The Wild Ways

Chapter Seven

"SO, YOU'RE COUSIN JACK." The weird guy in the skirt straightened, and peered at Jack over the top edge of his sunglasses. "You seem to be a good influence on Chuck since she's actually here on time. Mark." He stuck out his right hand.
Jack looked at the tangle of cables Mark held and then over at Charlie, who shrugged. Maybe this was a test. After a little initial confusion, he'd learned that when people held out their hand in the MidRealm, it was a greeting not a threat. While Allie'd applied first aid, Graham had explained that it used to mean, See, my hand is empty. I'm not likely to kill you in the next few moments. Was Mark saying, I can strangle you with these cables, you decide how this interaction is going to go? Or had he just forgotten he was holding them? Given what Jack could see of Mark's expression behind all the hair, he was betting on the later. Tugging the cables free of a surprisingly strong grip, he shook the guy's hand, then handed the cables back.
Seemed to have been the right thing to do, but he supposed it could come back to take a bite from his tail later.
"I like him, Chuck.You know why you're here, Cousin Jack?"
"As far as Mark's concerned," Charlie said before Jack could answer, "you're here to be a roadie for the band. That's as far as his interest extends."
Her expression said, He doesn't have to know all you are.
Well, duh. Who did?
"Bullshit. I have extended interests." Mark seemed harmless. Jack didn't trust that. "Anything you need to know, Cousin Jack?"
He shrugged. "Charlie's got it covered. But . . ."
"Yes?"
"Why the skirt?"
"It's a kilt."
"Okay." He waited. Glanced over at Charlie, then back at Mark.
After a moment, Mark's brows rose - barely visible between the sunglasses and the hair. "Oh, you really wanted to know. I thought you were just being a smart-ass, you know, given the fourteen and all. I wear a kilt . . ." He ran his empty hand down over the pleats. ". . . because I find it more comfortable to let the boys hang free."
"Genitals," Charlie said quickly. "Don't give me that look," she added more quickly still as Jack closed his mouth so emphatically his teeth clacked. "You know you were about to ask how he got boys under his kilt and you . . ." Turning to Mark. ". . . were going to say a six-pack usually works, so . . ." She mimed a rim shot. ". . . moving on."
"No one appreciates the classics," Mark muttered. "Can you lift an amp, Cousin Jack?"
Jack shrugged. He could lift a buffalo. "I'm stronger than I look."
Stepping away from the van, Mark made a sweeping gesture at a black box thing with fabric and dials. Jack guessed that must be an amp. Charlie'd never brought one home, so he'd never seen one up close and personal. They looked fuzzier on YouTube. He leaned in, lifted the box thing up, and said, "Where do you want it?"
"Get it to the stage. Tim'll place it."
Even in this form he could probably carry two, three if they weren't such an awkward size, but he suspected, given the question, Humans couldn't.
"Ah, the energy of youth," he head Mark say as he headed for the stage. "Anything else I should know about him? You said his parents were dead?"
"Father's dead, mother's not around. He's strong-minded, independent, easy to feed, and . . ."
"And I can still hear you!" Jack yelled without turning.
". . . picks his nose with his tailtip when he thinks no one's looking!"
Jack flushed.
"Of course we tell the truth," Auntie Bea sniffed. "We're hardly responsible for what people believe."
It hadn't taken him long to realize that it wasn't what a Gale said, it was how they said it.
Listening to Mark laugh, Jack wondered if Charlie knew that basic rule applied to every word out of her mouth.
It figured that in front of a crowd of tourists, most of whom couldn't tell a jig from a reel, Grinneal had never sounded better. At the last minute, Mark decided not to play "Wild Road Beyond."
"Wasted on this lot," he'd said. "Too many Tilleys in the crowd."
His song, his decision, but Charlie couldn't see that the hats made much of a difference. Everyone was on their feet from the second song, and when they knew the words - international crowds meant American covers - they roared the chorus back at the stage like they'd been raised to the sound of the fiddle.
By nine thirty, the hats were white blobs in the gathering darkness and the smell of sweat had overwhelmed the scent of mosquito repellent. Ignoring the teenagers employed by Parks Canada, who were attempting to herd everyone back to their campsites, the crowd demanded one last song.
Mark's eyes gleamed. Charlie tightened her grip on her pick as he slammed them into "Mari Mac." Eight verses later, the band finished the song at Mach 10 and the crowd, wrung dry, finally surrendered the field.
"Figures this wasn't a festival show," Shelly gasped, tossing Charlie a bottle of water and cracking one for herself. "We were on fucking fire!"
"Damn right," Charlie agreed, stretching her T-shirt up to wipe her forehead. "So we just do it again. And again. And again." She emptied the bottle as Shelly laughed.
"You think it's going to be that easy?"
"Please. If it was easy, everybody'd be doing it. We, however, are amazing."
"We are."
"We not only rock and roll, we Celt."
"I don't think you can use that as a verb," Shelly pointed out, bending to unplug her electric upright bass.
"I can use anything I want as a . . ." Charlie couldn't see what Tanis was looking at, but, even at a distance, it seemed as though Bo's arm was the only thing keeping her vertical. Swinging her guitar back around in front of her body, although she had no idea what she'd do should Auntie Catherine have decided to get up close and personal now the mirrors were blocked, Charlie ran from the grandstand to where the fiddle player and the Selkie were standing at the end of the trampled grass.
