Hellebore’s Holiday (2 page)

She smiled tightly. “Well then, point me toward the inn and I will be out of your hair.”

Doc Larsen got to his feet and walked to the door. “This way, Miss Anders.”

“Just call me Hellebore, or Hells.” She sighed. Bells was reserved for friends and family.

“Hells is not a name that suits you.”

“You haven’t seen me on my bike.”

“Bike?”

“I normally ride a motorcycle when the weather allows it.”

“Ah.” He smiled, “Well, I guess I should show you to the inn.”

“There is only one?”

He chuckled. “Right, you have not seen the town. Well, that will be remedied immediately. Come with me.” Doc Larsen reached for the door.

Hellebore followed with the perky trot of curiosity.

Drops of blood marked the path from the now-missing car to the clinic door. “I hope it rains soon. I would hate for my blood to be at your door all week.”

“It will disappear soon enough.”

The sun was warm and the air was dry with only a hint of a body of water a few miles away. She lifted her head and scented the air out of reflex. Freshwater at least five miles across. Nice.

Hellebore looked around and almost stumbled to a halt. She had heard of a one-horse town before but had never been in one. There was one garage, one inn, one sheriff station, a general store and the clinic.

“Uh, your town is really compact.”

He laughed. “We know. I don’t know if you realise where you are, but it isn’t the human world. Not anymore.”

She stopped following him. “What?”

He turned back to her. “I don’t know where you were headed, but you have landed in a prison. Eight males have been confined here for acting in manners deemed inappropriate by our various councils.”

Hellebore was shocked. “What?”

“Each of us has been banished here until we learn the lesson that our council heads or clan leaders wanted us to learn. When we have completed our sentences, we get to leave.” He smiled. “I am sure that your arrival here was an accident.”

Hellebore thought about her great grandmother and the distaste that she had for Hellebore’s human lifestyle. If anyone could get someone to reroute a transport gate, it was the mermaid Matriarch.

“I think I need a drink.”

Doc Larsen smiled, “Come this way. Irgano will be able to fix you up.”

“Irgano?”

“Eagle shifter, guilty of Icarus’s sin. He aimed above his station. He can tell the story better than I can.”

She fumbled in her bag for her phone. No bars. “Damn it.”

“It won’t change in the next few minutes. Come and have a seat. You need the standard briefing.”

“There is a standard briefing?” She whispered it to his back as she trailed after him, considerably less curious than she had been.

He merely led the way diagonally across the street and into the inn. “Irg, we have a new arrival.” Doc Larsen had called out from the doorway before he entered.

Another voice answered. “I will get a room ready.”

“A private room. She’s going to need it.”

Hellebore followed the doctor into the inn and found the bar by the distinctive scent of wood and alcohol. The man coming toward her had the gait of a predator, but he displayed none of the grace when he saw her and crashed into the wall.

“She’s a woman!”

Hellebore snorted. “I am. Can I get a coffee with a shot of Irish cream?”

His gold-amber eyes blinked and kept shifting from avian to human as she watched.

Doc Larsen grinned, “Better get it yourself. There is usually a pot of coffee going behind the bar.”

The doctor took Irgano by the scruff of his neck and shoved him toward the stairs. “Go get her a room.”

The avian shifter stumbled again as he headed up the stairs but that is what happened when you were trying to look in two directions at the same time.

“You are going to be a disruption in our lives, Hellebore.” Doc shook his head.

“Yeah, like this is what I had planned for a vacation.” She snorted and ran a hand across her scalp. “My parents are going to be worried.”

“Your councillor will let them know, I am sure.”

She winced. “You don’t understand. If I am here because the head of my clan sent me here, she will have no interest in speaking with my parents. My father is human; my grandfather is human. My mother is a bad swimmer who can barely generate a tail, and I have no tail at all. My great grandmother won’t send them anything. I have to get a message to someone who will.”

“You’re a mermaid?”

