The Binding Witch and the Bounty Hunter Page 5

  For that, I had an actual ballistic vest, given to my mother as payment by some Armageddon preppers in exchange for delivering their baby girl on the side of the road during a snow storm in Oklahoma. Having midwifery skills had led to some interesting situations and even more creative compensation methods.

  Gringo’s proud, wet form led the way through the rain and mud towards the rear of the festival grounds. We pushed through the hedge wall of the fantasy gardens and into the woods beyond. Rain pelted us, barely slowed by the thick canopy of pine trees. Heavy underbrush slowed our group’s progress, since I had to push my way through, although Gringo slipped underneath. My coat kept at least the top half of me dry, but my jeans were soaked and so were my boots. I made a mental note to someday figure out how to enchant those items to keep out the elements.

  This kept going for what seemed like miles. Forest spread out in every direction, and I hoped the cat knew where we were going. Tired of Yaupon holly branches lashing me in the face and rain pelting my hood, I paused and crouched down for a quick break when we reached the center of a clearing. The rain came down harder here, but at least I could shake the sense of claustrophobia I’d had from being pressed in on all sides by sharp, angry little trees.

  Gringo paused, sniffed the ground, and looked around.

  “Gringo!” I shouted over the din of the rain. “Gringo!”

  He resumed moving, head down.

  “Hold on, I’ll get him,” Luna said. “And can you just open your coat a little? It’s getting stuffy in here.”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry.” I unbuttoned the top of the coat, and she poked her head out.

  “Ah, that’s better!” she said.

  Gringo slithered back to me and yowled.

  “Well, I’m not very happy with her either, but you don’t hear me calling her that!” Luna said huffily. “You are the rudest creature, really.”

  He yowled again.

  “Why, I ought to—” Luna started.

  “That’s enough! I’m wet and uncomfortable too”—I glanced at Gringo’s sopping wet cat body—“and I’m wondering how much farther, Gringo.”

  Luna’s head bobbed and jutted while she and Gringo engaged in a telepathic conversation. Finally, she nodded. “Gringo says he’s lost the trail, but he can retrace our steps and find it again. We just need to speed it up and get through the woods. You’re making too much noise and waking up the inhabitants of this forest.”

  I strained to see through the thick underbrush and rain to see if there was anyone around, but visibility was poor, even in the gray daylight. In my rush to arm myself for battle with humans, I’d forgotten all about protecting us from the woodland creatures—magical and not.

  That’s when Gringo pressed himself against the forest floor with a high-pitched, rumbly growl.

  The hair rose on the back of my neck. There was something behind me.

  I turned around slowly, and a pair of yellow eyes resolved themselves in the brush. They were attached to a sharp, furry face that belonged to the local apex predator—coyotes. Locals told stories with some especially gruesome details about losing pets and small livestock to a local coyote pack. Coyotes typically hunted alone or in pairs, and only packed up to hunt when there was larger prey about.

  A sick feeling grew in the pit of my stomach, and I tried to slow my racing larger-prey heartbeat. They could smell fear like a fresh batch of chocolate-chip cookies hot out of the oven, and I didn’t want to offer myself up as dessert. In a gruesome twist of events, I was also able to empathize with their hunger and excitement.

  Could this day get any worse?

  I glanced around. More yellow eyes became visible as the pack surrounded us. Their slow, deliberate steps made me feel crowded and suffocated. I marveled at their coordination and beauty until trickles of empathy dripped in from the coyotes and I felt the thrum of the pack as they were about to attack.

  “Now would be a lovely time for a spell, dear,” Luna said. “I’d say something shield-like?”

  “I don’t know how to do that!” Plus I couldn’t concentrate well enough to form a spell to save our lives, literally.

  Several coyotes paused and tilted their heads, their ears lifting as if to listen. The rest continued their slow creep towards us.

  Gringo’s ears went flat back against his head.

  “Well, how about a little try, then, shall we?” Luna said in a sing-song voice. “Just think of your little orb, dear, and put something in it! What about knives?”

