Alaskan Fire (31 page)

…Which she had.

Blaze couldn’t have been more
horrified if she had somehow had all of her clothes disintegrate in the middle
of the Wal-Mart electronics department.  She quickly stumbled backwards, her face
on fire, unable to understand how she had just made such an utterly,
incomprehensibly stupid blunder.

There was a long, awkward silence
between the two of them before Jack glanced down at his bottle of wine, then at
her, bit his lip, then said, “We should probably save it for when we get the greenhouse
built, huh?”

Blaze was struggling against
tears. 
I am
not
going to let him see me cry over this,
she told
herself.  But, unfortunately, he was standing between her and the door. 
“Probably best,” she managed.  It came out as a whisper.  “I think I need to go
finish out those rabbit hutches upstairs.”

“I’ll come help you,” Jack
quickly said, setting the bottle aside.

She didn’t want his help, didn’t
want to be anywhere
near
him, but when he strapped on his toolbelt and
offered her hers, she was still so horrified that all she could do was take the
belt and clip it around her waist.

Jack gave her a long look, his
green eyes searching, his breath catching like he wanted to say something, then
bit his lip and looked away.  He snatched up his hammer and the bucket of nails
beside the wall.  “Come on,” he said.  “We can probably get them finished
tonight.”  He started thundering up the stairs, his huge weight making the barn
rattle, giving Blaze little way to save face except to follow.

How could I have read him so
wrong?
Blaze thought, in despair.

Blaze was still thinking about
that, several hours later, when she and Jack put the finishing touches on the
rack of hutches.  He had avoided her all night, even going so far as to work on
the cages opposite her, to stay out of her way, and had Blaze not already
committed herself to helping him—and spent the last two weeks falling into a
routine of working with him—she would have gone back to her room to try and
piece together what had just happened.

Jack had his head shoved inside a
rabbit hutch, pounding the final trim pieces on the inside corners to help keep
out martins, and Blaze, finding herself with nothing to do, went to the window—sans
glass—to look out at her new home.

A man was creeping across the
yard, towards the back door.

“Jack,” she whispered, her heart
suddenly a wildfire in her chest.  “There’s someone out there.”

Jack was pounding away inside the
box, unable to hear her through his hammering on the plywood.

Out in the yard, the man
hesitated, sniffing at the still night breeze.  He glanced around him warily,
every step very carefully placed, paying special attention to the entrance to
the barn.  He was extremely short, only about four feet tall, and his long
black hair was elaborately crafted into a hanging network of braids, all pulled
back from his eyes with a single hoop of metal, all tumbling almost to the
ground at his heels.  He wore a long, silvery cloak that seemed to alternately
shine and fade in the moonlight. 

The man hesitated at the
discarded life-jacket that Jack had slung over the burn-barrel for the next
garbage burn, picked it up, turned it inside out, examined it, then slowly
lowered it back to the ground.  He glanced again at the barn, warily.  Then he
was slinking forward again, low and quiet, moving towards the steps of the back
porch.  On his hip, he carried what looked like an extremely sharp,
translucent, flat-bladed rapier, but it glowed silver in the dusky light.

“
Jack
,” Blaze hissed.

The man in her yard twisted
suddenly and looked straight at her.  His eyes widened and he vanished.

“
Jack!
” Blaze screamed,
backing away from the window.  “
There’s someone in the yard!
”

Jack was out of the nestbox and
in wereverine form in an instant, snapping the plastic clip of his toolbelt as
his body expanded, dropping it to the floor.  He glanced at her, then at the
window, then leapt over the edge of the loft, not even bothering with the
stairs.

Leaving her alone again.  Blaze
huddled against the wall, staring at Jack’s discarded toolbelt, trying not to
think about just how utterly terrified she was. 

Minutes seemed to tick by like
hours, and Blaze was beginning to worry that something  might have happened to
the wereverine by the time Jack came trudging back up the stairs, a frown on
his face.

“Fey warrior,” Jack said.  He
gave her a meaningful look.  “Likely come sniffing out that item of which we do
not mention or otherwise give any hint of its presence.”

“He’s still around?” Blaze
whispered.

