Thorn Fall

  I leaned back, staring down the hallway. She wouldn’t be gone long, so I didn’t dare go exploring. Fortunately, a scruffy and dirty Simon slipped out of a doorway and jogged toward me. He was standing at my side when the receptionist returned with a sample size of something a lot fancier than aspirin.

  “Thanks,” I said and hesitated, almost expecting her to charge me for it.

  She merely glanced at Simon and waved us toward the door.

  “You get it?” I whispered as we headed out.

  Simon opened his palm, revealing a vial of blood. “What’d you get? I didn’t mean for you to have to start volunteering for experimental drugs to buy time.”

  I snorted. “Some pharmaceutical company’s latest hundred-dollar painkiller, I’m sure.”

  “You should probably get your liver tested before taking that.”

  I snorted again and stuffed it in my pocket. The aspirin in the first-aid kit was sounding better and better. If there wasn’t a thorn sticking through it.

  ____________________

  I yawned as I converted the seats in the back of the van into a bed. We had driven the thorns and the blood sample up to Autumn before returning to the campground, and it was well after midnight. I was tempted to simply curl up in one of the seats. Simon was rummaging around in his tent, and Alek had disappeared into the woods. They were technically supposed to be roommates—girls in the van and boys in the tent—but I didn’t think Alek had used the tent yet. I would have to talk to him about that and see if there was a problem. It was getting cold enough at night that I winced at the idea of him curled up in his cloak under a tree. Maybe he wanted to be close to his rabbit traps.

  I glanced at the campsite next door. Like the others, it was dark, its inhabitants asleep.

  “Bed’s ready,” I said quietly, hopping outside.

  Temi stood by the picnic table, sipping from a tea mug while Simon burned the rabbits on his portable grill. If any hunters in his family had supplemented his childhood canned-spaghetti diet with game, he obviously hadn’t been the one responsible for cooking it.

  “Careful or that delectable aroma will wake the other campers,” I said.

  “Hush.”

  “Is there a reason we’re having a midnight snack?” I was hungry after our crazy adventures, but a peanut butter sandwich would have sufficed.

  “I told you; I don’t want rabbits smelling up my Zelda.”

  I eyed the scraped, dented, and otherwise trashed van. The windshield and two windows had been smashed, there were perforations in the roof, and branches and needles stuck out of every crack. “Because that’s the van’s main problem right now.”

  He turned a baleful eye on me.

  Temi was looking skyward. “I don’t feel safe here. We may want to consider moving to a hotel tomorrow.”

  “I was going to suggest moving to another state,” I said.

  Eleriss had recommended Alaska as a place likely to be jibtab free. I didn’t truly want to run, but after the foolishness with which we had tramped into the wilds tonight, I couldn’t help but feel we were in way over our heads. Temi’s sword might elevate her to superhero status, but the rest of us were little more than geeky sidekicks. All right, Alek wasn’t geeky, but he had no way to hurt the monsters. We needed more weapons like the sword. And a few more people like Temi to wield them.

  “We just need to come up with a more effective plan,” Temi said sturdily.

  “We didn’t have a plan at all,” I said.

  “Hence its lack of effectiveness,” Simon said.

  “I hit it with one of those grenades, and it didn’t do anything,” I said.

  Simon gave me a sharp look. “Are you sure you hit it? How could you tell?”

  “I saw…” I groped in the air with my hands, words of description eluding me. “Part of its outline, I guess you’d say. For a minute. It was there in the flame. Or it wasn’t there in the flame, if that makes sense.”

  “Like with the stars.” Simon nodded. “The flames couldn’t go through its body, but its cloaking device couldn’t compensate entirely for its new surroundings, so you saw something.”

  “Cloaking device?” Temi asked mildly.

  “Camouflage,” I said. “For all intents and purposes, invisibility.”

  “So how do we fight something invisible that we can’t reach?”

  Alek jogged out of the brush. “Dhekarzha coming.”

