Finn Fancy Necromancy (9 page)

“Heather!”

I jumped, and so did Heather. Her father stood on the path, anger squatting on his face like an ugly toad. That face was aged beyond its years, lined and gaunt, the salt and pepper stubble less
Miami Vice
and more Miami bum, and his eyes were red, bloodshot I was sure, but it added nicely to the angry vibe.

“Heather, get home, now.”

“Yes, Dad,” Heather said in a voice that thrummed with barely checked anger. She looked at me. “Sorry, Finn. Bye.”

She rushed past her father, up the trail.

“You, stay away from my daughter,” he said, echoing the advice my parents had given me, to stay away from the Flowers family.

Perhaps it was because the blood hadn't all returned to my brain yet, or maybe it was actual bravery, but I didn't just apologize and walk away. “Mr. Flowers, I don't mean any disrespect. But I would like to—”

“I know what you want, Gramaraye. And I won't have my daughter mixed up in your family's business.”

I frowned. “Necromancy?”

He shook his head. “You don't know nothin'. Just go home, boy, and don't come around here, or my family, again.”

I walked away, my thoughts spinning. How could I get Heather alone tomorrow?

And what was wrong with my family's business?

*   *   *

I woke the next morning after a long series of ever-more chaotic dreams, grasping at the blanket and looking wildly around me. My hands shook as I set the blanket aside, and I anchored myself in the primary-colored details of Pete's cottage room. Pete turned over with a snort. This was real. This wasn't just another memory manipulated by the Fey. I really was home. I let out a slow breath of relief as I uncurled, untangled, and pushed off the sofa like a badly assembled Transformer robot.

The clock read 6:31
A.M.
, but I didn't feel the urge to go back to sleep. Had the changeling trained my body to rise early? Gods, I hoped not.

I stretched. A lot. My body might be all athletic and manly now, but sleeping on a sofa didn't used to make my back and neck ache like I'd been used for wrestling practice by André the Giant. If this was what getting older meant, it sucked.

For my day's coming adventures, I chose to wear a long-sleeved camouflage shirt I found in Pete's closet. I figured if the Legion attacked again and I had to flee or hide for some reason, the camo couldn't hurt. I also looked for clippers in Pete's bathroom but didn't find any, so I just tied my black waves of rock-star awesomeness back in a loose tail.

Then I roused Pete and went to join what I anticipated would be a fun-filled episode of Awkward Family Breakfast, especially once I started asking Mort what he knew about Felicity's attack, and why he hadn't done more to clear my name.

I found Mort and Mattie already eating breakfast burritos in the dining room. Pete rushed off to the kitchen to get his own.

“Good morning,” I said. “I—”

The doorbell rang.

Mort glanced at his watch—Grandfather's old watch. “We don't have any appointments this early.”

“It's Heather,” Mattie said. “She called this morning. She's dropping off some potions and giving me a ride to school.” She grinned up at me. “I think she wanted to say hello to Uncle Finn.”

Mort looked in the direction of the entry and stood up with an uncomfortable expression. “Well, I have chores to run anyway. I'll leave you all to visit.”

He wiped his mouth and tossed the napkin on the table, then hurried from the room by the kitchen exit, ignoring me as I said, “Wait, I wanted to talk—”

Mattie rolled her eyes.

“What was that about?” I asked. Then Heather entered the dining room from the main entry.

Heather Flowers—Heather Brown, I corrected myself—had changed like everyone else I'd known. She was leaner now, the muscles of her neck and arms clearly visible as she carried a small cooler into the room. But the changes went beyond just aging. She'd always been serious, driven, when I knew her. But now resignation and weariness appeared etched into her features, and seemed to hang around her in a harsh and bitter cloud like cheap perfume.

Heather set the cooler on the table. “Well, if it isn't the mysterious Finn Gramaraye.” She looked me up and down, a frown flitting across her features before she smiled.

