Lesley Livingston: Wondrous Strange

“Yeah.”

“I thought I’d hit the Ramble with you tonight,” Maddox said. “Any objections?”

“No. Company would be nice.” Sonny ran his hands through his dark hair and pulled it back into a tail, securing it with a leather thong.

“Good. The Gate around midpark was a bloody bore last night.”

“Anything get through?” Sonny asked, trying to shake his nightmare and figure out how to tell Maddox about his own discovery.

“Nah, don’t think so. A whole pack of pissed-off nyxxies gave us a bit of fun for the first hour or so, but after that it was quiet as a grave.”

Sonny frowned, thinking about his similar encounter with the piskie-fae. And the fact that the diversion had prevented him from being in time to catch whatever had come through at the Lake. He wondered if all the other Janus had been similarly occupied for that first hour. “Where was the Wolf?” he asked.

“Aw, Fennrys doesn’t like crowds-you know that. He’s claimed the upper fourth of the park like he owns it. Might as well have gone around and peed on all the bushes up there. He’ll fight anything-even other Janus, if they get in his way.” Maddox looked at Sonny quizzically. “Been meaning to ask-how was your night?”

“It was…interesting.”

Maddox’s eyes gleamed with curiosity. “Something nasty?”

Sonny went to a closet and grabbed a pair of boots and a jacket. “Maybe. Look, I’m starving. Let’s get something to eat, and I’ll tell you about it.”

Sitting in the booth at the back of a diner, the two Janus were far enough away from the other patrons that they didn’t necessarily have to keep their voices down, but the subject matter dictated that they do so anyway. As Sonny had predicted, Maddox was deeply amused by the tale of his piskie brawl.

“Don’t take it so hard, Sonn,” he said in between shoveling up mouthfuls of a western omelet the size of his head. “At least it wasn’t hinkypunks!”

“The day I get my arse kicked by a hinkypunk is the day I hang up this,” Sonny growled, tapping the iron medallion hanging from a braided leather cord around his neck-his Janus badge of office. “With my neck still in it.”

“Especially since they only have one leg to kick with!” Maddox laughed, and, pushing back a plate that had been pillaged clean, sighed contentedly. “Now. Leaving aside nyxxies and pixies and all that small change, why don’t you tell me what it is that’s really got your knickers in a twist, hey?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, old Sonn, that something about last night has parked a thundercloud on your doorstep, and it wasn’t a piskie drubbing that did it. You’ve got more of a sense of humor than to let something like that bug you.”

Sonny picked up a coffee spoon and toyed with it for a moment. Then he sat back and told Maddox what had happened during the time he’d been fending off the piskie attack. Or, at least, what he thought had happened-his theory was based on circumstantial evidence, after all.

Maddox remained silent throughout, chewing thoughtfully on his bottom lip. “A kelpie, huh?” he asked finally.

“I think so,” Sonny said. “Horsehair and hoofprints would seem to indicate that.”

“You know, I’ve never seen one?”

“I did once-from a great distance-when I accompanied Auberon on a visit to Queen Mabh’s Borderlands. They mostly lurk in the swamps thereabouts. Vicious things.” Back in the days when the Gates had all stood open, kelpie were known to appear near sources of water. They’d take on the guise of beautiful horses to lure unwary mortals. Once a person was mounted, the kelpie would plunge below the surface of the lake or river, dragging its hapless victim away to the Otherworld, or down to a watery death. Some kelpie even ate their victims.

“When I was a kid,” Maddox said, “you know, before I was taken, I used to hear stories. The old village wives would screech something fierce if any of us kids went too close to the riverbanks. Said the kelpie’d come for us and take us away to drown.”

“Well, this one was gone by the time I got there, and there wasn’t a whole lot of forensic evidence left behind.”

“In other words, no blood or body parts strewn about.”

“Right. None of that. Just trampled rushes and these.” Sonny pulled the black stone beads out of his satchel and put them on the table. Strands of horsehair, bright as copper filaments, remained knotted on the beads.

Maddox reached for one and examined it minutely. “Hmm. Strange…What are they?”

“I don’t know.”

He handed the bead back to Sonny. “Of course, no body parts strewn about does not necessarily preclude abduction…”

Sonny nodded mutely. He thought uneasily of the trampled script he’d found and the notion that something terrible might have happened to the girl he’d gotten used to thinking of as Firecracker. After a moment he decided to solicit Maddox’s help in a little detective work. “There was something else in the park yesterday too, Madd. Or, maybe, some one else.”

Maddox settled back, crossing his arms over his chest, and waited.

Sonny pulled the tattered copy of the script out of his messenger bag and pushed it across the table. He told Maddox of the “anomaly” he’d sensed in the Shakespeare Garden-the girl-and about finding her script later on the lakeside. As Janus, neither of them was terribly prone to believing in coincidence, and Maddox was intrigued.

“You did have a busy day yesterday,” he said.

“Not bad for the new kid on the job, right? Listen, we’ve got plenty of time before sundown-d’you want to come do a bit of nosing around with me? See if we can’t track down my little stray.”

“What, the kelpie? Or the girl?”

“The way I see it is this: Find the one…and we just might find the other.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”

Sonny pointed to a note scrawled on the script: Rehearsals @ Avalon Grande on 52 nd. “We start by paying this place a visit”-Sonny pointed again, at the letters indicating it was Kelley’s Script-“and asking this girl some questions.”

“Don’t go in there!” Tyff screeched at Kelley as she shuffled groggily in the direction of the bathroom.

Hand on the doorknob, Kelley turned to peer blearily at her roommate standing in the far corner of the living room-as far away from the bathroom as one could get in their apartment.

“Step away from the door, Kelley!” Tyff was just this side of wild-eyed.

Kelley did as she was told, trying as she did so to kick-start her brain into gear.

Tyff must have gotten in really late-or really early-and Kelley hadn’t heard her, having fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep on the couch. The remnants of tumbled dreams swam through her brain-weird music that she couldn’t quite remember and dancing lights, the pale perfect face of a woman with golden eyes and hair spread out behind her like seaweed floating in a watery current. And something else. Something about a…

“Horse! There’s a horse in the bathtub!”

Oh, right. A horse.

Kelley squeezed her eyes shut. It hadn’t been a bad dream after all. “Uh…Tyff-”

“In the bathtub!” Tyff pointed sharply with one manicured finger, her model’s features drawn tight with anxiety.

“About that…” Kelley rubbed at the back of her neck. “I was going to tell you. I guess I fell asleep…” She stared warily at her roommate who, in turn, glared at the bathroom door.

“Tyff-believe me-if I’d known he was going to follow me home from the park, I never would have rescued him. I mean-no, I probably would have, but I mean-”