  I cursed. Not our green-eyed spy again. I couldn’t handle more trouble tonight. Temi sprinted for the van to grab the sword. Alek was already armed. I still had my whip, but I couldn’t imagine catching someone with Jakatra’s speed with it.

  “Any chance he just wants our rabbit?” Simon mumbled.

  “If you’re referring to that blackened lump of meat, no. There’s no chance anyone wants that.”

  Before we could argue more about it, two black-clad figures strode out of the trees. I glimpsed glowing eyes before they came into the influence of our camp light, but they weren’t glowing green. One set was violet, and one set green-blue.

  “Temi,” I called softly. “I think your buddies are here.”

  She had already seen them. She hopped out of the van and stood at my side. “They’re my buddies now?”

  “They took you off to their homeland, not me.”

  “Are you actually bitter about that? That was a week of hell.”

  “I’m not bitter; I’m just…”

  “Resentful?” Simon suggested.

  I scowled at him.

  Jakatra and Eleriss hadn’t changed since I had seen them last. They were wearing black wool caps and black leather again, suitable for motorcycle riding, even if we hadn’t heard their bikes roar into the campground. Maybe they didn’t want to be noticed here. Join the party.

  Eleriss’s expression was graver than typical—the other times I had seen him, he had always appeared somewhere between cheerful and bemused when he looked at us and our world. Jakatra’s angular features were aloof and cold, as usual, but he surprised me by giving Temi a nod. It was still an aloof nod, but he hadn’t done anything except scowl the other times I had seen him. Later, I would tease Temi about how obvious it was they had bonded during their week, but I was too curious about their appearance to make jokes now.

  “Greetings,” Eleriss said.

  “Nice of you to make it.” Simon waved at the van, as if he thought the elves should have shown up a few hours earlier to help.

  That might have been nice, but I didn’t know if either of them possessed a weapon that could harm the jibtab, either. When they had faced the monster in Prescott, Eleriss had carried a fairly mundane serrated blade while Jakatra had been wielding Temi’s sword.

  Eleriss tilted his head, not grasping Simon’s sarcasm. “We have come to warn you.”

  “A warning,” Simon said. “Oh good, because that’s what we really need here is a warning.”

  I stepped over and put my hand on his forearm. Given the night we’d had and Zelda’s damage, I could understand him being upset, but driving off our only otherworldly allies wouldn’t be a good idea. Maybe they could help.

  “What kind of warning?” Temi asked, her tone calm.

  “We believe another of our people has entered your world.”

  “No kidding,” Simon grumbled.

  “We’ve seen him,” I said. “Or his eyes at least. Green ones. Alek might have seen more.” After I spoke, I wondered if I should have left his name out. Alek had given the elves a frosty reception when they had taken him from that stasis chamber. He hadn’t been ready to trust them, and he hadn’t wanted anything to do with them.

  But they had preternatural senses; they must have noticed him in the woods before they arrived, and he was standing in the shadows at the front of the van now. They couldn’t have missed him there, even if a mere human might have.

  Eleriss looked toward Alek and spoke a couple of words in his own language. Alek stared stonily back, listening but not responding, th
en he met my eyes. Wondering if he should communicate with them or keep pretending he didn’t know their language? Why would he look to me for that answer?

  “Any idea what Green Eyes wants?” I asked.

  This time, Eleriss conferred softly with Jakatra. Alek leaned forward when they weren’t looking, listening intently. Maybe that was why he was playing dumb. So they would speak openly in front of him. Good man.

  “I thought Jakatra might know who this person is, based on your description,” Eleriss said, “but he says it isn’t enough for an identification. As to what he or she wants…”

  “The sword,” Jakatra said bluntly.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Unknown.”

  “That is why we advised Artemis to ask you to research it,” Eleriss said. “To find more of its origins and its capabilities.”

