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Twenty-three

The "bad juju" scent faded until Felicity could no longer detect it as she and Haisley turned off the highway five miles north of Bellingham to the search-and-rescue office. One of the women in SARA—the Search and Rescue Auxiliary—had driven Haisley's 4X4 to the office so that he could join the group immediately.

Felicity asked Haisley if she could possibly borrow his bike to get around town.

"If it was anybody else . . ." Haisley began. "But, bein' as how it's you, take it. Just bring it back here when you're done or if you want to ride it back to Seattle, call me and I'll come and pick it up."

"You always were a sweet boy," she said, kissing his furred cheek. "And a brave one too. I do hope you find that girl."

"Me too, Godmother, me too," Haisley said, but he was already heading for the headquarters building to start loading supplies in his vehicle.

Felicity paused only long enough to smell the faint whiff of bad magic still drifting toward her from the east, then revved up the bike, patted the pocket with Bobby in it and took off for the forest.

Normally she would have left the search and so forth to the thaumaturgically challenged, as they were called these days rather than mere mortals or mundanes. However, this whole matter was far more complicated than she anticipated.

Although she was a far cry from the popular conception of a flying fairy godmother borne aloft by gauzy appendages sprouting from her shoulder blades, Felicity realized she was nonetheless winging it at this point. The problem was, the stories kept mutating. They were rather like viruses in that respect. She was beginning to feel less like everyone's surefire chance and last great hope and more like a shot in the dark, which might or might not accurately target the heart of a problem with some sort of assistance.Whatever was she to do for Dico Miller? Puss didn't seem to have the magic she had had in the old days, before mass media, when people were far less used to talking animals and far more respectful. These days, people assumed the creature was some sort of technological trick, she supposed. Ding had not turned out well, either.

And then there was Cindy Ellis. What to do about her? No doubt the stepsisters would see to it that she lost her job. Cindy had come so far toward taking care of herself, getting a skill, finding love, even equine love and building her own self-esteem. It would be a shame to have all of that taken from her because an inept fairy godmother was busy doing the job brave people like Haisley and his search-and-rescue friends had trained for. But then, brave people didn't have toads with inside information, as she did.

She smiled, thinking of Haisley. A very nice man, in spite of the rather ferocious biker persona. At the last minute, he had insisted on playing the gallant and lending her his leather jacket as well, though she was perfectly capable of altering her attire—that bit of magic was one of the rather basic tools of godmotherdom, and gave her a distinct advantage over, say, Superman, who needed a phone booth. One had one's image to live up to, after all. But she accepted the jacket so as not to hurt Haisley's feelings. She had been rather surprised to see him as a biker, rather than a CEO or something, after all the attention she had given him during his childhood as an Army brat in Germany, where his father, a heavy drinker, began beating him. She saw something fine in him then, and she saw it now. Of course, it was perfectly feasible these days that he was both a biker and a CEO. They hadn't discussed his career.

That was one of the problems with these times, she decided. People changed roles, changed careers, changed families so many times, and there were such a lot of them, some good, some bad, most extremely mixed, that it was rather difficult at times to know with whom you were dealing.

In the old days, despite all the wars and plagues and such, life had a slower pace and things were a bit more boring on most days, so that the pivotal people and the pivotal incidents in their lives stood out from the crowd. You always knew who everybody was back then, and the mean-natured ones were not often salvageable and the better-natured ones were not subject to so many temptations to go bad.

Like Ding and his gang or, for that matter, Sno Quantrill, who should be as pure as the driven snow, but who in fact, according to the papers, had had a few problems with drugs. Ah, for the old days, when one could intervene and manage a crisis before the crises of several other stories intruded upon one when one had not finished with the first.As she told Rose, the individual problems were no different than they'd ever been but because of the larger population, they got jumbled and doubled and tripled up until it was hard to tell whether you were supposed to change someone's dress and give them magic footwear, put them to sleep for a hundred years or turn them from a marionette into a real boy.

She drove past the malls lining the highway near Bellingham and followed the wide thread of highway until it narrowed, farther out into the country, paralleling the tumbling blue Nooksack River much of the way.

