Wolves and the River of Stone (29 page)

“Nixie.”

“For you and Nixie. Nixie ... that’s an interesting name. She’s not a commoner, is she?”

“You’re too sharp for your own good old man. Don’t tell Mom until she’s sane again, alright? I don’t want Sam to have to listen to it.”

“Not a problem. And don’t worry about your mother. I’m taking her to the doctor tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“So maybe we’ll come visit you soon? We’re almost done remodeling this old house.”

“And Sam?”

“Of course. Of course. I’ll talk to you soon, Damian.”

“I can’t believe you guys bought the same house we grew up in.” I shook my head. “I love you Dad.”

Nixie’s leg stopped bouncing and the phone fell silent.

“What’s wrong, Damian?” My dad’s voice was darker and the urgency filled me with guilt because all I could say was, “Nothing.”

He sighed and said, “I love you too, son. Be careful with your
nothing.”

“I will, and tell Mom too,” I said as I hung up the phone and let it clatter to the coffee table.

“You’re worried,” Nixie said.

“Yeah, I am.”

She swung her legs off my lap and scooted up beside me. “Even if the worst happens, you’ll be with friends. There’s not much more to ask for in the world.” She leaned over and kissed me.

I couldn’t help but smile.

“Let’s watch a movie,” she said.

“Really?”

She slapped my thigh and said, “Yes, we never watch movies.”

“Alright, I’ve got a few movies. What do you feel like?”

“Your pick. I’m up for anything.”

A few hours later we’d plowed through
Spirited Away,
Howl’s Moving Castle,
and two bags of microwave popcorn. My eyelids felt heavy. The credits started to roll and Nixie clapped her hands together.

“Those were amazing!”

I smiled and put my arm around her. “Two of my favorites, for sure. Sam actually got me hooked on Miyazaki films. She’s been watching them since she was like four years old.”

“It’s getting late. We should get some sleep. You have to get up early tomorrow.”

“Yeah, that’s going to hurt. You going to keep me up all night again?”

“I think not. And I would like to remind you of the fact Sam kept you awake much longer than I did last night.”

I laughed. “True enough. True enough.”

Nixie grabbed my hand, pulled me off the couch and led me to the shower. “You need to wash up. You’re starting to smell like the dead.”

“Ouch.”

She kissed me on the cheek and hopped onto the bed. “Hurry back.”

After the shower I lay down with the water witch and fell asleep in about four seconds. No nightmares woke me, no dreams at all. Something tickled my nose a few hours later. I rubbed my face and rolled over. I heard a whisper and cracked my eyes open. Nixie’s face was about two inches from mine. She was wearing a grin and shaking my shoulder.

I groaned, pulled the covers tighter and rolled over. I could hear her laughing.

“Damian, I have to leave.”

I flopped onto my back and looked up at her crystalline eyes. “Where are you going?”

“I have to report back to the Queen.”

My eyes shot open and I sat up, almost head-butting her in the process. “What? Why? Where do you have to go?”

“I can’t ...” She put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you.”

I grabbed Nixie’s hand and kissed it. “Can’t we just kill the Queen and be done with it?”

“No, and that is something you have to understand. I’ll never truly be done with it. There will always be a Queen, always be the laws.”

“Dammit. How long will you be gone?”

“Not long. I can take the rivers to the oceans. I won’t be back before you leave for the battle, but I will join you there. I hope to have help when I return.”

“Help?” I waited. “You’re not going to tell me are you?”

She smiled and kissed me. “No, I’m not.” She kissed me again. “Come down to the river with me.”

I looked at the alarm clock and groaned. “It’s four in the morning.”

“Yes it is, so no one will see us. Now come down to the river with me.”

“Alright, alright, let me grab some clothes.” I threw on a pair of jeans to go with my stylishly wrinkled Totoro t-shirt and hiking boots. I pointed at the ceiling and said, “To the river!”

Nixie laughed and pulled me off the bed. The river wasn’t far from my apartment. We walked across the street and down a gentle slope. Nixie led me down the riverbank until we were below one of the bridges. My mind flashed back to the night Foster and I fought Lewis Hood. He was buried under a bridge much like this one. Or was it the very same bridge? I tried not to think about it.

“You have a fabulous apartment, Damian.”

“Um, really? I always kind of thought it was a dump. A convenient dump, yes, but still a dump.”

Nixie shook her head. “It’s so close to the river. I love it.”

“You’re not biased about that though, right?” I cocked an eyebrow. She laughed and elbowed me.

“Come on.” She pulled on my wrist as she waded into the shallows. I watched as her legs grew translucent and the lower half of her body and even her clothes started to look like water.

“That’s just cool,” I said.

She smiled. “Come in with me.”

“I don’t really make it a habit to get in the river.”

“Are you scared?” Her lips puckered as she let go of my hand and sank further into the river. “I’ll keep you safe.”

I rolled my jeans up and stepped into the river. “It’s warm,” I said.

“That’s because you’re standing in me.”

I cocked an eyebrow and looked at the water. “It just looks like water.” The warm river rose around me, up to my chest. I felt a pressure on my back like an embrace and then the water receded to my shins, leaving me perfectly dry. “Oh, that’s new.”

Nixie wrapped translucent arms around me and I could feel her presence press against my consciousness. I caught flashes and pictures of what she was planning on doing.

“You still have clothes on,” she whispered.

“So do you,” I said.

“Really?” Her clothes shimmered and vanished. Her lower body was translucent and lost in the waters. Her upper body shimmered and faded into a clear, glimmering perfection. I could still see her nipples in the faint light and reached out to caress her waist. My hand slid through her and she moaned.

