Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
I cut left into the wooded creek bed bordering the park and bent to scoop up a handful of smooth, worn sand. Behind me I heard the uneven gait of a wolf with a damaged knee who was now mad enough to murder. Covering the sand with my other hand, I began to whisper, panting between words.
“Hey, sand. You’re so beautiful. You really do good work in this riverbed. You keep it running. You’re the backbone of this whole river-thing.”
The sand I was holding began to hum. It was curious, glimmering like gold in my hands. The individual grains called out for my attention.
“But, see, you used to be a rock. A long time ago. I bet if you worked hard, you could be a rock again. And then everyone would see how pretty you are. Because right now, you all kind of blend together. I can’t even tell you apart. But, oh, man, if you were a rock. No one could miss you.”
The sand began to twitch and hop in my hands. It was ready.
The glamour I’d cast to keep me invisible faded in fits and starts as I focused all my power on this new casting. Dieter-the-Cheater must have caught sight of me because I heard his pace quicken and his grunts as he stumbled over the river rocks. Perfect.
With a sharp push of power, I threw the sand over my shoulder.
The grains began to swirl, gathering momentum as they crashed into each other, each trying to form the biggest, prettiest rock.
They pulled up more sand from the creek bed, and I heard my would-be assassin, Dieter, suddenly yelp as he was pelted by sand flying through the air, forming pebbles, then rocks, then (if the crashes were anything to go by) slamming into each other, trying to pull the remaining sand into formation.
I glanced behind me and the rocks seemed to be attacking each other, colliding together, and there was a very pissed werewolf caught in the middle, dodging the newly sentient rocks.
There was a slight chance I maybe went a little overboard.
Carefully, I pulled back on the magic. Not enough to stop the spell, but definitely enough that the entire area wouldn’t look like a couple of giants just had a rock fight.
The stones slowed, a little more lethargic, and Dieter, who was looking more wolf than man, used his chance to slip through.
Great. Now he was bruised, furious, and he had a case for self-defense since I threw an entire riverbed of rock at him.
“Hey, sand,” I yelled. “You know who thinks you’re ugly? This guy. Hates sand. Wishes he could turn all sand into…” I had no idea what sand feared, but I took a stab in the dark. “Glass.”
The rocks spun in the air, listening, and then they began throwing themselves at is-he-actually-getting-bigger?
-Dieter. Smaller pebbles I knew weren’t mine got in on the action.
I’d really had no idea sand and rocks had such issues with being melted down and reshaped and never seeing a riverbed again—wait, no, that was actually pretty obvious.
Scrambling up the bank, I pushed through dense bushes to get to the path. I could see the field and hear the crowd cheering. Peewee baseball, going off the numbers of parents I saw texting behind the bleachers.
I just might make it. I put on an extra burst of speed and glanced behind me to see Dieter in an awkward, half-changed state that would give most people nightmares.
His legs were still human, but his torso was broader, head changing shape as his jaw actually seemed to stretch like a marshmallow warmed in a campfire. He pulled up short, seeing the crowd.
Panting, I stopped near the bleachers. I felt like I was in elementary school, playing one of the infinite variations on tag.
Only this one had a safe zone, because no member of the SoPa pack was going to risk his good standing by attacking someone in broad daylight where there was a gaggle of baseball moms with their phones ready to film the whole thing and then complain to the police about pack wars in their parks.
Dieter shifted back, a lone, brave pebble still throwing itself at his head.
His eyes were narrowed, and his eyebrows were pulled down to caveman-level.
He was wondering what spell I’d used, maybe later he’d even ask some witch or alchemist friends, but he wouldn’t find anything.
The magic I used couldn’t be found in a book.
It had to be learned with experience and training only found in the Far Realm, where the fae made their courts.
Chelsea had done what any self-respecting paranormal would do when looking for a PI who could handle her werewolf boyfriend. She came to me.
My reputation in the paranormal community was a delicate balance.
Witches, alchemists, and werewolves would recommend me, with a kind of you know, he’s one of us.
Well, not one of us, but like “one of us.” Werewolves knew I wasn’t a were, but they thought I was something not quite human.
Witches assumed I was a bad alchemist, and alchemists assumed I was a warlock without a coven.
I had sympathy for their uncertainty, since I had been uncertain for a while myself.
But the truth was closer to what they believed than not.
I’m not human. Fae blood runs through my veins.
I was trained by a witch, making me a warlock without a coven.
I wasn’t even a little bit of an alchemist, though. The rigidity of alchemy gave me hives.
I didn’t disabuse anyone of their ideas, though.
Partially because who wanted to come out as fae?
But also because I liked working paranormal cases.
Finding the witch who cursed a client with a tail and the inability to say any word starting with f- and ending with -ck definitely beat insurance fraud investigations.
Dieter was trying to figure out how to wring my neck without alerting all the baseball-mom witnesses. I stood up, trying to look casual and not like I’d been running for my life. The moms nearby were giving me a sort of narrow-eyed should I call the cops look.
“Running late.” I pulled out my camera. “The San Amaro Times sent me. Where’re the kiddos?”
“For a pre-season game?” one of the moms asked, her business suit and BlackBerry tagging her as a lawyer.
I shrugged. “Kids sell papers. Plus with everything going on, people like good-news stories.”
I was vague on “everything going on” because there was always something going on and most people would fill in the blank themselves.
Following her thumb, I headed around to the right side of the bleachers and pretended to take some photos of the players.
I even had a fake San Amaro Times press pass I clipped to my bag.
The thing about using it was no one would ever ask why a story didn’t appear in a paper.