  “You want me to conjure knives out of thin air?” Despite my fear, I laughed at her suggestion as my mind reeled at the ingredients list I’d need to even consider such a spell. Then my concentration was shattered by a shout from overhead.

  “Aaaaaiiiiii-eeeeeeeee!” A tiny burst of flame exploded on the coyote nearest us. The animal yelped, and the scent of singed hair mingled with the rain. Stinging empathy pains from the wounded coyote nearly brought me to my knees.

  “Aaaaaiiiiii-eeeeeeeee!” Several more shouts and flash bombs joined the first. Most hit their marks with a loud sizzle against wet fur. It drove the coyotes first this way, then that, while some tried to locate their attackers and some tried to escape.

  The clearing erupted into a frenzy of coyote snarls and shouts from above. I threw one arm over my head and crouched down. Gringo shot into action, jumping onto the back of one of the coyotes and riding him like a tiny, pissed-off cowboy. The coyote, for his part, tried to buck him off, but my mother’s familiar only latched onto his ear with little kitty fangs. Gringo always took the opportunity to attack when he had it. I would have egged him on if I wasn’t in the middle of absolute chaos.

  A tiny ball of fire whizzed by my head, and I slammed to my knees and one hand, cradling Luna protectively beneath me.

  “Time to go!” I squeaked.

  “Agreed.” Luna piped up from my jacket. “Move it!”

  I crawled backwards out of the clearing, ducking several more flash bombs. At one point, I bumped into a coyote trying to do the same, and we both yelped. He (or she) took off running, and I backed up under a huge tangle of blooming honeysuckle. Its rich, warm scent was almost an overwhelming addition to my senses at this point.

  From my new vantage point deep inside the vines, I was able to get a good look at the new attackers, which I’d decided were my saviors since they were leaving me alone.

  They were small humanoid creatures, the largest about two feet tall, stocky in shape but as agile as any regular-sized human. About half of them were male and the other half female. They were dressed in forest colors of rich blacks, browns, and greens, with jaunty red caps. All were hanging from ropes suspended in the loblolly pine canopy above, and they pushed off the tree trunks and each other to swing expertly around the clearing and pelt flash bombs at the coyotes like tiny, screaming acrobats. For the second time in so many minutes, I was mesmerized. Until I realized the mixed blessing of our rescuers’ identity.

  “Oh, crap,” I said.

  Luna poked her head out of my jacket to survey the scene. “‘Oh, crap’ is right, dear.”

  “You know what these are?” I pointed to the angry toddler-acrobats.

  Luna nodded solemnly. “Even nonmagical wild animals know to steer clear of them.”

  “Forest gnomes,” we said in unison.

  10

  I had never seen a forest gnome in person, never mind an entire gang. They generally travelled alone, and even one could cause enough havoc in your life to make you want to end it. Of the Fae—magical creatures that included elves, pixies, and other fairy-tale creatures—they were among the lowest in rank and regard, with very little magic and no ability to glamor, or hide, their true form. They also didn’t have pointy red hats like the garden statues and didn’t live very long lives compared to their more talented, larger cousins, but they were very, very strong in compensation.

  As if to illustrate my thoughts, one female forest gnome slipped down her rope to motivate a coyote who had l
ost his fear of the flash bombs. She landed on his back, wrapped her thick arms around his neck, and squeezed. The confused coyote didn’t know what to think—he tried bucking her off, but after a few seconds, he dropped to his knees and passed out.

  With a triumphant “Whoohoo!” she released the headlock and raised her arm just as another forest gnome swung low through the clearing, slicing through the raindrops. He dropped a few flash bombs around the female and scooped her up out of the flashing teeth of the charging pack members.

  “Wow,” Luna said.

  “’Wow’ is right,” I said, cringing when a flash bomb detonated on a coyote slinking in our direction. Another yelp and the scent of burnt dog hair filled the air as the coyotes ran away, my sense of empathy with his pain fading with his distance. “That is why you don’t want to be on the wrong side of the forest gnomes.”

