Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond(91)
Author: Kim Harrison

"I can help with the guards."

Jenks was flying beside him, easily keeping up as they followed a pair of riders to the start of the bike race. When Trent said nothing, the pixy’s dust shifted to a mustard yellow. "I can!" he said belligerently. "I can kill people your size if they aren’t using magic. I could kill you, with half a day to plan it."

"Okay."

It might not have been the right thing to say, but Trent didn’t care if he insulted him. He’d only accepted his help to shut him up and maybe get Rachel to trust him a little. But instead of bristling in anger, the pixy snorted, his dust a bright silver stream behind him. "Your disbelief amuses me," Jenks said dryly. "But if you keep ignoring me, I’m going to stab you in your ear. Nothing permanent, but you’ll lose some hearing from the scar tissue."

Pulse fast from his exertions, Trent chuckled, only to find Jenks laughing with him. This might not be so bad if the pixy understood his dry sense of humor. "I have a boat to pick us up, but it has a narrow window," he said, leaning as he took a wide curve.

Jenks’s wings shifted pitch as he kept up. "You’re going down on that fish line you stuffed in your pack?" he said, his disbelief obvious. Trent could understand why. It didn’t look like it could support a cat, much less him and a . . . baby. The Goddess help him, what was he going to do with a baby? He hadn’t planned on raising a child this soon, and certainly not alone, but now that he had one, he wanted to do it right.

The way suddenly opened up into a wide courtyard of people, bullhorns, colored banners, and flags. Damping an unexpected surge of alarm, Trent slowed. "Well?" he said as they cruised into the starting area. "Is there anything you can add to my plan?"

Jenks landed on his shoulder, surprising him. "Trent, I’ve decided I’m going to help you get your kid," he said, and Trent blinked, the bike continuing forward on momentum. "Not just so you can help Rachel, but for you. Getting your kid back is important."

"Thank you," he whispered, wondering what it meant to have the unconditional support of a pixy.

"I’ll let you know if something strikes me," Jenks said casually. Trent stifled a shiver when the pixy’s fitfully moving wings tickled the side of his neck. "Stealing babies," the pixy said with a laugh. "I can’t wait to tell Rachel."

Rachel. What was she going to say when he walked in with a baby? he wondered as he found a curb and brought the bike to a rest among the milling throng of bikes. Laugh at him? Tell him he should have kept his weasel in its cage? True, Lucy hadn’t been expected, but now that she existed, he wanted to be a part of her life, not just because of who she was going to become, but because of a nameless feeling pulling him across the city.

He had a daughter, and his daughter needed him.

TWO

Trent breathed in and out in time with his pedaling, the ache in his chest beginning to hurt more than his legs as he held his head down and drafted off the bike ahead of him. My God, would the Weres ever shut up? he thought, tilting his head to watch the pack of three men and one woman, clearly a team from a local radio station by the looks of their colorful spandex and logo-plastered water bottles. They were more than a third of the way into the race, and they hadn’t stopped talking the entire way as they pushed through the peloton and left most of the riders behind, their natural endurance putting them ahead of all but the most conditioned humans.

He had joined them early because anyone talking so much couldn’t be planning an attack, and he’d stuck with them because they were going faster than most everyone else. Now, after an hour of their chatter of killer hills, salt blocks, carbing up, and butt butter, he was wishing he’d found someone else.

The road before him snaked around a wide turn as it began another slow rise up, and after a quick glance at his handlebar-mounted GPS, he wondered if he should start dropping back to put distance between him and the radio team before he slipped off the marked route and into the national forest they were biking through.

He glanced behind him; there was no one visible between him and the last curve, almost a half mile back. Head lifting, he began to slow, watching the last biker pull away, talking, still talking. Weres were undoubtedly the chattiest of all Inderlanders, their mouths going nonstop whenever they did anything even remotely physical. One of his best horse whisperers had been a Were, and the woman had never shut up, not even in bed.

Slowly the Weres pulled ahead as the sun-dappled road wound along the top of a ridge overlooking the sound. To the left, the land fell away quickly to the surf. To the right, scrubby trees and brush of the forest made a slow incline up. The five-foot-wide path was paved, clearly made for bike travel, and his thin street tires hummed under him. He’d been cruising at a good speed, but after an hour, the pace was starting to tell. Save some energy for later, he mused, backing off even more. What waited for him at the Withon compound was not encouraging.

The sound of Jenks’s wings cut through his worrisome musings, and the pixy landed on the GPS, his dust making the liquid crystal screen blank out. "There are two guys back there being very careful to stay just behind every curve," he said, his wings flat to his back as the wind pulled at them. "They smell like elves and have that same straw-yellow hair as Ellasbeth. If you drop from the pack now, they’re going to catch you alone. They’ve been taking out everyone who catches up with them. The guy in the blue is popping their tires."

Frowning, Trent tucked his chin to lessen the wind. Magic users. No surprise there. "How long until we reach the turnoff?" he asked, looking up to see that the team of Weres wasn’t as far ahead of him as he had thought they’d be.

Jenks looked down at the GPS, head cocked when he realized his dust blanked the screen. "Ah, about a half mile. The turnoff is at the bottom of the next hill. It runs through a patch of thistles, so watch it."

The thistles hadn’t been on his intel, and grateful, he silently thanked Rachel for insisting he include Jenks. He had thought it had been unusual that no one had caught up to them-Ellasbeth’s men conveniently eliminating witnesses. His agreement with the Withon family concerning the theft of Lucy was not necessarily legal, but it was binding.

"Thank you," he whispered, knowing Jenks heard him when his dust shifted color. "I’d rather take them out in the woods than on the road." Standing up on his pedals, Trent started to power up the hill, his legs protesting until they rallied to the demand. Jenks darted off, and the GPS/MPH indicator gave a hiccup and returned to life. Swinging to the left, Trent began overtaking the complaining Weres. They’d likely shave minutes off their time if they’d quit talking.