River Marked Part 9

The old man grinned. "Maybe." He still had the little earthenware jar and tipped it toward me. "Or maybe it's the Bag Balm. I use it on all my cuts and burns." I'd thought that salve had smelled familiar. He'd added something to it, but the base was definitely Bag Balm. My foster mother had used Bag Balm as a cure-all, too. I kept a tin of it at work. "I understand your feet took quite a beating, too. Why don't you get them out where we can see them?"

"How do you know me?" I asked, peeling off my shoes and socks.

Adam had decided to judge this frail old man a possible threat. I could tell because he'd taken a step back out of reach. He was standing guard, ready to do whatever the circ.u.mstances required, trusting me to handle the rest. Likewise, I'd trust his judgment about the threat.

Our opponent might be an old man, but both Adam and I had lived around very old things that were dangerous. We wouldn't underestimate this man who smelled of tobacco, woodsmoke ... and magic. It wasn't fae magic, so I hadn't noticed it right away. This was sweeter and subtler, though I didn't think it was any less potent.

Charles smelled a little like this sometimes.

The old man smiled at me and held the unguent pot. "And how would I not know Mercedes Thompson who is married to Adam Hauptman, Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack?"

He did the not-lying thing very well. There are a lot of Other creatures who know when you are lying. Some of the fae, werewolves, some of the vampires-and me. The art of not lying without telling the truth is a valuable skill if you're going to have to deal with people who are Other.

He hadn't known who I was when he came into the trailer. But he'd taken one look at me, and his surprised recognition had been genuine.

"You know what I am," I said, suddenly certain of it. My heartbeat picked up with the excitement of it. He knew what I was and who my father had been.

"Use that salve on your feet," he said. "They look sore." He canted his head toward Adam without taking his eyes off me. "Do you have something for an old man to drink?"

"Soda or apple juice."

"Root beer?" The old man's voice was hopeful.

Adam got a cloth out of a drawer near the little sink and dampened it. Then he opened the miniature fridge and pulled out the silver can and handed it over Gordon's shoulder. He tossed me the damp cloth, then went back to his self-appointed observation post.

I wiped my feet. My calf was still sore, but it wasn't the bonedeep throbbing, and there was no itching. It felt like a rope burn and nothing worse. There had been some sort of magic on whatever had cut my calf, magic that the old man had nullified.

I'm immune to a lot of magic-but not all. Usually, the worse the magic is, the less likely I am to be immune.

The old man opened his pop can and drank it down. He drank the whole thing without taking a breath. When I was a kid, we used to say anyone who could drink a can or bottle dry had killed it. We'd tried it a lot, but the only one of us who could do it was one of the older boys. I'd forgotten his name. He died before I left Montana-a victim of the Change.

Gordon Seeker and I could bandy words back and forth all night-I grew up in a werewolf pack; I knew how to not-lie, too. However, sometimes straightforward was more useful.

"I'm a walker," I told the old man as I rubbed his magic Bag Balm on my feet. "How did you know what I was?"

He laughed, slapping his hands on his thighs. "Is that what they call it?" he said. "After those abominations down south, I suppose? You don't go around wearing the skins of those you kill, do you? How can you be a skinwalker, then? Abominations." He hissed through his teeth, and the sound whistled a little as the air escaped in the gap where the tooth was missing.

"Not a skinwalker but a shapechanger, you are. Coyote, right? Ai." He shook his head. "Coyote brings change and chaos." His head tilted sideways, and he looked as though he was listening to someone I couldn't hear. I glanced at Adam, but he was frowning at the old man.

Gordon Seeker laughed. "Better than death and destruction, surely-but those often follow change anyway. Very well." The eyes he turned to me were fever-bright.

He reached out and tapped my injured leg. "River marked. It meant for you to be its servant-good thing for you that coyotes don't make good servants. But it means more than that. It tells me that tomorrow you need to go to Maryhill Museum. Enjoy the art and the furniture built by the foreign queen-and then go see what they have in their bas.e.m.e.nt. At noon, you meet my young grandson at Horsethief Lake, and he'll take you to see She Who Watches."

I knew what She Who Watches was though I hadn't ever actually seen her in person. She was the most famous of the pictographs at Horsethief Lake.

"The tours are only open on Fridays," commented Adam. "At ten in the morning."

The old man grunted. "Indians go anytime they want to-it is our place." He tapped me. "She's Indian, no matter what she believes. My grandson is Indian. The two of them can take one Anglo wolf who belongs to an Indian coyote girl."

He stretched and tossed the empty pop can to Adam-who caught it. "Time for this old Indian to go." He looked at me again. "If you are going to use white man's words to describe yourself, 'avatar' is more accurate than 'walker.'"

He took his bag and indicated the little pot with his chin. "Better you keep that, little sister. A coyote will get herself hurt a lot if she runs with wolves."

And then he left.

Adam and I both waited, holding our breaths, but we heard neither footsteps nor car or boat.