Not Auntie Catherine.
Jack.
And his eyes were gold.
"Tanis, Bo, I see you met my cousin Jack. Jack, this is Bomen Deol, our fiddle player and Tanis, his girlfriend." Squirming past Tanis, she moved in beside Jack and elbowed him hard in the ribs. "Remember the food rule." Her presence had stopped Bo's constant demands to know what was wrong and Tanis, at least, wasn't crying. Of course it didn't look like she was breathing either. "Tanis! Snap out of it!"
The Selkie blinked, her eyes welled up with tears, and she sank to her knees - sliding out of Bo's relaxed grip. "Highness."
Oh, right. Dragon Prince. Usually the dragon part was the more relevant.
"Jack!"
"I didn't do anything!" His eyes hazel again, he waved a hand at Tanis who shuddered and leaned away. "She's just . . ."
"Tanis, get up." Eineen did not sound happy. Or look particularly Human as she appeared out of the darkness. "Highness." She inclined her head to Jack, then turned on Charlie, lips pulled back from pointed teeth. "What is he doing here?"
"He's my cousin."
"He is also . . ."
"I know. But he's my cousin."
"And that cancels out the rest, does it?"
Charlie shrugged and slung an arm around Jack's shoulders. It wasn't particularly comfortable, given how much taller he'd gotten, but she didn't want anyone, especially Jack, coming to the wrong conclusion. She felt him begin to relax under her touch. "Trumps the rest, at any rate. He's family. He's a Gale."
"Your Auntie Catherine is family and a Gale."
"Never said the family didn't disagree."
"And if His Highness decides to disagree?"
"Like I said, he's a Gale. That makes it our business, not yours."
"This is not the UnderRealm. He does not rule here. He does not feed where he wishes."
"He knows that."
"He's not deaf," Jack muttered. "Look, there's lots to eat here that's not going to get bent out of shape about it, right? So get a grip. I'm just spending the summer with Charlie and carrying amps and stuff."
"And yet you remain who you are."
He sighed, only smoking a little. "And I'm a Gale, like Charlie says."
"We shall see. Tanis."
Tanis blinked, the tears finally rolling down her face as Eineen took her arm.
"I think tonight you had best come home. Tomorrow morning, we hold the press conference to discuss the shallow water well." Her gaze swept over Jack before it came to rest on Charlie. "The press conference you suggested. I sincerely hope you know what you are doing."
"I do." She did. Sort of. "You hold a press conference; I speak to Amelia Carlson while she's lulled into a false sense of security and find out where the skins are."
"And a false sense of security is your plan to gain access?"
"Please." Apparently, Selkies didn't recognize that as a dismissal. Fine, if she needed a plan . . . "Grinneal is taking part in a major festival. Majorish," she amended, "and if I have to talk my way past a secretary or something, I can say I'm there asking for a corporate sponsorship."
Eineen's eyes narrowed and her lips thinned.
"It's a lie to get in the door," Charlie reminded her. "It's not like we'll actually use her evil oil money."
"So you say." Arm around Tanis' shoulder, much as Charlie's was still around Jack's, Eineen led the younger Selkie off toward the water.
"Hey!" Charlie took a step away from Jack then stopped. She wasn't going to go running after them. "Did you fix the mirrors?"
Eineen paused at edge of shadow. "We have passed on the message."
"Yeah, well, you're welcome," Charlie muttered as they disappeared.
"What the hell just happened?" Bo demanded.
"You heard her," Charlie told him. "Press conference tomorrow morning."
"Charlotte!" Eineen's voice came out of the darkness. Followed by Charlie's phone.
Jack snatched it out of the air.
Bo continued to look confused. "Okay, so Tanis is spending the night with Eineen, right? I have no idea what's happening anymore." He peered at Jack, and Charlie realized that of the people involved in the confrontation, only Bo couldn't see in the dark. "You're a prince?"
Jack shrugged. "Sometimes."
"I find it helps to concentrate on the music," Charlie told him, waving Jack off when he tried to hand her the phone.
The lines in Bo's forehead smoothed out. "The music, yeah, I guess that's the smart thing to do. So, I think I'll start by helping Shelly pack her gear up and move straight to beer after that."
"Sorry about messing things up with you and Eineen," Jack muttered when they were alone.
"How do you know . . . ?"
"No contractions." He snorted. "Like that doesn't give everything away."
"Well, since there wasn't anything actually between me and Eineen, no harm no foul. Also, no snacking."
"I got that the first seven million times."
"Bears repeating."
"It really doesn't."
Charlie had a sudden memory of her mother going on and on and on at her about her hair falling out if she dyed it again. "You're right. You're fourteen, not four. Go help Bo and Shelly load the car."
"Where are you going to be?"
"Right here." She took the phone from his hand. It rang. "Reminding Allie what Wild means."
The Two Seventy-five N press conference took place in Halifax, in one of the Halifax Film Company studios. The room was surprisingly full; Charlie saw cameras from CBC, CTV, and Global as well as all two dozen of the province's newspapers from the daily Chronicle-Herald to the monthly Tata-magouche Light. Standing at the back of the room, watching the male members of the press swarm around Tanis, Eineen, and one of Tanis' sisters like moths to a flame, she wondered how many of them had already been burned. That whole seal-wife thing might place the Selkies among the more passive aggressive of the Under Realm immigrants, but all the Fey played hard with their toys.