  “Well, that and the favor bond,” she said.

  “And that.” I grimaced. “Mostly that.”

  Typically the Fae’s goal was to trick you, through wordplay, into owing them a favor. Then you died. If not at first, then eventually, because the Fae had no use for the non-Fae other than as a food source or hard labor.

  Forest gnomes weren’t smart enough to trick someone into owing them a favor, but they had an uncanny ability to appear when aid was needed, and they rendered it whether it was wanted or not, thereby creating the bond of favor. Then the miserable victim was stuck doing something dangerous or expensive or, if they were lucky, just plain ridiculous to discharge the bond. The only thing the victim had going in their favor was that forest gnomes’ preferred protein source was birds.

  Unless, of course, you were a bird.

  “I knew one raccoon who owed a forest gnome a favor,” Luna said, shaking her head. “He had to break into a human family’s house to steal their Halloween candy. Poor Rocky.”

  “Rocky the Raccoon? Original.” What was with the animal world and their names? Did the songs come first, or did the musicians steal from the animals? “What happened to him?”

  “Dogs,” she said.

  I recalled one of the stories my mother told me as a child. “I heard of one guy who owed a forest gnome a favor and had to climb Mt. Everest to bring back some kind of treasure. He died up there, so the forest gnome harassed his son until he climbed the mountain and brought it back down.” I shuddered. I hated cold weather. And intergenerational debt. And death.

  It became apparent that the attack strategy was led by the largest of the forest gnomes, a male wearing a jacket with narrow, vertical stripes in brown and orange. Where the rest of the males were clean-shaven, he had a long, brown beard shot through with white. His rope was centered in the middle, and he called out positioning to each of his troops with a gruff voice that held a strong Scottish accent. His group responded with graceful precision to his commands, spinning, ricocheting, and careening off the trees and each other to lob their fiery packages at the confused coyotes.

  “Um, Luna?” I said. “You hear that accent?” Since all Fae originated from northern Europe, it wasn’t strange, but any forest gnome living here in east Texas would be many generations away from such a strong accent. That, and while I knew they were speaking English, it took me a moment to decipher what they were saying.

  She nodded. “Their accent means there’s probably an Elsereach doorway nearby and this particular group of forest gnomes used it to get here.”

  “Wait.” I shook my head. “You know about Elsereach?”

  “Of course,” she said. “It’s where all the Fae lived—until humans became interesting enough to draw them out in droves—thanks for that—and that’s when us animals started living here and there.”

  That animals crossed over to the realm of the Fae and back was news to me. “You’ve been to Elsereach?”

  She craned her neck to look at me. “Dear, I was born there.”

  I pondered this information and wondered if all familiars were born in Elsereach. It made a kind of sense that magical animals were born that way and a witch only created the bond.

  A strong wind swayed the trees and drove rain sideways into our little hidey-hole. The forest gnomes swayed together on their lines and then resumed pelting the coyotes.

  “This day just keeps getting better. First my Plan A falls through, and now it looks like Plan B is going the same way . . . and if there is an Elsereach doorway nearby, it’s possible that the demon took Mom through it and that’s why Gringo lost the trail. They could be anywhere by now.” Fae and some other creatures—like witches and demons—could use Elsereaches to travel without detection.

  “First things first,” Luna said, her voice shaking. “I’m counting a dozen of these little buggers. We’re going to owe a dozen forest gnomes favors? I’m not cut out for this work.”

  I groaned as I confirmed her count and watched three of the smallest female forest gnomes tag-team to chase off the last of the coyotes.

  The group slid down their ropes to gather around our hiding spot.

  “Say there, wee lassie,” the leader said, “we’ve chased them off fur ye, spit-spot! Come out now.”

  I sighed and crawled out. “Let’s get this over with.” And better to do it from my height of five feet, ten inches, rather than eyeball to eyeball. Not that that would do anything to change the favor bond established by their enthusiastic rescue.

  “Well, that’s ferr rude,” one of the older females said. Her red hair was graying like the leader’s, and she looked me up and down with a sneer as I stood to my full height. “Isn’t it ferr rude, Alick?”