After a moment, I shed my clothes and took coyote shape-and I had about one more change in me tonight. But it was better that I changed than Adam. He opened the door of the trailer and walked out behind me as I put my nose to the ground and scent-trailed the old man. He'd headed for the river and not the road.

I followed him down to the little backwater where Adam and I had played in the river. About ten feet from the drop-off to the beach area, Gordon Seeker's scent and the imprint of his cowboy boots just disappeared.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK? WAS HE A GHOST?" ASKED ADAM, as he scrubbed my feet again while I sat on the couch.

I'd told him they were fine. But he'd ignored me and insisted on cleaning them again after I'd gone out running around on them, even though I'd been on paws and not bare feet. It didn't hurt as much as it should have because the salve had healed the minor cuts better than any mundane Bag Balm could have. All I had left was a whole bunch of bruises.

"I think that there is more in heaven and earth, Horatio," I said. "I can usually tell if someone is a ghost. Or if I can't, I've never found out. How about you?"

"He smelled like woodsmoke and predator," said Adam. "He breathed, and I could hear his heart pump. If I had to guess, I'd say not a ghost. But I've never actually seen a ghost, so it's just a guess. A ghost was the first explanation that occurred to me for his disappearing act."

"You've never seen a ghost?" I saw them all the time, so I forgot how seldom other people could perceive them.

"No. So what do you think Gordon Seeker was?"

"You know," I told him, "there's an old Indian custom that Charles told me about once. If a visitor comes to your lodge and admires something out loud, you are supposed to give it to them. Charles says there are three reasons for the custom. The first"-I held up a finger-"is because generosity is a virtue to be encouraged. The second"-I put up another finger-"is to teach you not to be too attached to or too proud of things. Family, friends, community are important. Things are not. Can you guess the third one?"

He smiled. "Charles told me that one. Be careful who you invite into your lodge. I didn't think of it until after Seeker was already in the trailer. Maybe he was the Indian version of a witch. Medicine man."

"Charles says that medicine men and witches aren't very much alike."

My leg itched, and I pulled up my pant leg and contemplated scratching.

"River marked," said Adam, touching the mark lightly.

"He was as bad as the fae," I complained. "He didn't answer anything and just left us with more questions."

Adam kissed my knee, which should not have done anything to my pulse. I mean-the kneecap is as far from an erogenous zone as I know of. But it was Adam, so my heart rate picked up nicely.

He put my feet down. "The magic salve did its job. I don't think you'll need another application tonight. I have a funny feeling that you might need it more later. Speaking of the fae, though, when we start getting people missing and b.l.o.o.d.y, it's probably time to give Uncle Mike a call and see what he's set us into the middle of."

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Uncle Mike's number. I heard the sound of loud music, and someone answered in Cornish.

"It's Hauptman," Adam said. "Get Uncle Mike for me." He started pacing the length of the trailer as he sometimes did when he was on the phone. I pulled my feet up-resting them on the towel to keep the couch clean. Without my feet on the floor, Adam had an extra half pace to use. My eyes drooped, and I had to fight to keep them open.

There were several clicks, and the music died down abruptly, as if Uncle Mike had gotten on a quieter extension.

"Adam," he said. "Congratulations. And why would you be calling me while you're on your honeymoon?"

"Otters," said Adam. "More precisely, otters that look like they'd be more at home in the Old Country and who smell of glamour."

He'd sensed it, too, then. That little bit of magic when I was trying to get the boat out from under the tree. It hadn't been Benny or the boat. The otters were the next best thing.

There was a little silence, then Uncle Mike gave a sigh of relief. "They are there, then. Edythe told us that none of her people had seen them for a while."

"Which is why you and Edythe sent us down here?"

Uncle Mike cleared his throat. "Not exactly. Edythe gets hunches sometimes. One of them was when a Roman ex-slave named Patrick came back to Ireland. We all wish we'd killed him right off just as she advised-except probably that would have only meant the Church would have sent someone else, and there would be a Saint Aiden or Saint Conner or some such instead of Saint Patrick. Harbingers are often like that old seven-headed dragon that grew three new heads whenever you cut one off."

"Hydra," Adam said.

"That's the one. Anyway, she doesn't have those moments very often, maybe no more than once a century. Last one was right before Mount St. Helens blew. After that Patrick thing, we all listen to her. A week ago she told me that she had a premonition that it might be a good idea if you and Mercy honeymooned at her campground and took a look at what the otterkin had been up to."

"What have they been up to?" Adam had stopped pacing and was looking wary. Edythe, whoever she was, had a premonition once a century or so-and had had one about us being here. That sounded a lot more serious than a man losing his foot to a bear or ghosts dancing beside the river, no matter how much they had affected me.

"Surviving, evidently." Uncle Mike's voice was suddenly grim. "Which is better than we had feared. Otterkin aren't like the selkies, who are their closest kin. There are other fae who wear otter shapes, but they aren't really related to otterkin. For one thing, otterkin don't interact with people well. We brought all that were left to the Walla Walla reservation and turned them loose in our waters."

