not going out there alone, especially not now.”
“I’m fine,” I say, trying to sound it. “You don’t need to be out here after dark. It could take hours. If she wasn’t in my research area, then I have no idea where to start looking. I’m positive I left her … ”
Left. I usually make a
left
at the tree to go to my research area.
I turn in a slow circle, staring down the path to the right. Tire tracks. Bicycle tire tracks. Three of them. One for the wheels of the bike, and two for the wheels of the trailer pulled behind. They have to be mine. No one else would ride their bike beyond the iron gate. A car, maybe, but not a bike.
I bet if I get closer, I’ll see cat prints trailing beside, prints that would disappear when Gimpy leapt into my trailer and reappear when I stopped to toss him out, and then got back on my bike and went the wrong way. The. Wrong. Way. Damn that blasted cat.
“What’s wrong?” Cane’s iron-covered finger trails down my arm.
“I went the wrong way,” I whisper. I’d spent the entire morning tromping around the
wrong
part of the bayou.
This screwup is getting bigger with every passing second. I hadn’t missed that Breeze house in my earlier scouting. There
is no
Breeze house on my research land. Cane spent an hour in a tin suit and risked his life for
nothing
. That damned woman is still out there, sitting in the wrong part of the swamp, where I’ll have to go fetch her after I explain how I managed to perform my job as crappily as I did this morning.
The panic tries to surge back in, but I push it away with a promise to indulge it fully at a later date.
“You went the wrong way?” Cane asks. “You mean—”
“I wasn’t in my research area.” I meet his eyes through the thick glass of his visor, knowing it’s pointless to lie though a part of me is tempted. “I was somewhere else. You were looking for the suspect in the wrong place.”
“Shit, Lee-lee.” Cane turns, following the tire tracks. “Come on. I don’t need that drink of water.”
“No.” I stand my ground. “Go back to the gate. I’ll get her by myself. You’ve been out long enough.”
Cane keeps walking, trundling with a clank and an occasional screech through the gathering dusk. “I told you, I’m not going to let you fetch some crazy Breeze head by yourself.”
“Cane, come back.” I cross my hands at my chest,suddenly acutely aware of the audience observing our every move.
Hitch and Stephanie probably can’t hear us, but they can see that something stupid is going down. I have to convince Cane to come back to the gate and show them he has no part in the stupid. He’s a professional who was looking in exactly the place I told him to look. It isn’t his fault there was nothing there to find.
“I mean it,” I say, raising my voice a hair. “I’m not going to—”
“Lee-lee, don’t you tell me what—” Cane’s right foot shuffles forward, catching on a gnarled root that’s elbowed its way up from the packed earth.
The heavy suit throws him off balance; he stumbles, and would have fallen if he hadn’t reached out with one big hand. A hand that lands on a rock hard enough to rip a hole in the iron suit keeping all his yummy, salty, human skin safe from the hungry things buzzing through the night.
The air around me churns, a mini-twister that, for a moment, catches me up and carries me along with it. Silken wings pulse against my throat—faster than a racing heart, more dangerous than an exploding locomotive—and then they’re gone. The fairy swarm from beneath the cypress surges past in a rush of glittering flesh and sharp teeth, snarling high-pitched, baby-voice snarls that would be hysterical if this wasn’t a matter of life and death.
Cane’s
life. Cane’s death.
I run, slower than the fairies had flown, but faster than I’ve run in years, closing the distance between me and Cane in seconds. The Fey are already on him, swarming around the hole near his palm
“I’m fine,” I say, trying to sound it. “You don’t need to be out here after dark. It could take hours. If she wasn’t in my research area, then I have no idea where to start looking. I’m positive I left her … ”
Left. I usually make a
left
at the tree to go to my research area.
I turn in a slow circle, staring down the path to the right. Tire tracks. Bicycle tire tracks. Three of them. One for the wheels of the bike, and two for the wheels of the trailer pulled behind. They have to be mine. No one else would ride their bike beyond the iron gate. A car, maybe, but not a bike.
I bet if I get closer, I’ll see cat prints trailing beside, prints that would disappear when Gimpy leapt into my trailer and reappear when I stopped to toss him out, and then got back on my bike and went the wrong way. The. Wrong. Way. Damn that blasted cat.
“What’s wrong?” Cane’s iron-covered finger trails down my arm.
“I went the wrong way,” I whisper. I’d spent the entire morning tromping around the
wrong
part of the bayou.
This screwup is getting bigger with every passing second. I hadn’t missed that Breeze house in my earlier scouting. There
is no
Breeze house on my research land. Cane spent an hour in a tin suit and risked his life for
nothing
. That damned woman is still out there, sitting in the wrong part of the swamp, where I’ll have to go fetch her after I explain how I managed to perform my job as crappily as I did this morning.
The panic tries to surge back in, but I push it away with a promise to indulge it fully at a later date.
“You went the wrong way?” Cane asks. “You mean—”
“I wasn’t in my research area.” I meet his eyes through the thick glass of his visor, knowing it’s pointless to lie though a part of me is tempted. “I was somewhere else. You were looking for the suspect in the wrong place.”
“Shit, Lee-lee.” Cane turns, following the tire tracks. “Come on. I don’t need that drink of water.”
“No.” I stand my ground. “Go back to the gate. I’ll get her by myself. You’ve been out long enough.”
Cane keeps walking, trundling with a clank and an occasional screech through the gathering dusk. “I told you, I’m not going to let you fetch some crazy Breeze head by yourself.”
“Cane, come back.” I cross my hands at my chest,suddenly acutely aware of the audience observing our every move.
Hitch and Stephanie probably can’t hear us, but they can see that something stupid is going down. I have to convince Cane to come back to the gate and show them he has no part in the stupid. He’s a professional who was looking in exactly the place I told him to look. It isn’t his fault there was nothing there to find.
“I mean it,” I say, raising my voice a hair. “I’m not going to—”
“Lee-lee, don’t you tell me what—” Cane’s right foot shuffles forward, catching on a gnarled root that’s elbowed its way up from the packed earth.
The heavy suit throws him off balance; he stumbles, and would have fallen if he hadn’t reached out with one big hand. A hand that lands on a rock hard enough to rip a hole in the iron suit keeping all his yummy, salty, human skin safe from the hungry things buzzing through the night.
The air around me churns, a mini-twister that, for a moment, catches me up and carries me along with it. Silken wings pulse against my throat—faster than a racing heart, more dangerous than an exploding locomotive—and then they’re gone. The fairy swarm from beneath the cypress surges past in a rush of glittering flesh and sharp teeth, snarling high-pitched, baby-voice snarls that would be hysterical if this wasn’t a matter of life and death.
Cane’s
life. Cane’s death.
I run, slower than the fairies had flown, but faster than I’ve run in years, closing the distance between me and Cane in seconds. The Fey are already on him, swarming around the hole near his palm
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