Of the four men at the front of the room, two were fiddlers, Kevin and Ian Markham who played together in The Brothers Markham Mayhem - usually referred to as Mayhem - the other two Charlie didn't know but assumed they were representing the fishermen who wanted an oil spill as little as the Selkies did.
As the press corps settled, Eineen smiled and said, "Thank you all for coming."
Charlie mimed a rim shot, although she was probably the only one who got the joke, then turned and slipped out the door. As much as she'd like to stay and watch very pretty people do what she'd told them to - and honestly, who wouldn't? - she had plans of her own.
Attendance at press conferences given by local environmental groups opposed to a Carlson Oil project was not generally a part of Paul's job description as Amelia Carlson's executive assistant. Under normal circumstances, any one of the summer interns cluttering up the place would be sent along as a place holder.
None of the circumstances surrounding this latest project even came close to resembling normal.
Seated on the outside aisle about halfway up the room where he could either make himself noticed for a sound bite or slip away unseen, Paul watched the press milling around the seven members of Two Seventy-five N in attendance and had to admit that for whacked-out environmental activists, they were a good-looking bunch. The price of every single article of clothing they wore all added together probably cost less than Paul's linen jacket, but they wore their tatty shirts and faded jeans and plastic sandals with more confidence than he'd been able to pay for. Paul had never been a both sides of the street kind of guy, so he didn't have much of an opinion on the men, but something about the women drew his attention and kept it.
They had a similarity about them that suggested family - not just matching dark hair and dark eyes but the way they moved and smiled. As it happened, he'd run identity checks on everyone connected with the group and most of the unmarried women shared a surname: Seulaich. It was an old Cape Breton family - the name went back as far as the records did - and the odds were good that these three were cousins if not sisters.
As they took their seats, the tallest of the women swept her gaze around the room gathering everyone's attention, and said, "Thank you all for coming. We'll begin with a prepared statement concerning Carlson Oil's proposed shallow water well just off Hay Island and then take questions."
She didn't read the statement, one of the other women did, but Paul continued to watch her as he listened. She barely moved, sitting composed and still, the lights painting highlights across her hair and faint shadows below the dark fringe of her eyelashes. He barely registered the contents of the statement, distracted by the smooth curve of her arm at the edge of her sleeve.
When she announced they'd take questions, he couldn't take his eyes off the movement of her mouth.
"You say that upon consideration you're supporting Carlson Oil's bid for drilling permits; what exactly are those considerations?" Lisa Dixon from CTV.com asked aggressively. Paul knew from experience that Ms. Dixon asked everything aggressively, as the website tried to prove itself separate from the network.
The big blond guy at the end of the table smiled before he answered and from the coquettish change in posture, Paul was willing to bet Ms. Dixon wasn't going to argue with a word of his response. And the response was . . .
Dark eyes met his.
It was like looking off the side of his father's boat into deep water, feeling himself falling even while his boots remained on the deck and his fingers stayed clamped tight around the rails.
He was holding a copy of Two Seventy-five N's prepared statement. Print reporters were milling about, cameras were being packed up, web reporters were already filing. He'd missed . . .
There hadn't been . . .
He was having a little trouble remembering.
"Hello."
She was even more beautiful up close, nearly as tall as he was, and . . . was that fiddle music?
"Eineen Seulaich."
"What?"
"It's my name. I thought that since you spent the entire press conference staring at me, you might have missed a few things and we should probably talk."
"Talk?" He could feel the sea surging through his veins, his pulse the crash of the waves on the shore.
Her smile made it difficult to breathe. "You're going to need something to file besides my description."
"File?" Confusion helped him focus. "No, I'm not a reporter. I work for Amelia Carlson, of Carlson Oil."
The disappearance of her smile made it even harder to breathe. "Do you now? Well, then . . ." Her fingers were cool against his cheek. " . . . you'll have to work a little harder for me."
"I don't . . ."
"Yes, you do." She fell in beside the others as they passed.
Frozen in place, Paul watched the doors close behind them and found himself alone in the room with a few reporters and the certain knowledge that his life had just changed.
Or was about to change.
Or would change, if he could just figure out how.
It hadn't been difficult to find Carlson Oil's Sydney office: the address was on their website.
It wasn't the sort of business where people walked in off the street - if a person was in the building, that person had a reason to be in the building. Charlie probably would have remained unquestioned as she checked out the first floor even if she hadn't been hiding behind the pleasant little melody she was strumming.
The most interesting thing on the first floor was a big room filled with maps and rocks and a table covered in a model of the drilling rig off Hay Island and the proposed refinery on Scatarie. The water of the painted sea was a uniform and unrealistic blue everywhere but under the model of the rig where it was a purplish/greenish/black, like a bruise, the edges feathering out into the blue as though both colors of paint were still wet. Although they weren't. Why would an oil company paint in an oil spill under their own rig? Either it was a weirdly artistic bit of corporate sabotage, or one of Amelia Carlson's employees had a warped sense of humor.
