
Chapter 36
Teasel thistle seeds were brought to Oregon by
Methodist missionaries to card wool in their mission mills. They
escaped and became an obnoxious ditch weed.
“HOLD BACK, TESS.” Gollum
grabbed both my shoulders as I passed him on the paved path.
I tried to wiggle out of his grasp. “The hell I
will. Those are my girls.” I pointed to the two figures ahead of
us, rapidly disappearing around a curve.
They bent their heads together in close sisterly
discussion.
“Their brothers are waiting for them. Family. Blood
kin. They need to see them,” Gollum said.
“No. You don’t know half of what their father has
done to all of them.” I slipped my jacket, leaving him standing
there, holding the damp garment while I ran forward, full tilt. My
left leg ached. I ignored the protest of atrophied muscles just
coming to life again. Good thing I’d doubled up on my PT exercises.
My therapist was nearly ready to dismiss me because I’d recovered
strength and maneuverability so rapidly.
“Scrap, what’s happening?” Between the mist rising
from the river and the drizzle sliding into my eyes, I could barely
see the two blocks to where the girls had passed beyond my sight. A
fat raindrop plopped from my tangled hair into my left eye, further
blurring my perception.
I cursed and shook my head like a dog shedding
bathwater.
“What has the elf done?” Gollum demanded. He kept
up an easy loping stride; his long legs matched my running
pace.
“He’s training the boys to continue his work of
begetting an entire tribe of Nörglein. He wants them to practice on
Phonetia and E.T. and strengthen the DNA in their children. I think
he may have given Phonetia to his marijuana growing minions as a
reward.”
“Shit!” He increased his pace, quickly
outdistancing me.
I couldn’t remember ever hearing him curse. I
wondered if outrage of this magnitude would push him to break his
vow of nonviolence.
Better hurry, babe. I’m getting hot and
thin, Scrap snarled.
A burst of adrenaline gave my feet near levitation.
Blood flowed strongly through my legs, eliminating lingering traces
of my injury.
“Scrap, report,” I barked as the girls came into
view again.
They ambled forward, oblivious to our pursuit or
the danger that awaited them in the little hollow where the trail
dipped and blackberries crowded close.
Demon tats in the shrubs behind the
boys.
Damn.
I held out my hand as I ran, willing Scrap to land
there and transform.
He obeyed.
A deadly calm replaced my panic. My stride evened
out and stretched. Scrap elongated, thinned, curved. Faster than
I’d ever seen him he sharpened the inner curve of the twin blades
and extruded tines from the outside.
The quarter staff balanced precisely in my
hand.
I bounced around the girls and skidded to a halt,
blade at the ready, feet en garde just as Oak, Cedar, and
Fir stepped onto the path.
“Oak!” Phonetia called. “You didn’t answer the
phone.”
I brought the Celestial Blade horizontal, blocking
him.
Both Phonetia and Oak took one step forward, looked
at the blade, then at me, and back again to my weapon.
“I will protect the girls with my life,” I
announced.
Six men, late teens and early twenties, who sorely
needed showers and shaves, stepped from the concealing shrubbery.
They twirled long chains with barbed links and unsheathed long
knives. Their demon tats on their inside wrists pulsed red beneath
the black ink.
“We can take her,” the leader, a stocky, bleached
blond with swarthy skin, said. He wore a silver pendant on a black
thong that replicated his tattoo. He extended the length of chain,
coming dangerously close to Phonetia.
E.T. wisely retreated behind Gollum.
Easy pickings, Scrap snarled to me.
None of the forest elf children or the
demon-protected seemed to hear him.
Gollum came up beside me. He held his hands up,
closed his eyes, and relaxed into an easy martial arts pose.
“What are you, some kind of blind Ninja?” the blond
delinquent asked. He started swinging his chain.
“Something like that,” I replied, not wanting to
break Gollum’s concentration.
Before I finished speaking I swished the blade,
tangling the chain in the tines. I yanked.
This guy wisely released his weapon. I stumbled
backward with the unexpected change in balance. E.T. yelped and
retreated as I stepped on her toes.
Blondie’s comrades flanked him, trying to ease
around our backs.
Gollum pushed his hands out in front of him.
I heard air displacement. I felt the recoil as the
leader flew backward and landed on his butt in a tangle of
blackberry vines and jutting teasel thistle, a nasty place. He had
to hurt almost as if the Nörglein thrashed him with his wicked
whip.
Gollum hadn’t laid a hand on him.
The five remaining men flowed into the space left
vacant, advancing with weapons drawn.
The tree boys faded out of my periphery.
Duck, parry, turn, jab. I flew into action. Scrap
took a long strip of skin off of one arm. Blood flowed freely. At
the moment crimson drops touched the tattoo the elven minion yowled
as if he’d been burned. The enchanted ink dissolved. His entire arm
flushed with a serious inflammation. He rolled into the wet grass
trying to extinguish the magical fire raging within him.
The men gave ground until we came abreast of where
the leader pulled himself upright. He brandished a gun at me.
A little gun easily concealed inside his pant leg.
A big magazine, almost as big as the gun itself hung below the
barrel. He pushed the muzzle forward until his reach ended mere
inches from my chest.
I froze in place. The sweat on my brow and back
turned to ice.
My mind whirled, trying to figure a way to get the
gun away from him. Could I block a bullet with the blade?
“We want the girl,” Blondie sneered.
“You can’t have her.”
