The room went deathly silent. No one moved. I forgot to breathe. I had just been thinking about how great it was to have family. Stupid other shoe had just dropped. My eyes went hot and dry. Where was MIT? Up north someplace.
The Kid went on, his voice casual. “I also have an offer from Tulane. They just opened a brand-new computer science doctorate program and they stole three of MIT’s top professors to do it.” I could hear the smile in his voice, when he added, offhand, “I get a free ride at TU. That’s all expenses paid, for you Neanderthals. And I can start at TU this coming fall, even with the parole in place. Just something to think about.”
I remembered to breathe.
Eli said, “You little shit.”
I didn’t comment about language. This time I fully agreed. “What he said.” And I swatted the Kid on the back of the head.
Alex laughed without looking up. “You don’t think I’d leave you two alone, do you? You’d end up dead without me in, like, three days. Two if we had a job going.
“So. Tomorrow,” he went on, “I think we need to take that plane ride Rick told us about and get a feel for logistics. And see about renting a boat. Maybe an airboat, so we can go over marsh.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Eli said.
“Okay,” I said, letting the feeling of relief flutter through me like butterfly wings. “I’m for bed. Let’s start early. Like four a.m.”
The Kid groaned. Eli just thumbed his phone on and threw himself on the queen bed he’d chosen. “Hey, gorgeous. Guess where I am? Nope. Way farther south.”
I left for my room, closing the door between the guys and me. Eli was talking to Syl, his girlfriend of sorts, and the Kid was downloading a World of Warcraft game on his tablet. I stripped and fell onto my bed, and was asleep instantly.
? ? ?
Rick’s family was freaking everywhere this far south. The pilot, Rick’s second cousin on his mother’s side, was a Vietnam vet named Sarge Walker, a grizzled guy about sixty-five years old, who met us at his front door just before dawn, wearing camo pants and a beat-up flight jacket that looked old enough to have been to war with the man, and carrying a satchel that smelled of coffee and snacks. He grunted as we introduced ourselves, and grunted again when he pointed around the house, to the backyard. We turned away and I caught the faint scent of magic, as if someone in the house was a practitioner. I was betting that Sarge’s wife was an earth witch, a conclusion I drew from the look of the lush gardens. Without magic, it was impossible to keep a garden so green, even in southern Louisiana. And Sarge didn’t smell of magic. Just coffee.
And then his copilot trotted up.
The two-hundred-pound tan monster was named Pity Party, PP for short. The mastiff–bison mix (had to be, because she was too big to be anything else) had no manners, and sniffed us each in proper doggy style. No one objected. Though I wanted to swat her nose away, I held very still as the dog took her time with me. I could feel her low-pitched growl at my confusing, mixed human-predator scent, and waited until she decided I wasn’t going to attack and eat her master. PP was still wary of me, and I made certain to put plenty of room between Sarge and his protection and me, with Eli and the Kid between us. It was often true that dogs and cats don’t get along well, especially a dog bred for war, one who was big enough to give Beast a run for her money in a fight, and a big-cat. And for once, Beast kept her snark to herself and didn’t disagree. PP was huge, menacing, and . . . huge.
The airstrip actually wasn’t. An airstrip, that is. It was a canal, out in back of Sarge’s house, the water a straight stretch, blacker than night, the only sounds the drone of insects and the rare splash of fish. The plane appeared out of the gloom like a white swan illuminated by the rising sun; it looked too delicate to survive a takeoff, let alone a flight.
I didn’t like flying in planes. Wings and feathers were different, and I was almost used to the way that flight worked as a bird, the shift of wing and body, the spreading of flight feathers, the angling of wing into the wind, the way my body would plummet when I folded my wings and dove. This was no bird.
The plane was a single-engine Cessna with amphibian landing gear, and the inside stank like PP and fish, a combo that made me want to laugh when I thought about it. The cabin was cramped and tight for four plus Sarge’s dog and the pile of stuff in back. Some of it looked like fishing gear, and some of it looked like plastic wrapped up in twine. One seat was fitted with a seat belt harness for PP, and she seemed as at ease in the plane as Sarge was himself, and even more taciturn.