Nixie melted into the water. I felt a tug on my jeans and I slid into the water as Nixie ripped them and my boxers off before throwing them onto the shore. The waters stayed warm. My shirt followed a moment later as the river grew warmer. Nixie’s head surfaced again and she wrapped her arms around me. Her kiss was heavy and I stepped into her shimmering form. She shifted in my arms and I gasped when I felt something hot and slick slide over my groin.

“Is that?”

“Don’t talk,” she said.

Her body shimmered again and I could see myself inside her as she moved. The alien presence of her mind strengthened and I shivered as she flowed around me. She licked my lips and I couldn’t help but return the gesture on her neck and breasts and her own lips, her body formless and firm at once.

We stayed locked together in the moonlight as long as we could. Nixie’s face solidified again and I could see the curtain of hair I’d grown so fond of so fast. She smiled and kissed me again.

“I’ll miss you Damian Valdis Vesik.” She kissed my cheek.

I brushed a thick lock of her hair away from her face. “It’s just one day. We’ll survive.”

Her smile shone in the moonlight as Nixie grew translucent and slid away, into the river. As she disappeared beneath the gentle ripples, the cold water hit me like a brick wall.

“Holy shit!” The passion-filled starlit night suddenly decayed into a freezing cold, somewhat fishy river. I took huge, exaggerated steps toward the shore, sending torrents of river water into the air. I was halfway out of the river when I realized I was still naked. “Holy shit, where’re my pants?” I found my jeans a few feet away. There was a series of sucking sounds as I pulled them out of the mud. I cursed again as I pulled the freezing, wet denim over my legs. I found my shirt a few feet from that beside my shoes, but didn’t bother to put the mud caked thing back on. God only knows what happened to my boxers.

I climbed back into bed about twenty minutes later, dripping wet from a warm shower and already missing Nixie.

I
pried my eyes open at the roar of my alarm clock less than two hours later. I didn’t fight it. I just turned the infernal buzzing off and headed for the kitchen. After bouncing my shoulder off the doorframe and grunting in a bleary-eyed haze, I made it to the fridge. I pulled out two Frappuccinos, chugged the first one, and took the second to the couch. The news was on, depressing as hell. I changed the channel and an even more depressing movie was on, then another depressing newscast, and finally a true crime special. “Good god,” I said as I turned the television off. I took the Frappuccino to the bathroom and took another shower to get the river water out of my hair. “Going to need to do laundry again,” I said to the shampoo bottle. I finished my shower, got dressed in black jeans and a grey t-shirt, and headed to the bookshelves at the back of my living room.

I pulled out the first tome to catch my eye and spent part of the morning reading the old Book of Shadows Frank had gotten his hands on. I’m not normally all that interested in the ramblings of would-be witches, but this book was from a survivor of the Salem witch trials. Toward the middle it began to resemble a diary more than anything else. One passage really stuck with me.

I felt terrible placing the blame on Sarah, but it’s kept them away from me. We’ll leave tomorrow and this place will be no more than an awful memory. I don’t dare write John’s true name here. I don’t want my fate to be his if they discover my secret. He has the horses tied up beneath the covered bridge. If I don’t write here again, I will be one with the earth.

Luckily for the unknown author, there were several more pages with writing, so I’m guessing she made it. I don’t know if the Sarah she mentioned was one that died in the trials, but I did remembering hearing the name repeatedly. I’d have to ask somebody. The phone rang a few minutes later.

“Hello?”

“Damian, come to the shop. Foster found him.” Zola hung up the phone without saying goodbye.

I didn’t have much doubt about who it was that Foster had found. I strapped on the holster for my pepperbox and pulled a black button-down shirt over it. Payback’s a motherfucker.

***

Five minutes later the car rattled across the cobblestones on Main Street. I pulled around to the lot in back, hopped out of the car, and slammed the door. I had my keys in the top deadbolt, kicked the bottom deadbolt, and had the door halfway open when Foster shot out through the gap.

“What’s in the bag?” he said as I opened the door fully.

“Change of clothes, just in case.” I hoisted the small duffel bag over my shoulder and slid my staff through the handles. “How’d you find him?”

“Sent a message out to some of Colin’s old friends. They knew who the guy was. They were surprised too. I had to convince Dillon not to kill the guy himself.”

“Well, I don’t think I’d have been too disappointed if he was already dead.”

Foster frowned. “Oh no? You remember that van? You remember what we saw in that thing? What he did to those people? Those kids?”

My brain screamed at me not to think about it even as my memories bubbled to the surface. Bloody pieces of bodies hung from the roof on meat hooks. They were moving slightly from Foster violently breaking open the door. The ceiling and walls were layered with limbs and heads, and I cringed at the memory of saggy intestines draped around the windows. Foster had found her there, pieces of a little girl beneath the detritus of a dozen bodies.

“Yes, I remember.” I said as my teeth ground together and my hands curled into fists. After taking a few deep breaths, I saw Carter pull up in a huge, cherry red van. It took a violent bounce as he clipped the curb.

He waved and rolled down the window.

“Is that another rental?” I said.

“Yep, sure is.”

“I can’t believe they gave you another one,” I said, happy for the change in conversation.

“I always buy the insurance, so there’s not much they can say when I just tell them I have no idea what happened to the sun roof.”

I laughed and shook my head. “Foster and I have some business to take care of.”

Carter nodded and hooked his thumb toward the back seats. “Zola told me. How long will you be gone?”

“I’m not sure. Foster didn’t tell me where we’re going.”

“Chicago,” The fairy said. “We shouldn’t be gone more than a few hours.” My eyes widened. “Say, you’ll have room in there for a couple dogs, won’t you?”