The rune stone warmed as the sharpie message began to shimmer with a shadowy light. Slowly, it reshaped itself into a set of runic letters. Shaking his head at the abrupt message, he gingerly lifted the handset and held it just above his ear, not willing to risk it getting too close. There was no dial tone, just static. On the keypad, an inky thread dotted with tiny, shimmery pinpricks of white wound around the keys but didn’t settle. Grayson set the activated rune stone above the coin slot, and the shimmery ribbon curled around the third key. He hit it, and the ribbon moved to the next number—eight. About four numbers in, he realized what the letters aligned with the numbers spelled and gave an amused huff at Walter’s acerbic wit. Filling in the blanks, he hit the last three—six, three, three—in quick succession. The static in his ear fell silent for a long moment.
Then a deep voice demanded, “What do you want?”
“Hello, Walter,” Grayson said. “We need to talk.”
A heavy pause. “About…?”
“Old business.”
The silence lasted longer this time. “Mine or yours?”
“I’m thinking yours,” Grayson said.
That got a snort. “I’ll send Jack to get you.”
“I’m on a tight timetable, so no games,” Grayson warned.
“Yeah, well, you called me, so no promises.” Then the static was back.
Grayson hung up the phone and reeled in his magic, noting that Barb’s calling card was back. He picked up the rune stone and headed back to his car to wait for his escort. He started the car so he could run the AC. He didn’t have to wait long. A large raven landed on the pay phone and looked right at him.
He rolled down his window. “Hey, Jack.”
The raven cocked its head, its dark eyes bright, and let out a harsh caw. Then it launched into the air.
Grayson followed Jack out of town and toward the desert mountains. The dark shadow led him along a series of dirt roads that wove through the foothills, and roughly fifteen minutes in, Jack angled to the east. Grayson almost missed a set of barely there tire tracks to his right. He turned and slowed even more as the car rocked over the rough path. Five minutes into the bone-shaking ride, he prayed his car would survive the trip. Ahead and above him, Jack dove down and disappeared, and Grayson rounded a bend. The rutted tracks leveled into a graveled yard at the base of a sizable hill, where an older mobile home stood. Its siding was sun faded to off-white, and the once-green trim was now closer to gray. Jack circled between two large acacia trees that bookended the home, their branches offering dubious shade. Under one were two large brindle-coated dogs, no chains in sight. The other had a rusted bike chained to it.
Grayson pulled in next to a rust-covered pickup truck, and the canine pair got to their feet, shaking dust from their coats. As if that wasn’t warning enough, there was the disturbing collection of colored beads, bones, and small animal skulls hanging like macabre wind chimes from the weathered wooden porch ceiling. All of it together made visitors want to turn around before a chainsaw started up somewhere. Which was how Walter liked it.
Grayson shut his car down and got out, closing the door behind him. Jack glided down to perch on the wooden railing then spread his wings wide, opened his beak, and let out a harsh screech. The canine pair split apart and began to stalk forward with low bone-rattling growls. Walter’s home protection unit had been activated.
Grayson held his position even as his pulse picked up the pace. He reached for his magic, holding it at the ready, and hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. It wasn’t the animals’ fault their human was fucking nuts.
“Walter, get out here before I have to stop playing nice with your pets.”
“They’re not pets, idiot.” The screen door opened on a squeak, and a tall, thin man in faded jeans and a short-sleeved olive-green button-down shirt stepped out to the porch. “Varði.”
The dogs froze like guardian statues and fell silent. Jack closed his beak midscream, resettled his feathers, and started to fluff them as if he hadn’t been trying to make Grayson’s ears bleed.
“Jerry, Frank, settle.”
In eerie tandem, the two dogs backed to their previous spot without taking their attention from Grayson.
Walter stopped at the porch railing and folded his arms. “Didn’t expect to see you again.”
“That was the plan.”
“What changed?”
“I’m dealing with a non-Elemental cast.”
In a disturbing mimicry of Jack, Walter cocked his head as he stared. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah.”
A wolfish curl of his lips turned his frown predatory, revealing the cunning mage lurking under Walter’s crabby-loner persona. “Who?”
Grayson really didn’t need the old man digging into Cass’s family. “Not important.”