“Probably somewhere in the room,”
Jack growled, glancing at the rafters, sniffing.  “Little bastard’s got the
mage-gift.  He’s been casting glamours ever since you spooked him.”

“What does he want?” Blaze
managed.

“I know what he wants,” Jack
snarled, peering at the room around them.  “I also know what he’s going to
get
,
if the little prick doesn’t get lost.”  He seemed to be talking to the walls.

Thoroughly unnerved, Blaze
glanced out the window.  “What do we do?”

“For one,” Jack said, “We go get
it.  I’ll take the damn thing and put it somewhere
no one
can touch it.”

Blaze frowned.  “But I thought we
already…”

Jack’s attention sharpened, but
only for an instant.  “Already what?”

“Already buried it,” Blaze
blurted.

She seemed to see a flash of
recognition before the Jack snorted.  “True, but I, for one, don’t want the
little thief to dig it up while I’m snoozing.”

“Oh,” Blaze said, frowning.

“So,” Jack said, “Let’s go get
it.”  He gestured at the stairs down.

Blaze hesitated.  “But I thought
you said…”

Jack sighed.  “The jig’s up.  We
might as well go grab it and hang onto it until he gets bored and wanders off. 
Now
hurry up
.”

Blaze moved to the stairs, but
frowned at Jack as she passed.  “But you said it would help my garden grow.”

Jack’s attention snapped to her. 
“He did, did he?”

Confused, Blaze said, “Didn’t
you?”

Jack shrugged.  “Maybe.  Maybe
not.  All depends on the weather.”

Something wasn’t right about the
man, and in that moment, Blaze realized it.

He’s wearing his toolbelt,
she thought.  Icefire ran in cold waves through her veins as her eyes caught on
the object on the floor, identical to the one now on Jack’s hip.

“So,” Jack said, urging her
forward.  “We need to hurry up and get a shovel before the little shit realizes
what we’re up to.”

Blaze’s heart was thundering. 
Now that she was thinking about it, she had spent the last two weeks feeling
the barn shake with Jack’s every footstep, but whatever
this
was had
barely even disturbed the planks.

“Okay,” Blaze said, heading
toward the ground floor, her back on fire as she could barely even feel the
creature’s steps behind her.  Then, at the base of the stairs, she spun,
slammed a fist into the creature’s groin, and bolted for the yard.  “Jack!” she
screamed.  “
Jaaaaaack
!”  She heard something light tumble the rest of
the way down the stairs and saw Jack’s image flicker in and out on the concrete
pad, replaced with the picture of the man that had been sneaking towards the
back porch.

Oh my God,
she thought, as
the creature groaned and sat up, glaring at her.  “Jack!”

She went to the 4-wheeler,
grabbed the sword that Jack had leaned there, yanked it free.

The man—she
thought
it was
a man—stood up, snarling.  He shoved a stocky finger at her, his brown eyes
glinting with Athabascan fury.  He looked, for all the world, like an Alaskan
native man who had somehow failed to have a growth spurt…and had somehow
developed slight points to his ears, chin, and teeth.  “Put it down and get a
shovel.  Now.”

“
Jaaack
!” Blaze screamed,
keeping the sword between them.

“He’s halfway to the Cook Inlet
by now,” The creature sneered.  “I led him on a merry chase to nowhere, and
while the fool is still figuring that out,
you
are going to get me his
artifact and hand it over.”

“
His
artifact?” Blaze said,
frowning.

“If you
don’t
,” the tiny
man growled, pulling the slender, glowing sword, “I’ve got no qualms running a
mortal through, if she’s bearing a blade.”

Blaze looked down at the weapon
in her hands, then back at the tiny native man.  She had absolutely no idea how
to wield a blade, and she guessed by the way he swished his back and forth in
an effortless motion, he did.

She turned the blade upside-down
and rammed its tip into the earth.  Lifting her hands, she stepped away from
the sword.

The man strode forward and yanked
Jack’s weapon out of the soil, peering at it.  “That’s void-titan,” he said,
sounding surprised.  He hefted it.  “This’ll fetch a pretty penny, at the
market.”

“That’s not yours,” Blaze said,
sick to her stomach that she had handed over Jack’s blade.