The foul scent of psychic power gone wrong became stronger and pulled her more surely the farther they went, past Maple Falls and into the Snoqualmie National Forest, on past the town of Glacier. As they zoomed through Glacier, however, the smell suddenly became overpowering as a van passed them in the westbound lane. Felicity sighed. So. The stepmother had come, had done the deed.

She followed the fading scent as far as the deserted state park facility and stopped.

Parking the bike, she extracted the toad from the pocket of her inner garment, and held him aloft to give him a good look around.

"Does this look familiar, Bobby?" she asked. "One reedeep if yes, two reedeeps if no."

Silence. Godmothers were fairly tireless, but she had had a particularly full night and no sleep since, followed by an exhilarating but fatiguingly lengthy motorcycle journey. She was in no mood to tolerate amphibian stubbornness. Sighing a deep, put-upon sigh, she resorted to tougher tactics.

"Bobby, it pains me to resort to this, but if you fail to cooperate, you will compound your foolishness in losing your form for seven years by forcing me to call upon Puss. Normally I hate to threaten people, but you must admit it's only just, since by your actions you've threatened the life of an innocent—very well, relatively innocent—girl. It would inconvenience me greatly to have to return to Seattle and call Puss before I can convince you to show me where you lost her. I am already most displeased with you since, as you know, you have been through this in many lives.

"Perhaps you don't realize all the implications of your actions. You see, most people learn from their past mistakes and in future lives go on to grow into better people. Others, who don't, become ogres. Puss, if you'll recall, has her ways of dealing with ogres. So what do you say?"

"Reedeep."

"Yes, I rather thought so. Reedeep, indeed. Now then, I'm going to let you go, and you're free to hop away and be a toad for the rest of your life if you like. But if you'd like any sort of advancement opportunities in your present position at all, I advise you to stay close to me and be of all possible assistance in locating this girl. Understood?"

"Reedeep."

"It's amazing how quickly one picks up languages in the company of a native speaker. I'm pleased you feel that way. Very well, you lead and I will walk behind you. We'd best leave Haisley's bike here lest I accidentally squash you."

The toad answered that by making a giant leap forward, leading her up the road. Felicity, pocketing Haisley's keys, trod carefully behind the amphibian.

The walk was long, and it was nearing evening now. The wind picked up and blew fresh snow around, covering the trail made by the tracks of the van that had passed them in Glacier. Felicity altered her footgear so that it had tall warm wrappings and extra socks and soles that gripped even on ice. She was very glad for Haisley's jacket, not because she couldn't come up with one of her own, but because a generous gift was always warming. She pulled white woolly mittens and a faux silver fox hat from her pockets, donned them and kept walking. The tire tracks stopped altogether then and Bobby hopped forward, onto a narrow trail, just wide enough for a motorcycle, leading into the forest. In the snow that had penetrated the needles of the trees to carpet the ground around them, Felicity saw the occasional track of a bike. The van had had one strapped to its back.

At a certain point on the trail, pretty much indistinguishable from any other point, Bobby stopped and reedeeped meaningfully. Here Felicity stopped as well, sniffing the miasma of Gerardine's negativity lingering like the stench of vomit in the snow-cleansed air.

"Is this where Sno escaped you?" she asked the toad, who reedeeped in the affirmative.

"And I don't suppose you have any idea where she might be now?"

The toad gave her two rather mournful reedeeps.

Felicity sat down on a fallen log and searched for an impression of the girl. She felt some powerful emanations coming from the southeast, but they were masculine. Underlying these was a persistent aching numbness masking other emotions; fear, anger, despair? Possibly the girl, but the overlay was too strong to tell. It wasn't far, though, and if the emotions did belong to the girl, at least she was alive. For now. If the woman in the van had made contact, the girl was in danger, but the men were close, they were protective. Felicity was not overly concerned. The wicked stepmother's tricks had been thwarted before, and they could be thwarted again. She stood up and dusted off her seat and stuck Bobby back in her pocket.

"Well, then. I suppose what I need now is a story other than the literal truth to tell the searchers and help point them in the right direction. And something rather obvious to mark this spot."

A little later, at a phone booth in Glacier, she placed a call to the Whatcom County Sheriff. Somewhat to her surprise, a voice said, "Sheriff's Department, Sergeant Moran speaking."

