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We all looked at each other, and then at the alien mechanisms clamped immovably about our wrists.
“Alexander must have expected us to take somewhat longer with Nessie,” I said finally.
“But why drop us here and now?” said the Blue Fairy plaintively.
“It’s almost night! It’s already dark enough I can barely see my hand in front of my face. How are we supposed to find anything in this? Has anyone even got a flashlight?”
“You should sit down, put your head between your knees, and breathe steadily for a while,” Walker said kindly.
“If these bracelets were preprogrammed to bring us right here, right now, Alexander must have had a reason,” I said. “Maybe this . . . is Sasquatch territory. This is where one of the creatures is to be found. In which case all we have to do is sit tight and wait for one to come along.”
“We must make a fire,” Honey said firmly. “Before it gets really dark. Perhaps the light will attract the Sasquatch.”
“Katt was right,” growled the Blue Fairy. “This is so amateur night. Just sit around and hope one of the rarest creatures in the world will just happen to wander by, when we all know the clock is ticking? I know, I know, go with the flow, don’t make waves . . . Does anyone actually know how to make a fire? I think it involves rubbing two Boy Scouts together.”
“In your dreams,” I said.
“I was a Scout,” said Walker unexpectedly. We all looked at him, but that was all he had to say on the subject.
“I’ll bet he had some really weird badges,” muttered the Blue Fairy.
In the end, we moved a comfortable distance away from the river and gathered some wood and some moss, and Honey made us a fire with brisk efficiency and the use of a CIA monogrammed cigarette lighter. By then it really was night, and the dark was full and heavy. The light from the fire didn’t travel far. The air was still uncomfortably humid, but the temperature was dropping fast. We sat in a circle around the fire, staring into the leaping flames. Gnarled twigs and branches stirred and popped as the flames consumed them, and after a while most of us stopped jumping at the sudden noises. Up above, the sky seemed to fall away forever, full of stars, but with only a bare sliver of a new moon. From all around came the sound of various beasts going about their brutal business, though none of them ever entered the circle of firelight.
It turned out that for all his moaning, the Blue Fairy was the best provided of all of us. His padded jerkin had faerie pockets: sub-space larders from which he produced drinking cups, bottled water, tea bags, milk and sugar, and even a small pot to boil the water in. The pot had pretty blue flowers on it and the legend A Present from Lyonesse. The essentials, Blue said just a bit smugly, for any journey. The only food he had was elf bread, which the rest of us politely declined. That stuff would give an elephant the runs, and it would stop for months afterwards to remember. Honey asked Blue if he had any coffee, and he took a certain amount of pleasure in telling her no.
We sat around the fire drinking tea from an assortment of ill-matched cups. Mine bore the legend World’s Best Motherfucker. While the water was boiling to make us a second cup, Honey produced a large knife from somewhere and slipped off into the darkness. Her white cat-suited figure glimmered briefly here and there in the darkness like a ghost that couldn’t make up its mind whether or not to materialise. There was a certain amount of crashing about, followed by some loud splashing, and then Honey returned triumphantly with a large dead beaver she’d caught and killed on the riverbank. She ski
“Don’t,” Honey said sternly. “I have already worked out every possible permutation of any joke involving the words eat and beaver. Also, I have a gun, and I will shoot you.”
“Listen to all the noise out in the woods,” I said, tactfully changing the subject. “It’s like every living thing out there is killing, eating, and humping each other. Not necessarily in that order. And possibly simultaneously.”
“This is what the wild sounds like, city boy,” said Honey.
“You should hear what the Nightside sounds like,” said Walker. “Where the really wild things go to screw each other over. We have the best nightclubs, the greatest shows, the music never stops, you can dance till your feet bleed, and Cinderella never gets to go home.”
“You know, Walker,” said the Blue Fairy. “You disturb the shit out of me.”
“Thank you,” said Walker.
We sat around the fire, and the night passed slowly. If anything it got even darker. The heat of the day slipped away, and we all ended up crowding as close to the flames as we could. The dancing firelight painted our faces with ever-changing shadows, sometimes suggesting unexpected revelations of character. Every now and again we’d hear something large and heavy crashing through the woods, but nothing ever entered our circle of firelight. To begin with we jumped at every sound, but it never came to anything, and after a while we just stopped bothering. It was cold, we were tired, and you can drink only so much tea. Peter kept almost nodding off, and then jerking up his head with a start. Finally, the Blue Fairy stirred uncomfortably.
“I really need to go to the toilet,” he said miserably.
“Thank you for sharing that with us,” I said. “Go do it in the river. That’s what it’s for.”
“But it’s dark out there! There are . . . things. Hungry-sounding things, hiding in the dark. I don’t want to go on my own.”
“Well, I’m not going to hold your hand,” said Peter. “Or anything else, for that matter.”
“Be brave, little soldier,” said Honey.
“What have you got to be scared of?” I said. “You’re wearing a torc, remember?”
He gave me a look, and then lurched to his feet and shuffled off into the darkness. We could follow his progress from the muffled curses and the occasional banging into trees that didn’t get out of his way fast enough. Finally, there came a distant splashing.
“I think he’s found the river,” Walker said solemnly.
“Oh, good,” said Honey.
“If the Sasquatch was going to be attracted by the firelight, I think he would have turned up by now,” I said.
“Patience,” said Honey. “Hunting is all about patience. And blowing something’s head off with a really big gun, naturally.”
“No wonder you ended up in the CIA,” said Peter.
Walker winced. “Perhaps we should decide in advance what we’re going to do with the Sasquatch when it finally does deign to put in an appearance. Capture it on Peter’s phone camera?”
“I really would like to shoot it,” said Honey. “Have it stuffed and mounted . . . I’ve got just the place for it in my apartment. Or maybe use it as a throw rug.”
“That might be all right if it is just some kind of unknown ape,” I said tactfully. “But what if it does turn out to be a Neanderthal or some kind of missing link? Maybe even the last of its kind?”
“What would you do with it, if it did turn out to be half human?” said Walker. “Put it in a zoo, or give it the vote? No, Eddie, you had the right idea with Nessie. It would be a sin to make such a creature extinct, but at the same time it’s far better off left alone. It doesn’t need to be made a target for hunters or conservationists. We’ll take its photo and then leave it to its own devices, safe in the wilderness.”
“Right,” I said. “This is its home. We’re the intruders here.”