“You put it down,” the man said,
looking up at her.  “You obviously didn’t want it anymore.”  He hefted it again
appreciatively, then carefully wrapped it in the cloak he had been wearing and
tucked it under his belt.  Then he nodded at her.  “Go get a shovel and dig me
up this artifact he’s so proud of.  I can feel it nearby.”

Blaze didn’t move.  She bit her
lip, wondering where Jack was.

The man narrowed his eyes and
stepped forward, his glowing, translucent, razor-thin blade lifting to meet her
stomach.  “I will
gut
you, human.”

Blaze felt the way the blade
seemed to melt her shirt away from its glass-fine edge, and a rush of terror
felt like coals being pushed through her veins. 

“Now!” the man shouted.  His
blade flickered, and suddenly, Blaze was bleeding down her front.

She stumbled backwards and fell
to her ass in the yard, blood oozing from a gash in her abdomen.  Seeing the
blood, remembering his threat, Blaze whimpered and slapped a hand over her
stomach.  Her heart was hammering blasts of liquid wildfire through her veins,
and suddenly it was all she could do to breathe.

The man rolled his eyes.  “I
didn’t gut you, mortal,” he growled, stepping forward.  He grabbed her hand and
yanked it away from the wound.  “It’s just a scratch, see?.  Now get up, and go
get a shovel, or—”  Suddenly, he stopped, looking down at his hand where it
held her wrist.

Slowly, his hazel eyes came up
and met her face.  In their liquid depths, Blaze saw shock.  The man released
her suddenly and took a quick step back, wiping his hand on his shimmery
pants.  Blaze frowned when it seemed to make a golden stain before the garment
returned to its normal silvery hue.

Then, in the distance, the forest
started to crack and rustle, getting closer at inhuman speed.

The man swallowed, looking at
her, then looking at the forest, licking his lips, looking like he wanted to
say something.

Then Jack was
there
, a
raging, snarling ball of fury, and the creature flickered aside just as a big
taloned paw swept through the air where he had been.  Blaze, still on the
ground, watched in horrified fascination as the creature easily flitted around
the wereverine, slashing him with the glass-like weapon here and there as Jack
roared and spun, trying to get a hold on him.

Then the tiny man paused, gave
Blaze a look that left a chill in her gut, then flashed out of existence
again.  This time, for good.

For a long moment, Jack stood
over her, snarling, panting, that creepy animal rattle loud in his chest as his
big body hovered over her on all fours, head swinging left and right as if he
expected the little man to appear one last time and drag Blaze off with him. 
Then, after a moment, he straightened and glanced at the 4-wheeler.  He seemed
to slouch upon seeing the empty sheath.  “The bastard took my sword.”  The
words came out in defeat; exhausted, spent.

“I gave it to him,” Blaze
whimpered.  Then, when Jack’s attention sharpened on her, she quickly said, “I
was trying to use it but I chickened out when he told me to put it down.”

Jack gave her a long, irritated
glance, but eventually muttered, “You probably saved your fool life.  If you’d
kept it, the Faefolk Code says he could sputch you.”  But she could see the
longing in his eyes, the heart-pangs in him as his eyes once again fell on the
empty sheath.

“I’m sorry,” Blaze whispered.

Jack shrugged.  “It was just a
blade.”  His face, however, was dark as he turned away.  Transforming back to
human shape as he walked, gave her a very good inspection of his naked backside
as he went into the barn to retrieve the wine bottle.  A few minutes later—much
longer than necessary—Jack returned, his lips tight, as he went to the
4-wheeler.

“I’m sorry,” Blaze said again,
biting her lip.

Jack stopped beside the machine
to pick up his gloves, hat, and empty soda can.  “He came here looking for
something else,” he muttered.  She thought he was trying to make her feel
better until he said, “Probably wouldn’t even have noticed it was there if you
hadn’t picked it up.”

Blaze glanced away, ashamed.

“I need to teach you the rules,”
Jack sighed, leaning forward on the machine, hanging his head.  “A fey can’t
take something from someone that they made themselves.”  He turned to look at
her tiredly.  “The moment that item is given away as a gift, though, they
consider it fair game.  You picking up the sword probably translated, in his
small and twisted brain, to that I had given you leave to use it.  Which made
it a gift.  Which made it his.”