“Of course Big Mama can read. The assumptions humans make about ogres, egads.”
While I kept the pistol pointed at the ground in front of her, I pulled out the note. The male ogre was heading in this direction but taking a circuitous route. Either he didn’t know exactly where Big Mama was, or he knew exactly where she was—and where I was—and was trying to sneak up behind me.
If not for my ability to sense magical beings, he might have been able to do so. Twilight was encroaching, making it difficult to pick things out between the trees.
“I want that chicken back,” Big Mama said as I started toward her.
The cub was busy flinging the dead chicken about like a dog with a rope toy. By this point, it was hard to imagine anyone wanting it.
“And the meat.” She eyed my bag and the sausage I’d left artfully dangling out to entice.
“How about you see if you can read my note first?”
“Chicken first, then I read, and then you give me the rest of the meat.”
“Right.” I sidled toward the cub. Even though we’d had a good relationship thus far, I wasn’t positive she wouldn’t try to eviscerate me—or more likely my feet—if I took her toy from her. If I thought she would eat the cold cuts, I would have traded her some salami for the maimed chicken.
Careful not to get my hand close to her claws, I darted in when she wasn’t looking and grabbed the chicken. I hefted it up, only to find my twenty-pound cub attached to it, claws sunken in like fishhooks. I shook the chicken, hoping she would let go. She did not.
It was a challenge to keep my firearm pointed toward the ogre while I did all this, but I didn’t dare let my guard down. Fortunately, Big Mama had crossed her meaty forearms over her chest and was waiting patiently.
The male ogre creeping closer was another matter. Just as I managed to tug the chicken away from the cub, who screeched like an annoyed Siamese, he stepped out from behind a tree with a weapon raised.
Without hesitating, I switched Fezzik to my other hand and pointed it between his eyes. At the same time, I scooted off to the side, so I could keep Big Mama in my peripheral vision.
Normally, I would have also drawn Chopper, so I could keep weapons pointed at both of them, but instead, I stood with my gun in one hand and a mangled and plucked chicken in the other. The Ruin Bringer indeed.
“My life has gotten weird since I met you, kid,” I muttered to the cub.
Though I didn’t take my focus from the ogres, I was aware of her trying to jump high enough to retrieve her prize.
Raising my voice, I said, “Stay put,” to the newcomer.
I almost ordered him to drop his weapon, but it was a sling. Granted, an ogre sling held rocks the size of soccer balls and could take off my head, but I wasn’t that worried about it.
“Big Mama is going to read something for me, and your clan is going to get a large and delicious dinner.”
He looked at the mangled chicken and the cub trying to leap up and get it. Even though he didn’t speak, he effectively oozed skepticism.
“She’s got sausage,” Big Mama said. “Give me the note, Ruin Bringer.”
“Ruin Bringer!” the male blurted in their language. “You can’t help her. She’ll kill us all.”
“She’s got sausage,” Big Mama repeated.
I was glad I’d thought to bring a food bribe rather than relying on money. It wasn’t as if ogres could take wads of cash and walk into the delicatessen on their own. Magical refugees had to lie low and avoid humans, or they ended up being reported to people like me.
A twinge of sympathy went through me at the thought, but I remembered that ogres were behind Michael’s disappearance and steeled myself toward these guys.
It took some effort to walk to Big Mama without tripping over the cub, but her order of operations seemed logical, so I handed her the chicken, then showed her the note. The cub finally gave up and flopped down on her side in the mud.
Big Mama stuck the chicken in an apron pocket large enough to hold half a pig and waved for me to hold the note higher. Her hands were grimy with guts and dirt.
“It’s a human address,” she said.
“Yes?” That sounded promising. If I hadn’t been busy pointing my gun at the sullen ogre with the slingshot, I would have taken my phone out to type in whatever she told me.
“One Cave, Misty Loop Lane, Bellingham.”
All roads led to Bellingham…
“One Cave? Is that the equivalent to a house number?”
“I can only say what is on the page, Ruin Bringer.”
“Right.” Disappointed the note hadn’t contained more, I put it away and pulled out my phone to record the address, though I suspected I could remember that. “Did it say anything else?”
“No.”
I tapped Misty Loop Lane Bellingham into my map and was surprised when a road came up. It was southeast of town, in the forested hills between Lake Whatcom and Highway 9, a meandering road that covered several miles. I added in One Cave, but a specific address failed to come up.
