Changer's Daughter (46 page)

But scrying just shows a picture of the person or people being sought. In this case, what Lil sees is a nice hotel or motel suite equipped with two queen-size beds and a bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub. That is it.

The window curtain has been drawn, so they can’t guess where the hotel is from the landmarks outside. No hotel stationery is visible on the bedside tables, at least not under the litter of wine bottles, pizza boxes, and discarded clothing. The telephone shows only an extension number on its base, no phone number. If the hotel provides guidebooks to the hotel or the surrounding area, these are also buried in the considerable litter created by three rutting satyrs and their molls.

Conversation between the three satyrs and their six girlfriends has been limited to three categories: sex, drugs, and food. Where the first is coming from there is no doubt. None of the girls looks at all interested in leaving. Some of the combinations the three satyrs come up with would fascinate the makers of blue movies, but none of the participants protest.

A supply of drugs, mostly marijuana and cocaine, had apparently been laid in before someone Georgios referred to as “the driver” had been dismissed. Food is delivered by room- service waiters who leave the cart outside of the door. Given the size of the orders, doubtless their tip is added automatically to the bill. Booze (mostly wine, though Stud shows a lamentable taste for cheap beer) is acquired this way as well.

Quite possibly, one of the nine inhabitants of that suite has said something that would have pinpointed their location at some time or another, but even Lilith cannot maintain a constant scrying. The best she can do is to check in periodically and hope for a change in location or some newly revealed clue. Thus far, there has been nothing.

Following Demetrios’s initial report, rehearsal had been canceled for the day. The three remaining satyrs refuse—even under threat of being fired—to help in the search for their buddies. Doubtless Lil would have had no qualms about resorting to torture if she thought it would help, but, like Demetrios, she believes them when they insist they know nothing beyond the most general elements of Georgios’s plan—getting laid and getting laid again.

Therefore, the three remaining satyrs are locked in their suite with a rotating shift of fauns guarding them—and some of Lil’s magic added in just in case one of the fauns feels a pang of sympathy for his fellow theriomorphs.

With Phoebus’s help, Demetrios has spent hours on the phone, trying to learn anything that would limit their search. He has just finished calling all the taxi and limousine services, asking if anyone had picked up a fare at their hotel who answered the description of Georgios and his pals. Thus far, he’s learned nothing. The suspicion that many of the transportation companies would routinely lie rather than risk annoying a former customer keeps him from believing that negative information is information at all.

“Doubtless,” he sighs, hanging up the phone and rubbing his pointed ear, “the satyrs are using a credit-card to pay for their debauchery, but the credit card company is not going to tell us where those charges are being made.”

“No. We’d need to be the police or FBI to get that kind of cooperation,” Phoebus agrees.

“And we’re not,” Demetrios says. “Nor is any athanor listed in the Accord’s files.”

Tommy Thunderburst, comparatively sober and very, very mellow, shambles over and drapes his long-limbed frame over one of the desk chairs.

“What athanor’d be a Fibbie?” he asks. “Man, they print you, blood type you, piss test you, and check your background from here back to conception. You’d need to be a wizard to pass all of that and what for? Any athanor with that much power can get what they want without being a cop.”

“True,” Demetrios sighs. “But it sure would be useful now.”

“What we need,” Phoebus says, “is a diviner. A really good one who could use Lil’s image as a start and then divine where the satyrs have gone.”

“Good idea!” Demetrios says. “Tommy, can Lil divine?”

“Lil,” Tommy says with is broad grin, “is divine. But it’s beyond me if she can divine.”

He leans back, laughing at his own joke, then calls to where the elegant witch is once again leaning over her scrying bowl.

“Hey, baby. Furry-legs here has a good idea. Can you divine?”

Lil is seated in a corner of the room, bent over a bowl set on one of the hotel’s writing tables. With her golden hair falling like a straight, solid curtain between her face and the rest of the company gathered in the room, Lil seems so isolated that it is something of a shock when she lifts her head and turns to Tommy.

“Divine,
mon chèr
?” She frowns, a cupid bow pout that clears. “I had considered that,
certainement
, but there are too many people in this city for me to isolate three. There are too many hotels, even.”

“Oh,” Phoebus slumps, and Demetrios reaches and pats his arm. “Darn.”

“But divining may be our best course,” Lil says, showing uncharacteristic kindness. “Demetrios, we must limit our search.”

“Yes’m.”

“Call hotels. Ask if they have rooms with Jacuzzi tubs. Then ask if they have rooms with two queen-size beds.”

Demetrios smiles. “Done, my lady, done.”

“
Bon.
” She sighs. “I am tired, but this cannot wait. I shall go and refresh myself, then I shall have one of the roadies drive me from hotel to hotel, seeking our lost stallions. Demetrios, can you prioritize that list a bit?”

“I’ll do my best,” he answers, nervous about the responsibility.

“And Tommy”—Lil turns those emerald eyes on her sometime lover, sometime charge—“you shall call Lovern. Tell him we are so angry that he has not sent to us the promised amulets. Tell him to come here at once.”

“Baby!” Tommy protests. “It’s late afternoon—hell, it’s evening! Lovern lives in the boonies now. He might not be able to get a plane until morning, and you gotta have found them by then!”

Lil Prima shakes her head. “I do not ‘gotta.’ I am tired. I have been doing this scrying all day. Now I divine all night? I do not think so. Get Lovern here. There are many flights between Albuquerque and Las Vegas. He may even be able to get one this evening.”

“I’ll try,” Tommy says, “but I don’t promise.”

“Get him,” Lil repeats fiercely, and strides from the room.

Tommy looks after her, his expression rueful. “I guess I’d better get him. I know that look. It means ‘or else.’ Sure hope Lovern doesn’t have any plans for the evening.”