Other than the model, the first floor held only a few worker bees in worker bee cubicles. The queen would be on the second floor.
A glance left at the top of the stairs showed nothing but a hallway and doors. To the right, behind a set of open glass doors, an office that smelled faintly of fresh paint. On the far wall, another solid door, slightly ajar.
This was where Charlie'd planned to use the corporate sponsor story, fast talking her way past the assistant who should have been guarding the door. Looked like she could save the story for another day.
Hands by the strings but not actually playing, she crossed the office, paused, and slowly pushed open the inner door. The woman behind the desk looked up, obviously expected to see someone else, and clearly would have frowned had her forehead been capable of movement. Amelia Carlson's attempt to remain at her media-inspired peak was a lot more obvious in the flesh. Charlie'd never seen anyone dig their artificial fingernails so desperately into their youth, although, she silently admitted, she didn't travel in the kind of circles where it might be a common behavior. Gale girls knew where the real power lay.
"Amelia Carlson?"
The woman behind the desk ignored the question which, Charlie figured, answered the question. "And who are you?"
"I'm working for some people whose property you've taken."
"I own the land in Pictou County free and clear. Now get out."
"Not that property."
"Oh, for . . . I gave Brandt a fair price for that warehouse. If you want to discuss it further, make an appointment with my assistant."
She clearly hadn't been acting out of character when she'd paid Auntie Catherine to steal from the Selkies. "Not that property either."
"Then what . . . ?" Her lip curled, enough disdain to move the collagen. "You're not a lawyer."
Charlie glanced down at her guitar. "No, I'm not."
Eyes narrowed, Amelia Carlson looked past Charlie to the door.
Considering how little of her face moved, Charlie had to guess what she was thinking. If I tell you to go, you won't. As I can't make you, that would weaken my position. In order to remain in control, I must control the conversation and that means I issue the definitive statements, not you.
Of course, it was equally likely she was thinking: Oh, good, the half a dozen burly miners I employ to kick ass are on their way down the hall.
All right, maybe not as likely, but possible.
"Fine." She sounded bored. "Why are you here?"
So much for the burly miners, Charlie thought a little sadly. She'd have known how to deal with those. "I want the sealskins back."
Leaning back in a chair that looked like it should be on an episode of Star Trek, Carlson steepled her fingers and looked intrigued. "I assumed you'd be older."
"What?"
"You're the one working for them, aren't you? You're like her."
"Her?" Oh. Auntie Catherine. "I'm not like her."
"Please." Carlson waved the protest off with a manicure that probably cost more than Charlie made in a week playing with Grinneal. "She already told us you were like her."
"She's wrong."
"You're very young."
"I'm almost thirty."
"Really?" A slow sweep took in Charlie's flip flops, shorts, and Disneyland 2011 T-shirt.
Teeth closed on a verbal response, Charlie exhaled slowly and then ghosted her fingers over the strings.
Carlson shuddered and leaned a little farther away although she tried to make it look like she hadn't. "All right. Fine. I don't know what they're paying you, but I can pay you more."
"I don't want your money, I want the sealskins. You must have seen the press conference; you don't need them anymore. You've won."
"Do I look stupid?" Relaxing back to her previous position, Carlson's lip curled again. Something had clearly changed, but Charlie didn't know what. "When they say public opinion changes like the tides," Carlson continued, "they literally mean that twelve hours is the length of time people will hold an opinion without reinforcement. If I give you the pelts, I have no leverage. Next thing I know, that little environmental group is back at it and we go through it all again. So no, you can't have the pelts. You'll have to go to the police. Oh, wait, you can't go to the police. It's all up to you." Her lip curled higher into a nasty smile. She spread her hands. "All right, then, smite me."
"Say what?"
"Torture me for their location. Threaten me with retribution." To Charlie's surprise, she laughed. "You don't have it in you.You showed me what you were, but not what you could do. You're right. You're not like her. The one of whatever you are that I have, she could smite and torture and threaten, but that's not you. I've looked across my desk at politicians and the competition and my own board members and, in order to survive, I've had to know what I'm looking at. Do you know what I see when I look at you? I see someone who likes to hang out with her friends, have a few beers, play a few tunes. You have a good relationship with your family, but you don't take their concerns seriously. I believe the word is: slacker. Play me a protest song, if you want, but you're not getting those pelts."
Charlie pressed the fingers of her left hand down on the strings so hard she felt the wire dig into the bone, as though the calluses weren't even there. She could read her audience as well and right now she knew she could play the pain the Selkies felt and Amelia Carlson would feel it, but she wouldn't care. She'd consider it evidence her blackmail was succeeding.
If making her feel wouldn't work . . .
Grabbing her, taking her through the Wood, and abandoning her - Give me the sealskins or I'll leave you here - would only piss her off.
The charms Charlie used most were to ease her way, some specially so she didn't die in a fiery car crash, but usually just to make the world a more convenient place. She didn't know how to say, "Do what I want you to do," and mean it.
"You've got nothing, do you?" Carlson smiled. "Get out."
The important thing to remember about slackers wasn't that they spent their time lounging about doing nothing. If lounging was all they were capable of, they wouldn't be slacking. No, the thing to remember about slackers was that, by definition, they weren't living up to their potential. Amelia liked to think she had a good eye for potential. It was why she'd hired Paul. He'd wanted away from his working class background so badly that he'd accomplish the impossible to do it.