Crap. I glanced down at the camo shirt, and resisted the urge to touch my bound puffball of hair. Perfect. I'd wanted this moment to be as embarrassing as humanly possible.

“Hey, Heather. How are you?”

“Living the high life, what else? So … I guess I should say welcome home, GI Joe. What are your plans now that you're back?”

My plans?

When I'd imagined this moment in the Other Realm, I'd been better dressed and groomed and had a perfect response that went something like:
What are my plans? I've spent the last twenty-five years reliving my dreams, and my dreams of you were among the brightest, the ones that led me sanely through exile like guiding stars. So I thought we'd work now on making your dreams come true, together.

But reality made that, like so many of my Other Realm dreams, seem hopeless and naïve. “I, uh, don't know yet. I have to get settled in, figure out my options.”

“Understandable,” she said.

Long, awkward silence.

“I'll go grab my bag,” Mattie said. She stood and rushed from the room.

“Well,” Heather said, and slid into Mattie's emptied chair. “I heard a rumor that you had some trouble getting home.”

“Rumor?”

“My son, Orion, he's apprenticed to an ARC magus.”

“Oh.” Her son. And apprenticed, which made him at least eighteen, older than Heather had been when I last saw her. Awesome. “Yeah. There was an … incident.”

Heather glanced in the direction Mattie had gone, then leaned in closer. “You know, if you need help, or someone to talk to, I won't go blabbing to those ARC bastards.”

I smiled. She hadn't changed. “Thanks. So still not a fan of the ARC, then?”

Heather exhaled through her nose. “No, you could definitely say not.”

“I see you're still doing alchemy though. So you found a way to get free of them, like you always talked about?”

“Yeah.” She looked down. “You could say that.”

“Is—are you okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I just have a lot on my mind.” She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “You're sweet, to worry about me when you have so much going on. I meant what I said. If you—”

Mattie swept back into the room. “Ready. You want me to just wait out in the car?”

“Sure,” Heather said. “I'll be right out.”

“Okay. See you, Uncle Finn. Happy first day back.”

“Thanks.” I stood as Mattie left. “I'll walk you to the door.”

“All right.” Heather led me out to the entry hall in silence.

As she opened the door, I said, “So look, I set up a kind of practice date for Pete, and I'm going along to help him out. I was just wondering if, you know, if you're not busy or whatever, maybe you'd want to meet me there?”

Heather blinked. “Oh.” She looked at me a second, and I saw her eyes glance up to my hair, and down to my clothes again. “I would really like that. But just to be clear, I really think maybe it's best if we keep things on a friend level. Is that okay?”

Heat blushed up the back of my neck and burned my ears.

“Yeah, totally, whatever,” I said. “You know, I was just thinking like friends, you know, like we could catch up or whatever like you said, but yeah, I understand.”

“Of course. Where and when?”

“The Belmont, tonight at six. I could pick you up.”

“No, that's fine. There's a chance I might be late, or have to reschedule. It's best if I just meet you there.”

“Okay. Great. See you tonight. Or not. It's totally cool either way.”

“Right.” Heather stepped outside into the dawn light. “I'm glad you're home safe, Finn.”

“You too.” I winced.
You too?
Really?

Heather smiled and walked to her car.

Well, that hadn't exactly gone as planned. Still, how many times had I watched her walk away, regretting I hadn't asked her out? At least this was some kind of progress. Twenty-five years late, but better late than never.

Pete appeared beside me, and glanced from me to the car. “I like Heather,” he said.

“Me too. I mean, she seems to be good for Mattie.”

“Yeah. But I'm glad it didn't work out between her and Morty.”

A sick feeling washed over me. “Work out? Are you saying Heather dated Mort?”

As if on cue, Mort's car idled up from the side of the house along the gravel driveway.

“Uh-huh,” Pete said, “but just the one time.”

“Just once?” The sick feeling lessened. Slightly.

“Yep. And I wouldn't have even known about it, except she stayed the night. She makes good waffles.”

The sick feeling exploded into white-hot anger.