“The sausages,” Big Mama said.
“Do you know if there’s a clan of ogres up in Bellingham?”
“Ogres in lots of places.”
I gave her the bag of meat in case that might help her remember specifics about Bellingham.
The male shambled toward us. My finger tightened on the trigger, but he’d lowered the slingshot. His focus was on the bag. I scooted back as he approached it and opened it with his finger.
“Smells goooood,” he said, nostrils twitching.
Big Mama swatted his hand with the spoon when he tried to take off the sausage dangling on the outside.
“Not until dinner,” she said, and stalked in the direction of their cave.
The male lingered and looked at me. I prepared to spring away in case he decided he needed to drive me away from their territory—or flatten me with a rock.
“Someone wanted to hire ogres a couple weeks back,” he volunteered. “Someone who said there was work up north.”
“Up north as in Bellingham?”
He rolled a broad shoulder. “Maybe. Human city names don’t mean much to ogres.”
“Any chance you saw who was doing the hiring?”
“I wasn’t there, just heard about it from Zogg.”
“Did Zogg take the job?”
“Nah. He said the guy was scary and dangerous and super powerful. Only a desperate fool would work for somebody like that.” He shook his head, shaggy hair flopping about his shoulders. “But some ogres are desperate, so maybe they went. Nobody from our clan though. You got that?” He frowned at me. “Our clan doesn’t make any trouble. Maybe you will forget this cave is here.”
“Maybe I will,” I agreed.
As he shambled away, I wondered what kind of being would be considered scary and dangerous to an ogre. They weren’t afraid of much. They might call me the Ruin Bringer and be wary around me, but that wasn’t the same as being scared.
7
My tiger cub had used up all of her energy stealing and mercilessly pummeling the chicken, and she wouldn’t be roused when I tried to coax her into walking back to the parking lot. I ended up carrying her to the trail and back down toward the tennis courts.
“I don’t think this is normal,” I informed her.
Her tired silver head flopped onto my shoulder. Her abrupt weariness surprised me, and I hoped it was because it was getting dark and she was naturally tired, not that something was wrong. It continued to concern me that she didn’t eat or drink—how long could a cub go without food and water? Was it possible that if she was from another world, our food and water weren’t sufficient for her needs?
That seemed unlikely. After all, the ogres were from another world and they wouldn’t have any trouble hoovering those sausages.
“I wish I knew more about you, kid.” I managed to shift her in my arms so I could open the Jeep door and put her on the seat. “You don’t eat, you don’t drink, and I haven’t even seen you pee. I get that you’re magical, but you’re also a warm-blooded, furred… cat critter.”
A sleepy green eye opened to consider me. “Merow?”
That sounded more wan than sleepy. I wanted to drive up to Bellingham to try to find this address, but I also wanted to find someone who knew what the cub was and could help her. Would a scary, dangerous guy who was hiring ogres be the answer?
“Sounds like more trouble to me.” I closed the door, got in on the other side, and drove off, not toward Bellingham but toward the food truck that my weapons-making acquaintance ran in Pioneer Square.
During lunch and dinner hours, the proprietor Nin made a Thai beef-and-rice dish that was popular with people who worked in the area. After hours, she made magical weapons out of a nook in the back. They were popular with people who wanted to defend themselves from magical beings. Shifters, in particular, were strong enough to survive regular gunfire and bladed weapons, and I hadn’t yet seen an ogre felled by a bullet that wasn’t magical.
Nin had made Fezzik, and she replenished my ammo whenever I ran low. She also put together a mean magical grenade. I had a feeling I would need both up in Bellingham.
Since Nin was well versed in the magical—she’d been taught by her grandfather, a gnome tinkerer—she might have ideas about the cub too. I hoped she did.
My phone rang as I was cruising down I-5, the autumn rain pattering on the soft-top roof of the Jeep. There wasn’t anywhere to pull over, so I answered it on the speaker system and hoped for the best.
“This is Val.” I didn’t recognize the number, but it was a local area code.
“Valmeyjar Thorvald?” a man asked, surprising me by getting the pronunciation right. My Norwegian mother, who said we were descended from Vikings, had named me after an Old Norse term for the Valkyries. It meant death maiden. She claimed she’d been surprised when I became an assassin, but I wasn’t sure I believed her.
“Just Val is fine. Who is this?”