She'd seen potential in the woman with the guitar; the seeds of the same certainty that made Catherine Gale so terrifying. Catherine Gale had shown up in her office and announced she had a way of getting the worst of the environmental groups to back off, allowing the government to issue permits for the well off Hay Island with a clear conscience. At that point, with the news of the well about to break in the media, Amelia would have listened to a dwarf announcing he could spin straw into government influence.
The deal had been for cash. No paper trail linking Carlson Oil to Catherine Gale. Amelia had been told to leave four equal payments overnight in a locked desk drawer - one on July 26th, one on July 29th, one on August 1st, and one tonight on August 4th. Maybe Catherine Gale hadn't wanted to make a suspiciously large, lump sum cash deposit. Maybe there was some sort of ritual in four payments three days apart. Amelia didn't know and didn't particularly care. Although the drawer had still been locked when she returned to her office every morning after having left the money as agreed, the money had been gone. It felt as though she were paying protection to the shoemaker's elves or leaving one hell of a snack for Santa.
Amelia pulled the two stacks of cash from her top drawer, stared at the fifty dollar bill on the top of each stack for a moment, then she pulled out a piece of paper and wrote, Two Seventy-five N sent her to my office. I saw on her face the curve of your cheek, the angle of your nose.We need to talk.
"Why didn't you just make her do what you wanted?" Jack asked, peering suspiciously into his hamburger.
"What? Throw a charm at her that made her tell me everything? Because she'd have told me everything." On the other side of the table, Charlie jabbed the ice at the bottom of her glass with her straw. "Tell me where you've hidden the Selkie skins that you had stolen in order to blackmail Two Seventy-five N into supporting you is just a little more specific than charms are."
"I didn't mean with a charm."
"Yeah, well, I could have sung the Selkie pain at her, but she wouldn't have given a shit."
Frowning, Jack set the upper bun to one side wondering if Charlie was being deliberately stupid. "You could have just asked her," he muttered. When Charlie rolled her eyes, he added, "Okay, fine, if you aren't going to make her talk, I could."
"You could make her pee herself, but I don't think she'd tell you anything. What are you doing to that burger?"
"It has onions. I don't like onions."
"You ate your father."
"Not with onions." He reassembled his burger. "So if you weren't going to make her talk, why did you go see her?"
Charlie snagged one of the rejected rings. "I thought she'd think she was winning and she'd tell me where the skins were."
"Seriously?" Jack sputtered, spraying the table with sesame seeds. "You've never actually had enemies, have you?"
She thought about growing up surrounded by family, by people who loved her completely, unconditionally, fiercely. About discovering her way through the Wood and how her family had stepped back and let her go, let find her own path. About Allie who had been hers in all the ways that mattered since she was fifteen and about Graham who trusted her. "No," she said at last, "I haven't."
"Duh. Enemies don't defeat themselves for you; not even if you're a Gale. You're going to have to put a little effort in."
"I don't . . ."
"And again, duh. And next time, before you try stupid shit, talk to me. Twelve uncles, remember?" His eyes flared gold. "I know about having enemies. You going to eat those?" When Charlie shook her head, he dragged the last of her fries over to his side of the table. "So, what're you doing tonight?"
"Practice, with the band. It's a festival stage this weekend in Louisburg." She flicked sesame seeds back toward him. Not like she could do anything for the Selkies, not without knowing where the skins were. "We need to scoop some points."
"Playing in the Fort? I read the pamphlet when you were in the can," he added nodding toward the tourist brochures tucked in between the stainless steel napkin holder and the wall.
"Just outside the Fort by the visitor's center, I think. But we can go inside the Fort if you want."
He shrugged, suddenly too teenage to admit he wanted. "Do I need to be there tonight?"
"Depends, what are you likely to do instead?"
"Fly." He shrugged again. "Scout out the lay of the land, you know, in case I need to get somewhere quick because you have . . ." Teeth more Dragon than Human bit a french fry in half with cheerful overemphasis. ". . . an enemy."
"Who can't do anything to me, you know that right?"
"Rules have changed. You've agreed to be a Hero."
Yeah right. A Hero. So far her only contribution had been all about locking the barn door after the skins were stolen. But since Jack seemed to be waiting for a response, she growled, "Shut up."
"And I may eat a deer."
It took Charlie a moment to rewind that back to context. "Just don't fall asleep in a cave someplace. That'd be a little hard to explain to the band."
Jack snorted. "Not for you."
"You want dessert?"The diner's single waitress frowned at the dissipating smoke as she tapped her order pad with what looked like a bowling alley pencil.
"Do you have pie?" Jack's grin was all Human. Well, all Gale, Charlie amended and the waitress couldn't help but respond.
Her gaze softened and the tension in her shoulders relaxed as she turned to face him. "We've got the best pie in Cape Breton, hon. Blueberry, raspberry, peach, lemon meringue, and coconut cream."
"Uncharmed?"
Charlie kicked him under the table.
"I mean, yes, please!"
His enthusiasm chased her confusion away. "Well, which do you want?"
Charlie held up two fingers and Jack sighed with such force the blast of warm air curled the edges of the paper placemats. "Blueberry and coconut cream."