7

Welcome to the Jungle

My car had been confiscated, but the family hearse still squatted in the driveway. I ran through the house, grabbed the keys from their spot on the kitchen wall, and dashed out to the car. By the time Mort had turned right onto the street, I had the engine running and the transmission in drive, grateful the old beast still ran.

I looked for Król lurkers as I nosed out into the street but didn't spot any. Maybe it wasn't the best idea in the world to go outside the house's protections, but I had the protective amulet, and I'd have to face my enemies eventually. Right then, I wanted nothing more than to confront one possible enemy in particular.

I sped up the street after Mort like the Dukes of Hazzard on a bender, the old hearse bouncing over the cracked and aged pavement and swerving a bit as I got used to the controls again. I only slowed when I spotted Mort's car ahead, turning left.

Mort wound through the lumpy bumpy streets of Port Townsend's neighborhoods and through the gates into Fort Worden State Park. My spidey sense started to tingle. The old seaside military base turned state park had been built on land riddled with a network of tunnels, some through the earth, some through the fabric of reality, the result of the last Fey-Arcana war when the folk of the Other Realm tried to establish a beachhead in our world.

I waited in the shade of a giant madrona tree as Mort drove past the row of old military housing that were now vacation rentals, and turned onto the road to the upper park grounds. I counted to three, then followed. A local family of waer-deer grazed on the open grass of the parade field. They glanced up as I drove past, their ears and tails twitching, but they didn't bound off.

Mort's car sat empty near the entrance to one of the hiking paths. I pulled past a barracks house and parked, then continued to follow on foot. I knew the path, like I knew all the paths in the park from countless hours of youthful play and exploration. It arched up over a thickly wooded hill and then meandered down to the coastline. At its peak sat a row of concrete bunkers with circular bowls that might have been mistaken for small amphitheaters but were actually foundations that once supported cannons able to fire thousand-pound artillery at any enemy ship that tried to invade the Pacific Northwest.

And on a little-used side path sat another ring that also looked like a shallow amphitheater, though this one was made of natural stone and had runes carved around its entire perimeter. Unlike the canons, which had never been fired at an enemy ship, the stone circle saw heavy use in the last Fey-Arcana war. Its exact nature and use were shrouded in mystery, however, and whatever deadly weapon once sat at its heart had long been secreted off to some ARC warehouse.

But the protective circle remained. And while not a toadstool ring, it had become a handy spot for summoning local feybloods for meetings since it also had the effect of diverting mundies away from it, sending them along one of the side paths through the forest. I wasn't a mundy, however, and so when the path branched and I felt the compulsion like a tingle between my eyes guiding me toward the left branch, I took the right branch instead.

I left the path before reaching the stone circle, and crept through the woods, reminded of the many games of tag and capture the flag played with my brothers, and Sammy, and our friends. Except this was no game.

The air was cool in the shade of the forest, and everything smelled of damp earth. Morning dew quickly soaked through my pants legs where they brushed ferns and lichen-strewn branches. I reached a spot on the hillside above the circle, and moved from tree to tree downhill until I had a clear view of what happened below.

Mort stood in the circle facing a dozen gnomes.

The gnomes each stood about two feet high, and looked much like the garden statues modeled after them. But these gnomes had clearly come prepared for trouble, or perhaps they meant to cause it. Their red pointy hats were pulled down low to shade their eyes, and they wore no shirts under their green and brown vests, revealing corded muscles covered in tattoos of vines, flowers, butterflies, and the occasional flaming skull. Instead of shovels or wheelbarrows they wielded sickles that glinted in the afternoon light.

Gnome families ruled the black market of the magical world. Stolen goods of a magical nature always seemed to find their way into gnome hands—usually because the gnomes were the ones who stole them. If you needed an illegal magical artifact, or a legal one that was too expensive to get legally, you could put a note under any gnome statue and an offer of payment, and if the gnomes accepted the deal you'd soon enough have the object in hand, no questions asked.