“No, but my grandmother was.” She dropped her bag and dug around behind the bar, locating a coffee cup and the suspicious-looking brew. She had drunk worse, but there was always room for improvement, so she doctored the beverage until it would dull her shock.

With the cup in hand, she hopped up on a barstool and contemplated the means by which she could get a message to her family. She had a few ideas, but she was going to need to get to the edge of the barrier that kept them in confinement. Hells wasn’t sure how eager they would be to help her, but she knew she was going to need a lift.

“You look lost in thought. Planning an escape?” Doc Larsen slipped behind the bar until he was in her line of sight.

She sipped at her heady coffee and looked at him through narrowed eyes. “No. I just need my one phone call.”

One hour later, she was sitting in a room with eight men who were staring at her as if she was either going to strip or burst into flame. She wasn’t sure which one they were secretly cheering for.

Eight men sat around, thin, tall, short, elegant, beat up, they all sat in a circle with tables clumped into a strange round table. Hellebore sat on her barstool, perched above the collection of magical men.

Rown had come in to brief her on her car and stayed for the meeting.

She had asked, “Why fix my car when I am stuck here?”

Rown grinned and shrugged, “What else have I got to do? Dwarves create. That is our purpose. Fixing your airbags and steering column is a pleasant distraction.”

“How can you get the parts?”

He looked at her as if she was slow. “I will make them.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

Lixin was half-goblin, and he chuckled at her embarrassment. “It is all right. We forget what we are as well. If you are here long enough, you will lose your touch with your clan and race as well.”

She snorted. “If I am here long enough, I will age and die. I am three-quarters mortal and no one knows how long my magic will last or if I will age like a normal human.”

The room froze as if she had announced that she had a second head and it was voting for trolls to rule the council sessions.

Doc Larsen stared at her. “Human?”

Earnor looked at her and cackled. “The siren!” His green hair was neatly braided down his back.

Hellebore nodded. It figures that there would be one merman among the motley crew. “That’s me.”

“I have heard about you in my calls home. You are the only one in your generation.”

She snickered. “I am the only one. Well, the only true siren. The others just have bits and pieces of the original talent. It drives the Matriarch nuts.”

“It would. She prides herself on the bloodline she passed on.” Earnor sat back. “Hello, cousin.”

She chuckled. “It figures. How long have you been here?”

“Seven years. She has no problem consigning her family here.”

Doc Larsen waved his hands. “Whoa. You mean to say that you are mostly human?”

Hellebore nodded. “Why? Do you have a problem with that?”

Rown laughed. “That is why he was put here. He can’t play nice with humans.”

“Well, that is too bad for him. I don’t intend to let my stay here be of any excessive duration. If I can get a message out, I can have someone try to rescue me.”

Harudan, the half-giant, leaned forward. “There is no rescue. This is a sentence. You must serve your time in prison to learn the lessons of your people.”

Hellebore rubbed the back of her neck. “That is my problem. The Matriarch does not see me as one of her people. No tail, no shifting, no breathing water. All I have is the power of a siren, and she wants me to breed it back into our line.”

Earnor blinked. “That is unusual.”

He was right. Mer-folk did not breed back on their own lines closer than four generations.

Hells shrugged. “It is the only thing I have heard from her in the last nine years.”

Doc Larsen was still staring at her. “Human?”

Officer Neer patted him on the shoulder and addressed Hellebore. “And now, we get to the atonement part of our sentence. Has Doc Larsen explained what happens once a year?”

Doc stiffened. “There is no need to tell her.”

“Why not? She will probably still be here when it happens, and if she is, you know she must join us.”

Hellebore leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “What are you talking about?”

Neer sat back, “What do you know about Santa Claus and his reindeer?”

She burst out laughing. “You are kidding, right?”

Neer and the others shook their heads, completely solemn.

Hellebore sat back and sipped another heavily doctored coffee. “Okay, let’s pretend that I didn’t really hit my head hard and I am in a hospital somewhere having the most weird-ass dream anyone ever had. Fine. Santa’s reindeer. Continue.”

