Page 17 of Fiends and Familiars
There was an awed silence from the back seat, then Oak asked if Rhoid had ever had a hound after him.
Many times. One almost caught me, but I managed to hide before he caught my scent.
You should mate with the nice-house lady, Maple told the bigger squirrel.You have a nice tail and coat, and you are clearly good at evading dogs.
Rhoid looked up and caught my gaze in the rear-view mirror.Squirrels don’t mate with humans.
There was something odd in the squeaky words, almost as if Rhoid was wishing for a moment he were human. His emotions and thoughts washed over me and without thinking I deciphered snippets of them. Regret. It had been a long time since he’d felt arms around him. Something about paying a price and choices. I glanced in the mirror again and felt sorry for the little guy. Gray squirrels weren’t monogamous by any stretch of the imagination, so if Rhoid was longing for a past relationship, it might have been the one he had with his mother and siblings in the nest. Or perhaps he just wanted to get laid. I’m not sure why he would find that hard to do. The others seemed to regard him as a squirrel worthy of admiration, so I’m sure a female squirrel would as well. Yes, their mating opportunitieswerelimited to a few hours twice a year when a female would come into season, but it wasn’t as if this area was a squirrel free zone. Rhoid should have been able to get it on with half a dozen females each year, no problem.
Maybe he was picky. Or, like me, maybe he had been too busy with work and moving to a new home to take the time to go bust a nut.
I turned my attention back to the road as the squirrels continued to offer up suggestions as to my perfect mate. By the time I’d arrived at Savior Mountain, they were in the process of setting me up with some chipmunks they knew.
Savior was just as beautiful as Heartbreak Mountain, but Clinton’s pack’s new territory had been untended and abandoned to the wildlife for decades. When I was young, I remembered my grandmother saying that a group of elves had once made this mountain their home. Fae were an odd group. Some eagerly participated in the life and community of Accident, while others preferred a more isolated existence. These elves had evidently been the latter. By the time I’d come along, only a handful remained living here, and soon they too left.
No one was required to give notice to leave the town—or to move in for that matter. All supernaturals were welcome as long as they followed some basic rules and respected the other beings that made this place their home. This was meant to be a sanctuary—and for some, that sanctuary was only needed on a temporary basis. Grandmother had told us the elves had gone back to their fae home, and although that was absolutely fine, I’d always been sad about it. Why had they left? Didn’t they feel welcome here? Didn’t they know that life in Accident was better than life anywhere else?
Maybe they’d just gotten tired of a two-hour-per-day commute, and needed to move closer to where they worked.
I put the truck in four-wheel drive, then slowly made my way up the road to where Clinton was building his compound. Although several vehicles had been up here before, it was still rough going. There were brambles and bushes that reached out to scratch along the side of my truck. Saplings had sprouted mid-road, and although the bigger ones had been hacked down, smaller ones were still there to bend as I drove over them. I carefully edged around washed out sections and boulders only to come to a stop in front of a giant downed tree.
“Guess we’ll have to go on foot,” I told the others. I was assuming the tree had recently fallen, otherwise one of Clinton’s pack would have moved it. Although itwasa bit large for one werewolf to manage on his own. Perhaps someone had noticed it and gone back for help?
Either way, I had clients to see this afternoon and didn’t have time to wait around for werewolves to come back and move a tree. Getting out of my truck, I grabbed one of the cages in the back, slung my bag over my shoulder, and eyed the thick oak trunk that lay across the road.
The squirrels and Drake had no problem getting over to the other side, but the tree was thick enough that trying to climb up and over it wouldn’t be an easy task. I walked around to the right, but the tree had fallen into a mess of brambles that looked a whole lot less fun than crawling over a thick trunk.
Walking around to the left, I saw the massive, dirt-encrusted root ball from where the tree had come up from the ground. Thankfully that area was relatively clear, and I made my way past some sticker bushes and vines to round the fallen tree.
I didn’t have the same affinity toward trees as I did animals, but I’d spent enough time in the woods growing up that I wondered why this tree had toppled. Had some infection taken out the root system? A blight of some sort? It was a shame that a tree would grow so huge and strong only to be taken down by mold or fungus.
On the other side I saw that a huge crack split the tree nearly straight up the middle. Inside, the core was black and rotted, a sickening sweet smell oozing out from the center. I put my arm over my nose and mouth, but before I could turn away I saw something glinting along the edge of the split.
Moving closer, I knelt down and picked it up, holding my breath to keep from gagging at the smell.
It was a bone. Probably the remnant of some animal’s dinner that they’d been keeping in this split in the tree, although what carnivore would find the smell pleasant enough to store their food there was beyond me.
I shoved the bone in my pocket and hurried back down the road toward Clinton’s compound. It would be interesting to identify what sort of animal had met their end here and give the bone a proper burial. Later.
Once I was done evicting some hornets and a badger, later.
It was only a mile hike into the rudimentary compound, but it took longer than usual due to the incline and my lack of physical fitness. Heck, I’d only moved away a month ago and I was already huffing and puffing going up a mountain road? I needed less time in front of the television with popcorn and more time jogging or lifting at the gym. Just when I was wishing I’d waited for some werewolves to come along and move that fallen tree, I saw the compound.
It wasn’t all that pretty, but in the spring the wildflowers and grasses would grow over the areas where the trees had been cleared and the well and septic put in, and it would look like a beautiful meadow dotted with frame homes. Right now it was a rocky, muddy mess with torn-up trees off to the side where the backhoe had pushed them. The houses were pristine pine lumber and plywood sheets, the roofing trusses covered with bright blue tarps. I assumed in addition to running pipes and wires, the werewolves would be getting the roof and shingles on, then the doors and windows. As Cassie had said, winter was fast approaching, and Clinton and his pack really needed to be off Heartbreak Mountain before the first frost, and before Dallas lost his patience.
But before they did that, I needed to relocate the hornets who were making roofing work a nightmare for the werewolves. And a badger—although why the werewolves couldn’t deal with one little badger, I didn’t know. I closed my eyes and extended my awareness. My four squirrels were arguing with another two about trespassing and territory rights. Drake was staring at a werewolf’s discarded lunch remains, wondering why humans felt the need to cook their meat. Three does were grazing nearby, very aware of my presence. Birds. Insects.
Hornets. I opened my eyes and walked over to one of the far houses that had been built under a huge sycamore tree at the end of the clearing. There, up on a high limb, was one of the biggest hornet’s nests I’d ever seen.
There was no way I’d be able to reach that nest with my collapsible pole, even if I climbed up on the roof trusses of the house. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to carry that nest somewhere else, it was so huge. I could ask the hornets to leave.
I could do more than ask them, but I refused to do that. It wasn’t right to take an animal’s will. No, I’dask. I’d reason. And hopefully we could come to an understanding because if the werewolves continued to get stung, then their next step would be to break out the poison.
And none of us wanted that. Well, the hornets and I didn’t want that. I’m pretty sure no one beyond me cared about hornets. I called up to them, but none responded, so I looked around until I found a good-sized ladder, propped it against the house, and climbed as high as I dared.
“Hello! Hornets?”
A few emerged from the nest, buzzing around the opening. I tried to explain the situation to them, but they were more concerned about dwindling food supplies and the threat of predation by birds. After some back and forth, I managed to convince them that the werewolves working on this house were not a threat, and promised that the workers would not come within six feet of their nest.