  “Yeah, she told us.” I waved at Temi. “We’ve been kind of busy since she came back.” It had scarcely been more than a day. I didn’t know how long research took in their world, but archaeologists got grants that lasted for years. “You wouldn’t want to offer any research tips, would you? No idea why this person wants it?”

  Jakatra looked off into the woods, not noticing the glance Eleriss gave him. Or maybe deliberately ignoring it. Did he know something Eleriss didn’t?

  “All I can tell you,” Eleriss said, “is that if these jibtab were in our homeland, we would have the power to kill them with many of our existing tools. Your sword would have little value for one of my people. It would be considered an antique, but nothing more. There were once many weapons like it. Jakatra has something similar in his collection.”

  Simon perked up. “Really? Any chance he’d like to bring it over so we can borrow it?”

  I nudged him with an elbow, in part because the elves had already told us once they couldn’t help in that way, and in part because he needed to flip over that rabbit or turn off the grill.

  “That is forbidden,” Eleriss said. “Even if we wished to break the rules—”

  “Further break the rules,” Jakatra said in his icy tone.

  “Yes,” Eleriss said, implacable as usual. “Even if we wished to further disobey the mandates of our government, we could not do so without someone noticing. There is an organization that monitors the portals, and whenever certain technologies travel through one to another place, someone in the organization is alerted.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to be amused or horrified to think that there was an elven version of TSA out there. I imagined some guy standing next to one of their portals, demanding that their coffee and toothpaste be tossed into the garbage can due to the security threat.

  “I have already been called before the organization to discuss the purpose of my visits here, because the meselkua is detected whenever we travel,” Eleriss said.

  “The what?” Simon asked.

  “Portal opener,” Temi said dryly. “I’ve seen it.” She held her hand out and pressed her thumb as if she were operating a garage door opener. Well, that would be a fun tool to acquire, but I doubted these two were going to accidentally leave one here. Nor did I have the gumption to entertain pickpocketing.

  “Yes,” Eleriss said. “In the past, I have had special permission to travel here for scientific purposes, but the frequency of my recent trips has been noted.”

  “Yet here we are again,” Jakatra murmured.

  Simon’s nose scrunched up. “Scientific purposes?”

  I probably wore a similar expression. All those stories of cow mutilations and humans being experimented on by aliens jumped into my head.

  “Observation and tallying only,” Eleriss said. “As your people do when they travel into the wilderness to observe apes. For most of my people, this world is not considered significant. They are unaware of chocolate.”

  “Apes?” I mouthed at the same time as Temi mouthed, “Chocolate?”

  Jakatra’s expression always bordered on disgusted, but he shot Eleriss a long-suffering look at the food mention. I had yet to figure out what their relationship was exactly, but at that moment, older brother and younger brother seemed to fit.

  “My pointing is this,” Eleriss said, though he paused to look at Jakatra. “Pointing? Point. Yes, point. It is this: it is unlikely that this person from our world wants the sword for himself or herself. This person likely wants to make sure you do not have it.”

  Jakatra gave a curt nod. No argument there.

  “Because he doesn’t want us to succeed at stopping the jibtab?” I asked.

  Eleriss hesitated before saying, “Possibly. But…” He made a hand gesture that didn’t match up to anything we had. “If your apes in the wild acquired a… particularly pointy stick to help them in combat against other simians, would your observers do anything about it? Or even care?”

  “I can’t tell you how flattering it is that you keep comparing us to apes,” I said.

  Temi snorted softly. “Now you get an idea of how my week went.”

  “Oh, I had that idea before you ever left.”

  Eleriss tilted his head. “You are seeing my point, yes?”

  “Yes, yes, your people are way too sophisticated and powerful to care what we measly humans are doing on our world. So it’s weird that someone is here trying to steal our particularly pointy stick.” Had I been nudging Simon so he wouldn’t offend the elves? Hm, maybe I should keep the sarcasm out of my voice then.

  “We are not powerful, simply different,” Eleriss said. “And in recent centuries, we have adopted more isolationist policies. We rarely interfere with other cultures.”