They’d be too embarrassed at how excited they’d been at the idea of being on the front page of the local news section.
My eyes kept returning to where Dieter was standing, now fully human. He’d come closer. He was going to wait until I left the game or the kids finished. Either way, he had a smirk on his face informing me he had nowhere to go and could wait all day. I guessed drug dealers made their own hours.
The game was only in the second inning, so I had time to figure out what my plan was.
I could try to leave, but he’d probably catch me.
I could try to talk the baseball dirt into making a sandstorm, but that would draw a lot more attention with all the witnesses, and the last thing I needed was Paranormal Crimes down here investigating a potential fae encounter.
One of the kids actually hit the ball with the satisfying sort of thwack I remembered from being dragged to Dodgers games on the days when they gave out free tickets to my social worker for her caseload.
I raised my camera to shoot the kid running to first base and instead got caught on the ball hanging in midair.
Everything had stopped. The parents clapping were paused, hands varying distance apart, the umpire was stuck, half bent in a squat I wasn’t sure his glutei could sustain, based on how out of shape he looked.
Looking behind me, I saw Dieter frozen mid-stride. He was coming closer to me, maybe to scare me, maybe to see if he could kidnap me before anyone noticed. So, time stopping wasn’t him.
It would take an incredibly powerful coven to control time.
Either that, or a powerful alchemist with enough time on his hands to draw layers and layers of the circles necessary to pause time.
I didn’t think either would have been able to maintain it for…
I checked my mental clock. A minute, already?
I kept scanning, and then I saw him, standing halfway between the pitcher and second base, reaching up to pluck the baseball out of the air and examining it like he’d never seen one. Maybe he hadn’t.
“Thistle,” I said, resigned. “Of the Summer Court.”
“Parker.” He grinned, showing sharp and deadly teeth. “Of No Court.”
Thistle was narrow with a mop of cobweb-hair spiraling around his head.
His face looked human until you noticed it was as though someone squeezed his head between their hands, pushing his cheekbones back slightly, stretching his mouth too wide and leaving him with oversized bug eyes.
I’d seen him look like this, uncompromisingly fae, and I’d seen him look like the most handsome man in the world, baby blue eyes and the sort of bone structure a smart studio could build a whole superhero franchise off of.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure which was real, but I had a feeling his fae look was his real face.
“You’ve been summoned by the Summer Queen,” he said.
That was the thing about the fae. They didn’t invite.
They didn’t request. They definitely didn’t send a text saying, “hey. U busy?” The fae summoned.
They demanded. And they definitely didn’t understand for a booty-call the correct protocol was to send an eggplant emoji at twelve a.m.
“Tell her I’m busy,” I said.
He rolled his eyes to the frozen werewolf behind me.
I couldn’t help myself and approached him.
Motionless, Dieter looked even more dangerous.
He seemed like he’d gained a foot or so, and he’d somehow managed to just shift his teeth and fingers.
His hands had grown claws and a light dusting of fur was starting to grow on his skin. Man. This guy was going to murder me.
“I see.” Thistle raised his hand. “The queen asked I remind you of your debt.”
I spun to look at him and wished I had Dieter’s hands so I could rip the smug expression off his face. He had a mild smile giving the impression we were playing a children’s game and I’d just lost.
“The queen owns my debt, Thistle. Not you. She can summon me herself if she wants.”
“So, should I return and tell her you do not wish to come?” Thistle whispered a word and time shifted forward for a moment.
It was like watching a film shudder to the next image.
Dieter lurched forward, his frankly terrifying hands grasping for me.
The noise rose as the adults applauded for a second.
Thistle spoke low, and time froze again.
What most people don’t realize is time is an entity. It’s like rocks or grass. It exists. And for a strong enough fae, it’s possible to use time the same way we use any other natural entity. Not for too long, but long enough. Time is an ocean of power. It moves forward always, but it can stop.
Only the most powerful could do that, though.
Inhaling a long breath and then exhaling all the air from my lungs, I turned back to where Thistle was standing, looking at the child who’d turned to stare at the random man who looked like he’d just appeared in the middle of the field.
I took another breath and counted to ten.
My old children’s therapist would be so proud of me for using a healthy coping mechanism.
I put away my camera and adjusted the bag on my shoulder.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll hear her out.”
Thistle took a long moment to smile, his teeth tinged green and sharp as knives.
He reached out into the air and opened a door.
Space was more flexible than time. Walking between the realms was as easy as convincing them they were next to each other, and then just taking that step between them.
You could convince space it was closer than it thought, but you couldn’t convince your stomach the experience of jumping between realms was pleasant.
I groaned and made a face.
With a bow, Thistle hissed. “Parker.”
I forced my shoulders down, because I could look relaxed, even if everything in my body was telling me to turn around because a half-shifted werewolf was going to be safer than what was beyond the door.
Ignoring the reasonable voice telling me to stay where I was, I walked through and found myself knee-deep in grass.
It was nighttime, the moon hanging heavy and full in the sky, like a ripe peach.
I had a feeling I could pluck it from the sky and take a bite, letting moonshine drip down my arm like nectar.
Shaking off the urge, I turned to see Thistle closing the door behind us, his fingers running along an invisible seam in the air, leaving a sunlight glow behind each stroke.
The magic in the Far Realm was thicker; it seemed to seep up from the ground and into my skin.
In a horror movie, this was when someone would say, “I don’t like how this looks.
” But instead of admitting my hair was standing up like I’d shoved a fork into a wall socket, I turned to Thistle. “Where is she?”