Widdershins (79 page)

Lizzie pushed him away and punched him in the arm.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Your endless flirting. You know, if it hadn’t been for you, I would never have driven off the other night and none of this would have happened.” He started to protest, but she held up a hand. “No, I just need to say this. If I ever decide to drive off by myself in the middle of the night again, you all know to just shoot me or something, right?”

“Except . . . “ Andy began, but then he let his voice trail off.

“Except what?” Lizzie asked him.

“I don’t know. It was all pretty amazing.”

“Except for those of us who got pushed down the stairs,” Siobhan said, “and had their arms broken.”

“Sprained.”

“But still . . .”

Andy grinned at her.

“Okay,” she said. “It
was
pretty amazing. Scary, but amazing.” She looked across the table to Lizzie. “Who knew that all those old fairy tales of Pappy’s were true?”

“Pappy?” Con asked.

“My grandfather,” Lizzie and Siobhan said at the same time, then laughed.

He nodded. “I keep forgetting you guys are cousins.”

“Wait’ll we introduce him to Timony,” Lizzie said.

The doonie had gone back to the Aisling’s Wood, but had promised to visit as soon as everything had settled down.

“Pappy probably already knows hundreds of fairy folk,” Siobhan said. “I mean, just think about the way he told those stories.”

“I just hope the ones he knows are all nice ones like Timony.”

“No kidding,” Con said. “Man, if you could have seen these buffalo guys. There were millions of them and talk about your heavy-looking dudes.”

Andy nodded. “They made gangsta rappers look like boy scouts.”

“I could do without ever meeting any of those heavy ones again,” Siobhan said.

And then off the conversation went as they all traded stories about the various wonders they’d been witness to. At one point, Andy got up and fetched them all another round and while Lizzie knew the smart thing would be to not have another whiskey and beer chaser, what the hell? She’d earned it.

She knew she should be tired, but she’d never felt more wide-awake in her life.

While the talk went on, she noticed that Con had moved closer to her again. When he rubbed his leg up against hers, she turned around sharply.

“Okay,” he said. “I get the message.”

He started to scoot back along the bench, but she grabbed him by the shirt, pulled him close, and then kissed him. Seriously kissed him. Hard and long, like that fairy woman had done with Geordie on the mesa.

“What was that for?” Con asked when they came up for air.

Lizzie glanced at her cousin and Andy across the table. Andy looked surprised, but Siobhan had a smile in her eyes. Lizzie turned back to Con.

“You’re always flirting with me,” she said. “What do you
think
it was for?”

“But you’re always saying the one rule you have is you won’t date anybody you play with.”

“So, maybe it was a stupid rule.”

He shook his head. “No, it was a good rule.”

“Are you turning me down?”

He grinned. “Hell, no. I like to break the rules.”

Siobhan turned to Andy. “Looks like we’re sharing a room, but I’ll warn you right now. No funny stuff.”

He gave her a look as though she’d just suggested he sleep with his sister.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Lizzie said. “We’re not going to . . .”

But her voice trailed off when she looked back at Con. He was so handsome. Flirty, but always nice. And look where she’d ended up the last time she’d run away from him.

“Well,” she added. “It might be nice to have somewhere private where we could . . . you know, talk about stuff.”

Siobhan laughed. She downed her whiskey and slid out of the booth. When she was standing, she gave Andy a pointed look.

“What?” he said.

“Come on,” she said. “I need a hand moving my stuff.”

Lizzie waited until the two of them had left the booth and started for the door, before she turned back to Con.

“So,” she said. “Do you want to go talk somewhere private?”

He laid a hand on hers and smiled.

“Wherever you lead,” he told her, “I will follow.”

“Oh, please.”

But when he leaned forward to kiss her, she let him.

Joe

“I’ve just got one more thing
I need to do,” Joe told Cassie when the two of them and Jack got back to the city.

Cassie sighed. Before she turned back to him, she gave a longing look to the front of their apartment building. Which Joe didn’t miss.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But it can’t wait.”

“Is it dangerous?” she asked.

“Don’t think so. I just need to deal with the last of the bogans—the one those crow boys didn’t find.”

“Oh, Joe, you’re not going to . . .” she began, then caught herself. “What am I saying? Of course, you wouldn’t. You’re just going to take him to Raven, right?”

He shook his head. “No, I made a promise to Anwatan to keep him away from the corbae. She says he’s basically a good kid who got dragged along on the hunts against his will.”

“Like there’s any such thing as a good bogan,” Jack said.

Joe shrugged. “I gave Anwatan my word.”

“So that was the price for her bringing you back?” Jack asked.

“You know I don’t work that way. Once she told me her need, once she explained about the kid to me, I would’ve done it whether she brought me back or not.”

Jack gave him a coyote’s grin. “Helps that you’d have to be alive to do that.”

“I could’ve got around it.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?” Cassie asked.

“Spirits can get things done before they move on. Especially in the otherworld.”

Cassie shook her head. “I don’t believe you. What about me? What about us? How could I go on without you?”

Joe reached up and touched her cheek with his palm.

“It didn’t play out that way,” he said. “And we’re still good, right?”

“We’re still good. I just wish you didn’t have to play hero all the time.”

“It’s nothing I choose.”

“And would you still love him if he was any different?” Jack asked.

Cassie punched him in the shoulder. “No. That’s not it and you know it. I just worry.”

“You and me both, Cassie.”

Joe looked from one to the other.

“If you two are done,” he said, “maybe we can finish this and put it all behind us.”

He reached for Cassie’s hand.

“You want in on this?” he asked.

She smiled. “Sure. I’ve never seen a bogan before.”