“Her father said we could,” he laughed, an evil
sound that had no humor in it.
“The Nörglein isn’t her dad. I am,” Gollum
insisted. He shifted his feet and hands, gathering energy
again.
“Please, Miss Tess, don’t fight us,” Oak
pleaded.
“Did he hurt you?” Phonetia called from behind
me.
Oak stood stalwart, off the path but still part of
the action.
“He whipped you, didn’t he!” Phonetia cried. She
sidled toward her brother.
Before I could stop her, or protest, her
broad-shouldered middle brother grabbed her arm with one hand and
wrapped his other arm around her throat.
“Try to stop us and I kill her,” he said.
“Cedar, no!” Oak took one step closer.
Cedar tightened his pressure on my daughter’s
throat.
She gargled something, struggling for air.
Cedar backed up, dragging his sister with him.
“Father whipped me too, for letting the girls get away. I won’t let
that happen again.” Anger and pain warred for dominance in his
voice.
The demon tats moved between the retreating boy and
me. The leader kept his gun leveled on me as I tried to
follow.
I slashed at his gun hand.
The weapon exploded, near deafening me. I dove for
the ground.
Ducks and geese squawked mightily, rising from the
water with much awkward fluttering.
Boaters paused and reached for
communications.
“Follow her!” I commanded Scrap and dropped my
blade. He dissolved into the barest outline of an imp. Then he was
gone.
I returned to my knees, checking to see who was
hurt.
Gollum held E.T. tightly against his chest, her
mouth working in protest.
“You want to fight dirty?” I asked Blondie. Nothing
left to lose. Before the last syllable escaped I hit the gun with a
roundhouse kick and smashed the flat of my hand against Blondie’s
nose.
The gun skittered across the ground until it
plopped into the water.
Blondie grabbed his bleeding nose with both hands
and fled.
His minions followed close on his heels.
“Scrap? Where are they taking my girl?”
A car. Shiny new Hummer, black. Peeling out of
the parking lot. I’m on the roof.
“License plate?” I asked, noting Gollum had his
cell phone out.
Mud encrusted. Only dirt on the vehicle. Oregon
custom BAD2BNE.
I repeated the number. Gollum spat it into the
phone. “Police are on the way. Amber alert in progress.”
“I’m going after them.”
“Without Scrap?”
“He’ll be there when I catch up. Take care of
E.T.”
“I must help,” Oak said. Fir slunk behind him.
“They will hurt my sister a lot before they turn her over to my
father,” he added quietly. “I can’t allow that.”
“Your father hurt her a lot every day she lived
with him,” I told him, fists clenched and aching to slam them into
his face.
“I know. That is why I sent the girls to
you.”
“Then why did you agree to bring them back?” This
time I yelled loud enough to startle the geese again.
Mutely, he turned around and lifted his
T-shirt.
I gasped at the bloody mess of his skin.
“The only way I could get him to stop was to
promise to bring Blackberry back to him.”
“We’ll all go after them. Two cars. You take
E.T., I’ll take the brothers,” Gollum decided for us.
Cruising up Pill Hill, back road, Scrap
informed me.
The Medical School and VA Hospital connected by a
sky bridge crowned a couple of hills southwest of downtown—a lot of
trees, ravines, and places to get lost around and behind. The
forest there melded into Forest Park, the home of the
Nörglein.
“On our way!”

Phonetia struggles against the duct tape binding
her. Something about the unnatural fibers keeps her from morphing
into her native plant. Otherwise, she could sprout fat thorns sharp
enough to slice through the tape.
The Hummer careens around a twist in the narrow
road. I’m nearly flung off the car. Only my talons latched around
the roof rack keep me in my observation post. The wind tries to
catch beneath my wings and lift me wide and free.
We come to an abrupt halt on a gravel shoulder that
overlooks the city spread out far below. A pretty city. I don’t
have time to admire the view. No guard rail between us and the
steep cliff. The Hummer barely fits. Half of two wheels rest on the
pavement. A couple of cars pass, honking at the intrusion of the
wide vehicle into their space.
When the traffic passes, leaving the road open and
free for a bit, the back door flies open. Blondie and Cedar jump
out, dragging my Phonetia with them. They cross the road and head
into the woods. The Hummer speeds away.
Cedar leads along a creek and up a narrow
ravine.
I flash images of the spot to Tess. Then I fly
after our fleeing quarry. Fatigue drags at my wings. Adrenaline
pushes me forward.
If only I could rest a bit by perching on
Phonetia’s head.
Can’t risk it. Cedar will be aware of me if I get
too close.
Phonetia drops to her knees, dragging Blondie with
her. He yanks and yanks at her arms trying to get her to stand up
and follow them.
She goes limp and slides through his grasp. Good
girl.
Then she thrashes around breaking sword fern fronds
and snagging alder branches. A blind man could follow the path she
leaves. Cedar closes his eyes and concentrates hard. I can feel the
plant life flowing over the break in its growth where deer, coyote,
and raccoons have beaten the ground hard. Their roots resist
pushing through the narrow game trail. He’s too young and
inexperienced to make them obey. He’s close to panic and loses his
concentration before the plants complete their task. Then he has to
start over.
Blondie grows impatient and drags Phonetia deeper
into the woods, oblivious to signs she leaves in their wake.
Gollum will know what to look for.
If they get here in time, before we meet up with
the Nörglein and he truly obscures the path.