Necromancing the Stone (24 page)

The plant still looked … scared. I know plants don’t have faces or expressions or anything, but it still managed to convey that emotion to me.

I patted a leaf gently. “Good boy,” I said. The plant perked up. I smiled and gave it another pat before stepping away. The devil’s club pulled itself taller, its leaves spreading a little farther out, its tiny flowers opening up a bit more. If the plant were a person, I’d say it was puffing itself up with pride. My grin still fixed on my face, I backed away.

“Let’s get out of here before anything else odd happens.” Ramon and I started walking again, ignoring the giant crow and the weird plant as best we could.

We caught up with Pello and stopped under a big tree somewhere in the middle of the woods. I was completely lost by now, so hopefully nothing untoward would happen to Pello while we were out here, or I would have to learn to live off the land. I settled into a cozy spot amidst the roots and drank some more from my canteen.

“So, who or what are we meeting here, again? And is there anything I need to know? Like, for example, anything I might blurt out that could be found offensive?”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine. We’re very understanding.” I turned at the sound of the deep voice and saw … hairy kneecaps. I looked up. And up. And then I swallowed hard. “We do have some river nymphs, though. Pretty harmless for the most part, but they can be temperamental. Not nearly as calm as the dryads.”

Ramon, who was sitting next to me, was having a reaction similar to mine. We were both staring with a glazed look at the biggest guy I’d ever seen. He was about as tall as Ed, but where Ed was lean, this guy was built … well, the term
brick shithouse
comes to mind, though I’ve never quite understood what that meant. He was big in scale, not just tall. And he was covered from head to giant toe in reddish brown fur. Oddly enough, he was wearing an olive green forest ranger’s uniform.

Ramon whistled. “I bet you would’ve made a mean linebacker.”

The hairy man smiled, and his teeth were like giant off-white boulders. Realizing I was staring, I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. “You’re a, um…” I couldn’t quite bring myself to say it. Even after all I’d seen and all the creatures I’d met, he was unbelievable.

He chortled at my reaction, then squatted down in a movement slightly more monkey than man and offered me a hand, palm up, like you do with scared animals sometimes so they can smell you, which is both weird and a good way to lose a finger if the animal is scared. I gave him five instead. That really tickled him, and he tousled my hair while continuing to chuckle. “I believe the current moniker you’ve given us is Bigfoot. We’ll just leave it at that.” He helped me up. “But you may call me Murray.” He tapped the cursive stitching on his shirt. It said
MURRAY.
Go figure.

Somehow the mundane nature of his name helped me pull my brain back together. “Is that your actual name?”

He helped Ramon up. “No, but my language is hard for
hashmuk
to say.”

I tried to repeat the strange word he’d said, but it was oddly guttural and accented, and I couldn’t repeat it. I gave up. “What is … whatever you just said?”

“
Hashmuk.
It is what we call your kind. Roughly translated it means ‘skittish naked badger.’”

“Funny,” I said. “We’re usually compared to monkeys.”

He scratched his chest. “Never seen a monkey.” He motioned for us to follow. We fell in behind him, Pello introducing us as we walked. Though I could tell Murray was slowing his pace for us, I still had to jog occasionally to keep up. He led us to an open area by a stream and motioned for us to sit.

We spread out by the stream, unpacking our respective lunches carefully. Murray got out his lunch—some fruit and what smelled like smoked salmon.

“If I ask you some questions, do you promise to not throw me in that stream?” I asked. He nodded and kept eating.

“Are you actually a forest ranger?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t that cause problems?”

He pulled a long chain out of his pocket. At the end of it dangled a charm similar to Pello’s. Ah. “So you just look like one of us to them, eh?”

The slowly spinning charm caught Taco’s attention. He started to stalk it, his ears flattened to his skull and his tail twitching. Murray, an amused smile on his face, twirled the necklace some more.

“Better put that away,” Pello said through a mouthful of food. “Otherwise that chup there will bite right through it.”

Murray shrugged. “I can always replace the chain.”

Pello shook his head. “No. Chup as in
chupacabra
.” At Murray’s blank look he added, “If he bites it, the magic will be toast. They’re disruptive.” Murray quickly stashed the necklace, but handed a piece of salmon to Taco when the little guy let out a dismayed chirp.