  I decided not to comment on the fact that he had denied power but not sophistication.

  “Since it is partially because of my actions that one of our people is following you,” Eleriss said, “we have come to search for him or her. To confront the person and—this is my desire—to prevent him or her from hindering you while you deal with the jibtab.”

  I wasn’t feeling all that grateful to them—maybe I was just tired and cranky—but I made myself say, “Thank you.”

  “About the new jibtab,” Temi said, meeting Jakatra’s eyes. “It flies.”

  “Yes,” Jakatra said.

  “We didn’t practice on any flying animals.”

  “There is much we lacked the time to practice on.”

  Temi kept looking at him expectantly, as if he was sure to dispense some useful advice. I hadn’t heard any from him yet, so I couldn’t quite imagine the scenario.

  “You wish to train more now?” Jakatra asked.

  Temi hesitated. She hadn’t recovered yet from the last training, had she? Not to mention tonight’s terrors. But her eyes narrowed at the… was that challenge in Jakatra’s eyes? I wasn’t sure. He was even harder to read than Alek.

  “Do they know its after midnight?” Simon muttered to me.

  “No idea,” I said.

  “I’ll take more training,” Temi said after she and Jakatra had stared at each other for a moment. Both of them were wearing those challenging expressions now. Huh.

  Jakatra pointed toward the woods and walked into the trees. Apparently that passed for an invitation in his world.

  Temi clenched her jaw and strode after him. Alek, still standing in the shadows, met my eyes again. I gave him a nod, not quite sure what he was asking, but wanting him to know I hadn’t forgotten him. He waited a moment, then slipped into the brush after them. Oops, I hadn’t meant to send him to spy. But maybe he wanted to observe the training. Or maybe he wanted to watch out for Temi. That protector mentality was definitely part of his personality. Also, he couldn’t have followed the whole conversation so might not know what the elves were up to here. Or maybe he knew what they had said but didn’t trust them to be telling the truth.

  Eleriss gazed thoughtfully into the woods, even after his buddy was out of sight, then his arms rippled in what was probably the equivalent of a shrug. “I will begin to search for the person from my world.”

  “Wait,
” Simon said before Eleriss could disappear into the trees as well. “You said your people have tools that could deal with the jibtab. We have powerful weapons on Earth too. I need to know if anything could work. The rest of us need a way to fight these monsters, and I’m trying to figure out what that might be.”

  I glanced toward the bushes, hoping there wasn’t anyone with pigtails listening. Eleriss would probably know if there were. But I did see that the window in the van over there was cracked open. This would be a crazy conversation to have to explain.

  “Apparently my homemade grenades aren’t all that effective, but there must be something,” Simon went on. “We have nuclear weapons. Humans are good at destruction.”

  “Yes,” Eleriss said. Sadly? “We have observed this.”

  “We don’t need any judgment here,” Simon said. “Just to know if there’s anything else that could hurt the monsters. Higher quality grenades? Lasers? Rockets?”

  I pictured him tramping up the trail with a rocket launcher balanced over his shoulder. That would be fun to explain to a park ranger.

  “Our tools that are capable of harming the jibtab, they are simply different,” Eleriss said. “In the way the jibtab is different.” He nodded to us. “I must go. Our time here may be limited.”

  “But—” I had a dozen more questions. I wanted to know about the slavery that Alek had spoken of—why had it happened and was it still happening? I wanted to know if he could bring any other humans to his world, such as one who would love to experience another culture and learn another language and find out how the elves’ visits to Earth might have affected humanity through the centuries. I wanted to know—

  “Do you have any tips for fighting this jibtab?” Simon asked before I could come up with my own parting question. His was admittedly more pertinent. Just because Jakatra and Temi were doing some training didn’t mean she would come back with the answer. Besides, Simon must long to help as much as I did, if not more.

  “I am not the warrior Jakatra is,” Eleriss said, “but you must nullify its strength in such a way that allows you to use your own strength.”