"They won't be as good as what you get at home," Charlie warned him when they were alone again.
"Yeah, but pie. Uncharmed pie!"
He had a point.
Paul had no idea why he was sitting tucked out of the wind with his back against a jumbled pile of rock, staring out at the barely visible waves of the North Atlantic slapping against the shore. His day after the press conference had been like a thousand others. He'd been on the phone most of the 398-kilometer drive back to Sydney, booking appointments, touching base with Captain Bonner who commanded the leased barge already loaded with the pylons for the drilling platform, and speaking to three people in the ministry of natural resources office although not to the actual minister. He'd arrived at the office at 4:35 PM then had gotten immediately back into his car and driven Ms. Carlson to the Sydney airport so she could fly to Halifax and attend a dinner for the Nova Scotia Professional Women's Association along with the four female members of the provincial cabinet and seven Members of the House of Assembly.
The Minister of Natural Resources might issue the permits, but he was as susceptible to peer pressure as anyone.
They did the debrief about the press conference on the road.
"Were they convincing?"
"Stunning. I mean, yes. Convincing. Very convincing."
After seeing her off, he'd returned to the office and analyzed the minister's schedule for any leverage they could exert, then gone over the simplified seismic surveys for the Hay Island well, making sure the PR department had covered all the bases. He'd dealt with a list of problems left on his desk in Ms. Carlson's nearly illegible scrawl about her leased accommodations, brought her appointment with the dermatologist ahead two days because of a television interview, checked that her pale pink linen suit was back from the dry cleaners then, around 9:05, he'd cleared his desk, turned out the lights, and been, as usual, the last man out of the building.
He'd picked up some fast food on the way back to his hotel.
Then he'd driven past his hotel.
He hadn't intended to head for the coast, but somehow, forty minutes later as the long summer twilight had started to deepen into actual darkness, he'd found himself testing his car's suspension on a set of ruts leading east off 255 toward the ocean. He'd driven until he'd run out of even the semblance of a road, then he'd walked, then he'd sat, and watched the last of the light disappear and the water turn from gray to black.
He didn't know why he was here.
"The sea gets in your blood," his father had told him and had listened patiently to a ten year old's explanation of how blood was, evolutionarily speaking, not much different than the seawater that had surrounded the original, single-celled life destined to eventually climb up out of the oceans. It wasn't poetry, but science.
It seemed science had his heart pounding in time to the steady rhythm of the waves against the shore. The tide had turned and was on its way back in, but a lot of the rocky beach remained exposed. There wasn't much of a moon - more than a crescent but not quite half. Paul didn't know what to call it, but the sky was clear and the moon seemed to be shedding light out of proportion to its size. Each wave had been edged with silver. The rocks glistened. He could see the gleam of shells polished white . . .
Like bone.
Where the hell had that come from? Like bone?
"Men who die at sea," his father had told him, "die alone."
Who said that kind of shit to a kid? Really? And he wasn't alone; he was by himself. Not the same thing. Even if he'd had time to meet women, he didn't have time for a relationship. He didn't have time to wake up next to someone, to fight over the last bagel, to unlock the door again so he could kiss them good-bye. He didn't have time to explain the difference between offside and icing to a warm body curled up beside him on the couch. He didn't have time to forget anniversaries, remember birthdays, and share ownership of a small brown dog with a curly tail.
But he wasted a moment in want.
This is ridiculous. He shrugged back into his suit jacket and paused, a line of cold stroking down his spine, as he saw a dark oval out in the water. Grown men with two degrees and workplace responsibilities didn't spend their time thinking of bones and bodies and dying alone. Then the oval became a head. A seal head framed by a silver vee as it moved closer to the shore.
Four seal pelts tucked away in a mine.
Just stay still. It won't even know you're here. The odds of it coming up on shore are . . .
It reached the shallows, reared back, and stood, the pelt sliding down over moonlight-gilded skin, flapping for a moment in a grotesque semblance of life, then caught up and becoming . . .
. . . a scarf knotted around slender hips.
Long dark hair flowed across the curve of shoulders, the bell of breasts, dusky nipples exposed, then covered, then exposed again. The eyes were seal's eyes, too large and too dark. The dance was too graceful for land; flesh needed the support that water offered to move so freely.
Paul didn't remember standing.
Or clambering down to the water's edge.
He remember stumbling across the wet rock but only because he fell and drove a sharp edge of storm-split stone into his knee.
The dancer ignored him so obviously it was clear she considered herself alone on this stretch of beach and yet, she danced away every time he tried to move closer.
Finally, as the beach grew smaller and blood ran down his leg to mix with the seawater destroying his shoes, she let him catch up. He reached out and, as she spun, managed to hook one finger behind the scarf around her hips.
The slightest pressure tugged it free and it slapped into his injured leg, wet and heavy and smelling of fish, empty eye sockets starting up at him.
Five pelts.
She stopped dancing and turned.
"Eineen?"
Her smile was as dangerous as deep water and his reaction as unstoppable as the tide.
Careful to keep from crossing the moon and giving himself away, Jack glided away from the drama being played out on the shore below. He'd never paid much attention to the seal-folk back home; they were tasty if caught but had nothing in common with a life of air and fire. They sure were a presence here, though. Every group of seals he'd passed had one or two or half a dozen bright spots of other visible to his sight and most of the seals had at least a touch of shine. No surprise. According to his Uncle Adam, things that tasted good had a strong urge to reproduce and an UnderRealm bull would be dominant in any MidRealm herd.
