Bone Crossed

The crowd was so tight it was like being at a Metallica concert, and I had a road of heads and shoulders right to the snow elf—who was ten feet tall at the very least and stuck up a whole person's worth over the rest of the people.

He saw me coming and grabbed for me, but I'm fast and he missed. Actually, he probably missed because he didn't know I was going to jump on his shoulder and launch myself at the little bag, rather than because of any speed or dexterity on my part. That damned mountain of a fae was fast, too.

The magic buzzed angrily at me as I snatched the bag in my jaws. I dangled for a moment before the string that held it broke. I fell and waited for the giant hands of the snow elf to crush me, but it was Uncle Mike himself who snatched me out of the air and tossed me toward the door.

As soon as I grabbed the bag, I knew I was right about it being some sort of vicious spell aimed at the wolves. I didn't know how Uncle Mike knew it, too, but he snarled, "Take that thing out of here," before he melted back into the crowd.

Like a Dr. Seuss poem, I scrambled under, around, and through before I got out the door. I'd have felt better if I hadn't known that someone I knew—because I knew most of Adam's pack at least by face—was dead. I'd have felt better if I had known Adam was all right. I'd have settled for just not having the towering mountain of enraged… snow elf following me at full speed.

I'd never met anyone who called himself an elf, so I supposed my view was skewed by Peter Jackson's version of Tolkien's fair folk. The thing following me like a freight train didn't fit my understanding of the word at all.

Later, if I survived, I might derive some amusement from the face of the bouncer, who suddenly realized what was coming at him—just before he broke and ran. I passed him as we both jumped the short step to the pavement outside the door. He ran with me a couple of steps before he figured out who the snow elf was chasing and took a sharp right.

The doorway slowed the monster down. He hit it with his shoulder, taking the whole entryway wall with him as he left the building. He threw the chunk of wall at me, but I hopped through the half-open doorway a second time, just before it hit the ground. I crossed the street at full speed and narrowly missed being hit by a semi on its way to the industrial district just past Uncle Mike's. Safe on the far side, I glanced behind me, then stopped.

The man the snow elf had been was on his knees at the edge of the parking lot, shaking his head as if he was slightly dazed. He looked up at me. The silvery eyes were the same.

"Are you all right?" he asked. "Sorry, so sorry. I haven't felt like that since… since my last battle. I didn't hurt you, did I?" His gaze caught on the chunks of wall and door that were left from when his missile had missed me.

The effects of the little bag were evidently limited by distance.

I dropped the bag on the ground and shook myself and gave him an "all's well" yip. I wasn't sure he got the message, but he didn't try to cross the road after me. I'd have changed back, but my clothes—my favorite dress, a pair of expensive (even at half-off) Italian sandals, and my underwear—were still in the bar somewhere. I'm not modest, but the snow elf and I didn't know each other well enough for me to want be naked in front of him.

He was dazedly trying to pick up the mess he'd made when people started leaving. One of Uncle Mike's people, easily distinguished from the patrons by the distinctive green doublet, stood on the edge of the parking lot and waved his hands at me in a pushing motion. I thought it was the bouncer who'd been at the door, but I'd have to have seen his face frozen in terror again to be certain of it.

I picked up the bag and backed away from the road a dozen yards, until my butt hit the side of an old warehouse fifty yards from the road.

Uncle Mike's parking lot gradually emptied, with Uncle Mike's minions directing traffic and helping the snow elf with his cleanup efforts. Adam's car sat in lonely splendor.

So did Mary Jo's Jeep. The one I'd given a free tune-up to when she'd taken her shift at

guard-the-wimpy-coyote duty. I like Mary Jo. She's a firefighter, five-foot-three-and-a-half of solid muscle and solider nerve.

One of the pack was dead. In the sudden quiet of the night, I could feel the wave of mourning spreading through the pack as the others acknowledged the absence of one of their own. They knew who it was, but I wasn't familiar enough with the pack magic to be certain. I only had Mary Jo's car. There were just six cars left in the patron's parking lot when Uncle Mike strode out of the hole that used to be a door. He clapped a hand on the snow elf's shoulder and patted him before hopping over a cement parking curb and crossing the street toward me. He had my dress in his hands.

I changed and grabbed the dress and pulled it on. No bra, no underwear, but at least I wasn't naked. I kicked the bag toward Uncle Mike. "What happened?"

He bent and picked up the bag. His face tightened, and he made a low, huffing sound… rather more like a lion or big cat of some kind than anything I'd ever heard out of him before.

"Cobweb," he said, "come throw this nasty bit of magic in the river for me, would you?"

Something small and bright, about the size of a lightning bug (there are none in the Tri-Cities) hovered over the bag for a moment, then it, and the bag, disappeared.

"It affected you, too?" I asked.

I don't know what kind of a fae Uncle Mike is. Something powerful enough to control a tavern full of drunken fae seven nights a week.

"No," he said. "Just that it was put in my territory, and I did not sense it."

He dusted off his hands, and his face regained its usual cheerful mien, but I'd seen beneath that facade a few times so his mask of affable tavern keeper didn't reassure me the way it once would have. You have to remember never to believe what you see with the fae.

"Smart coyote," he told me. "I didn't even check to see if there was a cause for their snarling, just assumed they were being nasty-tempered, the way werewolves are—and left it too late before I waded in."

"What happened?" I asked again, but when he didn't answer immediately, I gave him an impatient flick of my hand and ran bare-footed back across the street, through the parking lot, and into the bar.

Inside, with the missing section of wall behind me, it didn't look so bad: a big, empty tavern after a couple of football teams had gotten drunk and partied all night. Teams with really big players, I thought, looking at the beam that the snow elf had taken out with his head—elephants, maybe.

Adam, fully in human form again, sat with his back against the stage riser on the far side of the room, his arms folded over his chest. Somone had found him a pair of cutoffs to wear. Not like he was angry… just closed-up.

Next to him were two of his other wolves, Paul and one of Paul's cronies. Paul looked sick, and the other man, whose name escaped me, was curled around a very still form.

I couldn't see who it was, but I knew. Mary Jo's car in the parking lot told me. There was blood all over all of them. Adam's hands were covered, as was Paul's shirt. The other man was drenched in it.

The wolves weren't the only ones bleeding. There seemed to be a triage of sorts going on at the opposite end of the building. I recognized the woman who had cut her hair to free herself, but she seemed to be one of the aid-givers rather than a victim.

Adam looked up and saw me, his face very bleak.

There was glass on the floor, and my feet were bare—but it would have taken more than that to keep me from them.

Paul's friend was sobbing. "I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry." He was rocking the body he held, Mary Jo's body, as he apologized over and over again.