All the stuff James had said about Taco clicked into place. That was why Douglas didn’t want them around—who would if one snap of the jaws would undo any magic you’d been working on? Besides us, I mean.

Murray patted the pocket where he’d put the necklace. “Yes, well, at any rate, it works fairly well. They think I’m a very large man with a strange diet. Often I am referred to as a ‘health nut.’ Occasionally, I buy snack treats as camouflage. Cheetos work well, as I can get the neon powder everywhere but not actually have to eat them.” He shuddered.

“How can you not like Cheetos?” Ramon asked.

“How can you like them? They are not food, and they smell
wrong
.”

“I like them,” Pello said, raising his hand.

Murray snorted. “I have seen you eat old tires and tin cans. I do not consider you a good spokesman for Cheetos.”

I settled into my spot in the grass. It was days like these that reminded me why I loved the Northwest so much. The sun was warm and pulling out the smell of grass and clover. The thick scent of some kind of flower wafted over. The combination with the sound of the stream burbling and a slight breeze rustling the trees made me aware of the life all around. The idyllic moment built a fierce joy in me, and I welcomed it. For a brief spell, I forgot about Brannoc, Haley, murder, the Council, and death. I felt the warm wind and the grass under me. It was wonderful.

And like all perfect moments, it couldn’t continue. I took my sandwich out of its container with a sigh. James had prepared everything carefully, making sure that I knew to pack everything out and not leave a single scrap behind. Not that I would have anyway, but now I knew why he was so insistent.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Murray eyed me knowingly.

“I can certainly see why you like it here,” I said.

Ramon leaned back onto his elbows. “Yeah, man. Beautiful.”

I rested my sandwich on an upturned lid and pulled out a container of fruit salad. “But I doubt you had us come up for the view.”

“Wouldn’t that have been nice, though?” Ramon asked quietly. He wasn’t looking at us, but gazing out over the stream instead. I knew what he was getting at. Seemed like everyone wanted a little piece of us lately. Or more specifically, a little piece of me. Ramon, Frank, they were just casualties. The guilt that welled up at that thought was beginning to feel familiar.

“So what can the Council do for you, Murray?”

He didn’t answer right away. He examined his food carefully, like he was trying to find something inside his grapes that might help him out. “I am part of what you might call an experiment.” He plucked a dark purple grape. “That’s not quite right. Part of a flagship program, maybe would be a better way to put it. Whatever term you wish to use, I am one of the few of my tribe to try and blend with yours. For a long time, we tried to remain apart. We kept to the woods and watched your kind from a distance. We were happy this way, but with the forest shrinking and the
hashmuk
coming closer, we couldn’t stay hidden much longer. Your kind propagates so quickly.”

“Yeah, we’re like bunnies that way.”

He grinned his too-big teeth at me.

“So is the program not working?” Ramon asked.

Murray shook his head. “No, it is actually working quite well. We’ve found several forestry positions to our liking. My brother is planting trees for a nonprofit, and his wife helps monitor and conserve the local salmon population. It is most satisfactory.” His voice was full of pride as he said it.

“Wonderful,” I said, stabbing a piece of pineapple with a fork. “But I’m assuming you didn’t call us out here just to give a status report.” I looked around at the clearing while I chewed. “Not that I’d mind if you’d do so occasionally.”

Murray nodded. “Indeed, it has gone so well that others are willing to try it. To live closer to town.”

“Then what’s the prob?” Ramon asked.

“We … in order to live with your kind, we need something we have never needed before. We need money.” He patted the pocket where his charm was. “Besides the glamour, which hides our physical differences, we have to purchase a second one to obscure our scent during certain … seasons.” Had his face not been covered in hair, I’d have said he was blushing.

“Seasons?” Ramon looked as confused as I felt.

Pello flopped down by me and stole a piece of my fruit salad. “He means rutting season. His kind gives off quite the pheromone-laden stench in the springtime. You know, it’s how they attract a mate.”

“Ah,” I said. “I can see how that could be problematic.”

