Nicole Peeler - [Jane True 01] (15 page)

“So,” he continued blithely, “I figured we would check out the car, see
if there are any clues there as to what happened to Jakes. Then we can just
take it from there. We’ll have to eat at some point, obviously, so dinner can
be your payment for being my sidekick, if you like.”

“Oh, I’m your sidekick, am I?”
That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever
heard
, I thought, smugly.

“Of course,” he said, grinning cheekily. “It’s hard work, but somebody
has to do it.”

“What’s my job description?” I asked, enjoying our easy repartee.

“Well, you have to write down everything I say,” he said with a nod to
the glove compartment. “There’s pen and paper in there. And you have to
underline anything you think is particularly clever, so that you can
congratulate me on my quick thinking when the appropriate moment arises. That’s
usually when my theories are proved correct, which of course they will be. You
also have to question anything I say that might need an explanation, so that I
get the chance to provide one in order to highlight my own genius. Oh, and if
you could leave the pithy one-liners to me, I’d appreciate it. Pithy one-liners
are not for sidekicks, I’m afraid.”

“Do vampires watch too many television mysteries?” I asked.

“Hey,” he said, acting affronted. “It’s research!”

I laughed, and our homicide-drama banter continued until we pulled off
the main road onto a tiny winding dirt track that must lead somewhere toward
the ocean. I could feel it pulsing in front of me, beckoning.

As we drove farther, I finally recognized where we were: right near the
Rockabill Bluffs, an area of small cliffs adjoining our public beach. In the
summer months, they were where the local boys took their seasonal girlfriends
for a little heavy petting.

They were also a very good place from which to launch a body.

Right before we got to the bluffs, we turned off onto a small track that
couldn’t even be called a road. I didn’t think a Boxster was really the best
vehicle for such terrain, but at least it was small and couldn’t get stuck on
anything. Also, the temperature had dropped precipitously after the storm the
other night, so although the ground was muddy the mud was frozen solid.

Good. I wouldn’t want to ruin my shoes
, I ironized,
looking down at my already filthy kelly green high-top Converse.

We stopped after just a little ways: Ryu must have been equally
concerned about getting his car back out. “It’s right up ahead,” he said, as we
got out. “Go on, if you’d like, while I secure the car. The others are already
there.”

For about ten minutes I walked along the path, which was becoming less
and less pathlike, until I was utterly convinced I had somehow missed them.
There was no smell of burning, which I figured there had to be if a car had
been set alight. But right then I emerged into a little clearing where sat the
wreckage of Peter’s tiny Toyota.

Nell was sitting on the ground, looking for all the world like an
oversized garden gnome. Trill, in pony form, was stretched out beside her with
her head in Nell’s lap. Nell was braiding Trill’s mane into thick seaweed
plaits. Near them sat Anyan, who must have been able to smell my approach, as
he was watching for me with ears pricked and tongue lolling happily. I waved at
them, and Nell and Trill smiled at me in welcome. I’d never seen a pony smile
before. Now I knew why. It was horrible.

Anyan, wagging his tail, got up when he saw me. He came toward me and I
knelt down to scratch his ears, cooing, “Who’s a good puppy?” in baby talk. I
absolutely loved dogs, and Anyan was quite a dog. Now that I wasn’t under the
influence of panic and adrenaline, I saw that he was just as huge as I
remembered, but less fierce looking. I’m sure he
could
look fierce, but
he didn’t look much like a hellhound at the moment. The cool white light shed
by the little luminescent balls scattered throughout the glen revealed that
Anyan’s coat was less black and more the dark reddish brown of wolves. He also
had strange dark eyes that I thought were actually dusky gray.
They’re oddly
human
, I thought, as Anyan leaned forward to lap my cheek.

But our little moment was interrupted by Ryu’s entrance. Anyan saw who
it was and backed away from me. He sat down, watching Ryu intently.

“Good evening, Nell,” Ryu said, with a little bow toward the gnome.
“Nice to see you again, Trill,” he added, with the same courtly little bow.
They both acknowledged him with a nod.

Then he turned toward Anyan and me. “Anyan,” he said, his voice flat.

I giggled. That was the most serious meet-and-greet with a dog I’d ever
seen.

But my laugh was cut short when Anyan, with a voice as rough as pebbles
poured over gravel, growled back, “Ryu.”

If he’d donned the top hat and tails of the Warner Brothers frog and
sung “Hello, My Baby” while tap dancing with a cane, I wouldn’t have been any
more shocked than I was at that moment.

“It’s been awhile,” Ryu commented, noncommittally.

“Yes, it has,” replied Anyan, sounding equally unmoved. He looked toward
me. “Why did you bring Jane?” he asked. “These events do not involve her.”

“Why not?” Ryu’s response had an undertone of heat to it. I was sensing
these two had a history. “She’s one of us and therefore this does involve her.”

Anyan gave Ryu a hard look. “You never did know how to separate business
from pleasure,” he observed, his rough voice imbuing his accusation with a
harsh note of finality.

Throughout their exchange I just stared, open-mouthed. Part of me
registered that I should be offended Anyan didn’t think I belonged there, but I
was too surprised at the whole talking-dog thing to focus on anything else.
Finally, to put an end to the conversation, Ryu changed track and said, “Anyan,
just release the car and I’ll get to it. This shouldn’t take long and we’ll be
out of your fur.”

Anyan’s hackles bristled almost imperceptibly, just for a second, and I
heard a faint
pop
. Something around the car that looked like a force
field from
Star Trek
sparkled then died. The smell of burning rubber
suddenly filled the little glade. That must have been what Ryu had been talking
about when he said there was a “protective spell” around it. But it appeared
that Anyan had been the one who set it, rather than Nell. I’d already realized
that he had somehow healed my forehead that night at the cove, and now he was
magicking cars.
He must have been top of his class at obedience school
,
I thought at the same time that I remembered to be mad at him. I glared at the
dog. For his part, he did look decidedly sheepish as he came toward me again.

