P.C. Cast - Mysteria Nights

Cole leaned over far enough to rest his forehead on the counter. It felt smooth and cool. “Why did you come over?” he asked the Formica.

“Well . . .” The queen paused. “I don’t want you to read anything into this, but—”

His front door was thrown open. “My queen, your kingdom awaits!” several people shouted in unison, which was a good trick.

“—I’m leaving town,” she finished.

“Holy Christ on a cracker with Cheez Whiz,” Rae gasped, while Cole stared at the naiads—he assumed they were naiads—milling around in his living room.

“Forgive us, Queen Potameides,” one of them said, and the group—there were seventeen, severely straining his living room space—went into a deep bow. “We have been from you so long, we could not remain in the front yard a moment longer knowing you were not far away, and so we—”

The queen waved the explanation away, and the guard or whoever it was instantly shut up. “Yes, yes, that’s fine.”

“What’s going on?” Rae demanded.

“Probably the ones loyal to her overthrew the ones not loyal to her,” Cole said. At the queen’s unguarded look of surprise, he added, “Violence I understand.”

“Yes. Ah. Yes. My cousin is dead—”

“Long live the queen!” another one interrupted. They all, Cole noticed, looked a great deal like the queen, the same long stringy hair and watery eyes, the same damp smell and long, spidery limbs.

“Right,” the queen finished. “So, I go.”

“This very damned minute?” Rae asked, sounding upset.

“Rae.”

“I mean, you gotta leave right now, pack a bag and your swim fins and off tonight? Without a good-bye or anything?”

“Rae.”

“Because that rots!”

“Rae. The river is my home, and more, my people need me.”

“Well, shit!”

“You must have known I wouldn’t stay forever.”

“Why not? All the other freaks in this town don’t seem to be in any damned rush to leave.” The ghost audibly gulped. “Uh, no offense, Cole.”

“That’s okay,” he replied. To Pot: “So you’re taking the chance to go back and be with your people?”

“As I said. Don’t read anything into that. Our situations are different. I’m an exiled queen and you—”

“Are a chump if you let Charlene get away,” Rae said, “but we’re getting off the subject. Why do you have to leave now? Because I know that look, Pot, you cow, you can’t fool me, once you’re in the wind we’ll none of us see you again, and stop me if you heard this already but that rots .”

“I’m of the royal family of the Naiad,” Pot said sternly, “and I do not have the freedom ordinary people have. The Mississippi is a large territory and I lost it once through carelessness and—”

“The Mississippi River ?” Cole asked. “That’s your kingdom?”

“Was,” Pot replied. “And now, is again. But I wanted to come by and say good-bye. In fact, you and Rae are the last ones on my list. I can’t have my kingdom and Mysteria both—don’t read anything into this—so I’ve traded the café to the triplets and their mother for, ah, future favors, and have wrapped up my other affairs. So now—”

“Wait a minute,” Rae interrupted. “We were last on your list?”

“Well . . .” Pot paused. “I went, ah, geographically. This house is the last one.”

“Fine, go then!” Rae shouted. “I never liked you anyway!”

“I will go,” the queen replied, smiling, “and that is a lie. And Rae, I adore you, and that will never change, not if I rule for a thousand years.”

“Go soak your head in the deep end!”

“I go, then.”

One of her hench-naiads opened the front door, but before Pot could grandly sweep out, in the manner of a river queen, a tall dark-haired man blocked the doorway.

“What now?” Rae griped, but Cole could hear the undercurrent of tears in her voice.

“Aside for the queen,” one of the naiads demanded.

“Shush,” the queen said. “He’s not one of my subjects, Mr., ah . . . ?”

“Michael Wyndham.”

“Potameides.”

They shook hands. “Pack leader,” the tall man explained.

“Queen of the Mississippi River naiads,” Pot offered. “Good night.”

“See you.”

She left. She took all the river people with her. The werewolf came in.

“Hi,” the werewolf said. He was dark-haired and broad, with gold eyes, big hands, and a feral scruffiness that Cole felt and instantly responded to. He had the weird urge to kill a cow and present it to the stranger. Two cows.

“Hello.”

“I’m Michael Wyndham. In case you didn’t hear me at the door.”

“Cole Jones.” He didn’t offer his hand to shake; he had the very strong sense that the man wouldn’t want his hand. Instead, Wyndham was sizing him up and Cole saw his nostrils flaring as he took everything in. Oddly, this was in no way alarming. It was almost—comforting?

“I can’t believe she just picked up and left with those other weirdos. I didn’t even like her,” Rae said tearfully, “but you talk to someone for fifty years, you get used to them, you know?”

Wyndham flinched. “Who the hell is that ?”

“That’s my ghost.”

“Hey, pal.” The tears instantly vanished. “I’m not your anything.”

“Sorry,” Cole said. He kept trying to look Wyndham in the face and his gaze kept skittering away. He had been raised to know that it was polite to look people in the eye when you spoke to them, but Wyndham didn’t seem to mind. “My roommate.”

“A ghost? And a river naiad. I’ve met an eleionomid before—”

“Marsh nymph,” Rae explained, before Cole could ask.

“—right, they’re all over the Cape where I live. Lots of river marshes out there. And lots of witches, but that’s about it. Oh, and you.” Wyndham smiled in a perfectly friendly way, keeping his teeth covered, and Cole, responding to the man’s natural charisma, actually smiled back.

“What—” Cole began, and stopped. Still the weirdest day ever, and getting weirder. And too many damned questions. Pack leader? What was he doing here now, tonight? How had he found Cole? What did he want?

Rae saved him the trouble. “Are you—what?—the boss of all the werewolves, then?”

“I am.”

“So—what? You’re here to—what?”

Wyndham was recovering quickly, and didn’t seem to mind being interrogated by a dead woman. “I’m here to assist a member of my Pack, if he needs it.” To Cole: “You don’t look like you’re in any real peril to me.”

“He knocked up the local Realtor,” Rae offered.

“Oh. Congratulations?”

“We’re, uh, still working that out,” Cole said. “How did you find me?”

“Another Pack member lives here. He got in touch with me—apparently there’s a vampire killer in this town? Someone who knows quite a bit about werewolves?”

“You don’t sound like you believe that all the way.”

“Well”—Wyndham shrugged—“I don’t take chances, period. As you were new, we thought you might need a hand. And with the moon on her way”—Wyndham gestured to the window, which showed nothing but unalleviated darkness; there were no street lights this far out of town—“I thought you might be vulnerable. Normally I wouldn’t travel this close to a Change, but in this case . . .”

While Cole processed this, Rae said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. That stud wannabe Justin told on Charlene?”

Wyndham blinked slowly, like an owl. “My Pack keeps me informed of any potential threat, yes. Which reminds me, Cole, why didn’t you tell me about this vampire killer?” His lips actually curled at the word “vampire,” and Cole instantly knew: the boss werewolf didn’t believe in vampires. But had come anyway. Perhaps he assumed Charlene was a crazy person. God knew there were enough of them in the world. Still, it was nice of him to check up, even if Wyndham had doubted anything would come of it.