Murray nodded emphatically. “Your kind either complains or gets a little too … friendly.” He frowned at me. “My cousin Gary tried to work for UPS. More so than the rest of us, he is comfortable in urban settings. He seems fascinated by your culture. The combination of his scent and their infamous uniform, well, it was just too much for some humans. For a species that ignores its sense of smell so heavily, you certainly perk up for that sort of thing.”

Ramon grunted. “I’ve always wondered about those uniforms. I mean, they shouldn’t be attractive … all that brown, but somehow they are.” He plucked at his own shirt. “Maybe I should apply for a job.…” He mumbled the last bit almost to himself.

I shrugged. “Like I said, bunnies. I assume you’re not making enough at your jobs to pay for the charms?”

“Most of us, no. And besides the charms, we have to purchase food since we don’t have enough time to gather it anymore. Then there’s lodging, clothing, and we must pay for your paperwork.”

“Paperwork?”

“You need things like social security cards and IDs to work. Kind of hard to get those things when you were born in the forest and have no paper trail.”

“Oh,” I said, “I see. Legal stuff. So what, exactly, do you need help with?”

Murray shifted around uncomfortably. This was hard for him, I think. “We wanted to see if maybe the Council would give us a grant? My brother, the one who works for the nonprofit, learned that sometimes the
hashmuk
government gives money to things that will help out other
hashmuk
.”

“And you wanted to see if the Council would do the same for its people, yes?”

“Yes,” he said, and his voice was passionate now. And since he was arguing for something that would help his family and friends thrive, I guess that made sense. “If only the Council would help with our charms, we could manage the rest.”

I considered this. His request wasn’t outlandish. I didn’t know how much the charms cost or whether or not the Council did grants. But if it would help Murray and his people, I didn’t see the harm. I looked at Pello. “Do we do grants?”

“I imagine so,” Pello replied thoughtfully. “We’d need to bring it before the entire Council, though, to see what we could do.”

“Well, yeah, I figured.” I stood up, brushing off my hands as I did so. I stuck one out toward Murray. He grabbed it with a grin and shook it. “I will do what I can for your people,” I said.

His smile widened. “I know you will.” Then he pulled me in for a bear hug. While he was squeezing the life out of me in a happy fashion, I considered how things might go if the Council denied his request. This embrace might turn quickly into another kind, one that I wouldn’t walk away from. And as I tried to spit some of the Bigfoot hair out of my mouth, I considered, should the situation sour, sending Pello to deliver the message for me. Cowardly, perhaps, but death by Bigfoot didn’t seem appealing, either.

We started packing up then, and Murray pulled me aside. “There was something else. It might be nothing, but you remember that cousin I mentioned?”

“Sexy Gary?”

“Yes, well, after the job with UPS … failed, we transferred him closer to the city. He works for the parks department out there. Anyway, there’s an area he oversees that has been feeling some general upset. He’s not sure what’s going on, but it’s like something nasty moved into the neighborhood, and it’s causing a ripple effect.”

“You want me to look into it?”

Murray nodded. “He’s not sure what’s out there yet, as he hasn’t isolated the source, but he says whatever it is, it feels unnatural.”

I scribbled my number on a scrap of paper and handed it to him. “Okay, have Gary give me a call, and I’ll see what I can do.” He thanked me, and we finished gathering our gear. When I looked over at Ramon, I noticed he had a wistful look on his face. He’d never been what I’d call the outdoorsy type, but judging from the expression he was wearing, I think that had changed. I wondered if that was another side effect of his transformation or just a naturally occurring thing. Was it his choice or brought on by the new life I’d shoved on him?

Murray walked us back toward the trail. He shuffled nervously, and I could tell he had something else to tell me.

“Spit it out, Murray. I promise I won’t bite.” As if to emphasize this, Taco chose that moment to climb up on my shoulder, curl around my neck, and pass out. The hike had him all tuckered out.

“I have already asked for so much, but I was wondering if you’d do me one last favor? There’s a volunteer here—he’s been helping me over the last few weeks—who wanted to transfer over into Gary’s territory. I would drive him myself, but I figure you’re already going that way.…”

“You want us to give him a ride?” I thought about the size of our car. “I’m not sure he’ll fit.”