Did they sense him, he wondered? Did they feel him flying overhead and dive for deep water? Or did they realize he was different and they were safe?
He was a Gale. With wings and scales.Wings and scales, teeth and tail. Sorcery that never failed. Lips pursed, he blew out short blasts of flame instead of the mouth beats - dragon mouths not so much made for rap - and wondered if any of the bands in Charlie's festival ever played anything good. Gale. Scales. Never failed. In your face; I got a family place!
Wheeling inland toward the sound of a large body moving through the underbrush, he used his shadow to herd the deer into a clearing large enough for him to strike. He used to wonder why the family got totally bent out of shape about Pixies - and no one, not even other Pixies cared about Pixies - but he could chow down on does and fawns and stags and no one blinked an eye. Not even David.
He used to wonder.
He didn't anymore.
When he finally landed behind the church, he could hear Charlie's band still playing in the basement. Charlie probably wouldn't have carried through on her threat to play only bagpipe music in the car if he was late but only a total moron would risk it. Who listened to music that sounded like Naiads being tortured?
Actually, at least half the Courts back home would probably love it.
He remade his clothes from grass clippings and fallen leaves - if he forgot to undress, they burned off when he changed - and pulled them on leaning against Charlie's car. Head half through the neck of the Green Lantern T-shirt, he froze. Somewhere close, a phone was ringing. It wasn't loud, but that wasn't because of distance it was because it was . . .
. . . coming from inside the car. Charlie's phone, then, but just ringing, not playing a signature song.
Someday he'd make her change the ringtone she'd put on for him. Puff was a stupid name for a dragon.
But a plain ring, that meant it was someone Charlie'd never given a song to. Or maybe, they weren't calling for Charlie. Maybe they were calling for him. The family knew where he was and he didn't even have a lame phone that did only voice and texting - although Charlie was probably right about Auntie Jane's ulterior motives - and he hadn't talked to Allie since they'd left Calgary. The ring was so faint only someone who could hear a mouse fart under their flight path would be able to hear it.
Jack unlocked the car and, head cocked, tracked the ring to the glove compartment. Unlocked the glove compartment. Used a claw to cut through the duct tape sealing it shut. Pulled out the wad of dirty laundry. Opened the Where the Wild Things Are movie lunch box. Unwrapped the kaiser roll. Pulled the phone out from inside the kaiser roll, ate the kaiser roll, and answered the phone.
"Who are you? Put Charlotte on immediately."
Okay. Not for him. "Can't." He watched the fiddle music stream by, joining the streams always in the air. "She's at band practice."
"Band practice."
It was more of an insult than a question, but he answered anyway. "Uh-huh."
"Tell her to call me when she gets it right!"
"I don't think that means . . . Hello?" He snapped the phone closed and tossed it on the driver's seat. If Charlie'd wanted it to stay hidden, she shouldn't have made it so easy to find.
He told Charlie about the call after they'd loaded all the equipment back into the vehicles and were on the way to Shelly's brother-in-law's cousin where they were spending the weekend.
"No promises," the brother-in-law's cousin had snorted, "but the missus, she's been buying boxes and boxes of dry cereal against the chance of a zombie apocalypse and I can probably convince her to let go her hold on a couple, maybe even throw in a bag of milk come breakfast time."
"You're sure it was an auntie?" Charlie asked, turning onto Beatrice Street.
"All the hair on my body stood on end, and if that wasn't creepy enough . . ." He rubbed the back of his neck where goose bumps lingered. ". . . she called you Charlotte and that seal-girl you like is the only other person I ever heard do that. And she was kind of mad at you. They're kind of obvious when they're mad."
"But why wouldn't an auntie know you?"
"Don't know." He was impressed Charlie didn't care about a mad auntie. Angry auntie. Probably. "I thought the aunties had that cool da da DA-da ringtone?"
"Not an auntie trying to fake me out and get me to answer the phone - which would normally mean Auntie Jane."
"She'd know me."
"She doesn't actually know everything. Don't tell her I said that," Charlie added after a moment.
They were stopped behind Mark's van at the bridge when he remembered. "So that seal-girl you like? I was flying up the coast and I saw her come out of the water on legs and dance. And there was a guy there and he grabbed her skin. Her sealskin," he added in case Charlie'd missed the point even though there'd been other grabbing going on. "You know what that means." After a minute, when the silence gained weight, he added, "Sorry."
Charlie sighed. "It wasn't going anywhere, me and her."
"I know. But you liked her."
She sighed again as they started moving. "Yeah, I did. But what can you do."
"Lots of stuff. If I was your prince instead of your cousin and you came to me, I could get the skin back and tell the seal-girl she wasn't allowed to make you unhappy. Even if she couldn't make you happy." When Charlie turned to look at him, he shrugged. "I would, if you wanted."
"If you were my prince?" He braced himself for the lecture on how Gales didn't have princes no matter how spoiled some of the boys got - it was one of Auntie Carmen's favorites - but all Charlie said was, "Need to be a prince very often these days?"