Rown took over. “Every year, we are forced to shift shape into the reindeer that pull Santa’s sleigh. It is painful, uncomfortable and embarrassing as all the reindeer are female.”

She winced. “Ouch. So, why are you forced to shift into reindeer?”

Neer snorted, “For some of us, we need to get in touch with our feminine side, others need to do community service and some need to learn about humans. The incarceration here offers us a chance to work on the lack of skills that our leaders determined were issues.”

Hellebore nodded. “It sounds useful. So, why the little town? Why not just put you in a stasis field and pull you out once a year.”

Harudan crossed his arms. “We have to think about what we have done, so we all get our assignments and become part of this community. We meet every night and discuss the issues that sent us here. It is far less touchy-feely than it sounds.”

She snorted. “I didn’t think it was.”

“Well, anyway, once we have learned what we were sent here to learn, we get to go home and our people can choose their next prisoner.”

“So, there is only one person allowed per species?”

“I believe so. There can only be eight of us here at any time, and our own people are the only ones who would know that the spot is opening up. Apparently, I was on the list for two years before they felt that Norvulan had learned how to deal with children of different species without getting hungry.”

Hellebore winced. “Ouch. That would be nasty.”

Harudan nodded. “He was half-giant, half-troll. It took him one hundred and twenty-six years to learn control over his appetite.”

She rubbed the back of her neck and tried to loosen the muscles. “I believe that you have been mentioning calling home?”

Neer nodded. “When our family wishes to speak with us, an orb appears in front of us, and we talk.”

Hellebore grunted. “That sucks. My mom can’t use much magic, and my father doesn’t use any.”

“That is unfortunate. It is the only method of communication that we have.”

She scowled but she nodded. “Understood, but Neer, can you give me a lift to the edge of this zone?”

He looked at his herbal tea and shrugged. “Sure. Now?”

“Please. If I keep drinking, this won’t work at all, and right now, drinking is the only thing on my mind.”

He got to his feet and picked up his baseball cap. “Please come with me then, lady. I will take you to the end of Diablo Road.”

She smiled and hopped off her bar stool. She swayed dramatically, and Doc Larsen got to his feet to put his hand on her back. “Easy, Hellebore.”

She gave him her most dazzling grin, and he blinked and backed away. Shrugging, she told Neer, “I will be right back. I have to grab my phone.”

She carefully toddled up the stairs and got her cell. She looked at the charge and whistled sharply until she had a completely charged phone. Ready to go, she headed back to her ride.

If she could make a call, she might just get a handle on what the hell was going on.

Hellebore sat quietly for five minutes before she asked, “So, what is Doc Larsen’s problem?”

“He had an arranged marriage, and he refused to wed her because he was in love with a human. He didn’t wed the human.”

“Why not?”

“He was afraid that she would die too soon, so he did nothing. He was sent here until he could make a decision on his marriage.”

“Ouch. How long has he been here?”

“Four hundred years or so.” Neer shrugged and the car slowed. “Here we are. You skidded to a halt about fifty yards back the way we just came.”

“Right. Will you wait here?”

“Of course. Do you what you can. I will wait.”

Hellebore got out of the car and headed for the barrier just in front of it. She hummed and the barrier flared into life. She prodded at it with her tones until she found just the right frequency.

The problem came with her voice. She couldn’t punch a hole in the barrier and talk at the same time. She scowled and composed a series of texts. If even one of them reached a friend, she might get some help.

With her phone in her hand, she let out a call that ripped a hole in the barrier. The moment it opened, she got her cell bars and she quickly sent the texts. To hell with the roaming charges.

She sent one to Laura, Verne, Abby, Seesee, Max, Raven and one to her mother telling her that she had taken a detour and would keep in touch. Everyone but her mother was told that she would check back in twelve hours.

When her phone confirmed the messages were sent, Hellebore ceased her song. She returned to Officer Neer’s car and gave him a thumbs-up.

“I have sent the messages and I am hoping that at least one of them won’t think it’s a joke. I sent it to the most powerful paranormals that I know, including my second cousin.”