“Not much to see,” Jack told her. “Ugly little buggers who—”

He broke when they stepped away, crossing back into the otherworld, and hurried along after them.

“A little warning would be nice,” he told Joe when they arrived at the lakeshore.

He stopped and looked around. It was dusk back in Raven’s world, but here, night had already fallen. A three-quarter moon sat in the sky above cliffs topped with tall pine and spruce. The moonlight gleamed on the lake water and made the sandy shore seem almost white.

“Hey, I know this place,” he said. “This is where the cerva held Anwatan’s blessing ceremony.”

Joe gave him a curious look. “I don’t remember you telling me you attended that.”

“I didn’t. I was watching from above.” He indicated the cliffs. “It’s where I ran into Grey.”

Joe nodded. “Well, the kid should be around here somewhere. Let’s start at the base of the cliffs, there in the middle, and work our way along both sides to see if we can pick up a scent.”

“Is it part of your helping him to scare the crap out of the kid?” Cassie asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what’s he going to think? He’s on the run from cousins, and here’s a couple of tough old canids trying to track him down.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to give him a scare,” Jack said. “Might help him remember the kind of trouble you can get into if you’re not more careful about picking your friends.”

But Joe was smiling.

“I’m guessing you’ve got a better idea,” he said to Cassie.

“Does he have a name?” she asked.

“Rabedy Collins.”

“What are you going to do with him anyway?” Jack asked.

“He can take dog shape.”

“Really? I didn’t know bogans could shapeshift.”

Joe nodded. “Apparently Odawa was teaching them, but it only took with the kid.”

“Well, he’s got that much in his favour, then.”

Cassie had already walked away from them, heading for the cliffs, so the two of them caught up with her.

“Give me a little space here,” she said.

She walked on alone, softly calling the bogan’s name, a coaxing tone in her voice.

After a few moments, a small shadow crept out from under an overhang and hesitantly approached her. The little black dog hung his head and had his tail tucked between his legs, but he closed the distance between them step by step.

“I don’t like this,” Jack said, his voice pitched low. “We don’t know anything about that dog. How do we know he’s not putting on the submissive act? If he goes for her throat, there’s no way we can get to her in time.

Joe lifted his arm when Jack started forward.

“Cassie knows what she’s doing,” he said. “She doesn’t just read cards. She reads people, too.”

Cassie had one knee down in the sand and her hand stretched out, palm down. The dog sniffed the back of her hand cautiously, then let her pat him.

“You can come now,” she called over her shoulder.

“They’re not going to hurt you,” Joe heard her tell the dog as they approached. “I know they look scary, but they’re here to help you.”

“Yeah,” Joe said. “Anwatan sent us.”

The dog’s head lifted at the sound of her name. Joe didn’t have to be part canid to read the hope in the dog’s eyes.

“She’s gone on now,” he said.

Beside him, Jack stood with his arms folded, studying the dog.

“Let’s see what you really look like,” he said.

I . . . I don’t think I should, sir
, the dog said.
Anwatan told me not to. It’s part of my
. . .
punishment, I think.

“You don’t like being a dog?”

I like it much more than being a bogan.

“Well, we’re saying it’s okay,” Jack told him.

The dog hesitated a moment, then a shiver ran across his skin, from tail to head, and a bogan crouched there in the sand on his hands and knees. He sat up, his neck drawn close to his shoulders as though expecting a blow.

Jack continued to study him, then finally gave a slow nod.

“Anwatan was right,” he said. “This kid’s not a killer.”

Rabedy cleared his throat. “What . . . what are you going to do to me?”

Joe sat on the sand beside Cassie.

“What do you think we should do to you?” he asked.

“You should punish me, sir.”

Joe’s brows went up. “What for? Anwatan said you weren’t in on the kills for any of those hunts.”

“But I was there. I didn’t try to stop them.”

“Why not?”

“I . . . was too scared.”

Joe nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been there. Not a good feeling, is it, standing by when someone’s being hurt?”

Rabedy’s eyes went wide.
“You’ve
been scared?”

“Scared and stupid, just like you. And I didn’t always have being young for an excuse, either. But then a day came when I realized I was either going to have to stand up for what I believed in, or really be the useless piece of crap everybody thought I was—even if it meant getting hurt or worse. Let me tell you, I’ve never looked back since. I can still get scared, but doing what I know is the right thing always gives me enough courage to get through it.”

Rabedy had a look of astonishment on his face. Beside him, even Cassie looked surprised. But Jack only nodded and answered their unspoken question when Joe wouldn’t.

“You try being a half-breed,” he said, “trying to fit in with all the true-bloods. Some clans aren’t so open-minded as we are, and they can be hard on a mongrel kid.”

Joe gave the bogan a feral grin that made the light in his eyes seem crazier than it normally did.

“Everybody’s got teeth,” he said. “You just need to be willing to use them.”

“I . . . I wish I’d stopped them, sir,” Rabedy said. “I should have.”

Joe nodded. “Yeah. You should have. And now you have to carry the weight of not stepping up. But the memory of what you didn’t do can be the strength that lets you do the right thing, the next time you see somebody about to get hurt.”

“I’ll try. But I don’t know that I’m brave enough.”

“What you’re really saying is that you don’t think you’re strong enough. You don’t have confidence.”

“I guess . . .”

“Well, I’ve got a friend who’s going to teach you to believe in yourself. She’s got the biggest and truest heart of pretty much anybody I know, but the thing is, you’re going to have to do all of this in that dog shape of yours. She doesn’t have much fondness for five-fingered beings.”

“I really do prefer the dog shape, sir.”

“Joe.”

Rabedy blinked with confusion. “Sir?”

“Just call me Joe. When you say ‘sir’ I don’t know who you’re talking to.”