, I was distracted by Bo's happy trail. What was the question?"
"Charlie!"
"Mark's song. His call."
Shelly rolled her eyes. "And I don't even need to ask Tim, do I? He'll back Mark's play. Fine. But we could win with that song."
"Please," Charlie snorted before things got heated, "we've heard the competition. We could win with 'I's the B'ye.'"
"You bitch," Mark muttered as Tim filled the bellows of his accordion and began to play. "I should never have told you how much I hate that song."
That afternoon, they could've won with "Farewell to Nova Scotia." Charlie didn't have to keep herself from leaking into the music, there wasn't room. It leaked into her, thrumming through her body. The crowd fed off Grinneal's energy and bounced it back at them. Out and back. Out and back. Until they weren't a band and an audience, they were one musical organism.
When they finished, Shelly couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry as she stood shaking in the circle of Charlie's arms. Tim stared at Mark with equal parts awe and lust and Mark stared back wearing exactly the same expression. Charlie prudently stepped out from between them, taking Shelly with her. Bo beamed in the center of a circle of babbling fiddle fans until Tanis threw herself at him, shrieking his name and practically glowing.
Actually glowing.
Charlie threw a charm at her before anyone came far enough out of the music to notice.
Their performance bled off into the band after them and Faic Tusan kept the audience up on their feet, dancing and singing along.
Charlie wandered through the crowd, nursing a beer, and enjoying being told how amazing Grinneal's set had been. That never got old. She saw Eineen and Paul, waved but didn't go over. The Selkies' problems were solved – thanks to her, not that anyone except Paul had expressed any gratitude – it was time to leave the mine behind and enjoy the sunshine. She did notice that Paul was in a golf shirt, cargo pants, and deck shoes, but that was Eineen's problem.
She was a little surprised when Neela's husband Gavin found her later and asked if she thought Mark might be willing to share out the score for "Wild Road Beyond." By the end of the evening, nearly every fiddler at the festival, both performers and audience members, had spoken to her. Seemed like Bo had been talking. Fiddlers married to Selkies – and there were half a dozen in attendance – had come to her because of who she was. The rest had come to her because the other fiddlers had.
Charlie told them all the same thing. They had to talk to Mark.
No one could find Mark.
Or Tim.
And everyone apparently needed to follow that information with an enthusiastic wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Sipping a glass of tolerable champagne, Amelia Carlson found herself enjoying the charity casino put on by the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada far out of proportion to the enjoyment actually available. Partly that was because she was there with Evan Damon, recently divorced, owner of the largest steel works in the Maritimes, and partly it was because his invitation had saved her from attending some sort of local music festival in Louisbourg. Wandering unprotected through crowds of tourists listening to fiddles and accordions extolling the virtues of a subsistence lifestyle