By Dusk Read online

  He crossed the street toward his car. Was there something on his windshield? Wait.

  “Shit.”

  A huge crack spiderwebbed across his windshield. He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to drive the thing. Damn it.

  He hurried closer, heart pumping in his chest. Beneath the windshield wiper, a piece of white paper was neatly folded. Before he could even think, he ripped it from beneath the rubber blade, leaving one corner behind. It felt weird in his fingertips. Not like magic exactly, but…

  Moss unfolded the paper and stared at the glued on letters from a magazine. What the—?

  STay AwaY FRoM the riVer.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  His head whipped around, as if he was going to see some menacing figure smoking a cigarette in a doorway nearby. There was no one.

  “Damn it!” He smacked his fist into the paper, crumpling it. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

  He went back to his poor little car. The windshield was a mess, but it wasn’t as bad as he feared. One large crack ran from the top of the driver’s side, sloping down and across, with the worst of the spiderwebbed cracks on the passenger’s side. He would be able to see to drive the thing home at least, but he wouldn’t be able to pick up passengers in a car that looked like this, plus, it was probably not legal.

  Not that Moss cared too much about legal, but he needed to keep his driver’s license.

  What the hell was he going to do now? Alejandro. He would know what to do.

  He pulled out his phone and dialed.

  “Hey, brother. I know it’s late but…someone just smashed my windshield and threatened me. And my phone’s been acting up lately. Makes me wonder if something’s up with that, too. Yeah, the battery’s been draining too quickly…. I got it six months ago. Right. And I’ve gotten some weirder-than-usual robo calls. And spam texts that don’t seem quite right. But, yeah. A threatening note. Cracked windshield. Also, I think there might be an egregore at play or something. I can’t quite tell.”

  Alejandro said he’d text the rest of the coven. They needed to meet anyway, to decide what part of the equinox action they were going to take on.

  “Thanks, brother. Yeah, I’m good to get home. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  Moss stood on the sidewalk and stared at his windshield as if the spiderweb cracks held some message he wasn’t seeing yet. Maybe he needed to tap into the kami of the windshield. He snorted at himself. It wasn’t that glass wouldn’t have a spirit, but something mass-manufactured held less and less of its original essence and became a very difficult thing to tap. Oh, maybe if Moss was some sort of master he could talk to his windshield, but he was nowhere near that. His own mentors had told him to go back to the beginning, and even the river had instructed him in the most basic precept: flow. So yeah, he was as far from mastery right now as he’d been for a long while.

  He uncrumpled the paper and stared back down at the pasted-down words.

  STay AwaY FRoM the riVer.

  “I’m not going to do that, you fuckers. This river is part of the city, and so am I. I’m going to be like water, and you are going to drown.”

  Master or not, he’d make good on that promise.

  20

  Shaggy

  Blue silk wrapped around and around her thighs, which were bare beneath Spandex shorts, trailing past her calves down toward the floor. A material so soft and pliable, yet here it was, supporting her body twenty feet in the air.

  She was still rusty, but every time she was back on the silks, her body remembered.

  Right knee bent beneath her, she extended her left leg straight behind, flexing the muscles, feeling the silk adjust itself around her, bearing her weight. She pointed her toes and, right arm gripping the tower of silk, she arched her back, and brought her left arm over her head in a graceful curve, carving an arc in the surrounding space.

  The black box of a room was deserted this early in the day. Blue mats opened beneath her, ready to cushion her body if she fell. One of her favorite artists, Autre ne Veut, filled the room with a moody, synth-backed combination of electronics and R&B.

  Her body moved to the rolling beats as her heart and mind sank into Arthur Ashin’s high falsetto, following his voice like a river. She was nothing but this, a heart in a chest, lungs filling with air, muscles reaching for something just beyond her grasp.

  Supported by one of the lightest fabrics in the world.

  “Get ready to roll!” Phoebe’s voice burst through the music and Shaggy tensed, just for a moment, before breathing through the music once again.