"You don't have waters there," said Adam, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It was one of the things that the government made sure of-no running water that went into any of the reservations could come running out." He wasn't arguing. He was just telling Uncle Mike that they both knew there was something odd going on in the Walla Walla reservation.

Running water was supposed to enhance the powers of a number of fae. I was surprised anyone in the government-who wasn't fae-knew that little gem.

It had been a useless precaution, though. I've seen oceans in the reservation where they've somehow managed to open entry points into Underhill. That was one of the things I couldn't tell Adam-or anyone else. I'd promised, and the ones who'd suffer if I broke my promise included my mentor, Zee, so I kept my mouth shut.

"We have ponds," said Uncle Mike, not-lying even better than Gordon Seeker had. "But they weren't enough. So Edythe bought a scrub piece of desert and turned it into a campground."

"And turned the otters loose here."

"Otterkin. Edythe had a sanctuary built for them near the swimming hole. They should have been happy there, but they disappeared from it, and we haven't been able to find them for about six months. None of them were in good health when we put them there, and we a.s.sumed that they were gone until Edythe suddenly decided to send you."

"Tell me about the otterkin," said Adam.

"You should feel a kindred spirit with them," Uncle Mike told him. "They are shapes.h.i.+fters who can take human form though their true shape is otter. As humans, they tend to resemble someone with severe autism. In the past, it got many burned at the stake."

"Do they kill people?" asked Adam.

There was a rather long pause.

"Not for food," said Uncle Mike.

"Neither do werewolves. Nonetheless, there are bodies wherever there are packs. Are there bodies where there are otterkin?"

"Not of the kind that would bring attention," said Uncle Mike. "They are territorial. Sometimes people drown near otterkin lairs."

"And you put them near the swimming hole."

"Which is protected by rune and magic," snapped Uncle Mike. "They couldn't even drown a baby in that swimming hole. They can swim and fish, but they can harm none therein."

"So they moved to where they could," Adam said. "We found them a few miles upriver. Are we supposed to stop them?"

"For that we wouldn't need you." Uncle Mike's voice was impatient. "There are seven of them. You could eat them for lunch and be hungry by dinner. They have very little magic of their own though they are clever with what they have, and they cooperate with each other. When there were hundreds of them, they were dangerous. There are otter-shaped fae who are powerful-but they are still back in the Old Country and doing fine."

"Otterkin are minor fae," I told Adam. Not too long ago, I'd read a book about the fae, written by a fae woman. It took me a while to remember them because they'd gotten the barest mention. "They used to be very common, but they aren't powerful. Probably no more trouble than real otters would be. River otters usually avoid people, which is good for the people."

"Ah, is that Mercy I hear? What does she say?"

That didn't mean that Uncle Mike couldn't hear me. Maybe he just didn't want Adam and me to know that he could hear what we said. Still, Adam politely repeated my words to Uncle Mike.

"Otterkin were supposed to be friendly and helpful," I added.

"Right," Uncle Mike agreed. "Being hunted to near extinction changes a lot of things. Still, they're not big enough to seriously threaten anyone."

Unless he was hurt and defenseless, as Benny had been.

"Ask Uncle Mike if they'd be able to do what something did to Benny's foot," I said. I couldn't see how they could, but it would be stupid not to ask.

After Adam relayed my question, Uncle Mike said, "No. They might be able to sever a toe or finger. They could kill someone, I suppose, just as a regular river otter could under the proper circ.u.mstances. But it would be because they opened up an artery." Then slyly, he said, "Sort of like a coyote might kill a werewolf." Which I had done-and didn't plan on doing again anytime soon. Sheer dumb luck is not something I felt like counting on.

"And Edythe thought that it was important that we check out seven otterkin?" Adam said.

Uncle Mike made a neutral noise. "Her premonitions aren't specific to the fae," he said. "Something bad is going to happen unless the two of you somehow manage to stop it. Or not. Her predictions aren't perfect." His voice got very serious. "You have to understand. This is not a favor you are performing for the fae. It may have nothing to do with the fae at all. We just saw to it that you are in the right place."

"Fine," said Adam coolly. "Have it your way for now. We'll discuss this again when Mercy and I return."

He hung up the phone.

"I was wrong," I said.

"About what?"

"Gordon Seeker wasn't as bad as the fae. At least he didn't engineer our presence at a disaster."

"You think seven otter-sized fae with very little magic comprise a disaster?"

"No," I told him. "But something bad is coming. It doesn't sound like Edythe has premonitions about stubbing your toe or even about some poor guy getting his foot taken off. And Uncle Mike knew it when he sent us here."

6.

ONE OF THE REASONS I HATE TO TAKE ANTIHISTAMINES is because of the dreams. They never make any sense, but they are consuming and difficult to throw off the next day.

That night I dreamed I was encased in stone. No matter how hard I struggled, no matter how hard I fought, I could not move. I grew hungry, and there was no surcease, no ease of the great appet.i.te of my captivity.

I dreamed that I was freed at last, and I feasted on an otter that filled me more than an otter should, appeasing my hunger for a moment. So I didn't eat the other otters who swam around me.