Ryu started with the front of the car, examining under the hood and then
poking into the driver’s seat.

“Why didn’t you tell me you could talk?” I used the opportunity to hiss
at Anyan.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his tail going down between his legs. “We didn’t
want to give you too many shocks in one night.”

“Oh yes, it’s a better plan to spread the shocks out so I can embarrass
myself as an added bonus,” I spat back.

I sat down on the ground, after putting my coat underneath me to protect
my good black trousers. The big dog lay down in front of me and rolled over,
exposing his belly to me in a move of mock subservience. And I apparently spoke
doggie, because it worked. I felt my anger dissipate and I started scratching.
Anyan sighed happily and shut his gray eyes.

“I thought you were just a hellhound, but you’re obviously not. So what
are you?”

“Barghest,” he rumbled, keeping his eyes closed. “Do you know what that
is?”

My scratching stopped and I looked at him, horrified. I knew what a
barghest was, all right. I’d been obsessed with Roald Dahl as a child and had
read
The Witches
about a hundred times. In fact, I’d just read it about
a month ago. I read Dahl the way other people snuggle up to their old baby
blanket.

In
The Witches
, the narrator’s Norwegian grandmother explains to
him that barghests are always male and that they are worse than witches. And
the witches are bad because they make children disappear—

“Do you make children disappear?” I blurted out.

He opened one eye to stare at me curiously from upside down. “No,” was
his only reply. “Why?”

“Oh, nothing,” I mumbled. I went back to scratching Anyan’s belly, but
warily this time.

At that moment, Ryu was just closing the backseat door of the car when
it fell off with a loud crack. He grinned at me as he went to open the trunk,
but narrowed his eyes when he saw what I was doing.

Before he could say whatever he was about to say, his expression grew
startled. He looked at the trunk like it had bit him.

“There’s a seal on this trunk,” he said.

Trill and Nell both snapped to attention. The two had looked like they
were napping, but they were obviously just resting.

Trill raised her head so that Nell could stand up, and then the pony
lurched to her feet. Anyan, too, got up to go toward the car, so I went ahead
and followed.

I stood behind them while they all stared at the Toyota like it might
transform into a dragon at any second. “Whoever placed that seal is strong,”
Nell murmured, waving a chubby little hand like an antenna at the car. “I can
barely feel it is there.

“This will take a minute,” she said, grimly. Bracing her small feet and
raising her arms, a look of intense concentration crossed her face. The others
backed away to join me behind her.

There was no doubt that this time the surge of power I felt was real. If
Ryu’s glamouring had felt like a table fan blowing a waft of air past my skin,
this felt like being caught up in a tempest. Power whipped around me, and I could
see the others felt it as strongly as I did. I shivered, and Ryu took my hand
while Anyan pressed himself against my leg reassuringly.

Nell was focused on the trunk, edging forward inch by inch until her
hands were hovering right above the metal. She was fighting to close the last
half-inch gap between her and the car, and the flux of power had become so
powerful that it actually felt like a
real
wind. My hair whipped around
my face and Ryu put his arm around my shoulder to help steady me as I nearly lost
my balance. Even he looked strained by the effects of the energy unleashed
around us.

Finally, just as the lashings of power were almost too much to bear,
Nell cried out as she fell forward the slightest bit to breach the gap. She
stood there, her hands against the trunk, gasping.

Trill went to her, nudging Nell with her slick little muzzle. Nell
allowed the pony to support her as she went to collapse back under her tree.

Ryu let go of me and he and Anyan both stepped forward. Ryu put a hand
on the trunk while Anyan crouched in readiness, hackles raised, a ferocious
growl ripping through the grove. He was back to looking like a hellhound.

Ryu nodded at Anyan, and I saw that Ryu’s fangs were extended. They
glittered in the cold light and I realized that, at this moment, he was as
frightening and inhuman as the slavering beast beside him.

I backed away another step, just as Ryu threw open the door of the trunk
and then sprang back.

We all waited. Nothing happened.

Unless you consider the smell to be something. As the trunk lid had gone
up, a smell like roasting meat wafted from inside. Check that: It was the smell
of meat that had already gone rotten being roasted. I gagged, covering my mouth
and nose with my arm.

Ryu and Anyan again exchanged looks and then both moved forward to peer
inside the trunk. Then they swore together as if on cue.

I knew it was a bad idea, but I was too curious not to look. So I moved
forward to stand next to Ryu, my arm still over my nose and mouth.

Inside the trunk was what looked like the half-burned body of an
enormous gremlin. The half of its body that had been closest to the inside of
the car was pretty charred, but the rest was still intact. Not that either side
of the body was better than the other. The part that was charred was pretty
horrible, but the untouched part was equally terrifying. The thing had mottled
moss-green skin stretched tight over its bony frame. Large clawed hands with
extremely long fingers were crossed beneath its awful head, which had long, pointed
ears and a sharp, short muzzle filled with row upon row of razor-sharp teeth,
like those of a shark. It had a piglike nose and, I saw, a pirate earring
glinted in its left ear.

And from right under that ear extended the slash that had nearly
decapitated it.

I stumbled away from the car, knowing it was too late. I crashed into
the underbrush, spewing my lunch all over the vegetation. Somebody was holding
my hair and patting me on the back while I threw up what felt like the majority
of my organs.

When I was done, Trill turned me around and wiped my mouth off with her
hand, which, to my dismay, she then wiped through her hair.
That was almost
as gross as seeing the body
, I thought blearily, my stomach still churning.