  Roll. She hadn’t practiced rolls in almost a year. Her stomach fluttered at the thought of the drop, but her body also remembered there was nothing like the sensation of suspension, and free fall, and the great, jerking force that meant the silks still held her, safe above the ground.

  “Shaggy?”

  “Ready,” she called down.

  Shaggy inhaled as deeply as she could, trying to soothe the tremor in her belly. She knew she just had to get back on the horse, as it were. There was no way to prepare for a roll, except to roll. She stabilized again, both hands on the silk, and closed her eyes. She felt the vibrations of music move around and through her. She grabbed ahold of the music and let the music grab a hold of her.

  And then she let go.

  Her body flipped and arced and tumbled through space. With a swoosh, the silk tightened and loosened, then slid and gripped her thighs as it held her, then unwound. Held. Unwound. Slid, then gripped. Shaggy tumbled, free falling down, until her body stopped, jerked up briefly, then settled back into the cradle of silk.

  She dangled, hands and head down, just five feet from the blue mats below. Hands grasping the swathes of silk again, she gently swung her body back-and-forth. Moving in time with the music, she threw both of her legs outward in a large, upside-down V and lifted her arms straight out, shoulders supporting biceps, supporting elbows, supporting forearms, supporting hands.

  She spun there as the silks unwound themselves and slowly, so slowly, she allowed herself to slide down to the floor. Both palms flat on the mats, Shaggy softened for just a moment before lowering herself all the way down to the floor. The silks puddled around her head as she lay face up on the mats, staring upward into the sweep of the blue that reached towards the pitch black ceiling. She was sweating, and breathing in short gasps. Her body felt warm and alive. This was it, this was what freedom felt like. And she wanted it again, and again.

  It felt good to know what she wanted, even if it was only for a few minutes.

  Phoebe sat down on the mat beside her, boneless. Maybe someday Shaggy would have the strength and flexibility of the larger woman, but for now she just felt damn pleased with what she did have.

  “You did great,” Phoebe said, pulling her brown hair into a ponytail. “It seems like you’re getting your old skills back pretty quickly. Your body is remembering, just like I said it would.”

  “It feels so good,” Shaggy replied. “I’d almost forgotten how good it felt.”

  “Well, welcome back. Pretty soon we’ll have you suspending from trees in the middle of festivals, or dropping from St. John’s Bridge.”

  A frisson of heat raced through Shaggy’s body, lighting up her skin.

  “Why did you say that?”

  “Oh, it’s just a thing we Portland aerialists always talk about. Who doesn’t want to suspend from the most gorgeous bridge in town?”

  Shaggy rolled onto her side and pushed up into a seated position. Phoebe gave her a curious look, then turned. Once both women faced each other, Phoebe asked, “What’s up?”

  “How much do you know about the river?”

  “The Willamette? The river that divides Southeast from Southwest? The one that the dragon boats race on, the one where they periodically kill seals who are eating the salmon?”

  “Yeah.” Shaggy smirked. “The Willamette.”

  Phoebe nodded. “What about it?”

  Shaggy’s h
eart was beating in her throat. This felt important, though she couldn’t have articulated why.

  “Well…I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to say about it, but there’s a big action being planned….”

  21

  Moss

  The wind whipped off the river, smelling slightly of fish and mud. Moss shivered, drawing the knit cowl over his head for protection. He was glad for the light jacket he’d thrown over his long-sleeved T-shirt, too. Autumn was closing in quick.

  He was clustered with Tariq, Kiyiya, and some other activists from the Clean Rivers Coalition. They stood out in the cold, late summer, pre-autumn breeze because Alejandro had just happened to text Moss a link to GranCo’s website, with the word “Alert” followed by a “sorry, meant to send that to someone else.” As if. Alejandro was just covering his ass regarding the NDA he’d signed, Moss was sure.

  When Moss clicked on the web page there was an announcement. GranCo had called a press conference. The announcement––more of a press release––definitely sang the praises of this “alternative energy for the Pacific Northwest” company. Anytime a corporation wanted to crow about themselves, activists became suspicious enough to pay attention. It was pretty clear something was up.

