King of the Woods, or Trivial Pursuit

Part 56 - Pony

Frazer called his daughter. Hannah didn't pick up, which didn't mean anything unless it did. Tallahassee said she was safe, but Tallahassee didn't know he'd fucked up yet. When she called him back he'd tell her to pack for a surprise vacation. No need to frighten her, just make it a game. Meet me where I taught you to ride a bicycle, he could say. Meet me where we practiced parallel parking, or where we groomed ponies for your birthday, or where we ran our first 10k. Tallahassee wouldn't know, even if they listened to his calls. Hannah might, if she still remembered anything other than school and sports and boys.

He fiddled with the telephone handset and a glass of bourbon. Maybe he was overreacting. Tallahassee had people that could deal with Byron and Karen just as easily as they dealt with Ray. But that was pretty damn easily, and he had the feeling they weren't big on second chances. When all you have is a Huntsman, every problem looks like a corpse. He had to run, but to where? The bottom of his glass offered no answers, so he poured himself another.

His office door swung open. Frazer spun his chair so he could look Huntsman in the eye before he took the shot. Let no one say that Deputy Chief Frazer died like a bitch. But it was just the hippie protestor from before, all charred up like she'd been on the wrong end of meth lab explosion or a Road Runner cartoon. He didn't have time for this shit, especially not now.

"Hey! What did I say would happen if I ever saw you in my woods again?" he asked.

She flipped his desk on its side, lifted him out of the chair by his throat, and threw him into the bookcase, all one-handed; her other arm ended in a ragged, bloodless stump. "They aren't your woods."

Frazer fell to his hands and knees, pinned beneath books and broken shelves. Christ, another Huntsman? She stood over him with her fist balled. "Wait!" he said. "Tallahassee sent you? Tell them I'll do anything they ask! Just don't—"

She did.

--

Trivia's allies cheered her arrival at the grove. Roosevelt, Audubon and Wilson strode, flew, and scurried to meet her and the King of the Woods. Ray lay beneath her tree curled up next to Rex, asleep but alive. It felt like victory, for the moment.

Merely knocking Frazer unconscious was the hardest thing she had done all day. She bound Frazer's wrists with Spanish moss, Audubon contributed a velvet sleep mask, and Roosevelt took him away, answering her instructions with a nod and the scent of vanilla. Roosevelt's throat injury had left him mute.

"Your hand!" Wilson said.

She waved off his concern with her stump. "It will heal."

Audubon reached into her jacket and held out her fist. Trivia placed her palm beneath it. A clump of bloodied silver fragments fell into her hand.

"I pulled these out of Rex's heart a little while ago," Audubon explained. "Your lover's idea."

Rex's belly fur had been cut away, revealing lines of stitches; at second glance, lines of ants stapled his flesh together with their jaws.

"Ray's not my lover," Trivia said. "Why silver?"

"Men are superstitious. They may have thought he was a werewolf."

Rex sneezed.

"He's just a dog." Trivia said.

"Merde. His soul was halfway to the Elysian Fields and beyond my reach. Ray only healed his body. Rex came back on his own. If he's not folk, what is he?"

"He's a very loyal dog," Trivia admitted.

"Keep your secrets, then," Audubon said. "I'll wake Ray. He deserves part of the credit, at least."

Trivia shook her head.

"You don't want to speak to him," Audubon said.

"I can't. Our work isn't done."

"And once it is, will you speak to him?"

"Why do you care?" Trivia said, raising her voice. "You manipulate him into sacrificing himself and now you'd play his advocate?"

Audubon glanced at Ray and pressed her talon to her lips. "I've advocated for him all along," she whispered. "He'll serve well as King, so don't ask me to apologize. But don't lie to yourself, either." Her point made to herself, if not to Trivia, she turned into a crow and flew away.

Trivia walked to her white fringetree accompanied by Wilson. The tree's trunk was scorched black, and one of its largest branches had broken off and fallen to the ground. Though she shared the white fringetree's injuries, Ray's pained her more. Huntsman had beaten him savagely. In addition to the purples and blacks and yellows marring his features, he had red, peeling skin on his face, arms and hands, and singed eyebrows.

"Why is he burned?" she asked.

"He tried to heal you while you fought the Shape of the Fire," Wilson said. "Roosevelt tried to pull him away, and Audubon mocked him for taking tree-hugging literally, but he can be very stubborn."

Trivia frowned. "He held me as I burned, and I didn't even notice."

"Why would you have? We told him it was foolish, that there are limits to his power, but he didn't listen."

"He never does."

Wilson patted her on the shoulder.

"I warned him about Audubon," she said, weeping ashy tears. "I warned him about me!"