Shahrazad is puzzled. All morning she has kept coming across human scent, as faint and wispy as if it is very old, but her memory tells her that it was not here when she hunted in this area in the hills above the ranch house a day or so before.

Sitting on her haunches, the young coyote vigorously scratches her right ear and tries to think. It isn’t easy. Even with cold weather prompting many of the rodents that are her usual prey into hibernation (or at least torpid retreat), the air is alive with interesting scents. She wants to track them, to dash around, to feel the winter thickening of her coat push back the cold, but she can’t stop worrying about those scents that shouldn’t be there. It’s rather frustrating.

Far down below, she can see Frank’s tiny figure coming out of the ranch house. He’s shrugging into the quilted jacket he wears when he plans to be outside for a long stretch and is carrying a large pack slung from one hand. A couple of the dogs bounce at his heels, getting more excited as Frank turns toward the garage. In another minute, one of the pickup trucks pulls out of the garage, two dogs in the bed, another in the cab.

When the truck has vanished down the driveway, Shahrazad no longer has the excuse of watching it as a distraction. Hip and Hop balance on their back legs, browsing idly on the dried leaves still clinging to a sapling. They have confirmed that Shahrazad’s scenting is not just her imagination, but that is where their interest ends.

For the first time, Shahrazad realizes that her mind works differently than theirs. It is not just the difference between jackalope and coyote, nor even that of older and younger. Just yet she cannot place what the difference is, but it both scares her and fills her with elation.

Dangerously close to revelation, the coyote distracts herself by taking another sniff at the old scent trail. Concentrating, she sorts it out from all the surrounding scents, including a strange impulse to believe that it is not there. She struggles against this last, frustrated by the conflict between her nose and her mind, until something in her mind snaps. The scent trail is no longer occluded.

A human passed here the day before. A male. A male known to her. Wayne, the human who smelled of cows and who had prowled around the ranch house. She lowers her head and begins coursing the trail.

Wayne had passed here, walking with confidence yet keeping behind rocks and big trees whenever he could. For a time he had stopped and studied the ranch house, then moved on. Shahrazad picks up her pace, wondering that she should have had any trouble finding this trail, wondering, too, why the corvids who normally would warn Frank of any intruder on his land had not spoken. Could it be that Wayne’s trail had been hidden from them as well?

That thought so shocks her that she halts, flopping down to consider how this could be so. Like most wild things, she depends on the corvids. Nosy scavengers that they are, their caws and jeers provide the audible newspaper of the animal world. Even now Shahrazad hears a couple of jays harassing a bobcat as it slinks through the undergrowth with a rabbit hanging loose in its jaws. More distantly, a small flock of crows are commenting on the remnants of a dead deer. When she had hunted at dawn, she had saved a portion of her kill for a couple of juvenile ravens who, though not athanor, had reminded her of her father. Probably they are in the general vicinity, wondering if she is going to do any more hunting this morning.

With a sudden sense of urgency, Shahrazad follows Wayne’s day-old trail again. He had shown some skill, for a human, but there are times she can lope along swiftly, tracking by eye rather than by nose, dipping her muzzle now and then to confirm that she is still on his freshest trail.

When she comes to the fringes of the territory claimed by the wolves she halts, her back paws actually digging small furrows in the soil. The signpost urine is strong and rank. It reminds her of her lesson several days ago, reminds her that wolves are far bigger than coyotes and that the pack does not suffer trespassers lightly.

Even though she has become acquainted with those werewolves who help Frank with various chores, this does not mitigate Shahrazad’s fear. Wayne’s track goes on, but here is a line that she will not cross. She backs away to the nearest cover, hearing relieved chirps and whistles from Hip and Hop.

Trotting downhill and back toward the ranch house, she considers what she has learned. If Frank were here, she would try to explain things to him. His comprehension of coyote concerns is almost canine. Since he is human as well, he might be able to explain to her what Wayne was doing—or he might tell her that Wayne had permission to come onto OTQ land.

The last thought gives her some relief. Frank had entertained Wayne, had even given him food. Perhaps like the Wanderer or the Changer, Wayne is become a friend and as a friend he can cross into Frank’s territory. She is still thinking about this when she hears the corvids call out to the western fringe of the ranch, a call that means intruder.

Abruptly heading that way, Shahrazad sees a flash of raven-dark feathers. Quorking hoarsely one of her young ravens lands on a branch of a nearby evergreen, putting himself between her and the west.

Shahrazad may not speak to animals as Frank does, nor is there any romantic Ur-language that enables animals to speak with each other, but she is coyote enough to know that the bird is warning her. She appreciates this, takes it as tribute for the numerous kills she has shared.

West, though, is the direction in which she heads.

A coyote’s lope covers distance far more rapidly than one might assume from such a small canine. It must. In sparsely populated areas, a coyote’s hunting territory may be twenty-five or thirty square miles.

“Her” juvenile ravens fly with her, darting ahead to check the lay of the land, coursing back to keep her company. The two jackalopes follow more reluctantly. They have not stayed alive as long as they have by tempting human observation. For the first time since Frank assigned them to chaperon Shahrazad they show real reluctance to follow where she leads. Even when she had tempted the wolf pack they had not been this edgy.

But Shahrazad is too interested in learning who has crossed into Frank’s land to back off now. She has her suspicions, but oddly enough the errant darting of the wind does nothing to confirm them. If Wayne once again prowls the OTQ, he has found a way to conceal—not merely to mask—his scent.

Now the cries of the corvids are growing more erratic, more confused, as if the crows, ravens, and jays are losing sight of the invader. One by one, the voices drop into silence until only the determined quorking of one athanor raven, a son of the Raven of Enderby who inherited his father’s long life without his father’s tendency toward magic, sounds the alarm.