  Besides which, Moss just had a bad feeling about all this. His bad feeling was confirmed by the fact that his coven brother Alejandro stood off to one side, removed from the cluster of suits, earbuds in, talking softly to someone on his phone. Every once in a while Alejandro would glance up at Moss and shake his head.

  Yep, it really didn’t look good. He was glad he’d called in reinforcements to witness whatever this farce turned out to be.

  Standing on the edge of Cathedral Hill Park, his growing unease increased, shifting toward a sense of menace. It really did have the feel of an egregore to Moss, though he had no proof of that yet, either.

  He squinted in the sun, waiting for the damn event to start. It was a small crowd, but packed with local heavy hitters. Even the mayor was out here. Asshole. Moss couldn’t understand why the guy was still in office, not after Arrow and Crescent had revealed his collusion with corrupt land developers who’d been setting fires throughout the city to collect on insurance. Just goes to show you how much shit liberals were willing to put up with just to make a few more bucks.

  A white woman in a skirt suit, dark hair slicked back into a bun, stray strands barely touched by the stiff breeze, stepped forward. As she strode toward a bristling clutch of TV microphones, she smiled, teeth blinding and eyes almost washed out in the sun reflected off the river. Print and radio reporters rushed forward to set their small rigs on the ground, or gathered close, holding recorders in outstretched hands.

  Looking at her, Moss felt the way he had when he touched the paper stuck to his windshield, but he couldn’t figure out why. Was she connected to the sense of menace? Or was he just having a knee-jerk reaction to what looked like another mover and shaker in a suit?

  Speaking of…a white man in a gray suit flanked her, standing at parade rest, which was interesting. Was he a bodyguard or another exec? Moss didn’t see a coiling ear wire, and the suit frankly looked too expensive for a flunky, no matter how well paid. The man shifted, adjusting his cuffs, and the bright wink of a Rolex caught the sun. Yep. Must be another exec.

  “Greetings! Thank you all for joining us today.” The woman’s too-bright gaze scanned the reporters, then fell upon the small group of activists. Her mouth and eyes tightened, just for an instant, before she smoothed herself out again. “I’m Patricia Sloane, Environmental Engineer of GranCo, and I’m here today with Bradley Titus, CEO. In other words, my boss.”

  She grinned widely, expecting laughter that never came.

  “Probably used to working a boardroom,” Tariq muttered.

  The boss. But she was no flunky, that was for sure.

  “We’re here to talk about the great plans we have for this great river, and this great city.”

  “Good Gods, who wrote her script?” Moss muttered back.

  And how the hell had Alejandro ever considered working for these assholes?

  “GranCo has worked with several cities in Washington state, installing state-of-the-art filtration systems in their water treatment plants. Our filtration is proven to reduce the risk of waste products and spillage, protecting the great waterways of the Pacific Northwest. As you may know, we also provide electricity to several counties in Washington through our waste disposal plants. In other words, we take your trash and, rather than shipping it off to landfill, use it to keep your lights on.”

  Moss felt the river whispering in his blood. The pressure inside of him built until it was almost painful to not speak.

  Wait for questions. Wait for questions. Wait for questions. The litany built along with the pressure, as Moss tried to control the urgency, and dam the kami, that wanted him to speak now.

  “GranCo is proud to announce that we signed a contract with the city of Portland six months ago and already the Willamette is cleaner than it’s ever been! We’re working with the city on the possibility of using our trash to power systems, as well…”

  Inside Moss’s heart, a dam broke.

  “That’s a lie!” he shouted. “The river is more polluted now! And what about the air?”

  The smile froze on Patricia Sloane’s face, and the reporter’s heads swiveled his way. Moss saw the flash of a grin from Alejandro, quickly gone, as he shoved his phone in his pocket.

  “As I said, our state-of-the-art…”

  “This river is only as clean as it is because of this group of activists, here! Especially our comrades from the Yakama and Chinook nations!” Tariq yelled so loud, the veins popped out on his neck.