  The leader nodded solemnly, then shook his head. “Youngsters these days don’t have their manners, Ailith.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I know my manners, I just don’t like being conned into doing favors.” For all I knew, they spooked those coyotes our way to arrange for this “rescue.”

  I got a sharp peck in the neck just above my jacket collar from Luna. “Ow!” I hissed.

  The forest gnome called Ailith shoved her hands on her hips. “Conned! I suppose ye would rather be eaten by coyotes, ye rude lassie?”

  “She does have a point, dear,” Luna said.

  I sighed.

  “Wait, Ailith.” Alick held a hand up to her and waddled closer to me, squinting at my jacket. “What do ye have there, wee lassie? Something wi' a beak? Something gusty mibbie?”

  “My familiar,” I said, holding Luna close inside my jacket. “And you can’t have her, for whatever that means.”

  Luna bobbed her head out of my jacket, surveyed her tiny audience, and ducked back in.

  A wave of appreciation rose up from the group that made me think “gusty mibbie” was an afternoon snack for forest gnomes.

  Luna squeaked.

  “We won’t be trying to eat a witch’s kenspeckle in any event,” Alick said. “Don’t worry aboot that.”

  “A kenspeckle is a familiar, right?” I said, tightening my hold on Luna.

  A nod of Alick’s head silenced the groan of disappointment that rose up from the group.

  “As I was saying, I was only asking to make polite chat among mukkers.” Alick gestured between us. “What I really need is help wi' a dragon.”

  11

  “Come again?” I stared at the little man. “I’m sorry. I thought I heard you say ‘a dragon.’”

  The forest gnomes shifted uncomfortably and looked at Alick.

  “Aye, just a wee one though,” Alick said, holding his hands about two feet apart. “She bolted for Elsereach five days ago w’ a precious treasure that belongs to the forest gnomes. We want it back.”

  I snorted. “You think I can get it for you?”

  “I think ye'r a witch, that's what.” He shrugged. “Ye have magic. Dragons have magic. It’ll be easy for the likes o' ye, where it's not easy fur th' likes o' us.”

  “Interesting." It was starting to look more and more as if our meeting with the coyotes was planned. Also, if you counted Leo, this was my second request for aid fr
om a paranormal being. Was this what I had to look forward to from now on as a witch? “What did she take?"

  “A treasure chest, about yea big,” Alick said, again holding his hands about two feet apart.

  Either Alick thought everything was about two feet wide, or he was prone to underestimating.

  “Oh, sure. It’s just—how am I supposed to find this dragon?” I said.

  “I’m glad ye asked," he said, looking at his troop. "See, didn’t I tell ye she wis smart?"

  They nodded solemnly, their heads bobbing in unison.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “She’s not that far from here, in the large cave on the lip o' the meadow,” he said. “Just be sure to take a paukit crabbit wifie, 'n' th' muckle dumb oaf. Thay wull come in handy.”

  “What?” I’d gotten “cave” and “meadow,” but not much of the rest. It was as if his accent suddenly got thicker.

  “Och, 'n' it's in th' Elsereach,” he said.

  “What?” I shouted. There was no way I was equipped to go into the Elsereach and do battle with a freaking dragon.

  A cat yowled behind me and I spun around.

  Gringo sat at the entrance of our honeysuckle hideout, licking his side. He had a small gash down his flank but otherwise seemed to be his stoic self. He paused long enough to give me a slit-eyed glare.

  “Gringo said the forest gnome said to take Indira and Leo with you to the Elsereach,” Luna squeaked. “Hurry, Kate! Do what he says!”

  I felt a small tug on my Luna tattoo. “Wait, what? How do you know about Indira and Leo?” I spun back around to address the leader, to find nothing but the din of rain against the slick pine needles matted on the floor of the forest.

  And—Luna was no longer tucked in my jacket. I patted my jacket all over and looked at the ground to see if she might have slipped out. She hadn’t—and she was nowhere to be found. “Luna!”