He shrugged again. "Sometimes the lesser folk like that I'm here. This is . . ." He waved a hand out the open window, ". . . messy."
"Confusing?"
"No. And I know the difference."
"Sorry."
"They just like that I could make order even if I don't, you know?"
"I think so."
"But I don't think the Courts know how many of the lesser folk have come through. That's got to be weakening the border." A little of the dashboard melted under his grip. "Look at the road now, okay?"
The brother-in-law's cousin's rec room was crowded with all five of them in there, but he didn't realize how bad it was going to get until Shelly waved him toward the sofa bed, saying, "Charlie and I have shared before, and I know teenage boys need their own space."
"I can't!" He turned to stare at Charlie. The music might've made the band her other family, but carrying some of their equipment didn't make them his family and things happened at night he couldn't control. There were scorch marks on the ceiling of his bedroom to prove it. And this ceiling, it looked flammable.
"You can, but you don't have to." Charlie tossed him a pillow. "If you want, you can take your sleeping bag out to the backyard. It's August, it's not going to rain, and I doubt Shelly's brother-in-law's cousin will care."
"Really?"
"Sure. You're fourteen, not four. You can sleep without adult supervision."
"There's bugs, though," Shelly added. "They'll eat you alive."
"I ate a bowl of roasted grasshoppers once," Mark said thoughtfully. "Tasted like peanuts."
Tim's snort suggested tasted like peanuts was a relative term.
Bugs didn't bother him. "I can sleep outside?" He checked with Charlie. "Like this?"
She knew what he meant; in skin, not scales. "Why not? Stay in the yard. Come inside if you have to use the bathroom; don't pee against the fence."
"Hadn't occurred to him until you mentioned it," Mark snickered.
"Hey."
His tail nearly ripped its way out of the sleeping bag before he realized Charlie was sitting cross-legged on the grass beside him. "Don't sneak up on a guy!" he snapped, trying not to sound like he'd nearly changed. He hadn't changed without meaning to for years.
"Sorry."
Total lie. "And I don't need you checking up on me."
"I wanted to ask you a question."
He squirmed down in the sleeping bag, muttering, "Yeah, it's proportional."
Charlie snickered. "Your cousins?"
"Duh."
The girls who'd come West with Cameron had stared wide-eyed at his dragon form, then all made a point of drawing him aside to ask. Cameron had patted him on the shoulder and said, "Take my advice, dude; until you're fifteen just tell them to piss off. They'll be running your life soon enough."
"Well, I am way outside your seven-year break, so not my problem. Although . . ." She frowned as she broke off blades of grass and flicked them off her fingertips onto the breeze. ". . . your first ritual had better be with one of the older girls. You burn when you're stressed and she's going to need to keep control."
"Over me?"
"Duh." Grinning, Charlie sprinkled bits of grass over his face. "Which brings me to my question. Given that worrying about burning the place down is more likely to cause you to burn the place down, why haven't you ever asked Allie if you could sleep in the courtyard or on the roof?"
"As if. There's no way up to the roof in skin."
"Please. Like she wouldn't jump at the chance to have Michael visit and do that architecture thing. Also, I know for a fact she's always wanted a spiral staircase."
"Why?"
"I have no idea. Now, answer the question."
He turned the next sprinkle of grass into ash before it hit him. "Because people, Gales, sleep in bedrooms."
"Where am I sleeping tonight?"
"In a basement."
"And last night?"
"In a tent, yeah, I get it you're a Gale and you don't sleep in bedrooms, but you're different."
"And we have a winner."
Jack stared at her for a long moment, allowing his vision to sharpen until he could see her as clearly by starlight as he would have in daylight. The charms on her eyelids were freaky, but the rest of her face seemed to be triumphant rather than concerned. That was new. These kinds of conversations with Allie always ended up with her looking like he was a lost sheep or something equally useless and unable to be a Gale.
"Different." She patted her chest. "Different." She smacked his.
"Obvious much," he muttered unable to get his arms out of the sleeping bag to swat her hand away.
"Apparently not." Bending at the waist, she leaned forward and kissed his forehead. "My bad. I should have noticed and done something about it sooner."
"So you're my new mommy?"When her eyes widened, he sighed. "Fourteen, not four. And as Auntie Bea keeps reminding me, when I'm fifteen, and I'm not a child and I'm not protected by being a child, I'll still be a sorcerer and you know what they do to sorcerers."
"You'll also still be half dragon and that makes you unique, unique powers are Wild Powers, that makes you a Wild Power, and Wild Powers play by different rules."
"Gale boys aren't Wild Powers."
"Yeah, that's what the aunties said. But Gale boys aren't dragons. Or, technically, princes. First time for everything."
About to tell her that just because she said something that didn't make it so, Jack realized that this was Charlie and all he said was, "Okay."
"Okay?"
"You know, sleeping outside is going to be a nonevent if you don't go away."
"Point." She stood and smiled down at him. "Firm the ground when you get up. Shelly's brother-in-law's cousin won't want a chunk of his yard feeling like a mattress."
"I was going to."
"Sleep sweet, Jack."
He rolled his eyes, closed them, and faked a snore. She let him hear her walk away.
First time for everything. Charlie said so.
But it was probably still a good idea to try and do something amazing enough they'd want to keep him around.