"Sergeant Fred Moran of the King County Police?" she asked before she thought about it. She had read Rose like a book, though of course she was polite enough to say nothing, and knew about Rose's feelings for Moran. Now, even on the phone lines, she read the same sort of feeling in his heart for Rose, and it made her proud.

Moran's had been a very dramatic case, and she enjoyed remembering herself in her role as a benevolent version of the Snow Queen, preserving the grief-stricken boy until the ice would melt from his heart so it could one day, now, hold love. Felicity sighed a deeply satisfied sigh. She was a sentimentalist, a romantic, loved cute animals and adored Disney's movies, if not the company's politics. So sue her. She was a fairy godmother, and it went with the territory. Somebody had to believe in something these days, and she believed in love.

"Yes, ma'am. What can I do for you?"

"Sergeant, I heard on television about your search and I just wanted you to know that—well, I'm an amateur astronomer, you see, and I was out with my telescope in a campground just past the town of Glacier, on the way toward Mount Baker, when I saw a motorcyclist pass by. There was a young girl wearing a red outfit and a helmet riding behind him. I thought this was a little strange, you know, because the poor girl didn't have on slacks, and I thought it was most inappropriate. As I was returning to the highway, about an hour later, a similar motorcycle passed me on the highway, but there was no girl. I also thought the rider looked rather distressed, and I wondered where the girl had gone. I suppose I should have called then, but one always thinks there's a rational explanation and, er"—this was the biggest lie in the whole call—"doesn't want to get involved. I hope that is of some help to you now."

"It is, ma'am, thank you. That should help a lot. Now, then, may I have your name, address and phone number?"

But Felicity had already hung up, a smile of satisfaction playing on her lips.Anonymous or not, her information was acted upon promptly. As she roared through Maple Falls, she passed a small convoy of 4X4's heading toward Glacier and points beyond. She caught a brief impression of Haisley's mind, jazzed up, ready to spend the night in his car, searching by headlamp until it was time to curl up under a blanket in his front seat. He was not a CEO after all, but after a rough start he had turned into a very good and caring man. The touch with his mind made Felicity more cheerful than she had felt in some time, ready to take on the problems of the world single-handed if need be. Though with people like Rose and Haisley and Fred around, her battles would never be fought without comrades.

 

* * * 

 

Gigi kept screaming and screaming and Hank wanted to throw up as the light flooded the basement room. It looked like something out of one of the horror movies Hank and Gigi's parents would have never let them watch, back in the days when they still cared.

The walls were ringed with shelves, upon which sat big gallon mayonnaise jars with distorted heads floating in them. The telephones were there, four of them, next to rows of teeth on a big, long, bloodstained table, along with neat piles of bloody clothing, sorted into shirts, pants and underclothes. In one corner of the room, a long, rectangular hole the size of a grave had been dug, and this was filled with white stuff from which the strong chemical smell came. And dark brown stains were splattered everywhere. Blood stains.

Now that they weren't running, they noticed other smells too—it reeked as if somebody had peed and shit their pants. Probably the people whose heads had been cut off.

"You see what happens to disobedient boys and girls who don't do what they're told after their friend has been so kind to them?" the man asked, coming down the stairs, slowly, one at a time. He crossed to the table containing all the teeth, calmly picked up a portable telephone and tucked it in his jacket pocket before turning to the cell with an evil grin.

They kept screaming and crying, Gigi's crying choking into short, gasping sobs as the man came down the last step and toward them.

"Well, well, how convenient," he said. That was when Hank noticed that their hiding place under the stairs behind the freezer was really a little room. There was a barred door standing ajar.

The man reached into his pocket. Hank thought he would pull out a gun, but instead he pulled out two pairs of handcuffs. "See, Hank? I told you I'd let you play with these. You can get very well acquainted with them."

Hank tried to duck and wiggle away but the man was fast and caught him. He was very strong for such an old guy. He cuffed one of Hank's hands to one of the bars, and the other hand to another. "If you're good, I'll give you something to eat and drink from time to time and let you keep your clothes on until I say otherwise. Meanwhile, I think you're a bad influence on your little sister here, so she and I are going upstairs. I have a few things to teach her."

"Nooo!" Gigi howled and hit at him but she was no match for the man. Hank tried to kick him but the man scooped Gigi up under one arm and carried her, squirming and screaming, back up the stairs.

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