  “If I may have your attention, I brought the figures….”

  “Our figures show increased levels of ammonia and PAHs in the water,” Moss yelled. “We didn’t know why, when all of the clean-up efforts had resulted in toxic levels of all kinds finally dropping. Glad to know who to blame. It must be coming down the river from Washington. And now you’re manufacturing trouble here.”

  “That is not true!” Ms. Sloane’s mask dropped, her mouth twisting in anger. “I’ll have our lawyers…”

  Kiyiya raised his hands for silence. Tariq and Moss froze. And, interestingly, so did Patricia Sloane. His voice, when he spoke, carried strong and true over the breeze and the noise from the river and bridge.

  “For you, this is about money,” he said. “For us, this is about life. And you threaten the life of everything that lives on this river and around its banks. The fish, the birds, the trees and insects, and the humans and other animals, too. You talk a good talk, but all we hear are lies.”

  Every camera had turned to catch his words.

  Moss felt the urgent pressure inside ebb. The kami of the river had been spoken for. That was all it wanted.

  For, somehow, the truth to come out.

  Moss knew that the results hadn’t yet come back in from the tests their rogue biologists and chemists were doing, but he, Tariq, and Kiyiya knew what they would find. So though they spoke the truth, it wasn’t yet confirmed. But Alejandro wouldn’t have warned him otherwise.

  He hoped they could confirm it before Saturday. They needed the ammunition to turn the public tide.

  Reporters scrambled forward to talk with Tariq and Kiyiya. Moss’s mouth felt filled with ashes. He didn’t want to speak with anyone. He stepped backwards, almost knocking into one of the socialist action crew, who patted his back and steadied him. Moss nodded thanks, and pushed his way out of the scrum.

  Finally free of the crush of bodies and shouting, he inhaled the brackish breeze. He needed to talk to Alejandro and find out exactly how much he knew.

  When Moss looked at the edge of the small crowd, he saw that his coven brother was gone.

  But Patricia Sloane’s cold green eyes were on him. He stared right back, hackles raised. She blinked, then turned away.

  22

  Shaggy
/>   Shaggy stood on the sunny Hawthorne Street sidewalk, staring at a painted window sign that read “The Inner Eye” in a triangle, with one of those old-fashioned woodcut-looking eyes staring out at her. Behind the glass, crystals gleamed on colorful silks, statues of deities danced and posed, and a book display enticed people to come in and browse.

  She wasn’t certain how she found herself in front of the esoteric shop, except that it was only a couple of blocks from the circus school and when she and Phoebe wrapped up their conversation, she had felt like taking a walk. Her sneakers had led her directly here, then stopped. She had some vague idea that Moss’s coven leader—or high priestess, or whatever you called it—owned the place. She also knew that some strange tugging at her solar plexus called her to go inside.

  But she stood on the sidewalk as if her feet had grown roots. Oh, it wasn’t that Shaggy was afraid of woo-woo stuff. There was plenty of that on the festival circuit. As a matter of fact, it was hard to escape.

  It was that Shaggy was afraid that something inside that shop was going to tell her a thing she might not be ready to hear.

  “Damn. Just try, Shaggy. Open the door.”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she felt the weight of them, as if the cosmos had just spoken a message. Okay. Maybe she was a little bit afraid of the woo. She forced herself to turn toward the waiting door, and got her feet moving. One step. Two steps. Three. Hand on the knob. Pushing. The chime of bells and some kind of harp music. The scent of frankincense burning.

  Her lips were wet. Licking them, she tasted the salt of tears. Was she crying? When had she started crying? Must be the pregnancy hormones. She never cried like this.

  She swiped at her face as an attractive white woman with dark hair piled up in a messy bun walked toward her. She wore a flowing blue tunic top over black pants and low boots, and silver jewelry everywhere. The woman looked to be around forty-something, if Shaggy had to guess. Not far off in age from Bianca, at any rate.